"Did you just pull a fake baby out of a piano?" | SNL on George Santos

George Santos was expelled from Congress on Friday. On Saturday, Saturday Night Live satirized it in its cold open. I just got around to watching it yesterday, and boy, is it funny.

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Also in George Santos news: over the weekend Santos started selling videos of himself via the Cameo platform giving customized pep talks. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) hired Santos to create one urging fellow Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) to "stay strong". Santos made the video without knowing who paid for it or who the "Bob from New Jersey" he was addressing was. Bob Menendez is, of course, a senator who is under multiple federal indictments and is being urged by many members of his own party to resign.

RIP, Norman Lear

Norman Lear, a famed writer, producer, and showrunner in both TV and film, died today. He was aged 101. Example news coverage: Variety article, 6 Dec 2023.

Lear was most famous for creating the TV show All in the Family, which ran for 9 seasons from 1971-1979 and spawned no fewer than 6 spin-offs, including The Jeffersons. It featured "lovable bigot" Archie Bunker, his wife Edith, their daughter Gloria, and Gloria's boyfriend, later husband, Michael "Meathead" (Archie's insulting nickname for him) Stivic. The show was groundbreaking for taking on issues of the day that had been considered too controversial for staid network television, such as racism (part of virtually every story line), women's liberation and equal rights, abortion, and homosexuality. The show spoke to all of these issues with a clear voice of the need for tolerance and acceptance, but did so in a gentle enough fashion that made it one of the most-watched shows on TV during its run. In seasons 2-6 it was actually #1. It's widely regarded as the best TV show ever made in the US.

Lear was no one-trick pony, though. In addition to All in the Family and some of its spinoffs he also created Sanford and Sons, One Day at a Time, and Diff'rent Strokes. These were all influential shows on network television back in the 1970s through mid 1980s.

Lear had writing credits on some popular films, too. I did not know until I read coverage of his death that he has writing credits for Stand By Me and The Princess Bride. I also did not know that he he wrote and directed Cold Turkey, a 1971 dark comedy about the tobacco industry.

RIP, Norman Lear. I wish Hollywood had a dozen more people like you.

The Bah, Humbug Brigade

Lately you might have noticed me posting with the tag Bah Humbug. It's a tag I've been using for many years on my posts about the Christmas season.

A quick bit of backstory: when I was in graduate school the preeminent technical conference in my field had its annual submissions deadline in early January. Late December was crunch time to finish up our research and writing. One year I was working on not one, nor two, but three papers for the conference. It was mega crunch time. I recall I went to the lab sometime around 1pm on December 24th, worked straight through the night, and left to go home at 7am. It was one of many all-nighters I pulled back then. (And not the only one with a memorable vignette to it. See also: my girlfriend sleeping on the floor of my office and smashing a window to get into my own apartment.) As I settled down to sleep at 8 on Christmas morning I chuckled, "I'm part of the Bah-Humbug Brigade!"

Of course, "Bah, humbug!" connotes more than just, "Oops, I skipped Christmas revelry that one time because I was in a deadline crunch trying to launch my career." As the memorable refrain of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol it conveys a certain disdain for such revelry. Am I disdainful of such revelry? Well, okay, yes... but not like Scrooge. 😅

Unlike Scrooge I get the idea of the holiday. It's one of the most important celebrations in Christianity, a religion practiced by an estimated 2.5 billion people around the world. If I were a boss I wouldn't begrudge my workers wanting to take the day off. Heck, take a few days off and spend them with family at this joyous time of year, I'd say. And BTW I'd pay those workers enough to afford a turkey dinner every week of the year, too; not just as some self-important act of largesse.