Monthly Archives: May 2016

I missed noting an important day in my life yesterday. Ten years ago yesterday, I checked into a hospital and had the size of my stomach reduced via Gastric Bypass Surgery. I have done many foolish things in my life but this was not one of them. Since then, I have been thinner and healthier and I'd say I was happier but I've always been pretty happy so I'll just say I've been happier with myself.

I started to write a little essay reflecting on the operation, then paused to look up what I'd written here on the fifth anniversary and I'm not sure I can improve on this…

Five years ago today, I had Gastric Bypass Surgery. It was all part of my continuing effort to persuade my stomach to withdraw to its 1967 borders.

I have not written a lot about it here in the last few years because I thought it would bore those of you who aren't considering such a procedure and it might mislead any of you who are. I really and truly had an ideal experience with no real discomforts or complications, and I don't want anyone to take the plunge, thinking they'll have as easy a time of it as I did.

I'm still in touch with a lady who had it done at the same moment and she's had a helluva time, including three follow-up surgeries and a lot of hospitalization and physical problems. Still, she says she does not regret doing it since what she would have experienced without it would have been worse…and not just because that might have included death. Others who've had it done, I'm sure, may feel they would have lived longer and happier without it.

My weight still fluctuates within about a twenty pound range which doesn't seem to have a lot to do with what I eat. It probably has more to do with how often I get up from this here computer and go out for a long walk. At the moment, I'm inching downwards. I've lost about ten in the last month. I'll go up, I'll go down but the general trajectory has been very, very slowly down. That's a bit of a disappointment after the immediate results of the surgery. I lost the first 65 pounds in the first 65 days.

Almost immediately, I began to sleep less and better. I eat less…and find that many of the foods I used to eat are no longer as appealing. High on that list is anything with a lot of sugar in it. In January of '08, my sweet tooth inexplicably disappeared and I no longer had any interest in cookies, cake, ice cream or even fruit. I am told this is not usually or even often a side effect of G.B.S. and could even be unrelated. At the same time as the pleasure from sugar disappeared, my list of acceptable beverages dropped down to water and almost nothing else. I do have the occasional protein shake and even those can't have sugar in them. Never having cared for artificial sweeteners, I use a protein drink flavored with Stevia.

I could go on and on about the health benefits of what I had done but I won't because someone reading this might become convinced to try it based on my experience…and then they might not have my experience. I've learned enough about this process to know that many, perhaps most do not. I do suggest that if it sounds like something you need, you look into it. You'll need to weigh the costs and risks and benefits, all of which may be unique to you, and then decide.

It helps an awful lot to have a great personal physician — someone you really trust — and you should go to a really good surgeon, preferably someone your physician knows and recommends. Clearly, there are a lot of doctors and clinics out there doing this procedure who should not be doing it and I'd be especially wary of those who advertise lap bands like some new cell phone rate plan. Heck, I'd be wary of those who advertise at all. But the main thing is to do the research…and then have the surgery, if you have the surgery, because you decide and not because someone nudges you into it.

All of that is, of course, common sense. So is the simple premise that if you can lose the weight without surgery, you should.

I couldn't. My physician (who sadly, is no longer my physician because he's now on special assignment, doing amazing missions for your United States Government) guided me through several attempts, then concluded they would not work for me. He had a whole technical explanation that I will muck up if I attempt to replicate it here. It had to do with my blood sugar levels and a tendency for my body to retain amounts of water that equalled the capacity of Lake Michigan.

So five years ago at this moment, I was sitting in the waiting room over at Cedars-Sinai Hospital — or as most people call it, Cedar-Sinai. I was waiting for a 10 AM surgery that didn't happen until…well, they started jointly prepping me and the lady I mentioned above around 1 PM and we went under our respective knives in adjoining operating rooms around 2. Only they didn't use knives for the serious stuff, at least with me. It was laparoscopic surgery, which means they make tiny incisions which heal invisibly. When you sign the consent form, you give them permission to switch to the old-fashioned, cut-you-open path if the presiding surgeon suddenly decides it's necessary…so when a patient awakens after, the first thing most of them ask was, "Were they able to do it laparoscopically?"

That's apparently not what I asked. A nurse in the recovery room told me I asked, "Can we send out for pizza?" That sounds like me and I'm sure I meant it as a joke.

But this kind of surgery is not a joke. It's pretty darned serious, which is why I never want to encourage anyone to do more than look into it…and to not trust just anyone who's available or affordable. And like I said, if you can drop a hundred or more pounds without it, by all means go that route. I have only envy for those who can do it themselves.

Not much I can add to that except to say that I'm still very glad I did it and cannot think of a single thing about my health that worsened. Had I done it years earlier, I might not have needed my right knee replaced last year — another bit of surgery I have not regretted in the slightest. I will say though that I think both good experiences had a lot to do with connecting with real good doctors who were experts at what they did.

Which makes me think of one bit of advice I should include: The Internet is a great place to gather info but only if you know how to ignore info. There's a ton out there of the anecdotal variety and it may do more harm than good. If I'd hit certain websites — or listened to certain "friends" — I might have gone into those two surgeries with a lot of misinformation or needless worries. No matter what you're thinking of having done to yourself, there's someone out there with a story of how it killed their uncle.

Do not base your medical decisions on someone else's story of how it worked for them or didn't work for them. There are outliers in every category and of course, what helped me might not help you and vice-versa. I think one of the smarter things I did in both cases — the Gastric Bypass and the Knee Replacement — was not to tell everyone (or post about them here) before I did them. I consulted several doctors I trusted, matched up things they all told me, used a little of what I sure hope was common sense…and made my decisions.

On the 'net, you can find sites that will tell you Donald Trump was personally hand-picked by Almighty God to come and save the United States from the utter devastation wrought by the Gay Kenyan Obama. It doesn't make a lot of sense to get your medical information via the same browser.

This is a rerun of one of the first videos I ever embedded on this site. I think it's still funny and its message grows ever more relevant to the world in which we live…

Mike Martin sent me an e-mail with subject line "What would Jack think?" It's about a new storyline that Marvel has going with Captain America…

So, obviously the fan base is up in arms about Marvel's new "not a gimmick" that Captain America has been a deep cover Hydra agent all along (so deep that he has prevented their world conquering plans multiple times, apparently). At times, you have quoted Jack Kirby as saying (and I'm paraphrasing) that he didn't mind what later creators did with his characters because that was their take on the subject and it didn't invalidate his work.

But I'm wondering if this storyline's claim that "he has been a Hydra agent all along" might be a bridge too far, since it essentially injects this new take on the character into his entire 75 year history. What are your thoughts?

I haven't seen the comics but I would say it is a "gimmick" the way I define that word, maybe not the way the comic's makers do. It's become very popular in comics — and to see why, you just have to look at the sales figures — to come up with these character-changing events. Some character dies. Some character marries. Some character gets a new costume, thereby abandoning an iconic one. Some character loses a limb or key power or otherwise undergoes a startling change. Some character gets a sex change. Whatever. Eventually, they all get undone, if not by the folks who made the particular issues then by their successors. It ain't good for the merchandising and the long-term health of the property to maul it for very long.

And of course, at some point, someone in the office says, "We've really lost the theme and concept of this comic." And then the jarring gimmick is to take it back to its roots.

I'm a little reticent to say how Jack would have felt about some things. I know his strong feelings on some topics. On others though, you have to remember that Jack was a vast thinker who didn't always view the world or some aspect of it as we (mere) mortals would. He sometimes surprised me with his "take" on some issue and when he did, it was usually because I was looking at a tree and he was looking at the entire forest.

That said, I feel safe to say that the first question Jack would probably ask would be "Is it a good story?" If it isn't, then it's a bad idea right there. If it is, then you go on to Question Two, which would be "Does it box the current and future writers in and damage their ability to create good stories?" If the answer is no, then fine. If it's yes…well, that's why these premise-altering storylines are usually reversed and the dead character is brought back to life or the marriage is forgotten or the whole thing turns out to be a dream or a clone or they just plain reboot the strip and start over.

I would guess that just of stories that continued Kirby characters after he'd departed and were issued during his lifetime, Jack probably never looked at 90% of them. Of the remainder, he rarely recognized anything but the characters' visuals — and sometimes not even that — though he was usually too polite to say so. I can think of a few times he objected to something if he found it personally offensive…and if this new series has Captain America spouting anti-Semitic slogans — yeah, probably. But then he would have objected if they had someone else's hero spouting anti-Semitism, too.

You're right. He didn't much mind what others did with his characters. If they could take what he left them and use it as the starting point to craft new, excellent issues, that was great. He just objected to anyone claiming that he and his successor were collaborating on a single body of work. To Jack, his issues were his issues and they were independent from that other guys' issues. It's kind of like "Build on the land I've left you but please don't strip-mine it." That's good advice in many aspects of life.

Back in this message, I told you about a Los Angeles landmark — Johnie's Coffee Shop. In this town, the waiters and waitresses just wait to get into the movies and so does this coffee shop. It stopped serving food some time ago and now it's just rented out as a filming location. I suspect it's been in more movies and TV shows than Michael Caine.

But here's a news flash: It now has a new function. It's getting into politics. Its owners — the same folks who own the 99-Cent Stores, have put it to work to try and get Bernie Sanders elected. This makes sense since I think Bernie bought his one suit at one of their stores.

A writer named David — let me make sure I spell his last name right — E-v-a-n-i-e-r has written a fine book on Woody Allen that I've mentioned here before. I would praise it even if its author wasn't my cousin and I wasn't quoted several times in its pages. It's also received extensive praise from people who aren't related to us.

David just authored this article about the allegation that Mr. Allen, many years ago, molested his adopted daughter. There's no new evidence in this case nor is there likely to ever be any. The reason it's being blogged about again across the 'net is that Allen's estranged son Ronan noted the publicity for Woody's new movie and some accolades tossed the director's way and complained in public that his sister's charges have not been "vindicated by conviction." But how could they ever be?

Rightly or wrongly, the official investigations resulted in no charges being filed and the Statute of Limitations has long since ended any chance of prosecution. Assuming Allen doesn't change his story and confess or Mia Farrow doesn't say, "Nothing happened. I just made my kids believe that because I was furious at Woody," nothing's going to change. All that can happen from here on is to just make more people believe it by saying it over and over. Which might not be wrong if the charge was true.

David's writings and other things I've read have convinced me it's not; that it has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. This conclusion is not because I admire and respect Woody Allen, though I do. I admire and respect the comedic skills of Dr. William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr as well but I think he's a serial rapist. What baffles me are the folks who are absolutely, 100% certain Allen is one of the non-serial variety and I suspect most of them are making the illogical leap from finding Woody Allen creepy — an understandable impression — to finding him guilty.

Sorry but I have a lot on my plate these days…and I'm also way behind in answering the e-mails that I think I ought to answer, too. This condition may persist for a little while.

The Inspector General of the State Department has finally issued the long-awaited report on e-mail retention practices and what Hillary Clinton (and others) did right and wrong. Turns out, as we already knew, there was much wrong but there's no evidence of deliberate misdeeds or of any actual breaches of security. The whole thing is one of those matters that is an outrageous scandal if you are opposed to Hillary Clinton and a minor screw-up if you aren't. More and more, it's obvious that that's how we now roll in politics: A scandal is only a scandal when you can use it to attack the enemy. Even Republicans who were recently outraged over things Trump has said and done have remembered that party outranks principles and his transgressions can be overlooked as easily as Democrats can overlook things they wish people named Clinton hadn't said or done. It's been a while since I've seen any outrage that didn't conform to those rules.

Judging by new leaks of that old deposition, Bill Cosby seems to be in more trouble than we thought. Last December, we quoted legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin here as saying, "It's a good guess that Cosby will end 2016 in prison — and that he will end his life destitute." That seemed like an extraordinary prediction at the time but now it makes me wonder if someone showed Toobin that deposition back then.

Back to stuff that takes precedence over blogging…

I'll probably mark my ballot for Bernie Sanders. I find it hard to believe he can beat Hillary and just as hard (despite some polls) to believe he'd do better against Trump. But I do like the idea that America is ready for more liberal candidates and the better he does, the more that will be accepted. So that's how I guess I'll vote — but like Amanda Marcotte, I wish Bernie would get over this idea that sinister forces and corruption are the only reasons in the world anyone is not voting for Bernie Sanders.

In the meantime, Dana Milbank discusses two reasons that Donald Trump refuses to release his taxes. One is that they will show that he ain't as rich as he claims. The other is that it will show that via the many loopholes available to those in the realty biz, Trump has been paying little or nothing in taxes. Either of these would be pretty damaging to his campaign.

Absolutely no one buys the reason he gives, which is that he's currently under an I.R.S. audit. A guy in as many businesses as Trump is probably always under an audit for something and that never stops anyone else from releasing tax info. The only kinda-legit reason I can imagine for not releasing this tax data, as he has insisted others do, is the same reason I would imagine Hillary Clinton doesn't want to release the texts of certain speeches she's given to folks like those at Goldman-Sachs: It would be a bonanza for political opponents who like to yank chunks out of context and spin them as indecent and possibly illegal acts. There are folks out there who can do that with just about anything, no matter how legal or innocent it is.

Cartoonist Mell Lazarus died this morning. This was not unexpected as he had been in poor health the last few months. In fact, everything after this sentence was written about two weeks ago because I knew I'd need it any day now.

The photo above of Mell with his dear friend Sergio Aragonés was taken last January 23 when the National Cartoonists Society — of which he was a longtime member and past president — presented Mell with its highest award, the Medal of Honor. The ceremony was touching in many ways but Mell was frail and I wasn't the only one there who wondered if we were honoring a beloved figure and also saying goodbye.

Mell Lazarus was born May 3, 1927 and grew up in Brooklyn. He began cartooning in his teen years and worked a lot for Al Capp and for Al's brother Elliott Caplin. Elliott managed Toby Press, a family-owned comic book publisher and Mell worked there. The experience taught him much about the business and it inspired a wonderful novel he wrote, The Boss Is Crazy Too. It's long outta-print but well worth tracking down.

Mell wrote novels and magazine articles and some TV but his main endeavor was newspaper strips. Miss Peach started in 1957 and ran until 2002. Momma started in 1970 and continues to this day, though Mell's involvement in its production necessarily declined in recent years. For a time, he also wrote another strip under a pen name — Pauline McPeril, which was drawn by Jack Rickard.

The man was very prolific, very funny and universally loved by his fellow cartoonists. I got to sit next to him at the N.C.S. banquet in January and our conversation was interrupted — and I am not complaining in the least — by a steady flow of everyone else at the party, coming by to hug Mell and praise Mell and get their photo with Mell and to tell Mell that the honor couldn't go to a more deserving recipient. I'm so glad they gave it to him when they did.

The other day here, I was asked about cartoons that were totally voiced by one person and I mentioned Deputy Dawg as an example. Today, my pal Greg Ehrbar has an article on the web about the LP record that came out about the series.

I remember the show with some fondness when it came on in 1962. Then again, I was ten in 1962 and liked a lot of things that I would not like as much when re-viewed at a later age. I still love the early Jay Ward and Hanna-Barbera cartoons I loved then. Deputy Dawg is one of those shows that grew a bit less wonderful as I grew older and upward, though I still like it more than some other faves of my childhood. It had a wicked sense of humor, being funny in ways that few other TV cartoons were.

Some of that probably came from comedian Dayton Allen, who did all the voices in all or most episodes. (I'm told Lionel Wilson — who did do all the voices for Tom Terrific — can be heard in a few episodes.) Allen, who was part of Steve Allen's TV stock company and a cast member on Howdy Doody, passed away in 2004 and here's one paragraph of the piece I wrote about him then…

Dayton more or less retired from performing in the early eighties. Around then, I had occasion to offer him a role in a TV show I was writing and it led to what is easily the most hilarious hour or so I ever spent on the phone. Our casting director was unable to track down an agent for Mr. Allen so I called a friend who furnished me with what turned out to be Dayton's home number. I made the call to him and he politely declined the job, saying that thanks to wise real estate investments, he had plenty of money…and he didn't feel like flying to Los Angeles to be funny. He could be funny in his own toilet, he said. He was sure funny on the phone, and he seemed to enjoy the audience. He kept coming up with anecdotes and jokes, and he kept me on the line for so long that I felt like I should have paid a cover charge. Weak with laughter, I finally begged off…but only when he announced he had to go to the toilet and be funny in there. I'm sure he was…just as I'm sure it was our loss that he decided to retire when he did.

Funny man. And there was another funny man responsible for Deputy Dawg. A gent named Larz Bourne reportedly did all the scripts — all hundred or so of 'em. I say "reportedly" because I have no proof of that and the show credited Tom Morrison for "story direction," a title which has meant different things on different cartoons. But I always heard Larz wrote them all and Larz, whom I knew briefly when we both worked for Hanna-Barbera, said he did. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who'd say that if it wasn't true. When he died in 1993 at the age of 77, the New York Times reported…

Mr. Bourne created Deputy Dawg and other cartoon characters for television and comic books. After studying at the Chicago Professional School of Cartooning, he began cartoon drawing and animation at the Max Fleischer Studio in Miami in 1937. Later he worked for CBS Terrytoons in New York City and Hanna-Barbera Productions in Hollywood, where he retired as a story editor and writer 12 years ago.

For H-B, he wrote on Wacky Races, Dastardly and Muttley in the Their Flying Machines, Scooby Doo, Jabberjaw, Speed Buggy, Hong Kong Phooey and many more. One of his last jobs was story-editing H-B's 1980 Popeye cartoons, which brought his career full-circle (sorta) because he'd started in animation working for Fleischer on Popeye and contributed to other, later incarnations. He was more than a little frustrated that in the Hanna-Barbera version, there were so many restrictions on what Popeye could hit and how much he could move and there were, Larz said, endless debates over whether the sailor could even have his trademark pipe.

Larz was one of those folks who worked in animation and comics his entire life…and he probably made a decent (though not lush) living doing so, then he left behind an impressive and vast body of work but without a whole lot of recognition. Shortly, we will be announcing the recipient of this year's Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing, which seeks to correct a smidgen of that lack of proper recognition. Larz isn't this year's posthumous winner but at some time in the future, he deserves to be. There are so many worthy candidates, it could take decades to get around to them all.

Anyway, if you read Greg's article on Deputy Dawg and watch any of the embedded cartoons, think of Larz Bourne. Those are probably his words and jokes you're hearing there. And it wouldn't surprise me if Dayton based a little of the title character's southern drawl on the way the character's creator talked. I remember thinking that over some of those lunches with Larz.

A&E Network has a TV show called The First 48 which I've watched occasionally. In case you've never seen it, it's a "reality show" that brings us actual footage of police departments investigating murders and usually arresting someone for the crime. The title refers to the premise that the golden time to solve a murder is the first forty-eight hours after the killing…and the real-life cops followed by the show's cameras usually do. But as this article claims, the rush to catch the killer in that amount of time often results in arresting and jailing the wrong person — and when that happens, the producers of the program really don't care.

Playboy interviews Trevor Noah. I currently have 21 unwatched episodes of The Daily Show stacked up on my TiVo. I like the show enough that I want to record every episode but when it comes time to watch something, I apparently don't like it enough to put it ahead of other shows I record.

You aren't gonna see a whole lot o' new Mark on this page today as I have a full plate of things I have to do that are just barely more important than blogging for the masses.

A couple of Bernie Sanders supporters are deluging me with links to articles that insist he will be the nominee because Hillary Clinton will be indicted, tried and either executed or banished to the Phantom Zone for her e-mail handling. Having been told in the past that she was going to prison for Whitewater, going to prison for Filegate, going to prison for her role in Bill's cocaine smuggling ring, going to prison for Travelgate, going to prison for having Vince Foster murdered, going to prison for snatching the Lindbergh Baby and going to prison for a hundred other things that were absolutely certain but for the total lack of any crime or evidence, you can perhaps understand my skepticism.

Maybe someday they'll catch this woman in an actual violation of actual laws but I'm going to wait for that day before I think it's likely. The e-mail scandal seems like yet another nothingburger and not even that serious a matter if it weren't just a Sean Hannity fantasy.

I find myself lately with a lot of public issues feeling that people who say something like that is definite are wrong to think it's so definite. They might just be right just as I might be right if I predict the winner of the Indianapolis 500. But I'm off-base to think I know for sure.

Something I do know for sure: I have an 8:30 meeting so I'm outta here. Back soon, I hope.

The family of cartoonist-editor George Wildman is reporting his passing this morning at the age of 88. Wildman was a native of Connecticut. He served in the Navy during both World War II and the Korean War, then turned his attention to commercial art and cartooning. Eventually, he found his way to Charlton Press, a publisher based in Derby, Connecticut. For them, he drew many comics but most notably Popeye, and he was hired by the firm in 1971 as as Assistant Editor. A few years later, he became the top editor for the company.

Even while serving as editor for Charlton, Wildman was freelancing for other companies, including drawing Popeye comics for Western Publishing Company when they reacquired the rights to publish the comic book adventures of the spinach-eating sailor. Among the other comics he drew were Underdog (for Western), Heathcliff (for Marvel) and Animaniacs (for DC). To his last day, he and his son operated a successful advertising and commercial art studio. In 1982, he won the "Best Cartoonist, Humor Division" award from the National Cartoonists Society.

I only met Mr. Wildman once briefly but he sure seemed like a nice, enthusiastic man. It matched up with descriptions from this colleagues that he was a guy who truly loved cartooning and cartoonists and was proud to be in the business. The business was quite fortunate to have him.

I awoke this morning to a headline on my iPhone: A new poll shows Donald Trump within three points nationally of Hillary Clinton.

We have 169 days until Election Day. We still don't know how the economy will be in five months. We don't know who Donald's running mate will be. We don't know who Hillary's running mate will be. We don't know what kind of international incidents (if any) or terrorist actions (if any) will occur between now and November 7.

We don't know what stupid things the candidates will say between now and then. We know there will be many but we don't know what they'll be or how they'll impact anyone's vote.

We don't know if there will be third party candidates or who they might be. With each passing day, it looks less likely that anyone meaningful will run but it ain't impossible.

We don't know who'll win the debates. We don't even know for sure that there will even be debates. I have a hunch there will be major fights over how many, who'll moderate them, what the rules will be, etc.

We don't know what Opposition Research will uncover about each candidate. I think it is safe to say that before Election Day, Hillary and Donald will each be accusing the other of some heinous, immoral act of wrongdoing that is totally unknown to us (and probably to them) at this time.

My friends who are wildly for Bernie Sanders would probably insist that I toss in here that we don't know for sure that the Democratic nominee won't be Bernie Sanders and they're right. It's pretty unlikely but it's possible.

I could go on — and I probably will when I post more messages like this over the next few months.

Oh — and there will be polls showing Hillary crushing Donald and polls showing Donald crushing Hillary. And then there will be more polls showing Hillary crushing Donald and more polls showing Donald crushing Hillary, followed by more polls showing Hillary crushing Donald and more polls showing Donald crushing Hillary. And accusations that the polls that the accuser doesn't like are rigged or dishonest or just plain inept.

An awful lot of this is advertising and a lot of it is clickbait. The media doesn't get you to visit their website or tune in their channel to see that the polls are unchanged. A lot of it is like those web ads that ask you to vote on whether Hillary should be in prison or Donald should release his income taxes. They don't care about your votes. They care about your clicks.

Whoever you're for, don't believe your candidate is winning or losing based on clickbait or on any one or two polls far in advance of Election Day. At this point in almost every recent presidential election — especially when there was no incumbent in the race — there were polls aplenty saying that the guy who eventually won didn't have a chance.

If you want to believe that your candidate will win, just believe it's because he or she is the superior candidate. If you want to believe that your candidate will lose, just believe it's because there are a lot of idiots who vote in this country. At this stage of the race, those views are probably just as valid as any polling or pundit's analysis.

And here from 24 years ago tonight is the closing of Johnny Carson's last Tonight Show. It's preceded by a montage of backstage scenes from one or more earlier episodes. Hard to believe it's been twenty-four years but it has…