Monthly Archives: April 2016

Another day when Mark won't be posting much. But hey, even when I don't post much, I still post more than most blogs.

A number of you wrote to quibble with my assertion here a week ago that Bill Nye is a scientist and Sarah Palin, who said "He's as much a scientist as I am," is not. Hey, don't argue with me. Go argue with Factcheck.org.

Timothy Hill reveals something which may surprise you as much as it surprised me: Candidates who get elected to public office have a fairly decent record of trying to keep their campaign promises, at least to some extent. What's not surprising to me is that Donald Trump tends to make verbal promises, then his office releases details of plans which do not keep those promises. Well, at least he isn't waiting 'til he gets into office to break them.

A young artist named Gavin Aung Than has done a wonderful comic book story based on an interview with one of his heroes, Jack Kirby. I'm pretty sure that Jack would have been delighted by this effort…and even more delighted by whatever Gavin creates in the future. He would especially like the fact that Gavin does not seem to be growing up to be a Jack Kirby imitator. Being inspired by him to be creative was great. Trying to create art that looked like Jack had drawn it was, in Kirby's eyes, an act of non- (or at least, limited) creation.

Tom Galloway sent me this link to an article about the growing legal battle over the ownership of Sea Monkeys. That's right: Sea Monkeys, the most disappointing product you could ever order from an ad in the comic books.

If you live in Brooklyn, it is still possible to get seltzer delivered to your home. For some reason, the website makes no mention of its main usage, which of course is to be sprayed whenever possible in the face of Larry Fine. Apparently though, people actually drink the stuff. These kids today…

Back later or maybe tomorrow. I can't plan my life these days more than about an hour in advance, if that.

Staying in a political mood, here's one of the smartest guys on the Internet, John Green, with one of those videos he makes in which he has a conversation with his brother Hank. He makes a pretty sound argument, I think, about not only the wrongness of comparing a political foe to Hitler but the ineffectiveness of it, as well…

• How to Tell If Someone's a Racist and/or Sexist: They decide that from now on, they won't use any $20 bills.

Jonathan Chait says it's all over for the Bernie Sanders campaign. Even though I'd prefer Sanders in the White House to Clinton, I think the numbers say that ain't a'gonna happen.

Actually, not that my preferences matter any more than anyone else's, I think what I'd prefer is Sanders in the White House but Hillary heading the ticket. Seems to me she's a safer pick for the party, a person more likely to beat Trump, who after yesterday's New York primary, is looking more likely to be the G.O.P. nominee. Yes, I know there are polls out there that say Sanders would be a stronger candidate than Clinton but that's before the Republican Attack Machine (not to be confused with the Democratic Attack Machine) has bothered to train its guns on Bernie.

I am not prepared to argue with Paul Waldman's assertion that the Republicans could convince a lot of voters that a Sanders presidency would mean the death of the United States. Heck, they convinced a helluva lot of 'em that the Obama presidency would and already did.

They've taken their best shot at Hillary, lo these many years, and you still have charts like this one showing The Donald being trounced by The Hillary in a landslide. Yeah, much will happen before Election Day but I think a lot of Americans' heads are set in concrete about Clinton and/or Trump. (Though I still hope Hillary runs like she has a one-point lead. The aforementioned Democratic Attack Machine will have a lot of ammo to use with Trump and it certainly wouldn't be lacking if somehow Cruz slips in there.)

My friend Roger will write me after he reads this to argue that Hillary won't win because Hillary's going to prison and maybe getting the electric chair for how she handled her e-mail. I seem to recall Roger telling me Hillary was going to prison for Filegate and maybe Travelgate, and of course for Whitewater and having Vince Foster murdered and for a half-dozen other scandals that her enemies dreamed-up. I'm still reading sites which say she was guilty as sin in all those as proven by the fact that every shred of incontrovertible evidence that was rumored turned out to be non-existent. She not only committed every one of those crimes (and more!) but made all the proof appear to never have existed in the first place! That's devious!

I am not ruling out the possibility that some day, someone will nail her for an actual crime. I don't think anyone in Washington is that clean. I'm also not ruling out — in fact, I'm actually expecting some weird, unpredictable twists in this whole election before November, including but not limited to a fervent attempt to ditch Trump as the nominee. I just think the Democrats have a certain advantage by running a candidate who comes pre-smeared.

Going to be busy all day so look elsewhere on the Internet for your entertainment. I'm told that if you have a good connection and you look real hard, you can find a site or two with negative things to say about someone who's currently running for president. You may also stumble across confident predictions that the man or woman you want to see elected has it in the bag and/or will be cheated out of it. I'll be back when I'm back…and not a moment before.

It's been a while since I featured a clip here of George Carl. Mr. Carl, who passed away in 2000, was an internationally-famous clown who toured the world with an act that, as you can see, could be totally understood in any language. I got to see him perform in Las Vegas in the early nineties. He was at the Stardust in a show that otherwise was filled with almost-naked women and one glistening bronze male acrobat. Carl did about twenty minutes of pretty much the same thing you'll see in this video only more of it. The audience seemed skeptical for about the first minute or so — what the hell was this on stage displacing the almost-naked women? — but within minutes, they were howling and at the end, we were all standing and asking for more, more, more. Here is one of the funniest men I ever had the pleasure of seeing be funny in person…

Back here, I linked you to an article about the history of Royal Crown Cola and Diet-Rite Soda. This brought a string of e-mails from my friend of way-too-many years, Joe Brancatelli. Joe is a world class expert on airlines and air travel but it turns out he knows a thing or three about sodas, too…

Because we both love this arcane stuff, some commentary about the RC Cola story to which you linked…

1) The author got it wrong with the history of No-Cal, which inspired Diet-Rite. The Kirsch family had been in the beverage business since the turn of the 20th century. It was the soda we drank, in fact. Why? Because it was delivered by the "seltzer man," who came to your house and delivered seltzer in siphons, beer and carbonated beverages. Our seltzer guy carried Kirsch beverages. Others were aligned with Hoffmann or Cott. And as you might have expected, all these brands were created by Jewish immigrants from Russia or Poland or elsewhere.

I never drank Coke or Pepsi as a kid. Kirsch was the brand in our house and there was cola and orange and lemon-lime and root beer. You bought by the case, in 32 ounce bottles, along with cases of seltzer and beer. The Kirsch family invented No-Cal not because they were doctors tied to a sanitarium. They were entrepreneurs who made money selling beverages and they endowed the sanitarium, then created No-Cal as a sideline of the sanitarium. All the Jews and Italians who emigrated to the US in the great diasporas made money, then felt compelled to give back…

2) Weirdly, early in my career, I worked at Home Furnishings Daily as part of Fairchild (also publisher of Woman's Wear Daily, Footwear News, etc.) and the RC Companies were extremely profitable in furnishings. It was what you did in the 1970s. You diversified into a conglomerate. IT&T owned telephones, Sheraton hotels and an air conditioning company. Burlington Industries owned textile makers and furniture companies. Gulf + Western (forever Engulf and Devour, of course) owned furniture companies. Singer owned sewing machines and furniture companies. Those were the days of horizontal corporations. Out of favor now, of course, but big in its time (1960s to late 1970s…)

And then Joe sent me an obit he found online for Morris Kirsch, It's from June 25, 1986 and it says in part…

Morris Kirsch, the retired chairman of Kirsch Beverages, which 30 years ago introduced the nation to sugar-free soda under the No-Cal label, died last Thursday at Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach. He was 79 years old and lived in Bay Harbor Islands, Fla.

Kirsch Beverages Inc. goes back to 1904, when Mr. Kirsch's father, Hyman, opened shop in the seltzer-drinking town that was Brooklyn to acquaint the natives with the fruit-flavored sodas he had learned to make in the Crimea, where he was born. Horse-drawn buggies bearing a few cases of his bottled sodas joined the stream of seltzer wagons, people approved, and the Kirsch family prospered. Morris Kirsch joined his father in the business in 1926 and became president about 15 years later.

The Kirsches' development of No-Cal stemmed from their civic work at a sanitarium for chronic diseases, many of whose patients were diabetics who could find no sugar-free, nonalcoholic beverage.
The Kirsches repaired to the company laboratory where, with their researcher, Dr. S.S. Epstein, they looked for a synthetic sweetener that would not leave a metallic aftertaste. They found it in cyclamate calcium.

No-Cal started modestly in local distribution in March 1953, when it appeared at dietetic counters. But the company soon realized that general customers, too, were buying the new sodas. Its advertisements then targeted weight-conscious Americans everywhere, and diet drinks took flight. The Government ordered cyclamate off the shelves in 1969, but by then No-Cal and its larger competitors were ready to substitute with other sugar-free solutions.

And then Joe sent me this photo and the accompanying text…

Dug up (thank you, internet) a picture of what a seltzer-delivery truck used to look like. There were hundreds of these guys working the east coast cities. They made their living selling cases (10 bottles each) of seltzer, but expanded to soda (brands like Kirsch and Hoffman and Cott) and beer. Notice this truck has the soda bottles lashed to the top. That's pretty much as it was.

Your seltzer man was literally part of the family. Our guy when I was growing up, Selig Berkowitz, sold not only to my family, but also my grandparents on both sides. (We all lived within 20 streets of each other, of course…)

In my days growing up in Brooklyn, we also had two bakery companies making deliveries (Kruge's and Dugan's), the milkman, of course, a knife sharpening truck and, naturally, the guy who delivered snacks called Charles Chips and Charles Pretzels in big, tin drums!

This of course intrigues me because Joe is close to my age and we had nothing of the sort in West Los Angeles. We had the Helms Bakery Trucks and we had ice cream vendors, of course, as well as Sparklett's or Arrowhead water delivery. But no seltzer men going door-to-door…and a lot of areas didn't even have milkmen. Apparently in L.A. in the late fifties and early sixties, supermarkets were catching on to the extent that it wasn't economically feasible for diary companies to service some communities. That's what soon did in the Helms Trucks.

By the way: Until I was about ten, I didn't realize that seltzer was a beverage. I thought it was only to be used to spray in someone's face. Honest. Thanks, Joe.

If you catch this week's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, you'll see a very scary segment about the prevalence of lead (aka poison) not only in so many water supplies but in paint and other places where it's hard to avoid. It includes a nice cameo by three Muppets from Sesame Street — Elmo, Rosita and Oscar the Grouch. The credits on the program list five Muppet performers: Ryan Dillon, Eric Jacobson, Lara Maclean, Carmen Osbahr and Matt Vogel.

Okay, let's see if we can figure this out: Elmo is a one-person Muppet and he's been performed by Ryan Dillon since 2013 when Kevin Clash got in trouble and had to resign. So that's him. The other two Muppets require two operators — one to do the voice, mouth and one hand; the other to do the other hand.

Carmen Osbahr originated Rosita so she's obviously the primary performer there with Lara Maclean doing hand duty. That means Oscar was performed by —

Wait a minute. Not Caroll Spinney?

Right. And it was a good replica but it ain't him. I'm guessing it was Eric Jacobson with Matt Vogel assisting, though it could be the other way around. Eric is a terrific mimic who has taken over most of the Frank Oz roles like Miss Piggy, Grover, Fozzie Bear, Sam the Eagle and Animal. He's also done Cookie Monster occasionally, though David Rudman has been the main Cookie Monster performer for more than a decade. (You can see a photo of me with Eric and David over in this post.) Matt Vogel has taken over most of the Jerry Nelson roles and occasionally worn the Big Bird suit when Mr. Spinney was unavailable, unwell or busy playing Oscar in the same scene.

Is this a passing of the torch moment? Spinney is 82 and has been Oscaring since 1969. Eventually, he has to hand his two signature roles off to others. Has it just happened? One would like to think he's just on vacation or maybe busy filing his taxes…but this is a pretty high-profile appearance. You'd think they'd arrange for him to do it if he could. Anyone know?

And, letting my imagination run away with me: If they had Eric Jacobson available but not Caroll Spinney, why didn't the writers of Last Week Tonight use Cookie Monster or Grover instead of Oscar? Since the subject was lead poisoning, wouldn't there be possibilities there for Cookie Monster to explain he'll eat anything except paint chips or drink the water in Flint, Michigan? Hmmm…

At this here blog, we're big fans of the Tony-winning Broadway musical, 1776. Recently, the City Center Encores! outfit in New York staged for four performances only, a "concert" style production of it with no sets, the actors in current garb and a multi-racial cast. I don't know how I feel about the multi-racial part but since I didn't see this production, I won't assume it was a distraction. Maybe it worked.

The production starred Santino Fontana as John Adams, Bryce Pinkham as John Dickinson, John Larroquette as Benjamin Franklin, Christiane Noll as Abigail Adams, Nikki Renée Daniels as Martha Jefferson and Alexander Gemignani as Edward Rutledge. Here's a brief sampler of the musical numbers. Note the snazzy bow-tie on Ben Franklin…

I've been taking a lot of Uber rides lately and also the occasional lift from Lyft. The three most interesting have all been Ubers, at least at the start…

En route to WonderCon a few weeks ago, my Uber was being shadowed by a conventional taxi. The driver, who didn't have a fare at the moment, had his window down and was yelling at us: "Uber is dangerous! Their drivers are untrained! They have no insurance and most of them are pedophiles! You'll get raped in an Uber! You'll get killed in an Uber! Taxi drivers are trained and tested and insured and professional!" The taxi guy sure seemed to be serious…and angry.

Being a pro-union guy at heart, I am not unsympathetic to that part of the anti-Uber argument. I just have had such (generally) better experiences with Uber and Lyft than in cabs. The taxi industry needs to modernize and compete — and many of them are now scrambling to do things like that. I wouldn't even mind paying more to ride in a taxi if they could match the service and comfort levels I've had with Uber and Lyft. That will get my business back…not being shouted-at by militant taxi drivers.

My Uber driver, by the way, laughed it off and said it isn't the first time this has happened.

Second Uber story: I go back and forth to the Magic Castle in Hollywood a lot. For some reason, Google Maps thinks one street near it connects to another but it doesn't. I've written to them about this but for now, any G.P.S. which uses Google Maps data may try to route you to the Castle via a street which just plain won't get you there. And even if it did connect, it would be a much longer route than the correct, direct one.

This is no problem when I'm on my way there because I tell the driver which way to go. When a driver comes to pick me up though, he or she sometimes gets hopelessly lost in the Hollywood Hills and I have to phone them and tell them how to find me. One time recently, the driver refused to believe me over his G.P.S. and I had no choice but to cancel that ride and I instead phoned Lyft which assigned my ride to…the same guy. He drove for both and even though he was wandering blindly up near the Hollywood Bowl and Alex Toth's old house, he was the closest driver.

I was staring at my iPhone trying to figure out what to do when he phoned me. He said, "Now that I look at the other G.P.S., I see right where you are. I will be there in three minutes!" He was…and the ride was fine.

Third Uber story: This one happened last night. I got a driver who was from Indonesia, though he's been in this country since the late nineties. He was a delightful, chatty fellow and every fourth or fifth sentence he uttered was about how America is the greatest country on Earth. That's usually a sentiment that makes me flinch, not because I particularly disagree but because most times when people say it, it just sounds to me like mindless "we're the greatest because it's us" talk.

Back when I cared a smidgen about baseball, I'd hear fellow Angelenos I knew tell me, "The Dodgers are the greatest team ever and the San Francisco Giants suck!" If I was in the mood for a Monty Python-style argument, I'd say, "No team that has the Giants' track record and Willie Mays sucks." When the Giants beat the Dodgers, as they did about half the time, my friend Stanley would moan about how there was no fairness in the universe if a sucky team like the Giants could beat the magnificent Dodgers. Well, maybe. Or maybe his evaluations were a bit untethered to reality.

Still, the way this Uber driver said America was the greatest country ever had some meaning to it. Unlike a lot of folks who say that, he'd lived in other countries and not just in Indonesia. For about three miles, he told me why America was so wonderful and in meaningful ways, like its dedication — flawed though it may be at times — to caring for the ill and elderly; like the freedom he feels to speak his mind; like the much better health care he's received than he did in other countries; like the feeling that even when the government is wrong, it can be changed. It was very much a fun, fascinating conversation.

Just before he got me home, he asked me who I thought would be the next President of the United States. I told him I thought it would probably be Hillary and he said he'd be fine with that and also with Bernie. He said he definitely did not want to see Cruz or Trump and I asked him why. He said, "I do not know about them personally but the people supporting them…they are the most selfish people around. Like me, they agree this is the greatest country on Earth but they want to keep it all for themselves!"

Here's Jeff Wells with the history of Royal Crown Cola and its sister soda, Diet Rite. When I was a kid, they served RC Cola at many of my friends' homes because it was (a) cheaper and (b) it seemed like the non-conformist soda. It was like, "Everyone drinks Coke or Pepsi. Let's be different." Wells describes the story of the company as "tragic" and when you read the article, you'll agree.

Hey, how do they make facial tissues?

Arianna Huffington is making the rounds of the news cycle lately hawking a book that urges everyone to get a good eight hours of sleep every night. I'm not sure how she became an expert on this topic but Ms. Huffington — and I mean this with a certain amount of admiration — always struck me as an expert primarily in exploiting issues for personal profit. She first came to prominence as one of those attractive right-wing ladies denouncing Liberals, then did a sudden one-eighty and became one of those she'd previously denounced.

This may be unfair but it felt back then that she looked at the then-current players of that game, realized she could never out-Coulter Ann Coulter and spotted a vacancy on the other side that could be filled to great success. Since I think most pundits would switch teams if the money and attention seemed right, I can't fault her too much for that…and she does seem to be a smart, clever lady, even if her greatest accomplishment has been to make zillions off others blogging for free.

She's even figured out how to get publicity for her sleep book by riding the Trump Express, telling the world that in her opinion, Trump's odder behaviors may be because he exhibits all the signs of being sleep-deprived. I think he exhibits all the signs of being morality-deprived and fact-deprived but maybe we're both right.

What I've heard of her sleep advice though just ain't gonna work for me. Eight hours a night? Every night? Sorry, no can do. Once every few weeks, my body seems to demand that but I usually average about five. I've gotten by often on four. Even when I consciously decide to sleep more than usual, I wake up when I wake up and that's it, my mind so active I couldn't get back to sleep if you played me three hours of Al Gore speeches. There's always something I have to get up and write…and though I turn over and try to plunge back into dreamland, I instead lie there writing it, whatever it is, in my head.

At some point, I get that feeling that I have it "right" (or as right as I'm going to get it) and then it seems silly not to get up, traipse down the hall to my office and write it out before I forget it and have to start over. And of course once I'm here, there's e-mail to read and answer, websites I need to check for news and updates, etc.

I also have the problem of Sleep Apnea, particularly the fact that I don't breathe well through my mouth when lying down. The C-Pap unit I sleep with forces air into my nose all night, making my breathing quite regular and restful but every so often, my nostrils clog for no visible reason and I awaken. I have to sit up just to breathe properly and wait for them to unclog before lying down again. So I amble in here to the computer and by the time they do open up, I'm even more wide awake and involved in writing something.

This does not seem to be harming my health. At least, my body doesn't seem to be asking for more sack time and I'm a big believer in listening to one's body and not doing anything just because some supposed expert says it would be good for me. A lot of that flows from my many food allergies. I've spent much of my life having people tell me I need to eat certain things that, experience has shown me, do very, very bad things to my health.

What I've found — and I'm not suggesting this is good advice for anyone but me — is that I don't get restful sleep if I feel like I'm late on deadlines or neglecting work which needs to be done. Eight hours of lying there with that dangling over my mind will be a lot less restful than five after I get the thing written…or at least get it to the point where I know I can finish it easily in the morning. A lot of things I write are the kind of projects where it takes me, say, nine hours to write it…and that means six hours on the first third and three on the remainder. Once you solve the problems up front and establish the flow and form, the end is easy. Or at least, easier. I need to get to that point before I break for bed — and completely finishing it is even better.

Arianna's advice may be sound for some people…though if I see her on one more talk show this week telling us to get eight hours, I'll be firmly convinced she ain't getting eight hours.

Granted, Donald Trump is a pretty busy man. But you'd think, since he's going to be asked again and again, he could take the fifteen minutes to actually learn one story from The Bible. Geez, there are hardcore Atheists who could describe one accurately and tell you how inspirational it has been to them. Maybe we need to get Trump the comic book version?

The other night, Sarah Palin was at the premiere of a new film that dismisses the notion of Global Warming as a hyped-up, not-true conspiracy of scientists. We all know how evil scientists are. Bill Nye (aka "The Science Guy") is a target of the film and Ms. Palin announced, "He's a kid's show actor, he's not a scientist" and "He's as much a scientist as I am." Mr. Nye, of course, is a scientist who sometimes has hosted kid's shows when he's not lecturing on science at universities and such. And even if he were not qualified, so what? Nothing he says about Global Warming isn't being said by hundreds of scientists whose credentials are unquestionable.

Well, I take that back. Palin would question them anyway because she lives in a world where anyone who tells you something you don't want to believe is lying. There's our side and there's their side and no matter what the facts say, their side is wrong because it just is.

Therein lie The Roots of Trump.