Going Home

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Billy (Gordon Pinsent): It's finding the center of your story, the beating heart of it, that's what makes a reporter. You have to start by making up some headlines. You know: short, punchy, dramatic headlines. Now, have a look, what do you see? [Points at dark clouds on the horizon] Tell me the headline.

Quoyle (Kevin Spacey): Horizon Fills With Dark Clouds?

Billy: Imminent Storm Threatens Village.

Quoyle: But what if no storm comes?

Billy: Village Spared From Deadly Storm.

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Some actors and actresses become typecast because they play a certain kind of role so well.

When I saw Kevin Spacey in "The Shipping News," which made its big–screen debut on this day in 2001, I kind of had that sensation about him. He is always playing dysfunctional characters, I thought to myself.

That wasn't really fair. His characters aren't always dysfunctional — but his character in "The Shipping News" sure was.

In my experience dysfunctional people generally don't owe that condition to any one person or one event. Oh, sure, there are some who do, but for most it seems to have been an ongoing process to which many people and many events contributed. So it was with Spacey's character in "The Shipping News."

Some of it was beyond his control — his emotionally abusive father, for example — but some of it was simply the outcome of the kind of bad choice that most of us make at some point in our lives — like marrying the wrong person. In Spacey's case, that was Cate Blanchett, who played the town tramp (and was virtually unrecognizable); she gave Spacey a daughter and took off.

He got an answering machine message from his father, who hinted that he and his wife would be gone soon, presumably in a murder–suicide, and, it turned out, they were. Spacey barely had time to mourn that loss when he got news about his wife. She and her, uh, friend took a plunge off a bridge and died when the car hit the water.

His aunt (Judi Dench) stopped to see him as she was en route to the family's ancestral home in Newfoundland; Spacey and his daughter wound up accompanying her. He'd been an ink setter for a newspaper in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and naturally gravitated to the local newspaper, The Gammy Bird — but was hired as a reporter, not an ink setter. His standing assignment was to cover the shipping news — a pretty important beat in a seaside community.

He wasn't a trained journalist, but he took the initiative to write an article he hadn't been assigned to write. When it was published, to his surprise (and to the surprise of his co–workers), his publisher (Scott Glenn) liked it well enough to make him a columnist.

He also became friendly with a young widow named Wavey (Julianne Moore).

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Wavey lost her husband when his ship went down during a storm. I thought one of her most powerful lines must surely resonate with people who have lost someone to whom they were close — in other words, everyone.

"It was four years ago," she said of the loss, "and it was yesterday."

That was a realistic observation, I thought then (and still think today; my hat is off to whoever wrote that line). When you lose someone close to you, the moment you experienced the loss is always lurking just beneath the surface. No matter how much times passes, it doesn't take much to bring back the sharpness of the pain as if it were happening for the first time.

I was impressed with that — but mostly, I think, I was impressed with the portrayal of a small–town newspaper office and staff. I have worked for newspapers large and small, and the atmosphere in a small newspaper office is special. You know you aren't likely to be or work with a Pulitzer Prize winner at a small–town newspaper — after all, William Allen Whites are few and far between — but the work that is done at a small–town newspaper every day truly is the embodiment of what community journalism is all about. It may not be exciting or particularly interesting to anyone outside what may be a rather narrow circulation area, but to those readers in your newspaper's readership, local news is important to them — and there is nowhere else they can get it.

Not even in the digital age.

But there is a dark side to small–town newspapers, and Spacey encountered it in the form of the editor, who apparently made it his mission to get Spacey's character fired. If you haven't seen the movie, you'll have to watch it to find out whether he succeeded.

Well, I guess there is probably at least one sociopathic personality in every newsroom, even the small ones. I'm sure it isn't limited to newsrooms, though. Perhaps there is one in every workplace.

But it didn't stop Spacey's character.

The Legends in a Mind

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"Imagine if you suddenly learned that the people, the places, the moments most important to you were not gone, not dead, but worse, had never been. What kind of hell would that be?"

Dr. Rosen (Christopher Plummer)

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As is so often the case with biographical movies, "A Beautiful Mind," which premiered 15 years ago today, was not a literal telling of the life — and mind — of John Forbes Nash Jr., who was played by Russell Crowe. Director Ron Howard and others who were behind the production readily conceded that point. Those who criticized it for being inaccurate in its portrayal of the Nobel Laureate in Economics needn't have bothered.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend the movie as source material for someone writing a term paper on schizophrenia. I haven't read the book upon which it was based so I don't know how accurate it might be — but books are almost always better (and, in the case of biographies, more accurate) than the movies that are inspired by them, anyway.

But I would recommend it for several other reasons.

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you must be aware of my fondness for history and biography. And I do prefer that movie biographies not embellish the facts — but I realize that is almost impossible, even though I have long believed that if a life's story is compelling enough to be written about, it is compelling enough to be presented on its own merits without having to add to it in print or on the screen.

So I cut biopics some slack on the accuracy part if — and this is an important distinction for me — such discrepancies do not make significant differences to the story. I know that, as far as most filmmakers are concerned, these revisions are judged by their dramatic effect. I like to be entertained as much as the next guy, but the dramatic element really isn't important to me.

And, from what I know of the life of John Forbes Nash Jr., his schizophrenic episodes did involve the delusion that he was working on top secret assignments from the U.S. government. That's not the kind of detail I mean.

Let's say, for example, that the person being portrayed was, in real life, a lefthander — but the actor/actress doing the portrayal is right–handed. Unless the fact that the person was left–handed in life is a crucial point in that person's story — Babe Ruth, for example, was left–handed — I won't quibble over such a small detail. Well, not much, anyway.

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But suppose the detail in question has more significance than that. Suppose it locates a character in a place and time that had no meaning for that character's life — and presents that detail as being critical in the character's timeline. Suppose the character is portrayed as having played a decisive role in an event when, in fact, that character played no role in it at all.

That is the kind of thing to which I object.

I don't think "A Beautiful Mind" was guilty of that — although, ironically I suppose, "A Beautiful Mind" was the story of a man who believed he had played roles in events in which he really had played no role at all. The events themselves may have occurred only in that beautiful mind, which clearly was brilliant but also disturbed.

It was no surprise, really, when "A Beautiful Mind" won four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. I thought Crowe deserved Best Actor (Denzel Washington won for "Training Day"), and Jennifer Connelly received Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Forbes' wife (I thought she should have been nominated for Best Actress). The movie also won Best Adapted Screenplay.

Christopher Plummer, who played the doctor who diagnosed Forbes' schizophrenia, was not nominated at all. Nor was Ed Harris, who played one of Forbes' hallucinations.

Oversights. Severe oversights.

Frasier's Obsession

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Frasier (Kelsey Grammer): That's it. I'm quirky. I'm delightfully quirky.

Niles (David Hyde Pierce): Do you realize that your delightful quirk has brought your life to a standstill?

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Warning for those of you who are mathematically challenged (or "innumerate" as one of my graduate school professors liked to say in an effort to make that condition equivalent to illiteracy): I'm about to throw some numbers at you.

The episode of Frasier that first aired on this night in 2001 was called "The Two Hundredth." It was actually about the 2,000th episode of Frasier's radio show. It was also the 200th episode of the Frasier TV series.

None of that had much to do with the story.

The story was on a suitably psychiatric theme — obsession. The number of episodes was merely used as the base for the story. It was also, I suppose, a rather creative way of observing the milestone for the TV series.

The episode began with about three minutes' worth of Frasier doing his radio program. In syndication, this part was cut out to make room for more commercials. That was a shame because it featured a very special guest, Microsoft co–founder Bill Gates.

There really wasn't anything particularly special — or, for that matter, particularly relevant to the rest of the episode — about Gates' appearance. It was an opportunity to kind of poke some fun at Frasier and his well–known quirks.

In syndication, the episode begins with the part that came next. Frasier, Martin (John Mahoney), Niles (David Hyde Pierce) and Daphne (Jane Leeves) were going out to dinner to celebrate Frasier's 2,000th radio episode.

As he was preparing in his room for the evening, Frasier opened the doors of what appeared to be a sweater cubby — but was actually where he kept cassette recordings of his shows. He had tapes of every show he had ever done, and he deposited the recording of that day's show in its slot in the cubby. He glanced at the shelves filled with cassettes, smiled his satisfied smile, then closed the doors and started to walk out of his bedroom.

Then he stopped with a quizzical look on his face, went back to the cubby, opened the door and gasped. Then he summoned the other members of the household to his room where he interrogated them. Apparently, one of the tapes was stored upside down — and, upon closer inspection, the tape was not one of his shows but a collection of the greatest hits of Hall & Oates.

Turned out that Daphne was the culprit. She had been having trouble with her boombox and wanted to experiment with it to determine whether the problem was the tape or the boombox, but she only had the one cassette so she borrowed one of Frasier's to test the boombox — and discovered that the boombox, not the tape, was the problem. Frasier's tape got caught in the heads of the boombox and was ultimately ruined.

Frasier tried everything he could to replace it. He first tried the station's archives, but he soon learned that tapes were recycled at the space–strapped station. Only tapes of recent programs were in the archives, and no tape of the show, which would have been about 5½ years old at that time, could be found.

His next step was to seek the help of his listeners — so, using one of his favorite words, Frasier told his listeners he had a "boon" to ask of them. He explained that his collection was missing a tape, and, although he realized it was a long shot, he wanted to see if any of his listeners happened to have a tape of the show.

At first, no one did, but then the station called Frasier at home, where he had been in a kind of funk, to tell him a caller had called in saying that he had a tape of the show.

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The caller (played by Adam Arkin) turned out to be an obsessed fan who had a wall filled with Frasier's photos and an answering machine recording that played Frasier's catchphrase — "I'm listening."

After spending some time with the fan, Frasier decided that he wouldn't take the tape after all, that he would leave his collection incomplete. He also worried about the influence he had had on the fan. The purpose of the show, he told the fan, was to help people lead better lives, "and I'm afraid I've hurt yours."

When he returned to his apartment, he told Daphne and Martin that he had not brought the tape home with him after all.

"Tonight," Frasier said, "I saw an example of how an obsession can take over a man's life. I don't want to be that man."

Good advice. Of course, Frasier proved incapable of following it.

Arkin was nominated for a 2002 Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.

A Hunka Hunka Burning Love

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Frasier (Kelsey Grammer): You know, I've been thinking of sending him someplace.

Niles (David Hyde Pierce): Like a resort?

Frasier: Like to live with you.

Niles: Oh, yes, the last resort.

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Frasier's (Kelsey Grammer) problems with relationships that failed were well known, but his greater problems may have been with relationships that worked.

Case in point — the Frasier episode that first aired on this night in 2001, "Bla–Z–Boy."

Over breakfast one morning, it was observed by Martin (John Mahoney) that it was the eighth anniversary of his moving in with Frasier. Niles pointed out that Frasier's marriage didn't last eight years, and the conversation evolved into a determination that, if Frasier and Martin were a man and a woman, they would be common–law spouses. Further discussion determined that, when you included the time Frasier spent in Martin's home before he went to college, they had been living together for 26 years.

The subject really rubbed Frasier the wrong way, especially after Roz (Peri Gilpin) observed at the cafe that, after a conversation about coffee that they had had frequently in the past, they argued like an old married couple. It didn't help when Martin said, "See how he talks to me? And on our anniversary."

At one point, Frasier was watching a documentary on TV, but Martin kept distracting him by eating pretzels and adjusting his chair, which made an annoying squeaking sound. Frasier finally gave up and left the apartment to go for a walk. Anyway, Martin tried to correct the problem with the chair by oiling it but accidentally spilled some oil on Frasier's recently cleaned carpet. That, of course, had Frasier up in arms.

Martin insisted it had been an accident, but Frasier, in a typical psychiatrist's fashion, said there were no accidents. Martin continued to say it was an accident, that it wasn't malicious, as Frasier suggested.

Frasier said he didn't think Martin knew the difference between an accident and a malicious act. Martin walked over to Frasier and said that he did. The stain on the rug was an accident, he said, then pointing the oil bottle at Frasier and squeezing it several times, spraying oil on Frasier, he said, "This is malicious!"

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Frasier had to replace the carpet, which necessitated moving the possessions from the living room to the balcony while the carpet was being installed. That included Martin's chair, which was positioned where the sun, shining through Frasier&aspos;s telescope could set it on fire.

And it did.

When Niles and Frasier realized what was happening, they ran out on the balcony and tried to put out the fire. But the chair toppled over and crashed on the sidewalk, just in front of Martin and Daphne (Jane Leeves) as they were returning from their walk.

(I'm not sure of this, but I think that was the only time the sidewalk in front of Frasier's building was ever seen. At least, I can't think of another episode when it was seen.)

Frasier claimed it had been an accident, but Martin reminded him that he had said there were no accidents.

Niles tried to mediate. He tried to get the two of them talking, but the effort failed. "You do this for a living, do you?" his father asked derisively.

Matters had reached a critical mass, and Martin tried to make amends by purchasing a new chair, one he thought Frasier would like. And he did.

But Frasier had something else in mind. He had reconstructed Martin's chair. It wasn't being made anymore, but he took some pictures of the old chair to a craftsman who re–created it. As for the material, he tracked down the manufacturer and, after forcing them to admit they made it, he had them re–weave it.

The result was that Martin's chair, the one Frasier had loathed from the beginning, was now the most expensive piece of furniture in the apartment.

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Frasier seemed to have come to terms with his feelings about his relationship with his father. He offered to take his father, Niles and Daphne out to dinner, observing as they were leaving the apartment that he bet they could get free pie if they told the waitress it was their anniversary.

"Bla–Z–Boy" won the 2002 Emmy for outstanding sound mixing in a comedy series or special.

Recalling Country's Roots

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Most of the songs on Merle Haggard's "Roots Volume 1," which was released on this date in 2001, were written before my time — many in full or in part by Lefty Frizzell, one of Haggard's major influences although Haggard did contribute one original composition as well as songs by Hank Williams and Hank Thompson.

Still "Roots Volume 1" was primarily a tribute to Frizzell and the almost joyful mood of his music. Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote for Allmusic.com that the album was "an unexpected return to how country records used to be made."

If that is true — and I have no reason to think it is not — I'm sorry I missed those days.

It isn't the weepy kind of country music I so often heard in the barber shops and hardware stores in my then–small central Arkansas hometown when I was growing up. The melodies had more of a bounce to them, if you know what I mean, and the lyrics were clever. A perfect example is Merle's rendition of Frizzell's biggest hit, "If You've Got the Money (I've Got the Time)." Throw that in with Merle's version of Williams' "Honky Tonkin'," and you may get an idea of what to expect from this album.

I have never really been a country music fan, but I was familiar with "If You've Got the Money (I've Got the Time)." In my hometown, it would have been inconceivable not to be familiar with that one.

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But "Roots Volume 1" introduced me to Frizzell songs I knew nothing about.

It's a good album, a fun album to listen to, but it reminds me of a lesson I learned early in my career in newspapers.

From the title, you probably expect there to be a Volume 2, but that would be a false expectation. There was no Volume 2. (It's like starting a news story with the time element, which is almost never the most important part of a news story — but you might be surprised how many people will start their news stories with when something happened rather than what happened.)

I don't know if Merle planned to make a second volume of his versions of old country songs. If he intended to do so, he never followed through.

The closest he came, I suppose, was when he released "The Peer Sessions" in 2002. It was a collection of classic country songs, similar in style, but most of the tunes were written by Jimmie Davis or Jimmie Rodgers. There were no Lefty Frizzell songs on that one.

When I worked for newspapers, I learned early that, if you're going to run a series of articles on a subject, you better have all the articles written and ready to go before you ever publish the first one. Otherwise, you're just asking for trouble.

We had different reasons for that in the newspaper business than Haggard almost surely had in the music business, but the reasoning is sound in both cases.

Hearts on the Line

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"Whenever it wants, the past can come kicking the door down. And you never know where it's going to take you. All you can do is hope it's a place you want to go."

Adult Bobby (David Morse)

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I'm a fan of Stephen King, and I remember reading "Hearts in Atlantis" before I saw the movie, which hit the theaters on this day in 2001. It was not a single story. It was a collection of two novellas and three short stories that involved the same primary characters and were told in roughly chronological order. "Hearts in Atlantis" was merely the title of one of the pieces in the collection — and it wasn't even the title of the story that was told in the movie.

The movie was a dramatization of the first and longest story in the book, "Low Men in Yellow Coats." I suppose "Hearts in Atlantis" was considered a more marketable title — but its meaning had to have been virtually incomprehensible to anyone who saw the movie but had not read the book. In the movie adaptation, Atlantis was casually mentioned a couple of times, justifying the title

Having said that, I was impressed as always with Anthony Hopkins' work. He is already extensively recognized and praised, but I think that, in the future after he is gone, he will be seen in hindsight as one of the best actors of his generation — if not of all time.

Anton Yelchin, who played his young friend, might have been one of the best actors of his generation. Roger Ebert wrote that Yelchin "is not just a cute kid but a smart and wary one." That seems to have accurately described him as he grew and appeared in quite a few other movies. He didn't fall into the self–destructive trap in which so many child stars seem to fall, but tragically he died earlier this year in what can only be described as a freak accident.

The movie, Ebert wrote, "weaves a strange spell, made of nostalgia and fear. Rarely does a movie make you feel so warm and so uneasy at the same time." As he so often did, Ebert made the perfect observation.

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In my life I have learned that the best fiction writers are the ones who can vividly recall what it was like to be a child. The children in this story were living in 1960, which was before my time, but childhood experiences tend to be kind of universal, I guess. As such, I suppose it would be a natural assumption that anyone can write a story about being a child, which is not true. Anyone can feel a personal connection to such a story, but few can write the story. Fewer still can do it well.

I can think of no contemporary writer who is better at that than King, and "Hearts in Atlantis" really may have been one of his best — the best of the best. In the book, the novellas and short stories told the tale of Bobby (Yelchin), and that first story, "Low Men in Yellow Coats," was about an older man who was taken in as a boarder by Bobby's self–absorbed widowed mother (Hope Davis), who constantly complained about her late husband leaving nothing but debts when he died.

The story took place in the summer of Bobby's 11th year. His constant companions were Carol (Mika Boorem) and Sully (Will Rothhaar), but Ted (Hopkins) became his special friend, sort of a father figure for the fatherless boy.

In the book Ted and Bobby had a conversation about Carol that I was pleased to see was brought to the screen. Ted asked Bobby if he had kissed Carol; upon learning that he had not, Ted observed, "You will, and it will be the kiss by which all others in your life will be judged — and found wanting."

That isn't the sort of thing your typical 11–year–old wants to hear. But it is so true.

Having been an 11–year–old boy once, I know that most 11–year–old boys do like to talk about sports, and Bobby remembered his father telling him about seeing Babe Ruth and Bronko Nagurski. Ted told him about Nagurski's miraculous comeback. Six years after his retirement, Nagurski was persuaded to return to pro football because the NFL's teams had been depleted by World War II. He led the Chicago Bears to the NFL championship, as Ted said in the movie, but the victory he described over the crosstown rival Cardinals occurred on the final day of the regular season. It was not the NFL title game. That came against the Washington Redskins. Nagurski did score a touchdown in that game, but the Bears won that title game by 20 points.

Ted made it sound like Nagurski scored the touchdown that broke open a close game with the Cardinals, but that margin was 11 points. A little poetic license, I presume. Perhaps Ted knew that and just embellished the story a bit for Bobby's sake.

The movie was about the relationship between Ted and Bobby as much as anything — even though the movie began with the adult Bobby going to his old stomping grounds for Sully's funeral.

Ted recruited Bobby to be on the lookout for "low men," strange, mysterious men who wanted to have Ted under their control, apparently because of some kind of psychic ability Ted possessed.

"Some think of it as a gift," Ted told Bobby after confirming that the low men's pursuit of him was connected to the FBI's alleged recruitment of psychics in the war on communism, "but to me it's always been a burden."

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Although it received nary a nomination from the Academy Awards, I liked "Hearts in Atlantis," probably because it reminded me of my own childhood and adolescence.

Every young person should be fortunate enough to have a mentor like Ted. Not every one does, of course. The prisons are filled with folks who didn't have such a positive influence in their formative years. But I did. I called her Aunt Bess — as did everyone in my hometown. We talked about all sorts of things. Sometimes I read to her, much like Bobby did for Ted. And she shared her wisdom with me.

I guess she was sort of like a grandmother to me. My own grandmothers lived more than 300 miles away. I saw them a few times a year, usually around holidays. I could see Aunt Bess every week — and most weeks I did.

Aunt Bess wasn't psychic — probably, although she always seemed to know when I was fudging the truth. Maybe that is something all adults — or at least the ones who have been parents — know or seem to know.

The best ones aren't bothered when their young charges prove fallible. And Ted was one of the best ones. Even after he had been captured by the low men, as he was being taken away, he saw Bobby and told him he wouldn't have missed the experience of being Bobby's friend for anything — even though it was Bobby's mother who had played a key role in his capture.

Ridding Yourself of Your Ghosts

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Lana (Jean Smart): You are a really good f–––

Frasier (Kelsey Grammer): Don't. Don't use the F word.

Lana: I wasn't about to! I was gonna say we're friends!

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Considering that Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) was a psychiatrist, I thought that the greatest — perhaps only — shortcoming of the Frasier TV series was the rarity of episodes that really dove into psychiatric studies and principles.

Sure, Frasier hosted a radio program on his series in which he dispensed psychiatric advice, but the conversations with Frasier's listeners tended to be what his brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) derisively called "McSessions" — brief and, to be honest, mostly written and played for laughs. Fair enough. Frasier was, after all, a sitcom.

Occasionally, Frasier would devote his radio show to a particular theme, inevitably drawing some pretty bizarre listeners from the woodwork, but I honestly felt that he seldom made his psychiatric work the centerpiece of an episode. Psychiatry was always there, and there were usually hints at something, but seldom did the writing really plunge into the subject.

That could not be said of the episode that aired on this night in 2001, kicking off Frasier's ninth season. It was called "Don Juan in Hell," and it was a full hour — which, in syndication, has been divided into two 30–minute parts.

From the beginning, the story of Frasier's character was love — more specifically, his unsuccessful quest for it. On Cheers!, his character was left at the altar, then he thought he had found love again only to lose it again. When Cheers!' run ended and Frasier began his own series, his romantic missteps became more epic.

When Frasier finally came to its conclusion, it did so with Frasier pursuing yet another love interest. The audience was to be deprived of the knowledge of how that one turned out — unless somewhere down the line there is a Frasier reunion that brings the audience up to date.

The psychiatric angles of Frasier's quest for love were rarely addressed directly. They were mostly implied. But the episode that opened the ninth season was different.

In the episode that aired 15 years ago tonight, Frasier was dating the woman he had once thought was his soulmate — Claire (played by Patricia Clarkson) — and they had gone on a trip to Belize together, but while they were there Frasier had been having second thoughts, especially after he dreamed of being in bed with the woman who brought Frasier and Claire together, his high school heartthrob Lana (Jean Smart). You know how psychiatrists are about dreams.

That was where the eighth season ended.

When the ninth season began, Frasier was torn between those two love interests, a rare circumstance for him. He was faced with a similar quandary a few seasons earlier when he told his radio show producer Roz (Peri Gilpin), "I'm a one–woman man — if that."

He seemed quite earnest about it — in his own way. If you ever watched Frasier, you know how obsessive he could be, and he was obsessive on this topic, seeking feedback from everyone from his father and brother to the guy who cleaned airplanes between flights.

Eventually, Frasier decided to go off by himself for awhile to think things through — and found himself driving with the ghosts of Diane (Shelley Long), the one who left him at the alter, and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth), his ex–wife — and he began discussing his relationships with them. (Frasier's writers always punctuated episodes with title cards that frequently had meanings that were not immediately obvious. The title card that preceded this portion of the episode was appropriately labeled "Head Trip.")

As they drove along they encountered Nanette (Dina Waters), the famous Nanny Gee who was mentioned frequently but seldom seen, Frasier's first wife from his college days. Nanette, appearing as she must have when she was with Frasier, was hitchhiking, and they offered her a ride. Once inside the car, she began performing a song she had written in college to a poem Frasier wrote about Bangladesh. (I've always loved the title the show's writers gave that song — "Bangladesh: Dhaka Before the Dawn." It simply reeks of youthful idealism.)

Anyway the trio followed Frasier to a cabin in the woods, where they proceeded to evaluate his relationships with women. At that point, his mother (played by Rita Wilson) showed up, and the four began to analyze Frasier.

During their discussion, there were some delightful references to past episodes, but to know the history and get most of the inside jokes, one really needed to have seen episodes of Cheers as well as episodes of Frasier that preceded this one. There was a lot of inside baseball going on. As I understand it, most of the women were reprising, if only for a few seconds, roles they played previously on one of the shows. (Wilson had played a Frasier love interest who strongly resembled Frasier's mother in an earlier episode, and Long and Neuwirth were regulars on Cheers!.) If a face looked familiar, there was a good reason for that.

Finally, Frasier could stand no more, and he bolted for the door of the cabin — only to find waiting for him on the porch all the women he had ever dated.

That led him to conclude that those three primary love interests and his mother (who referred to the other three as "the slacker, the barmaid and the icicle") were at the root of his problem. They had created a fear of rejection that was with him on every date and in every relationship. They were a constant reminder, he told them, of how emotionally risky pursuing a relationship can be.

"How will I ever move forward if I don't put you behind me?" he asked.

And all four disappeared.

I thought it was the writers' best, most thought–provoking exploration of the psychiatry in a character since an episode that aired nearly 20 years ago, "The Impossible Dream." I plan to write about that one on its anniversary next month.

The episode was dedicated to the memories of Frasier creator and executive producer David Angell and his wife Lynn, who died aboard American Airlines Flight 11 when it crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. "Don Juan in Hell" aired two weeks to the day after the terrorist attacks.

Ironically, more than four years before the attacks, a Frasier episode mentioned American Airlines Flight 11. It was, of course, purely coincidental — but eerie in hindsight.

(That episode, "Odd Man Out," was first shown nearly 20 years ago. I plan to write about it when it observes that anniversary next May.)

A Caribbean Cliffhanger

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As the eighth season of Frasier drew to a close on this night in 2001 with the episode "Cranes Go Caribbean," Frasier was finally dating the girl of his dreams, Claire (Patricia Clarkson), after being set up with her by his high school heartthrob, Lana (Jean Smart), in exchange for tutoring Lana's son to a good grade in history and was planning a weekend getaway in Belize.

Niles (David Hyde Pierce) and Daphne (Jane Leeves) were going to mark one year of being a couple, and Niles had plans involving a bathtub filled with champagne in his apartment, but Daphne overheard Niles and Frasier talking about Frasier's planned trip to Belize, and she got the idea they were really talking about a trip for Daphne and Niles.

As a result, Niles felt obligated to take her to Belize, too. Martin (John Mahoney), as it turned out, was also going — to do some fishing.

Thus, the entire Crane household would be together in Belize, where Frasier had intended to have some alone time with Claire.

Getting there was not an easy accomplishment, either. Frasier nearly missed his flight because Lana, who had given him a ride to the airport, was involved in an accident en route. His flight was delayed, and his reservation was given to someone else so the room he and Claire had been expecting was not available for them when they finally arrived.

On top of that Frasier had temporarily lost his hearing because of the pressure. Until his ears finally popped, he had to yell in order to hear himself.

Things went from bad to worse from there. At dinner, Frasier continued to pick. The restaurant was out of fresh fish. Frasier found it ironic that they could be seated only feet from the ocean but could not eat fresh fish.

Claire returned to their room, and Frasier, fearing she would cut her trip short and return to Seattle, followed her, hoping to convince her to stay.

As it turned out, Claire hadn't intended to leave. She just wasn't obsessing about a perfect weekend the way Frasier had been. Every minute didn't have to be perfect. All she wanted was for the two of them to have fun.

That night Frasier dreamed he had told Claire that he was happy — only to discover it was not Claire but Lana in his bed — and to whom he had just said he was happy.

Frasier began to wonder which woman he truly wanted — so he went downstairs to place a phone call to someone who he thought could help clarify things for him — his ex–wife Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth).

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Nothing was really resolved, other than the already apparent fact that Frasier liked a challenge, and viewers were left to ponder which one Frasier would pursue when the next season began.

Lana or Claire?

Reflecting on a Personal Milestone

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A father–daughter dance prompted Raymond (Ray Romano) to reminisce about the birth of his oldest child, Ally (Madylin Sweeten), on the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond that first aired on this night in 2001.

My guess is that is a common thing for parents to do — to remember, usually on a special occasion, when a child was born and reflect on how far they have all come since that time. In this episode, which first aired on this night in 2001, Ray remembered how difficult it had been to conceive a child.

Then, after the child was conceived, Ray and Debra (Patricia Heaton) spent a lot of time with Ray's parents. In her typical way, Marie (Doris Roberts) was producing tons of food and insisting that pregnant women should eat. Even if she didn't want to eat, Debra complied.

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And then there was a rather harrowing moment on the Long Island Expressway when everyone thought Debra was in labor — turned out to be a false alarm — and their drive to the hospital was slowed considerably by traffic.

At one point, the three of them were convinced the baby was about to be born right there on the expressway, and Robert (Brad Garrett) tried to make use of his training in emergency deliveries, but he told Raymond that something was wrong.

"I don't think I'm seeing what I should be seeing," Robert said.

Ray, whose mind was always on a single track, replied, "You're seeing everything! What else are you supposed to see?"

"A head!" Robert responded.

At that point, Debra concluded that the contractions were easing, but that didn't make the drive back to Frank and Marie's any less uncomfortable.

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Then, when Ally was finally born, the family gathered in Debra's hospital room to greet the newest Barone.

All that was on Ray's mind as he watched his 9–year–old daughter on the dance floor.

Then a slow song came on. It happened to be Stevie Wonder's "Sunshine of My Life," one of the calming songs Debra wanted to hear during her false labor.

And Ray asked Ally if she would dance with him. She did.

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Now, I'm sure this episode had a lot of sentimental relevance for anyone who has ever been a parent. But even for such as I, it was a touching episode. Most of my friends have been parents. One of my friends even made me the godfather of his daughter, and I feel about her as I would of a child of my own.

It ended that season on a good note.

Assignment: Robert

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Raymond (Ray Romano): I stood up for you ...

Robert (Brad Garrett): You stood up for me?

Raymond: What? Yeah.

Robert: Oh, come on, Raymond, if people are trashing me, you're right up front with the baton.

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If you have been single past the time when people think you should be single, you're bound to be familiar with the theme of the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond that first aired on this night in 2001.

"Let's Fix Robert" was the title, and I suppose you can guess many of the elements of the plot. The general theme was that Robert (Brad Garrett) was unable to find a steady girlfriend — even though two of Robert's recent girlfriends were featured in the opening segment and figured prominently in the plot in general, his American sweetheart Amy (Monica Horan) and his Italian sweetheart Stefania (Alexandra "Alex" Meneses).

They met each other at the neighborhood pizza joint and began comparing notes on Robert. The notes were unfavorable, of course. Robert wasn't there to hear them, but his brother Ray (Ray Romano) was there — and the girls, having deduced that Ray's pizza was going to be consumed in part by Robert, tried to wreck his pizza before he could get out the door with it.

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Word that Amy and Stefania had met got back to the Barone matriarch, Marie (the recently deceased Doris Roberts), who concluded it was the perfect opportunity to find out what Robert's relationship problem was.

Robert might never have known about it if he hadn't stumbled onto a gathering of the three one day when he entered his mother's kitchen and asked her to make him something to eat. She proceeded to hand him one of those lunch–sized bags of potato chips and give him the bum's rush, but she relented and took him in to the living room — where he found Amy and Stefania sitting side by side on the couch.

The purpose of the gathering, she told her son, was to discuss his issues. She had decided to let him sit in on the conversation because it would save her from having to go over all the points with him later.

That was bad enough — Robert said it was "horrifying beyond belief" to find his ex–girlfriends on the living room couch in his parents' home — but then his police partner Judy (Sherri Shepherd) showed up, and Robert objected. "She has nothing to do with me not giving you grandchildren," he protested.

"She spends 60 hours a week with you," Marie told Robert. "She has a lot to bring to the table."

They all had things to bring to the table. Each had her own complaint. Amy didn't like the way he ate her dessert when they went out to dinner. Stefania objected to his "frowny, frowny face ... it is annoying."

Judy appeared to be an ally at first, reminding the others that Robert had a demanding job as a police officer and needed his down time. But then she launched her own gripe about his love of onions. "He puts them on everything. There are other people," she told him.

"All areas you can be working on, dear," Marie told Robert.

Amy said she would be willing to put up with all Robert's other shortcomings if not for the biggest one — "his total fear of commitment." Stefania agreed. Judy was silent — probably because, as Robert's police partner, she required (and almost certainly received) a different kind of commitment from him.

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For his part, Robert clearly felt ambushed — and, I would say, rightfully so. Anyway, he sought refuge at Ray and Debra's house, but Debra (Patricia Heaton) couldn't remain silent when Robert began moaning about spending his life alone.

Debra accused him of being alone because that is how he wanted it. He was looking for the perfect woman, she said, and he would never find her because no such thing exists.

Then she was floored when Robert told Debra that she was perfect.

That led to a delightful exchange between the three of them over whether Debra was perfect, and Robert finally convinced them he meant to say that Debra was perfect for Raymond. "I'm just hoping to be that lucky," he said.

To which Debra gave the classic response that people like Robert always get from people like Debra — "You will be."

Of course, those who watched Everybody Loves Raymond know that Robert and Amy eventually got married, but on this night in 2001 that outcome was still far from clear to the show's viewers. It may well have been an inspiration that was yet to come for the show's writers.

It was the outcome that Marie wanted, but on this night even she could not have known how everything would turn out. She was taking no chances. As the episode ended, she was working on what had apparently been a complaint that came up after Robert left — his ear hair.

Keeping Up With Miss Jones

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"It is a truth universally acknowledged that, when one part of your life starts going OK, another falls spectacularly to pieces."

Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger)

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For some reason the late '90s and the early 2000s were prime years for TV shows and movies about the trials and tribulations of young single women.

Well, perhaps it wasn't quite as extreme as all that, but it is true that, from Calista Flockhart in Ally McBeal to Renee Zellweger in "Bridget Jones's Diary," young single women were hot properties during those years.

Speaking of "Bridget Jones's Diary," which premiered in the United Kingdom (where the story was set) on this day in 2001, film critic Roger Ebert apparently read the book upon which the movie was based. "Glory be, they didn't muck it up," he wrote in his review.

I never read the book, but based on what I saw in the movie, it must have been a fun read.

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"As in the book, Bridget arrives at her 32nd birthday determined to take control of her life," wrote Ebert, "which until now has consisted of smoking too much, drinking too much, eating too much and not finding the right man, or indeed much of any man."

That sounds like a recipe for a pretty endearing character — a clearly flawed character but, nevertheless, charmingly so. And, to be honest, Zellweger was perfect for the part. She has such a captivating personality.

And, based on Ebert's description of the Bridget Jones of the book — "a heroine both lovable and human" — I don't have to read it to presume that Zellweger was ideal for the role. I'd like to read it, though. As I said earlier, it sounds like a fun read. Maybe I will read it this summer.

"Zellweger's Bridget is a reminder of the first time we became really aware of her in a movie," wrote Ebert, "in 'Jerry Maguire,' where she was so cute and vulnerable we wanted to tickle and console her at the same time."

Ebert went on to observe that "[a] story like this can't work unless we feel unconditional affection for the heroine, and casting Zellweger achieves that." I agree.

One of my favorite moments in the movie was when Bridget said she felt like a "screen goddess in manner of Grace Kelly" — just before her Kellyesque scarf blew off as she was riding in a convertible — "though perhaps ever so slightly less elegant under pressure."

The rest of the casting seemed pretty solid as well. Hugh Grant is not my favorite actor, but he was the right choice to play Bridget's pompous boss Daniel, who embodied all of the personality quirks that Bridget made a point of stressing in her diary that she wanted to avoid in future relationships.

Bridget worked at a book publishing company, by the way.

I had more of a lukewarm response to Colin Firth, who played an interesting role. He and Bridget had been children together — and he and Daniel had been friends until they had a falling out.

As is so often the case, the heroine of the story fell for the rogue.

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But the audience always suspected — as I guess the readers before them did — that Firth's character was really the one for her.

The audience found that out for certain when Bridget discovered that Daniel had been cheating on her. This revelation, by the way, came before the midway point of the movie.

I have to admit that, as a journalist, I was drawn in by the part of the story where Bridget became a TV correspondent. My career has been in print, and print journalists usually look down on TV journalists as not being very, well, journalistic. The prevailing attitude is that TV journalists are more entertainers than journalists — and Bridget certainly seemed that way when she did things like slide down the fire station pole in one of her early broadcast pieces.

But later, when she was dispatched to get an in–depth interview with a British aid worker and the Kurdish freedom fighter, I could relate to her emotions. The aid worker had married the freedom fighter and had been trying for five years to keep him from being returned to his home country where he faced all but certain execution. The decision was to be handed down, and Bridget was sent to cover it.

I could relate to her sense of significance in the world as she went to cover the event. I remember feeling that way when I was assigned to a big story. "Am suddenly hard–headed journalist," she wrote in her diary, "ruthlessly committed to promoting justice and liberty. Nothing can distract me from my dedication to the pursuit of truth."

When she learned that the defendants she had hoped to interview had been spirited away, she feared losing her job, but it turned out that Firth's character had been the defense attorney, and he had instructed the defendants not to give any interviews.

He also arranged to give Bridget an exclusive interview.

And Bridget realized that he loved her just as she was.

That's what we all want, isn't it?

Ah, Wilderness!

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Frasier (Kelsey Grammer): What did you do?

Frederick (Trevor Einhorn): We played frisbee. It sucked with all those trees.

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The generation gap existed long before anyone slapped a label on it, but seldom has its portrayal been as entertaining as it was 15 years ago tonight.

The episode of Frasier that first aired on this night in 2001 — "Cranes Unplugged" — was about the generation gap between Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) and his son, Freddy (Trevor Einhorn), a typical 13–year–old boy who was visiting from Boston.

In anticipation of Freddy's visit, Frasier had made all sorts of grand plans. He and Freddy had had a tradition in which they picked out a book to read, read it and then discussed it. Frasier had chosen "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau, and he was very excited about it, but Freddy showed no interest. Frasier was sorely disappointed.

So Frasier told Freddy that he, Freddy and Martin (John Mahoney) were going to go camping in the woods — three generations of Cranes bonding in the wilderness. It is safe to say neither Freddy nor Martin was enthusiastic about the idea, especially after Frasier proclaimed, "We leave at daybreak!"

Their cabin was rustic, which was what Frasier wanted. He was bound and determined to read "Walden" in the woods, and he had bought journals for Freddy and Martin to write down their thoughts. He had the whole thing planned out.

But things didn't go as planned — things seldom do seem to go as planned when you're dealing with teenagers, and Freddy was, as I say, an average teenager. He was more interested in the other teenagers he had met at the campground — especially one of the opposite sex — than spending time with his father and grandfather.

Meanwhile, back at Frasier's apartment, Niles (David Hyde Pierce) and Daphne (Jane Leeves) — who were, by now, a couple — had made it their mission to find a man for Roz (Peri Gilpin).

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Niles had been playing squash with a handsome young surgeon friend of his, and Daphne thought he would be ideal for Roz. So Niles and Daphne tried to set up a date for Roz and the surgeon to join them at Frasier's apartment. And the doctor and Roz did come over.

But it fell through. The doctor and Roz seemed to hit it off, but he called in and was told there was an emergency and he was needed so he left, telling Niles to apologize to Roz (who was picking out a jacket to wear from Daphne's closet) for him.

Niles, though, didn't do a very good job of explaining to Roz what had happened, and she thought the emergency had been her.

Niles tried to make up for it by bringing another young man into the circle and passing him off as another doctor — but Daphne recognized him as the "moron from the corner deli." She ordered Niles to send him away, which Niles did while Roz was in the kitchen telling Daphne how well they were hitting it off.

When she learned that he had gone, too, she was convinced she had driven off two doctors in one night.

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I'm not sure what the lesson was in that substory — except, perhaps, not to meddle in other people's affairs.

Back at the campground, Freddy came in after an evening with the other kids, including a cute young girl who, he told his father, he had kissed. It was the first kiss for both of them.

Freddy had plans to see her the next day. She was a cheerleader, he told his father. Frasier reminisced about a young cheerleader from his youth.

So Freddy and Frasier had their bonding moment, after all. "Don't tell Mom," Freddy told his father.

"Don't worry, son," Frasier replied. "It's just between you and me."

Now, as a fan of Frasier and the show that gave birth to the character, Cheers!, I would be remiss if I didn't mention a couple of inconsistencies here.

First, Frasier told Roz early in the episode that Freddy was 13 years old — but Freddy's character was born on Cheers! in November 1989, which would have made him actually 11 years and a couple of months old when the camping trip episode aired in 2001. What's more, Freddy was said to be 13 a couple of years after "Cranes Unplugged" in an episode in which Freddy had his bar mitzvah. That's a pretty neat trick, staying the same age for two or three years. In TV, though, I suppose anything is possible.

Second, in an episode in the first season, Freddy was said to have severe allergies that forced him to wear all sorts of protective clothing at a chess camp in the mountains. I guess he had outgrown those allergies when he went on the camping trip with his father and grandfather because there was no mention of them. That, too, is possible, I suppose. My brother had an allergy to dairy products when he was little, but he outgrew that so I guess it would be possible for Freddy to outgrow the kinds of allergies that the Crane children always seemed to have.

No important lesson to take from this episode, I guess — except that there really isn't anything new under the sun, is there?

Achieving a Personal Crisis

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"Thank you for honoring my life. Just wish I knew what to do with the rest of it."

Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer)

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When one mentions a lifetime achievement award, one thinks of a recipient who is old, possibly even recently deceased. One doesn't think of someone like Frasier (Kelsey Grammer), a young (well, middle–aged) professional with many productive years ahead of him.

But, like a stroke or a heart attack, a lifetime achievement award doesn't always come to someone in his 70s or 80s. And so it was with Frasier on the show that bore his name 15 years ago tonight in an episode called "Frasier's Edge."

Frasier was the recipient of Seattle Broadcasters' Lifetime Achievement Award, which was a prestigious award but burdened by that negative image. When Frasier was telling his father (John Mahoney) about it, he observed that the lifetime achievement award was customarily given to much older people.

He was doing all right until he received a congratulatory basket of flowers from his college mentor, Dr. Tewksbury (Rene Auberjonois), who was taking his sabbatical at the University of Washington, with a card that said "You must be very proud." That triggered a crisis for Frasier. Why speculation instead of declaration — like "I'm proud of you," for example?

So characteristically obsessive Frasier went to see his mentor before the banquet where he was to receive his award and demanded an answer. He was disappointed.

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Turned out the professor had asked his secretary to write the card. There was no hidden meaning. Frasier had been overanalyzing, which the audience knew he was prone to do.

But Frasier was experiencing even more of a crisis than he or Dr. Tewksbury had imagined. The card was only the tip of the iceberg. Frasier decided it was a classic example of a midlife crisis. Dr. Tewksbury correctly interpreted the situation: Frasier was experiencing deep emotional conflicts, which Dr. Tewksbury tried to resolve by having Frasier treat himself as if he were a caller on his show.

After making several attempts with standard psychiatric exercises, all of which Dr. Tewksbury criticized, Frasier confessed to the caller (himself) — "I'm sorry. I can't help you."

A sub–story in that episode involved Daphne (Jane Leeves), who was gaining weight thanks to her own emotional issues. In reality, the actress was pregnant so the story line was being written to suggest that she was experiencing an eating disorder. Only Niles (David Hyde Pierce) seemed not to notice that she had gained so much weight.

Anyway, at the awards dinner, everyone was waiting for Frasier to arrive and give his speech. Everyone was on edge — except Daphne, who was happily eating the individual quiches at the table. Frasier's father got up to speak, to kill some time — and to reinforce something he had been trying to do all evening: Give Niles' ego a boost. Martin had admitted earlier that he had been concerned about how Niles would take his brother's award, and he embarked on a campaign of reassurance and positive reinforcement.

Niles kept telling him that wasn't necessary, but Martin insisted on doing things like give Niles a mug that had "World's Greatest Psychiatrist" written on it.

Before long, Leeves would temporarily leave the show to have her baby, then would return. In the series' time line, her character would recognize that she was having problems and would seek treatment — and would come back 60 pounds lighter, according to the story line.

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Finally Frasier showed up. His session with Dr. Tewksbury had failed to resolve his personal crisis, but he walked to the dais and accepted the award. The audience finished applauding and waited to hear what he had to say. It wasn't a long wait.

"Thank you for honoring my life," Frasier said. "Just wish I knew what to do with the rest of it."

And with that he picked up his award, turned and walked off, leaving a bewildered audience behind.

I thought that raised a good point.

Harry Truman once said it was hell trying to find work when you've been president of the United States. By the same token, it must be hell trying to find something to do with your life when you've been given a lifetime achievement award.

Bringing Middle Earth to the Big Screen

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Aragorn: Gentlemen, we do not stop 'til nightfall.

Pippin: What about breakfast?

Aragorn: You've already had it.

Pippin: We've had one, yes. What about second breakfast?

Merry: I don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip.

Pippin: What about elevenses? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He knows about them, doesn't he?

Merry: I wouldn't count on it.

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

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"The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring" made me wish that my mother had lived to see J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy brought to the silver screen.

Actually, I felt that way about all three of Peter Jackson's Middle Earth movies. It was a thought that kept weaving its way through my brain as I watched them in the theaters. It's a thought that still goes through my mind when I watch them on DVD.

Mom woulda loved this.

Mom was a reader. She liked all kinds of books, really, but she particularly liked fantasy stories.

I remember, for example, one summer when my brother and I were little, and our family went on a car trip somewhere. To keep us entertained, my mother read to us from the first book in the Narnia series, and she kept reading those books to us after we got back from our trip — until we had finished every book in that series.

Mom didn't read the Tolkien books to us. We read them on our own. Or, at least, I did — and I assume my brother did, too.

Mom must have read them, too, because I remember when an animated version of the "Lord of the Rings" prequel, "The Hobbit," was made, and she was as excited about it as anyone.

For a long time, the conventional wisdom was that animation was the only way Tolkien's books could be brought to the screen — and that seems to have repulsed some of the more prominent directors. When United Artists acquired the film rights to the books, Stanley Kubrick, who never did much (if anything) in animation (and whose "A Clockwork Orange," ironically, debuted on this date in 1971), was approached about directing the Beatles in a film based on them.

But Kubrick rejected the offer. The story could not be filmed, he reportedly told John Lennon.

Things changed in the next 30 years, though. Advances in filmmaking that were unimagined in 1970 enabled Peter Jackson to make his remarkable "Lord of the Rings," the first installment of which made its debut 10 years ago today.

When that occurred, I thought a lot about Mom. She had been gone for several years by that time so it was only natural, I suppose, for me to see it with my brother. We heard about long lines and decided to wait a few weeks to avoid the crowd — and then, for one reason and another, we wound up being delayed even more by some unforeseen circumstances.

By the time we saw it, it was near the end of its theatrical run — and the "crowd" we had wanted to avoid turned out to be nonexistent. I'm sure the theater was packed at the start of the movie's run, just like any other theater in the country, but the place was practically empty when we went to see it.

That was just fine, though, because it was like having a private screening room. We could speak to each other in a nearly normal tone of voice and not have to worry about disturbing anyone. My memory is that there was only one other person in the theater, and he was sitting a fair distance from us.

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Whenever amazing things happened on the screen — and, in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, amazing things were always happening — we could chat about them above a whisper.

I guess it never occurred to me when I was reading the trilogy how difficult it would be to turn it into a movie — but, even with the advances in filmmaking techniques and some prudent whittling of the story, it took about nine hours of screen time spread out over three movies in three years to accomplish.

The movie that premiered 10 years ago today set the stage for what was to come — as did the book that inspired it. It introduced the audience to all the characters of Middle Earth, a not–inconsequential task but a necessary one, given the story that still had to be told.

Ten Years Without George Harrison

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Nearly a year ago, a friend of mine asked me to write something about George Harrison.

I knew we were coming up on the 10th anniversary of Harrison's death so I promised her that I would. And this is the fulfillment of that promise.

But I've really been fulfilling the promise incrementally over the year.

Since she made that request, I have written other pieces that mentioned Harrison — specifically, in connection with "Taxman" and when I wrote about his musical tribute to former Beatles bandmate John Lennon and when I wrote of the anniversaries of the benefit concerts for Bangladesh and the release of the Beatles album "Revolver."

All of that has reminded me how much modern music owes the "quiet Beatle." I haven't seen Martin Scorsese's HBO documentary about Harrison, but I have heard that it is an important step in giving him the recognition he never really seemed to get during his life.

If that is so, then I applaud it.

Because I have learned things about Harrison as I have worked on this article since making my promise — perhaps I re–learned some of them.

There were lots of things about Harrison that I already knew or thought I knew.

I knew Harrison was a seeker. He was easily the most spiritual of the four Beatles. And that has its place, I suppose. It may be the single quality that people mention most about Harrison.

There are worse ways to be remembered.

But I always felt there was more to him than that. Harrison possessed a sensitivity that Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr did not — at least not to the extent that Harrison did.

That sensitivity could be seen in the passion he had for humanitarian causes. That wasn't something he did because it was fashionable. He was involved in humanitarian issues all along, but he was more visible after the Beatles split up.

His role with the Beatles was always limited. He always existed in the overwhelming shadow of the Lennon–McCartney partnership, but that role, thankfully, expanded in the later years, and the world was allowed to see more of his talent in songs like "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Here Comes the Sun," "Something" and "Within You Without You."

Harrison's most significant contributions were musical, but that doesn't mean his musical talent and his spirituality were kept separate from each other; far from it. The two often converged — as when Harrison's acceptance of Indian Hinduism led to the introduction of sitar music to Western listeners.

"In his most obvious contribution to music as lead guitarist for the Beatles, George Harrison provided the band with a lyrical style of playing in which every note mattered," wrote Bruce Eder for AllMusic.com.

"Later on, as a songwriter with the Beatles and subsequently as a solo artist, Harrison used his celebrity and his musical sensibilities to try and raise the awareness of millions of listeners about issues much bigger than music."

That's probably what sticks out in my memory of George Harrison. His music always had an other–worldly aura to it. Sometimes it was subtle, other times it wasn't so subtle. But it was always about things that were bigger than the music alone.

Music was where Harrison found his sense of purpose. He perceived, as many do, that his true mission in life was to seek a higher power, and I feel that, ultimately, he believed he had reached it through his music.

But there was, as I say, the humanitarian side of Harrison that really got its chance to blossom when the Beatles broke up.

Do spirituality and sensitivity exist as separate entities? That is a different argument — and one in which I prefer not to engage on this occasion.

But I will say this: As much as I admired Lennon and as much respect as I have for what McCartney has done musically, Harrison truly distinguished himself post–Beatlemania — apart from writing and recording popular songs and beyond anything the other three did.

Harrison was, as John Donne wrote centuries ago, "involved in mankind."

He was really the first to organize a benefit concert featuring several big–name performers, a pioneer whose experiences still serve as useful guides for what to do and what not to do. His concerts for Bangladesh truly blazed a trail for others to follow.

I sensed a certain amount of peace in the last years of his life — peace that may have been missing when he was young and his pursuit of the spiritual world often seemed to be at odds with the people and things that surrounded him.

That pursuit didn't get any easier as he got older. In 1999, he was stabbed by an intruder in his home, an ironic turn of events, considering that, in the 19 years since Lennon's murder, Harrison may have been the most reclusive of the surviving Beatles, avoiding most public appearances and probably taking more security precautions than McCartney or Starr.

He had been diagnosed with throat cancer a couple of years earlier, but it seemed to have been successfully treated and nothing more was heard about that until 2001, when it was revealed, in successive months, that he had been treated for lung cancer and a brain tumor.

The final months of his life were hardly peaceful. There were reports that his death was near, even when it turned out not to be true.

And then there was the report that was true. In mid– to late November, it was reported that George Harrison was expected to die within days.

And so he did.

Maybe age — as it has long been rumored to do — brought him peace and wisdom even though he was only 58 when he died.

Both were well earned.

The Eye of the Beholder

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Hal: Does she take the cake or what?

Mauricio: She takes the whole bakery, Hal.

Shallow Hal (2001)

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One of the truly rewarding experiences that comes from being more than merely a casual movie watcher is the sensation of seeing a story that has something genuine to say — and doesn't have to hit its audience over the head to say it.

I felt that was the case with "Shallow Hal," which premiered on this day 10 years ago — except that, initially at least, I may have been a bit shallow myself.

When I saw the trailers for the movie, I lumped it with a sub–genre of comedy that specializes in cheap jokes at the expense of certain segments of the population — in this case, obese people. And I decided that I would not contribute, in any way, to the exploitation of people who have probably struggled with weight issues all their lives.

I was wrong to prejudge it that way.

A few years later, I was talking to a co–worker who told me he had purchased the DVD of that movie. "What did you think of it?" he asked. I confessed that I had never seen it. He said he would bring it for me to borrow if I would promise to watch it. I promised — and darned if he didn't bring it to me the next day!

"It's better than you think it is," he told me.

So I watched it that night — and he was right. "Shallow Hal" was, in reviewer Roger Ebert's words, "surprisingly moving at times."

My friend was right. It was much better than I thought.

Now, I have always thought that Gwyneth Paltrow is an exceptionally attractive woman, and I figured that any movie that would require me to look at her for nearly two hours wasn't a complete waste of time.

I approached the assignment of watching the movie with a certain amount of resignation.

I had been true to my original position. I had not contributed to the exploitation of obese people. I didn't buy a ticket, and I didn't buy the DVD.

I figured that, if I had to watch the movie, I had avoided contributing to its financial success (and it has earned a handsome profit). I had lived up to my end of the bargain. And my reward was to watch Gwyneth Paltrow — who was quite a bankable star in those years right after she won the Oscar for "Shakespeare in Love."

As I say, I have always thought she was attractive. And I had been gaining respect for her acting ability with her other recent performances in movies like "Great Expectations" and "Sliding Doors."

But it took considerable talent for her to play both the svelte Rosemary that Jack Black (playing a womanizer who had been hypnotized and could see only a woman's internal beauty) saw and the massive Rosemary that everyone else saw — and she deserved to be commended for wearing a 25–pound "fatsuit" and facial makeup that not only gave her the appearance of an obese person but also the sensation of being an obese person.

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That is an important distinction, I think.

As I understand it, there are really two different kinds of fatsuits.

One kind re–creates the appearance of additional weight but is, essentially, weightless. An actor who is wearing such a padded suit under his/her clothes will appear to be obese but will not experience what life is like when one must carry around additional pounds — how an obese person must ease into a chair or a booth or walk through narrow doorways at an angle.

The other kind of fatsuit is the kind that is weighted. It is designed to give the wearer the sensation of obesity, not merely the appearance. And that is the kind that Paltrow wore.

It was bound to influence the way she played the part.

I guess I was put off by the reputation of the Farrelly Brothers, the movie's writers/directors/producers. They were known for making movies that relied heavily on a lot of slapstick and off–color humor. I'm not necessarily opposed to that kind of humor except when it is used to poke fun at those who are weak and vulnerable.

It's like kicking a guy when he's down.

But when I saw "Shallow Hal," it was clear to me that the Farrellys had gone to unusual lengths to build audience empathy for obese people and send some serious messages about modern society and its treatment of those with severe weight issues.

I applaud Paltrow for wearing a weighted fatsuit, but if I was going to criticize that, I would say that the extra weight was not in proportion to the size of the character she played. An additional 25 pounds on someone of Paltrow's build would be noticeable but far from morbidly obese.

And it would take someone who was morbidly obese to buckle the steel legs of a chair merely by sitting in it.

Poor Rosemary, I thought when I watched "Shallow Hal" the first time. How difficult and painful her life must be.

But Rosemary was honest about herself and her emotions — and she had some lessons to teach people who judge others too harshly.

The judgmental ones were the ones to be pitied.