Monthly Archives: August 2015

The late Huell Howser was a local treasure…a TV reporter who covered interesting people and places in Los Angeles with great enthusiasm. Mr. Howser loved everything and everyone he encountered in our fair city and he had a knack for finding the unusual. He did some really fine shows documenting things that are no longer there and he did them while they were still there.

His shows appeared on the local PBS station, KCET. KCET is no longer a PBS station but they occasionally rerun old Huell Howser shows and they just put a huge batch of them online. I'll link you to a few of the best ones in the coming weeks and you'll see what I mean about Howser's unabashed interest and enthusiasm in almost everything.

This one is from 2000 and it's a tour of Forrest J Ackerman's "Ackermansion" in Los Feliz. Forry Ackerman, who passed in 2008, was an editor, writer, agent and historian of science-fiction and monsters with a penchant for horrid puns and self-promotion. He collected enough monster and s-f memorabilia to fill his home which he passed off as a museum filled with "millions of dollars" worth of artifacts. Near the end of his life, not long after Howser's video visit, Ackerman began liquidating his "museum" and the contents brought considerably less loot than he or anyone expected.

I visited there a few times and also went to his previous Ackermansion in Beverly Hills, back when he was still engaged in editing the magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland. I found Ackerman to be colorful but awfully silly at times for reasons that will become evident if you watch this video. It's a pretty good record of what it was like to have Forry take you around his abode, which impressed me somewhat less at age thirteen than it seems to impress Huell Howser in this tour…

• I hope I get a spot in the Republican debates. I haven't filed as a candidate but I still have almost as much support as Lindsey Graham.

Rick Lax is a magician and the inventor of several quite remarkable tricks. There are some magicians who just do the old standards, occasionally putting a new coat of paint on them or making an old trick look different…and there are magicians who invent. Lax is an inventor. But he's an inventor frustrated by the fact that if you figure out how to do the seemingly-impossible, it seems to be impossible to protect your idea. I'll let him tell you all about it.

People who worked with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show tell what it was like.

You'll notice it mentions that at one point, Stewart was signed by David Letterman's Worldwide Pants company. This was when Tom Snyder was hosting the program following Dave and the industry buzz at the time was that signing Stewart was someone's way of telling Ol' Tom it was time to retire again. The assumption was that Dave (or someone) wanted Stewart there to "young up" the demographic and maybe to be in the "on deck" circle if and when Dave decided to retire.

If it was intended as a hint at the time, Snyder didn't take it, not even after Stewart filled in for him a few times. When Snyder was finally nudged aside, it was not Stewart that got the job but Craig Kilborn. He left The Daily Show to do it and guess who they got to replace him over there.

I'd be curious to know if Stewart thought, as many did, that Worldwide Pants signed him with no intention of ever giving him the show after Letterman's, let alone Letterman's. A lot of people in the business seem to think the whole idea of signing Stewart was to keep him off the air lest he compete with Dave either by going on opposite him or following him and looking like a viable replacement. I suspect Mr. Stewart is too much the gentleman to ever say that's what he thought was done to him but I wonder if he thinks that.

You may have seen this. It's Ray Jessel on America's Got Talent. Ray, who died July 17, 2015 at the age of 85 was a very successful comedy writer who worked on Broadway and then came to Hollywood where he wrote for The Dean Martin Show, Love Boat, The Carol Burnett Show and many more. Around the time he hit his seventies, he began turning up on the L.A. cabaret circuit singing his original and highly amusing songs. His act was delightful and he was delightful — and as you'll see, the judges agreed. It's always a shame to lose a funny human being like this…

The consensus in the computer world seems to be that the new Windows 10 is (a) a spectacular operating system and a vast improvement on its predecessors and (b) very bad at protecting your data, your privacy and your bandwidth. I have not installed it yet. Unless there's an urgent reason to do so, I usually let major upgrades on software simmer for about a month to see how they go over and what gets changed.

If you must have it now, you might want to read David Auerbach on things you should do to reduce how much of your life you'll be entrusting to the Microsoft company due to certain settings. I would definitely turn off the option to allow the anal probes. Unless, of course, you like that kind of thing…and knowing you, you probably do.

On Tuesday, Fox News is going to announce which candidates will take the stage in their debate. It's supposed to be the top ten as determined by some sort of averaging of five unspecified polls. In other words, Roger Ailes is going to decide which ten people he wants to have up there and then the Fox research team is going to figure out which polls and how you average them to get to those ten. Apparently, if two or more people are tied for the tenth spot, there will be more than ten.

Harry Enten has been trying to figure out who'll make the cut…or who would if they did it fairly. He says Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump and Scott Walker are pretty certain to be up there. Then Chris Christie, John Kasich, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum are fighting for the last two positions. That leaves Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal and George Pataki all eating and debating at the children's table. I still think that if Stephen Colbert had entered the race, he'd now be polling high enough to guarantee him a podium.

As this article notes, the viewership for late night talk shows is way, way down…in some cases, on a par with daytime soap operas, which are thought to be a kind of programming on the endangered species list. So will late night talk shows go away?

At most, I can imagine them eventually going away from late night. With more and more people time-shifting their viewing these days, time slots don't matter as much as they once did. We might very well wake up one morning and find that the most-watched talk show on television is broadcast at 3:00 in the afternoon and viewed at all hours according to the viewers' convenience. But to the extent a large part of the audience is still watching shows when they're transmitted, I think talk shows will endure at 11:35 because that does seem to be a kind of programming people enjoy just before bedtime.

And I sure don't think talk shows will ever go away. They're cheap to produce, easy to launch and unlike soap operas, they have promotional value for their networks. They also have a little more rerun value than soaps…not a lot but some. I do think we're going to see more cases where a show that initially airs at 11:35 is rebroadcast several times the next day the way Comedy Central runs each Daily Show umpteen times. No one has ever tried to do that with soap operas.

I also think — and this is not so much a prediction as something I think is likely — that Stephen Colbert is going to be a real game-changer. I think his selection to succeed Letterman is the smartest programming decision CBS could have made. The guy has every single skill you need these days to be a successful late night host: He's funny. He's likeable. He can do characters and sketches. He can improvise. He can sing. He's smart, which matters especially in an interview situation. He also understands the Internet and has shown he can generate buzz on social media.

Want more? He's respected in the business — the kind of star that other stars want to appear with not just because he has an audience to receive their plugs but because they want to be seen alongside someone they think is brilliantly talented. He's also very up on current authors, current shows, current music, current movies, etc. Also, someone once said that one of the secrets of Carson's appeal was that men found him funny but whereas women didn't want to look at a Buddy Hackett or a Don Rickles, they thought Johnny was cute. I think Colbert probably has some of that, too.

This is not to say I'm certain the U.S. viewing public will embrace him. I don't think Conan O'Brien (a performer I used to love) ever found the right note to strike on his Tonight Show and Colbert could have the same problem. But I still think he was the smartest gamble CBS could have made. If anyone can bring new viewership to late night TV, that's the guy.

I like Larry Wilmore's show, especially when it's just Larry talking to the camera, but it has largely become a two-issue program. One issue is Bill Cosby and the other is cops killing black people with insufficient provocation. I don't think it's a coincidence that these are two issues that The Daily Show hasn't done much on.

Fortunately/unfortunately, there is much to say about these two issues, especially the last one. I'm embedding a good piece they did the other night on the recent killing by a University of Cincinnati campus officer. Even a local prosecutor who is apparently not disposed to give minorities the benefit of any doubts is calling it murder. Watch what Larry has to say about it all. This is important stuff…

We have more than fifty weeks before the Republicans convene in Cleveland to formally nominate their nominee for president. Let me give you that number again in boldface and all caps: MORE THAN FIFTY WEEKS!!!

Much can change in that time so I'm not taking Paul Waldman's scenario as a prediction so much as an outline of how Jeb Bush becomes the nominee if he becomes the nominee. If you pointed a crossbow at me today and forced me to say who I think it'll be, I'd probably say Bush. (It's intriguing to imagine the whole election as a replay of 1992 with that year's Republican nominee's son versus that year's Democratic nominee's wife…and Donald Trump in his greatest role ever as Ross Perot…)

But like I just boldfaced, it's MORE THAN FIFTY WEEKS!!! We don't know what the economy will be like then. We don't know what the situation with Iran or any foreign troublespot will be like then. We don't know what scandals will erupt or where there might be terrorist attacks or how the Supreme Court may change our lives. By that date, the consensus about the Obama Administration will have gone up or down, John McCain will have found nine more countries he thinks we should invade and there'll be at least three major issues that are presently not even being discussed, perhaps because they don't yet exist.

Forty-five years ago this morning, my friend-partner Steve Sherman picked me up outside the house where I lived with my parents. In the car also were Steve's brother Gary and our brother Bruce Simon, and we freewayed down to the U.S. Grant Hotel in San Diego. There, we attended Day One of the Golden State Comic Con which has since morphed into Comic-Con International.

It was in the basement of the Grant which was then undergoing serious reconstruction. The attendees had to navigate around workers and temporary walls but we didn't care. We had a great time.

The number of attendees has since been estimated at 300. It felt like more to me but I'm not saying that number is wrong. Even 300 felt like a lot even though at today's con, 300 is about the number of people on the premises dressed as Harley Quinn. I remember everyone being very excited that the event had happened at all and that it attracted as many people as it attracted.

The big Guest of Honor that day was Jack Kirby. I wrote the tale back here of how I was supposed to introduce his speech and didn't. At the time, Jack had left Marvel but his new work from DC had not yet begun appearing…so some of the fans who showed up to get his autograph on Marvels were a little puzzled. One even asked me if he was allowed to sign issues of Fantastic Four now that he was no longer the book's artist.

I just started to write that no one who was there that day imagined what the convention would become…but I realized that is not a true statement. Jack knew. I don't know how he knew but he knew.

In any case, it was quite a day. The high point was probably Jack's talk. The low point was…well, there were two. On the way back, we stopped off in San Clemente because none of us had had anything to eat all day. You'd think a lot of restaurants would be open on a Saturday night in a city that was then the second home of the President of the United States but somehow, we wound up at a Jack-in-the-Box. And then when I got home, I found out that my father's car had been stolen out of our driveway and somehow, rushing out that morning to climb into Steve's, I hadn't noticed it.

But there were no low points at the con itself. The con itself was a wonderful thing and I can't believe it was 45 years ago.

A combination of business and personal responsiblities here (plus knee problems) have kept me away from New York for quite a few years now. I hope to change that soon.

Among the shows I regret not seeing back there is the recently-closed production of On the Twentieth Century with Kristin Chenoweth and Peter Gallagher. That's a great play and I'm sure Ms. Chenoweth was superb in the role originated — but not played for long — by Madeline Kahn.

Here's an entire number from the revival — "Veronique." Ms. Chenoweth played Lily Garland, a great star of the stage and screen (though lately, only screen). This song is a flashback to her discovery in a musical mounted by theatrical empresario Oscar Jaffee. She was plain ol' Mildred Plotka when Jaffee cast her as a French street singer whose refusal to sleep with Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck caused the entire Franco-Prussian War. Here is Chenoweth making the transformation from Plotka to Diva…

A person who doesn't seem to want to be quoted by name wrote…

I have a question about your July 16th post on the unknown assistant of Carl Barks, and the self-help mantra that all dreams can come true. Clearly, the person in question lacked talent and a desire to work hard.

But I'm wondering how many people you've known with exceptional talent and focus…who spared no effort or perseverance or sacrifice over decades of working toward their goal…only to be disappointed repeatedly. How do we know if a setback should motivate us to try even harder…and when it's a sign that we're following the wrong path?

I'm curious if you've known anyone who was a complete failure despite a lifetime of working tirelessly to achieve their dream.

Sure…and it gets back to that thing I keep saying about finding the sweet spot between idealism and pragmatism. I've also known people who never got anywhere due to personal problems. There are people whose careers get derailed by illness or marital problems or parental dilemmas and I certainly crossed paths with some who destroyed their own chances via drugs or drink.

I've even seen people who've ruined promising careers by being unreliable or difficult. "Unreliable" is bad. "Difficult" can be lethal. A few years back, I was talking with an agent and he mentioned that a certain writer we both knew had decided to give it up and get into non-writing work. "He was good," the agent said. "But he wasn't good enough to get away with being that big an asshole."

The "pragmatism" part of my little aphorism kind of demands that you recognize the marketability of your output. Yes, you have to be able to create good work but you also have to be able to create that which someone wants to buy and you have to find some way to get it to the people who might want to buy it. You know all those jokes about bad investments?

"My financial advisory got me into a great deal. I've invested everything I own in a chain of Big Man's shops in Tokyo!"

"I've invested everything I own in a chain of tuxedo stores in Tijuana!"

"I've invested everything I own in a chain of Radioshacks in Amish country!"

Those jokes. There are unmarketable ideas out there. Right now, there's probably some guy shopping around an idea for a new version of The Dating Game starring Bill Cosby. I think a lot of beginners are told, "Write what you want to see" or "Write what matters to you" and they take that way too far and, in effect, open a restaurant selling pulled pork sandwiches in a Kosher neighborhood. Those could be the greatest pulled pork sandwiches in the world but, you know, it isn't just the quality that matters or even the effort.

A few years ago, a writer acquaintance steamrollered me into reading his pitch for a new western TV show that was very much like Bonanza in terms of setting and tone. He asked me what I thought it needed and I said, "A time machine." I wished him well but I think he'd have better luck with the chain of Big Man's shops in Tokyo.

How do you know if a setback should motivate you to try even harder? I think you have to look at what kind of setback it is and how often it happens. You might be trying to sell something that nobody wants, period. Or you might be trying to sell something that's so much like what everyone else is trying to sell that you get lost in the herd.

Back when the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High was just coming out, I was hired by a producer to write a teen comedy that, God willing, would have the same appeal. One of the reasons he picked me is that I had a reputation for being fast and when he hired me, he said, "In three months, the market will be glutted with this kind of script. I want something I can be shopping around in one." I was a big hero to him when I delivered a first draft in two weeks.

He said, "This is great. Cut ten pages and lose the tits." When we'd discussed the project two weeks earlier, he wanted scenes in it like the one in Fast Times where Phoebe Cates takes off her bikini top. (If you're not familiar with the scene, it's only findable in about 73 trillion places on the Internet.)

Fourteen days later, he decided he needed to aim for a PG so I cut ten pages, including stuff like that and then into the marketplace he went with it. He had attached an experienced director and he had about a third of the financing pledged. What he needed was a studio that would put up the other two-thirds and then distribute the thing.

Within a few weeks, he called me back and said, "We may be too late. Everybody's already got a script like this." In the end, nothing happened with it and the quality of my screenplay became largely irrelevant since no one wanted to read it.

That's a setback but it's a different setback from if people were reading the script and not liking it. In this case, we had a numerical problem — the same problem actors face when fifty people go in to audition for one role. 49 of them are going to get turned down and it's usually not because only one of them was good. Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino are reportedly up for the same parts often. When Dustin doesn't get picked, it isn't because he has no future as an actor.

I think you need the idealism to keep going and you need the pragmatism to understand why you don't get the job or don't sell your script. It may be that you just aren't very good…or more likely, very special. Or it may be like those Big Man's Shops in Tokyo and you need to see if there's something else you have to sell, something a bit more commercial. Then again, I've also known writers who I thought were trying too hard to be commercial to the point of not playing to their strengths, writing what seemed to be hot instead of what they were good at.

There are also people who may be good at writing but rotten at selling; again, a restaurant analogy: If you want to have a successful restaurant, you not only need to be able to make good food, you need to be able to manage a restaurant and publicize it properly. If that's your problem, recognize it and address it. (And it's where advice from me is really useless. When new writers ask me how to break into the profession, I tell them, "I dunno. I haven't done that in over forty years. Ask someone who's broken into the current industry.")

Am I answering your question? I'm trying to say that, yes, I've known wanna-bes who worked tirelessly to achieve their dream and never got within fifty furlongs of it. There are a lot of reasons why writers — or actors or directors or whatever — don't make it and it helps to have enough realism in your attitude to understand why you aren't getting anywhere.

If you can't tell the difference, maybe that's the time to think of another line of work you'd like to pursue. If you know anything about men's suits and wouldn't mind relocating to Tokyo, I'm a partner in something over there which might have an opening.

George Will makes a pretty lousy case against the Iran deal. Daniel Larison explains why it's a pretty lousy case.