Tom Watson

Coast Guard Beach

Coast Guard Beach, originally uploaded by Tom Watson.

What a day on the Cape - ocean by day, Provincetown by night.

The End of Summer

We did the Revolution in reverse this summer - the first trip took us to Yorktown in southeastern Virginia, and our last foray brought us through Lexington and Concord. It was a driving summer, hundreds and hundreds of miles and dozens of hours spent on Interstate-95 and its tributaries up and down the east coast. Those memories are a wicked blur: big box stores, rest-stops, exit signs, tunnel entrances and bridge abutments. From south of Richmond to north of Boston, the Eisenhower Highways were thick with semi-trucks, road debris, and buses. A nasty business that gets the job done. But a thin memory.

The names were better.

All were either Indian or Anglo, English or Native American. Towns and places named for royalty or titled Englishmen: Yorktown, Mount Vernon, Jamestown, Georgetown, Lake George, Gloucester, Cape Ann, Essex, Williamsburg. The simple English-language place names: Brant Lake, Eastham, Provincetown, Beach Haven, Rockport, Cape Cod. And the indigenous names: Annisquam, Saratoga, Mashpee, Barnegat, Sacandaga, Adirondack, Nauset.

This is old country and we rambled about in history. This last jaunt (a free-loader's delight) was a contrast - only five days and more than 600 miles of driving cobbled to gorgeous shorter days in the deeper color contrast of late summer. The first two in a favorite spot on the Annisquam River, in an old fishing cottage on the water. Watching the tidal changes and the nautical traffic was better than anything on cable this summer - constantly changing, filled with personality. We took the boat over to the beach, hit the flea market, ate several pounds of lobster each, and worked it off in the kayaks. Cape Ann is an oft-overlooked summer destination, north of Boston and packed with history and this was our third visit with our good friends Doug and Suzanne and their kids.

Then a run down the coast, around Boston to the bigger Cape. First though, an hour's side trip to Concord and a brief stop at Minute Man National Historic Park, part of our history theme this summer. We raced through Concord - there goes Emerson's house, hey was that Hawthorne's place - got a few pictures by the Minute Man statue and merged back onto I-95.

It's a long way out on the Cape to Eastham, where we spent two great days with Steve and Carla. More lobster and two beaches - Coast Guard Beach (part of the Nauset Beach section of the incredible Cape Cod National Seashore) and First Encounter Beach on the bayside, where the native Indians first encountered the pilgrims in 1620 - followed by a long shopping stroll through Provincetown. We didn't hit every gallery, but we came close.

A huge moon near full lit the way back along the giant dunes, and the next morning we drove the great, winding arc from out on the Cape, around Block Island Sound, around Long Island Sound, and down into New York - and the end of summer.

Cape Ann Sunset

Cape Ann Sunset, originally uploaded by Tom Watson.

We washed our lobster rolls down with this sunset.

Live-Blogging Nixon (And Other Cultural Icons)

Live-blogging of AMC's stylish but empty Mad Men returns to newcritics.com tonight, with yours truly as the host. Previews show two central topics: sex and Richard Milhous Nixon. There's a perversity about the show that's appealing, but I'm afraid cultural accuracy isn't really its strong suit. It's very 2007, very semi-dark, very Weimer under Eisenhowerish - pure fantasy, and nothing like 1960 at all. Still, good crowd around the virtual punchbowl every Thursday. Better dialogue there. Tune in at 10, EDT at newcritics.

The GOP's Wide Stance

Larry Craig's not much of a criminal, but he makes one hell of a hypocrite. The twisted gay-phobia that drives much of the modern Republican Party's so-called "social" agenda has been (once again) unmasked in the right-wing Senator's public bathroom hijinks as just a lever to power, the turning of America's strange relationship with sexual matters to electoral advantage.

A gay Republican Senator from conservative Idaho doesn't fit the formula, so Craig did all the right things. He voted for the Defense of Marriage Act , voted to cut off debate on the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and voted against a bill prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, which failed by one vote in the Senate. He's got the typically perfect anti-gay record of mainstream Republicans everywhere.

That some of those Republicans actually are gay should surprise no one. Principle means nothing to this bunch. It's all about power. And being gay doesn't bring in votes from the faithful. Nor does it engender much loyalty in political friendships. John McCain called for Craig's resignation from the Senate and Mitt Romney ran as fast as he could from Senator Craig, who chaired his campaign in Idaho.

But I find the poses of tolerance most hypocritical - especially from self-described enlightened conservative commentators who occasionally decry the hardest-core views of their right-wing audiences as extreme, even while knowing those same beliefs are at the very core of social conservatism. Such a hypocrite is the popular Hugh Hewitt, who presents the "I have lived among them"  underpinning of his attacks on Senator Craig's behavior. Hold the Purell bottle in ready position and read on:

I spent several years living in working in Boston’s Back Bay and South End neighborhoods.  Both had large gay populations.  I won’t resort to the old clich that many of my best friends are gay, because they’re not (although I do have questions about a few of them – you know who you are).  But spending a lot of time around gays in my neighborhood, at the gym and at work, I got to know the community. Good people.  I think these experiences are partly to credit for why I’m more favorably inclined to the gay agenda than most arch-conservatives.

Behavior like Craig’s confirms the worst and darkest prejudices of people who fear and/or loathe the gay community. Larry Craig is an outlier, and his behavior a disgrace to everyone who has associated or is now associated with him – the Republican Party, conservatives, Mitt Romney, and gay America.  People who care about the gay community should be rushing to condemn Larry Craig and distance themselves from him.  And yet they’d rather score cheap political points.

Yes, "good people." All those queer folk in Boston are. It's well known. Not like those bastards in South Beach or San Francisco or P-town, I can tell ya. How cloying and self-serving and condescending, as if being a straight, white arch-conservative is anything worth bragging about. Thank God, the gays in Boston were kind to Old Man Hewitt, or he might not be so "favorably inclined."

And liberals and libertarians, yes, they're the ones scoring cheap political points by offering lukewarm defenses of Craig's cruising offense. Not the Republicans fleeing from their fellow social conservative, playing up the sexual hatred in this country for votes, whoring themselves for power - and taking a very wide stance indeed on what passes for principle in today's GOP.

UPDATE: I think Glenn Greenwald puts it quite well indeed:

The issue is not that these Traditional Marriage proponents sometimes stray from their own standards. People are imperfect and will inevitably do so. The point is that they apply these supposed "principles" only when it is expedient to do so, only in ways that are politically comfortable, thus revealing the complete inauthenticity of their alleged convictions.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

Light verbiage in these parts till next week. We're on the final turn of a summer that has put me behind the wheel for a good thousand miles at least. Lots of rest stops, from the Tidewater region of Virginia to the Northway and the MassPike. Too many trucks. But tonight we're in Gloucester on Cape Ann, overlooking the Annisquam River - a fine harbor, many boats under sail and power, and an old house full of friends and children. Lobster rolls and a sunset. Heading to the Cape on Sunday for more of the same, visiting and such (don't you dare call it freeloading, pallie). The final long weekend of a strange summer. Then it's on the road...again.

The Case for Old Comments

Fred Wilson is  thinking about closing off his older comment streams to help adapt to a new technology that will make his well-traversed blog's comments a bigger part of the clickstream. I understand the rationale - comments have been buried in blog architecture for too long - but I think it's a mistake.

I love getting comments on old posts, and I get them all the time. My Guitars R Us post from way back in 2004 is great case in point. It's become the de facto public commons for Guitar Center employees (current and former) to dissect the company's management practices, compensation structure, and business plan. My original thoughts have been long since cashiered to mere background status; the commenters have been going at it for years. The most recent post there is from August 19th - indeed, that single post has almost reached full-blown blog status on its own.

There are others. I got a comment from a friend of Marina Lakhman just the other day. In the spring 02 2004, I wrote about Marina, a terrific young woman who died tragically young. It was a short remembrance of a colleague and a friend who didn't live to see Web 2.0, but would have embraced its social aspects in all fullness. I get comment on that post a couple of times a year. Last week, I got this from Manny:

I agree with the poster who said she is one of those people that when you hear they're dead, you go "what the..." One of the saddest days of my ife is when I found out she died.

And, of course, it brought Marina to my mind. That's a good thing. I still get comments on some of my Mukhtaran Bibi posts from awhile back. And punk rock fans of a certain vintage are always liable to drop in and defend Johnny Ramone's politics or mourn untimely demise of Johnny Thunders. That's great. Over on Fred's blog, commenter Shannon Clark nails it, I think:

There is indeed value to the comments in certain old posts - I know of many bloggers whose old posts on a given topic have sparked a small community in the comment threads for a given post (usually on topics hard to find elsewhere online).

Exactly.

We need to open comments to the distributed media model; our posts go everywhere, but comments stay home. And comment spam is an incredible annoyance. But I'd hate to see Fred close off comments to older posts - his is an influential blog and it may lead others to take the same step. and I think he'll miss the little late-arriving gems that can really pick up an old post.

If It's Thursday...

...it's Mad Men night over at newcritics. The fabulous MA Peel takes the reins tonight as we live-blog AMC's period piece and explore the 1960 world of Sterling Cooper advertising. So head on over at 10 PM EDT and join the fun, kids.

A Cold Night at Shea

Carlos Beltran is like a living Stratomatic card - filled with possibilities but bland and devoid of emotion. He either hits or he doesn't, and it doesn't seem to matter. Lately, he's been rolling on the hitter's card and right into the power alley. Last night, my daughter and I say in what can only be called a driving mist and watched Beltran drive in five runs, and the Mets give up two leads, en route to a sloppy but satisfying win that left the team with the best record in the National League. The Mets are on the move, finally, after a dissipated mid-season of inuries and men left on base. They're up five on the Phils, six on the Braves and they're driving in runs again. Last night, my breath froze in the air and it was so foggy that nary a plane buzzed Shea on the way to LaGuardia. But we had great seats behind the plate, where we could feel the snap of the catcher's mitt and the good wood crack when Beltran blasted one into the bleachers. Felt like October - late October. Let's hope.

Been There, Done That?

I'll admit it: the new Silicon Alley Insider slipped beneath my vacationing, blogging, media-obsessed radar since its beta launch a month ago. And I have to be honest. I don't think in terms of "Silicon Alley" any more, and don't know too many people who do. There's an archaic, historic quality to the term and it goes nicely mixed with two full jiggers of "back in the day" around the better media watering holes.

Silicon Alley Insider. That was me about a decade ago. I was described as exactly that many a time, and I remember it all moderately well.

Feverishly tracking mezzanine rounds while swilling free booze and picking at  massive sushi boat centerpieces while girls danced in cages to the sounds of third-rate Moby knock-offs and hungry headhunters, pr guys, and investment bankers circled the silicon slam dance just waiting for the moment when a bunch of money-sucking startups led by guys who kept their dogs in the office started to throw off cash.

In other words, that was then. That ain't now. Web 2.0 and the ever-churning media circus of New York does nothing to capture that scene, which was powered by art as much as money, by driven  free-wheeling invention and the knowing waste of overcapitalization by leering, good-time trust-funders and hungry bridge and tunnel kids.

Still, Kevin Ryan's new venture proceeds from a feeling that New York's wired and entrepreneurial community is under-represented in a world that makes Michael Arrington relevant. He may be right. And he's got some interesting partners: investor Dwight Merriman,and  former Forbes scribes Dan Frommer and  Peter Kafka. And who better to report on the post-Henry Blodget era in technology than Henry Blodget himself - he of former cheerleading Prudential analyst days, more lately a quieter, more thoughtful analyst.

I have some advice, fellas - having co-created the original Silicon Alley insider with Jason Chervokas in 1995. A wire service of deals and hirings involving New York new media companies large and small won't cut it. Nobody needs TechCrunch East. We don't have the deal-flow, to be honest about it. But we do have the brains, and we do have the advertising. Go for personality, go for analysis, go for the jugular. Or people won't care.

Poke a few holes in business plans. Question a few financings. Rattle some cages in midtown and find some under-capitalized talent out in Brooklyn or the South Bronx or Hoboken. Tell me what the kids are doing, what the artists think. Tell me something new. I want a reason to get exited about new media in this town. Give it me, and I'll keep you guys around the feed reader forever.

The Religion Called America

There was a line in Lance Mannion's masterly take-down of Time's Michael Duffy last week that I've been turning over in my mind. "In the journalism of the Beltway Insiders," wrote Lance, "the only real Americans are white, rural, Southern and Midwestern, salt of the earth types."

It's the persistent myth of the American heartland, the one Republicans conjure all misty-eyed when they talk about the "homeland" of the "American people." Close your eyes and you see, basically, a Chevy ad; the iconic images of single-family houses with picket fences, Main Street parades, farms and pick-up trucks flickering over the bed of a Mellencamp song. Or maybe some Willie Nelson.

The Beltway media types all see this as a vast "real America," right out of the guide books. These media mavens go out of their way to disparage their own urban, jet-setting, totally-wired existence and look with gullible admiration on the lives they don't lead, some kind of pastoral ideal that no longer exists - if it every did. "The real people." You hear versions of that phrase all the time on Matthews and Russert, and it's born of a certain arrogant line of thinking that runs like this - "most people don't lead lives like mine, hob-nobbing in Georgetown salons and catching the shuttle to New York for meetings with my agent. Regular people don't have what I have, of course, but damn, they're noble." Like Digby said in responding to Mannion:

... the real problem is that the press dishonestly uses this nonsense to pretend to the public that they aren't the very elites they are slamming. There are indeed some average secular people who do not mingle with or understand the concerns of average religious people --- and among them are these two lazy insiders who are clearly so far removed from the salt of the earth, regular Joes they deign to speak for that they might as well be Barry Diller and Diane Von Furstenberg.

It's like they believe in a Religion Called America - not a true faith, of course. But a faith of  image and cultural reality. A Rovian faith of electoral politics - the careful parsing of winner-take-all electoral votes and state lines. As Lance argues:

The Beltway Insiders are privileging a "religion" they themselves despise and arguing for a definition of American that not only excludes the Insiders themselves but everybody who lives on either coast or in a city and who has an office job and a college education and/or a union card and isn't white - in short, the majority of Americans aren't American.

Lost in the Religion of America of Michael Duffy and the sanctimonious Jon Meacham over at Newsweek - and the head-nodding elitists who know they're not from the "real America" of churches - is religion itself. In Presidential terms, it's either cartoonish (think George Bush donning his Christian suit) or relentlessly negative: Kerry's Catholicism in '04, Giuliani's Catholicism this time around, Romney's Mormon background. The "exotic" religions get the microscope; the Protestants get a pass (though there was that little stir when Hillary Clinton's long-worn cross pendant came under scrutiny). As Digby commenter ESaund says:

I'm sick of the right wing's bigotry. I'm doubly sick of the media who give religious charlatans a respectable seat at the table. And I've really had it with the phony Christian they elect like Reagan or Bush. Neither man attended church and both had lots of personal moral failings, but somehow they become Christian icons to a bunch of yahoos.

And most of all I am sick of hearing how liberals don't get religion. I would love to shove a copy of the sermon on the mount into the face of anyone sho says this, like Matthews and his sidekick. The basis of liberalism is a respect of all people and a sense that people who fall on hard times need our help. This is what Jesus' whole life was about.

Not so, says the right - which only equates liberalism with anti-religion Stalinist types.counter culture. Jesus's life was somehow about strict contructionism, which in the conservative twist means that there is evil on the march, and authority is needed. That's simplistic perhaps, but it's true. In a post entitled "Christian Liberal" -- Oxymoron? blogger Les Brown boils down the conservative Christian attitude toward liberal Americans:

Liberal “ism” asserts that human nature is basically good.  If this innate goodness can be extracted through social engineering and judicial manipulation, we have a shot at the elusive “utopia” science fiction writers have always dreamed about.  Human beings are on an evolutionary “upward” trend.  All that is necessary is to weed out the detractors (i.e. Conservatives) either by isolation or elimination, and mankind will be “set free” to realize his own inner godhood and develop naturally toward “universal enlightenment.”  When Hillary Clinton talks about “thinking collectively” she’s not talking about coming together and working things out through compromise.  She’s talking about a lock-step, elitist, I-know-what’s-best-so-do-as-I-say, mentality.  “If you give us absolute power, we will take care of you.”  It’s an Orwellian “groupthink” concept that persists on the Left in spite of failure after failure in social policy-making.  Liberals believe that “evil” doesn’t exist.  It’s simply an “alternate perspective.”  People can be “educated” out of it.  (If this is sounding strangely Stalinistic, ...well, yeah).

Conservatism, however, is realistic and pretty much endorsed by God, it seems. Yet this view of legitimate authority contrasts sharply with the self-determination of politicians of all stripes - just as a "personal" religion goes against, say, traditional Catholicism. This is a problem Kerry faced last time, and Giuliani faces this time. The constant nagging about his religion has worn on Giuliani, as he campaigns for the nod of the Christian party. Here's what he said in Iowa last week:

"That's a personal discussion, and (the clergy) have a much better sense of how good a Catholic I am or how bad a Catholic I am, and that's a matter of individual conscience. And I don't think there should be a religious test for public office."

Neither do I, in any form. But it's going to be tough to win a modern Republican nomination without passing the test - you know, the one Reagan agreed so enthusiastically to take under Lee Atwater's guidance, and the one that caused the second Bush to cite Jesus Christ as his favorite philosopher, completing his own pas de deux with Karl Rove. Forget for a moment that the basis of Christianity is a brilliant philosophy - so simple, if you read it. We all know what Dubya was doing - he didn't cite the Gospel writers after all - and it was a lot less authentic than Hillary's "I ain't no ways tired" spiel.

Besides, the hold of one strain of religion on American power is a myth, a thin veneer created by the direct marketing crowd. Christopher Hitchens, who in famously opining that women aren't funny displayed only a shocking lack of experience for someone of his age, is apparently surprised at the hit status of his atheistic tome, God Is Not Great. In this month's Vanity Fair, Hitchens wrote about his book tour (now there's a self-referential undertaking!) and reports that based on the crowds he attracted, the theistic heartland is largely mythical, but not entirely. My fave diary entry was this one:

May 15, Raleigh, North Carolina: At the airport, strangers approach to say, "Thanks for coming to take on the theocrats." Apparently the good folks at WPTF announced after my appearance on their show yesterday that I was going to hell. This doesn't prevent a huge crowd from showing up, which in turn means that Quail Ridge Books has to move the event into a neighboring Unitarian church. (The rector whispers to me, "I ought not to say this, but the church has never been this full before.") My opponent tonight is the very courteous Dr. Adam English, from the religion department at Campbell University. He's another Baptist, but when I ask if he believes Calvin's teaching about hell and pre-destination, he doesn't love the question. Southern hospitality is rightly famous, and he may think it would be rude to condemn a visitor to hellfire. Then again, he can easily tell that the audience is not with him. Many southerners are annoyed by the presumption that they are all snake handlers and shout-and-holler artists, and the most critical questions all go to Dr. English, who has unwisely told the local paper that he'll win the argument because god is on his team. Again I notice two things: the religious types are unused to debate and are surprised at how many people are impatient with them, or even scornful.

Jerry Falwell—another man who managed to get away with murder by getting himself called "Reverend"—dies without being bodily "raptured" into the heavens. Indeed, his heavy carcass is found on the floor of his Virginia office. The cable shows start to call and I have a book to sell: maybe someone up there does love me after all.

The burden of religion falls on the GOP this time around, and you can see it in action around the two leading Republican candidates, who happen not to be evangelical Christians. From the point of view of modern Republican politics, they're a mess. Romney will have to defend his Mormon faith. And Giuliani will have to find a better Catholic story, I believe.

The Founding Fathers would understand. Washington was a Free Mason deist who flirted with Catholicism, and the crusty old Yankee  John Adams once wondered aloud to Thomas Jefferson in their legendary correspondence: "Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?"

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning, praise the dawning
Its just a restless feeling by my side
Early dawning, sunday morning
Its just the wasted years so close behind

Watch out, the worlds behind you
Theres always someone around you who will call
Its nothing at all

Sunday morning and Im falling
Ive got a feeling I dont want to know
Early dawning, sunday morning
Its all the streets you crossed, not so long ago

Watch out, the worlds behind you
Theres always someone around you who will call
Its nothing at all

Watch out, the worlds behind you
Theres always someone around you who will call
Its nothing at all

Sunday morning
Sunday morning
Sunday morning

- Lou Reed & John Cale

Shore Leave

I'm an indifferent vacation blogger. Sometimes, the change in setting inspires me and I hunt up some bandwidth and post, but other times, I leave the laptop in the bag. I'm not a post-everything guy anyway; my Twitter stream runs dry all the time.

Lance Mannion is a great vacation blogger. In the years we've known each other, I've come to look forward to his annual Cape Cod sojourn. Somehow, Lance always manages to overhear an interesting discussion down at the coffee shop, or find a decrepit fishing boat to write about.

Blue Girl's also a vacation blogger, but not so much a completist (more like me, actually). Her posts have an enthusiasm about actually being off - from work that is. Bet she's always organizing hikes, and outings, and visits to interesting new restaurants. And when she hits the long, long road from the upper midwest to the beach - she brings the blogging equipment:

I'm taking my laptop so I can remain connected to the world.  Because if I didn't, I would get anxious and worried.  And Stressed.  Out.  I'd feel lost and out of the loop.  And I would hate that.

Jennifer at Saying Yes turns off the blog - but seems to be up for sneaking back from time to time. James Wolcott leaves the laptop and picks up the binoculars on his September journeys to Cape May.

Well, I'm at the shore myself, a few exits up the Garden State from Cape May, in Beach Haven, where a few old Victorians compete for air and light among the late building boom. Longish weekend, just a quick getaway really - to the place I've been visiting for nearly four decades now. Drove down late Friday night (after battling a ghoulish 24-hour virus) and we'll head back on Monday.

Truth is, I like it here better in September in October - or even in February, when it's silent, except for the wind and all the traffic lights are set to blink. Late August creates a jam of people and vehicles. Put down a blanket and open a chair, and somebody puts one so close to you, you may as well be fighting for a seat on the four train.

More for-sale signs on the pebble lawns, too - and I suspect many, many more to come as the sub-prime exotic mortgage market falls into the ocean and takes this real estate bubble with it. Foreclosures on second homes are likely, the local papers say. Some of the pols here worry aloud about the tax base. That may be an extreme scenario, but I do think the over-valued tar paper and two-by-four sand palaces may take a value beating for a while.

There's another factor that may lower property values here - less property. The beach isn't as wide as it used to be, despite many millions in Corps of Engineer replenishment projects. Back in 1990, James Titus of the Environmental Protection Agency (under Dubya's Daddy, please note) worried about the gradual rise in sea level stemming from greenhouse emissions and he focused in on this narrow barrier island in New Jersey - the very spit of land I'm sitting on now.

His report makes fascinating reading and his conclusions aren't pretty: either allow erosion as the ocean rises and "migrate" the island across the bay toward the mainland (thereby costing ocean-front taxpayer their multi-million dollar investments) or raise the island in place, with sand and pilings, and perhaps a series of dikes. His view was that narrow beaches would eventually slow down development anyway, as recreational opportunities would be curtailed. Of course, in the 17 years since his report was released, Long Beach Island has been in non-stop development mode - tear-downs and build-ups, and all the vacant lots I played in as a kid covered up with shingles and hideous pastel paint.

The beach was narrow today, as I popped Quadrophenia (what else?) on the iPod and hoofed it between jetties. On some stretches, the breakers rolled into edges of the dunes. What's next - foamy seawater washing under beachfront homes like in Westhampton? I'm not sure, don't know how long it will take. But the big, wide beach here of my younger days has disappeared. Doesn't make for the brightest vacation blogging.

Mad Men Live! Tonight at Newcritics

Yes, we're stacking up those Bob Newhart LPs and smacking around the neighbor's kids tonight at newcritics, where live-blogging of AMC's gorgeous but frustrating Mad Men series commences at 10 EDT. So mix up a high-ball, light your Lucky and swing on over to Madison and 50th for the week's usual snark and cultural rumination. See you there.

I'm Bill White

Phil Rizzuto was the Terence Aloysius ' Slip' Mahoney of the New York baseball scene, a wiry and pugnacious east end kid as a player and a beloved malaprop champ as an announcer. Fans of my vintage knew Scooter only from the broadcast booth - and we howled in glee at Rizzuto stories, whether Yankees fans or not.

Now, Scooter doesn't hold the place in the pantheon that smooth-talking Bob Murphy does as the voice of my youthful summers, but he did hold a position of both honor and humor in hardball New York - honor as a small man who made it big in bare-knuckled vintage baseball, and humor behind the microphone.

Who can forget the time he opened a broadcast thusly: "Hello everyone and welcome to Yankee baseball. I'm Bill White ... ”

White, the old Cardinals first-baseman, was his longest-running partner in the booth and many of the best Rizzuto stories come out of his straight-man role. Here's a great bit, courtesy of sportswriter Mike DiMauro from The Day in Connecticut:

Scooter and Bill White were, without question, the most entertaining broadcast team in baseball history. Rizzuto called him “White” and White called him “Rizzuta,” and along the way, they talked baseball strategy, broke each other into uproarious laughter, broke us up with uproarious laughter and showed the value of a broadcast booth bereft of any ego.

The one I'll never forget came one day when they were debating which position required more ability: shortstop or first base. Scooter was a shortstop for the Yankees and White was a first baseman for the Cardinals. When Scooter got frustrated, he told White, a black man, “all of you looked alike to me.”

Rizzuto realized what he had said and then hollered, “I was talking about first basemen!”

I have never, to this day, heard anyone laugh harder on air than Bill White did at that moment. He was useless for the rest of the inning. It was Scooter's innocence that made him such a treasure, all the way to his endearing fear of lightning.

I happen to share that fear of lightning, by the way. Here are two more great stories from sportscaster-screenwriter Ken Levine:

The Yankees were playing at Tiger Stadium one night. It was easy to hit home runs down the left field line. It was just a 340 foot chip shot. On the left field wall was a digital clock. A Yankee hit a home run and Rizzuto almost came out of his seat, saying on the air, “Holy cow, what a poke! He had that over the 808 sign!”

And then there was the day where his post game show was interrupted with the bulletin that Pope John Paul I had died after only a month of service. When he got back on the air, the first thing Rizzuto said was, “Wow. News like that could dampen even a Yankee win.”

Scooter Rizzuto, we hardly knew ye.

UPDATE: Memories from my old sports editor, Ernie Palladino (who writes a great Giants blog if you're a gridiron fan).

Stars and Bars and Cars

Coming upon some faux Confederate regalia in an upstate New York rodeo souvenir shop, the scouts were understandably outraged. So they discussed their horrific discovery (a belt buckle and some flags) in heated terms along the Thruway on the way back from camp.

"They shouldn't sell that stuff. It's wrong."

"The Confederates were brave but they were traitors."

"Yeah, but some of their generals were better than ours."

"They wanted slavery."

"Yeah, in chains."

"But the Civil War was about states rights."

"No it was really about slave states and keeping their slaves. It was economic too. All wars are economic. Thatr's what Mr. Nameredacto told us."

"Yeah and Lincoln freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation. Then they joined the army and fought."

"That was a great movie."

"What movie?"

"Glory. It was great."

"Yeah but they wasted those guys in that battle."

"The Civil War was like that. Old-fashioned tactics and modern guns."

"Gods and Generals was good too. Dad, can we go to Gettysburg?"

"It still doesn't answer the question."

"What's the question?"

"Why are they selling Confederate junk in New York?"

"Yeah, we won."

The Huckaberry Hound

Mike Huckabee sounds like one of the minor characters from Mayberry RFD - the guy who ran the diner, perhaps, or one of the farmers down the road. You can pretty much close your eyes and hear Goober intoning some kind words about "ole Mike Huckabee" in the course of a rambling yarn in the fixit shop. But Mike Huckabee is no Goober.

In fact, he's the anti-Rudy and the Real Romney - he's the nice guy Giuliani isn't and the authentic man Romney attempts to portray on TV. And he's a serious threat to both men, a potential human wrecking ball to their Republican aspirations.

After finishing a strong second to Romney without the millions spent on television and paid "volunteers," the bass-playing right-wing Arkansas pol - who lost an entire Barney Fife during a celebrated slimming session after being threatened with diabetes - is on a major league roll.

No accident to his serious uptick is the contrast to Giuliani and Romney, both of who uttered contemptible hogwash over the last week or so - Rudy comparing himself favorably to Ground Zero workers digging with their hands to recover human remains while he did television stand-ups, and Mitt saying his boys were serving their country by working for his election...rather than donning uniforms to serve in the failed war Daddy pretends to support to appear conservative.

Further, Huckabee's a real conservative - while the other two guys found their newly-pure conservatism in campaign dossiers when considering the empty Oval Office post-2008. There's an authenticity to Huckabee and frankly, some genuine warmth, that anyone who listened to his appearances on the old Imus in the Morning show will remember.

Of course, then he was just being the anti-Clinton - Arkansas Governor, Baptist minister and confirmed social conservative - also from Hope, AK - who quietly contrasted his views to that of his libertine, liberal predecessor. Couple of things about Huckabee that moderate his right-wing social views - he funded health insurance for poor children in Arkansas - the "nanny" state kind of policy Giuliani very lately seems to find objectionable - and he's backed by tax fairness advocates who believe that Americans should be taxed on what they consume; surely, that would hit the rich, eh? He also increased state spending 65.3 percent from 1996 to 2004, mainly to invest in Arkansas's crumbling infrastructure. And he's an immigration liberal, at least by the not-so-reasonable standards of many of his party brethren.

In other words, a fairly moderate man who also happens to oppose abortion, same-sex marriages and civil unions while supporting the war in Iraq, the troop surge, the Patriot Act, the continued operation of  Guantanamo Bay, and the death penalty. So, I wouldn't vote for him - but for Republicans tired of bullying tactics and failed policies, for Republicans who look at authenticity, Mike Huckabee will merit a serious look. I think he's made it to the top tier.

Lake in the Adirondacks

Adirondack lake, originally uploaded by Tom Watson.

From summer camp, early in the evening, August, 2007.

The Muddy Walden of a Life in the Woods

Home for a week, originally uploaded by Tom Watson.

There is a purity of experience that some ascribe to wilderness solitude, an almost-philosophy of transcendental escape and isolation that lies two-to-a-bunk with the mourning of mankind's simple, pastoral ways. Great American minds from Jefferson to Thoreau have poured forth scratched lines of sorrow at city life and industry, praising the democratic simplicity of life on the land.

It is all a fantasy, of course, a vacation from reality - as a week in scout camp teaches better than the philosopher's text. Only teamwork builds the kinds of communities that allow for the leisure time to think and write; and only those communities and their advances extend human life expectancy and health, all the better for consuming and discussing those deep thoughts of nature scrawled by the campfire.

I did no writing over the past week and was as close to off the grid of the wired world as I've been in a decade. But as I waited tables, scrambled down trails, tied down tent flaps in the rain, policed fires, picked up trash, and used the foul latrine, some form of wisdom did drop in with the pine needles - 15 boys and five parents stuffed into musty canvas tents in the Adirondacks for a week of rather noisy solitude was a worthwhile endeavor for this city slicker and his two lads.

For all the work of muddy chaperoning and the discomfort of cold, wet nights and early morning chores - and that horrendous latrine - there were moments that won't fade with the grime. Playing guitar and mandolin (an instrument that  was my self-improvement project for the week) around the fire late at night. The rafting trip down the Sacandaga River. The horseback trip high above Lake George. Sharing a tent and its duties with my nine-year-old, while his older brother went about his routine with the rest of the boys.

Best of all was the teamwork of the unit, all 20 of us. There was no choice but to pitch in; no option but to suck it up and make the best of occasional glitches and drenching. All in all, it was an argument against isolation - one that convincingly stated and support the idea that a life in the woods is best lived with others.

Into the Woods

Expect the silence of a mossy glade deep in the Adirondacks here  over the next week - because that's where I'll be, shepherding twenty boys at camp, sleeping in musty old canvas tents and getting ourselves as filthy as possible.  Bug juice, mac and cheese, and s'mores are on the menu for the next week, in between catching frogs, riding old nags, climbing hills, tilting canoes, and marveling at massive bugs of every biting variety.

So this blog goes silent -  except for your comments, and keep 'em coming - over the next week. I'll return (hopefully) from my Walden with the wisdom of nature permeating every little line of the RSS feed.

In the meantime, please revel in the blogroll to your right - some incredible writers there - and tune in on Thursday evening at the recharged newcritics, where the fabulous M.A. Peel will be hosting our weekly Mad Men soiree in my absence.

Right, where's that Deep Woods Off...

Emergency Broadcasting System: Mad Men Live-blogging is Here

Once upon a time in the west - and in gritty noir backlots - rough and ready men carried guns, drank hard liquor, and made violence a part of their daily lot. That's the way they were portrayed, at least. And the idea of "real men" inhabiting a cushy mid-town Manhattan office building was a ludicrous as, say, Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill being a secret agent in North by Northwest. See, Hitchcock got the joke. But as David Hinckley points out in today's Daily News, our idea of tough guys has changed.

"Mad Men" also reflects something else that's been brewing on TV for quite a while, however: a long-term shift in the professions to which we look for swagger. Once upon a time, American swagger was largely defined by physical guys like cowboys, G-men, explorers and soldiers. Think John Wayne. Sure, there's always been swagger in other fields of endeavor. While Wild Bill Hickok was galloping through the West, robber barons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan were accumulating insane levels of wealth simply because there was no one to stop them. But in general, swagger once had a blue-collar aura, reflected in the Westerns that dominated early television.

Live-blogging of the frustrating and fascinating Mad Men continues tonight. [Note: our hosts at Yahoo appear to be on the slow side tonight, so bear with us and dump that crappy YHOO stock.]

Thanks to Yahoo's server troubles, I've moved newcritics live-blogging of Mad Men to my trust old-school Typepad blog. Comment away! Back in a few...Cool credits about to roll.

Love the Hudson Line shots - North by Northwest in reverse! Big error, though. "Mount Kisco, next." In yer dreams. Knew there was another name in Draper's past - Dick Whitman.

"Who put the Chinamen in my office?" Ha.

Some hilarious "oriental" humor. We get it. 1960 was a different time. Now can these guys do something?

"Part of this job is doing things you don't want to do." Welcome to that strange place known as Workland.

So how accurate is Mad Men? Burt Helm from Business Week wondered the same thing:

So last week I picked up the phone to ask a couple of these allegedly overpaid, creative, glib and self-destructive ad guys from the 60's what they thought of the show. AMC courteously agreed to send them screeners. I got two very different opinions of the show itself, but some agreement on how accurately it portrayed Madison Avenue in 1960.

"What a miserable piece of garbage," said Irwin Warren, who was a copywriter for Doyle Dane Bernbach in 1965. "It's a kind of a poor man's The Apartment". Jerry Della Femina, who was in the mailroom of agency Ruthrauff & Ryan in 1960 before becoming a copywriter and a founder of his own agency, loved the depiction. He had recently participated in a panel discussion at Michael's about the show. "It’s a pretty fascinating as a study of the 60’s."

But how accurate is it? For those who haven't seen it, the show is a parade of constant smoking, near-constant drinking, casual sexual harassment and anti-semitism. Warren admitted that much of that was spot on.

A miserable piece of garbage? Seems to describe what  I've seen of the firm's work so far. Man does Sterling Cooper blow. They don't even get the VW ad!

OK, we get that it was a sexist period - now make something happen. "Rib-eye in the pan...with butter....ice cream." That's not a plot.

The cheesy Yonkers Raceway commercial for slot machines and a legal sports book on my local cable system is far better than anything Sterling Cooper has produced.

This scene as a Breakfast at Menken's quality to it.

I'm a total sucker for the commuter train scenes, probably because I spend half a life on 'em. But didn't they have monthly passes in 1960? Does he buy a ticket every night? Any experts out there?

WWeek's Daniel Carlson has a snarky post: AMC is "TV for people who would like to think of themselves as movie people but lack the energy." Is that us? More:

"...if half the show is just the cheap thrill of watching people play dress up, the other half is watching those people act out a fairly rote melodrama. Weiner's time on The Sopranos means that Mad Men is inevitably being forced into that same mold of darkly lit offices, slick hair and commonplace adultery, and while Weiner certainly knows his material, the fact that he's so willing to stylistically rehash it is a disappointment. Mad Men lacks the sheer fire and energy of The Sopranos, and not simply because AMC won't let you get away with nearly what HBO does (AMC after dark consists largely of the same boring content as AMC daytime). It's also because while The Sopranos was a complex and original show, Mad Men wants to be all things to all people, offering the same aesthetic and stilted drama—unhappy philanderers, ambiguous mistresses, depressed housewives—that have marked too many series before it. It's as if Weiner wants his show to be just edgy enough to be noticed but actually safe enough to be digested by even the most casual viewer; no one has to think too hard here, and no one is asking you to.