At one point, the Stewart-Colbert crowd was urged to jump up in unison to get a seismic reading (no luck), recalling the day in 1967 when Vietnam protesters tried to levitate the Pentagon by chanting at it. That didn’t work, either. Washington is hard to move at any time for any reason, particularly sanity. For a long-time observer of such events now reduced to watching on TV, this assemblage seemed placid...

I’m watching the first season of Homicide: Life on the Streets and especially enjoy the performance of Jon Polito, who was axed after the first season to get someone reportedly more telegenic. Polito is a gem in his film and TV appearances. Here’s a You Tube Polito comedy reel: He also did a Paine Webber commercial: And Rockworks Riff after Katrina: A scene from Frank’s Last Dance:

Will the highly touted Rally to Install Sanity and/or Fear that headlined Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert be must a media blip? Or will it have any impact whatsoever on the elections (positive or negative)? Tea Party rallies, Glenn Beck-hosted rallies — all have had some impact in consolidating supporters’ enthusiasm and inspiring them to march on to battle for political victory....

A mainstay on the American left – and even on the right – The Daily Show has become a global phenomenon. In this article from Portugal’s Jornal de Negocios, columnist Nicolau do Vale Pais writes that there is ‘nothing more fun’ that watching the show’s host, Jon Stewart, ‘transform puppets into scarecrows.’ For the Jornal de Negocios, talking about Stewart’s...

Ever since I stopped watching TV (maybe my loyalty is still with print media), I have become an avid radio fan. I now surf merrily from the BBC and the VOA to local/national FM Indian radio stations. Yesterday a song titled “Ibn Battuta” (from Bollywood film Ishqiya) caught my attention. Wow! Even a Bollywood film/song can revive our interest in forgotten history!!! So I looked up “Ibn Battuta”...

The President’s Daily Show drive-by was a sad reminder that comedy and colloquy don’t always mix, but even worse for those who admire both Barack Obama and Jon Stewart, it reflected the country’s mood swing over the past two years. The Tea Party temper tantrum is the headline, but this encounter was a sour reminder of how far those who were high on Obama’s coming have crashed and burned....

A throw away line worth a second look from WaPo culture critic Hank Stuever’s look at The Daily Show in DC this week: For added insult, there have been remote-reporter gags from “Daily Show” staff comics that paint the town as a corrupt quagmire. Samantha Bee made fun of the “subway, excuse me, the Metro,” which she said was a word for “subway’s gay cousin.” (G-word...

“Yes we can, but…” I thought he was great, but… At one point, Stewart asked the president if he was now operating on the principle of “Yes, we can, with certain conditions.” Obama replied, “I think I would say, ‘Yes we can, but–’” That drew laughter from the 550-strong audience that packed DC’s Harman Center for the Arts. It was the first time...

Bull has enjoyed a central place in mythology cutting across many civilizations. In agrarian India it enjoyed a special place but is now in decline owing to widespread artificial insemination of cows. The photo above of a bull in an Indian town is symbolic of the waning power and majesty of the bull. I am reminded of the following poem… “I am monarch of all I survey; My right there is none to dispute;… I...

XKCD: (Be sure to put your mouse over the image for a second to see his message)

“Why,” she asked me in 1955, “do they print things about me that aren’t true?” Marilyn Monroe was only a superstar then, not yet a legend who, almost half a century after death, is now on the cover of Vanity Fair. Three films about her are in the works, and a journalist just came from France to interview me about the week I spent reporting on her in New York. Back then, I answered...

I don’t enjoy reading. I’ve been told this is the definition of dyslexia. Or at least part of the definition. Dyslexics lose their desire to read, or they never gain a desire, or they can’t seem to maintain a desire to continue along the written page. It seems dyslexia is more than the reversal of letters and words. It’s more than a punch line about atheists who don’t believe in dog. It’s more...

Imus interviews Carl Paladino (comedian Rob Bartlett as Carl Paladino). WARNING: Some adult topics.

Here’s Barack Obama’s musical defense of himself:

Not only baby boomers but anyone with a TV has seen “Leave it to Beaver” as a kid — a show that was on for 6 seasons and shown continously since it went off the air in 1963 in reruns. Here’s the grown up “Beaver” Jerry Mathers talking about his TV mom:

Editor’s Note: In going through an old file cabinet, I found a letter that I had used in my anti-drug shows for schools. A letter written in about 1990 by a teen who had been using drugs, got into a struggle with another teen, a gun went off — and he was in jail…serving 15 years to life. This is being published on TMV without the prisoner’s name, since it was a private poem letter to...

Pee Wee Herman has risen again (this time on Broadway). And for Pee Wee Herman fans everywhere, here’s someone who influenced Pee Wee Herman — the Emmy-award winning, early 1950s Pinky Lee:

(Editor’s Note: This is part of an ongoing series to preserve on the Internet the “lost” poetry of Nunihal Singh Layal, the “Tradesman Poet,” who I met in New Delhi in 1974. Poems contain his original introductions. Joe Gandelman) Visit To Moon by Nunihal Singh Layal The rivalry between the scientists of the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R to reach the moon-land has given me an idea to write a light though on...

“The past is a foreign country–they do things differently there” is the opening line of a 1950s novel and movie evoked by the mortgage mess splattering the American landscape now with greed, misconduct and, worst of all, a breakdown of social trust built up over more than two centuries. Bank stocks are plummeting as financial institutions, courts and endangered homeowners scramble to cope with...

EDITOR’S NOTE: In 1974 when I was in New Delhi a best friend and mentor of mine was Gian Singh, an editor of The Hindustan Times Evening News. He told me about his uncle who he felt was a little eccentric, Naunihal Singh Layal, who had self-published a few volumes of poetry. Some of it was quirky. I met his uncle who gave me a book. I cherished that book. And today, as I among others feel the crush of...

Long-time admirers of National Public Radio (including moi) may be taken aback by a recent memo from Ellen Weiss, Senior Vice President for News: “NPR journalists may not participate in marches and rallies involving causes or issues that NPR covers, nor should they sign petitions or otherwise lend their name to such causes, or contribute money to them. This restriction applies to the upcoming John Stewart...

In a surprising but heavily lauded move, Chilean officials are lowering the cast of Jersey Shore into the now vacant mine. If all goes well, the cast of Dancing with the Stars is soon to follow.

In this culturally fractured moment, the buzz is suddenly about connection. A Facebook film serves as a metaphor for political columnists while Jon Stewart uses a 1976 movie with half its title in calling for a Rally to Restore Sanity. Is America “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore” or a huge circle of Friends creating digital democracy and instant political giants? Or, if you look closer,...

CNN is following the strategy I felt they would follow when I first saw the debut of “Parker Spitzer”: CNN is going to hang in there since despite some (franky predictable) pounding by some reviewers, the show has potential — including ratings potential: Eliot Spitzer’s debut on CNN’s prime-time lineup has been greeted by tepid viewing and some scathing reviews. But the network...

A Google tribute in the UK on the occasion of what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday. RELATED: The NYTimes Critic’s Notebook, Long After Death, Lennon Remains a Powerful Presence. Still controversial, The F.B.I. confiscated a 1976 John Lennon fingerprint card before it went up for auction in Manhattan. And if you’re following Joshua Wolf Shenk’s series on Creative Pairs, you might...