Blast From The Past #2

Ok, I figured to wait a little while longer, but recently I've been on a new kick of watching old Gong Show clips on YouTube.

For those of you who aren't quite familiar with the Gong Show, it was a talent show that aired in the US on NBC from 1976 to 1980, where contestants, both good and bad, would come from all over American to compete for the grand prize: $516.32, apparently a symbolic value since, at the time, that was the take home pay the Screen Actors' Guild would pay for a day's work. If the performer, or performers, were bad after the first 20 seconds, one or more of the 3 judges would hit the gong behind them, ending the act and disqualifying the contestant.

Below is an example of how bad a bad act can be. One phrase best describes this: "DON'T LOOK ETHEL!!!"



The Gong Show grew such a cult-like following that Barris decided to run with it, brining back a few more popular acts more than once. These acts weren't actual contestants but rather fixtures of the show. You had the "Unknown Comic" who would do a stand up routine with a bag over his head, you had "Scarlett and Rhett" who were 2 people portraying the 2 Gone With the Wind characters, and, you had the grandaddy of all reoccurring acts: Gene Gene the Dancing Machine, who was actually one of the stage hands Barris noticed one day dancing and liked his act so he put him on stage. Whenever Gene Gene's "theme song" would start playing (Count Basie's Jumpin' at the Woodside), Barris would start imitating Gene Gene's moves and the audience and judges would start dancing, and the other stage hands would start throwing objectes onto the stage as Gene Gene would contuinue dancing, oblivious to the debris.

Here's a clip of one of his famous entrances



Again, Barris was simply ahead of his time and, to this day, I've yet to see ANYTHING that tops the zanyness and just total creativity that the Gong Show had.

Blast From The Past #1

Yesterday, I came across this pretty cool website called RetroJunk.com. I spent hours on it because it's basically an archive of tons of tv show intros and commercials from back in the day.

In the spirit of such, I decided to start an insert called "Blast From The Past", where I'll yank one of the intros or commercials from this site and air it here, along with a small description of course.

And, to kick things off, we go back to the mid 80's, when the popular fast food franchise, Wendy's, in the spirit of the Cold War, came out with this commericial that's been stuck on my mind ever since. Reason being is that during the live TV shows here in Portugal, the live audience normally looks like they're in a funeral. Nothing but blank faces. Almost immediately me, or even my folks when they watch it, go "Eez Next.......Eeevneengvear!".

Enjoy :)

NOTE: Due to the flash not working effectively, I got another from YouTube.

An issue I've tried not discussing

Well, for the past few months, there has been campaigning in the streets here in Portugal with political parties about, left and right, movements of all kind giving out flyers, holding functions, throwing concerts and giving speeches.

Though this isn't for some normal election. This is for the abortion referendum that was held today. Voters will cast their "Yes" or "No" vote to the following question (more or less translated into English.):

"Do you agree with the voluntary interruption of pregnancy within the first 10 weeks, which would be performed at a certified medical facility?"

Well, aside from the overly political correctness of that question, it's so incredibly vague given the issue at hand.

Ok, for starters, I haven't posted anything in my blog about this because past experiences have taught me that abortion is a debate issue that causes fights, tears friendships apart and can make people become outcasts. The beliefs on both sides are so entrenched that they simply won't listen to the other side, regardless of how good or bad their arguments are. These debates can get so heated that physical violence has happened from it.

For this very reason, I've been trying to see how to post this without provoking. See, I'm against abortion, however, there's a reason why I originally said that the question on the referendum was too vague.

See, in this country, abortion is illegal except for the scenarios of rape, the woman's health is at risk or there is a terminal deformity in the fetus. Said scenarios are also only applied for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Up til this point, I really don't have a problem with abortion since this is the "lesser of the 2 evils" scenario. You look out for the mother's health in this situation.

However, in the current system, any woman caught having a "back-door" abortion can be arrested, tried and imprisoned up to 3 years. This is an extreme I just can't get myself to agree with. In most cases, the women in question come from low-income families, many times have some form of traumatic experiences in the past and feel as if they are under duress to have this abortion. Having said this, the state should not treat her as a common criminal, the same way they shouldn't treat a drug user as a common criminal. There should be infraestructures set up to support women in need and legislation to even help facilitate adoptions and further educate people so that pregnant women no longer feel like abortion is even an option anymore.

Both the "Yes" and "No" movements are against the current system, but the issue lies in how each side wants to resolve it. The "Yes" people simply want to legalize abortions so that said abortions can be done in hospitals. Thus assuring that certain standards are maintained and that the woman's life is no longer at risk. The "No" people believe that the issue is deeper than just legalizing abortions, and that it needs to come in the form of long-term education and better family planning. The system should be able to inform people about all the different forms of contraception and family planning out there as to get people out of the dark. Right now, here in Portugal, there's a blatant lack of information regarding sex education and family planning. They are just starting to get that message across, but it will take some time.

In my opinion, I don't oppose abortion for religious purposes. I simply believe that we don't know when life begins. There has not been one convincing argument that states "Life begins at this point", and by legalizing abortions, we are, in some respect, trying to play the role of God by giving people the right to end what could be a living human being.

For that reason alone, we should not really touch this subject until we have further evidence that could justify one side or the other. And that is why this has been an issue I've tried to avoid for some time now.

MATSUZAKA!

Recently, the newest member of the Boston Red Sox, and one of the cornersotnes of their offseason aquisitions, Japanese starting pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, already donned the Red Sox uniform, even though Spring Training hadn't even started.

The reason for such was to advertise a Japanese beer. Since in Japan he's viewed with almost God-like status, leave it to the Far-East marketing geniuses to not waste any sleep getting his face on TV as much as possible.

Here's his ad for Asahi Super Dry