“It’s Laurie at the trailer park. A space opened up. Do you want me to save it, or are the cops going to let you stay where you are?” Interesting message, because Jim’s trailer, which has so far been…
ROCKFORD FILES: “Tall Woman in Red Wagon” S1 E5
The Penultimate Day of Summer
SATURDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER 2014. 17:56 PDT. VALENCIA ST. *** I came out to the Mission this afternoon on business. Once business was concluded there was still plenty of daylight left, so I decided to pay a visit to Valencia for…
A Journey Into Walmart
*** I’ve been coming down to San Leandro and San Lorenzo for many years now, and have been noticing the big blue Walmart sign in the parking lot that straddles the two cities’ borders every time. As the tallest structure…
ROCKFORD FILES: “Exit Prentiss Carr” S1 E4
*** Late afternoon sunlight glistens off the rain-splashed asphalt of the Bay City Motel parking lot. Jim Rockford’s Firebird pulls in accompanied by the breezy strains of a Price Is Right-showcase horn suite. In the brief moment it takes…
The Age of Television (1948–??)
PROLOGUE I’m hardly the first guy to ponder the end of television, merely the last. The epiphany came at a Berkeley cafe in Fall 2011, when I overheard one college freshman say to another, “I can’t wait to go…
Gerald Ford and Fidel Castro. Just Because It’s August.
(Editor’s note: I’m not sure what made me want to lump these two figures together in the first place, but we do have an anniversary coming up– August 9, 2014 will mark 40 years since Nixon became the first and only…
Mad Men S7 E7, “Waterloo.”
You never know what’s going to happen from one week to the next on Mad Men. The only rule that seems to be holding true is that the show is staying strictly within the chronological confines of the 1960s from…
Remembering Casey Kasem
At times, it’s easy to be cynical about this country, this world, and everything in it. But other times, there is room for optimism. And so it is with the Casey Kasem story. Like many a kid in the…
Ann B. Davis (1926-2014). Alice Has Left the Kitchen.
40 years after the Brady Bunch went off the air, it lives on stronger than ever in reruns. So ubiquitous is this show in popular culture, that not only do people today still know the name of Alice the Brady’s…