Monthly Archives: October 2016

I've linked you to pieces of this before but I don't think I've ever linked to the entire thing…or to the show in color, for that matter. If you're interested in theater, this is a much-watch. It may be the best video I've ever embedded here.

In 1962, Norman Jewison produced and directed a wonderful one-hour TV special about the work of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. It was hosted by Maurice Chevalier and featured Julie Andrews, Richard Burton, Robert Goulet and Stanley Holloway. This aired on 2/11/62 when Lerner and Loewe were represented on Broadway by My Fair Lady — it closed in September of that year — and Camelot, which ran until the following January. I believe Burton had just departed the cast of Camelot when this special aired while Andrews and Goulet followed soon after.

I mention this because I believe that the musical numbers in this show were authentic re-creations of what was on the stage with those two shows using the same sets, costumes and staging…and probably the singers and dancers who were then in those productions. Mr. Holloway, for instance, performs "Get Me to the Church On Time" the same way (I bet) he did in on stage a few years earlier in New York.

Ms. Andrews performs "Show Me," also from My Fair Lady. Mr. Burton performs the end of Act I from Camelot. Mr. Goulet sings a song from Paint Your Wagon (which he was not in) and there are all sorts of other numbers, some of them a bit too "modern" for their own good. Make sure you watch the charming section where Mr. Chevalier sings songs from musicals he wasn't in.

And check out the sketch which was obviously written by Lerner, who famously complained about the kind of theatrical rabble depicted. The lady in it is Frances Sternhagen and you'll also recognize a very young Charles Nelson Reilly who at the time was featured on Broadway in the original production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

But watch the whole thing because the whole hour is really a video treasure…

Paul Kanton asks…

When you are writing a script or story, how do you come up with proper names? Obviously common names like John Smith or Mary Jones can't be used all the time — or even often. Do you randomly look through a phone book, or use a name from your past, or what?

I've used names from my past, often combining the first name of one acquaintance with the last name of another…but that's usually when I need a name of no consequence. The trick there is to find one that's not too generic like Mary Jones and not too distracting in its oddness like Lucretia Frelinghoyzen.

Years ago, I had a little 39-cent book I found in a supermarket checkout line. It was on the rack of "impulse buy" items they place there hoping you'll grab one a whim and then you'll have paid for it by the time you come to your senses and ask, "Do I really need this?" This book was one of baby names and it gave me a lot of first names for characters. Once I'd settled on a first name, it wasn't hard to think of a last name that sounded natural following it.

I have no idea how or when I lost that book but I never got around to replacing it. I suppose now on the Internet, it would be easy to find web pages full of names but I never seem to need it.

With important characters, you look for a name that tells us something about the person. You ask what quality you'd like to convey in the name. Is the person rich? Angry? Continental? A stuffy character can have a stuffy name. A super-friendly character might have a first name that sounds more like a nickname. So I pick out a trait or quality of the character and I work from there.

The reality level of the project dictates some rules. If what I'm writing is broad comedy then I can get away with having a con-man character named Al Swindler or a rich guy named Jonathan Gelt. In a more realistic situation, that kind of stuff seems silly…though I did once have a driving instructor named Mr. Break and there was once a football quarterback named Tommy Prothro.

And though I wrote on this topic to avoid typing his name once again, I have to note this: Imagine if you wanted to name a character and we knew this about him…

1. He's very rich.
2. He uses his name as a brand name so it has to be unique but also short and punching.
3. He's obsessed with winning.

Well, how about Something Trump?  There are a lot of people out there whose real names sound like Charles Dickens came up with them.

Here's a story that will make you mad and not at Donald Trump or his surrogates. On a Delta flight out of Detroit, a passenger got ill and the flight crew asked if there was a doctor on board. One doctor — an OBGYN — rushed to help but a flight attendant wouldn't let the doctor help the passenger. Why? Because the doctor was a black woman and the flight attendant couldn't believe the black woman was a doctor. The passenger survived but the story may make you need medical attention.

• Just received my vote-by-mail ballot. I somehow feel like I have the power to end this nightmare of an election right this minute.

Nate Silver on why Trump is going to have a hard time coming back from his current vote deficit. And it helps to remember that in some states, ballots are already being cast.

Honest, folks. I'd love to write about other topics. More seriously, I'd love to think about other topics. I'll try to post something later that has nothing to do with the election.

Did you hear Michelle Obama's speech today? You need to hear Michelle Obama's speech. It's about the guy running against Hillary Clinton, the way he treats women and how his election would be an endorsement of that kind of disqualifying behavior. The First Lady is a wonderful orator and her speech is dead on target.

This is a video of a rally and there's a lot of stuff before she comes on that you don't need to see but of course you can if you want to. I have this bookmarked so that in most browsers, it will start when she begins the speech. If it doesn't start there, you'll need to manually advance to 25:20. This is well worth your time — and it's unfortunately what a lot of this election has come to be about…

There are a half-dozen new reports of Donald Trump not respecting the privacy or personal boundaries of women. His office says those claims are "pure fiction." I suspect that they're probably true, that there are probably hundreds of other women who have similar stories, and that anyone whose vote can be influenced by this kind of thing has already been influenced.

Last evening, I had a call from one of the major polling services asking me how I felt about the election, how I felt about Hillary's e-mails, how I felt about Donald's reported behavior with women, etc. One question was whether the tape had raised my opinion of Trump, lowered it or had no effect. I picked the middle option though a more accurate answer would probably have been that it had no effect but only because I already believed he was like that, and my opinion of the man was already as low as it could possibly get.

This is all so tawdry that you have to look for the silver lining in it all. The best I can do is that I hope some men learn from all this. I fear some won't.

In both the comic book industry and television, I have been privileged to work with or near a lot of veterans somewhat older than I. The list includes some folks I grew up admiring greatly and of course, most of them have been male. A few times, I have been extremely pained to see one of them acting like what we more politely call a "Dirty Old Man."

Some of these men thought their groping, grabbing or salacious talk was all kind of cute or roguish. Some clearly weren't thinking at all. Most could not tell the difference between the occasional woman who was okay with it — perhaps even encouraged it — and the ones who forced smiles and pretended to be okay with it or didn't object loudly enough. And all of those men were shocked when they did notice a lady registering discomfort. They all acted like she was just being a bad sport over some harmless fun that most of the women would appreciate.

A couple times due to circumstances, it has fallen to me to step in and scold an older gentleman about his behavior. Back when I was running a primitive computer bulletin board for the Writers Guild, there was one veteran writer who somehow thought it was a dandy idea to send e-mails to most of the women on the board — some of them, total strangers — asking if they'd be eager or even willing to perform oral sex on him. As if that approach ever in a million years might yield the desired result.

We had a guy in high school who did that, propositioning any female under about 150 pounds. He didn't ask them out. He didn't try to get to know them. He just asked, often in dialogue that would be tawdry in a Ron Jeremy movie if they'd…you know.

You'd think even the most insensitive, self-obsessed clod would stop doing this just because (a) it never worked and (b) it made him look like a dick, thereby eliminating the remote possibility that any of those ladies would find him desirable. Still, that was his take on how males should interact with females.

That, of course, was high school where you kinda expect other students to say and do things out of which they need to grow. You tend to forgive the social clumsiness of others in a kind of unspoken understanding that they'll forgive yours. I got out of high school in '69 and I'm still amazed when I see grown men and women thinking they can still behave like that.

I guess I was naive to be startled when this fully-grown — age-wise though not emotionally — prominent writer did this; when he began using the WGA BBS to hit on female WGA members in much the same manner as that clown at University High. And one reason I was annoyed was because I was the guy in charge, meaning that I had to deal with it.

Many of the women complained to me. Some said they were going to get lawyers and take action against the Guild if they did not see some sort of reprimand or punishment. Others asked that I not let him know they'd complained because he was a man of some power in the TV business and they were afraid he'd retaliate in some manner that would harm their careers.

The WGA lawyers were of no help whatsoever. The Internet was in its infancy, there was almost no caselaw in this area and the attorneys couldn't even say if the Guild had total or zero responsibility for what was posted in private e-mails on their server.

Finally, I just went to this older male writer and tried explaining that nowadays, one did not just touch women without their consent (he did a lot of that, too) and that what you wrote or said to them mattered, as well. At first, it was like trying to explain to a cocker spaniel why he shouldn't hump someone's leg. To him, it was a primal need…but it was also a goof, it was a friendly gag, it was just the way women expect men to treat them. They should be flattered, he said. "Come on," he grinned. "I'm sure you've done the same thing. Every guy does."

I see that last rationale offered up on behalf of Trump now. It's locker room talk. All guys do it. It's not to be taken seriously even if you haven't been in a locker room for ten years.

I had to tell the guy firmly: No. I've done lots of things about which I'm still embarrassed but I've managed to avoid that one. "I've never asked women I barely know that," I told him. "I don't think I ever even asked it of a girl friend on our tenth date." When I was younger, as much out of fear as decorum, I erred in the opposite direction by being too shy…and by the way, if you are going to err, that's the direction you want to err in.

It was a long discussion with this guy because he couldn't or wouldn't understand why what he did was wrong. Finally, I emphasized two points that caused him to agree to not do it ever again…

1. Don't do this because you're creating a lot of trouble for me and…
2. Don't do this because you really look like a pathetic asshole.

There are, of course, better reasons for not sexually mauling someone, verbally or physically, but #2 was the one that registered with him.  So did an implied but unspoken #3…

3. Don't do this because it may become a Guild issue and everyone will hear you did this and a lot of people will be pissed at you, which may have an impact on your career, to say nothing of your wife and kids finding out.

That was when he stopped and even wrote barely-sufficient apologies to all the women he'd bothered. Oh — and I should mention yet another reason he stopped. Like many males who mistreat females, this writer had a noticeable streak of homophobia. It flared up a lot when I informed him that four of the women he'd propositioned were actually men with androgynous names.

This was but one of several times I had to verbally spank an older man for groping women or acting like that. Some folks reading this probably know of an incident involving an otherwise-beloved figure in the world of comics who thought that because a couple of women didn't mind him pawing them, it was okay to grab at any body part of any lady.

Over the years, I've learned that even a slimeball will usually do the right thing if he understands it's going to cost him. They don't always stop when they realize they're hurting the women but they usually stop when you make them realize they're hurting others around them — friends and loved ones and admirers who must react in some way to the shameful behavior. And at least in my experience, they all stop when you make them realize they're hurting themselves.

Like I said, I hope some men learn from the example of Trump…and that they don't learn you can get away with it when you're rich and famous.

Ideally, they would get that you shouldn't molest women, even verbally, because it's just plain wrong. I, however, would settle for dudes learning it because it does make you look creepy-bad to everyone, including women you might otherwise have impressed. The creepiest thing about the Trump modus operandi is that little of it seems to be based on the premise that he can charm women into desiring him. It's almost all of the "I'll take what I want because I'm Donald Trump" variety.

Nate Silver says that if Trump loses the election, it will be because women voted against him. I'm sure that will be a major reason, though I think/hope a lot of it will be because Americans don't like the idea of torture or persecuting religions or giving huge tax cuts to people like Donald Trump or electing an unstable man to such an important office and/or a lot of other reasons. His attitude towards women isn't the only thing wrong with this guy.

Unfortunately, none of those will figure into the excuses Trump and his supporters will give for his loss. It'll be because the voting machines were rigged, the counting was fixed, millions of people who should not have voted voted, etc. And it'll also be because those evil Democrats and their accomplices in the media conspired to not let the country know who the real Donald Trump was. I mean, it's not like the TV networks ever gave him air time.

But maybe — just maybe — some men who need to learn how not to be pigs will realize that acting as Trump has with women is a very bad idea. It not only doesn't get you into her pants. It doesn't even get you into the White House.

John Green explains the tax plans of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Clinton's raises the debt a little. Trump's raises it a lot unless we slash military spending or do away with something like Medicare. And if this kind of thing interests you, read Kevin Drum's summary after you watch this…

• Trump is proving his ability to create jobs. There's now an opening on the Today Show.

Okay, you'll love this. A few years ago, two filmmakers — Saratoga Ballantine and Dea Lawrence — made a documentary called Troupers, profiling a group of actors over the age of 80. They were Carl Ballantine, Kaye Ballard, Ivy Bethune, Betty Garrett, Pat Carroll, Harold Gould, Marvin Kaplan, Justine Johnston, Jane Kean, Bruce Kirby, Allan Rich, and Connie Sawyer. A few of them have left us since then but some of them are still working.

I could embed this but the way they have the video configured, you'll get a better feed if you go to this page and watch it there. It runs about 85 minutes and if you start viewing, you may get hooked and have to watch the whole thing. So check the time before you go peek.

Here are some classic candies that were introduced in the sixties. And while we're at it, here are some classic candies that were introduced in the fifties.

I never heard of some of these and never found most of the ones I did hear of particularly appealing. As I wrote here, I did like Fizzies but I wouldn't consider that a candy. I liked Pez but more for the dispenser toys than the actual candy…and the only flavor of Pez I liked was orange.

I seem to recall that when I first tried Peanut M&Ms, the peanuts had the peanut skins on them and I didn't like them because of that. Later, they made Peanut M&Ms with skinless peanuts and I liked those more — though not as much as the non-Peanut M&Ms. And come to think of it, I didn't like them as much as chocolate without the candy shells. I seem to also recall that I didn't like Hershey's Mr. Goodbar bars, which were chocolate-covered peanuts, because they had the skin also.

There's a group called Safe Minds that believes that vaccinating your children can cause them to develop Autism. To further their cause, they commissioned a study that looked at behavioral changes in baby monkeys when they were vaccinated. Well, guess what.

Well, I can't say I didn't expect it. Just the other day, I tweeted "It's getting harder and harder to stay friends with people I like despite their belief that Donald Trump is a good man." In this case, I reached an ugly place with a now-former friend who thinks Trump is a great man and "just what America needs," whereas we all know Hillary spends her time waterboarding nuns and running over puppies in a Hummer.  Or something.

I didn't know which friend I would lose over this election but I knew there's be at least one.  Hope it's only just the one.

A problem I've occasionally encountered — and I try to not do this myself, really I do — is the grand, sweeping condemnation of everyone who thinks a certain way.  You know, it's like "Everyone who's voting Libertarian in this election is an ax murderer who molests baby seals." I have to remember that if I ever think that way to qualify my damnation thusly: "Everyone who's voting Libertarian in this election is an ax murderer who molests baby seals.*" And then I would put in a little footnote that said "*Except for my good friend Brian."

At the very least, I ought to recognize that I may not only be talking about strangers.  I may be describing Brian.

The friend I just lost (not Brian) doesn't make such exceptions.  I was apparently included in a tirade but about the low morals and lower I.Q.s of anyone who doesn't recognize that America is on the verge of destruction and The Donald is the only guy who can prevent it.

Suddenly, it stopped being a discussion.  He was just yelling when I decided I didn't need this person in my life.  Either a few seconds before or after, he came to that realization about me. Either way, it was the closest we came during that phone call to agreeing on anything.

I still don't quite understand why he's so certain America is doomed or why he thinks Trump alone can undoom it.  I suspect my former pal's position has something to do with an emotional problem with a strong woman — which is not true of everyone who opposes Hillary but it sure is of some.

But whatever it is he believes that I don't, there's clearly no point in me talking to this person anymore. I used to want to believe I could get along with anyone. At some point though, I came to realize that there are some people with whom it's not worth the effort; that talking to them is a drain on your life with no offsetting benefit. Every minute they claim of your time is a minute you aren't spending with someone you'd rather be around…or on your own projects and endeavors.

In the case of political arguments — or others which involve deeply-held primal positions like religion — you just aren't going to change some folks' minds.   With some people, you can differ but still respect each others' views. You can perhaps both learn a little something by exchanging them in an actual discussion. Or you can take them completely off the table and agree not to go there; not to discuss those topics. I've made all those work.

What's never worked for me — and I wonder if it's ever worked for anyone — is to yell at each other as if the sheer force of the yelling is going to drum a concept in someone's mind.  Those people, you're just plain better off without.  Maybe I'll look back someday and be glad that this election helped me weed one out.

And like I said, I hope it's just the one.  But we have 27 days until the election and there will probably be some ill feelings for weeks after.  So it probably won't be just the one.

All right. Who's the unAmerican turncoat who's been shackling poor Donald Trump? Who's the traitor who hasn't let him be as rude and vulgar and unconcerned with facts as he's wanted to be throughout this campaign? Please…someone. I want this person's name.

You want proof this guy is losing badly? There you have it.

Stephen Colbert is in reruns this week so he recorded a new six-minute segment to be inserted into tonight's show. No word on whether he'll be doing this throughout the week but here's tonight's…