A few months ago, the Wauwatosa Historical Society put out a call for reminiscences of the Wauwatosafire department. The idea was to collect memories and memorabilia to put into a time capsule that will be embedded in the new fire department headquarters building.
I responded to the request with an original Wauwatosa News-Times edition featuring photographs and an article about the fire that ravaged my family's house in July 1975, along with the two blogposts I did about that event, printed on paper.
The latest issue of the Historic Wauwatosa newsletter reports that I was one of four people who answered the call. I suppose it's a good thing that more people did not have recollections of interactions with the fire department -- it means most homes were not touched by disaster.
So I guess my materials will be immortalized -- or at least be found by some future generation that opens the time capsule. I wonder if those who dig it up will be human or alien. Will they be able to read 21st century English?
That may not seem to have much significance except that, ten years ago this month, a TV series in which he played the central character, Freaks and Geeks, had the last of its original episodes broadcast on NBC, the network that launched and rejected it.
It happens that Freaks and Geeks, which lasted not even a full season on NBC, is having a resurrection on IFC, the Independent Film Channel, where episodes can be seen on Fridays and Mondays at 11:00 p.m. It is also available in at least two DVDeditions.
Freaks and Geeks is not significant just because it was well-written, well-directed, and well-directed (see below) but also because it sparked the careers of some of today's biggest TV and movie actors, most of whom have become members of Judd Apatow's repertory company, appearing in movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Pineapple Express, among many others. It should come as no surprise that Apatow was one of the co-creators (along with Paul Feig) of Freaks and Geeks.
In addition to Daley, who is best known today for his featured role on Bones, the young actors who got their big break in Freaks and Geeks include Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Segel, and Linda Cardellini. There were also some who appeared once or twice during the season but did not have featured roles, such as Ben Foster, Jason Schwartzman, and Shia LeBeouf. (Note for trivia buffs: Becky Ann Baker, who played the mother of Daley and Cardellini, also played Mary Flynn in the Arena Stage's 1990 revival of Furth and Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along. I saw that show twice.)
When Freaks and Geeks met its demise in July 2000, I wrote an elegy for The Metro Herald. It seems a bit hyperbolic in retrospect but, at the time, it was a tribute to a show that seemed unduly destined for oblivion. (The article shows its age in the way in which Web site addresses were presented.)
This first appeared on Friday, July 14, 2000:
FREAKS AND GEEKS: QUALITY TV, DEEP-SIXED
Rick Sincere
Metro Herald Entertainment Editor
Last Saturday night, the final curtain fell on one of the 1999- 2000 television season's highest quality new shows. America is poorer for it.
The critically acclaimed Freaks and Geeks never found its audience. A large part of the blame must be put on NBC programmers, who seemed to treat F&G with a special disdain. Early in the season, they scheduled the show on Saturday night, television’s great wasteland. No one watches TV on Saturday night, and certainly not those most interested in watching a drama about teenagers and their lives.
Preempted frequently during its first foray into our homes, the situation became worse in January, when NBC put the show on Monday nights, and then proceeded to preempt it with other programming for two out of every three weeks. Consequently few viewers found this delightful creation. By March, Freaks and Geeks was simply, unceremoniously canceled.
Why was F&G treated so badly? Why was it never given its proper chance to work its way into America’s heart?
Perhaps the reason is that it was well-written, well-directed, and well-acted. Strike that: Freaks and Geeks was probably the best-written, best-directed, best-acted show of its drama in this or any other season. And American TV audiences reject the best.
For those unfamiliar with Freaks and Geeks, a few words of description. Set in 1980 and 1981 in suburban Michigan, the story revolves around the Weir family father Harold (played by SCTV's Joe Flaherty), mother Jean (Becky Ann Baker), 15-year-old daughter Lindsay (Linda Cardellini), and 14-year-old son Sam (John Francis Daley). The other characters are friends of the Weirs, their teachers and counselors at school, and others who come in contact with their world.
More than any other drama, the creators of Freaks and Geeks—primarily Paul Feig and Judd Apatow, but meaning no disrespect to any of the other writers or producers—have simulated the world in which teenagers really live. These kids are real in the way that other TV kids are not: they are angst-ridden, to be sure, but they also experience the joy of discovery that comes with growing up. They are not smarter or wittier than their parents, but they recognize their limitations and wish to overcome them. As for the parents, Flaherty and Baker, in particular, portray the genuine concerns and anxieties of two people (in an intact family, no less—no divorce, widowhood, or single-motherhood here) raising teenagers at the end of an era of uncertainty. At the same time, their pride in their progeny shines through.
Sam and his friends (the “geeks” of the title) are freshmen in a large suburban high school, trying to fit in while simultaneously finding and maintaining their own identities. Fearful of being outcasts, they overLook their good qualities (Sam, for instance, is a bottomless pit of adorability hut he doesn’t know it; and he and his friends are quite intelligent, although they are unable to appreciate those gifts) while seeking to emulate the less-admirable qualities of the “popular” kids.
Lindsay, an academic star, rebels against her nature by hanging out with the “freaks” of McKinley High, exploring her own feelings while discovering the humanity of the people who formerly would neither associate with her nor expect her to associate with them.
Freaks and Geeks is realistic without descending into mawkish naturalism. The actors are uniformly perfect for their parts, although a few seem uncomfortable in their skins at first. After a few viewings, it suddenly becomes clear that these characters are supposed to be uncomfortable. They are, after all, teenagers, still coming to terms with life and unsure about what they should be and what they will become.
Themes were treated with a certain maturity, as well. The producers dealt with such questions as drug use, cheating on tests, pushing the limits of parental discipline, the dangers of misdirected practical jokes, and pornography in a non-didactic, matter-of-fact way that only added depth to the show as a whole. There was no preaching, and topicality was treated as integral—or sometimes peripheral—to the plots of each episode.
Moreover, the direction was blessed with a fine sense of detail. This extended to the costumes and props, of course (letting us know we are in the late Carter administration, not the Clinton years), but was most evident in the choice of music on the soundtrack, which included Rush, the Charlie Daniels Band, Ted Nugent, KISS, the Grateful Dead, Cheap Trick, and Gloria Gaynor, just to name a few—and not to mention the theme song by Joan Jett. (Can there be a CD soundtrack on the horizon?)
Like Action, a Fox comedy that was too sophisticated for prime time and also met an early demise, the cancellation of Freaks and Geeks demonstrates that both network programmers and the bulk of American TV viewers have no concern about quality when it interferes with ratings. If a show doesn’t skew to the right demographic, it’s destined for the ashcan of broadcast history.
A show like Freaks and Geeks would have had a limited run, in any case—once the teenagers grew up and graduated from high school, there would be no more show. (Witness Beverly Hills 90210 for the past six years if you want proof.) But what a wonderful four years we could have had.
Well, at least we still have Malcolm in the Middle. That Fox comedy, despite its high quality, also draws viewers. Sometimes a good show can be a hit in spite of itself.
Here's a question: Why do so many TV series use the name "McKinley High School" for their settings?
Not only was this the Michigan high school in Freaks and Geeks, it is the Ohio high school (where it makes more sense) in Glee, as well as the California school Miley Cyrus attends on Hannah Montana?
Is the ghost of Mark Hanna working in Hollywood, trying to build a legacy for his protege?
(Note: This entertainment-related blog post is free of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber content.)
One might think, based on the lyrics of his famous song, “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” that songwriter-impresario George M. Cohan was “born on the Fourth of July.” While Cohan’s song is not precisely autobiographical (he was actually born on July 3rd), plenty of other Americans can claim Independence Day as their birthdate.
In fact, Jeopardy could use “Born on the Fourth of July” as a category whose “answers” were well-known American entertainers, writers, artists, business leaders, and politicians for 12 straight episodes and still have a few names left over.
Today's edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch features an opinion piece I wrote about another American who was born on the Fourth of July -- Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States.
Coolidge is severely underrated by historians and others. A Siena College survey of 238 historians, presidential scholars, and political scientists that was released on July 1 gave Coolidge an "overall" ranking of just 29th out of 43 presidents. (Another underrated president whom I admire, Grover Cleveland, rounded out the top 20. Perhaps he had a higher ranking because he was a Democrat, not a Republican like Coolidge.)
In his 2008 book, The Cult of the Presidency, the Cato Institute's Gene Healy wrote that Coolidge is remembered "mostly for his reticence and for fiscal policies that combined Yankee parsimony with generous tax cuts."
That "Yankee parsimony" is on display in a short film that is thought to be the first time a U.S. president appeared in a "talkie" -- a movie with sound.
In this four-minute clip (viewable on YouTube), Coolidge says that he wants to "cut down public expense. I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can re-establish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty."
Here is that filmed speech, well-preserved after more than eight decades:
In his book on the presidency, Healy also notes about Coolidge:
Less well known is Coolidge’s admirable record on civil liberties. Coolidge ordered the release of [Woodrow] Wilson’s remaining political prisoners, and his attorney general, Harlan Fiske Stone, put an end to political surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, abolishing the FBI’s General Intelligence Division.
Coolidge was a student of American history and politics. He valued the Constitution and expected others to value it, and pay it heed, too. As I point out in today's Times-Dispatch:
"Liberty" is a theme that appears again and again in Coolidge's speeches and essays. In 1924, Coolidge published a volume of his writings, called The Price of Freedom. For a man known as "Silent Cal," Coolidge was unexpectedly loquacious and sage.
In his short (437-word) inaugural address as vice president, Coolidge, referring to the responsibilities of the United States Senate, said that body's "greatest function of all, too little mentioned and too little understood . . . is the preservation of liberty. Not merely the rights of the majority, they little need protection, but the rights of the minority, from whatever source they may be assailed."
Coolidge took his oath of office seriously. He believed that, under the Constitution, the authority and reach of the federal government were severely limited and that the rights of the people were expansive. And he ran a tight ship: The entire White House staff under Coolidge consisted of fewer than 40 people; the Obama White House has more than 60 working in the press office alone.
Coolidge tried to reverse the accumulation of power that presidents began in the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. While he had some, temporary, success, we know that our most recent presidents have discarded any sense of modesty and use the White House not as a bully pulpit, but a hammer to get their favored legislation passed by Congress and, if Congress does not cooperate, they expand power through executive orders.
The nation would be a better place if George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Barack Obama read a biography or two about Calvin Coolidge and consulted Coolidge's own essays and speeches on occasion.
"One of the smarter blogs is the libertarian-leaning collection of Charlottesville posts put up by Rick Sincere..." -- Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, May 8, 2005
, and 
's Joe Flaherty), mother Jean (Becky Ann Baker), 15-year-old daughter Lindsay (Linda Cardellini), and 14-year-old son Sam (John Francis Daley). The other characters are friends of the Weirs, their teachers and counselors at school, and others who come in contact with their world. 
, Healy also notes about Coolidge:
