Monthly Archives: May 2015

The other day on his show which I don't watch and neither do you, MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough screamed at a guest, "You compared me to a Nazi!" This is not an uncommon argument. If you do a Google search for "compare AND nazi," you'll find thousands of instances where people have been accused of comparing someone to a Nazi. Same goes for "compare AND hitler." Isn't this bad phraseology?

I mean, if I said to you, "Hey, you're better looking than Hitler was" or "You know, you are so much nicer than any Nazi could ever be"…well, I just compared you to Hitler and/or a Nazi but you're not offended, are you? I mean it's pretty faint praise but if I'm not trying to rub the sins of Hitler and his ilk all over you to put you in their category, it's not an insult.

Every single dictionary definition of "compare" says something about noting the similarity or dissimilarity between two different people or things. If I say you have nothing in common with Nazis, I'm comparing you to Nazis.

Really, this post is not about Hitler or Nazis. It's about misuse of the word "compare." I think what people mean is to equate someone to a Nazi or associate someone with a Nazi or maybe even liken someone to a Nazi.

People love to do that. It's like, "What's the worst thing I can say about this person I hate? I know! I'll say he's just like Hitler! That'll teach him to not invite me to his birthday party!"

I can never prove this but I think back before the Internet, back when we had our childish arguments on computer bulletin board systems, I may have been the first person to ever insist that you can't equate someone to Hitler or a Nazi unless they're actually (a) declaring themselves committed to the objectives of the Third Reich or (b) committing acts of murder and genocide. If someone tells you you can't post a message on a certain message board, they are not the equivalent of a Nazi. If they commit mass killings, especially of a specified race or religion, then fine. The people who ordered the slaughter in Darfur…them, you can liken to Hitler.

Joe Scarborough is not a Nazi. He's nothing like a Nazi. He's also nothing like a good TV host, either.

What is color? Well, according to a new book (reviewed here by Malcolm Harris), no one really knows.

This is a rerun from 9/9/04. Nothing to add today…

Recently on the weblog here, I mentioned my Uncle Henry, who was a Colonel (I think) in the Army. I also had an Uncle Aaron, and I was thinking about Uncle Aaron last night. No matter where you went with Uncle Aaron, he'd point to some huge building or shopping mall or real estate development and say, "When I came to California, I could have bought that whole property for two dollars an acre!" Even as a kid, I had the good sense not to reply, "Boy, you were dumb" or even, "Why didn't you? Then you could have left me a ton of money when you die."

But I think we all have such regrets. Anyone who's been a comic fan for any length of time recalls buying some #1 issue years ago and wondering why they didn't have the brains to buy fifty copies because that book is now worth a thousand times its cover price. We all remember things we could have purchased at a tiny fraction of their current worth. I have countless such memories.

The other day on the web, I saw someone selling the four plastic Revell models of The Beatles that came out in 1964. Unassembled and in good condition, the set goes for around $3500. Once upon a time and long ago, I had a huge supply of them for free and destroyed what would now be more than $10,000 worth of them.

Around 1965, my father had a friend who worked for Revell. One day, the friend told him, "Hey, you got a son, right? Well, I have a garage full of Revell models. Bring him by. He can help himself to as many as he wants." I was not particularly big on models. I had recently bought, assembled and badly painted the Aurora Superman figure and my father thought I was interested in hobby kits, whereas I was just interested in Superman. In any case, Dad didn't believe in ever turning down anything that was free so I soon found myself in his friend's garage staring at crates of new, unopened Revell models…from 20 to 50 (I'm guessing) of everything the company had put out in the preceding decade. "Help yourself," the friend said. "Take as many as you want. I'm going to throw them out one of these days. I need the space for my new band saw."

I had zero interest in all the battleships, airplanes and car models and only slightly more in the Beatles. But I selected two or three of each of the Fab Four, took them home and assembled them as a joke. I stuck parts of Paul on the Ringo model and glued George's feet on John's head. Near our house, there was a thrift shop that raised cash for a childrens' hospital, and I sometimes found old books and other treasures there.  One day, I spotted an unassembled Aurora Wolfman model there for a quarter, bought it and incorporated some of its pieces in my Beatles (de)constructions. And of course, I painted my genetically-altered Liverpool Quartet in garish alien colors. I'd had to purchase a whole kit of paints to make my Superman model and I had all the ugly non-Superman hues left over. Eventually, I got tired of my aberrant creations so some friends of mine and I had the pleasure of dropping an old bowling ball on them and watching the mutant Beatles shatter.

But the other model kits in that garage did not go to waste. That thrift shop gave me an idea and one day when I was in there, I asked the proprietor, "If someone had a garage full of new, unwanted toys, would you send a truck to pick them up?" He said, "In a second," so I called my father's Revell pal and told him. He was delighted at the prospect of getting rid of the models without having to haul them somewhere himself…and within a week, the thrift shop was well-stocked with them. For a year or two, you could have bought the Beatles and a wide array of cars and planes for a buck apiece there. Later, they added a "five for $4" option so if you purchased John, George, Paul and Ringo, you could take a U.S.S. Missouri battleship or an old Duesenberg for nothing. I always thought it would be interesting to take five models like that, mix all the pieces together, throw away the instructions and see what you could build.

Or maybe not. I recall having a lot of fun building and unbuilding my versions of the Beatles. Every time I see what those kits now sell for, a little more of that fun slips away from me.

One of the ten-or-so funniest human beings I've ever known was the late, great Carl Ballantine. It was very difficult to eat with him because…well, you can't swallow when you're laughing and when I was with Carl, I was usually laughing. He was even more delightful off-stage than he was on-stage and he was pretty damned good on-stage.

Here, a very youthful David Copperfield introduces an abbreviated version of the classic comedy act performed by the forever-youthful Amazing Ballantine…

I don't have a lot to say about the final Late Show with David Letterman. It was a fine, fitting broadcast that went an hour-twenty on my TiVo. I'd been told they were going to do a special "Stupid Pet Tricks" and I'm glad they dumped that idea and just let the show be about the show.

Comparison to Carson's last show is unavoidable, I guess. Maybe I'm reading too much into things but it struck me that Johnny's final words included this: "…I hope when I find something that I want to do, and I think you would like, and come back, that you'll be as gracious in inviting me into your home as you have been." He never did find that thing he wanted to do but when he left, he expected to reappear on television in some format.

Dave ended with: "The only thing I have left to do for the last time on a television program…thank you and good night." Was that Dave saying he doesn't expect to ever host anything ever again on TV? Is it to be taken literally? I'd like to think that even if he believes it now, it's not so.

And now some 'net sources are saying Dave's last show will run ninety minutes! Better set the DVR to record all night, just in case!

Sources are claiming tonight's final Late Night with David Letterman runs long. Some say 12 minutes. Some say 17. My TiVo automatically updated and is allowing for the show to run one hour and 12 minutes but it still has the following program, The Late Late Show with James Corden, starting at its usual time of 12:37 and running one hour.

So if you want to catch Dave, I'd suggest padding his running time to an hour and twenty minutes, just in case. And if you want to catch Corden — well, I have no idea what time his show starts.

From a couple years ago: Steve Martin and Conan O'Brien with a funny bit about David Letterman's Top Ten lists…

Jonathan Chait on why some Republicans are praying the Supreme Court will wound Obamacare and some are praying it won't.

David Letterman can't complain his last show is going without notice. The tributes, the articles…amazing. Reporters are tracking down people who were in a running bit on Dave's old show in 1987 for comment. It's probably a lot more press than Johnny's departure got…though in fairness, Johnny left when we didn't have eight zillion online magazines and websites all vying for a piece of the story.

I can't be the only person who notices that most of the pieces that talk about the brilliance that is Letterman cite examples from the last century and the previous network. What they mention from this century and this network are not the moments that he and his writing staff came up with but when circumstances beyond their control created a special event: Dave coming back from his heart attack, Dave coming back from shingles, Dave announcing the birth of his son or his marriage, Dave getting blackmailed…and many more, including his post-9/11 broadcast. He handled most of them with skill and integrity but then the next night, it would be a pretty conventional talk show again.

One of the sharpest pieces I've come across about Dave's legacy is this one by Josef Adalian. Some of the non-sharpest ones act like Dave has still been donning suits of Velcro® and sending Larry "Bud" Melman to the Port Authority Bus Terminal for the last decade or two.

These days, most of America regards Johnny Carson as a sacred figure who practically owned the hour of our lives during which he was on the air. My recollection is that this view of Johnny was not widely-held until the nation realized he was going away. You will find few critical appraisals of his greatness while he could still be taken for granted. He was to many a boring, slightly smutty comic whose monologue jokes and Mighty Carson Art Player sketches all bombed and who sat behind a desk asking smirking questions of starlets and making faces to the camera.

Of course, that was before he went away. Once he announced his retirement, he started to become a demi-god and it accelerated from there.

America this week is appreciating Letterman anew. Folks who haven't watched him for years (save for those "event" nights) are hailing him…and I'm not saying he doesn't deserve plenty of hailing. Most talk shows of the last few decades have tried to "do" Dave's show on NBC to some extent, the one notable exception at times being Dave's show on CBS. In the grand tradition of his idol Mr. Carson, Dave is being appreciated because we can't have him anymore. Ain't it like that with so many things in this world?

Stu Shostak has a great guest this week on Stu's Show. It's Howard Storm, who's had one of the most amazing careers in show business as an actor, a writer, a stand-up comedian and most recently, a director. Anyone who could direct Robin Williams on Mork & Mindy for several seasons has to be a helluva director and that's just one of Howard's many credits. He's directed at least fifty different situation comedies including Everybody Loves Raymond, Major Dad, Laverne & Shirley, Rhoda and Too Close for Comfort. His acting credits go back to The Untouchables and he was seen in a couple of Woody Allen movies. (He was Woody's assistant on several.) Frankly, I think Stu could fill the show with Howard's tales of working as a comedian in mob-controlled night clubs, not that he didn't also work the cleaner joints. He's one of the best storytellers and I know and there's no way Stu's getting even half this man's career into the show today.

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 to three or beyond.  Shortly 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 for the price of three…and no, there's no extra discount for the ones that have me on them.

Frank Rich on how racially-charged riots don't vary that much from one to another. And they won't as long as we keep allowing the same explosive situations to exist.

Fred Kaplan on how all the scenarios to defeat ISIS are bad ones and which ones are the least bad.

Jill Lepore writes of how maybe the Supreme Court has it wrong when it rules that things like abortion and a right to contraception are issues of privacy. Maybe instead they're issues of discrimination.

One day back when John McCain was the G.O.P. nominee for president, he was scheduled to appear on David Letterman's show but canceled at very close to the last minute, claiming he had to rush back to Washington on vital gov't biz. In what was no doubt a panic, the producers scrambled to find another guest and they called in Keith Olbermann for reasons Keith Olbermann enumerates in the article to which I'm about to link you. Olbermann scurried over and filled Dave's guest chair.

In the midst of the taping, Dave learned that the Senator from Arizona was not on a plane back to Washington at that moment. He was a number of blocks away, getting ready to tape an interview with Katie Couric for the CBS Evening News. It was even possible for the crew in the Ed Sullivan Theater to use the CBS in-house feed to view what was going on at that moment in Ms. Couric's studio and there, chatting aimiably with her before the interview, was John McCain.

As Olbermann notes in this nice tribute to Dave, Letterman made the quick decision to address this matter then and there on his show, including putting some of that in-house network feed on his show. From his desk, he showed America the scene of McCain with Couric and delivered a very funny, spontaneous rant.

I believe though Mr. Olbermann is omitting one detail. For a show to do that — to put another show's feed on the air — is a major breach of protocol and probably corporate policy. I mean, if CBS News just grabbed the feed of Dave taping and used it in their telecast, he would have gone through several roofs with outrage. So what Dave did (I heard from someone on his show) was to quickly call Les Moonves, the head of CBS, during a break and say in effect, "I want to do this…is it okay?" And Moonves, who probably had about ten seconds to decide about this unprecedented, sure-to-piss-some-people-off move, said "Go ahead."

I'm not sure if Dave himself made that call — I think he did — or if one of his producers did but Moonves said yes because it was Dave…and probably only because it was Dave. And then he probably protected Dave from any anger from the news folks who might have felt violated. I do not know if Moonves called and told them before or as it happened. The point is that CBS wouldn't have let anyone else do that.

Anyway, read the Olbermann piece. It's pretty good — broadcaster saluting broadcaster — and watch his appearance with Dave that night. It's in two parts (slightly outta sync) that should play one after the other in the box I'm embedding below. I like it because it's two smart men talking with no pre-interview, no arranged questions, no planned anecdotes or anything. I wish all talk shows were this unscripted…

The Gallup Poll says that a record 60% of Americans support Same-Sex Marriage as opposed to just 37% who oppose it. So I guess the way this works is that if you want the G.O.P. nomination for president, you have to convince Republicans that you'll do something to stop or roll back Gay Wedlock and then if you get that nomination, you have to then convince the rest of America that you won't.

Here's a good, current interview with Woody Allen. He talks about his filmmaking process, how he casts actors in under a minute, how he's going to shoot his next movie in digital, why he never watches his films again after they're done and many other topics.

If you're interested in Woody, you will very much enjoy the forthcoming book on him by the other writing Evanier, my cousin David. I haven't read all of the manuscript but I've read enough to see that it's a very good, important work and that it does not merely go over ground that others have covered but instead says new things about the man, both in terms of new information and analysis of his role in the entertainment world. It's due out in November and can be advance-ordered here.