Is new PBS series a ‘Vicious’ stereotype?

June 29, 2014

In the show “Vicious,” which bows on PBS Sunday, June 29, Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Ian McKellen play two bitchy old queens, for want of a better description – indeed the Britcom was originally titled “Vicious Old Queens” – who’ve been lovers for 50 years.

Both are among the greatest actors of this or any century and long out of the closet. And the series was picked up in its native England for a second season. But some critics complained – and some here wonder – whether it plays into gay stereotypes, or whether we’re all too sensitive to political correctness.

“It’s actually a sign that we’ve all matured, and now it’s perfectly respectable to have an exaggerated, farcical representation of two people who are gay,” McKellen said in Dave Itzkoff’s piece for the June 29 New York Times’ Arts & Leisure section. “And for us to accept that they can be figures of fun, just in the same way as a farce about straight people would be.”

Maybe so, but I asked myself...

Divine intervention: U.S. and Portugal play to a World Cup draw

June 23, 2014

So God dropped everything else Sunday, and the U.S. actually outplayed Portugal for a while. But in the end, we got sloppy and Portugal tied the game.

Look, the Portuguese may be old but the Americans aren’t very good, at least not Germany or The Netherlands good.

I watched the game on a Spanish channel, which is always fun as the sportscasters are excitable, yelling GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL after every goal. It’s also great to hear a stream of Spanish punctuated by American names like Clint Dempsey – once the basis of a “Saturday Night Live” skit.

Cristiano Rinaldo – the Alex Rodriguez of soccer?

June 18, 2014

These are not the best of times for Cristiano Rinaldo, considered to be the world’s greatest soccer player (along with Leo Messi) and current holder of the Ballon d’Or as the No. 1-ranked player.

Playing for his native Portugal, he flamed out against Germany in early round action at the World Cup while Germany’s Thomas Müller – who isn’t considered to be as talented and certainly not as handsome or glamorous – led his team to a 4-0 victory.

Those who like to see Tall Poppies, as the Aussies call them, cut down to size were in their element. And indeed Rinaldo played right into the hands of his detractors by skipping the post-game press conference.

But the bigger question is why would someone who plays so well for Real Madrid play so poorly in the World Cup? (In the two previous Cups, Rinaldo has two goals in eight games.) Clearly, Portugal is not the team it once was. But that only explains why the Portuguese lost to the Germans. It doesn’t explain why they were shut out.

Is it simply possible that Rinaldo – like another handsome, seemingly self-centered athlete, one Alex Rodriguez – is a better regular season player than special occasion player?

Tony Gwynn, in memoriam (1960-2014)

June 17, 2014

Tony Gwynn dead June 16 at age 54 – what a shame. Think of Gwynn and you think of three things – tremendous hitter; lovely, smiling face; and class act.

I’ll never forget when Gwynn and his San Diego Padres played my beloved New York Yankees back in 1998 for the World Series. The ’98 Yanks were one of the greatest baseball teams ever assembled. Yankee aficionados put them up there with the 1927 Bombers (the so-called Murderers’ Row that included Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig) and the 1939 team that witnessed the passing of the torch from Gehrig to Joe DiMaggio.

So the poor Padres came up against a juggernaut in the 1998 fall classic and went down in four straight games. But Gwynn was stellar and stayed classy – gracious in victory and gracious in defeat.

Rape culture and the games men (and women) play

June 13, 2014

OK, so he didn’t do it – which was apparent early on in the story.

But now its official: Colin Kaepernick, fellow San Francisco 49er Quinton Patton and Seattle Seahawk Richard Lockette won’t be charged with sexual assault in an April incident involving a woman who had had a brief affair with Colin.

She visited Lockette in Miami, where he, Patton and Colin were training together, in the hope that her “relationship” with Colin would be rekindled. Then things got “Exorcist”-style crazy in Lockette’s hotel room, Colin split and the woman wound up in the hospital claiming that she may have been sexually assaulted.

May have been, might’ve been – that didn’t stop TMZ from portraying Colin as one knife short of Jack the Ripper.

TMZ’s reporting – I use the term as loosely as possible – is just one problem in a culture that has such a cavalier attitude toward rape and in which men and women leave themselves vulnerable to “he said, she said.”

Why, for instance, would a young woman go to a hotel room where only men were present, men who were said to be drinking and smoking pot? Sounds like a 911 call waiting to happen. But then, she was apparently trying to turn a one-night stand into a meaningful relationship even though Colin had cut off contact with her last year when she claimed she was pregnant as an April Fool’s joke. Some joke. Then she tried to cry rape. It’s an insult to the men, women and children who have suffered such a heinous act and those who have been falsely imprisoned because of it.

Let’s be clear, however: Colin and company may be innocent of a crime but they are hardly blameless here.

The fault in our stars? More thoughts on California Chrome and the ‘unfairness’ of life

June 9, 2014

So Cinderella turned out to be just as unpalatable as her stepsisters. By that I mean that the world is a little less enamored of Steve Coburn since he started crying foul – repeatedly – after his horse, California Chrome, lost his Triple Crown bid at the Belmont Stakes to Tonalist, who didn’t run in the Kentucky Derby or Preakness.

I never thought Coburn and the partner were interesting. I mean, how classy can you be when you name your venture Dumb Ass Partners? No, what was fascinating, beautiful, a dream, was that bright as a penny of a horse with his blaze and four white socks and curiosity about us two-legged types and poise and smarts and heart and in the end, none of it was enough.

And that’s heartbreaking but such is life. I still agree with Coburn, though, that it isn’t fair to come into the Belmont all fresh as a daisy and play spoiler. And I see that plenty in the blogosphere were thinking what I was thinking: You have to play every round of the French Open to get to the final.

The end of a California (Chrome) dream

June 8, 2014

How is it that you can fall in love with someone you don’t know?

What if that someone were a horse?

Millions of us fell in love with California Chrome these past few weeks and millions of us got our hearts broken as he finished out of the money in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, which increasingly seems to be won by a horse you don’t care about. This year it was Tonalist, who didn’t run in the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness. He’s named for an art principle. (In more than 30 years covering the arts, I never once used the term tonalism. Let’s just admit it’s a pretentious name, and leave it at that, shall we?)

Anyway, CC’s more voluble owner, Steve Coburn, did Chromies no favors...