Stephen Sondheim has occasionally listed songs that other people wrote that he wishes had been written by Stephen Sondheim. One of his followers is compiling a list of them with examples. Here's Volume 1 and then after you check that out, here's Volume 2. Some of us have a simpler list: Just everything Sondheim did write.
Yearly Archives: 2015
Birthday Boy Buxton
My great friend Frank Buxton was given a surprise birthday party last night…and I'll bet it was a surprise since his birthday is in February. But he turned 85 at the last one and I don't know why they decided to do this in July. I only wish I'd been able to fly up to Seattle for it and yell "Surprise" along with the rest of his pals. Were it not for a healing knee and the need to finish work before Comic-Con, I might have done so.
Our mutual friend Frank Ferrante did, though. The photo isn't altogether clear so let me explain: They wheeled out a big prop cake and instead of a girl popping out, out came Ferrante dressed as Groucho Marx! Wish I could have been there just for that moment. The honoree sure looks like he was delighted.
I told you all about Buxton in this post. He's an amazingly talented and dear man. I have been fortunate to become friends with a number of people whose work I admired when I was a lad. Buxton is one of them.
Sorry I couldn't get away to be there, Frank, but I'll try to be present when you turn 90 and/or maybe 95. Given what great shape you're in, I figure three-digit ages are certain too, just as long as you don't take up something foolish like bunjee-jumping or working on sitcoms again.
Gentle On My Mind
A few years ago, I was at a party and Glen Campbell got up to perform. It was a total surprise to most of us that he was present and I gather it surprised the hosts that he offered to do something. I think but am not certain that it even surprised him a bit; that he suddenly decided to do it when he noticed that someone else there had a guitar that he could borrow. A little "concert" was quickly arranged and I recall that the microphone set-up wasn't right so his loving wife stood there for the entire time holding the mike in the proper position for him.
It was a thrill that he was doing it. I mean, Glen Campbell, for God's sakes! The man was one of the great recording artists of his day and still moves a lot of CDs. I don't know the numbers but I know they're stunning — and I'm just thinking of the ones with his name on the label. He also played anonymously on hundreds of top-selling recordings by other artists.
Glen Campbell was always a performer that people just liked. I have never heard a bad word about the guy from anyone in the business. When he was announced at the party, a ripple of excitement spread across the room…but as he stepped up, there was some discomfort at first. He said a few words which seemed rambling and disconnected, then launched into a hymn that seemed a bit inappropriate to the occasion.
He wasn't singing like the old Glen Campbell we knew and loved, either. He got better though and there was another wave of thrill when he launched into "Rhinestone Cowboy." Even with no orchestra or backup singers…just Glen and a borrowed guitar singing into a mike his wife was holding…it was pretty special.
By then, we were more forgiving and even more impressed because a bit of whispered information had spread through the party: "You know, he's got Alzheimer's." No, most of us didn't. For a guy with Alzheimer's, he was pretty darn good.
Last night, I watched a stunning documentary on TV called Glen Campbell…I'll Be Me. He and his family bravely allowed a crew to follow them around through his recent life, including a farewell tour, to show what that awful condition can do to a man and to the loved ones around him.
A lot of us do jokes about Alzheimer's and on a very real level, we should. We joke about death to remind ourselves (or maybe convince ourselves) we're not afraid of it…and if you can joke about death, you can joke about anything short of that. But you also need to keep in mind that aspects of it are not funny and that there are people who can and should be helped. Some of the most powerful moments of the documentary involve the Campbells lobbying Washington to make sure that the problem is not ignored and that sufficient funds are put towards research. I suppose that goal is why they consented to this documentary.
It meant showing the world what Glen is like these days at his worst. He comes across as a very good man with a very supportive band of friends and relatives. He remembers some things at times but not everything at all times. We follow his farewell concert tour where at least for the early part of it, powerful instincts and a TelePrompter enable him to delight audiences with an approximation of the old, pre-Alzheimer's Glen Campbell. He can't remember what year it is but he can somehow remember how to play. Eventually though, things get worse and he has to give it up.
It's very sad at some points and encouraging at others. One takeaway you may take away is that his sense of humor serves him well and his loved ones serve him even better. The man cannot even remember the name of all his wives and children but thankfully, he has the current wife and some kids around to take wonderful care of him. I found myself liking them all a lot — him for his general spirit, though there are bad moments; the others for helping him live the best possible life given his condition. And all of them deserve admiration for allowing this film.
It runs again tonight, possibly for the last time for a while on free TV, on CNN. It's 8 PM on my cable channel and I suggest you have your TiVo or DVR grab it while you can. Then watch it when you have time to give it its proper attention and you're not afraid to get a little depressed. Given the subject matter, it's awkward to say this but it's true: You won't forget it…if you're fortunate.
Game Show Memories
This is a reprint but it's also a correction. A few years ago, I switched the software on which this blog runs from Movable Type to WordPress. That was a lot more difficult than you might think and a lot of errors that you find here are a result of that conversion, including — of course — every single prediction I made that seems to have not come true.
Actually, some mistakes did result. A number of posts got corrupted and large chunks of them disappeared. I thought I'd fixed them all but this one — which originally ran here on April 21, 2009 — has had a big section missing since the switchover. I have managed to restore it in both its old location and here for the flashback…
In the summer of 1959 when I was seven, my mother took me on a trip east — to New York, Hartford and Boston in that order. The idea was to sight-see and introduce me to relatives. I guess she thought I was old enough to see just what kind of family I was a part of.
The week in New York, we stayed at the Taft Hotel on Seventh Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets and did touristy things like riding the Staten Island Ferry and visiting the Statue of Liberty. One morning, my mother announced we were going to go to Rockefeller Center, walk around for a while, then take in a matinee of the movie that was playing at Radio City Music Hall. It was The Nun's Story starring Audrey Hepburn. If you ever decide your seven-year-old deserves a good beating but wish to avoid corporal punishment, make him sit through The Nun's Story, instead. Whatever it was he did, he'll never do it again.
Before we got to that, as we wandered through Rockefeller Center, a polite man approached us. He explained that he was recruiting audiences and that he could arrange for us to get a free tour of the NBC Studios, see one of our favorite game shows done live and (he emphasized the "and") take home a prize. All it would take was about two hours of our time. My mother motioned to me and said, "I thought you had to be a certain age to be in the audience for a TV show."
I guess they were desperate for warm bodies that day. He looked me over and said, "Yes, well, usually but he seems like a well-behaved lad. I can arrange for special tickets so he'll get in." My mother decided we could catch a later show of The Nun's Story and asked if we could see them do Treasure Hunt, which was then a popular NBC game show starring Jan Murray. The gent scanned his clipboard and said, "I'm not sure if there are any special tickets left for Treasure Hunt. They'd have to tell you upstairs."
He was probably lying to us. He probably knew darn well there were no tickets of any kind left for Treasure Hunt. His mission was to get us upstairs where we could be diverted into some other show that was hard-up for seat-fillers.
The next thing we knew, we were getting a quick mini-tour of NBC, conducted by a cheery tour guide who showed us almost nothing but kept encouraging us to ask questions. I did and she couldn't answer a one of them. Then we were at a high desk — these are images I remember — where another cheery person informed us that they couldn't get us into Treasure Hunt but we could see Concentration. We liked that show too…and what the heck? We were already there and it was free and that show gave out prizes to the audience, too. So we were handed tickets and directed to a line of other folks who'd been conscripted from the street.
There, we waited for what seemed like days. Minutes you spend waiting seem like days when you're seven. I was bored silly until, suddenly and without warning, Jan Murray came by. He was wearing a loud checked sport coat and I think he was out there to apologize to people who'd been waiting in another line to see Treasure Hunt and didn't get in. But then he came over and shook some hands in our line and I got to meet him.
I had met TV stars before. The lady who lived next door to us back home was on an ABC series then but this was different. She was like family and Jan Murray was a person who, insofar as I was concerned, existed only on television. He was also male and funny and charming and he made a big impression on me. I never wanted to be on TV but I do vaguely recall a little wish-dream that struck me at that moment. It had to do with people being as happy to see me as everyone was that day to see Jan Murray.
Then Mr. Murray did something amazing…even magical. Now, you have to remember that this show was done live. As he did it on stage, it was broadcast simultaneously to much of the country. There could be no delays in starting.
The stage manager came out into the hall to fetch him and to say, "Jan, three minutes," meaning, "Get your ass in there, fella. The show's about to start!" Jan nodded and continued greeting people in line and signing autographs.
Then it was "Jan, two minutes." Jan acknowledged the time and went right on signing his name on whatever scraps of paper people could come up with.
Before you knew it, the stage manager was saying — with great desperation in his voice — "Jan, please…one minute!" Jan told him not to worry, he'd be fine…and went on signing and shaking hands.
There was a black-and-white TV monitor on a stand in the hall. Suddenly, it was showing the opening of Treasure Hunt, the opening that America was watching. The announcer was about to introduce Jan Murray and Jan Murray was still in the hallway signing autographs for tourists! The stage manager was pleading but Jan, with no ruffled feathers, merely told him to relax. Then he thanked us all again for coming, turned and walked into the studio —
— and five seconds later, walked out onto live television!
I saw this. I saw this with my own young eyes. A human being in full-color who was three feet from me turned, walked through a portal and emerged on live, black-and-white television.
It still gives me a little chill to recall it. That, folks, is magic.
I had not quite gotten over it when, maybe fifteen minutes later, we were herded into the studio where Concentration was done and seated in bleacher-type seats. Ours were way over on the end and from where they stuck me, I could see absolutely nothing of the area where the host and players would be. I could see about a third of the big Concentration game board and that was about it. This was not because of my lack of height back then. It was because of all the lights and cameras and equipment in the way. Kareem Abdul Jabbar would not have been able to see anything from where they put me. I ended up watching the whole show on one of the monitors and thinking, "Gee, I could have seen exactly the same thing at home without waiting in that line, plus I could be eating cookies."
To further diminish the experience, the show's regular host Hugh Downs was off that day and someone else (I don't recall who) was filling in. Because he made his entrance after we sat down and exited before we left, I never saw him except on the monitor.
We'd been promised prizes and usually in the world of game shows, the word "prize" suggests large amounts of cash, household appliances and vacations. In this case, it suggested one tiny, travel-size tube of the white Vaseline® brand petroleum jelly. As we filed out, an NBC page handed one to each of us and even the adults were audibly disappointed. The next day, I saw them for sale in a pharmacy and they were 39 cents, which wasn't much of a prize even in 1959. I'd been expecting a new Chevrolet and a case of Turtle Wax…although come to think of it, maybe Turtle Wax is the white Vaseline® brand petroleum jelly.
All in all, it was not the most memorable part of that trip to New York. I think the most memorable part, not counting Jan Murray ascending into the airwaves before my very eyes, was after The Nun's Story when my mother, partly by way of apology, took me to the famous Automat restaurant. I liked that. That place was kind of magical too, even if no human beings walked from reality right onto a TV screen.
Geoff Peterson Live! (Sorta)
I was, you may recall, a big fan of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson…and since it went off, I miss it more than I thought I would. And one of the things I liked most about it was in its later years, Mr. Ferguson's sidekick — the Gay Robot Skeleton, Geoff Peterson. Ferguson is a great ad-libber and he was matched magnificently by his robotic pal. This was because of a gentleman named Josh Robert Thompson, who operated Geoff and supplied the voice, as well as the voices of anyone on the phone, the unseen bandleader, the rhino over the fireplace and several more. He was awesomely fast and funny.
Geoff Peterson, I am informed, is presently housed in a storage locker out in the Valley. He'll be back somewhere sometime but no one knows where or when. Josh Robert Thompson, meanwhile, is not in a storage locker. He's touring with his stand-up act and doing voices for cartoons…and he'll be on our Saturday Cartoon Voice panel at Comic-Con along with five other brilliantly-talented folks. We always turn away a few hundred folks (at least) who want seats for this and the Quick Draw! event that precedes it in Room 6BCF…so if you want to see either panel, get there early. The time and more info are here on this schedule of the panels I'm hosting at Comic-Con…
Thursday July 9, 2015 at 3:30pm – 4:30pm in Room 8
THE SERGIO AND MARK SHOW
The men who bring you Groo the Wanderer show their faces and explain just how and why it is they bring you Groo the Wanderer, as well as other silly comics. It's the award-winning duo of SERGIO ARAGONES and MARK EVANIER, accompanied by the equally heralded STAN SAKAI (creator of Usagi Yojimbo), and coloring whiz TOM LUTH (if he can get away) holding court, answering your questions, and doing what they do best, which obviously is not writing little blurbs like this for the Comic-Con Events Guide.Saturday, July 11 at 11:45am – 1:00pm in Room 6BCF
QUICK DRAW!
Once again, three supercharged cartoonists duel to their dooms with Sharpies, each attempting to outdraw all opponents. It's one of the most popular Comic-Con events, and this year it's personal. Our returning champion SERGIO ARAGONES (MAD, Groo the Wanderer) goes mano a mano against SCOTT SHAW! (The Simpsons, The Flintstones) and Disney legend FLOYD NORMAN. Plus, you can expect a few other cartoonists to get their licks in. Presiding over it all is your Quick Draw! Quizmaster, MARK EVANIER. No wagering, please.Saturday July 11, 2015 at 1:00pm – 2:30pm in Room 6BCF
CARTOON VOICES 1
The fine art of giving voice to animated characters is again demonstrated by a dais of the best. This year, join KEONE YOUNG (Star Wars Rebels, G.I. Joe), PAT MUSICK (Rugrats, Extreme Ghostbusters), ERIC BAUZA (Ben 10, The Adventures of Puss in Boots), JESSICA DiCICCO (Gravity Falls, Pound Puppies), PHIL MORRIS (Green Lantern: The Animated Series, Ultimate Spider-Man) and JOSH ROBERT THOMPSON (Family Guy, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson). MARK EVANIER, as usual, gets these talented folks to demonstrate what they do so well.Saturday July 11, 2015 at 4:30pm – 6:00pm in Room 5AB
THAT 70'S PANEL
Once again, this panel talks about what was so special about comic books in the 1970s, starting with all the new talent that entered the field and bonded with the old talent. Discussing those days will be CHRIS CLAREMONT (X-Men, Wolverine), BOB LAYTON (Iron Man) DON McGREGOR (Black Panther, Sabre), DEAN MULLANEY (Eclipse Comics), and others. MARK EVANIER, who was writing Yogi Bear and Scooby Doo, will officiate.Sunday, July 12 at 10:00am – 11:15am in Room 5AB
THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL
It's been 21 years since we lost him and we still can't stop talking about the man some called The King of the Comics. Jack Kirby may have been the greatest creative talent the field has ever seen and once again, some of his friends and fans will be discussing why. This time, it's ROB LIEFELD (Youngblood), MARV WOLFMAN (Tomb of Dracula), J. DAVID SPURLOCK (Vanguard Productions) and PAUL S. LEVINE (attorney who represented Jack). Naturally, your moderator is Kirby assistant and biographer MARK EVANIER.Sunday, July 12 at 11:30am – 12:45pm in Room 6A
CARTOON VOICES 2
Another panel of experts at voicing animated characters convenes for your edification. They'll tell you what they do, show you what they do and probably fracture a fairy tale in the process. This time, we have JULIE NATHANSON (Final Fantasy, Spider-Man), BOB BERGEN (Porky Pig, Star Wars), MISTY LEE (Ultimate Spider-Man, Hulk and the Agents of SMASH), WALLY WINGERT (Batman: Arkham Asylum, The Garfield Show) and CHRIS EDGERLY (The Simpsons, Dreamworks Dragons). Hosting and directing is MARK EVANIER (The Garfield Show).Sunday, July 12 at 2:00pm – 3:00pm in Room 25ABC
COVER STORY: THE ART OF THE COVER
Forget about the insides! What makes for a great cover on a comic book? This topic will be discussed and debated by some artists who've been responsible for some of the best. With KEVIN WADA (She-Hulk, Adventure Time), DAVID AJA (Hawkeye, Immortal Iron Fist), LORA INNES (The Dreamer), STEVE LIEBER (Quantam & Woody, Road to Perdition), and CHIP KIDD (Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz, Batman: Death by Design). Your host is MARK EVANIER, and that about covers it.Sunday, July 12 at 3:00pm – 4:30pm in Room 25ABC
THE BUSINESS OF CARTOON VOICES
How does one get into the business of doing cartoon voices? Well, careers have been launched by folks coming to this panel and listening to some serious free advice from people actively engaged in the process from all sides. Explaining the industry this year is PAUL DOHERTY (secretary-treasurer of the Cunningham-Escott-Slevin-Doherty Talent Agency), actors BOB BERGEN and MISTY LEE, and your moderator (and voice director/supervising producer of The Garfield Show), MARK EVANIER. Only serious students need show up.
As always, participants and times and everything is subject to change. I suggest that if you want to get into the Cartoon Voices panels or Quick Draw!, you get there well before their start times. The line may be forming at this very minute.
Today's Video Link
It's been a while since I posted a video of George Carl, one of the funniest human beings it was ever my pleasure to see perform. Carl spent decades perfecting his act and did it all over the world in many of the top cabarets and theaters. I wish he was still around so I could see him do it live again because it really was a thing of beauty — and very, very funny…
Go See It!
Here's a gallery of photos from past Comic-Cons in San Diego. I was at every one of these events. The one of Shel Dorf that's captioned as him with a drawing of the Fantastic Four is wrong. That's a drawing of a different Jack Kirby cast of characters, the Forever People.
Shel, by the way, liked to decorate the early cons with these posters he made up. He would project an image from some comic book or strip on a big piece of paper and then, using a brush and ink, he would trace the image onto the paper. Several of those tracings wound up in private hands and every so often, someone contacts me to ask if what they have is really a piece of Jack Kirby or Charles Schulz original artwork. I have to break it to them gently that no, it's not that.
Jury Duty Blogging
Here's a two-for-one. In February of 2009, I was summoned to jury duty and I posted about my one day of service in two parts. This part ran here on 2/9/09 and the portion after the little dividing line below ran the following day…
I won't be posting this 'til I get home but right now, it's 11 AM and I'm in Room 302 on the 11th floor of the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in picturesque Downtown Los Angeles. That's right: Mark has jury duty.
The summons said I had to be here at 7:45 AM which for a night person like I am sounds like greater punishment than is likely to be handed out in any courtroom in this building today. Fortunately, I discovered that if one takes an online orientation course, one can report a little later. Last night, I watched the videos and answered questions…and as my reward, I got to be here at 9:30. So I drove down in a light rain, parked where they tell you to park and hiked several blocks to this imposing structure. The route between the lot and here is quite long and by some distortion of science that otherwise exists only in M.C. Escher prints, it's uphill in both directions.
I am here under the assumption that I will not get on a jury…not that I will try not to, but it's hereditary. My father had jury duty many times. Never got on. My mother was once an extra playing a juror on L.A. Law…and remind me to tell you that story some day. She had an interesting encounter with Jimmy Smits. But the folks who pick real jurors wouldn't cast her. The last time I had jury duty, I sat there all day talking comics with one of my best friends, Scott Shaw!, who by coincidence had jury duty the same day I did. I didn't even get called to go off to a courtroom and be considered for an actual jury.
I got here on time…and don't think that's easy. The hard part was fighting my way onto an elevator amidst a horde of people who didn't seem to understand that when a car full of people arrives, you have to wait until they get off before you can get on. I finally boarded a car thanks to a lawyer (I guess he was a lawyer) who was directing traffic while he negotiated a plea bargain for some client on his cell phone.
One disadvantage of reporting late was that all the good seats in the jury waiting room were taken before I arrived. This included the dozen-or-so seats where I could have had a little table on which to use the laptop I hauled here along with me. Some were occupied by folks who had not brought laptops or work to do and who didn't seem to notice (or maybe care) that some of us had. I was about to go over to one and propose a seat swap but before I could, someone else with a laptop did and got rebuffed. And rather rudely at that. So I had to wait until a number of folks were called away to courtrooms before I could pounce on my present workspace.
The way this works is that we sit here and every so often, they call out names picked at random and those folks report to other locales in the building where they will be interrogated on their suitability and availability to serve for the particular trial. If they don't get selected, they come back here and their names are put back in the pool. The first such pick was for a trial which we could refuse because it will last an estimated ninety days.
When the lady who calls the names said that, there was a loud "Whoa" from the room and it sounded like everyone would be declining. But a surprising, perhaps encouraging number of folks said yes, they'd be willing to serve on a jury that lasted that long. These people have either a stirring sense of civic duty or an employer who pays full wages when you're on a jury. I have neither so I'd have declined if they'd called my name which, of course, they didn't. Two more groups of prospective jurors have since been called and my name was not among those the lady mispronounced.
So what do I do instead? Well, now that I have a little desk space, I can sit here and work and write stuff for the blog. It's 11:16.
A few minutes before Noon, we're dismissed for lunch and told to report back at 1:30. As we file out, a video extols the glories of many nearby eateries…and I'd been thinking of hiking down to the Grand Central Market, where wondrous foodsellers abound. But it's semi-rainy and it takes forever to get an elevator down, which means it'll take forever-and-a-half to get an elevator back up to the 11th floor. It also dawns on me that if I come back early, I can probably claim one of the few seats where I can work on my laptop. So I decide to just duck down to the in-house cafeteria, come back up and begin writing.
On the way out of the waiting room, I bend over to pick up something and hear the sound of trouser-fabric tearing. This is not a good sound to hear, especially out in public.
A hasty sprint to a Men's Room stall later, I check and discover that I have somehow — don't ask me how, I have no idea — engineered a seven-inch tear in the front of my jeans. It starts just to the left of the fly about halfway down and continues on into my inseam. I figure that if I hold my laptop case in the proper position, no one will notice it. Later, I discover that depending on how I sit in any chair, I am subject to some interesting breezes.
In the cafeteria, I eat a very good hot turkey sandwich and some very bad mashed potatoes. How is it, I wonder, that there are bad mashed potatoes in this world? It's not like this is a complicated recipe. I'm not sure if they're instant or not…but if they're not, they should be. The basic Betty Crocker mix yields a better result.
And now it's 1:15 and I'm back at the same little desk in Room 302, waiting to hear if I have to report somewhere. The place is packed — barely enough chairs for the number of bodies. The Van Nuys courthouse, where Scott and I had our little mini-con, offered a room that looked like a shabby bus terminal but it was a lot more comfy than this one.
The potential jurors seem like a nice mix of Angelenos, weighted a bit heavy on minorities, especially Hispanic and Asian. It's hard to guess what all these people do for a living but I'd guess more blue collar than white collar and not a lot in managerial positions. One gent — the one who was using this workspace before he was called to a courtroom and I commandeered the desk — was obviously a lawyer or the next best thing. He spent his whole time here on his laptop and cellphone, talking about depositions and filing paperwork with some judge. What are the odds another attorney will want this man on a jury he has to convince?
As I eye the others in the room, I ask myself, "If I were on trial for a murder I hadn't committed, would I worry if these people would be the ones passing judgment?" There are a few I'd insist my lawyers exclude but all in all, they look like a smart crowd. Then again, I think the first O.J. jury came out of this room.
We wait. And wait. And wait some more. Two more long trials are announced and on these, we have the option of opting out. This time, most people do, perhaps because the folks who could serve on a long case are still elsewhere in the building, being considered for that 90-day one. There are also two more trials where we can't demur, where we have to go to the courtroom and be considered for service…but as ever, my name is not called.
So I sit here, alternately working on this and on an article that's due, congratulating myself on the wisdom of bringing the laptop and getting back from lunch early enough to grab this little desk. Every so often, I shift in the chair and feel something that reminds me I'm now wearing split-crotch jeans. No one calls my name.
Around 4:15, they announce that there are no more trials so we'll be dismissed. Our names will be called and as they are, we're to yell "Here!" to prove we haven't snuck out prematurely, then we're to come up, turn in our badges and receive a certificate that we've completed our service. I wait and wait as perhaps 200 people are called…until my name is finally heard, about three from the end. I head up and out, keeping my laptop case strategically in front of me. The paper I receive will excuse me if I am summoned again for jury duty within the next year.
All done. There's a long uphill hike to where I parked, made more awkward by the need to walk with my computer held over my zipper, but that's all that stands between me and the resumption of life. I march with several of my fellow jurors, none of whom got anywhere near a jury box, either. A lady who lives out in Marina Del Rey tells me this is the fifth time she's served in eight years and her experience has been like mine. She never gets called, either.
She doesn't think it's Luck of the Draw. She thinks some higher power has just decided that folks like us will never be on a jury. I tell her I'm convinced that even if I was picked to be questioned, one attorney or the other would bump me. "That's what I mean," she says. "Some higher force has decided you'll never get seated on a jury so there's no point calling your name."
I ask, "Couldn't this higher force prevent me from getting picked for jury duty in the first place?"
She says, "Higher forces can't do everything. By the way, why are you walking like that?"
Funnymen Foto
A couple of folks have sent me this photo which is making the rounds. They're asking me (a) if I can identify all the comedians in it, (b) how many of them are still alive, (c) how many of them I knew or worked with and (d) what it's from. Easy…
- The guy at the top is the recently-deceased Jack Carter. The two guys in the front are, left to right, Dan Rowan and Bill Dana. The middle row is — again, left to right — Milton Berle, Wally Cox, Soupy Sales, Dick Martin, Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante and Dick Shawn.
- The only one there who is still with us is Bill "My name, Jose Jiminez" Dana.
- I only really worked with Hope (briefly) and Berle (even more briefly) but I did get to talk with both of them at some length and also with Dick Martin and Soupy Sales. I once got to throw a pie at Mr. Sales.
- This was shot on the set of a Bob Hope Special from 1966. Oddly enough, the special also featured Johnny Carson, Bill Cosby, Jonathan Winters, Don Adams, Shecky Greene, Red Buttons and Don Rickles. So the picture could have been even more impressive.
Happy Independence Day…Maybe?
John Adams may have been obnoxious and disliked but he was right there in the thick of the Declaration of Independence. According to this article, he thought we should have celebrated American independence on the Second of July.
I suppose it's too late to change now. For one thing, it would screw up some song lyrics and movie titles. But it is interesting to know. Thanks to James J. Troutman for letting me know so I could let you know.
Go Read It!
Here's a simple explanation of the financial crisis going on with Greece. Or at least, this is as simple as you're likely to find.
Today's Bonus Video Link
Billy Porter is (still) the star of Kinky Boots, the long-running hit on Broadway. At the performance last Friday evening, he made a touching curtain speech…
Comic-Con News
It has been announced that Comic-Con International will remain in San Diego through 2018. The new contract has been signed, which will come as no great surprise to those of you who read this blog.
I never like to say "never" but I'd be very surprised to see it move anywhere else for a long, long time. The city really wants to keep it there. The convention organizers really want to keep it there. The only possible impediment has occasionally been when someone involved in the process momentarily tried to get greedy. This deal was delayed because several of the hotels that service the convention center were trying to get out of obligations to provide a certain number of rooms at discount prices. They figured if they could, they could charge astronomical fees for those rooms. They were apparently persuaded they were trying to kill the golden gander.
I also think that people who say the con should move to Los Angeles or Las Vegas or somewhere else are unaware how complicated those negotiations and contracts could be. I'm not saying it can never be done but it's not like deciding one year to stay at the Marriott instead of the Hyatt. It's a whole new business relationship with a different pricing structure and different players now operating without hard evidence of how many will attend, what impact the con will have on local businesses, how expensive it will be to configure the convention space properly, etc.
The convention and San Diego have learned how to work together and how to do the convention in that city in that facility. While there are always ways in which it can be improved, I think they have most of the bugs out and don't need to start over again elsewhere. I also don't want to deal with the traffic around the L.A. Convention Center or near Disneyland, nor do I want to be in Las Vegas when it's 107°. Which is what it's going to be there next week while we're all in 70° San Diego.
Today's Video Link
If you want to know what it meant to be a Catskills comedian, watch these few minutes of Gene Baylos on The Dean Martin Show. Mr. Baylos was much-admired by other comedians for this sheer relentlessness on-stage and they told tales of his relentlessness off-stage. I wrote about some of this in an obit on him back in 2005. Here he is in action and keep your eye on Dean, who's probably thinking, "If I wanted to do this for a living, I would have stayed with Jerry."
Beyond Beliefs
Here's a rundown on which religions prohibit Gay Marriage and which ones embrace it. A few of those who forbid it seem a bit confused. For instance, in Orthodox Judaism, only a man and a woman can marry but only two men or two women can dance together.