Monthly Archives: October 2014

Last week, Live From Lincoln Center presented the recent Broadway production, The Nance by Douglas Carter Beane. The play, which ran for a limited engagement of four months in New York, starred Nathan Lane as a burlesque performer in 1937. His character is gay and plays outrageously gay and campy on stage, a job description that leads to bouts of persecution and self-loathing.

Here's the entire show, which runs two hours and fifteen minutes. Critics were pretty much unanimous in praising Lane for a stellar performance and singling out his frequent co-star, Lewis J. Stadlen, for playing his "straight" man. They also liked how director Jack O'Brien and the play's designers re-created the burlesque era and staged the musical numbers. They were more divided about the play itself, a few feeling that it said everything it had to say in the first hour or so. I'm afraid I agree with the few, though I found the show well worth watching. If you'd like to, click below…

Tom Collins writes…

In your recent post, "The Deadline," you made it very clear how you feel about writers unable to deliver work by the date promised. (You were against it.) Which is why I'm curious to know how you feel about George R.R. Martin.

I don't know whether you're a fan of Game of Thrones, either the novels (which are known collectively as A Song of Ice and Fire) or the TV show, but I'm sure you know the situation surrounding Martin's falling behind on writing the book series. The first three books were released fairly regularly, appearing in 1996, 1998, and 2000, which is not atypical for an epic fantasy series. Then the deadlines began blowing up, and Martin kept falling further and further behind. Book 4 took five whole years to hit the shelves (2005), which was apparently practice for blowing deadlines compared to Book 5, which took six years (2011).

Meanwhile, HBO created the TV adaptation, also released in 2011. American TV obviously has a slightly more stringent system of deadlines it must adhere to, which means that as the 5th season of the show is set to debut next April, there is not even a hint that Martin is making equal (or any) progress on Book 6. At this point, the TV show is almost certain to surpass the novels in terms of plot progression. In effect, HBO will be writing an ending to this epic story before Martin does.

Genre fans, as you may have encountered from time to time, are not renowned for their patience. In response to a query from a frustrated fan about Martin's blown deadlines, in a blog entry called "Entitlement issues…," Neil Gaiman famously responded, "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch."

Do you have an opinion here? Is Gaiman right in thinking that Martin's fans are acting wrongly entitled — are treating Martin like a "bitch" — for expecting him to deliver a book in a timely manner? ("Timely" is subjective, but I'd suggest expecting delivery of subsequent books on a schedule comparable to the first three books, or expecting at the very least adherence to the numerous publicly stated and blown deadlines for the next two, is not unreasonable.) Or is Martin an artist whose timetable ought not be questioned, who should be immune from deadline expectations?

First of all, you're wrong: I didn't know the situation surrounding Martin's falling behind on writing the book series but I guess I do now. Secondly, Neil is right. Neil is always right. And if he says I'm wrong when I say that, he's right about that, too.

This is actually quite some distance from the issue I was talking about, which is that writers need to finish their work for themselves. They need to not find excuses to not write (very easy to do) and complete their projects if they really want to claim to be writers. There's a whole other set of reasons to finish work and it has to do with not screwing up your collaborators, destroying production schedules, etc. I've written about that in the past.

In the matter of Mr. Martin and Game of Thrones, I have to admit I'm not familiar with the circumstances. I'm always a little hesitant to jump on the Blame the Writer bandwagon because I have seen a number of times when the writer is not to blame for a project's tardiness but it's easy for everyone else to presume he or she is at fault. I'm sure someplace on this site, I've told a few of these stories but sometimes, the reason something comes out way past the announced on-sale date is that the folks who did the announcing announced an unrealistic, never-gonna-happen date. That has been done by accident and it's also been done quite deliberately.

There are also delays of the "Act of God" variety or which come close to that. Our Groo Vs. Conan mini-series didn't meet its advertised on-sale date because Sergio was hospitalized.

And of course, sometimes the writer is just plain late. That may well be the case with Game of Thrones, I don't know.

If it's late because George Martin is lying on a beach somewhere, partying with bikini girls and chortling, "Those dweeb fans of mine can suck it and wait," those dweeb fans might well be justified in their anger. I wouldn't blame them one bit if they stopped buying his books and put that money towards the purchase of, say, the new Groo mini-series — which will be out on time. Somehow, given Martin's reputation for excellence and his many years writing good stuff and meeting deadlines before anyone ever heard of Game of Thrones, I doubt that's the case here.

And if it's late because it's just taking longer than it should for Martin to be happy with the material…well, if I were a fan of that series (which I probably would be if I read it), I'd be inclined to cut the guy some slack. I'd have affection and understanding for a guy who was giving me something I loved so, rather than anger. I might even think, "Boy, given how he's sweating over this next book, I bet when we do get it, it'll be especially awesome."

In the piece I wrote the other day, I wasn't talking about guys like George Martin. At least, I don't think I was. I was talking about someone who's screwing his own life up and blaming others for the fact that he can't get his work done. I doubt that is the case with Game of Thrones. My guess is it's just taking longer than anyone expected. If I were in his position — yeah, like there's a chance of that happening — I might have a little trouble with the expectations and also with the ancillary demands on my time that come with that kind of success. If you love what he does, grant him the right to be a human being and not a machine.

Here's an ad for this new book by the guy who's going to host the Academy Awards next year…

And if you're interested, you can order a copy of this book here.

I seem to have bad luck lately making corrections on Wikipedia. Could you someone who's better at this than I am please go over to the page for the great comic book writer-editor Archie Goodwin and fix something?

In two places, they say that Archie wrote the Star Wars comic strip under the pseudonym of Russ Helm or R.S. Helm. Archie did write the Star Wars comic strip (as well as other Star Wars material) but only under his own name. Russ Helm was a completely different person writing under his own name. In fact, I just searched and found the website of Russ Helm, aka Buddy Helm. The Star Wars Wiki is also wrong on this page about the comic strip…and a lot of other pages on the web seem to be wrong, too.

I'm a little fuzzy on the chronology but as I recall, Russ Manning was writing 'n' drawing the strip and due to ill health (and for a time, the fact that he was concurrently trying to do the Tarzan strip), he was falling hopelessly behind. The Lucasfilm people decided to hire a writer to help him out and I don't recall why they called me or why I went out and met with them since I was the wrong guy for the assignment.  I wound up recommending my pal Steve Gerber and he wrote it for a while, then fell behind…or something. Whatever the reason, one of the Lucasfilm execs hired a friend for the job and that was Mr. Helm. So Helm was not a pen name for Gerber either, as some have speculated.

I have a script that needs to get done by tomorrow morning and somehow, instead of writing it, I'm writing this piece about how to deal with deadlines. There's a famous quote from the great playwright George S. Kaufman that was uttered when a producer asked him if he could have a certain script done by Tuesday. Kaufman asked him, "Do you want it Tuesday or do you want it good?"

There's a point in there but it's not the one that some writers want to extract from it. That quote is used to justify lateness and it's employed as such by folks who forget that Kaufman did operate under deadlines and did meet them. He had to. An awful lot of his best work was produced on the road when a play was in tryouts and wasn't working. Kaufman and his collaborator (whichever one it was at the moment) would hole up in his hotel room, write an entire scene by dawn and then rehearse and stage it in the morning. That was probably the most grueling deadline-meeting you could have in his profession.

Others have said that what you have to do is to make it as good as you can by Tuesday. That's one of the things you need to learn to do as a professional writer. And what that involves usually is not seizing on any of the eighty thousand reasons you can come up with not to write and not to finish by Tuesday. There's always one. Sometimes if you're sharp, you can use all eighty thousand.

I have a couple of writer friends who sometimes need to be scolded a bit in this regard. Recently, one wrote me to detail all the things that were happening in his life that were preventing him from finishing his novel by the deadline. Actually, this was about his fourth deadline on this alleged book. He blew the first one so they gave him another. Then he didn't get it done by that date so they gave him an extension…and so on. I would ordinarily be more tactful and friendly in my response but this friend's recent antics seem to demand something more like this…

Stop explaining to me how it's everyone's fault but yours that you're not going to finish your book by the latest in a long series of deadlines. I'm surprised you haven't found some way yet to blame Vladimir Putin, Tony the Tiger, me and Edward Everett Horton. If you took all that effort you're putting into blaming others and applied it to the book, you'd be autographing printed copies by now.

Yes, yes…I know this person distracted you and that person put you in a mood where you couldn't write and some other person didn't get your computer fixed on time and on and on. There is always a reason to not get one's work done and you're seizing on every one of them. You probably won't get anything done before Thanksgiving because you have to decide which dinner to attend…so it'll be the Pilgrims' fault your book isn't finished.

Look, I'll say this simply: Get the book done. A writer who can't get his or her work finished is like a plumber who can never fix a leak. You're kind of useless. 20% of your excuses are probably valid but we all have those things happen to us and still, we get to the last page and type "The End." The other 80% are you looking for excuses not to write or, at least, not hand in anything.

Remember our friend [Name Redacted]? She never got anything finished which is why she's now in another line of work. I understood why she couldn't finish her work and it wasn't all those problems, not unlike yours, which she claimed to have. It was because she was terrified to finish the script and hand it in. She was terrified of the moment that the editor would call up and say, "I have some real problems with his." Or she was terrified of it getting published and then getting bad reviews or not selling or something. As long as she didn't finish, she was putting off those catastrophes.

I'd be sympathetic if this happened once in a while. It happens once in a while to everyone. But you have developed this dogged determination to not accept the responsibility for what you're doing…or more significantly, not doing. I like you and your writing too much to go along with this. Finish the script or give up and go apply for a job at Subway making sandwiches.

In case you haven't figured it out, this is me being supportive. I'm always supportive. If you decide it's time to go work at Subway, I'll have a foot-long meatball on Italian bread with provolone cheese. Toasted. And a bag of Baked Lays.

At last report, the novel wasn't finished yet but I think I got him from Chapter 8 to Chapter 9. He was almost to 10 before his sister came into town to visit for six weeks. And as we all know, you can't possibly be expected to do your job when your sister is in town. Since I have no sister, I'm going to go finish my script.

John Green tells why he hates Batman. I love Batman but I can't disagree with much that he says.

I started reading Batman when he looked like the left-hand picture above and now he looks like the right-hand picture. As he and his world have gotten grimmer and darker and more realistic, the "logic" in his premise has gotten shakier and shakier. At times also, the character himself has had moments of such total ugliness and insanity that I've imagined a story where the old Batman battles to rid Gotham City of its worst menace ever…the new Batman.

A certain amount of darkening was probably necessary from a commercial standpoint and in some ways, that old art style just came to look like an old art style. But there's a problem with making a fantasy character more "realistic," which is that it's harder to make those huge leaps of logic in his premise. We can buy a talking rabbit named Bugs Bunny when he's in his world. Put him into ours and it's suddenly quite different.

In a way, the great thing about Batman is that there are so many of him that you can usually find one you like. Often, it's the one that was current when you began following the character. But though you like the Batman of one decade, you may well despise (and not recognize the validity of) the Batman of some other decade. If you've been a fan of the character for forty years, you probably hate half of them. One of these days, I'll write a post about the issues and dramatizations that I liked.

Here's what John Green has to say. This man does interesting commentaries as he sculpts his haircut into odd shapes. There are times when it looks like he's trying to replicate Batman's cowl…

• Neil Patrick Harris to host 2015 Oscars. Wonder if he'll do a big, splashy opening musical number.

To the friend of mine who wrote gleefully that we found Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq and this proves George W. Bush was right…you need to read Kevin Drum.

Today, the topic is game shows, a topic Stu's guest Adam Nedeff knows all about.  And if there's something he doesn't know (which I doubt), Stu is also welcoming Steve Beverly and Wesley Hyatt, who are also experts.

Adam is the author of This Day in Game Show History, a four-volume set of books on…well, the title is self-explanatory.  They'll be talking about all the data and history Adam has packed into these books and what in the name of Bill Cullen it all means.  And speaking of the late Bill Cullen…

Mr. Nedeff is also the author of Quizmaster: The Life and Times and Fun and Games of Bill Cullen, a biography of the man many game show devotees (myself included) would call the best host of such programs who ever lived…and he was also, on I've Got A Secret and other programs, a darned good panelist, too.  You can order a copy here…and while we're at it, you can order Volume One of This Day in Game Show History here and if you do, I'm sure you can find your way to where you can order the other three books.  Now, where was I?

Oh, right: Bill Cullen.  This doesn't involve Stu's Show but there is a move on to get the U.S. Postal Service to put Bill Cullen on a stamp. Wanna hear how you can lend your support to this campaign? Go here and read. And now, back to Stu's Show…

Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there. Webcasts start at 4 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM Eastern and other times in other climes. They run a minimum of two hours and sometimes go way longer.  I'll bet you what's behind Door Number Three that this one does.  Then, not long after a show ends, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a measly 99 cents each and you can get four shows for the price of three.  That's almost as exciting as playing Plinko!  (Notice I said "almost!"  As we all know, nothing's more exciting than playing Plinko!)

10 Grammar Mistakes People Love To Correct (That Aren't Actually Wrong)

I am, as a quick search of this blog will reveal, a big fan of a musical group called Big Daddy. What they do is to take current songs and rearrange them to sound like old songs. They're very clever at this and very funny.

To get you in the mood for Halloween, here's a video they did of a song on their latest album — an album made possible in part by Kickstarter payments from readers of this very blog. They took "Music of the Night," as heard in the Broadway musical, Phantom of the Opera and asked, "What might that have sounded like if it had been recorded by Bobby 'Boris' Pickett, the artist who gave us 'The Monster Mash?'" Well, it might have sounded a lot like this…

Hey, you like this? Well, the whole CD will be available on Amazon in two weeks. You can pre-order it here. It's a great listen.

Disney Legend Floyd Norman discusses CGI animation as opposed to hand-drawn animation. I wish they could co-exist in this world…and really don't see any reason why they can't if studios want that to happen.

James Surowiecki thinks we're spending way too much time worrying about Ebola…time which could and should be spent worrying about the flu. When all is said and done, the current strain of flu will probably kill more Americans than Ebola…and unlike Ebola, which may never contaminate anyone outside a few hospitals and labs, the flu seems to turn up anywhere people cough on each other.

I think it's like one of those things where people live in dread fear of a terrorist attack but accept as a normal part of life, the greater number of deaths that will occur from shootings, domestic violence, suicide, etc. Ebola is foreign.

Victoria Jackson says some of the wrong things about Jan Hooks.

Sarah Larson says all the right things about the late Jan Hooks. (Thanks, Shelly Goldstein!)