Monthly Archives: July 2017

Ben Platt, the Tony-winning star of the Broadway show Dear Evan Hansen has been under some fire recently from folks who seem to have learned manners from Donald Trump. Their anger has to do with him often not coming to the stage door following a performance to sign autographs, shake hands, pose for selfies, etc. To those who are upset by this, he recently wrote…

Performing Dear Evan Hansen every night is wonderful but also hugely tough — as much as I would like to be out there every night, very often I cannot come to the stage door after the performance. My priority must always be self-care so I can recreate the same quality show each night. That's my job, and what each and every audience member is paying for and deserves. Before you tweet hateful things about how I don't value our incredible fans when I can't come to the door, please pause to consider that my responsibility to them is first and foremost to give my all each night. I preserve myself because I value each of them deeply.

Obviously, I'm on his side. Anyone with a shred of decency would be on his side, especially if they understand the all-out effort that goes into a role like that. There is also the sometimes-crushing sense of responsibility when you have to give eight performances a week, keeping up the standard and not ruining the show for anyone by being at partial-energy or, worse, not there at all. As I wrote here once, it can create many problems when the star of a live show is out…

It occurred a few years ago when the musical Sunset Boulevard was gracing the Shubert here in Los Angeles. Glenn Close was starring and theatergoers were knifing one another for tickets…because of her but also because of an outstanding performance by George Hearn as her servant, Max.

During this time, I had the good fortune to work with Mr. Hearn, who was, is and always will be one of the great stars of the stage. One day, he invited me to scrounge up a date and to come see that evening's performance of Sunset Boulevard. I've had worse offers.

So I called a lady I knew and the conversation went like this…

"I was wondering if you were busy tonight…"

"Gee, Mark, I'm sorry but I promised my desperately-ill 70-year old mother that I would drive her to the hospital for the surgery she desperately needs to save her life, and that I would be there for her when she came out of the anesthetic."

"Oh, well, I certainly understand. I'll find someone else who wants to see Sunset Boulevard…"

"Sunset Boulevard? With Glenn Close in it?"

"Yes, the gentleman who plays the second lead has arranged for house seats — I think they're third row, center. Then, afterwards, he wants to give us a backstage tour and introduce us to Ms. Close. But since you're busy…"

"What time will you pick me up? No, wait. I'll pick you up."

"But I thought your mother…the operation…"

"Hey, she'll be out cold. She won't know I'm not there. And the old lady can hitchhike to the hospital. It's only thirty miles."

We went to the Shubert that night and had a wonderful evening. I didn't think the show was a classic — Andrew Lloyd Webber and all that — but Glenn Close and George Hearn were terrific.

The glow lasted all the way until the next day when another lady friend who was visiting me found the Playbill on my dining room table. In a voice oozing outrage, she gasped, "You went to see Glenn Close without me?"

"I'm sorry but I had to scare up a date quickly and — "

"You are getting more tickets and taking me to see this."

"Well, I don't know if I can. You see, these tickets were special and…"

"You are getting more tickets and taking me to see this. Do you understand? I must see Glenn Close."

I do not know if I can adequately convey the implied threat with which the above was spoken. Imagine a crazed mugger hopped up on every pharmaceutical known to man, his finger twitching on the trigger of a .357 Magnum Centerfire Handgun loaded with Subsonic Jacketed Hollow Point ammunition.

She was a little more demanding than that.

So, reluctantly imposing again on Mr. Hearn's kindness, I arranged for two more tickets. This time, I insisted on paying.

When the evening arrived, my friend and I got dressed up — which is to say that she looked great and I looked like a sloppy guy wearing better clothing. We went to a swanky restaurant for pre-show dinner and arrived at the theater to find a mob scene outside the box office, and not a cheery one…

Glenn Close was out that night.

And boy, were some people angry about it.

Trying with scant success to calm people down was a Shubert employee with a shaved head. Everyone was calling him Max since, in the play, Ms. Desmond's butler Max has a shaved head.

The Max outside the Shubert was assuring all that the stand-by was wonderful — a claim no one doubted. It's just that she wasn't Glenn Close.

Mostly, he was trying to solve a tremendous snarl at the ticket windows. He yelled, over and over, "Those of you who want exchanges or refunds, please wait until people who are picking up tickets have had a chance to get them so they can get seated for the performance."

I turned to my date and asked her if she wanted to see Sunset Boulevard without Glenn Close.

She said, "I didn't come to see Sunset Boulevard. I came to see Glenn Close." Okay…question answered.

We stood to one side with others who were waiting for exchanges. And as we were standing there, a gentleman — about thirty-five years old, I'd guess — lost it.

I mean, really lost it. He began screaming and sputtering with rage. "I came all the way from Minnesota to see Glenn Close. I booked a room at the Century Plaza [a hotel across the way]. I planned my whole vacation around this!"

Max kept trying to placate the man, who seemed to be under the impression that if he screamed loud enough, Glenn Close would suddenly not have laryngitis and would miraculously appear to perform. "What are you going to do for me?" he demanded of Max.

"Well, we'll validate your parking," Max said.

This made the man angrier. "I don't have a car! I'm staying at the Century Plaza and I walked here!"

Max thought for a second, then he reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a cigar and offered it to the man. And, of course, this made the guy even angrier. "I don't want a [expletive deleted] cigar," he screamed.

At which point I suddenly heard myself calling out, "Cigar but no Close!"

No one laughed. No one.

There was a short moment of silence…a very long short moment of silence, as I recall it…

Then everyone standing around outside the box office turned their anger on me.

Between 300 and 400 already-irate people glared at me with mounting fury. I turned to my companion and said, "I think I'll come by tomorrow and exchange these tickets." And we got the hell outta there only moments, I suspect, before I would have been the first person since the invention of the knock-knock joke to be lynched for a pun.

In truth, no one expects a star to never miss a performance. That's why they have understudies and stand-bys and often, it's planned they'll go on to give the star a vacation. But planned replacements are a lot easier on everyone than last-minute ones. If Ben Platt thinks he can minimize the unplanned outages by resting after a performance instead of immediately giving another one for the fans clustered at the stage door, he should do it. And no one should fault him for that decision because he's the only one in a position to make it.

The wonderful wit of Groucho Marx and the men who wrote his movies…

I have in the past (like here and here) raved about The Black Version, a fine improv troupe that performs every month or three in Los Angeles. They're performing tonight at Largo at the Coronet over in West Hollywood with special guest performer Maya Rudolph.

I've seen them several times and they've always been terrific as they ad-lib an entire black exploitation musical, "remaking" some famous movie starring mainly white peoople. Sometimes, they're a little naughty and loud…but always funny. Don't bother going to the website and trying to buy tickets because they're sold out and have been for some time.

However! For reasons that would bore you, I wound up with two extra tickets for tonight and they're up for grabs. First person who asks can have them for the face value of $30.00 each and I will only sell them as a set. Oh — and there's a catch. The show starts at 8:30 but they start doing seat assignments at 6 PM. So you have to meet me in front of the theater at 5:50 PM. You can get your tickets and seat assignments, then go somewhere for dinner or shopping or whatever until just before showtime. If you want to do this, drop me a line and include your phone number.

Miriam Marx, daughter of Groucho, died June 29 at the age of 90. Her life was filled with struggles with drink and struggles with family turbulence. She and her brother Arthur (who passed away in 2011 ) were born from Groucho's first marriage, which was to Ruth Johnson. Ruth was a serious alcoholic and passed that condition on to her daughter. (Groucho was married two more times and had a daughter, Melinda, from the second marriage and none from the third. All three marriages ended in divorce.) Miriam collected many letters from her father in the 1992 book, Love, Groucho. It's a very honest, candid book about their relationship.

It was my pleasure to meet and talk with Miriam on two occasions, both when she turned out for a performance by her friend, Frank Ferrante. Frank, as any reader of this blog knows, is a fine impersonator of her father and he did much to take care of Miriam in her last years.

My impression of her was that she was a sweet, soft-spoken woman who was a little intimidated by all the folks who wanted to meet Groucho's Daughter and who perhaps expected her to be as verbally witty as her pop. We do that often to the children of famous, talented people, thinking that somehow they have failed their birthrights and family heritage by not being able to do everything their superstar parent did. Psychologists have built summer homes off the guilt that some kids feel when it turns out they can't immediately match the greatness of some parent. We ought to let those people live their lives, unpressured by near-impossible expectations.

Anyway, I liked her a lot. And I think she liked that when we talked, we talked about us — a lot about her, a little about me — and not exclusively about her dad. She had a good career as a writer and editor, and deserves to be recognized for that, and not just for who tucked her in at night and told her stories. Can you imagine what those stories must have been like?

Here's a good obit and overview in the Los Angeles Times.

Sorry I've been so busy this past week. Working on a lot of different things at the same time can do that to you but it's better than not having anyone want to hire you at all. A long-ago-scheduled trip to Las Vegas also came at a bad time. Last September, as recounted here, a friend of mine and I went to see the fine comedian, Jim Jefferies, performing in downtown Los Angeles. It was such a great evening that on the way out, she said, "Please…get tickets to see that man any time he performs near us again." I said I would — for me as much as for her.

Around November, I noticed Mr. Jefferies would be performing at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas at the end of June the following year (i.e., this year) and that terrific seats could then be ordered online. I immediately ordered terrific seats online, not pausing to consider that it might be 115° in Las Vegas at the end of June. It was but, you know, in Vegas it's a dry heat, there are outdoor air coolers and machines that spray cold mist into the air, and you can get around without going outside too much. 115° wasn't as bad as it would have been in Los Angeles.

Thursday afternoon, 6/29, we flew to Vegas and checked into a lovely suite at Bally's. Because of pressing deadlines, I spent a lot of time in that suite at the laptop but we got out and went to some shows and some stores and some buffets. I think I'm giving up buffets. They haven't been cost-effective since I had my gastric bypass since I am physically incapable of eating much food at one sitting and I've lost all interest in desserts. Desserts are at least half the point of any buffet.

For a while, I liked them anyway for two reasons. One was that you can almost always get freshly-sliced roast turkey, which is one of my favorite foods and one that's hard to come by anywhere else. Also, with my food allergies, it's comforting to see what I might eat before I consider putting it in my mouth. Indeed, in one sit-down restaurant we went to this trip, I ordered something that came with rice pilaf and when it arrived, found all sorts of things I shouldn't eat mixed into the rice. They happily exchanged it for plain steamed rice but it took a while.

And this time around, the brunch buffets at Harrah's and at Planet Hollywood didn't seem that much fun. The latter was $39.95 a person and what I ate was darn near the same thing in quantity and quality I could have gotten at a Denny's for around seven bucks. My friend wasn't that impressed, either. I think the heat may have also had something to do with it.

We had one other interesting dining experience. Near Times Square in New York, there's an Italian restaurant I like called Carmine's and they've cloned it in Vegas. It's in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace and we went there Saturday evening for a dinner that felt like it wasn't served until Sunday morning. They brought the garlic bread immediately and then the entrees arrived — I am not exaggerating — an hour later. I complained to the manager who went off, investigated, then came back and said, "We screwed up" and told us the $100+ meal was on the house with his great apologies. Who says you can't win in Vegas?

Jim Jefferies alone was worth the heat 'n' hassle. He's my current response to the question, "Who's the best stand-up comic working today?" As when we saw him last September in L.A., he had comedian Forrest Shaw opening for him. In Los Angeles, Mr. Shaw had to cope with late arriving audience members and some folks who thought, "Well, he's just the opening act. It's okay to talk to each other while he's on stage." He didn't have that in Vegas but he did have a heckler who somehow managed to be disruptive without being even remotely amusing. Shaw's a good comic and he deserves to be heard.

Later, Jefferies had an audience member who thought the two of them were a team — probably but not definitely the same guy. The comic spent a long and very funny time shaming the guy into silence.

Jefferies was great…really great. If you were sensitive about issues like sex, religion and circumcision (he had a lot to say about circumcision), you might not feel that way but we enjoyed the hell out of him. At the end, he did something that I think was impromptu and unplanned. Muttering that what was supposed to be his closing bit hadn't received quite the laugh he'd expected, he wandered down into the audience and talked with the first few rows, then announced that we were now going to lock the doors, rip our clothes off and engage in massive group sex. This did not happen but I think there were a few audience members who were quite ready to do this…or anything else he said.

Saturday night, we went to see Absinthe.  How do I describe Absinthe?  Okay: Imagine a Cirque du Soleil show but take away about 80% of the budget, all the weird costumes and sets and bizarre music.  Keep the part where human beings go out and do physical feats — aerial stunts, balancing, juggling, lifting, etc. — that seem physically impossible. Then add in the rudest, nastiest host ever in show business history — a man who makes Mr. Rickles look like Mr. Rogers — and his assistant, who has the mouth of a sailor and the I.Q. of a potato chip. Mix well and pour. That's Absinthe.

Some of the vulgarity is funny. Some is too high school. But the physical feats were astounding and I can recommend the show with two cautions. One is that most of the seating is on folding chairs which are not evenly spaced so we wound up in a row where no one over about 5'7" could ever possibly sit. We and a few others had to be re-seated. Second caution: Do not under any circumstances sit in the front row. The host will pick on you, water will be splashed on you and an acrobat just might kick you in the head or fall on you. The kicking or falling did not happen at the performance we saw or one I saw four years ago…but I would have had a hard time enjoying the show for concern that that might happen.

Otherwise: We did no gambling. We saw some of Big Elvis. The flights on Southwest were okay, though the "to" one was delayed an hour. I finished two scripts and didn't melt. We didn't see Wayne Newton. Unless you hit the Megabucks for a couple million, you can't do much better than that.

Sorry to hear of the passing of Joan Lee, a delightful woman who could light up the darkest room just by walking in the door. She and Stan Lee (you know who he is) were married on December 5, 1947. We all feel sorry for Stan tonight but he was a very lucky man for 69 years, 7 months and one day. She was a model when they met and they had a model marriage.

Okay, I finally finished the script that was due but now I have my longtime friend Tony Isabella in town so I'm going to entertain him instead of you. I'll stop by later with something.

I was in Las Vegas last weekend and in the next day or three, I'll tell you about the great time I had even though I spent much of the stay in my room slaving over a hot laptop.  One thing we did was to catch a little of the lounge act of Pete Vallee, aka Big Elvis. He does three 40-minute sets every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in The Piano Bar in Harrah's hotel-casino and has been working in the town since 1997. That would make him one of the longest-running acts in Vegas history.

You probably want to know what he weighs. Press reports said that at one point, he was up to 960 pounds and yes, I typed that correctly. He's reportedly down to under 500 now. They have a special reinforced throne for him in The Piano Bar and he sits on it and sings to recorded music tracks. The audience, at least when we saw him last Friday, was mostly older white folks who clapped a lot, sang along where appropriate, and enjoyed the heck out of it.

Watch the guy to the left of him in this video singing and dancing along. There were a lot of folks like him last Friday. I think the fellow in the "I ❤ Big Elvis" t-shirt is the gent who sells Big Elvis CDs and photos outside the lounge while Mr. Vallee is performing.

Some articles about him say that he has photos of his mother with the real, not-as-big Elvis and that he is the love child of an affair they had in 1964. Is this so? We report, you decide. He definitely puts on a very good act…and I'm reasonably sure that at one point, there was a Little Elvis also working the Strip. Here's the Big Man in action. If I were the kind of comedy writer to do fat jokes, I'd suggest he conclude each show by having someone announce, "Ladies and gentlemen…Elvis has eaten the building."

Just have time today for a short dump today…

• Eric Levitz says that for Trump, the biggest problem with the proposed strategy for fighting ISIS is not that it's not a good strategy but that it sounds too much like Obama's.
• Daniel Larison predicts what will come of Trump's second foreign trip. Most likely, he'll piss off some of the foreign leaders he missed on his first visit.
• Marie Brenner on the creepy/scary relationship between Donald Trump and Roy Cohn. It's all about destroying people you perceive, rightly or wrongly as a threat to you.

I continue to be fascinated that in his tweets, Trump seems to think that one of the worst things you can say about someone — an insult that discredits whatever they say — is that their business is not doing well. He also continues to usually be wrong on how well these businesses are doing. He tweeted that CNN's ratings were "way down," which is not so. But even if it were true, is this the wisest point of attack by a man whose approval ratings are down? And a man with so many failed businesses to his name? I do not get it.

The posting of an image of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup is a good indicator that the guy who runs this blog is busy today — maybe even because someone is paying him to write something for them and it's gotta be in real soon. There will therefore limited posting on this blog and you'll have to look elsewhere for your utter trivia, your plugs for Frank Ferrante, your remembrances of Huell Howser and your articles about Donald Trump doing things which any Republican would have insisted was criminal and/or a sign of bad moral fiber if done by a Democratic president. Mark will be back with full force blogging when the workload lessens. So sorry.

As I've mentioned here before, I'm a big fan of Big Daddy, a band dedicated to the premise that the only good music is fifties music. So when they encounter a tune recorded in the sixties, seventies, eighties or later, they put it right by rearranging it into the style of a fifties song. If you search on this site for "Big Daddy," you'll find many examples of them doing this.

In 1992, they got a lot of Beatles fans mad at them by doing this to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, an album some hold as sacred. If you feel that way, you might not enjoy today's video link here. It's 38 minutes of them in concert around that time performing selections from their version of Sgt. Pepper. I'm pretty sure I was in the audience for this and I think it's terrific…

Here are some statistics on how Americans order their steaks. The trouble with this kind of thing is that the way some of us order our steaks is not the way we prefer our steaks. In most restaurants, I find I have to order a little rarer than I want to get what I want. And of course, you can always send back a steak that's undercooked and ask that they give it a little more time on the grill but you can't send back an overcooked piece of meat and ask that they subtract some of the cooking.

Also, since my gastric bypass surgery eleven years ago, I have to keep in mind that in most restaurants, I'm ordering what I'll eat half of now and eat the rest of, later or the next day. If I get my steak cooked to the rarest level that I find acceptable, then the leftovers are still fine when I reheat and they cook a bit more.

• If I were president with 39% approval and 47% for impeaching me, I too would try to convince people the press was not to be believed.

Jon Delfin sent this link to a really short clip of a baby lion trying to roar…

So many interesting articles today that you get another one of these…

• Robert W. Merry, editor of The American Conservative, smells failure in the air for the Trump Administration and thinks that will lead to the country moving to a hard-left Liberal trend. Before you get all excited about this, remember that Mr. Merry's idea of Liberal Takeover is probably that we keep the Minimum Wage.
• William Saletan says that Trump is doing his darnedest to destroy Obamacare and sell the idea that it's a failure. Well, we knew that but Saletan thinks the idea here is to get people to not compare "Trumpcare" to the Affordable Care Act but to compare it to an alternative of nothing.
• That's because, as Tara Golshan notes, Obamacare is still way more popular than the Better Care Reconciliation Act. I suspect it always will be.
• Kevin Drum offers a primer on the five basic forms of health care — Socialist, Single-Payer, Multi-Payer, Subsidized Private and Private. There's a lot of discussion out there from people who think one of these is the only one that can possibly work but it's worth noting that all five exist in the United States and some of them have been around for a pretty long time.
• Joe Conason says Trump and Newt Gingrich should stop trying to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller. You know, the only reason you try to discredit someone in his position is that you're expecting him to uncover something you'd rather not have uncovered.

And as with most days in the last year or three, it's a very good day to not be Chris Christie. When the careers of some politicians end, they don't seem to know it. This guy has to know.