Monthly Archives: July 2006

In the midst about all the debate over whether Mel Gibson is anti-Semitic — or whether he just becomes that way when drunk — everyone seems to be forgetting one very important fact: The man was arrested for and has admitted to drunk-driving.

Being a racist swine is bad. Getting behind the wheel of a car when you're intoxicated isn't all that much better.

This is one of my admitted areas of prejudice. I've had several close friends killed by drunk drivers and I have very little sympathy for anyone who does drive while under the influence. If I were making the laws, a first offense would carry a mandatory prison sentence of a year and permanent loss of license, a second offense would be five years…and then three strikes and you're out. This was at least Mr. Gibson's second offense and some reports suggest he'd been stopped several other times.

I doubt he will ever convince much of the population that he isn't a Jew-hater but everyone can make up their own mind about that. What I'd like is for a judge to toss his Lethal Weapon ass behind bars in spite of the army of high-priced lawyers Gibson is able to hire and in spite of the fact that he will doubtlessly emerge from Rehab "totally cured" of his drinking problems and very contrite. He may even come up with some important film project that will celebrate Zionism, qualify as Community Service and give those already inclined to overlook his bigotry an excuse to say, "He's suffered enough." None of that will change the fact that doing 80 on Pacific Coast Highway while full of tequila, he could easily have killed somebody.

We probably won't see him do hard time. This is California and he is, after all, a celebrity. But I hope people remember: Thinking that Jews are the cause of all wars is not against the law. Driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.12 is. There's no excuse for either.

You are surely familiar with William Shatner's immortal video interpretation of Elton John's "Rocket Man." If by some chance you aren't, you can watch it here…and I'd suggest five or ten viewings to get its every nuance burned well into your frontal lobes.

Then watch this version by Chris Elliott and marvel at the guts involved in doing a parody of something most viewers had never seen…

I've lost 65 pounds in 65 days. I used to eat steaks that weighed that much.

A pastor in Minnesota is steadfastly refusing to mix politics with his religion…and getting mixed reactions for it. Go read.

I recently bought one of these for my mother and we're both very happy with it. It's the Uniden EZI996 900 MHz Cordless Phone for the Visually or Hearing Impaired — a one-line telephone that's perfect for someone who has trouble hearing or reading the buttons. The ringer and the handset volume can be cranked up to high levels and both the base and handset have a light that will flash when the phone rings or when a voicemail message is waiting. The thing has pretty good sound, too. You can read more about it or even order one here.

If you have TimesSelect, go read Frank Rich. If you don't, you'll have to settle for me quoting his first two paragraphs…although if you do a little searching on the 'net, you should have no trouble finding someone quoting the whole thing.

As America fell into the quagmire of Vietnam, the comedian Milton Berle joked that the fastest way to end the war would be to put it on the last-place network, ABC, where it was certain to be canceled. Berle's gallows humor lives on in the quagmire in Iraq. Americans want this war canceled too, and first- and last-place networks alike are more than happy to oblige.

CNN will surely remind us today that it is Day 19 of the Israel-Hezbollah war — now branded as Crisis in the Middle East — but you won't catch anyone saying it's Day 1,229 of the war in Iraq. On the Big Three networks evening newscasts, the time devoted to Iraq has fallen 60 percent between 2003 and this spring, as clocked by the television monitor, the Tyndall Report. On Thursday, Brian Williams of NBC read aloud a "shame on you" e-mail complaint from the parents of two military sons anguished that his broadcast had so little news about the war. This is happening even as the casualties in Iraq, averaging more than 100 a day, easily surpass those in Israel and Lebanon combined.

This one runs a bit over five minutes and it's improperly squeezed and a little out-of-sync. Still, it'll please folks who are fans of surprise cameo guest appearances. If you're one, take the time to click on the arrow.

The clip is from The Dean Martin Show and it features Petula Clark. I always thought Ms. Clark was a terrific performer and there was a period there when Dino's producers obviously felt the same way. She was on so often, I suspect they were pushing her for her own series. If they were, no network took the hint.

So enjoy the parade of celebrities…and let's give a shout out to one of them. Dom DeLuise has been in poor health lately and we sure hope he gets better. A very nice, funny man.

Lewis Black is doing a one night performance out in Thousand Oaks on August 20 at the Fred Kavli Center. It's a very nice theater but it's pretty big. I wanted to get a batch of friends together and go but not if we were going to have to sit in the back row of the ninth balcony up where the air is thin.

Well, it turns out all the good seats were snatched up about eleven seconds after they went on sale. Since then, the only tix available for purchase have been way overpriced or way up in the stratosphere, usually the latter. In fact, even the overpriced good seats seem to have disappeared.

I just browsed a bunch of online ticket agencies and discovered, much to my amazement, that most of the seats they're offering are in Row H in the balcony. That is the absolute last row they have at the Kavli. Any farther back and you have to sit in the attic. For these, they're asking $175 (plus various fees) per seat. Which is especially outrageous when you go over to the Ticketmaster site and notice that they still have seats in Row D of that same balcony for the printed price of $47.50 plus fees.

What can we learn from this? That there are a lot of people on the Internet who are too dense to comparison-shop a bit? Does someone actually go to a ticket broker and pay four hundred smackers for a pair of seats without checking the main source first? Or is the broker just assuming that by mid-August, the $47.50 tickets will be long gone and he'll get the inflated price?

Row D of the balcony is still too far from Mr. Black to suit me. I think from now on when I see him, it'll be in Las Vegas. He's playing a number of dates there in the next few months and they all have good seats available…at a top price of $60 each.

Among the habits I've broken over the years is a curiosity that once led me to try almost every new non-taco fast food chain outlet I encountered. I'm not sure why I did this as long as I did. Apart from In-n-Out Burger and Koo Koo Roo, I never found much that was that interesting or even that different. The burgers and fries were never significantly better than McDonald's and often notably worse…and I can't recall sampling or even seeing many items on any menu that caused me to say, "Wow, I have to come back here for that." At best, I'd come away from a visit thinking something like, "Okay…if I'm ever stuck somewhere and the only option is a Wendy's, I can survive." Eventually, I got over even that reason.

If I were still doing that, I'd probably make (the pun is unavoidable) a bee-line for Jollibee, a popular fast food chain from the Phillipines which is now arriving on our shores. There are eleven of them sprinkled across California with other states to follow…and every time I drive by the one at Beverly Boulevard and Vermont, I'm curious — not about how I might like the food but about how my homeland will. Some of the food is pretty standard for a place like this but you also have your Palabok Fiesta, which is a serving of high quality bihon noodles topped with a special pork-shrimp sauce, garnished with pork strips, shrimps, toasted garlic, flaked smoked fish, pork cracklings and sliced eggs. That doesn't sound bad to me but, you know, it's not exactly a Big Mac. And a lot of Americans are scared off by something that feels a little foreign to them.

Which may not matter to the Jollibee people. They're opening primarily in neighborhoods that have a high Filipino population and apparently think they can make a go of it, just on that demographic. I'm just wondering to what extent, if any, they fantasize about luring a wider audience into their drive-thrus. The company website seems to have no such wish-dream. They even say, "Jollibee has grown to be so well loved that every time a new store is opened, especially overseas, Filipinos form long queues to the store without fail. It is not just a place where they feel at home; it is a stronghold of heritage, a monument of Filipino victory." So maybe they don't even want a lot of non-Filipinos coming in, diluting that sense of Filipino victory…or maybe they'd regard it as a greater victory if we did all flock to our neighborhood Jollibee.

I honestly don't know, nor do I know if a wider audience will go to a Filipino fast food stand or if they'll regard it as an alien presence. Obviously, everyone accepts a Chinese restaurant or a Japanese restaurant or even a traditional Filipino eatery without any issues…but there's something about the "fast food" format that may seem invasive to some people, especially since a Jollibee outlet looks like your basic American burger/fries establishment. I'd like to think a chain like this could be accepted and could thrive and could even blur a few of the sillier ethnic divisions. I just wonder if some people can bring themselves to patronize a stronghold of Filipino heritage. The fries will have to be pretty damn good.

Matt Gaffney details the war between crossword puzzle enthusiasts and those who make Sudoku games. Let's get ready to rumble!

Jacob Weisberg on why it's ridiculous to prohibit Internet-based gambling. I'm not sure any restrictions that are ever placed on adults gambling have a reason other than that those who are already in that business don't want the competition.

I've been plugging a one-man show that's currently running in Hollywood…and which has been, I'm informed, extended through August 27. It's called Zero Hour and it was written by my old pal Jim Brochu, who's also the one man in the cast. He plays Zero Mostel, discoursing for two hours about art, acting, marriage, Judaism and many other topics. A big subject is the blacklist, which torpedoed the careers of Mostel and some of his closest friends.
So here we have about three minutes of that section of the play. If it makes you want to go see it, all the info you need can be found on this page. (And here's a tip: You may be able to score cheaper tix on this page.)

Beginning this week, if you live in the 310 area code and you dial another number in the 310 area code, you have to dial the area code along with the number. This applies if, for example, you have a TiVo that makes its daily phone call that way…or if you have a modem that calls a dial-up connection in the same area. Pay attention to this stuff.

I had a great time at the Comic-Con International in San Diego but there were, of course, a few unpleasant moments. There was an encounter with an inebriated person that I wish had not occurred. I also had a painful chat with an Industry Legend who is, to put it nicely, not as sharp as he once was, either mentally or in his auditory capabilities. He engaged me in one of those awkward conversations we sometimes have with the elderly where we have to pretend they're making more sense than they are. I was hurrying off to a panel and it was quite uncomfy to terminate the discussion in a polite manner, especially when I had to say everything about ten times in order for him to hear what I was saying.

One of my jobs as a panel moderator — perhaps the most important — is to get the panel started. This is sometimes difficult because when a panel ends, fans rush the dais to get autographs from the panelists. We usually allow as much of this as time permits but at some point, I have to declare an end to it and shoo the fans away so the panelists can depart and make way for the next panel. Then the members of the next panel enter and begin to take their seats, whereupon autograph-seekers pounce on them to get signatures in the interval before that event begins. So again, I have to play Bad Guy and call a halt to the signing so I can start the program.

Five or six times during the con, this meant getting strict with folks who seemed to feel that the phrase, "No more autographs now" did not apply to them. I stopped one lady from getting a Spider-Man comic signed by John Romita and she launched into a sob story; something about how she had to leave but her little brother who was very ill had his heart set on a Romita autograph and it might even instill in him the will to live. I was going to tell her I promised my grandmother on her death bed that I would never make 400 people wait around longer than necessary for a Johnny Romita panel to start…but before I could, the woman said something nasty to me and stormed out.

John thanked me for being the villain and said, "I never know how to say no to these people. I'm grateful they care enough to ask for my autograph but sometimes, they make things so inconvenient for everyone else. And as he was saying this, someone ran up with a stack of Daredevil comics they wanted signed and said, "While you're just sitting there talking…"

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska has long struck me as one of those folks who's just way too dense to be in the Senate. There are smart people in that body whose politics I think are just plain wrong but there are also Senators (and Congressfolks and governors and presidents…) who seem to lack a certain minimum number of I.Q. points. They leave you wondering how they got elected and about the ineptness of the person(s) who couldn't beat them.

Stevens is in charge of regulation of this thing you're utilizing right this moment…this "Internet." And on several occasions, he has displayed a shocking ignorance about this entity he helps regulate. Jon Stewart has been especially happy to exploit this ignorance for material. Here's a YouTube clip of Stewart doing just that.

So, as Mr. Carson might have said, "How…dumb…is Ted Stevens?" This dumb. He's "considering" going on (more likely, angling to appear on) Stewart's show and defend his comments.

Quick rule of thumb: It's darn near impossible to beat a clever comedian in his own ball park. It's his audience, his equipment, his director, his schedule, his everything. On neutral ground, Ted Stevens would have a hard time not being sliced 'n' diced by a quick-witted guy who knows how to work a crowd the way Jon Stewart knows how to work a crowd. When you also give the comedian Home Court Advantage, it's like challenging The Flash to a potato race. You not only cannot win, you cannot not suffer a humiliating defeat. This also applies to cases where someone thinks they're going to go on with Colbert or Letterman and show that they're just as fast and funny. Can't be done.

Based on that news article, The Daily Show will doubtlessly extend an invite to Senator Stevens. Will he accept it? If he does, I think that's grounds for impeachment or recall — whatever it is they do to Senators — right there. On the grounds of Extreme Stupidity or at least some kind of death wish.