Monthly Archives: December 2010

On New Year's Eve, Turner Classic Movies is having a Marx Brothers fest: Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, then Go West — in that order. That's like eleven hours of Groucho, Harpo, Chico and in the first four, Zeppo. I'm sure you've been invited to dozens of raucous parties and have great debauchery planned for that night but there are worst things for which one could set one's TiVo. That's assuming you don't have those movies (a) on DVD and/or (b) memorized like some people I could mention.

Then on New Year's Day, IFC is running an odd 24-hour marathon of The Larry Sanders Show. It seems to be the same twelve episodes played over and over all day and all night. On January 2, they do much the same thing with old episodes of Mr. Show. Both shows are joining the regular IFC evening lineup right after that. No word if they're running the unexpurgated versions of Larry Sanders or the ones that omit the naughty words and therefore are not as funny.

Yesterday afternoon, I had to go over to Canon Drive in Beverly Hills…a street on which I've long had about a 75% chance of running into Larry King. Didn't see him this time, which disappointed me. I wanted to yell at him to stop goofing off and go get a job.

On second thought, maybe that was him in the full-body Frosty the Snowman costume. Frosty did look repeatedly married and he was asking pointless questions and wearing suspenders.

I did see something odd. A woman around Larry's age — yes, there are some — is driving a black Mercedes. (A Mercedes in Beverly Hills? What are the odds?) A guy in a small white truck swerves near her and somehow — I didn't see exactly how — clips off her rear view mirror on the passenger's side. Both pull over and get out. The man says something apologetic which reveals that he is not of this land; that he has a thick accent of no (to me) identifiable origin. Might be Slavic. Might be Arabic. Could even be French, I suppose. The lady neither knows nor cares.

Instantly, she unleashes a torrent of angry racial, "Why don't you %@#!$! go back where you came from?" remarks. She really, really does not like people who are not like her. The man rapidly goes from humble and eager to atone to feeling he is the victim here. He raises his voice in response which thickens his accent which makes him seem more the hostile immigrant. Passers-by stop to watch the floor show but I duck into a store to buy something necessary but horribly overpriced. When I come out with it, a policeman is there — the Beverly Hills P.D. is never far — and he has them separated by a few yards as he tries to dial down the explosive rhetoric to something that is just a matter for that lady in the Progressive Insurance commercials to settle. I hear the officer say, "Come on, it's Christmas."

The alien-hating lady insists, "Not for people like him!"

Sometimes, people just are angry because they want to be angry.

There are certain people in the public eye who are so reliably wrong — so wholly on the stupid side of every debate — that you worry when you find yourself anywhere near agreeance. I have never thought that it made a lick of sense to throw adults in prison for using marijuana…and if it did, you'd have to be consistent and criminalize alcohol and we all saw how well that worked. I choose not to use any of that stuff myself but as long as people don't get high and get behind a wheel or something, I don't see why the government should stop them from getting high. This is an opinion I've held for some time and I was pretty secure in it…

…but now that I find myself somewhat on the same side as Pat Robertson, I'm not so sure…

The parts of me that still wallow occasionally in Watergate are intrigued by this news that files have been released about the late and colorful owner of the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner. Steinbrenner was convicted in 1974 of making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon, many of which were filtered through his many employees.

It was a pretty blatant case of bribery and extortion. Steinbrenner was in deep trouble with the law for a wide array of shady business deals. He was sent to see a man named Herbert Kalmbach, who was Nixon's personal attorney. Steinbrenner had long been a major Democratic donor and fund-raiser. Kalmbach told him that the Nixon administration could help him or they could see that he went to prison. To avoid the latter, Steinbrenner would have to forget all that nonsense about electing Democrats, become a regional head of "Democrats for Nixon" and give them a lot of money in not-exactly-legal ways. Steinbrenner complied but wound up getting nailed for the donations. Kalmbach pretty much avoided responsibility for his actions but did go briefly to prison and had his law license suspended for a time because of other things he did for his client.

I guess people don't care about this now. They barely cared about it then because, after all, there were so many juicier Nixon-related scandals around but it was a story that intrigued me. I remember I used to spot Steinbrenner almost every time I went to New York, back at a time when I used to frequent Ben Benson's Steakhouse on W. 52nd. Every time I went there, there was Steinbrenner, entertaining guests and being a loud and congenial host. He was one of those people who walks into restaurant and everyone in the place knows who he is and that he's there and it almost feels like he's at your table.

Even total strangers felt it was okay to say anything at all to him about the Yankees and he'd stop and engage them in conversation on the topic. Once while waiting for my date to arrive, I eavesdropped on about a five minute chat in which he defended his decision to fire Billy Martin as manager for what must have been about the ninety-eighth time. I didn't care about that stuff. I wanted to ask him about Herbert Kalmbach but I never got up the nerve. Somehow, I don't think he would have been as friendly about it.

In case you aren't following Steve Martin on Twitter, he's doing jury duty at the moment. Here are some of his more memorable tweets today…

• REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: defendant looks like a murderer. GUILTY. Waiting for opening remarks.
• REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: guy I thought was up for murder turns out to be defense attorney. I bet he murdered someone anyway.
• REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: Prosecuting attorney. Don't like his accent. Serbian? Going with INNOCENT. We're five minutes in.
• REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: I'm cracking up defense with my jokes. Judge not pleased. Defendant finds me funny. Nice guy!
• I like to cup my hands and say, "you tell 'em Judge Judy," then duck behind the other jurors." HUGE laughs.
• REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: Defendant's hair looking very Conan-y today. GUILTY.
• REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: Attorneys presenting "evidence." Since when are security photos, DNA, and testimony evidence? Trusting intuition.
• REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: Lunch break. Discussing case with news media gives me chance to promote my book.
• REPORT FROM JURY DUTY: Now forcing my autograph on other jurors. Also starting whisper campaign of innocence based on Magic 8 Ball.
• Slipped into evidence blow-up of fingerprint with my face worked into it. Got screams! Judge now banging gavel on my head. Hard to twee