Copious Notes

"I don’t know how to tell you this," is never a good way to start a conversation, particularly when it comes from my wife. She’s not the type to grimly say, "I don’t know how to tell you this," and then scream, "WE JUST WON A MILLION DOLLARS!"

That’s my shtick, not hers.

So, when she called me at work Tuesday and said, "I don’t know how to tell you this," I knew something had died, been broken, Milli Vanilli reunited, or something like that.

"Do you want me to tell you what I found in the pocket of your pants that were in the washing machine?" she asked.

What?! My mind raced. I hadn’t done anything recently that would leave incriminating evidence. Did one of the kids give me something I was supposed to take care of, that now had the consistency of tissue paper? Did I leave a pen in my pocket, thereby creating a tie-dye effect on some clothes but, you know, not in a way that looked groovy?

I couldn’t think of anything, so I asked, "What?"

"You know your mp3 player . . . " Kate asked.

"Oh nooooo," I thought.

It was Tuesday. Snow day. I was trying to do some work at home and get some laundry done,  including my thick black corduroy trousers that I had put my player in the night before. But, as I put them in the wash, I probably hadn’t felt the mp3 in the pocket because, you know, they’re big . . . thick . . . corduroy . . . "Oh nooooo!"

"I’ve tried everything," she said, "It’s not doing anything."

I said, "Thanks for telling me," and hung up.

Last year, I finally joined the mp3 generation. When you’re married with two late elementary school kids, your money takes other priorities. I don’t go out and buy the latest gadget the way I did when I was the first of my friends to own a CD player and a VCR.

But, when I finally got an mp3, I was serious about it, and not just for fun. Recent playlists include "UKSO Harrell Concert" (Music that’s being played on the University of Kentucky Symphony concert, Friday, with cellist Lynn Harrell). Pretty much any story on this blog or in the paper about music in the past several months I’ve reported using my mp3. I was seriously considering writing it off on my taxes.

So, how was I going to live without it.

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With his touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with 35 seconds left in Super Bowl XLII, Eli Manning created great drama sans writers. Copyrighted AP photo by David J. Phillip.

It had compelling characters: A man once the underdog, now the golden boy, versus a new underdog, carrying the weight of family pride. It had a grand goal: perfection, but also a compelling redemption tale. It had drama, a surprise twist at the end, and for once, we are talking about the Super Bowl.

The writers’ strike looks like it may actually be coming to an end. But we have to say, the past few weeks, this real reality TV has been pretty darned good.

No, we are not talking Idol, Loser or
The Moment of Truth, which looks like it could be in the running for most morally reprehensible "reality" show of all time. Between some great sports and compelling presidential primaries, this has been a pretty good month for TV, even though many of the major series were on the shelf — my lovely bride was thrilled to see a new House after the Super Bowl, though that continuous, "drill a hole in her skull," preview made me opt to pass.

But as a sports fan, if my favorite team isn’t in the big game, I can still be lured by storylines, and there were a bunch here, like the New England Patriots pursuit of perfection — culture vultures, did you love that Russell Crowe’s pregame narration on perfection invoked great violinists as a comparison? — the New York Giants return from the dead earlier in the season and Peyton Manning’s little brother Eli stepping into the Championship spotlight. And then Eli delivered with his pass to Virginia Beach, Va.’s own Plaxico Burress to with the game in the last minute. Script that.

Earlier in the weekend, a CNN anchor identified herself as more of a commercials and half-time show person when it came to the Super Bowl, and that’s often the most interesting thing about the game. But this year, the main event was the main event.

And the news has been pretty interesting too, with a tightening race for the Democratic nomination for
President and an increasingly colorful contest in the Republic party. The Super Bowl came just a few nights after some intriguing debates — despite what the desperate-for-a-fight pundits tell you, the Democratic debate was quite interesting and substantive — and two days before a cliffhanger of a Super Tuesday.

We kind of need today as a breather from all this unscripted drama.

George, John, Ringo and Paul were undeniably great. Does that mean they’re everybody’s favorite? Herald-Leader archive photo.

Monday, I was having lunch in Nashville with Amber Rhodes, a Lexington native and School for the Creative and Performing Arts graduate who is now taking a shot at a country music career. The subject was her music and her influences, which brought us to The Beatles.

Amber loves The Beatles. The Fab Four came up numerous times during our chat. And why shouldn’t they?

The Beatles were a band that changed popular culture with their fame and subsequently changed the burgeoning genre of rock ‘n’ roll with their talent and innovation. In my book, there’s no denying their greatness.

Does that make them one of my favorites?

Another “B,” Ludwig van Beethoven, redefined the symphony, imbuing it with a new level grandeur, and his uncanny ear for melody and structure made his compositions some of the most beloved and important works in the history of music. Would there have been a Gustav Mahler or Jean Sibelius without Beethoven?

But Sibelius is the one that speaks to my soul. Maybe its the Finnish heritage.

If I was asked to work up a list of favorite classical composers, Beethoven might be in my Top 5. I’m not sure.

The Beatles probably would not be in my personal Top of the Pops, a group led by Jars of Clay, Talking Heads and Paul Simon.

This used to bug me.

It particularly nagged at me when I was in my late college and early career years, and I started to understand what “great” was.

“Remarkable in magnitude, degree, or effectiveness,” Webster’s tells us. “Chief or preeminent over others.”

Jimi Hendrix was great. He redefined playing the guitar, and nary an axeman after him has not felt his influence.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote remarkable music, and particularly in opera, could blend voices in a way few others had or have since, try as they might.

Isn’t there something a little weird about building a list of favorites, which is something I tend to do, as a list sort of person, and not put these artists at the top?

The step after understanding great is understanding favorites.

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One of the frustrations of being an arts and entertainment writer here in Lexington is we are getting more things to cover, but we aren’t getting more space to cover them. No, this isn’t going to be a whiny
post about being part of a dying industry, because I don’t believe that’s the case.

Gary Pruitt, the president and CEO of the McClatchy Company, the Lexington Herald- Leader’s parent company, is dead on when he says that daily newspapers are in a better position than any other media outlet to take advantage of the Internet, and I’m not quoting him just because I have a performance review coming up. He is exactly right, if the papers do it right.

LexGo, is an example of doing it right.

LexGo is our new arts and entertainment website which launches today. It is the result of months, probably a year, of work by the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s entertainment news and online departments. I can crow about it because very little of what makes it great has to do with me, though I am certainly committed to being part of making LexGo Central Kentucky’s most comprehensive and useful outlet for information about arts and entertainment.

Essentially, that’s the idea behind LexGo.

Before today’s launch I had a chance to surf around Lexgo a bit, and there is a lot to find. Like a great movie or play, it works on several levels.

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Conan O’Brien returned to the air sporting his "strike beard" Jan. 2. Copyrighted photo by Dana Edelson, courtesy of NBC. Below: David Letterman returned to his Late Show with writers. Copyrighted photo by John Paul Filo, courtesy of CBS.

After Conan O’Brien finished a bit on his Jan. 3 show in which he spun his wedding ring on his desk, with a producer timing the spin, a woman in the audience shouted, "Again!"

Conan paused and said, "Trust me, there’s time to do it again." Sitting back in his chair, he added, "Let’s not be in a rush to do it again."

It was one of many moments Conan wung it on his first show back since the start of the strike by the Writer’s Guild of America. The strike is not over, so the 12:35 a.m. gabber was on the air without writers, and, as a Guild member unable to do any writing for himself — his lead in, Jay Leno, apparently interpreted the union rules differently, but more on that in a few graphs. 

So, Conan was out there without a script, finding out how long an hour can be on national television.
Since Conan is a naturally funny guy, he was reasonably (though notably darkly) amusing trying to navigate through a show without the usual trappings.

That was interesting, but for how long?

The return of the late night talk shows yielded varied results:

~ CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman bowed with working writers, thanks to a deal Letterman’s company worked out with the Writers Guild to come back to work for his show and the follow-up Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

One of Letterman’s highlights was a Top 10 list of striking writer’s demands, delivered by writers. No. 3 was Law & Order scribe Gina Gionfriddo, who has a new play, Becky Shaw, premiering at this year’s Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville. Her demand:  "I’m no accountant, but instead of us getting 4 cents for a $20 dollar DVD, how about we get $20 for a 4-cent DVD?"

There was a lot of self-deprecating humor, like Biff Henderson coming in, well into Letterman’s monologue , to ask when the writers would be back. And Letterman even leaned on some things he said he would have done if the writers had not returned. The "Know Your Staff" segment turned out to be a sweet moment where Letterman interviewed an associate producer and showed something a lot of us who cover arts and entertainment already know: most of the people who work in the field are moms and dads, husbands and wives, just like us. Their work just happens to be seen by millions of people.

But overall, Letterman’s mood was crabby, and probably moving even closer to the loose spirit of his old NBC show.

Meanwhile, back at the Peacock: On The Tonight Show, Jay Leno followed in the spirit of his predecessor, Johnny Carson, who returned from a 1988 writer’s strike penning his own jokes to relatively good reviews. That’s got Leno in hot water with the union, which contends members can’t even write for themselves on struck productions. It was occasionally painfully obvious Conan was following that rule.

Outside of the controversy, Leno writing for Leno worked to an extent, as he touched on topics including the presidential primaries. Before he was the Tonight Show host, Leno was one of the funniest comedians out there, and there were reminders of that Wednesday and Thursday. But he was also clearly stretching and filling time.

Where Leno and O’Brien may find themselves at the biggest disadvantage is after the monologue, when they go to the couch. The conventional wisdom seems to be stars will be loathe to cross picket lines to appear on struck shows, while Letterman’s couch will be safe with the Union label. Jan. 2 was a prime example: Letterman had Robin Williams, Leno had Mike Huckabee.  Leno did win the ratings battle that night, but if this drags on, you have to think Letterman will gain ground with a better written show and more star power.

Funny thing is, while the writers are picketing the NBC shows and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, those programs may just be proving how important the writers are.

The Courthouse Christmas Tree, photographed by Mark Cornelison for the Lexington Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com.

Copious Notes is going to take a week off, and I hope you and your families get some time to spend together over Christmas week. Thanks so much for reading over the past year. I have a lot of fun writing this blog, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

If you want the latest on what’s happening in Lexington, go to Kentucky.com. They’ve got you covered. And we’ll be back Dec. 28 with the first of some year-end lists.

All the best,
Rich

The Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus show in Charlotte, N.C. Copyrighted photo by Dana Romanoff, The Charlotte Observer.

Midday yesterday, I got a note from Rupp Arena publicist Sheila Kenny that made my hair stand on end:

"We are getting calls from people asking where they can ‘drop off’ their 7 year olds to see the show.  Carl Hall (arena director) would like to reemphasize that while we strive to provide a safe and welcoming place to attend an event, we are not a daycare and people need to take full responsibility for the safety and well being of their children."

Let’s talk parent to parent: I have been to lots of events at Rupp Arena and events the size of the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus concert, which is expected to attract 19,000 people Wednesday night. I would never ever, ever, ever consider sending my 10 year old into an event that size without me, my wife or an adult we trusted. Ever. And she’s probably several years away from an age at which I would consider it.

No one at Rupp Arena is paid to be a babysitter or look after your child on a personal basis. They really can’t. They have 19,000 people to get in the building, get to their seats and direct to bathrooms, concessions, monitor for security and whatnot. While the demographic is a lot younger than usual, this is still a rock concert, just like Kiss or Backstreet Boys.

So if you "drop off" your kid at Rupp alone, they are truly on their own. Think about it.

Chocolate Kitty, enemy of all Christmas trees parked near cuckoo clocks.

No, this will not become a cat blog. But I have to share this slice of life with feline:

For years, I had believed Barbie was the dumber of our two cats. After Tuesday night, I’m not so sure.

Last Christmas, my in-laws gave us a cuckoo clock. It’s hanging in the living room about two feet diagonally from a cherry filing cabinet. A constant source of amusement in the household has been how Chocolate, adopted three-and-a-half years ago from the Woodford Humane Society, will leap to the top of the filing cabinet and sit in striking pose uttering a cackling meow at the bird, as it chirps the hour.

Over the weekend, we put up the Christmas tree in the corner between the filing cabinet and the cuckoo clock. It’s artificial tree, as a concession to the cats. I love the smell of pine in the house at Christmas. But Barbie, aka Dorky Kitty, will drink from any open source of water, and since we are told the sap in Christmas tree water will kill an animal if they drink it, we decided we needed to go artificial. She might also attempt to eat the branches, as she tries to eat everything else. Despite this, Chocolate is the big girl of the pair. Maybe it’s their names.

Anyway, Christmas tree between cabinet and cuckoo clock. At 11 p.m. Tuesday, the bird begins her chirp. Chocolate shoots to the couch and leaps for the filing cabinet.

At this point, my daughter’s version and mine diverge:

~ As I saw it, Chocolate hit the filing cabinet too fast and slid off into the tree.

~ Caroline says she saw her stop and, thinking she had a safe perch in the tree, leaped at the birdie with her paws outstretched.

Either way, the tree did not hold.

Down it went in a clatter of ornaments, whoosh of branches, and one loud snap. For a moment, there was no movement under the tree. Then, I lifted it, and Chocolate zipped out from under it and up the stairs. I sent Caroline to ascertain the kitty’s condition — she’s fine, thank goodness — while I tried to sort the tree out. The only casualty, it turned out, was the base of the tree, which was that loud, snapping sound. All the ornaments, even the glass ones, survived.

So the only thing we have to worry about is how to stand the tree up again, and where to put it, because I guarantee we won’t put it near the cuckoo clock again.

Read this post from Jamie G.

The greatest pleasure of following the Cincinnati Reds since I moved here was listening to Joe Nuxhall on the Reds’ radio broadcasts. Sad to report the Old Left-hander made his final trip home last night.