Monthly Archives: August 2012

Before you start discussing or evaluating what the Obama-Biden ticket would do about Medicare as opposed to the Romney-Ryan ticket, you need to read Ezra Klein on the two sides' basic approaches. Preview: On some aspects, they're quite similar…but that doesn't stop them from fighting over those parts of their respective packages.

Recently here, some of you looked like the audience watching Springtime for Hitler (minus the formal dress) when you watched this video clip of Mary Tyler Moore's variety show and later, this clip. I have this in the e-mailbox from my pal Arnie Kogen, who is and for many years has been one of the top comedy writer folks in the business…

Thanks for running the Mary Tyler Moore variety show piece. Brought back some memories. The series was called Mary. I was head writer on that show. The Exec Producer/Creators were Patchett & Tarses, two very funny, very gifted guys who had recently run The Bob Newhart Show. We also had a strong writing staff including Merrill Markoe who was writing for and dating David Letterman at that time. (The hyphenate term "writer/producer" was used frequently in that decade. The phrase "writer/main squeeze" was less common).

Despite a powerful supporting cast of Dick Shawn, David Letterman, Michael Keaton, Swoosie Kurtz, Jim Hampton and Judy Kahan, the show didn't work. Mary was uncomfortable doing variety, the viewers were uncomfortable with Mary Tyler Moore doing anything but "Mary Richards" and CBS was uncomfortable with this series. We taped thirteen shows, they cancelled us after three. We tried some off beat stuff. We had a musical salute to "driftwood," We had Mary singing, "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road," I came up with that idea of the "Ed Asner Dancers" — a bunch of paunchy middle-aged Ed Asner look-alikes in shirts and ties doing disco moves. We thought all this was pretty ground breaking for Variety. CBS had other thoughts. It's a tough town.

It is. And here's an odd, fuzzy memory I have. I recall that when this show was staffing up, my agent — it was Stu Robinson back then — called me up and said someone over there wanted to meet me with me about working on it and that I should go in and meet with Arnie Rosen about that. Not Arnie Kogen. He said Arnie Rosen. I guess Stu got the names confused…but that doesn't make sense because I think he was representing Arnie Rosen at the time. He may even have been representing you at the time, too. Stu and Bernie had a lot of clients.

Anyway, I didn't go…partly because I was more-or-less committed to write a variety pilot for Sid and Marty Krofft and partly because I'd worked with Arnie Rosen and didn't get along with him. I probably would have at least taken the meeting if I'd known it was Arnie Kogen, one of my favorite writers from MAD magazine. Did either of you ever work on the TV series Arnie with Herschel Bernardi?

R.J.'s for Ribs was one of many restaurants opened in Southern California by a man named Bob Morris who was kind of the Johnny Appleseed of restaurants. Mr. Morris made his fame with Gladstone's, the venerable seafood eatery out by the beach.  Folks who went there when he ran it still talk about how great it was when it was wholly under his control. The current Gladstone's bears little resemblance to that fine eatery but Morris now owns and operates the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe up in Malibu that more or less combines what was great about the old Gladstone's with what was great about R.J.'s, which he operated in Beverly Hills at 252 N. Beverly Drive until 2006.

R.J.'s was a fun place with reasonable prices and the emphasis was, of course, on ribs. Whereas most rib joints specialize in pork, Gladstone's did special things with the largest beef ribs I'd ever seen. Their pork ribs were fine — no complaints there — but the beef ribs were meaty and tender and large enough to tip over Fred Flintstone's car.

I usually opted for a combo of beef ribs and chicken.  Their chicken was very, very good.  Everything there was and so R.J.'s was very successful…and imitated.  I'm not sure if Mr. Morris was involved in it but out on Ventura Boulevard in Encino, there was a restaurant for a while called Adam's Ribs that was a near-clone.  It was not quite as good but it came close.

Like most Bob Morris restaurants, R.J.'s had…

• A very, very long salad bar with items you usually don't see in a salad bar.  I brought vegetarian friends there and they were very happy to graze while I gnawed on animal flesh.
• Sawdust on the floor.  And interesting things on the walls, mainly photos of old Los Angeles.  Once, I spotted a photo I liked so much (it was of a fave childhood haunt) that I called Mr. Morris's office and they gave me the name of the photographer/archivist they got them from.  Then I called him and ordered a print.
• The Bob Morris Clam Chowder.  Folks raised in New England would sometimes say, "That's not how clam chowder's supposed to be.  It's too thick."  And it was thick.  But not having been raised in New England, I thought it was the best white clam chowder I ever had.  You can still get it at his current establishment.
• Monster-sized desserts.  People would order the chocolate cake and be stunned at what they got: A slice big enough to carve up and share with six people, with gobs of whipped cream on the side.  It was also unbelievably rich and moist.  Once when I was there with one person, we didn't want to order the cake because we weren't going home after.  The people at the next table heard us and handed us the unconsumed cake they were left with after stuffing themselves.  We ate all we could and then handed it off to strangers at yet another table.  I have a feeling they weren't the last in that food chain.
• Decorative "to go" wrappings.  It wasn't just the cake that most folks took home to eat the next day (and maybe the next and the next…)  I always took home ribs and/or chicken from my colossal-sized entree.  R.J.'s was known for huge portions and few could finish them on the premises.  The bus boys were all trained to wrap your overage in gold aluminum foil and then to sculpt the package into a swan or other artistic creation.  It was like making balloon animals with your leftovers.  I used to challenge them: "Hey, how about an aardvark?  Or a puma?"
• New items.  I went to R.J.'s about twice a month and there always seemed to be something on the menu that hadn't been there before.  Once, it was something called The 1,000 Year Old Baked Potato.  It was a huge potato that was served at your table in a crockery shell.  Allegedly, it had been encased like a mummy in a shell of brick that was stamped and numbered, then baked underground in a pit for ten centuries or something.  Your server broke open the shell with a little hammer and then served you your potato with a tray of about a dozen condiments including caviar and real, just-cooked bacon bits.
• Other little touches.  Coffee was served with a side cup of whipped cream and another of chocolate morsels.  The chowder came with a soup mandel, which is kind of like a big Jewish crouton.  Sometimes, there was a little appetizer bar of cheese and crackers and other goodies to munch on. and there were always open bins of free peanuts while you waited for your table.  On a Friday, Saturday or Sunday evening (sometimes on a weeknight), that could be a long wait.

That was the main downside of R.J.'s, at least at the peak of its popularity: The wait.  That was a problem out at the old Gladstone's, too.  An 8 PM reservation meant you started waiting for a table at 8 PM and were fortunate to be seated by, say, 8:45.  Even though they provided snacks, it could be frustrating and there was the clear and present feeling that it was deliberate; that they wanted you to spend heavily at the bar before they'd seat you.

The bar, like everything else there except the prices, was huge.  They'd boast of having 600 different beers or 800 different beers…the number kept changing but it was always believable, given what you saw there.  There were as many non-beer alcoholic beverages, as well.  Eventually though, you'd get your table and about the time your clam chowder arrived, you'd start feeling it was worth the wait.  In case you can't tell, I really liked this place.

And there was a way around the wait, sort of.  I had this friend named Stanley Ralph Ross, a prolific TV writer and occasional restaurant critic.  Stanley was a friend of Bob Morris…one who claimed to have suggested the name of Gladstone's.  (Given Stanley's tendency to exaggerate, it wouldn't surprise me if Mr. Morris did not agree.)  When I told him of an excruciatingly long wait at R.J.'s one night, Stanley said, "You need a Farkleberry Card," and before I could ask what the hell that was, Stanley was on the phone to Bob Morris's office, convincing some nice lady there to send me one.

It turned out to be a blue plastic card not unlike a credit card in look and feel but it didn't buy anything.   Instead, you flashed it quietly to the hostess to tell her you were some sort of privileged friend of R.J.'s…I guess.  It was supposed to get you a table swiftly (or even sans reservation) but I'm not sure it ever sped the seating process and I never dared go there without a reservation.  Still, I told myself after waiting just under an hour for a table, "Just think how long it would take without the card."  And I did feel privileged in some odd way.

Eventually, R.J.'s went away in stages.  Morris sold it to others and they took it downhill farther and faster than the folks who'd ruined Gladstone's.  The last time I was there, they had notices up that they were moving, location unspecified.  On the sly, the hostess told me the owners had just signed a lease on a place on Santa Monica Boulevard near La Cienega and that they'd be up and running there in less than two months.  This was in 2006 and I'm starting to get the feeling that ain't gonna happen.

One of comics' most prolific and respected comic book creators, Joe Kubert, died this morning at the age of 85. This probably comes as a special jolt to those who knew him and thought of him as a healthy, vital individual. Joe drew stories of strong, rugged men and unlike so many who do those, seemed like a strong, rugged man himself. Whether it was a war comic, a super-hero comic, a comic about a caveman or his acclaimed run on Tarzan, Joe had a way of imbuing the work with a kind of four-color testosterone. No one did male better.

I suppose in private he had other passions but those who knew him professionally knew of two: He loved to draw and he loved to teach. The love of drawing began at early age. He was born in Poland on September 18, 1926 and brought to the U.S. (to Brooklyn) as an infant. Reared as the son of a Kosher butcher, he started doodling on dad's wrapping paper and soon proved to have the kind of flair on which you could build a career.

Joe told several stories about where and when he got his first professional job. In some, he was as young as ten; in others, as old as thirteen. Even the latter would be amazing. But he started young either in the shop of Harry "A" Chesler or at MLJ, now better known as Archie comics, and was quickly promoted from office boy to art apprentice to artist. He was definitely drawing stories under his own signature by 1942 when he was sixteen. That would have been for a company called Holyoke.

The following year, he did his first work for DC Comics. While he would freelance for many publishers — and briefly be a publisher in partnership with his boyhood friend, Norman Maurer — Joe would do about 90% of his work for DC. In the forties, it was mostly super-heroes, with his stint on Hawkman being especially memorable. In the fifties and sixties, he would become the star "war comics" artist, not just at DC but arguably throughout the industry. His collaborations with writer-editor Robert Kanigher won much praise, particularly on Sgt. Rock and Enemy Ace. He also drew an updated Hawkman and hundreds upon hundreds of covers.

In the seventies, he replaced Kanigher as editor of DC's war titles and branched out into other genres.  He also began writing much of what he drew. His version of Tarzan was loved and respected around the world and he later revived Tor, a character he'd done for the line of comics he'd produced with Maurer.  Whatever he did, he was a major presence in DC's line. My favorite work of his during this period was a book that didn't get the recognition it deserved — a series called Firehair about a red-headed white boy raised by Indians.

There were other, non-DC projects. For a time, he drew the Tales of the Green Beret newspaper strip and later did brief runs on other features. He began producing PS Magazine, an Army publication once helmed by Will Eisner. But mostly it's been The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art which he and his wife Muriel ran out of a big house in Dover, New Jersey. Dozens if not hundreds of young artists learned or honed their crafts there, expanding his influence to new generations of comic creators. (He and Muriel also contributed in another way: Two of their sons, Adam and Andy, became top comic book illustrators.)

Everyone loved Joe. Everyone respected Joe. He was among a handful of artists whose speed and natural ability caused others to gape and express their envy. One year at the Comic-Con in San Diego (the same mid-seventies con where I took the above photo), Joe was asked to do a drawing for a charity art auction. He stepped up to an easel with a big, yard-high piece of drawing paper on it. He picked up a box of pastel chalks. He turned to the easel —

— and in under a minute, there was this drawing there of Hawkman. It was an incredible, detailed drawing that might have taken another artist an hour and been a third as good. Other artists working on nearby easels stopped and blinked in amazement.

Moments later, Joe's drawing was auctioned off for hundreds of dollars. Today, it would go for thousands but back then, hundreds seemed steep. The runner-up bidder announced that he would match the winning price — more money for the charity — if Joe would whip out another. Joe took his time on this one. I think he took about a hundred seconds. The buyer of the first drawing complained that this was even better and began trying to negotiate a swap with the fellow who'd commissioned the second.

It didn't always come that easy for Joe. In later years, he worked hard and long on a number of graphic novels, including his award-winning Fax from Sarajevo. He wasn't struggling because of his advanced age. He could draw just as fast as ever, he said. But as he tackled more serious, personal subjects, it became that much more important to get the work right. He always did.

I had the pleasure of knowing Joe Kubert and interviewing him at many conventions. He was thoughtful, sincere and very talented…and very generous when it came to sharing his talents with others. As we've had to do too many times in recent years, our industry mourns a giant, a pioneer and a very wonderful man.

My friend Marc Tyler Nobleman has a new book out I've mentioned here before, I believe. It's called Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman. Well-illustrated by Ty Templeton, it tells the story of Bill Finger, who a lot of us think should be credited as the co-creator of you-know-who. In fact, even Bob Kane who got sole credit said in his (appropriately ghost-written) autobiography that he regretted that Finger's name was not on there. That was a nice thing of him to say, I guess. And it could even have been meaningful if he'd then called up DC Comics and said, "Hey, remember that contract I made with you that specified that I be credited as the sole creator of Batman and any characters in his comic? Well, let's change that and add Bill Finger's name in."

But Mr. Kane didn't do that. He should have. Among other things, it would have made for a happier ending to Marc's book…and there would then actually be people in the field of comics who had respect for Bob Kane.

NPR did a segment recently on Marc's book. You can listen to it on this page. And if you're moved to purchase a copy of said book, you can do that on this page.

Ryan as Romney's running mate? Mitt's gotta be afraid the Republican base won't turn out for him…and given the polls lately, that's not an unjustified worry. Not that they'd flock to Obama but that they'd shut off the donation spigot and stay home.

So Democrats have that weird emotional balancing act. On the one hand, Romney-Ryan should be easier to beat. I mean, if you can't win Florida against a ticket that can't deny it wants to slash Social Security…

On the other hand, the "We gotta beat Romney or the lower and middle class will suffer" urgency has just gotten a little more urgent…

Is Saturday Night Live doing a new show tonight? If so, they oughta have Tina Fey come out and play Paul Ryan.

A lot of folks liked the clip I embedded recently from the short-lived 1978 Mary Tyler Moore variety show. Here's about seven minutes from the first episode. I remember thinking that Michael Keaton, Dick Shawn and David Letterman were all pretty good as individuals but that the "family" that was the core of the show's concept was a bunch of performers who seemed to have nothing to do with each other. It also felt to me like the ladies of the company were selected to not upstage the star…and they were all led by a lady who didn't seem at all comfortable in her role…

You can't see it that well in the picture below of Beverly Drive but the red building at left was Linny's Delicatessen, which served the best corned beef sandwich in town.  The building went through several other tenants before turning into R.J.'s, one of the more popular places to eat ribs in Beverly Hills before it too went away.  The best corned beef in the vicinity is now two blocks to the north at Nate 'n' Al's Deli. That did not change during the year-or-so in which someone tried to operate a branch of New York's famous Carnegie Deli in a building between where Linny's used to be and where Nate 'n' Al's has been for a long, long time and still is. It was the Carnegie in name only and I suspect every Nate 'n' Al's customer ate there once before returning, having learned a valuable lesson, to Nate 'n' Al's.

Next door to Linny's, you can see an outpost of the Lerner Stores, part of a chain of women's clothing stores. The famed playwright Alan Jay Lerner (author of My Fair Lady) was of the family that owned the company. At some point, it was replaced by an outlet of Lane Bryant's, a clothing shop that caters to plus-sized women. This was very convenient for ladies who ate often at Linny's.

More or less across the street from Linny's was the wonderful Ontra Cafeteria where I'd be dining often if there were still Ontra Cafeterias.

Also, at the far right of this photo, you can see Melody Lane, which was a popular coffee shop of the day.  It was situated at the corner of Beverly Drive and Wilshire Boulevard.  The white thing at the center of the picture is the dome of the Beverly Theater, a movie palace with an Egyptian decor that showed, at least when I was going there, good ol' American movies.  I saw Oliver! there and The Twelve Chairs, not on the same double bill.  It was later converted into a jewelry store and was torn down completely in the middle of 2005.

There are some pretty terrible political pundits out there…folks who are never right about anything. Amazingly, it doesn't seem to harm their careers. Want an example? Dick Morris.

It's been more than three days since I last plugged the one-Marx show that my friend Frank Ferrante does here, there and all around the nation. (It's actually one impersonated Marx and one long-suffering but very fine piano player named Jim Furmston. That's Jim in the photo, dressed in a rented tuxedo he's had out for 14 years now.) Frank magically transforms himself into the great comedian and tells stories and sings and dances and I've seen him leap over a couch and heckle every single person in the audience before they could heckle him.

Wanna know why I'm always suggesting you go see him? It's because I keep getting these messages from people who did and wrote to thank me for the recommendation. He really does go beyond just doing an impression of Groucho in his prime. I've seen him many times and I always enjoy what I see…and the expressions on the faces of those I drag along.

Seeing him has not been easy, by the way. He tours the U.S., rarely pausing for more than one performance in an area. He is usually not in big cities and my home town of Los Angeles is among the big cities he's not usually in. So I've seen him in Brea and in Redondo Beach and in La Mirada and in Riverside and in Rancho Cucamonga. You've got to really like an act to drive to Riverside or Rancho Cucamonga. If Jerry Garcia were to suddenly turn up alive and he was doing a concert in Riverside, there are Deadheads who would decide it wasn't worth the trip.

Here is his calendar, now extended through the first half of '13. He'll be in Europe for the first two months and then it's Green Valley, Arizona and New Philadelphia, Ohio and Greenville, Kentucky and so on and so on. If one of those venues is near you, go and then write me an e-mail about what a good time you had.

But here's the big news for some of my friends: Frank is going to be in Long Beach, California — not quite a Bataan Death March of a drive for some of us — for an afternoon performance on October 14. It's at the Carpenter Center (as in "Karen and Richard Carpenter") on the C.S.U.L.B. campus, a very nice hall indeed. You can order tickets here. You might want to do that soon because I think I'll be bringing about half the people I know…and I know an awful lot of people.

I'm kinda intrigued about this whole accusation by Harry Reid that Mitt Romney paid no taxes for ten years. Let's stipulate first that it sure sounds like it ain't true and if I had to bet, that's how I'd bet. Fortunately, I don't have to bet.

Reading the online articles about it all, I'm still not clear as to whether Reid's charge is that Mitt Romney paid $0.00 for ten years or if the charge is somewhat more approximate than that. If it came out that Romney paid a few grand in tax on an income of many millions, a lot of us would say, "He paid nothing." Is that what Reid means? Google just paid a fine of $22.5 million for some infraction. Some people would say that was nothing.  Or does he mean absolute zero?

And what kind of source could Reid have had that had access to Romney's tax data over a decade? Even assuming there was a source at all — and that part sounds kinda fishy — I've heard false information from folks you'd assume would be in a position to know. Reid is not running for another term (at least not now) so he may not be worried about sullying his own rep and may figure the damage to the Romney campaign is worth it. Or he may figure that if it pressures Romney into releasing his taxes, there'll be revelations there that will make it worth it.

A lot of fact-checking sites are rushing to brand Reid a pants-on-fire liar and he may well be, though I think that verdict may be premature. Some of them consulted experts to ask if it was possible that Mitt Romney could legally have paid no taxes for ten years. (And they're all assuming, let's note, that if he did that, he would have done so legally.) Apparently, it's unlikely but remotely possible.

But this gets back to the question I asked of whether we're talking here about paying zero or about paying what seems like zero to a man with Romney's income. If it came out that Romney had paid $500 a year, I think a lot of people and fact-checkers would owe Harry Reid at least a partial apology. I don't expect any part of that to happen, however.

So far, the reviews of The Nutty Professor trying-out in Nashville have sounded like pushovers written by folks who wanted to love, love, love the show. This new one is pretty positive but it doesn't read like it was authored by the show's publicist.

Word on the street is that The New York Times sent a reviewer but nothing has appeared yet. Perhaps they're delaying it in light of the tragic passing of Marvin Hamlisch. Or perhaps they don't want to review an outta-town tryout and are just researching for a later piece, if and when it comes to Broadway.

I'm curious as to whether the show could make it to New York this season, thereby making it eligible for next year's Tony Awards. That would mean opening by a cut-off date that I don't believe has been established yet. For 2012, it was April 26. Getting there in time will involve two things. One is that it will need enough investors because opening a show on Broadway ain't cheap and even if the thing's a sell-out smash, it will have to run at a loss for quite some time. The second, harder requirement is to find a theater that's available. There may not be one. Quite a few shows that could open on Broadway haven't because of that.