Monthly Archives: June 2009

For the last half-hour, Michael Jackson has been alive or not, depending on what channel you were watching. He managed to simultaneously be alive on Fox News, in a coma on CNN and dead on MSNBC. At one point on CNN, Wolf Blitzer was saying he was alive but in a coma while the crawl at the bottom of the screen said, "Michael Jackson dead." Eventually, they all got in sync.

There's something oddly appropriate about it. No one was ever too sure what was what with Michael, up to and sometimes even including his gender or race.

I worked with him in the eighties on a proposed Michael Jackson cartoon show for CBS. He didn't want to do it but had been persuaded by associates that he had to okay the project for business reasons. So I found myself in the odd position of trying to come up with something he'd like…and all the time, he was saying, "I'm a rock star…I don't want to be a cartoon character." Eventually, I moonwalked off the project and the cartoon series idea evaporated. Michael got his way.

As long as his albums were making zillions, Michael always got his way. Like Howard Hughes squirreled away like a hermit in a Vegas penthouse, there was always someone to cater to his every whim…and no one to tell him he was crazy. I met with him several times at an estate he had on Hayvenhurst in the Valley, just south of Ventura Boulevard. The way the conversations went, I got the idea that if Michael one day decided he wanted Ventura flooded with chocolate pudding, that would have happened by the time I drove home.

Based on my admittedly-limited contact with the man, I naturally assumed that his later problems were an outgrowth of what I witnessed. When he thought the public would understand that he could sleep with children and that no one would assume anything sexual, there was no one who could tell him, "Uh, Michael, I don't think that will get the reaction you assume." That became my theory but maybe that's not it. Maybe by then, people were telling him that and he refused to believe it…or care how it all went down. When I knew him, he thought it would harm his image to be seen as someone who primarily appealed to kids. Ten years later, he failed to stop the world from thinking he was molesting them.

Others can and will write volumes about his appeal, his electricity on a stage, his musical innovations…and the darker, money-challenged events of his last decade or so. I remember a certain lovable, impishness about the guy that occasionally peeked out between statements of total self-obsession. At one point, he was showing me around the estate and introducing me to his pets, and we had an exchange I will never forget.

I had been hired to create and develop the proposed cartoon show because, among other reasons, Michael had expressed some affection for the Richie Rich cartoon show, which I'd story-edited. On the grounds of his mansion, after showing me his llama and some small amusement park rides, he turned to me and said, "I love Richie Rich."

I said the same thing you'd say to the guy. I said, "Michael, you are Richie Rich."

He had an odd look on his face. There was always, by then, an odd look at his face but this particular one looked like it came from his brain and not from a surgeon. Then he grinned and said, "Thank you." That's the Michael Jackson I'd like to remember. I wish it could have stopped there.

The only time I ever met Farrah Fawcett, she wasn't Farrah Fawcett yet. It was pre-Charlie's Angels, pre-poster, pre-phenomenon. She was one of umpteen clients for a p.r. and management firm that had me writing some of its press releases, and I think I rewrote her official bio, which didn't take long. She hadn't done much of anything and there was no reason to suspect she would. She seemed nice enough but had the attention span of one of those insects with a two-hour life span.

She had just been signed as regular on one of my favorite TV shows, Harry O with David Janssen. I don't recall if she'd filmed her first episode yet but I do remember that she'd never seen the show. Nor was she all that interested in it. It was just a matter of what the exposure might do for her career. I gather that at some point later in her life, she decided to pay some attention to the acting part of her profession…and she wasn't bad at it.

I never quite understood why, apart from the old right time/right place luck, she became so famous. Beautiful she was….but so were thousands of others who never got those breaks. My sense was always that she was the answer…and the question, pondered by some powerful folks in Hollywood, was "Can we create a superstar?"

Apparently, they could. But the sad part of that is that it usually doesn't last long…these days, about as long the aforementioned insect's life-span.

Amidst all the expected damnation being laid upon Governor Mark Sanford for admitting his affair, some people are praising him for not trotting out "The Betrayed Spouse" to stand beside him and show forgiveness and support. Of course, that presumes that "The Betrayed Spouse" is willing to even be in the same room with the guy, and that she doesn't want to prune his crotch with a hedge trimmer. But he did speak respectfully of her and the "Other Woman" and that showed a certain amount of class.

There's an extent to which these things trigger a little alarm in me that says, "None of our business." What happened in the Sanford marriage oughta stay in the Sanford marriage, such as it is. Unfortunately, too much of this lapses into the area that is the public's business: Did he use government funds to go call on his friend in Argentina? Did he leave his state leaderless because of it? How do we feel about our elected officials lying about anything, even topics outside their job descriptions? The John Ensign scandal reportedly involved a certain amount of salary increases to the mistress and maybe payoffs to her hubby, and that of course moves that one somewhat out of the realm of a family in-house matter.

An e-mail from a friend (who admits she enjoys these revelations more than she should) tells me it's all relevant because we have an interest in knowing the "true character" of our elected officials and hearing how he cheated on his wife tells us oodles about Governor Sanford's "true character." I tend to think we know less about our leaders in that sense than we think we know; that they all erect carefully-managed public images and that even the occasional cracks in the veneer, like getting caught in an affair, only give us a brief, arbitrary glimpse inside. Whatever is now true of Sanford's personal integrity was just as true two weeks ago. We just didn't know about it then.

Where I have trouble in this area is in the sudden Changing of the Rules. When Bill Clinton got caught in his little marital infidelity, no one who thought they could score some political yardage on the play was shy about exploiting every corner of it. You ever take a real look at Ken Starr's report? It went way beyond cataloging the history relevant to the specific charges and tossed in every explicit detail they thought might embarrass Clinton into resigning. At the very least, they thought descriptions of the presidential genitalia would drive his approval ratings down to around what we would now call Cheney Numbers.

And guys like Mark Sanford were fine with that. During that period, he said of Clinton, "I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally [to resign]. I come from the business side, If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he'd be gone. I think what he did in this matter was reprehensible." In fact, I don't recall a single politician who thought he could advance himself or his agenda by condemning Bill Clinton even saying, "You know, I'm not comfy with digging into folks' sex lives like this…" Sanford may wind up having to resign as governor of South Carolina but it won't be because he decides it's better for the state and for him personally.

So here's what I'm wondering about…

Politicians of all parties get caught this way. If it's been a few weeks since a Democrat was nailed, don't worry — it'll all average out. But leaving Clinton aside — they really ganged up on him — it seems to go a little worse on Republicans. That's because they all seem to have these sanctimonious, Bible-laden quotes in their past in which they condemn anyone who strays even slightly over anything sexual. So that leaves them open to greater charges of hypocrisy, and I guess their supporters are a little less forgiving about such transgressions. (Would that some of them could generate a spark of outrage at breaches of financial ethics.)

Might part of the problem be that these guys, for career reasons, are afraid not to appear to be in storybook marriages with multiple children? Politicians do get divorced, of course. Reagan, McCain and Gingrich all did…but not when they were facing contentious elections. Enough time had to pass where they could pretend their prior wives were in the distant past.

Mark Sanford's wife separated from him two weeks ago. It's none of our business in the specific…but in a generic situation, imagining a politician in a similar position, might the candidate's future be a key factor in whether or not to divorce? Sanford obviously has/had presidential ambitions for 2012 and might well have been McCain's running mate last time. I suspect there's pressure on a political marriage to stay together because of what it does to the candidate's prospects. even when a separation might be better for All Concerned.

If we all were more tolerant of that kind of thing — as tolerant as we are of the plumber or your butcher leaving his wife — maybe we wouldn't have a new affair in the news every two weeks. Maybe some of these guys would have the common decency to properly end one union before launching into another. Then again, it would stil be rough on Republicans. It's tough to campaign for the Defense of Marriage Act while you're filing papers to get out of your own.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that beginning next year, the category of Best Picture at the Oscars will have ten nominees instead of the customary five. The official explanation is that the Board of Governors felt that last year, they had more than five qualified contenders and they thought it was a shame that good movies didn't get that special recognition of nomination.

Rough translation: Some number of powerful filmmakers and major studios pressured the Academy because they want the prestige and promotional value that comes with the nomination. A large reason for any award ceremony of this kind is to hype the product. The Academy probably also figures that it'll bolster interest in the Oscars if there are nominations for films like The Dark Knight and Iron Man. I don't mean movies based on comic books. I mean movies with a more populist appeal…the kind that traditionally get shut out of the nominations by films with loftier themes.

I don't know how this will go over. If we wind up with ten superior nominees this year, it might look like a good idea. If something with Adam Sandler in it snags a Best Picture nomination, it might not. Five is just an arbitrary number. They had five nominees in years when there were twelve great movies and five nominees in years with three great films. Now, ten will be the arbitrary number. It has changed in the past. It may change again. If it sticks around a while, we'll probably see more nominees in the other categories. And then the Oscar telecast can run another hour or two.

We seem to be having a marathon of elected officials confessing to affairs. I believe so far, they've all been men who were quite fervent in supporting the Defense of Marriage Act.

These revelations are hard on their families and supporters…but you know who's really suffering? Jay Leno. Imagine the poor guy sitting at home, playing with cars, wallowing in monologue jokes about this and no place on TV to tell them.

Attention, Conan O'Brien and NBC: How about having Jay come out and just do the first seven minutes of The Tonight Show for a while? People would love to see that…and Conan, you don't even enjoy that part, anyway. It's obvious. Letterman beat you Monday and Tuesday nights and he'll probably top you tonight, too. America wants to see late night comics take these guys apart and Jay knew how to do it.

Paul Harris has posted the audio of a long interview he did with Ed McMahon back in 2000. Paul's a great interviewer and Ed, perhaps by virtue of putting in all those years on Johnny's couch, was a great interviewee.

There's a joke about a sky diver whose chute doesn't open and a horrified crowd watches him plunging towards certain death…and then at the last second, a fluke gust of wind blows him into a haystack and he lands without a scratch on him. The onlookers all run up to the guy and one says, "My God…you're the luckiest man in the world!"

And the man replies, "No, [name of very wealthy celebrity who doesn't seem to have ever done much of anything] is the luckiest man in the world!"

These days when that joke's told, the inserted name is probably Simon Cowell or Keanu Reeves (is he still famous?) or someone like that. For a long time, whenever I heard the joke, it was Alan Thicke. But when I first heard it, the name in there was Ed McMahon.

It's unfair, of course. All those people do or did very popular things…but they had that sense of having gotten it all by chance, by being in the right place at the right time. Ed McMahon wasn't much different from dozens of professional announcers when he got the job working with Johnny Carson on a game show. He didn't do anything that others couldn't. Still, he fit right in and provided Carson with an anchor and someone to play off. At times, Ed's main function was as a kind of lifeguard. No matter how silly or bizarre things got, Johnny could go to him in moments of crisis and there was someone rock-steady to help him pull himself out of a hole. When Carson got The Tonight Show, he took Ed along as kind of security blanket.

A week or two ago here, I quoted former Tonight Show head writer Hank Bradford about the value of McMahon. Hank is aghast that while all of Johnny's successors — guys who now host that kind of show — cite Carson as the role model and the guy who did everything right, they all think they don't need an Ed. Carson never thought that. There was a period in Tonight Show history when McMahon's extracurricular activities, like selling Budweiser or hosting Star Search, caused him to not be there some nights for sidekick duty. Johnny finally sat him down and said that was not acceptable.

Ed was no dummy. He knew that everything he had, he had by the grace of Carson. His schedule was quickly adjusted, even though it probably cost him some serious money, so that he was always there when Johnny was there.

Before each show, he gave great warm-up. It was the same each night, almost word for word, but it worked. He delivered his employer a hot audience and then stood by, ready to be called upon if Johnny got into trouble or if Don Rickles needed someone to call a fat drunk. He learned Carson's timing and certain looks Johnny might give him that would cue his participation. One night when Mr. Carson said, "I'll never forget when I learned there was no Santa Claus…I was just devastated," Ed knew enough to jump in and ask, "How old were you?" so Johnny could immediately say, "Thirty-seven."

In person, Ed was a little bossy, a little phony, a little eager to prove he was more than Johnny's stooge. He occasionally tried acting or nightclub performing…never to any lasting success. He did a lot better as a pitchman or a host, but those were just ancillary perks of the Carson gig. Without it, he was just another announcer. In a way, it was perfect casting to have him doing those commercials where he'd go around, presenting contest entrants with checks that made them wealthy. It was one lottery winner passing the luck on to another.

This evening, Carolyn and I went to dinner at what previously was one of our favorite restaurants. We like the menu. We like the furnishings and the mood and the comfort…and we used to like the food.

About eighteen months ago there, I got a pretty sorry plate of fish 'n' chips. I'd had it there before and enjoyed it but that night, I got bad fish and bad chips. Okay, that happens even in the best of places from time to time. I didn't hold it against the restaurant.

A few months later, we gave 'em another try. This time, I wound up with bad prime rib and bad mashed potatoes…quite a surprise since mashed potatoes are pretty difficult to ruin, and prime rib is one of the signature dishes of this establishment. On the way out, I told Carolyn, "Get a good look at the decor…it'll be a long time before I bring you back here."

This evening, I guess I was in a forgiving mood…plus, I had a certificate for $25 off. So we gave it what turned out to be its last chance and I tried the fish 'n' chips again. The chips were bland and the fish had that taste that makes something in your tummy say, "Stop sending crap like that down here!" I ate one of four pieces and not only didn't like them but started feeling queasy. My stomach has always been pretty sensitive to faulty cuisine and since I had its size reduced, it's become even more apt to go rogue on me.

The waiter took a largely-uneaten plate away and I had him instead bring me a plain baked potato…which turned out to also not be very good. How do you ruin a baked potato? In this case, I suspect, by cooking it hours ago and leaving it in some kind of warmer for way too long. Carolyn found her entree (sea bass) edible but not wonderful, and when she bravely sampled what I had in front of me, she concurred that all was not right.

The manager came over — a well-dressed man who, Carolyn said, reeked of cigarettes. I didn't smell that but things were a little blurry for me at that moment and she was closer to him than I was. He was polite and asked that we give his business another try in the future…but he seemed pretty certain that the food could not possibly be at fault. He had tasted an untouched piece from my plate, he said, and it was fine. As further proof, he noted that they get a delivery of fish every morning. Not being at my best just then, I didn't think to ask, "Is it within the realm of possibility that your supplier brought you a piece of bad fish? Or that it hasn't been properly refrigerated since this morning?" But given his manner, I'm sure he would have said, "No, that is not humanly possible." And of course, no one else has complained about anything this evening or lately.

Bottom line: I was apparently wrong that the fish tasted awful and was making me ill.

Well, that was it for one of my favorite restaurants. Had the man said, "Well, of course it's possible something went wrong in the kitchen…we'll make sure it never happens again," he might have given me a reason to think things would be different on a future visit. As it is, if I give 'em yet another try and dislike my meal, I'll feel like the biggest ninny in this hemisphere…so we'll go elsewhere. There are plenty of elsewheres out there.

I had three thoughts after we left. One was to wonder why he thought I was complaining if the meal was fine. Did he think, "This clown just doesn't know what good food tastes like"? Did he think I was trying some sort of scam to get a free dinner? I was there with that coupon, after all. It meant I was a longtime customer — so obviously, I've properly appreciated their cooking there at some point. I was also not paying much for the meal anyway.

The second thought was this: The place wasn't very crowded. When Carolyn phoned for a reservation, she was told, "You don't need one…we're practically empty." They were, and maybe that explains why the food didn't taste fresh. When the joint is full, there are probably freshly-baked potatoes coming out of the oven every few minutes. When they're only serving one or two taters an hour, I'm guessing they bake a whole batch at once and then the spuds sit around for a while and get a microwave blast just before serving.

Which brings us with Thought #3: As we all know, retailers everywhere are hurting these days. In April, the National Restaurant Association reported falling sales for the eleventh consecutive month. I'm thinking that maybe if your dining establishment is losing patrons because it's declining in quality, you might not realize that…because you'd think it was just the bad economy.

I just stumbled across this and it's kinda funny. You all know Billy Mays, the guy who sells Oxi-Clean and Kaboom and…well, he can sell just about anything. Obama oughta hire the guy to sell his health plan.

Anyway, someone went out and registered www.billymays.net and another domain bearing that name and this person is hoping to get Mr. Mays to buy them from him at a profit. Click on the link and see how he's trying to entice his buyer.

I won't be there to see it but the Goodman Theater in Chicago will be mounting a new production of Animal Crackers in September. Apart from Cocoanuts, I can't think of another play where you have to get folks to impersonate exactly the actors who originated the roles on Broadway. When you do My Fair Lady, you might cast a Higgins who reminds people of Rex Harrison…but you don't get a guy and make him up to look like Rex Harrison and have him slavishly imitate Rex Harrison's voice. When you do Animal Crackers or Cocoanuts, however, you need to find folks who can replicate Groucho, Harpo and Chico…and if you want to be really faithful, Zeppo as well. (That's the hard part. There aren't a lot of good Zeppo Marx impersonators working these days…)

I dunno if the Goodman Theater company is doing what's customary in this kind of revival, which is to stick to the original text — probably a lot closer than the Marx Brothers ever did — but to interpolate other, more popular songs by the same composer(s). Other Irving Berlin tunes have a way of sneaking into revivals of Cocoanuts while hit tunes that Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby wrote for other shows often turn up in new productions of Animal Crackers.

I'm not familiar with any of the actors who've been cast but you can see their names, photos and brief bios over in this section of the Goodman Theater website. The most controversial choice presumably will be that Harpo's role will be played by a woman. In most productions of Animal Crackers, Harpo did a lot of chasing ladies around stage. It should make for an interesting subtext.

Thanks to "Shiai" for reminding me that I wanted to write about this. If anyone reading this attends, I expect a full report.

Statistician-analyst Nate Silver looks at the polls regarding health care and concludes the following…

The bottom line is that the health care debate is not really being played out in the court of public opinion. If it were, Congress would pass a robust plan with a public option that was funded by raising taxes on cigarettes, booze, and people making over $250,000, and we'd live happily ever after (or not). Rather, this is a behind-the-scenes fight at the committee level, where certain senators who have ample financial incentives to please the insurance industry have a disproportionate amount of control over the process.

I'm generally not one to carp about special interest money — seeing politics through that lens is often an overly reductive formulation that serves as a catch-all excuse any time Congress does something you don't like. But on something like the public option, which has broad public support and which would probably reduce — not increase — the long-run bill to the taxpayers, it is just about the only way to explain what's going on in Washington.

I'm quoting this because I agree with it. I don't always agree with everything I quote but I agree with this.