Former blogger Andrew Sullivan blogs again…about you-know-what.
Monthly Archives: June 2015
No More "Gay Marriage"
Now, it's just "Marriage." And I wish I could say the battle was over but a certain part of the right-wing audience will rally behind politicians who swear they will overturn this Supreme Court decision (and probably the Obamacare one, too) and it will be lucrative to so vow. In some states, it might even get people elected.
I'm not sure how to phrase it but there's a connection between this attitude and the flying of the Confederate flag…this "never admit defeat" attitude among some Conservatives. I suppose if I thought about it, I could come up with a few symbols of Liberals giving up even before defeat.
There will, of course, not be a Constitutional Amendment — not about this and not about Obamacare — though that will be pledged endlessly as a great Applause Line. We don't pass Constitutional Amendments very often in this country and we certainly don't pass them for causes that don't have 75% of Americans behind them. The number of people who are fine with folks of the same gender getting hitched will only go up…as it has everywhere it's been tried with none of the predicted destruction of "straight" marriage and no visitations of locusts and frogs sent by an angry God. (Though guess what'll be blamed for the next big hurricane or earthquake.)
I must admit I never thought this would happen. I thought the pathway to legalized Same Sex Marriage would come not through the courts but through growing public acceptance. Turned out, it was both…and each bolstered the other.
Chief Justice Roberts in his dissent said that the proponents of such unions had "lost" the opportunity to let it come about through public acceptance. Yeah, the way an earlier Supreme Court decision meant that George W. Bush had "lost" the opportunity to win the presidency by actually getting more votes than Al Gore. I doubt the people who feel they "lost" by this morning's decision will be as graceful in defeat — especially the Mike Huckabees of the world.
Patrick Macnee, R.I.P.
Yes, I have a story about the (now) late Patrick Macnee. In fact, I have two but I'm afraid neither one is much of a tale.
I always liked him on The Avengers but I couldn't possibly have liked him as much as a couple of ladies I knew back in my high school and college days. These were women friends of the platonic variety and it wasn't so much that they had crushes on him as that they wished that all males could be as polite, debonair, charming and well-dressed as Mr. Macnee was on his series. Compared to him, all of us were unkempt boors. I always assumed these ladies spoke to me because I wasn't quite as unkempt or boorish as some guys on the campus.
I think I knew four different women who had this dream that all men would be like Patrick Macnee. Two of them were corresponding with him. One day, one of them — a classmate named Sally — informed me that she'd received a letter from Mr. Macnee inviting her to lunch. He was in Southern California for a few months shooting some kind of film or TV show and living in a rented home in Malibu. He suggested that she drive up the coast some afternoon to meet and dine with him. She accepted…
…then had second thoughts. What if the witty, urbane gent who played John Steed had in mind something of a sexual nature? She had no reason to expect that but, hey, these things do happen. And even more than she feared an assault on her body, she was concerned about an assault on her respect for him. She said, "If he tried something…if he even suggested it, I'd just be devastated." Figuring that would be less likely to happen if she were escorted, she asked me to come along. I wasn't to be so much a bodyguard as a spoiler for any possible romantic conversation.
I agreed and on the appointed day, we drove up to the home Mr. Macnee was renting in Malibu. He greeted us warmly and Sally was immediately devastated…not because of anything he did. It was because of how he was dressed.
She later admitted it was foolish but she'd expected him to be dressed like his character on The Avengers. He wasn't…and he probably wouldn't have been even if it hadn't been over 90°. No bowler, no suit, no gentlemanly attire. He was in a short-sleeved sport shirt, shorts and sandals. He looked like almost everyone else in Malibu. Having not shaved in a few days, he looked a lot like the guys on our campus she found so unkempt and boorish.
We were there about two hours and he served us a fine lunch of cold cuts and breads he'd purchased at a nearby store. He was charming and witty and really an excellent host and he wound up talking more to me than to Sally. Mostly, it was about the differences between American television and British television. He was not saying one was better than the other; merely musing on how interesting it was that we did something this way while they did something that way. Sally enjoyed the afternoon but not as much as if she'd actually met the man she was expecting.
That's about all there is to that story. The other one is much shorter. It happened about three years later.
I was on a date with a young lady and we'd just come out of a movie in Westwood Village. We were discussing whether or not to go somewhere for ice cream when she suddenly shrieked and ran towards a man she'd spotted. "It's the man who starred in the greatest TV show ever," I heard her call out as I jogged after her. Before I could stop her, she ran up to man who about to cross the street and told him, "Mr. McGoohan, I just have to tell you that I think The Prisoner was the greatest TV show ever made and you are a genius."
The man thanked her but said, "I'm sure Patrick McGoohan will be pleased to hear that but my name is Patrick Macnee and I was on a TV show called The Avengers." Then he looked at me and I'm pretty sure he didn't recognize me. But he did say with a smile, "Don't worry. This happens all the time." What a nice, classy gentleman.
Today's Video Link
Here from 1965 is a commercial starring Phil Silvers. It's for Pream, a non-dairy creamer and the store manager is played by Dave Willock, who was the announcer on the Wacky Races cartoons and an actor often-seen in movies and TV shows and commercials. (He was in a number of Stan Freberg's spots, including having the end line in the famous Ann Miller soup commercial.) The cop is played by Robert Strauss, working the wrong side of the law since he usually played gangsters and crooks. But just watch how good Phil Silvers was at playing Phil Silvers…
Comic-Con Update
Comic-Con looms before us, people. Yesterday, they posted the Programming Schedule for Wednesday (Preview) Night. There's not a lot on it but there it is.
Today, they've posted the schedule for Thursday, July 9. It's a lot more interesting even though it only has one panel hosted by me on it.
Friday's will be posted tomorrow and so on. I urge attendees to review these schedules. Make notes of what you want to see. Make notes of what you want to see if your first choice has too long a line or no remaining seats. This will not happen with most panels but it's not unlikely in panels in Hall H, Ballroom 20, the Indigo Ballroom or some panels in rooms that start with a "6." Then again, I've had people tell me that they got into everything they wanted to attend without any difficulties.
Likewise, it ain't a bad idea to scan the list of exhibitors and the map of the Exhibit Hall to see where the booths you wish to visit are located.
Take note of some new rules: The convention has banned selfie-sticks or similar devices, live streaming of items on the program, Google Glasses, all smoking including vape-type, and all drones and other flying devices. Guess this includes my hovercraft. Oh, well. We'll still have a great time.
Black is Black
Interview with Lewis Black. He likes Bernie Sanders, he doesn't like Bill Cosby and he doesn't agree with Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock about college audiences being too "politically-correct."
Flavor Flave
May 8, 2008 on this blog, we said goodbye to Mr. Robbins of "Baskin-Robbins" and I rambled on about a food I no longer eat…
Irvine Robbins, co-founder of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream dynasty, passed away the other day. I gave up ice cream many years ago but retained an inexplicable fondness for the history and trivia of that business. For instance, did you know that Banana Nut was the favorite flavor of Howard Hughes? That once, when Banana Nut had fallen out of the Baskin-Robbins flavor rotation, Hughes's staff paid the company a fortune to make up a special batch, rather than go tell Mr. Hughes that he couldn't have his favorite ice cream?
One obit on Mr. Robbins listed the original 31 flavors offered in his stores. They were…
I look at that list and I think, "Y'know, they could have just left it that way forever." They could even have gotten rid of about 25 of them. I'm not particularly adventuresome when it comes to new flavors. I go into a restaurant where I've previously had a terrific meal and my first instinct is to order the same thing again…something I know I'll like. In all my years of going to Baskin-Robbins, I probably tried about a dozen different flavors, most of which were some different combination of Chocolate and Vanilla. If their entire selection had consisted of those two flavors plus Orange and Lemon Sherbet, I don't think they'd have gotten any less of my business.
I remember for a while ordering something called Chocolate Mousse Royale and occasionally throwing caution to the breezes and opting for French Vanilla over Vanilla. These were just Chocolate and Vanilla on steroids. In my more madcap, impetuous moments, I might even go for Chocolate Chocolate Chip…and for a few visits there, I chose something that was vanilla ice cream with a chocolate ribbon and little chunks of peanut butter. Oh, yeah — and once I think I had a scoop of Strawberry but I hedged my bet and made it half of a two-scoop parlay with Vanilla. My most frequent two-scoop selection was Orange Sherbet and Vanilla — and remembering an old Peanuts strip, I always asked that the Orange be on top so it would drip down and flavor the Vanilla instead of the other way around, and I'd have the Vanilla aftertaste.
It's not that I don't like to gamble. I just think that when you gamble, you ought to have a shot at a real upside. Imagine if you had a choice of putting your dough into one of two slot machines. One, you know will pay off with a nice jackpot. The other might pay off the same or a few cents more but it also might not pay off at all. Which one would you pick? Well, that's the way I feel in a place like Baskin-Robbins. I know the Chocolate Chip will be terrific. Another, heretofore unsampled flavor might be a teensy bit better but I might also not like it, which I would realize at first lick, whereupon I'd be stuck with a whole cone or dish of the stuff. So why not play it safe? It's not like the new flavor might cure acne or attract supermodels to you. It can't be so much better than the Chocolate Chip that it warrants the risk.
So Mr. Robbins, while I appreciate all those extra choices you offered and all the inventive alchemy your laboratory concocted, I would have been perfectly satisfied with Chocolate, Vanilla, Orange Sherbet, Lemon Sherbet, Strawberry, and some chocolate/vanilla combo like Chocolate Chip. All of them are on the above list so you had me from Day One.
The Day After
On 11/29/08 — two days after Thanksgiving — I posted the following here. The only update I have is that the Boston Market in which this tale took place is no longer there. You may be able to figure out why…
Yesterday afternoon around 2:30, I had an urgent need to get something edible and quick. I was in a neighborhood containing two of my favorite places to do this but both, darn it, had decided to close for the day after Thanksgiving. So I wound up at a Boston Market, which is a chain that usually serves me adequately in such situations. Only problem: This Boston Market was out of much of its menu due to a Thanksgiving Day rush — a fact that was lost on an elderly gent who was ahead of me in line. It went roughly like this…
ELDERLY GENT: I'd like the turkey dinner, please.
COUNTERPERSON: I'm sorry…we had a big crowd in here yesterday and we're out of turkey and most of our entrees. We only have chicken and meat loaf.
ELDERLY GENT: No turkey dinners?
COUNTERPERSON: No, I'm afraid not, sir. Just chicken and meat loaf.
ELDERLY GENT: In that case, I'll have a turkey sandwich.
COUNTERPERSON: I'm sorry…we have no turkey. Just chicken and meat loaf.
ELDERLY GENT: No turkey sandwiches either, huh? Well, how about a turkey-ham combo plate?
COUNTERPERSON: I'm sorry…we have no turkey and we have no ham.
ELDERLY GENT: Now you're out of ham, too?
COUNTERPERSON: Yes, we're out of ham. We're out of everything except chicken and meat loaf.
ELDERLY GENT: The sign here says "Now serving Virginia Ham."
COUNTERPERSON: That's when we have it. We're all out of it at the moment.
ELDERLY GENT: And you're all out of turkey, too? When will you have more? Can I wait?
COUNTERPERSON: We're not going to have any more today. I don't think we'll have any more until Monday. All we'll have until we get another delivery is chicken and meat loaf.
ELDERLY GENT: Monday, huh? How could you be out of turkey? It's the day after Thanksgiving. Everyone has turkey around.
COUNTERPERSON: We don't, I'm sorry. Only chicken and meat loaf.
ELDERLY GENT: All right then. I'll have the Roasted Sirloin.
After another six or seven hours of this, the man finally grasped enough of the concept to order a rotisserie chicken. I stepped up and said in a snappy and efficient manner, "Meat loaf dinner with mashed potatoes and chicken noodle soup, no beverage." The Counterperson breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn't ordered turkey and quickly ran up my order. Five minutes later, it was all on a tray except I didn't have a spoon…
COUNTERPERSON: Sorry, we're out of spoons.
ME: Out of spoons? You're serving soup and you're out of spoons?
COUNTERPERSON: We have soup. We have plenty of soup. We just don't have any spoons.
ME: Shouldn't you tell people that before they order soup?
COUNTERPERSON: We didn't say we had spoons.
ME: Isn't that kind of implied? I mean, if you're selling soup, isn't it a reasonable assumption on the customer's part that you can get a spoon with it?
And from behind me, where he was still waiting for his rotisserie chicken, the Elderly Gent said, "Don't waste your time talking to him. It's the day after Thanksgiving and he wouldn't even give me a turkey sandwich."
Recommended Reading
Jonathan Chait notes that the Republicans defending the Confederate Flag are forgetting their party line. They're supposed to argue that all that slavery and racial stuff is the Democrat's doing.
M*A*S*H Up!
Every so often, I come across a couple of episodes of M*A*S*H on some cable channel I receive. I always watch them and I always enjoy them but for some reason, I never take a Season Pass on my TiVo to ensure a steady flow. I think this is because there were 256 episodes and I don't really want to watch 256 episodes of anything.
M*A*S*H feels especially to me like a show I don't want to binge-watch so I've decided to pick up the complete set and commit to one disc of it a month or something. There are 34 discs in this complete set that's currently on sale at Amazon for $67.49 — an astounding bargain considering you get all 256 episodes plus the original movie. This was supposed to be a one-day price ending yesterday but at this moment, it's still available. If you want it, don't delay.
Today on Stu's Show!
Today on Stu's Show, the topic is late night television. Stu has assembled a panel of experts — TV critics/historians Steve Beverly and Wesley Hyatt, plus the operator of this here blog, Mark Evanier! We'll be discussing David Letterman's exit and possible future plans, then we'll launch into a complete history of late night talk shows starting with Broadway Open House starring Jerry Lester and Morey Amsterdam. Among the names that will be mentioned are Steve Allen, Jack Lescoulie, Al "Jazzbeaux" Collins, Ernie Kovacs, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett, Joey Bishop, Les Crane, Letterman, Jay Leno, Joan Rivers and I'm not sure how far we're going to get with this but there is much to say about all these folks.
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. We'll be back right after these messages.
A Horrifying Economic Indicator
This is from 4/28/08. It's about the bargain shrimp cocktail as the Golden Gate Casino in Las Vegas. Read the piece and then I'll be back after it to tell you its current price…
In 1959, the Golden Gate hotel in downtown Las Vegas began offering a shrimp cocktail for a paltry fifty cents. That was a tremendous bargain. Fifteen years ago, they raised its price to a buck and it was still a tremendous bargain…a loss leader, of course. Like anything free or cheap in Vegas, you have to walk to the back of the casino to claim it, passing hundreds of slot machines and table games. They may lose a few quarters on the freebee or bargain but they know enough people will be enticed to play a little — which means enticed to lose some money — on the way in or out. They'll more than make back whatever they lose on the shrimp.
But oddly enough, it's never been the best bargain at the Golden Gate. The shrimp cocktail of which I write comes in a tulip-style dish and they stick a little shredded lettuce in the bottom, then fill the glass with tiny bay shrimp. Then the server ladles a big glump of cocktail sauce onto it unless, like me, you ask them not to. I find theirs too spicy so I ask for just a tiny amount. Actually, more often, I order their other shrimp cocktail, the one few people ever buy. They call it the Big Shrimp Cocktail and it has much larger, tastier prawns. An approximation of it in a good seafood house would set you back at least ten, maybe fifteen bucks. Last time I was at the Golden Gate, it was $2.95.
And like I said, very few people buy it. Because the whole point of going in there is not to get good shrimp. It's to get shrimp for a dollar. The outrageous bargain is the appeal, not the shellfish. This is why Vegas visitors around the world are being shocked to hear that the cheapo shrimp cocktail at the Golden Gate has just doubled its price.
That's right. It's now $1.99. You want proof the economy is in trouble? Look no further.
In truth, it's not quite that bad. If you sign up for the Golden Gate's slot card club, you can still get your shrimp for a dollar…but how long do we think that will last? It's obviously a way to ease the new price tag into place. A few months from now, the members' price will be $1.49 and it'll still seem like a deal. Then, one chilling day, it'll be two bucks for everyone. (No word yet on the Big Shrimp Cocktail but I'm guessing it's four bucks now or soon will be.)
I guess at two bucks, the basic shrimp cocktail is still an outrageous bargain. Still, there's something sad about the increase…sad, the same way it's sad when they tear down an old, classic hotel. The Golden Gate, by the way, is not an old, classic hotel, just an old one. It evolved out of the Hotel Nevada, which was built on that location in 1906. The Hotel Nevada actually had the first phone number in the state. The number was 1.
In 1931, when gambling was legalized in the state, the Hotel Nevada expanded and was renamed Sal Sagev, which someone thought was a cute name, it being "Las Vegas" spelled backwards. I don't know why anyone would want to stay at someplace called the Sal Sagev but people did…until 1955 when a change of ownership brought in a San Francisco-based company and the new name. I gather the building has not changed an awful lot since those days. It's a rather dreary place with nothing to recommend it but the shrimp. If they closed it down tomorrow, that's the only thing people would miss.
Which is probably why they've kept it so long and why, until someone gets the "bright" idea to gut and rebuild the place, they'll always have a shrimp cocktail at an astonishingly low price. It's just sad that it's not quite as astonishing as it used to be. Almost nothing in Vegas is, these days.\
Okay, I'm back. Here's your update. Not long after this piece ran, the Golden Gate underwent a major facelift and as part of the makeover, they closed the snack bar where the classic cheapo shrimp cocktail was served. But they also opened a 24/7 outlet of Du-Par's Coffee Shop, a popular chain in Southern California. And at Du-Par's, you can still get what I hear is the exact same shrimp cocktail…for $3.99. I don't think they have the larger, better one.
Today's Video Link
I know you've all been wondering, "What if Frank Loesser, the man who wrote the songs for Guys and Dolls, had instead written the score for Sweeney Todd?" Well, my buddy Bruce Kimmel has the answer. Bruce introduces (and wrote the lyrics for) just such a tune sung by Robert Yacko, with Lloyd Cooper playin' the piano…
P.S. And yes, I know Frank Loesser did not write The King and I. Bruce Kimmel knows it, too. I assume that was some kind of joke that would have made sense if we'd seen earlier portions of that show instead of just the excerpt.
Stars on the Street
The Walk of Fame Selection Committee of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has made its 2016 selections. Here's the newest batch of folks who are to receive stars in the Hollywood Walk of Fame…
MOTION PICTURES: Steve Carell, Bradley Cooper, Ashley Judd, Michael Keaton, Kurt Russell, Quentin Tarantino, and Toshiro Mifune (posthumous)
TELEVISION: Barbara Bain, Kathy Bates, Roma Downey, David Duchovny, Allison Janney, Rob Lowe, Debra Messing, Tracy Morgan, Gary Sinise, and William S. Paley (posthumous)
RECORDING: Shirley Caesar, LL Cool J, Cyndi Lauper, Adam Levine, Bruno Mars, Joseph B. "Joe" Smith, Itzhak Perlman, "Mama" Cass Elliot (posthumous)
RADIO: Ralph Lawler
LIVE THEATRE/LIVE PERFORMANCE: Angélica María, Harvey Fierstein, and Kevin Hart
Now, you may recall that last year's list included the credited creator of Batman, Bob Kane. When that honor was announced, there was some talk on the Internet that some of us might just show up for that dedication ceremony with signs that said things like, "WHAT ABOUT BILL FINGER?" I wrote about it here and again here. And you may wonder what happened to that?
So far, nothing. When you're voted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the installation and unveiling take place on a date that you and the committee agree upon and that date can be up to two years after the voting. In the case of the posthumous selections like Kane, it's agreed-upon with the family and for whatever reason, the Bob Kane family has yet to set the date.
If the honoree is alive, the date may have something to do with the person's availability. More likely though, the scheduling coincides with the opening of something promotable. I'm going to guess that the Time-Warner folks used their clout to get a star for Kane, are paying the installation fee, and want the ceremony to occur when the forthcoming Batman V Superman movie is released in March of next year.
Still, if you want to protest, I wouldn't wait 'til then to paint my sign because it could happen sooner and could be announced with just a week or so notice. The next star unveiling is July 1. It's for Paul Rudd, who was voted in at the same time as Kane.
By the way: You can attend it or any of these ceremonies. You don't need a ticket or anything. You just show up and try to get a good spot in the crowd. More info can be found on this page, which is where they announce — sometimes, not too far in advance — when the events will take place. Depending on who shows up to lend their star power to the unveiling, they can be kinda fun. Quentin Tarantino will probably have a line of guys with automatic weapons come out and mow down the spectators.
Cereal Thriller
General Mills has announced that they will soon be removing artificial flavors and artificial colors from their cereals. Those elements will be replaced with fruit and vegetable juices, natural dyes, and spice blends. This won't affect me because my Cheerios have no artificial flavors or colors. But I'm still glad to hear it.