Monthly Archives: December 2013

• G.O.P. eyeing new government shutdown…because that always works so well for them.

Merrill Markoe dreads the upcoming day when we'll all be allowed to use our cellphones on airplanes. The texting won't bother me but I expect the talking will.

And while we're on the subject: My pal Ken Levine has thoughts about how some airlines (which means before long, all airlines) have stopped requiring us to power-down our electronic devices during take-offs and landings. I don't know what that means to you but I know what it means to me: Uninterrupted Sudoku.

So last night, I was at the Beyoncé Concert down at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Don't act so shocked. There were a lot of people there. The place holds 18,000 and it was packed to capacity. I can testify to that: All 18,000 people were ahead of me in the parking lanes trying to leave…and they all came in individual cars. I thought by the time I got off the property, the Sparks would have clinched the 2014 season.

Not only were there 18,000 people there but I'd be very surprised if fewer than around 17,900 of them didn't have the time of their lives — a remarkable achievement given what the tickets cost. I was in a real good seat with a face value of $260 on it…but a lot of those get snatched up by scalper-type resellers. I just looked at one of those sites and as of yesterday afternoon, asking price in my section was over $1000. That's for one ticket.

Now, obviously, some tickets don't sell at that price but if there are folks out there asking a grand, you've got to figure a lot of tix are getting snatched up for $500 or $600. For those amounts — even for $260 which, by the way, I didn't pay — you've gotta be one hell of an entertainer. Beyoncé is sure good at pleasing Beyoncé fans. One of the most enjoyable things about the evening was being among so many people who were so deliriously happy. (I was not among the theoretical 100 who might not have loved every minute of it. Honestly, I didn't see anyone who wasn't thrilled to be there. I'm just assuming that in a crowd of that size, there must have been someone.)

How I came to attend a Beyoncé Concert is a long, boring tale that I'll spare you. Just know that it wasn't my idea…but then a lot of things I wind up enjoying aren't my idea.

For some inexplicable reason, the ticket said the show started at 8 PM. It didn't. Depending on your definition, it either started some time before 7:45 PM or it started at 9:12.

At 7:45 when we made our way to our seats, a singer named Luke James was on stage performing to a hall of people making their ways to their seats or standing room locations. I felt a bit sorry for Mr. James up there. He's obviously a man of great talent and while about a third of the audience loved the hell out of what he was doing up there, most audiences have minimal interest these days in opening acts. Doesn't matter who they are or what they do. If it had been the other way around — if Beyoncé had been opening for him — people would have been ignoring her and eagerly discussing what Luke James might be singing — or, more importantly, wearing.

Anyway, Mr. James called to mind the description of Spinal Tap as "one of England's loudest bands." If your window was open last night and you reside in the Pacific or Mountain time zones, perhaps you heard him.

For a brief moment there, I was worried I was in for a rather painful evening. He was so loud and the seats, though pricey, were designed on the assumption that everyone who came to see a Lakers game in this building would be about the height and width of Billy Crystal. Narrow seats…no leg room…and just to make sure anyone over about 5'8" was uncomfortable, they welded large plastic cup holders to the back of the seats ahead of me, precisely where my kneecaps could otherwise have been. Fortunately, the decibels were a bit more tolerable for Beyoncé…and the official, arena-wide position to watch her section of the evening turned out to be standing. And screaming.

James left the stage around 8:20 and we then had nearly an hour of…waiting, I guess you'd call it but in a way, it was part of the show. They ran commercials and videos on the big screens…and every time Beyoncé popped up in one, everyone in the building who wasn't me would scream as loud as they could. Behind me there was a girl who was maybe fifteen who screamed and screamed and screamed and who's probably going to sound like Harvey Fierstein for the rest of her life. Looked a little like him, too. I had the feeling her mother had said to her, "Okay — you can go to the Beyoncé Concert but don't let me catch you coming home with any voice left!" People also screamed any time there was any evidence of the show being set up…like when we saw technicians climbing up long rope ladders to the rafters or when a huge curtain with the Beyoncé insignia was unfurled.

I kept thinking: These people are having a great time just Waiting for Beyoncé. They could leave now and feel they got their money's worth. Folks were up and dancing to the recorded music that was being played — mostly but not exclusively Beyoncé — and cheering and singing. I enjoyed it though I felt I was in a kind of sound cocoon. From the moment we entered the Staples Center to the moment we left, I literally could not make out one word being said to me by anyone who was not on the stage. (And not even all of them. I read today that she dedicated a couple of songs to Paul Walker. I'm sure she did but I was right there straining to make out what she said and I missed it.)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. At 9:11, lights dimmed and everyone cheered and shrieked as loudly as humanly possible. Then a minute later, the Beyoncé part of the evening commenced and they somehow got louder. Videos played. Lights strobed. Her dancers danced. And when it looked like she was about to make her entrance, 18,000 cameraphones were whipped out and trained on that stage. At first, it was only 17,999 but I realized it was expected so I pulled mine out. Because I hit the wrong button, I got a nice selfie of my eye.

And then…she performed: Beyoncé and her back-up dancers and her all-female band. If you grade a performer on how well he or she pleases the people who paid admission, you have to give her an A-triple-plus. I couldn't see if they were up and dancing and rocking in the cheaper seats — nor could I imagine how the people in them could see much of anything — but where we were, audience members were in ecstasy. And me? I liked it a lot. I was distracted by the noise and by the need to stand in order to see anything — my right knee is still healing from surgery and now my left knee's making sounds like it'll be needing it — and right in the middle of it all, I received a text message with some sad news about a long-ago acquaintance. But I still loved being there.

Here's a brief video someone in the audience shot from stage left. If this person had moved their camera up about two inches, you could have seen where we were sitting stage right. And you could have spotted me because I was the only one there not dancing. (It's not that I wasn't moved by the music. It's just that, you know, I figure I look dumb enough not dancing…)

No, it's not a show for everyone…and no, I was not the oldest person there. Not even close. But the crowd got exactly what it expected and what it wanted…and boy, the show was well-produced with ultra-rehearsed choreography, expertly-timed special effects…and somewhere in there, she even sang about sixteen bars of the theme song from The Jeffersons.

What I'm writing here will shock one friend of mine. When I mentioned on Facebook and Twitter that I was at a Beyoncé Concert, he e-mailed me to say, "Can't wait to read how you tear it apart." Sorry, Roger. I'll knock the chairs and the amplification and if I'd paid the admission fee, I might have more to say about that. But Beyoncé has not become the kind of superstar who can pack the Staples Center at those prices by being a hyped-up fraud. She's the real deal. It takes talent to make that many people that happy.

Me and 17,999 Beyoncé fans at the Staples Center: A full report later today or whenever I finish it. Right now, I have to go direct a cartoon voice recording. This may be difficult unless my hearing returns in the next few hours.

Groucho Marx's passport from 1939.  It's kind of unusual.  In order to pass through customs with it, you have to be able to sing a song and convince them you're Maurice Chevalier…

• That's right: I'm at the Beyoncé concert at the Staples Center. Where else?

• My friends could guess for six months and they'd never guess where I am right now.

You may know Jack Sheldon from his jazz records and concerts. You may know him from his TV work on The Merv Griffin Show or Dragnet or a great, forgotten series called Run, Buddy, Run. You may even know him from his voiceover work in commercials and on things like Schoolhouse Rock. He's a great musician and a very funny guy.

In June of 2011, the Internet was full of reports that he'd died — reports that we were happy to help debunk. What was true though was that he'd had a stroke and he didn't perform for some time. We are happy again to hear that the other night at the Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood, Jack Sheldon's big band performed…with Jack playing the trumpet. Because of the stroke, he's had to learn to play it left-handed…but learn he did and I'm hearing he sounded as good as ever. Wish I'd been there to help celebrate his return…and also his 82nd birthday.

Here's an interview my pal Leonard Maltin did with Jack before his illness about a recent documentary on his work. He also discusses being on Dragnet and reading the TelePrompter, as we discussed before here. Oh — and the thing Merv Griffin mentions — about Jack playing like a street musician down at the Music Center and accepting tips — I actually saw that. I'd see him playing down there and I'd throw a few bucks in his container. And all these people like me who recognized him would wonder why Jack Sheldon — the guy on The Merv Griffin Show — was playing there for tips. I think I once even offered to tip him a fiver for a chorus of "I'm Just a Bill…"

Just had an unpleasant time on phone with a man on the Support Desk for my primary virus checker. I have a few of these programs and one, which ran overnight, told me I had a no-no on my system. The program is supposed to automatically repair or delete such things but in this case would do neither. I ran a couple of other virus scanners and they didn't notice anything wrong. Then I rebooted and ran the primary one again and the infections were still there, it said.

I decided to call Support for the primary checker, the one that had found two instances of one infection. The wait time was 19 minutes and when a human finally came on the line, he was obviously not on the same continent as I, nor was English the language he knew best. I could have settled for not knowing English well if he'd known his own product well but 'twas not the case, either. I asked why his program could locate this virus but not remove it. He explained the program was a scanner that was designed to prevent viruses from getting onto my computer, not a program to remove them once they were there.

I pointed out that, first of all, I was looking at a screen of the program that listed the two infections, gave me several options including "Repair" and "Delete," but wouldn't do any of those things when so directed. So, yes, the program is designed to remove them once they are there. Secondly, since they got there, the program hadn't done the part of its job he admitted it was supposed to do. Anyway, he made a few suggestions of the "well, you might try this" variety, then recommended that I have him hand my case off to "The Engineers," another department which allegedly knows something about fixing what I needed fixed.

That would have been fine except for this: Though I pay an annual fee for this virus program that promises to keep my computer free from viruses and to remove them if they do get on there, I have to pay an additional fee for The Engineers to assist me. How much? $179.00. I decided, not out of cheapness but principle, I didn't want to do that.

That was the end of the line with this guy. He said to me, "Is there anything else I can help you with today?" I replied, "You haven't helped me with anything so far" and that was the end of that call. I decided to try one of his suggestions, which was to run his firm's virus scanner in Safe Mode. That, he said, might allow it to remove the infections. I rebooted into Safe Mode, ran his program…

…and discovered that his program won't run in Safe Mode. Or at least, the part of it I needed to use wouldn't run in Safe Mode.

So I got out of all that and went back into what I guess you'd call Unsafe Mode. I then did a System Restore to restore my system to the configuration of a week ago. Then I ran his virus program again…and the infections were gone. Howcome he didn't suggest that instead of the $179.00 Engineers? I'm guessing that (a) he was just reading scripts on his computer screen and that's what they want him to suggest…and (b) I need a different primary virus checker.

The Buddha's Belly on Beverly Boulevard just east of Fairfax closed last September. The eclectic Pan-Asian restaurant had struggled for some time. The last-ditch effort to keep it open involved turning its private dining room into Buddha's Lounge (a bar 'n' snack place) and then making the place look more like a cocktail lounge. I was never a huge fan of the food there — I was once served an entree that was so overcooked as to be inedible and the management had zero interest in replacing it — but I had friends who loved it. I didn't much like the parking situation either, and suspect that accounted for some of its problems.

But a lot of people swore by its unique twist on some Asian staples. The magician Ricky Jay seems to have loved it…or maybe it was just coincidence that he always seemed to be at the next table when I ate there. Maybe he knew some magic trick to turn what he was served into something edible.

For the last few decades, Tim Conway has been criss-crossing America with well-attended, highly-lucrative (I hear) concert appearances. Originally, he did them with Harvey Korman as his partner. Then Korman decided to take life easier and Conway began doing some with Harvey and some with Don Knotts. Then Don died and Tim began doing some with Chuck McCann.  Then Harvey died and Tim began doing them all with Chuck McCann. All or most of these also featured the fine comedienne, Louise Du Art.

Recently, Tim's been on a book tour to promote his autobiography. I saw him two weeks ago and I mentioned here then that he seemed weary and unfocused. I suspect that has something to do with the announcement his reps made today…

After completing an exhausting and extensive national book tour promoting his autobiography, So You Think That's Funny, Tim Conway, in consultation with his family, has decided that it's time to retire from performing live in concert on the road. Tim will truly miss this part of his performing career and will look back upon it with only very fond memories. He sincerely apologies for any inconveniences and disappointments this has caused to his fans and to the venues but believes that this is in his and his family's best interest going forward.

He had several appearances booked through March and some or all of them will not happen. I assume this means he feels he's just not up to them but will still be available for TV, movie and voiceover jobs. It's a shame because if you never saw Tim perform live — I did, several times — he was very, very funny. And I sure hope the sudden cancellation of gigs that were already scheduled doesn't mean something bad with his health. A great guy and a great talent.

I'm a big fan of the great bandleader Spike Jones and also, of course, of the great comedian Harpo Marx. Here's a half-hour of the two of them together — an episode of The Spike Jones Show for January 9, 1954. As explained here, this was the series for which Spike hired some great cartoonists — Tex Avery, Roy Williams and Virgil Partch — to create visual gags…so some of what you'll see in this was probably devised by them. Much of it is a parody of the now-forgotten, then-well-known panel show, Juke Box Jury. There's some pretty funny stuff in here…

Frank Rich on his friendship with Stephen Sondheim. Mr. Rich has a long history with the guy above and beyond those lecture-type appearances where he fawns over Sondheim and feeds him easy questions to prompt oft-told anecdotes.

You know, I can't think of one thing I've ever ordered from Amazon that I needed so urgently that I'd want them to send a drone mini-helicopter to land on my lawn to get it to me A.S.A.P. But if they get this thing working, I'm certainly going to order one thing that way…once. I'm thinking maybe a Jetsons DVD.

Those "full" Johnny Carson episodes I've been featuring here have gone from free to a $1.99 charge. So I won't be embedding them here any longer and I'll probably go back and delete the ones I did embed from this site. If you want full Carson Tonight Shows (minus some music) for that price — and I think they're well worth it — you shouldn't have any trouble finding them on YouTube or probably iTunes, as well.