Yearly Archives: 2015

Cedric Hohnstadt, an artist whom I only know as one of my frequent correspondents who sends me thoughtful, polite e-mails sometimes disagreeing with me, has this to say…

About Kim Davis…This article mentions a few facts that most people are missing in this story. Mainly, that starting as far back as January (pre-Supreme Court decision) Davis made several unsuccessful attempts to find a compromise that would allow the gay marriage licenses to go through while at the same time not forcing her to sign her name to something she religously objects to. Ideas she tried to put through include:

• Changing the rules so that she would not have to personally sign each license.
• Setting up some sort of online application/approval process that would remove her as the middleman.
• Allowing the option for some marriage licenses to be funnelled through the governor's office instead of through her.

All of her requests were either rejected or ignored. Whether you agree with her or not, I think there is a case to be made that we should try to find reasonable compromises wherever possible that don't force employees to violate their conscience just to do their job.

What I've read in the last days of so about Ms. Davis leads me to believe of the various "scenarios" I gave as possibly motivating her, the one that is most probably correct is that she is utterly sincere, doesn't have an endgame in mind and is just trusting that if she holds tenaciously to her position, it will eventually work out for the better.

It's interesting that she tried to find a compromise here but it seems to me that the obvious solutions to this logjam are more like…

• Having Kim Davis do the job she was elected to do.
• Replacing Kim Davis with someone who will actually do the job she was elected to do.

Once upon a time, the "compromise" to blacks getting equal rights was to give them "separate but equal" water fountains and restrooms and such. You're not supposed to "compromise" when people receive equal rights. The correct way to treat Gay Marriages is to treat them exactly the same as Straight Marriages except that you're forgiven for being awkward with the pronouns.

Depending on which poll you believe, somewhere around 38% of Americans still don't like the whole idea of letting folks of the same sex marry. That probably means that around 38% of the clerks and government employees who process the paperwork on marriages disapprove of those unions…and it's surely way higher than 38% in some states. Somehow, Kim Davis is the only one who demanded that rules or procedures be changed to accommodate her personal sensibilities.

I read the article you cited and I thank you for the link. But the thing I don't think some people get is that while anyone is entitled to believe in the God of their choice and the interpretation of Him or Her and of His or Her teachings, we do not in this country make policies and laws based on that. This is why the lawyers who argued the case against Gay Marriage in the many courtrooms didn't even try offering "God doesn't approve" as an argument against letting two men or two women marry.

Ms. Davis says of her view on Gay Marriage, "This is real and this is true." She has every right to hold that viewpoint but not to insist that everyone else acknowledge that and act accordingly. Someone who believes that God blesses Gay Marriages has the same standing. So does someone who believes there is no God. The "War on Christianity" as defined by the Mike Huckabees of the world is a frustration that we don't treat all other faiths and non-faiths as bogus and make laws according to Mike Huckabee's interpretations of Scripture.

In a land where we have no official religion, this is how it works. (Another problem, of course, is that even people who believe The Bible is the ultimate authority do not agree on how much of it to take literally or on what certain passages mean. Does God really want anyone who works on the Sabbath to be put to death? Or women who are not virgins on their wedding nights?)

The other clerks and workers who handle forms pertaining to marriages do this the easier way. They don't see themselves as somehow participating and endorsing the marriages because they processed the paperwork. All of them have probably handled the papers covering marriages in which some pretty immoral, inhumane things happened between heterosexual partners.

Other clerks don't judge. They just clerk. Ms. Davis is sitting in a cell in Kentucky because she has created an unnecessary, unwinnable conflict for herself, deciding that God wanted her to take this stance. Are the clerks who are uncomfy with Gay Marriage but continue to process the forms in accordance with the law not hearing those same orders from God or are they not listening? Maybe He told them to just stamp the licenses and not worry their pretty little heads about it.

I love this little piece of video because I loved the guy in it — Howard Morris, a great character actor and one of those people I'm so glad I had in my life for a not-long-enough period. Howie died in 2005 and I often think of him as a wonderful, crazy honorary uncle or something. I don't expect you to watch all of this but maybe you'll watch enough to see some of what made him so very special both as a performer and as a person.

This is raw footage from a show Howie appeared on in 1985 called Tales in the Oral Tradition, which I gather was a Jewish-themed public service TV program. The tape is in four parts. Part One is an interview of Howie in which he talks a lot about his career. Somewhere in there, he speaks about his problems auditioning for people much younger than him — a bugaboo in his life that I wrote about here. It was a constant area of frustration for a man like him who was only really happy when he was performing.

Part Two is more interview. Apparently after they finished taping the conversation, someone decided it might not run long enough so Howie sat for additional questioning which could be edited into what they'd already done.

Parts Three and Four will give you some sense of what was so marvelous about Howie as an actor. He sits on a stool and tells one of the great Sholem Aleichem stories, in this case one about the wise men of Chelm. If you're not familiar with Sholem Aleichem, he was kind of the Jewish Mark Twain. And if you're not familiar with Chelm, it was a fabled city of fools written about in hundreds of tales.

As I continue my listing of the Twenty Greatest Cartoon Voice Actors of an earlier era, I will soon get to Howie. If you want to see the talent that made him truly great at doing voices for animation, watch Howie read a story. I think he was working here with two TelePrompters mounted on two cameras and while he's reading the copy, it's hard to catch him doing so.

I'm further thinking the copy was marked to tell him to move his gaze at certain moments from Camera 1 to Camera 2 or vice-versa because the director was cutting back and forth between them in real time. Watching him do this effortlessly — and he did not have a lot of experience reading a Prompter or working directly to camera — I'm impressed with how well he does it without harming the telling of the tale.

Part Three starts around 24 minutes into this video and that's his first take. Even better is his second take which is preceded by a brief conversation with his director. Put the little slider to 33:20 and watch a little of this if you can. That, folks, is how you tell a story…

The Twitter feed of the person who sits next to Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis in her office. Well, not really but scroll down to the bottom and read upward.

When I heard that Donald Trump had signed the Republican Nominee Loyalty Oath, my first thought was disappointment. I was so looking forward to him shattering the G.O.P. into tiny pieces if he ran as an Independent. But then I realized…

He's probably not going to do that anyway. Trump is only Trump when he can boast that he's the guy on top. He can't go three sentences on any subject without declaring himself a Winner and someone else as a Loser. He might be able to deliver an impressive showing as a third-party candidate but he sure wouldn't be a Winner.

I'm thinking that when the moment comes in his quest for the Republican nomination that he's finishing in second or third place consistently, he's going to need some semi-credible excuse for bailing on the race so he can get out and claim something like, "I had to tend to my businesses…and anyway, I got what I wanted. I proved to anyone with half a brain that I could have won."

And also, so what if he signed the pledge? It's not binding in any real way. All he has to do if he does want to renege on it is gin up some reason to charge that Reince Priebus and the Republican National Committee tried to screw him in some way. A lot of Trump's base would cheer him if he told the party to stick their pledge up their elephant ass and then he ran against them saying, "My first loyalty is to my supporters and to restoring America's greatness!"

So then I thought, "What did he get for signing?" Because Trump is a negotiator — a real relentless one, he always tells us. He's not going to do anything someone else wants unless he gets something in return.

Here's what I think he got: All those other guys — the Mike Huckabees and the Rand Pauls — are signing the same pledge which to him is a pledge to support nominee Donald Trump. Today on CNN, I saw Paul telling some reporter how unqualified Trump was and how he'd destroy both the Republican Party and the nation if he won.

But now Trump has solidified his position as a legit Republican candidate. Preibus came to him. The party hasn't said, "All the other candidates will support you if you modify some of your positions." Rand Paul has pledged to support Trump just as he is. They all have or will.

Oh sure, they could renege on the pledge just as he can but it'll be more difficult for them now that he's signed and agreed (for now) to play by their rules. I still don't think they'll have to renege because I don't think he'll be the nominee. He does, however, look more like a legitimate front-runner now that the party has kissed his heinie.

Imagine the next time Paul is telling interviews how unfit Trump is to be president and how he'd destroy the nation…and the interviewer asks, "Did you pledge to endorse him if he gets the nomination?" I'll bet Trump can field that question about supporting other candidates a lot better than any of them can about him.

• So Trump has pledged that if he's not the GOP nominee, he'll support whoever is…someone he's called a pathetic loser who can't win.

So we all know about this clerk in Kentucky who has now been jailed for refusing to do her job and issue marriage licenses. I think we all know she is not by her actions going to overturn any laws or establish the principle that a government employee can refuse to do a part of their job they feel is in conflict with their religion.

What I'm kind of curious about is what's on this woman's mind. As I write this, she's in a jail cell and she ain't gettin' out until she backs down on this position or quits or something. I keep seeing different scenarios here that are possible…

1. She actually thinks she's going to change some laws or policies or something. She's wrong but she actually thinks that.
2. She's the unwitting puppet of the lawyers advising her who see a chance to serve their political goals or financial ones and don't really have the best interests of their client in mind.
3. She's loving the attention, the fact that she's famous, the fact that so many people consider her a hero…and she hasn't figured out the endgame yet.
4. She thinks she has a future in right-wing media or politics and can use this publicity as a stepping stone to something she wants to do besides issue licenses all day.
5. She has no idea where she's going with this. She earnestly believes what she believes and is convinced that if she holds to those beliefs, it will somehow work out well for her in the end.

Any others? Those are the ones I came up with. I'm leaning to #3 at the moment but I think it could be any of them. And of course, we have Mike Huckabee out there claiming that people in this country are now being jailed for being Christian. I don't for a minute believe he thinks that; only that it may rile some people up to the point of supporting him.

Someone needs to quote a Jon Stewart line to these people: "You've confused a war on your religion with not always getting everything you want."

If there's anyone following this blog who doesn't know who Jack Kirby was, here's a little video that gives a nice overview of some (hardly all) of his career. The thing I like about it is that it was produced by Marvel for their web presence and it speaks of Jack the way a lot of us have long felt Marvel should speak about him and his contributions. Earlier folks at Marvel either didn't want to speak of him that way or were told they couldn't. It makes me quite happy that the company finally recognizes his contribution…

I haven't mentioned it lately but I continue to get 2-5 calls per day from folks who want to remodel my home, solarize my home, paint my home or even sell my home. Somehow, I got on a list that someone sells of homeowners and I've given up asking the callers where they got my number because none of them seem to have a clue. They got it from someone who got it from someone who got it from someone…

A few of these people sound like actual contractors who are desperate for new business. Most, I suspect, are people who have almost nothing to do with the outfit for which they are fronting. Once, I asked a caller who claimed to be with a contracting company if their firm did refractory zone compliance work and he said, "Yes, we're very experienced in that," even though I made that term up.

For the most part, I feel like the caller is someone who's outta work — probably way outta work — and who answered an ad somewhere that said, "You can make up to $2000 a week." What that means is that they're handed a list of phone prospects, possibly as part of a piece of software that does the dialing for them, and they're given a script to read…and then they call strangers cold. If one of those cold strangers is willing to let a sales person come over to give an estimate, and if that sales person lands a sale then the caller gets a commission on the deal.

Theoretically, those commissions could add up to $2000 a week or whatever number is promised in the recruitment ads…but I'll bet they never do. I'll bet a lot of those callers do the job for a week or two, realize it's never going to yield any real bucks and then go try to find something else.

I generally feel sorry for them on an individual basis but not on a collective one. Sometimes, I tell one, "You know, if I was interested in this, I would have said yes to one of the ninety people who've called in the last few weeks reading me the exact same sales pitch." When I say this, I often hear a little sad sigh that suggests to me the caller is thinking, "Jeez…I didn't realize these people have already turned this down so many times."

The real annoying ones though are the ones reading scripts that suggest we have had a prior relationship and I asked them to call. One such caller phoned here around Noon yesterday…

HIM: Good day, Mr. Evanier. This is Bob Johnson with the Home Repair Center calling again. You spoke with me last year and you asked me to call you back in September because you said you'd be ready to do some work on your home…

ME: No, I didn't speak to you. You're lying.

HIM: Well, I spoke to someone there. Is there another Mr. Evanier?

ME: Not this side of the Mississippi.

HIM: Well, I spoke to someone there. We're working in your area so if it's all right with you, I'll stop in shortly and give you that free estimate we spoke about.

ME: You mean the one we didn't speak about. No, you may not stop in. We never spoke about a free estimate and I don't need any work done.

HIM: I'll be by shortly. Goodbye.

And that was the call. Ninety minutes later, a man came to my door. He was not Bob Johnson — I doubt Bob Johnson was even Bob Johnson — but he stood ready to give me my free estimate on whatever it was his company could do for me. When I told him I didn't need any work done and had not said I did, he got a bit perturbed…

THIS GUY: Then why did you ask to have us come by and give you a free estimate?

ME: I didn't. I told the man on the phone not to come by.

THIS GUY: He told me you did.

ME: He lied to you the same way he lied to me when he claimed we'd spoken before and I'd asked him to call. He probably also lied about his name being Bob Johnson. Hey, how many Bob Johnsons do you have making these calls?

THIS GUY: A few. I don't know. Look, I'm sorry about that but I am a good contractor. While I'm here, is there any work you need done around here? I'd be glad to put in a bid on it.

ME: I have some work but I also have a good contractor. I have a guy who's worked for me for years and I trust him and he doesn't have a single lying Bob Johnson working on his behalf.

THIS GUY: Those guys don't exactly work for me. It's like a service. They find me prospects. Listen, let me bid on the job, whatever it is. I promise you I'll beat your guy's price.

ME: I'm sure you will on the first job…but you're not going to beat his track record with me or his reliability. Don't take this the wrong way but you could be the most inept, dishonest contractor in the business for all I know.

THIS GUY: I can give you referrals…testimonials from satisfied customers…

ME: And I'll bet they're all named Bob Johnson. Look, you're wasting your time and even worse, you're wasting my time. I don't need a contractor. I have one I trust. If you were me, you wouldn't dump a contractor who's proved his skill and honesty because some other one you never heard of came in and gave you a lowball estimate. I'm even suspicious of low prices. I figure any guy can do the job cheaper if he doesn't do it as well.

THIS GUY: All right. Sorry I bothered you. It's just that…well, you know it's tough out there these days for a contractor. I have a family and I have a mortgage just like you.

ME: I don't have a family and I don't have a mortgage but I know what you mean. Hey, how many jobs have all these Bob Johnsons gotten you?

THIS GUY: Not many. None, come to think of it. But I had to try something.

So I wound up feeling sorry for This Guy, too — not sorry enough to consider throwing over my honest contractor for someone else who might be just as good but a tad cheaper — but sorry nonetheless. Your life can't be going well when you're counting on Bob Johnson to save it.

There are a lot of articles around about Stephen Colbert. Here's the one from The New York Times.

This article and some others suggest that Colbert decided well before he had the offer to replace Letterman that The Colbert Report would end when it did. If I weren't so sleepy right now, I'd take a stab at guessing when that was compared to the moment when Comedy Central could have offered that time slot to John Oliver

If you're breathlessly following whether Trump's up in the polls or Hillary's down or Lindsey Graham has actually found someone willing to vote for him, read Nate Silver. In fact, if you're too lazy to click over there, you should just read this paragraph from it…

It's not only that the polls have a poor predictive track record — at this point in the past four competitive races, the leaders in national polls were Joe Lieberman, Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton and Rick Perry, none of whom won the nomination — but also that they don't have a lot of intrinsic meaning. At this point, the polls you see reported on are surveying broad groups of Republican- or Democratic-leaning adults who are relatively unlikely to actually vote in the primaries and caucuses and who haven't been paying all that much attention to the campaigns. The ones who eventually do vote will have been subjected to hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of advertising, had their door knocked on several times, and seen a half-dozen more debates. The ballots they see may not resemble the one the pollsters are testing since it's likely that (at least on the GOP side) several of the candidates will have dropped out by the time their state votes.

If you're panicked that your pick will/won't win, read Silver's article and while you're at it, bookmark it and take three times daily.

More Colbert…

Read Amanda Marcotte's view on that clerk in Kentucky who's refusing to issue marriage licenses because some of them would go to gay people. Ms. Marcotte is right: Someone's giving this woman very bad advice in order to serve their own purposes, not hers.

Jonathan Chait brings up an interesting point about Donald Trump. Tax cuts for wealthy people are not a big concern for rank-and-file Republican voters because…well, because most of them are not wealthy people. But lowering taxes on the rich is the obsession of Republican leadership and if you're not 100% for that, they won't let you hold public office and you have to go sit in a corner somewhere until you atone and vow never to let such heretical thoughts enter your brain ever again.

Mr. Trump, though richer than rich, does not pledge absolute fealty to the notion that nothing in this world matters so much as cutting taxes for the wealthy. Chait thinks while Trump's anti-immigrant positions probably account for the bulk of his popularity, one cannot discount that he is also more in tune with most G.O.P. voters on the issue of taxing the wealthy. Like I said: An interesting point.

And speaking of Stephen Colbert: Bill Carter writes of how the man is changing his act as he takes over the 11:35 slot on CBS. I am of the opinion that Mr. Colbert will do great — maybe not the first few months but in the long run. As I've said before here, the guy really has every possible skill and attribute you need to succeed as a late night host and he's real, real smart.

Carter seems to be placing the failure of Conan O'Brien on The Tonight Show on the star's unwillingness to change his act for the earlier hour. I thought Conan lost a lot of his appeal while he was still at 12:35. I kinda agree with someone who wrote to me and said, "Conan's first ten years as a late night host, the attitude of him and his show was 'I don't deserve this' and he relied on charm and a lot of sharp written material. From about the time he knew he'd be taking over The Tonight Show, the attitude became 'I deserve this' and he became Mr. Show Business and relied on funny faces and trying to top his guests."

I think that's a bit harsh but the change I felt was roughly in that direction. I just didn't like the guy as much as I once had. I sometimes tune in his TBS show and find myself turning away.

Carter's article is accompanied by a ratings chart that shows Fallon currently with 3.7 million viewers, Kimmel with 2.5, Meyers with 1.5 and Corden with 1.3. To track this race, you really need numbers in two other categories. You need to see Letterman's numbers at a time before they were boosted by his impending retirement…

…and you need to see the closing numbers for the 11:35 guys — i.e., how many people are watching the ends of their shows. Corden's ratings might be more impressive than Meyers' depending on how many people are watching the last fifteen minutes of the programs that precede them. The strength of Leno's Tonight Show over Letterman's Late Show was demonstrated not by the average ratings for their respective hours but by how many of Jay's viewers stuck with him for the whole program as opposed to Dave's audience hanging around 'til the end.

As you've probably figured out, I'm eager to see Colbert's new show. And I'm almost as eager to see how it does. For me, this is way more fun than following professional football.

If you use the Waze app on your Smartphone for driving directions, you might want to set it to use Stephen Colbert's voice. Go to "Settings," then "Sound," then "Voice." You can also set it to talk like Neil Patrick Harris, Colonel Sanders or many more…