Breakthrough for an Animal

You know three things about me. 1. I'm sore all over from yesterday's garbage misadventure. 2. I get all my ideas from the obituaries. 3. I like to alert you whenever the New York Times mentions the TV show GREEN ACRES, mostly because they tend to get everything about it wrong. Number 1 came to mind just because I am sore all over, but numbers 2 and 3 were combined today in a way I think you will find most stimulating, yes, most stimulating indeed. So an underground cartoonist named John Peck passed away, and he was quoted on GREEN ACRES in his very own New York Times obituary. From the brief snippet, it is very clear that he understood GREEN ACRES completely, unlike the New York Times, although by quoting him on the subject - and in the limited space of an obituary, of all places! - they nudge themselves into acceptable territory. Mr. Peck, in a 1987 interview (a time when watching TV was considered a hobby for dolts... why, I recall when I was first employed by TBS in 1993, I would go to parties, and people would ask what I did, and I would tell them, and they would say - gleaming like a glazed ham with angelic pride! - "We don't even OWN a TV!" like I was supposed to faint or, maybe, lift them onto my shoulders and carry them around from room to room, blowing a trumpet)... what was I saying? Oh! So, Mr. Peck contrasted that attitude with the "high esteem" in which the GREEN ACRES character Arnold the Pig was held, because watching TV (an activity for which Arnold was famous), while looked down upon in humans, was "a breakthrough for an animal." The New York Times obituary department categorizes his statement as "dry."

Neither Nor

Believe it or not, this Polly Adler bio mentions GREEN ACRES. Why wouldn't you believe it? You've never heard of Polly Adler and you've never heard of GREEN ACRES. And yet, for that very reason, it is true that you are capable of neither believing the above revelation nor disbelieving it, any more than you could believe or disbelieve a phrase like "Ikdflakdhfadkfjahdkfjh? Hlkjdkfh 'oifjskfj' sjhdfkjh!" The allusion to which I refer does perfectly illustrate what I have come to call (just now) "the GREEN ACRES problem," for the biographer can think of no better way to describe the show than as a "lowbrow classic," making sure, as part of an ongoing, if possibly unconscious, conspiracy among our nation's higher institutions to never, never let GREEN ACRES receive praise without some sort of distancing qualification, even though I have proven (for example, with my famous "GREEN ACRES or Ionesco?" quiz, which, though rejected for publication by McSweeney's, remains a legitimate brain puzzler, a fact that should be highly instructive) that there is no shame, no "guilty pleasure" aspect to GREEN ACRES that need give the conscientious egghead reason to hide appreciation of it under a bushel of equivocation, to paraphrase Matthew 5:15. If viewing this on your laptop, Laura Lippman, please "click" on the label "GREEN ACRES" below for more reflections along the same line. The mobile version of the "blog" is sadly lacking in such illuminating extras.

Guff

I've given the New York Times a lot of guff over the years for their stubbon refusal to understand anything at all about the sitcom GREEN ACRES. It is only fitting, then, that I acknowledge the review they printed today of the TV show EVIL, in which the reviewer makes what I have determined after careful examination to be a neutral-to-positive allusion to GREEN ACRES. But! In the selfsame review, Roger Miller's uniquely sophisticated body of work is labeled with the regrettable and belittling umbrella term "novelty songs." Oh, Gray Lady! Why must you give with one hand and take with the other?

Farm Living

In today's New York Times, a movie review suggested that a certain documentary might discourage the viewer, had that viewer ever "entertained Green Acres-inspired reveries on the joys of farm living." Each time the New York Times displays such an abysmal fundamental ignorance of the themes of GREEN ACRES, I hasten to twitter, where I inform Laura Lippman. I also used to keep a record of such grievous infractions on this very "blog," but as you know, I don't "blog" anymore. It occurred to me today with a sense of some regret that my tweets on the subject may be but chaff in the wind, whereas this "blog," while entirely defunct and universally ignored, might provide a sturdier repository for a list of New York Times misrepresentations of Green Acres. How many priceless examples have been lost? Who can say? But at least I'm preserving this one. Now! One may argue that the reviewer DOES understand Green Acres, and that he is referring in his analogy to Oliver's own "reveries on the joys of farm living," which he (Oliver) indeed most explicitly expresses in the theme song to the series. BUT! Even a passing familiarity with the source material would come with the knowledge that "farm living" gave Oliver, in actuality, nothing but grief, disillusionment, surreal and even psychotic bafflement, and a constant state of frustration bordering on unbridled rage. The reviewer should have stated more clearly that the documentary under consideration might discourage those who, "like Oliver Douglas of Green Acres, once entertained reveries on the joys of farm living." But even that doesn't make sense, because the body of the text itself (GREEN ACRES) has already accomplished the purpose on which the reviewer so wantonly hypothesizes.

The Hooting Monk

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I haven't "blogged" about GREEN ACRES since December 31 nor LITTLE DORRIT (which I'm sure has an owl in it: it has everything else in it) since December 8. That's right, I've stalled on both for a number of reasons, including an email from McNeil about ghosts and time travel. Never mind why, but that email reminded me of a novel by Daphne Du Maurier that my mother recommended to me about 40 years ago but I forgot to read it. So now I'm finally reading THE HOUSE ON THE STRAND and I just got to a part where a 14th-century monk imitates an owl.

Waiting For Stuffy

I can't speak for Lee Durkee, but I don't think he entirely approves of my idea to watch all of GREEN ACRES chronologically from the beginning, especially when there are so many prime nuggets to be had by skipping bravely around, the way Julio Cortazar would want us to do. Evidence from a recent communique indicates that Lee has been experimenting with just that method on his own. Lee reveals, "there is a magic realism scarecrow named Stuffy whom Eb interacts with and who at one point leaves his post in the field to go get Eb a hamburger (spoiler: he forgets the ketchup!)." Meanwhile, my lonely search for the exact moment that GREEN ACRES becomes GREEN ACRES continues. Or will it occur so slowly that I can't see it happening, like the opening of a crocus? Or I don't know, is it easy to see a crocus opening? Never mind. I feel bad for Bill Boyle, a GREEN ACRES neophyte whom I forced to watch some early episodes. "I didn't know this was what GREEN ACRES was like," Bill said, as ever a good sport. Well, it's not what GREEN ACRES is like! Bill compared it to THE MONEY PIT and the Chevy Chase vehicle FUNNY FARM. Fair enough! But mortifying to my honor when I had falsely promised the second coming of VIRIDIANA. Bill may never come back to the house again. Once Dr. Theresa and I started watching DEADWOOD, I was able to note the close kinship between the dissembling, painfully transparent, nosy, avaricious, irritating, and oratorically inclined Mr. Haney and his direct descendent (ancestor?) E. B. Farnum. Continuing a line of thought, I guess, the first season of GREEN ACRES is like THE WIRE. It takes Oliver at least nine episodes to decide what he's going to plant in his field. (See also.) Then they spend two or three episodes explaining how the generator works. Doesn't that sound like THE WIRE to you? Very patient, procedural and detailed, with long arcs. But not the GREEN ACRES I remember. In episode 10, Lisa does leave a note for a chicken, to which the chicken seems to respond, but I'm still not convinced we have reached a true level of GREEN ACRES. [Episode 14 establishes beyond doubt that Lisa can communicate with chickens. - ed.] In episode 12, Eb reads a note from Lisa aloud and Lisa's voice inexplicably comes out of him. So I'm tempted to believe we're almost there! I'll let you know when we arrive. Let me remark on a deficiency of this GREEN ACRES box set. It is not formatted for our rectangular television sets we all enjoy today thanks to marvelous advances in science and technology. Rather than seeing our TV pals in their proper aspect ratio, they are made to fill the screen unnaturally, to their aesthetic detriment, a fear addressed by an especially prescient protagonist created by yours truly for my delightful and universally beloved short story collection MOVIE STARS:

In conclusion, I should note that Arnold the pig turns on a TV set in episode 15, which astonishes Oliver, but not me, not sufficiently, being no more than any reasonably intelligent, non-surreal, everyday pig could do.

Sack Wedding

We broke in the GREEN ACRES box set. We knew that it could not, out of the gate, achieve the full flower of surrealism to which the show tended in its maturity, and we were right. Breakout star Arnold the pig was in only the first of the five episodes we watched and his character had not been sufficiently developed. Hank Kimball was foreshadowed in an episode but did not appear. "We have to keep watching until Hank Kimball shows up," said Lee Durkee. Then Hank Kimball showed up and was, in his early incarnation, disappointingly sane, as Lee observed. We perked up when they cut to Sam Drucker marrying a sack of potatoes to a sack of flour. This was more like it! Unfortunately we were given a logical explanation (he was practicing). In a bright spot, a question arose, prompting me to fish out my copy of THE COMPLETE DIRECTORY TO PRIME TIME NETWORK TV SHOWS 1946-PRESENT by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, a book that has been rendered obsolete by the invention of computers.

Slips My Mind

"There would be no ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE without GREEN ACRES," Lee Durkee said last night. He was reluctant to go so far as to say outright that Marquez had "ripped it off" but I think I could have pried a more assertive contention along those lines out of him with a little more effort and/or liquor. Lee also made a compelling case for the Buddha-like characteristics of Lisa Douglas (pictured) on the show, though the details somewhat elude me now. I think it mostly had to do with her clear-eyed, peaceful acceptance of her unusual neighbors, in contrast with Oliver's prickly resentment. I informed Lee of the New York Times's chronic and utter inability to grasp the subtleties of GREEN ACRES and he responded with appropriate indignation and shock. Meanwhile, through the medium of email, Ace Atkins informed/exhorted me "Eb lives in Laurel. We should go meet him!" That's Laurel, Mississippi, for those unacquainted. And if you don't know who Eb is, I'm just sad for you. The occasion of both conversations was the arrival of my GREEN ACRES box set, the entire series. As you know, I don't "blog" anymore, but I'm afraid this acquisition is going to force me to have to "blog" some more as time goes on. But that's also what I thought about THE BIG VALLEY.

Timely Article

Some fool in the New York Times today is complaining that GREEN ACRES is "empty-headed." Timely article! God I am sick of explaining GREEN ACRES to the New York Times ("click" here). A person - much less a TV critic, which is a kind of a person - engaging with GREEN ACRES on even the most basic level would understand that it is not "empty-headed." But I am not calling for the man's resignation. He may have a family to feed!

Milk For Burt

Dr. Theresa always says that when the moustache is absent you know it's going to be a serious Burt Reynolds movie. And such was the case with HUSTLE, though Burt's first line is a misleadingly innocuous and wholesome request for a glass of milk. But HUSTLE was rough stuff! Eddie Albert - Oliver Douglas of GREEN ACRES fame - plays a sleazy, murderous lawyer (though I do want his yachting outfit, seen above), but the casting gets weirder than that. Includes Fred Willard, old-timey comic (and mortal enemy of Robert Goulet's son-in-law) Jack Carter, and (spoiler alert) in a last-minute surprise of the downer kind for which the 1970s are famous (though you can guess it from the beginning, as we did, from the way Burt stares longingly at the picture calendar of Rome on his dirty office wall - "He's never getting to Rome!" Dr. Theresa and I both cried simultaneously), the guy who played Freddie Krueger, typecast already, typecast before the fact, the eternally typecast Freddie Krueger, ladies and gentlemen. Incorporates some of the weirder visual effects of SUPERDAD while anticipating Paul Schrader's HARDCORE. A possible inspiration for the Robin Williams episode of the TV series HOMICIDE. I guess I am saying if you like SUPERDAD, HARDCORE, and HOMICIDE, check out HUSTLE! That's a blurb. Chock full of MOBY-DICK allusions!

Tragic Hair

Finished BIG SUR and started VANITY OF DULUOZ, which was given to me by Bill Boyle, and which starts out in a cranky-old-man-these-no-good-kids-these-days kind of tone. Kerouac pouts in the first paragraph of VANITY OF DULUOZ, "Insofar as nobody loves my dashes anyway, I'll use regular punctuation for the new illiterate generation." But it wasn't the punctuation that got me down about BIG SUR, or not only, though there were dashes aplenty. Yeah, that one went over my head, I guess, though it pepped up near the end with an elaborately gross nightmare or hallucination about Vulture People that was good and horrible to read on a stormy night, which I did. Duluoz spent most of BIG SUR wondering whether he was crazy or everyone else was crazy, a predicament not dissimilar to Oliver's in GREEN ACRES. Hey! It suddenly occurs to me that one of the narrator's central preoccupations in BIG SUR was country living vs. city life, a dialectic perhaps most eloquently explored in the GREEN ACRES theme song. I don't know, maybe it IS the punctuation, but VANITY OF DULUOZ is putting me in a better humor. Kerouac either pathetically or hilariously (or both) broods on tender grudges from when he was playing high school football: "I had to sit there and watch some of those bums prance and dance, one little leg sprain and there's heroic Pietryka making sure to remove his helmet when he was helped limping off the field so everybody could see his tragic hair waving in the autumn breeze." That seemed like a Barry Hannah sentence to me, with some of the same immediate, wounded poetry of sarcasm, not to mention the subject matter, and I remember talking to somebody a while back about whether or not Barry was influenced by Kerouac, but I don't remember the person or the answer.

Three Things and a Footnote

1) I have been thinking about the influence of Jerry Lewis on Tom Waits. 2) Last night Lee Durkee and I discussed Oliver Douglas from GREEN ACRES as a figure in existential crisis. 3) When I was in Los Angeles last week, my brother and nephews and I went to the Golden Apple comic book store, where I bought an archival volume of ARCHIE comics from 1945 and 1946. It's still in the shrink wrap, but I have to note that on the back cover, Jughead - so goofy and neutered now! - looks like a scowling punk. (See also.)

Thanks

First I want to thank Lee Durkee, a real trouper. He spoke to my noon class yesterday and then he had to stick around with me for three hours before speaking to my four o'clock class. Above and beyond! We occupied ourselves in various ways. We had Arnold Palmers at Ajax, for example, and sipped them very, very, very slowly as the minutes ticked by. The young woman with all the parking tickets was working and refused to let us pay! So thanks to her too. I also took Lee to the mysterious part of the library and revealed unto him its glories. I guess my favorite thing he said was to my four o'clock class, when he suddenly - and truthfully! - declared, "GREEN ACRES was magic realism." I didn't have the heart to tell him that, like Craig Ferguson, not one of those kids has any idea what GREEN ACRES is. Tragically! (On the other hand, the New York Times doesn't understand GREEN ACRES any better than my students do, as I have most forcefully demonstrated here.) I am pretty sure I mumbled something about magic realism to the students at some point earlier this semester, at least. This morning Lee sent me a video of John Dee's magic mirror. "Click" here to see it. And look, I must thank Sarah, who made this doll (pictured above) for me. I have lost all contact with Sarah since leaving facebook, so if anyone who knows Sarah sees this, tell her I said thanks! It was handed to me by a third party, the doll was, just the other day, gratis, out of nowhere, without warning. The way I remember it, I was at a reading by Melissa Ginsburg and Ann Fisher-Wirth at the Powerhouse, some months ago, and Sarah was there and asked me what my spirit animal was and I said probably orangutan and here you see the happy result. I have something else Sarah made, a candy-striped pole festooned with plush red squids, for which I paid cold cash money after spying it displayed as part of her undergraduate senior Honors thesis project. And you know, I like to brandish it. I was at a Christmas party last year where all the kids (and none of the adults) were wearing devil hats, so I wheedled my way into a spare devil hat, only, in the most Freudian way possible, the horns on my devil hat refused to stand up, which should have taught me a lesson about hubris or something, but sometimes I like to put on the drooping devil hat and brandish the squid stick (as I call it, no, in my mind I capitalize it, The Squid Stick) and feel like some kind of wizard, I guess (see John Dee, above). Photo below by Blair Hobbs.

All-Star Entertainment Wrap-Up

Welcome once again to "All-Star Entertainment Wrap-Up," your ONE spot on the "internet" for all the latest news of the entertainment celebrity stars. The stars were out in full force last night: Billy Barty! Goober! Slim Pickens! "Ma" from THE GRAPES OF WRATH! William "Blacula" Marshall! Mr. Haney from GREEN ACRES! Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane from THE DUKES OF HAZZARD! What could bring together this luminous constellation for one spectacular evening? Why, a fascinating and disturbing episode of the old TV show THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR that Dr. Theresa and I watched, of course. It came on one of the Encore channels. They must cater to a peculiar demographic. Blacula has a long speech about the origins of humanity while Mr. Haney sinks in quicksand! Goober delivers a harrowing, tormented monologue, one long take in close-up. Harrowing Goober! I will not hesitate to say that it was Goober's finest moment. I have probably told you this before, but Mr. Ward was once tasked with driving Goober around in a car, never mind why. And Goober kept complaining that he was trained to perform Shakespeare but nobody cared. That's it for this edition of "All-Star Entertainment Wrap-Up." Until next time... keep reaching for the stars!

Life In a Shoe Factory

Turns out Mr. Ward watches the televised television program PARENTHOOD, and he has cleared up a few things for me. For example, it is not about life in a shoe factory, despite what my few glimpses have strongly suggested. Lauren Graham, according to Mr. Ward, plays "an underachiever, and every man she meets falls in love with her. A poor man loves her and a rich man loves her and a schoolteacher loves her." I asked Mr. Ward how she could be considered an underachiever when, according to a scene I saw, she invented a shoe. "Well, she had an idea for a shoe," Mr. Ward clarified. Then he added, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice, "She doesn't believe in herself." He said that her character talks compulsively and a scene will often end with her stream of words still trailing off. "Actually, her speech pattern is a lot like Hank Kimball's on GREEN ACRES," Mr. Ward concluded.

Pig City Resolution

I have been wondering in what way a pork dish might be considered "City Chicken" (as recounted in a recent lively tale of the boyhood of Phil Oppenheim). At first it seemed to me that a pig was as rural at heart as any chicken (see GREEN ACRES). But then I started thinking about what Carl Sandburg said, something about Chicago being "hog-butcher to the world," right? And Chicago is a city. And I seemed to remember something in the David S. Reynolds biography of Walt Whitman that I read a long time ago, something about herds (broods?) of big, dangerous pigs just running around in the streets of Manhattan in the 19th century, but I'm too tired to look it up.

Two Fellows Making Funny Faces and How They Got That Way

You know, when I was "researching" all that GREEN ACRES stuff, I came across an old "post" in which Arnold the Pig and the absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco seemed to be looking at one another with similar facial expressions, thanks to my gift for illustrating my "posts" in a hilarious manner. However, I had acquired those pictures through "stealing bandwidth," which was a thing I used to do before I knew it had a name and was a bad thing to do. That got me to thinking about another "post" from long ago, featuring similarly stolen bandwidth and two fellows making funny faces. It was when I happened to write a little divertissement involving Red Skelton and Jeb Stuart Magruder. So here they are, together again, presented in the proper manner that is not stealing. When you "steal bandwidth" sometimes your pictures go away or are replaced by purposefully saucy substitutions to teach you a lesson for stealing. But now thanks to technology Red Skelton and Jeb Stuart Magruder will be with us forever. First Foster Brooks and Marty Allen, now Red Skelton and Jeb Stuart Magruder. Is there anything I won't do to pander to the youth market?

Unfathomable

Writes Laura Lippman in answer to our GREEN ACRES question: "Life just got really weird: I was going over a chapter I wrote for the current book, and there's a 'Green Acres' reference in it." As to the part about Craig Ferguson's apparent ignorance of GA, Ms. Lippman mentions two British writers of her acquaintance who are entirely and sadly unfamiliar with GILLIGAN'S ISLAND! She goes on, "What's weird is what is on air in England, even today. Hart to Hart! That Lee Majors show about the stunt man! It is unfathomable. An aside: I find the UK version of Deal or No Deal (the original) fascinating, yet I can't watch the U.S. one. Discuss."

A Good Example

I happened to come to the Craig Ferguson program just as Dave Foley commenced an appearance and the first thing out of Dave Foley's mouth was a GREEN ACRES reference, which just goes to prove something we have noticed here at the "blog" before: Dave Foley enjoys GREEN ACRES. I also have an inkling that Laura Lippman, who (as faithful "blog" readers will recall) recently appeared on the Ferguson program her own self (and did a fantastic job), knows a thing or two about GREEN ACRES (though I will need confirmation) so I would like to advance a new theory, which is that everyone who goes on the Craig Ferguson program enjoys GREEN ACRES, even though Craig Ferguson obviously has no idea what it is. I think this is a good example of what they call "anecdotal evidence." Discuss.

"Blog"dex (Sept 27-Oct 24, 2006)

While the "blog" staff regroups to bring you a better, more dignified and decorous "blog," we leave you with a full "blog" index - or "'blog'dex," as we call it in "blogging" circles, with which you may amuse yourself in the meantime. #: 13 Mile Oyster Company * A: A Cappella Books - 1, 2 * Kobo Abe * Jamie Allen * Linda Anderson * anonymous friend(s) - 1, 2 * Aquaman * Archie comics - 1, 2, 3 * The Awesome Glass Bricks of Mystery B: "Barry B." * Beetle Bailey * Samuel Beckett * Aimee Bender * Billy's Boots * Tom Bissell - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 * Black Canary * C: Captain Marvel * Changing Hands Book Store * Mark Childress - 1, 2, 3 * clogging - 1, 2 * Conan the Barbarian - 1, 2 * Cyclops (superhero) - 1, 2 * Cyclops (mythical beast) - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 D: Deathlok - 1, 2 * Leslie Delassus * Charles Dickens * donuts - 1, 2, 3, 4 * Dream Girl - 1, 2 * E: Clint Eastwood * John T. Edge * Pia Z. Ehrhardt - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 F: Fellini * Freddy Fender * F. Scott Fitzgerald * Dave Foley* Tom Franklin - 1, 2, 3 * The Fun Factory * Nick Fury * G: G.I. Joe * William Gay * Gilmore Girls - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 * Godard * Green Acres 1, 2 * Green Arrow H: Ray Harryhausen - 1, 2 * Jason Headley 1, 2 * Hee Haw * hobbits * Eli Horowitz 1, 2 * Hupcap City I: Invisible Girl * Eugene Ionesco - 1, 2 * Iron Fist J: Dean Jones * James Joyce * Tom Junod K: Jamie Kornegay - 1, 2, 3 * Kelly Kornegay - 1, 2 * Jack Kirby L: The Lee Brothers * Legion of Superheroes - 1, 2, 3 * Dennis Lehane * Janet Leigh * Lemuria * Jerry Lewis - 1, 2, 3, 4 * Little Dot M: MacAdam/Cage Publishing - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 * MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" - 1, 2 * Matt Madden * Veronica Mars * Dean Martin * Jeff McNeil - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 7, 8, 9, 10 * Mekons * The Metal Men * Mr. Fantastic * Mike Mitchell * Alvy Moore * Lorrie Moore * THE MYSTERIOUS SECRET OF THE VALUABLE TREASURE - 1, 2 N: Nightcrawler * O: Jimmy Olsen * Phil Oppenheim - 1, 2, 3, 4 * Kent Osborne - 1, 2, 3 P: paragraph breaks, problem with * Peanuts (comic strip) - 1, 2 * The Phantom Hitchhiker * Salvador Plascencia * Popeye, * Proust R: Richie Rich - 1, 2, 3 * Don Rickles * Rome - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 * Roy of the Rovers * Jim Ruland * Salman Rushdie S: Sad Sack * George Saunders - 1, 2, 3 * Shazam (see Captain Marvel) * Silver Surfer * sister, my - 1, 2 * soccer - 1, 2, 3, 4 * Southern Foodways Symposium 1, 2, 3, 4 * Spider-Man - 1, 2 * Square Books * Wesley Stace * Theresa Starkey - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 * Brenda Starr * Amanda Stern - 1, 2, 3 * "String Bean" * Superman - 1, 2 * T: Tiger and Scorcher * Dick Tracy * Turnrow Book Company - 1, 2, 3 W: Eugene Walter - 1, 2 * Ashley Warlick - 1, 2 * West Indies salad * James Whorton, Jr. - 1, 2 * Wonder Woman * Mary Worth Y: Caroline Young - 1, 2, 3 * YOUR BODY IS CHANGING - 1, 2 Z: Karen Spears Zacharias