Good morning, Stroock's Books professionals.
We are sore, tired and grumpy after back-to-back days at the gym. We should probably be taking days off before workouts now, no? We are 53 after all.
We were not mentally, emotionally, or spiritually prepared for the NFL last night. Nevertheless we watched some of the Seahawks/Patriots game. Who won?
Political note, national: We caught a good chunk of the GOP midterm convention. Trump does ramble, doesn't he? After more than a decade since he rode the golden escalator, there's no getting the man to focus on the speech and the message. We were waiting for Hannity's interview with JD Vance, but Trump just wouldn't wrap things up. Trump did look tanned, rested and ready, though. We also enjoyed Scott Bessent's speech. We'll see if Trump can drag the GOP over the finish line one last time.
What Will's Watching: We started The Daily Wire's Pendragon Cycle yesterday. Here's director Jeremy Boreing's pitch. We're halfway through episode-1. It's a bit all over the place, but so far, so good. We are entertained. We'll say more tomorrow.
Watching the 80s....ah 80s television. We miss it. Rather, we miss the feeling that there was something important airing at prime time and we'd enjoy it. In the New York metro area, viewers could choose from the three networks plus three local stations and PBS, which didn't really count.
We'd watch Bugs Bunny after school, GI Joe, Transformers, Heathcliff (it was on) and Voltron - Lion Force. Later inte in the afternoon, the locals reran 70s era dramas like Little House and SWAT.
Our father being an NBC News man, we were an NBC family. By the mid-80s, NBC positively dominated prime time TV. The Cosby Show was number-1. Mr. Cosby (as the cast called him in interviews) was his own cultural force. Mr. Cosby was America's dad. There followed Family Ties, billed as a show about 60s parents with 80s kids. These were still very much nuclear families, but in both shows mom had a white collar career. Cheers came on at 9. It was just a rejiggering of 70s stalwart Taxi, except at a bar. And at 9:30 came the zany and whacky Night Court. Night Court showed us post-70s New York. The city had already bottomed out in 1976 and remained there. This was a world of petty crime, public nuisances, prostitutes and transexuals. There was a lot of 80s angst in Night Court. This being the 80s, Night Court usually turned serious and ended with a moral to the story.
NBC aired the gritty crime drama, Hill Street Blues from 1981 through 1987. Most other police dramas were about car chases and shoot-em ups. The procedural and moralistic Law and Order was a major break-through when it began in 1990, and a revelation. In 1987 NBC replaced Hill Street with the glitzy Los Angeles legal drama, LA Law.
Other networks aired nighttime soap operas at 10 PM. Their actresses were sex symbols and fashion plates. Today no one under 40 knows who they are. Younger reader(s) have probably heard of Dallas. But Falcon Crest? Knots Landing? We don't think so.
Back then cable meant HBO, Cinemax and the Movie Channel, ESPN, CNN - WGN Chicago and TBS Atlanta - for some reason. In the 80s we watched a lot of Cubs and Braves games. Our house got cable in 1982 and the first thing we watched was...MTV.
We vividly remember the first videos we saw; Stray Cats, Spandau Ballet...For several years MTV was downright bad. It was like a radio show being simulcast, a VJs talking about and presenting videos. Eventually the record companies figured out music videos were a 4 minute advertisement for the album and spent money accordingly. Eventually MTV started the Top-20 Video Countdown and then 1800-Dial MTV. Wikipedia tells us that and we vividly recall Motley Crue's Home Sweet Home, and Def Leppard's Poor Some Sugar on Me, each held the top slot for months.
These were far more important to us than whatever was on the radio. Later MTV began Remote Control (do click over), an irreverent game show about....television. Stand up comedy was huge in the 80s (a golden age) so MTV launched The MTV Half Hour Comedy Hour.
The dramas were melodramatic. The comedies were at once light-hearted and serious. Women had big hair. Men had mustaches. Father had many mishaps. Mother ran the house. After two hours of sitcoms, dramas ran at 10.
DOGE report.
We began the Heath House operation (needs a code name).
We also worked on the Soviet sub story.
