Monthly Archives: February 2010

Greg Ehrbar tips me to another BBC radio documentary you might like. It's called Open Sesame and it's an hour-long celebration of the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street. Hurry if you wanna listen because it expires in five days.

Fred Kaplan tells us that Sarah Palin doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. Oh, yeah. Like we needed Fred to tell us that.

Just saw a promo for a new NBC series called Parenthood that I guess is debuting in March. I don't know if the show spends a lot of time there but the promo was shot at University High School in West Los Angeles. As we all know, many famous stars attended Uni Hi, including Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, Jan and Dean, Marilyn Monroe and me.

Well, sort of. Back in the thirties and forties, child stars who were under contract to a studio usually attended classes at those studios. These "schools" were operated in conjunction with the L.A. City School System and when it came time for some young actress or actor to get a diploma, it was officially issued by a regular school…usually, University High. So Judy Garland and Elizabeth Taylor technically graduated from Uni, although there's no evidence they ever set foot on its campus. (Another alumnus was Roddy McDowall. The one time I met him, I asked if he'd ever been there. He said he went over one afternoon in 1946, picked up his "sheepskin" — that's what he called it — then got a handshake from the principal and that was it. His graduation ceremony sounds like it was more fun than mine. I had to wear a silly gown, march in and out as per hours of rehearsal, and listen to a speech by Tom Bradley, who had just lost his race to become Mayor of Los Angeles.)

Jan and Dean met while attending Uni and went off to record surf music, and Norma Jean Baker, long before she became Marilyn Monroe, was a Uni dropout. There were other celebs there including Jeff Bridges and David Cassidy, and Uni itself has appeared in many movies. The two most memorable were probably Billie (1965) starring Patty Duke as a track star and Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971) starring Rock Hudson as a heterosexual. Patty was more convincing as the track star. The TV shows Arrested Development and My So-Called Life are among many that have shot there. Once upon a time, this all interested me a lot more than it does today.

I graduated in 1969 and have only been back there once since…around '84 to lecture to a class of aspiring writers. Wandering the campus, I was amazed at my lack of emotional connection with a place where I spent three years of my existence. I remembered countless anecdotes and moments but what struck me was how trivial and remote it now seemed. Things that mattered to me a lot in '68 not only no longer mattered but I felt embarrassed that they ever had. Why had I ever cared if any of my classmates thought I was funny? What had it mattered to me if Mr. Paul, a teacher for whom I had zero respect, thought I was a bright kid? I gained a few good friends at Uni, including my first few girl friends, but the school itself was an impediment to me getting on with my life. I understand the value of a good education but I can't tell you one thing I learned in high school proper that has ever come in handy.

I remember learning how to balance a Redox Equation in Mr. Peyton's Chemistry class but five minutes after his final exam, that hunk of education went completely out of my head…and ten minutes later, you could have offered me a million bucks cash and I couldn't have told you what a Redox Equation is or why you would ever need to balance one. Losing that skill has in no way impeded my existence since. If I'd gone into another line of work…yes, certainly. I'm sure there are chemists drawing down six-figure annual incomes these days balancing Redox Equations. But most — no, make that all of what I learned during those years, I learned by reading…and by keeping my eyes open, observing the world around me. And by just being around people every day and learning to interact with them and be a person…or at least, a reasonable facsimile.

Recently, I was invited again to go back there and talk to the current crop of aspiring writers. I don't think I'll do it this time. I talk to aspiring writers all the time elsewhere but I also decline such invites for lack of enough hours in the day. I can't feel any special reason to do it at Uni just because it's Uni. I've successfully put those years behind me and apart from still being in touch with a few friends from high school, I feel zero connection. My 40-year reunion was last year and I skipped it for the same reason: Having closed that door, it just feels good to not reopen it, especially if one finds nothing of interest on the other side. If Parenthood does have many scenes shot there, I have no desire to see it.

I was just looking at room rates for an upcoming Vegas trip. If you shun the weekends and don't want anything too Hefneresque, you can stay in that town for very low rates…but in some cases, not as low as they might appear. Many hotels have been cranking up these things called "resort fees." These are little mandatory add-ons to your bill that can run from a buck or two to $25 extra per night.

What do you get for them? Sometimes, not much. Unlimited local and 800 number calls are pretty standard, as is access to the hotel's fitness center. Those of us who use cell phones when outta town and who shun exercise are thus paying for that which we do not use. Most hotels give you a free newspaper in the morning and some give you a couple of free drink tickets and/or a few bottles of drinking water.

The annoying thing is that you often don't find out until check-in that your $50 room is really $65 a night. This is especially the case when you book through a separate travel site (like Expedia or Orbitz) instead of through the hotel's own system. Such sites often save you a seeming bundle but they give the hotel the opportunity to say, "We always inform customers in advance of the fee. We're not responsible because Travelocity didn't tell you."

Standing at the desk with your luggage, what are you going to do? Storm out of there and go look for a room in some other hotel that may or may not be cheaper…or may or may not charge a resort fee? Great way to kick off a vacation. I once walked out of a Vegas hotel where I had a reservation because they refused to honor the price I'd been quoted. It felt very good to stand on principle like that…but I wound up at a not-as-convenient hotel that cost me more than the price I'd refused to pay. I also lost two hours of my trip and paid for two extra cab rides.

Then there's this possible complication: You probably put down a deposit…already had the first night's room charge billed to your AmEx card. Several folks have reported online that when they declined to pay the surprise surcharge, they were told, "Fine…but if you choose to go elsewhere, we can't refund your deposit." This is why you need to ask in advance if there's a hidden fee.

Just as an experiment, I filled out the online reservation forms at a couple of Vegas hotels. One I've stayed at a couple times has an online special for $17.99 a night. That's a darn cheap room…but there's a little line on the site in a teensy font that you could easily miss. It says, "Total does not include Hotel Amenity Fee." I went as far as I could go without actually booking the room and wasn't told how much that fee is. Another site informs me it's $16.99 and that, of course, is per night. I was not able to find out if they charge the Vegas hotel tax (12%) on the "Hotel Amenity Fee" but some hotels there do. So your room might more than double in cost.

Now, for some of us, it's not as bad a deal as it might appear. The fee in this case covers wired and wireless high-speed in-room internet, unlimited local and domestic long distance and 800 calls, fitness center access, a daily local newspaper, an unspecified discount at the gift shop, some sort of "copy and fax services" (presumably not unlimited) and airport shuttle service. Since I usually figure on paying $10-$14 bucks a day in a hotel for high-speed web access, that's a good chunk of it. The airport shuttle, depending on when it goes, might be of value to me. I always buy loads of bottled water in a hotel and if the gift shop discount can help me with that, I might even come out ahead on this resort fee thing.

But it's sure a sleazy way to do business.

There are hotels there that do not charge resort fees. The Harrah's chain has announced that they're dropping all of theirs. Many others do not have them. You should probably ask about this any time you book a room anywhere…but you should especially ask if you book a room in Las Vegas. You're going to lose enough money gambling there without gambling on the price of your hotel room.

So, uh, what did Fox edit out of the Jon Stewart interview before they aired it? Here's a rundown.

When I express an opinion here, I can usually count on a deluge of e-mails that disagree, sometimes rudely, with whatever I said. There are times when you feel you could write "Robbing orphans at gunpoint is not a nice thing to do" and you'd hear from an angry, outraged mob who insisted it was and how could any sane person possibly think otherwise? So I'm a little startled how many messages I've received that agreed with my disappointment with the musical stage version of Mary Poppins and how I've gotten none from anyone who enjoyed it. (I've also heard from a lot of folks who said, "Thank God! I thought I was the only one in the world who didn't like Carousel!")

More and more as I think about the former, I'm thinking of things I didn't like about it…and this might be a good time for one of my snazzy SPOILER ALERT signs…

Okay, now I feel I can talk without fear of ruining the show for you. I'm not saying not to see it, by the way; just to lower your expectations way, way down. Brace yourself, for example, for the fact that the title character doesn't feel all that magical. She does magic tricks but they seem to be emanating more from the stage crew than from her. Bert the Chimney Sweep feels more magical than she does, by far. He was kind of inexplicably magical in the movie too, but there, you felt that his magic was made possible by his proximity to her. His made hers feel more special. On stage, his upstages hers. Everything Bert does upstages Mary Poppins.

I also didn't mention, as many readers reminded me, that Act Two pretty much starts with Mary Poppins killing someone in a pretty gruesome manner. What the hell was that all about? I'll get back to that in a sec.

The kids are pretty boring and there's no sense that their lives are changed by hanging around Ms. Poppins; just that she entertains them for a while. Also, I might have noted a problem with the main plot, which is that Mr. Banks is worried about losing the income from his job at the bank.

It's tough for us to care about possible job loss with regard to a banker…and doubly tough to fret for a banker with a beautiful mansion and a staff of servants. In the movie, Mr. Banks had an attitude problem about his job. He cared way too much about it. P.L. Travers named him as she named him for a reason; his whole identity was inextricably lost in that financial institution. Still, the way she (and later, the Disney folks) configured things, we cared about Mr. Banks not as a banker but as a father…one who was way too worried about providing for his family to the extent of neglecting his children and his own inner child. In the end, he rediscovered all those children, especially his inner one, and realized that there could be more to life than earning a living.

Mr. Banks on stage pays brief lip service to that realization but basically, his problem is solved not because he changes but because he just plain doesn't lose his job. His happy ending, such as it is, isn't that he becomes a better person. It's that he becomes a more highly-paid banker. And as I said in my first review, Mary Poppins doesn't have much to do with that.

Mrs. Banks, who was in many ways the most interesting character in the film, is similarly diminished. The movie version of the lady gave purpose to her life as a Suffragette. She may have had to leave her kids to a series of nannies because she was busy but at least she was busy for a good cause. The Mrs. Banks of the play doesn't seem to have much to do. She throws some sort of luncheon for people who don't show up and then it's never mentioned again. So, uh, Mrs. Banks…why don't you raise your kids instead of handing them over to another in a series of strangers?

In the middle of the musical, Mary Poppins leaves inexplicably. Her credo is that she comes to a household and stays until she achieves her mission, whatever it is for that particular family. But just before Intermission, when she couldn't possibly have achieved anything, she leaves. The parents come up with a demonic replacement — one who (I think, it's not clear) was once Mr. Banks's nanny. So I guess the idea is that when Mary Poppins returns, she rescues the kids from turning out like Mr. Banks. But she oughta be rescuing them from parents who'd hire someone that evil as a babysitter.

So we don't like the parents for hiring such a replacement. And we don't like Mary for throwing her little hissy fit or whatever her reason was for walking/flying off the job and abandoning the kids to such a monster. I like her for getting rid of the monster but not so much for how she does it, which feels like capital punishment for a non-capital crime. I don't like anyone on that stage, except maybe Bert, and don't care what becomes of them. And I especially don't like me for going on so long on this topic.

To be fair, I didn't feel all of the above while I was sitting there, intermittently enjoying what was on stage. But the more I thought about the movie after viewing it, the more I liked it. The more I thought about the play, the more I liked the movie. Which is why the film will endure forever and the musical will end when the tour does.

Here's the menu for British soldiers serving in Afghanistan: Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Baked Beans and Spam.

Dick Cavett weighs in on the NBC late night situation and what went wrong. His answer? Everything.

Fred Kaplan discusses Ballistic Missile Defense, which some us have long sensed was a matter of our government throwing good billions after bad. The attitude of some seems to be that it's a brilliant concept that will someday save all our lives so we shouldn't fret over teensy details…like the fact that it's never worked, nor has there been any evidence that it could ever work. But apart from that, it's perfect.

Bob Elisberg tells us (and shows us) that Mel Gibson ain't changed a whole lot.

Patricia Zohn tells the heroic story of the women (that's right…women) without whom the movie Snow White would never have been made. If you're interested in Disney history or just Hollywood lore, this one's a must-click.