FRIDAY, 24 OCTOBER 2003
Years of Andy - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER - I've known of Andy Rooney for as long as I've been watching television. I don't know if it's the eyebrows, which he still adamantly refuses to do anything about, or the fact he's opinionated as hell and very often makes a lot of sense. Appearing at the tail end of CBS' 60 Minutes every Sunday night, from his desk he talks about whatever's on his mind. As a previous book title of his so aptly stated, they are, pieces of his mind.
Years of Minutes, his newest book, is a 500-page collection of his essays, as delivered from 1982 onwards. The list of topics covered covers the waterfront, and then some. Everything from how hard it is to open containers to his thoughts on cigarette smokers, pennies, what to do with the budget surplus or his observations of cats, dogs and former presidents. What's interesting about this book is that the pieces are printed as they were delivered on 60 Minutes. In Years of Minutes you not only have the irascibility and bluntness of a commentator, but you have pieces that are of the era, containing a key into what it was really like at the time. We need that journey back, even if it's just something that happened last week or last year, let alone something that has happened to our collective consciousness over the past twenty years.
Andy Rooney hopes that Years of Minutes is a good book. It's a collection of his past essays, and I suppose if you're a regular 60 Minutes viewer, or new to the broadcast, the book would be a good thing to have around in case you forgot one of his pieces or you want to catch up. In my case, it's the latter, considering I wasn't really old enough to understand what 60 Minutes was all about until about a decade ago. Then again, a book being good never stopped it from selling, which makes Rooney nervous.
In the last segment on 60 Minutes, every Sunday night, Andy Rooney talks about a lot of things. Ego never constrains himself from offering advice to pompous politicians or overrated movie stars. He skewers those that need skewering like the overabundance of swearing in film and television, the insanity of advertising and of course, the information overload that's been exacerbated by technology. But he doesn't necessarily pine for the old days, or maybe he does.
Andy Rooney, besides a healthy ego, is endowed with a lot of good common sense. Why is it called the World Series when only American, and two Canadian, baseball clubs can play for the baseball championship? Or how come most 1 lb. coffee cans, now contain less than a pound of brown gold? Or why is it so expensive to buy food at sporting events? Why do we lose pens, gloves and socks? The questions he poses are sensible ones. In reading the book and devouring the essays you are left to wonder: why hadn't I thought of that? Or you, in fact, say, of course I've thought of that before.
Amidst the seriousness of current affairs, and those often harrowing stories that they cover on 60 Minutes, A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney is often a comfortable respite. Oh, viewers who are so moved would write in their consternation over anything controversial that Mr. Rooney would utter. Take the one time he was suspended over a remark he made in another medium that he thought homosexual sex was a cause of AIDS. He was suspended, but quickly reinstated when the remark that was attributed to him was incorrect. He stretches political correctness, expounding advice and observations that some of us wouldn't have the balls to utter. To wit, take his belief that men are a tad more superior as they have more pockets in an ordinary outfit, than a female's dress that, though more expensive may have fewer pockets. According to Mr. Rooney, that's why there hasn't been a female president heretofore.
Years of Minutes is a good book. Unlike some of the prettier news readers or journalists on television, Andy Rooney is probably the only one left who has put in some real hardcore time in the print end of the business. As such, he can write. But when reading the text you will notice that most words that use an elision, such as 'I'd' or 'wouldn't' appear without the apostrophe. You'll just have to buy the book to find out why.
My favourite pieces in this book are the reprints of essays he did on his colleagues Fred Friendly, Charles Kuralt and Harry Reasoner. All three, about three giants at CBS News, are wonderfully warm, if not fair pieces on men he worked with and with whom he was friends. I suppose that's what I like about Andy Rooney, in that he's rigorously fair and honest. And who cares if some sentimentality or pathos rubs through. It's only human.
There's a piece in this book from 1985, writ on the death of E.B. White. White, is Rooney's hero, who for decades contributed to the New Yorker magazine, and who became a sort of expert on the language contributing to countless style books. Anyways, Rooney admits that White was his hero and that life "without E.B. White is not good as it was for me." Television without Andy Rooney would be unbearable. This book, Years of Minutes, reminds us of that.
Years of Minutes by Andy Rooney is published by PublicAffairs and is $40.00 CDN ($26.00 USD). (ISBN: 1-58648-211-4)
Questions and comments may be sent to: editor@thecommentary.ca