The ratings are spectacular and the network changes its mind about Beale’s retirement.  The evening news is handed over to a young ambitious programming executive from the entertainment division (Faye Dunaway), and Beale becomes “The Mad Prophet of the Airwaves.”  His rallying cry to his audience is, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.”  Millions of people across the nation open their windows and scream it out into the night.  Glenn Beck can only wish he had that kind of clout.

Beale’s success leads to a primetime show that becomes the foundation for a network lineup that plays on all the fears and paranoia of the time and the network rakes in the cash.  The offerings seemed a little over the top at the time, with one program following the activities of the “Ecumenical Liberation Army,” a sly take-off on Patty Hearst kidnappers, the “Symbionese Liberation Army.” In a preview of the current reality show fad, every week the episode featured actual footage of crimes being committed by the terrorists, shot by the terrorists themselves.  Viewed today, however, the offerings of the fiction UBS network, seem like a naive preview of what our culture is today.

Glenn Beck’s daily paranoid and hateful rants, which indicate that sanity is not his friend seem like Beale’s ravings taken to an absurd extreme.  In the parlance of pop culture, Beck jumped the shark long ago, probably before his first telecast.

Beale, in spite of his mental breakdown, never completely broke with reality and seemed to genuinely care about the wellbeing of his audience.  The conspiracies that he warned of were real, and most of all, he urged his audience to think for themselves.  It is his truth telling about his network’s planned corporate merger and its plan to control what people see and think and believe that leads to his ultimate downfall.

Beck does no such thing.  It is he who must do all the thinking for his audience because only he can see all the evil around us, but in reality he is simply an agent of the corporate interests that control him.  If he were a true “Mad Prophet of  the Airwaves,’” attempting to reveal the truths that only a mad prophet can, he would expose the ugly truths of his own corporation and fellow travelers, such as Sean Hannity’s traitorous and obscene exploitation of service families to promote himself and line the pockets of his cronies.   Instead he takes to the blackboard and raves on and on about secret plots that make sense only to himself.  Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski’s manifesto makes more sense than Beck’s condescending lectures.  What he preaches may be nonsense and he may just be another clown, but taking a page from Beck’s own playbook in referencing Hitler, I’ll point out that no one thought Mein Kampf made much sense either, even before it became a blueprint for worldwide catastrophe.  He may be a clown, but the ignorance and hatred he is so proudly preaching is taking root.

Glenn Beck, Fox News, meet your match:

Network (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Owen Roizman (Cinematographer). Warner Home Video 1976, DVD, $15.50

These live videos are of the quality you’d expect from that era. They also appear to be from before the release of their only album since I can hear guitarist/keyboardist Doug White playing in the darkness. Doug left the band just as the album was coming out and musically, they continued as a trio afterwards. Val’s also really playing up the little schoolgirl act (twenty years before Britney Spears, and with a hundred times more musical talent). I remember her toning that part of her act down as the band progressed and acquired a growing, loyal fan base.

Maybe you had to be there in the dark, on the hot sweaty dance floor, nervous about the new wave of conservatism and general uptightness that was sweeping the nation at the time, to truly appreciate them. Maybe they are best left as fond memories. But the music that stays with us is the music that evokes a time and place and makes us remember who we once were, wistfully thinking about what might have been.  And to reafirm the things that once mattered so desperately to us.

Thank you Al, Todd, Steve, Doug, and especially, Val.  You’re all on my iPod.

Shotgun (cover of a Motown classic)

I Need to be Told (Fear of Strangers Original)

“You have to actually say the words.”

Friday, the 19th of June 2009

Tomorrow, Saturday, is a day of destiny

Tonight, the cries of Allah-o Akbar are heard louder and louder than the nights before.

Where is this place?

Where is this place where every door is closed?

Where is this place where people are simply calling God?

Where is this place where the sound of Allah-o Akbar gets louder and louder?

I wait every night to see if the sounds will get louder and whether the number increases.

It shakes me.

I wonder if God is shaken.

Where is this place where so many innocent people are entrapped?

Where is this place where no one comes to our aid?

Where is this place where only with our silence we are sending our voices to the world?

Where is this place where the young shed blood and then people go and pray?

Standing on that same blood and pray…

Where is this place where the citizens are called vagrants?

Where is this place?   You want me to tell you?

This place is Iran.

The homeland of you and me.

This place is Iran.