Monthly Archives: October 2016

This election has caused a lot of us to see sides of people we know that we didn't know they had.

The announcer on Stephen Colbert's show says it's "live on tape" but it isn't on tape. It's on some sort of digital media but it's not tape. And on that show and so many others, people walk around and say, "What time do we tape?" but there's no tape.

Definitions of words do change. Is "tape" now becoming a verb that means "to record," regardless of how you record it? I just checked a couple of online dictionaries and none of them have made that leap yet. Will they? Maybe.

I'm trying to think of what word you could plug in there. "Live on tape" makes it pretty clear that they're recording the show in real time…which I don't think Colbert always does, either. What term would convey the same idea without using the word "tape?" I don't think "Live but pre-recorded" does it.

This is one of those things I think about when I should be thinking about more important stuff.

As I'm sure I've mentioned here, I don't much like the movie version of Gypsy with Rosalind Russell. I'm not fond of any movie musical where it's obvious the star's singing voice is that of someone else, plus I think Ms. Russell was utterly miscast. Momma Rose is supposed to be a poor street fighter who'll stoop to nothing to get out of poverty by making one of her daughters a star. Ms. Russell was a fine actress but just as John Wayne couldn't convince me he was a Mongol chief in The Conqueror, Rosalind Russell couldn't convince me she was a not a woman of great success and breeding.

She also fails to convince me of another key component of Momma Rose; that she was living vicariously through her daughter(s) because she didn't have it in her to be a star herself. That's why I'm skeptical of the rumored film remake with Barbra Streisand. The TV Movie version with Bette Midler has much the same problem for me. Ethel Merman was probably perfect for the role on Broadway because she was a star who didn't look or move like a star.

I've seen other versions on stage but the best version I've seen was on TV and not long ago. It's the 2015 revival from Great Britain's West End starring Imelda Staunton in a perfect performance. It's run on PBS and it's about to come out on Blu-ray or DVD. Those are links via which you can order it but before you do, let's watch a clip. This does not, alas, does not have Ms. Staunton but it does have Lara Pulver as Louise and she's darned good, too. A brief ad may precede the number but it's worth waiting through…

So…with Hillary and Bill already deciding what to wear to her Inaugural Ball, some of us are wondering if the Senate's going to go Democratic at the same time. I'm not reckless enough to fantasize about the House turning blue but obviously, Republicans are quite fearful of losing the Senate.

And the question seems to be whether the likelihood of a Clinton victory will help or hurt Republicans running for the Senate. Will that depress G.O.P. turnout since those voters will be more inclined to think, "Why bother? I can just stay home and eat Pringles!" Will it depress Democratic turnout since those voters will think, "She doesn't need my vote. I can just stay home and eat Ritz Bits!" And how about the Republican candidates who can now argue, "You need more than ever to vote for me as a check against Hillary!"?

I looked over various pundits and pollsters this morning and came to a firm conclusion: Nobody has any idea.

It strikes me as another one of those many instances where the correct answer is "I don't know" but you don't get a lot of that because most folks want to sound like an expert at whatever they're talking about and if you're an expert, you're not supposed to say that. You have to say something so you say something and the discussion gets cluttered with a lot of blind guesses passed off as valuable insight.

"I don't know" is very often a valid answer. I've learned that if I reply "I don't know" to more questions, I significantly increase my chances of being right.

I also increase the number of people who are annoyed with me for not knowing something they hope I'll know. Often, they press me to give an answer even after I've already told them I don't know. Last night, someone asked me who was going to win the World Series and truly, I have no idea. I know the names of the teams playing and that's about it. I couldn't name a single player on either roster, couldn't tell you one single stat or fact about the match-up.

Still, this person said to me, "Come on. You're a smart guy." I said, "Not about this stuff."

He then said, "You've got good instincts." I said, "Flip a coin. Its instincts for this will be just as good."

He then said, "Don't you think the Cubs have a clear advantage?" I said, "The last time I paid attention to the Cubs, Ernie Banks was at Shortstop. I think John F. Kennedy was president."

I could have saved myself a few minutes if I'd just said picked one of the teams at random and said they were going to walk all over the other one but I was trying to be honest. And all I did was frustrate a friend who for some reason thought my opinion would give him a better sense of how the competition was shaping up.

Often when "I don't know" is the best answer you're going to get out of me, I let myself get pressured or I take the easy way out and give some worthless speculation that has all the gravitas of Magic 8-Ball. Sometimes though, I'm wise enough to say, "I'm afraid you're outside my area of expertise."

I really do have such an area but it's kinda narrow. Most things in this world fall outside it and even within my area, there are things I don't know as well as things that nobody knows. This, of course, does not stop most of them from giving answers.

How many people do this? I don't know. I also don't know if soaring numbers for Hillary are going to help or hurt the Democrats' chances for retaking the Senate. But at least I know I'm not alone in that. After reading all these different articles by people who claim to know, I know they don't have more of an idea than I do.

• Newt Gingrich insulted Megyn Kelly last night. Then, upon realizing she was a woman, he served her with divorce papers and left.

Is the day coming when hackers will be able to immobilize the entire Internet? Fred Kaplan thinks so.

Rod Dreher, who is a leading Conservative commentator, explains why he thinks Donald Trump is a horrible, horrible human being.

Kevin Drum offers another non-flattering view of Mr. Trump. Well, what did you think you were going to find me linking to these days? Drum notes that while Trump vows to get rid of Obamacare, he doesn't seem to have the slightest idea what it is or how it works. Worse, he doesn't seem to know much about his own companies.

And speaking of Obamacare, Jonathan Chait explains that Obamacare is a very successful program which people don't believe is successful because of the smear campaign against it. For what it's worth, I agree. It ain't perfect and it does need a small amount of fixing but more people have health coverage than before and that means fewer people dying because they couldn't afford it.

The very wise John Green explains about Voter Fraud and how it's really non-existent in this country, at least on a big election, the kind that aren't usually decided by a handful of votes…

A couple of folks who read this post about The Garfield Show wrote to me with concerns/questions like Judy Fiske's…

Say it isn't so. I read what you posted about how Season 5 of The Garfield Show is only four episodes and there may not be a Season 6. Why would Boomerang cancel such a great show? Please tell me it is not in danger as I just read on another website.

It is not in danger as you just read on another website. Or at least, it's not in danger if Boomerang cancels it, which they probably won't do because the ratings are quite good.

I guess I should have explained a little more than I did. The Garfield Show is not produced for Boomerang. In fact, I think we were well into doing Season 2 before that company — the division of Time-Warner that also owns Cartoon Network — bought it, first for C.N., then for both, then for Boomerang.

The show is done principally for the France 3 network and sold to many nations around this planet. The Cartoon Network folks purchased the right to broadcast it in certain countries including America. There's a long, complicated explanation of how it is decided if and when we will produce new episodes but it has very little to do with any one channel except for France 3.

CN/Boomerang can acquire whatever new episodes are made and they do…though they waited more than a year to begin airing episodes from Season 4 because the first three seasons were rerunning so well. I assume they'll continue to run the package as long as the ratings hold up and it fits into the general thinking of their schedule. And I assume that if and when they drop it, someone else will grab it. (If I were running the Food Network, I'd snatch it up and sell all the commercial time to lasagna companies.)

What I'm getting at is that the business model is quite different from the way most of us in this country think TV programming works. We think that, for example, CBS buys a series and then that series is produced to CBS specifications and then when CBS cancels it, that series disappears unless some other network grabs it up then.

With a program like The Garfield Show, the math is a little more complicated but it runs on a whole roster of channels around the globe and the episodes are rerun over and over…and those reruns will always be available to any channel that wants them so long as no other channel has that jurisdiction locked up. And then at times, there's enough demand for new episodes to justify the huge expense of making more. This show costs a lot of loot to produce.

I am fairly certain it will be around in some form and on some channel for some time. I just don't know yet when any of the current plans to make more might solidify. I'll let you know when that happens, assuming that happens. Gee, I hope that happens.

[Note: The following is adapted from a column I wrote for the Comics Buyers Guide in 1995.]

A vicious and untrue rumor is making the rounds that I am the worst dancer in the world. This is absolutely false and I am quite prepared to take legal action against those spreading it.

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, nestled at the foot of the Asir Mountains, not far from the coastal Tahimah plain lies a village comprised of worshippers of the Wahabi sect of Sunnite Islam. One such dweller, a nomadic Bedouin named Kwali Mahal has attained the age of ninety-eight years despite being not only quadriplegic but stone deaf, as well.

Kwali Mahal is the worst dancer in the world. I am a close second.

There are many reasons for my ranking, not the least of which is that I am rather devoid of coordination and deftness of movement. I have feet the size of Chryslers and a Sense of Balance found otherwise only in felled timber. I trip over stray thoughts. And I am about as graceful as a wildebeest in its dying throes.

Set all of the above to music and you have Me Dancing.

Which you will rarely, if ever, see. Long ago, I opted to give the Richter Scale folks a break and refrain from tripping the light — or, in my case — the heavy fantastic.

I won't dance. Don't ask me.

I did once, oddly enough, on TV. Drafted into service as an extra in a sketch on a variety show I was writing, I was fully in costume and make-up on stage when it dawned on me that the sketch ended with all the extras leaping to their feet and dancing. There was no way of getting out of it, graceful or otherwise, and no way of going through with it, graceful or otherwise.

So I danced, ever so briefly on the NBC Television Network for what was surely not one of the peacock's prouder moments. That NBC is still ostensibly in the entertainment biz after airing the sorriest of spectacles (Evanier dancing) is due to the fact that it was a comedy show — so Baryshnikov was not expected — and that I wrote said comedy show. Thus, viewers were few in number and probably didn't believe what they were seeing, anyway.

That was the second time I was ever asked to dance on TV. The first time was when I was nine, That was when my career as a child actor began and ended, quicker than you can say, "Rodney Allen Rippy." Let us begin at the beginning, which in this case was the studio of a Los Angeles photographer.

My parents, being parents, routinely hauled me to this photographer's studio, forcibly combed my hair into an unnatural neatness and had me sit for the kind of photos that most parents want to press in scrapbooks for all posterity. The purpose of these photos was, I suppose, was if some day in the future, I proved to be a colossal disappointment to my folks. Then they could haul out the pictures from when I was a tot, sigh over how cute I was and moan, "Where did we go wrong?"

Unless you count the fact that they raised a comedy writer, my parents never went wrong…except twice. One, which I wrote about here, was the time they enrolled me in Hebrew School. The other time, much earlier than Hebrew School, began one day when that photographer suggested that I might have a career as a child actor.

It was his idea — not theirs and certainly not mine. And it was not a scam, as are most "opportunities" for parents who think their kids are cute and/or talented to pay huge fees for photos and publicity and lessons. (Quick but not unimportant aside: If you ever try to get your child into show business and some "agent" or "manager" suggests any arrangement where you take money out of your pocket, grab the kid and run the other way.)

No one ever asked my parents for a cent…probably because the offer was legit but possibly because I proved to be so inept at acting that even a steel-hearted con artist couldn't bring himself to take money under such false pretenses.

But, more likely, it was all Kosher. The photographer asked if it was okay for him to send a few of the photos he'd shot over to an agent he knew. My parents agreed and for a week or so there, probably pondered the notion that they had given birth to the new Mickey Rooney, except that even at that age I was taller and more mature.

And then they made the big mistake. They signed me up for tap dancing lessons.

Maybe they thought I had some ability for it. Maybe they were just so fearful that I'd wind up doing this for a living that they were willing to try anything. I have no idea and years later, when I asked them why they'd done that, neither could explain why that ever seemed like a good idea; just that it had something to do with that vague possibility that I might have a performing career in my future.

So every Saturday morning for a few months there, they would drop me off at the dance studio and I would squeeze my feet into my little tap shoes and clip-clop across the dance floor in vague approximation to the music.

When you're nine, you don't have to be great. You don't have to be good. You just have to be cute. I wasn't even that.

I have but two semi-vivid memories of that class. One is of a late runthrough of a routine we were going to do for everyone's parents one evening. We had a five minute routine to the tune of "School Days" that had been continually simplified throughout the learning process, the instructor removing step after step, hoping eventually to distill it down to something our class's Lowest Common Denominator (m.e.) could handle. No matter how simple it got, it wasn't simple enough.

And I can still recall that last rehearsal when we did the combination. I tripped over something (a chalk line, I think) and the instructor started sobbing, apparently anticipating a mob of angry parents demanding that twenty-three tuitions be refunded.

The dance studio bore the name of a famous choreographer of the time and he sometimes taught the advanced classes, which there was no chance of my ever reaching. When he came by to see us go through our paces, it was the second time I'd ever seen the man. The first was when he did a local interview show, shortly after I'd been enrolled, in which he extolled the joys of dancing and explained that dance was not a specialized art reserved for the especially lithe or musical. No, he told the interviewer, anyone on the planet could dance or be taught to dance…anyone!

This was said before he saw me dance.

When he came by that day and saw me dance, he was willing to concede there were possible exceptions.

Some folks dance so poorly, it is said they have two left feet. I had about eleven.

In fact, not only was I unable to dance but it was apparently contagious: No one around me could dance, either. I confused rhythms, led them left when we were supposed to go right and made everyone fear I was going to crash into them…which I also did with alarming frequency. "I will take the lad in hand," the famed choreographer said and he took me into another room for a solid hour of one-on-one remedial tap tutoring. (This was one of the world's great dancers also, let's remember. Him teaching me was a little like Arnold Palmer training a tot to putt the ball into the clown's mouth at the miniature golf course.)

At the end of the hour, not only was I as lousy as ever but the famous choreographer was stumbling and tripping and contemplating a career in Motel Management.

Somehow, we got through the recital for parents. It would make a wonderful story to report here that through some miracle and an appeal to the patron saint of Terpsichore, I suddenly, magically became Fred Astaire (or even Fred Flintstone)…but 'twas not to be. The best I can say for my performance is that no one laughed out loud but I did note a few of the parents covering their mouths to snicker…and my own mother and father slinking out of the hall at the close of the festivities.

My other remembrance is of a moment during a class, shortly before I decided to hang up the old tap shoes. I was stumbling over latitude and longitude lines when some official of the dance school ran in, so excited she couldn't contain herself. I thought for a moment that maybe I'd done a step right but no such luck. What it was was that someone had just called from Jerry Lewis's office to see if they could rent some beginning tap dancers for an upcoming Jerry Lewis Special.

Jerry was doing a sketch on said special in which he played a tremulous ten-year-old on his first day of tap class and he wanted some kids like us to people the class. They were sending over a producer (or someone) to watch us tap and to decide if we could play the class around him.

Everyone was excited: "We're going to be on TV," several kids gasped with delight.

Within the hour, the person affiliated with the Lewis show had arrived to take a look at us. I'm under the impression it was Jerry's producer, Ernest D. Glucksman because I had that name stuck in my brain from around that time and where else could I have heard it? Whoever it was, he watched us for three minutes, realized that my attempts to dance were funnier than anything Jerry could possibly do, and departed. No more was said about us doing his show, which I always thought was a shame. Had Jerry seen me dance, he could have started a second telethon.

That was it for me and dancing. To this day, I'm not even allowed to sway in time to the music without a hunting license. (I don't know what that means but doesn't it sound like a joke?)

Speaking of jokes, my career as a child actor finally began and ended with one audition. I'm surprised I made it that far.

My parents got a call one day from a casting director at Twentieth-Century Fox, asking them to haul their son in there at 3:00 sharp to meet with the producers of a forthcoming movie. They were as shocked as I was.

To this day, I don't know what the movie was or even if it was ever made. I don't even know the name of the star but we were told the following…

Someone was needed in the film to play the star as a kid in a scene that flashed-back to his youth. The star decided to personally pick the lad who'd play him and he closeted himself in the casting office for a day and looked at every photo they had of a white male child, approximately nine years of age.

One of the photos taken of me by the photographer had found its way to their office and, when the star saw it, he gasped. Out loud. It looked almost exactly like his mother's favorite photo of him. That's how come I found myself sitting with my mother in the producers' waiting room for what seemed to me like several weeks. Finally, they called me in, deliberately excluding Mom from the proceedings.

What I recall of that session is a lot of questions about my hobbies and my schoolwork until they finally got to the subject at hand…

"Have you ever done any acting, Mark?" asked one of the two producers.

"No, I haven't," I said. (I actually had. The twins next door and I had once put on a stirring, Evanier-adaptation of "Hansel and Gretel" for an audience consisting of their folks, my folks and one neighbor. We charged a nickel apiece and, for a minute there, I thought we were going to get some demands for refunds. I didn't figure the studio guys had that kind of thing in mind when they asked about "acting.")

"Would you like to be an actor?"

I thought for a second and said, "Not really."

The two producers looked at each other. I have a feeling they'd asked this of a hundred kids before me and I was the first one to give this answer.

"You don't want to be an actor when you grow up?"

"No," I said. "I think I want to be a writer. I want to write comic books and cartoons and TV shows." (I actually said that. My current occupation is that I write comic books and cartoons and TV shows.)

"Well, if we want you to act in our movie, would you consider it?"

"I'd consider it."

"Would you do it?"

I considered it for a second and answered, "I'd rather not."

The producers were baffled. One asked, "They why did you come here today?"

I shrugged. "You called and asked me."

They started laughing. Maybe I'm misremembering — it's been a while — but I think they thought this was the nicest, most unspoiled thing they'd heard out of a child's mouth in a long time. Having worked with professional child actors a few times and heard toddlers talk about Mike Ovitz and power lunches at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel and getting a piece of the unadjusted gross, I can guess how they must have felt.

"Okay, Mark," one of them said. "You can go home now."

I slid off the chair, went back to my mother, we went home and I proceeded to grow up the way a relatively-normal kid would grow up.

For that, I have always been grateful. But I was never more grateful than one time years later when I met a former child star. He was about my age and about as admittedly-screwed-up as a person could get.

For about five years there, his world revolved around show business and agents and auditions. He made a lot of money but it was long gone, as was any demand for his services. He got to talking about his glory days. "When I was ten, I had a little electric car," he said. "And a miniature railroad that I could ride around the back yard…and a pet chimpanzee. I could buy anything I wanted…with one exception."

Before I could play straight man, someone else asked him what was the one exception?

"A real childhood," he said. "It's the one thing I've always wanted."

I was lucky enough to have one. And I'm still doing my darnedest not to let it end.

Julien Neel, who may be my favorite singing group these days, is back with another Beatles song done right…

A friend of mine called me up two days ago and asked my help. She was having trouble getting on the web on her desktop computer. I suggested she try rebooting her modem, which is something I do with mine every week or so and it sometimes makes a difference. She asked how to do that.

I said, "Your modem has a back-up battery in it. Find the panel to access it and take the battery out, making sure you note how it goes in so you can replace it. Once it's out, unplug your modem, wait a couple of minutes, then plug the modem back in and replace the battery." She said she would try this.

Yesterday, she called me back and said she'd located the battery compartment, opened it…and found no battery in there. She called Tech Support for her internet provider, which is AT&T and they told her, "No, we don't supply a back-up battery in that model of modem. If you search online, you can probably find an electronics store and order one."

She pointed out that under the terms of her contract, the modem is their property…shouldn't they supply the battery for it? And shouldn't they tell the customer that it might be a good idea to buy a back-up battery?" They told her they just don't do that.

No wonder that company can afford to buy Time-Warner.

The New York Times compiles a list of 281 people, places and things that Donald J. Trump has insulted on Twitter. Like me, you'll probably agree with some of them.

• The big election question: Will Dems stay home because Hillary doesn't need them or Repubs stay home because Trump can't win anyway?

I think it's safe to say Donald Trump is not happy with the way this election is going. But you know who's probably even less happy? Chris Christie. Abigail Tracy tells the sad tale.

Columnist David Frum has compiled a guidebook of sorts for his fellow Republicans who aren't fond of Mr. Trump and are agonizing over what, if anything, to do with their votes. It is a head-scratcher indeed.