An hour of television worth remembering.

 Now, if I were to ask your opinion of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", I would expect a majority of you to have one of two responses: "What's that?" or "Wasn't that the bad Henry Cavil movie?"

(On a complete side tangent, it wasn't that bad; it wasn't great but it was ok. Also, Armie Hammer kind of killed any chance of a franchise, so there's that. Can we turn out one thing that Henry Cavil's passionate about and not screw it up, please?)

Back on topic, what I'm referring to is a great tv show from the 1960's that latched on to the spy mania that James Bond started and ran with it. I specifially want to draw your attention to one particular episode from the first season that is a personal favorite because of just how swinging '60s it is: "The Project Strigas Affair."

Now you have your leads, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum respectively. This time they hatch a caper to discredit a diplomat from some tiny fictional European country. Why? Who cares? Anyway, they lead him to believe that his country is going to be attacked with "Strike Gas" and he sets about to foil the plot. Napoleon and Illya enlist the help of a former chemist who now runs a small exteminator business to give their scheme an air of authenticity. They are unknowingly helped by the fact that the diplomat's assistant is a backstabbing little schemer himself and really wants his bosses' job. Hijinks ensue, the diplomat goes to great lengths to uncover the non-existent gas plot, makes an absolute ass of himself, gets ousted from his position and replaced by the assistant at the end; good guys win, bad guy loses, roll credits.

If that all sounds ridiculous, that's because it is. It's a swirl of tuxedos and evening gowns and cocktail parties stringing along a plan that doesn't make a lick of sense, but if you want to immerse yourself in the lifestyle of a spy for an hour minus commercials, this show's for you. Plus, I've saved the three best points for last:

1. The bumbling diplomat is played by none other than a pre-Hogan's Heroes Werner Klemperer, in classic form; if he didn't use this episode as his Colonel Klink audition reel, he should've.

2. Our slightly down on his luck exterminator is played by a pre-Star Trek William Shatner. Skinny, handsome, "aw, shucks" charm on full display.

3. The best of the lot, because he's taking what is essentiall the fifth male character and sinking his teeth into the scenery and having freshly graduated from the Keanu Reeves School of What The Hell Accent Is That Supposed To Be, is a pre-Star Trek Leonard Nimoy.

All that in one episode? That is ten pounds of the 1960's in a five pound bag all right.

With everything that's going on in the world right now, this show has been guilty pleasure escapism for me. If you Google "The Project Strigas Affair", you can find the episode online pretty easily, and who couldn't use 50 minutes of silly these days?

Independence Day: past, present, and future...

 Well, kids, the American Experiment made it to another birthday. I'm sure everyone celebrated appropriately, and I hope everyone still has the same number of fingers that they started with.

I had a memory surface this year. When the big one, the Bicentennial rolled around, I was a tiny schoolboy in the Pre-K class at the Horace Mann School in Washington D.C. At the end of the school year, they had a little pageant, of which I remember very little, save for exactly what I was wearing: I had a white button down with a red vest over it, with a little toothpick flag stuck in the lapel. Not just any flag, mind you, but one with a circle of stars with "76" in the center in place of the usual design. I had a pair of brown pants rolled up to the knees with long white socks beneath, ending in my shoes; my usual sneakers but with cardboard squares covered with tinfoil worked into the laces, giving the effect of buckles on the shoes. I looked positively colonial.

It dawned on me that whoever wins the Presidential election in the fall will be the President that will preside over the 250th Independence Day. The "Sestercentennial", and yes, I had to Google that, so you don't have to.

Now, we've all seen Donald Trump's gold gilded bathroom. We have a good idea of the man's sense of fashion and style. The gaudy spectacle that this man would inflict on this country would... honestly solidify a lot of the negative sterotypes held by the rest of the world about us. Joe Biden's probably would too, but his would be more beaches, barbeques, hot dogs, and fireworks; a simpler, more wholesome America. Plus, he won't plaster his name and his face all over gods-damned EVERYTHING. Eric Trump famously, incredulously stated that "His father built the New York skyline." (He didn't.) A couple of short years from now, Donald will be trying to put his face on Mount Rushmore.

So, I know some of you that read this are going to vote for Trump, and nothing I write will change your mind. (Who am I kidding; nobody reads this.) I just wanted to give those of you who, like me, are planning on voting for Biden (or whoever ISN'T Trump) just one more reason to do so. Let's have the party we deserve in 2026. Let's hope the American Experiment is still having birthdays by then.