Monthly Archives: May 2008

If all goes as expected, Barack Obama will accept the nomination of the Democratic party at their convention on August 28…45 years to the day after Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

The Writers Guild ought to be getting residuals for what's going on between the AMPTP ("the studios") and the Screen Actors Guild ("the good guys") in their current negotiations. Actually, the negotiations are no longer current, having broken down today with the two sides still light years apart…but the point is it's like a replay of what happened with the WGA, and we oughta get residuals for the rerun.

If anyone thought that our strike would have softened up the studios…well, that doesn't seem to have happened. Accounts are sketchy and conflicting but it seems safe to say the studios are offering our (and the DGA's) "new media" deal in a form that doesn't work for SAG, they're refusing all other increases save the token, low-end cost of living increases, and they're demanding a number of concessions from the actors. One of those proposed concessions is to do away with some fees and all permissions when a clip of an actor is used in a different context. In other words, if you're in a movie, they want to be able to take a segment that you're in and do any damn thing they want with it without paying you and without your okay.

I can't believe that will ever fly with the SAG membership. In fact, it's so outrageous that it sounds like it's in the studios' demands just so it can be dropped later on. As we noted during the WGA head-butting, a favored tactic of the AMPTP is to make an offer that's really lousy with one or two deal-killer points. Then, when they drop those points, the hope is, the union will consider it a "win" and accept what remains, which is still a really crappy deal.

Without a vast amount of confidence, I'll stick with my prediction that there won't be a SAG strike. The studios are sitting down now with the other actors' union, AFTRA, to negotiate a new contract. The expectation seems to be that AFTRA will take a bad deal and then the AMPTP will go back to SAG, tell them they can have the same thing or they can go on strike…and no other options will be discussed. I don't think it'll work because I think SAG and its members know the drill and are inspired by the WGA walkout/holdout. Also, SAG just seems angrier about the basic issues than we were. Still, a lot will be riding on how badly AFTRA eats it.

Time to introduce you to another one of my zillions of weird and/or talented friends. Bob Claster is a writer and historian and producer and behind-the-scenes guy on many TV shows. When I first met him, he was hosting a great radio series called Bob Claster's Funny Stuff on which he interviewed everyone who was anyone in the field of comedy. He has now set up his own website and on it, he favors us with some downloadable (or listenable-online) episodes of that program. Go listen as Bob chats with comedy icons the likes of John Cleese, Stan Freberg and Mort Sahl.

Bob and I also share a love for Vito's Pizza, a hole-in-the-wall pizzeria in West Hollywood. Years ago, we used to drive across town to Vito's old location. I'm not one of those people who think all pizza in New York is great and all pizza everywhere else is unfit for human consumption…but even folks who feel that way think Vito's is up to the Manhattan Standard.

After a few years of serving great pizza, Vito closed his shop and left town, whereupon Bob went into mourning. A year or so ago, I made him very, very happy when I informed him that not only was Vito reopening in L.A. but that his new digs were within walking distance of the Claster home. Bob is now a regular and when I drop by there for pie, I often run into him. On his site, he has a video clip wherein you can meet our friend Vito, the best pizza-maker in town.

As some of you may know, I'm currently co-writing Will Eisner's The Spirit for DC Comics. In some issues, you'll see reference made to a place called Vito's Pizza. There are also such references in the new Garfield cartoon series I'm currently writing. Vito's pizza is going to make him famous but I'm doing my part, as well.

The New Yorker has an ongoing contest to write a caption to a cartoon. The current cartoon in need of a caption is by Harry Bliss and it's a riff on a comic book cover/page by Jack Kirby. Let's keep an eye on this one…and I may even enter some captions that mention Jack. Feel free to do likewise.

Cartoonist Ted Key died Saturday at his home in Tredyffrin Township, PA, just outside Philadelphia. He was 95 and had been in failing health after a diagnosis of bladder cancer in late 2006 and a stroke last September.

Key was famous for his character Hazel, the sassy maid who first appeared in cartoons he drew for The Saturday Evening Post in 1943. She became a regular feature of that magazine and later appeared in books collecting those cartoons, a syndicated newspaper strip and a popular TV series that ran on NBC and CBS for four seasons beginning in 1961. The above photo shows Key with the acclaimed actress, Shirley Booth, who played Hazel and won two Emmy awards for so doing.

But Hazel was hardly Key's only notable creation. In the late fifties, he worked with animation producer Jay Ward (a childhood friend of Ted's brother, Leonard) and created Mr. Peabody and Sherman, the improbable time travellers who were featured on Rocky and His Friends, aka The Bullwinkle Show. Peabody and Sherman quickly joined the ranks of immortal cartoon characters and a major motion picture of their adventures is presently in the works.

Key authored numerous books and was responsible for the storylines of three motion pictures made by the Disney company in the seventies — Million Dollar Duck, Gus and The Cat from Outer Space. He was also responsible for the comic feature Diz and Liz that ran from 1961 through 1972 in the popular children's magazine, Jack and Jill.

Ted Key was born Theodore Keyser in Fresno, CA on Aug. 25, 1912. In 1933, he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and relocated to New York where he freelanced cartoons for magazine and occasionally wrote for radio. He eventually relocated to Philadelphia where he continued to write stories and draw cartoons. Key retired in 1993 but King Features still syndicates the Hazel strip using material he prepared for his retirement. He is survived by his second wife, three sons and three grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, the family is asking that donations be made to the American Cancer Society.

One of my comrades in Groo, Stan Sakai, is back from a trip to Poland. You might enjoy his diary of the adventure.

Okay, I didn't turn in when I said I was going to. Remember that story I linked to earlier? The one about the incredible act of sportsmanship in a softball game? This one.

Right. Well, earlier this evening, my friend Bob Elisberg e-mailed me that a nice video telling of the tale had run on ESPN Sportscenter and would probably rerun several times overnight. So I set my TiVo to record ESPN and, sure enough, when I went to check on my way to bed, there it was, nicely told. It inspired me to go prowling the ESPN site and there, I found a video embed of it that I can put here. Take a look. It runs six minutes.

I like my new Lexmark printer…like it a lot. What I don't like is their Tech Support Department. About two weeks ago, I phoned the 800 number to ask if it was possible to make the printer do a certain thing that did not seem to be covered in the manual. I was placed on hold a lot as I was routed from department to department for over 45 minutes, during which I actually only talked to two different people, neither of whom had a clue as to what I was talking about. I suspect they were in India, which is fine, but I also suspect neither one had ever touched a Lexmark printer in his life. That is not fine. Their combined expertise appeared to be limited to how to look up the answers to caller questions in some database of stock responses.

Maybe there was no stock response to my question or maybe neither one understood me. But the first one gave up and handed me off to the second one, and the second one wasted an awful lot of my time 'n' energy, putting me on hold and taking me off it before he finally announced that there was no way to do what I wanted to do. He also kept saying, "Is there anything else I can assist you with?" and then not comprehending my reply of "You haven't helped me with anything yet, sir." Finally, I told him I was giving up and got off the line, whereupon I figured out how to do what I wanted — the thing he'd told me could not be done — in about ten minutes. And once I figured out how to do it, I was able to find it in the manual, where it was all along.

Friday, I got a follow-up call from another gent with Lexmark — also, I suspect from his accent, within walking distance of the Taj Mahal. His mission was to make sure I was satisfied with my experience with their Tech Support. I said no and and explained to him that it took me 45 minutes to get no help whatsoever from people who didn't know what the heck they were doing. I'm not sure he understood what I was telling him, either…but he apologized about twenty-nine times for whatever it was.

I'm really tired of total strangers apologizing to me on behalf of a company or business in which they have little power or responsibility. So an anonymous guy is sorry…where does that get me? What I'd like him to say is something that leads me to believe my complaint will be passed along to folks who might do something to make sure it doesn't happen again.

But what I'd really like is an extra option when the recorded voice tells me my call will be answered in the order received. It would say something like, "A member of our staff will be with you shortly. At any time during your conversation, press the pound key if you'd like to speak to someone smarter."

Good night, Internet. I'm turning in early tonight. Early for me lately, at least.

I have not had the chance yet to read The Ten Cent Plague, a new book by David Hajdu that chronicles the "horror comic" scare of the fifties. I will get to it, I'm sure, when deadlines ease. In the meantime though, I wanted to mention that Mr. Hajdu was interviewed this weekend on C-Span's Book TV and I think I've found an online link that will actually work if you want to watch it that way. The C-Span site seems to be Mac-friendly and usually doesn't like showing anything to any of my PCs. But this link just might get you a watchable stream.

And then again, it might not. Not only does C-Span apparently only have one cameraman with one camera but they seem to be expecting that guy to fix their website in his free time.