Monthly Archives: September 2013

Jonathan Chait thinks the current Debt Limit Showdown is where Obama has to draw one of those bright, red lines in the sand and stand firm, refusing to give the Republicans anything they can claim as a victory. If you're a Democrat, you probably think so, too…but you thought that the last few times that seemed to be the best course of action.

Last year, Danny DeVito starred with Richard Griffiths in an acclaimed revival of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys in London. Arrangements were made to bring the production to Los Angeles but then Mr. Griffiths passed away so DeVito is now starring opposite his old Taxi cohort, Judd Hirsch. In case it isn't obvious, DeVito plays Willie Clark, the larger of the two roles, the one played in the movie by Walter Matthau. Hirsch has the George Burns role.

It officially opens October 2 so I guess it's unethical of me to review it from the preview Carolyn and I saw last evening, even if I was going to say that the play is very funny, that DeVito is good and Hirsch, though newer to the role, is even better. I'm tempted to recommend it since it's only here until November 3 and tickets are likely to be scarce once word gets out on how good it is. But I'll refrain from saying any of that.

What I will say is that I've seen some pretty good productions of The Sunshine Boys over the years, incuding the strange one with Jerry and Dick Van Dyke — which I liked a lot despite the absence of a Jew anywhere on stage. I've also seen some poor mountings of Mr. Simon's play, including an awful one with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall. Klugman had his surgically-restored voice then and while one could admire his persistence, and note that once upon a time, Klugman might have been perfect casting for Clark, he was playing his music on a very limited instrument that was painful to the ears and heart. Also, Randall adopted an odd Jewish accent…and what we got was the only time I've ever attended live theater and wished the actors onstage had been dubbed.

But the oddest version of all the odd versions was about twenty years ago. My great friend Howie Morris had been doing the Lewis role in an occasionally-touring production that featured Abe Vigoda as Clark. One was lined up but then Vigoda had to drop out for some reason and the promoters decided to cancel and refund…a decision that pained Howie, who needed the bucks due to his most recent annual divorce. He went to them and said, "If I can get another familiar TV star, will you go ahead with it?" They said okay and Howie began calling famous friends, most of whom were already booked for something on the relevant dates.

He wound up with Brian Keith of Family Affair fame. While it isn't absolutely necessary for the leads in this play to be Jewish — Danny DeVito sure isn't — there's such a thing as being so goyishe (and maybe more importantly, removed from the basic style that was vaudeville) that you can't connect with the material. That is if you know the material and Mr. Keith, I'm afraid, did not.

Or at least he didn't at a local preview Howie invited me to attend. The idea was to do the show a few nights for friends in L.A. and get critiques and input before they took the show to some other state and audiences therein. We all sat there with the "Springtime for Hitler" look on our faces as Brian Keith — always a superb actor on the screen — ad-libbed his way through much of Neil Simon's play and missed the point of the intermittent lines he did remember.

Howie got it all. Howie had done the show many times, knew the lines and more importantly, knew the comedic tradition. It was his kind of play but not Keith's. So what you had on stage was two men not performing the same play. One's questions did not connect with the other's answers, and while Howie was doing Neil Simon up there, Brian Keith was doing Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams. The audience squirmed and did its best not to giggle rudely at blooper after blooper, and Keith's attempts to inject pathos into lines that from other mouths evoked laughter. I was sitting behind Rip Taylor and at intermission, I heard him say, "What an embarrassment." When Rip Taylor is embarrassed at what someone is doing on stage, you know you're at a theatrical event you will long remember…and not for good reasons.

Finally, mercifully, it was over. Howie had sweat away about forty pounds — or about half his body weight — and in the post-show milling, he nervously approached a few of us and said, "Well, any suggestions?"

There was an awkward pause and then someone — and it wasn't me but I kinda wish it had been — said, "I'd keep everything exactly the same but I'd advertise it as Death of a Salesman."

I'm sure you're dying to memorize Ted Cruz's marathon not-actually-a-filibuster speech so I thought I'd make it easier on you. Here's a transcript.

You know how we were all wondering what the guy's motive was for driving that truck so aggressively off a cliff? Well, it looks pretty obvious now, doesn't it? It's all been about solidifying his position as the Tea Party's favorite Republican…and maybe not about anything else. So now the question is what's he going to do with all that popularity? Does he really think it'll get him into the White House? Or is the ultimate goal here a Palin-like desire to turn it into cash-money?

By the way: I was out Tuesday evening and I received a phone message from Joe Brancatelli, my pal whose airline columns I post here from time to time. In the message he left, Joe said Ted Cruz was reading Green Eggs and Ham aloud on the Senate floor. I swear to you: I thought it was a joke Joe came up with.

I have written in a number of essays, most of which are not on this site, about a comic book club to which I belonged in the sixties. Actually, I not only belonged, I was president for the entire lifespan of the Los Angeles Comic Book Club. It met every Saturday afternoon at what was then called Palms Recreation Center, located on Overland Avenue in West L.A. The facility consisted of a couple of ramshackle buildings that were mostly meeting rooms, a lot of park and picnic tables, a not-big-enough parking lot, and a pretty good public library. I spent a lot of my late teen years at Palms Recreation Center in those buildings and in that library.

The park and library are still there, though the park now seems to be called Palms Park and all the buildings have been rebuilt. Just the other day, the library held a special dedication center in honor of perhaps its most famous patron, Ray Bradbury. It was the library closest to the Bradbury home in Cheviot Hills and I saw him there a few times.

He had two other connections to the place. We made Ray an honorary member of the L.A. Comic Book Club, back when we met in the building on the other side of the parking lot. He never attended a meeting but he did accept a membership card signed by me, treating it as seriously as any honor he'd ever received. Based on that, we felt it was okay to shamelessly exploit his name and brag to all that Ray Bradbury was a member of our club. Also, the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society met for a time at Palms Park before finally acquiring its own clubhouse building out in the valley. Bradbury joined L.A.S.F.S. at the age of 17 back when it met at the Clifton's Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles. I don't believe he ever attended a meeting of L.A.S.F.S. at Palms Park either but I could be wrong.

Anyway, I wasn't there for the dedication ceremony on Monday but I hear it was quite nice with three of Ray's four daughters in attendance, along with other folks who knew him such as Harlan Ellison and George Clayton Johnson. Next time I'm in the neighborhood, I'm going to visit the old place and see that plaque in person. Just the photo of it someone sent me makes me smile.

Shelly Goldstein noticed an unfortunate line in that article I just linked to about The Princess Bride…

6. The actor who played the Albino (Mel Smith) has never watched his performance in the film. This is because during filming, he had to wear contact lenses and was allergic to the lens solution, equating to constant pain while shooting. Hence, he has been reluctant to relieve the uncomfortable memory.

As Shelly points out, there's a good reason Mel Smith isn't talking much about his role in the film. Mel died last July. A great guy, Shelly says.

We have repeatedly established on this blog the simple, obvious truth that there is no person, place or thing on this planet cuter than a newborn panda. We have also affirmed that the only thing cuter than one baby panda is two baby pandas.

Today, thanks to Mark Thorson who sent me this, we prove conclusively that fourteen baby pandas are seven times as cute as two baby pandas. Simple math…

Here are 26 allegedly-interesting facts about the movie, The Princess Bride…and indeed, some of them are. I find it interesting that everyone on the film seems to think Billy Crystal was so hilarious because I think he's the weakest thing in the movie…and I usually like Billy Crystal. I just think he doesn't come off as an ancient wizard. I think he comes off as Billy Crystal in obvious makeup. Every time I see it, I can't help but think who I would cast in that role: Carl Ballantine. He wouldn't have needed much makeup, he really was Miracle Max, and he was one of the funniest people who ever lived.

• Ted Cruz finishes his 21 hour Senatorial infomercial for himself. All views of Obamacare in the nation and Senate remain the same.

• Ted Cruz on CSpan vowing to hold breath until he turns blue if Senate won't defund Obamacare. Currently approaching Cerulean.

Tomorrow is the season opener on Stu's Show, that splendid radio show/podcast that my buddy Stu Shostak does every Wednesday. Much of the time, he manages to snare an important person in the history of entertainment to talk candidly for hours on end (always at least two, sometimes three plus change) about their careers. And every so often, he gets stuck with someone like me as a guest…but you'll notice I haven't been on lately. That's a sign Stu is getting the biggies and he's got a good one for tomorrow.

It's Dan Castellaneta, a very gifted actor who has done many things…but when you're the voice of Homer Simpson, and many other characters on the most successful TV series of all time, folks tend not to mention other avenues of employment. Ah, but one of the great things about Stu's Show is that you can count on Stu to not only mention the other things but to discuss them at length. So if you just want to hear about the yellow people, sorry. Stu and his co-host for the day, Vince Waldron, will be interrogating Dan about that gig but others, as well. Dan's a great guy and as I've learned over many a lunch, a great conversationalist and wit. (So is Vince. And for that matter, so is Stu.)

You can hear these three guys babble for hours on Stu's Show in one of two ways. The best, in part because it's free, is to listen tomorrow — Wednesday — when they do the show live. It starts at 4 PM Pacific Time, which is 7 PM back east and other times in other climes. Just go to the Stu's Show website and click where they tell you to click. It's very easy to minimize that window and enjoy the show while you do other things on your computer. And remember, it'll run for two hours and maybe more.

But let's say you're busy at that time. You have reconstructive surgery scheduled or a mambo lesson or something. No problem…or as they say in Mexico, no problemo. Because Stu's Show is also a downloadable podcast. Go to that same website and not long after tomorrow's episode airs, it'll be there for you to download at the incredibly reasonable price of 99 cents. Better still, there are many past Stu's Shows there to download and if you buy three, you get one free. Monty Hall in his heyday never offered a deal that good. But listen to Dan and Vince live because it's a bit better that way, if only because it's free.

David Corn thinks Barack Obama is playing his second-term cards quite shrewdly and getting amazing results for a "lame duck president." I dunno how calculated the scenario with Syria was from our end but if we can get out of bombing a lot of innocent civilians, that's great. Even if it does disappoint John McCain and the neo-con crowd.

People keep asking me how long I think the Comic-Con International will remain in San Diego. I have no inside info on any negotiations between the convention and the city but I have a prediction: A long, long time. San Diego officials would be six levels below Brain Dead to let it get away…and the convention operators have that space so well mastered and figured-out that they shouldn't want to go elsewhere.

I've run through the alternative cities before here but briefly, assuming they don't want to move to another part of the country, you have Vegas, Anaheim and L.A. In none of these venues would we be the Main Event in town the way we are in San Diego. There, the con just isn't just inside the convention center. It's in every hotel, restaurant and available space for miles around. In any of those other towns, the local industry (gambling, Disneyland and show business, respectively) would upstage the con.

The summer heat in Las Vegas is reason enough not to go there. The tourist traffic in Anaheim during the summer is oppressive enough without Comic-Con there. And the Los Angeles Convention Center is just a terrible, terrible place for any convention. (You think traffic is bad around Comic-Con? Try going to anything at the L.A. Convention Center the same night there's a sports event at the Staples Center and a concert at the Nokia Theater.) San Diego is Shangri-La compared to any of them, especially in and around July.

And the San Diego Convention Center, as you'll see in the video below, is expanding. This is a promotional tool for them and it may be promising some add-ons that won't happen or won't happen for a long time. In any event, this is the direction that place is moving. And the stats they give for how valuable the convention center is to the city? They're probably true and Comic-Con had a lot to do with that whole center being built, along with the hotels and tourist-friendly areas around it. I remember what that part of San Diego was like before the city planners realized how a new convention center could revitalize that ghetto of sailors' bars and tattoo parlors. (This was back when tattoo parlors were low-class places.) It was Comic-Con that convinced them.

Watch the video. And thank Douglass Abramson for letting me know about this…

If you want to know what's going on with all this Ted Cruz/Shutdown stuff, the best source of news I've found is Dave Weigel. Read this and read this, then keep on reading Dave Weigel at Slate. That is, if you can figure out Slate's new design.

Ken Levine's annual reviews of the Emmy Awards are always a lot more entertaining than the Emmy Awards. Okay, Ken deserves more praise than that but you know what I mean. Just go read him.

If you liked the Jeff Hoover clip I linked to last night, here's another one. It co-stars Tim Kazurinsky, who at one point was the only funny person on Saturday Night Live…or at least, it seemed that way. The announcer guy is comedian Mike Toomey and Jeff plays Goofus.

William Saletan points out a neat example of the hypocrisy of Senator Ted Cruz. When 53% of Congress voted to destroy Obamacare, it was an act of courage. When 54% of the Senate will vote to not destroy it, that will be an abuse of power. Yeah, yeah. I don't know about you but I really have the feeling that this whole battle is about nothing except Ted Cruz and a few of his colleagues trying to prove to one sector of their party that they're tough guys who will never admit defeat, even after they've lost.

I'm reminding of an eyebrow-raising conversation I had with someone at a party a year or three ago. This otherwise-wise woman started babbling on about how Obama's birth certificate was an inarguable, proven-beyond-all-doubt forgery and as all such folks do, she had no answer when asked about the contemporaneous birth announcements in Hawaii newspapers. To the surprise of me, she announced that her heroine was Orly Taitz, the fanatical dentist lady who keeps filing lawsuit after lawsuit to force Obama out of office.

I asked, "You admire someone who loses 100% of the time and makes your side look insane?" The lady replied, "Her heart's in the right place and she has guts."

Those are usually commendable qualities but, I dunno…I kinda like my champions to show some ability to win and there's much to be said for not fighting unwinnable battles. But in the eyes of this woman — and too many others, I'm afraid — what matters is that leaders lead…even if they lead you off a cliff.