The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

I was watching some documentary tonight on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which I realize makes me a Geek Royale. Anyway, the narrator was describing this researcher who was one of a handful of people who could read cuneiform who was primarily responsible for leading this research. At one point, she visits some museum in Britain where there are these giant Bas Relief sculptures that once lined the walls of this ancient king who lived hundreds of years before Christ. The reliefs depict daily life in the region, with men in chariots and other details.

Seeing these reliefs made me realize that these were rather permanent depictions of how life was over 2000 years ago. You could easily see the modes of transportation and the style of dress worn by everyday folks. Sculpted into rock, rock which has survived over 2000 years to stand where they do today, in a museum to be viewed by 21st century humans.

And then it occurred to me - what are we leaving behind that will have anywhere near the permanence of these Bas Relief sculptures? What tangible evidence are we going to leave behind for those who come 2000 years from now, looking to find out details of life in the high-tech 21st century. It would seem to me that almost all of what we have now exists on a bit of silicon on a chip in some device, powered by a battery that almost certainly won’t play 2000 years from now.

But those Bas Reliefs. They’ll still be in that museum in Britain, telling the tales of what is then a 4000 year old history - and leading one to wonder what happened to those who came after, those who lived the lives of luxury, those whose lives were so easy that they left nothing tangible behind. Including this blog.

Battle of the Network Stars?? I think not.

Some things get better with age. For instance, just one month ago we celebrated the 50th anniversary of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by the Beatles. By many accounts, the best album of the rock era. The soundtrack to what became known as the “summer of love” in 1967. Newly remastered by Giles Martin, son of the legendary Beatles producer George Martin, the album sounds, by most accounts, like a brand new album. An amazing feat if ever there was one - an album 50 years old that still can stop many in their tracks.

But not all things get better with age. I just lost an entire hour of my life watching the “new” ABC show “Battle of the Network Stars”. This re-boot of what was must-see TV some 30 years ago could be, perhaps, the biggest waste of video tape to ever hit a major network. In the early 1980s, when the TV landscape was much simpler (3 networks, plus PBS and some local independents), ABC created this pseudo-athletic competition to fill the dead time during the summer and mid-winter, when the regular TV network series took a few weeks off.

At the time, ABC was able to truly recruit just what the title promised - TV stars! Henry Winkler, Ron Howard, Farrah Fawcett, Lee Majors, and many others from top-rated “current” TV series donned their short shorts and body-hugging swimsuits and participated in their own version of the TV Olympics. And the audiences loved it.

Tonight, what ABC put on was a complete unmitigated disaster. First, there were no “stars”. I mean, the most current person you might call a star was Dave Coulier, late of “Full House” and the Netflix reboot “Fuller House”. Lisa Welchel and Kim Fields of the “Facts of Life” made a return appearance, 34 years after their last appearance.

But it wasn’t just the lack of stars that made the show so bad. It was the actual production itself. In the original, you saw the events. I mean, the actual events. You saw the swimming. The kayaking. The relay races. And everything in between. Tonight, you saw a few of the events, with cuts to events that took place “earlier” and more commercials than any 60-minute show should ever have.

Overall, this is one of those “blasts from the past” that should have stayed just a fond memory. Skip the Battle and save 60 minutes a week. Which you can better spend listening to “Sgt. Pepper.”