Netflix trailer: https://bit.ly/42Yob5O

This starts off slow.

“War Sailor” is a three episode series on Netflix. It’s Norwegian. I’ve actually been to Norway twice, it’s different from Sweden. First and foremost not everybody speaks English. And, the country used to be backward economically but as a result of finding oil decades back, it’s now incredibly wealthy. And despite oil throwing off all that money, 80% of the new cars in the country are electric, you can read about it here: https://nyti.ms/3IhH4sr

But this is about long ago. Before WW II. And then…

Germany invaded Norway. Took over the country, but…

So what we’ve got here is a war story. But it’s not a battle story. This is not those in helmets loading up their bazookas, rather this is about merchant marines, who can’t come back to their homeland because it’s been possessed.

So…

The first half hour or so is set-up, you’re not exactly sure what is happening.

And then the war begins…

The horrors of war. The tensions of war. When so many ships are sunk, what are the odds you’ll survive?

And then you see friends die.

And then…

Let me just say “War Sailor” portrayed, made me feel the horrors of war more than any other movie or TV series I’ve ever seen. The psychological cost. You become numb, worried your number is going to come up.

Maybe you can watch in English, but it’s always best to watch these shows with subtitles. You can burn through “War Sailor” in an evening. And when it is over, you’ll be silent, you won’t have much to say, because you will get it, the cost of war.

Highly recommended.

P.S. I’d only watch the trailer if you need convincing, it gives away too many plot points.

P.P.S. Life is slow. It takes time. Which is oftentimes boring, as in nothing significant happens. But you’re thinking all the while. “War Sailor” is not “The Diplomat,” it’s rapid-fire in neither action nor dialogue.

P.P.P.S. I don’t expect many people to watch “War Sailor.” Because I keep getting e-mail from people telling me they loved “Ted Lasso” and to recommend more shows like that, that are uplifting. But there are few shows like that, because that’s not how life works. You’re living in your brain 24/7, contemplating, making choices, trying to forget that which you cannot. War might not be your physical experience, but you’re at war in your head all the time. Inner life, it’s everything, but for too many it’s taboo, they can’t talk about it, don’t want to hear about it. They’ll talk about sports long before they’ll reveal how they feel. And men have just as many feelings as women, whether they articulate them or not.

P.P.P.P.S. We run on hope. And sometimes what we hope for arrives, but the end result is not what we anticipated, it’s not really what we want, do we abandon our desire or stick with it?

P.P.P.P.P.S. The world runs on misinformation, misconception, most of what you hear is wrong, or not in detail enough, not comprehensive enough to render the complete picture. If you’ve been diagnosed with something serious, get a second opinion. Don’t make life decisions based on conventional wisdom. Seek out experts. Try to get it right. It makes all the difference. You don’t want to change your life based on falsehood.

Official Netflix Trailer: https://bit.ly/3o6dz6b

It wasn’t good.

Well, that’s not completely true, when Gadsby referenced her autism, it was interesting, but if you were a fan of “Nanette” and “Douglas” you will be sorely disappointed.

In case you never watched “Nanette”…

Do so immediately.

Most comedy is just jokes. Sure, Chappelle might go further, certainly Richard Pryor did, and of course Chris Rock tests limits, but Gadsby made it by evidencing her personality, what it was like to be her.

What is it like to be you? I can’t imagine it’s that easy, it’s not that easy for me.

In life we are alone. You can be desperate, like Jerry Maguire, but most people can smell it on you, they can read it, and they keep you at arm’s length.

Or you can try and be the life of the party, or suck it up and be conciliatory.

Life is about negotiation, can’t anyone accept you for who you are, do you always have to be on guard?

So Hannah Gadsby is an Australian lesbian who was just about to give up the comedy game and then decided to lay it all on the table. Furthermore, she employed her area of expertise, art history, to do so. “Nanette” was more than a comedy special. It touched your heart more than all the dramas that try to do so. Because it was honest.

Not that you could identify. But you could relate, because you too have an identity, you too dream, you too are confounded and confused, how do you navigate?

“Douglas” deals with Gadsby’s autism disorder.

Now one of the hottest comedians out there is Taylor Tomlinson, and in her latest Netflix special she talks about being diagnosed as bipolar.

In other words, these comedians are not like you and me. That’s the way our star musicians used to be too. They had to work hard, but in truth they never fit in, they needed to do this to express their anxiety, to be accepted, to be loved.

As for paying dues… Tomlinson started in church, after her mother died. She’s been in the game for a long time. Tomlinson is a step above the riff-raff, there’s something honest at the core of her act too. As the other, as a single woman trying to navigate romance, as…

So Hannah Gadsby’s new Netflix special is about happiness…

WHO WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT THAT?

I don’t know Gadsby, but I think she has dealt with a lot of blowback about the viewpoint/material of her last two specials, and therefore she reacted thereto. Don’t listen to the critics, never. Because they don’t come from the same place. An artist and a critic are radically different. A critic might be able to tell people whether something is good and why, whether you should experience it or not, but that’s got nothing to do with the process of the creator.

To create…

You’ve got to clear your head, you’ve got to channel your identity, the other. Oh, don’t tell me about the hacks that work really damn hard to make B level work, even B+, we’re looking for the transcendent. Actually, that’s Rick Rubin’s secret sauce, he removes the pressure, the feedback from acts, and tries to get them back to the garden, their essence.

But those are usually acts that have wandered from their peak.

Do I believe Gadsby is overwhelmingly happy?

No. First and foremost that’s not the human condition, never mind her background/experience/identity.

Do I believe she is happier now that she’s married?

Yes. But marriage can’t solve all your problems, and the high wears off.

So Hannah is a lesbian icon, the other. But she’s crossed over, she appeals to all people. Actually, one of the good parts of “Something Special” is when she talks about interfacing with Jodie Foster, a famous person, she doesn’t know how to act. But what I’m trying to say here is sometimes your audience, especially when you’re the other, embraces you based on who you are more than the work, and you don’t get the feedback you need, just having the identity is enough. Gadsby toured “Something Special” for a year, no one told her it was barely funny and not that insightful?

I laughed out loud twice. I wanted to turn it off but Felice wanted to continue to watch. And I’m glad I did, but I’m sore I have to wait at least another year for the next Hannah Gadsby production, where I hope she is true to her identity and viewpoint.

Doing universal comedy… Her parents, how they act… We’ve seen that a bazillion times. And Gadsby isn’t that good at it.

You’re allowed to talk about love, but Gadsby could have portrayed more of the dark side, the insecurities, the worry, like we all have.

This happens all the time. Someone off the radar screen, to the side of the mainstream, digs down and does what they want to, everything else having failed, and voila! Success!

Think about David Gray, losing his major label deal and then cutting “White Ladder” in his house.

Because all bets were off. Or as Bob Dylan said, “when you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”

And in truth you think you’re accepted by society, but you’re just flavor of the moment, you’re one of many, you get the attention and then what…people move on. Which is why you have to stay true to yourself.

But what you are looking for is acceptance.

But in truth our great artists are never going to be accepted. They have to accept that. That this is their burden, to do it alone, to hopefully have a small core who they can understand and relate to. Actually, that’s all of us, we only have a small core who we can understand and relate to. But life is so hard, we’re looking for answers, and we look to the iconoclastic artists to deliver this. But when they try to be just like us, it doesn’t work. Because they’re not.

The personal is universal. The things you’re most ashamed of you’re dying to share, and if you did, you’d find that others would relate and understand, but maybe not the people you’ve surrounded yourself with.

Hannah Gadsby had her finger on the pulse, she delivered as an artist.

And then she pulled back, punted, thinking this is what we want.

We don’t.

Netflix Official Trailer: https://bit.ly/3LYMR7q

It will make you want to join the foreign service.

Then again, “Law and Order” and “Perry Mason” might make you want to be an attorney, when in truth very few lawyers go to court and most of the time being a lawyer is incredibly boring.

Let me see, on an absolute scale, I’d give “The Diplomat” a solid 8. Meaning I highly recommend it. Not only was I intrigued, it called out to me, I wanted to watch it, I wanted to finish it, it took me away from the everyday world and made life interesting, both in plot and personality.

The star is Felicity, i.e. Keri Russell. Who is now 47, if you can believe that. Her breakthrough was “The Americans,” which I highly recommend bingeing. You can watch from beginning to end, whereas with “The Diplomat” we’re going to have to wait at least a year to find out the result of the cliffhanger. Russell plays against type. As in she is not glamorous. That’s part of the appeal of her personality on the show, she’s all about the work. She doesn’t want to wear dresses, she doesn’t want to wear heels, she seems to care not a whit how her hair looks, she’s the antidote to the endless tsunami of online influencers from the Kardashians on down, who are all about the looks.

You want a job that consumes you. Just like you want a great mattress. After all, both are where you spend most of your time. To do unfulfilling work… Even worse, to be at work and be bored… You can see your life dripping away in front of you.

Furthermore, Felicity/Keri Russell/Kate Wyler does not want the spotlight, she wants the adventure, she wants to make a difference.

As for the Administration… Michael McKean is the president. Funny how this comedian has a new career as a serious actor. But he’s at odds with the secretary of state. This is always the case. You’d like to think these officials have the country’s best interests at heart, but they mostly care about themselves and their careers.

Speaking of careers… Ato Essandoh as Stuart Hayford’s first choice is not the foreign service, but when you lose enough in your primary field of endeavor, you give up, or do you? Essandoh/Hayford, the deputy chief of mission for the U.S. embassy in London, isn’t completely obsequious. He’s got a backbone, but he is constantly weighing whether to exercise it or not.

Just as fascinating is his girlfriend, Ali Ahn/Eidra Park, who works in the CIA. We hear about the CIA, but it’s always portrayed as dark and secret and… Ahn/Park is just doing the job. A career spy, but she can laugh, she’s human, whereas most CIA members are portrayed as automatons.

And then there’s Rufus Sewell, who bears a distinct resemblance to the dearly departed Ray Liotta, but Rufus, who plays Keri’s husband, is English. I didn’t believe it, his accent was so good.

And then there’s the three-dimensional prime minister, Rory Kinnear as Nicol Trowbridge. At first you think he’s a wimp, then you think he’s a hothead, and then you think he may have his finger on the pulse of modern England.

And “The Diplomat” is very modern. Unlike most of the shows from the past few years it doesn’t try to be timeless, Brexit has happened and there is war in Ukraine and…

Somewhere I read “The Diplomat” is a drama with comedy. I wouldn’t say that, it’s definitely a drama. And it all rings true except for one domestic roll in the hay that doesn’t happen in bed and doesn’t involve sex.

I guess “The Diplomat” gives the impression that people have power, in a world where we feel powerless. That you can choose a path and make a difference. And that fame and money are not the highest calling.

However I could never be a diplomat, because it’s a weird combination of kissing ass and exercising the aforementioned backbone. At least in this series.

In regular life, unless you run the organization, you must play politics all the time. You can’t offend anybody or your upward path is stymied. It’s a game. Whereas in “The Diplomat” people will set a pick, stand up to someone else and not candy coat their words.

However, the process of diplomacy is very slow, unlike in this series.

Now I must say that my sister and our shrink both watched one episode and moved on. So maybe not everybody will be enticed by “The Diplomat.”

But I was.

“Mary Turner, pioneering KMET disc jockey who ruled L.A. rock radio, dies at 76”: https://lat.ms/42ybm2b

She e-mailed me a few times, very nicely in fact, which can be a rarity amongst those who have been there and done that. And I never met her, but I know her.

Every L.A. rock fan does, those who were listening to the radio during the heyday of classic rock, after all, she was the Burner, Mary Turner. I just read in the above obit that Peter Wolf gave her that moniker, I thought someone else had thought it up, but the story rings true, because Mary Turner had credibility, as one of the few women working in a man’s world, FM rock radio.

Oh, in New York there was Alison Steele, the Nightbird, on WNEW-FM, she started when the station was the city’s answer to KSAN in San Fran, back when WNEW was still a progressive station, but I moved to L.A. in ’74 and I was confronted with an FM dial much deeper than not only the one in New York, but anywhere else I’ve ever been. There were five rock stations, but Mary Turner worked at #1, the Might Met, KMET, 94.7, I don’t think I can ever forget not only the call letters, but the station number.

This was a different era. This was before Reagan legitimized greed. This was back when you could pay all your bills on minimum wage, and you lived for rock and roll, the music was everything.

It wasn’t like today, where you can miss something, find out after the fact a band you’re into played in town. You see the stations fought to be a show’s partner, and when they were they promoted ad infinitum. All you needed was the radio, it was the tribal drum, it told you everything you needed to know.

All the clichés, this is when they were fresh, like Two-fer Tuesdays, and Rocktober. Yes, someone came up with those and it was an innovation, you looked forward to them. Today classic rock is a calcified format, and KMET no longer exists.

You see KMET never got the memo, or if it did, it ignored it. The music was changing. KROQ was playing Soft Cell and the Human League in Top Forty rotation. The sound was new, and different, and it resonated with the listening audience. KMET eventually picked up these tunes, but it was too late.

KROQ still exists, up the dial at 106.7. But KNX, the soft rock station, 93.1, that’s long gone. As is KWST, the Led Zeppelin station, which played harder rock, at 105.9. And the last classic rock station standing is KLOS, 95.5, which was right next to KMET on the dial, but it was for those who weren’t in the know, it took fewer risks, it was not as hip, you turned to the station when KMET was in commercial, but it was not a regular listen.

Like KMET.

Alison Steele was cooler than we could ever be. But Mary Turner was one of us, who graduated to the airwaves. And in an era wherein it was a joke that the deejays didn’t look like their voices, Mary was blonde and beautiful, she was an L.A. icon, talking to us on the radio, spinning our favorite records.

And she did no shtick, she was neither a Top Forty deejay nor part of a Morning Zoo, she respected the music, which she was knowledgeable about, she was into it as much as we were, it was more than a job, it was a calling.

Eventually, Mary graduated to syndication. And then she married the syndicator, Norm Pattiz, who founded Westwood One. Norm was completely different from Mary, a visionary and a hustler. He called me into his office to offer me a show at PodcastOne, but as Irving would say, it was an eat what you kill deal, and that’s not the kind you want to sign. But as Norm was showing me to my seat in his office, the first thing he told me was that Mary was a big fan. He ultimately said he wasn’t sure about me, but Mary believed in me, and that was enough.

Now Mary was not the only legendary deejay in Los Angeles. But she was at the pinnacle. I just saw her obit on my phone and I was shocked, I went numb, that’s how much of a place she had in the firmament, in my heart and mind and those of the rest of the listeners. There she was, on a regular basis, same slot every day, maybe not on weekends, but you could count on her, she was there for you.

Radio wasn’t an appointment, it was a religion. It wasn’t just records and inane patter, KMET took a stand against paraquat, the scourge of youth society back in the day. You see they were spraying it on marijuana in Mexico, before everyone called it cannabis, when it was still dope, and the strong Mendocino strands were just becoming available. It was us versus them. Little did we know so many of us would become them.

Not everybody. You can see the lifers at the show, at the vinyl record stores, with their scraggly hair and their faded rock t-shirts. They never stopped believing, but they were left behind economically. Turned out the music might save your soul, but it won’t put bread on your table.

And then there are those who weren’t there and now wear motorcycle jackets to the shows and buy all the merch. We can see right through those people. It shows. If you leave early. If you don’t know all the songs.

Going to a show was not a celebration, it was akin to your record collection. The acts toured when they had new albums, which you purchased before the show, memorized and then went to hear live, knowing that most of the songs would never be played in concert again.

Radio, records, shows… That was our culture. Movies too, but not TV, except for maybe SNL. Once upon a time Lorne Michaels wasn’t full of himself, the grand pooh-bah, rather he was trying to bring the youth audience back to TV, late at night, when they were available, with a show that was hip in a way that TV had never previously been. It was beyond funny, the show had an attitude, cultural impact. It was the seventies version of “Laugh-In,” but with credibility. You watched and then you talked about it, ad infinitum. Mr. Mainway? John Belushi as the samurai? They were bigger than today’s musicians, because they were authentic in a way no one is today. Because they knew that money was second to cultural impact, and the way you wove yourself into the fabric of society was by being innovative and true to yourself, they were our heroes.

We had many heroes. And the only ones who were rich were the musicians. Because if you were a successful musician in the seventies, you were as rich as anybody in America. And selling out was anathema.

Mary Turner greased the skids. She turned us on to new music, she accompanied us in our cars, we even played the radio at home.

I can’t detail everything she did because the job of a deejay is to be dependable, there at a finger’s touch, to deliver, to keep you dialed-in, not changing the channel.

That’s who Mary Turner was.

How weird is it that Norm died back in December, and now Mary is gone too. Norm died at 79, Mary at 76. Mary’s listeners think they’re forever, but the Big C rarely loses the battle. And it could hit you when you least expect it.

The era is closing, body by body. The heroes of yore are dropping on a regular basis. They’re gone.

But we remember.

I remember Mary Turner.