Seoul Music

 

 

Time recently named its annual (duh) Person of the Year, which happens to be President-elect Joe Biden. That's not much of a surprise. In the last 24 presidential elections, the winner was accorded the honor 12 times--that's half if I doing my math right--the year of the election. In the last 20 years alone--that's five election cycles--we've seen two George W. Bushes, two Barack Obamas, one Donald Trump (thank God only one) and now Biden. So it it isn't really something that piqued my interest. However, Time has other "of the year" categories, including Entertainer of the Year, the 2020 recipient of which is South Korean pop band BTS, and that surprised me. I've heard of the band, and I think their hit single "Dynamite" may have drifted into the vicinity of my ear drums at one time or other, but I had no idea they were the dominant form of entertainment of the past 12 months. This is my fault, and not theirs. Unlike others my age, or, really, anybody over, say, 40, I don't pretend that pop music has declined in quality simply because I don't keep up with current trends as much as I used to. As one gets older, staying attuned to tunes has to compete with such things as earning a living, trying to figure out where it all went wrong, and taking daily doses of prescribed medications that either make you dizzy, have to go to the bathroom, or both. With all that going on, who's got time to check out the cover of Rolling Stone, much less Time? Do they even publish Rolling Stone anymore? (I looked; they still do but it's now a monthly.) Moreover, who's even had time for entertainment with a pandemic going on?...Um, actually, with all the school closings, layoffs, and 10:PM curfews, most people now have the time, as long as the entertainment is emanating from an electrical device in your home. And that kind of works in BTS's favor. You can find them on the radio, on television, and on the dominant entertainment venue of our era, the Internet. Speaking of the Internet, you can find them here: 

Watching that video, I can't help but get the sense of a torch being passed. Androgynous young men singing (or rapping) a song packed with pop culture references that celebrates youthful rebellion. Sure, that kind of thing's been done before, but usually by artists operating inside the United States-United Kingdom pop music dominium. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Asians are beating us at our own game. But I'm not complaining. If freedom is to survive at all in our sorry world in the near term, it will have less to do with shameless politicians goose-stepping to the beat of the most incontinent campaign donor, and more to do with bands like BTS reminding us that freedom can be a viable option in the first place, as pop music acts have demonstrated since Elvis (or Louis Armstrong.) And it's not just a youthful rebellion without a cause, either. At the height of this year's race riots, the band sent a one million dollar check to Black Lives Matter, and challenged their fans, via social media, to match that number, and they did, in a single day (See? People without MAGA hats are allowed to use Facebook and Twitter, too.) And they've spoken out in favor of LGBTQ rights, otherwise a taboo topic in South Korea.

All well and good, but old fogey that I am, my mind can't help but turn to another musical video set in Korea. OK, it's actually a Hollywood set pretending to be Korea, and the performers aren't Korean themselves, but in its own way it's about that most basic of freedoms, the freedom to express oneself: 

You may want to come up with your own lyrics in case martial law is declared between now and January 20.

 

 

In Memoriam: David Ogden Stiers 1942-2018

One of the blogs I read regularly is written by Ken Levine, not the video game designer but a highly successful TV writer, among whose credits includes the long-running Korean War sitcom (or, if you will, comedy-drama) MASH. A couple of years ago, he was asked in his comment section what did he think the characters on that show would be doing today were they real people rather than fictional (in which case they ceased to exist after the series finale.) Levine replied that given that the Korean War ended more than 60 years ago, they would probably all be dead. Of course, the TV version of that war ended more recently, in 1983, some 35 years ago. Still, it's long enough of a time frame to take its toll on a several of that series actors. McLean Stevenson (Henry Blake), Larry Linville (Frank Burns), Harry Morgan (Colonel Potter), Wayne Rogers (Trapper John), and William Christopher (Father Mulcahy) have all left us. And as I'm sure you figured out the moment you clicked this on this post, David Ogden Stiers, who played the pompous, upper-crust surgeon Charles Winchester III, is gone now, too. Back in 1977, Stiers had a tough pair of army boots to fill as he had to take over for the talented Linville, whose Burns character was one of the funniest TV assholes of all time. However, Stiers was no slouch in the talent department himself. Winchester, particularly in the earlier episodes, could be every bit an asshole as Burns, but was also capable of something the latter character lacked (and was a major reason Linville chose to leave the series): depth. In addition to acting foolish, Charles occasionally acted noble (such as when he offered hope to a concert pianist whose right hand was damaged in the fighting), could come across as sympathetic (such as when he tried to romance a Korean goodtime girl who just wants him for his hamburgers), and, while often the butt of Hawkeye and BJ's jokes, had his own ways of humbling the two of them right back (such as when he produced a photo of himself and Audrey Hepburn). And unlike Frank Burns, Charles was a highly gifted surgeon, even if it did take a bit long for him to wash his hands.

A Charles Winchester III sampling:

What's that one one guy doing in Korea? He'd be better off at a sports bar in Boston.

Charles love of classical music set him apart from the motley 4077th crew.

Not that he could play it all that well himself.

Charles noble side.

 Remember those North Korean prisoners playing classical music at the end of that second clip? I'm afraid they never got to make an encore:

 Heavy scene. Much of the time, though, MASH was a comedy...

 ...not that all the yuks made things any easier for Charles.

Goodbye, farewell, and amen, David Ogden Stiers.

Under the Radar: Allan Arbus

The actor Allan Arbus died a few days ago at the age of 95. He didn't start out as an actor, but instead was a commercial photographer from the end of World War II until about 1970. Now, if  "Arbus" and "photography" sound like they should go together, it's because he was married to Diane Arbus, famed for her black-and-white pictures of, as the Library of Congress puts it, "deviant and marginal people (dwarfs, giants, transgender people, nudists, circus performers) or of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal." But she didn't do any of that until she separated from her husband in 1959.  Until then she was a commercial photographer, too, one who found that profession, and possibly her life in general, rather unfullfilling. I just found out a few minutes ago about a 2006 film called Fur, based on Diane's life in the 1950s. Nicole Kidman played her, and Allan was portrayed by Ty Burell. I haven't seen this film (kinda hard to do in a few minutes time), but I gather from some of the IMDb "User Reviews", Allan is shown as being rather conventional, stable, mild-mannered, whereas Diane apparently was not (just peruse the  disturbing imagery found in some of  her photographs.) The couple finally divorced in 1969, and Diane committed suicide two years later.

 

I don't know what effect the dissolution of his marriage and his ex-wife's subsequent death had on him, but conventional, stable, mild-mannered Allan Arbus decided around this time to enter that most unconventional, most unstable, most unmannered of professions: acting. While Arbus never became a star, he seems to have worked steadily enough. He first had small parts in such 1970s films as Greaser's Palace and Cinderella Liberty, played director Gregory La Cava in W.C. Fields and Me, but was best known as psychiatrist Dr. Sidney Freeman on the TV show MASH.

MASH, based on an earlier hit movie and comic novel, concerned a U.S. Army hospital unit during the Korean War. The doctors and nurses working in such a place in real life would have witnessed more disturbing imagery in ten minutes in OR than could be found in 50 rolls of Diane Arbus film, something that could only be hinted at in a 1970s sitcom. More broadly revealed, however, was the way these health professionals dealt with the stress of that situation, with wisecracks, practical jokes, and hard partying. As only an occasional visitor to the 4077th (12 appearances in 11 seasons), Sidney Freeman marveled at the way the more permanent residents (until their hitches were up) could hold fast to their humanity with good humor in such a hellish environment. But he also realized that while humor may be the best medicine, it can run out, and that's where he came in. The mild-mannered qualities that, if the IMDb User Reviews are to be believed, failed Allen in his marriage, were just right for Dr. Sidney when healing doctors and patients alike once the laughs died down:

!!!WARNING!!! You may find the imagery in the below clip very disturbing:

 

If it makes you feel any better, I think they got that baby from the props department. At least, I hope they got it from the props department.

 

 

A note on the title of this post. Even though there's a character named Radar on MASH, it's not meant as a pun. For a while now I've considered doing a regular feature called "Under the Radar" about talented people in the arts whom, for whatever reason, never achieved fame. While Allan Arbus was no deviant, he was mostly a marginal figure in the pop culture landscape. Some of you might argue that's only fitting. Arbus never had that "star" quality.

He just did quality work.

You can read more about Allan Arbus here.

In Memoriam: Harry (Henry) Morgan 1915-2011

Actor. The Ox-Bow Incident (watch how the focus is on Morgan during Henry Fonda's monologue). Dragonwyke. All My Sons. The Big Clock. Race Street. Scandal Sheet. High Noon. The Glen Miller Story. Inherit the Wind. What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? Dragnet (1967-1970 TV series). Support Your Local Sheriff. Support Your Local Gunfighter. Viva Max. The Apple Dumpling Gang (believe it or not, it was a box office hit, so I felt I had to include it.) MASH (TV series). Dragnet (1987 movie).

"He [Colonel Potter on MASH] was firm. He was a good officer and he had a good sense of humor. I think it's the best part I ever had."

(That may have been the best part Morgan ever had, but it wasn't the funniest character he ever played on MASH. A year before he became a regular member of the cast, when the man he eventually replaced, McLean Stevenson, was still on the show, Morgan played Major General Bartford Hamilton Steele. But first, a number --KJ)

Corrections and Retractions

In every article I've read about Larry Gelbart since I first became aware of his name as a teenager, it always said he wrote for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows. In every TV interview I've seen with Larry Gelbert (excepting brief clips) he talked about writing for Your Show of Shows. Furthermore, I've seen TV interviews with people like Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, who remember Larry Gelbart writing for Your Show of Shows. So it was with complete confidence that when I posted "In Memoriam: Larry Gelbart 1928-2009" a couple of days ago, I included Your Show of Shows among his many credits.

Since Gelbart's passing, however, most of the obituaries listed Sid Caesar's successor show Caesar's Hour, not Your Show of Shows, as the program for which he actually wrote. Unsure myself, I listed both. Then yesterday, while skimming through The Huffington Post, I noticed a link to Larry Gelbart's final interview, for Vanity Fair, in which he states, unequivocally, that he never wrote for Your Show of Shows.

So that's my correction. Larry Gelbart wrote for Caesar's Hour, not Your Shows of Shows. As both shows aired before I was born, they're not even the reason I felt the need to honor him in the first place. I honor him for the first four seasons of MASH, and the screenplays for Oh, God!, Tootsie , and a few other things. I'd also like to honor him for the book to the stage musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, but I only know it as a movie. According to IMDb, it was written by someone else, although I have a difficult time believing that that someone else didn't use Gelbart's lines!

Next thing you know, someone will try and tell me Woody Allen didn't write for Your Show of Shows either.