Modern Family. I’m Not Phil, Am I?

Helaine and Stef think Phil (played by Ty Burrell) and I are similar. Seriously? He’s the show’s most annoying character.

modern fmaily logo.pngI don’t watch that much prime time TV (though watching TV is encouraged where I work!). I’ve seen a few episodes of Modern Family and today Helaine asked me to watch this week’s episode which she’d saved on the DVR. This is the funniest show on TV, right?

It is the story of a father, his two children and their families. The easy comedic ploy would be to make the three families dysfunctional. They’re quirky. They’re unusual. They’re totally functional.

modern family 1.jpgIt’s clever. It’s smartly written. That’s the secret to all successful shows–good writing.

It’s a sitcom! I heard the genre was dead a few years ago. Guess not.

Helaine and Stef think Phil (played by Ty Burrell) and I are similar. Seriously? He’s the show’s most annoying character.

Phil Dunphy is the cool dad. That’s his thang. At least, that’s what he’d like us to believe. And you know what? We kinda do! Oh, sure, Phil has those “roll your eyes” moments that have us asking, “Is the guy for real?” You bet he is. As goofy as he may seem, Phil always has his heart in the right place. He dotes on his wife Claire and he constantly tries to bond with his three kids. Phil acts like a parent and talks like a peer. He calls it “peerenting.” Love it! As a real estate mogul, Phil says, “I could sell a fur coat to an Eskimo.” We believe he could. Phil has a severe fear of clowns and a not-so-subtle affection for his father-in-law’s beautiful new wife. But we know in our hearts this Modern Family man would never stray. He’s way too cool for that.

Maybe they’re trying to tell me something?

Who Is Andrew Breitbart And Why Is Matt Drudge Throwing Him All Those Links?

I’m a habitue of Drudge. Though Matt Drudge has a political and sometimes social agenda, the site links to news I find interesting and does it on a fast and constant basis. Drudge is mostly a collector of news rather than a reporter. Just about all his headlines point to stories on other sites.

Until recently, most of Drudge’s stories came from traditional sources. If a story was actually from the Associated Press, he’d find a website carrying it and link there. You’d be directed to a newspaper, TV station, magazine or Yahoo, which carries wire service reports.

Now, he’s started linking to lots of stories on breitbart.com. Breitbart.com looks like an automated aggregator of AP and Reuters wire stories.

Quite honestly, I’d never heard of it or of Andrew Breitbart, the person whose telephone number is listed as the contact for the web address.

I’m not in Los Angeles, but I used Google’s mapping facility to look at breitbart.com’s physical address. It looks like a residential area just off the San Diego Freeway and near UCLA.

Then I started checking his name. Here’s a quote from Andrew Breitbart on author Roger Simon’s site.

The New York Times got it right — I am amicably leaving the Drudge Report after a long and close working relationship with Matt Drudge, a man who will rightfully take his place in the history books as an Internet news pioneer. I am also excited to be a partner in an inspired new endeavor, the Huffington Post. The last time I worked with Arianna she got a guy who didn’t deserve to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery disinterred. That was cool. I admit: I like to go where the action is.

And, if you go to the Internet Archives and look at some older breitbart.com pages, they actually show Drudge’s site. Well, they all do except this one. Oops.

So, it looks like Breitbart is now somehow connected with Arianna Huffington – liberal and, once again, Matt Drudge – conservative.

Is Drudge is sending all this traffic Breitbart’s way out of the goodness of his heart?

There’s nothing nefarious here (well nothing I can see). If there’s a financial relationship between Breitbart and Drudge, traditional journalists might question the ethical connotations of linking for profit. There’s nothing I’ve looked at that says that’s what’s happening and far be it from me to judge ethics. I just don’t know.

I’m writing what I found because I saw unusual online behavior and put 2+2 together. It’s all out in the open.

For me, it was interesting to see this new website spring up and get much of Drudge’s business. That’s where my curiosity kicked in. If you can aggregate tens or hundreds of thousands of hits… or more, Google ads (or similar ads, sold by others and placed on your site) alone could make a small, automated website very profitable with little investment or ongoing effort.

Blogger’s note: While looking through more websites, trying to read up on Andrew Breitbart, I stumbled on the fact that his father-in-law is Orson Bean. If the name means nothing to you, don’t worry. If you’re my age, Orson Bean was a very witty New Englander who worked the TV game show circuit in the 60s and 70s. I was a big fan. I wondered where he went.

My Favorite Misconception

It used to be all I had to worry about was that rumor I colored my hair. Nope – never. I’ve got lots of gray sprinkled in there, but it just isn’t seen on TV and I’m not sure why. But the rumor persists.

Tonight I got this email from my friend/physician Steve with new rumors.

He said you’ve only got your job “because your family owns the network.” When I pursued this further, he told me that your family owns the Fox Network (it should only be, right?)

When I pointed out that WTNH isn’t part of the Fox Network AND that I happen to know your father and (1) he hasn’t got that kind of money and (2) his name isn’t Rupert Murdoch, he stopped. For a moment.

But then he said, “and [your] father-in-law is Dr. Mel!!!”

Does Helaine know that? Did you? I asked where he got this information and he said he heard it a long time ago. I told him that I knew for a fact that he was wrong about that, too (he either thinks that you’re really young or Dr Mel is much much much older.)

Isn’t this crazy? That’s the first I’ve heard about the Fox Network, but I get the Dr. Mel father-in-law question all the time. Both, of course, not true.

Where do these things get started? In fact, why would anyone care enough to start something like this?

I often worry about the hair coloring rumor, because I don’t want people to think I’m trying to scam them by being something I’m not.

I visited the Fox lot this summer. trust me, if I owned the network, I would have had a much better parking spot.

Our 21st Anniversary

Much of November 26, 1983 is vivid in my memory. Much of it is a blur. You could say it was the pivotal day in my life – the day I married Helaine.

That I was even getting married was surprising. Years earlier I had put marriage on the same list with liver and opera – fine for people who had the desire, but not me. Helaine changed that for me.

Though it could be argued I entered matrimony kicking and screaming, I made an incredibly good decision those 21 years ago.

We were married in the suburbs outside Philadelphia. Friends and relatives, many traveling long distances, fought their way to the hotel on November 25th in snow! It wasn’t a terrible storm… in fact it was quite beautiful and gone the next morning. It was enough to give us a scare.

I rented a tuxedo for the occasion. Sometime the afternoon of the wedding, my friends Paul and Howard (though I suspect mostly Paul) got into my hotel room, took the black tuxedo and replaced it with something polyester and cream colored.

In an incredible leap of faith, I believed somehow I had been given the wrong tux and set out to get the right one. I panicked, called the store and went as far as getting in my car to drive an hour for the exchange until I notice another friend, Bob, lying on the hood, snapping photos of me and laughing.

At the time it was not funny.

Over time, that same tuxedo has showed up under similar circumstances at other friends weddings and (as I remember) even replaced one friend’s clothes in the suitcase he took on his honeymoon!

I’m not mentioning names because I don’t think these events happened with ‘current’ wives.

We had a beautiful, wonderful ceremony. In the photos my family is smiling and excited. They knew I was marrying a wonderful woman. Helaine’s family frowned and seemed apprehensive. After all, she was marrying me.

Everything went smoothly at the service. Even the flower girl, my now grown-up niece Jessica, walked the aisle admirably. It was only later I learned that she balked at first, only to be ‘gently’ cajoled by my sister.

I won’t tell you exactly what Trudi said to her, because I’m not sure there’s a statute of limitations on this kind of thing. As far as I can tell Jessie has grown up unscathed by the incident and my sister never faced formal charges.

My father-in-law threw a tremendous party for our reception. I remember remarking at the time how little I got to see of Helaine that night. We were constantly separated, seeing friends and relatives.

Even when the police came to tell my father-in-law his car was in a fire zone and it was going to be towed&#185, and when my grandmother collapsed and fell to the floor while dancing&#178, the party went on! It was an incredible night.

It is 21 years ago and yet in many ways it feels like we’re still newlyweds. How I could have been such a fool and resisted marriage (believe me, I did) is beyond me today.

This morning the doorbell rang and flowers, beautiful orchids, were delivered to Helaine. They are just a small token of the love I have for her – love that continues to grow, even after 21 years.

&#185 – My father-in-law claimed to have parked the car elsewhere. I totally believed him. It was all very puzzling to all of us then, as it is now. He moved the car, but it was weird.

&#178 – My Grandma Rose was very excited about the wedding. I was the first grandchild, which I suppose gave me a favored place in her life. She danced until she dropped, literally. An ambulance was called and she went to the hospital. Later she would say the hospital in Jenkintown, PA was the nicest she had ever seen and they had treated her like a queen. If it’s possible, the hospital was a positive experience for her.

The Trip Home – Random Note

My dad, along with my sister’s father-in-law, dropped me off at Palm Beach International. It’s now a large airport. The West Palm Beach metro is a major growth area.

Saturday afternoon is normally a light travel time, and this was no exception. Who wants to leave Florida on a Saturday to go to the frigid north (it is snowing and accumulating as I write this).

With a little time to kill, I bought a magazine and then went searching for a Cinnabon. No luck again. I am jinxed!

I did stop in a fast food restaurant where I found this ‘napkin’ dispenser. Is there a better way to tell your customers you really don’t care about them then putting in one of these toilet paper dispensers?

I know what they’re doing – trying to cut down on people who grab a handful of napkins. And, of course, these lovely serviettes are much less substantial.

Isn’t my business worth the extra cost of nicer, thicker, unlimited napkins? I decided not to get anything.