Monthly Archives: March 2004

One funny coincidence that occurred last evening…

Yesterday, I was reading the weblog of one of my favorite political writers, Eric Alterman. He said that he was signing copies of his new book today (Sunday) in Santa Monica at a shop called Midnight Sun. I'd never heard of the place and when I did every conceivable kind of Internet search, I couldn't find it. I Googled. I Switchboarded. I even YellowCommed. No trace of any bookstore in Santa Monica called Midnight Sun.

Later, our little group met for dinner prior to the Winchell event at an outlet of Buca di Beppo, an Italian chain that specializes in serving platters of food that invariably feed two more than you have in your party. Next door to it, I found a bookstore called The Midnight Special with a display of Eric Alterman books in the window and the announcement that he's signing there at 2:00 today. Midnight Special, not Midnight Sun.

By the time I got home, Alterman's weblog had been corrected. I just thought it was odd that I went searching for this place and then, a few hours later, found it right next to where I was dining.

Okay, so maybe it's not that big a deal. I don't care. I'm going to bed. Good night, all!

So last evening, a bunch of us went out to Santa Monica where a small theater called The Santa Monica Puppetry Center was hosting an evening in honor of a wonderful man named Paul Winchell. Calling Paul a ventriloquist is like saying Bill Gates has a few bucks stashed away. Winch — as he likes to be called — was a superstar of early television, appearing with his wooden friends Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smif, and a packed house of his fans crowded into a little hot room to see him perform, watch clips of his classic work and hear him discuss his extraordinary life and times. The crowd included other ventriloquists: Willie Tyler did a little performance with his friend Lester, though Rickie Layne did not bring his pal Velvel. Jerry Layne (no relation) was also there. He's both an expert ventriloquist and a builder of figures as you can see over on his website. Among the dummies he builds are authorized, exact replicas of Winch's two friends. They are lovely. The minute he started making them, I bought a Jerry and a Knucklehead which can be found around my house, scaring the heck out of my cleaning lady.

The main attraction of the evening, of course, was Paul Winchell. At age 82, following a stroke and a bypass operation, he moves a little slower. Still, when he picked up Jerry Mahoney, you could see, hear and feel the magic. He entertained the crowd, he told stories, he answered questions. He spoke glowingly of the man he called his mentor, Edgar Bergen, and told of how the first time Bergen came to see him perform, he was too in awe of him to go out front and say hello. Later, the two met when they were booked as guest celebrities on a game show called Masquerade Party (anyone out there got a kinescope of that episode?). Paul made the point, obvious to all, that Bergen had inspired him…he had then inspired guys like Willie Tyler…and now Willie Tyler is inspiring new folks who'll keep the art of ventriloquism alive. It's been in trouble, Winch said, since Ed Sullivan died. "He was the only one who really supported ventriloquists on TV." Winch also spoke about how he got the idea for the prototype artificial heart he invented and patented, and noted that in a way, it was not all that different from the kinds of controls he was then installing in the dummies he built.

The occasion was also a publication party for an excellent new book, Dummy Days by Kelly Asbury. Kelly is a top animation director — he's currently finishing Shrek II — but he's also a historian of ventriloquism, and his book crammed with facts about and filled with lovely photos of Winchell, Señor Wences, Edgar Bergen, Shari Lewis, Jimmy Nelson and many others, with emphasis on their mahogany-headed sidekicks. (Okay, so most of Shari's were cloth, and Wences talked to his fist…but you know what I mean.) He hosted and arranged the evening, not so much to push his book as to give a batch of Winchell fans the chance to breathe the same air as the world's greatest ventriloquist and to throw a little love his way. There sure was a lot of it tonight. Anyway, you can order Dummy Days by clicking here. You can also move your mouse over to Paul's website to read more about this remarkable man. His autobiography will soon be available at that site and I'll alert you when it is. If it's even half as enjoyable as the evening we spent with him, it'll be a helluva book.

Just to remind you, my pal Sergio and I will be among the guests (including other pals like Paul Dini and Bill Morrison) at the Wondercon in San Francisco at the end of April. I'll be moderating four panels…so it should feel like a vacation compared to a San Diego gathering where I host three times that. They will all be interesting, and I'll post a schedule here as soon as I have one. Here's a banner ad that will take you to a place where you can find out more about this fun convention…

If we are to believe the polls, Americans overwhelmingly believe it is "inappropriate" for G.W. Bush to use pictures of 9/11 in his campaign commercials. I don't think it is, especially compared to the kinds of things we're going to be seeing in ads from both sides later this year. I mean, by August — maybe sooner — the Bush side is going to be accusing Kerry of murdering civilians in 'Nam and the Kerry side is going to be running footage of Bush on the morning of 9/11 that suggests in his direst hour of crisis, Bush froze up and maybe even hid out. Compared to what's coming, showing a couple of actors playing firefighters with a coffin is nothing.

What I wonder is not if the ads are appropriate but whether they'll be effective with that most important fraction of the electorate: The folks who can still be swayed. To me, the most interesting thing about the polls is not who they show ahead but how fervent that candidate's supporters seem to be. When I see the polls say, "…if the election were held tomorrow," I think how many Americans are probably wishing that could be arranged.

Another thing I find interesting is how the polls keep talking about how the race breaks down with Nader in or out. It strikes me that Nader is not likely to be either in or out. He'll be "sort of in but not really." First off, unless Republicans launch a massive drive on his behalf, Nader won't be on the ballot in most states. So polls that show him getting 4-7% of the vote are especially meaningless since they presume he'll be on the same level of "choice" as Bush or Kerry. He won't be. I also suspect he won't really be running by Election Day. By a week or two before, Nader will have wrung every ounce of personal attention possible out of his candidacy. The way he'll get attention (and the admiration of many) that last week is to urge voters in any state where it's close to not vote for him. Which will make him even less of a real candidate when folks go to their polling places.

Of course, I'm being logical here. That may be the wrong approach.

I love the look and feel of old, classic burlesque. Never got to actually see it, of course, and perhaps if I had, I'd be less a fan of it. But I sure like the artwork, the old photos and what I know of the history, especially of the sketches. It's surprising that in this era of the Pussycat Dolls and other acts that are reviving some version of classic strip-tease dancing, we don't (to my knowledge) have a show like Ann Corio's old This Was Burlesque or any of several touring Minsky revues that re-created a night in a real burlesque house. So you'll have to settle for the lovely silk-screened posters that my longtime friend Bruce Simon is now issuing over at his Burlesque Image website. They look great…but then, how could anything with Blaze "Miss Spontaneous Combustion" Starr on it not look great?

Frank Rich manages to draw a line between Martha Stewart, Donald Trump and the current presidential election. And it's not as big a stretch as you'd expect.

Here's an interview with George Carlin about the current flap regarding "indecency" in the media.

Here's an article about Jack LaLanne, who at age 89 is still going strong. For some reason, I really like Jack LaLanne, even though a few years ago in a restaurant, he took a swing at me. I'll tell you about it one of these days.

Bill Maher on tonight's Real Time With Bill Maher…

Well, it's starting to look more and more like the terrorist attack in Spain was the work of al-Qaeda. Today, President Bush called the Prime Minister of Spain to offer his condolences and he said, "If it makes you feel any better, we'll be happy to attack a country that had nothing to do with it."

Fred Kaplan tells us what's wrong with the proposed missile-defense program. Bottom line: It's going to cost a staggering amount of money and there's no real reason to presume that the thing can ever be made to do what it's supposed to do.

I just read — but have no way of linking to — an article by lawyer Alan Dershowitz over on the Wall Street Journal site, beyond the portals through which only subscribers may pass. Like most Dershowitz articles, the subtext is, "I would have done a better job for her than the yutz she had defending her," but he makes a pretty strong case that Martha Stewart should not have been convicted. I'm sorry this piece is not more widely available because you'd enjoy reading it, and I'd enjoy seeing others read and discuss it. That is to say, I'd like to read a good rebuttal to it. I tend to respect Professor Dershowitz when he's not defending O.J. or promoting himself, but I find it hard to believe that the evidence of an unfair prosecution is as strong as he makes it out to be in this piece. Let me know if you see a good response somewhere, or even a means of linking to the article itself.

Speaking of Martha Stewart, I recommend you spend the time (a bit under seven minutes) it'll take you to watch this report on the verdict from The Daily Show With Jon (no relation) Stewart, especially the second part which shows highlights of CNBC's confused coverage. The Comedy Central series features some of the cleverest comedy writing done today but sometimes even their crew can't top just showing actual news footage and cutting to Jon's horrified expressions.

Victor Fox was one of the more colorful figures in the early days of comics. He had been involved in a wide array of shady, unsuccessful businesses.  One day, he happened to see the early sales figures on a new book that a named Harry Donenfeld was publishing called Action Comics featuring a character named Superman. Before Donenfeld even realized he had a hit, Fox had rented office space in the same building and begun publishing a comic book imitating Superman. Later, he ran a kind of sweatshop where young artists sat in long rows, cranking out comic book pages like galley slaves…and if you ever read any of those early Fox comics, you can almost tell. Good people worked for him, many of them doing their first-ever jobs in comics, but the material was generally sterile and lifeless, and it sold accordingly. Still, the history is worth recounting and it's well-told in this article by Jon Berk. The Comicartville site where it appears has also set up this gallery of Fox covers. Check out the story of this oft-neglected company.

Matthew Yglesias explains why Alan Greenspan is out there selling a pretty disastrous course for the American economy.

Based on recent e-mail, I feel I ought to remind readers of this site that I link to articles I find interesting, not to articles where I agree with every word. Well, sometimes I do agree with every word but then I say so.