Monthly Archives: March 2015

Just saw the clip of Indiana Governor Mike Pence on with George Stephanopoulos this morning. Pence was arguing that people are misunderstanding his state's new "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" while at the same time refusing to answer the simplest questions about what it means. Pence actually has a good point when he insists, as he did over and over, that laws like this are all over the country and have even been endorsed or signed by folks who now champion Gay Rights. He has a bad point if he's suggesting they all still support them.

Mostly though, Pence proved the Act is indefensible. At one point, he switched over to insisting that Hoosiers are good, good people who would never discriminate. That makes sense like insisting they're good, good people who would never do anything dishonest so the state doesn't need a law against robbing banks or committing murders.

I don't think any of these laws are ever going to reverse the march to full Marriage Equality and other equal rights for L.G.B.T. folks. They'll slow that march here and there and possibly delude a few homophobes into thinking the tide is turning and they can stuff everyone back in the closet. But equal rights are inevitable and I suspect Governor Pence knows that and is just playing to his base. A lot of them were probably thrilled that he wouldn't play the "game" of defending a position with logic and facts against one of them Commie reporters.

A number of articles in the last week about Ted Cruz have made this point: That his positions aren't particularly different from most of his opponents for the G.O.P. nomination. So what he's doing, they say, is trying to define himself as the guy who'll be utterly ruthless in pursuit of that agenda; who won't care if Democrats and Liberals hate him and who will perhaps even be proud of that. Watching Pence today, I sure got the feeling that he's trying to steal a move from the Ted Cruz Playbook.

Did the story of Germanwings Flight 9525 spook you about your future air travel? It shouldn't have and my pal Joe Brancatelli — who flies about as often as I go to a Ralphs Market, tells you why.

From 1953 to 1961, the revered journalist Edward R. Murrow hosted a TV show called Person to Person. The premise was simple: They'd send a camera crew to some celebrity's home and Murrow, seated in the studio, would interview the celebrity and get a brief tour of the house. Here from April 9, 1954 is a visit to the home of Groucho Marx…

It's been a while since I've written anything about the feral cats in my backyard. That's because it's been a long time since the roll call out there has changed at all. While I've had occasional Special Guest Pussycats out there stopping by for some free bites of Friskies, I'm basically only feeding two: Sylvia and Lydia.

Sylvia is the cat we once called The Stranger Stranger Cat because she looked exactly like — and I suspect is related to — a cat we'd dubbed The Stranger Cat. First time I saw the two of them together, I thought they were twin siblings but over the next year or two, The Stranger Cat started to show his age while his lookalike did not. The Stranger Cat passed away in 2012 but Sylvia (as I renamed the surviving Stranger Cat) still comes around almost every night and occasionally during a day. I'm guessing she was his daughter.

She was briefly the girl friend of Max, a cat so large we could have tossed a saddle on him and let other cats ride him around the yard. Max stopped coming around later in 2012 so I went from having four cats out there to two. The other one remaining, Lydia, is the one I trapped in 2008 and took in for a kitty abortion and neutering. I figure she's been hanging around here for about ten years now.

They both live in my backyard at least half the time. I used to have the sense that both of them came some distance to be fed, walking over here most nights from nearby areas they regarded as home base. The last few years though, they seem to consider my yard their primary residence. I feed them while doing my best to not feed the raccoons that come around from time to time. Two or three times, I've intervened in what looked like a raccoon/cat war for whatever was then in the dish and I've chased the 'coons away.

The only thing that's really changed the last few years is their personalities. Lydia used to be skittish…and she does still jump at the slightest noise. But she's now more affectionate and fine with being petted. If I leave the patio door open while I'm putting chow in their dishes, she'll come in, inspect my kitchen, then decide she likes it better outside.

Meanwhile, Sylvia has become more terrified of any human being, especially since the loss of Max and Stranger Cat. I used to be able to touch Sylvia but she now won't even come near me, not even when she's very hungry and I'm putting out their favorite food. That's when I'm done with a rotisserie chicken from Costco and I pull all the remaining meat off the carcass and dice it up for them.

They love that but even then, she remains far from her dish until I'm safely inside the house and I've closed the sliding glass door to the patio. Until then, she retreats to a safe distance, then sits there and stares at me with wide, accusatory eyes. She seems to be saying, "Hey, pal! Get your ass inside so I can eat!"

One night, just as an experiment, I filled their dishes with half wet food, half dry food, then I sat down on the step next to the dishes. Lydia was fine with that. She came up and began chowing down on the wet food, which is what both always finish first before moving on to the dry. Sylvia, however, sat about ten feet away, staring impatiently at me.

I was going to see how long it would take until hunger trumped the fear of me and she at least moved closer. That had not happened by the time Lydia finished the wet food in one dish and proceeded to attack the wet food in the other dish. At that point, I felt like I was being cruel to Sylvia so I got my ass inside so she could eat.

Immediately, Sylvia trotted up to the dish from which Lydia was eating and began to try and get some of that before it was all gone. And Lydia, who is nothing if not courteous, let her have it to herself and went back to eat the dry food in the first dish.

Lately, another Stranger Cat has come around once in a while — another cat that looks exactly like Sylvia and who may be related. I think it's a "he" but I haven't gotten a good-enough look to be certain. He or she does not seem to get along with Sylvia or Lydia…or me for that matter…and that's all I have to report about that. Maybe by the next time I do one of these, there will be more.

Former agent Gavin Polone (he was one of the main ones representing Conan O'Brien during the Tonight Show debacle) explains about packaging fees in Hollywood. Packaging fees are one of those things that everyone complains about but no one does anything about. I was involved in a couple of projects that went unsold because though a network wanted them, there was someone else involved in the project who was represented by an agency that was demanding a substantial packaging fee…and the network was not willing to pay that much.

It's a reason some shows don't sell and why others get canceled. But like I said, no one does anything about it.

Back in New York, where I haven't been in years, there's a new production of the musical, On the Twentieth Century and it stars Kristin Chenoweth and Peter Gallagher. I like the show and I like both of them and I hope it's still running with both of them in it by the time I next get back there.

Here's what purports to be a video of them recording one of the best numbers for the CD. I say "purports" because I have a feeling they're just lip-syncing this for the camera, having done the actual recording earlier. Still, it's close to what it must have looked like to record the tune and they sing it very well indeed.

What you need to know about the plot is that Gallagher's an unscrupulous producer and Chenoweth's an actress. They were once involved both professionally and personally but since then, his career has gone downhill while hers has soared to stardom. Now, to try and resuscitate his business, he's trying to lure her back from the movies to appear in a show he wants to produce for the stage…

11:15 PM last night: Local news broadcasts in L.A. begin covering a high-speed police chase out on the 5 Freeway in Buena Park. A bevy of officers are chasing a stolen taxi with one man inside. Apparently, a cab driver stopped at a store, ran in for a moment to get something and left the keys in the cab. Not the brightest thing you could do. The "suspect," as we must call him, hopped in and sped away.

As chases go, this one is boring…just a lot of cops following the cab who's driving just barely fast enough to make this a high-speed police chase. The cops "PIT" him, spinning his car out expertly but he manages to recover and the chase goes back into boring mode. One can sense news directors at all three stations hoping hard for some kind of end to it before 11:35 because this ain't worth pre-empting Dave or either Jimmy for.

11:34 PM: I think KNBC and KABC abandon coverage at this time but I'm not sure because I'm watching KCBS. They're going to keep with it but not on this station. So that Letterman can start on time, they're going to switch their coverage over to KCAL Channel 9, a local station owned by the same company. 9 and 2 share newsrooms and sometimes hand off developing stories from one to the other.

The episode of The Late Show with David Letterman is a rerun. Still, if I were Dave, I think I'd be a little pissed that my lead-in is telling people that if they're interested in what they're watching, they should change the channel. As I do.

11:35 PM: Over on KCAL 9, they dump out on an episode of The Insider that had just started so they can show the chase…during which nothing continued to happen. For the next 25 minutes, police continue to follow the suspect as he transitions from the 5 to the 605 to the 90, all the time driving rather safely but still refusing to stop. I feel sorry for the in-studio anchors who are expected to narrate but have absolutely nothing to say.

Midnight: Someone at the station finally decides the chase is too dull to be on broadcast television at all so KCAL 9 starts an episode of OK! TV (I have no idea what that is) and announces that their helicopter coverage of the chase will continue on their website. By now, I don't care much about the stolen cab as I do about the news coverage of it (if that makes any sense) so I scurry to to their page. There, they are indeed running the feed from their copter…

…but the reporters back in the station have gone away. All we hear is the reporter in the helicopter, Stu Mundel, and I'm not sure if his intermittment comments are intended for us or for his associates back in the station. He's alternately listening to police chatter we can't hear, then explaining what the cops are planning. He says they're fixing to puncture the tires of the stolen cab by laying a spike-strip down at Long Beach Boulevard. This information would come in handy if I was a friend or relative of the suspect and I was in phone contact with him. I could tell him how to avoid the trap the police are setting for him. I'm not sure if Mr. Mundel knows that what he's saying is going out on the web.

12:14 AM: The feed goes dead and the website just says "Live Stream is Unavailable." My interest in this whole case is also unavailable.

12:37 AM: I finish writing/polishing the above and am about to post it when the live feed comes back on. From what Mr. Mundel is saying, it's obvious he does know that what he's saying is going out on the Internet. In fact, he's addressing those of us who are watching this way, thanking us for our Tweets and letting us in on more of what the police are saying and planning. Again, if I were in contact with the suspect and wanted to help him, I could relay a lot of useful information to him but I guess that's not a concern. I've watched a lot of these chases and Mundel is by far the best guy at covering these things. I decide he must know what to say and what not to say.

12:52 AM: The fleeing cab has lost one tire due to a spike-strip and is about to lose at least one more. Mundel tells us that both he and the police chopper (I gather there's only one) are concerned with how much fuel they each have left. A second police helicopter is on its way to take over for the first one but the KCBS/KCAL copter will soon have to abandon the coverage and head back with no one to replace them. The cab is shaky and down to two uncompromised tires but, he cautions us, they may have to terminate coverage before wear on the remaining tires bring the pursuit to a conclusion. There are also more spike-strips ahead but Mundel is not about to tip where these are.

1:01 AM: He says they have to head back…a bit reluctantly. His experience covering these thing had told him it won't be long before the taxi has to stop due to a lack of rubber on its wheels. He again thanks the viewers who've been Tweeting him and engaging in what he calls "True modern media interaction" and they get a last shot of more than a dozen police cars following the cab into the distance before the coverage ends.

There's something oddly personal about this. I don't care that much about that stolen cab but I really like the fact that someone in local news gave us the best coverage they could. And except for a short ad when I first went to the live feed on the website, it was all done without commercial interruption. Good for them.

UPDATE AT 4:30 AM: Just found this on the web…

A man was arrested after driving a stolen cab all the way from Orange County to Lancaster. The pursuit started when the taxi was left unattended with the keys in the vehicle while a taxi driver went into a 7-Eleven in Santa Ana at around 11 p.m. Thursday night, a Santa Ana Police Department spokesman said. And after running a gauntlet of PIT maneuvers and spike strips, driving on burst tires for much of the way, he was finally apprehended in Lancaster at around 3 a.m. Friday.

If the arrest didn't happen until 3 AM, that means it was two hours after the KCBS helicopter gave up and returned to its home base. There's no way they could have stayed on the air that long…and I doubt anyone would have been watching by then.

Excerpts from a 2008 conversation between Stephen Sondheim and Frank Rich…

When actors do plays, their union is an honorable and wonderful organization called Actors Equity that prevents a lot of mistreatment and non-payment. It also allows non-payment in small, unlikely-to-be-profitable situations. There is talk of changing that and I think it would be a very bad idea.

I would write a post explaining why but my buddy Ken Levine already has and I can't improve on what he said. You're probably already reading Ken's fine blog but if you aren't, read that post and then read everything else he's written.

My pal Kliph Nesteroff takes us behind the scenes on The Red Buttons Show, which ran on TV from October of 1952 until there wasn't a single comedy writer in the business willing to work with Red Buttons.

One of the many writers who came and went before Mr. Buttons' show went was Arnie Rosen. I worked with Arnie and didn't get along with him any better than he got along with Red. When I knew him, Arnie had massive kidney problems and three times a week, he had to do four-hour stints getting dialysis treatments. Once when he was about to leave the office for one, I overheard someone say to him, "It must be horrible having to do that." He replied, "It's still more fun than working for Red Buttons."

The other day, I linked to the opening number from one of the Gypsy of the Year award shows put on by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. That one brought back a number of members of the original cast of West Side Story and so many of you loved it that I've got another one for you. This is from the 2011 Gypsy of the Year show which featured members of the original cast of Grease — Barry Bostwick, Carole Demas, Adrienne Barbeau, Alan Paul, Walter Bobbie, Don Billett, James Canning, Daniel Douglas, Katie Hanley, Tom Harris, Ilene Kristen, Joy Rinaldi and Mews Small. Enjoy…

James Corden is fast becoming like Jimmy Fallon: I like the guy a lot but I'm not really that interested in watching his show. Stand-up clearly doesn't come naturally to him and it feels like he's only doing a monologue because someone told him, "You're hosting a talk show. You have to do a monologue." He seems so much more at ease when he can talk to the audience outside of that form.

He's a good interviewer but those segments depend on landing guests who have something to say and — since they're interrogated in tandem — some sort of rapport between them. Last night, the rapport between Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart was because they were both there plugging their new movie. One of the good things about Tom Hanks' appearance Monday night was that he wasn't there to promote anything. It's probably too much to expect that to happen very often.

Tuesday night, Corden did a film piece where he went around with a pizza delivery guy and tried to get the customers to play games and invite them in. It was pure Leno…and those bits weren't all that wonderful when Jay did them. Then there was a "game" with guests Chris Pine and Patricia Arquette. I guess we have Fallon and maybe Ellen DeGeneres to thank for the idea that a talk show must have games for the guests to play. The one for Pine and Arquette may not have been rehearsed but it didn't seem to have any spontaneity in it. Last night, Ferrell and Hart played one that I don't think went as well as the producers had hoped.

I am not writing The Late Late Show with James Corden off. It's way too soon to do that and I'm sure it's going to get better and find an identity of its own. It's just going to take a while.

In other news, David Letterman did an embarrassing softball interview with Bill O'Reilly the other night. O'Reilly is really good at controlling any discussion he's in, whether as host or guest, and he pretty much dictated how far they were going to go discussing the recent accusations against him, and what Letterman had to accept as a response to his questions.

Dave does not look happy to me and the times I've watched recently — admittedly, not every night — feel like he's just going through the motions. One hopes that a parade of Big Name Guests making their final appearances, if there is to be such a thing, will energize his final weeks. Odd that we haven't heard any announcement about that, including the rumored Leno appearance, or of what Dave will do next. I somehow don't see him doing a Carsonesque self-exile…but then I don't see him doing anything else.

I have to say I'm becoming increasingly less enchanted with The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, especially the panel discussion segments. I don't know who most of these people are and they aren't around long enough for me to find out…or for them to say much of anything. This show too is playing a lot of games that don't seem to be working well for them. I still like Larry and the opening portions where he just sits and delivers material are sharp. After that, it feels like they still haven't decided what the show is about.

I've finally gotten around to watching full episodes of @Midnight with Chris Hardwick. I used to only see the first two minutes or so of each episode because they were on the end of my Tivoed recordings of Colbert. I liked what I saw but it somehow never dawned on me to set the TiVo to snare more than just the two minutes.

Well, I've started watching entire episodes and I like it a lot. Hardwick is a bright, likeable host who obviously has a big future in teevee. His guests do naught but play games but the games are good ones. Three comedians, occasionally including one we've heard of, are challenged to come up with funny answers to questions and situations. I don't know how far in advance the comics get the challenges or how much help the show gives them with answers but pretty much everyone seems to have decent ones when they need them. It sometimes feels a bit pre-scripted but it also feels funny and Hardwick keeps things moving at a brisk, you-can't-get-bored clip.

The last few years, almost every TV network has asked suppliers to come up with programming that interfaces with social media…ways to get the Facebook and YouTube crowds to watch conventional television. Hundreds of shows have been pitched with that in mind and a few have made it to the air. @Midnight is the only one I've seen that seems to have figured out how to do it. It's really a well-conceived, well-produced series and I don't know why it took me so long to take a Season Pass for it.

The fine announcer Randy West sent me a piece he wrote. I rarely use other folks' writing on this blog but I'm going to make an exception in this case. Randy attended the funeral of Gene Gene the Dancing Machine, the gent I wrote about in this post. Here's what Randy has to say…

This weekend family, friends and church congregants said farewell to Gene "Dancing Machine" Patton Sr. His legacy goes far beyond The Gong Show. Gene holds a place of history as the very first African-American member of IATSE Local 33!

Gene was a constant source of joy and light at NBC Burbank for everyone who worked there during his lifetime career with the peacock, which the family says goes back to The Andy Williams Show. Gene and Floyd Jackson, the shoeshine man of 50 years, are the unforgettable mascots of NBC.

Gene was raised by his mother and grandmother who were both cooks at UC Berkeley. Gene was 22 when he moved to L.A., and he also worked in civil service, primarily as a janitor. Nighttimes, while cleaning Muir High School in Pasadena, he would eavesdrop on a night class in theatrical stagecraft. The teacher of the class recalls that with his growing curiosity for the field, Gene actually put down the broom, took a seat in the class and, over the weeks, began to raise his hand and participate! He eventually registered for that and other courses.

When the all white, father-son lock on the stagehands union in L.A. came under fire, Local 33 called that school's teacher and asked if he knew of any qualified African-Americans with the skills and temperament to break the color barrier. Gene was the obvious choice. During his long reign at NBC he did every stagehand job, and worked virtually every show that originated from the Burbank facility. I would often see Gene; he was there every day, on one one show or another. He was universally liked for his sparkling personality and endearing manner. A real ray of joy and sunshine.

Gene was proud to have worked the Carson and the Leno Tonight Show, pretty much throughout its decades in L.A. But it was a day backstage at The Gong Show seconds after Chuck Barris asked him, "Big man, can you dance?" that audiences first met Gene. And he danced into TV fans' hearts. Although he started to be recognized by audience members, Gene remained supremely humble. His large brood of kids, grandkids and great-grandkids learned that what you do is not who you are.

There are many entertaining anecdotes about Gene's life and career, but his generous personality is his greatest success, and the smiles he engendered are his greatest legacy. Ironically for the "dancing machine," in his final years, both of his legs needed to be amputated; his medical condition ultimately left him blind. Gene was two weeks short of his 83rd birthday.

We lost one of the wonderful traditions and bigger-than-life personalities that have made the TV business such a hoot!

• Liberty University students were fined $10 for missing Ted Cruz's speech. Sounds like a bargain to me.

Lewis Black sounds off about the N.C.A.A. and March Madness. Around my house, March Madness is all about tomato soup…