Recommended Reading

Regarding the bogus scandal that Obama directed the Internal Revenue to target right-wing groups, Andrew Sullivan has a memo to Peggy Noonan.

And you know, I used to like Peggy Noonan. I think I linked to a lot of her pieces here a while back. But she, like a lot of people who are desperate for an Obama impeachment, have resorted to just plain lying.

Three Brief Topics

That's right: I said "Three brief topics" —

  1. I'm taking a brief respite from the discussions of who played Superman at the 1940 World's Fair. We'll get back to it in a few days.
  2. I'm starting to feel sorry for Paula Deen and to feel that the punishment does not fit the crime. Note that I'm talking about the specific wrong that Ms. Deen may have done, not the general wrong that is most racism. It's feeling to me like some folks are getting the two confused.
  3. The knee is getting better…not as rapidly as I'd hoped/expected but it is getting better. I oughta be fine for Comic-Con and if not, Tony Isabella has volunteered to give me piggyback rides from room to room. Thanks to all who've sent well wishes for a speedy recovery. You may soon need to send those to Tony.

Today's Video Link

This is a rerun of an old video I embedded here years ago but that link is dead and this is a much better copy, away. Here's what I wrote at the time…

Tonight Show clips from the sixties are very rare. As you may know, most of the tapes were erased…an act about which Mr. J. Carson was known to curse and moan. I once heard an NBC exec complain about Johnny's complaining, saying (in effect) that for a very modest amount of cash — or even for nothing if he'd demanded it of the network — Johnny could have had those shows preserved. But he knew they were being dumped and said nothing about it for more than ten years…whereupon NBC suddenly became the villains who'd destroyed his heritage.

I wouldn't take sides in that debate, and there may be more to it than the above. All I know is it's nice when a new clip surfaces…like these from the Tonight Show for New Year's Eve, 1965/1966. This was back when the show was based in New York and the bandleader (who you'll see briefly in the second clip) was Skitch Henderson.

This features Criswell, who I wrote about back here. Criswell, with his pompous manner and daffy forecasts, appeared at least annually with Mr. Carson for about a decade, usually around the first of the year. You'll notice he's reading awkwardly from cards. This was probably to make sure he did all the lines in the right order. Johnny, obviously, was sitting there with a page of pre-written "ad-libs" to inject after each Criswell Prediction if and when it suited him. (Carson knew enough to only glance down at them when Criswell was speaking, so the attention and camera were elsewhere but you can catch Johnny peeking once or twice.)

As the years went along, Carson took to mocking Criswell more and more with each appearance. The last few times, it got pretty insulting. Don Rickles was also a guest on what I think was Criswell's last time on the show, and he and Johnny just howled at the silly predictions and at the style with which they were delivered. I remember some TV critic of the day writing that Carson and Rickles had gone too far with embarrassing a guest…but I doubt Criswell minded. You could tell that he didn't even believe his own act…and besides, it was still the best show biz exposure he ever had. Pretty much anything is better than his previous claim to fame, which was starring in movies directed by Ed Wood, including Plan 9 From Outer Space.

And now without further ado, here's Criswell…

Later Wednesday Morning

I don't understand a lot of the logic behind this morning's rulings on Gay Marriage. Scalia's dissent in the overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act reads to me like the rebuttal to his support the day before in the castration of the Voting Rights Act. I once heard someone on TV say of the High Court, "These guys decide how they want it to go in the same way that you and I decide how we want it to go. The difference is that they then have to look at the statutes and legal precedents and figure out how to parse them to justify the decision as based on law, not emotions." I'd like to believe that isn't always the case but clearly there's something to that.

Among folks I consider close friends, I don't think I have any who think that Same-Sex Wedlock will doom "real marriage" or humanity or cause God to smite us all. There were some a few years ago but they all seem to have "evolved" or maybe just accepted reality. Sometimes when you find yourself on the losing side, it's easier to get off the team before the final inning.

I just turned off the TV news coverage, having seen a spate of outraged dissenters promising, "This battle isn't over." It's understandable that we should hear that, especially from folks who've been able to demagogue the anti-gay position for a lot of money and/or attention…and they're right, in one sense, on a state-by-state basis. It'll be years before Adam and Steve can walk down the aisle in some states. But I dunno…if I was against Gay Marriage, I think I'd invest my time, donations and support in some cause that has a chance of succeeding.

Tonight's Political Comment

So everyone's saying that the Supreme Court decision on Gay Marriage will be rolled out tomorrow at 10 AM Eastern Time. Those who predict what the Supremes will decree have been wrong enough lately that I'm ignoring all forecasts but they're probably right about the When.

As readers of this blog know, I think it's shameful that gay folks even have to make the case that they should be allowed to marry whoever they want to marry. Given how public opinion has shifted on this issue, I'm sure we will see the end of that in the foreseeable future. It would be great if the Supreme Court could get us to that day tomorrow but I suspect a split decision of some kind is more likely. The New Yorker has whipped up an interactive chart that shows us how each possible combination of the two pending decisions would impact the states.

Today's Video Link

Ten minutes of Merv Griffin interviewing Gene Wilder in 1979…

More on Ray Middleton and Superman

Some folks are telling me the first day cover envelopes that make the rounds, including the one I posted, are either forgeries or they're real FDCs that have had additional art and text added to them at a later date. That may be so — I dunno — but that only underscores the central question if we're to unlock this mystery: Where did the identification of Ray Middleton as the guy in the Superman suit come from? The first time someone said it was him, what was the source? Anyone know?

Tales of My Mother #16

talesofmymother02

My knee surgery yesterday reminded me of a Tale of My Mother I haven't told yet. You'll see the punchline to this one coming well before we get to it.

Over the years, due in no small part to a lifetime of cigarettes, she was losing her ability to walk. Both legs were very bad and her right knee hurt her terribly. One of her legion of doctors finally told her that knee replacements would be necessary. They'd do one and then after she had recovered from that surgery — and that could take quite a while — they'd do the other. My mother didn't like the idea of such extreme surgery but she less liked the idea of not being able to walk. Extensive x-rays and tests were done and a date for the first operation was set. A few days before, I took her into the hospital to meet the surgeon who'd actually be performing the procedure. He announced, much to her horror, "We're going to do the left knee first."

This was to her horror because the right knee was the one that had really been aching her. She knew both were bad but the left knee, at least, didn't hurt much. She asked, "Can't you do the right knee first, doctor?" He put the x-ray up on one of those wall-mounted lightboxes and began pointing out things on it that we would both have to have graduated medical school to understand.

"I understand the right knee's the one giving you pain," he said when he finally dialed it down to Layman's English. "But the left one is the one that's about to go. It could just about explode on you at any time. If we do the right knee first and then the left one goes before you can get around on the right knee, you'll really have trouble."

She understood that but said, "I just dread the idea of having to get around on the painful right knee for six or more months."

It was at this point that I asked the question that you would have asked, too: "Doctor…I apologize in advance for this but could you just please humor me for a second? Could you check and see if these x-rays you're pointing at aren't mixed-up?"

"Certainly," he said. He put each x-ray in turn up on the lightbox for even closer study and within moments, we heard him exclaim with his own horror and embarrassment, "Jesus Christ…these are mislabeled." The left said RIGHT on it and the right said LEFT on it.

He was furious with the folks in the x-ray department and he immediately picked up the phone and read someone the Riot Act, the Trespass Act, the Stamp Act and at least two of the three acts of The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. He assured us repeatedly that the mistake would have been caught well before they operated but…well, the whole thing would have made you uneasy, too. We went to my mother's primary care physician who, in addition to being a brilliant and trustworthy man who'd taken care of her for many decades, was a senior official with the hospital.

He read the remaining act of Marat/Sade to many people and I think got someone fired or at least transferred to a less critical position. I imagined this person being reassigned to the hospital cafeteria and sitting there all day, labeling the egg salad sandwiches as tuna. At her primary doctor's urging though, we agreed to trust the surgeon we'd met with.

Well, almost trust. The morning of the operation before I took her in, I took a big marker and wrote WRONG KNEE on the wrong knee.  That day, the right knee was the right knee.

Yesterday when I went in for my knee operation, I thought of doing that but right after I got into the humiliating gown, the nurse produced a marking pen, asked me to point to the knee they'd be working on and then she scrawled something on it. A few minutes later, my surgeon came in for a pre-surgery conversation and he had a pen and he asked me to point to the knee they'd be working on. I showed him it had already been tagged…but as he started to put the pen away, I said, "You know, a great artist is supposed to always sign his work." He laughed and added his initials to my right kneecap. (I wonder if they're still on there. It's all bandaged up at the moment.)

Getting back to my mother: They did operate on the correct knee and according to her primary physician and everyone else there, it went as well as could be expected with a woman in her mid-seventies and in as bad physical condition as she was. It took an awfully long time to heal and she began to announce that when the time came to have the other one done, she wasn't going to have the other one done. Too much pain, not enough gain. As it turned out, by the time her left knee might have come up for consideration, her health had deteriorated in too many other ways. The doctors said it was too dangerous…and unlikely to help her much even if it was successful.

For about the last sixteen years of her life, she got around her house in short distances using a walker. When we took her anywhere, she was wheelchaired about…or more correctly, transportchaired about. There's a difference between a wheelchair and a transport chair, though even people who know that difference use the terms interchangeably. She had a transport chair, which is also known as a companion chair. Briefly, the difference is that if you're in a wheelchair, others will push you about but you can propel and steer yourself around to some degree. In a transport or companion chair, someone else has to push you all the time. In fact, I bought her two transport chairs.

One was a fancy, expensive-looking (but not that expensive) and sturdy one that I kept in the trunk of my car. In fact, when I bought my current car in 2010, I told the saleslady, "Okay, I'll take it…if we can fit my mother's wheelchair into its trunk." I hauled it out of the old car, placed it into the one I was about to purchase and said, "Okay, write it up!"

She was very pleased with that chair. Made of shiny, dark blue metal and sporting a thick seat cushion, it had a Nascar feel to it. When I took her to the hospital, as I seemed to do daily for a while there, there'd be other folks around in wheelchairs — drab, battered ones that the hospital had around. My mother loved being seen in her "throne." It seemed to say that someone cared about her. Which was true…and it wasn't just her son who did.

Then she also had a lighter, foldable one I got her. It too looked snazzier than the chairs transporting most patients around the hospital. She kept this one at her home and it was used by her various caregivers when they took her places. They'd take her to the market or take her to the hairdresser. That is, when they weren't robbing her. She liked this chair, too.

When she passed away, I gave the Nascar one to someone else in my life — a performer of some note and a person I love a lot. This person needed a chair and I couldn't think of a better recipient.

I kept the foldable companion chair because I figured, "One of these days, someone else I know is going to have a need for it." And last week, I found someone who did: Me. In preparation for my knee surgery, I had a whole day of running around Cedars-Sinai Hospital and I decided it would be a lot less painful to make it a whole day of two friends pushing me around the place. I didn't stay in the chair all day. They'd push me to an office and then I'd hop out and use my limited ability to walk to get around. Others in the waiting room would look at me like I was Guy Caballero on SCTV, being pushed around in a wheelchair he didn't need, just to make others work and wait on him.

I didn't feel the slightest bit of shame at that. What I did feel was a lot of, "So this is what the world looked like to my mother all those years."

This has been Tales of My Mother #16. I'm only up to Tales of My Father #3 so it looks like I have a lot of catching-up to do with Dad. Watch this space.

More on This…

I hadn't expected to get this deep into The Mystery of Who Played Superman at the 1940 World's Fair…but we're into it so let's take this a little farther. I'm becoming convinced that the man in the suit wasn't actor Ray Middleton and I have a new theory to throw out there. First, let's look at some faces. The middle one is the guy who played Superman. The left and right ones are, I'm told, Ray Middleton…

raymiddletonmaybe

Does the guy in the center pic look like the guy in the other two pics? Not to me. I wouldn't send someone to the gas chamber based on a photo I.D. like that but I might say it's not the same guy. The photo at right was sent to me by several folks. The photo at left was sent to me by my buddy Jim Brochu, who knew or knows every actor who ever set foot on a Broadway stage. Jim writes, " I got to know Ray in his later years and I would swear (even though Wikipedia and IMDB says it is) that he was not the guy in the Superman suit. I've attached a 1942 pic of Ray and you can see the chin and hairline are very very different. Ray was tall (6'3 or 6'4) and very barrel chested and this guy in the pic doesn't have the same body type." I'm inclined to agree.

So now here's what I'm thinking. Where did the identification of Ray Middleton as the man who played Superman originate? Did it possibly come from this first day issue envelope?

worldsfair01

Because if it did, I have a thought. Let's look a little closer at what it says there in the lower left-hand corner…

worldsfair02jpg

"Ray Middleton appeared as Superman at the fair for a live radio broadcast." It doesn't say he put on the costume. Is it possible that to play Superman in the live radio broadcast, they hired Mr. Middleton, who was a trained actor…and then to ride the float dressed as Superman, they just found some muscular guy who looked kinda like the character Joe Shuster was drawing? Wouldn't that make sense? That would sure explain the New York Times reporter seeing Middleton functioning as a judge but not identifying him as the person who played Superman.

So my question is: Is there any other source that says Ray Middleton dressed up as Superman and posed for photos that day? Because if there isn't and the identification of him came wholly from that envelope…well, that envelope doesn't say he did. It just says he played Superman in a radio broadcast.

I have quite a few messages arguing the Jerry Siegel/Bill Gaines identification, including some from folks who are pretty sure of opposing views. But I'll get to that tomorrow or the next day. I also have more than fifty messages from people who made the same joke; that the reason the Times reporter couldn't identify Middleton as Superman is that Middleton disguised himself by wearing glasses.

Today's Video Link

Can you figure out the secret of…The Floating Cork?

Joint Return

Since my previous posting, I have been to a surgical center where I had arthroscopic surgery performed on my knee to repair the two tears in my meniscus. I am now home and well enough to sit at my computer and blog. The knee hurts but, hell, it's hurt for about the last seven weeks. This is an easier hurt to live with because I have a reasonable expectation it will diminish, whereas the previous pains always felt like they were on the verge of going postal on me.

An awful lot of friends called or wrote to wish me well and I (of course) appreciate that. I got the feeling some thought this was a much bigger deal than it was. Waiting for the date and hobbling about to get the necessary pre-surgery physical check-ups was probably harder than what I went through today.

I was dropped off at the surgical center at Noon whereupon I filled out about eight thousand forms including one wherein I acknowledged that they may put a lien on my home if I don't pay the $900 co-pay that I'd already paid. I prepped for surgery at 12:30, which mostly involved tying an inadequate gown in such a way that I didn't moon all of Beverly Hills — admittedly, a long-held desire. Then they put me out and I went under the knife arthroscopic instruments around 1:00.

I don't know when they moved me to Recovery but I woke up from the anesthetic around 3:00 and spent another hour waking up the rest of the way and getting dressed. I was home by 4:30 and like I said, the pain is quite endurable. They tried to give me a prescription for Norco but I have a long history of never taking the pain medications I am given after dental work or other surgery. I never need 'em and the one time I let a doctor convince me to try a Vicodin, the cure was worse than the disease. My mother popped them down like Skittles but my body doesn't like them…or just about any drug. In any case, I'm certainly not in enough pain to warrant taking anything…

…right now, at least. If the Supreme Court rules against Gay Marriage later this week, I may toss back a handful.

I was given a pile of papers that say I'll have to use crutches for a while and with luck, could be back to normal in six weeks. I'm not using the crutches and my surgeon said I'd probably be 98% back to normal by Thursday. That's my knee he's talking about. The rest of me will never be normal and I kinda prefer it that way. Thanks to all for the good thoughts.

Super Mysteries

Ray Middleton (I think).
Ray Middleton (I think).

I've been getting a lot of messages about two mysteries (?) in that clip yesterday of Superman at the World's Fair. Was it actor Ray Middleton who donned the costume, thereby making him probably the first person to "play" the character?

My pal Steven Thompson has some pretty good evidence that it was, most notably a copy of a first day issue New York World's Fair envelope that identifies Ray Middleton as the guy who played Superman. The evidence against this seems to be a New York Times account that ran at the time. Here are the relevant paragraphs…

supermannytimes

So Mr. Middleton was there as a judge in an athletic contest but the reporter was unable to find out who had played Superman. Hmm. This reporter does not seem to be the sharpest journalist in the business. He says Superman was wearing a helmet and the video shows that's not so. But could even Mr. Magoo not notice the resemblance between the guy who played Superman in one event and the actor serving as a judge in another? Naw.

Tossing that aside, we're left with two possible scenarios. One is that it wasn't Middleton playing the Man of Steel; that he was just there as a judge and Superman was portrayed by someone else — a man whose identity is lost to the ages. But that wouldn't explain the World's Fair envelope that Steven located…so I'm tossing this explanation aside, too.

What we have left is the one I'm going with: Middleton wore the Superman costume. In another event, he served as a judge. And the N.Y. Times reporter decided to go along with the joke that Superman was a man of mystery, his true identity unknown. That's my verdict.

Meanwhile, as I said, there are two mysteries in the video. The other is this: One of the men we identified in the video was Max Charles Gaines. He's the fellow at 2:14 in the video, the one who was often mistaken for Bert Lahr. Mr. Gaines not only helped birth the comic book industry but he fathered one of its most notable publishers, William M. Gaines. When Max Gaines died, he was running a company called Educational Comics. Bill took it over, changed it to Entertaining Comics and was soon publishing comics like Tales from the Crypt, Weird Science and Crime SuspenStories. Oh, yes…and MAD. When the horror/crime comics went away, MAD remained as a magazine…and you all know this story.

worldsfairscreengrab

So…is that a young Bill Gaines at 2:25 in the video? We're talking about the guy on the left in the above framegrab. Others have identified it as Jerry Siegel and it does kinda look like Jerry so I passed that info on without pausing to consider it. Many of you have written in to say it looks more like Bill…and I think it does. My pal Anthony Tollin says he has a copy of Bill Gaines' high school yearbook and he's compared the photos and is sure. Is Jerry Siegel anywhere in this video?

Big Bucks

Want to learn how to get rich? Don't listen to Donald Trump. Pay attention to someone far more realistic and human…like Uncle Scrooge McDuck. Thanks to Bill Cotter for the pointer.

Today's Video Link

Here's a bit of comic book history. In 1938, Superman made a big enough debut in comics that it was possible to promote the character at the 1940 New York World's Fair. This is silent home movie footage shot (probably 16mm) at that event on July 3, 1940. There are brief glimpses (very brief) of some of the folks responsible for the Man of Steel's popularity, starting with Jerry Siegel, who's the dark-haired gent with glasses you see at 2:26. Also in there is Harry Donenfeld, publisher and owner of what we now know as DC Comics. He's the one riding the elephant about one minute in…and at 2:14, we see Max C. Gaines and Jack Liebowitz. Gaines is the one who looks like Bert Lahr. He was the guy who recommended to Donenfeld that he purchase and publish the Superman strip that Siegel and artist Joe Shuster had created. Liebowitz was Donenfeld's accountant and he wound up running the company…as accountants usually do.

You will see a gent in a Superman suit riding precariously on a float and popular history would suggest that's Ray Middleton. He was a Broadway actor of the time who, it's been said, was hired to wear the Superman costume at this event, thereby making him the first human being to portray the character. But folks who've studied photos and the film are telling me that ain't Ray Middleton. There seems to be documentation that Middleton did participate in Superman Day at the World's Fair but as a judge in a physical fitness competition. There seems to be no proof he actually donned the famous costume. Since the identity of the guy on the float is unknown, so apparently is the name of the first person to "play" Superman. Maybe he was a reporter or something…

VIDEO MISSING

UPDATE: I have corrected the date of the event thanks to Ken Quattro.  So thanks to Ken Quattro.  Also, I am agnostic on the subject of whether or not that's Ray Middleton in the suit.  I'm merely reporting that some people don't think it is.