Number eighty-nine in a series of one hundred…
Monthly Archives: August 2011
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If Tim Pawlenty was still demanding Barack Obama's birth certificate and denouncing Global Warming as a Martian hoax, he'd still be in. — [Follow me on TWITTER]
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If the jokes about Michele Bachmann's glassy, non-blinking stare sound familiar, that's because last year, they were Nancy Pelosi jokes. — [Follow me on TWITTER]
Soup's On!
As busy as I can ever recall being and it may be this way through Tuesday. I literally did not go to bed last night and I'm sitting here working, having lost my ability to touch-type due to lack of sleep. Which certainly makes for some interestiong spllings of some words. (Those were actual errors I didn't correct.) You won't see a lot of postings from me for a while and if I owe you an e-maol, (there's another one) the odds of you getting it in the next few days are about the same as the odds of a sane person getting the Republican nomination. But I'll be back here full strength by Tuesday evening, I expect.
Unfortunately, I'll probably have to be back here sooner than that to post another sad bit of news. Just waiting for sufficient confirmation. Right now, I'll just put up some recent Tweets and a Keaton photo and get back to work.
Vic Dunlop, R.I.P.
Sad to hear about another funny man dying. Vic Dunlop was just one of those naturally-funny guys. You couldn't not laugh at him and he was much loved among other comedians. He was always helping out others, running benefits and showing up at benefits that others ran. Just a funny, nice guy.
He hailed from New York and was the son of a prominent character actor, Victor Marko. Despite his weight, which was often way out of control, our Vic served in Vietnam and would later speak of it as good training for a comedian. Out of the service, he soon became a regular at The Comedy Store and then made his TV debut on the TV series, Make Me Laugh. For a long time, he commuted between Vegas, where he opened for Tom Jones, Gladys Knight and other top singing acts…and Los Angeles, where he appeared on a number of TV series including Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, Harper Valley, P.T.A. and the short-lived Richard Pryor Show. (A few days ago here, I posted a clip from a series I worked on called The Half-Hour Comedy Hour. Vic was a regular on that show, too.)
Medically, Vic was an absolute mess. He was Diabetic and he couldn't handle it. It seemed like every time I ran into him, he'd just lost a toe or part of a leg…and those were just the problems he had from the waist down. There were plenty above. Still, he never seemed to let any of it nuke his spirit or harm his sense of humor. I'm not sure which of his many ailments ended his life but he had surgery for one of them about a week ago and it obviously didn't help. He was 63 years old.
Here's a video of Vic in action. You'll notice that in both this clip and the photo above, he's wearing the same pair of Three Stooges suspenders. Vic loved the Stooges and I always thought that on stage, he somehow managed to play Moe, Larry and Curly all at the same time — with maybe a touch of Joe Besser in there…
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Twitter will not allow me to transmit a Sergio Aragonés drawing. This is because they all seem to have more than 140 characters. — [Follow me on TWITTER]
Recommended Reading
Kevin Drum explains why he thinks Texas governor Rick Perry cannot win (a) the Republican presidential nomination or (b) the White House. I'm not so sure about (a) but I agree with (b) and would add the following reason…
I think anyone who seriously runs for Prez this time is going to have to be able to explain in a few simple, anyone-can-repeat sentences, a plan to do a major fix on the economy and employment. Now, I don't think this plan necessarily needs to be workable or fact-based. As we have seen, a certain percentage of this country is willing to believe ultra-simplified, misleading statements about the economy…like, you know, if we just don't raise the debt ceiling, all it means is Congress will spend less. Or cutting taxes for the rich always helps those on the bottom. (Gee, given how much Bush cut 'em, we oughta be in great shape by now…)
But a candidate's going to have to be able to say something that will make moderates say, "Hey, he [or she] seems to have a handle on this." Perry, like Bachmann or Palin or a few others, can't do that. They can utter platitudes that the extreme right and the Tea Party will applaud but those folks would cheer if a candidate just got up and yelled, "Barack Obama is a doody-face!" The saner middle of this nation is too worried about the future to put someone like that in charge. I sure hope.
Go Watch It!
From 1981: Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel debate the burning issue: "Who's funnier? Mel Brooks or Woody Allen?"
Imagine Peace
In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono made a film called Bed Peace which was a documentary about their then-current efforts to bring some peace and sanity to a world that needed loads of both. It features them in conversation with prominent figures of the day including Timothy Leary, Dick Gregory and Al Capp, and is a very interesting and important historical record.
Yoko has put it online for free viewing this weekend. Hurry and catch it. It won't be there for long.
Great Photos of Buster Keaton
Number eighty-eight in a series of one hundred…
Today's Political Comment
Even folks who aren't usually enthralled with Fox News gave that operation points for the debate of Republican candidates it staged the other night. The questions were not all softballs calculated to allow Obama-bashing. One or two of them even drew boos from a live audience that didn't seem to want to see its candidates challenged in any way.
Rush Limbaugh was irate the next morning that it wasn't all set-ups to slam the President and that the candidates actually criticized each other. Sarah Palin said much the same thing. I don't think Ms. Palin believes (or believes in admitting) that there's any such thing as fair press coverage that doesn't totally support and advance your causes and worldview.
We're in for an interesting election…when Fox News is being accused of treachery for only spinning most, not all, of the news the way the Limbaughs and Palins of the world demand.
Today's Video Link(s)
I haven't been to New York in a while so I haven't seen a musical called Catch Me If You Can, which opened at the Neil Simon Theatre on April 10. And if I ever do see it, I probably won't see it there since it's closing September 4th after 32 preview and 170 regular performances. A national tour has been announced for late next year.
I'm a bit surprised from afar that its run was so short. It got fairly poor reviews but so did The Addams Family, which is still running sans Nathan Lane. Catch Me If You Can was based on a popular movie, had good people behind it (most of those who did Hairspray) and a pretty sexy ad campaign. Here's the commercial they've been running…
That alone wouldn't necessarily drive me into the theater but it would make me seriously consider buying a ticket. So has one particular musical number — "Don't Break the Rules" — which got raves even from reviewers who hated everything else. Co-star Norbert Leo Butz and the troupe performed it on the Tony Awards and I thought it plus Mr. Butz's win for Best Actor in a Musical would fill a lot of seats. Here's that presentation…
Isn't that terrific, even with the awkward bleep for a line about screwing someone's wife? And I note that the show has been pretty consistently playing at 80-85% capacity, which is usually enough to stay open…but I guess not in this case.
At the first performance after Butz won the Tony, he gave a rather wonderful curtain speech that also makes me wish I could see the show, at least with him in it. My friend Shelly Goldstein, whose tastes I trust and who did see Catch Me If You Can on Broadway, said I wouldn't like it; that apart from the above number and the fine work by Butz, it is not a great show. Maybe not…but I sure like me some Norbert Leo Butz…
Go Read It!
More than you could possibly want to know about shopping carts.
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13% of Americans approve of the way Congress is doing its job. To put that in perspective, 15% approve of the way Leprosy works. — [Follow me on TWITTER]
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Just back from the market. You'd think $121 of groceries would have the decency to require more than one trip to bring in from the car. — [Follow me on TWITTER]