{"id":4827,"date":"2019-10-21T06:55:29","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T04:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4827"},"modified":"2020-03-23T08:37:29","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T07:37:29","slug":"columbo-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4827","title":{"rendered":"Columbo Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Every year in October, millions of children praise the good, wholesome and unsoiled name of Christopher Columbus. They sing their Columbus songs about syphilis, buy Columbus Day boat decorations, and eat the (obvious) famous meal. We had Columbus Day leftovers for a week when I was a kid. Joyous times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, I\u2019ve well grown out of Columbus Day. My dad sat me down\nand had a talk with me on a blue October afternoon when I was ten. So now I spend\nmy weekends in October praising a different Italian who came to America. Columbo.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lieutenant (Frank) Columbo. If you don\u2019t know Columbo, he\u2019s\na detective who arrived in the early seventies and he was different from all of\nthe others America had seen. He works on the LAPD and he\u2019s a famously rumpled,\nmessy-haired and constantly smoking a pretty mauled cigar. His raincoat is one\nbig wrinkle. This is in contrast to his suspect (and eventual victim) who are almost\nalways part of the LA upper crust. Part of the pleasure of a Columbo episode is\ntheir often condescending attitude towards Columbo, for his humble demeanor tricks\nthem into thinking he\u2019s a nit. And then they are taken down by him, because\nColumbo always always<\/em> catches the bad guy (or girl). Each episode saw\nhim driving forward relentlessly, but at a slow pace, observing everything. He often\nbecame close to his suspect, sometimes they tried to endear themselves to him because\nthey wanted to trick him or it gave them a sense of security, sometimes they\ndid actually like him, sometimes they pretended to like him, sometimes they\nwere openly aggravated by his pestering, sometimes they tried to pull rank or\nthreaten. But it never worked, he always got them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

It was a brand new type of mystery, since the first thing we\nsaw was the murdered killing his victim. So instead of a whodunnit, Columbo was\na howcatchem. And indeed the fun of a Columbo episode is watching him put\ntogether bits of observations and clues until he finally has one big gotcha at\nthe end. That gotcha was the best. Most of the time the suspect just gave in,\nsaying something like \u201cOK, for God\u2019s sakes, you got me.\u201d Other times they were\nstunned. Some just applauded him and complimented Columbo on his brains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent Friday night and Sunday afternoon watching Columbo\nepisodes. I sat in my chair, researched and jotted notes for this or that,\nplanned a lesson, and watched. What was the draw, I wondered. A quick look at\nNetflix drums up roughly 7,000 TV detectives, so why watch an episode of\nColumbo besides for a little dose of 70s nostalgia? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, let\u2019s not overlook the 70s nostalgia. The cars,\nthe suits. The smoking everywhere. Each time a guy stepped onto an elevator and\nlit up a cigarette I laughed and pointed. I lost count of how many times\nColumbo lit his cigar in a hospital. And when he had to break a dollar to use a\npay phone, I shook my head in amazement. The utmost of this was when he had to\nborrow a dime to call the weather service to find out if it had rained a week\nbefore. The very idea of not having a pocket-sized machine that will tell you\nthat information at a click is now profoundly unimaginable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I think that\u2019s part of the huge charm too. Columbo is\nunrelenting, he\u2019s got good sense, and he\u2019s observant. He takes time to do\nthings right. He always talks about tying up his \u201cloose ends\u201d and following\nthrough on an idea until he\u2019s satisfied. That appeals to me. Additionally,\nColumbo isn\u2019t only an underdog or humble in appearance, he openly admits to not\nbeing as smart as other people.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll my life, I kept running into smart people. I don’t just\nmean smart like you and the people in this house. You know what I mean. In\nschool, there were lots of smarter kids, and when I first joined the force,\nsir, they had some very clever people there… and I could tell right away it\nwasn’t going to be easy making detective as long as they were around. But I\nfigured… if I worked harder than they did, put in more time, read the books,\nkept my eyes open maybe I could make it happen. And I did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let the millions worship Columbus and his noncontroversial achievements and good will towards other cultures, I\u2019ll take a Columbo Day. If for no other reason than it gives me a chance to hear \u201cone more thing\u201d about five times in a day. I’ll take my popcorn over the extravegent Columbus Day meal and I’ll take a quiet day at home in my armchair in lieu of the Columbus Day parades that storm through each city. You can take Columbus and his lily white record, I’ll take Columbo. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every year in October, millions of children praise the good, wholesome and unsoiled name of Christopher Columbus. They sing their Columbus songs about syphilis, buy Columbus Day boat decorations, and eat the (obvious) famous meal. We had Columbus Day leftovers for a week when I was a kid. Joyous times. Now, I\u2019ve well grown out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4828,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/columbo.jpg?fit=940%2C788&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1fR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4829,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4827\/revisions\/4829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}