Here are three links to articles following up on the recent FCC indecency rulings.

The first is an update on the ruling against PBS member station KCSM-TV for their airing of the documentary, The Blues. They have decided to fight the FCC. Good for them.

The second regards stations in Indiana which were fined for airing Without a Trace before the “safe harbor” time of 10:00 pm. The issue is that the ruling was based on a false assumption by the FCC, which was that all stations within the Central Time Zone would have aired the show at 9:00 pm…except that most of Indiana doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time. Duh.

Finally, here’s a blog entry by former TV Guide columnist Jeff Jarvis, making what I believe to be a very compelling argument that the FCC’s recent declaration that “shit” and all of its derivitives are inherently profane is a clear violation of the First Amendment.

My own feeling is that the best response to this bullshit may be this: if adults expect to be treated the same as young children, then let’s do what we (usually) do when the kids are around, and make up our own curse words. According to the FCC, “any use of (shit or fuck) inherently has sexual or excretory connotations”. (Merriam-Webster disagrees on this, by the way.) If that’s the case, then clearly what’s needed are words which have no relation at all to sexual or excretory functions, but sound just as dirty.

Ideally, they should have four letters and end in either a “k” or “t,” as do most of our better expletives. And it’s probably best that they not have other meanings. For example, I would reject “bork” as it has connotations of failed Supreme Court nominations and/or the Swedish Chef.

I would go with “frak,” but that’s been co-opted by Battlestar Galactica. And “ferk” would likely be willfully misinterpretated as someone saying “fuck” with a dodgy accent.

“Smot” suggested itself as something close enough to “smut” to sound kinda dirty without having actual sexual meaning, but I’m just not sure about the way it sounds when used in a sentence: “That videogame is smotting awesome!”

Turt? Prit? Juck? Hmm…maybe being offensive is harder than I thought.

Dave Rant

Haven’t had time for blogging in the past week-and-a-half, but I want to throw something at the wall just to let my readers (all six of you, bless you!) know that I haven’t given up on the idea.

I had a good weekend, which is something of a change from the past few weeks. It was nice to have some time to engage in some of my less fruitful interests: digging through the penny Magic: The Gathering card box at the local geek store, and watching some of the accumulated video recordings on our TiVo-Like Device^TM.

Saturday night, Vic and I went out for sushi. That’s a sentence that I never thought I’d type. While I’m usually game for trying new restaurants, I tend to draw the line at uncooked meats. The establishment in question was Ko Fusion, one of the recent downtown Champaign additions which appears to have been accidentally transported from someplace a good bit hipper than downtown Champaign. Great decor, and to my absolute amazement, very good sushi. Granted, Vic and I went with sushi for wimps: California rolls and pieces which featured cooked instead of raw fish. But it was very, very tasty. And I even used the chopsticks!

Last night I finally did my taxes, only about two weeks later than usual. I’m really not sure how anyone ever completes their own tax paperwork, even though I’ve done mine on all but a couple of occasions over the past 25 years. I like to believe that I’m a reasonably intelligent person, yet I can barely figure out a third of what’s printed on the page. The instructions are written in something which is almost entirely unlike English, and there’s an awful lot of this:

Subtract Line 15 from Line 14. Compare the amounts on Line 16 and Line 1b, and enter the smaller here. Refer to Pub. 8367 for instructions on how to determine eligible credit for your Chapter S withholdings, and complete the Designated Benefits for Waffle Lovers Worksheet.

Plus–and I swear that I am not making this up–there were numerous references to “certain whaling captains.” Only certain whaling captains, mind you. For some of you whaling captains, the above paragraph does not apply.

As I mentioned, I cleaned some stuff off the TiVo-Like Device^TM. The previous weekend we discovered that we had a free HBO/Cinemax preview, and so went a bit crazy recording movies for later viewing. While they included a few films I had always intended to see, some were marginal picks at best, stuff that I didn’t mind watching so long as a) I didn’t have to pay for it, and 2) I didn’t have to pay all that much attention to it.

Two in the Intended to See category were Waiting for Guffman and Shaun of the Dead. Guffman was a “mockumentary” in the tradition of This is Spinal Tap, this time about a community theatre. While it wasn’t quite my experience with community theatre–for example, the film never addressed backstage romances or actors who never manage to learn their dialogue–much of it was certainly familiar. All in all, I preferred Best in Show, which features much of the same cast in a story about a dog show, but Guffman had plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.

I wasn’t sure about Shaun of the Dead for the first ten minutes or so. The British “romantic comedy in a zombie apocalypse” had received great reviews, but I thought that there were few laughs at first. Still, I did enjoy the film’s conceit of having its characters blissfully unaware of the mounting chaos around them–because, after all, there’s not that much difference between shambling undead and zoned-out, barely motivated everyday people, and besides, who pays attention to the news? Once the zombies were too numerous to go unnoticed, the movie kicked into gear with a great scene in which Shaun and his best friend Ed (coming off here much like Earl and Randy in My Name is Earl) argue about which of Shaun’s record albums are too valuable to toss at the flesh eaters slowly–very, very slowly–marching toward them. Then along came Penelope Wilton–who I loved during her recent Doctor Who appearances as Harriet Jones, M.P. for Flydale North–to play Shaun’s mom, and I was hooked. While most zombie holocaust films feature supposedly normal people dealing with an unreal situation, the characters in Shaun behaved a bit more as I’d expect myself to react in such a crisis. I wound up buying this one on DVD the next day.

The Day After Tomorrow was squarely in the camp of Films That Didn’t Require My Full Attention, and indeed, I sorted Magic cards while it was on. On one hand, I was glad to see someone use a blockbuster film to introduce the topic of global warming to a mainstream audience, but still, did it have to be such horseshit? I’ll admit that I’d have been much more lenient about the skewed science if this had been a ’50s film, but the level of destruction on hand–including flash-freezing hurricanes–seemed so implausible that I think it must’ve had the opposite of the intended effect. Why worry about global warming if the results, as depicted here, would never, never happen? Didactic dialogue and intensely stupid characters who were the very definition of People Who Don’t Know Enough To Come In Out Of The Rain ruled the day. There’s Dennis Quaid as an intrepid paleoclimatologist (two words that have never before appeared consecutively) that warns of a storm which will instantly kill anyone outside, yet whom decides to trek from Washington to New York on foot. Meanwhile, Jake Gyllenhaal and (the astonishingly adorable) Emmy Rossum played the two prettiest nerds ever captured on film as Quaid’s son and his high-school academic bowl teammate. Oh, and then there’s Sela Ward as Quaid’s doctor wife, saddled with an utterly extraneous plot about a young cancer patient who can “only be moved by ambulance.” People are being killed by the millions, but if only there was an ambulance! Cool effects, though, so it did at least make for good Magic-sorting background noise. And there was one nice bit of irony when the Mexican government began turning away fleeing Americans at the border.

Alright, I’ll now admit that I also recorded and watched Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. I’m enough of an old-school Scooby buff to appreciate the effort to revive a bunch of the classic cartoon monsters (the Pterodactyl Ghost! the Miner Forty-Niner! the Ghost of Captain Cutler!). Plus, there were Sarah Michelle Gellar’s short skirts and Matthew Lillard’s pitch-perfect Shaggy. Not much else, though. Did I mention the skirts? Oh, and I did like the gag involving a bar called the Faux Ghost where all of the villains whom Mystery, Inc. has unmasked over the years go to hang out.

I’ve still got another half-dozen films to go, and while most of them probably won’t be as questionable as Scooby Doo, they do include I, Robot…

Dave General

Yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission handed down a dumpster load of decisions regarding so-called indecent TV broadcasts. Among them was a $15,000 fine against the San Mateo, California PBS station over an episode of the documentary series The Blues because it “contains numerous ‘obscenities,’ including the ‘F-Word,’ the ‘S-Word’ and various derivatives of those words.”

Yes, that’s right, these words are so ‘patently offensive’ that the federal government can’t even refer to them in an official document. According to the ruling, “fuck” (there, I wrote it) is “one of the most vulgar, graphic, and explicit descriptions of sexual activity in the English language.” Really? I bet that I can think of some that are far, far more vulgar and graphic.

San Mateo’s defense was that the “intent of the program is to provide a window into [the world of the individuals being interviewed] with their own words, all of which becomes an educational experience for the viewer.” Furthermore, the language was not “used in a prurient way, but rather as an infrequent conversational expression of the artist [being interviewed], and was not edited to remove their dialogue, which accurately reflected their viewpoints.”

Never mind any of that, wrote the FCC: “The gratuitous and repeated use of this language in a program that San Mateo aired at a time when children were expected to be in the audience is shocking.” Yeah, because children are actually going to sit around watching a PBS documentary on the Blues when a 24-hour intravenous feed of Nicktoons and shitty Disney Channel sitcoms is available. They went on, “While we recognize here that the documentary had an educational purpose, we believe that purpose could have been fulfilled and all viewpoints expressed without the repeated broadcast of expletives.”

So, never mind that similar verbiage was okay when used within Saving Private Ryan, because in that case it “would have altered the nature of the artistic work and diminished the power, realism and immediacy of the film experience for viewers.” That, and it was about U.S. soldiers, and veterans’ groups would’ve stormed the building.

They continue: “On the other hand, however, we do recognize that the expletives here were contained in a documentary, and while we conclude that the arguments made by the licensee are mistaken, we do find that the licensee may have been under the good faith belief that the use of these expletives served a legitimate informational purpose. Additionally, we recognize the fact that the licensee runs a small, community station that airs college level educational courses for most of the day. Under these circumstances, we believe that a proposed forfeiture in the amount of $15,000 is warranted here.” So, says the FCC, you acted in good faith airing an educational documentary, and you’re a station that does a lot of good work but doesn’t have much money, so we’ll only fine you $15,000. That’s great. That’s fucking great.

Now, the only reason that the other stations which aired the program (including WILL) weren’t fined is that no one in those markets filed a complaint. That’s wrong, wrote Commissioner Adelstein in his dissenting statement: “We have previously sought to identify all broadcasters who have aired indecent material and hold them accountable. In this Order, however, the Commission inexplicably fines only the licensee whose broadcast of indecent material was the subject of a viewer’s complaint, even though we know millions of other Americans were exposed to the offending broadcast. I cannot find anywhere in the law that Congress told us to apply indecency regulations only to those stations against which a complaint was specifically lodged. ” Keep in mind that this is the dissenting statement. As ridiculous and myopic as the FCC’s ruling was, it’s only a taste of what could have been.

Thankfully, FCC standards do not apply here (yet), so allow me to add the following: fuck, fuck, shit, shit, fuck, fucker, motherfucker, fucking a-hole, motherfucking cocksucker, shit-for-brains.

It’s not educational, but it’s cathartic.

Dave Rant

Roger Ebert used to be my favorite movie reviewer. He struck me as the Everyman to Gene Siskel’s High-and-Mightyman. Of the two, he would typically be the one championing the popcorn film. These days, however, he often pisses me off. I don’t know if it was Siskel’s death, his own health problems, or simply evolving tastes, but I’ve detected a creeping arrogance in Ebert’s writings, an “I know more than you” attitude. Yet I still read his columns when I have the opportunity, and occasionally jot off a reply when he cranks my winch.

I wrote the following in response to a piece that appeared in the local paper this weekend, and although I sent it directly to Ebert’s “Answer Man” column, I’m also posting it here.

In your February 18 Oscar preview, you suggest that “a generation is forming that has no feeling for narrative and character,” blaming the usual suspects–television and video games–for the tepid audience response to this year’s Oscar front-runners.

From the perspective of a movie lover who has only seen one of the Best Picture candidates (Good Night and Good Luck), I don’t believe scapegoating is necessary to explain their limited appeal. Capote might be the best picture about Truman Capote ever made, but if I’m not interested in Truman Capote, I’m going to spend my eight bucks and two hours of precious weekend elsewhere.

Why do people go to movies? Some may be seeking high art or dark reflections of human nature, but I’d wager that most of us are looking for a bit of escape. It’s not that I’m oblivious to narrative and character, it’s that I want them put in service of subject matter that interests me. Give me a choice between a wrenching expose of LA race relations and a 25-foot monkey on a skyscraper, and I say “show me the monkey.”

The beauty of a film like Peter Jackson’s King Kong is that it delivers the larger-than-life thrills I desire without skimping on characterization. Art vs. entertainment needn’t be a zero-sum game, even if it frequently plays out that way at the multiplex.

Dave Movies

Wednesdays are Bowling League Night, my weekly opportunity to be a hero or a goat. My scratch game average has been hovering around 125; far from the best, but not at all the worst in the league. The problem is that I’m woefully inconsistent. But every once in a while, I get in some sort of Zen bowling groove.

Last night, my first game was 165. I was feeling pretty damned good about what was either the second or third highest score I’d achieved in league bowling.

The second game started out less promising: a couple of open frames for a total of 13 pins. Then a lone strike, and another open frame. In the fifth frame, I rolled a strike. And another in the sixth. Great, I thought, the pins really start to accumulate when you double up the strikes.

I was thrilled to have a third consecutive strike in the seventh; one of the few “turkeys” I’ve had to date. I began to approach the pins slower and more methodically. A fourth strike! I’d only done that once before! I ran off the alley to make sure that I saw the little victory animation on the scoreboard: a 4×4 truck rolling over the pins.

In the ninth frame, time slowed. Take a breath, I thought. Just relax…another strike! The animation for five in a row was a series of bowling pins laid out in “x” formations. It was crazy exciting, which should give you an idea of just how little it takes to get me excited.

The tenth frame. Try not to think about the score (but you know that if you get it, you’ll break 200). And…blam! Six in a row! The animation was a shooting gallery with ducks being plugged one by one. I stood on the alley in a rapturous state, arms outstretched to the sides.

It didn’t last, but I did at least finish out the tenth with a spare. Total: 206! A far cry from a perfect 300, but for me, it was like a host of angels flitted around my head.

And then the third game, I bowled a 107. I told you I was inconsistent.

Still, I had both the high handicap game and series for the league that night, and even made the leader board for high scratch game. It may never happen again, but I’m glad that it happened just this once!

Dave General