Monthly Archives: June 2004

I said a few days ago that I probably would not go see Michael Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. Now, I'm thinking I'll change my mind and see it…though maybe not right away. It's playing at a theater within walking distance of my home but the online Moviefone ticketing service says it's been sold out for all performances this weekend. I assume that condition will not persist into the coming week.

One reason I may go is that so many of my friends are asking me about it…and not just about its politics but about its techniques and to what extent Moore uses the medium effectively. Beyond that, there's this: Moore introduces into the national debate the question of George W. Bush's actions on the morning of 9/11. As I've mentioned before here, I always thought this was going to become a major issue in the coming election and I can't believe it took this long for it to begin to get any real attention. There are a lot of folks out there who look at Bush on the news and see someone they believe is competent and brave. In fact, they're willing to overlook or rationalize a staggering number of screw-ups and inoperative past statements and warnings of weapons that didn't exist because they think they have a "man of character" in the White House. Take that away from Bush and he'd barely finish ahead of Nader. I guess I'm trying, if only for my own interest, to get a better handle on what they see that I don't.

For a long time, there's been this tape floating around of him at the moment he learned of the attack. For some reason, Democrats were trying to make a case against his character over the absence of 1972 National Guard records when they were sitting there with video footage of him not taking immediate action and not looking too heroic when told our nation was under attack.

Now, there may be a different way to interpret that footage than what seems obvious to his detractors but so far, I haven't seen anyone make a serious attempt. I've read maybe thirty bad reviews of Moore's new film that tear him apart over his version of the Bush-Saudi relationship and the air travel of the Bin Laden clan and insist that he made Congressmen on the street look bad via calculated editing. Perhaps he did, I don't know. But I've yet to see even the staunchest Bush defender argue that the classroom tape shows a decisive leader or that Moore performed any trickery with it. I'm sure someone will and if anyone sees a pundit or politican making a good stab at it, please let me know. In the meantime, several friends have said to me, "Forget all the other stuff. You have to see how an audience reacts to Bush sitting there, reading a story with kids after being told some of what's going on in New York." I think I'm going to do that as soon as the crowds thin a bit.

Here's Frank Rich making a good point, which is that the insinuations of Michael Moore aren't all that different from the insinuations of John Ashcroft.

From the first time I heard My Son, The Folk Singer, I was a huge fan of Allan Sherman. Huge fan. I can probably quote the lyrics to about two-thirds of all his song parodies, even some of the obscure ones that never made it onto vinyl. At the moment, none of his nine great albums have made it in full onto CD. He is represented in that format only by a well-chosen compilation called The Best of Allan Sherman (that's an Amazon link) and his appearance on a few Dr. Demento anthologies.

However, this glaring omission is about to change. Perhaps because it was the only record he made that was not for Warner Brothers Records, Collectors' Choice Music will soon be releasing a CD of Peter and the Commissar, a 1964 album he made with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra. The title piece is his rewrite of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf," which not only changes the entire storyline but interpolates a Dixieland rendition of the grand march from "Aida," a rock 'n' roll arrangement of "Brahms' Lullaby" and other classical aberrations, including "Beethoven's Fifth Cha-Cha-Cha."

I thought it was wonderful, though I was less taken with the two other offerings — "Variations on 'How Dry I Am,'" and "The End of a Symphony." The latter is a look at how most of the great pieces of music just go on too long…and Sherman's version just goes on too long. But I recommend this CD if only for the main piece and for one moment in the "How Dry I Am" number. Sherman, who was a musical illiterate, functioned as conductor for it, while the aged, revered Mr. Fiedler performed as "guest soloist." Fiedler performs a hiccup and gets what may be the longest laugh ever heard on a comedy record.

This release is apparently an exclusive of C.C.M., meaning you can purchase it only from them. I therefore do not make a commission on it but, hell, it's too much a treat not to link to…so here you go. While you're at their site, you might want to browse around and check out some of their other exclusives. They have most of Shelley Berman's albums on CD, for instance…and Robert Klein's three terrific records. If you've never heard the latter, spend the twelve bucks and order Child of the Fifties. You will not regret it.

Here's someone's homemade video clip (you'll need RealPlayer) of a recent segment from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. If you think Dick Cheney has a severe credibility problem, you'll enjoy it. If you don't, this clip might make you understand why a lot of people do. It runs around five and a half minutes.

The documentary I recommended — Breaking Vegas — is on The History Channel this evening, not The Discovery Channel. This is an easy mistake to make and I made it.

It was caught by David Feldman. Show your appreciation by buying one of David's wonderful "Imponderables" books like this one or this one or even this one.

GMail is a new online webmail service from the Google folks. It's free and it gives you a staggering amount of online storage space (1000 megabytes) and it has an easy-to-use user interface and I don't think I'll be making much use of it. That's my conclusion after a month or so of fiddling around with an account.

My problem with it does not relate to its privacy/advertising policy. They're not there at the moment but at times, the "price" for your free e-mail account is that little ads will appear in the margins, much like those that appear on the wonderful Google search engine page. Google has its computers scan your e-mail for keywords and then select advertising that it thinks will be relevant to you. This panics some folks (like this guy) and I don't know quite why. I mean, when you sign up for an e-mail service, you accept that your correspondence will be sitting on file servers owned and controlled by total strangers. They could easily be reading it or scanning it for certain content…and you'd have no way of knowing. Why is it so obtrusive when they tell you that anonymous bots will be looking to see if you seem like a good candidate for Viagra ads?

So that doesn't bother me. One thing that does is the whole idea of webmail, especially the way GMail operates, which is to encourage you to keep all your mail on their servers and never delete anything. When you go to do so, a little message reminds you that you have tons of storage space so there's no need to delete…and they make doing so a two-step process. (You have to move the message to the Trash folder and then mark it in the Trash folder and flush it.) I don't like the idea of leaving all my mail on someone else's computer…especially someone who could be subpoenaed in the Era of Ashcroft. Moreover, GMail will delete your account — and therefore all the mail they've encouraged you to store there — if you don't log in for nine months.

Which brings me to another thing I don't like about sending and receiving e-mail online. They say they may add POP3 access at a later date, possibly for a fee, but at the moment there's no easy way to download the whole database to your home computer. I'm not particularly worried about Google and GMail going out of business and disappearing with all my mail but I also don't think it's a bad idea to keep your own mail on your own computer.

Lastly — and this is the thing that drove me to write this message — GMail's Spam filters aren't working well, at least for me. Quite a few legit messages are getting bumped over to the Spam folder along with all the ads for cheap mortgages and cheaper women. An occasional error is understandable but their batting average is just too low.

So is GMail good for anything? Absolutely. It's great for a "junk mail" account…you know, for when some site makes you sign up for access and you don't want your real mailbox cluttered with any mail that site might send. One way I've reduced the amount of Spam through which I have to wade is to have a couple of different e-mail addresses. I don't use my main one for most sign-ups. You might find a GMail account handy to maintain a separate identity.

But you can't just go sign up for one. Eventually, that will be possible…but right now, someone who's already had a GMail account for some time (or is in tight with Google) has to invite you. In the next few weeks, someone probably will. I suggest you take them up on the invite…but not that you use it for your important correspondence.

Want proof that western movies are dead? Warner Brothers has torn down Laramie Street.

Tomorrow afternoon at 5 PM, Bill Clinton will be at the Brentano's in Century City to sign his new book. Today at around the same hour, I had to stop in there to look for a book that — it turned out — they didn't have. The place was already in a bit of a tizzy.

Outside, a security guard was trying to politely shoo away some folks who came to camp out all night so they could be first in line. The guard was explaining that the mall closes overnight so no one can be there. Three people with knapsacks and picnic baskets were telling him how devoted they were to the former President…as if that might make a difference.

Inside, phones were ringing constantly and all the store employees were having the exact same conversation with callers, explaining The Rules. The line starts at 6 AM and you can either buy a ticket (for the price of the book) or get one by showing the receipt for the copy of My Life that you already purchased at that store. Then you have to be back in line by 4:00 — or maybe it's 3:00 — and you'll be processed in order. It's one book per person. Clinton will only sign his book and he will only sign his name. No personalizations. No cameras. No cell phones. No purses. (There are other rules, too. If anyone reading this is thinking of going, don't presume that I'm giving you the entire story, or that I didn't get something wrong.)

Clinton, they said, is committed to sign 1000 books. He may sign more "at his discretion" — and when was the last time you heard the word "discretion" in a sentence about Bill Clinton? I suspect he won't sign many more than that…and I say that as someone who occasionally has to sign his own 11-letter name on 1000 copies of some Groo book or print. I couldn't do it all in one sitting, and I didn't have to keep stopping and shaking hands between signatures, as Clinton presumably does.

I delighted one clerk by going up to her and saying, "Could I ask you a question that has nothing to do with Bill Clinton?"

"It'll be the first one today," she grinned…and seemed more disappointed than I was that their computer showed they aren't carrying the book I wanted. Then out of nowhere, she said, "We're putting on ten extra people to help tomorrow and we're closing for several hours before he arrives, and it still won't be enough. I don't know why we're doing this."

I do. It's just about the only thing a bookstore can offer us that Amazon can't.

Here's a link to the online video for a new Bush-Cheney commercial. The premise is that the folks who oppose George W. Bush are wild-eyed and crazy and angry…and I can't imagine why the Bush folks thought this would get them votes. I mean, yeah, the clip of Michael Moore at the Oscars makes him look rude and rabble-rousing. But at a time when Americans increasingly believe there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction and no Saddam-Osama partnership, I think the reaction to Moore saying the war was for "fictitious reasons" [sic] will be more along the lines of, "Gee, maybe that guy wasn't as wrong as we thought at the time."

The thing that puzzles me about this ad is that it's not really anti-Kerry. Yeah, they have him in there…but they can't seriously believe they're going to convince America that boring ol' John Kerry is a wild-eyed radical crazy. They'd be better off going the other direction, trying to sell the notion that Kerry lacks the fire and passion to be Prez. This is really an attack not on the opposition candidate but on the more vocal folks who say George W. Bush has been a bad president. I can't think of any other incumbent who has ever spent money on that kind of spot.

Tomorrow night (Friday), The Discovery Channel is reairing Breaking Vegas, a combination documentary and dramatization of how a batch of M.I.T. students made an incredible Blackjack assault on the casinos of Nevada. A fascinating tale told in an interesting manner.

Fans of Hawaii Five-O may be interested to know that the rerun rotation has come around again to "V for Vashon," a story that ran for three consecutive episodes of the series in 1972 and was later edited into a quasi-movie. Just about everything that was good or bad about that program was represented in that three-parter about a crime family that vows to stop McGarrett from interfering with their operations. The first hour runs 6/27 on the Hallmark Channel with others to follow on subsequent Sundays, while a local station in Los Angeles, KDOC, is running all three parts next Monday through Wednesday. (Here's an article I wrote some time ago about Hawaii Five-O and its little quirks.)

Monday evening, Game Show Network is reairing Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal. This is the hour-long "documentary" about Michael Larson, the man who went on the game show Press Your Luck and through unexpected ingenuity, took CBS for over a hundred thousand dollars. An interesting story, indeed.

And if none of these shows interest you, you can turn on darn near any program at random and watch Bill Clinton being asked about Monica.

Over on his weblog, a gent named Will Campbell posts an anecdote about the late Lorenzo Music working with him at a Suicide Prevention Center. His account is true. Lorenzo did work occasionally at such places and the way he told it to me, people occasionally did recognize his voice. He once described a call that went something like this…

"I can't go on any longer. My wife left me for my sister and is suing me for divorce. I lost my job and I'm hopelessly in debt. My parents won't speak to me. My kid disowned me and changed his name. My doctor says I only have…say, do you know you sound like that cat on TV?"

I found this story thanks to a link that Amid Amidi posted over on Cartoon Brew. I am so grateful to him that I will even forgive his sacrilegious remarks the other day about Top Cat.

My TiVo has been recording I Love Lucy lately, whether I want it to or not. This morn, I watched three and was struck with how incredibly horrible Lucy and Ricky Ricardo were to each other in them. Yes, I know these are not supposed to be realistic portrayals of human behavior and yes, I know there are plenty of episodes which show their true affection for each other, usually with regard to forgiving mistakes. But even in the broadest fiction, two people who ostensibly love each other shouldn't ever be lying and plotting against each other and causing deliberate mental anguish. It's amazing how many times I've seen an episode of one these shows and never thought about what was really happening in the scenario.

In the first episode I watched, Lucy — based on very little evidence, including an eavesdropped partial conversation — concludes that Ricky is planning to murder her. She is so nervous that to calm her down, Ricky decides to surreptitiously slip a harmless sleeping potion in her drink…and when she sees him do this, she concludes that it's poison. Question: If you really love someone, wouldn't it take a lot to cause you to believe they were planning to kill you? Would you stay with someone about whom you could ever believe that? Or who would believe that about you? And isn't it kind of nasty to ever slip something into someone else's beverage without their knowledge?

In the second, Lucy wants to be in Ricky's new show and as usual, Ricky doesn't want her in it. She begins feigning insanity to convince Ricky that all that rejection has caused her to snap. When he finds out what she's up to, Ricky decides to teach her a lesson she'll never forget. He brings in an actor friend to play a doctor who convinces Lucy that she has an incurable disease. She suffers greatly until he reveals the hoax. Question: If you love someone, would you try to convince them you were nuts in order to get them to do something against their better judgment? Would you try to convince them they were dying and put them through that agony?

In the one on right now, Lucy and Ricky have a fight. To get her back with Ricky, Ethel decides to wrap Lucy in bandages and tell Ricky that his wife got hit by a bus. At the same time, Ricky and Fred arrange smoke bombs so they can convince Lucy the apartment is on fire and Ricky can rescue her. Question: Do people who love each other really try things like that? (While we're critiquing human behavior here: In the episode, Fred Mertz — who is the landlord, as well as Ricky's co-conspirator, is running through the halls, yelling not only that the building is on fire but that the whole thing may collapse at any moment. Is this a good thing for the landlord to be doing?)

That's three episodes in a row where hoaxes or lack of trust result not just in misperceptions but life-threatening ones. I dunno about you but if I care for someone, I'd kind of like them to not believe that they're about to die.

I guess it's a tribute to the writers and performers of I Love Lucy that we accept their antics as playful, even though a lot of episodes were about this kind of thing. Lucy and Ricky just come off as so adorable and affectionate that we don't let a little thing like murder plots impact our view of them as America's Happy Couple. Hell, watching reruns, we don't even let a little thing like their real-life divorce cloud the image of Lucy and her Cuban hubby. In the same way, no one ever thinks of Ralph Kramden as a guy who was always threatening to belt his wife or Ernie Bilko as a guy who was committing fraud. Ah, such innocent times…

I haven't read or even sent away for Bill Clinton's autobiography yet but more than 20 of you have ordered it from Amazon via this site. That's the most ever purchased that way, apart from books by me, so I thought I ought to put up an Amazon link and make it easy for anyone else who wants a copy. Personally, I'm in no rush. I can't recall ever enjoying the memoirs of any political figure unless that person was so far retired from activity that they had absolutely nothing to lose…and sometimes, even that doesn't lead to any real sense of candor. Though I usually enjoy hearing Clinton speak, I have no reason to expect his book to depart from the norm for political autobiography.

One thing I find amusing is Amazon's "Reader Reviews" section which is already flooded with bogus write-ups of Clinton's book. Folks who loathe him are writing that it is boring and filled with lies. Folks who love him are writing that it's honest and fascinating. And it's pretty obvious that few (if any) of these posters have even touched a copy of the thing. I guess it makes them feel like they're doing something for their cause. Most of the reviews I've seen so far by professionals who were paid to review the book haven't struck me as coming from a different set of motives, though at least some of them seem to have read some of it.

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has announced the names of the folks who'll be receiving stars in the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005…

MOTION PICTURES: Tim Allen, Antonio Banderas, Donald Duck, Kevin Kline, Julianne Moore, Patricia Neal, Dennis Quaid and Ben Stiller.

TELEVISION: Tom Brokaw, James Doohan, Roger Ebert, Susan Lucci, Al Michaels, David Hyde Pierce, Wayne Rogers and Soupy Sales.

RECORDING: Emilio Estefan, Al Green, Herb Jeffries, Billy Joel, The Righteous Brothers, Carly Simon and Rod Stewart.

LIVE THEATRE/LIVE PERFORMANCE: Theodore Bikel, Linda Hopkins and Fred Travalena.

RADIO: Jim Ladd and Bob Miller.

POSTHUMOUS: Stella Adler, Redd Foxx, Freddie Prinze and David O. Selznick

Actually, the press release says they're giving that last one to "David O. Selznik." One hopes they'll correct the spelling before they engrave the star.

They haven't announced dates for the unveiling ceremonies yet but I figure on attending the one for Soupy. And maybe Donald Duck, too. We used to work together.