Donald Trump keeps tweeting about all
the fake news on all the media except for Fox News. I’d hate to think that any
of the news outlets would deliberately obfuscate stories about him or anyone
else. But too often lately I’ve noticed stories that report conflicting
details. In my last blog about the young woman in the Hacienda Health Care
facility in Phoenix, I said that she had been in a coma from age three to
twenty-nine, a twenty-six year coma resulting from a near fatal drowning
accident. Laurie Roberts, an Amazon
Republic reporter, said exactly that in a breaking story just after the
young woman gave birth to a son. I trusted that she had her facts straight about
the length of the coma. But since then, I’ve read other reports that state a
variety of conflicting time frames—Rolling
Stone Magazine, 14 years; CBS News, 10 years; several others, 10 years or
more than a decade. They can’t all be correct. So, how long has she actually
been in a coma? A more recent report in the Arizona
Republic, by Bree Burkitt, repeated what Laurie Roberts had said, a coma since
the age of three. I realize that this factual discrepancy isn’t as important a
detail as her being raped. However, it points out that, although it’s not “fake
news,” it certainly is conflicting news, much too much like what Donald Trump
spews out in his tweets, unchecked facts that come tumbling out of his mouth in
his eagerness to make a point or berate his detractors. He and reporters must report
facts, not guesses. Otherwise, we who rely on true stories may worry that not
all we read or hear can be reliable truth.
On Amazon Prime Video, I’ve been
watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,
and what a marvelous show it seems to be. I’m not very knowledgeable about
standup comedy even though I’m familiar with a bunch of those who came up
through the ranks to win fame in tv or films, and I loved The Big Sick, that film two years ago based on the true experiences
of Kumail Nanjiana trying to make it in New York as a standup comic. I think
back to all those funny men and women I’ve laughed at over the years, and I now
realize that most of them began their careers doing exactly that, standing in
front of small audiences in some smoke-filled club or café, trying for five or
ten minutes to make people laugh, some obviously more successful than others.
Maybe the most successful of all of them is Jerry Seinfeld, but then I think
back to Jack Benny, Red Skelton, and Bob Hope, who also made it very big but who
also probably had to do their apprenticeships in Standup. Most made it singly,
like Bill Cosby (although you might say he made it up and then waaay back down),
Bob Newhart, Steve Martin, Robin Williams, and Whoopie Goldberg. Some made it
as duos, like Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, and Burns and Allen. And
some made it through Saturday Night Live,
like Jane Curtain, Eddie Murphy, Gilda Radner, and Tina Fey.
And now here I am, watching Rachel
Brosnahan as Mrs. Maisel, trying to make her way up the ladder in standup
comedy. She’s funny, she’s smart, she’s audacious, and she’s what today would
be called a fashionista. She and her Jewish parents (Tony Shalhoub and Marin
Hinkle) live in New York in 1958, a time when comedians had to stay within the
legal limits of obscenity or be arrested, when Lenny Bruce and George Carlin
often defied those limits and were often arrested. Miriam, or Midge, discovers
that she wants to make a career in comedy. She has some success when, a little
inebriated and a lot angry, she takes the mike and does an extemporaneous bit
about her husband leaving her for his secretary. Susie (Alex Borstein), the manager of the club, recognizes Miriam’s talent and talks her into letting Susie
be her agent. The show is very funny, depicting the world of very funny people,
and Rachel Brosnahan is too funny and good as an actor that you shouldn‘t miss
her. Subscribe to Amazon Prime and you’ll be able to see both of the first two
seasons. You won’t regret it.
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