Monthly Archives: February 2009

Hey, I thought I'd tell you about seven great free (!) programs I've found on the Internet…software that makes my life at this computer a lot easier. These are just for us PC users and you download and use these at your own risk. In other words, I wouldn't listen to me if I were you.

• There are now about eight skillion file formats for audio and video…and even when you have software that will play FLV files, it sometimes won't play all FLV files. Well, so far I haven't come across an audio or video file that VLC Media Player couldn't handle. I've directed all my file types to ignore Windows Media Player and other such programs and to just open with VLC. [UPDATE: Yes, there is a MAC version of this program.]
• My hard disk got cluttered with multiple copies of files, especially ones I'd downloaded from the 'net. The answer? Doublekiller will search the folders you specify and show you which files are exact matches even if they have different filenames.
• As I clean up my hard disk using things like Doublekiller, I wind up with a lot of empty directories. That's why I need Remove Empty Directories.
• Many programs like to add themselves to your startup groups so they'll load every time you boot or reboot your computer. You probably don't want all of them there and you sometimes don't know where they hide themselves. You can find out what's loading and from where with Startup Optimizer.
• I had a lot of files that I needed to rename and I didn't want to sit there doing it hundreds of times. So I downloaded Bulk Rename Utility and it enabled me to rename them quite rapidly. It takes a few minutes to learn but once you do, watch out.
• I've been through a number of font utilities, some of which cost serious bucks. But the utterly free Font Xplorer does everything I need.
• Need to convert your Mozilla Firefox Bookmarks to Internet Explorer Favorites? Or vice-versa? Or do you need to convert Chrome or Opera or Safari or some other browser's placeholders? Then you'll like Transmute.

Like I said: Use 'em at your own risk. But they've worked for me so maybe they'll work for you.

I just read a couple of articles about the budget crisis in California. I think someone owes Gray Davis a big apology for about half of the reasons they gave for ousting him as governor.

When Jud Meyers was a young boy (he doesn't say how young) he snuck away from home and without his mother's knowledge or permission, ran off to visit the offices of DC Comics. You might enjoy reading his story.

Speaking of Stan Freberg, as I was just yesterday here, there's a company called DRG Records which, of course, does not make records. But they do make CDs, and they've just issued a new 2-CD set of Freberg gems. It's called Stan Freberg: The Capitol Singles Collection and it features 35 of the best things Stan ever did. Thirty of them are recordings he did for Capitol as singles. (In a few cases, one was the flip side of another in this set.) The other five are routines he did either for his radio show or for his legendary album, Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Vol. I…but they're cuts that were later released as singles so I guess they qualify.

Wherever they came from, they're joyous creations and they're also very funny, too. Stan did smart material but he also — and this is easy to forget when the work is smart — was very funny. He's still very funny. I was over at his house last month and he was very funny.

In the meantime, a British company has brought out a CD called International Lampoon that has some of the same material on it but also has something else interesting. Stan did a lot of parodies of contemporary (then) records. He did a send-up of Mr. Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" that would qualify him, I maintain, as the first-ever Elvis Impersonator. He did spoofs of Eartha Kitt and Harry Belafonte and Les Paul & Mary Ford and others. This new CD includes not only Stan's take-offs but the original material, as well. You can hear the hit Johnnie Ray song, "Cry," and then you can hear Freberg's burlesque of it…and so on. A clever bit of packaging.

One of the impressive things about Freberg was that it wasn't always necessary to know what he was parodying to enjoy his work. The Dragnet satire he did with Daws Butler, "St. George and the Dragonet," was a smash hit in Australia even before the Dragnet show was ever broadcast there. As a kid, I loved a lot of his records without even knowing they were based on anything pre-existing. Still, it's a great idea to match 'em up so folks who aren't familiar with the original can compare the mockery.

So these are two great CD packages. The only things wrong with them are the weird covers. The Capitol Singles Collection uses this bizarre caricature of Stan that was done for a British album of his work more than twenty years ago. It didn't look anything like him then and it doesn't look anything like him now. The International Lampoon sports a photo of Stan showing his flying saucer prop to Dick Clark. The saucer was the one that Stan's puppet Orville used to live in…but Orville isn't on the cover or, for that matter, on the CD. But Dick Clark, who isn't on the CD either, is on the cover. I don't understand any of this.

You can order the Capitol Records Collection from Amazon by clicking here and you can order the International Lampoon from Amazon by clicking here. Both come with great contents and stupid covers.

A few weeks ago one Saturday morning at 4 AM, I was driving around, looking for something to eat. Don't ask what I was doing up at that hour. You don't want to know.

But I was and I had a sudden need to eat something (anything) and not a lot of time to locate it. I remembered an "open 24 hours" diner in the area and headed there only to find that it's now a "closes at Midnight" diner. I wound up pulling into the only thing I saw that was open — a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl shop.

At 4 AM in this part of town, you can't get a prescription filled. You can't buy medicine or emergency supplies or even get Breakfast. If the future of mankind was riding on it, you couldn't get your hands on a Holy Bible. But you can get a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl.

A lot of them are open all night, I've noticed, and I wonder why. When all the other restaurants and fast food establishments have closed, why does it make economic sense for Yoshinoya Beef Bowl to be open? Do people have a lot of sudden, middle-of-the-night cravings for Yoshinoya Beef Bowls?

Apparently so because the place was semi-packed, albeit with people who looked like they had nowhere else to go. I found myself mentally asking them, "Why are you people here at four in the morning?", forgetting for a moment that if I had a reason to be there, it wasn't so impossible that they did. There was one couple there that looked like they were on a date. Is there anything more romantic than sharing a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl at 4 in the morning? Where's he going to take her when they want to go to someplace fancier? Arby's at dawn?

I bought myself a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl. In case you've never savored the experience, it comes in a styrofoam tub and part of the fun is figuring out where the styrofoam leaves off and the beef begins. They fill it full of rice and then they add in a load of fatty beef strips about the thickness of oxygen and there's also an oniony juice and little pieces of mushy onion. The onion parts are pretty good and the rest is…well, filling. Then again, so is eating the bowl, I'd wager.

I ate about a third of my sumptuous repast, which was more than enough, and pitched the rest. On my way out, I saw a homeless (obviously) fellow approaching and I immediately imagined what was about to happen. He'd ask me for a couple of bucks to get something to eat and being a generous sort but not wanting to give him cash he'd use for liquor, I'd offer to take him in and buy him a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl. To this, he'd say, "Thanks but I'm not that hungry."

It didn't go like that. He walked right past me and as I got into my car, I heard him ask the security guard out front if there was anyplace else around to get a meal. The guard told him no, not within walking distance. As I pulled out of the lot, I saw him wandering off. Even the homeless have some standards, I guess. And they're apparently higher than mine.

In honor of Joaquin Phoenix's, uh, memorable appearance with David Letterman last week, Time Magazine offers us a "Top Ten" list of what they call disastrous interviews with Dave. Some of them, like Drew Barrymore flashing her breasts at Dave, don't strike me as particularly disastrous by any definition…but the odd inclusion is the one where Andy Kaufman was slapped by wrestler Jerry Lawler. A sightless aborigine could tell that the whole thing was a stunt cooked up by Kaufman and Lawler but Time actually says, "…many have claimed that it was staged — just another Kaufman goof," suggesting that they're uncertain.

150 years ago, Oregon became a state. And 50 years ago, the Oregon Centennial Commission commissioned my hero, satirist Stan Freberg to create an original work to celebrate the glory of their state. It was called "Oregon, Oregon" and it was nothing less than a 21-minute musical comedy performed as a record and debuted on radio.

NPR reports that Stan has been asked to compose a new fourth act for what was formerly a three-act play. You can listen to a short story about this on that page but even better, there's a link via which you can hear the original version in its entirety. Take the time. It's quite wonderful.

Years ago, I saw this wonderful interview with Tip O'Neill, who was then the Speaker of the House. The following is a paraphrase from memory.

O'Neill said that in Congress, the job of each party's leader was to be able to count; that if you were ever surprised by any vote by more than a margin of more than one in the Senate or three in the House, you were utterly incompetent and should resign. And the importance of being able to count was that there are often (quite often) bills that you want to vote against and still see pass or vice-versa…so you have to make sure you don't accidentally pass or defeat a bill just because you're voting in opposition to the way you want to see it go.

He told a story about a Congressman from one state. There was a bill pending that would have been very good for this guy's state and he thought it should pass…but the hardcore part of his base back home was opposed to it. They were a small minority but he couldn't afford politically to tick them off. So he kept coming to O'Neill and asking, "Have you got the votes, Tip?" Meaning, "Will it be safe for me to vote against it so I can please the nut jobs?" And he was a happy man when O'Neill informed him there were enough votes to pass the bill even without his.

You get the feeling that's what we just went through with the Stimulus Bill? Arlen Specter made a statement the other day that an unnamed Republican senator who'd voted against it told him how pleased he was that it had passed. This article says a lot of G.O.P. legislators are delighted with portions of the bill they voted against.

Obviously, it's possible to be happy about one piece and unhappy with the whole. But it's also possible that the Republicans didn't dare obstruct this bill and that they were always going to deliver enough moderate votes to pass the thing. You think maybe?

The great cartoonist Jerry Robinson appeared at the New York Comic Con last weekend, interviewed by my pal Danny Fingeroth. This report will tell you a lot about what was discussed but I don't believe this line…

"The thing that's so impressive is how much work he's done on behalf of persecuted cartoonists and guys like Joe Siegel and Jerry Schuster," Fingeroth said.

Danny wouldn't mangle the names of Superman's creators like that but it's astounding how many people do. ("Joe Siegel" makes an appearance in the new book on the life and art of Dave Stevens, too.) I probably make too much of this but how difficult is it to remember it's Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster?

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. How difficult is that? Especially when you cut-and-paste like I just did.

That mistake will not be made on March 5 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. That's when it'll be my turn to interview Jerry Robinson (again) in conjunction with the Skirball's ongoing exhibition, "ZAP! POW! BAM! The Superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938-1950." It opens February 19 and it'll be there 'til August 9, but try to get there on March 5 to hear Jerry. Tickets are now available at this link.

Also! Skirball associate curator Erin Clancey and I will be discussing the exhibit this coming Thursday on Patt Morrison's radio show, heard on KPCC radio, which is 89.3 on your FM dial. Patt's popular public affairs program is heard from 1 PM to 3 PM, Monday through Friday. Erin and I will be on the last twenty (or so) minutes of Thursday's show. We will not be mispronouncing the names of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Two weeks from today, many of us will be descending on San Francisco for the annual WonderCon. I've been to most of these and always had a good time. No reason to expect this year will be any different. If you're within range, come and enjoy a huge hall full of interesting people to meet and fun things to purchase. There's even some exciting programming (here's the whole schedule) and I'll be hosting a number of panels (here's my schedule).

WonderCon is the perfect event for those who think the Comic-Con International in San Diego is too huge to handle. It's run by the same folks and they're really, really good at running conventions. (I've been to enough of them to know this.) It's large enough that there's never a moment you could be bored but not so large that you have to reset the time zone on your iPhone as you cross the dealer's room. Take a look at the schedule and the guest list and consider going.

For those who'll be in S.F. that weekend, two plugs: Frank Ferrante — oft-mentioned on this blog for his incredible simulation of Julius "Groucho" Marx — will be performing two shows in that town on Saturday, February 28 at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. Some tix may still be available but won't be for long. Go here to see if you can get in.

And on Monday, March 2, I'll be teaching a class in Animation Voice Acting at the Voice One workshop over on Third Street. I did this last year and they asked me back…so I guess someone got something out of it. If you're interested in how to work towards a career in that field, I'll be glad to tell you what I can.

I think that's everything for now. Here's one of those snazzy banners I make up if you want to click and see what I'm doing at WonderCon…