Tonight's Political Comment

The most interesting thing about the State of the Union address to me was how it, taken in tandem with Mitt Romney's release of his tax records, has probably defined this election. Barring some intrusive element like a war or terrorist attack, it's all going to be about Income Inequality and whether we're going to adjust the rules so they're not weighted quite as heavily in favor of the Romneys of the world. I don't think that's a bad platform for Obama to run on.

It's hard to say who he'd do better against, Romney or Gingrich. Mitt would be in a more awkward position than Newt if that became the issue of the election. But Newt is Newt, so easy to dislike.

My friend Roger tells me Gingrich is a Great Debater, who would singe Obama's eyebrows in a one-on-one. I don't think so. I think Gingrich is really good at hitting the buttons that set the Rush Limbaugh audience all atingle but at the same time, he rallies Democrats, Independents and even Moderate Republicans (I hear there are still a few) against him. Gingrich also hasn't been in a situation lately where anyone was interested in correcting certain anti-Obama "facts" of his claiming. There's a reason Rush never debates anyone he can't mute with the push of a button.

You've Either Got Or You Haven't Got Stylus

I don't agree with all of the computer-related columns authored by Farhad Manjoo but I'm with him when he touts the joys of iPadding with a stylus.  So what if Steve Jobs wanted us all to finger-paint on whatever we bought from him?   I don't have the daintiest fingers in the world and a stylus works much, much better for me…though not all of them.  I tried a number that were just too short and I returned to an Office Depot one brand (sorry, I don't recall which one) that was made to work with an iPad but wouldn't register at all on mine.  I also liked the idea of having a pen in my stylus for those increasingly-remote times when you need to actually write on a piece of what some still call "paper."

The Kensington model gives me a great stylus and an acceptable pen — oh, and as you can see, it has a clip on it which I also consider an absolute necessity. It's not perfect. I wish I had a wider, slightly heavier stylus with a gel-pen ink supply. I also wish that on the packaging or in the advertising for these things, they'd tell you how to buy a refill for the pen when it runs out. The Kensington says "Uses Parker ball pen refill" (which alas, does not seem to mean the Parker gel pen refills, just the ballpoint) but the other ones I've seen don't tell you. That's one of the reasons along with its length and balance that the Kensington is the best one I've found. If you want to try one out, here's an Amazon link.

Recommended Reading

Rod Dreher, whose credentials as a Conservative are pretty solid, asks the question those kind of people aren't supposed to ask: Are all these tax policies that favor the wealthy, such as a lower rate of taxation on income from Capital Gains, really wise? Or even Conservative?

I don't think so. All these theories about how if the rich keep a higher percentage of their income than my gardener will somehow benefit my gardener — how it will all "trickle down" — strike me as warm gas. They're like if I promoted the idea that the economy will prosper if only we don't tax 6'3" people who work on Groo comic books. (Hey, we oughta try that…)

Today's Video Link

Petula Clark will be appearing soon at Feinstein's at Loews Regency, a chic nightclub in New York that features great performers including, on rare occasions, Feinstein. I can't get back there for Ms. Clark's engagement but I'd love to see her.

So would Fred Landau, whose parodies have brightened this blog in the past. He was ready to go see Petula until he saw what they're charging for seats. Instead, he wrote this ditty which is performed by Sheree Sano…

VIDEO MISSING

My Tweets for 2012-01-24

  • Fred Thompson endorsed Gingrich. This would be big news if anyone remembered who Fred Thompson is. Even Newt couldn't place the name. #
  • 3rd biggest surprise on Mitt Romney's tax form: Due to loophole, only required to file when Halley's Comet is passing Earth. #
  • 2nd biggest surprise on Mitt Romney's tax form: Actually owns company that makes flip-flops. #
  • Biggest surprise on Mitt Romney's tax form: For some reason, claiming Carrot Top as a dependent. #
  • All I care about is that they nominate songs that will lend themselves easily to Billy Crystal parodies. #
  • Have to get up early tomorrow AM to see if I got an Oscar nomination — though I may have blown my chances by not working on a movie. #

Recommended Reading

Josh Marshall nails what I think the problem is most people have with Mitt Romney. Romney suggests they resent him his great wealth. No. They resent him his low tax rate.

I would also suggest that there's a difference in this country in how we regard wealthy folks who got rich by making an actual product and those whose wealth has chiefly come from the manipulation of money and investments. If Romney had invented the George Foreman Grill and made his millions that way, I don't think anyone would begrudge anything about his fortune. But no one can name anything that Romney as a private individual gave the world. He just knew when to buy and sell…and maybe even when to strip-mine a company and kill it.

More on Dick Tufeld

Hey, wanna hear Dick Tufeld doing what he did best? Here's a link to a YouTube video of a Hollywood Palace episode. If I've configured this right, it should start playing at the end credits so you can hear the kind of Dick Tufeld performance that so many others tried to emulate.

Dick Tufeld, R.I.P.

A lot of websites are noting the passing at age 85 of Dick Tufeld, the man who supplied the voice of the robot on Lost in Space. That's a great credit and I don't mean to belittle it in any way but it was, I'm guessing, about 2% of the amazing career of the man. There were probably years there where Dick had the most-heard anonymous voice in this country. He was the go-to guy for commercials, promos and especially for announcements on variety-type shows.

TV networks have been known to issue lists of "approved voices." The premise is that if you're an off-stage announcer, you more or less represent the network, especially if you're saying things like, "We'll return to our show after these commercial messages." When I produced a few variety specials for CBS in the eighties, we needed to hire someone to say things like that and we were handed such a list. It had about twelve names on it and one was Dick Tufeld's. I suspect he was on every such list issued by any network while he was actively working.

At the end of many an awards show, special or variety program, you'd hear him say over the credits, "This is Dick Tufeld speaking." He said it so often that it got to be a running gag that his name was Dick Tufeld Speaking. Once on some show, I actually heard him say, "This is Dick Tufeld Speaking speaking." And he was so adept at announcing that just with his voice, he managed to capitalize the first "speaking" and not the second.

I directed him once on an episode of the old Garfield and Friends show. This is it and it's a little bit outta sync but you'll recognize Mr. Tufeld's voice instantly…

VIDEO MISSING

As was the case the four or five times I worked with him, he arrived on time and did everything perfectly on every read. But unlike a few guys in his class and job description, he was utterly cooperative if asked to do it again and again and again and again. I once saw a director demand that Dick read an innocuous line about sixteen times with different inflections. Dick did so without even a twitch of complaints…and then they used the first one. They could have used any of them. He was that good and the industry mourns the loss.

Oh — one other thing about his appearance on Garfield: I couldn't resist so I had them do the end credits on that episode like this…

garfieldcredits01

Recommended Reading

David Frum explains why the list of Newt Gingrich supporters contains very few folks who've actually worked with the guy. Basically, he's good at serving up raw meat to Republicans but not at cooking it.

Go Read It!

My pal Robert J. Elisberg has just filed his annual very-long report on the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In it, you will read of many new inventions and services, most of which will fall neatly into one of two categories for you…

  1. I need that.
  2. Why the hell would anyone need that?

Some of those in each category will eventually fall into the other, and some in both will probably not materialize in final form or will vanish quickly. But somewhere in there you'll find one or more things which will become indispensable — in my life if not yours.

Today's Video Link

I had lunch Saturday with my pal, radio host Paul Harris…a great time, and I always learn things from this man. One of the less important ones is that Paul tipped me off to this video — footage from the first Today Show with Dave Garroway. It was an interesting program…NBC's attempt to start its network broadcast day early and to craft a program in a unique way.

Usually, people watch a show from start to finish…or at least, the producers want them to. But because of Today's position, it was going to be a show that a lot of folks would watch as they ate breakfast and got ready to go to work or leave the house. That meant they would join Today in progress and leave it when it came time to go catch a bus or a subway or whatever. As you can see, they weren't sure at first how to craft the show for that purpose and the presentation of news was rather crude. Still, it caught on.

So set the WABAC Machine for January 14, 1952, Sherman…

Working Late Again…

…but about to go to bed. Before I do, I wanted to post a quick follow-up to my piece here the other day about weather forecasting. Remember how I said forecasts often aren't much good more than 48 hours in the future? Well, this weekend in Los Angeles proved it. I mentioned two forecasts — one for Friday, one for Sunday into Monday. The Friday one was dead-on accurate. The second one, which was then more than 48 hours in the future, has changed so many times since then that it wasn't worth a lot three days ago except to tell us that there was a chance of some precipitation in that time frame. But then it went from a slim chance of less than .2 inches on Sunday to a bigger system that would drop perhaps 1.5 inches on us last night…and now it's looking like a quarter to a half-inch on Monday with the forecasters debating if that's too high.

This is not to say forecasts for dates more than 48 hours in the future are worthless. After the system clears outta here on Monday, high pressure is almost certain to build in and no systems will be wandering into this area…so the forecast for the rest of the week to be dry is probably accurate and valuable. It's just that when you do have weather systems out there, it's difficult to predict where they'll go. I wish the marketplace were such that meteorologists could say, "We don't know" more often that they do. The same is true with the folks who predict our elections.

Good night, Internet! I'll see you in the morning. That is, if they don't double-cross us, pass SOPA and make you go away.

The Lovely Ms. Barda

bardakazan

Among the questions I get about Jack Kirby are many having to do with a character he created for DC called Big Barda.  I mentioned somewhere that she was inspired by an appearance in Playboy by singer Lainie Kazan and folks want to know more about that.  Really, there isn't much more to it than that.

Jack had a subscription to Playboy. I have a vague idea — don't take this part as fact — that Harvey Kurtzman had arranged it. Kurtzman was of course producing "Little Annie Fanny" for Mr. Hefner's magazine back then and at one point, Jack declined an offer to help with the art on that strip. Kurtzman also at one point discussed with Jack (and it was never more than the briefest conversation) the notion of the two of them creating another strip for Playboy — one that could alternate with Ms. Annie and be in the Kirby style, albeit with nude women. Jack appreciated the interest in his services but did not think he'd be comfortable working for the magazine. His reasons were not just about the subject matter or the publication's image but also had to do with what he knew the working arrangements would be.

But he liked the magazine and had a pile of them in his studio. Some had pieces cut out of them because Jack enjoyed making collages of magazine photos, taking pieces and making them into something else when he arranged them on his board. Somewhere in at least one of those collages, he constructed a space ship of some kind out of clippings that once formed Miss August's breasts but were unrecognizable as such in the final product. Anyway, when the October, 1970 issue of Playboy arrived at the Kirby house, Jack smiled to see Lainie Kazan in it, sans wardrobe. He thought she was a beautiful lady and while Jack didn't necessarily prefer a large, formidable woman over any other, he did appreciate the beauty in that body type. It got him to thinking about concocting a super-heroine who looked like she could do the feats of strength that Wonder Woman or Supergirl did with more dainty physiques.

The creation of Barda began that day and was complete within days…but it would be wrong to suggest that Jack was drawing Lainie Kazan or that she suggested much more than a body type. A lot of non-writers don't get what it means when you say something in real life inspired a story. They think the writer is transcribing what really happened and just changing the names. That does happen but more often, a situation or an image or something becomes the starting point for fantasy. Carl Reiner once explained that he'd tell people that The Dick Van Dyke Show was based on his days working on Sid Caesar's variety shows…and they'd think Alan Brady was Sid and Carl's wife was Laura and that Carl therefore had a nightmare one night about Danny Thomas filling his closet with walnuts and so on. Nope. It's just a little something to build on and then you let your imagination kick in.

Like most artists, Jack based a lot of the people he drew on people he'd seen, both in person and on the screen. When he wrote dialogue for Darkseid — and to some extent when he drew the character's body language or expression — he had some qualities of Jack Palance in mind. Writers often "cast" a script that way just for their own benefit. Back when I was writing Bugs Bunny comic books, I had some interesting conversations with friends who were writing Superman or Spider-Man. Bugs had one well-established voice so when I wrote his dialogue, I could imagine Mel Blanc reading the words. Someone writing Aquaman had to make up a voice for their title character…and the next writer who handled the hero would have a different voice in mind.

In the case of Big Barda, the visual started with Lainie but all the personality and style was one of the many ways Jack viewed his spouse, Roz — especially the scenes where Barda would be fiercely protective of Scott "Mr. Miracle" Free. Jack, of course, saw himself as Mr. Miracle though the notion of a character who was a "Super Escape Artist" had started when writer-artist Jim Steranko told Jack about one of his previous careers. To some extent, Jack saw himself as all the decent characters he drew, and even the villains sometimes reflected aspects of himself of which he was not proud. But even that analogy only went so far and one must be cautious not to try and match reality up to everything Kirby did. Jack always started in reality and then moved way past it. He even moved past Lainie Kazan.