Monthly Archives: January 2018

That's Gilbert Gottfried, one of the funniest people on this hemisphere — and who knows? He may be equally funny on the other hemisphere. I haven't bothered to check. Each week, he and his co-host Frank Santopadre bring us Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. They've been doing this for some time and it's really an amazing and colossal podcast that I always enjoy.

Usually they have as their guests the Great and the Near-Great. I guess no one in either group was available because this week their guest is me.

My favorite day last year may have been September 19. On that evening, a bunch of us filled the Goldwyn Theater at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills — more than a thousand lovers of great cartoons and of a great cartoon voice actress convened to celebrate the life and times of June Foray. We wanted to do it the evening before but the theater was booked. The evening before would have placed it on her 100th birthday.

It was a helluva lot of work but I'm still hearing from people who'll say it was an experience they'll never forget. Alas, I'm also still hearing from people who are pissed that they weren't there and/or on stage. I've been telling them, "If we let everyone who loved June get up there, we'd still be there" and now, months later, that may still be true. I even have one person who says he reads this blog all the time, somehow didn't know about the event and is upset that I didn't call and tell him about it. Well, you all saw how infrequently I mentioned it here.

And I have people who want to know when a video of the whole thing will be posted so they can watch it. Answer: Never. The evening contained too many cartoons and videos that we don't have the right to put online…but we may be posting some clips from the speeches.

What you can watch below is a slightly-abridged version of what was projected on the screen that evening as everyone came in and took their seats. It ran in a loop over and over but there was so much happy conversation and hugging in that room, even a lot of the attendees didn't get the chance to view it. Now, they can. You'll need to take this full screen to see everything…

Yes, it's a beautiful Sunday…a day when everything is open except the banks, Chick-fil-A and the United States government. Guess which of these is not likely to be open tomorrow.

The news tells me that Chief-o'-Staff John Kelly is negotiating on behalf of the White House — and why not? It's not like we have a president who's experienced at negotiations.

Meanwhile, the Democrats and Republicans seem to be arguing about whether to call it the Trump Shutdown or the Schumer Shutdown…and that's about all they seem to be arguing about. Hey, they can call it the Evanier Shutdown if that'll move them on to actually settling this thing. Last I heard, the only proposal out there was something like how we will build Trump's border wall but only if DACA kids do it. Maybe I misheard.

For me, the fascinating guy to watch during all is Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who seems to be kissing Trump butt and telling him he's the greatest prez ever on even-numbered days and treating him like a moron on odd-numbered days. What's more, he seems to be getting away with this.

Today, he also went after Trump's creepiest aide saying "As long as Steven Miller is in charge of negotiating immigration we are going no where. He's been an outlier for years." Miller's the kind of guy who back in high school, ran for Student Body President on a platform of "More homework, fewer proms" and got one vote, counting his own.

I hear that despite the shutdown, the Grand Canyon is still open. When I was seven or so, there was an item on the news that the Grand Canyon would be closed for a few days for some reason and I wondered if that meant men with shovels had to go out and fill it in — and then when it was open again, they had to go back and dig it out. That sounded like a lot of work…but how else do you "close" a huge hole in the ground? At the age of seven, that made a certain amount of sense…about as much as this whole shutdown does today.

I go on Facebook about five times a day, increasingly with mixed feelings. I've sometimes made joyous connections (and reconnections) with people through that system and I've read informative articles and discussions. Fine. Now, here comes the mixed part…

I don't know if it's me getting older or our intraspecies dialogue growing coarser. Most likely, it's both…but I'm getting increasingly dismayed at vitriol, insults and outright anger. I sometimes even feel that people are being too nasty to Donald Trump, a man I think is seriously harming this country and its citizens. He is also, I believe, responsible for a large chunk of this coarseness…or maybe just for making it more socially acceptable to let it out.

Please note that I am not trying to deny anyone's Right to Free Speech here — but mine includes the right to say I think someone's being rude or hostile or even — and this is often the case — that they're being so hysterical as to kill all possibilities of actual, valuable discussion. Free speech certainly includes my right to absent myself from forums that I think have just devolved into screaming matches…or at least have ceased to be constructive in any way. At some point, many of them just become about some Wanna-Be Alpha Male (even if it's a female) trying to "win" by shouting down or driving away everyone else.

I understand and can rationalize a certain amount of the hysteria with regard to politics, where there may be genuine, reasonable fears that a given person or action will get us all killed, destroy our planet and/or health insurance, raise our taxes, etc. I am stunned though at the sheer hatred I see out there for certain movies, celebrities, athletes, musicians…even comic books. Sometimes, I see what feels like actual loathing towards someone who has committed no wrong greater than simply being annoying on television and I think, "You know, you can make Billy Eichner totally disappear from your world by changing the channel."

In most cases, I leap to the assumption — perhaps unfairly but often accurately, I think — that the person who is livid at some TV host or comic book artist is actually just mad about his or her own life. There is no anger in this world like self-anger but often, angry people are in deep denial that that's what they're railing against.

In online forums, I find myself in two kinds of discussions and I've come to think of them as Real Discussions and Cockfights. The "Cockfights" label works on two levels because those arguments are about as hysterical and meaningful as two roosters trying to peck each other's eyes out, and also because those battles have a lot to do with virtual genital size.

In a Real Discussion, the participants genuinely want to hear what each other has to say. I've been in or witnessed some great Real Discussions since I got my first modem — discussions that have informed me, changed my mind about things, entertained me, given me new ways to look at things…

In a Cockfight, all that matters is who wins — or more accurately, who can claim victory, if only to himself. There are some people who, when they enter a Real Discussion, simply have to turn it into a Cockfight. That's when I know it's time to get out because that thread ain't going anywhere.

It won't have any more substance to it than…well, a Cockfight. I would never venture anywhere near the real kind, the kind involving actual birds. I'm going to try harder to avoid the kind I sometimes encounter on Facebook. Like the real kind, they always end with both sides bloodied…and even the winner doesn't have a lot of feathers left.

I've written much here about the Los Angeles-based improv troupe The Black Version and gone to see them many a time. Here's a piece about them and about the state of improv in L.A., especially involving actors of color.

The Black Version is performing tonight at the Brava Theater in San Francisco as part of the SF Sketchfest series. Then they're performing Monday, January 29 at the Groundlings Theater in L.A. and on Saturday, April 14 at the Largo at the Coronet, also in my fair city. I have seen acres of improvisational comedy in my life and it doesn't get any better than these folks.

• Right now, there are people in countries Trump called shitholes who are thinking, "Yeah, but our government is still functioning!"

Last week, Amber and I went to dinner with our two friends: Chanteuse extraordinaire Shelly Goldstein and her husband, filmmaker Brendan Foley. We went to Benihana, which is one of Amber's favorite places to dine and mine, as well.

I was reminded of a time many years ago when Sergio Aragonés and I were guests at a comic convention in Texas and we went to dinner at a Benihana with our friend and editor, Archie Goodwin. Sergio, who cooks almost as well as he cartoons, kept asking questions of our chef and our chef kept showing him how this was done and how that was done…and by the end of the cooking process, Sergio was preparing the food under rather minimal supervision from the chef. I wasn't sure which one of them to tip so, of course, I tipped neither.

Amber loves Benihana Fried Rice and that evening along with her entree, she consumed two bowls of it, plus I got her one to go. I suspect she's just hanging around me for the fried rice. Here we see a Benihana chef teaching someone who's not quite as fast a learner as Sergio how to make it…

I need to make some technical adjustments to this blog and I'll be making them in the next few days. There might come a brief time when it will be unavailable or where a few recent messages may temporarily disappear.

Also: As some of you may know, I've maintained the website and blog of my good pal Steve Gerber since he passed away in 2008. I will continue to maintain the blog indefinitely even though no one has posted on it in something like sixteen months. Things over there require more severe maintenance and so at some point, it may be offline for a few weeks. Fear not. It shall return.

Real Time with Bill Maher returns tonight with a new show.  Too bad there's nothing in the news for Maher to talk about.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver doesn't return until a month from now — on February 18. I wish HBO would arrange it so those two guys weren't both off the air at the same time.

Imagine a few years ago, I'd come to you with the following prediction/offer…

Within in a year after the next president is inaugurated, it'll be revealed that he cheated on his wife with a porn star — and probably other women, as well. What's more, during the presidential campaign, he paid a six-figure amount to the porn star to keep quiet about it. But as this comes out, his supporters really won't care much about it. A lot of them thought Bill Clinton was unfit for office just because of Monica but they'll be fine with their boy doing what he did and there'll be no real outrage over it.

How much money could I have won from you if we'd bet? You could have cleaned me out if you'd told me that and I don't even get that they're ignoring it because they don't believe it. It's more like "We're in power. That's all that matters." So forget about that and let's look at some links…

• Fred Kaplan discusses America's place in the world under Trump. As Kaplan notes, other countries question whether America will honor its commitments. Why do they do this? Well, maybe it's because the president keeps saying he's not sure if he will honor our commitments.
• William Saletan discusses the "shithole" matter and the squabble over did he say it or didn't he say it? I'm amazed and maybe amused about Lindsey Graham who, when asked if Trump had used the "s" word, refused to say because "I want to make sure that I can keep talking to the president." Do we think that Trump would stop talking to someone who said, "I agree with the president's account"?
• Here's Ezra Klein on where we stand at this moment in the battle to get a continuing resolution that will fund the government and keep the lights on and the doors open. This story may be obsolete by the time I finish this post and put the whole thing up. Oh, if only we could have a continuing resolution of our continuing resolutions.
• Jonathan Chait notes how little Trump's inaugural address — you know; the one that a bazillion people filled the National Mall to hear — has to do with anything he's done since.
• As Joe Conason notes, polls say that by pretty lopsided margins, Americans view Robert Mueller and his investigation as fair. And they'll continue to feel that way until he tells them something they don't want to believe.
• And lastly for now: Doug Bandow reminds us that Republicans once preached Fiscal Responsibility and said how awful it was that our nation was in debt. Yeah, remember that time? It was any time a Democrat was in the White House.

I have nothing to say about Trump's medical report except that isn't it amazing that we don't even trust it when someone tells us what this guy weighs?

• I'm watching a funding debate on CSPAN…or as we now call it, The Gorilla Channel.

One thing that's made me happy lately is the debut the other night of the new CW series, Black Lightning. The first episode sits on my TiVo waiting for me to have time to get to it but I'm just happy it's there, happy its debut got good reviews and happy its debut got great ratings. What's my stake in this thing? Nothing…I'm just happy for my friend of over fifty years, Tony Isabella. And I've only met him once or twice but I'm happy for Trevor VonEeden, too.

Back in 1977, the two of them launched a new comic for DC.  It only lasted eleven issues back then but it was a great eleven issues and the concept was too good to go away.  I know that whenever Tony and I were together at a convention, everyone would ask him, "When's Black Lightning coming back?"  No one was expecting it to be a weekly TV series but there it is, complete with on-screen creator credits for Tony and Trevor.  When I think of all the great comic book creators who never got their names on their work in other media, I'm especially happy that that doesn't happen anymore.  Congrats, guys.

Here's Mac King doing his rope trick. Every magician in the world has done a version of this trick and they all wish they could do it as well as Mac King and with all the embellishments he's added to it. If you're ever in Vegas, you will not be gambling if you go see the show Mac does, Tuesdays through Saturdays at Harrah's at 1 PM and 3 PM in the afternoon. He's been there half past forever and there's a reason.

Two tips: The show officially costs $36.95 per seat. Do not pay this. If you wander around Harrah's — especially if you wander to the Total Rewards booth — you can almost always find a discount coupon that will get you in for $14.98 a person and that includes a free drink. ("Total Rewards" is the club card for Harrah's, Caesars, Bally's and all the other casinos owned by the same company. It's free to get one and it'll save you a few bucks here and there.)

Second tip: While you're at Harrah's, it's free to drop by The Piano Bar and catch a little of Pete "Big Elvis" Vallee, who's been playing Vegas even longer than Mac King. Big Elvis now performs Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 2 PM to 6 PM — or so it says on the Harrah's website. If you're there on the days both Mac and Pete are performing, you can probably time your visit to see both of 'em.

Anyway, here's Mac performing his rope trick as he wears one of my old suits…

As an add-on to my article about sleep: Sometimes, you're also up until All Hours dealing with matters of credit card fraud.  For the third time in three months, someone is charging purchases I didn't make to one of my cards.  When it happens, I know right away because all my cards are set to send me a text message when any amount is charged to them.

So just as I was getting into bed, I got a flurry of such messages and immediately called the credit card company.  They're reversing the charges, canceling the card and sending me a new one.  This has been happening a lot lately and I'll bet not just to me.

Makes me wonder.  Some (not all) of the text messages noted that the issuing company's computers suspected the charges weren't Kosher.  Those texts showed me the suspicious charge and asked me to press 1 if the purchase was legit, 2 if it was not.  Why can't a card be set to do this for every purchase and then the purchase doesn't go through until the legal holder of the card responds?  Wouldn't it drastically reduce bogus charges if the bogus chargers knew using my card number would be useless if I didn't respond to a text?

I'm trying to think of reasons that credit cards don't work this way and I haven't come up with one yet.  This may because it's the middle of the night and sectors of my brain think I'm already asleep.  I'll see if I can think of any in the morning.  In the meantime, the thief has by now probably learned that the card number is no longer valid so he's giving up on it and going on to another one that is also not his. Could be yours.