nowandlater

I thought Anthony Anderson was great. I thought Will Arnett was a bit too red. For those who don't know Anderson's history with the show, may I present to you his IMDB page.... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0026364/#self

We West Coasters are spoiled. The Academy Awards finish at 9:10 pm. Most NFL primetime games are done in the 8 o'clock hour. And now we get live SNL. The problem with Saturday Night Live is that it's live late on a Saturday night. Saturday night is the only night of the week that I have free. (I'm too tired from work on Friday nights and Sunday night is a work night.) So waiting up till 11:30 on Saturday night, when I'd rather be doing something else, is a chore. To have to wait till 1 am to be done with it is annoying. But SNL is can't-miss TV, and it's better suited for live TV. There were ways of getting around it. I used to watch an illegal live stream of SNL at 8:30 pm. But it was terribly buggy, and would crash every 2 minutes. There was also the option of watching videos of the skits before the show airs. Sometimes SNL puts sketches on YouTube before the show airs on the West Coast. In the past few years, Mediaite.com has posted the opening sketch on its website within 30 minutes of its airing. So I'd watch it there. (I'm sure NBC isn't too happy about that.) Then there was a period of time when I'd avoid the internet until I could watch the West Coast airing. Yet that's impossible during college football season, which occupies Saturday nights....I remember one night I vowed to only visit sports web sites on a college football Saturday, so that I wouldn't be spoiled about SNL. So I click on Deadspin around 9 o'clock, and there's an article and video of Larry David as Bernie Sanders for the first time. The great thing about Twitter is that it forced all this. (The Oscars stopped the tape delay before Twitter.) It was absurd, for instance, that the Emmys would be tape delayed if you live in Hollywood. The Grammys didn't quit with the tape delay until, I believe, last year. And I'm glad the SNL domino fell. The live aspect is, at least to me, a major part of the viewing experience.

This is probably a "duh" thing to ask, but would Fallon be hosting SNL if he was still No. 1*? Lorne is trying to recapture his mojo, right? (*Fallon is still No. 1 in the ratings that matter -- the 18-49 demo. Total ratings don't matter -- unless Stephen Colbert is beating you.) I see Fallon as basically Jay Leno. He's the perfect successor. Leno was seen as hip and cool for years, then he became seen as being lame. Fallon's act just got tired and out of date.

I posted this elsewhere: In the 3 seasons before Rodgers dated Olivia Munn, the Packers went: 34-13-1 during the regular season. 1-3 in the playoffs. Rodgers was named league MVP once. In the 3 seasons Rodgers dated Olivia Munn, the Packers went: 32-16 during the regular season. 4-3 in the playoffs, including 2 NFC Championship games. Rodgers was named league MVP once. Rodgers threw 3 hail mary's. Rodgers was awarded the best play of the 2015 season. Rodgers backed up his "R-E-L-A-X" statement after a 1-2 start to the 2014 season. Rodgers backed up his "run the table" statement after a 4-6 start to the 2016 season. Also, during their 3 years together, only 2 QBs won the Super Bowl: Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. ---- Maybe Munn is responsible for the family friction. Maybe not. My speculative take: Rodgers got tired of his hangers-on brothers, and his parents sided with them. After all, Luke and Jordan's identities are wrapped up in football, even though neither took a snap in the NFL. Luke is an "NFL Insider" for CBS Sports and Jordan failed to catch on in the CFL and NFL, and now works for the SEC Network. And Olivia, of course, sided with Rodgers. (Also: Let's not forget that Jordan Rodgers dated Olivia's best friend/trainer, who accused him of cheating on her.) I also -- again, I'm speculating -- think that Rodgers, through his relationship with Olivia and in living in West Hollywood the past few offseasons, became more liberal -- not exactly a liberal. Of course, Rodgers played college football in the liberal city of Berkeley. But his brothers and, apparently, his parents, seem to be more like Christian conservatives. (Both Luke and Jordan Rodgers wear their Christianity on their sleeves, in contrast to their brother.) In a 2-hour podcast last year with the HBO star Pete Holmes -- who barely knew who Rodgers was since he didn't follow football, something that Rodgers actually appreciated -- Rodgers expressed some frustration with some of the Christianity he was raised with, particularly toward the homophobic aspects. Now, yes, there have been gay rumors, but let's just ignore that and look at the fact that Rodgers has been living in West Hollywood, one of the gayest cities, the past few offseasons, and has been hobnobbing with Olivia Munn's Hollywood pals, which of course includes many gay people. (Jordan Rodgers, by the way, has a history of making anti-gay comments.) While dating Munn, Rodgers also did "liberal" things like denouncing a Packer's fans anti-Muslim slur and golfing with President Obama (which was made possible through his friendship with astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of Gabby Giffords.) I'm just saying that this whole family feud is probably really complex. And since it was Rodgers' entire family who made the feud public, rather than lie or say "no comment," I don't think the end of his relationship with Olivia will end hard feelings with his family anytime soon.

I wonder how long Tony Romo will last on CBS before he himself is replaced or demoted. If Aaron Rodgers, who's 33, plays another 10 years, as he hopes -- he wants to play into his 40s, like Tom Brady, who turns 40 in August -- I could see him replacing Romo on CBS' No. 1 team in 2027.

I mean, Jim Harbaugh got a DUI 1 year before Stanford hired him, and that didn't affect his subsequent employment in the NFL. Some crimes are okay, but DV is usually frowned upon.

So Rep. Adam Schiff has been so prominent on Rachel lately that I decided to look him up. And it turns out he represents Los Angeles, where I live. So I decided to look at his district borders. And, well, he's not my congressman .... But I live on a residential street corner in Los Angeles, and the other 3 street corners fall in Schiff's district. (I moved from Oakland to L.A. last summer, and of course I knew who my rep was there (the great Barbara Lee). Anyways, I should pay more attention to Maddow.

The problem is that you're dealing with Trump, a godzilla-like creature that is just so hard to take down. Seemingly every scandal has been thrown at him, yet he has found a way to get through it. This is a man who's faced no consequences for the grabbing by the pussy tape and for accusing Obama of breaking the law. Trump finds a way to delegitimize anyone or anything that isn't on his side -- again, with no consequences. So if you are going to strongly imply that you have something big on Trump, make sure it's delegitimization-proof. Make sure that it's something even Fox News can't spin positively. Again, I'm not arguing with presenting this information. It's the way they presented it. And, again, this isn't how she usually does it. When was the last time Rachel, Chris or Lawrence waited 25 minutes into their show to delve into a big story that they knew about at the top of the hour?

She built up enormous expectations by being so vague in the initial tweet. The clarifying tweet came 48 minutes later, which is an eternity in social media time. By that time, her name was trending worldwide on Twitter. if she did her job as she always does, she would've gotten to the tax returns within 10 minutes of her show, not more than 20 minutes and a commercial break later. I don't recall Rachel ever taking THAT LONG to get to a big news story. It was totally a cynical ratings grab move. Some argue that at least she got the context out there. But people have been hearing bits and pieces of what she was saying for months. It's out there. They wanted something concrete, not a lecture. I agree it was a very important story. But Rachel and MSNBC in their cynicism ensured that it would be a nothing story. If you are expecting $1,000, and somebody gives you $40, you would be disappointed. If you are expecting nothing, and somebody gives you $40, you would be delighted. She gave a gift to Trump. Don Jr. wondered if she was a Republican. Bill Kristol said he thought Rachel might be a secret agent.

Maddow led everybody to believe that she had something found something earth-shattering in the documents. If something so earth-shattering was readily available on the web, then people wouldn't have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Again, she built up massive interest with the vague tweet that she got the tax returns 90 minutes before the show. The 2005 part didn't come until 30 minutes before the show, while Rache was trending. It's like that The Wire quote, "you come at the king, you best not miss." She missed, and hurt her credibility, becoming The Boy who Cried Wolf. I enjoy Rachel and Lawrence. Right-wingers always say they are MSNBC's equivalent of O'Reilly and Hannity. And I've always been, "no way." But last night, I realized that it is true in a sense. As has been documented on this board, Rachel has become in the habit in recent months of saying she has an "exclusive," or big news. And then we get something that's disappointing, or something that nobody really cares about the next day. Instead of being honest with us, her loyal listeners who aren't going to change the channel, she overhypes. Last night, she gave ammunition to the right. As for Trump, he always acts defensive. He's always been shady with his finances and taxes. Really, nothing has changed on his end.

She/her people knew exactly what she was doing with this tweet, which is exactly why it got all those retweets and likes and pushed Maddow's name to the top of Twitter's worldwide trending topics. The initial tweet overhyped it. What we've been waiting for is Trump's recent tax returns, which this tweet implied... The follow-up tweet, coming 48 minutes later, toned down expectations by saying it was from 2005. But if they were going to be 2005, then there had to be a smoking gun or something really interesting. I follow more than 900 people on Twitter, the vast majority of them aren't into politics. All of a sudden everybody on my feed was like, "how do I watch MSNBC?" She also overhyped it by waiting nearly half an hour to get to the point. The more she dragged it out, the more she was saying "I've got nothing." She would never, never ever do this on another episode. It was a pure, sad ratings grab. And it only served to help Trump. (Breaking news: He paid $38 million in taxes! Yes, there's all this complex stuff about lowering his tax bill, but that's not going to be the headline.) All the Russian stuff has been talked about for months. People just want to see something concrete. This wasn't it. As for those saying that they were glad Trump was watching Rachel, I'm pretty sure I've heard the president say nice things about her in the past (probably to Katy Tur). We already know that Steve Bannon is a massive TRMS fan. https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-08-23/trump-s-debt-to-brilliant-rachel-maddow Edited to add: The TV critic at (the very liberal) Slate is dead on: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/03/15/rachel_maddow_s_trump_taxes_scoop_was_a_cynical_self_defeating_spectacle.html AND:

Okay, I was confused by this article. I thought it said they were showing it on NBC. I was wrong. http://deadline.com/2017/03/this-is-us-season-finale-ratings-rachel-maddow-trump-impact-1202043484/ Frankly, I'm tired of David Cay Johnson. I mean, he's great. I remember him from the NY Times, I looked through his Trump book. I watched all his segments last year on Lawrence and Rachel. But it seems like he's beating a dead horse. I could imagine him having a smoking gun, yet proving to be ineffective at taking down Trump.

So in the past few weeks, I've been watching Rachel but not really paying attention. I mean, the Russia stuff is interesting. But it just gets so repetitive night after night. And then I realized why upthread why Kurt Eichenwald's scoops that Rachel helped promote didn't really go anywhere -- there's already a lot more scandalous stuff about Trump, and they haven't really made a dent. Anyways, I'm highly disappointed in the show tonight. I think that it was a reputation-damaging ratings grab. All for a nothingburger. Again, the long buildup was 20 minutes long. When she has a big revelation. She usually takes like 8 minutes for the buildup, not nearly half an hour. Also, The Daily Beast scooped Rachel with its own report since they are connected to David Kay Johnson. Conservatives are going to point to this as "fake news." They could've just done their show. Not build up expectations beforehand. If there was news, it would've gone viral and Rachel would've attracted new viewers. Instead, we got a whole lot of Geraldo-level disappointment. Before this, I was going to go into a rant that Rachel's show hasn't been that interesting recently. Too much wonkiness. The Russian stuff gets repetitive. But then again, her ratings are soaring. I think Fred Kaplan of Slate said it best:

20 minutes in and nothing! her first segments are usually 21 minutes. this is NOT the night to do the tease. not tonight, rachel!! not with everybody watching.

they're postponing the this is us finale on nbc for this... please, Rachel -- dont be rachel!!! edited to add: holy fuck. we're 16 minutes in!!! this could be her geraldo moment.

I hope it's true...I just hope it's not a letdown! BTW: Rachel will be on Lawrence.

Oh, man. I feel exactly the same way. But I didn't realize it until I saw that. Yes, I'm frustrated by the constant teases. I watch the show live (or the 9 pm PT rerun). So I sit through the constant commercials. But I've also found myself lately just not processing/ignoring the long 22-minute intro where it goes from something historic and ties it to something recent. I mean, it's a great format. But I hate that she's become so reliant on it.

I skipped the Trump State of the Union, and because of the positive coverage of it on Twitter, I skipped MSNBC entirely Tuesday night. I was going to skip Rachel tonight. I missed the 6 pm (PT) show. And then I saw it was 8:57. And decided to stick around -- especially since there was those 2 breaking news stories that Rachel loves so much -- and lo and behold we get another 2-hour special. (Last week, there was one on Trump's first month, if I recall.) What's going on?

1. College marching bands are part of college footall. Don't we get enough of them during the college season? 2. College bands get boring after awhile. 3. College marching bands DO perform during halftime. Last year, the Cal Marching Band (from my alma mater) supported Coldplay. Two years ago, Arizona State's marching band supported Katy Perry. The Florida A&M Marching Band supported Prince.

I saw some praise for it, and it seemed to be going viral, but it was awful...

Olbermann was the sports anchor at KCBS in Los Angeles when I was growing up in the 80s/90s...and, I believe, his fellow co-worker was Bob Tur, Katy's dad and the station's helicopter reporter, who worked along with her mom, who ran the camera. Working for KCBS, Bob Tur and his wife exclusively captured the start of the L.A. Riots and the beating of a white motorist in 1992 and they were the first to spot O.J. Simpson's Bronco on a slow-speed chase in 1994. A few years ago, Bob Tur announced he was transgender and became "Zoey Tur." If you watch "OJ: Made in America," which is set to win the Oscar for best documentary, she is prominently featured. I've read rumors that the transition has strained Katy's relationship with her former dad.

Happy birthday to Bobby Moynihan and Kerry Washington, who were both born 40 years ago today!!

It's past midnight on the East Coast...but Twitter is lit up with all the things going down, even in the past few hours. So I've decided to tune into MSNBC and watch...a show about people behind bars!?!

Nooooo.....I got caught in the MSNBC Twighlight Zone... I usually watch the MSNBC primetime lineup only. But I spent the whole day tuned into MSNBC watching the parade...at some point I was barely listening, when a female voice came on seemingly praising Trump's speech. Oh, no!!!!

Trump ruining the final Maddow show of the Obama era. Damnit.