When I was younger and first discovering the joy of pictures of beautiful women, my favorite photographer was a man named Peter Gowland. In this article, I tell an amazing (but true!) story of discovering not only his work but his studio. And today in the Los Angeles Times, there's this article about his job. Nice work if you can get it.
UPDATE at 10:50 AM: I screwed up the above links. They should work now.
If you're going to the WonderCon in San Francisco at the end of this month (or thinking of going), you may want to take a look at the Programming Schedule. I'm hosting four panels which I'll be reminding you about here, ad nauseam.
My comment that I thought George W. Bush was being treated a bit unfairly brought an amazing amount of argumentative e-mail…and from all sides. Pro-Bush folks were upset that I was minimizing the injustice being perpetrated on their guy while anti-Bush folks were upset that I thought it was possible to treat Bush unfairly. And as is often the case, a couple of both mistook predictions for wishful thinking on my part.
In any case, there's too much of this for me to answer individually, especially since I'm back battling a big deadline. I may not be posting much here for the next day or two, and I know I won't be able to respond to all the e-mail.
But before I get back to work, I have another prediction. I don't think Bush is going to be harmed, at least not in a real electoral sense, by what he did or didn't do before 9/11. When all the hearings and charges dissipate, the consensus will be that a lot of things could have been done — by Bush and Clinton and the FBI and the C.I.A. and many other folks — and we all wish they had been done. But no individual can really be held culpable for not doing them.
At the same time, I think Bush may be harmed by the inevitable discussions of what he did or didn't do on 9/11. As the story is told, Bush was on his way to visit a classroom when he was informed that a commercial airliner full of people had crashed into the World Trade Center. He supposedly watched a few seconds on TV, made a joke about "that's some bad pilot" (or words to that effect) and then went in and read to children. I think we're going to hear a lot about that, especially now that it's been established he'd been briefed that Osama's boys wanted to hijack planes and had been casing New York buildings. The fact that he apparently didn't "connect the dots" when that first plane hit is something we're going to hear a lot about…and at some point, he's going to have to give America a convincing explanation. Someone is also going to have to explain why it was that at 9:00 AM, neither Bush nor Condoleezza Rice knew there had been two hijackings even though the F.A.A. had known for almost forty minutes and NORAD for almost twenty. And Bush is really going to have to answer the charge that after Andrew Card informed him "America is under attack," he continued to read to children for at least five minutes instead of, for example, ordering all planes grounded as someone else had to do.
I'm not saying there aren't good explanations for all of this and perhaps some of the established "facts" in the timeline aren't as factual as we think. I just think this is going to become a major campaign issue…and all the current revelations about advance briefings and what Bush knew before 9/11 are just arming those who will charge that he was irresponsible to not act as soon as that first plane hit.
It's over at Comic World News. Here's the link.
Lewis Black has a special that begins multiple runs today on Comedy Central. It's called Lewis Black: Taxed Beyond Belief and I haven't seen it yet. But as I've laughed at darn near everything Mr. Black has done, I thought I'd mention it.
Also: "Smilin'" Stan Lee will be on the Home Shopping Network on Monday, April 15, hawking a number of signed, limited-edition items and celebrating the 40th anniversary of Spider-Man and the release of the movie. It'll air in different times around the country but I think it's 4:00 in the afternoon on the west coast. Better check to make sure.
No one seems to know the cause of the massive power outage that hit the Bellagio Hotel early Sunday morning. Obviously, these people have not seen Ocean's Eleven.
In other news: This is not a smart thing to do. Even though in this case, it turned out okay and will probably lead to a TV Movie or something of the sort.
The scary-looking gent above is another entry in our roster of "People I've Always Admired and Heard From Because of This Website." He's James Randi, and he's probably only scary if you claim to have psychic powers or to be able to heal sick people by pulling evil spirits out of them. Once upon a time, he was a top magician and escape artist but he has long since transformed himself into the world's greatest debunker of hokey claims of impossible powers. I am, obviously, a skeptic about such assertions; ergo, I cheer the work he does via the James Randi Educational Foundation.
Its website, which you can access by clicking here, is a wonderful oasis of sanity. (Would that the Internet offered even a tenth as much sanity as pornography.) Randi is a feisty exposer of frauds, charlatans and folks who would have you believe they possess paranormal abilities. He offers a million-buck reward for anyone who can demonstrate the genuine article and his cash looks pretty darn safe.
Randi is also a gentleman. I remember seeing him one time on a TV show, exposing a nugget of Uri Geller's chicanery. In the circumstance, the easiest thing for him to have done was to reveal the secret of the magic trick involved, but he did not. It was a trick sometimes employed by legit magicians (i.e., those who do not pretend to any superhuman abilities) and exposure might have robbed one of them of a chunk of livelihood. Instead, Randi replicated the feat, admitted it was achieved via a gimmick and effectively debunked without ruining anyone's act — except, of course, for Geller's. It's obvious that if Randi ever went over to the dark side, claiming powers of E.S.P. or telekinesis, he could wrest millions out of those who are keen to believe. (It is a lesson, not just about fraudulent psychics but for life in general, that human eagerness is at the root of most scams. The putative medium can usually not pretend to read your mind unless you are hoping for them to succeed and unconsciously helping them along.)
Mr. Randi wrote me recently because he wanted to get in touch with my partner-in-comics, Sergio Aragonés, to replenish an old friendship. He also said he'd enjoyed my article here on Peter Hurkos, and I've given him permission to re-post it on his site. And what's amazing is that I predicted this would happen. You see, a couple weeks ago while I was bending spoons with my brainwaves, I had a premonition…
George W. Bush could earn a chunk of respect from me if he would stop saying things like, "If we'd had specific knowledge of the terrorists' plans for 9/11, I would have moved mountains to prevent it." I'm almost as sick of that as I am of jokes about Donald Trump's hair.
Is there anyone anywhere who thinks any president, given hard info, would have gone fishing rather than try to stop the murder of thousands of Americans? Hell, I think most Chief Execs would even try to do something about Donald Trump's hair if only they could.
I do think Bush is getting hammered a bit unfairly by Democrats on this. But I also think a certain amount of it is his own fault for saying things like that, and also for statements like this one. This morning, he tried to characterize a document entitled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S." as saying — and I quote — "…nothing about an attack on America." To me, that's right up there with "I did not inhale" in the category of Disingenuousness.
I do not believe Bush is stupid but I sometimes agree with Jon Stewart's line about how he sure seems to think we are.
As we get closer to November, the Democrats are going to launch a full-scale assault regarding what Bush did the morning of 9/11. They will charge, in effect, that when he was informed America was under attack, he did absolutely nothing. They may even make commercials out of that footage of him reading stories in a classroom and put in in a split-screen with people falling out of the World Trade Center. If Bush responds with his line about not wanting to panic the children, he'll do himself an awful lot of damage.
As you may know (or be able to guess), I have a pretty good collection of comedy albums. I think I own all or almost all of the fifty named in this list of what one guy picks as the 50 "Most Influential" of all time. If I made up such a list, it would be quite different but I don't find his choices all that outrageous.
I have no big reaction to the P.D.B. (President's Daily Briefing) that was released last night. Yeah, it does suggest that there was a bit of advance warning of the 9/11 plot but no, it doesn't convince me that anyone was negligent not to snap into action. I think Bush's foes have made a strong case that the White House should have been more focused on terrorism than it was but a weak case that someone there could have prevented the disasters of that awful day.
I was struck by the amazing contrast in how the P.D.B. of 8/6/01 is being reported, though. The following is the lede from The Washington Post…
CRAWFORD, Tex., April 10 — President Bush was warned a month before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the FBI had information that terrorists might be preparing for a hijacking in the United States and might be targeting a building in Lower Manhattan. The information was included in a written Aug. 6, 2001, briefing to Bush that was declassified Saturday night by the White House in response to a request from the independent commission probing the Sept. 11 attacks.
And here's how the same story began if you picked up The Washington Times…
CRAWFORD, Texas — The Bush administration last night released the declassified contents of a presidential briefing document that contains mostly historical information about Osama bin Laden's terrorist plans — almost all of it compiled from open sources, including television and news reports.
Despite my view, I think the Post report is the fairer summation. Doesn't the writer of the Times piece strike you as a bit too eager to insist there's no story here and that Dr. Rice was correct to say it was a "historical" document? Usually in a news article, you lay out the charge before you provide the rebuttal.
A website that plays 20 Questions. I hate websites that are smarter than I am.
I've been getting a lot of spam from some company that wants to sell me vast quantities of pornography. The offers don't interest me but what's on the "Sender" line is usually kinda fun. Apparently, someone is using a program that takes a random word and makes it the first name. Then it inserts a random letter as a middle initial. Then it picks another random word for a last name. The following are the actual sender names on the last 16 I've received…
Pancreas H. Delmonico, Aristocracies G. Installation, Tolkien M. Bloodthirstier, Hunchbacked S. Glamored, Cesar P. Simulcasted, Outrage H. User, Tricycling P. Dobbin, Yipping V. Month, Modal D. Indignantly, Devotes H. Hollering, Wintry R. Wariness, Potteries U. Wideness, Orlon L. Sensory, Rattling C. Knocker, Sonic I. Outcries and Pearly C. Economic
Aren't those great names? Don't some of them sound like characters that Groucho Marx should have played? Next script I write, I'm naming someone Pancreas H. Delmonico. I just have to figure out if Pancreas is a man's name or a woman's.
I've been listening to MP3 files of Al Franken's new radio show and I have to say I'm impressed. I don't agree with all that Franken says but unlike a lot of Talk Radio shows I've heard, he is often willing to engage in a genuine back-and-forth exchange with others. The last few times I've tuned in Limbaugh, I felt there was a desperate, underlying need to not allow non-Rush viewpoints to be fully expressed. The minute some caller (apparently pre-screened and selected to serve as prey) got thirty seconds into presenting a contrary opinion, he'd be cut off and then Limbaugh would spend five minutes dismissing what little the guy got to say. I've never been half as bothered by Rush's views as I am by how fervent he always seems to be not to let anyone else even state the case against them. Has this man ever appeared in a debate format where he couldn't cut the other guy off?
I guess I was expecting Air America Radio to be the Liberal implementation of the same practice…and the show hosted by Randi Rhodes comes close. Even when I agree with her, I find myself repelled by the theatrics and the demonization of the opposition. The other day, she spent about 10 minutes yelling at Ralph Nader, who was on the phone and eventually hung up on her. There may be valid reasons to yell at Ralph Nader but at best, what she was doing was letting out emotional frustration and at worse, trying to entertain by being rude to a guest. In either case, no one got to say anything of substance…and, well, I don't think I'll be listening to Randi Rhodes in the future.
I also sampled Janeane Garofalo's show and while I think she's a smart, outspoken lady, I don't find her compelling on the radio. Maybe she'll grow into the job but I thought she did some fairly uninteresting interviews with some interesting guests. I'll check back in a month or so if she's still there.
But so far, I like Franken. I just listened to a long discussion with David Kay, the Weapons Inspector, who strikes me as a very informed, non-partisan gentleman. It aired on 4/6 and if Air America ever gets their archives page up and running (it doesn't work yet), I'd recommend a listen, at least to that segment. Kay did not engage in wholesale Bush-bashing and did defend the administration on many points…and I can't imagine any right-wing radio show giving so much air time to a learned, rational official who would speak as well on behalf of Bill Clinton. Franken and Kay agreed on some points and disagreed mightily on others, which is how a debate ought to work but on radio or television, seldom does. Kay cited errors and misrepresentations in the Iraq invasion but without trying to score electoral points. Franken did try to spin him to say Bush was a liar, Rumsfeld was wrong, etc., but he gave Kay ample time to make all his points and showed him great respect. I actually felt I came away from the exchange a little more informed about the topic than I'd been before, and not in the sense that I was propagandized into the host's point-of-view…because I wasn't. I also liked that it was a long discussion, or at least somewhat longer than one usually gets on television.
I have no idea how this approach will play with the radio audience. They may simply reject it for lack of fireworks and I still think that Air America has much going against it, just trying to establish a new franchise, regardless of content. Conservatives are already eager to declare it a flop and to sell the idea that there's no market out there for Liberal viewpoints, which may be true…or the whole enterprise may fail for other reasons. I'm still afraid that in search of ratings, the whole thing's going to have to get more theatrical…or at least, think it has to.
Time for two more of the obscure, even spurious comic books based on popular TV shows which Western Publishing Company issued in the sixties and seventies under the Gold Key (and sometimes Whitman) labels. These two are so difficult to find that some people have accused those of us who write about them of perpetrating some sort of hoax on an unsuspecting public…
There were eight issues of the Hawaii Five-O comic book, all produced out of Western's New York office. Paul S. Newman wrote the first, second and fifth issues and the rest were reportedly scripted by George Kashdan. All of the artwork was done by Luis Dominguez who did such fine art for Western's Boris Karloff and Twilight Zone titles. Above is the cover of #3 which contained the story, "The Beachcomber Burglar," in which Steve McGarrett matches wits with a daring daylight thief who is stealing things apparently not for their value but to tweak McGarrett. He leaves behind clues and the entire "game" distracts McGarrett and his men as they struggle to figure out where he will strike next. My favorite moment in the story is when McGarrett is sitting in his office late at night, staring out the window as Danny Williams walks in. You can almost hear the serious tones of actor Jack Lord as he asks, "What kind of man would steal fifteen crates of cat toys?" Danny absently jokes, "Someone who's distracted by shiny objects" and that jars McGarrett's thinking and causes him to realize that the Beachcomber Burglar's crime spree is intended to distract. A shipment of $20,000,000 in untraceable currency is being transported to a bank on Oahu and if Five-O follows the Beachcomber's leads, they will be miles away from there at the time of the delivery. "That has to be it, Dan-O," he shouts as he calls for his car and back-up units. And sure enough, when Beachcomber Bob shows up to steal the money, figuring McGarrett and his men are off on another island, there they are. A very clever tale.
Three issues of Dragnet 1969 and one more of Dragnet 1970 (continuing the numbering) were published out of Western's Los Angeles office with scripts by Don R. Christensen and artwork by Doug Wildey. Doug told me that he was allowed to visit the set on the Universal lot and to sketch Jack Webb and Harry Morgan from life. "It was not a big deal," he said. "Webb's face didn't change much no matter what he was doing." The first issue (pictured above) presented a story called "The Big Puzzle" in which Joe Friday and his partner Bill Gannon investigate a string of murders all occurring within a two-hour period on the same afternoon. The three victims were all killed in the same manner and obviously by the same murderer…but there was no apparent connection between them. Friday's gut tells him that the key to finding the culprit is to figure out why those three people were killed. He and Gannon investigate all their lives and can't find anything…until he realizes what they had in common. I won't ruin the story for you by telling you what it is but Wildey drew a great sequence showing Friday and Gannon, once they figure out the pattern, racing to prevent Murder #4!
More of these in a week or so.
I've had my picture taken with a couple of famous people. But it's nothing compared to Jeremy.