Monthly Archives: November 2017

• It looks like this may be the week when it turns out Trump barely knew Michael Flynn and Flynn turns out to be an unimportant volunteer.

I have two postal addresses — my home and a mail drop. At my home address, I am the recipient of mail sent to me of course, but I also get mail for my mother, who passed away in October of 2012 and for my dear friend Carolyn, who passed away in April of this year. The Carolyn mail comes in two varieties. I used to buy her a lot of mail order items, mainly vitamins and women's apparel and sometimes, we'd have the order shipped to my home address and sometimes, we'd have it shipped to her home address which now forwards to my home address.

What does this all mean? It means I get a shitload of catalogues and junk mail.

There's a mail order firm called Woman Within which seems to send out two catalogues per week and sometimes, for no visible reason, they send two copies to the same person. So they send one or two copies to Carolyn's old address and they're forwarded to me and they also send one or two copies to Carolyn at my home address and one or two copies to me at my home address. We once ordered my mother something delivered to her old address so they send one or two copies to that address which are forwarded to my home address. We also once had an order for Carolyn sent to my mail drop so they send one or two copies to her at that address and another one or two copies to me at that address.

I think I get a minimum of eight copies of every Woman Within catalogue and once in a while, up to twice that many. There was one day when I received nine.

The odds of me ordering something from these hover at or below Zero %. The only time I've ever opened one was to look and see if there was a little paragraph that said something like, "If you no longer wish to receive mailings from us, call this 800 number or visit this website to unsubscribe." I found none and so now I don't bother to open them at all.

Instead, the ads are pitched right into the recycling bin along with catalogues from Vitacost, J. Crew, Eddie Bauer and more than a dozen other companies from whom I will never-ever order. In fact, I've never-ever ordered from any of their catalogues as the orders I did place which started this tsunami were all off their websites. They have no reason to believe I've ever responded to or looked at any advertising they've sent me.

I assume that at some point, my total lack of response will get me off these lists but I have tried a few times to hurry that along. I called Woman Within's 800 number once and told them they could save a buck or twenty by a month by not sending me their catalogues. No one on the phone seemed to have any idea what to do with such a request except to put me on hold and leave me there forever. I also tried calling Vitacost once and was told that nobody in that office, wherever the hell it was, could do anything about the mailings.

I guess it must work. I mean, even with folks like me shot-putting every piece of mail from them into the dumpster, they must get enough orders from each catalogue to make them profitable. Still, I wonder what would happen if they sent out a mailing that consisted of just a letter and a pre-stamped postcard. The letter would say…

This is a test to see if you even read anything we send you. If you read this, send back the enclosed pre-stamped postcard which asks if you want to continue to receive our advertising. You can specify "Yes," "No" or "Yes but not as often."

No matter what you check, we will mail you a five-dollar bill, no strings attached. If you do indicate you want to continue to hear from us, you will see that our catalogues will have lower prices to reflect our savings from cutting all the folks who didn't respond off our mailing list.

If they did this, they might save a lot of money, their customers might save a lot of money and I'd make at least thirty bucks and I wouldn't have to unclog my mailbox all the time. Why is this not a terrific idea?

In the past, I've said very nice things about the Cupcake Theater, which is a little storefront operation in North Hollywood, on Magnolia right across from the Television Academy. In a building that was not designed to be what it is now, a very enterprising company stages revivals of major Broadway musicals in cramped quarters on what is obviously a very cramped budget. The total shebang is run by a bundle of energy named Michael Pettenato who seems to do a little of everything including, in their current show, a pretty fine bit of acting in a smallish role.

That current show is the stage musical version of Disney's The Little Mermaid. It opened on Broadway in January of 2008 and ran there for 685 performances. That would make it a wildly successful musical except that Disney was expecting it to equal or better Beauty and the Beast, which ran 5,461 performances or The Lion King, which will celebrate its twentieth anniversary on November 13 and which comes out to something like 8,400 performances…with no sign of closing. The Little Mermaid was also beastly expensive so it's kind of fun to see how creatively the Cupcake crew does it. There were probably individual special effects on Broadway that cost what this whole production out here cost.

What the folks behind Cupcake's presentation of it have going for them is a real sharp cast starting with Katy Harvey in the title role. Ariel has to be adorable and an incredible singer and Ms. Harvey more than qualifies and truly brings the animated princess to life. I was also real impressed by Michelle Lane as Ursula, who is delightfully slimy as she chews what little scenery they have. Thurzday (whom some of you may remember from the MTV series, Todrick) was mesmerizing as Sebastian the Crab, and Dorian Keyes was both heroic and befuddled as the Prince. I liked Kelsey Nisbett as Scuttle the Seagull, Kevin Spear as Grimsby and…oh, heck. I was impressed by just about everyone who was crammed onto that tiny stage.

A special shoutout should go to Sasha Markgraf who costumed all those people well for whatever money was available, and to Thomas Polk who directed. Usually when you stage a Broadway revival, you can get a running start by aping what the original production did but this one had to be really rethought for the limitations of space and spending. Good job there…and on the way out, I told Michael Pettenato, who was very funny in his part, "The producer is not supposed to steal the show!"

But you know who I was really impressed with? The audience. The 8 PM show last night was full of kids, a few of whom didn't know (and weren't told by their parents) that they weren't supposed to sing along with the better-known songs. I kept watching a young woman — she couldn't have been more than eight — across the aisle from me. She stood there in front of her seat, never taking her eyes off the stage for one second. Between her body language and sing-along activities, she acted out every second of the role of Arial. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if that little lady winds up on a real stage with a real part someday.

If you have kids who need to be introduced to live theater, even if all they'll ever do is sit in the audience, this is a great show for them to see. It will help if they know the 1989 animated film real well and if you prep them a bit. Let them know that some of the small cartoon characters are going to be played by fully-grown human beings in costumes which represent the characters without looking much like them. Then after the show, they can meet the cast and get photos with them in costume.

Anyway, the whole audience loved the evening…loved it. I would have liked it even with a less enthusiastic crowd but I really enjoyed how much everyone around us enjoyed it and it would have been the absolute best thing I'd ever seen in my whole life if I was a nine-year-old girl. I suppose it's too late to arrange for that now. Fathers who are fans of real cute women in seashell brassieres will also have a good time.

This production was supposed to close this weekend but it was announced that they're extending it through December 9: Two shows on Saturday, one show on Sunday, no shows any other day. Tickets run from $58 to $98 on the Cupcake Theater website and if you can afford it, buy them there. The Cupcake could use the cash. But if you're strapped, I'll let you in on a secret: Goldstar has them for half-price. Amber enjoyed it more than most of what I took her to see on Broadway a month ago.

There are a lost of postings on the web about the revelations or claims (take your pick) made by former Democratic National Committee head Donna Brazile. That these have led Donald Trump and a few Bernie Sanders supporters to misquote her as saying the primaries were "rigged" for Hillary Clinton should be taken as a warning light that something that means one thing is perhaps being built into something that means something else.

The best take on this I've seen is from Josh Marshall, who unlike everyone else is not rushing to sell some spin on Brazile's assertions. Give it a read. At least some of what Ms. Brazile says does not make a whole lot of sense.

A skilled chef attempts to build a better Twinkie. It ain't as easy as it looks…

Just read this…

The latest Post-ABC poll shows that Robert S. Mueller III, for now, enjoys overwhelming support for his investigation. He also gets high marks for the indictments of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and adviser Rick Gates. And in even worse news for President Trump, nearly half (49 percent) of Americans surveyed think he committed a crime. Mueller receives 58 percent approval and only 28 percent disapproval from Americans. Even among Republicans, nearly 4 in 10 (38 percent approve). A plurality of white men without a college degree (44 percent to 35 percent), a key Trump demographic, approve of Mueller's performance.

Is this really a poll of how many people think Robert Mueller is doing a good job? I know that's the question they asked in some form — but isn't it really a poll of how many people want to see Trump nailed to the wall and they don't care who does it or how it's done?

Here's Cookie Monster doing what Cookie Monster does so well — and so often…

Several folks e-mailed me links to this article in which Cathy Young (a woman, most pointed out) is concerned that accusations of sexual harassment (or even outright assault) might go too far. Well, yeah…just as increased reporting of any crime might result in an increase in false accusations. What's the alternative? Keep a situation where the Harvey Weinsteins of the world can keep abusing people because that system discourages and even penalizes victims from speaking up? We don't want that.

Well, maybe some sexual predators do. They should not get that.

I understand why some folks — men more than women — are uneasy about this. In our pasts, many of us have a few incidents of what started as mutually-consensual flirtation but the two parties were not on the same wavelength as to how far it would go. If this were a different kind of blog, I could tell a few tales. Sometimes, consensual sex can become a little less consensual after the fact, like when one party decides they shouldn't have done what they did. There's a lot of lying that goes on about sex and it even includes lying to one's self. It's like Archie and Veronica are both dying to sleep together, "sleep together" in this case being a euphemism for screwing. They do…then Veronica has to deal with the fact that she promised fidelity to Reggie or abstinence to Dad so she tells him (and maybe herself) that Archie pressured her into it.

There are infinite other scenarios where innocent sex somehow morphs into allegedly-guilty sex…but so what? There absolutely is such a thing as coerced sex. There are also things like attempted rape, inappropriate sex talk, hints that sound like threats and other situations that fall short of actual rape that should not be tolerated or excused. An awful lot of victims of rape or near-rape do not report what happened to them because they fear they'll only suffer further for doing so. None of this can be stopped if the victims do not come forward and they will not come forward if they're subjected to what some have faced, which includes being put on virtual trial for the crime they're reporting.

The predators count on the prey deciding that it's too painful in too many ways, and there's surely a clear link between getting away with it once and doing it again and again and again.  How many women have now come forth to accuse Weinstein? How many other men have done it because they saw Harvey wasn't paying any price?

What I think is going on now in this country is a corrective and sometimes, correctives over-correct before they find the right level. We paid way too little attention to this problem in the past and victims were way too afraid to speak up.  Is there a danger of correcting too far in the other direction; of innocent folks being accused or at least slandered?  Sure.  That has already happened.  Remember Brian Banks?  Remember the Duke LaCrosse team? (There's a movie coming out soon about what happened to Brian Banks. Its producers couldn't have timed it better.)

Okay, so some people are afraid they'll be falsely accused; that they'll be the target of "witch hunts." Apart from the distinction that there are no witches but there are sexual predators, that's a perfectly valid fear but, you know, we could reduce the number of people falsely accused of murder by not treating murder as a serious crime. Sexual assault is a serious crime, too…and it's one that a lot of people don't think of as one because they've gotten away with it or know others who have gotten away with it. Let's find a way to be fair to the accusers and the accused instead of worrying just about the accused.

Between 1962 and 1967, a brilliant and under-heralded cartoonist named Al Kilgore wrote and drew a Bullwinkle comic strip for the Bell-McClure Syndicate.  It was faithful to the TV cartoons and pretty darned funny but it never managed to make it into many newspapers.  That may be why it is largely unknown these days…and hard to find.  Strip collectors haven't had much luck.  A couple of publishers who reprint classic newspaper strips made the same search and also came up cold.

However, recently someone — I dunno who — has dumped a ton of original art from the strip on the original art market, as well as proof sheets that presumably came from the same source. I'd love to have a book or two that reprinted it so I thought I'd suggest it here. Maybe if someone does some detective work, that someone can find copies of all the strips or at least enough to issue one volume. The reprint rights should not be difficult.

And while I have your attention, assuming I have your attention, here's a line that's currently on Kilgore's Wikipedia page: "He also drew the Dell, Gold Key, Whitman, and Charlton comic books of Rocky and Bullwinkle and related characters." No, he didn't. There are a few stories in the Dell issues that look like Kilgore may have penciled them. Most of the Dell issues look nothing like his artwork nor does anything done for the books published under other imprints.

Who did draw them? There's some art by Mel Crawford in a few issues but most of it is by artists who have never been identified by historians. In the absence of those names, some folks decide to credit them to Kilgore. In theory, Mr. Kilgore could have written some of those comics but I know of no evidence that he did. Jack Mendelsohn wrote a few of them but most of the writing is unidentified too.

The early comics based on the Jay Ward characters are one of those black holes of comic book history. No one seems to know anything about them. Recently in Alter Ego magazine, one of the editors of those comics was interviewed and he said that Kilgore wrote and drew the Rocky & His Friends comics and also the Hoppity Hooper comic. He was wrong about the Rocky & His Friends books as a simple look at the art proves. Only a fraction of it could be by Kilgore. He was also wrong about the Hoppity Hooper comic books because there never were any Hoppity Hooper comic books. I guess I can't prove that Al Kilgore wouldn't have drawn them if there had been any but I doubt it. He was pretty busy then writing and drawing a great newspaper strip.

It's been quite a while since I wrote about the feral cats in my backyard. Above is a photo I posted of them here about two and a half years ago. I can use it again because they're both still around and they look exactly like that. Lydia has been here for more than ten years. In fact, in April of 2008, she was pregnant and as I reported in this diary, I trapped her, took her in and had her made unpregnant and unable to get that way ever again.

She's always around…or at worst, in an adjoining yard. I feed her almost every morning and then I feed her at least once in the evening when she is joined by Sylvia. I know not where Sylvia lurks during daylight hours. Given her schedule, she just might be a vampire.

For most meals, each gets a half-a-can of some wet Friskies canned food served on a bed of dry Friskies cat food. I don't give them larger portions because I've learned that's all they'll eat. If there's more, they leave it and wander away and then it gets devoured by raccoons or possums. During daylight hours, the huge crows we have around here will sometimes swoop down for a knosh.

Lately, the Friskies I've been giving them are from a box like this one…

This is Friskies' new "Cat Concoctions," which they describe as "curious combinations chosen by cats." The box of 24 cans costs the same as any box of 24 cans of Friskies in the market I went to so I figured I'd give it a shot. You get six each of…

• Scrumptious Salmon & Chicken Liver Dinner Paté
• Chicken in Creamy Crabby Sauce
• Lamb in Clam Flavored Sauce
• Cod in Cheesy Bacon Flavored Sauce

The Creamy Crabby Sauce does smell like some sort of cheap canned crab bisque but there is no trace of actual crab in that item's ingredients. There are no clams in the Clam Flavored Sauce, just as one will find neither cheese nor bacon involved in the Cheesy Bacon Flavored Sauce. One suspects those flavors are in there for our benefit so we'll think we're giving our cats what we think is yummy.

I keep wondering about this. I feed them different varieties of Friskies in rotation — one day, salmon; the next day, chicken; the next day, turkey. Do they care? If I just bought a ton of any one flavor and fed it to them at every meal, would they be any less happy? I know feral cats are glad to get any kind of food but I have never noticed the slightest preference by them for one kind over another, whether it was your basic Mixed Grill or Chicken in Creamy Crabby Sauce. You and I might get sick of eating the same food every meal but do cats?

The tagline "curious combinations chosen by cats" suggests that the Friskies people made up a wide array of strange flavors and that some Blue Ribbon Committee of cats preferred these four. Did they opt for Cod in Cheesy Bacon Flavored Sauce over, say, Tilapia in Hickory Smoke BBQ Flavored Sauce? Why do I think the deciding factor was what sounded good to the buyers?

Here's Dylan Matthews with a good explainer of the House Republican Tax Proposal which was unveiled today. It's way too complicated for most Americans to understand…and I would imagine its proponents are counting on that. It's also not the final bill that will perhaps be passed by the Senate and sent to Donald Trump for signature. Since it's designed to give him a huge tax cut, what do we think he will do?

It's called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. I suspect there are people in this country who would back anything called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act even if all the actual text did was make it legal to trap and eat your neighbors' pets and maybe their children. But at least the real, current version of the bill is not going to pass without a lot of rewrites and adjustments.

Someone whose e-mail I can't find again pointed me to this video and rather than explain it myself, I'm going to steal the explanation of the fellow who posted it, David Rowen…

This music video is the culmination and fulfillment of a small dream I have had since college. I attended James Madison University, where I sang in an a cappella group called The Overtones. During my last semester of school, I was commissioned by the American Heart Association (AHA) to arrange an a cappella medley of music from Wicked, The Wiz, and The Wizard of Oz for the Overtones to perform at two Oz-themed galas hosted by the AHA. Outside of these events, the medley was only performed one other time, and since then, I have wanted to revive and revamp the arrangement, and take the creative vision to new heights. With the help of an amazing team, a stellar cast, and generous donors, the new vision has finally come to fruition. I am thrilled to present "The Oz Medley."

I love this kind of a cappella singing. I suppose I'm fortunate that I have a wretched singing voice because if I could sound like these folks, I'd join one of those groups and never do anything else. This is worth ten minutes of your time. Thank you, whoever sent me the link!

Kevin Spacey's statement the other day reminds me of one of the many, many reasons I don't drink alcohol. I know many folks who handle it fine and enjoy it and it never creates problems for them or others around them. But imagine being told you did something horrible and your best defense is that you have no memory of having done it…but you might have.

Of course, few will believe that Spacey does not remember the incident in question. My point is that if he honestly doesn't, that's pretty horrible…and it's maybe worse than if he does. It makes you want to ask the guy, "Hey, how many other minors might you have tried to rape and forgotten about?"

I also kind of wonder if a smart lawyer vetted that admission. When you confess you might have tried to rape a minor but you can't remember for sure, aren't you just inviting others to accuse you of doing other things you might not remember? Aren't you kind of disqualifying yourself as a witness to your own life?

And of course, that isn't the worst part of his "apology." It's that he handed ammo to those who, through naivete or deliberate smears, want to link homosexuality with pedophilia. I suppose, given the accusation against him, he had to finally "come out" and admit to being a "proud, gay man." But he could have separated the two concepts. He could have reminded all that just because a gay man does that kind of thing, that doesn't represent all gays any more than Roman Polanski is proof that all straight guys molest 13-year-old girls.

Mr. Spacey has never disappointed me as an actor but he sure has as a human being. And I guess it's finally time to admit that I never thought his impressions were very good.

Here's another list of the most popular Halloween candy treats. A lot of them contain peanuts or peanut butter.

There's also a list there of the Most Hated candies. Candy Corn is in second place right after Circus Peanuts. I don't believe anyone in the world has ever liked them, either.

But actually, you shouldn't pay much attention to my taste in candy since I don't like any of 'em. About ten years ago, my sweet tooth mysteriously went away and I don't find any of them appealing. When I did, I didn't really like anything but chocolate. These days, I'd rather eat gravel than M&Ms.