Damn it.

Paul Newman has died at age 83.

Some people were meant to be immortal; Newman was one of these. What a mensch he was. From CNN:

He stumped for liberal causes, including Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 presidential candidacy, and earned a spot on Richard Nixon’s enemies list — “the highest single honor I’ve ever received,” he said.

In 1982, Newman and his friend A.E. Hotchner founded Newman’s Own, a food company that produced food ranging from pasta sauces to salad dressing to chocolate chip cookies.

“The embarrassing thing is that the salad dressing is outgrossing my films,” Newman once wryly noted.

To date, the company — which donates all profits to charities such as Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang camps — has given away more than $200 million. Newman established the camp to benefit gravely ill children.

“He saw the camps as places where kids could escape the fear, pain and isolation of their conditions, kick back and raise a little hell,” Forrester said.

Today, there are 11 Hole in the Wall Gang camps around the world, with additional programs in Africa and Vietnam. Some 135,000 children have attended the camps — free of charge.

True, he leaves a dual legacy, both in his films and his charitable work. But I wish he could have stuck around another twenty years.

D.

Hey, neighbor!

Did I tell you Tom Hanks bought a beach-front home about a mile or two up the road? That shocked me at first, but then I figured it out. He can probably charter a private plane, or perhaps he has friends who fly. They’ll fly into Brookings’ little airport bringing all of their goodies with them. Food, friends, booze, maybe even a chef. He comes in for the weekend, parties it up, takes long walks on the beach, soaks up the great scenery, then goes home to where there’s stuff to do. That’s my theory. I can’t imagine he’ll actually want to blend in with us plebes. And while it might be fun to clean his earwax, I’d have a hard time not saying, “You know, I haven’t liked anything you’ve done since Big. Or was it Splash? Or Turner and Hooch? One of those. Why can’t you make movies like those, why does everything have to be MEANINGFUL these days? Get over yourself. You’re not entertaining anymore. It’s like the way Steve Martin sucks so much lately. Last good movie he did was The Man With Two Brains. Or maybe Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid — whichever was the last one. He used to be good. Now he fancies himself a Serious Actor. Just like you do, Tom. May I call you Tom? And I’d like to add, Forrest Gump sucked. I never saw it, but every clip I ever saw from it made my brain hurt. It pains me just knowing that movie exists. Do you use Q-tips? You shouldn’t, you know. By the way, I have this screenplay. Well, not really; it’s more of a short story. But it would lend itself nicely to a screenplay. Several short stories, actually, but I really see you as the dad in this one. Or maybe the granddad. You’ve kind of let yourself go.”

No, he really doesn’t want to get to know the locals. Trust me on this.

Stick around. I should be live by 8:15 PM my time.

D.

O’Reilly’s meltdown

Before viewing Bill O’Reilly’s four-letter hissy fit on “Inside Edition” (from, what? fifteen, twenty years ago? And why did it surface only now? Not that I’m complaining), you might want to chase all toddlers from the room. Unless, of course, you’re like Karen and me, and you consider it your God-given duty as parents to make sure your kids learn to swear with accuracy, and not shame you with embarrassing diction errors, such as

Mommy, I’m sorry I slammed the oven door and shitted up your souffle.

Back to Bill-O. His meltdown seems to revolve around his ignorance of the phrase, “to play us out.” As in, “And now we’ll welcome Sting to play us out with his new hit, Roxanne.” (Whatever. I’m guessing here.) Since he didn’t understand the words, he refused to say them. He eventually figures it out and that seems to make him madder still; especially since his producer has made him play the guessing game, and didn’t cue him in when he first expressed his incomprehension.

I’m not in broadcasting, but to me, “play us out” sounds like straightforward broadcasting slang. I would guess (correctly) that it meant, “end this segment on a musical number.” Indeed, if you google “play us out” and ignore references to the O’Reilly itty bitty baby tantrum, you’ll find straightforward examples like this or this. From that last link,

:51 – John and Jeff play us out of this hour with Blue Minor.

My suspicion? O’Reilly soon figured out what the words meant, but by then he had already betrayed his ignorance. He knew he had shown himself up as a dummy, and worse, he knew his producer knew it, too, as well as all the stage hands. And he had compounded the problem by getting a little angry.

Any sane man would have used self-deprecating humor to limbo out of the situation with a few shreds of self-respect. But not Bill-O. He has to turn it into someone else’s fault — namely, his writer. There’s something gravely wrong with these words, something so foul about them his tongue snags on them in take after take until, finally, he has to do it his way, with his words. At that point the video goes silent, but it doesn’t take a lipreader to see that the profane hemorrhage doesn’t stop. He throws his pen with a force that would do any scalpel-throwing surgeon* proud, rips off his coat, and storms away.

I’ve said before that at the core of every over-achiever there’s a little boy (or girl) with serious self-esteem problems. This O’Reilly video provides good support for that hypothesis, don’t you think?

This is a man whose ego is paper thin.

D.

*Me? Never. Ever. Not cool, and if there’s one thing I aspire to be, it’s the Fonzie of Surgery.

Edited to add:

Here’s the REMIX.

No points for subtlety: Triumph of the Twit.

Walken fix

Even one bad Chris Walken impersonation beats 99% of the stuff on YouTube. And six bad Walken impersonations? Comedy gold.

If I don’t get a chance to write later . . . live blogging tonight, 7 PM PST. See ya.

D.