Monthly Archives: July 2017

Sir Ian McKellen and Cookie Monster explain what it is to resist something. See if you can resist watching…

I was in Las Vegas over this past weekend, seeing shows and visiting friends, losing a whopping $7.00 on Video Poker and spending a fair amount of time in the room working on scripts. I still have scripts in urgent need of completion so I'll tell you about my trip in the days to come. Right now, here's some of what's in the news…

• As Kevin Drum notes, the new Republican/Trump line on their Health Care Plan is that Obamacare was a failure because though it drastically reduced the number of uninsured in this country, it still left some people uncovered. So that's why we need their new plan which will leave more people without insurance. I don't know what the endgame is on this or even if they're thinking one move ahead of what they say today. I guess it'll be something like, "Well, yes, there are more millions more uninsured now that our plan is in place but all those people chose not to buy insurance so we don't have to think about them."
• In a very long article, Frank Rich compares Trump in his current scandals to Nixon in the thick of Watergate. I was hesitant about that comparison but Rich finds a lot more common points than I'd imagined. In the end though, it all comes down to whether a Republican Congress is even going to acknowledge wrongdoing on the part of a Republican President.
• Jonathan Chait has an update on the unfolding scandal of Russian collusion. How amazing to see people who felt Benghazi had to be investigated over and over because those damned GOP-led hearings kept concluding Hillary was innocent, keep insisting it's wrong to even look into these allegations.
• And the latest Big Lie that the Trump administration is pushing is that millions of illegal voters are the reason Trump lost the popular vote that he really won. So we need to pass strict laws that just coincidentally would make it harder for non-white people to vote.
• Ezra Klein discusses how Donald Trump has diminished America's morality and sense of decency. As he notes, "The party that tried to impeach Bill Clinton to protect family values has embraced the position that it does no good to publicly discuss the [current] president's routine violations of basic decency."
• And as the Fourth of July is upon us, Jesse Berney assesses the state of patriotism in a country with Donald J. Trump in the White House.

Just so you know, by the way: I don't post these links because I think they will contribute in even a microscopic way to bringing down the Trump administration. I think the Trump administration will bring down itself. I just post things because I find them interesting. And maybe some of this will help us all maintain our equilibrium, especially when we encounter — as I did at the Vegas airport — someone who thinks our country is being saved from the certain doom of Gay Marriage, saving the environment and more people being able to afford to see a doctor.

The New York Times has a profile of Joe Sinnott, who has been working in comic books, mainly as an inker, for a long, long time. It's mostly about his embellishment of the Sunday page for the Spider-Man newspaper strip, which is far from his most important work even if it is his most current. But hey, any reason to salute Joe is fine with me. Wonderful man, wonderful talent.

I received two interesting e-mails about the late Huell Howser, who did a cheery TV show for PBS, running around and interviewing people. This one is from Darryl Musick and the "Philippe's" of which he speaks is a great downtown restaurant that makes terrific French Dip sandwiches. They claim that the founder of their establishment invented the French Dip sandwich — maybe so — and it's exactly the kind of place I would have expected Huell Howser to frequent. Here's Darryl…

Your story about Mr. Howser reminds me of a few times we'd run across him, not taping his show, but just having lunch at Philippe's.

The first time we met him there, we'd just finished and I stood up to go, turned towards the door, and literally ran into the man as he was walking by. I stopped, just for a second as the recognition hit and before I could do anything more, he stuck out his hand and said "Hi, I'm Huell Howser."

My wife said, "Oh, I wish I had my camera."

"Don't worry, I have one in the car. I'll be right back," he said.

He was and had the lady at the newstand take our picture. This was the pre-digital era so he took our address and said he'd send it to us. He did, along with a nice letter about how it was so nice to meet us at Philippe's.

Great story. And yeah, Mr. Howser was just the kind of guy to do something like that. Meanwhile, here's a message I received from Brian Stanley…

I don't know if you knew or cared but as an animation fan you might find this interesting:

A few years ago there was a new animated version of Winnie the Pooh where much of the plot revolves around the terrible evil monster Pooh and his friends mistakenly believe took Christopher Robin. As one of the few "grown up laughs" in the film, the big brute shows up after the credits, but of course he's super-enthusiastic and friendly. He's even fascinated when he falls in the large hole that was dug for him.

Despite all the available actors who could've done a fine job, I think you can guess from the title of this e-mail who the producers thought would be perfect for that. I believe it's his only film role.

Yeah. The friendliest guy on television. I wonder if there's a place these days for a guy like that.

A sea turtle yawning…

Ray Arthur reads this blog and writes me from time to time, sometimes about his old profession of working for a Film Commission, which means he helped arrange for TV shows and movies to be shot on location. Just got this from him…

Just saw your recent Huell Howser article. I assisted on three shows when I was Film Commissioning: Trona Pinnacles, Burro Schmidt Tunnel, and I can't remember the third. I'll attest that he was as nice and professional in person as he was on film (tape).

I remember two interesting off camera things about Huell. He had requested two Comp. Motel rooms. When we told him that we had arranged rooms at the EconoLodge he thanked me and said that was fine but was there any chance for an upgrade to one of the hotels, but not pushy at all, just, if you can. I couldn't help thinking that he thought, "This guy's really literal. I should have said 'Hotel.'"

And the second thing was the Mayor at that time wanted to give him a City Proclamation at the next Council Meeting while he was in town and Huell said, "Please thank the Mayor and please find a way to get me out of that. I feel so self conscious with those things." I explained to the Mayor that due to Huell's scheduling conflicts he would be unavailable but was very grateful for the invitation. Then we went to a restaurant in the next town for dinner.

Thanks, Ray. Always nice to hear that someone's on-camera character isn't at odds with their off-camera character. I used to watch Howser and get swept up in his enthusiasm for that week's topic. I'd hate to think his wasn't genuine.