31 March 2006

 

ART: Hawaii Five-0 Cop Show Apotheosis



When TV Police Titans Walked The Earth




I was watching a little UHF the other night. This is the only way to watch TV, through a circular antenna receiving TV shows from thirty years ago. Perhaps the best show on UHF right now: Hawaii Five-0.

CSI, Law and Order, all these new cop shows, none of them is even close to Hawaii Five-0. Created by Leonard Freeman in 1968, the ongoing saga of an elite police unit in Hawaii is always a great hour of television. The sets, the actors, the stories: all top notch.

The first five seasons are the best. Here is where Jack Lord's hair is at its crispest, the outfits are at their most unsettling, the plots are at their most vicious. America in the late 60's, early 70's - with the Vietnam war raging - is a vaguely apocalyptic place. Set all this against the lush Hawaii location, and "Five-0" is a must see for deep TV divers.

In a recent episode a deranged Vietnam Vet plots to kill a fellow soldier's wife as she disembarks from a plane. Does this episode have a hot wife with deluxe Jackie-O sunglasses? Check. Is there a stringy lunatic who makes us believe again in evil? Check. Does Jack Lord shoot it out to save the day after emerging from his 1968 Mercury Parklane Brougham? Check mate.

Rumors have it that a DVD set is coming out this year. Of course you can find all the episodes on tape from people online.

###

30 March 2006

 

NEWS: Industrial Corridor Concatenation




Fire Up The Stacks,
Gotta 'Nother Order





The city's industrial corridor chortled and thrummed yesterday. Adjustable clamps were produced at Jorgenson and Pony's Adjustable Clamps, Inc. Bitchy interior designer types cajoled clients on cell phones while inspecting slabs at Italian Granite Warehouse (in an actual warehouse.) Circular forms were manufactured, and stringy dudes with shopping carts ferried pallets to and fro.

Diesel fumes overwhelmed pedestrians as 18-wheelers idled in the middle of the street. Trains temporarily halted all thought as they rumbled over a concrete pass. The hoodlums who fill up The Tableside Catering Company trucks noisily left their shift, descending on the street like a disgorged furlough bus.

Meat of various flavors was packed and carted onto delivery trucks by men in white coats and plastic head wraps. The slick bits of gore and blood staining the asphalt were promptly power washed by hose hoisters in smocks.

An 18-wheeler back knifed into a slender dock with unnatural dexterity. These trucks did not just come for the products related to feather down, specialty steel and carne fresco. Also awaiting delivery were theater sets, sausage-like TV shows and scale iron giraffe sculptures. Grinding away at the proverbial millstone yesterday was every sort of industry requiring 5,000 square feet and a five-ton lift .

Alternately the industrial corridor roared then became strangely quiet. A passerby reported enduring a cacophony of industrial production one block, only to encounter a silent gauntlet of brick boxes the next. A lesson in the nature of industry perhaps: there are only two realities – shift on, shift off.

###

29 March 2006

 

SPORT: Are You In Tennis Shape?





Rule 22.a - if the ball falls into a puke puddle the point is deemed a let.





Your first test, lift your tennis arm over your head. If you experience excruciating pain, loud cracking or long-windedness – you are not in tennis shape. Start by soaking in epsom salts, take a brisk walk to your nearest emergency room and request the "full battery."

Second test, picture yourself in a pit or a steel cage. You are fighting a bear in a winner take all death match. There is only one way for you to win. Poke the bear's eyes out and remove the bear's heart with your bare hands. Can you picture yourself accomplishing this? If not, you do not have the killer instinct that wins matches on the "cracked asphalt municipal" hard court. Strengthen winning attitudes by practicing killer volley smashes while screaming "booyah!"

On the issue of volleys, do not forget to practice your volley technique. Because you should face facts: you are never going to be in real tennis shape. This is equivalent to triathlon shape. To counteract a dissolute training regimen, you should focus on conserving energy by hitting winners. You do not get extra credit for a 15 shot winning point. Volleying is a great way to do or die and move on to the next point. Try practice volleys from the service line. From this position you are not vulnerable to energy stealing lob chasing.

Perhaps the best thing to enhance, stamina-wise, is pain endurance. Because sooner or later things are going to start to hurt. Start with some G. Gordon Liddy style calisthenics by holding your forearm over an open flame. This will help you manage the inevitable twinges in the shoulder, knee and elbow areas. Nobody said tennis is easy on the joints. And you cannot let a torn ligament slow you down when you are up 5-4 trying to serve out against some cocky snotbag you are on the verge of beating for the first time.

Because those of us who play in dirty city parks know there are only two ways to exit the chain link – with your racket or on it.

###

27 March 2006

 

NEWS: 47 Minutes More Sun In Past Two Weeks










The Sun Arrives For 6 Months At Our House




Those of us lucky to live in the northern hemisphere have picked up over 2/3 of an hour of daylight in these last two weeks. Blame it on the vernal equinox, that moment on March 20/21 the sun leaves the southern hemisphere for a six month journey around the top part of our globe.

But why 47 minutes in the last two weeks? How is that possible? The easiest way to conceive of this is to picture two people on a see saw. The sun is behind a fence so that most of the time only one of the see-sawers is getting sun. Every equinox (march and september) the see saw flips for six months. Over these last two weeks we have flipped, and the south siders get a lot less sun, and the north siders rise up over the fence line to enjoy the full on sunshine.

That of course is a simplistic analogy. For weather geeks the answer requires formulas for elliptical, circular and angular movement. But one needs no formula in the northern hemisphere to enjoy almost an hour more light a day. As many in these climes have noticed, it gets awfully dark around here in the winter. So when the sun sees fit to return and dump a little more of its ever loving rays down on us dry and wintry loiterers, we rejoice.

And call it spring.

###

RSS Spirit

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?