I’ve got an unexpected reprieve from the vineyards. The Cabernet was taking a little longer to hit the right Brix level and the varietals in primary fermentation went more quickly to secondary fermentation stage. That gave me what’s looking like a four day reprieve from the endless round of punchdowns and isolated country living. So I found myself back in the big City and ready to tune back into the news cycles and pop culture that I’ve been disconnected from living in a barn without radio, TV, telephones and only recently Internet connections. Unfortunately, I wrenched my back on the last day of Cabernet picking which is affording me a lot more TV time than I would have otherwise planned.
Which brings me to my discovery of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Conservatives, who embrace Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, are screaming that TRMS is “not news” and “just biased Liberal talking points.” I don’t think TRMS was ever intended to be “news” any more than The Daily Show is. It’s more like sitting down after a long news day and having the high and low points distilled for you by your sharpest, coolest girlfriend. Yeah, one who has a progressive viewpoint, but who isn’t afraid to tweak the Democrats when they do something stupid.
Maddow is a little bit smart-alecky, but mostly really, really smart. Smart as in Stanford University and Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. I love that Liberals have a Rhodes Scholar; lip-foaming arch-conservatives have high school graduate Sean Hannity and Southeast Missouri State University dropout, Rush Limbaugh. (Limbaugh’s own mother concedes that he was never one for “book larnin’. She’s quoted as saying: “He flunked everything, even a modern ballroom dancing class.”)
Yeah, I’m elitist — if elitist means embracing education, erudition and intellectual curiosity — and proud of it!
Back to my new TV BFF. My first thought on seeing her show — besides laughing through my tears as she skewered to the heart of the day’s political follies — was that this was almost the perfect commentary show. The only thing missing: Maddow’s dry wit would go perfectly with a dry Gin Martini. Then I find this self assessment on her official website: [Maddow] “shakes a mean cocktail, drives a bright red pickup, hates Coldplay, loves arguing with conservatives, spends a lot of money on AMTRAK tickets, and dresses like a first-grader.” Excellent!
While I love her commentary and applaud her eclectic line-up of guests, I’d love to see her bring more conservatives on the show a la Bill Maher. Instead of getting into shouting matches with her conservative guests like Chris Matthews, I imagine Rachel would politely sit back and let them hoist themselves on their own petards. Then maybe jab home the final coup de grace with the perfect put-down. You don’t want to play hardball with a gal who looks like she could be the captain of The World’s Most Kick-Ass Girls’ Softball Team.
Panic that I wouldn’t get my Maddow fix when I head back up to Sonoma at the end of this week was put to rest by the discovery that I can get her on a podcast. Now you know what I’ll be plugged into while I harvest and process the rest of the Cabernet. Maybe Two Terrier Vineyards should put out a limited edition Rachel Maddow Rhone Blend. I’m seriously considering it.
In the meantime, if my readership leans the way I think it does, check out The Rachel Maddow Show! You’ll love it. And follow her on Twitter at @Maddow.
Ms. Paul–
I am sorry to write this on the end of your otherwise fine post about Ms. Rachael Maddow (even though I don’t know who that is), I can’t find how else to give you a shout out.
I ran across your name while skimming the flood of posts at Roger Ebert re his review of Tru. . . Now I forgot the name of the film! Anyway, the scandal was quickly dubbed ‘Eight Minute-gate,’ by some boomer with a Nixon fixation. Your response to Mr. Ebert was similar to mine, which was to take him to task for essentially not doing his job. I was actually surprised at how few people took that approach (from what I could see, it was just you & me).
However, the difference between us was that you felt Mr. Ebert has the responsiblity to soldier through crappy films, because of journalistic integrity. Me, on the other hand, I took the low road: if Roger Ebert gets to make his beans watching great movies and dining with Ms. Debra Winger (just for example) and I don’t–then Mr. Ebert has to watch the whole of really lousy movies, while I am free not to. Even at this high pinnacle of Mr. Ebert’s career, dues *must* still be paid.
While I will be the first to admit that having to endure the occasional toothache of a movie is not all that much of a cross to bear in life (I don’t even want to think on how many hours of bad movies I’d be willing to sit though for a chance at meeting Ms. Winger), it’s still something.
But as my niece keeps reminding me, my opinions all seem to follow the style of the early Abe Simpson, seated at a card table with his typewriter. While I almost never say “For Shame!”, I am not altogether comfortable with how well that phrase fits in the flow of my writing.
But we digress.
Bill Abendroth
Your comments are welcome even if they don’t pertain to this post.
I had the pleasure of meeting Roger Ebert and hearing him speak in the intimate venue of Rancho La Puerta. He’s a profound thinker, a curious intellect and a fascinating and funny speaker.
He’s one of my heroes precisely because he’s one of a handful of writers who elevates genre writing. He writes about movies the way MFK Fisher wrote about food and Jan Morris writes about travel. His surface subject is his genre, his real subject is an examination of our culture, how we think and what we feel. So it seemed like a self-indulgent cop out when he dashed off a review on the first 8 minutes of a movie he walked out of.
Even if he’d continued to find fault with the movie, I expect reviews from him that make me think. So even if his reviews warn me off wasting my time on a substandard movie, I learn something about our culture from his review of it. Thank goodness Ebert has issued an apology and pledged never to review a partially viewed movie again.
Oh, and watch Rachel Maddows. I think you’ll love her.