The San Francisco-based, Al Gore-owned Current TV is the once little-known documentary/news channel that went from covering headlines to becoming a headline itself earlier this year when two of its employees, journalist Laura Ling and footage editor Euna Lee, were arrested on trumped-up charges of trespassing by North Korean authorities and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. Fortunately, Bill Clinton successfully negotiated with Kim Jong Il for the release of Ling and Lee, who were in the middle of shooting a story about human trafficking for Ling's investigative journalism series Vanguard when they were captured.
I was familiar with Current and Vanguard long before the Ling/Lee situation. I've always liked the mini-docs (the VJs refer to them as "pods," kind of a dorky term for these docs) and original programming like Ling's often fascinating series and the animated SuperNews! Lately, the channel's hosts have been presenting countdowns of their personal favorite Current stories, which have ranged from Vanguard segments to SuperNews! shorts. Because Vanguard's new season premieres tomorrow night at 10, I'm taking a cue from the hosts and posting my favorite Current stories. (One of these selections is an example of Ling's terrific work as Vanguard team leader and correspondent.)
20. "He Punched the Sandman"
Remarkable one-armed Muay Thai champ Baxter Humby is the subject of this mini-doc. At 5:19, is that Joey Buttafuoco?
19. "Black Violin"
Miri Ben-Ari isn't the only hip-hop violinist out there. There's also the Florida duo Black Violin.
18. "The Poor Dollar"
I've never been much of an expert on the economy, so this piece by Vanguard correspondent Adam Yamaguchi opened my eyes to the weakened U.S. dollar's effect on the rest of the world (it makes imported goods like gas and oil more expensive). Yamaguchi's segment, which first aired in early 2008, mentions how at that time, one U.S. dollar is worth 40 and a half pesos in the Philippines, my parents' birth country. This year, the peso will gain even more strength against the dollar due to the influx of cash that's being sent from overseas Filipinos to relatives who have been affected by the Ondoy disaster, as a post by a Filipino blogger from the Netherlands points out. "The Poor Dollar" also provides some interesting insight into what travel and food expenses are like for Vanguard correspondents and producers while they're out in the field. At 5:09, I like Ling's reaction in the background as Yamaguchi calls her a cheapskate.
17. "Joe Gets Bent"
I don't know what's funnier: The humorless yoga instructor or a purple-faced Joe Hanson looking like a turnip with eyes.
16. "Urban Streetbikers"
This piece from the channel's VC2 imprint (it stands for "Viewer-Created Content" and is pronounced "vee-cee-squared") was the first Current video that caught my eye because of the Harlem bikers' badass wheelie stunts.
15. "My Friends at Fox"
infoMania host Conor Knighton mocks Fox and Friends. Watching a single minute of Fox and Friends would make me want to start the day with a gun to my head.
14. "KAPOW! The New Comic Book Heroines"
I wonder what any of the female illustrators who appeared in this mini-doc would think of "Sampler" if they read it. If "Sampler" ever spawns a miniseries, I'd like to have one of them take a crack at drawing June Park--or better yet, writing her dialogue. There needs to be more female comic book writers, and a Sampler miniseries would be a great way to give some of them work or introduce them if they're newbies like me. My plan would be to write the first couple of miniseries (I'd rather have it be a bunch of miniseries instead of a regular series that's always in danger of being cancelled, partly because as "KAPOW!" interviewee Valerie D'Orazio noted on her blog, regular series about superheroines are doing poorly), and then I'd hand the rest of the storylines over to female scripters, particularly Asian American ones.
13. "Geek Monthly Magazine"
I was introduced to Geek Monthly at WonderCon a few years ago. Jeff Bond, a frequent interviewee during the earlier years of the college radio incarnation of A Fistful of Soundtracks, has been running an excellent magazine, and it's the only one I currently subscribe to. This VC2 piece takes a peek at a Geek Monthly photo shoot with hot actress-turned-mathematician Danica McKellar. It also includes an appearance by Geek Monthly staffer Heather Anne Campbell, who's currently co-starring with Dollhouse's Fran Kranz and Wild 'N Out's Randall Park in Atom.com's funny series MegaBot, a Power Rangers spoof.
12. "TV's Gay Friend Obsession"
Bryan Safi's gay version of Jack Bauer is the funniest part of the segment.
11. "Battle Against Bird Flu"
I first caught this 2006 Ling piece while swine flu paranoia first swept America (and while Ling was imprisoned). It puts a human face on an overseas problem I wasn't aware of, Vietnamese bird flu's effect on the livelihood of the country's poultry farmers.
Next: #10-#1.
