Last Friday, I posted a photo of a cat that dines nightly on my back step. Here's a better angle on the feline in question. The caption for this picture is, "Put down the camera and fill the bowl." I suspect this caption would work on most photos of most cats who aren't asleep at the time.
Michael Kinsley on Dick Cheney's arguments for the war in Iraq and against his critics.
Up until yesterday, Pat Morita was a survivor. He'd survived spinal tuberculosis. He'd survived an internment camp. He'd even survived Mr. T and Tina.
Mr. T and Tina was a situation comedy that appeared and disappeared in 1976 faster than you could say, "Kamikaze." It was one of those shows — there are a few of them every season — that was unofficially cancelled before it ever went on the air. Networks do not always think that what they're putting on is good or even that it has a shot at being successful. They'd like everything to be one or the other (preferably both) but sometimes, there are eight holes to be filled on the schedule and all the pilots and development have only yielded six shows that anyone thinks have any promise. In '76, ABC had a couple such gaps in its fall schedule and so, since they had to put something on Saturday nights at 8:30, they picked Pat Morita's pilot. It had been produced by Jimmie Komack, who'd recently given them a big hit with Welcome Back, Kotter…so the feeling was that picking that would help the network's relationship with Komack and — who knew? — maybe there was that longshot chance that Jimmie was on a lucky streak.
No sooner was the pilot picked up than ABC's development folks went to work, figuring out what could go in when Mr. T and Tina went down. This was not a secret in the industry. Everyone knew it…except (apparently) Pat Morita.
Around this time, I went to work on Kotter, which shared facilities with Mr. T and Tina. My partner and I were given a small, cell-like office in another building and told, "Sorry…we don't have room for you in the main building, though we will as soon as Mr. T and Tina gets the ax." This was Komack's own Head of Production who told us this. About two weeks later, said ax fell and the show disappeared. I don't mean just off the tube. Word of the cancellation came down at 1:00 and by 4 PM, there was no trace of Mr. T and Tina in the Komack offices. The staff was gone. The script files were gone. The photo of the cast in the reception area was gone. Every bit of the show was gone…except for Pat Morita, who spent the next few weeks hanging around the office, using the phone to call everyone he knew all over the world to line up work. And I mean, "all over the world." He ran up hundreds of dollars in long distance charges.
We all felt sorry for him. He'd given up his regular role on Happy Days to star in his own show and it had never had a chance.
Finally, the Komack folks cut off his phone privileges, Pat Morita disappeared from the office and I never heard Mr. T and Tina mentioned again in all the time I worked there. I was very happy though that I continued to hear of Pat Morita. He worked often, especially after he got a showy role in The Karate Kid and an Oscar nomination for his performance. There were three reasons why he got hired as much as he did. One was that he was a very good performer. All those years of working stand-up, often in some difficult, out-of-the-way places had trained him to deliver a line and wring everything possible out of it. Another reason was that he was a very charming, lovable gentleman. And the third reason, which even he admitted, was that when the casting call was for an older Japanese man — or even any kind of Asian — the competition was not fierce. Go ahead. Name three other guys you could get for those parts, especially in the eighties.
In the midst of that decade, I wrote a batch of ABC Weekend Special segments. The network was in one of its "socially-conscious" fits and when it came time to hire some recognizable faces to rotate hosting, we were told to secure a wide range of ethnic types and sent a list of suggestions. Black was no problem — we got Billy Dee Williams and Shari Belafonte-Harper — but under "Asian," the entire list consisted of Noriyuki "Pat" Morita. We quickly surveyed all the available alternatives and hired Noriyuki "Pat" Morita.
The segments taped in the same studio where Mr. T and Tina had been done and when I mentioned it to Pat, he said, "I know. Why didn't you go all the way and tape in Hiroshima?" Hey, he said it. I didn't.
Mr. Morita was a delight to work with and over lunch, he regaled us with tales of some of the terrible nightclubs he'd worked on his way up. My impression of him was that he was very shrewd and quite conscious of the fact that he was getting a lot of work because of his heritage. He lamented the paucity of roles for Asians and worked to fight stereotyping. But he also figured that if they were going to hire a Japanese guy, it might as well be Pat Morita. One of his associates later told me that he never took the income for granted and invested it wisely. So that's kind of the way I'm remembering him tonight: A smart guy who overcame a racial disadvantage and learned to make it work for him…largely because he never lost his sense of humor.
I've been added to the guest list for the 2006 WonderCon, which is being held in San Francisco from February 10 through 12. Also on the roster are Erik Larsen, Gahan Wilson, Ramona Fradon, Marie Severin, Sergio Aragonés, Frank Cho, Mike Allred, Mike Mignola and some other fine folks, and there'll be more names announced shortly. This is always one of the best conventions in the country and it's a nice size: Big enough so there's plenty to see and do; not so big that it becomes overwhelming. Go to one someday.
This weekend's vintage Saturday Night Live rerun (the one they run in the wee small hours of the A.M.) is from November 22, 1986. Robin Williams is the host, Paul Simon is the musical guest and there are some pretty good sketches with Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks, Nora Dunn, Dennis Miller, Dana Carvey, Victoria Jackson, Kevin Nealon and a few others. The opening sketch is Williams as Ronald Reagan getting the answers for a press conference via a secret earpiece…a bit that should have been rerun during the last election, when there were rumors that George W. Bush was being prompted via a hidden radio receiver. There's also a funny sketch with Paul Simon waiting on line for some event and being approached by fans who don't believe he'll remember them but he does. You'll see the punchline coming but it's still pretty good.
Okay, so you just finished that big Thanksgiving dinner and the tryptophan in the turkey is making you sleepy, right? Well, these folks say that's a myth.
Here's another photo from the other night. The raccoons are, by the way, doing a good job of destroying that fence, knocking slats out of it. I'll have to do something about this one of these days.
I have no idea where these fellows live most of the time. For a while, I thought they were spending their non-foraging hours in the crawl space and basement under my house, but I had a company called Attic Busters come in. They go over your house with a magnifying glass, locate every entrance where anything larger than a cricket can get in, and seal it up. They closed off the passageway by which I thought the raccoons were getting in and reported that while there was evidence our masked friends had passed through that portal, there wasn't a lot. Most likely, they'd gone in to look for food, found none and then left. So I don't know where they go. A neighbor says she's seen them crawling out of the curbside catch basins that lead down to the sewers, so maybe that's their main hangout. Where the possums come from, I really can't imagine.
The other day, I linked to this article by Fred Kaplan. In it, he explains in some detail the proposal by Congressfellow John Murtha for U.S. troop redeployment in Iraq. It's kind of an interesting piece because a lot of people are arguing about Murtha's plan and Kaplan seems to be the only one who actually read it. Whether this is the right course of action, I don't know but characterizing it as "cut and run" or some kind of full-scale retreat is just plain inaccurate. Based on the noises Condoleezza Rice was making today, it may just be the Bush plan with a different advertising campaign.
The latest Osama video. (No, not really…)
Look who I just found in my backyard. I was on my way to the drug store about forty minutes ago when I spotted at least three of these fine, furry folks ambling about the pool and checking the empty cat dish for crumbs. While I ran back in to get my camera, one fled and the other two climbed up in a fence and just sat there, happily posing for my lens, probably eager to get themselves on this website. The one on the left seemed especially concerned that I might get his bad side.
I don't know if I've made it clear here but I do not live on the edge of a forest or in any sort of rural area. This, as Jack Webb used to say, is the city. The other day when I told someone where my house was, they couldn't believe I routinely have raccoons and possums in this area. They said, "I have trouble even believing the part about the stray cats." But there they all are.
I took this, by the way, with my newest toy — a Canon PowerShot S410. Neat little camera. Very good for raccoon pics even if they don't mention that in the ads.
For a long time in this country, November 22 was marked by TV specials in which the news media congratulated itself on the job it did covering the assassination of John F. Kennedy. That tradition seems to have faded and except for ten and five year anniversaries, the date is largely ignored. If you'd like to return to that fateful event in 1963, this web page offers an hour of radio from that day. It's what was broadcast on station KLIF in Dallas and it'll remind you of (or educate you to) the scary way the information dribbled out then. The first part of this recording is of bulletins interrupting some pretty ironic song selections.
For what it's worth, I went through a brief Conspiracy Theory period earlier in my life. Eventually, I settled down to the belief that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and that all the anomalies in that scenario were explainable and far more likely than any tale of multiple gunmen. I also decided there was no point in debating the issue with those who were sure (and in some cases, too eager to believe) something else had happened. Each year, if we believe the polls, a teensy percentage of the population comes over to my view. At this rate, we should all be on the same page by November 22, 2163 — just in time for the self-congratulatory news specials that will air that day.
Fred Kaplan parses John Murtha's proposal for U.S. forces to be "redeployed." Read it when you get a chance. I'm going to bed.
Forgot to mention what Carolyn and I did Sunday evening. We went up to Royce Hall at UCLA to hear Ahmad Jamal make music for about ninety glorious minutes. Accompanied by the other two members of his trio — Idris Muhammad on drums, James Cammack on bass — he played and played and played, and the audience was very happy. There's something very comforting about being in the presence of someone who does something about as well as it can be done. It was also not lost on us that it was a 75 year old man, steeped in the history of jazz, who was up there on that stage displaying so much energy.
Apart from the yutz behind me who kept kicking the back of my chair and the walk up the Janss Steps to the plaza, I had a very good time. If Mr. Jamal and his accompanists come anywhere near you, go listen.
I assume you all saw the other day when Representative Jean Schmidt (R-OH) slammed Representative John Murtha with a letter from a former serviceman saying "Cowards cut and run. Marines never do."
I almost felt sorry for Ms. Schmidt. First, other Republicans pounced on her and made her retract her comments. She had to go to the mike, deny that she was referring to Murtha and ask that her comments be stricken from the record. Then other Republican Congressfolks went out and "defended" her by claiming she was unaware Murtha had been a decorated Marine. This is known as the "not rude, just ignorant" defense. Given the choice, I think I'd rather have people think I was rude. Finally, a spokesperson for the gentleman who wrote the letter she was quoting is now saying, "He did not mention Congressman Murtha by name nor did he mean to disparage Congressman Murtha…he feels as though the words that Congresswoman Schmidt chose did not represent their conversation."
In other words, everyone around this lady has opted to cut and run.
But you know what's really wrong with her statement? It's the introduction of the issue of "cowardice" into this whole discussion. It's a phony issue, first of all because it's irrelevant. If it's right for the U.S. to have an occupation in Iraq and to be doing whatever it is we're doing there, it's right. It's not a matter of anyone's bravery. God help us if we're only staying there to prove we're tough…or that our soldiers are tough…or that someone's tough.
Which brings us to the big question: Who's the alleged coward here? John Murtha because he doesn't want someone else to get killed? The man may be wrong but either way, it's kind of unlikely that he's going to die as a result of the U.S. staying or not staying in Iraq. Throughout history, a lot of very craven people have been perfectly happy to send others off to war. If anything, Murtha was showing a certain amount of bravery for taking a position that, he must have known, would have caused him to be attacked and insulted and investigated. (It also would not be an act of cowardice for our Marines and other troops to leave Iraq if that's what their leaders decide. Most deserters could be called cowards but I don't think that's who anyone was talking about here.)
It's arguments like this that make me agree with whoever said Politics is just high school with human lives on the line.