Monthly Archives: September 2011

Here's The Global Economy in One Neat Chart. I think it's fascinating that Walmart employs almost as many bodies as the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Maybe if we have to go to war against China someday, we can just send Walmart Greeters.

And next time you hear some right-winger say the U.S. government has never created one job — and this is usually said by someone who works for the government — you might remember that the U.S. Department of Defense is the largest employer in the world. And half of those folks who want us to shrink the size of government are terrified of the notion of cutting the military.

Thanks to Scott Marinoff for telling me about this.

A story with a happy ending.

The Writers Guild of America, West has announced its election results. Chris Keyser, co-creator of the TV series Party of Five defeated Patric Verrone, who was president before, most notably during our last strike. I voted for Patric but am not at all worried that Chris won. I think we had two excellent candidates…and if you go by their candidate statements and campaigns, their visions for the WGA were not particularly far apart. The defining issue seems to have been that Verrone, during his administration, pissed off a number of parties including a few other unions. A lot of voters felt we'd be better off with a president without all that baggage.

I was a little surprised by the margin — Keyser won 60% to 40% — but my ability to predict WGA elections has been impaired since the passing of Larry Gelbart. Larry was a wonderful man and a wonderful writer…but in every WGA election, he endorsed one or more candidates and you could just about bet the family heirlooms that Larry's pick(s) would come in last.

The WGA does not have another contract negotiation until 2014 so major changes will not occur during Keyser's two-year term. A lot of groundwork will be laid for what I expect will be another duel-to-the-death in '14. I hope I'm wrong about a war coming but if there is one, I'll bet we'll be more prepared than we've ever been.

Here — unembeddable but worth clicking over to — is another excerpt from the chat I attended on Monday night following a 30th anniversary screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Geoff Boucher of the L.A. Times is chatting with Steven Spielberg when who should make an unannounced appearance but Harrison Ford? The audio is a bit unbalanced in this clip. The audience reaction to Mr. Ford's entrance was louder (and also, I think, longer) than it appears.

The folks up at Reprise have another winner. Their new production of Cabaret is sensational. Carolyn and I went to opening night and liked it more than the Broadway version we saw a few years ago — the one with Alan Cumming. And we liked the version we saw with Alan Cumming. We just liked this one more.

Why? I think the actors got more into the dramatic flow of the book…and also the musical numbers felt a little less "Broadway" and therefore the whole show seemed more realistic and relevant. I came out of the New York production happily humming the score. I came out of this one feeling the chill as the Nazi menace began to take over Berlin. The latter, of course, is what the show is about.

I want to list the names of the main five actors in the hope that they'll Google their names, find this page and read my rave review of their fine production. Jeff McLean played the author, Clifford Bradshaw. Mary Gordon Murray played Fräulein Schneider. Robert Picardo played Herr Schultz. Lisa O'Hare played Sally Bowles. And Bryce Ryness played the man that the script and the program book describe as "The Emcee, Our Master of Ceremonies." That he is. Mr. Bryness especially stands out as he somehow manages to be engagingly entertaining, given the perverse iciness of his character.

These folks and the rest of the superb ensemble will be Cabareting up at UCLA's Freud Playhouse through September 25. Your attendance is highly recommended.

I'm closing in on 5000 Facebook friends, which is all they'll let you have. I don't know a lot of these "friends." I just accept them if they're also Facebook friends with at least one person I really do know…and yes, this is a silly criteria since the mutual acquaintance I really do know may not really know them either. If Facebook has accomplished nothing else, it has at least defined the word "friend" down to mean "some stranger who doesn't look like they'll just send me Viagra ads."

Anyway, I would much rather my Facebook Friend List consist of people who actually read this blog. If you're reading this message, you are presumably such a person. If you wanna be Facebook friends while I still have room for you, send me a request soon and include the name of your favorite Buster Keaton, Marx Brothers or Laurel & Hardy movie so I'll know you're my kind of people.

Daniel Engber discusses why 3-D movies, which briefly seemed about to shove 2-D out of this dimension altogether, are now dying out. Probably the same reason they didn't do that the last time such predictions were made, back in the fifties. If the movie's good, people don't care if it's in 2-D or 3-D and if it's not, then 3-D is a gimmick that only takes you so far and costs you more money.