Here's the second installment of Bruce Kimmel's new web series, Outside the Box. This one stars Brad Oscar, who I met when he was in the cast of Forbidden Broadway. When next I saw him on the stage, he was playing Franz Liebkind in the original Broadway company of Mel Brooks' The Producers, and he was also understudying Nathan Lane and occasionally going on for him. He later took over the role of Max Bialystock full-time and was very, very good in it. Here he is finally originating a role…
Monthly Archives: November 2011
Recommended Reading
Is pizza really a vegetable? And while we're at it, is a tomato a vegetable or a fruit? As Benjamin Phelan reports, it's all a lot more complicated than you think.
Recommended Reading
Bruce Bartlett on the core problem facing the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction: The American people want what they want and they don't want to sacrifice anything except aid to other countries…which they think is a lot more than it really is.
Alvin Schwartz, R.I.P.
Alvin Schwartz, a top writer for DC Comics in the forties and fifties, died the morning of October 28 from heart-related complications. He was 95 and had been ailing for some time.
Born in New York City in 1916, he showed a flair for writing at an early age. His first credit in comics appears to be a story for Western Publishing that appeared in Fairy Tale Parade in 1939. When I interviewed him in the nineties, he recalled that he'd done such an assignment but had no memory of how it came about. The job led to occasional work for Fawcett on Captain Marvel but mainly to a long stint at DC. Alvin began writing Batman comic books in 1942 and the Batman newspaper strip two years later, followed almost immediately by him taking over the writing of the Superman newspaper strip, as well. Until 1958, he wrote for most of the company's comics including Aquaman, A Date With Judy, Buzzy, House of Mystery, Tomahawk, Wonder Woman, The Flash and Green Lantern. The latter two were the 1940's versions. He contributed much to the Superman legend but his best-remembered work would probably be his refinement (and probably, as he claimed, creation) of the character and concept of Bizarro.
In 1958, he got out of comics. His stated reason at the time was that he was having trouble with one editor at DC and that was apparently true. But he was also undergoing what he later called a "spiritual journey," discovering that writing heroic characters — Superman, especially — was giving him issues of identity and a wide array of emotions over his own worth as a human being. His feelings were complicated and though he told me about them directly and I read about them in two books of his — An Unlikely Prophet and A Gathering of Selves, I'm not sure I completely understand his troubles.
Clearly though, he felt he needed to get away from comics and he did, working for a time in market research and also writing novels under an array of names, and motion pictures including several for the National Film Board of Canada. For a long time, he believed his comic book work had been forgotten but several fans tracked him down in the late eighties and he began attending conventions and letting me interview him at several. He was a fascinating man who obviously put a lot of thought into his work before he did it, while he was doing it…and for decades after. He was also a very fine writer and we were happy to present him in 2006 with the Bill Finger Award for his lasting and important work.
Great Photos of Stan Laurel and/or Oliver Hardy
Number seventy in a series…
Herman 'n' Dave
Herman Cain was on with Letterman the other night, looking darn happy to be on a Big Time TV Show, though intermittently annoyed at some of Dave's questions. I suspect no one's opinion of Mr. Cain changed because of it. If you thought he was shallow and inexperienced, that's how he came across. If you thought he was something exciting who's being unfairly maligned, that view was probably reinforced.
His platform does seem to be on the order of "I did such a great job turning around a failing pizza company, you should just elect me President of the United States and let me figure out how to turn around a failing country." I kinda wish Dave had said something like, "Listen, CBS had one disaster after another in this time slot and I came along and made it successful. That doesn't mean I have a clue how to fix the economy, deal with the Middle East or control the cost of health care."
Cain kept talking about his "9-9-9" plan and Dave wasn't prepared (or maybe interested) to quote experts who say it'll screw the lower and middle-class…and not help the economy either. At times when I see these interviews, I feel like the country is being done a disservice to have a candidate get all that air time — and a stage on which to prove he's funny and a nice guy — without real cross-examination. But then they don't get the hard questions from anyone, really. Cain is now cancelling interviews anywhere he's likely to be asked anything he isn't prepared to answer. That seems to cover a lot of topics.
So maybe softball interviews are all we've got. Jon Stewart is better than Dave at handling political guests and Jay Leno is worse and the rest are either uninterested or their shows are low-enough profile to not attract presidential candidates at all. I wish we had some solid journalist with a good time slot and such a reputation for fairness that it would look bad for a candidate to not go on that show and sit for a real and challenging interrogation. We have no such person. Nowadays, if a candidate is asked something they can't answer, they flee to safer venues and cry about "gotcha" questions.
Today's Video Link
Kevin Mummery sent me the following message…
As much as I've enjoyed your recent 1,000 Lambeth Walk posts, I'm sure there are many of your devoted readers who would love more than anything if you began posting on another dance sensation that swept a nation…The Hucklebuck. No less a talent than Art Carney was an expert Hucklebuck-er, as he demonstrated once on The Honeymooners. So, whaddya say…would it kill you to at least slip in a little Hucklebuck action once in a while?
Yes. Here's another interpretation of "The Lambeth Walk"…
World of Whiskers
Longtime readers of this blog may recall that back in '08, they watched from afar as I dealt with the problem of a stray pregnant pussycat in my backyard. The adventure was serialized here over many days and if you want to read it, go to this posting and then read forward for a while until the matter gets resolved. Don't worry…it has a happy ending.
Before we got to that though, it was quite a struggle and it made me acutely aware of one of those problems that few people like to think about. If I told you that some crazy person was going around murdering cats and had slaughtered thousands of them, you'd be horrified and you'd say, "Someone's got to stop that sicko and lock him away for the rest of his life." But in fact, your tax dollars pay to have perfectly-healthy cats "put to sleep" (i.e., killed) all the time and the numbers are staggering.
I currently feed four feral cats in my backyard, one of them the cat in the above-linked thread. She is now well and happy and not a mother. My situation here is manageable but it is not manageable in at least one area of Los Angeles that is overrun with feral felines. Here is an article about the situation and it should serve as a cautionary tale of what can happen if you don't pay attention to the situation before the local cats breed exponentially and there are way, way too many of them.
In the article, you'll see a photo of a lady named Christi Metropole who founded The Stray Cat Alliance, a charity that is attempting to deal with this matter. When I had my problem, she was the person I spoke to and she told me how to do what I did. I'm sending the group a donation and if you appreciate this blog and want to do something nice for me, perhaps you can do the same.
Today's Audio Link
You may not believe this but I have here another recording of "The Lambeth Walk." This one's pretty lively and it features the great bandleader Artie Shaw.
Alvin Schwartz
Sadly but not unexpectedly, I've received sufficient confirmation of the passing of comic book writer Alvin Schwartz. I'll post something later today about this lovely man.
Great Photos of Stan Laurel and/or Oliver Hardy
Number sixty-nine in a series…
Spell Bound
A few of you have written in to question whether that newspaper item that confused the word "moot" with "mute" was really a typo. They all thought it was actually a matter of some reporter not knowing the difference between the two words, which would not be a typo, per se. Perhaps. But in these days of spell-checkers, it's not at all odd for someone to type the correct word and then not notice when the spell-checker "corrects" it into the wrong word. That's happened to me on occasion and I have to tell you, it really passes me off.
Magic Castle Update
Several readers — most recently, David Serchay — have written to ask what's up with the Magic Castle. As you may have heard, the esteemed private club for magicians in Hollywood had an ironic fire on Halloween afternoon — ironic because the building had been decked out with special lights that, that evening, would have made it look like it was ablaze and all the ads for the big Halloween Party (which of course had to be cancelled) proclaimed it would be held in the midst of an "Inferno."
I'm not a representative of the club (just a member) but I can tell you what I know. The fire, they're saying, was started by a roofer with some sort of torch. Most of what was burned was in the attic where offices were located and a lot of computers and desks were destroyed. The more lasting, hard-to-replace damage was from water — either from fire hoses or the sprinkler system.
The Castle is kind of a magic trick in and of itself. It looks a lot bigger on the inside than it does from the outside. That's because, to give away the secret, it's really not one house as it appears to be. The main structure pictured above is the former Rollin B. Lane mansion built in 1909. It was rented and refurbished by the Larsen Brothers, Bill and Milt, commencing in 1961 and it opened as a club in 1963. It expanded soon into an adjoining structure with the two buildings chained together seamlessly, plus they dug into the hillside for further expansion. The water damage has closed down most of the Lane mansion but the add-on was largely untouched and has reopened for business. It houses most of the showrooms so it's now possible to go and enjoy about half of the Magic Castle experience. That is, if you're a member or you have a guest pass from a member.
(When the fire occurred, the first question all the members had after they heard no one was injured, was "Is the library okay?" Among the wonders of the Castle is one of the most extensive collections of magic-related documents and books on the planet. Fortunately, the library is in the annex that escaped the fire and the H2O.)
Crews are working night 'n' day to restore the rest of the Castle. I'm hearing different estimates of how long before the work will be completed and I guess the answer is that no one really knows.
I love the Castle. I first went there around 1980. I was then seeing a lady named Bridget (this person) and she was working as an assistant to a terrific magician named Chuck Jones (this person). Chuck — no relation to the famed cartoon director — was a kids' show host in L.A. in the sixties and I wanted to see him as much as I wanted to see Bridget sawed in half. Actually, to repurpose an old Henny Youngman joke, I was afraid if he cut her in half, I'd get the half that eats.
It was such a wonderful place, I couldn't resist. I joined the Castle as an Associate Member a week later and later demonstrated enough expertise in magic that they upgraded me to a full Magician Member. Oddly enough, I probably do less magic now because I go to the Castle, see the best in the world perform and decide I am not fit to ask anyone to pick a card, any card.
Above and beyond being a fun venue to take friends to dine and watch shows, it's also the clubhouse for the Academy of Magical Arts. You don't really join the Magic Castle when you join. You join the Academy. At times, it really feels like a club and never more so than in the weeks since the fire. That roofer with his torch caused a lot of destruction but he also reminded us all how much we treasure the Castle and would hate to ever lose it. There's been a tremendous rallying with everyone offering to help and donating funds. The Castle carried pretty good insurance and I would imagine whatever policies the roofing company had will be paying a nice piece o' change, as well. But when does insurance ever cover every single dime of loss?
That's just about all I know about this. The Castle has a superb staff that has a good track record for working miracles. It would not surprise me if our clubhouse is made whole again sooner than anyone imagines. When it is, a lot of members are eager to rush in, see it again, touch it and appreciate it more than ever.
Today's Video Link
You're probably wondering to yourself, "What's next, Evanier?" A video of 'The Lambeth Walk' being performed in the British pavilion at the 1988 World Expo?" Yep…
Strange Schwartz Stories
A number of online comic forums have reported the passing of Alvin Schwartz about a week ago. This is the Alvin Schwartz who wrote Superman, Batman and other comic books back in the forties and fifties, and who was one of our two recipients of the Bill Finger Award in 2006. He was our "living" honoree and though he was too ill that year to attend there ceremony, he was unquestionably living then. And, by the way, pleased and grateful.
Since Mr. Schwartz was born in 1916, his passing is well within the realm of possibility…and knowing him, he'd probably chuckle and say "probability." Still, I have my own little rules of sourcing that I have to follow to report someone's death and since they haven't been met, I am not reporting that Alvin Schwartz has left us. I'm just reporting that some other folks are saying it.
If anyone reading this can offer any hard information, I would appreciate an e-mail. And please do not confuse him with the other Alvin Schwartz, who wrote the popular series of kids' books called Scary Stories. That Alvin Schwartz died in 1992.