Monthly Archives: September 2012

Did you know (I didn't) that 95% of the nation's car rental business will soon be controlled by just three competitors? It will look like a number of separate companies but there aren't as many as you think. My pal Joe Brancatelli has more.

Ryan Lizza on the hot 'n' cold relationship between Barrack Hussein Obama and William Jefferson Clinton. I am usually a bit leery of articles in which an author tells us how people he's never met, or at least never interviewed on the subject, "feel." I'm not even sure I'm getting an honest assessment when the people themselves tell us how they feel on some topic. But this article feels credible to me.

Yes, I understand that the $7.95 rate for 24-hours of uninterrupted Internet access at LAX will probably be used mainly by folks who are stuck at the airport for two or more hours at a time, which is not uncommon.  I was mostly just shivering at the prospect that someone might ever need it for 24 hours.

Los Angeles International Airport has just installed free wi-fi…well, free up to a point. I'm glad they did it but the free part stops at 45 minutes and then it's $4.95 for an hour or $7.95 for an uninterrupted 24-hour period. God help you if you needed a 24-hour uninterrupted period of Internet access at an airport. I can't think of too many likely scenarios where you would apart from having to live there for a day or two at a time.

45 minutes for free seems a bit stingy for a place that urges you to get there 90 minutes early. On the other hand, I don't recall too many places at LAX where I would feel comfy to sit and work on my laptop. I can recall spots at some airports — San Francisco, Las Vegas and Indianapolis — where I found a table to work on and didn't feel I was hogging a place where someone needed to sit to dine. I've written all or most of some assignment in an airport when they had such tables but never managed to write much of anything at LAX except in some V.I.P. lounge…and I have an unerring knack for either travelling on an airline that doesn't have a club or not being a member of the one they do have in my terminal. This is one of the trade-offs, I guess, for flying Southwest a lot.

I know there are memberships you can purchase and certain credit cards you can buy that will get you into every lounge but I don't fly that much and I don't really want most of what they have to offer. I don't need the snacks and the stock market ticker and the sports headlines and the beverages…and while the cute lady in the French Maid outfit is nice, all I really want is a place to work on my laptop where I can hear when they call my flight or announce delays. Doesn't seem like a lot to ask.

Here's the last one of these I'm going to embed here.

I've always liked Billy Crystal. Years ago, I wondered why no one had shovelled enough cash his way to install him as a TV talk show host. Then a friend at the network told me that his was a name that was once mentioned in that capacity but that back when he was making hit movies, he didn't want to give that up…and that once he was no longer making movies, he was "too rich to work that hard." I suppose now they'd say he's too old…

But I wonder if anyone's ever discussed offering him the chance to emulate one of his idols, Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy had a talk show for a while but it was once a week. Sammy and Company was on from '75 to '77 and it was famous for having its guests spend the full hour (or was it 90 minutes?) locked in discussions of each others' greatness. SCTV parodied it as The Sammy Maudlin Show but it was like trying to exaggerate infinity. I say bring it back as Billy and Company. He could even open every show doing little song parodies with his guests' names inserted, not unlike this…

Mitt Romney was on Meet the Press this morning talking about…well, at least in the part I saw, there was a lot of refusing to get into specifics about what tax loopholes he'd cut, what federal programs he'd eliminate or eviscerate, etc. I don't think this man's going to be elected but if he is, a lot of folks who support him are going to find out after he wins just what it was they voted for.

I think that's especially true with regard to Health Care. Romney says he'll "repeal and replace" Obamacare but doesn't say what he'd replace it with, except that it would keep a lot of the "good parts" of this plan he can't wait to kill. Like he's now he's saying he wants to retain the part that guarantees that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage and he wants to keep the part that permits children to remain on their family plans. He said, "…even in Massachusetts when I was governor, our plan there deals with pre-existing conditions and with young people." So he's using that plan, which very much resembles Obamacare, as a partial model.

I suspect what he'd replace Obamacare with is some version of the same thing dressed up so they can claim it's not Obamacare. Which is not to say I think the latter would be just as good…or that making that "replacement" wouldn't be a long, messy process that would put too many folks' coverage into chaos for years.

You know this movie and you know this scene. That's Marvin Kaplan on the left…a fine character actor and also a writer-director-producer. He was so wonderful in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and quite a few other movies. (His first was Adam's Rib with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.) He was also wonderful on dozens of TV shows including a recurring part on Alice. He was wonderful in cartoons, too. He played Choo Choo on Top Cat and a lot of other shows, including mine at every possible opportunity. A lovely, funny man…and now he's starring in his own website. Go over and visit the online home of my pal, Marvin.

Time for a bit of honesty. I figure you can use all you can get during this election.

Three items ago here, I linked to reports that the Oreo people are coming out with a candy corn flavor. Since I am a well-known loather of candy corn, I had been deluged (about twenty e-mails) by folks who thought I'd run screaming into the streets at this news. To keep the joke going, I posted what I posted. But really, it was just a joke because the honest truth is that I don't care if there are candy corn Oreos because I'm not going to eat them and it doesn't mean anything to my life if you do. I don't eat candy corn or Oreos when they're not in some sort of unearthly mash-up, either.

A few years ago, I gave up candy, cake, cookies…anything of that sort. There was a time — less than a decade ago — when I would have bet you my comic book collection that I could not do that and indeed, I didn't even try. Then one day, my sweet tooth went away and edibles in that category ceased to interest me. This was after I'd given up carbonated beverages of all kinds and before I gave up fruit juices and most fruits. I still don't quite understand why I no longer want that stuff.

But even when I did eat candy, I didn't eat candy corn…and it was no great inconvenience to avoid it. The truth is that I don't eat most foods. Or to put it another way, the list of things I'll put in my mouth has always been sparse. I have a very long list of food allergies and another, less vital list of foods I just plain don't like. When I was at my heaviest, folks would make jokes like, "Wow, when you go to a buffet, you must clean them out." I made such remarks myself when a laugh seemed obtainable. Sometimes, I can later use them on Garfield.

Still, all my life I've been able to go to a restaurant and order in about twenty seconds…because 95% of what's on there is food I would never eat. I've even gone to restaurants (particularly Mexican ones) where the tally on entrees was 100% Things Mark Can't/Won't Eat.

The rant about hating candy corn was just a bit…and not, as I later found out, even an original one. Lewis Black, I later learned, used to do one on the same premise. Not a surprise since candy corn is such a silly concept: "Hey, Arnie! You know what kind of candy kids would probably buy? Candy that looked like foods they hate! Let's pick a vegetable!"

It finally dawned on me that the joke is out of kilter with my basic philosophy of life (or one basic philosophy) which is along the lines of, "Hey, if you like it and it doesn't infringe on my life, fine. Whatever it is." So I'm dropping it from my repertoire and will not be rerunning it this Halloween. I'll also try to watch the smartass remarks about other foods since it really doesn't bother me if someone else eats them, just as long as I don't have to.

Unless, of course, we're talking about cole slaw. Because cole slaw is just evil.

Only a couple more of these. I actually really liked Billy Crystal as the host of the Oscars all but his last time. Often, you get the sense that the live audience there really respects the host but rarely does it feel like they all really like him. They did with Billy. Here he is in — what are we up to? '98? — and again, ignore that line about a billion people watching. Not even close to that…

Dick Cavett tells of his visit to meet Stan Laurel. Having chickened out on my own opportunity to go see one of my favorite performers in his home, I am quite envious.

I wrote about my affection for Laurel and Hardy in this article and then in its follow-up, told of that chickening-out. Well, we all do things we later regret.

This is so wrong. So very, very wrong.

You'll probably want to watch this twice…

Congratulations to the earthquake for its promotion to a 3.5. I knew you could do it.

We just had another small earthquake here where I live. Early reports say it was in the same place as the 3.3 we had the other night — which I guess means it qualifies not as an earthquake but an after-shock. But screw that. When the ground moves, you don't hang on semantics. It's a friggin' earthquake.

Preliminary readings peg this one at 3.4 but it felt weaker to me than its immediate predecessor. Then again, that one woke me up out of a sound sleep whereas this one hit when I was up and working on a script so I'm not sure I can compare. Anyway, no damage here. Back to work…