Monthly Archives: October 2013

Fred Kaplan on the interesting evolution of U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia. Remember when so many people were convinced "The Saudis" were just going to come in, buy America and make us all obedient tenants?

This one is so obscure that I don't have any visual material to post and I can't find a single mention of the place on the web. When the Century City shopping complex was opened in the mid-sixties, there was a restaurant situated on the main mall, right outside the Broadway department store. It was called the Century House and it was nothing special…a decent place to grab a bite if you were shopping over there but that's about it.

I remember very little about the place and would have forgotten it completely except for what replaced it. (You can see the exterior of the Century House briefly in the 1967 movie, A Guide for the Married Man starring Walter Matthau and Robert Morse. In fact, you can see a number of well-remembered but gone locations in L.A. in that movie including a scene set in Kiddieland, the place over at La Cienega and Beverly that was always filled with divorced fathers taking their kids out for a day.)

Around 1978 (that's a guess), the Century House closed and its building was taken over by a terrific steakhouse called The Highwayman. It was the work of an Australian restaurateur who had an amazing way of cooking ribeye steaks with some sort of au jus liquid that I loved. But what were really amazing at the Highwayman were the soups. They changed every day and I remember dining there one night with a date, having a Shrimp Bisque and thinking I'd just found the best soup on the planet.

I hurried back there with a friend a few days later, raving about the Shrimp Bisque. "I hope you have it tonight," I said to our server. He said, "I'm sorry but tonight, the chef felt like making Salmon Bisque instead. But I think it's even better than the Shrimp Bisque." I said something like, "Nothing could be better than that Shrimp Bisque but let's give it a try." As it turned out, he was right. Even better.

I went there often for less than a year and increasingly, the host acted thrilled to see me walk in with my party…because a lot of people weren't doing that. Apparently, the rent there on the Century City Mall was astronomical and business just wasn't good enough to overcome it. One afternoon, after touting the place to several friends I planned to take there that evening, I called for reservations and a brusque voice said, "Sorry, we're out of business" and hung up. I hoped they'd reopen somewhere else but it never happened…and that's all I know about the Highwayman. I wish I knew more about it. I'd settle for the recipe to that Salmon Bisque.

Here's how: Carolyn and I went to hear one of my favorite performers, Audra McDonald, performing downtown at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. I didn't have a chance to eat first so before the show, when I noticed a little fast food shoppe on the promenade there selling tomato soup, I bought myself a cup. Now, I haven't sampled the tomato soup in every venue on this planet that sells tomato soup but I just know I'm right about this: I found the worst tomato soup in the world.

Unbelievably bad. I mean, one sip and it was into the trash can with the balance…and I noticed other similarly full-but-for-one-sip cups of it already in there. My new policy: Check the nearby disposal bins before you buy. A cup, by the way, was six bucks.  They should have had a sign that said a bowl was three dollars and if you gave them a ten, you didn't have to eat the soup at all.  They'd have cleaned up.

My lusting for the tomato soup they serve sometimes at Souplantation seems to have deluded some folks into thinking I like any or all tomato soup. Not so. It's just that one. In fact, that one may have spoiled me for others…and if it hasn't, the raw sewage passed off as tomato soup outside the Chandler has made me gun-shy (soup-shy?) of trying any other for a long time. There are tastier liquids in this world that you take the night before a colonoscopy.

Fortunately, Audra was as good as the soup was bad. What a stunning voice — and not just on the opening and closing numbers, which is all some singers can manage, but on every single number. She favors obscure tunes…though I've never heard "I Could Have Danced All Night" or "Summertime" sung better. The between-songs patter was very funny, especially the story about how her young daughter doesn't understand the difference between screaming and what her mother does for a living.

On the way in, I overheard a lady who was thumbing through the program book register disappointment when she learned the following: That Audra was not performing with a big symphony-type orchestra, the way she does on all those TV concerts, but with a piano, drums and bass. I think I preferred her that way. That rich, pitch-perfect voice doesn't need to sit on a string section to sound good.

But no one else seemed disappointed. The place was packed with an audience that was eager to stand for several ovations. If and when she comes to your neck of the woods, get seats.

One of the songs with which Ms. McDonald favored us was the lilting (and pretty funny) "Baltimore" by Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich. Here from one of Audra's near-daily PBS concert appearances is that tune with a full orchestra…

A great time was had by many fans of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World yesterday at the 50th anniversary screening in Hollywood. It was held at the Cinerama Dome Theater on Sunset near Vine, the same place the film debuted a half-century ago, the same place I saw it the day after John F. Kennedy was assassinated. It was great to experience it again there…with folks who love the film as much as I do.

As you know, the film features a lot of very funny people in a lot of very dangerous stunts. In that tradition, the screening was preceded by having a very funny man, Jeff Garlin, attempt one of the most dangerous, death-defying feats I have ever witnessed. He actually — and without a net or any safety equipment — attempted to moderate a panel with Mickey Rooney on it. Filmmakers these days usually don't risk a person's life like that. They do it all in CGI.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. I have to report first on another event I attended. I'll recap Mad World Day in a day or so.

What would Healthcare.gov look like if it had been designed by the folks who gave you some of the most-visited sites on the web? That's the premise. Here's the realization.

In the last one of these, I wrote about a couple — Mr. and Mrs. Greene — who lived next to us when I was a kid. In old age, Mr. Greene went hopelessly senile, Mrs. Greene had to dress and feed him, and we and all the folks who knew them were horrified at how as he went, he took her health and financial stability with him. If you didn't read that chapter, please read it before you read this one. If you did read that chapter, it wouldn't hurt to refresh your recollections of it.

Now then…

My father, witnessing it all, was aghast — and being a worrier, he worried about someday being in Mr. Greene's position. He was somewhat older than my mother and certain he'd predecease her. As a Depression-era kid, he grew up with a very firm conviction: There was nothing in this world a man could do that was much worse than not providing for his family. If you went up on a tower with a rifle and began randomly shooting passers-by…well, that might be worse. But as bad as the killing would be that you'd go to prison and not be able to provide for your family.

That sense of duty applied posthumously as much as while that man was still alive. Your duty as a husband and father was to make sure your wife (later, your widow) and your children always had a home, had groceries, had health care, had funds for the necessities in life, etc. My friend/employer Jack Kirby, whom I mention often here, was roughly the same age and had exactly the same conviction. Most of Jack's anger when he was financially wronged, as he was so often in life, was that when you stole from him, you were stealing the money he felt obligated to earn for his wife and kids.

By the time Mr. Greene went hopelessly senile, my father wasn't particularly worried about me having a roof over my head and dinner on the table. I was making more than he was. He and my mother were living off his government pension, which was quite sufficient for their needs. They owned their house outright and he'd wisely signed up for an excellent, couldn't-be-cancelled health insurance policy that would cover both him and my mother until their respective deaths. (One reason I am so militant for the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicare is that I saw how having affordable health insurance saved my mother's life repeatedly in her declining years.)

Still, because of the Greenes, my father's worries reached the stage where he had to do something to alleviate them. In what may well have been the only secret he ever kept from my mother, he arranged to visit the family insurance agent to discuss the matter and he had me go with him. He told my mother we were going out for a simple father-son afternoon of lunch and talk…but I'll bet she guessed he was up to something of this sort. We went to the agent's office where my father told the tale of Mr. Greene to a wizened, almost Rabbinical man who sold insurance policies. Upon its conclusion, my father said, "I need you to reassure me this could never happen to us."

The insurance agent, whose wisdom in this arena seemed beyond question, apologized but he could do no such thing. If my father died a "clean death" (that was the term he used), his widow would be fine. Their savings plus the pension would keep her solvent for a long time. Maybe if she lived into her nineties (she did) and inflation was particularly bad (it was), she'd need some financial assistance from her son (she did). But she was about as protected as she could be. That's if my father died this "clean death."

If however my father was a "lingerer" (again, the term used), all bets were off. This would be true even if — especially if — he went into a nursing home for his final years. Keeping Mr. Greene at home, he said, might not have spared Mrs. Greene some of the physical punishment she endured taking care of him…but it might also have saved a large part of her bank account and it might have made her emotional ordeal worse. "Putting a loved one into a facility," he said, "could be the wisest course for some reasons but it can also create the guilt of abandonment."

My father had hoped he would leave that meeting with some sort of revised insurance policy that would prevent the Mr. Greene situation in our own lives. Instead, he walked out with this lesson, however valid it may be: There is no way to die a long, slow death without harming your loved ones and probably wiping out your savings.

Long after the Greenes were gone, my father would mention them to me often. He shuddered each time and he told me, coming very close to actually using these words, "If I ever get anywhere close to being like Mr. Greene, please do everything possible to kill me before my condition kills your mother." I absolutely understood. I'm not married and I'm not a father but I would sure prefer to go before I wound up like poor Mr. Greene. I don't want my friends and loved ones — assuming I have at least one then — to remember me like that and have to deal with me like that. Life is great but that ain't living.

In 1991, my father had a heart attack which put him into the hospital. He'd had heart attacks before and he'd always managed to make a near-total recovery. This one was different. This one was life-changing. If and when he went home, he would be in a wheelchair.

Immediate concern: Home wasn't built for a wheelchair. The hallways were too narrow and there were steps up to the front and back doors. Someone would have to hurriedly build a ramp of some sort to the front door and make other costly customizations. My mother could not possibly push him up such a ramp so there would have to be caregivers or nurses hired. Or I'd have to be called away from my life and work. I would have been there every second I was needed, of course, but my life and work were the things my father was proudest of in his life and work.

I visited him at least once a day in the hospital, sometimes twice, always assuring him I had the time to do so. My mission seemed to be to get his mind off what it would cost for him to go home, what it would do to my mother to try and take care of him. He was especially depressed that he might never again be able to drive a car. My father loved the independence of driving himself around and he loved the helpfulness of driving others. If you were Bernie Evanier's friend, you didn't dare pay to take a taxi anywhere. You called him and let him drive you or you'd never hear the end of it.

Much time was spent on those visits with me changing the subject…but when I couldn't, we veered time and again into this area: He would ask me for reassurance that I would take care of my mother. I would so reassure him. It was one of the dumber questions he could ask but he needed to hear me say it, over and over.

He would ask me to reassure him that if it came to supporting her, it would not be an undue financial burden on me. Again, I had to say it over and over.

And then one visit, he didn't bring any of that up. Not a word of it. Instead, he told me a couple of jokes he'd written while lying in that hospital bed.

As I'm sure I mentioned here before, in his youth my father had one brief flirtation with the idea of becoming a comedy writer. He and a friend worked up some material and cautiously submitted it to one man — I'm not sure of this man's title — at a local radio station in Hartford. His rejection of it was so total and hurtful that my father never tried again. He never found any possibilities for any other "dream jobs" he may have had and so spent his life doing jobs he didn't want to do and did only for the paycheck.

After he retired, he sometimes announced he wanted to follow in his son's footsteps. He told me he was "working on a few gags" but he wouldn't give me a sample. He had to perfect them to his satisfaction first. He hoped that once he did, I would get them to some professional comedian who'd appreciate and use them. I told him that of course I would, knowing full well he'd never give me anything. For close to fifteen years, he periodically told me he was "working on a few gags." He never shared a word of one but every so often, he'd say he'd seen some new stand-up comic on TV who would be just perfect for his alleged material. The last such one was a gent named Dennis Wolfberg.

So back to that afternoon in his hospital room, the one in which he miraculously didn't ask for reassurance that I would and could take care of my mother after he was gone. Instead, also for the first time ever, he gave me a preview of some of the jokes he'd been working on. They weren't bad, which is not to say I thought anyone would ever utter them on a stage. They were more like amusing observations than jokes. I chuckled more than they deserved and promised him that if he finished polishing them and put them on paper, I would do my darnedest to get them to Dennis Wolfberg — or if he didn't appreciate them, someone who would.

Then I kissed my father, told him "I have a Garfield script I have to get done but I'll see you at least once tomorrow," and left.

I was waiting for the elevator down when a thought hit me. It was not a psychic premonition. I don't believe such things are possible. But it is possible to look at all the story points in your life and thinking like a writer, get a sense of where the plot is heading. You ever sit in a movie and you see this happen and then that happens and then that character says this and that occurs and you suddenly think, "That character's going to get killed in the next scene?"

It was in that vein — and well aware that an unexpected plot twist could well lie ahead, that I thought to myself: That's the last time I'm going to see him.

From a writing standpoint — just from a writing standpoint — it made way too much sense. He had stopped worrying, at least for the moment, that I'd be there to make sure my mother's needs were all met. We had no dangling, outstanding issues in our relationship: No arguments to settle, no confessions to make, nothing of that sort. The doctors would soon be sending him home, which meant we'd have to start building ramps and remodeling the house and finding paid caregivers. He was about to become a genuine, costly burden.

And he'd finally shared a few of the jokes he'd been working on.

Life doesn't always work out the way a writer would plot it but sometimes, it does…so it wasn't like I was certain I'd seen the last of him. I was only about as sure as you can be when you see a movie and you think you know where it's going. That evening, my mother phoned and said, "I just spoke to Dad at the hospital. He'd like it, when you come tomorrow, if you'd bring him a box of unsalted saltine crackers." And so later that night when I made a 1 AM run to Ralphs for groceries, I picked up a box.

I saw my father that last time on a Monday. On Wednesday, I was directing a voice session for Garfield and Friends to record scripts I'd written…and I had to spend Tuesday writing the last script. The day was a swirl of phone calls, some of them from the hospital, and it wasn't until around 4 PM that things seemed clear and I could commence Garfielding. Those scripts usually took 4-6 hours to write once I had the idea and I had one…so I figured I'd put in three hours, go see my father and take him his crackers at 7, get back home around 8:30 and finish in plenty o' time to be in bed by 1 AM. The recording session the next day started at 9.

I'd gotten as far as typing the title page and "FADE IN:" when I was interrupted by a phone call from my friend, Adam Rodman with a computer question. While I was talking to Adam, I had a call waiting beep. I excused myself, put him on hold, went over to the other call and heard my mother say, "Mark…the hospital just called. Dad died." Another heart attack.

I said, "I'll be right over," got rid of Adam, dashed to my mother's house, picked her up, took her to the hospital, and waited outside while she went into the room to say goodbye. I didn't want to see my father dead but she wanted that moment alone with him. Then I signed eighty thousand forms and made arrangements and finally took my mother home and stayed with her, just talking and talking, until she thought she could sleep.

Around 1:30 AM, I got back to my place, ate a sandwich and started writing that Garfield script. I finished it in time for the session but not in time to get any sleep…so I was a bit wobbly and prone to emotion. I only broke down twice that day. The first was when I walked into the recording session thinking, "As long as I don't think about my father, I can get through this." My father had sometimes come to sit on those recordings so as soon as I arrived, one of our voice actresses — the wondrous Julie Payne — said, "Oh, hi Mark. Is your father coming today?"

Well, that did it. I told her and the other actors present and we all cried for a few minutes, then went in and recorded episodes. Something I've learned: When tragedy strikes, sobbing doesn't do a damn thing to undo the tragedy. The best thing for me is to normalize my life as much as possible and keep on going. It helps to remember that phrase people always use about the deceased: "This is what he [or she] would have wanted." Well, my father wanted me to be happy in life and in my career so I did my best. The rest of the recording session was surprisingly normal except for the parts when I had to stop and take phone calls from the mortuary.

The other time I got emotional came when I finally got home. As I unloaded my gear and script files, I noticed a paper bag sitting on my kitchen counter and for a moment, couldn't recall what was in it. Then I went over, looked in it and found one (1) box of Premium brand Saltines…the unsalted kind.

Oh, yeah. That.

In times of grief, we grasp for silver linings: Find something positive, however infinitesimal, in the loss. I didn't require a microscope. My father desperately did not want to be an invalid who had to be driven-around and dressed, and whose continued endurance would have been a drain on my mother's health. He especially didn't want to diminish the bank account he was proud to be able to leave her. His savings were not vast but that money plus his pension would have kept her in groceries for at least another ten years.

And if she lived past that — which she did — he had that covered, too. He had me.

If there was any sort of chance he could have become whole again — if he could have walked out of that hospital, driven home and then walked into his house — he would have resisted death with every atom of his being. But that was not going to happen and he knew it.

I am not suggesting my father willed himself to die, not exactly. I think it was more a decision that it would be better for my mother — and therefore for him — if he just didn't fight it any longer. It was better for her because she wouldn't have to take care of him. And it would be better for him because he would at long last be free from pain and worry. The worry, of course, was mostly about winding up like Mr. Greene. As my father said to me on several occasions when we talked about the couple next door their last few years, "It's just so awful to do that to the person you love."

Speaking of magic (as I was), one of my favorite card manipulators is a gentleman named Michael Vincent. Here he is doing what he does so well. All of this is done with a completely ordinary, ungimmicked deck…

We're closing in on another one of those dates when a lot of classic works, that are currently owned and controlled by vast corporations, are scheduled to lapse into the public domain. There are some works in that position controlled by individuals but the owners of them likely won't have a seat at the table for the upcoming debate. Pretty much, it all comes down to Disney losing their exclusive hold on Mickey Mouse.

Will the expiration dates be extended again? Past precedent says yes. A rising objection to those extensions says no. This article by Timothy B. Lee lays out the upcoming battle.

I find myself conflicted on this issue…and I think what I want is probably contrary to the Constitution — a fine document but one that was written for another era of technology. The arguments on this topic will surely move front and center before long. As they do, I'll try and gather my thoughts and explain why I think copyrights should not be finite…under certain conditions.

I mentioned the Magic Castle in Hollywood yesterday. I've been a member for over thirty years. I joined days after I went up there one evening to see my then-current girl friend getting bisected with a saw and I'm happier than ever to be a part of the place. Ever since they had a fire two years ago, the management has worked extra-super-deluxe hard to upgrade the decor, the food, the service, the entertainment…everything. I wrote back in this message that the place was coming back together but am amazed how much things improved. And it was pretty darned good before the accident.

Among the things everyone says are better than ever is the famed Houdini seance. Here's an article about it and about one of its new mediums, the supremely dazzling Misty Lee. Misty is the spouse of my longtime pal Paul Dini and in addition to her position at the Castle, she's one of the top voiceover actresses in the business today.

While you're over on the L.A. Times site, by the way, you might want to note another kind of magic. They published the recipe for the egg salad served at Canter's Delicatessen here in L.A. Remember that Woody Allen film about "an egg salad so good that you could plotz?" This is such an egg salad and as you can see, there really isn't anything so special about the recipe.

Herrrrrrre's…more Johnny…

Working madly on a deadline. I did take time out today to lunch at the Magic Castle with my longtime pal — and a heckuva good writer — Buzz Dixon. If you're not visiting his blog, you're missing out on a sweet spot of the Internet.

I expect to have an Amazon link here shortly for those of you who wish to pre-order the forthcoming boxed set of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World…and tip this website at the same time. If you have any affection for this movie, you will want this set. You may want to hold onto some previous home video copy if it includes the "making of" documentary, "Something a Little Less Serious" because that's not included on the new set, which will be out in January. But so much else is that you'll want it…and not just to hear me on the commentary track. Although, there is that.

Several folks wrote to ask a question about that 1981 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson I embedded. Yes, that was Chuck McCann and Jim MacGeorge playing Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy in an Arby's commercial about ten minutes in. Another vintage Carson show will be along momentarily.

Jon Stewart has lately been taking a couple of shots at the Arby's chain ("Arby's…it's technically food"). I have no great love for that chain but I do think there are worse places in the world one can get a fast lunch. If in a situation where it was fast food or a headache from not eating at all, I'd put Arby's well above Burger King, Roy Rogers, KFC, Jack in the Box and about a hundred others. (I'd put the headache ahead of dining at Carls Jr or its twin, Hardee's.) Wonder why Stewart's picking on Arby's, especially when there's a Subway sandwich place right next to where The Daily Show tapes.

I will soon be making it up to you for the paucity of postings these last few days. Keep visiting.

• Undercover Boss needs to put a disguise on one of the Koch Brothers and send them in to infiltrate the Republican Party.

And here's the way some of us like to remember Johnny Carson. It's a full episode of his Tonight Show from 1981…

I've been busy with this 'n' that but will be posting at my old pace in a day or so. There are still a few seats left for this Sunday's 50th anniversary screening of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. I am told that a few surviving cast members will be present. (We're running out of these people.) Tickets are available here. One friend of mine loves this movie so much that he purchased one even though he's in another city and unable to attend. He wanted to be there in spirit so he spent the money.

I got and am intermittently reading Henry Bushkin's book on his relationship with Johnny Carson. I guess I should take comfort in the knowledge that since I haven't gone through ugly divorces, repeated marital infidelities, messy battles to buy casinos, cutthroat network negotiations, dysfunctional relationships with my family, drunk driving arrests and way too much money to spend, none of my lawyers will ever be able to write such a book about me. I assume that Mr. Bushkin's factual recital is basically accurate but for little mistakes like two we noted here (i.e., saying Jack Benny was on a show produced years after his death) but that the presentation is spun in the author's favor. In other words, it would be interesting to hear the same incidents described by Johnny or some other close onlooker.

Having heard stories like this for years from folks who worked for Johnny — all of them very much afraid of being quoted — I am not surprised by the portrait of Carson as ruthless and mercurial. I guess I am surprised that Johnny didn't demand that Bushkin sign some sort of non-disclosure-even-after-my-death document that would have enabled Carson Productions to block publication. It ain't a pretty picture. If you'd like to view that side of The King of Late Night, here's an Amazon link.

By the way, that link will take you to the hardcover. I bought the Kindle edition and I'm increasingly doing that with books that are not profusely illustrated. I like how handy it is to read books on my iPad on planes and trains, in waiting situations and even at my desk here. I really like being able to search the text because I've rarely found the index of any book to be sufficient. It's also nice not to have to find a place to store another book in this house.

• A thought to keep you humble: No matter how you try, you will never be as good at your job as Vin Scully is at his.