Monthly Archives: February 2005

I agree with Tom Spurgeon's comments on the case of Gordon Lee, a comic book retailer who's in legal trouble over distributing a semi-naughty comic to a minor. Lee made a mistake, but these prosecutions always strike me as an example of our legal system going after people who cannot fight back. I'm glad to see the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund taking on the case.

GSN is four weeks into its new, 13-episode World Series of Blackjack. Each episode, five notable players of the game compete to advance to the final rounds where there will be serious cash awards.

This is tournament play, which is somewhat different from playing the way you and I play in a casino. In tournament play, you're competing against the other players, so it's actually good when you lose a hand, providing the others at the table lose more. There are situations where it might make sense to split tens, double down on high hands…or even double down on a Blackjack. A player has the usual problems of deciding when to hit, stand, split, double or surrender ("surrender" is employed more often than in non-tournament play) but the real strategizing comes with figuring how much to wager. You could easily win every hand but lose the match to someone who lost most of the hands but bet more skillfully.

All thirteen rounds were taped some time ago, and a new one airs every Friday night at 10 PM Eastern time or 7 PM on my satellite dish. GSN has reruns throughout the week but I can't figure out how to tell which one they're airing when, so I just TiVo the Friday night installments. At some point, they'll probably have at least one marathon with all the episodes to date aired in sequence.

I used to play a lot of the common variety of Blackjack but gave it up more than ten years ago. It was fun at first, but it got to feel like work, and if I was going to work, I figured I should work at my writing, which paid a bit more predictably. Even when it was fun, I was less interested in the cash than in the puzzle. Counting cards and figuring progressive wagers tapped a part of my brain that enjoyed the workout, but when that lobe lost interest, I decided to quit while I was ahead. If you play any of those games long enough, you cannot help but lose everything.

Watching tournament play reignites some of that interest, though not to the point where I would ever enter a contest. I'm just having fun watching good players, and occasionally pausing the TiVo before they act to think, "Hmm…what would I do in that situation?" My answers rarely match the decisions of those who go on to win, which is a major reason you'll never catch me trying it. But I play along, armchair style, and then log into two Internet forums for the post-game chatter. Those who competed in the games are contractually barred from discussing an episode until after it airs, but then Anthony Curtis — one of the players and also the publisher of Las Vegas Advisor — does play-by-play on this page, and another player, Ken Smith, posts recaps and analysis on this other forum.

Watching other folks play Blackjack may not interest you. At times, depending on my mood, it doesn't interest me, either. But at times, it rekindles the fun I had for a time playing the basic, me-against-the-dealer version. In a way, it's better because there's no chance of losing money, no cigarette smoke, no idiot players to your right who can't add up a hand with an ace in it, and no pit boss staring at you every time you win a big bet, wondering if you're up to something. Then again, there's no chance of winning money, no cute cocktail waitress bringing me free Sprite, and no way to score a comp to a buffet.

Michael Kinsley teams up with Rob Reiner to explain why the Bush plan for private or personal accounts (whatever they're calling them, this week) cannot work.

After I posted a link to this article about his hardships, several of you wrote to ask what you could do to aid Bill Messner-Loebs. Well, one thing — and this might benefit you as much as it helps him — is to purchase a forthcoming book that he's working on. Aardwolf Publishing is issuing The Three Tenors: Off Key, which is a 100+ page illustrated collection of offbeat tales from Bill Messner-Loebs, Dave Cockrum and Clifford Meth. Go to their site and place an order. Sounds like a goodie.

Do you need to wear a jacket today? Find out here. [Link cribbed from Elayne Riggs, who got it from Lis Riba. Note that it defaults to Boston, where you always have to wear a jacket. But you can enter in the name of your city and find out if you should wear a jacket today when you go out.]

And I see that John Ostrander, who has written some excellent comic books in his day, is now writing an excellent weblog.

Yeah, I know I'm not doing a very good job of not posting here for a while, but I am getting a lot done on that script.

For those of you interested in the Ben-Stein-is-Deep-Throat theory, one reader of this site sent me this link to a long essay on the subject. It makes a better case than I thought possible, but I'm still not convinced. Stein has been pretty vociferous not only that he was not Deep Throat but that he's sure there never was such a person. I can understand why he might deny it was him but not why Deep Throat would say there was no Deep Throat.

One thing that occurs to me is that if it is Stein — and this might apply to a few of the other suspects, as well — there may be a very interesting manuscript locked in some lawyer's safe. Let's say you're Ben Stein and you're also Deep Throat. For your own reasons, you don't want anyone to know of the role you played in the fall of your former boss (and favorite president), Richard M. Nixon. Okay, fine. But you also know that once you die, it's going to come out that you were Deep Throat and I would think you'd want to explain yourself and put the best possible spin on it. A book on the topic would also make a lot of money for your estate. So I kinda hope it is Stein, because if it is, I'll bet he wrote a fascinating book to be published posthumously about why he did it. But I still think it isn't Stein.

The person who sent me this link also notes that Mr. Stein has been ill lately and has cancelled a number of speaking engagements (like this one). The assumption here is that perhaps this ties in with the rumor that Deep Throat is near death. I think I'd rather assume that Stein's illness, whatever it is, is not that severe.

Cartoonist Garry Trudeau, maker of Doonesbury, broke his collarbone while skiing in Aspen on Thursday. Looks like us followers of his strip may be in for a month or two of reruns. Here's a bit more info.

Here is an excellent primer on the new TiVo to Go. I've yet to receive the software upgrade that contains it, but I have the feeling I'm not going to be using it very much, if at all. Much easier to just record shows on my Pioneer DVR with the built-in DVD burner.

I have to keep this brief and get back to work, but I wanted to mention the apparent outrage the other night on ABC's Primetime Live. We've already discussed how 60 Minutes Wednesday on CBS recently missed a big part of the story when they covered Stan Lee. On Thursday night, the ABC show devoted itself to a profile, somewhat approving, of a faith healer in Brazil. In this case, they didn't miss one side of the story…they simply declined to include it. The show interviewed the expert debunker of such things, James Randi, who provided extensive evidence that the guy was a fraud. If they'd used any decent-sized chunk of that footage, they'd have had no story…so Randi was limited to around twelve seconds. Radio strongman Paul Harris is all over this story…and even if you don't care about religious/medical con artists (or even if you believe), you might want to listen to his interview with Randi. It's a terrific example of how the news media hears what they think will sell newspapers or get ratings, and discards whatever gets in the way of those goals.

Several folks have e-mailed me with more Deep Throat speculations, mainly that the man in the garage was Ben Stein. The main evidence for this seems to be that Stein, who was a Nixon speechwriter late in that administration, was a childhood friend of Carl Bernstein. Arguing against that is that (a) Deep Throat met with Woodward, not Bernstein; (b) Stein did not go to work for the White House until after D.T. had begun supplying the reporters with info, and (c) Stein, to this day, speaks well of Nixon and asserts that there was no Deep Throat. He says that Woodward, for whom he has little respect, just made it up.

One might point out that Stein once denied he'd written the article for GQ magazine that prompted a libel suit from Joan Rivers. He eventually had to admit authorship when the magazine settled with Rivers…so he has, in a way, been an anonymous source. He also was the son of a high muck-a-muck in the Nixon administration so he could have had info to pass on before he got his job in the White House. Still, I just don't think he's the guy. It's possible, I suppose…but I think it's another example of reaching far to make it be someone we've heard of.

Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone says that the military draft is coming back.

Is your computer screen dirty? Here…let a cute cat clean it for you.

Barring something unforeseen and time-sensitive (which probably means someone dying), I will not be posting much here for the next day or three. I'm devoting my attention to a deadline and all the things I must get done before next weekend's WonderCon in San Francisco. Which reminds me: It's about time I posted this banner again. See you on a more regular basis in a few days.

That's a car that my Uncle Aaron owned in the fifties. This is the same Uncle Aaron who I mentioned in this article. Throughout the fifties, he often shot 8mm movies on two subjects. One was his travels around the world, which were extensive. The other was his favorite nephew, which was me. When he died around '62, custody of his film collection passed to me, and this included a Bell-and-Howell projector that was an antique even then. I watched a few of the movies but when you're ten, it's no big deal seeing yourself at age five. For the most part, the films stayed in a metal box in my closet, and when I moved out of my parents' home, I took them along and stashed them in a different closet.

Since I moved into my current home in 1981, they've been in — guess where? — the closet…and even if I'd been seized by some crazy urge to view them, I've had no way to do this. Uncle Aaron's projector expired a few years after he did, and its replacement, which I bought to run my Castle Films didn't survive the seventies. Every so often though, I'd notice the film box there and think, "Gee, I'd better get those things transferred to video before they rot."

Last week, I did. In the past here, I've plugged my pal, Stuart Shostak and his company, Shokus Video. He has a fine catalog of vintage TV programs that he sells on VHS and DVD, and you'd do well to browse his site and order many. But when I asked him who did good 8mm-to-DVD transfers, he replied that he did…and darned if he wasn't right. Practically overnight, he put about 150 minutes of cinema verite, Uncle Aaron style, onto DVD-R discs, and I couldn't be happier with the service or the quality. It came out a lot better than I'd dared expect.

The movies did not even begin to rot. There are plenty of things wrong with them — bad splices, scenes that are too dark, scratchy images, etc. — but I'm pretty sure all of that was wrong with them back in 1958, which is roughly the date of the last one we transferred. (I have more of Uncle Aaron's shaky cinematography, plus I have the dopey monster movies that I later made in my backyard with my friends and my uncle's camera, but I haven't gotten to them yet.)

Many of the problems, I can easily fix with Pinnacle Studio 9, which is my video-editing software of choice…though I made the decision not to "modernize" the footage with wipes or dissolves or anything of the sort. I'm just going to take out the black frames and messy splices, and try lightening the scenes of me getting my first bath. (I have a look on my face like, "Hey, get that camera outta here! Can't you see I'm naked?") I did a little tweaking the other night and it's amazing how, right here on my PC, I can correct bad edits and wrong exposure settings from 1953. I also did a frame-grab to create the above shot of Uncle Aaron's automobile.

Soon, I will have whittled the footage down to just what I want to keep. I don't really need an hour of my Aunt Dot posing with Russian peasants and waving in front of Buckingham Palace. I do need, or at least do want all that footage of me at various ages, if only to note one interesting progression. In the first reel of me, I'm being carried around since I can't walk. In the second, I'm crawling. In the third and fourth, I'm walking much the way I do now, only falling down every eight steps. In the fifth and sixth, I'm mostly dancing — probably the last time I danced, and you can see why.

As I watch it, I can still hear Uncle Aaron yelling, "These are motion pictures! Move around! Do something!" And then in the last reel, I'm doing feeble attempts at physical comedy — pratfalls, bad mime, and performing with my beloved Jerry Mahoney ventriloquist dummy. (You can actually see me doing a bad job of not moving my lips when Jerry's "talking." It had apparently not occurred to me at the time that providing his voice was not necessary for a silent film.) It all makes for a nice chronicle of my personal mobility. In a decade or two, when I'm much older and can't walk, I may edit in shots of me being carried around, just to complete the cycle.

But enough about this. Reading about someone else's home movies is only slightly less boring than being forced to watch them. I just wanted to share with you the amazing experience of getting these things onto DVD, and seeing not only myself but all those now-deceased friends and relatives. Boy, my parents were a handsome couple…and I'd forgotten how much Uncle Aaron, who occasionally let someone else take the movies so he could be in them, looked like Art Carney. If you have a box of old 8mm films in your closet, you might want to haul them out and get someone like Stuart to transfer them for you. Better still, get Stuart. Thanks to him, I have proof that I was once cute. Or, at least, cuter.

One interesting point to make about this whole scandal involving "Jeff Gannon" (or whatever his name is), the "reporter" who somehow obtained White House press credentials…

All defenses of this situation start with the premise that the news website he represented, Talon News, was a major source of news with a wide readership. They claim 700,000 users. But according to Alexa, which is the most notable service which tracks such things, Talon News ranks #640,377 in web traffic. That is, there are that many web sites that receive more hits.

By way of comparison, the site you're reading at the moment is composed of two separate web addresses. My weblog page (www.newsfromme.com) ranks #104,130, and the rest of the site (www.POVonline.com) ranks #226,035. Maybe I can get clearance to go in and participate in presidential press conferences. I'll start by asking Bush about his favorite delicatessen.