Why Mr. Peabody Should Pay a Visit to Rachel Maddow


To the true student of history, the work of Macaulay, Gibbon, and Will & Ariel Durant may seen indispensable, but they pale in the light of the perspective and insight offered by Mr. Peabody and his boy, Sherman. The other guys just write about it, Mr. Peabody actually gets in a time machine and travels back to solve the problem. A simple task if you're a canine polymath, probably an autodidact. Such minds don't wait around for others to offer solutions. While Bullwinkle may double as Mr. Know-It-All, he needs an extensive support network.

Air America is the network that features, every weekday morning from 7 to 9 Eastern time, the work of Rachel Maddow, who's as fearless, intelligent, and unflappable as Mr. Peabody. (Should Air America not be available in your local radio market, check it out on XM Satellite Radio, channel 167.) If anything, her mode of time travel carries her into the future, where she often tells you how the government is going to try to bamboozle you next week, or next month. She then goes on to outline alternative scenarios, giving you the opportunity, politically, not to be the ignorant rube that certain powerful interests assume you are. In short, Rachel Maddow is the most astute and well-spoken news analyst working the boards today.

That's why she should be visited by that other Mr. Peabody -- George Foster Peabody, founder of the most prestigious award in informational/educational broadcasting. I used to work for a mensch who won a couple of Peabodys over the years for producing these incredible radio shows shining the spotlight on American Popular Song through the urbane commentary of the likes of Alec Wilder. His name was Dick Phipps, and he was light years ahead of any other producer where he worked, a public broadcasting network down south. Through the example of Mr. Phipps, I saw firsthand the extraordinary dedication and conceptual brilliance that qualifies someone for the Peabody Award. Dick was no media dilettante, having been immersed in the world of jazz and musical theatre for decades, hobnobbing with most of the major players -- composers, musicians, and vocalists. On his office wall was a personally signed photo of Cole Porter, in tuxedo, stationed behind a martini!

Rachel Maddow, too, is no dilettante. She covers every topic with depth and humanity, contrasting strongly with the glib B.S. one hears almost everywhere else on the airwaves. She also clues you in on how news reportage is manipulated, and why it tends to be so uninformative. From her I found out about "the Friday news dump", a ploy whereby our government agencies release their most embarrassing, potentially damaging items on Friday afternoons, knowing that at best they'll be in the little-read Saturday newspapers and be safely out of sight and mind by the time the gaudy merry-go-round of the news cycle is cranked up again on Monday.

As a surprising bonus, the Rachel Maddow show is also hugely entertaining and suffused with hilarity. In addition to Maddow's effortless witticisms, don't miss her sports and showbiz correspondent Kent Jones, a true guffaw-meister who's very quick on his feet. In fact, some call him The Fred Astaire Of Scuttlebutt.

Peabody Awards panel take note: give this woman her due for creating the most informative and absorbing news gazette to be found anywhere. If we ever come out on the other side of the present geopolitical, ideological snafu, it will be in large measure thanks to a few exceptional people like Rachel Maddow, individual voices responsible for initiating a conversation that, even as it humanizes, has the power to energize all the rest of us.

-------Lp

Things to Watch out For >>>>> "The Jimi Hendrix of the Ukelele"

Plaisirs de Gumbo


In the first week of January, you can almost believe that the months stretching ahead form a vast tabula rasa upon which you can work your will, pretzeling big slabs of time into a whimsical, multi-colored balloon animal to display proudly on the mantel as the year winds down into an anecdotal retrospective, gently lit by Rembrandt or an extra round of eggnog.

If you protest this view as delusional, you, as a card-carrying realist, may still be rapidly persuaded that it's a relatively harmless conceit, and that it may even have positive psychological advantages. This is the perfect moment to start making the gumbo---going from the willing suspension of disbelief to the willing suspension of White Lily flour in lightly simmering oil. Get out the cast iron pot and put on the right music, 'cos you're going to be stirring for one solid hour to make a roux worthy to be the foundation of this wond'rous alchemical edifice.

Instead of just stirring, you slide your wooden spoon along the bottom of the pot in the swooping patterns of a graceful skater. Figure eights, Celtic loops, and snakey wobbles alternate on the surface of the slowly darkening roux until a powerfully evocative smell begins to rise into the room. Strangely enough, this aroma can be described as not only delectable, but somehow crunchy, possessing a solidity not usually associated with vapors. After about an hour, already intoxicated, you dump a big bowl of chopped onion, bell pepper, and celery into the dark brown liquid, and a huge cloud of succulent steam leaps from the pot, instantly incorporating all the best elements of the venerable roux with the dewy vigor of the suddenly precocious vegetables.

From there, you're on your own, as there are as many potential gumbos as there are gumbo-stirrers. Chicken, sausage, all manner of seafood -- perhaps even some okra, the veggie that gave its West African, specifically Bantu, name to this glorious stew. Any path can lead to culinary triumph.

As to suggested musical format, I'd start with a CD player with at least 5
disc random shuffle-- in spite of mp3 and ipod, still a very satisfying techno-artifact. Nothing will infuse your personal gumbo strut with inter-dimensional powers like the music of New Orleans and environs. Five albums that would be a good point of departure:

1. Crawfish Fiesta--- Professor Longhair ---Alligator records
2. Anutha Zone--- Dr. John
3. Wild Tchapitoulas Featuring the Neville Brothers ---Island records
4. Crazyhorse Mongoose ---Galactic
5. Boozoo Chavis--- Nonesuch records

If you've never heard all this New Orleanian/Cajun/bayou/voodoo music, it will make an indelible impression. You will become a much more positively funky human. Enjoy!

Hey now, my time's up --- see ya on the full moon...