Monthly Archives: May 2009

Wanna read a long and gushy interview with Jay and Mavis Leno discussing their marriage? Maybe not. But if you do, there's the link.

Tom Spurgeon offers sound advice (and a lot of it) about the upcoming Comic-Con International in San Diego. I concur with darn near all of it, especially the point about how if you're gonna go, you'd better commit to that now and firm up your plans. Those who complain to me that they didn't have a good time at the con are usually those who didn't get the necessities of travel settled well in advance.

Michael Ryan writes…

I am not going to try and convince you of the merits of professional wrestling. Speaking as someone who writes about it and for it and helps promote shows in Montreal, it can frequently be a sordid world where the talent is ruthlessly taken advantage of by the promoters putting on the shows, much like the rest of show business in fact except without even the fig-leaf of union protection that writers and performers like you have.

And this is why you are wrong about Jesse Ventura, specifically about this: "The man's first claim to fame was in professional wrestling, an occupation where you can't utter five sentences without lying in at least two of them.

OK, yes technically this is correct, the same way that it is true of any actor. Unless you would like to suggest that June Foray is in fact a flying squirrel? Would you have said the same thing about Norm MacDonald?

Jesse Ventura played a role on camera. His famous line was "Win if you can; Lose if you must; But always Cheat!" But that character was not him.

(Sure wrestling had a huge advantage of other show business professions that the suspension of disbelief is easier if people believe from the outset that what they are watching is real, an advantage that wrestling no longer has. And you may not necessarily believe this, but wrestling is a story-telling art form. Like any such art form it can be brilliant or wretched.)

From all that I have heard from wrestlers of that time period, Jesse Ventura was a gentleman backstage. Opinionated with an ego like any star, he nonetheless was one of the few wrestlers to stand up to promoters famously with Vince McMahon to argue for the protection of all wrestlers not just the well-paid stars. That the promoters should provide health care and other benefits for the wrestlers and that they should allow the wrestlers to form a union. Rare among his peers, he said this publicly and openly while he was a star and in fact Vince fired him from the WWF as a result. (He landed another gig with WCW soon after.) Unfortunately, wrestlers are as hard to organize as cats and no one has ever been successful at organizing a wrestler's union, but no one ever risked as much when they were a star to try and bring one about.

Having once produced a special for CBS with a cast of pro wrestlers (and Vince McMahon as exec producer), I know a fair amount about that world…and all you say about working conditions is true. All you say about Mr. Ventura's rabble-rousing to improve them is also probably true. But when I wrote about wrestlers lying, I was referring to one key part of their job and it's where your analogy to June Foray or Norm MacDonald doesn't work.

There is no one alive who thinks June is really a flying squirrel and if you ever asked her, she'd tell you that every line she utters that suggests that is fiction. On the other mitt, there are actually people on this planet who think that the outcome of most pro wrestling matches is not predetermined…or at least think the games are a lot less scripted than they are. And whenever I've seen someone ask Jesse Ventura if his old wrestling matches were rigged or planned or fixed, he changes the subject, attacks the questioner, and generally fudges the truth as baldly as any politician he condemns for the same kind of tap-dancing.

Now, granted: Lying about whether a wrestling match was rigged is nowhere near the same sin as lying about C.I.A. intelligence or the circumstances of war. And I suppose a case could be made that since Jesse's wrestling days are behind him, he's just trying to not piss on his old livelihood and perhaps disminish it for those still working in those salt mines. My point was just that his old job afforded plenty of practice at avoiding the truth and fighting dirty…two skills that come in handy when one runs for elected office.

I like Jesse in a way. I don't always agree with him and I don't feel qualified to say if he was as poor a governor as the polls in Minnesota would seem to indicate. But I like that he's not out there parroting Talking Points or hedging his views to protect his political options. I also think it's great to have a few loud Libertarians out there, especially of the kind that don't compromise their views of the Constitution for the sake of personal expediency or gain. He adds a lot more to the public debate than any dozen Democrats or Republicans…even when I think he's wrong. I just think that back in his wrasslin' days, he did an awful lot of fibbing.

What's the most exciting thing we'll see on Broadway this year? Probably pedestrian traffic.

I think Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is one of the smartest men in politics today. My friend Roger reacts to this as if I was claiming the hottest woman ever on TV was Moms Mabley…or something of the sort. He hates Frank and pronounces the "D-Mass" as "dumbass" every time he mentions his name, which is great political rhetoric if you happen to be in third grade.

Recently at American University in Washington, DC, Representative Frank received an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree and gave a stirring commencement address. I can't embed it here but if you'd like to watch it, there's a video on this page. The whole thing, including the introduction of him, runs about 19 minutes. I especially liked his comments on idealism versus pragmatism…

I am a great believer in free speech. I would let people say all kinds of things about each other. I would let them show pictures of each other doing various things, as long as we are talking about adults. If I could ban speech I would do a couple of things: First of all, I would make it illegal to use metaphors in public policy debates…that's a part. I would also make it a felony to say "Oh, you can do that because you are pragmatic but I am idealistic." Understand that the more deeply you hold your ideals, the more you are morally obligated to be pragmatic. Because ideals that are not implemented do nothing but make you feel morally superior. They never fed a hungry kid, they never cleaned up a polluted river, they never built a road that got people anywhere. So yeah, you should be pragmatic after you are idealistic. Pragmatism in the service of idealism is what you need. Idealism without pragmatism is just a way to flatter your ego.

There are other thoughts in his speech that I liked. Watch it and hear some of them.

The California Supreme Court will rule Tuesday on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the recent ballot measure that reinstated a ban on same-sex marriage. The ruling will also determine whether 18,000 (or so) same-sex marriages will continue to be recognized by the state.

As readers of this blog know, I think it's ridiculous that two folks of the same gender who are already "married" in many senses cannot be man-and-man or wife-and-wife in every sense. I also think it's inevitable that gay wedlock will become legal and commonplace, and that we'll look back on efforts to block it with much the same attitude we now have towards racial segregation or not allowing women to vote. But I'm thinking it just might not be a great thing if my state's high court decided to overturn the ballot measure. I think I'd rather see it overturned by another ballot measure…as it will be, next time we're asked to vote on it. Some polls even indicate Proposition 8 would fail if we voted on it today.

I guess I'm wondering out loud here if it wouldn't be better to do it that way, thereby making the decision The Will of the People instead of The Will of the California Supreme Court. If the justices overturn it, they may be legally correct but we'll then have to hear about "activist judges" who think they know better than the citizens of the state and are thwarting "our" decision. That kind of thing could energize the anti-gay forces just as they're losing strength. A lot of people are willing to accept same-sex marriage as something that society has decided is okay but not as something some court has forced upon us. Yeah, I know it might take longer to make gay wedlock the law of our land if we wait 'til it can get on a ballot again…but it also might make people on the fence more apt to be comfy with it and not provide swing votes for its opponents.

On the other hand, I think it would be cruel and inhumane if the court were to somehow void or rescind all the same-sex marriages that have already taken place. Those folks followed the law as it stood on their wedding days. I hope the Tuesday decision doesn't tear them asunder.

Members of the Screen Actors Guild are currently voting on a long-awaited contract. Here's a video that runs almost ten minutes which features a lot of familiar faces explaining why they're voting against it…

Not being a member of SAG, I don't get a ballot…but I have read and heard a lot of the pro and con arguments. The video above gives some (not all) of the arguments against. The "pro" arguments all seem to sidestep the question of what's actually in the contract and to make two points. One is that SAG is so deeply divided that it cannot mount the kind of strike and solidarity that would be necessary to improve it. The other is that the contract's expiration date is roughly the same as that of all the other major Hollywood unions. There is, therefore, a chance that all those unions could link arms in a few years, sing a few choruses of "Kumbaya" and mount an all-out, shut-the-town-down-'til-we-get-what-we-deserve work stoppage.

That's possible. But it's also so unprecedented and world-shaking that it's hard to have a lot of confidence that it will happen. Producers aren't, for the most part, stupid. They have calendars. They must be pretty sure they can head that off…which doesn't mean they can. Maybe they can, maybe they can't. Still, it seems foolish to me to take a bad deal this time because you're confident you can get it all back (and more) next time.

The first argument has some merit and it sadly reminds me of the way my union, the Writers Guild of America, folded in 1985 and took a terrible, terrible deal. In fact, it was such a rotten deal that it not only cost us billions but — and read the rest of this sentence carefully — it put us so far down that it practically guaranteed we'd have to strike in '88 just to dig our way out a little from the pit into which we'd been dumped.

I usually don't like penile analogies in labor matters. A contract or a strike should be about arriving at a deal that works for all parties, not about proving that someone is tougher than someone else. Still, the best way to describe what went on in the WGA back then is as follows: In '85, we gave up one testicle rather than go to war and then in '88, we had to go to war in order to keep the other one. It would have been a lot easier and less costly to fight the first war.

Alas, what happened in 1985 was that our leadership splintered and collapsed. Those of us who wanted to fix bayonets and charge into battle looked at the front of the hall and didn't see anyone capable of leading us to the men's room, let alone to war. Everyone up there was too busy fighting with everyone else. I voted against the contract but I could certainly understand the resignation of my friends who agreed it was a sucky deal but felt the game was lost and it was time to move on.

I fear SAG is now in a comparable position. What the WGA and DGA got was acceptable. The SAG offer is the same in some regards, different in others, and it adds in a lot of terms that are unique to actors and quite pernicious. In an ideal world (which despite the election of Barack Obama, we don't seem to have just yet), the actors would demonstrate grand solidarity, vote it into oblivion and within 48 hours, the producers would have a new, more benevolent one on the table. For lack of unity and leadership, that ain't gonna happen. If the contract does fail, which seems doubtful, it will be by a small margin. That's like going into a war where the other side has a nuclear arsenal and you're armed with Daisy Air Rifles.

I don't know what's going to happen except that SAG doesn't have the kind of leadership necessary to fight this thing. The Board of Directors vote to recommend this contract was 53.38% to 46.62%…pretty much split right down the ol' middle. There will probably be a lot of members who'll vote Yes because though they know the deal stinks, they feel like my friends did in '85.

How would I vote? I'd vote No but I'd brace myself for losing this one…or maybe worse, winning by a tiny margin. But fortunately, I don't have to vote. I'm not a professional actor whose career is involved with the Screen Actors Guild. At the moment, that feels like a good thing not to be.

Over on a website called Eclipse Magazine, I see the following news item…

Director Kenneth Branagh and legendary Marvel Comics writers Stan Lee and Jack Kirby have found the man they want to step into the role of The Mighty Thor and have cast Australian born Chris Hemsworth as the hammer swinging action hero.

It's nice of them to give Jack a writing credit but it's even nicer of him to help them cast their movie, fifteen years after he passed away.

Speaking of the Comic-Con, as I believe I just was: This year, to note the fortieth assemblage, the convention crew has concocted a hardcover book jammed with convention memories — hundreds of photos, old ads, reproductions of past badges, anecdotes, schedules, etc. Gary Sassaman and Jackie Estrada did the heavy lifting and…well, I just got an advance copy and it's a glorious, memory-jogging book for anyone who's ever ventured to one of these events. I haven't crawled through every inch of it yet but what I've gone through has been just about perfect.

And hey, it's worth the price alone just for the wraparound cover by Sergio Aragonés. If you look closely (see the detail I isolated below), you can spot Sergio and me being pedal-cabbed to the con. That's how we usually arrive, except that before I lost all that weight, it took six cyclists to get us there.

I dunno if the book will be available anywhere before the con but that may not matter. You're going to want to purchase your copy at the con. It'll just be more appropriate that way.

Joan Alexander, the original voice of Lois Lane on radio, has died at the age of 94. That's her in the above photo, posing with Harry Donenfeld (the publisher of the Superman comic books) and Bud Collyer, the radio voice of The Man of Steel. She was best known for that program but she appeared in an awful lot of other programs, and also had a decent career in television. Among her other jobs, she was a panelist on the game show, The Name's The Same, which we've occasionally discussed here.

This obit will tell you a lot more than I can, but it does have one thing wrong. It says she and Collyer did the radio roles in the 17 Superman cartoons produced by Max Fleischer and Famous Studios in the forties. Actually, the last few had very good sound-alikes, not Collyer and Alexander.

One thing in that obit surprised me. It said she had once been married to actor John Sylvester White, who was best known for playing Mr. Woodman, the beleaguered principal on Welcome Back, Kotter. I knew John pretty well when I worked on that show. He was a charming man who talked openly about his past, which included destroying his career for many years at a time via alcohol…but he never mentioned that he was once married to Lois Lane.

The Comic-Con International in San Diego has sold out for Thursday. Tickets for Friday and Saturday were gone weeks ago. Sunday passes will probably be gone before this month is out.

This is May. The convention isn't until July 23-26…two months from now. Amazing.

It may also interest many of you that a couple of terrific Guests of Honor have been added to an already-stellar list…the legendary comic genius Stan Freberg and his wonderful wife, Hunter. We are officially delighted.

I will be hosting my usual marathon of panels and events, including all your old faves — The Golden Age Panel, The Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel, Quick Draw!, a couple of Cartoon Voice Actor panels and many more. There'll be a special spotlight event for the First Lady of Cartoon Voices, June Foray, and one with the Frebergs, as well. The whole schedule won't be up until some time in July, I would imagine.

This will be the fortieth of these conventions and the fortieth I've attended. Matter of fact, some of the programming this year will be devoted to the history of the con, and we'll be recalling those days at the El Cortez Hotel when it was a big deal that there were three thousand people there. At this year's con, there'll be three thousand people ahead of you in line to buy a Diet Snapple. But it's still going to be great. At least, it has been the last thirty-nine times…