Monthly Archives: June 2004

The other day, I gave you a link to a page with a small online video of one of the new Mountain Dew "Spy Vs. Spy" commercials. Here's a link to a page with large online videos of two of them, plus photos from the spots and a link to this article which will tell you more about them.

Frank Rich draws what strikes me as a strained comparison between the Reagan funeral and the O.J. Simpson news coverage. But I think somewhere in there, there's a valid point.

Jim Brocius sends the following…

When you say you would defend freedom of speech to the death, you don't literally mean you'd actually physically fight for it, do you? Do you mean instead you will defend speech with speech, or political contributions of some kind? I don't think American government will ever get so bad (in my lifetime or yours, although one would have to be ignorant of history to completely disallow the possibility) that freedom of speech will need to be physically defended. You strike me as someone who chooses your words carefully and I'm wondering if you were just using those words as a figure of speech or if in fact you would actually risk your life defending freedom of speech if you thought such action was necessary.

I said I would fight to the death. Nowhere did I say it might be my death. I am, however, quite willing to put your life on the line. Or someone else's.

Hey, if it's good enough for the Executive and Legislative branches of government, it's good enough for me.

Matt Brady over at Newsarama is all over the story of Carmine Infantino suing DC Comics over a number of characters, including The Flash and Batgirl, which he designed. This new report includes a link to a copy of the actual complaint. I have no comment yet on anything in it except that Mr. Infantino's lawyer doesn't seem to know how to spell the word, "villain."

I felt persuaded by this article by Fred Kaplan on how (he says) George W. Bush has used "Clintonian tactics" to convince many of Saddam Hussein's participation in 9/11 without actually claiming it. But if someone comes across a good article that casts a better light on Bush's sentence structures, please let me know.

As I said a few weeks ago, I probably won't go see Michael Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. I like a lot of what Mr. Moore does but sometimes he plays a bit too loose with the truth for me. (Though I will admit he is sometimes quite effective that way. Not long ago, when he called George W. Bush a "deserter," he almost single-handedly reopened the debate on Bush's National Guard service and goaded many reporters into digging further into it. I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing but it is sadly exemplary of one way in which our press responds. If Moore had made a more temperate, accurate statement, he would not have had as much impact.)

Being a Free Speech fanatic, however, I will defend to the death his right to make his movie, and the right of anyone to exhibit or view it without undue pressure or suppression. I will also defend — not that this will probably be necessary — the right of others to call it a pack of lies or distortions or whatever and to march up and down in front of the Cineplex with signs to that effect. And I will say that those folks would have a bit more credibility if they waited until they'd actually seen it, or at least had a better tally of its alleged misrepresentations, before they began condemning it.

The other thing they could do would be to refrain from a tactic that annoys the hell out of me now, just as it bothered me back in the days of Vietnam protests. That's the cheap, dishonest trick of conflating criticism of our leaders with an attack on our fighting men and women…or even spinning an attack on some of our soldiers as an attack on all of them. The anti-Moore e-mails I'm receiving all lead with…well, here. Let me quote the first paragraph of one…

"Bash America" filmmaker Michael Moore is about to unleash an attack on the U.S. Military, the heroic men and women of the Armed Forces and our Commander-In-Chief via his film "Fahrenheit 9/11." Inexplicably, more than 1,000 theaters have indicated they will proudly broadcast what The Guardian calls an "anti-war/anti-Bush" film – beginning June 25th. And the number keeps growing each day. The goal of the film is abundantly clear: to undermine the war on terrorism.

The only parts of that I'll bet are accurate are the release date and the fact that it's an attack on George W. Bush. I doubt it's an attack on the heroic men and women of the Armed Forces. Perhaps it's an attack on those few zealots who engaged in torture but I'd hardly call them heroic. Since Moore's stated goal is to contribute to the ousting of Bush and his cronies, I think it's safe to say the film is anti-Bush…but if one thinks, as I do, that Bush has mishandled both the war in Iraq and the one against terrorism, there ought to be a way to say that without having someone claim you're blaming America or bashing brave soldiers. And when people come back with that line of reponse, I always think they don't have much to say as a genuine rebuttal. How about if we show respect for the troops by not hiding behind them?

Another piece by Terry Jones, this one about what constitutes torture.

With the Cold War over, the two spies of MAD magazine's "Spy Vs. Spy" have taken to selling Mountain Dew. Over at the website for that beverage, you can currently view their first commercial. You'll want to click on the menu of commercials on the right and select "Helicopter." As a CGI concoction, it's quite unlike the style of their creator, Antonio Prohias, or even his successor, Peter Kuper. But I think it works.

As the saying goes, you may not have known the name but you sure knew the voice. Danny Dark was one of the most-heard announcers in the business, including long tours of duty as the NBC promo guy and the voice of Budweiser Beer. He started his career in radio at KICK in Springfield, MO and moved on to other stations across the land, finally settling at KLAC in Los Angeles. Radio & Records magazine says he was heard on more award-winning commercials than any announcer in broadcast history and I can believe it. But Danny, who died Sunday at the age of 65, may have been proudest of one of his acting roles. He was the voice of Superman on the Super Friends cartoon show…and he was a darn good Superman.

I'll be posting my panel schedule in a few days but here are a few more teasers. First off, the Chuck McCann spotlight (which I talked about here) has moved to 1:00…still on Friday, July 23. Always consult your schedule for last minute changes.

The day before, on Thursday, I'll be hosting a spotlight interview with Mike Royer at 1:00. Mike is best known to you for all the years he spent inking Jack Kirby and assisting Russ Manning on Tarzan and Magnus, Robot Fighter and other great comics. But he's done a lot more than that and, having known the guy since 1969, I'm in a good position to dig info out of him. His is a classic story of a young man wanting to get into comics, putting his mind and talents towards that goal, and succeeding beyond all expectations. I learned an awful lot from Mike about what it means to be a professional…which is not to say I've always been able to apply it. But I'll get him to talk about that kind of stuff and it should make for an entertaining and informative chat.

At 2:30 — we're still doing Thursday here — I'll be moderating the annual Golden Age Panel, which we've decided to rename the Golden and Silver Age Panel. I have never been sure where the Golden Age of Comics leaves off and the Silver Age begins, but some of our panelists have clearly been of the latter era, so it's about time we made the change. I'll post the list of participants here as soon as I confirm one more, but this is always a very special event.

It will be followed at 4:00 by the traditional Sergio and Mark Show, where the folks who bring you Groo the Wanderer tell you what they're up to. We should have a very exciting announcement to make at this panel…and no, it isn't that we're discontinuing the silly comic. (There will be more Groo early next year, but that has nothing to do with the announcement.)

I'm doing four panels on Friday, four more on Saturday and a measly two on Sunday. I'll tell you about them in a day or so.

I seem to have inspired a number of bloggers to write about their colonscopy experiences. The best one so far is Bill Sherman. What happened to him did not happen to me, I am pleased to say.

In the last two hours, six people have e-mailed me that my colonoscopy report has convinced them it's time to stop putting it off and go have one. And two have written to say that they already had them scheduled but that what I wrote has made them feel less apprehensive about the whole thing. So I'm glad I posted what I posted, and I want other webloggers to know that. We may not be able to unseat presidents with this odd form of communication but we can still do some amount of good.

Against a small part of my ever-diminishing Better Judgment, I've decided to tell you what I did this morning. I had a colonoscopy. This is a procedure that is recommended when you hit age 50 (I'm two years late) wherein a doctor puts a teensy-weensy camera where the sun don't shine and looks around for polyps, tumors and other assorted speed bumps. I got a clean bill of health and I have to tell all my friends: If you've been putting this off because it sounds scary or painful, don't. Much easier than it sounds.

I have lived a somewhat doctor-free life. I told my anesthesiologist that he was only the second anesthesiologist of my life, the first having knocked me out when I was nine and suddenly needed to be appendix-free. That was the last time I ever found myself on a rolling hospital bed before this morning, so it all felt very odd to me — but not terribly unpleasant. Fasting yesterday and chug-a-lugging laxatives was the worst of it. This A.M., I reported to a "surgery center" in Beverly Hills, waited half an hour, filled out thousands of forms, put on one of those humiliating gowns that never quite closes in the back, got in the bed…and that was about it. My second-ever anesthesiologist put me to sleep and the next thing I knew, a pretty nurse was telling me my ride was there and I could get dressed and go. The whole thing took less than ninety minutes but it seemed like ninety seconds and the closest thing to pain occurred when they stuck in the needle for the intravenous drip.

On his last Showtime special, Robert Klein sang a very funny song called "Colonoscopy," which I could not get out of my head all morning. The main line goes, "When I turned 53 / A colonoscopy / Opened up a whole new world to me." I didn't have a whole new world open up this morning but at least I put one concern — the pun is unavoidable, I'm afraid — behind me.

The most interesting episode of the morning did not involve my lower tract. In the waiting room at the Surgery Center, there was a couple that was going through dramatics that would have been considered overacting in the Yiddish Theater. The woman, who was the patient, was in near-hysterics, crying and trembling and saying a lot of sentences that began with, "If I don't make it…" The man was alternately comforting her and snapping at the attendants, asking all sorts of trivial questions and demanding immediate answers. Why couldn't he go into pre-op with her? Why did he have to wait in the waiting room? Why wouldn't he be right outside the operating room? Was the surgeon with whom they had consulted actually going to perform every bit of the procedure himself or would he be sloughing some part of it off on an assistant? Questions like that. Few of the answers he received seemed to reassure him that the folks there at the Surgery Center really knew what they were doing, and at the moment I was called in, he was holding his wife and saying over and over, "Don't worry…I'll be right here every second."

I felt more concerned about them than I was for myself. I said to the attendant who was leading me inside, "The way they're going, he's going to need a doctor, too." The attendant shook her head and said, "She's just in to have a skin cancer removed."

Here's some news to gladden your Sunday: At the end of August, you'll be able to purchase a DVD with all 26 episodes of Fractured Flickers. In case you don't know, this was a riotously funny 1963 TV series produced by Jay Ward and the other folks who brought you Rocky & Bullwinkle. The show was hosted by Hans Conried (aka the voice of Snidely Whiplash) and most of it consisted of vintage silent movies cleverly redubbed into new and funny forms. Bill Scott was the head writer, and the voices were by Scott, June Foray and Paul Frees. There were also silly segments in which Mr. Conried interviewed celebrities of the day, including Rod Serling, Allan Sherman and Bob Newhart. (Scott was a huge Bob Newhart fan and can be heard in many episodes doing his impression of Mr. Newhart.)

If you never saw this show, you have a wonderful treat in store. If you have seen this show, you'll want to click on this link and pre-order it from Amazon.

I watched very little of the various Reagan memorial events…and oddly enough, the fact that I didn't think much of the man or his administration was not the main reason. I have never liked the various trappings of elected office that make our public servants seem more like public monarchs. Inaugural galas feel that way to me, too. The other day on the phone, a friend mentioned — I don't know for sure this is so — that presidents are asked to specify, well in advance, if they want a simple burial or a fancy state funeral. The Reagans, he said, chose the latter. If this is all so, then huzzah for whichever presidents have selected the cheaper option.

One of the many sad things about it all was that so much talk this last week has been devoted not to whatever Reagan may or may not have actually done, but to how Republicans and Democrats were using the death to bolster current presidential campaigns. It's gotten so bad in this country that even when folks claim to be laying that aside for the mourning period, we then discuss how laying that aside might impact the election, and to what extent George Bush's visibility at the services will help or harm his re-election bid.

It was odd watching Reagan detractors stumble through an awkward mine field. A few made what seemed to me like deliberately-rude, attention-getting statements. A few others said some substantive, non-celebratory things…and got blasted as if they'd said they were delighted about Reagan's death. I caught one bizarre exchange on (I think) MSNBC where a gentleman was saying — quite respectfully, I thought — that it's sometimes a blessing when someone who is already "gone" in a mental sense dies and is no longer a burden to his family. He was immediately attacked by some Ann Coulter wanna-be as if he'd taken a dump on the Reagan gravesite. Generally speaking, I was bothered by those who took the occasion of Reagan's death to attack the man's record. I think when someone dies, their loved ones should be granted a window of consideration and not put on the defensive or assaulted at an emotional time. On the other hand, I think it's just as bad for (in this case) Reagan's partisans to think they now have a free pass to spread questionable history…and to think they have a window of opportunity to do so without opposition.