Le Blog

Westside Story
Caught WEST SIDE STORY in a nearly deserted movie theatre on Christmas Night. As someone whose earliest memories of his childhood involve the original Broadway cast LP of the 1956 stage play that started it all being played at least once a week on the console RCA Victor turntable despite the many scratches the album

All I Want This Christmas Is No Cholecystectomy
The last time anyone was capable of having a normal Christmas Day (let alone a fourth day of Chanukah), this is how I spent it. Lying with tubes stuck in me, an ugly white beard making me itch and grateful I had bid farewell to my diseased gall bladder less than 24 hours earlier. As

Twas the Morn Before Christmas
Twas the morn before Christmas, when all through my ‘hood Not a creature was stirring, ah, the silence was good The CDs are stacked by our chimney with care My roommate’s an atheist; there’s no room to spare His child isn’t here, so I sprung from my bed, While visions of this post danced in

Being Like Mike
Last week was the final Thursday Night Football game for FOX, a significant event if only because it was the first time in FOX’s 27-year association with the league that it let a package of games they acquired go. One could have also watched that game on Prime Video. Since I’m a person who prefers

The Longest Shortest Day
Two years ago today may have been the shortest day of 2019 for the world at large, but for me it turned out to be the longest day of my life. And almost my last. Two days previously, as I was packing up my office at Sony for a holiday move down the hall, I
Eye on the prizes?
MEMO TO: WENDY MC MAHON, PRESIDENT AND CO-HEAD, CBS NEWS AND STATIONS CC: JOHN BUDKINS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, PROGRAMMING AND SCHEDULING FR: STEVE LEBLANG, MEDIA CONSULTANT RE: JEOPARDY!/WHEEL NEGOTIATIONS Dear Wendy, Belated congratulations on your recent appointment to these two crucial positions. I am writing you to help you justify what I believe could be

An unholy trilogy for Sony
Yesterday Sony Pictures TV (in full disclosure, the source of my health insurance for another 15 days) announced that actor Jeff Garlin will be leaving THE GOLDBERGS, its ABC network sitcom. Garlin had been accused on multiple occasions of inappropriate language and personal conduct with colleagues and staffers. Several quotes from an article earlier this

Righting some wrongs and one I got right
If Le Blog can be classified as anything it is best described as an opinion page. When you are in between gigs (a euphamism for not working) and strongly encouraged to never leave your home, let alone spend a great deal of time only with your thoughts, one develops a lot of opinions that result

Rupert Unchained
Yesterday’s announcement by FOX News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he was leaving the organization to join the fledgling CNN+ streaming service may have been shocking, but those familiar with the history of how an unencumbered Rupert Murdoch values traditional journalism would likely have deemed it inevitable. Wallace, the son of legendary CBS News and