Another Week: Number 156

Usually, when a “breaking news” story hijacks routine coverage on TV, the news networks fixate on it the way a dog fixates on the steak you’re eating — their attention never wavers. This week, however, several troubling stories unfolded simultaneously, so the coverage had to alternate between them continually.

Last Saturday afternoon, a gunman shot 11 people at Brown University, killing two of them. On Sunday morning, authorities had a “person of interest” in custody — but later that day, he was released, and the search continued until Thursday night, when the suspect was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

On Sunday, father and son shooters killed 15 people at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, during an afternoon Hanukkah celebration, and wounded 39 others.

Also on Sunday, filmmaker and actor Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. Later that day, their son Nick Reiner was arrested. On Tuesday, he was charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Friday was the deadline day for the Justice Department to release its long-sought trove of Jeffrey Epstein files — but, to no one’s surprise, the actual release was ridiculously incomplete, faulty, and redacted into meaninglessness. What can we do when the Department of Justice itself blatantly flouts a law? Nothing, apparently.

The temperature on Sunday morning was three below zero with 22 m.p.h. winds. On Tuesday afternoon, it felt like spring outside for an hour or two as we hit 40°. By Friday morning, we were back to 12° with 28 m.p.h. wind from the northwest. As TV weather people speculate about our chances for a “white Christmas,” most locals already seem weary of this winter that hasn’t even “officially” begun yet.

I walked zero miles this week.

The Five Pennies (1959)

On Wednesday night, my mom and I watched The Five Pennies, recorded via her cloud DVR from Turner Classic Movies. This 1959 biopic profiles Utah-born jazz cornet player and bandleader Loring “Red” Nichols, beginning with his arrival in New York.

The film stars Danny Kaye as Nichols and mostly serves as a showcase for Kaye’s quirky talents — physical comedy, verbal acrobatics, and funny faces. There are also several appearances by Louis Armstrong, but Armstrong is 58 years old here, not the Hot Five hornslinger of the late 1920s.

Nichols’ amazing career takes a backseat, despite his having had Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jack Teagarden, Pee Wee Russell, and Gene Krupa in his band over the years. These characters mostly sit around a table like a collective footnote. Also, no mention at all is made of the Great Depression, which occurred during this period.

Time is spent on Nichols’ daughter Dorothy, who contracts polio, bringing on a downturn from which the story never really recovers, despite her arduous rehabilitation and a big, bittersweet musical finish.

My mom enjoyed the music and Danny Kaye. As for myself, I didn’t find much value here except for the Armstrong performances, which are good but not spectacular.

Trump’s Royal Christmas Message

Also on Wednesday night, President Donald J. Trump requested network TV time and, as with every Charlie Brown kickoff, the networks fell for it yet again — but limited him to 20 minutes. No one knew what to expect. Was he going to declare war on Venezuela? Rename Christmas after himself? Rant about magnets?

As it turned out, he was getting the jump on the Royal Christmas message with a festive, all-around laundry list of self-praise. Packing 330 days of bullshit into a 20-minute bag meant he had to sprint through all of the overblown text Stephen Miller had stuffed into his teleprompter.

Standing in front of a White House fireplace bedecked with cedar garland and golden doodads, Old King Trump snarled and yelled his way through a furious torrent of lies and mathematical absurdities.

It’s chilling to hear the extent to which illness has warped his demented brain. This vulgarian’s fingers are controlling all the levers. He’s capriciously taxing Americans for imported goods. He’s sending people to be tortured in foreign countries and blowing up boats without any due process whatsoever. He’s eliminating healthcare for millions of Americans and reviving vanquished diseases. He’s enriching himself obscenely.

What can we do but collectively shudder — and then resume regular programming.

Brian’s Song (1971)

My mom is a huge fan of old movies but not particularly interested in football. So, on Saturday evening, ahead of the big Packers @ Bears game, I found Brian’s Song on The Roku Channel in hopes of meeting her halfway. She said she had never seen it.

The 1971 TV movie — starring James Caan as Brian Piccolo and Billy Dee Williams as Gale Sayers  — has not aged well. The lighting is TV-harsh, the script and acting are stilted, and the actual Wrigley Field in-game footage is not well cut into the California sidelines and seating. A now-forbidden racial epithet is joked about and repeated several times.

Still, the cancer story is sad, and Mom did wipe her eyes at one point.

Afterward, she told me that she now remembers seeing this movie before.

Chicago Bears beat Browns, then Packers

You have to be willing to waste some effort. If you want to see a great bullfight, you have to go to all the bullfights.

— Pablo Picasso, quoted in The Ultimate Seduction, by Charlotte Chandler

Early this season, I was drawing disdain at Kenosha’s harbor and rebuke in Racine’s new Woodman’s supermarket by wearing Amy‘s Chicago Bears T-shirt.

But I was born in Chicago and raised on Dick Butkus and Gayle Sayers. Four decades ago, I watched an injured Jim McMahon come off the bench to throw three touchdowns on a Thursday night and beat the Minnesota Vikings. I watched the snowflakes fall as Wilber Mashshall scooped up a fumble from Richard Dent‘s sack and loped into the end zone, sealing the NFC Championship victory. I watched Up With People sing Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” at halftime of the Bears’ 46-10 victory over the Patriots in Super Bowl XX.

After suffering through forty years in the wilderness — particularly the last two excruciating seasons — the Bears’ games this year under Ben Johnson have been deeply thrilling.

On Sunday at Soldier Field, with a temperature of 8°, the Bears dominated the Browns 31 to 3.

They followed this with Saturday night’s rematch against the Green Bay Packers — a game that was not going particularly well for the first 55 minutes. A field goal cut the Bears’ deficit to 7 with just one minute and 59 seconds remaining. Following the game, even former offensive lineman-turned-color commentator Tom Thayer admitted, “I was on the ledge.”

At home in Racine, I felt the queasiness too — but then a feeling came over me, reminding me that I was just a witness. No one knew what would happen, and I was just here to watch it unfold.

It suddenly began unfolding like a crazy fantasy: the Bears recovered an onside kick, and quarterback Caleb Williams drove his team 53 yards to tie the game with 24 seconds left. In overtime, the Packers fumbled, turning the ball over on downs, and Williams encored with a 46-yard touchdown pass to D.J. Moore.

Coach Johnson quoted Russell Crowe in Gladiator to ESPN Chicago immediately following the game: “Are you not entertained?”

It was as satisfying as those moments in 1985.