TIGER TAKES A TURN

This had to be a strange weekend for Tiger Woods. I am not talking about the golf tournament, which he lost. I am talking about the social atmosphere. Yes, socially speaking, Tiger was blasting himself out a trap...one he created for himself. Even before the golf started, the new Nike spot featuring Tiger and the voice of his late father, Earl, admonishing him, set the eerie and awkward tone for what followed.



Out on the course, the polite golf fans seemed to welcome back their old friend. Maybe it was Southern hospitality, but the crowd seemed to be happy to see Tiger back on the tee. Tiger played well on Day 1 and it looked like his long awaited comeback would be, well, a walk in the park.



Then Augusta National Golf Club Chairman Billy Payne surprised many when he broke from an expected formulaic welcoming speech to express his own scolding to Tiger and his disappointing behavior. Suddenly golf wasn't just about men of privilege playing a game on beautifully manicured greens with gobs of money in every image. Golf was about people of character. Who knew?


So not everyone it seemed was all that happy to see Tiger back. Overhead one less than impressed fan flew a banner mocking one of Tiger's progression of apologies for his bad behavior.



But it wasnt until the final moments of the Masters that this stretched social fabric began to unravel. Tiger's play was erratic, reeling from disastrous tee shots to eagle putts, perhaps revealing his mixed feelings at being back at work and the jangled set of values it seemed to represent. So lucky for everyone, he lost to Phil Mickelson. Over the years Phil has battled his share of demons on the golf course, but unlike Tiger, he wasn't battling personal demons.




In fact nearly as soon as his moment of jubilation was over, Phil went to find his wife Amy. Amy had managed to get up from her breast cancer sickbed to share in Phil's victory at the 18th hole. It was a heartwarming scene, with Phil locked in a loving and tearful embrace with his ailing wife and hugging his happy children.



It was a tender tableau and the CBS commentators gushed about the beautiful family story that unfolded before our own moist eyes. It reminded us that CBS had been the biggest winners. Their tournament brought back the viewers who had abandoned golf telecasts in the time of Tiger's absence from the tour. And they had a wholesome happy ending that could melt the hardest heart.





Consider the contrast if Tiger had won. How awkward a moment would it be to see Billy Payne on the sidelines as Tiger donned the iconic green jacket. And who would have been there to cheer on the new Masters Champion? Not Elin, not the kids. They were nowhere to be seen during the week at Augusta. Not that we blame them. I guessed Tiger could have beamed at his caddy.


So congratulations Phil, not just for being a golf champion, but for being a champion we can be proud of. And thanks, Phil, for saving us from a embarrassing and awkward national moment. We would have been happy for Tiger had he won and made a successful comeback from his self imposed exile. But at the same time, the whole thing would have felt so tainted, so not right. If golf is life, as many believe, it is nice to see it is also has a sense of justice.

And Tiger, it seems pretty obvious. You better get that family thing back together if you are ever going to be truly redeemed in the eyes of golf or America. You can get a second chance here in the U.S. of A. But maybe we're just not as forgiving as we think.

In the meantime, score one for Phil, and another for karma.

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The Uncanny Valley

If you aim for perfection in all things...and many of us do...please take note of this cautionary tale.

A couple of weeks ago, CBS Sunday Morning aired a feature on Mr. Las Vegas, Wayne Newton. Now I must confess I am old enough to remember his first hit song, DANKE SHOEN. Wayne was kind of a nerdy teenager with a beautiful voice then. The song was popular to the point of total aggravation. Even at a tender age, if I never heard it again I figured, it was fine with me.

Maybe it was wishful thinking , but dread of DANKE SHOEN drove me to chalk up Wayne as a one hit wonder. Shows you what I knew. Wayne Newton grew to become a musical superstar of sorts and his signature song - that damn DANKE SHOEN - is the recording equivalent of a cockroach. Newton still gets royalty checks from Capitol Records today.

But one look at Wayne today and you get a kind of creepy feeling. Here he is when he first recorded the dreaded DS, side by side with a current photo. I found this on a website called creativeadvertisingworld.com where you can find lots of celebrities who look like Wayne today...their old faces wrinkle free, their humanity virtually erased .

I didn't see Nicole Kidman there but she has a really eerie look these days too. It looks like she is wearing a Nicole Kidman mask. Still pretty but also pretty scary.

And if you agree, it turns out what is turning us off is a phenomenon call the Uncanny Valley. The term was coined by a Japanese robot maker named Mashahiro Mori. He noticed when robots got too realistic, people had a strange negative reaction. According to the theory, there is a certain point in verisimulitude where the realism of the robot starts to freak us out. So instead of liking and empathizing with the robot, we feel uncomfortable and reject them.

Someone even created this chart to illustrate how it works.

According to Lawrence Weshcler of WIRED, the makers of SHREK ran into this problem with the Princess character. At screenings, children would cry whenever she came on the screen. So the animators made her look less realistic and saved the day...see SHREK: The Musical. [SHREK may be reaching DANKE SHOEN proportions.] Some reviewers say the animated movie THE POLAR EXPRESS , despite its first class credentials, suffered from the same phenomenon but as their poor box office numbers show, they didn't figure out how to fix the problem.





Even monkeys don't like it when the images of other monkeys start looking too much like that face in the mirror. If you believe the Freudian interpretation, we see these too close for comfort types as somehow flawed and not capable of survival. So we run the other way...it might be contagious!

So next time you look in the mirror and you catch that pimple, or wrinkle or mole and think that's gotta go...remember there can be too much of a good thing. And thank God you have avoided that fate. Because sometimes the perfect really is the enemy of the good.

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When Sara Met Oprah Part Deux

The big event happened on Monday and it is no understatement to say it was kind of a yawner. I knew it was not going to be very confrontational when Palin sashayed onstage and hugged Oprah.

And that's how the afternoon softball session started. The tone was all gossipy and girlfriendy. Not exactly the battle of wits you might have anticipated. For a woman who wanted to be Vice President of the United States, Sara raised not one issue, not one policy, not one political goal for herself or America. Sara and Oprah's conversation had all the gravitas of the Heene family balloon.

For all the credit Sara gave Oprah at the interview's end, "Oprah, you are the queen of talk shows...." you had to wonder whatever happened to Oprah's edge. Given all the enthusiasm Oprah displayed for Palin's opponent, it seems plain she couldn't have held Sara in high regard. But there she was acting like her best friend.

I never expected Oprah to be rude to Sara, but I did expect her to call her on some of the goofy things she says. I didn't learn anything new. Oprah couldn't raise a single headline out of her interview. Instead all we got was coffee talk.

Sara was definitely the winner here, seemingly get the blessing of the so called Queen of Talk Shows. And the Queen of Talk Shows? I think her crown is slipping.

When Sarah Met Oprah

Thanks to the unstinting reportage of The Early Show on CBS, we are learning even more about one of our favorite personalities, Sarah Palin. Penetrating interviews of Bristol's estranged boyfriend, Levi Johnston, by the normally bubbly Maggie Rodriguez continue to reveal things we really never wanted to know about this spunky gal and her family life. Check out the trailer park details on your own time.

This has led to an ugly "he said, she said" you only used to read in line at the supermarket. But these days news on TV is practically all tabloid all the time. I am sure Edward R. Murrow would be so proud that his old network's morning show has become like the NEW YORK POST come to life.

Basically the exchange has become a kind of school yard banter with the last words by Johnston implying he has even more dirty laundry he can air...no doubt when the price is right.

And all this can only be fueling the upfront sales of Palin's upcoming book, GOING ROGUE: An American Life. A quick check of Amazon.com shows Palin's tome at number two on their best seller list and it won't even be released until November 17. Although I am sure there will be shocking leaks that become breaking news.

Perusing the Amazon site it is interesting to note the book is 432 pages long. Wow! Talk about TMI. I can't believe there won't be lots of pictures. 432 pages is about 300 more pages than I thought Sarah could muster.

Equally noteworthy, 95% of people who visit the site, buy the book! Now that's preaching to the choir. Amusingly another 2% buy the book THE CHRISTMAS SWEATER, A Picture Book. Maybe they are anticipating needing an intellectual break after reading ROGUE.

Perhaps the juiciest pre sale event will be Palin's interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show the day before the book's release. It has all the potential of a televised car wreck. The curiosity factor alone should drive those ratings through the roof.

Besides their self made personalities, it is hard to imagine two women with less in common.

Sarah is the valkyrie of the north, Oprah, the reigning diva of middle America.

Sarah leans to the right, Oprah stands to the left. All of which sets us up for a dynamic encounter.

Some I am sure imagine a latter day version of the scene from DYNASTY where Alexis and Krystal staged a cat fight extraordinaire. Can't you just see them rolling around all over the set and Oprah's couch?

The reality, I suspect, will be much more civilized. And if you think Oprah is going to be sassy and adversarial, I doubt it. She will leave that attitude to Mrs. Palin. There is no mileage for Oprah in being nasty. Instead she will kill Sarah with kindness.

Any who saw even a glimpse of the devastating Palin interviews with Katie Couric knows you don't have to do much here. Just sit back and ask the questions with respect and curiosity. Sarah will handle the rest. The show after all is all about Sarah, not all about Oprah.

But in all honesty, even if there won't be any fireworks, I can't wait to see it!

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HE HAD ME AT GOODBYE

HE HAD ME AT GOODBYE

Breaking up is hard to do. And so even now, nearly a year after we officially decided to call it quits with “W”, the memory lingers on. And no one seems to benefit more than our new First Boyfriend, Barack Obama.

Maybe the honeymoon is over now that he seems to be ranked lower than Hillary. But for a long time he basked in the afterglow with better than average approval ratings.

When your new boyfriend looks so smart and seems so truly charming, it is hard not to like him. Especially when you think back to the way the other guy treated you – throwing his weight around on the world stage and talking to you like you didn’t get it.

And Obama is SO available. Not like that other guy who seemed to like hanging out with macho military types than talking to us. He avoided media like the ivory-billed woodpecker.

We know we should have ended it earlier. In 2004, that guy from Boston gave us the bum’s rush. But it just didn’t work out - no chemistry. And we still wanted to have that beer with Bushie. Yeah he was dumb…and we were dumber! We just couldn’t quit him, even though he was screwing up just about everything.

Now it turns out, it’s not just Americans who are gaga for the new guy. Europeans like him so much they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize. Okay he plays well with other countries and walks without a swagger, but even we were surprised.

So it seems Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize just for showing up…and NOT being George W. Bush. I hope he sent a thank-you note to Dallas.

It should be a good thing, so how come so people got so upset? Those two months in office that formed the basis for the Prize – peaceful!! Maybe we want our new boyfriend all to ourselves. We don’t want sexy Europeans turning his head. He’s our guy! Stay out of this!!

But eyes on the Prize add a heavy item to his honey-do list. And already there are plenty of people wondering what happened to the candy and flowers he promised. Guess all we can do is hope he turns out to be the boyfriend of our dreams.

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Air You Can Wear

Summer is upon us with all its glories...like these hollyhocks.

But for some of us summer is all about climate control. For many it is as simple as flipping the switch on your air conditioner. For others, like me, summer is a time to get used to the heat and learn to live with it.

I grew up in New England where air conditioning wasn't much of a problem. On those rare over heated summer days and nights, it was windows flung wide open and hope for the best. Maybe we were just used to living with the elements. After all if you can survive a New England winter, what's a few days in the '90's in the middle of summer?

Later I lived in Wisconsin, a place with two seasons: winter and the Fourth of July. And if the temps hit 75 degrees on the 4th, you could count your lucky stars and stripes. But even then I knew I wasn't a big fan of AC. Out of the heat and into the chill was not my favorite thing. To me it seemed like they were cranking the air conditioning so low, they must have really missed winter.

Then I move to Washington DC and the reason why air conditioning was invented was abundantly obvious. This is where they coined the phrase "it's not just the heat, it's the humidity." It stands to reason when you learn the city used to be mostly a swamp. But the truth of the matter is you can work up a sweat just walking across a room some days.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?

I can't remember the poet's name, but in my world not much comes close to a summer day. Start with the sun heating the air, throw in the fruits of the earth, and chase it with a sudden thundershower and you have run the gamut of what is best about any day from the middle of June til the shank of September.

Life's simple pleasures like not wearing lots of clothing, keeping the windows open and eating dinner without heating anything up make summer seem so much more relaxed.

You can stop and talk with your neighbors and sit outdoors and read the paper. You can walk to the park at a leisurely pace. And the menu includes fresh corn, tomatoes, berries and peaches. And nothing quenches your thirst better than lemonade.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? I think not - cuz you're gonna lose.