Monthly Archives: June 2003

The Autism Coalition — a charity that raises cash for Guess What — is running a celebrity auction over on eBay, hawking some fun items. The most interesting (currently up to $579.50) is a paper bag which Conan O'Brien had a number of his guests sit on, including Peter Falk, Heather Graham, Roseanne Barr, Chuck Barris, Brendan Fraser, Heidi Klum, Laura Prepon, Carson Daly, Luke Wilson, Jack and Kelly Osbourne, Tina Fey, Matthew McConaughey, Tiffani Thiessen, Tom Cavanagh, Will Ferrell, Christopher Walken, Tom Brokaw, Molly Shannon, Kurt Russell and Jennifer Garner.

Several of the offers involve V.I.P. packages where they put you up in a hotel and then chauffeur you to a TV taping, plus you get to meet the star. You can meet Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart, Tom Green, etc. As could perhaps be expected, the David Letterman package does not advertise a meeting with Dave. (The limo ride that's included also stands to be a bit disappointing. They're putting the winning bidder up at the Rihga Royal Hotel, which is an entire block from where Dave tapes his show.)

I keep plugging The Daily Show With Jon Stewart but that's because they keep doing the sharpest political comedy I've ever seen on television. Here, for those of you who have RealPlayer installed, is a link to their story from the other day about the indictment of Martha (no relation) Stewart.

According to this article, the looting of Iraqi museums was nowhere near as bad as we were originally led to believe. Thanks, Augie.

Has anyone compiled a list of news stories out of Iraq that later required amendment or correction? Seems like about two-thirds of them.

Berkeley Breathed (rhymes with "method") drew the newspaper strip Bloom County for 14 years and briefly chased it with the Sunday-only Outland. Here's an interview that will tell you why he quit and why he may come back to it.

Rick Chandler pens a clever tale about the amazing transformation of Dennis Miller. It's called The Millers Crossing.

I didn't see the Barbara Walters interview of Hillary Clinton because I assumed it would be like every other Barbara Walters interview, and darn near every TV interview by anyone: The host exploits the subject to get ratings, and the subject exploits the opportunity to sell their book and/or version of history. Those who complained Ms. Walters wasn't tougher (a) don't seem familiar with Barbara's style and (b) will have to show me where some TV interviewer of the last decade or so has actually been tough on their subject. None of them are…and of course, if they were, the interviewee probably would not even appear with them. Occasionally, some interviewers try to look tough by asking a rude question. But rude is not the same thing as tough, and I suspect that that's what some of the complainers really wanted: Rudeness.

There is an anger towards Senator Clinton that strikes me as having little to do with her actions in the White House or Senate — and that's not to say there isn't cause there for legitimate criticism. But what seems to drive discussions of Hillary on talk radio and Internet forums is something different, including a hostility that some people — both male and female — seem to feel towards any powerful woman. Some of it is from people who have been flogging the notion that she was going to prison for Whitewater, Filegate and Travelgate; that she had secretly divorced Bill; that she personally had murdered Vince Foster, moved the body, then murdered him again. As accusations of that sort have failed to stick, the folks making them never pause to wonder if maybe they're wrong in some way. They just get madder at Hillary for not admitting some wrongdoing for something.

In an odd way, it parallels the Martha Stewart situation, except that prosecutors actually found something for which they could indict Martha. People who couldn't care less about far more egregious stock swindles are suddenly celebrating that Martha Stewart's getting nailed on a relatively minor offense. It's like they're getting some remote revenge on that stuck-up girl in high school who was smarter than them and she knew it. True, there's always a certain joy in some quarters when a rich celebrity gets taken down…but there's something about successful, not-unattractive females that brings out the worst in some people.

With Hillary, there seems to be some compulsion to trash everything she says or does. This morning, some news outlets are reporting people lining up to buy her book. Given the Barbara Walters interview and how excerpts have been all over the news, that seems utterly unremarkable. Still, over on conservative websites like The Corner, we have the suggestion being offered that either those lines of people were paid by the publisher to be there, or that they're just there to buy something they can instantly resell on eBay. Whatever else one might think of Hillary Clinton, she did win the Senate race in New York in a landslide, and even G.O.P. polling shows that there are millions who support the lady. But somehow, if a few hundred folks turn out to purchase her overly-publicized book, her detractors have to find some way to deny that those people might genuinely like her.

Republicans complain — rightly so, I think — that Democrats are too quick to dismiss George W. Bush as an ignorant frat boy and to view everything he does through that prism. Maybe some of them need to come to grips with the fact that Hillary Clinton may not be quite what they've always insisted she is.

The Tony Awards went about as expected: Inside jokes, great production numbers, men kissing, winners who couldn't get their acceptance speeches down to time, and no real shockers when the envelopes were opened. What's kind of interesting about the show is that it serves a dual function insofar as the theatrical world is concerned: It allows the kind of self-congratulation that every creative community seems to require…and it also serves as a prime-time infomercial for Broadway. Each show trots out its jazziest number and hopes to create a run on the box office the next day. Sometimes, it does; sometimes, days after the Tonys, a couple of shows close. Based on their spots on tonight's show, I'd guess Hairspray, Man of La Mancha, Gypsy and maybe Nine are going to sell some tickets tomorrow, but none of those shows were probably in any jeopardy. Man of La Mancha has been playing to about 70% capacity, which is probably acceptable, and the others have been at 90-100%. (I notice, by the way, that The Producers is down to around 80% capacity, which doesn't even put it in the Top Ten. Bet they announce some big stars stepping into the production soon.)

The most embarrassing moment of the Tony broadcast came after Christopher Reeve announced the award for Best Director of a Play. Joe Mantello vaulted to the stage to accept and somehow managed to not acknowledge Reeve sitting there in his wheelchair, unable to even extend a handshake. (A screw-up with the microphones of the Def Poetry Jam was also unfortunate.) The most thrilling moment for me came when Bernadette Peters came out and performed the hell out of "Rose's Turn" from the new production of Gypsy. Ms. Peters has received mixed reactions for her performance. Some of it is from that bitchy faction of theater buffs who arbitrarily decide it's time to tear down some star they used to love, but some of it has been from critics who actually seem to be responding to what they saw on stage. They said — some of them — that Bernadette didn't have the power or presence to pull off the role…and perhaps at earlier performances, she didn't. But for the Tonys, she performed the big, climactic number from the show — an amazing feat. Out of context, done without the entire show before it, some stars couldn't begin to do justice to "Rose's Turn" but Bernadette was amazing. Right after it aired, a friend who saw her in previews and didn't like her then e-mailed me, "If that's how she's doing the show now, I'm going back to see it again."

The biggest surprise was how the show used its expanded time. In the last few years, we got an hour of "minor" awards on PBS, then a rushed two hours on CBS in which they presented the rest of the trophies and tried to showcase all the production numbers. CBS inexplicably went for three hours this year and a lot of folks assumed it would be the same three hours, only all on one channel. Instead, they presented those "minor" awards before the broadcast and summarized them briefly on the show, thereby allowing three hours for what recently has been done in two. It made for a much, much better show, though I doubt it will cause ratings to soar. Most of America still doesn't care about awards to people they've never heard of for shows they'll never see.

Earlier, I posted a link to an article on Salon about false accusations against the Clintons by both the media and many current members of the Washington power elite. Apparently, that article is officially appearing tomorrow in Salon, and was only up this morning for a brief test period or by accident. But I read it and linked to it, and the link is apparently good, even though if you go over to Salon on your own right now and look for it, you won't find it.

Howie Mandel's a nice, funny guy — and yes, the story is apparently true of how he became a comedian. One night, he was taken to the Comedy Store strictly as an audience member. It was "open mike night," where anyone who thinks they have an act can sign up and get a few minutes to perform. Howie didn't have an act — or didn't think he had an act — but sign-ups were light that night, so when all the scheduled wanna-bes were done, he got up there, almost on a dare, and ad-libbed what turned out to be the funniest set of the evening. It started him on the road to performing and he's never looked back, turning into an amazing success. Why, he even has his own website! (P.S. When you go there, the opening screen will give you your choice of English or Italian. Pick the English, then go back to that screen and select Italian. Well, it made me laugh.)

Eric Shanower's another one of those artists I barely know. I think we exchanged about six words at one convention, which was not enough for me to tell him that I've always admired his work as both an illustrator and writer. So I'll tell you…and point you towards his website.

Robin Cook is the former foreign minister of Britain who resigned from the Cabinet over the decision to go to war with Iraq. He authored this article which does not speak well of Donald Rumsfeld.

A.S.I.F.A. stands for "Association Internationale du Film D'Animation." Just call it, like most folks do, "the animation society." The group does much to preserve and promote animation and its history so we're glad to have it around. They also stage wonderful events. It isn't listed yet on their website but the Hollywood Chapter has an evening coming up to honor the late, great voice actor — and one of the nicest men I ever knew — Daws Butler. It's on July 31 and it will celebrate the release of a new book, Scenes for Actors and Voices, which reprints many of the exercises that Daws wrote for the wonderful acting classes he used to teach in a little workshop in the back of his house. Some of the best voice actors working today studied with him in that garage and read these scenes under his supervision, and now they've been compiled into a book by Ben Ohmart and Joe Bevilacqua. Joe was among Daws's students, as were Corey Burton and Nancy Cartwright, who will be there that evening to perform scenes and autograph the book. One of Daws's best friends, the fabulous June Foray, will also participate.

I'll point you to a link with more details as soon as one is posted but for now, I thought those of you who are in Southern California would like to mark the date. That's the evening of Thursday, July 31, commencing at 7:30 at the Glendale Public Library Auditorium.

Here's a link to an article in Salon entitled, "The Media Gets Impeachment Wrong Again." The premise is that the various "crimes" of the Clintons have been stunningly misreported and that many of those who drove baseless charges have been well-rewarded for a bogus impeachment effort. I don't agree with every word of this article but I believe it is more right than wrong.

When I watch the old To Tell the Truth shows on Game Show Network, I'm constantly reminded how long Tom Poston has been around and how consistently funny he's been. Here's a link to his website.

A lot of people have heard the name of Rube Goldberg used as an adjective, or as a noun to denote a needlessly complex machine. As some of them may know, that was the name of a great cartoonist whose comic strips often depicted odd contraptions. You can find out more about him at this website.

And I feel like I should include a link to the video of that great Honda commercial which may represent the all-time greatest application of Rube Goldberg Physics. If you haven't seen it and you have Flash installed, go see it. If you have seen it, you'll want to see it again. And either way, you'll want to read about how it was done.