Monthly Archives: February 2002

We continue to refute the rumor that will not die.  The latest issue of the otherwise excellent Alter Ego reports that, according to Al Feldstein at a recent San Diego convention, the actor Martin Landau assisted Wally Wood on some of his comic book work for EC.  This is not true.  I have it from Martin Landau's own, Oscar-winning lips that he never worked in comic books.  This is presumably another confusion with a comic book artist named Ken Landau who is no relation and certainly not the same person.

For more on this oft-screwed-up situation, see this Incessantly Asked Question, right on this here website.

Here's an excerpt from an e-mail that asks a question I've been getting often, as of late with regard to the movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World…

I wondered if you could help me with a bit of info.  Is Santa Rosita a real place?  Does the Big "W" exist?  If I ever got to visit California is there any advice you could give me as to visiting any of the film locations?

Santa Rosita, home of Captain Culpepper, is not a real city.  Most of those scenes were filmed in and around Long Beach, California.  The park containing the Big "W" was constructed for the film on a piece of private real estate on a cliff in Palos Verdes, and the fabled four palm trees were transplanted there.  Today, at least two of them have fallen.  The "park" is part of a private arboretum which is not generally open to the public.  (A few fans have asked politely and gained access, but I'm told the owners of the property prefer not to have its landmark status publicized.)

I've heard from quite a few Mad World fans who have tracked down various shooting locations.  Some of those places are in the middle of nowhere; others have changed so much that nothing recognizable remains.  The most accessible unchanged location is probably the spot on Pacific Coast Highway, not far from Santa Monica Pier, where something called the California Incline leads down from Ocean Avenue.  This is where the scenes were filmed of all the stars getting out of and then rushing back into the taxis to pursue Spencer Tracy.  Also, several earlier scenes were filmed there, such as the one where the police escort cars leave Tracy alone.  If you go to Mapquest and do a search for "California Incline" in Santa Monica, CA, you'll see its whereabouts.

Jackie Mason was (past-tense) one of the greatest stand-up comedians but he has long since turned into someone doing a sad, unfunny impression of Jackie Mason.  In an attempt to hasten his descent into embarrassment, he co-authors occasional political columns with a lawyer named Raoul Felder.  They're not particularly clever and rarely in sync with reality, and I have to remind myself that, just because I once liked Mason, I don't have to read them.

The Washington Times — which is nearly incapable of criticizing a Republican or praising a Democrat — sometimes runs them.  They ran one the other day which included this line which I find incredible, even for a rabidly right-wing newspaper…

Remember the Paula Jones case? That was when Mr. Clinton, the president, supposedly the representative of the highest American values, was fined $1 million when he was convicted of sexual harassment.

Did I miss something?  I don't recall Bill Clinton being convicted of anything in that matter.  I recall the judge tossing Jones's case out of court as without merit.  Then, when it looked like it might get reinstated, Clinton settled out of court for $850,000.  Mason and Felder even got the amount of money wrong.

I'm kinda dismayed to see this in a real newspaper.  Did the editor not read it?  That would be gross incompetence.  Did he read it and think it was true?  Also, gross incompetence.  Did he read it, know it was untrue and print it anyway?  That would be pretty irresponsible.  An editorial page can present a wide range of opinions but those opinions are supposed to be based on some genuine facts.

It's also dismaying to see this coming from Jackie Mason, a man who has spent his career claiming — with some merit — that he'd been unjustly lied about.  He was effectively blacklisted when Ed Sullivan claimed Mason had made an "obscene gesture" on a broadcast.  He had bullets fired at him when it was erroneously reported he'd ridiculed Frank Sinatra in his act.  I seem to recall several other such incidents, including a paternity suit from a stripper.  (Mason claimed it was bogus.  Wonder if he settled out of court…)  Of all people, you'd think Jackie Mason would be certain that when you convict someone of wrongdoing, you have your facts right.

I doubt there will be a retraction or correction.  The Washington Times doesn't like to do that, and the column will not attract much attention, anyway.  I just felt I oughta remark that my low opinion of a once-admired comedian has hit rock-bottom.  (Here's a link to the entire column if you want to read it, God knows why.)

Josh Marshall's wonderful Talking Points website — oft-plugged here — has a new URL.  The new address is www.talkingpointsmemo.com.  Highly recommended, especially for making sense out of the Enron chaos.

I've never met Fred Hembeck.  We've corresponded occasionally but I don't think I've even spoken to him on the phone.  Still, I feel like I know the guy.

For one thing, my dumb articles and his clever cartoons have been turning up in the same comic book fanzines for a couple of decades.  For another, he's interested in all the same comics as I am…and interested in the same, strange aspects of them.  He sometimes does groaner puns like the above; other times, he offers personal, interesting insights that remind us why we like the comics we like.  You can find an array of Hembeck cartoons over at this website and it's well worth the trip.

The on-line magazine Salon, has been way out in front on the Enron brouhaha.  The other day, they came up with details on the aspect of this case that may cause the greatest amount of public outrage.  It's that, even as the company was declaring bankruptcy, laying people off and reneging on their severance packages, it was also doling out more than $55 million in bonuses to its top executives.  (Here's a link to the story.)

Someone once said — or someone should have said — that a scandal is driven by the simplest, one-line description of wrongdoing.  Nixon and his lieutenants covered up White House involvement in the Watergate burglary.  Reagan claimed his administration hadn't traded arms for hostages when, in fact, they had.  Clinton had an affair with an intern and lied about it.  In all three cases, there were extenuating explanations and all sorts of spins that could be put on the matter…but a large part of the public never got past the simple fact of wrongdoing as defined in one sentence.

Most of the Enron story is too complicated to make for a good scandal.  The public never got worked up over Whitewater, partly because so many accusations against the Clintons were unsupported but also because no one understood what they'd supposedly done wrong.  It didn't approach being a juicy, bring-someone-down scandal until it morphed into the easily-explainable Monica mess.  Enron is becoming very easy to explain in layman's logic: The company went kablooey, the investors and employees got screwed but the top guys all ran off with millions apiece.  That's all most people have to hear.  There are explanations and rationalizations.  "Retention bonuses" — paying top execs to remain aboard a sinking ship — may be oily but they are not unprecedented and probably not illegal.  No matter.  The one-liner on this one is bad enough that it can't be explained away…a fact that seems to be lost on the few Enron execs who aren't invoking the Fifth Amendment.  The one who testified on Thursday was like a murderer standing amidst the bodies, holding the bloody knife and saying, "Wait…I can explain!"

The question is whether the Enron one-liner will be expanded to include George W. Bush or replaced by a one-liner about him — i.e., "Bush arranged for legislation or government neglect that allowed his pals to loot the company."  So far, there's no solid evidence of that and I'm still skeptical there ever will be.  But if one of those sentences ever becomes the least bit credible, this could make Watergate look like an overtime parking violation.

Important, possibly prescient article by Paul Krugman over at The New York Times.  It deals with something we've alluded to on this site — that other companies may soon go the way of Enron.  But of course, we're just guessing, whereas Krugman seems to know what he's talking about.  Here's your link.

Yes, we still think Enron will not harm Bush directly.  But if a couple more companies go bust like that, it will not take much to make most of America hate overpaid CEOs more than they now hate guys named Osama.  And to the extent that the Democrats can link George W. to such profiteers — and possibly, given his past business ventures, paint him as one — he could suffer some pretty potent body blows.