Monthly Archives: May 2004

An ugly traffic accident closed the Cahuenga Pass and made us (my friend Adam Rodman and Yours Truly) late for the Writers Guild Informational Meeting this evening. This was a gathering in a ballroom at the Sheraton Universal to update members of the state of the current negotiations and I think I heard enough to be able to file this report.

The old deal expired at 12:01 AM on Sunday, May 2 and we continue to work without a contract as our Negotiating Committee seeks to hammer out an acceptable new three-year contract with the AMPTP (i.e., "The Producers"). At the moment, that doesn't look easy. The biggest issue is that the Writers Guild Health Plan Fund is running out of cash owing to the national increase in medical costs. In the last few years, the WGA has had to cut back on benefits and change eligibility rules to kick a lot of writers off the plan. To prevent further reductions, the WGA needs to get the employers to kick in around $43 million over the next three years. The Producers are offering $10.6…and this is the best part of their offer. In several other key areas, they are offering nothing at all and there are even places where they want us to take cuts.

So will there be a strike? Not yet. The current plan of the WGA is to go on working without a contract. We have also proposed a modest one-year deal that will allow some of these issues to be discussed at length between now and then. I tend to doubt the Producers will take this. A more likely scenario — this is me speculating — is that they will make a "Last and Final Offer" (they make a lot of those) perhaps in the next few days which will add another ten or fifteen million to the Health Plan. They'll say, "This offer is good for X days," X being the length of time they think it would take the membership to accept or reject, and they will threaten explicitly or implicitly that there will be a lockout if it is not accepted at the end of that period.

I don't know what the mood of the membership is…I honestly don't. We have a total membership of around 9000, and I couldn't get a fix on the militancy of the 500 or so in attendance, let alone those who didn't brave the traffic in the Cahuenga Pass to show up. Everyone present was curious and concerned and eager to learn more but beyond that, you had a wide range of views in the room. Some people are clearly angry enough about the low Health Plan offer and the issues that have gone unaddressed. At times, I think we get bewildered that the Producers, while bragging about huge profits in the press, turn around and plead poverty when we ask for enough money to stay even. We have had WGA strikes that were about little more than the studios' desire to save ten million dollars or some other amount that is trivial to them. It wasn't that long ago that Disney gave Mike Ovitz a $90 million severance package for leaving…and yet all the major studios collectively are horrified at the thought of kicking in around three million apiece to keep our Health Plan intact. That kind of inequality does make some writers outraged enough to go on strike and there are others who simply feel they don't have any choice. If your salary and benefits keep getting whittled away, eventually you have to take a stand against that.

For what it's worth, I remain pessimistic that the Producers will come across with what anyone would call a Fair Deal. Well, let me amend that. They'll call whatever they offer us a Fair Deal and insist they can't come up with another nickel and that it's their Absolutely Final Offer. Like I said, they make a lot of those. One strike, they made five or six Absolutely Final Offers. But their goal, of course, is not to give us a Fair Deal but one they think a slim majority of the Guild will consider just barely acceptable. They have a long history of underestimating us in this regard, which is why the WGA has a long history of going on strike. They may be making the same mistake again.

Want to use your computer to watch people dig a hole? Here you go.

For some time, I've heard tales — some of them, apparently true — of an almost-legendary sweep that a Blackjack team composed of M.I.T. students made a few years ago in Las Vegas. Like most things in and around that town, stories are exaggerated and embellished to a lustrous shine, and I know there have been a few books and screenplays written about the effort and I think there's even a motion picture in production. It is now the subject of a fascinating 2-hour documentary that just debuted on The History Channel.

Actually, there are enough re-created scenes that "documentary" is hardly an apt term. It's more like a TV Movie starring most of the key participants, some of them photographed in silhouette to conceal their faces. The true story (assuming this is the true story) is minus some of the more colorful anecdotes and plot twists I heard but it's still an amazing tale. It's also amazingly well-told in an intriguing mix of interviews and dramatized scenes. The title is Breaking Vegas and the next airing is next Saturday afternoon. Set the TiVo.

Stephen Soymonoff points me towards the press release via which Pentax announced that theirs was "The Official Digital Camera of the Internet." I believe this is the same way Michael Jackson became "The King of Pop."

Here we have another article by Seymour Hersh on the goings-on at Abu Ghraib. Horrible stuff.

The Pentax company, as you can see here, bills their product as "The Official Digital Camera of the Internet." How exactly did they get this title?

I understand how a product becomes "The Official Cottage Cheese of the 2004 Olympics." The 2004 Olympics have a management that sanctions such titles in exchange for large sums of cash. If we had enough money, we could go to them and get Groo named "The Official Stupid Comic Book of the 2004 Olympics." And I guess that would somehow boost our sales even though it in no way pertained to the actual quality of what we're selling. That almost makes sense.

But who has the authority to grant titles for the Internet? I mean, even Al Gore doesn't own it.

I've never owned a Pentax camera and you know what this kind of thing makes me think? It makes me think that if they have to whip up a phony award to bestow on themselves, maybe their product isn't very good.

About ten minutes ago, I was watching a show on The History Channel all about Las Vegas. Alan King was on the screen talking about the town just as I received an e-mail from someone telling me Alan King had passed away. I respected the years and the skill but I somehow never warmed up to the guy on TV. I think at times it was that he dressed too well. I'd see him on Ed Sullivan's show bitching about the airlines and he always struck me as a very wealthy, successful guy who shouldn't have been pretending to speak for the Little Man. My father laughed at him and my aunt asked, "How can he get away with saying such things?"

But I never really laughed, nor did I feel like I was supposed to. He was the comedian of my parents' generation and he sure knew how to entertain those folks. Here's a link to the New York Times obit.

My all-time favorite Alan King performance was not a standup performance but a "concept" record album he made in 1960 called Alan King in Suburbia. It featured monologue material about living in the suburbs, interspersed with very funny songs written by Bobby Worth and Jack Quigley. It's quite hard to find — I scoured the Internet and couldn't even locate a JPEG of its cover to post here — but if you ever spot a copy at a garage sale, grab it. Maybe Dr. Demento will play a couple of cuts in memoriam.

Here's an interesting discourse on why America prefers Jay Leno to David Letterman. Personally, I think it may be a little simpler than some make it out to be. I think a lot of folks feel Dave is doing the same show over and over, and that he often exudes the traits of a man who doesn't want to be there…whereas it's just more pleasant, especially around bedtime, to be at Jay's party. Those criticisms are now less true than they were for a while there — I think Letterman is a lot better lately than he's been in years and Jay's fallen into formula — but the shifts have been subtle. I still watch 'em both but find myself doing frequent Fast Forwards on the TiVo remote, usually when Jay turns things over to a guest correspondent or Dave cuts to Rupert's Deli.

One of the skills Mr. Carson employed to keep his show fresh for three decades was a good sense of when a bit had gotten tired, and he did not base these decisions primarily on the response of the studio audience. Johnny knew that folks who come to see you tape are (a) more devout fans of the show than average and (b) apt to laugh out of recognition at a segment that would have triggered déjà vu if seen at home. He often retired bits or removed stars from the guest list even though the fans in the seats seemed to like them. One of his writers once told me that Johnny was suspicious of any segment that felt too easy. One of the downsides of Jay and Dave both working so many nights without vacation or guest hosts may be that they can't afford to drop anything that is easy.

I've given it up (quit while I was ahead) but for several years, I was a demon Blackjack player and I'm not sure I can explain why. In 50+ trips to Las Vegas plus a couple to Reno or Laughlin, I have never played Craps, Roulette, Keno or just about any other game besides Blackjack and the occasional stint at Video Poker. I've learned and played them on my computer but while strolling through casinos, I never had the slightest thought of placing a wager. In truth, gambling doesn't interest me but mastering the science and skill of Blackjack did for a time. When it became boring to me, I quit without withdrawal symptoms. Still, for maybe five years of my life, I enjoyed the challenge…and I still play routinely on my computer where, oddly enough, I generally do much worse than I did in real casinos with real money.

And I've recently gotten interested in a TV competition, The World Series of Blackjack on GSN, the station formerly known as Game Show Network. This is a contest taped a few months ago at Connecticut's Mohegan Sun Casino and Resort and aired as seven one-hour shows. All seven have aired and reruns have started with Show #1 airing again this week. The contestants are famous Blackjack players and most are colorful enough that you'll find someone to cheer for…perhaps Stanford Wong, who authored the best books on how to play the game, or Regina Guzior, a champion player who is legally blind. Like all good "reality shows," there are a couple of obnoxious contestants to root against…and I won't ruin things for you by even hinting which kind of person ultimately wins.

Tournament Blackjack play is slightly different from when you're playing one-on-one against the dealer. Everyone at the table plays against the dealer but they also play against each other and adjust bets accordingly. There are also strategies you or I would never employ in a casino. In Tournment play, it is sometimes advisable to hit a hard 18 or double-down on a Blackjack. If you tune in, don't let that kind of thing throw you…and for God's sake, don't say, "Hey, let's try splitting tens next time we go to Harrah's!" Most of the play is pretty standard, though.

GSN airs the show twice on Monday nights, and I think Show #1 is on tomorrow night. One person wins on each of the first five shows, then Show #6 is a "wild card" game where the second-place finishers compete. The winner of that show plus the winners of the first five compete on Show #7 for a $100,000 grand prize. The shows are slickly produced, complete with informative play-by-play and color commentary, and I got swept up in the excitement. A celebrity version is reportedly being taped this month for airing in July.

Announcing a new feature that I'm going to have on this site until I start forgetting about it! Each day, I will point you to the website of a fine voice actor. Today, say hello to Rob Paulsen, a fine talent I've had the pleasure of working with a few times. Rob is heard in many a cartoon and you can't watch TV without hearing one of his commercials. If you're interested in the business, give a listen to what a good demo tape sounds like.

Here's a link to a PDF file of the Taguba report on torture in Iraqi prisons. Don't worry if you don't get around to reading it for a while. Donald Rumsfeld didn't, either.

Matt Hinrichs has long brought us scrubbles.net, a very classy pop culture weblog. Now, he's gone one better and erected The Joyce Compton Shrine, a tribute to one of the more dazzling comediennes of the movies. Ms. Compton appeared in an awful lot of films, most of which were less memorable than her on-screen presence. But if you look over the filmography on Matt's nicely-designed site, you'll remember some films and maybe recall the moments in them when she lit up the proceedings. There are some stars who have that quality of "insistence," meaning you can't take your eyes off them. Joyce Compton was such a star.

Among the many depressing things about the current Iraq prison scandal is the way folks on all sides are treating it as just another campaign issue to be spun for votes. A lot of those defending Rumsfeld and Bush strike me as precisely the kind of folks who, if we currently had Democrats in those positions, would be citing this as the moral failings of men who have to be impeached. A lot of those expressing outrage strike me as being outraged wholly because they think it will hurt Bush and help Kerry. Senator Kerry's own statements sound fuzzy, as if he hasn't yet figured how to exploit it for maximum advantage. (A friend of mine made an interesting comment the other day. He said, "I used to hear John Kerry give these long, eloquent speeches on C-Span and I thought, 'What a smart man. He should be president.' Now that he actually has a good shot at the job, his speeches are sounding more and more like every other clown who ever ran for office." I think that may be true, especially in the kind of short sound-bytes required in current coverage.)

The scariest thing about Rumsfeld's testimony was when he said that there will be worse photos…and videos, even. So we're in for a lot more horrifying imagery, and a lot more spinning. Maybe someplace in there, we'll find a few politicos who'll react based on what it means for America and not what it means for their candidate in November.

This coming Tuesday, CBS is offering up a reunion special for my all-time favorite TV series, The Dick Van Dyke Show. Early reviews are not great but I don't care. I'll be watching. As I've written many times (like here), I really loved the show and got into my main line of work at least in part because of the inspiration it provided. Like most of you, I wish they'd done this special years ago when more of the cast members were with us and Mr. Van Dyke was still spry enough to trip over the ottoman a few more times. Apparently, such a special was talked about and talked about, and something always prevented it from happening, so we only had our memories and (of course) the comic books. I'm glad they're finally doing it and I'm unsurprised that Rob and Laura are still together.

One of the things I liked about the show was that their union seemed not only solid but filled with genuine affection. My least favorite episodes were the ones where one was jealous of some flirtation involving the others. It's not that I didn't want to see that but I didn't believe those little spats…didn't believe their marriage was so fragile that it could be an issue if a chorus girl kissed Rob or if Laura encountered an old boy friend. I also didn't believe the twin beds. Anyway, I'll be watching the show Tuesday and if you'd like a preview, there are some clips and interviews over on this page.

Just watched an advance copy of Lewis Black's HBO Special which airs May 15. It's called "Black on Broadway" and subtitled "Everyone's a comedian," which I guess explains the above graphic. I am hesitant to rave too much about this show because Mr. Black starts out by complaining about people who tell their friends how funny he is, thereby putting undue pressure on him to live up to the advance word. His set is similar to what I saw him do a few months ago at the Comedy and Magic Club — or at least edited down from a similar performance — but not exactly so. (One of the nice things about Black is that he seems to actually talk to his audience rather than deliver a routine by rote.) He talks about the weather, about flying to New Zealand, about what we've done to water in this country, about the greedheads at Enron, homeland security, Weapons of Mass Destruction and other goodies. Anyway, make sure you catch it.