Monthly Archives: December 2016

Another favorite Christmas video…

The parent company of the Rockettes has issued a statement that the dancers don't have to participate in the inaugural gala if they don't want to. Some folks are now posting that the earlier report — that it was compulsory — was inaccurate.

Well, not actually. The earlier report said that the American Guild of Variety Artists — the union that represents performers like the Rockettes — said that if the ladies have a contract, they can be ordered to perform. In the new statement, the Madison Square Garden Company, which I guess owns or manages the Rockettes, says they won't make any Rockette participate and dance if she doesn't want to. Those two statements are not contradictory.

The Rockettes are hardly a big "get" for the inaugural gala so it's trivial whether they perform at this trivial event or not…and the fact that some of them want to opt out exceeds even the Utterly Trivial standards of this blog. But it's worth noting because we're about to get a president who is obsessed with trivial slights and punishing those responsible for them. Someone right now is probably trying to talk him out of tweeting that any Rockettes who don't show up are pathetic loser whores.

This is going to be a movie. Professional gambler Phil Ivey won $9.6 million smackers at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, NJ playing Baccarat. A judge has now ruled that he has to pay it back. Was he cheating? Well, that's arguable…

Here's one we love every year. It was designed by R.O. Blechman and animated by Willis Pyle, who passed away this past June at the age of 101…

So he's talking about a big Nuclear Arms Race and about all sorts of strange tariffs…but I guess the big story is that they can't get any Big Names to perform for his inauguration. The Rockettes have been drafted into service, reportedly against many of the dancers' wishes. But that seems appropriate…women being forced to do things with their bodies for the pleasure of Donald J. Trump. The high point of the gala may turn out to be Scott Baio with a harmonica and Rich Little doing all the celebrities who refused to show up. If he does, he's going to be up there a while.

I don't think it's their own Liberalism that's keeping the stars away. I think it's the growing recognition that this President-To-Be is really, really loathed even by a lot of people who cast their ballots for Trump/Pence; that even in this honeymoon phase when many are trying to think positive, there's the fear of having your name associated with the guy. He sure ain't doing anything to win over those who voted for Hillary — which, you'll be reminded constantly, was more than voted for him.

It's all kinda turning into a big Rodney Dangerfield routine and one can imagine Trump repeatedly touching the knot in his tie as he bitches about getting No Respect. I think he thought it came automatically with the presidency; like there was some law that everyone had to acknowledge his awesomeness and also forget everything he said and did to win, including the "promises."

That may be the dominant theme of his time in office. You'll have Trump whining about not being loved by all while he simultaneously distracts us from what Mike Pence is doing to roll back gay rights, ban abortion, stop all this nonsense about fighting Climate Change and, of course, making sure the filthy-rich get filthier-richer.

One of my Red State Friends wrote that I hate Donald Trump. No, no, no. I don't hate anyone. I just think that even before Trump has placed his left hand on a copy of The Art of the Deal and taken the oath of office, he's showing all signs of being a really true, destructive Chief Exec. It's kind of the same way that same Red State Friend was sure Barack Obama was going to crash the economy, send gas prices skyrocketing and unemployment into double-digits while taking orders from Moscow. I hope I'm at least half as wrong as he was.

I asked earlier if anyone had a suggestion on how to convert a lot of old Wordstar files to the current version of Word. I apologize but I should have been more specific. I've tried all the obvious options that come up when you Google "wordstar convert." They're all either dead links, Word add-ons that don't work with current versions of Word…or programs I just plain can't get to work well. I'm looking for advice from someone who has some experience doing this.

I will settle for a decent conversion from Wordstar to PDF. How about that? Anyone?

Word has reached us of the passing of cartoonist Paul Peter Porges on December 20 at the age of 89. Porges was a frequent contributor to the top magazines, including The New Yorker, Harper's and Saturday Evening Post but if you know his name, it's probably because of his work for MAD starting in 1966 and continuing just barely into the twenty-first century. He usually wrote but sometimes drew and sometimes did both.

He had a fascinating life. He was born in Vienna and spent much of his adolescence moving about Europe, trying to avoid imprisonment by the Nazis. Captured once, he managed to escape but his parents were not so fortunate and spent time in a concentration camp before being freed and, like him, emigrating to the United States. In 1950, he was drafted and served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War.

He had been an artist before that — "mostly paintings to be hung on walls," he told me the one time we spoke. But in the army, he was asked to draw cartoons for the camp newspaper and that set him off on the career he would follow for the rest of his days. It was a friend — MAD's longtime art director John Putnam — who invited Porges into The Usual Gang of Idiots.

The last twenty years or so, if you asked him who he was drawing for, he said, "Myself." He stopped working on assignments (with the occasional exception) and drew as he pleased. If someone wanted to buy some of his output and publish it, fine. But as he put it, "If they don't, that's fine too."

His friends at MAD describe him as "a warm and gregarious man," one who was exceptionally devoted to his wife, Lucie. Lucie preceded him in death and that's the two of them dancing in the above photo. I only knew him through a phone interview for my book MAD Art but he was sure funny on the phone. Oh, yeah — and on paper, too.

I've had pretty good luck asking questions here. Very smart people read this blog.

I have a large number of old files in Wordstar format. I would like to convert them to the current Word format, preferably with the formatting intact. What's the easiest way to do this? I no longer have Wordstar on my computer — does anyone? — and I'm currently running a PC with the current version of Windows. Anyone got an idea?

[UPDATE: I have amended this request.]

Do you remember this movie from the early nineties?  The comedian Sinbad starred as a genie named Shazaam in the movie, Shazaam!  It was about two kids who summon that genie and ask that he grant them their wish, which was for their father to fall in love again.

Remember that film?  Well, a lot of people do despite the fact that Sinbad never made a movie called Shazaam!  Nobody did.

This article tells about folks who swear they saw this movie and when told it never existed would rather believe in a grand conspiracy theory than accept that their memories are faulty.  They're probably remembering a movie called Kazaam which starred Shaquille O'Neal as a genie.  (The article doesn't mention this possibility but some of them may also be recalling a 1967 Hanna-Barbera cartoon series called Shazzan.)

The amazing thing about this is not just the mass delusion but the stubborn insistence.  Many years ago when I foolishly delved into the world of those who believed a conspiracy killed President Kennedy, I saw this.  I met grown human beings who believed or at least would not rule out that maybe Martians had killed J.F.K. but thought you were a dupe (or more likely, part of the conspiracy) if you thought maybe — just maybe — that Oswald guy had done it.

Now, we have people who believe that some plot has erased all evidence of Sinbad's genie film and even pressured Sinbad into lying and saying he never made it. Somehow rounding up all those VHS copies that were sold or rentable at Blockbuster and purging all print media of mentions of Shazaam!…that's so much more logical than "Uh, maybe I was wrong." I leave it to you to draw the analogies to the election of Donald Trump.

Folks on the 'net are still talking about that Jerry Lewis interview and taking sides. A lot are cheering Jerry, saying that the interviewer was unprepared, disrespectful, whatever…and that it was great that Jerry put that rude punk in his place. Typical of some comments is the lady on Facebook who wrote, "Imagine that you have a session with one of the world's great filmmakers and you don't come armed with well-researched questions to tap into his history and knowledge."

I would like to defend the interviewer, who I think but am not certain was a writer named Andy Lewis — no relation, one presumes. I do not know this person but I think he's getting a bad rap here.

First off, let me say as a longtime Jerry watcher who even worked with the man once, Jerry has a long history of occasional trainwreck interviews. Some days, he's great. In others, the interviewer can do no right.

The last time I saw him in person, he was being interviewed by Leonard Maltin at the Paley Center…and no one is more prepared and respectful than Leonard Maltin. I wrote about that event and here's a little of that report…

A few years ago at a Paley Center event, I watched him being interviewed by Leonard Maltin and it was a strange, surreal evening. Leonard asked very good questions without a trace of hostility or challenge. Jerry gave long, rambling answers that didn't remotely match up with the questions and he bounced back and forth between being philosophical in a professorial way and being on the defensive as if under some kind of implied attack.

The audience was full of celebrities who rose to tell Jerry and the world how much they loved him and worshiped him and thought he was the greatest comedian ever…and you'd think a man would be humbled and happy. But then one little imagined slight set him off and he began screaming at the folks who'd arranged the event, furious over essentially nothing. Lewis's emotional excesses were always kind of fascinating and funny on the telethons, especially at 3 AM when he'd shift into self-pity mode and start rambling on about how hurtful people could be towards his efforts. I think his tirade at the Paley event caused me to stop viewing his outbursts as amusing.

But getting back to the Hollywood Reporter fiasco: I don't think those now faulting the interrogator understand that the interview was part of a series of real short interviews with folks in show biz who were over ninety about why they hadn't retired, why they were still working, what special challenges they face, etc. The questioner was not there to ask Jerry in depth about his career and films. He was just there to get 2-3 minutes on why and how Jerry was still working at his age.

Jerry was asked essentially the same questions that were asked of the others — Dick Van Dyke, Betty White, Carl Reiner, Cloris Leachman, et al — and none of them had any problem answering them. I believe the same interviewer did the one with Norman Lear, which went fine. Everyone else who agreed to sit for an interview about working at age 90+ had a good answer for the question, "Have you ever thought of retiring?" At that age, you kind of have to.

Only Jerry tried to turn the session into a dialogue with the interviewer — which was a problem since the format of these videos was to have the interviewer unheard in the final edit. I'm sure if you've ever been interviewed on camera more than a few times, you've done these. They always tell you up front that they need answers in complete sentences since the questions will be edited out.

The interviewer's detractors say that he was ill-prepared to interview Jerry and that he didn't know what he was doing. I think he was prepared with all the same questions that everyone else was asked and that what he wasn't prepared for was the subject trying to turn the interview into a dialogue and not answering in sentences that would make sense once the questions were cut out.

What I hear from the off-camera voice is a flustered, unsuccessful attempt to get something usable out of Mr. Lewis. He never got it so when they got back to assembling their video feature, the folks at the Hollywood Reporter didn't have the footage they needed to make Jerry's interview a piece with all the others. They had a lot of one word answers so they decided to put up seven minutes of raw footage and I'm guessing someone said, "Hey, if this is how he wants to come off, fine."

I would question whether that was the best decision but the alternative was probably to cut Jerry, who'd given them an hour or three of his time, down to one of folks in the piece who got a brief paragraph and no video. That probably would have made him angrier.

In Jerry's defense, a lot of his time was apparently wasted by a crew that took way too long to set up in his office. That might explain his cranky mood but I don't think it excuses it. He's done hundreds of interviews and he knew this one was going to ask him, as practically every interviewer has for the last decade or so, why he was still working, if he'd ever considered retiring, if there was anything he hadn't done in show business that he still hoped to do, etc. (That last question might have gotten him to talking about having his musical of The Nutty Professor perhaps someday open on Broadway.)

In February of 2013, Jerry appeared on a panel at the TV Academy called "Retire From Show Biz? No Chance!" He spoke charmingly and in polysyllabic sentences on the same topic that the Hollywood Reporter asked him about. He was proud that he was still working. He could have said the same things for this new interview but he didn't.

There are rude, unprepared interviewers out there who ask stupid questions and maybe some of them deserve to not get what they came to get. This doesn't seem to me to be an example of one.

I got a lot of interesting responses to the tweet in the previous posting. One was a tweeted reply from a Trump-supporter who posted something like, "That's quite a statement given how much Hillary and Bill have made from public speaking engagements."

I decided to send him a Direct Message reminding him that what the Clintons did was after they were out of office…not when they were in office or enjoying the tremendous power and attention they had on their way into office. As I did this, my mouse slipped and I accidentally blocked the guy, which is not something I do to people just because they disagree with me. I apparently can't unblock him without knowing his Twitter handle and I don't.

If you're that person I inadvertently blocked, drop me a note and let me know what it is. That is, if you still want to be able to read my postings. Or if you're not that person but you see the tweet I'm talking about, drop me a line with his name. Thanks.

[UPDATE: I have it. Thanks, everyone who wrote in.]

• I get the feeling Trump's going to be the first president to charge a speaker's fee for delivering the State of the Union address.

Lots of folks are writing to ask when I'm going to post this. Now is as good a time as any. It was my lovely friend Carolyn Kelly who first told me about this, lo these many years ago…

My pal Lee Goldberg is one of the best-selling writers of crime and mystery fiction around. Not long ago, he received a phone call that there was a warrant out for his arrest. You might want to read about how he handled it.

So it turns out that people who were outraged at Hillary "selling access" by collecting high speaking fees have absolutely no problem with the Trump family doing everything possible to monetize the presidency, including selling access to the Trump family via "fundraisers" and hotel bookings. Josh Marshall discusses the fundraiser and the apparent fact that the Trumps intend to just ignore any concerns or laws about Conflict of Interest when there's dough to be made.

We always knew that a lot of the posturing about morality in politics was for show but…well, I don't know about you. You may be way smarter than me but I always thought there was at least a smidgen of sincerity and principle involved in some politicians' stances. The moral lectures we heard from the Mike Huckabees of the world when there was evidence, true or not, of Bill Clinton's horndoggery is curiously absent when it's Trump telling how he loves to grab women by the pussy. Donald could start performing abortions in the Oval Office if he still gave them tax cuts for the rich and the abolition of any regulation that inhibits corporate profiteering.

In the meantime, Newt Gingrich says Trump no longer cares about that "draining the swamp" stuff and that's fine with him. And Kevin Drum has a long post that explains that Hillary did nothing wrong, except maybe for a few clumsy optics, in either the Grand E-Mail Scandal or the whole Benghazi flap. I don't think there are many folks out there these days who are even interested in arguing the opposite. It worked so all is well.

Lastly for now, let's check in with what Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury fame thinks about current events. Trudeau was in the Ridiculing Trump business long before any of the newcomers and he has a busy four years ahead of him.