Monthly Archives: November 2006

Something unusual has to happen in this country to get me to listen to Talk Radio. Democrats winning something is pretty unusual so today, I sampled about a half hour each of Conservative and Liberal radio chatter.

It sounded pretty much the same way it has every time I've tuned in lately: Conservatives angry but talking of victory, Liberals moaning about Conservatives. Randi Rhodes on Air America sounded unhappier than folks who had reason to wail. On some show, I heard a right-winger using the phrase, "blessing in disguise," over and over. When things don't go the way you wanted, there's something noble about trying to put a positive spin on your disaster…but there's also, sometimes, something dishonest…

You didn't want it to happen. You worked and donated money and prayed it would not happen. But it happened and now that it's happened, you have to figure out some way to pretend it was the best thing that could have happened. Who are you trying to kid? Me or yourself?

On all channels, I heard a lot of statements that tried to interpret the vote as about one thing and only one aspect of it. One guy was arguing that what was repudiated was not the Iraq War but this administration's handling of the war. Another fellow was saying it was Donald Rumsfeld who got the big vote of No Confidence. (It's amazing. Until I watched a discussion today on MSNBC, I'd been unaware that all errors in the war effort were errors by Rumsfeld. Apparently, no one else screwed up.) There were a lot of explanations for why we voted the way we voted but each pundit's ponderings seemed to come down to one specific issue per pundit…like millions of people from all walks of life only had the one reason among them. Me, I think America was speaking loud and clear that they want me to stop staying up this late writing weblog items. So I have a mandate to go to bed. Good night.

Forgot to mention an outta-town visitor this past weekend. Tom Richmond has become one of the star caricaturists of MAD Magazine…and if you specialize in drawing likenesses, that's pretty much the highest honor you can achieve. I mean, appearing in the same pages as Drucker and Davis? Doesn't get much better than that.

Tom was in L.A. (briefly) for a Sunday convention…so we had dinner Saturday night. Then the next afternoon, I watched him whip out striking caricatures of many of his fans and sign advance copies of the next MAD (with Tom's expertly-illustrated take on Grey's Anatomy). Great guy, great artist.

Tom has a website which I would recommend to anyone with an interest in professional cartooning. His weblog has a lot of "how I do it" pieces, including rough sketches and images of jobs in various stages of completion. And don't miss this posting from September in which Tom told the story of how his spouse surprised him with an amazing anniversary gift.

Another fine caricaturist whose work appears in MAD, Drew Friedman, was also in town last week for a bookstore appearance to promote his new book, Old Jewish Comedians. Alas, I was unable to get my keester or any other part of me over to his signing but I do have the book and it's quite wonderful, capturing some very grotesque people in a grotesque style but with just enough affection to make it enjoyable. Order a copy here and see what I mean.

I've received dozens of e-mails from folks who are sure they've seen Tony Bennett perform "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" on TV since 1962. A couple even recall seeing him sing it on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno before last night and there are even online videos of him doing so. Here's a clip of him singing it on the Don Imus show on MSNBC one month ago. So I don't know what that business was about him doing it on TV for the first time in more than forty years.

Hey, let's have us another Bob Clampett cartoon! This one is also from World War II. It's called Falling Hare and sources say it was released on either October 23 or 30 of 1943. Most of the animation is by Rod Scribner, Robert McKimson and Bill Melendez, and all of the voices (both of them) are by Mel Blanc. During production, the film was called Bugs Bunny and the Gremlin but Mr. Disney was developing a gremlin feature at the time. That film was never completed but he somehow persuaded Leon Schlesinger, whose studio was then making the cartoons for Warner Brothers, to change the name of the Bugs Bunny cartoon you're about to watch. Go ahead and watch it.

Jay Leno's musical guest this evening was Tony Bennett, singing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." By way of introduction, Leno said that it was the first time Bennett had performed the song on television since 1962.

That can't be right, can it? Wasn't there a time in the seventies and eighties when he was singing it on every variety and talk show, an average of once a week?

After the tune — which sounded okay for a guy who just turned eighty — Bennett went to panel and confirmed to Jay it was the first time he'd sung it on TV since 1962. Asked what show that was, he said — and I quote — "I did it on the first show with Johnny Carson, right here in this studio."

Now, as it happens, Tony Bennett was a guest on Carson's first Tonight Show, which was October 1 of 1962…and let's just skip the fact that it wasn't done in the same studio or even on the same coast. Do we really believe that was the last time he performed that song on television?

45 years ago today, much of Bel Air was on fire. Bel Air is a loosely-defined area of Los Angeles nestled to the east of and below the Santa Monica Mountains. I don't know if this is still the case but years ago, a realtor told me there were no official boundaries for "Bel Air." You could advertise a trailer park home in the worst part of South Central L.A. as choice Bel Air property and not technically be guilty of false advertising. Nonetheless, everyone pretty much knows what area you're talking about when you mention Bel Air. It's a large community of twisting, hard-to-drive streets lined with fancy, expensive homes, surrounded by lush foliage.

In 1961, they had a terrible fire there that was made worse by all that foliage. I was nine at the time and it was the first time I was aware of a genuine disaster — one that involved people I knew. My family lived some distance from Bel Air but we were close enough to see flames on the hills and clouds of dense, red-black smoke that filled the Northern sky. There were kids in my class who lost their homes and others who told of agonizing days when they couldn't get into the area to find out if their houses were still there. A lot of famous people suffered as a result of the calamity, including Burt Lancaster, whose kids went to my school…and everyone wanted to help. My mother and I helped out for two days at a little command center to which people donated blankets and clothes and other necessities to aid all the victims. As a kid, you tend to think of property as something to be kept and owned and possessed and not given away…but here were cars pulling up, dropping off tons of useful items, some of which were purchased specifically to be donated. I thought it was a wonderful outpouring of compassion and selflessness.

As I recall, it was a one-two punch for the people of Bel Air. The fire was as bad as it was because we were under several years of drought conditions and the hills were covered with dry brush. Then — wouldn't you know it? — a few days after the fire, we had torrential rains. It arrived too late to help the fire fighters and of course, since the mountains above Bel Air were now devoid of plants, all that water rushed straight down the hillsides. Some of the houses that had escaped the fire didn't escape the floods.

The other memory I have of that week was the news coverage. All the stations went to non-stop news but it was a local outfit, KTLA Channel 5, that had everyone's attention. That was because they were the only TV station in town — maybe even in the country — with a helicopter equipped to transmit live video. It was stunning to see those images on television…and then I could go to the window, look out in the distance and see the fire, plus I could see the KTLA TeleCopter hovering over it, sending back the pictures.

Here's an article from the L.A. Fire Department telling of the Bel Air Fire. I suppose it's a tacky subject for nostalgia but I do recall it as the first time I was ever aware of how people need to band together in times of tragedy…and will. It was also the first time I think I was aware of the power of live television, particularly in terms of immediacy and the conveyance of useful, necessary information.

Back in this item last February, we announced (with great sadness) that the Old Spaghetti Factory in Hollywood was being torn down to make way for a new real estate development. Then in July, in this item, we announced that the real estate development had been postponed and so the O.S.F. would be there for at least two more years.

Today, I received a message from an exec of the Old Spaghetti Factory chain telling me something I'd recently heard as a rumor; that the real estate deal has fallen through and the venerable noodle emporium is now there to stay. Or at least, it'll stay until another real estate development deal comes along. Anyway, it's saved…for now.

In other Los Angeles Restaurant News: R.J.'s for Ribs in Beverly Hills is moving to West Hollywood. If you had dinner with me in the eighties, you probably ate at R.J.'s, which was a wonderful eatery back then. New owners have since reduced its wonderfulness to the point where I don't much care where it's situated.

Who would have imagined that when George Allen called that kid "makaka," it would cost the Republicans control of the Senate?

A lot of Democrats have said that John Kerry's botched "Bush is dumb" joke proved that he's not fit to be a presidential candidate. If I were a Republican, I'd be saying the same thing about Allen.

Timothy Noah says that the Democrats don't have much of an agenda or much in the way of plans. I more or less agree with this. He also says they ought to try doing something about Health Care in this country. I absolutely agree with this. I don't expect it to happen but I absolutely agree with him that it should be attempted.

I thought McLean Stevenson was dead. Why is he on MSNBC being identified as a United States Senator named "Joseph Biden?"

What an odd press conference. Did I hear wrong or did Bush basically say that last week, when he assured America that Rumsfeld would stay on for the rest of this administration, they were already looking for the guy's replacement? I lived through a period when any time Bill Clinton said anything that could possibly be spun as a contradiction, my Republican friends pounced on it as proof that the man was a congential liar who was emotionally unable to speak the truth.

Isn't it amazing that Bush's policies don't seem to be bringing the kind of democracy he wanted to Iraq but they seem to have just caused a shining example of it at work here in this country? Whether you agree or not with the way this election came out, there's something very American about the people voting and the government changing as a result of that vote. A lot of people don't go to the polls because they feel, with ample evidence, that it doesn't matter; that the folks in power are going to do what they want to do and trading one for another is meaningless. But here — and again, leave aside for the moment any question of the proper course of action — Americans voted and things are different this morning. (And I don't mean just that Rumsfeld's out. That was decided some time ago, apparently.)

Someone on Fox News just said that everyone should try and find something to be happy about today. I think I'll be happy that I wasn't around Dick Cheney last night when he was armed and getting the news.

I think we always need to be reminded that some polls are just plain wrong…

U.S. Senator Rick Santorum has gained ground in his bid to win re-election, according to a new poll released Monday. The poll of 800 very likely general election voters, was conducted by McCulloch Research & Polling, an independent polling company out of Chicago, on November 4-5. Santorum's opponent, State Treasurer Bob Casey, Jr., led the incumbent Senator 48.1-44.1%, according to the poll. "Senator Santorum has a history of closing hard at the end of his campaigns," said pollster Rod McCulloch. "It looks like this campaign will be no different."

Final tally: Casey at 59%, Santorum at 41%. A difference of eighteen points.

Well, if you've been watching the elections, you deserve six and a half minutes of something that has nothing to do with politics…six and a half minutes of something wonderful. You deserve to watch A Tale of Two Kitties, the Warner Brothers cartoon that introduced Tweety…and also two cats named Babbitt and Catstello who sound amazingly like Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Mel Blanc, who often appeared with the non-feline versions, supplied the voice of the Costello Pussycat and also did Tweety, who did not have a name at the time. The Abbott imitation was done by Tedd Pierce, who was one of the storymen who wrote gags for the WB cartoons. He often turned up in them as a voice actor, as well.

The film was directed by the great Bob Clampett, even though you won't see his name on it. This is from a "Blue Ribbon" print of the cartoon, meaning that it was a reissue, put out a few years after the fact with new title cards. (The cartoon was originally released on November 14, 1942.) This was one of the films Bob was really proud of…one of the ones he often ran at festivals and lectures in the seventies. Somewhere in this article, I wrote about an incident that occurred one time when he ran it at a show I helped organize.

Rod Scribner and Robert McKimson were the main animators and I think that's all I have to tell you about it.

When I posted the previous message, three states were in doubt — Virginia, Missouri and Montana — and the Democrats need all three to take the Senate. In Missouri, Claire McCaskill (the Democrat) just claimed victory and her opponent conceded so we're down to two.

In Montana, the Democrat (Tester) is at 51% and the Republican (Burns) is at 47% with 64% of the precincts counted. In Virginia, the Democrat (Webb) is at 50% and he's claimed victory while the Republican (Allen) is at 49% and has gone to bed. They're saying 100% of the vote is in but there are apparently provisional ballots and a recount ahead and those could take weeks.

I'm not posting these numbers because I figure you're coming here for your election totals. I'm just quoting them because the dramatics of the situation intrigue me and I want to remember this moment. I mean, if you scripted this to make it a nail-biter, you wouldn't dare write something like this. It would be just too contrived.

Sure hope this doesn't come down to another Florida/Ohio battle, this time in Virginia, where it looks like it's been decided by lawyers and judges instead of by voters. But it probably will.

Boy, if you wrote this for The West Wing, it would seem hokey and obvious. There are three Senate races that are up for grabs. The Democrats need to take all three to win the Senate and at just this moment — it may be different by the time I finish typing this — the Dems are ahead in all three races…but not by much. Any one of them could go G.O.P., in which case the Democrats would have had a great night but not the greatest night. (Seeing some of the victory speeches, one gets the idea that a lot of Democrats don't know how to celebrate a win. Obviously, they're way out of practice.)

It's going to be interesting to see what tonight's outcome does to the dynamic of Washington. Earlier this evening, I saw Chris Matthews hit some Republican — I think it was Bill Frist — with an interesting remark. The Republican, conceding that the Democrats would probably control the House, spoke of the need for the two parties to work together on a "bi-partisan basis" and he described some of what he hoped would happen. Matthews said something like, "You're not describing a bi-partisan basis. You're talking about them giving in to you on everything."

The G.O.P. guy — I'm pretty sure it was Frist — looked surprised. I get the feeling that a lot of Republicans are going to be surprised that way. It'll be interesting to see if Bush thinks anything has changed.

By the way: I think Rick Santorum was a terrible blight on the Senate but, contrary to my earlier posting, he gave a classy concession speech. Most of the speeches tonight have been pretty classy. Maybe politics doesn't have to always be as dirty as it sometimes seems these days.