Monty Python's Flying Circus on Netflix

Netflix has dumped a ton of Monty Python related material recently - best of shows, clip reels, live performances, remembrances, biographies.

I've decided to go back to the source material: 4 series, 45 episodes, aired in Britain from 1969-1974. Python has been kind of ubiquitous in my life (although the Marx Brothers were much earlier and more formative), but I'm not sure I've ever done a canonical viewing of the show. The ensemble became known for stand-alone sketch / bit comedy that fans have come to know by heart, but many of the belly laughs of viewing the original shows come from the way sketches bleed over into each other, or show up again later in the show.

My most recent watch (Series 2, Episode 1) features the "New Cooker" sketch, and the long line of service techs patiently waiting to enter the sketch pop up several times later in the show; the classic "Ministry of Silly Walks" (Cleese silly walks through the following sketch at least once), and "Ethel the Frog / Piranha Brothers" which I remembered mostly from a record album compilation, so there is a soundless bit in the middle I did not recall, as well as an addendum tacked on for the recording "...sorry squire, I've scratched the record....sorry squire, I've scratched the record....sorry squire, I've scratched the record....". And Spiny Norman's animated appearance during the credits is sort of the icing on the cake. "Dinsdale...."

My earliest Python memories were of my dad watching and laughing in our family room in PA, over the air via the local public station, quite possibly in black & white. I think we were both a little embarrassed about the occasional nudity (most often in Terry Gilliam's animated pastiches). I was a little too young for it to be appropriate (but was curious) and he seemed a little embarrassed for enjoying it as much as he did. I think he was looking for someone to share it with and I was not quite there yet.

Later on in high school, where the sketches bounced around pretty wildly in lunchroom banter and classroom cut-ups. I probably picked up a lot of it second hand, or through records - in those pre-internet, pre-DVD, pre-VCR, even pre-cable days (we were late acquirers) it was catch as catch can in terms of actually seeing the shows. And when I was able to watch a show, it was difficult to put some of the humor in context the way a serial viewing of the series provides, both in terms of repetitive themes as well as the evolution of the humor and the acting / comedy skills.

Holy Grail (1975) and Life of Brian (1979) neatly bookended my high school career - I'm sure I saw both in the theaters. But again, a different experience when one needs to pay and screen multiple times, rather than watching the film over and over the way a VCR, DVD or stream permits.

So...a nice little break from reality that I am savoring (rather than binge watching) and a chance to revisit a more innocent era, personally and culturally.

Bigger != Better

An addendum to the "cutting the cable" project.

I found a larger (and presumably better) indoor / outdoor antenna at MCM Electronics. Dimensions: 21.5” (H) x 10.5” (W) x 4.5” (D), 40 db signal amplifier. It ought to (I assumed) meet or exceed the performance of the small indoor antenna (like a thick plastic sheet of paper) I am presently using.

Indoor / Outdoor UHF/VHF/FM HDTV Amplified Antenna
MCM Part #: 30-2455  |  Stellar Labs Part #: 30-2455

Wrong! After mounting the device to the same place (upper floor, facing south to grab WTNH-8), I found my digital reception degraded, both as a passive device and with the signal amplifier. I could not get WTNH-8 at all with the new antenna, and the Ion affiliate (Channel 26) was also gone.

So the old small antenna is back in place (attached to the outside of a window using 3M velcro knock-off strips), this one is going back in the box and either being returned or fobbed off on Craigslist.

Live and learn.

Killing Off Cable

Scrolling back through my blog posts, I see I have failed to document my recent explorations in the land of "mass media trends". Although my 50-something life is 2-3 decades away from the 20-somethings that have pioneered this movement, I've joined the ranks of those who have cut the cable.

Of course, being me, it was a gradual process. I toyed with the idea a few years back - had an old analog CRT television that I've owned for 25+ years, so I picked up a digital converter and tried to see what I could get over the air. At that time, and with that technology, the answer was "not much" - so I returned the converter and stayed connected. However, somewhere along the line I realized I was spending blocks of time on the couch watching reality show reruns (Pawn Stars, American Pickers, and Storage Wars were faves) and that was just stupid, so I downgraded my cable to the lifeline or tier - a handful of broadcast channels, TBS, the weather channel, and NECN. And that seemed to work fine - I missed a few things (Rachel Maddow,  Daily Show) but I survived.

A few months back, in a fit of late winter pique, I did a little retail therapy, and bought an inexpensive LCD digital television. While I was there, I decided to pick up a digital antenna, and the combination of reasonable channel selection and the superior HDTV picture made me rethink the cable decision. Specifically, to get HDTV I'd have to upgrade my cable plan to something more expensive (uh, no) and I realized that I got almost everything over the air (plus a few) that I was getting from lifeline.

So I disconnected the cable boxes (I had a converter for a seldom used small TV down in the office) and kept them in a box, just in case I had recriminations. A few weeks later, when Comcast (in their wisdom, and abetted no doubt by efficiencies in the US Postal Service) gifted me with no fewer than four (4) bundle offers on the same day, I decided to take the boxes back and kill off cable entirely.

In the ensuring days, I've been relatively happy with over the air broadcast, although my inability to capture WTNH 8 (ABC affiliate out of New Haven) was causing some angst (Grey's Anatomy is my one primetime vice). So this last week I bought a 100' of CATV cable and ran the indoor antenna (through the house) to the second floor and pointed it south. And voila - WTNH-8 came in (along with a few other lower power stations). I've since run the antenna cable through the basement and outside, and am awaiting a better exterior antenna (designed to mount inconspicuously and with an amplifier which might work even better)

So, here's what I get on my television, over the air and for free:

3.1 - WFSB 3 / CBS
3.3 - Mostly weather / some news

8.1 - WTNH 8 / ABC
8.2 - Bounce TV (african-american)

18 - Four spanish language stations

20.1 - WCCT / CW
20.2 - This TV (movies and reruns)

24.1 - CPTV Main
24.2 - CPTV4U
24.3 - CPTVS (mostly local sports)

26.1 - ION
26.2 - qubo (kids)
26.3 - ION Life


30.1 - WVIT 30 / NBC
30.1 - COZI (movies and reruns)

59.1- WCTX (MYTV-9) - sketchy reception

61.1 - Fox 61
61.2 - Antenna TV (movies and reruns, think Nick at Night)

More content, actually, then the lifeline cable I was buying - the only thing I really miss is NECN which was a decent substitute for CNN / MSNBC mostly.

What makes it work for me is my Roku Box, which gives me high quality shows via several services. Netflix (long time subscriber, via Roku and iPad), PBS (like having a public television DVR, amazing), Hulu Plus (I stopped subscribing but might sign up again if I find some broadcast shows I like). That, plus the ABC and NBC iPad apps (to catch things I've missed) and my media life is doing fine.

Knife Fight

Snuck over to Real Art Ways this evening to catch the Rob Lowe indie vehicle Knife Fight.

OK, I'm a big West Wing geek, recently Netflixed the entire series, and kind of missed Rob Lowe - his character Sam Seaborn disappeared without a very satisfying plot explanation (yeah he ran for the house on the West Coast, yeah, he lost....did he lose his return ticket?)

So here he is, looking not a lot older, a bit funkier and frayed (Lowe's character Paul Turner has more of a Josh Lyman vibe here than a Sam Seaborn vibe, witness the knapsack over the shoulder, as well as a pair of worn sneakers rather than italian leather loafers) - as a shoot from the hip political strategist with a small staff. Icing on the cake - Richard Shiff as a darker political operative. I was happy to give it a whirl, just based on these two. 

The trailer for the film was a bit scattered and confusing. What's not clear there is that Paul Turner is working with three politicos - a Kentucky governor (was that really Erik McCormack?) - with an intern problem, a California senator (less sleazy, but with a massage therapist problem), and a CA doctor (Carrie Anne Moss) running an outsider campaign for governor. Somehow one gets the idea via the trailer that at least two of these are running against each other and it's not clear which side Lowe's character is on.

Confused that Carrie-Anne Moss seems to carry co-billing (at least based on the poster); she's kind of in the background through much of the film, and Jamie Chung's young operative in training character (Turner's assistant) is a lot more prominent in the film. And that energetic soft focus seems to carry through a lot of the film.

There's a lot going on here - perhaps too much for one film. The sleazy but on the right side of the issues KY governor's "stand by your man" wife is an old friend of Paul Turner, the CA senator is "the real thing" - a war hero and family man who is flawed but solid. The doctor / wanna-be CA governor spends 1/2 the film on the outside, pleading for a shot until Turner has a "come to Jesus" moment around a political strategy that went too far, and suddenly she's right up front. And Chung's character is in a lesbian relationship - there's a scene or two of her with her GF, it's clear she's in the closet professionally, and that little plot is left hanging out there unresolved. Why fold that in to an already thick and interwoven plot?

At the end, things wrap up, the spin doctor is back in business, albeit a little humbled and perhaps less sketchy in terms of tactics, and Chung's character decides she's gonna stay in the business. The resolution seemed a little unsatisfying. The lessons learned were slight, the repercussions as well, and whatever lines got crossed in this film will probably be crossed at some future election cycle.

Worth seeing? Definitely, with enough West Wing vibe to satisfy - but I'm kind of sad to say it looks like a short run - stopped by Real Art Ways for a short week and there were only a handful in the house on a Tuesday night.  

Knife Fight

Having just plowed through seven seasons of The West Wing (my January binge), I was delighted to see Rob Lowe featured as a political consultant in the upcoming film Knife Fight.



West Wing's Richard Schiff has a supporting role, juicing up the West Wing vibe.

Coming to Real Art Ways March 10th for a short run. I plan to catch it....

Comcast Makes a Comeback

I've been on the verge of killing off my cable for a while now. Between over the air digital, Netflix, Hulu Plus, and ABC / NBC / PBS Apps, I've been sorely tempted.

But this week, Comcast picked up a few points. They've recently switched from analog to digital for their basic cable - and as a result, they sent out a notice to arrange to pick up a mini-converter box, free of charge. Took me two months to actually do that (which tells you how much I watch TV on the small set in my basement office) - but I finally did.

Well, bonus channels! The old "analog" 2nd set option (no converter box) gave me pretty much the over-the air channels - the local broadcast channels, TBS, weather, CSPAN. The new "digital" 2nd set option gives me pretty much up through Channel 100 on my cable program. And added features - the Comcast remote control actually works with my old Zenith set - I never could get the Zenith Universal remote I had purchased (after a dog ate the factory remote) to so MUTE which is kind of annoying in my office.

The extra channels are actually quite handy. I had (engineer / video geekily) run the video out of my TV into a modulator, and from thence into an A/B switch (I like me a good Rube Goldberg design), so I could get some of the cable channels down in the office - when I am working late I can geek out to MSNBC or Comedy Central. Now, all that has been rendered obsolete. I could have kept it to see On Demand or Netflix downstairs - but not gonna bother.

So Comcast lives for another day.

Of course, this very week I also received 3 "Comcast New Customer" letters in the mail. You'd think they could figure out I was already a customer - and (a) save the money for the bulk mailing, as well as (b) avoid pissing me off by telling me over and over that I am overpaying for my bundle. But no.....

Cutting the Cable - Or Not

I called up my cable / phone / internet provider yesterday to "cut the cable", at least as far as television was concerned.

I've never been much of a television watcher - when I lived with Zippy we had basic cable only, the only reason I bit for the digital cable was the bundle deal when I moved in. I need pretty robust internet for work (I upload and download large files regularly, up to 1GB) and I have two phone lines (one of these days I will relinquish the dedicated fax line, but today is not that day).

So Monday, I open up a cable bill for $172 bucks - the new customer special had run out a few months back, and rates just went up. And for whatever reason, it hit some internal threshold. The fact that my cable provider can not seem to resist sending me weekly marketing letters soliciting new business and dangling introductory offers in front of me has not helped my mood...

I've been thinking of killing off cable for a while anyway - I have a Netflix subscription and watch stuff there; I could get a digital antenna / converter, I have the ABC app on my iPAD, I could sign up for Hulu+ - lot of watching options. So I was perfectly willing to kill off my video cable subscription. The base rate would have dropped to $110. Not great, but needed for work.

However, the nice customer service agent dug up a "good customer" deal (also known as the "please do not shut off your cable like everyone else seems to be doing this day" which involved no change in my service and costs $40 less per month. Sold.

So I have not unplugged my cable television yet. But definitely moving in that direction....

New Roku Apps - Pandora

Fairly quietly, Roku has come out with a whole slew of new apps, or as they call them, channels.

I've been a big fan / user of the Roku box for Netflix for a while - although I have yet to buy content (via the Amazon.com connection). But now there is a Pandora channel. I've never quite got into Pandora; it's a neat application / service but I'm usually taxing my computers with engineering work and streaming is too unreliable unless I've got a light workload. And I've never had a good computer audio system.

But the Roku box was a patch cable away from being hooked up to the stereo (I did that in fact for the Comcast music channels) and the Pandora app works great. A little convoluted to update my Roku player (it will auto-update eventually, but I did it manually to get it now), subscribe to the channels, create and link to a Pandora account. But all done now. I started with Richard Shindell and the list has grown from there. Pretty on target in terms of taste, just 20 songs in or so and I've hit John Gorka, Dar Williams, Loudon Wainwright, Bill Morrissey, Pierce Pettis. I'm judiciously using the Like / Dislike buttons to stter things a bit, but for the most part it's meandering successfully on it's own. Where are you, Lucy Kaplansky?

Roku's new channel store includes some other gems - Facebook photos, Flickr photos are both things I subscribe to. And a bunch of video channels (mostly podcasts and web videos, vs. television) although the golden marriage of Hulu (Simpsons! Glee! 30Rock! House!) and Roku remains tantalizingly unfulfulled.

Six Feet Under

We're television refuseniks. Not that that we are militantly anti-television, but we just don't get that involved. We don't have HBO or Showtime..... heck, our ultra-secret basic cable gets nothing but broadcast channels, AMC, and TBS. We switch the boob tube on now and then, find a movie or documentary. We've been charmed by "All Creatures Great and Small" as well as "The Vicar of Dibley" (Zippy has quite the crush on Dawn French). But in terms of modern television - nope. When I travel I'll catch things in hotel rooms. But in terms of a regular, weekly appointment with the television, nah.

The positive part of that is that there is a lot of good television out there that we did not catch the first time around. So as the networks run out of original programming as a result of the writer's strike, we've turned to Netflix. There are a bunch of things I'd be interested in seeing, but Zippy had Six Feet Under recommended by a friend; so I popped that to the top of the Netflix queue. Just as soon find something we can enjoy together......

We're just a few episodes in, but we're both hooked. I'm finding Nate to be a charming and handsome rogue, a wonderful center for the plot. Love interest Brenda is the kind of woman I might be if I actually, yanno, had my stuff together, I love her wisdom. David is like a few gay friends I've had and it will be interesting to watch him coming out (I assume that's down the road). Sister Claire is vibing Claire Danes in My So-Called Life. And Ruth the mother seems not so fleshed out so far but lots of room for that in coming episodes.

Cameo Appearance - WTNH News and Roadside Stories

Balloon flight this morning, with me in the air for a change. As was Bob Wilson, from WTNH (Channel 8) and the show Roadside Stories, along with his director of photography Mark Ciesinski. So look for your friendly neighborhood blogger / yoga addict / balloon chaser on WTNH news sometime in the next week or two, as well as on the Roadside Stories show (WCTX / MyTV9, Sundays @ 5:00 p.m.)


Robert Zirpolo explains inflation to Bob Wilson. "We do not BLOW UP the balloon, we INFLATE it"


A bit of a hazy day, but Hartford was visible in the distance - we flew from Panthorn Park in Southington, north and east to a neighborhood off the Chamberlain Highway.


Traffic tie-up? No, just an auto junkyard in Southington.


The balloon and basket shadow against a hillside. The foliage is mostly still green, with just an off splotch of color.


A tree farm on the back side of Meriden mountain.


This is about as close as I get to art, with the balloon reflected in the windshield of the chase vehicle. Note the vanity license plate.....


One last stand-up as the van drives away!

Ken Burns' The War: A Necessary War

Watched the first night. History learned: the significance of Bataan, Corrigador, and Guadalcanal. I love when history comes alive like that - my high school history teacher, Mr. Soliwada, made that happen like no person before or since.

Chilling moment for me - the Latino soldier who was part of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, who participated in Carlson's Long Patrol. Describing the success of what was basically a guerilla action, he comments that the Japanese armies confidence that they were a superior fighting force against the undisciplined US forces was a key to their downfall. And went on to describe a style of fighting that involved sneaking up behind enemy lines, striking a quick and unexpected blow, and disappearing back into the jungle.

Hope President Bush and the neo-cons are watching. Cause yanno, those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. Except this time, we're not the guerilla force.

P.S. - I wish I had not caught wind of the Latino community complaints about under-representation and the fact that the series was editted to add Latino voices and stories. Because honestly, it's pretty evident where the editing was done: the stories are just not as compelling and it seems forced. You have four towns represented, and only one (Sacramento) seems to have had a large latino population. So there will, by nature of the work, be fewer voices. (I expect Waterbury to have a bit of an Italian slant, Mobile to deal with the racial issues)

I dunno. It's like hiring quotas. You have 'em in place and it begins to create a secondary level of racism, where one begins to look at targeted races or classes as being there not because of their skills or qualities, but because of their protected class status. There are other ways to work towards equality.

It hurts the series a bit, I think, because every latino story that is told will have me consciously or unconsciously evaluating it - was this really in the film or was it added later? Is this a story and a voice on a par with others, in terms of the information and emotional impact?

I just wish I had not picked up on that controversy......would have made my viewing experience a little more pure.