Monthly Archives: February 2016

My friend Valerie Perri has become one of the great current stars of musical comedy. Here she is with the Pasadena Pops performing a song from the show Mack and Mabel. I sure hope she isn't singing this about me…

Conor Friersdorf explains why Republicans are wrong (constitutionally) to declare they will not vote for Obama's Supreme Court nominee before he's even picked anyone. I don't think that will change their minds. Just as Chris Christie couldn't live down his manhug of Obama, no Republican is going to want the charges of "traitor" and "RINO" that would come if he or she said, "Hey, Obama's pick is deserving of consideration."

• Isn't it exciting to realize you have as much chance this year of being voted a seat on the Supreme Court as anyone else?

Well, there you are: Another game-changer. The whole presidential election has just become about the Supreme Court.

I read the other day that Jim Gilmore is about to drop out of the presidential race. This will cause people all across America to say, "Someone named Jim Gilmore was in the presidential race?"

Ben Carson is saying that the South Carolina primary will be the "turning point" in his quest for the White House. Since the polls there currently have him in fifth place with 8.8% support, I guess that means that's when he'll be getting out.

Donald Trump says he's going to seek Sean Hannity's advice when it comes to picking a running mate. We can only hope Cliven Bundy gets out of jail in time to accept.

Surfing YouTube, I keep coming across videos in which someone tells you how to make a McDonald's hamburger at home. Why does anyone want to make a McDonald's hamburger at home? Did these suddenly become hard to obtain? Or too expensive? It would cost me less money to go to McDonald's and buy a hamburger than it would to purchase the ingredients to make one at home. It would also cost me less time to walk to the nearest McDonald's and buy one, plus the bathroom at McDonald's is probably cleaner than mine.

Also, while I was there I could buy fries to go with it and get free ketchup. There are also YouTube videos about how to replicate McDonald's fries at home and again, it would less time and money to walk to that McDonald's and buy fries than to make them myself.

Maybe the premise here is that I could make a better McDonald's hamburger at home than I can get at a McDonald's? No, that's not logical. If it was better, it wouldn't be a McDonald's hamburger. And in those videos, they usually promise you that if you follow their instructions carefully, what you will get will be indistinguishable from what you'd get at a McDonald's. I haven't tried following any of these tutorials but I'm skeptical.

For one thing, they never mention anything about wearing a paper hat. I would think that would be essential. You might also need to pay yourself poorly.

For another, they tell you to go out and buy whatever kind of meat and bun you can find. I would guess your ketchup, mustard, onions and maybe even pickles wouldn't be far from what McDonald's uses. But don't you have to freeze the beef for a few months and then defrost it to get that McDonald's texture? And isn't the flavor of a McDonald's hamburger about 65% bun? How can a different kind of bun result in the exact same burger?

But I keep coming back to the Why? in all this. Why, if you're going to cook, cook one of those? I can understand trying to replicate the bouillabaisse made at Chez Michel in Marseilles, which many food critics hail as the best in the world. You'd impress the hell out of your friends if you could serve that and besides, how often do you find yourself near Chez Michel? (How often do I find myself near a McDonald's? Practically every time I go anywhere.) And you almost never find great bouillabaisse on a Dollar Menu.

This just does not seem like a worthwhile endeavor to me. Then again, neither did me writing or you reading this blog post and yet we both did just that. Go figure.

What happens when you reply to one of those Spam e-mails that we all get and hastily delete? Listen to what happened when comedian James Veitch tried it…

The headline on this article is "Jerry Lewis has broken a 40-year silence about his 'disaster' of a Holocaust movie." Yes, he's finally started talking about The Day the Clown Cried.

A number of my friends are far more interested in this film than I am. I think I told the story here once about how years ago, I was printing out labels for VHS tapes on my shelf. I had one label left over on a sheet so on a whim, I printed "The Day the Clown Cried," slapped it on a tape I was going to otherwise toss out and put it in my library. A guy I knew came by. We were going to go out to dinner but then he spotted the label, grabbed the tape from the shelf and started screaming, "We are not going anyhere until I see every foot of this movie!" He acted like he would die if I didn't immediately jam it into my VCR and begin playing it for him.

He was crushed when I told him it wasn't real. I think I had to actually play a little of the tape to convince him Jerry's movie wasn't on it.

Anyway, I'm curious about the movie but it's been a long time since Mr. Lewis gave a coherent, fact-based interview about anything. A few years ago for a Laurel and Hardy DVD, he explained that Hardy was a janitor when Laurel discovered him and decided he'd make a good partner. There was zero truth in that and he didn't even have a personal, emotional stake in that interview. Why should we believe him on a topic about which he's so sensitive and defensive? Oh, well. At least he might tell us that the musical of The Nutty Professor is opening on Broadway next month.

Yeah, it's time to think about this again. This year's Comic-Con International convenes in San Diego with a Preview Night on July 20 and then the non-Preview part is July 21-24. But you won't be there for any of it if you don't get a badge so be aware that open registration for them is a week from tomorrow. It will start and mostly stop the morning of Saturday, February 20.

If you want to score one or more badges, you have to be at your computer that morn. Before that, read this page which will tell you all about the process. And don't complain to me that you don't like the process. I have nothing to do with it. I just moderate panels.

Joe Merrill writes to ask…

I'm impressed that you've been making a living as a freelance writer since you got out of high school. Did you ever have any other job in your entire life? Did you ever even apply for a job that didn't involve writing? What would you have tried to do if you needed money and it wasn't coming in from writing?

Well, I have been paid over the years as an editor, a director, a producer, a songwriter (I guess that's writing), a performer (a few aberrant times) and one or two other things that from my point o' view were just adjuncts to writing. I'm assuming though you're asking about jobs that in no way connect with writing.

Remember here that you're asking a guy who's really, really inept at most things. I sometimes think — and this is not tongue-in-cheek self-deprecation — that I became a writer because it was the thing at which I felt the least incompetent. I gave up a number of other professions that interested me like drawing and magic because I decided I could never be good enough at them.

When I was sixteen or so, I did some babysitting for a family down the street. I'd play games with the kid until it was time for him to go to bed, then I'd set up my little Olivetti portable typewriter on the family dining table and write things until the parents came home. Does that count?

A month or so before I got out of high school, my parents suggested (strongly) that I look for a summer job to do between graduation and starting college. I was somehow persuaded to go to a Job Fair out in Santa Monica which was set up to connect kids in my position with openings.

I took the bus out there and waited, as I recall, for about three hours until I got to sit down with a harried lady who had lists of possibilities. The idea was that I would tell her what kind of thing I wanted to do or that I thought I could do, she would scan her lists and then she'd set me up with an appointment to go in and interview for the closest thing she had.

I knew I couldn't say to her, "I think I could write comic books or TV shows" so I told her I had some limited experience in page design and layout — maybe something in a print shop? Or failing that, I'd painted some walls in our home with a minimum of screw-ups so perhaps I could work for a painter?

Those sounded reasonable to me. I could never have made either my life's work but I thought I could bluff my way through a short-term job in one of those areas. To this lady though, it was like I was asking her to get me the starring role in the next James Bond film or maybe become the junior senator from the great state of California.

She reacted in simultaneous shock and laughter and said to me in a scolding tone, "No, no, no, you can't get a job like that starting from where you're starting." She scanned her lists and then wrote me out a referral to apply as an apprentice cutter for a firm that had something to do with furniture upholstery and carpeting. To get to the address, I would have to spend 90+ minutes and go through a whole pad of bus transfers.

I left in kind of a daze, wondering if she'd expected me to say, "Well, you know, I've always had my heart set on cutting fabric for ottomans." On the sidewalk outside, I ran into a cluster of guys I knew from high school who'd all just been through the same process.

We compared results and every one of us had been set up with an appointment to see about becoming an apprentice cutter for this firm that had something to do with furniture upholstery and carpeting. My interview was set for 4:00 in the afternoon the following Wednesday and Don Schwartz's was with the same person for 4:05.

Don asked what kind of a job interview could get you in and out in five minutes. I said, "I think it's just a test to see if you can show up on time wearing pants and not clutching a weapon."

I did not show up at all, with or without pants or weapon. Instead, I redoubled — maybe retripled — my efforts to make some money quickly as a writer. I did it in time and then one sale led to others, so I never had to do anything else. At the time, I considered myself extraordinarily fortunate and I guess on some level, I still do. Still, over the years, I became aware that I might have missed out on something.

There are certain social skills one learns in a work situation and they're quite different from anything you learn in a school situation. As a freelance writer, I was working at home a lot in those early years, not interacting on a daily basis with employers or anyone else involved in my work. It therefore took me a lot longer to learn some of those manners and skills than it might have if I'd labored in an office or business, especially if the job involved interfacing with the public.

I know actors who both love and hate that at one point in their lives, they had to wait tables or sell shoes or whatever. They resented devoting such prime years of their lives to something that would not advance them on their eventual careers, all the time fearing that those jobs would become, by default, their eventual careers. But they all still spoke of how valuable it was from a personal growth standpoint.

I don't think I would have gotten hired to cut fabric. Back then, I would have resented even going in for that interview so much that I wouldn't have been able to conceal it. Still, it might have had its value to me, at least for a little while…maybe.

Time for another drawing lesson from our friend, Tom Gammill…

Kevin Drum explains what folks are really saying when they insist the unemployment numbers are worse than what is commonly reported. (Hint: They're using a different standard of measurement than what we're all used to hearing.)

I need a new assistant. I've had many over the years — some wonderful ones — but they keep leaving me for jobs that pay better than I do.

This is not creative work. I need someone to run errands, file papers, move stuff around and maybe even do light computer work…so familiarity with a PC is a plus. Having a car and being able/willing to carry boxes up and down flights of stairs are both requirements and of course, you have to live in Los Angeles, preferably not too far from me. (I'm not far from CBS and Farmers Market.)

We're talking 10-20 hours a week on a semi-casual basis, meaning when I need you and when you're available. I can guarantee some of it will be very boring grunt work. I can't guarantee it will lead to anything better or that it will last for any specific length of time.

If you're interested and qualified, drop me a note. Tell me who you are, where you're based, how available you are, any particular experience or skills you have and if we have any mutual acquaintances. If you're real good, you might get to be Employee of the Week.

[UPDATE, A FEW DAYS LATER: The position has been filled. Thanks to all the applicants.]

It's another day of me writing stuff I should be writing instead of blogging. While I'm taking a break from doing that…

I'm still watching The People Vs. O.J. Simpson and still wondering if I'll bail when they get to the parts that will be uncomfortable to watch. I don't mean the photos of the two brutally-murdered bodies. I mean the parts where sly lawyering slanders good cops and sells the "he was framed" theory to a jury that was in way over their I.Q.s.

The evidence against Simpson was strong but the kind of men who give the legal profession its bad name managed to muddy the narrative to the point of Reasonable Doubt. There still is no credible or even semi-credible alternate theory of who the Real Killer was if it wasn't Simpson. Darn near everyone who came near the case wrote a book about it but nobody wrote that one.

The dramatization in Part Two seemed over-the-top with O.J. re-enacting the gun-to-the-head scene from Blazing Saddles, and with a silly moment concocted to play up the Kardashian Kids now that they're so famous. But a lot of it is really good and generally accurate…and I still haven't decided if John Travolta's unearthly portrayal of Robert Shapiro was terrible casting or brilliant. I'll probably watch at least until I make that decision.

I'm still enjoying the Johnny Carson reruns on Antenna TV. Tomorrow night, they're airing a 1985 show with Jackie Gleason that I believe represents his only appearance with Johnny. Saturday night, it's a show with Mel Brooks from February 1975, not long after the release of Young Frankenstein. Sunday night is Charlton Heston and then on Monday, there's one with the unforgettable team of Bette Davis and Richard Pryor. In a week or two, they have one with Tom Hanks from 1982, about the time his sitcom Bosom Buddies was canceled.

And before I get back to work: A lot of folks have written to tell me how much they're enjoying the Triumph Election Special that I recommended here. One of the things I find amusing about it is to note the difference when the puppet is talking to people who are used to being on camera (politicians, TV personalities) and folks who aren't often on TV. There are exceptions to this but most of the "real people" are talking to Robert Smigel but most of the media-savvy folks are talking to Triumph. Like he's the one asking the questions.

Hey, remember not long ago when Steve Harvey, hosting a beauty pageant, accidentally announced the name of the wrong winner? Of course you do. I said then that I felt sorry for the guy and that he's a real good host on the current incarnation of Family Feud. And that he is.

Recently on that show, he got into one of those situations that happens: A contestant simply was not grasping the concept of the game. I would guess that less than 5% of all the people who have ever had the job description of Game Show Host would have been able to spontaneously turn that moment into something funny and most of them would have done it just by making the poor lady feel especially humiliated. Mr. Harvey though handled it with the skill of a good comedian. Which he is…