Andy Rooney
How could you not like Andy Rooney?
His eyebrows were a little scary, but he always seemed to tell the truth about everyday living.
The fact that he retired just a month ago, at the age of 92, and died almost immediately was kind of comforting because he wanted to work right up to the end.
And what I liked the most about it is that he said, a lot of times, that a writer's job is to tell the truth, and that was what he did, no matter who liked it or how popular he was or wasn't. He wasn't swayed by working for 60 Minutes or the big shots. He called his own shots.
And he was moral and a voice of reason in a lot of ways.
Being laid up again, I'm watching a lot of old Westerns. I don't know why I need to go there when I have nothing else to do, but it seems that the messages are so much simpler. There's a good guy, a bad guy and a moral choice. The good guys usually win, but not without having paid a price. To get what they wanted they have to give up something else.
But in the end, doing the right thing wins out.
Contrast that with the show Two Broke Girls...a new show that is trying to be funny. On last weeks episode they talked at length about their vagina's. At 8 o'clock at night.
The episode wasn't funny. In fact, it was downright stupid. I changed the channel. No moral choice because the morals are gone.
A buddy of mine and I were chatting about it.
"It's a money grab," he said. "Don't care about anything but making money."
I'm sure that Andy Rooney crowed about it somewhere along the way. You don't live as long as he did and not see such a shift. Hell, you want to see the shift, just watch one of those old shows.
They had to tell a joke to make you laugh. It wasn't all about the shock.
And as I write that I think of how contradictory I sound because I love Howard Stern, but what can I say? Howard is at least clever, and tries.
Anyway, thanks for the memories.
His eyebrows were a little scary, but he always seemed to tell the truth about everyday living.
The fact that he retired just a month ago, at the age of 92, and died almost immediately was kind of comforting because he wanted to work right up to the end.
And what I liked the most about it is that he said, a lot of times, that a writer's job is to tell the truth, and that was what he did, no matter who liked it or how popular he was or wasn't. He wasn't swayed by working for 60 Minutes or the big shots. He called his own shots.
And he was moral and a voice of reason in a lot of ways.
Being laid up again, I'm watching a lot of old Westerns. I don't know why I need to go there when I have nothing else to do, but it seems that the messages are so much simpler. There's a good guy, a bad guy and a moral choice. The good guys usually win, but not without having paid a price. To get what they wanted they have to give up something else.
But in the end, doing the right thing wins out.
Contrast that with the show Two Broke Girls...a new show that is trying to be funny. On last weeks episode they talked at length about their vagina's. At 8 o'clock at night.
The episode wasn't funny. In fact, it was downright stupid. I changed the channel. No moral choice because the morals are gone.
A buddy of mine and I were chatting about it.
"It's a money grab," he said. "Don't care about anything but making money."
I'm sure that Andy Rooney crowed about it somewhere along the way. You don't live as long as he did and not see such a shift. Hell, you want to see the shift, just watch one of those old shows.
They had to tell a joke to make you laugh. It wasn't all about the shock.
And as I write that I think of how contradictory I sound because I love Howard Stern, but what can I say? Howard is at least clever, and tries.
Anyway, thanks for the memories.
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