The “Charmed” house: [ Scheerer House, Queen Anne cottage: Out of place amongst the Victorians: Heim House: Sessions House, 1889: The gardener said the house was used in a DiCaprio movie but didn’t know which one (Pretty sure it wasn’t Titanic.): The Michael Jackson “Thriller” house: Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Television
Dawn Wells is 80!?
Here’s some information that will ruin your day if not your entire life: Dawn Wells is 80 years old! Read more →
“Why Do I Believe What I Believe?”
My fellow Americans – About 20 people showed up for Unite the Right last weekend. That would be a disappointing turnout for a pancake breakfast sponsored by the local softball league, let alone a national rally in Washington, DC. White supremacy is like the Flat Earth Society, not non-existent, but extremely marginal. It’s a boogeyman to scare people about things that are not real. A good question to ask is “Why do I believe what I believe?” For example, “Why do I believe in a resurgence of white supremacy when only 20 people in a nation of 300 million can be persuaded to show up at a rally?” Possible answers include “I saw it on the internet” or “I heard it on TV.” These are perhaps not good answers, in that they open us up to manipulation for political gain, financial gain, and increased readership and viewership. Read more →
This is Where Your PDF Resume Will Take You
Received the following advice today: When applying for jobs, never send your resume in .docx format. Fonts don’t always get embedded and hiring managers cannot always open these files. Use PDF. Do we really want to work for managers who can’t open a Word doc? Imagine the world-class mentoring and career development you’re going to get from such a person. I mean, my wife can open Word docs no problem and she can’t even figure out how to turn on the TV. Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
A Man Combing His Hair in Public
A man in the men’s room at work this morning pulled out a comb and started combing his hair. No, it wasn’t Edd “Kookie” Burns. I mentioned this to a couple of co-workers, neither of whom found it striking, but I haven’t seen a man comb his hair in public since Happy Days went off the air . . . Read more →
People I Thought Were Dead
Herb Alpert – trumpeter Max Baer Jr. – actor, “The Beverly Hillbillies” Barbara Bain – actress, “Mission: Impossible” Brigitte Bardot – actress Rona Barrett – gossip columnist Frank Borman – astronaut Roy Clark – musician Roger Corman – film producer Robert Crumb – cartoonist Bill Daily – actor Vic Damone – singer Angie Dickinson – actress Annette and Cecile Dionne – quintuplets Sam Donaldson – TV newscaster Hugh Downs – TV announcer Daniel Ellsberg – released the Pentagon Papers Barbara Feldon – actress Fannie Flagg – actress and game show panelist Larry Flynt – publisher of Hustler Whitey Ford – baseball pitcher A.J. Foyt – auto racer Ron Gallela – celebrity photographer, aka “paparazzo” Whitey Herzog – baseball manager Ernest Hollings – U.S. senator Cloris Leachman – actress Tom Lehrer – musical satirist Jerry Lee Lewis – singer and pianist G. Gordon Liddy – Watergate mastermind Rich Little – impressionist Peter Max… Read more →
Who Will Be Left to Scold the Scolders?
Some of the questions Matt Lauer asked Bill O’Reilly during their Today Show interview on Sept. 19: [Your accusers] came forward and filed complaints against the biggest star at the network they worked at. Think of how intimidating that must have been, how nerve-racking that must have been! Doesn’t that tell you how strongly they felt about the way they were treated by you? Over the last six months since your firing, have you done some soul searching? Have you done some self-reflection? And have you looked at the way you treated women that you think now or think about differently now than you did at the time? You were probably the last guy in the world that they wanted to fire because you were the guy that the ratings and the revenues were built on, you carried that network on your shoulders for a lot of years.… Read more →
What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?
As I walk through This wicked world Searchin’ for light in the darkness of insanity. I ask myself Is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred, and misery? Read more →
The Victimized Media
In the age of Trump, it’s acceptable for reporters to claim they “never wanted to be part of the story,” while waiting in a green room to go on TV and talk about themselves. — Washington Examiner Read more →
Chuck Barris, 1929-2017
Chuck Barris was well ahead of his time in recognizing how many Americans are willing to make an ass of themselves on television. The quote below is from the movie based on his book Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. I don’t know if the quote is actually in the book but I include it here nonetheless . . . When you are young, your potential is infinite. You might do anything, really. You might be Einstein. You might be DiMaggio. Then you get to an age where what you might be gives way to what you have been. You weren’t Einstein. You weren’t anything. That’s a bad moment. RIP Chuck Barris Read more →
Mary Tyler Moore, 1936-2017
I gave up watching TV about 20 years ago when I realized that for 10 years before that, I hadn’t seen anything I enjoyed watching, just people with strained expressions on their faces saying nonsensical things to each other. My fondest memory of television is the CBS Saturday night lineup that I watched as a kid: All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show, and I will always have fond memories of Mary Tyler Moore. RIP MTM Footnote: Those shows were followed on Saturday nights by The Carol Burnett Show, which I didn’t watch because Carol Burnett was not funny. Not to say women can’t be funny, but it seems like the women with the greatest comedic reputations — Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball, for example — are never funny. To be fair, Harvey Korman and Tim Conway were not funny either. Read more →
Relative Importance
On Facebook, a mass murder in Berlin is exactly as important as a 1980s sitcom character . . . Read more →
Is There an “Anti-Queer” Climate?
Christian conservatives are responsible for the mass shooting at a gay bar in Orlando because they “created this anti-queer climate,” according to American Civil Liberties Union attorneys. — Washington Examiner Agree that the summer climate in Orlando can be pretty oppressive but it’s just as bad for straight people. Haha, but seriously folks, is there an “anti-queer climate” in America? I don’t see that. Can you think of 10 or 12 recent examples of “anti-queer” behavior that you’ve observed in your own life? Six? One? I can’t. Quite the opposite: If a bakery doesn’t want to put two men on a wedding cake, it’s a national outrage. America loves gays. Who in America is more beloved than Ellen and that Doogie Howser kid? Now if you ask me “Is there an anti-Christian conservative climate in America?” I would say — and I’m neither a Christian nor a conservative — definitely… Read more →
Doors That Didn’t Necessarily Need to Be Closed
You know, you spend your childhood watching TV, assuming that a some point in the future everything you see there will one day happen to you: that you too will win a Formula One race, hop a train, foil a group of terrorists, tell someone ‘Give me the gun,’ etc. Then you start secondary school and suddenly everyone’s asking you about your career plans and your long-term goals, and by goals they don’t mean the kind you are planning to score in the FA Cup. Gradually the awful truth dawns on you: that Santa Claus was just the tip of the iceberg — that your future will not be the rollercoaster ride you’d imagined, that the world occupied by your parents, the world of washing the dishes, going to the dentist, weekend trips to the DIY superstore to buy floor tiles is actually largely what people mean when they speak… Read more →
The State of Motherhood in America
I’m in an office this morning where a TV is tuned to Good Morning, America . . . it’s Mothers Day weekend and a woman is being honored because she has children, who are now grown, and she prioritized the children in her life and made sacrifices for them. That’s where we are in the 21st century — a mother who centers her life around her children is a national phenomenon. Can’t wait for Fathers Day . . . Read more →
Watching Kobe’s Last Game
USC Drumline Plays with Questlove
This would be a better video without Fallon but you take the bad with the good and Fight On! Read more →
The People v. O.J. Simpson
There’s a miniseries coming out called The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story. I’m not going to watch it, not for any singular reason — I don’t watch other TV shows either — but I don’t remember the Simpson trial having a great deal of entertainment value. The trial proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Simpson was guilty, even though a guilty verdict was not returned. Eight of the 12 trial jurors were black women. The prosecution believed that the jurors would identify with the female victim. The defense team believed that the jurors would identify with the black murderer. The defense was right. Conventional wisdom says that anyone who can’t get out of a lengthy term of jury service is not very bright. Only two of the Simpson jurors had a college degree. One never finished high school. The prosecution bored and confused them with DNA evidence. The… Read more →
The 30 Most Anticipated TV Shows
My fellow Americans — I just saw a link to The 30 Most Anticipated TV Shows of 2016. How many TV shows do you people have if thirty of them are the most anticipated?! Some despotic regimes around the world rely on starvation and threats of violence to keep the people in a state of submissive compliance. Here in America, the same collective stupor is effected via mindless entertainments and gadgetry. I’d like to see my countrymen raise themselves out of depression, paralysis and failure and resist this massive government/corporate dystopia — But I might miss my TV programs, said the serfs and lackeys. Read more →
Frankie Ford, 1939-2015
I have a quote for you on that “One-Hit Wonder” thing. I’d like to go on record right here saying, whoever that disc jockey was that coined that phrase, well he’s a no-hit wonder! I mean, it can get rude. A DJ did that to me one time in his introduction. I turned to him and said, “Well, you’re a no-hit wonder. What have you ever done?” Some people have five records that sell a million each. Some sell none. I’ve had one that sold 30 million! And I’ve outlived that one record. I’ve been 38 years at this and it’s still going. — Frankie Ford RIP, Frankie Ford Read more →