Monthly Archives: June 2004

I finally got around to watching all of last Sunday night's Tony Award ceremony. It was a perfectly fine program with only a couple of awkward moments…mostly the musical numbers not from this year's shows. Hugh Jackman was a perfectly fine host and none of the winners got too enthused in acting like their victory was a high point in the history of mankind. This was never a very satisfying broadcast back when CBS used to insist they get on and off the air in two hours. At three hours, it has become a much more pleasant experience.

My favorite moment was Carol Channing rapping "Hello, Dolly" with L.L. Cool J. Then later, Jackman came out and announced Carol Channing had just been involved in a drive-by shooting. My least favorite moment was seeing the fiddler from Fiddler on the Roof squatting on a marquee at Radio City Musical Hall and then Tevye (Alfred Molina) walking up the aisles of the theater. I thought they were going to start singing, "Let's Do the Time Warp Again."

The ratings were terrible. Well, they're always terrible for the Tonys but they may have hit a new low this time, a fact that one might attribute to the fact that there were no "hot" races or shows to generate special interest. Interestingly, no shows have announced closing dates so far this week. Usually, a few marginal productions struggle to hold on to see if a flukish Tony win (or just exposure on the telecast) will boost the box office…and when that doesn't happen, they fold. Wonderful Town has been reporting low grosses so it may fade away soon. I didn't think its number of the Tony show did it any favors, whereas the song from The Boy From Oz probably sold every empty seat they'd otherwise have until Jackman leaves the show in September.

Jackman almost certainly won't be on Broadway next year so he probably won't be back to host. But rumors have it that Billy Crystal's one-man show will bow on the Great White Way late this year or early next. If he's there next June and willing to host the Tonys, he could probably raise the ratings a point or two. Martin Short is also supposed to have a one-guy show on the way with a possible arrival date in Spring. He wouldn't stink up the place, either.

Quite a few websites have sprouted up that attempt to track the electoral vote and to say that certain states are solid for Bush, certain ones lean to Kerry, certain ones are toss-ups, etc. If you cruise them, you'll find a certain consensus. Bush is not going to lose Texas…Kerry is not going to lose New York…and so on. The polls all tell us that a small number of states will be "battleground states" but those polls are not completely in accord as to which states we're talking about.

If you want to track electoral votes, you might want to consult more than one source. This website interprets the polls with a generally conservative slant and this one does so with a generally liberal eye. If they agree, it doesn't necessarily mean that settles matters since they're just compiling a lot of the same polls which may or may not be accurate. But if you're going to believe in polls at this stage of the game, you might as well get a wide sampling.

On June 18, Turner Classic Movies is running ten great movies of the past, each preceded by what they call "cartoons that parody the specific movie." For instance, before they run Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney, they're running Yankee Doodle Daffy with Daffy Duck. It's a bit of a stretch to say these cartoons actually parody the movies — in most cases, it's just a matter of making a pun on the title — but they're good cartoons and good movies. So you might want to check the schedule.

Sorry to hear of the death this past weekend of Kate Worley, who wrote many things but is probably best known for a wonderful comic called Omaha the Cat Dancer. Lately, the good news that she was writing new episodes (to be drawn by Omaha's superb artist, Reed Waller) was ruined by the word that Kate had cancer, that it had gotten progressively worse, and that she and husband James Vance had severe financial problems on top of that little concern. I did not know Kate well except through her work, which was amazingly filled with humanity, humor and intra-personal understanding. Omaha was a cat who worked as a stripper, displaying a fine homo sapien form, and I always suspected that some who bought the early issues for the nekkid-type pictures were surprised by (and snagged into returning by) a very beguiling, insightful storyline. How much of that was autobiographical, I am in no position to say. But it all sure read like it had happened, if not to Kate, then to someone. If those books ever come back into print or if you stumble across old ones in bookshop, do not hesitate to purchase.

The L.A. Times has a lengthy online section today on Ronald Reagan, and it may be of interest to those who want to brush up on the history.

Having not been in New York for quite some time, I have no favorites in tonight's Tony Awards. Actually, I never have real favorites but in years when I've seen some of the shows, I feel more a part of the ceremony, less an outsider watching strangers speaking a foreign language. Since most of America never sees any Broadway show, that sense of alienation helps explain why the ratings for the Tonys are invariably low.

So I'll just enjoy the festivities from afar, watching to see how they rush the winners on and off…since the broadcast is rigidly timed and not allowed to go even ten seconds over. The producers of Assassins are probably happy that they didn't select their John Hinckley number to spotlight as their musical presentation. They're instead scheduled to offer the show's finale. I believe the character of Hinckley is in it but is not identified…and if so, he's likely to remain that way.

At this very moment, someone around the awards ceremony is probably concerned that Harvey Fierstein is one of the presenters. On a number of talk shows in the past, Fierstein was quite vocal in attacking Ronald Reagan for how little his administration did about AIDS. (In an extremely-uncomfy moment on Politically Incorrect, he yelled at Michael Reagan about it.) I presume he will have the good taste and timing not to bring up that topic this evening but he has to be considering the notion. His complaint, as I recall it, was that Reagan was dragging his feet on addressing the then-mounting AIDS crisis because he was afraid of objections from his more conservative reporters. I believe Nancy Reagan has all but charged that George W. Bush has done the same thing regarding stem-cell research, so it may occur to Fierstein — or someone — to make that comparison.

If we are to believe Frank Rich, when Republicans visit New York for their convention, they will be avoiding shows like The Producers and Hairspray that contain gay characters.

Here's Lou Cannon, Reagan's most visible biographer, writing about the man's life for The Washington Post.

Incidentally, I've already received one e-mail from someone who described the previous post as "a tasteless attack on a man whose body is not yet cold." Read it again, fella: The only thing I said about Reagan was that I believe many of his followers have erected an image of him that does not reflect the real man. I was criticizing them, not him, and also criticizing people who will try to exploit his death for their own causes. Like you just did.

I never thought Ronald Reagan was really the man his admirers made him out to be, but this is not the time to discuss that. What unsettles me today is not his passing — he'd been gone for all practical purposes for many years — but that we're in for a few months of seeing his memory exploited by ostensible followers. Nothing happens in the world today without the partisans saying, "Hmm…how do we use this to push our agenda?" So we're going to have to put up with folks arguing that it would be disrespectful of Reagan's legacy not to enact certain tax cuts or to repeal the ban on assault weapons or whatever.

I wish people would fight more honestly and not load their arguments with emotional issues, but I guess that's asking too much. Lately on Crossfire, Robert Novak has been insinuating that anyone who finds fault with anything currently being done in Iraq is someone who wishes Saddam Hussein were back in power. (The hypocrisy in that ploy is even more glaring if you read Novak's columns away from Crossfire, where he publishes negative assessments of U.S. efforts overseas. But in a one-on-one debate with liberals, he feels compelled to brand them as pro-Saddam.) I'm really tired of people wrapping their arguments in the flag or the Bible or the memory of our dead soldiers or the people who perished on 9/11. And yes, Democrats do it too, arguing to carry on the legacy of Paul Wellstone and such, sometimes even reaching back to Kennedy, dragging in all sorts of irrelevancies, hoping the current proposals can coast on the emotional appeal. Whatever happened to campaigning for a cause on its own merits?

If one wishes to honor Ronald Reagan, a dandy (and totally appropriate) way would be to open up stem-cell research and fully fund it. Nancy Reagan has been crusading for this for years, saying that it might prevent others from contracting Alzheimer's as did her husband. Somehow, I suspect his fans won't want to waste the opportunity on something like that. We'll probably hear that we need to respect Reagan's legacy by re-electing George W. Bush. And someone will even be shameless enough to say, of the November election, we need to "Win this one for the Gipper."

Mention of O.J. Simpson reminds me of a story. A few years ago, a bit after the civil trial where Simpson was fined all that money he's never going to pay, I met a lady who worked at the courthouse. She was, like anyone with half a brain, convinced Simpson was guilty. She knew that at some point during his trial, she was bound to run into him in a corridor or somewhere, and she wanted to say something to him like, "You're a murdering scumbucket, you murdering scumbucket!" It was very important to her, she said, not to treat this man like he was forgiven or adjudged innocent.

So she rehearsed in front of a mirror. For ten minutes every day before she went to work, she practiced what she would say to Simpson if and when she encountered him. Over and over, she acted it out, fiddling with the wording…

"You should rot in prison, you evil killer…"

"How awful that a murderous slime like you walks free…"

"I don't know how can you live with yourself, you sick butcher…"

And so on. One day, she got into an elevator and before its doors closed, Simpson and a couple of his lawyers got in. She immediately thought, "This is it! This is my chance!" At the time, she was leaning towards a line about how she opposed the Death Penalty but would make an exception for him. She cleared her throat, steeled her nerves, turned to Simpson and said…

"Could I have your autograph?"

Simpson shrugged and pulled a 3-by-5 card out of his pocket. He scribbled "O.J. Simpson" on it and handed it to her just as the elevator doors opened. He and his entourage walked out and she was left standing there, holding the card and muttering, "Why the hell did I do that?"

Here's a headline I just saw…

O.J. Simpson Says Media Convicted Him

Well, I'm glad somebody did. It couldn't have been because his blood was found at the murder scene or because he turned up the next morning with deep cuts on his hand and no explanation where they came from. It couldn't have been the bloody footprints in his car and home. It couldn't have been the gloves or the socks or the lady who saw him driving from the murder scene or the fact that he didn't answer when the limo driver buzzed him or the photos of him wearing shoes that matched the killer's or even his acts and threats of violence against his ex-wife.

No, none of that could possibly have made anyone think he was guilty. Had to be the media.

I'm not a big fan of news reporting in this country. I don't think most of it is very good, a situation which is often overlooked because too many interested parties are charging bias and not incompetence. And certainly the media did report a lot of nonsense about Simpson and way too much trivia. But one of the main reasons that man is out playing golf is because he had a media circus in lieu of a trial. So you'd think he'd show a little gratitude.

Comic book artist (and one-time publisher of DC Comics) Carmine Infantino is suing DC Comics over a number of things he says he created for the company when he was a freelancer. The list includes Batgirl and the Barry Allen version of The Flash.

I was a big fan of the cartoons and comics by the late Vaughn Bode. Here's an article about the fine work his son is doing of carrying on the tradition.

Here's a question I received this morning and thought was worth answering in public…

If there's a strike, how deep does it hit? Would it be TV and Movies only, or comics and other products as well (since DC is owned by Warner Bros…etc.)?

A Writers Guild strike, if there is one, would only impact television and motion picture production, and not even all of that. The WGA represents writers in certain areas and signs contracts with employers in those areas. There has been no real unionizing of comic book creators, and I doubt there ever will be. Animation is divided up. There is some totally non-union production which would never be stopped by any strike. There is animation where the writers are covered not by the Writers Guild but by The Animation Guild, Local 839 of I.A.T.S.E. (here's that union's website) and there would only be a work stoppage there if called by 839. Then the Writers Guild covers some cartoon shows — mostly prime-timers like The Simpsons — though I believe some of those are on a separate contract that, unlike the main WGA pact, has not expired. If the show or studio is under the main contract, it would be affected.

Non-union movies and non-union TV shows would not be affected. There are also shows that profess to be "writerless," including most reality shows and game shows. In truth, a lot of these shows do employ writers, many of them WGA writers, but they call them "producers" or "segment producers" and claim that what they write, though it may look like a script, really isn't one. These shows would probably not be affected. One of the outstanding issues in the recent negotiations has been that the WGA wishes to expand its jurisdiction in areas like animation and "reality shows" and the studios, for obvious reasons, are resisting.

Warner Brothers, like all the major studios, is a signatory to the WGA Minimum Basic Agreement covering television and motion pictures. WB is signed to Local 839 in the area of animation.

The AMPTP (the combine that represents the major motion picture and TV producers) has made its "final offer" to the Writers Guild of America, and the Writers Guild has rejected it. This news story will give you a general overview and this press release from the WGA basically tells them to shove it, only in nicer language than that. So we are continuing to work without a contract and they say they won't negotiate any more with us at this time.

What is happening here is that the structure of the AMPTP, which in the past worked against the unions with which it negotiates, is now working against the AMPTP Its various members (Disney, Paramount, Sony, etc.) operate under a "Rule of One." When it comes time for the AMPTP to make an offer or accept an offer, any one studio can veto the deal. They all have to agree.

During many Hollywood strikes, it has been widely believed that this "Rule of One" was prolonging the unrest. In '88, we were out for many months and the rumor was that some of the studios wanted to just give us what we wanted but one or two were fighting internally and withholding their votes. A strike does not hurt all the employers equally, and some perhaps liked the fact that their competitors were being harmed more than they were. Some studios even make short-term savings when there's a strike so they're in less hurry to settle than someone else. There were also — again, the rumor mill at work — reports that two studio heads were quarreling over a business deal unrelated to the Writers Guild situation and that one was blocking the settlement until the other gave in on an unrelated point. Whether these leaks were true or not, they were at least possible due to the way the AMPTP is structured.

Our old contract expired a month ago so at any time, we can vote to go on strike or the Producers can vote to lock us out. What seems to be happening at the moment is that the Producers cannot agree amongst themselves on whether they want to lock us out…or if so, when.

What will happen next will depend on whether the Producers can get together and decide to set a deadline: "Either accept our offer by such-and-such a date or we'll lock you out." If they can, then war could break out and we'll get a sense of how strong and determined each side is. If the Producers can't agree to set a deadline then we keep on working and eventually, our cause will merge with that of the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild, whose contracts are up for renewal and renegotiation next year. The prospect of the three major unions all demanding better health insurance at the same time might just scare the studios into dealing with us now. So I don't really know what's happening. I only know it's never happened before.