Surf’s Up!

Hey Watermelon Man!

Dan Rather steps in the –ooops — watermelon patch on Chris Matthews’ program.

Lifted from today’s Rush Limbaugh show:

RATHER:  Part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be, uh, President Obama’s leadership, and the Republicans will make a case — and a lot of independents will buy this argument — “Listen, he just hasn’t been (mutters). Look at the health care bill, his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through, and he had to compromise it to death,” and a version of, “Listen, he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate,” this is what’s going to be used against him, “but he couldn’t sell watermelons to –”

MATTHEWS: Okay.

RUSH:  “[H]e couldn’t sell watermelons to” who?  A state trooper?  He couldn’t sell watermelons on a highway?  Yeah, the rest of it is “if a state trooper is flagging down the traffic on a highway, Obama couldn’t sell watermelons,” and Chris Matthews says, “Well, whoa! (muttering) I didn’t think you meant that.”  I’ll tell (laughing) from Massa describing Rahm Emanuel walking in a House shower with no curtains stark naked poking him in the chest and yelling at him about health care, to Dan Rather saying Obama “couldn’t sell watermelons on a highway with a state trooper flagging down traffic,” (laughing) I’m telling you, folks, they are falling apart. (interruption) No, it’s no longer Black History Month.  If this had happened Black History Month, Oh.  Well, I don’t know the menu was still up there or not, but this is hilarious.  Dan Rather! (laughing) “He couldn’t sell watermelons…”  (laughing)

No wonder you can’t find the sound bite anywhere on anybody’s website.  We only have it ’cause we roll on all these stupid shows.  But they’ve taken it down at Matthews’ website. They’ve taken it down at the HDNet. You can’t find it. I’m sure they’ve scrubbed it at YouTube.  Here. Because you might not be able to find it anywhere, we need to listen to this over and over and over again.

RUSH: “He couldn’t sell watermelons” (laughing) if a state trooper (laughing) was flagging down traffic on the side of the road.”

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Katherine Bigelow: Hollywood’s Roger Maris

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Originally Published at Big Hollywood on Feb. 25, 2010

Katherine Bigelow: Hollywood’s Roger Maris?

by Andrea Shea King and Dave Logan

Dave has a word — or two — to say about tonight’s win too.

Roger Maris at the House That Ruth Built

“The protected class that “benefits” from this nonsense always has an invisible asterisk after their name that questions the true merit of their accomplishments.” — John Nolte, James Cameron On Why He Might Lose the Oscar to Katherine Bigelow: She’s a Girl

Whenever we hear the word asterisk, we think of New York Yankees slugger Roger Maris who during the 1961 season, broke Babe Ruth’s 1927 single-season 60 home run record. Maris’ accomplishment caused some to cry foul, complaining that unless the record was broken in 154 games (the same number Ruth played in 1927), the new record would go into the record books with an asterisk beside it, because baseball’s season was now 162 games long, giving Maris an unfair advantage.

Though the season’s length wasn’t Maris’ fault, he could never celebrate and enjoy his  accomplishment because the “asterisk” dogged him everywhere, in every interview. It was something he never got over.

The asterisk was never actually appended to Maris’ name in the annals of baseball history, yet it figuratively occupies its own place in the pantheon of heroes at Cooperstown.  You might say the asterisk was awarded its own Oscar when 61*, a 2001 American baseball film made for HBO, directed by Billy Crystal and written by Hank Steinberg, was released on April 28, 2001.

Fast forward to James Cameron’s interview with MTV in which he says, “I would say that it’s an irresistible opportunity for the Academy to anoint a female director for the first time. I would say that that’s, you know, a very strong probability and I will be cheering when that happens.”

Is Cameron doing the same thing to his ex-wife Katherine Bigelow that was done to Roger Maris?  Is Cameron inadvertently — or deliberately — attaching an asterisk to Bigelow’s name if she wins for “The Hurt Locker”?   Is Cameron poisoning the well?  If Bigelow is awarded an Oscar, will it be because she was the best?  Or because Hollywood agreed with James Cameron that it is time to “anoint” a woman with an Oscar for Best Director?

The envelope, please.  The winner of the Academy of Arts & Sciences Award for Best Director…

Katherine Bigelow*