Yearly Archives: 2015

I mentioned the other day here that there was a chance of a little light rain on the Academy Awards Sunday night. Well, that storm system seems to be speeding up so the threat of showers should be over by Noon, leaving cloudy to partly cloudy skies for Oscar Night. And even if it does rain, we're looking at under a tenth of an inch.

Say, I have no inside info but I'll predict that Neil Patrick Harris will do something in the spirit of Boyhood where someone will play him at a younger age and then at an older age to suggest he's aging throughout the evening. Or maybe they can find a Doogie Howser clip to cover the "younger" part.

I have no predictions about the awards themselves apart from my usual rule which is that if Meryl Streep is nominated, she'll win in that category and maybe one or two in which she wasn't nominated. Also, no important awards will be won by black people or presented by anyone over the age of 70 except for Streep and Shirley MacLaine.

If I were running things, they'd have Best Picture presented by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner (just try and tell me the audience wouldn't love that), Idina Menzel would be there to introduce John Travolta as Jim Traviata, and a delivery boy would show up a year late with a pizza for Ellen DeGeneres. Oh — and they wouldn't let Kanye West into the first row or, for that matter, the building.

• Vanilla Ice has been arrested for burglary. I hope it was for stealing black guys' dance moves and arrangements.

Remember how I said that Jon Stewart's stated reasons for abdicating should probably be taken at face value? And that his announcement would probably shake loose all sorts of offers from which he could pick and choose? Well, Bill Carter says the same things and more about all that. You may find a ratings chart he has there particularly interesting. Note that it only covers viewers 18-49.

HBO has renewed John Oliver's show through 2017 so that removes any chance he'll take over Mr. Stewart's job. One wonders if Last Week Tonight would have gotten a one-year renewal if Stewart wasn't leaving. Also, in a series of recent tweets, Jessica Williams made it as clear as possible that she's flattered at the rallying but does not want the post and doesn't think she's qualified for it. I assume that means "yet."

Thomas Lennon has been hosting The Late, Late Show the last few nights and has been the best (so far) of the temp hosts. That's not a hard thing to be. Tonight is Lennon's last night, then we have Lauren Graham on Thursday night and Will Arnett on Friday.

Next week is split between Billy Gardell and Kunal Nayyar, then Drew Carey returns for the first week in March. All of these were taped some time ago. As I understand it, after the recording of the Arnett show this week, CBS dismantles Craig Ferguson's old set and begins remodeling the stage for James Corden, who debuts March 23. I'm not sure what fills the two weeks after Carey's last show on March 6 but I'm guessing reruns of the guest-hosted episodes.

Finally, here's a video of Jimmy Fallon from his Monday night show, talking about what it was like to be at the SNL40 telecast and afterparty. Don't watch this if you have an aversion to the words "crazy," "amazing" or "legend." He sure seems to have had a good time…

If you click n' read only one political-type link on this blog this month, make it Amanda Marcotte's article about…

1. …how so much of the money that Conservative voters donate to political causes is going into the pockets of the folks running the PACs and groups instead of being used to bring about political change and…
2. …how so much of what candidates and pundits are doing when we think they're building a mailing list to bring about political change is compiling mailing lists they can sell to businesses that sell phony Alzheimer's cures and "doomsday" supplies.

Follow the money. That's what so much of this is all about. Sarah Palin isn't giving speeches to change America into the vision she expounds. She's enriching the Palin bank account — with the speeches and with donations to SarahPAC.

The dam is bursting on this stuff and we're going to hear a lot more about it. It wouldn't surprise me if John Oliver and Jon Stewart were both working on lead features at this very moment…and it won't stop with them.

I am a lousy correspondent, one who is helplessly behind in e-mails. A few weeks ago, I had a problem with my e-mail and I wasn't receiving every one that was sent to me. I am embarrassed to admit that I think I solved that snag. Right now, if you write me and I don't respond, the reason is almost certainly me. I just get way too many and I get behind and I probably become too quick to think, "Well, this one doesn't need a reply." I shall try to do better.

One thing you can do that will help if you want a reply is this: Make sure you have your name on your message. I get an awful lot which are signed only with handles. I generally don't answer those. In some cases, I think some folks think everyone should just automatically know or remember who they are by their handles and often, I don't. (A big peeve of mine is people who call you on the phone and when you answer, they just start talking, assuming you'll recognize their voice even though they only call you every few months or even less often. For some reason, most of the friends who do this to me are guys named Bob.)

In other news: This blog is approaching 22,000 postings. Some experts who oughta know tell me that WordPress can handle a quantity that huge just fine, whereas others who oughta know tell me that may well be the cause of some of our occasional crashes here. So I'm pondering that at some point soon, I may just move the first ten years of newsfromme over to a separate, static blog that will serve as an archive of it, thereby whittling things down here to a more manageable size. The drawback to that would be that if you wanted to search for an old message, you'd have to search two separate blogs…though there may be a way around even that.

Anyway, I'm just thinking about this now. If someone who really knows WordPress has a better idea, I'm open to it. If you're going to phone me with your suggestion, please identify yourself when I answer. Especially if your name is Bob.

The television career of Dennis James darn near started before there was television — in 1938! That was in its experimental phase. When television as we know it began, he quickly became a fixture of it. He's remembered today primarily as a game show host but he was one of a largely-extinct species known as Broadcaster. He hosted movies and read news and covered sports and announced and practically did everything a man in a suit and tie could do in front of a camera. For about the last decade or three of his career, he hosted game shows (including The Price is Right and P.D.Q.) and worked as a commercial pitchman, doing hundreds if not thousands of commercials.

Mr. James passed away in 1997. Today on Stu's Show, your enthusiastic host Stu Shostak welcomes his sons, Randy and Brad James, to discuss their father's long, prolific career. How they're going to get it all into two or three hours, I have no idea.

Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there. Webcasts start at 4 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM Eastern and other times in other climes. They run a minimum of two hours and sometimes go way, way longer. Whenever a show ends, it's available soon after for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a measly 99 cents each and you can get four shows for the price of three. Grab some while you can.

By the way! I don't always get around to plugging Stu's Show but I always recommend it. A couple of weeks lately, I've simply forgotten to tell you what was on before it was on and that didn't mean I was expecting a bad show. I just got busy. Keep an eye on Stu's website so you'll know what he's up to even if I forget to tell you.

My pal Kevin Drum has a post up on his blog headlined, "Since 9/11, We've Had 4 Wars in the Middle East. They've All Been Disasters." He then lists them and explains why each one cost us many American lives and dollars and didn't improve things in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen — either for the people of those nations or for us. Anyone besides John McCain want to argue that things could go better with the next one?

Following up on a recent topic here: I was writing about long-range weather forecasts and how they're often worthless. There are times when the meteorologists can predict ten days out and times when they can't…but for various marketing reasons, they're always expected to formulate a ten-day projection. If you want to understand weather forecasts, you have to grasp this concept. Sometimes, they're very certain and sometimes, the various computer models are in conflict and there are too many X factors out there.

Case in point. A few days ago, the National Weather Service was predicting a 60% chance of a moderate storm in Los Angeles on 2/25 and the AccuWeather folks (a commercial firm) were predicting an 85% chance of a biggie. That was ten days in the future…and the truth was that no one at either organization felt too confident about that but, you know, they had to say something and that's what the computer models were saying. This morning, both have dropped all chance of precipitation for that date. Neither even predicts any clouds then.

The next chance of rain in Los Angeles just entered the forecast and it wasn't there yesterday. Overnight, many elements came together and now both the N.W.S. and AccuWeather are fairly certain we have a slight chance of showers starting late Saturday night and continuing into Monday morning…so it could be raining — lightly — when the stars come and go for the Academy Awards. If you decide to stake out a position outside to see them, you may be at least drizzled upon.

It's a 20% chance so it really can't be wrong. If you say 20%, you're right if it does rain and right if it doesn't. But I'll bet they're correct that there will be ominous clouds about…and it'll rain somewhere in the forecast area. Often when they say 30% or 40%, it doesn't rain where I am but I speak on the phone to some friend ten miles from me and it's pouring there. And then people who live where it doesn't rain think the forecast was wrong.

A TV weatherguy I used to know once said to me, "The hard part of doing this is that people only read the headline or only listen to the part of the weathercast where I say what the chance of rain is in all of Southern California and then they presume that chance applies to wherever they are. Sometimes, we don't know very far in advance and sometimes we do, but either way, you have to read or listen to the whole forecast to get an idea what we're saying. And of course, every so often, we completely blow it."

All over the 'net, I see this word: BOGO. It stands for "Buy One, Get One." Well, of course. If you buy one, you're supposed to get one. That's nothing special. But "Buy One, Get One" actually means "Buy One, Get Two." Or in a lot of cases, it means "Buy One, Get A Second One At A Reduced Price." So why isn't it BOGT? OR BOGASOAARP?

When I buy one, I expect to get one. After all, I paid for one. I think what they usually mean is "Buy One, Get One Free" so it ought to be BOGOF.

I also have a problem with that sign they have in places that sell delicate gifts like pottery: "If You Break It, You've Bought It!" Don't they mean "If You Break It, You Have To Buy It"? If I've already bought it, then I'm entitled to break it because it's mine.

One of our favorite commercials from another era…

I was trashed recently on a right-wing blog by someone who thinks I've been an apologist here for Brian Williams. I just read over what I've posted here about the revelations and I don't quite see how this blogger gets that. I think I'm largely indifferent to whether or not he stays on the air, just as I'm largely indifferent as to whether folks on Fox News who utter untruths stay on the air. I think false statements should be recognized as such by the viewership and I think there should be retractions and apologies and humiliation, all of which we're getting to some extent in the Brian Williams matter. But I can't recall ever calling for any broadcaster to be fired or hung in the public square.

One area where I think I really disagree with this guy…with most political bloggers, I suspect, is this: When I hear or read a "news item" which assaults one of my beliefs with bogus "facts," I do not automatically presume premeditated, deliberate lying for political motives. I think that's probably the third most likely reason. #2 would be sensationalism to sell newspapers or get tune-in or web clicks. And #1 would be sheer, non-fancy bad reporting. Never attribute to deviousness that which can be explained as incompetence.

There's a movie I've mentioned here a number of times called The Night They Raided Minsky's. It was made in 1968, produced by Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin, and directed by William Friedkin. The releasing company, United Artists, declared it a disaster and Mr. Friedkin more or less disowned it. It was then heavily recut in the editing room, making it into quite a different and somewhat successful movie. I like it a lot despite some odd continuity and some hokey moments.

I saw it with some friends at the old Fox Venice Theater on Lincoln Boulevard out in Venice. Some time in the eighties, that theater went outta business and the building — shabby but still somewhat identifiable — is now an indoor swap meet.

Okay now, I hope you read the Trivia Warning above because you won't believe how insignificant this is…but when I saw the movie in early 1969, I noticed something that no one else on this planet would have noticed.

The movie is about the attempts of a local censor to shut down the Minsky's Burlesque house. At one point, the house comics (played wonderfully by Jason Robards and Norman Wisdom) work a ruse on the guy. There's a "naughty" book sold in and around the theater — one which, when held up to the light, shows some scandalous pictures about a harlot named Mademoiselle Fifi. Robards and Wisdom convince the censor guy played by Denholm Elliott that Fifi is soon to dance on the Minsky stage.

Here is a still from the scene in which they do this. That's (left to right) Robards, Elliott and Wisdom. As you can see, Mr. Elliott is holding the booklet up to the light…

It was at this moment in the Fox Venice Theater that young M.E. spotted this thing that no one else would have noticed or if they did, mentioned. I whispered to my friends, "That booklet was made out of a copy of MAD Magazine #115!"

My friends looked at me like I was crazy. How could I have known that? Well, I recognized the insides of the booklet which were visible for a few seconds on the screen. Here's a close-up of the booklet as seen in the above still…

And here's a two-page spread from MAD #115, which by the way was dated December of 1967. Obviously, the prop guy had a copy lying around and used it when it came time to construct the Mademoiselle Fifi book. This article was written for MAD by Stan Hart and illustrated by Bob Clarke…

That's really all there is to this. No one else has ever cared about this. You surely don't. But this is my blog and you were warned this was going to be ridiculously unimportant so you have no one to blame but yourself for the time you just wasted reading it.

• Many folks writing of who was not at the SNL40 bash are ignoring that someone could be ill, employed or not interested.

If I had more than 140 characters, I might have also added (1) unable to afford the trip and (2) not wild about trying to get in and out of New York between blizzards.

I'm hearing today of two cast members of whom people are saying, "How scandalous that this person wasn't there and featured" when the truth is that the person has not been well and either couldn't be there or didn't want to be there and look old and sick.

There were performers who were there and didn't get much (if any) attention: Victoria Jackson, Gilbert Gottfried, Rob Schneider, et al. If there's a snub, it's that the special placed more focus on current movie stars who once hosted than on cast members who were only cast members. But hell, they placed a ton more emphasis on cast members than on writers who were only writers.

• Lesley Gore has died. And I'll cry if I want to.

Shortly — probably within the next twenty-four hours — I will post to this blog the single most unimportant, pointless, "who the hell cares?" piece of movie trivia you've ever seen in your life. If you read it, and I'm not suggesting you do, you will be aghast that a theoretically-grown man could waste ten seconds of his life thinking about it and almost twice as along writing a blog post about it.

Hint: It involves the movie, The Night They Raided Minsky's. This will be utterly meaningless to those who have seen that film and even less important to those who haven't. You have been warned.