Monthly Archives: December 2008

If you've been thinking of ordering any of those great comic book fonts from Comicraft, take note: You'll never find a better time than their annual New Year's Sale! Every font in the place can be ordered for $20.09, including a few that ordinarily sell for nineteen bucks. But some of them routinely go for a lot more than that…so this is a time for bargains. Plus, they're great fonts. You have been alerted.

Scoop, which is one of the most informative and entertaining sites on the web calls this site one of the most informative and entertaining sites on the web.

About ten times in my life, I've been asked to write and help assemble shows for Las Vegas…and about ten times, the deals have fallen through. You'd think it would just be a matter of Caesars Palace or Bally's putting up the necessary cash to hire me and all the other participants…but it doesn't work that way. At least, it hasn't with any of the projects I've been offered. In each case, the show was to be "four-walled." That means the casino rents its showroom to an outside producer who must come up with all the necessary cash and assume all the necessary risk.

That's right. Casinos don't like to gamble. Maybe that's why they have more money than any of us.

This article discusses what some of the performers in the smaller showrooms face in trying to turn a profit. The shows I might have worked on were all larger and therefore, the financial complications were greater. Each time, someone had 50-75% of the financing they'd need to go forward but were unable to secure the rest of the bucks.

I never expended a lot of my time or hopes on these propositions…just took a few meetings, mostly to learn. It got so when I was approached about a new one, I'd think, "Hmm…it might be fun and educational to watch this one not happen."

Out of all this, I got a few free trips to Vegas and comped hotel rooms in exchange for spending a few hours talking with producers, talent and perhaps some hotel's entertainment director. A friend of mine once endured three hours at the Stardust (or maybe it was the Flamingo Hilton) listening to a sales shpiel about vacation time shares and he came away from it with free tickets to see Wayne Newton. I spent an hour with the guy who booked Wayne Newton discussing a possible show that might replace Wayne Newton, and I came away from it with my airfare, room and meals paid-for. Even better, I didn't have to go see Wayne Newton.

The closest any of them came to opening was a glittery showgirls-and-variety extravaganza that was initially budgeted at, I believe, $3,001,000. The thousand dollars was to be my pay for many weeks of work, though there would have been more loot if and when the show reached "breakeven." Of the remaining three mil, about 10% would go to acts — magicians, acrobats and the guy who'd juggle the books to make sure they never reached "breakeven." Another 5% went for sequins and feathers and for showgirls to not wear very many of them. Another 15% went for sets and lights and music and people to handle them or to sit around and watch those who did. Another 35% went to the casino for the privilege of letting us come in, use their showroom and attract people to come in and gamble. And the rest went for promotion and payoffs.

Payoffs would include bribes to ticket brokers and to others who might generate a positive "buzz" about our show. Four people were to be hired to each spend 8-10 hours a day taking cabs around Vegas, telling the drivers about this great show they'd seen the previous night, and how it should be recommended to every passenger. This was actually in the budget, and the entrepreneur trying to assemble things swore to me it had been done before with other projects and had yielded "po$itive re$ult$." He even managed to pronounce the dollar signs as he said it. I think the moment I realized this show was not in my future was when I noticed that I would make less money writing and helping stage it than I would if I rode around in taxis and raved about it. Also, they wanted me to work topless.

Hey, let's get an end-of-the-year wrap-up from Uncle Jay…

Here's Jason Linkins with the Ten Worst Media Moments of 2008. Hard to believe he got the list down to ten.

Anyone here remember Blue Chip Stamps? As the economy sinks deeper into the tar pits, I've been waiting for them or something of the sort to return…maybe S&H Green Stamps, which were the big deal for a time. I have a dim memory of my mother getting Green Stamps at some of the local merchants and pasting them into the little booklets. She was saving up for some item that cost eighty zillion stamps and she had acccumlated around thirty zillion of them.

Then one day, all the places she shopped were suddenly converting to Blue Chip Stamps! It was a crisis and a half, fueled by rumors that the Green Stamps empire was going under. Whatever was going to happen, it was obvious she was never going to get the eighty zillion Green Stamps so she hurriedly raced through the catalog, picked out a lower-value item and hurried in to get it. I think it was a pair of tweezers or something that valuable. The scene at the Redemption Center that day was like in It's a Wonderful Life when everyone is storming the bank, trying to get their money out before it fails.

Meanwhile, she began rebuilding the family nest egg, amassing Blue Chips and gluing them into their little booklets, saving up anew for whatever she hadn't been able to get with the Green Stamps. She finally got it, whatever it was, but it was a lot of work.

Then, around 1966, she used Blue Chip Stamps to get me my first typewriter — a blue Olivetti-Underwood Lettera 32. It looked a lot like this. In fact, it looked exactly like this…

I remember a brief moment of horror when we got it at the Blue Chip Redemption Center, which was located on Pico Boulevard near Westwood, right next to the Picwood Theater. The catalog just said "Underwood," which was an old, reliable brand of typewriter…and that's what my mother thought she was getting me. She turned in her books of Blue Chip Stamps, all of them pasted in so neatly. Then we waited for the instrument of my future career to come down the conveyor belt, out from the mysterious back room where all the Blue Chip goodies were kept.

We were unaware that Olivetti, an Italian company, had recently acquired the good old American name of Underwood…so when a box emblazoned "Olivetti" rolled down the belt, she felt baited-and-switched. And for a moment there, I feared that my new typewriter would only type in Italian, which would have meant I'd have to end every noun in a vowel. The clerk at the Redemption Center assured us that it was not an Olivetti. It was an Olivetti-Underwood…and sure enough, there was the name "Underwood" in teensy letters on the carton. We were both skeptical but I carried it home and the darn thing did indeed type. In English.

You couldn't touch-type on it. The keys required too much pressure to respond to anything but forceful thrusts of index fingers. But then I didn't touch-type back then, back before I learned the skill in high school. It's funny. Back then, Typing 101 was kind of a joke class…like a glorified Study Hall. It was something your counselor stuck you in because everything else in Period Three was full and he had to put you somewhere.

In fact, at University High, the Typing classes were even held in the same room where you'd sit if you had a period of Study Hall. Upon reflection though, of all the hours I spent in classrooms at Uni, the ones I spent learning to type have probably come in handier than any others. I almost never have to balance a Redox equation these days and I can't recall the last time I was asked to dissect a frog. It's been at least a year. On the other hand, I type every day of my life, sometimes for most of my waking hours. In fact, I'm typing right this minute, thanks (in part) to Blue Chip Stamps. If they ever make a comeback, I'm going to see if I can pick up another Lettera 32. Whenever my computer crashes, I yearn for that machine.

Each year, your Library of Congress names 25 movies to the National Film Registry that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant, to be preserved for all time. They've just announced this year's picks and once more, obviously because of dirty politicking and/or payoffs, they've overlooked Otto Preminger's Skidoo. But what they did select is a pretty decent roster that includes The Pawnbroker, In Cold Blood, Flower Drum Song and even The Terminator. That's right: Future generations will be able to learn bad impressions of Arnold Schwarzenegger and repeat all those wonderful catch-phrases on which he's built his governorship.

One surprise on the roster is Disneyland Dreams, a 1956 home movie made by a Connecticut family that won a free trip to Mr. Disney's then-new tourist magnet. It runs a half-hour and offers a fascinating look at what the place looked like back then, as seen from the POV of your average attendee. This is not professionally-staged and shot Disney P.R. footage and as such, it's taken with a genuine sense of wonder and reality. The film also chronicles the other portions of the family's memorable trip (including side trips to Knott's Berry Farm and Hollywood) and has a certain folksy charm and air of innocence.

Never saw this homemade treasure? Well, you can. You can watch it online or even download your own copy of it on this page. I'm not sure I'd have thought of it for the National Film Registry but I can understand why it's there. Naturally, I'd have picked Skidoo but this isn't a bad choice.

I missed this a couple months ago and just saw it. Roger Ebert lists a whole bunch of guidelines to which he believes film critics should adhere. Some of them seem like deliberate swipes at specific colleagues, especially Ben Lyons, but that doesn't mean they aren't all (or nearly all) valid.

One that jumped out at me was…

Trailers. Have nothing to do with them. Gene Siskel hated them so much he would stand outside a theater until they were over. If he was already seated in the middle of a crowded theater, he would shout "fire!" plug his ears and stare at the floor. Trailers love to spoil all the best gags in a comedy, hint at plot twists in a thriller, and make every film, however dire, look upbeat…

I sometimes feel that way about trailers…but for all the same reasons, I sometimes felt that way about watching Siskel and Ebert review a film, spoil all the best gags in a comedy, describe plot twists and show us some of the same clips that were in the trailer.

Ed Asner, a past president of the Screen Actors Guild, comes out in favor of his union taking a stronger position. Apparently, he's decided that he now likes spunk.

Here's a quickie. In his retirement years, when health permitted, Stan Laurel was a busy correspondent, writing brief letters to anyone who wrote to him. One of his pen pals was Jerry Lewis. Laurel was personally fond of the comedian, though he reportedly told many friends that he really didn't understand much of what Lewis did on the screen. Jerry repeatedly offered Stan work — to appear in his projects or, at least, contribute gags. Laurel declined the offers but occasionally sent Lewis an idea which went unused.

This film clip was shot in 1960…in Miami where Jerry was making his movie, The Bellboy, at the Fontainebleau Hotel. I'm not sure if this was televised somehow or if, more likely, Jerry mailed a 16mm reel of film to Stan. (Stan owned a 16mm projector, which he'd received when he and Hardy were on that infamous episode of This Is Your Life.) Anyway, it's Jerry more or less dismissing an idea that Laurel had given him of a title for the movie.

Standing next to him is Bill Richmond, a pal of his who co-wrote a number of Lewis pix and who occasionally did his Stan Laurel impression in them. In fact, he did it in The Bellboy, which explains why he had the costume there. And I'd write more but it's already taken you longer to read this than it will for you to watch the clip…

Vanity Fair offers an oral history of the outgoing Bush Administration. Even buying the interpretations of many within that administration, it ain't a pretty picture.

I have yet to make good on taking my friend Bob Elisberg to lunch. That's why he has time to write articles for The Huffington Post like this one, which explains why Dick Cheney is about as popular as cholera.

You might want to read the interview with Cheney in which he said, among other things, "…you can get just about any result you want out of a poll." That's true. Unfortunately, you can also get any result you want out of foreign intelligence reports when you're horny to start a war.

The fine comedy writer Marvin Silbermintz just sent me links to two great clips on the CBC Digital Archives, which is a website full of goodies once broadcast on Canadian TV.

In this link, a young comedy writer named David Letterman talks about his work, long before anyone had ever let him host a talk show. This was back in '78. He also spars a bit with his fellow guest, director Otto Preminger. It runs a little less than seven minutes.

And in this link, Buster Keaton (from back in '64), reflects on his career, including an eloquent discourse on how to make a good throwing pie. The sound goes in and out so it isn't your speakers. This one runs close to 25 minutes.

Then, on my own, I found this clip of Gilda Radner and Lorne Michaels discussing their new endeavor, Saturday Night Live, for about nineteen minutes. I also located this one which is a few minutes with a young Jay Leno and this one with John Candy working as a field reporter for a Canadian TV program. There are probably other goodies there but some of us have things to do today.