Monthly Archives: February 2005

According to this article, a town hall meeting was planned for George W. Bush's trip to Germany but it has been cancelled. The reason? Bush's crew was insisting that the questions be approved in advance so that no one would ask anything our Chief Exec did not want to answer…but the German reps insisted that an unscripted event had to really be unscripted.

If this were any other American president, I'd be skeptical of a report like this. But I recently watched a little of one of Bush's open forums in this country on C-Span, and the toughest question was along the lines of, "How do you manage to achieve such greatness?"

One of the most sacred principles of democracy is that elected officials are answerable to The People, and have to be prepared to answer the hard questions. Good to know this concept is alive and well…in Germany.

Frank Rich discusses how the Oscars are being sold this year on the promise of a little indecency.

I wish I had more details on his life and death. All I know is that Bill Yoshida, the longtime comic book letterer, passed away last week. He began lettering comics in the late sixties and became the main letterer for Archie Comics around 1980. Occasionally credited as "Bill Yosh" or "Saburo Yoshida," his handiwork had a lot to do with the look and feel of that company's books ever since, appearing on almost every cover and something like 90% of the interior stories, plus the Archie newspaper strip. He was said to be dedicated and dependable, which you'd have to be in order to letter that many comic books over the years.

An interesting article over at Jim Hill Media. Jim Hill himself explains that the Disney-MGM Studio theme park down in Florida may be in for a very expensive name change later this year.

Nikki Finke on what Chris Rock may or may not do on Oscar Night.

Well, maybe. This afternoon, my friend Tracy Abbott sent me this link to a website put up by the State Controller of California. It's a database of unclaimed property listings…meaning that they have money or other assets for people but don't know where to send it. They have nothing for me but there's some money for a deceased uncle of mine, and I think I qualify to receive it.

I got hooked and spent several hours plugging in the names of every friend I could think of. I probably found about $35,000 worth of unclaimed property for people I know, and I duly alerted them…and now I'm alerting you. I think this pretty much applies to folks who live in California…though I did notice $800 due to a friend of my mother's who moved to New York twenty years ago. The website tells you what you have to do to collect if you think a given listing is you. Happy hunting.

Mary Wallace informs me that The Today Show will be running a feature on the 100th birthday celebration for Charles Lane. The segment, prepped by correspondent Bob Dotson will air either tomorrow morning or Friday, and it will be repeated thereafter on MSNBC. Included will be footage from the party, much of which will also be seen in an upcoming documentary on the man. I'm setting my TiVo.

Just noticed this nice report by Dave Sikula on the "Art of the Cover" panel I moderated at WonderCon.

I misunderstood the identity of my benefactor. The gift of a copy of the Gerry Jones book, Men of Tomorrow, was not from Jim Henley, which is the name of a fellow who writes me often here. It was from Jim Hanley, who operates Jim Hanley's Universe, which consists of two of the best comic shops in New York. He arranged for the book to be handed to me by Rory D. Root, who sells an equally fine array of goodies at Comic Relief in Berkeley, California. Any of these stores would be a dandy place to buy a copy of this volume…or anything else.

One of the many issues I've flogged over the years (in articles like this one) is that it's ridiculous to state that the Academy Awards have an audience of a billion viewers. The number isn't even close to that. It may not even be close to a quarter of that.

In a piece in the current issue of The New Yorker, Daniel Rodosh says all the same things I've been saying about this.

By the way: I've decided not to Live Oscar Blog this year…but my friend Gary Sassaman will be doing so over on his page. Tune in and see what Gary has to say.

I don't know how many of you have been following the story of Fred Garvin, Jeff Gannon, Male Prostitute. A lot of the major news organizations — ones that skew Conservative and others that fear being accused of Liberalism — have given it little or no attention. If an "opposition party" were in charge of either the House or Senate, we'd already have hearings scheduled, but there's very little that anyone in Washington can ever do to provoke outrage and investigation from their own team. A scandal is only what the other party does.

At least though, it's a gold mine for comedians. Here's a link to a Quicktime compilation of moments from last Friday night's Real Time with Bill Maher. And here's one from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Very funny stuff.

I'm always interested when I see someone who has a strong position on one side of an issue and then changes to the other side. Those instances always give me pause to reconsider not just my view of that particular issue but my whole sense of feeling strongly about any controversial topic. I don't usually change my mind but I always think it's good to shake off the notion that it would be unthinkable to do so.

I'm also very interested and conflicted on the whole notion of the Death Penalty in this country. Therefore, I was fascinated to read this interview with TV host Bill Kurtis, who went from believing strongly in the practice to feeling it was just too ineptly administered. I'm not saying anyone should change their mind when they read the interview…and probably not the book he's promoting, either. But I wish more people were open to the idea that if we're to have a Death Penalty in this country, the system needs some serious repair work.

This weekend, NBC's Up All Night is scheduled to rerun the very first episode of Saturday Night Live from October 11, 1975. Not only that but it's the full, 90-minute version as opposed to the truncated hour that is sometimes aired.

I wrote a piece about this first show here. As you watch (if you watch), you might ask yourself what you'd have thought if you'd been an NBC exec that night. The broadcast was not unsuccessful, but also not all that indicative of what the show could or would become. One of the things I find fascinating about early SNL is the way it was more or less invented "on the air" over its first few programs…a luxury I do not think any show would be granted today. The first week, it showed signs of becoming a good, free-form variety show…but not the all-sketch show it soon became. As I understand it, there was some debate then as to whether the Guest Host slot was a way of trying out folks until one emerged as the person who ought to host every week…or if they really wanted to keep the show as amorphous as it seemed to be its first few weeks. In the end, they seemed to split the difference.

Last evening, I watched that "First Five Years of SNL" special that ran on NBC the other night. Those things are all a bit too self-congratulatory but I found it interesting. It would have been more interesting had it paid a bit of attention to Albert Brooks, The Muppets, Andy Kaufman, Harry Shearer, Father Guido Sarducci and a few other contributors. Supposedly, a longer version of this special is to be released on DVD in a few months. Perhaps some or all will get covered there.

Probably for a limited time, Playboy has put up the text of its 1974 interview with the late Hunter S. Thompson. The first two-thirds, being mostly about which drugs he'd taken and when, is pretty boring but the remainder, which is about Nixon and politics, is well worth a glimpse. Beware the nekkid lady pictures lurking in the margins.

Speaking of DVDs that are finally coming out, Jim Hill says that his sources within Disney are talking about putting out Song of the South in the Fall of 2006. Apart from the release date, this matches what I was told earlier this month and reported here. I was told they weren't sure when but that it could be in time for this Christmas. Next year, since it will be the 60th anniversary of the film, seems more likely.