Yearly Archives: 2015

I was just able to set a Season Pass on my TiVo for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. So I guess it's really going to happen.

A week or two ago here, I wrote about what I liked about Uber and what I liked about taxis. I have since found a new thing I don't like about Uber: There's no one to talk to.

You cannot phone Uber. There is no number to call. No matter what goes wrong, you cannot get a live person on the line. You have to send an e-mail to their customer service people who, in dealing with a current problem I have with them, have proven to be pretty useless. You write to them and say, "I have a problem with A" and a few days later, they write back to you to say, "We need more information from you to help solve your problem with B." One of them wrote back to me at my e-mail address to tell me he couldn't do anything to solve my problem because he didn't have my e-mail address.

My problem is this: Uber has rider accounts and driver accounts. Since I am only a rider, I have a rider account. The other day, I accidentally clicked in the wrong place and found myself in the process of applying to drive for Uber. This, I do not want to do. I don't even want to drive for me, which is one of the reasons I use Uber at all.

So now Uber is demanding I finish filling out the driver application, giving them my insurance info and a scan of my drivers license and all sorts of other info I have no intention of giving them. There are things I need to change on my rider profile but their software won't let me change them until I finish filling out my driver application which I'm not going to do. No one at Uber's help desk seems to understand this problem, let alone know how to fix it.

I'm probably going to have to just abandon that account and start a new one. I wonder if Lyft has anyone minding the store.

You're at a movie. It's intermission and you're hungry. What are you going to eat? Well, how about a hamburger?

Phillip Pollard has a question…

Your recent Fred Astaire video was a treat, but its focus on music and dance made me curious. I think you've written in the past how there are safeties to make sure that no one knows the winner until the envelope is read. And that there are procedures to handle if the wrong person is announced.

So what about those pit musicians there? Do they have a copy of every nominee's theme music on their stands, and do a frantic page-turn as the winner is announced? Did they have to have all those extra arrangements made, parts copied, and tunes rehearsed? That a lot of paper to keep on the stand and not get out of order. I wonder how that was handled.

Yes, they have tunes prepared for every nominee. It's not as many songs as it may seem because if a film gets eight nominations, that one piece of music can serve for all eight possible trips to the stage. And some films (like many documentaries) don't have identifiable music so those winners can take their walks of triumph to one of a few generic tunes the conductor has at his disposal.

Now, if you asked me this a few years ago, here's what the rest of my answer would have been…

The musicians don't have all the sheet music for the evening in front of them. During commercials or clip packages, someone distributes packets covering the next few awards and takes away the old ones. But it still takes a bit of fancy juggling. Not only do they have that music to deal with but you also have musical numbers, music to go in and out of commercials, music to play for the live audience during commercials, play-on music for presenters, play-off music for winners, etc.

But now I'm wondering. I heard a few years ago that was someone was trying to configure a system whereby the musicians would be looking at computer screens instead of music on paper. Has that ever been tried? Does anyone know?

We sadly note the passing of Bud Yorkin, a fine gentleman and also a fine director, writer and producer. He was 89 and had been in poor health for some time. The obits hail him for his work — with partner Norman Lear — giving the world such ground-breaking situation comedies as All in the Family, Maude, Good Times and Sanford and Son. I was equally impressed with the movies the two of them produced together which included Divorce American Style, Cold Turkey, Start the Revolution Without Me and one of my favorites, The Night They Raided Minsky's.

Minsky's was one of Mr. Yorkin's favorites, too. It's somehow missing from his IMDB listing but he worked on it and every time I ran into him somewhere, he was pleased that I knew of it and asked him about it. His hair and mine apparently grew at the same rate because we had the same stylist and every time I went in for a trim, he was there for a trim.

One time while we waited, he gave me a long explanation of the troubles the picture encountered when in the midst of shooting, Bert Lahr — who had a key role — passed away. They decided it would be wrong to scrap his last performance and bring in someone else so they trimmed the part down to pretty much what Lahr had filmed.

They augmented it with a few moments of a double shot from the rear and Will Jordan dubbing in Lahr's voice but they left Bert Lahr in the picture. It was one of many problems the film had but Yorkin said he was glad they didn't take the easy way out and dump all that footage.

The hair stylist wasn't the first time I met Bud Yorkin. I met him when he didn't hire me to write on his series, What's Happening? and again when he didn't hire me to write on his series, Carter Country. These two examples show you have a wise producer he was. I'm going to miss running into him. He was a nice man and he made a lot of great movies and TV shows.

I missed this when it aired. The Sunday Morning after Jon Stewart's last Daily Show, he was interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning by former Daily Show correspondent Mo Rocca. It's a nice little chat…

• Why do some men refer to their genitalia as "my junk?" Isn't that one of the most precious things in their lives?

Ed Kilgore thinks that all this talk about Joe Biden jumping into the presidential race — especially on a ticket with Elizabeth Warren — is folks making something out of (so far) nothing. Sure looks that way.

I'm at least trying to not post much more about Donald Trump because I still believe his campaign is mainly about getting attention and not being too specific about what he'd do as president. This piece by Jonathan Chait though is too good to not link to. Chait points up the strong disparity between what Republican rank-and-file voters want and what their presidential candidates work for. Does anyone think Mitt Romney ever really cared about stopping abortion or anything else that wasn't about money? And yes, Democrats have a similar disconnect.

My pal Vinnie Favale is Vice President of CBS Late Night Programming, East Coast. He sent me this photo of the marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York which had its official lighting just the other night. Looks like this show is actually going to happen but I'll believe it's definite when my TiVo lets me take a Season Pass for it.

I'm really looking forward to doing this. You probably saw that they released the list of Colbert's first week guests: George Clooney and Jeb Bush on the first show (September 8) followed the rest of the week by SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Schumer and Stephen King. These choices suggest to me that Colbert plans to talk to his guests rather than challenge them to games where they crack eggs on their heads.

In the music department, his house band will be spotlighted the first night, followed by rapper Kendrick Lamar, country star Toby Keith and the Paul Simon tribute band, Troubled Waters. I think the Paul Simon tribute band should demonstrate a passive-aggressive attitude towards an Art Garfunkel tribute band and complain that it doesn't get the same recognition as the John Lennon tribute bands.

A press release also promised many surprise cameos on Colbert's first show. I suspect Jon Stewart will not be among them as they'll want to save that "reunion" for some future show where it can be advertised. I do wonder if Jimmy Fallon will do a walk-on as Colbert did on Fallon's first Tonight Show. They were time slot competitors then, too.

I'd really like to have a great late night show in my life. I like Jimmy Fallon but don't like his show. I don't like Jimmy Kimmel and don't like his show. Actually, it strikes me that the writing on Kimmel's show is pretty good when it gets out of "practical joke" mode but I can't stand the host.

One evening recently, I channel-flipped between the two Jimmies and it struck me that both of them were fawning over their guests to the point of practically licking their faces but the key difference between the two men was this: Fallon seems to really and truly believe in the awesome greatness of everyone in his guest chair. Kimmel seems to think everyone is an asshole but the job of talk show host requires you to say what he says. My friends who work on both shows will probably now e-mail to tell me that's not the way either of them really is and they may be right. But it's how they come across to me.

I still haven't made up my mind about James Corden. He fawns a la Fallon but is a much better interviewer. He looks awkward doing the stunts and remote bits the show attempts. When Letterman or even Leno went to strangers' doors and knocked, it seemed in character and that they were in control of the segment and its premise. Corden looks like his producers made him to do it and he's embarrassed. He's gotten a lot of acclaim for musical bits he's done and I think the reason those work is that he seems comfortable doing them.

And I've given up on Conan O'Brien. I really used to like the guy his first ten-or-so years on NBC. His show had very sharp writing and he knew how to play straight for Andy Richter, his guests and various walk-on characters. At some point, it's like his handlers slapped him and said, "No, no! The audiences want to see you. Why are you letting other people be funny?" and he became the guy at the party who won't shut up and tries to make everything be about himself. He talks at his guests instead of to them.

On top of that, all four of these shows have an odd studio vibe to them. It almost feels like the audience is full of paid extras who've been told to act like they're having a good time or they won't get their checks when they leave.

Many years ago, Johnny Carson had one of his many mini-feuds with TV Guide. The magazine didn't much like him — he wasn't cooperative enough, they felt — and he didn't much like them because of things like this. They ran an item that said his show, especially during the monologue portion, occasionally added in canned laughter when the live audience failed to sufficiently guffaw. Carson and some of his employees adamantly denied this…and as far as I know, they weren't doing that.

I don't think anyone has made that accusation against a talk show in years. If anything, the opposite is now true. Studio audiences, aided sometimes by warmup comedians who encourage this attitude, seem to feel it's their job to play the role of a wildly enthusiastic studio audience. They respond to everything like they're part of the show as opposed to being the people for whom the show is performed. (And some talk shows have been known to employ audience wranglers to fill their seats, especially with young, attractive people.) So we now usually have this environment in which every remark is hilarious and every guest is deserving of a standing ovation.

Since I usually don't think that, I find myself increasingly feeling like I'm not part of the audience for some of these programs. I think that's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to Colbert's show. His show on Comedy Central didn't have that feel. The studio audience loved him but it felt to me like they really did and that the laughter was earned, not forced. Of course, I also think Colbert is more talented than anyone else doing a talk show these days so wild applause and laughter will probably not seem phony.

The Cheese Shop. It's one of those things you just can't see too many times…

Every single political analyst I've seen predicting the upcoming presidential election has said that in order to win, the Republican nominee is going to have to do a lot better with Hispanic voters than Mitt Romney did. According to Gallup, Trump could not be doing much worse. He has a net favorability rating among Hispanics of -51. That's negative 51. By contrast, Hillary is at +40 with that group.

What does the Black Lives Matter movement want? Radley Balko explains. It sounds like a lot of sane policies that no one could really argue with…though some will anyway. The other night on The Nightly Show though, Mike Yard explained it a little simpler. He said, "I'd like not to be shot."

Since I like you, I'll warn you about this stuff. It's Cheez-It Snack Mix and it's really, really addictive. Do yourself a favor and don't try it because you may never eat anything else the rest of your life.

I'm talking here about their Classic variety. The Cheez-It people make several different kinds of Snack Mix like their Double Cheese version or their Cheddar & Barbecue. I haven't tried any of these. I dare not for fear I'll like one of them even more than I like the Classic variety.

The Classic, which is sometimes labelled as such or sometimes just says Cheez-It Snack Mix, consists of the following: Two different sizes of pretzels, Cheez-It crackers, teensy non-cheese crackers which they call "bread slices," cheese-flavored rice balls, some kind of not-great Wheat Chex knock-off and various seasonings including garlic powder and Worcestershire Sauce. Even with mediocre Wheat Chex replicas, it makes for a wicked, impossible-to-resist concoction.

I don't know much about how heroin is trafficked in this world but I'm guessing that if you could somehow corner the market on Cheez-It Snack Mix, you could follow the same business model and annually make an amount somewhere between what Donald Trump claims to be worth and what he actually is worth. This would involve giving unsuspecting people their first hit for free and then making them pay, pay, pay for more as they desperately struggle to recapture the feeling of that first high.

In truth, someone is already doing this. Costco is doing this.

I had my first taste via a free sample handed to me by a lady there wearing a hairnet. Since it didn't seem to be cole slaw, I ate it and I was hooked. I had to have more.

I circled back and hoped she wouldn't notice I was helping myself to seconds and then thirds, fourths and eventually ninths. But she knew what I was doing and she knew she'd succeeded in her goal. She had me.

I had a monkey on my back.  I don't mean that literally.  There was no actual monkey on my back but if there had been, he would have been eating Cheez-It Snack Mix.

Facing the inevitable, I pushed my cart to the part of the store where Costco displays the stuff and discovered that they only carry it in three-pound bags. That's a lot of Snack Mix. I didn't buy one because I knew my only hope was to slowly wean myself off the junk with smaller and smaller portions. That's hard to do when you have three pounds of the stuff on the premises.

So I forced myself to leave Costco without any…though on my way to the register, I spotted above-ground wading pools and briefly wondered how many three-pound bags of Cheez-It Snack Mix it would take to fill one of them. En route to my home, I stopped at a Ralphs and bought a normal-sized box of it. It took about a week but I've managed to eat less and less of it each day to the point where my consumption is now limited and mostly voluntary…

…although since I had to go back to Costco for someone else, I did buy one three-pound bag. But I ate it at a semi-normal rate.

I'd like to think I have my addiction to Cheez-It Snack Mix under control but it has not been easy. I thought about it more than seemed sane, devoting way too much time to pondering why it includes two different sizes of pretzels instead of just more of one. I also fantasized about how much more delicious it would be if they replaced their counterfeit Wheat Chex with genuine Wheat Chex. Perhaps it's better for all of us that they don't.

You may have read articles about how well Costco treats its employees and how it pays them better than chains like Walmart and Target. Costco also has very reasonable prices and all that makes some wonder how they're able to do it; how they're able to show a profit. I think I have the answer. I think all of that stuff — the cheap office supplies and electronics and tires and half-ton tubs of margarine — are just a Loss Leader. I think they make their money by getting people hooked on Cheez-It Snack Mix.

I'm convinced that discussing the presidential race at this point in time is largely a waste of time. Nevertheless, I do it, mostly with fellow Democrats. The ones I know seem to be divided on the issue of Donald Trump. About half of them are afraid he'll get the Republican nomination and have a shot at winning the presidency. The other half of them are afraid he won't get the nomination and that it will go to someone who won't be as easy for the Democratic nominee to defeat.

That's always a conundrum for those who want their party to win: Do you want the opposition party to nominate someone who'd make a decent president in case they win? Or someone who wouldn't and therefore is more likely to lose? I'm not sure how I feel about this. I guess I don't trust the electorate to recognize that the worst guy is the worst guy.

In any case, this is for those who are worried about Trump getting the nomination. Larry Sabato, who has a pretty good track record of forecasting elections, calls Trump "The Un-Nominatable Frontrunner." You can read the article, see why and decide if you want to believe him. Sabato thinks the race is now down to Bush, Rubio and Walker.