Monthly Archives: November 2010

Our pal Robert Elisberg writes about some of the sillier political rhetoric around these days. I especially agree with him about how being CEO of a big company is in no way a qualification to be governor of the state.

The United States of Television.

Will Harris conducts a good interview with Tim Conway.

When I think of Tim Conway, I often think of a quote from Chevy Chase in a Playboy interview years ago. The interviewer was trying to get Mr. Chase to say that a performer like Albert Brooks does hipper, more sophisticated humor than someone like Tim Conway. To this, Chase replied…

Tim Conway and Albert Brooks are two of the funniest guys in the world. In fact, Tim Conway probably gets me laughing harder than Albert Brooks ever will, but whenever I'm asked who I think is funny, I always forget Tim Conway and end up mentioning Albert Brooks.

Chevy Chase has said a lot of things that just make you cringe. In fact, he said a lot of them in that interview. But I always thought the comment about Conway was true and a pretty classy thing to say.

A couple of folks have e-mailed me lately expressing their utter confusion at all the current press about O'Brien, Leno and Letterman. A lot of that is due to reporters who are trying to gin up a horse race where there really isn't one. Conan is competing with those other two guys in some ways but not in others. In terms of ratings, his competition is more like Jon and Stephen than Jay and Dave…but really, the true competition for Conan is whether when his show settles down to its ongoing ratings level, it seems to be cost-effective for TBS. At the moment, all indications are that he's succeeding well in that area. No one seems to know how much his series costs but it is delivering a significant increase in viewers (most notably younger viewers) and that will still be the case even if his ratings drop by half. TBS is also probably considering the value of Mr. O'Brien to their channel in other ways, attracting viewers to its other programming and helping rebrand the station as one that does more than air old King of Queens reruns. Hiring Conan is looking more and more like one of the smartest things they could have done.

Dave and Jay are neck-and-neck. Jay won last week. Dave won the week before…but neither win is huge or that meaningful despite what headline hype might have you believe. The difference may be no more than a couple of better guest bookings. Next week, Jay has George W. Bush on and that will probably get him some serious tune-in for that. I suspect both shows are going to have to start avoiding the kind of star who makes the tour of all the guest chairs, or perhaps pressuring them to be more selective. Dave had Russell Crowe on last Wednesday and on Thursday, Crowe was on with Regis and Kelly Ripa. Next week, Crowe does Leno on Monday and both Craig Ferguson and Ellen on Wednesday. Harrison Ford is hitting darn near every show over about a three-week period and so are Denzel Washington, Cher and Billy Bob Thornton. Wanna know one reason ratings are down for all these programs? There it is, folks. The same guests all the time. If you miss 'em one show, you can catch them on another…and if you miss 'em on all the shows, you can watch excerpts online.

Back in the late sixties, there was a brief period when there were four late talk shows — Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett and David Frost — all emanating from New York. It is said that because of staggered tape times, there was one night when Jerry Lewis appeared on all four. I can't swear that's true and I suspect it's not…but there were certainly times when it seemed like that kind of thing was happening. Doesn't it seem that way these days?

In any case, Leno and Letterman are in a dead heat. You could interpret that as a failure of Leno's since he used to beat Dave regularly by wide margins. Or you could interpret it as Jay making a respectable bounce-back from his 10 PM disaster and the drubbing his reputation took when he was being blamed for Conan's ouster. As I said here a couple times, I thought that characterization was unfair and the new book by Bill Carter bears that out. In interviews, Carter is saying that friends suggested he call his new book The Late Shaft but he didn't because he didn't think either guy, Jay or Conan, really got the shaft.

I do not think that either host, Letterman or Leno, is going anywhere for the foreseeable future. Somewhere in the corridors of their respective networks, someone is probably fantasizing about shoving the old guy at 11:35 aside and bringing in some hot, young star who will revolutionize late night and make it once again an exciting and more lucrative arena. But the hot, young star who seems so bankable in that position that you'd dump what you currently have…that replacement does not exist. He or she would have to be pretty damn hot to warrant the gamble.

If I were in charge at CBS or NBC now, I would try to get my 11:35 guy to agree to guest hosts one night a week. Letterman is already running either a rerun on Friday night or a show he's taped the previous Monday that might as well be a rerun. As long as he felt confident that he wasn't allowing the on-air audition of the person who'd knock him off the other four days, he might go for it. Leno is famous for never wanting to take a day off. He once proposed to NBC that they assemble an alternate crew to work his show so he could give the regular staff its time off but still come in himself and do a show every night with no reruns. Still, in the Carter book, he claims to be open to the idea of guest hosts at some point. Right now, I think these shows don't need guest hosts so much to scout for new desk jockeys but because Dave and Jay are just plain overexposed and have lost the capacity to surprise us. That was one of the reasons Mr. Carson didn't work a five-a-night week and why he forced NBC to discontinue its weekend Tonight Show reruns. Johnny wasn't concerned about giving a tryout to potential replacements. He just thought audiences would get sick of him if he was on every night and that he'd burn out too rapidly. Someone needs to remind the current hosts about this…though I'm skeptical either would agree. And heck, even if they said yes, what we'd probably wind up with is guest hosts interviewing Russell Crowe, Harrison Ford, Cher and Denzel Washington.

Hey, loyal readers of this blog, could I ask a favor? Actually, it's not a favor for me. It's a favor for my friend Tracy and for West Hollywood Elementary School. Tracy's son goes there and it's also the school where I occasionally go up and teach enthusiastic kids how to draw cartoons.

The school is involved now in an online contest. I'm not entirely clear on how it works but if they get more votes, the school can win a lot more money in funding. There isn't a school in this state that couldn't use more funding and you can help West Hollywood Elementary win. What you have to do is to go to this link and sign up to vote for it as a great school. You'll need to give them an e-mail address so they can send you a ballot…and I can't promise you it won't result in you receiving a bit of junk e-mail. But hey, it's for a good cause.

(If you're wise, you have a special e-mail address for sign-ups and such so that if you get on mailing lists, the resultant messages don't intermingle with your primary e-mail. I have a GMail account for just this kind of thing.)

You can be anonymous when you vote for West Hollywood Elementary and you don't have to leave a comment. Just fill out the info so they send you the confirmation e-mail. Then confirm it and you're done. You will have done a favor for some great kids. Come on. Help stuff the ballot box. It'll be good practice if you ever go to Florida to work on a presidential election. Thanks.

On Friday, November 19, the wondrous Stan and Hunter Freberg will be interviewed by the tall 'n' loud Penn Jillette at a Writers Bloc event. It's being held at the Writers Guild Theater on Doheny near Wilshire in Beverly Hills and it starts at 7:30 PM. Admission is $20 (such a deal) and you can reserve seats at this website, then pay when you get there. Bring along extra bucks to purchase a copy of the new CD by Stan and Hunter and get it signed.

On Saturday, November 20, my frequent employers, Sid and Marty Krofft will be honored and interviewed at a special screening of their 1970 feature film, Pufnstuf, at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. The film will be shown at 3:30 PM and Sid and Marty will be quizzed by Olivia Munn of The Daily Show. Following the film, there will be a free reception across the street at Every Picture Tells a Story, an art gallery that specializes in snazzy pop culture artwork. Get tickets to the Aero at this website.

In July of '07, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce voted its annual list of celebrities who'd be honored in the coming year by having their names embedded in the sidewalk on or around Hollywood Boulevard between Vine and La Brea. The list that year, which I discussed here, included the name of Marvel Comics' own Stan Lee.

The recipient has five years from the date of the vote to schedule his or her ceremony. I don't know what Stan's been waiting for but he's finally set the date: Tuesday, January 4th, 2011. (Is there a Marvel-related event, like a movie opening that week? That might explain the scheduling. It might also tell us who's paying the fee for this honor, which was $25,000 when Stan was selected but is now $30,000.) The precise location hasn't been announced nor has the time, though I think most of these things start at 11:30 AM. I'll try to post the info here before it happens. The unveiling ceremony is free to attend, though you may need to get there early.

It's Veterans Day so I thought I'd write about my Uncle Henry. One of his brothers (my Uncle Nathan) served in the Army, hated every second of it and refused to ever discuss those years except to generally condemn the way officers treated privates, at least where he'd been stationed. This created some friction with Uncle Henry, who spent his adult life in the military and according to family legend was at one point the highest-ranked Jew in the Army. I don't necessarily believe this but my Aunt Dot (his sister) did and sometimes said it was only because our bizarre surname didn't make it obvious he was Jewish; that if he'd been a Goldberg or a Schwartz, he never would have attained whatever rank he finally attained…Colonel, I think.

I don't know if any other Evaniers of his generation served. My father was 4-F and I don't know about the others. Because of Uncle Nathan's feelings, we never talked about it much. The only time I recall more than passing mention came in 1962 when Uncle Henry died and we drove down to San Diego for the funeral. Before that, we'd gone there almost every year to visit Uncle Henry and his wife, Aunt Phyllis, who lived in a lovely home in La Mesa, which is just outside San Diego. The only memories I have of those visits are of the utter boredom you have when you're a kid in a roomful of adults and you're largely uninvolved in any conversation. So I sat there reading comic books I'd lugged along and I suffered through the ordeal. The next day, my parents and I would do the San Diego Zoo, which I enjoyed enough to make up for the visits to Uncle Henry's.

We didn't hit the zoo on the funeral trip. We drove down on a Sunday and I remember spending the night with my folks in a real crummy motel room, selected for its proximity to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in Point Loma. My father was deeply depressed over the loss of his brother and at first, he wouldn't let me turn on the TV because it seemed inappropriate. As 8:30 neared, he realized he'd miss his favorite comedy show — Car 54, Where Are You? — and he decided that might cheer him up. So we watched that evening's episode. He didn't laugh, my mother didn't laugh and I felt I shouldn't, either.

The next morning, we dressed up and went to a very long service which was held outside by the gravesite. My father, my Uncle Nathan, my Uncle Aaron and I were the only males present not dressed in starched, formal military dress. I got the feeling we were among the few who'd really known Uncle Henry.

Just before speeches commenced, an official of some sort took us aside and told us that the program would conclude with a "salute" that involved a line of soldiers firing rifles in the air. Aunt Phyllis, who had been frail even before her husband of 40+ years had died, had been cautioned about this but the official suggested that "you men" (10-year-old me included) stand by her for the finale because the noise would probably upset her. We agreed to do this though I wondered why the military was saluting Uncle Henry in death by upsetting his beloved partner in life. As a kid, I spent a lot of time wondering why grown-ups did many of the things they did.

Sure enough, after a raft of speeches, a line of armed soldiers marched out in precision drilling manner, following orders barked out by some senior military official. My memory is that these were not all Army; that the whole ceremony was a mix of Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, etc. Uncle Henry was Army but he'd spent the last ten or so years as some kind of intra-military liaison coordinating activities of the various branches, operating sometimes out of Naval facilities. After much marching about and showing-off, the soldiers hoisted their rifles and waited for the command to fire. I was standing next to Aunt Phyllis's chair and she was trembling, dreading the "salute" like it was some horrible ordeal she was being forced to endure. I wanted to yell for them to call it off but everyone was so serious about this seemingly-mandatory ritual that I was half-afraid they'd turn those rifles on me.

Finally after what felt like hours of waiting, they fired into the sky. We were standing about twenty yards from a little groundskeeper shack and at the sound of the rifle shots, every glass window in the cottage exploded and all these serious, unsmiling military guys leaped about three feet in shock. For a flash second there, it felt like a Three Stooges comedy. I don't know why but that's what I thought of and I laughed out loud until I realized Aunt Phyllis was fainting. My father and I stopped her from falling off the chair and a male nurse ran over and tended to her needs. She recovered, of course…but the fact that someone with medical training had been standing by for this possibility further baffled me. They'd actually anticipated something of the sort might happen and had still pressed ahead, "honoring" my Uncle Henry's service to his country by doing something that caused such discomfort to his widow.

My parents and I drove back to Los Angeles that afternoon in (mostly) silence. Occasionally in the back seat, I could be heard snickering about all those rock-serious soldiers leaping about in fear. After a while, even my folks agreed with me that it was kind of funny…or at least funnier than the previous night's Car 54, Where Are You?

In the seventies, Aunt Phyllis died and I was notified that I was named in the joint will of Henry and Phyllis Evanier. For weeks, I expected some small amount of money…but one day, a box arrived and it turned out I'd been left all of Uncle Henry's medals and decorations. Included were dozens of clippings and certificates and they were the treat because they gave me a new appreciation of all that my Uncle Henry had done. From what I could tell, he'd never seen combat…never laid his life on the line to liberate a village or topple the Nazi/Commie menace. Still, he'd more than earned all those ribbons and promotions in rank by utter competence, getting jobs accomplished with precision and accuracy. There was one partial article that suggested my Uncle Henry had solved so many problems relating to keeping certain military bases operational that President Eisenhower had phoned him from time to time to thank him for preventing disasters. The box also contained the official 1947 photo of (then) Major Evanier which I have scanned and posted above.

Today on Veterans Day, it is right and proper that we salute the courageous men and women who go off to war when our leaders, rightly or wrongly, deem it necessary. Matter of fact, we should probably salute them enough on other days that this one is nothing out of the ordinary. But I wanted to remind you all about guys like my Uncle Henry who also have a lot to do with all that the military does for us. They also serve, those who sit and shuffle papers.

I have problems with pharmacies. I don't know why. The system seems pretty simple. Your doctor writes a prescription or phones it in to the drug store. You go over. They fill the prescription. You pay for the prescription. You take home the prescribed item. Why does it so rarely work like that?

Last night, I had to go pick up a prescription for my mother. I called the pharmacy, they said they had it in stock and about two hours later, I went over to get it…and it's worth noting that this wasn't one where anyone had to mix anything. They didn't even have to count out pills. Someone just had to take a tube of ointment off a shelf, slap a label on it and hand it over to me. When I went in, a nice lady said, "It'll take ten or fifteen minutes." Okay, fine. I sat down with my iPhone and did iPhone-type stuff for the next thirty minutes before a different, not-as-nice lady called me to the window and I had the following exchange…

SHE: I'm sorry. We're out of this medication.

ME: I called up two hours ago and I was told you had it.

SHE: Well, maybe someone came in during that time and got the last tube we had of it.

ME: It took you a half-hour to figure that out? Shouldn't someone tell me that when I bring the prescription in?

SHE: Yes, they do. The computer's supposed to tell us that when we take your order. (Checks computer) Oh, I see. We weren't out of it when you brought the prescription in. We sold our last tube of it about ten minutes ago.

ME: While I was waiting for the prescription that I was told would be ready twenty minutes ago.

SHE: That can't be right. (Checks computer again) Okay, I see now. We had a tube for you when we accepted the prescription but then someone else came in with a prescription for the same medication and somehow, they got the last tube.

ME: They came in after me?

SHE: According to the time stamp here, yes.

ME: Okay, so let me see if I have this right. I came in. I handed her (points to nice lady) the prescription. She checked the computer and it told her you had it in stock…

SHE: Correct.

ME: And then someone else came in with a prescription for the same medicine and she checked the computer and it told her you still had it in stock…

SHE: Correct.

ME: …even though you only had the one tube.

SHE: Correct.

ME: And then you gave it to that person instead of me.

SHE: Correct.

ME: Even though I was here first.

SHE: Correct.

ME: Shouldn't the computer have indicated that you didn't have a tube for that other person?

SHE: No, because when we took that order, we weren't out of it.

ME: Because you hadn't yet filled my order? The one that I was told would take ten or fifteen minutes?

SHE: Correct.

ME: Shouldn't I have gotten that tube?

SHE: I'm sorry. It's first come, first served.

ME: Yes but I was here first.

SHE: True but the other customer was served first.

ME: Let's move on from this. When I can get this ointment for my mother?

SHE: I'll make sure we order it and we should have it the day after tomorrow. Better call first to make sure we have it before you drive over.

ME: I called first today and you said you had it so I drove over. And then when I got here, they told me you still had it.

SHE: Yes.

ME: So how do I make sure that next time you tell me you have it, you still have it when you get around to filling my order?

SHE: (Thinks for a second, then…) I guess you just have to trust us.

There was then a brief discussion of me maybe going over that evening to another pharmacy in the same chain. The computer said they had the ointment in stock but it didn't say how much they had of it, nor could it guarantee that they wouldn't sell what they had before I got there and they got around to filling my order. The way my mother's insurance is configured, it will cost about $100 more to take it to a druggist outside this chain. I think they're doing all this to give me a headache so I'll need to buy my own prescription.