Monthly Archives: September 2013

How Scrooge McDuck Helped Connecticut Detectives Solve A Murder.

I was just getting out of the shower one morning when the phone rang. It was my father calling with one of those simple, declarative statements that changes your entire life for a while if not forever. He said, "I'm having a heart attack."

This was in the mid-eighties, around 1984. My mother was working part-time at a grocery store wrapping packages. He was home alone in the house I grew up in, which was located (Google Maps tells me) 4.4 miles from my residence then and now. He'd had a heart attack before and he knew the symptoms so I said, "I'm sending an ambulance!"

He screamed, "No! No ambulance! I will not get into an ambulance! You come and drive me to the hospital!"

There was a reason for no ambulance — maybe not a good reason but a reason, nonetheless. His father had died in an ambulance. His father had been stricken, probably but not definitely with a heart attack, in the Temple on one of the High Holy Days. An ambulance was called but he refused to get into it. A Jew does not ride in a motor vehicle on such days and I guess he thought being on the verge of death is not a good time to be displeasing God. Or something.

Anyway, the rabbis and other learned men urged him to get in and he refused. An argument ensued…one that was settled in a simple manner. He passed out and they just picked him up and put him in. Sadly, he was dead before they got him to the Emergency Room.

That should have been a teachable moment: When you're sick, get in the ambulance. But my father somehow learned the opposite: When you're sick, stay out of ambulances. When he phoned with his simple, declarative statement, there was no time to debate the proper lesson to be learned. "I'll be right over," I told him.

I could usually make the drive in fifteen minutes but that day, I set some world record for drying, dressing and driving…and made it there in ten. My father was not unconscious but he was getting there. I guided him into my car and then drove like Gene Hackman in The French Connection, only faster, all the way to Kaiser Permanente Hospital. I parked illegally, commandeered a nearby empty wheelchair and rushed him in through doors marked "Emergency."

The room was packed and there was a little man — Filipino, I think — doing Triage, deciding who'd be seen and in what order. I told him, "This man is having a heart attack." He handed me a long form and told me to fill it out, place it in an "in" basket on his desk and take a seat.

I said, louder, "This man is having a heart attack. He'll be seeing a doctor in one minute or you'll be seeing one in two."

The little man began telling me to sit down as he gestured to people around us with hangnails and bad coughs. "All these people ahead of you," he was saying. I raised my voice even more. I yell about once every two years and it usually has to be something like this to get me there. My father also began yelling, getting up out of the wheelchair and gasping out loud, "They're making me wait?" We were making quite a scene, deliberately so.

By now, it was about 11:15 AM. There was a doctor who'd been on the night shift and was leaving to go home. He was walking through the Emergency Room en route to his car and he saw what was going on. He hurried over and said to an attendant, "Take Mr. Evanier's father into Examining Room 2! I'll take care of him myself." In two instants, my father was led inside, the doctor followed him in —

— and I was just standing there, stunned. I went from yelling to stunned in about ten seconds.

The immediate problem had disappeared so quickly that it took me a second to wonder something: "How did that doctor know my name?"

I stopped a passing nurse and asked who that was. She said, "That's Dr. Barnett."

I asked, "Dr. Carl Barnett?"

She said, "Yes. Do you know him?"

Yes, I knew him. He was one of my best friends in high school.

I hadn't seen him since graduation and didn't even know he'd become a doctor…and by the way, at his request, I've changed the name here. It wasn't Carl Barnett. I don't know why he doesn't want me giving his name but I'm grateful enough to the guy to do anything he asks. He spent two hours past his shift time treating my father, then personally briefed the doctor who'd be taking over.

One of my most vivid memories of my father is from when I was brought into the Examining Room. He was sitting up in bed. His shirt was off but it was draped over his chest and there were wires connecting to the monitoring patches that were all over him. The doctor had told me my father was out of pain and more importantly, out of danger…from this heart attack, at least. Another was way too possible.

He was sitting there looking weak and sad, and when he saw me walk in, the very first thing he said was, "Well, it looks like I've had another heart attack. I hope this doesn't mean you're prone to them."

That was my father. And lest my friends be concerned: I have lived well past the age when he had his first one without cardiac incident and my doctor says my ticker is in perfect shape. And besides, I don't work for the Internal Revenue Service.

I walked "Carl" to his car, thanking him every possible way I could. He finally turned to me and said, "I'll tell you how you can thank me. You can answer a question for me." I said of course I would and he asked, "Do you write comic books?" I told him I did. He asked, "Scooby Doo comic books?"

I told him, yes, sometimes. Then I realized why he was asking. Several years earlier — in an issue with no credits — I'd named a number of characters after friends from high school, him included. Someone had shown him a copy and he realized all those names could not be a coincidence. As he explained, "I got to thinking, who did I know in high school who could have wound up writing Scooby Doo comic books? Then I realized! Had to be Evanier!" I've since stuck his name in a few other comics I've written.

Thanks in large part to him, my father went home a few days later. It was seven or eight more years before he had his next heart attack and a few days after that that he had his last one and he went away. I'll probably write about that some day here but not for a while.

I told you about this one because I wanted to share one memory of him so you'd understand one of the main things that was so great about my father. There he was in the Emergency Room, having just had a heart attack. And the very first thing on his mind was concern not about himself but whether his illness was a bad omen for me. See why I loved that guy? I mean, above and beyond the fact that he was my father.

You've probably seen this but just in case you haven't…

A gentleman who wished to propose marriage to another gentleman arranged a surprise: When he took his intended to Home Depot, there was an elaborate show planned. It's quite entertaining and touching…but what I want to see is a video of the proposer going to the manager of that Home Depot and saying, "Uh, I was wondering if you'd let us use one of your aisles for something…"

If there's anyone reading this who is still uncomfortable with the concept of Same-Sex Marriage, you need to watch this, then ask yourself why it bothers you.

The famous and infamous Robert Elisberg (how he manages to be both at the same time, I'll never understand) did an interview with me a few years ago for the Writers Guild website. Here it is.

The Creative Arts Emmy Awards are tonight. They're not televised live but an edited version of the ceremony will air on the new FXX channel on Sept. 21 at 9 PM.

One hopes they will include the segment tonight when the prestigious Board of Governors Emmy is presented to the person I dubbed "The First Lady of Cartoon Voices," June Foray. June is 95 years old though she'll be 96 by the time that show is broadcast. She used to not like folks to know her age but now she seems proud of it. I'd sure be proud to make that number, especially if I was still working in my chosen profession, doing essentially the same job I did 70 years before.

Here's a little article about June…and don't miss the video on that page where she's interviewed by our pal, Emmy nominee Bob Bergen.

Last week, Wired ran an article heralding the 50th anniversary of two great super-teams — The Avengers and The X-Men, both created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1963. Wired ran this on 9/10, noting that the first issues of those two comics had come out on September 10, 1963. This has prompted several folks to write to me and ask one or both of two questions…

1. Why did Marvel choose to issue the first issues of two team comics by Lee and Kirby on the same day? Wasn't that bad marketing?
2. How could those comics have come out September 10 when they both clearly say "September" on their covers? Isn't the cover date on a comic book always a few months after the date the comic actually comes out?

To answer the first question: They didn't exactly plan it that way. What happened was that Martin Goodman — the publisher of Marvel and a man known for imitating whatever was selling for others — realized he had mega-hits in his recently-launched funnybooks, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. He wanted to add two new comics which would be similar. As Mr. Kirby put it, "Martin was making progress. He went from imitating others' successes to imitating his own."

At the time, the Marvel line was distributed by Independent News (aka DC Comics), which limited the number of books Goodman could publish. To add two, he had to drop two. He opted to sacrifice Gunsmoke Western and Love Romances — two bi-monthly comics of his that happened to come out on the same day every other month. The two new books were therefore scheduled to debut on the same day. One would be a new team comic that would hopefully replicate the sales of F.F. The other would be about a new acrobatic hero whose book would, God willing, sell as well as Spider-Man.

The team comic would be The X-Men. Over the years, Stan told me and others on many occasions how he and Jack came up with the X-Men. Jack told me and others how he came up with the X-Men and presented the idea to Stan. And lately, Stan has apparently decided that the X-Men — and all the other Marvel superstars that have commonly been viewed as joint creations of Stan and someone else — were concepts that he came up with all by himself. This is not the time or place to wade into that matter except to say that I consider them all joint creations and I wish Stan would go back to what he used to say. Anyway, the two men whipped up X-Men #1 in plenty of time to get to press and meet that publication date.

The Spidey-style hero didn't have it so easy. Goodman seems to have suggested the name "Daredevil" after noticing it was free and clear. An earlier, popular character by that moniker had been published for years by another company.  The company and its Daredevil had been gone long enough that the title was up for grabs.

Stan talked with Kirby and with Steve Ditko about collaborating on a new hero with that name but both men were too busy.  Finally, Lee turned to Bill Everett, best known (then) as the creator of the Sub-Mariner. Kirby had some input (accounts vary as to how much) but it fell to Everett to get the first issue drawn by the deadline and he couldn't do it. He was concurrently working full-time at a greeting card company and he was having personal problems often reported as alcohol-related.

When it became apparent that Everett could not finish Daredevil #1 in time, editor Stan faced two choices: Yank the book away from Everett and have someone else finish it in a hurry…or come up with something else to release that day and schedule Daredevil #1 later. Largely out of consideration for the well-loved Mr. Everett, the decision was made to do the latter.

Goodman had long discussed the idea of doing a Marvel book that would ape DC's popular Justice League of America and gather together heroes from different titles. The Fantastic Four had, in fact, started with Goodman's request for a book like J.L.A. This seemed like the time for that so in a matter of very few days, Lee and Kirby whipped out the first issue of The Avengers and it went to press along with X-Men #1…which is why it emerged the same day. (Daredevil #1 finally made it out months later and even then, two other artists had to pitch in to get it done.)

That's the answer to Question #1. The answer to Question #2 is that Wired got it wrong and it may not be their fault. It's been reported that way in numerous places and it's not true. X-Men #1 and Avengers #1 both came out in July of 1963 and the evidence points to July 2. I explained back in this message why a comic book with "September" on its cover might come out in June or July…but never in September. So Happy Birthday, Avengers and X-Men…but it's a belated celebration.

Fred Kaplan likes the deal that has been brokered to handle the chemical weapons in Syria. Just because Fred believes it's a good thing doesn't prove it is…but I like that he does. And I sure like the idea of us not going to war again.

My pal Joe Brancatelli has an interesting take on where it's safe to fly these days. He thinks it's almost nowhere overseas…but you shouldn't let that stop you.

• John McCain's sounding very disappointed that we might not get to bomb Syria. Don't worry, John. You'll find someone else soon.

One of my favorite musical groups, Big Daddy, is about to come out with their first album in years…thanks to Kickstarter and many readers of this site. I've heard a little of it and it's quite wonderful. For those of you who haven't met up with Big Daddy, it's a group of fine musicians who take songs of different eras and drag them, kicking and screaming and often for the better, into the style of The Fifties. Here's a video of one from one of their live gigs years ago when they defaced/improved (I say the latter) a big Phil Collins hit…

I have an iPhone that I think once belonged to Barney Rubble. It's ancient. I mean, I've had the thing for three and a half years, which in our current high-tech era means it's only a slightly more advanced tool than the ball-peen hammer. I've been wanting to upgrade for some time and had planned to grab the new model — the iPhone 5S — as soon as it became available.

I'm thinking now I won't; not until the first and maybe the second crush of purchasers get theirs, play with them for a while, and all the bugs are out. It was already going to be a bit of a hassle, above and beyond just getting my mitts on the device. I need a new case, new chargers, new adapters, etc. Now I'm hearing that many apps won't (yet) work with the new operating system. I think (I hope) my old 3G won't automatically and irrevocably upgrade from Operating System 6 to 7 and I can delay that for a while.

This purchase is supposed to make my life easier, not more difficult. A friend of mine takes what he calls the "One Behind" principle of electronics. When they bring out the new model of anything…that's the time he upgrades or buys the previous version. He's presuming they'll perfect the new Operating System 7 about the time Operating System 8 comes out.

It's the new version of The Peter Principle. You all know The Peter Principle…

The Peter Principle is a proposition that states that the members of an organization where promotion is based on achievement, success, and merit will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability. The principle is commonly phrased, "Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence." In more formal parlance, the effect could be stated as: employees tend to be given increasing authority until they cannot continue to work competently. It was formulated by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle, a humorous treatise, which also introduced the "salutary science of hierarchiology."

…or so sayeth Wikipedia. It seems to me the high-tech version of this would be something like, "Elective technical upgrades tend to occur when the previous version is perfected." Or something like that. I may even look into an iPhone 5 without the S.

Dick Cavett talks about slightly naughty stuff.

• I think my mailman is a Tea Partier. He says I can't have my new Eddie Bauer catalog until I vote to defund Obamacare.

There are news items running today headlined, "Woody Allen to receive Cecil B. DeMille Award at Golden Globes." This one then has a lede that says…

Though he is famously averse to attending awards shows, Woody Allen will be honored at the 2014 Golden Globes with the Cecil B. DeMille Award. The ceremony will take place Jan. 12, 2014.

That might lead you to assume Mr. Allen will be present for the ceremony. Well, maybe yes and maybe no. Further down in the piece, we read…

Whether or not he attends the ceremony, the tribute to Allen will be hard-pressed to raise eyebrows and curiosity quite like Jodie Foster's tribute earlier this year.

The other press coverage I've seen doesn't address the issue at all. Here's the press release for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the mysterious group that hands out the Golden Globes and their allied awards. It doesn't say Allen will attend. Then again, it doesn't say he won't. Methinks they don't know and they're hoping he'll decide to show his face. Mefurtherthinks that they're giving it to him in the hope that it will get him to show up.

When I say the H.F.P.A. is mysterious, I mean it's mysterious. No one really knows who they are or who votes…but in the smoke-'n'-mirrors world of Show Business, the awards are treated as important because they're treated as important. The association throws a great party with great food and beverage. It's televised and a lot of big stars show up to hobnob with other big stars and remind everyone that they're big stars. Winners thank the H.F.P.A. without knowing what it is; only that it's an award and it's been won by others with whom they want to be lumped. Actually, in some cases, the fact that it's an award is reason enough.

Will the Woodman show for it? His latest release, Blue Jasmine, has done decent business. That may be a reason to make an appearance, a reason why he doesn't have to or an utter irrelevance. Allen is widely admired not only for his films but by his refusal to go out and hype them and to not participate in some of the common rituals of being a filmmaker. He does the parts where you write and direct and sometimes even act but he skips the parts where you have to be a promoter. I'm guessing he won't come out for the Golden Globes in January. But then again, he sometimes does things no one expects him to do…

Just for you: An hour and ten minutes of Rowan Atkinson at this best…