Quote of the Day (Dan Quayle, on Trump vs. Clinton)

"On paper, you'd say, 'Well, she's [Hilary Clinton] more qualified.' But you know what? He's [Donald Trump] more qualified in the sense that the American people, I think, want an outsider. They want an outsider this time. She is not an outsider, so if you're looking for an outsider, no she's not qualified and he is."—Former Vice President Dan Quayle, quoted in Eun Kyung Kim, “Dan Quayle Shows Support for Donald Trump on TODAY Show: 'He Can Win',” TODAY News, May 12, 2016

Welcome back, Dan Quayle! You’ve aged a little bit since George H.W. Bush named you his running mate back in 1988, but a little gray on the temples (a natural outgrowth of being 69) is great for lending you that gravitas you were not given credit for back then.

You’ve been gone too long, after that unsuccessful 2000 primary campaign for President, which you lost to a son of your old boss. You had gone so far off the radar that I believe the only news I’d  heard about you since then was that you moved from Indiana to Arizona and had hurt your back while helping one of your children move into a college dorm. I was afraid that the injury might have impaired some of your old abilities. Your appearance on Today immediately eased these fears.

There were two things I liked about your statement: 1) It shows that, at least politically, any sense that the back may have hurt your ability to maneuver is nonsense, since only a few months ago you had hosted a fundraiser for another son of your old boss, Jeb Bush--the ultimate INSIDER; and 2) your words continue to blithely ignore reality. 

If “outsider” status is sufficient reason for election to our nation’s highest office, why stop at Trump? Who, after all, is more of an outsider than John Rocker, the flamethrower for the Atlanta Braves in the late 1990s who in his prime could annoy as many groups in a single statement as Trump—and a guy who, after confirmation that he used steroids in his professional career, is even more of an outsider--at least in his old activity?

Or, if you want a female outsider to counter Hilary’s attempt at history, why not Sarah Palin? But why stop there--why not Snooki?

Everybody knows that YOU don't believe in conventional rules, Dan. Or, at least, spelling rules.

(Unfortunately, most Irish-American voters regard you as an eejit for your creative rendering of a certain staple of the the ancestral diet as P-O-T-A-T-O-E , not to mention your favorable comparison of your government experience with Jack Kennedy’s, in your 1988 debate with Lloyd Bentsen.)

 
Your fans hope that your next defiance of convention--not to mention logic--is appreciated more than your last such venture on the national stage was.

This Day in Jazz History (Erroll Garner Makes Mark in Concert Hall)

March 27, 1950—The Cleveland Music Hall, long a Midwestern mainstay on the classical music circuit, hosted an artist entirely different from its usual restrained fare: Erroll Garner, a jazz pianist-composer who compensated for an inability to read music with an uncanny ear, a stunning aural memory, and an infectiously joyful improvisational style.

Later in the decade, Garner became the first jazz artist represented by Sol Hurok since the classical impresario had booked Benny Goodman in Carnegie Hall before WWII.

Every artist—heck, every person—should have a champion, someone who will beat the drums incessantly for you, or go to bat if, in effect, you can't. Garner’s champion was his longtime manager and executor of his estate, Martha Glaser, who not only helped secure him the booking at the prestigious Cleveland venue, but who, five decades later, sharply (and, in my opinion, rightly) upbraided Ken Burns for omitting him from the epic public-television history Jazz.

Burns’ contention that Garner wasn’t a “seminal innovator” is questionable. What isn’t is Garner’s personality. The warmth and good humor that poured from his keys accurately reflected his demeanor. (You can also sense this in the image accompanying this post.)

If Burns (and, presumably, at least some of the consultants for his series) were not too high on Garner, the overwhelming majority of his fellow musicians didn’t make the same mistake. One such musician, Art Blakey, had, like his fellow resident of The Hill section of Pittsburgh, taken up the piano.

That is, until Garner completely outclassed him at the instrument one night, and the owner of the hall strongly urged Blakey to turn to the drums—which he did.

Like many jazz musicians, Garner died far too young—in this case, at age 55, from lung cancer—but in addition to his many reworkings of jazz standards, he also composed 200 songs of his own in his truncated career, including “Misty.” You might have heard Jane Monheit bring her rich, creamy vocal delivery to the tune, but decades ago people became most familiar with it on the small and big screen.

Throughout most of the Sixties, listeners of the Today Show awoke to the strains of this lushly romantic jazz instrumental. When the producers switched to a different one in the early 1970s, composer Ray Ellis’ “This Is Today,” they might have wished they hadn’t. Someone noticed that it sounded a lot like the Godspell hit “Day by Day,” and sued for copyright infringement.

Around the same time “Misty” was fading from the TV picture, it gained new prominence in Clint Eastwood’s film, Play Misty for Me. The director who, over the last four decades, has probably done more than any other to employ jazz themes in his films, found an evocative artist in the first movie he helmed that had a contemporary setting.

Like many fans, I came to Garner through his 1956 recording, Concert by the Sea, where I became intoxicated by his “four-in-the-bar” left-hand technique and introductions that turned the basic melodies inside out. I've bought several other CDs of his work since, and they all leave me convinced that his departure from the music scene left a gaping hole unable to be filled.

This Day in TV History (Great Scott! It’s Willard!)

March 10, 1980—With more than two decades behind him of offering cockeyed optimism on radio and TV, Willard Scott took his act to the national level as weather forecaster of NBC’s morning Today Show.

In the years since, he has become a kind of Zelig with a happy face, popping up in nearly every corner of the globe with inexhaustible doses of cheer: at state fairs, fundraising events, parties, civic occasions, Thanksgiving Day parades, as well as on the Orient Express, in Rome, South America, Australia and China.

Even now, as a substitute weather reporter on Today, Scott is likely to show up in faraway places. His impact has been felt everywhere, but nowhere, I will argue, as much as at the U.S. Census Bureau.

It’s easy to see why. Whenever longer U.S. longevity rates are discussed, one explanation you invariably hear is about the better medical care that people receive now than in the past.

Don’t you believe it.

All those medications that doctors prescribe for seniors—you really think they’re working in perfect sync with each other? You think that doctors have perfect control of these interactions? Please.

No, what’s happening is this: those longevity rates are better tugged upwards over the long-term by lower infant mortality rates and by centenarians, the fastest-growing age cohort. Last July, reports from the Census Bureau and the National Institute on Aging indicated that the number of people worldwide living to be over 100 grew from a few thousand in 1950 to more than 340,000 today, with most of those in Japan and the U.S. As for the future: in the U.S., centenarians are projected to grow from 75,000 today to nearly 600,000 by mid-century.

Why all those senior senior citizens? Good God, people, isn’t it obvious? It’s the chance to appear on The Today Show, with Willard Scott rewarding you for a life well-lived by flashing your picture around the world and telling everyone some nice wholesome little details about you.

It all began innocently enough in 1983, when a viewer persuaded Scott to deliver an on-air birthday greeting to his mother, who had just passed her 100th birthday.

That one little episode has led, 27 years later, to the following state of affairs described on the Today Show’s Web site: “Please note that Willard gets many more requests than he can fulfill on the air.”

Well, I shouldn’t wonder!

Today Show producers probably weren’t expecting something exactly like this when they hired Scott, but they had good reason to believe that his jolly, toupee-wearing, large-and-in-charge persona would get people watching. After all, this was the same guy who, with Ed Walter, formed the DC radio duo the Pep Boys; who played Bozo the Clown for a while on the local station; and appeared in the first Ronald McDonald TV commercials (locally, not nationally) in 1963.

Willard has been so upbeat over the years that if he were around early in the 20th century, he’d probably tell a little Kansas girl named Dorothy not to worry her pretty little head about that nasty ol’ twister, and keep singing that song of hers he liked, “Over the Rainbow.”

Not everyone has cottoned to all of this. One dissenter was onetime Today co-host Bryant Gumbel, who groused in an infamous 1989 memo to management: “This guy is killing us, and no one's even trying to rein him in."

Now, I can’t say that the cranky co-host was way off the mark about Scott. After all, I wasn’t exactly a big fan of a guy who appeared on camera dressed as Carmen Miranda. But Gumbel’s horizon-wide critique encompassed virtually everyone on the show except the fellow in his own mirror.

Maybe Gumbel was jealous of the fact that, despite making more money than the show’s weatherman, Scott still received more fan mail than himself and co-host Jane Pauley combined. But whatever Gumbel's motivation, viewers soon let him know, in no uncertain terms, that though they could abide hosts who were smart and serious, they drew the line at self-important.

When I get up in the morning, I’m grouchy, and I’m not any better, no matter how strenuous the labors of TV newscasters, when I walk out the door for work. But give Willard credit: he’s never taken himself too seriously.

I’ll take that any day of the week over the assorted prima donnas who’ve appeared on the Today Show over the years.