Monthly Archives: September 2011

Things will be slow on this blog today. I'm going to post the daily Laurel & Hardy photo then get ready to speak at the funeral of my great friend, Earl Kress. One of the many interests we had in common was a love of Stan and Ollie. In fact, I forgot to mention that Earl was an important figure in the Sons of the Desert, the international association of Laurel & Hardy buffs. I forgot to mention a lot of things about Earl. I hope I remember enough of them at the podium today.

I want to write something here about grief when I have more time. I believe grief is an overrated human emotion and that we sometimes expend too much effort making ourselves miserable in order to show that we loved someone or are hurt by the loss of them. I don't think it trivializes someone's death that you go on with your life. Certainly when I go, I don't want those who are close to me to collapse and make themselves ill in order to show pain. I'd like them to spend no more than an hour on me (15 minutes will suffice) then go back to whatever they were doing before they heard the news.

I'm going to miss Earl terribly. I already do. The other day, I heard a story that…well, a year ago, I would have grabbed up the phone to call Earl and delight him with it. Can't do that now, damn it.

Funerals are to honor the dead but they're also there for the living. We gather. We share our suffering. We have a little party and in the post-service milling, the topic gently drifts away from The Deceased to "Hey, what are you working on these days?" and "It's been too long since we had lunch." And then when we go home, the official period of mourning is more or less over and we can get on with getting-on. (I'm sorry…I was up late polishing a eulogy so I'm in a more philosophical frame of mind than usual…)

I am well aware that too much of this blog is about death and I'm hoping to change that. You can help. Stay healthy.

I said yesterday here that I didn't think the momentum in this country would turn against the Death Penalty until there was some really strong evidence that some state executed an innocent white guy with no criminal record. Several folks wrote in to say that's already happened. There are several instances that organizations like Project Innocence say would qualify, most recently the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas.

It sure sounds like Willingham was innocent but it's not generating any outrage among those whose minds need to be changed. For one thing, Willingham had a criminal record…a minor one to be sure but there's a strong sense out there that if you get arrested, you've got to be guilty of something. It may not be precisely what you're arrested for but a lot of folks just divide the world into Good Guys and Bad Guys — often via some very odd indicators — and that's it. Any time the state can eliminate one of them Bad Guys, they love it. So what if he got convicted of Crime A when he actually committed Crime B?

Also in Willingham's case, a key element is missing that might cause some people to decide his execution was a shame. In his case, it wasn't a question that maybe the wrong guy was convicted of a crime. It's that a lot of scientists now feel that no crime was committed by anyone; that it was all a dreadful accident. A strong argument against executing the wrong guy is that when you do, the actual perpetrator goes free. In fact, he not only goes free but the law now has a powerful incentive not to investigate or admit that. Some states go to great lengths to make sure there's never an investigation that proves they gave the lethal injection to the wrong guy. In Willingham's matter, a "real killer" is not lurking about.

What I think Death Penalty opponents should do is to lobby for laws that say that after an execution, the case stays open and there's a way someone could prove an innocent person got the chair. Set up some sort of independent panel that would get access to every scrap of evidence and which could subpoena folks in order to follow up post-execution appeals. I wonder how eager Rick Perry would be to fry someone on Death Row if there was the possibility that a body with some authority could later determine that an innocent person was wrongfully put to death. Any governor who believes "the system always works" should have no problem with that.

Yeah, that's a real one. You know, the Hollywood Reporter was once a very successful, important publication and now they're literally giving it away to anyone who's even vaguely in show business. To give you an idea of how low the standard is: I qualify.

Part of the problem, of course, is that the Internet has ruined business for most print publications. But part of the Hollywood Reporter's problem is that it has so rarely practiced journalism. It reprints press releases, takes dictation from important people in the industry…and thinks stuff like that is a story.

And by the way: If you want to read that newsflash, here's a link.

In tonight's Republican debate, Rick "Google Me" Santorum said, and I quote…

I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.

Yes, because we all know that men and women between the ages of 18 and 35 are all celibate and uninterested in screwing.

Among the many things I highly recommend on this blog is Zero Hour, a play by and starring my longtime friend, Jim Brochu. It's a one-man show and since that man is Zero Mostel, the stage seems crowded just with him and his many dimensions. Jim, who knew Zero, somehow transforms himself into the legendary actor as he speaks of art, life, blacklisting, theater and other topics of vital interest. He's lately been touring in the play and if he comes your way, go see him.

Attention, those of you in San Francisco: He's coming your way! He'll do three performances at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco from October 21 to 23. You can order tickets here and while you're at it, you can visit a gallery showing of paintings and sketches by the late Mr. Mostel that will be there until mid-November. I have to teach a seminar in cartoon voice acting that weekend or I'd fly up just to see Jim do this show again. It's that good.

Leonard Maltin tells you how you can help save a priceless collection of motion picture equipment and artifacts.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is setting out new rules about how one may campaign for their Academy Awards. The changes are kinda complicated, involving how many screenings you can have and how often potential nominees can appear at these screenings and whether little meatball appetizers can be served at them…or something like that.

What strikes me as odd is that the reason for these changes is that someone feels that last year, there was "excessive Oscar campaigning." In an industry where excessive anything is usually rewarded, I'm not sure how they measure that or why anyone thinks they can inject dignity into the proceedings.

But what's really weird is that they aren't zeroing in on a possible reason that there was "excessive Oscar campaigning" last year. It's because the Academy has started doing "excessive Oscar nominating." Go back to having five nominees for Best Picture instead of ten and right there, you cut out an awful lot of the campaigning.

How Charles Schulz was a lot like Charlie Brown.

A man named Troy Davis was put to death this evening in Georgia. Was he guilty of the crime? I don't know and neither do any of the folks protesting his execution. But a pretty strong case can be made that the case against him has proven to be nowhere as strong as it was back when he was convicted. It was all eyewitness testimony and most of those eyewitnesses have recanted.

A lot of writers are tonight asking some variation of the question posed by Dahlia Lithwick: Will the Troy Davis case be the one that finally turns America against the death penalty?

My answer: Nope. Before that can happen, there's going to have to be really strong evidence that some state executed an innocent white guy with no criminal record.