Monthly Archives: July 2010

As you've probably heard, a group called the Westboro Baptist Church (or "assholes," for short) is going to picket Al Gore this Thursday when he speaks at the Manchester Hyatt in San Diego. Their press releases say it's to condemn him for his "adulterous" activities…but of course, this protest was scheduled before it came out that a masseuse was charging the former Veep with what she's charging him with. And it's also worth noting that the allegations have yet to be proven true…and given some of what reporters seem to be learning, may not be. Also, though what Gore is alleged to have done may be a sin in the eyes of the Westboro Baptist Church, I don't recall them protesting any of the sexual follies of elected officials who have opposed Gay Marriage. Apparently, having your mistress on the payroll or patronizing hookers or hitting on men in lavatories is fine with these people so long as you're sufficiently anti-gay in public.

After the Gore picket, they hike over to the Comic-Con…and let's get real here. They're not protesting anything. They're making noise to get on the news and spread their all-purpose hatred in all directions. I have a suspicion they'll achieve that even though they will be small in number. I also suspect that if there's any sort of physical altercation — say, if someone bumps into someone else, which does happen out there — it'll be on the news within moments. This is exactly the kind of story reporters love to cover and some are probably frothing to write that a brawl broke out involving Jedi Knights versus Religious Fanatics or whatever.

But though assholes they be, they have a right to protest. I'm not sure precisely where they have a right to protest. I can't think of anywhere around Comic-Con where they won't be impeding foot traffic and they have no right to do that. Still, people have a right to express the asshole point-of-view and I agree pretty much with this editorial that says as much. Where I think I might part company with the author is this: Nowhere does he underscore that there is no Constitutional right to protest anywhere you want or to force people to listen to you.

In just about every public protest I've ever been around, I see some protester take it too far, blocking pedestrians (or even vehicles) or blaring audio at deafening levels. And when they're told they can't do this…when some poor, badly-paid security person or cop has to go tell them to move along or keep it down…they scream Suppression and Gestapo Tactics and yell that their First Amendment Rights are being violated. In so doing, they do as much damage to real First Amendment Rights as the Westboro Baptists do to real Baptists and followers of Jesus.

I'm going to avoid this whole thing and so should you. Get to the con before Noon on Thursday. Don't leave 'til after 3. If you run into them, do not engage. There's no talking to these people. Just feel proud that you live in America — a nation that allows this kind of dissent…and which will soon legalize the rights of gays to serve in the military and to marry. And you know something? By putting a real ugly face on the opponents of such things, I think the Westboro Baptist Church is helping to make that happen.

San Diego has a great transit system. Their red trolleys will be operating on an enhanced schedule during the Comic-Con…and get this: There will be a costume contest at what their announcement describes as "the Klingon-themed Gaslamp Quarter Trolley Station." This is a contest which at least half the people I've seen on Los Angeles bus lines could win.

But never mind that. If you intend to use their Metropolitan Transit System during the con, then this is the page for you. Thanks to Scott Marinoff for alerting me to this.

Credit cards are like children: You have to keep an eye on them because they have a tendency to wander away and thus cause you trouble. I don't have any children but my American Express card likes to go off on its own and I thought I'd share two of many anecdotes here — one today, another tomorrow. Today's took place about twenty-five years ago. I had lunch with a business associate at the little trattoria that Sonny Bono used to own over on Melrose near La Cienega. When the check came, I gave the server my AmEx card and he took it away to imprint as they usually do.

A bit later, he brought me a slip to sign, along with what I assumed was my card. It wasn't. It was somebody else's American Express card of the same color. In fact, it was also this other person's slip but I didn't notice that, either. I added a tip to the bill, totalled it, signed and slipped the AmEx card into the slot in my wallet where I always carried mine. At another table at Bono's, another gent did likewise with my bill and my credit card. Sonny was actually there at the time running things and while I have no proof that he personally got the cards confused, I like to tell people that he did. I mean, it was my fault for not noticing but why accept responsibility for anything if you can blame it on Sonny Bono?

For five days, I went about my business, using what I thought was my American Express card. I didn't notice and none of the stores where I used it noticed that my name was not on it. I charged about $500 worth of goods and services to someone else's American Express card. In the meantime, a total stranger was charging about $1800 to mine, equally unaware of the swap. Aren't businesses supposed to verify in some way that the credit card you hand them is actually yours? Apparently, not the kind of businesses I patronize.

Finally, I noticed. It was in the Benihana's on La Cienega. They brought me my check. I gave them someone else's card. They imprinted the card on the bill and brought it all back to me. I saw it was not my card and told them they'd made an error. Much searching and discussion ensued, and the Manager assured me that no one else there had concurrently used an American Express card and they could not possibly have caused a swap. "We returned to you the credit card you gave us, sir," he said.

I dug into my pocket and found an AmEx receipt from another purchase earlier that day. Sure enough, it was to the alien credit card I'd given them. Uh-oh.

Back home, I sorted my recent receipts into chronological order and figured out where the mix-up occurred. Fortunately, the name on the other card was a unique one and it was findable in the telephone book. I called the gentleman up and asked him if he'd eaten in Bono's the previous Tuesday. He said he had. I asked if he had his American Express card. He said, "Sure." I asked him to go and take another look at it. Puzzled, he went away and came back to the phone to ask, "Who's Mark Evanier?" Well, actually, he pronounced it "Even-nyer" but I'm used to that. I explained to him what had happened and he asked me, "Well, what do we do now?"

I told him we could either call American Express and have them cancel the cards and sort everything out or we could gather up our recent receipts and get together. Within the hour, he was at the table in my kitchen with his recent receipts. He was quite bemused by it all and eager to get it straightened out, the only unpleasantness coming when he looked at our respective receipts from Bono's and noted that he was a much better tipper with my credit card than I was with his.

We did the math and it turned out he owed me around $1300, mostly because of travel arrangements he'd put on his my card. He gave me a check for that amount, our credit cards went back to their rightful possessors and it was all over…except that I had to explain to my accountant several times why I'd bought a total stranger tickets to Disney World.

Moral of the story: Always know where your credit cards are. The other day, I didn't follow my own advice. I will tell you that tale tomorrow. Sonny Bono, being deceased, is not involved but the story does feature brief cameo appearances by Laraine Newman, Sylvester Stallone and Fabio.

Someone named Marv Wolfman (I never heard of him, either) suggests I mention that MAD's Greatest Artists: The Completely MAD Don Martin — the book mentioned here — only includes Martin's work in MAD magazine, emphasis on the "magazine." It does not include the material from his wonderful paperback books. I'm not sure it even includes stuff he did for some of MAD's special editions. But jeepers! That's still twelve hundred pages of Don Martin for under twenty bucks…

And you may be able to get it even cheaper! Tom Mason writes that he entered discount code W3P3V9Y on the Barnes & Noble site and this knocks the price of the most expensive item you order down by 15%. Since he ordered something else to put his order total over $25, he got free shipping and the Don Martin book was only $16.98. If this keeps going on, they'll be paying us to take copies off their hands.

The bargain of the year has gotten bargainer. The big 1200-page book called MAD's Greatest Artists: The Completely MAD Don Martin was originally $142 and it wasn't overpriced for that amount. It's a handsome collection of everything the great Don Martin drew for MAD, along with little essays about him by friends and co-workers. I got mine at a price slightly discounted from that and I felt I'd gotten my money's worth.

But then I told you here that it had been dropped to $25, which is quite a plunge. I mean, even Mel Gibson's popularity hasn't dropped that much. Several hundred of you pounced to order copies from Barnes & Noble through my links and many wrote to tell me how happy they were with their score.

Barnes & Noble ran out of them. Then they got some more. Then they ran out of them. Then they got some more. Then they ran out of them. Now, they have some more and they're down to $20. That's insane. If you needed a good doorstop that weighed this much, it would cost you more than twenty bucks. I'm guessing we may be down to the copies that have more dings and defects in them but if you ran a Buick over a copy of this book, it would still be worth more than $20 in the resulting condition. So here's a link to order one.

But wait! That's $20 plus shipping. Wanna get out of paying for shipping? If you already have a Barnes & Noble card, you don't pay shipping so that problem's solved. If you don't have such a card, order something else and get your order up to $25 to qualify for free shipping. Depending on where you live, that may even be cheaper than paying postage.

By the way: Here's something I don't understand. Amazon usually matches or beats anyone else's prices on things like this but for this item, this is the situation: They're selling it on this page for $94.50 and on this page for $58.50 and they also front for a whole bunch of online retailers who are selling it new for $29.90 and up. The $94.50 page currently says that they're almost out but more copies are on the way, which would suggest there are people paying that price for it even though if they read the fine print on that page, they could save sixty bucks. As far as I know, these are all copies of the same book from the same press run. It's enough to make a Don Martin fan go "Voink!" or "Greep!" or even "Sprizzit!"

Kevin Drum tackles the argument over whether the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire. It's amazing to me how many of our public officials and pundits seem devoted to the idea that the only thing that matters in this country is shifting the paying of taxes off the richest Americans and onto…well, anyone else or maybe even to no one.

The radio show Fresh Air did a great interview today with the extremely-gifted (and funny) Billy West. You can hear it here And you should.

The late Harvey Pekar was drawn by a lot of great comic artists and portrayed by a couple of superb actors. Paul Giamatti played him in the movie, American Splendor. And Dan Castellaneta played him in an acclaimed stage play of American Splendor which was authored by my friend Vince Waldron. It opened in September of 1990 and played to capacity crowds for a year…and then a half-hour version was recorded as a radio play for KCRW in Santa Monica.

Tomorrow night, Friday the 16th, KCRW will rebroadcast that play in tribute to Harvey. It airs once (and only once) at 7:30 PM. If you're in Southern California, you can tune in to the station at 89.9 FM. Outside that area, you'll need to go to the station's website. It will not be available for download so if you want to hear it, tune in then. Dan is quite wonderful in the role.

Despite what they may tell you on Fox News, the scientific community in this country still believes that the Earth's temperature is increasing in a way that may cause many a disaster. Yeah, there are some experts who say otherwise but it's dishonest to portray it as one of those 50-50 balanced arguments. That's like saying, "Well, there are folks out there who believe Elvis is alive and was abducted by a U.F.O. so it's an open question." Jonathan Kay summarizes some of the deception in this area and says that Conservatives (he is one) should not be joining the Global Warming Deniers.

Go read this blog post by my pal Mark Rothman. It'll make you smile.

Our buddy Bob Elisberg discusses God's amazing endorsement of Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle. Sometimes, I think those who profess to love God the most love Him because it's handy to exploit Him for selfish reasons.