Baldwin stars on one of the lowest-rated “cultural phenoms” (according to the dishonest entertainment media) on television, regularly insults a large segment of the customers (those who are not hypocritical wacko leftists), and just as regularly acts like a jerk in public.

Why would any company interested in creating goodwill want this guy as the face of their product?

AP:

Alec Baldwin’s antics aboard an American Airlines flight have gotten him grounded as a spokesman for a New York-based supermarket chain.

A spokeswoman for Wegmans Food Markets tells Rochester media outlets that the company pulled television ads featuring Baldwin after some customers complained about his behavior that resulted in his being booted from a Dec. 6 flight at Los Angeles International Airport.

Baldwin was removed from the New York-bound plane for refusing to turn off his cellphone.

The TV spots were filmed for the 2010 holiday season. The commercials were supposed to run again for three weeks last month but were pulled a week early after Baldwin’s airline dustup.

I’m looking at you, Capitol One.

To bear false witness against God, of all defendants, to blame Him for 9/11, branding Him and his representatives as persona non grata without a full trial is literally demanding God’s complete abandonment of New York City.

Is preventing clergy from participating in the 9/11 Memorial excluding God Himself?

Yes.

Why?

Try excluding a single State’s representative, Senator and/or House member, from a Congressional Ceremony Honoring Abraham Lincoln.

Try it, and may God have mercy on you.

The Almighty, if you haven’t noticed, runs a Democracy as well or better than Washington does.

God has also been known to take sides in American Wars.

Particularly the domestic wars of her Revolution and the nightmares of 1860-65.

God’s senators and diplomats, from varying points of view, from priest to rabbi to mullah, are indeed and undeniably representative of something in the human spirit if not in the Universe.

Bloomberg’s decision is beyond courting disaster. The Bloomberg policy, a la Mayor Rahm Emanuel, is exploiting a crisis, “not letting it go to waste”, for the savage political ends of a Progressive New World Order.

And, of course, “brownie points” with a radically Marxist President of the United States.

The Progressive New World Order being advertised by four consecutive American Presidents, from George H. W. Bush through Clinton, Bush Jr. and The Barack Hussein Obama Nation grows increasingly insensitive and insanely dismissive of more than American religious congregations.

They have dismissed America.

Why?

They have considered the New World Order a fait accompli. A done-deal!

Is the 9/11 Memorial Ceremony’s protocol being set by Mayor Bloomberg or by its star guest, President Barack Obama?

Since when should known apologists for Islam, Bloomberg and Obama, set the rules for an event that honors the victims of Radical Islam? This is well beyond salt in the wounds of survivors. It’s an impudence that not even a sane atheist could endure let alone God.

Ever since an ostensibly “Independent”, New York City Mayor Bloomberg decided that his decisions must obey the Obama Spin Doctors, the greatest city in the world has increasingly become the world’s most self-deluded mad-house.

I left New York when that city treated me and my battle with Attorney General Janet Reno as if I were the crazy one. There were not in the least interested in the unconstitutional behavior of their highest ranking law enforcement officer.

Now Gotham has a Mayor Bloomberg so out of touch with decent, common sense that I can justifiably diagnose New York as psychiatrically beyond “borderline”.

New York is literally suicidal, addicted to a drug called The Progressive New World Order.

The Progressive New World Order, I am certain, will never, ever become a major reality of any kind within this continent. The illusions and delusions of a New World Order may inhabit most of the five boroughs of New York and much of California. The rest of the North American continent, including Canada, however, is not only in visible disagreement but grows increasingly belligerent about North American Sovereignty.

New York has now become the twisted mirror image of California.

If you want a glimpse of the New World Order, try California and New York.

The economic situation of that real estate is merely openers to the bloody soap opera that will ensue. As the major watering holes for not only the Mainstream Media but American entertainment, New York and California happily re-indoctrinate each other in the worst of French ego a deux, or psychotic couplings such as Bonnie and Clyde.

The Bonnie and Clyde of Hollywood and New York City take their television joy rides through American living rooms 24 hours a day. Yet America said, “The thrill is gone” with the 2010 elections.

Oh, as for the title of this piece: The Twisted Mirror Image of California?

Rethink an image of the Twin Towers, just before they went down and the twisting bodies falling into the cement pavement.

That twisted destiny was God’s fault?

Who could possibly buy that accusation?

A New Yorker and a Californian.

May God have mercy on them both.

On the morning of 1 July 2011…that “whisper became a shout.”

What started out as a regular weekly spotlight on one of our great culture warriors at BigDawg Music Mafia – this time on the amazing music of our good friend Chip Murray, a truly gifted singer/songwriter who also happens to be a delightful, down-to-earth blogger – has turned out to be so much more.   We are reminded not only of God’s incredible Grace, but we are also reminded of the sacrifices of our fallen brothers and sisters that enable us to celebrate our freedom.   May this story–Chip’s story–lift your spirits and give you hope.

It is a pleasure and an honor to introduce our friend, Chip Murray.

Chip’s Biography:

Chip got his first guitar (a Stella) at the tender age of 13.  It may have been a cheap guitar, but he quickly found it to be a great tool of expression and a very cool way to connect with people.  Growing up in the turbulent 60’s, the guitar became his life raft and steady friend through the whitewaters of adolescence…. And while the rest of the world seemed to be finding themselves, making their marks and staking their claims, he was tasting the silent sweetness of nowhere.  And yet, by 35 he had lived everywhere from Boulder to Reseda, to Morgan City and the Houston suburb of Bacliff.  He lived, worked, loved, fought, and danced with “the people” on every coast of this great land.  He became one of them, assimilating their culture by inhaling their music and stories into his heart and soul… “Gone Wishin‘,” the debut CD from his band Cavern was his first public “exhale” and but a glimpse of what’s inside.  From “Devil in Me” to “Deja Vu Blues,” Gone Wishin’ is a metaphor for our journey from the darkness to the light….and after “we rest on the wind, we’ll come right back to our mothers again.”- Gibran.

By 2010, Chip was back in the studio again, this time with Producer/Engineer Adrian Holtz (The Bravery, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Ravonettes, Neil Dorfsman), his former Cavern bass player Peter Verutes and fellow Warwickian keyboardist Glenn John Arnowitz.  The result is a new 15 track CD, Wide Awake, released 5/1/11!  His new material from “Wonder Why” to “Home,” and “Tip Jar” is less personal and yet from a deeper and more connected place that is sure to touch you in places long forgotten…leaving you completely satisfied, wanting only a smoke!

If the world hasn’t heard of Chip Murray yet, they’re going to. With lyrics as powerful as Bob Dylan (yes, that powerful), an earthy, warm, weathered voice that sings about love and life and everything else in between, and wonderful, acoustic, honest production, “Wide Awake” is one of the best albums of this decade.~ Bobby Jo Valentine

In His Own Words:

It gets awfully lonely up here in New York for an out-of-the-closet Conservative like myself.  I recently had a liberal friend of mine passionately encourage, advise, and counsel me to actually “SHUT UP ‘n sing!”  LOL!!!

I made a promise to myself in early 2008.  I felt that if some kid could strap on body armor and leave his home, family and friends to go dodge bullets in some God-forsaken desert foxhole, then the least we could do is stand and engage the even more ruthless enemy here at home!  The Ballad of John Hall was my first politically inspired song…reflecting my experience at the first 9/12 march on Washington and my complete disgust with our local Congressman at the time, John Hall (Former front man for the 70’s band, Orleans).

I’ve never truly felt purpose in my life…until now.  At 58, I’ve always been a late bloomer, but the truth is that I didn’t become a serious musician until 8-10 years ago.  My wife saw something in me that nobody else (including me) saw.  That seeing gave birth to I Believe, and the rest is history!  Now it is clear to me that God has blessed me with a voice to sing, a pen to write, and the heart to empower both!  Everything else is just bugs on the windshield!

I wrote Independence Day on July 3^rd, 2009.  It came to me as I was putting the flag out and wondering where had all the honor gone?  “My cousin Rocky” was a helicopter crew member who was shot down and killed during his 2^nd tour in Vietnam.  The fact is that my consciousness has evolved from those turbulent years to a point where I have learned to question everything and develop the courage to stand, even if it means standing alone!

What I have come to LOVE about BigDawg Music Mafia is the fact that Independence, Courage, and Common Sense aren’t exceptions here…they are the rule here!  It has become a very cool sanctuary…a place to re-charge, re-generate and energize!  Kindred Spirit is the warm glow of candle light there…

Chip had sent a copy of his new CD Wide Awake to me shortly after it was released and there is not one song on the CD that I don’t enjoy thoroughly.  His warm, melodic lead vocals and perfectly blended harmonies, his thought-provoking and heart-warming lyrics, and his beautiful acoustic arrangements are amazingly soothing to one’s soul and need to be shared.

When I first heard Independence Day, I really had hoped to share his story in time for the Independence Day weekend.  Unfortunately (or fortunately as it turns out) he had no video for that song to include in this spotlight piece so I offered to do one for him and began scouring the internet for photos to accompany his lyrics.  When I got to this this verse…

My cousin Rocky who I never knew…Fell from the sky for me and you…Rice paddies are soft but can’t break the fall…the weight of freedom, heaviest of all.

…I decided to include a photo of the Vietnam Memorial.  While searching for one I wanted to use, I regretted that I didn’t think to try to find out Rocky’s real name early enough for me to drive to Washington, D.C., pay a visit to The Wall, look up where on the wall his name appears, snap a photo, and use it for the video.  So in lieu of that, I looked at literally hundreds of photos and selected the two I liked best.

Here is where the goosebumps come in…

On the morning of July 1, 2011, a few hours after I sent the just-completed video to Chip, he sent an email to me saying he absolutely loved it.  About an hour later, I learned that he had exchanged emails with Rocky’s brother, Steve, where he asked Steve to look carefully at the photo of the wall at 1:29-1:32 in the video…and asked if Rocky’s real name was James R. Dean, Jr.   As Chip mentions in his song, he never met Rocky…nor did he know his real name.  Yet, Chip later told me that when he watched the video for the first time, when the images of The Wall appeared, something made him pause and go back to take a closer look.  He saw the last name “Dean” upon closer scrutiny and recalled he had an Uncle with that last name, called his mother and asked if she knew Rocky’s name but she did not.  She did, however say that Rocky’s father’s name was “Jim.”  Chip told me his hands were trembling as he typed out the email to his cousin Steve.

This was Steve’s reply:

Oh my gosh!  It is!  Rocky’s real name was James R. Dean, Jr.  My dad was Sr.  I have been to the wall and looked at & touched his name. The odds of this happening are unbelievable.  A song that mentions Rocky, a friend does the video not knowing anything about Rocky, does a random wall shot on a huge wall….wow!!!!!…Makes the song even better and more meaningful and it was already incredible.

When Chip told me about this, he said we just “witnessed one of God’s miracles” and added:

God truly has us secure.  I don’t even know what to say….This is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me…How do I sing tonight without crying???  You captured Rocky at 1:29!!!!

Yes, the tears welled up and a few spilled over…and I had chills that would not go away in spite of the very warm temperatures that day.  A mere coincidence?  I think not.

Consider this:  There are 58,272 names on The Wall and “about 4,330,000 results” that came back on a Google search for images of the Vietnam Memorial.  I looked through several of them before I found the ones I wanted to use.  I’m no mathematician but figure the odds of my using one that actually had the name of the person Chip sings about in his song.

As Chip said to me later that day…”God went from a whisper to a shout”…and he emailed the following to some of his close friends and family members:

“…there is a light in what I am about to share that transcends everything…and I want the purity in the newness of this revelation to shine directly into your deepest hearts with a nourishment that no one could appreciate as much as you…The person who made the Independence Day video for me knew NOTHING about my cousin Rocky other than what the rest of you knew from the song lyric.  She alone picked out “The Wall” footage you will notice at 1:29 to 1:32 in the video.  I DID NOT KNOW until this morning that my cousin Rocky was James R. Dean, Jr.!  Now I do know, as now do you…and we now know a whole lot more when you really think about it.”

That very evening, Chip performed several of his songs at his Wide Awake CD release party.  He shared the following with me the next day:

Our CD Release was amazing on Friday night…I chose a farm, Pennings Farm, for my release party…A big flag draping the back of the stage overlooking corn fields…kids…ice cream…it was open to the public so we had an amazing turnout…the Liberals looked like they were going to implode when we played “The Ballad of John Hall”, but there wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd when I told the “Rocky” story before playing Independence Day…

God’s timing is always…perfect.

The New York State Senate passed a bill legalizing gay marriage late Friday in a 32-29 vote, and many in Hollywood immediately took to Twitter to applaud the news.

“Tonight we’re all New Yorkers! Straight & gay alike, let’s all celebrate marriage equality,” tweeted Kathy Griffin. “The right side of history!”

“Marriage equality…. vote yes,” added Alec Baldwin.

Baldwin’s It’s Complicated co-star Steve Martin tweeted to him: “Alec! Now we can get married!” To which Baldwin responded: “Ok. But if you play that effing banjo after eleven o’clock….”

Tweeted Shannon Elizabeth: “Congrats to NY!!!! I just heard gay marriage passed 30 minutes ago-yayayay!!!!!!”

Wrote Alyssa Milano: “Way to go, New York. One people. One planet. One love. #Equality4All”

Actress Elizabeth Banks weighed in: “Party on Christopher Street! Wish I was there. Congrats New York. #terroristsdidnotwin”

Lindsay Lohan praised the state’s governor: “Nice work to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.”

Modern Family co-creator Steve Levitan said the West Coast should follow New York’s lead: “Way to go, NY. Time to catch up, California.”

“Congratulations to humanity,” chimed in Jason Alexander. “And particularly to the NY State Senate. I promise you have advanced mankind, not ruined it. Blessings.”

And Julie Benz (Dexter) added: “Congratulations NY on gay marriage!! Finally!!! I will gorge myself tonight in celebration!!”

Some gay celebrities also cheered the move, including former ‘N Sync-er Lance Bass: “BIG BIG DAY FOR OUR FAMILIES 33-29 it passed!!!! Now lets educate people and make sure we make them feel comfortable with why this happened!”

Full article is here.

Alec Baldwin is mulling a run for mayor of New York City now that kinky Congressman Anthony Weiner appears to have sexted himself out of the 2013 race.

The “30 Rock” star, who has long talked about running for political office, believes Weinergate has shaken up the field of candidates enough that he might have a chance to win, a friend of the actor told The Daily.

“Alec said, ‘Hey, maybe this changes the race. The dynamics have shifted,’ ” said Baldwin’s pal.

“The Democrats need a high-profile candidate, and Alec can fill that bill.”

Baldwin, a die-hard Democrat originally from Massapequa, a suburb on Long Island, N.Y., has said 2012 will be his last year on “30 Rock,” which would free him up for a 2013 mayoral run.

He’d be the biggest name by far to throw his hat in the ring to succeed Mayor Michael Bloomberg at “the second hardest job” in the nation, Weiner’s dream gig before his sordid fall from grace.

Bloomberg, who had New York City’s term-limit law rewritten to win his third term, isn’t expected to run again in 2013. The likely candidates include City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Councilman Bill de Blasio, and former New York comptroller Bill Thompson, who narrowly lost to Bloomberg in 2009.

Full article here.

It usually takes our new members a few days to figure out how to navigate their way around our site (hosted on the NING platform), so I went about my business and made a mental note to check back in a day or two.

My good friend/songmate/partner-in-crime, Drew (a.k.a. BigDawg), sent an email to me saying, “You have got to check out this new guy, Toots Sweet…he’s great!”

So I did…and I smiled…big.

We have such a wide range of musical genres at our site, but this man is a true original with a great message and a cool vibe.  His tribute to our troops, “Soldier Boy,” is one of my favorites.

Wasn’t sure exactly which genre to classify his music as until I read his bio:

Toots Sweet (singer/songwriter) is a New York City original.   The only Conservative urban funk rock artist.   Toots combines his passion for music with his love of country to create a refreshing new sound with a powerful message.  He creates an “urban” rock funk sound that is uplifting and rhythmic with memorable hooks that will entice your mind and awaken your soul.  His music communicates a message that is in sync with the beliefs and passions of our Founding Fathers that is respected by both young and old, from rural farms to urban city streets.  Be warned though… if you do not love America you may find his lyrical content extremely offensive.

His CD release of Takin’ Back America in 2010 with songs as We The People, Soldier Boy, Culture of Corruption and That’s My Girl Lady Liberty, has received much praise.  In a recent interview by Joe Ardis of Raiders News Network, he was quoted as saying “Toots Sweet is the funk master and the real deal… He’s so tenacious about what he believes in, yet so warm and approachable.”

I couldn’t agree more.  His videos are well-produced and fun to watch, his messages are always spot on, and the way he delivers them through his unique and very entertaining musical style grabs you from the first note and keeps you hanging on ’til the very end.  His personality is every bit as fabulous as his music — a warm, caring, passionate patriot… and I dig his accent.  I asked him what made him decide to write political songs.  Here is the response he sent me:

After 9/11 I started getting into politics more.  By the end of Bush’s second term I was extremely disappointed in the bailouts for the banks via TARP.  Then came along Mr. ‘Hope and Change’ and he really put the pedal to the metal in the wrong direction with the Stimulus and ObamaCare.  The country is broke but the politicians do not seem to care.  They were passing bills without reading them. It’s insane what is going on in this great Country.

So I started to fight back the only way I knew which was through my music.  I attended the 8/28 Restoring Honor Rally and was attending TEA Party events.  I went down to march in Washington DC for both 9/12 events in 2009 and 2010.  I met some amazing patriots down there.  What struck me the most was the TEA Partiers who were born in other countries like Russia and Cuba.  They were more frightened than most.  They would say ‘Americans better wake up before it is too late’…almost like they’ve seen this before in their countries.  It made me really concerned for the future of this great country.  But as we all know, freedom ain’t free and we have to stand up for what we believe in.

I don’t look like your typical conservative.  I want the youth to know that, as they say on BigDawgMusicMafia, ‘Conservative is Cool’.  We as conservatives need to understand that music and the arts play a critical role in motivating and capturing the beliefs and passions of all people and by embracing pop culture, the conservative movement can further its cause, as all other movements have in the past like Bob Dylan did in the 1960’s and Bob Marley in the 1970’s, which have shown to be very effective.

If ‘We The People’ are to make a lasting difference in the minds of Americans, especially the youth, we need to understand that music and the arts can be very persuasive and influential.  As I see our country losing its way, I will continue writing songs to help restore American exceptionalism to a country that was founded on freedom and the belief in the greatest minority on earth — the Individual.  That’s why I believe sites like BigDawg Music Mafia, Raiders News Network (RNN), ArtistExpressway, and Big Hollywood are important and I want to take the time to thank them and thank you for giving Conservative musicians a platform.  It means a lot to me but more importantly they are helping restore this country as opposed to fundamentally transforming it.  At BigDawg I met some awesome musicians/songwriters.  I’m currently working with great artists such as Chris Ross.  He will be coming down to New York City next month. So we are going to meet up in my studio & collaborate on some freedom songs.  I’m also going to collaborate on some tunes with the one and only Joe Dan Gorman, another great musician.

As I like to say, we are all in the mess together so we need to support each other in the struggle to preserve Liberty.  Both Chris Ross and Joe Dan are as passionate about music as I am and just as concerned about the direction this country is heading and we all know what passion does for musicians so here we come America.

But in this uncertainty there is much hope out there which leads me to my next project, Keep Hope Alive with songs like The End Game, The Enemy Within & The Liberty Manifesto, with an anticipated release date of December 2011.

On different note, I’m going to continue to write fun songs/parodies in support of conservative candidates and their causes, such as Allen West, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain & others.  It’s my way of contributing to their campaigns in hopes of making people more aware of who they are.  So stay tuned, there’s much coming down the pike.

I had the great honor of meeting Congressman Allen West twice;  once on the Intrepid in New York City through a mutual friend where Allen West and I spoke for about 15 minutes and then again when when I was down at CPAC, where he was the keynote speaker,and he took some time to chat with me.  What a great guy.  His speech that he gave on the American Freedom Tour, when he was running for Congress, inspired my song ‘1775’ (I’m currently working on the video).  He’s a true leader and is greatly needed today as he is one of the few in Congress who has a clue.  I’ll be meeting up with him again this summer at an event in New York City at which I’ll have an opportunity to speak with him one-on-one.  I’m really looking forward to meeting up with him again.

I also had the great privilege of meeting Dr. Alveda King at a church in Harlem where she was discussing human rights for the unborn.  She took some time out of her busy schedule to speak with me and take some pictures.  She is a strong and beautiful woman.  She is attacked all the time by the so called ‘caring’ liberals but she does not waver on her beliefs.  She is an inspiration on what courage and integrity are all about.Glenn Beck, who is doing an amazing job to enlighten the American soul, has inspired most of my CD Takin’ Back America.  I’ve been told “When Glenn Beck speaks it, Toots Sweet sings it”.  I had the pleasure of being in the studio audience for one of his shows.  He’s truly an inspiration.

The United States Military is an inspiration as well.  Their bravery and courage amaze me.  I wrote a song called ‘Soldier Boy’ to honor our heroes who take an oath to defend this country and defend its Constitution. Without the sacrifice and dedication of the men and women in the Armed Forces there would be no America.  Thank you for all you do.

There is no question: this man loves his country and is one artist you will not soon forget.  You can enjoy his music live at the National TEA Party Convention in Memphis and the Freedom Jamboree in Kansas City this Fall as he will be performing at both events along with many other great patriot artists including a bunch of BigDawg’ers.

If you love his music as much as we do, please tell your friends about this great patriot who is shaking things up in New York City named Toots Sweet.  You can buy his music on his official site and keep up with him by subscribing to his YouTube channel and “Liking” his brand new Facebook fan page.

We are honored to call him friend and to have this opportunity to share his music with you.  As he always likes to say:

We gotta keep on keepin’ up the good fight, spreading the truth, ’cause this party is just gettin’ started…and together let’s take back America one song at a time.

The Green Police gave her grief about this.

Enter Jennifer Aniston, the former Friends star who has successfully transitioned from TV to motion picture fame and cares deeply about conservation. In her contribution to a 2007 book about “saving the planet one simple step at a time,” Aniston reveals she takes three-minute showers and brushes her teeth in the shower. “Every two minutes in the shower uses as much water as a person in Africa uses for everything in their life for a whole day!” she explains.

Well, it’s good to know that Aniston has been consuming less water than the rest of us climate change deniers… in a $42 million Beverly Hills mansion. No cognitive dissonance there! Except, apparently, Aniston has recently decided that the lavish crib is “too much” for her, and she will be downgrading to a “wooden box” a la Mad Men’s Vincent Katheiser trailer a la director Tom Shadyac $4.95 million Manhattan luxury apartment. Now, I’m no expert on New York’s housing market, but that doesn’t quite sound like the kind of humble life that, say, we middle-cass flyover troglodytes already live, right?

The story’s been getting legs in the press (coincidentally, around the same time as her own legs showed up in a trailer for her next film) because she bought the place using a trust fund that was set up in her dog’s name. Eh, let people have their inside jokes, I say; this is a more illuminating detail: “As well as the penthouse, she snapped up two other small units in the building.” So, not only is she buying more expensive housing than a person in Africa can afford over an entire lifetime with the apartment itself, but she needs even more space–all for her and little Norman, the corgi-terrier mix.

It’s been almost half a decade since An Inconvenient Truth came out. I’m no scientist, but the fact that I can count the number of true climate change alarmists who have actually scaled down their standard of living (even though they still work in one of the most unnecessary wasteful industries in the country) on one hand is all I need to know about that documentary’s warnings. Note to Jenn: since neither you nor your peers are exemplifying a real solution for global climate catastrophe, does it really make sense to move to a city that will become the Ground Zero of rising ocean levels?

It’s time for the King of All Media to relinquish his throne.

This New York native followed Howard Stern from his early days at W-NNNN-BC all the way to his current perch atop SiriusXM Satellite Radio. But it becomes more clear every day his best broadcasts are behind him. He’s done all he can to promote satellite radio, and his impact on the culture, much to the dismay of social conservatives, is secure. The longer he lingers, the more his legacy fades. Stern may have precious little in common with “The Tonight Show” legend Johnny Carson, but the silver-haired talker knew how to exit show business gracefully – near the top of his game.

It’s odd that a man who talks about lesbians, sodomy and bodily excretions can stain his own career simply by talking, but that’s what’s happening on the days Stern is heard live via satellite. Being King must have its perks, since in addition to taking every Friday off Stern’s current vacation schedule would make Carson blush.

The modern version of “The Howard Stern Show” reveals a performer far more concerned with navel gazing than skewering sacred cows. When Stern savages a subject now, it’s more often because he or she dared to cross his path. Today’s Stern seems disinterested in lampooning the powerful. Yes, he still swats Oprah Winfrey whenever the chance appears, but he barely lays a glove on a vulnerable president or the stars in his expanding inner circle.

The young Stern gained our trust because he was one of us, a workaday father and husband who understood what it’s like to sit in traffic, deal with inept co-workers and field complaints from an irate spouse. The modern Stern is part of the media power structure, and he knows it. That air of entitlement seeps into every monologue, distancing himself from us in ways that can’t be mended.

The loss of sidekick Artie Lange dealt Stern’s show a serious blow. Lange not only brought a nonstop barrage of humor to the broadcasts, but he took the spotlight off the increasingly self-obsessed Stern. Would you rather hear Lange’s take on “American Idol,” or listen as Stern rants about how much money he’d need to “save” the show? Now, with Lange in an extended break to recover from a suicide attempt, there’s no forceful personality to counteract Stern’s shtick. And it shows.

The program’s best comic bits now come from Stern’s “Dumb and Dumber” sidekicks Sal Governale and Richard Christy. The duo generate brilliant prank phone calls, the kind that both reinvent the tired genre and leave listeners gasping for air between laughs.

The phoniness in Stern’s shtick is tough to take for longtime listeners. Remember how he used to blast the likes of Cousin Brucie, Jay Thomas and Bubba the Love Sponge, radio personalities he deemed unfit to shine his oversized shoes? Now, they’re part of the big, happy SiriusXM family, with Bubba even sharing a channel alongside Stern.

Stern’s contract is set to expire at the end of the year, and already listeners have had to suffer through retirement threats. Pit bulls have nothing on Stern when it comes to biting onto something and not letting go. So consider the next few weeks to be tortured with hints of his future plans and threats to leave his radio gig.

The Long Island native could always attempt a career overhaul, bringing his R-rated romp to a new medium. Stern still has the clout, in theory, to launch an Internet-based radio show and bring tons of attention to the new venture. Or, he could team up with some whiz kids and launch an iPhone app to let fans hear the show on their terms.

But does Stern have any fire left in his belly for such a task? His rigorous vacation schedule reveals a man who can’t wait for the weekend – or Friday, in his case.

Stern thrived for decades not because he pushed the envelope or aired naughty bits, but because he spoke with candor and humor on issues too many broadcasters wouldn’t touch. His critics never understood his true appeal.

Those who discount Stern’s legacy do so at the risk of ignoring a game changer. Experts kept predicting he would fail over the last 20-plus years. So it will be fitting if he goes out near the top, on his own terms, and leaves said critics as wrong as they ever were.

There’s still no one else like Stern on the dial – or podcast. Listening to him chat up Billy Joel recently proved he can still tease nuggets out of even the most jaded celebrity. But the misses of late far outweigh the hits, and that’s not like Stern at all.

So let’s pay tribute to the King by wishing him a healthy, happy retirement – and a legacy fitting a man of his gifts.

At the same time, it was his first picture made with mighty Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who in 1928 had lured him out of the independent wilderness with a lucrative contract and promises of big budgets for production, advertising, and distribution. The Hollywood studio with “more stars than there are in heaven” sought to add a genius comedian to that celestial firmament, and who better to fill that role than the guy whom critic James Agee would later credit with bringing “pure physical comedy to its greatest heights”?

Keaton initially thought that his new deal, the richest in M-G-M history up to that time, would ensure his stardom for many years to come. “This was still before the stock market crash,” he said years later in an interview. “There was money everywhere. . . I was successful, I was famous, I was free. Hell, I was sitting pretty and didn’t have enough sense to know it.”

As it turned out, the rigid assembly-line strictures of working at M-G-M (front-office approved scripts only, generic Hollywood casts and crews, no improvisation or dangerous stunts allowed) — combined with the onset of the Great Depression, the blitzkrieg adaptation of sound, his own increasing age, and the debilitating alcoholism brought on by a failed marriage — conspired to rob him of the longstanding moviemaking methods which once enabled his spontaneous brand of physical comedy to thrive. By the mid-1930s, Buster Keaton was as anachronistic and out-of-style as disco was by the mid-1980s. Reduced to taking bit parts in movies and creating gags for the new crop of comedians behind-the-scenes, it would take film critic James Agee’s 1949 essay to spark a revival in his fortunes and reputation.

But back in 1928, during his initial honeymoon phase with M-G-M, he had no way of knowing any of that. All he saw was a glorious new phase of his career stretching out before him. In the past he often swung for the fences, ever trying to top himself with more outrageous gags. But The Cameraman was, in Keaton’s words, “one of my pet pictures. It’s the simplest story that you can find, which was always a great thing for us if we could find it.” That simplicity brought out an element in his work heretofore unseen, namely a romantic sentimentality and a more languorous pace, both stemming from the emotions and humanity of the characters.

In June, Buster provided M-G-M with the idea of a lovelorn New York photographer striving to become a movie cameraman in order to impress a kindly girl working at a local newsreel company. Months later, the studio proudly presented their new star with an enormous script compiled by over twenty writers and filled with a bewildering array of clichéd characters and tired Hollywood plot-twists. After a half-hearted try at filming the behemoth in New York, Keaton called the studio and begged them to “for God’s sake, authorize me to throw this cockeyed script in the ash can and shoot from the cuff from here on.”

Freed from the strictures of a screenplay, Keaton proceeded to engage in his usual method of working: boundless creativity borne of rigorous improvisation. At one point his character arrives at Yankee Stadium to film a newsreel, finds it empty, and proceeds to charmingly engage in every fan’s fantasy: miming a game on the renowned field, playing all the positions by himself with childlike enthusiasm. In another, his efforts to break open a simple piggy bank end up destroying half his apartment. In still another, he takes an exhausted staple of romantic movies — dropping a telephone and rushing off frantically down a busy street in pursuit of a loved one — and makes it hilarious by sprinting so fast that he reaches her apartment and skids to a stop right behind her before she’s realized he’s no longer on the other end of the line. The film’s big set-piece, an explosive tong war between rival gangs in Chinatown, features him inventing ingenious ways to dodge bullets, knives, and bodies while simultaneously filming the works, all while his pet monkey tags along and takes full part in the mayhem.

Among this cavalcade of comedic delights, Keaton later revealed that, “The sequence that furnished the longest laugh in the picture was found at Venice, California, which was dressed up — or down — to look like New York’s Coney Island. Its gags were invented on the spot by [director Edward] Sedgwick, myself, and our two writers, Lew Lipton and Clyde Bruckman.” At base, the idea was simple: Keaton takes his girl to a public swimming pool for their first date. But the number of titters, yowls, belly-laughs, and boffos he manages to wring out of that scenario is extraordinary. Each new development flows organically into the next, the laughs so earthbound and genuine that it comes as a surprise to learn how much hard work and inventive genius went into them.

Take the centerpiece of the scene: Keaton attempting to change into a swimsuit before his poolside date gets snapped up by one of the many muscular college jocks prowling the area like sharks. Looking over the dressing rooms at the real-live Venice location, Buster decided that his poor character would find himself forced to share one with a much burlier fellow. To make the predicament even more funny, he had an extra-small mock-up of the real room built, one that would force the two actors to squeeze, contort, and fumble with every attempt to remove their clothes. The seasoned comedian’s eagle-eye left no detail unexamined in his quest to build the scene into a comedic gem. “Each bathhouse had six hooks on its walls,” Keaton later remembered, so “we removed four hooks, because a couple of men struggling to hang all of their clothes on one hook apiece could be very funny.”

Initially, the director suggested that a hulking actor should be found to serve as Keaton’s dressing-room nemesis, but Buster saw that as too unrealistic. “What I wanted was a fellow about my size who looked like a grouch but not the sort who dares start a fight.” With such a character mentally improvised on the spot, and no time to go back to Hollywood to hunt down an appropriate actor, they turned to the balding, scowling unit manager on his crew. “He filled the bill on looks,” Keaton decided, “although he had never done any acting. . . As usual, we did not rehearse the scene. . . rehearsed scenes look mechanical on the screen.”

By rolling the camera and inventing as they went along, they were able to create something that audiences still remember eighty years later. “The scene ran for four minutes,” Keaton later marveled in an interview, “which is a very long time on the screen for a string of gags worked by just two men in a single ridiculous situation. [M-G-M Producer Irving] Thalberg almost had hysterics when he saw that day’s rushes in a projection room.” The unit manager who had acted in the scene alongside Keaton, Ed Brophy, generated so much laughter among audiences that it propelled him into a long Hollywood career as a crowd-pleasing grouch — you can see him in The Champ (1931), Freaks (1932), The Thin Man (1934), and the musicals Varsity Show (1937) and Gold Diggers in Paris (1938) among many others (you can even hear him as the mouse in Disney’s Dumbo).

As the famous “changing room scene” in The Cameraman shows, it wasn’t plot-twists or clever writing that drove a Keaton picture, but physical gags: spontaneous comedy derived from setting and characters, visual stuff more reminiscent of vaudeville than a theatrical play. For Buster Keaton was a product not of cinema, but of a lost stage art which cinema had destroyed decades earlier. . . .

Previous posts in the series “Buster Keaton and The Cameraman”

Part 1

FURTHER READING and VIEWING

A tour of the real-life locations for The Cameraman: See some of the still-existing and recognizable Los Angeles buildings that Buster Keaton used to film The Cameraman in 1928.

TCM notes on The Cameraman: Here’s TCM’s mini-essay on the film, written by James Steffen. Just like the standard TCM video introductions by Robert Osborne, these little written exposes on their website are always interesting and worth a read.

According to council-member Dan Halloran, these changes give police more power to reject licenses, in order to counter a possible upswing in gun ownership caused by new, lower fees.

Now I’m all for keeping guns out the hands of bad people.

But I’m also for getting guns into the hands of good people.

But I must ask: how does being a bad driver, make you a bad person? And getting fired? I’ve been canned three times – does that mean I can’t have a glock? I mean, I shouldn’t have a glock – but not for that reason. There was an incident in Shreveport that ended that dream.

As for being in debt? That eliminates everyone here on this set. And also John Gibson – who still owes me $1300 for that lost weekend in Cancun.

So yeah, these new restrictions seem pretty vague.

But there’s something else here that stinks. If the government can link certain good behaviors to gun ownership, who’s going to define what’s good?

Think about it. Your fitness to own a gun might only be approved as long as you fulfill a strict criteria that appeals only to the modern, annoying civil servant.

Perhaps, to own a gun, you’ll have to possess an impeccable recycling history, participate regularly in Take Your Daughter to Work Day, watch The Daily Show religiously, and ban trans-fats from your kids diet. So you didn’t run the 5k on Earth Day? And you chose to rent “the expendables” over “Eat Pray Love?”

Sorry, no Smith & Wesson for you.

But worse, if you take guns out of the hands of decent people, you’ll never learn how to carve a pumpkin, the fun way:

—–

Nice work.

And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist, homophobic, glockophobe.

Tonight:

Leeanne Tweeden!

Lauren Sivan!

Dana Vachon!