Monthly Archives: August 2018

The other day here, I embedded this video of Groucho Marx in a conversation with William F. Buckley. I thought it was an awkward, cringe-inducing show but my pal Steve Stoliar, who worked for Mr. Marx in his later years, saw it differently. It reminded him of Groucho's serious side and he liked it a lot more than I did.

I got a number of messages about it and here are two. The first is from my e-mail buddy Ira B. Matetsky…

Actually, William F. Buckley did acknowledge that innocent people could be convicted of murder. For several years, Buckley famously championed the cause of Edgar Smith, who was convicted of first-degree murder in New Jersey in 1957 and sentenced to death. Smith remained in prison for 14 years, during which he corresponded with Buckley. Smith convinced Buckley that he was innocent. Buckley began publicly advocating for Smith's exoneration and release, including in a famous article in Esquire, and visited him in prison.

In 1971, Smith was granted a retrial, at which point he accepted a plea to second-degree murder with a sentence of time served. Smith denied that he had actually committed the murder, saying he accepted the plea just to get out of jail. According to the New York Times, after being released "Mr. Smith immediately appeared on Mr. Buckley's Firing Line program, holding forth about criminal justice and prison reform. The conversation was steered by Mr. Buckley, who said he believed 'profoundly' that Mr. Smith was innocent. Mr. Buckley had described Mr. Smith in the 1965 Esquire article as 'an essentially phlegmatic young man of nonviolent habits.'"

In 1976, Smith kidnapped a woman in California and stabbed her, nearly killing her. On the run from the FBI, he called Buckley, who arranged for him to surrender. Smith was convicted of these new crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment. During this trial, Smith admitted that he had committed the earlier murder and relied on it as evidence he was not responsible for his action.

So, Buckley admitted that the state could convict an innocent person for murder and sentence him to death, but unfortunately, the person he chose as an example turned out to be guilty.

Y'know, now that you mention it, I do recall that case. The fact that Smith went free though guilty did a lot to convince people that if you're charged with a crime of violence, you probably did it. I still see that sentiment today, especially when there's a racial element.

I remember an acquaintance of mine — he was a friend before this conversation — and I were talking about the death penalty. I forget which one it was but there had been a recent exoneration thanks to DNA testing of a poor, uneducated black guy who'd spent a decade or more on Death Row for a murder he did not commit.

There's a strong argument against the death penalty that human beings should not be killing other human beings even as a reprisal for killing other human beings. But even if you don't believe that, you can believe that the death penalty is wrong because so many innocent people are wrongly convicted of capital crimes.

My about-to-become-a-former-friend opined that the recent exoneration I cited did not change his mind about how the government should be frying more such folks, preferably within hours of the "guilty" verdict. He believed that even if the man I mentioned was innocent of that particular crime, he was a poor, uneducated black guy so he probably committed other crimes that warranted his execution.

In the late sixties, I was way more Conservative than most readers of this blog will ever believe. I wanted to like Buckley. Part of the reason I watched him was because I wanted to learn the arguments I could use against my more Liberal friends when we got into debates. But I came to have an opinion of him only a little higher than Richard Morgan's. He's the person who sent me this e-mail…

I started to watch the video of the Firing Line with Groucho Marx, but I quickly felt the bile rising in my throat with the first words out of the pursed-lipped mouth of Buckley. I couldn't stand to watch or listen to him at the time and I soon had to opt out just as Groucho started to reply to the first inane question.

I could not subject myself to watching this arrogant, bullying, pseudo-intellectual displaying one of the ugliest visages and most irritating voices ever on television. The only time I watched the program for the full hour was when Jerry Brown blew Buckley out of the water in a question of Roman Catholic Dogma. The glee which I felt as Buckley had to admit his own error and his visual hatred for Brown in exposing his stupidity.

The only other times I had occasion to watch anything to do with Buckley was when one of my favorite writers and pundits, Gore Vidal, served him up on a skewered platter during their televised debates during an election. Buckley finally was so frustrated that he had to pull out the "gay" card to attempt to demean Vidal with slander as his idiotic attempts at intellect were blunted at every turn by Vidal. I still miss the erudite offerings of Gore Vidal on every television forum as opposed to the current dearth of intelligence or intellect allowed on any televised medium.

I enjoy reading your daily diary of events and activities in the entertainment industry.

I recall the Buckley-Vidal skirmishes during ABC's 1968 election coverage and wonder if any network has since contemplated trying something similar for its election coverage. It might not be possible to find and match-up two such erudite combatants but it surely wouldn't be hard to find people who liked to argue. Even though I was then more-or-less on Buckley's side, I thought Vidal mopped the floor with him. And I'll write more about this later but I have to be off to a meeting. Thanks, Ira and Richard.

It's been a while since I tallied how many friends I've lost because of their crazed support of that guy in the Oval Office but I think I'm now up to ten. Understand that I have friends who back D.J.T. but who don't go all Alex Jones on me about it, spouting "alternative facts" and borderline hate speech. The counter is tallying a different list — one of folks who are now clearly living in a new reality where all news either backs Donald 100% or is fake. You can't really talk with people with whom you do not share a common language or facts.

The latest inductee has been sending out texts and posting online messages begging for "civility." Okay, fine. I'm all for that. But to him, that only means we must not say negative things about The Greatest President Ever. I live in a land where one of our blessed freedoms and strengths is our right to criticize our alleged leaders. If you can't do that, you're not living in America…and indeed, my Trump-supporting friends are still fine with every insult and conspiracy theory directed at Barack Obama or anyone named Clinton.

The tenth person on my List of Lost Friends really believes that when Trump calls people stupid or losers, that's not incivility. It's just striking back with the truth against those who deserve to be slapped…and by the way, I think that's part of the appeal of Trump to some people. They have people in their lives (and on their televisions) who they'd like to see have the crap beaten out of them and they adore a leader who won't be statesmanlike and respectful towards such folks.

But really, it doesn't work like that. Incivility is reflexive and has been since the first time "Caveman A" hit "Caveman B" and "Caveman B" hit back. You can have a world where no one calls their opponents idiots or one where everyone calls their opponents idiots…but you can't have a world where one side is allowed the unilateral right to insult because they're right and the other side isn't allowed to insult since they're wrong.

And I should add here that I'm not following the Trump/Omarosa battles. I've just read enough about them to feel that neither one should never have been anywhere near a position in the government.

Someone with very little drawing skill did a sketch of Charlie Brown and Snoopy, signed it as "Schulz" and offered it for sale on eBay. A nine-year-old child could have spotted it as a fraud but apparently there are a lot of eight-year-olds with money because before the listing disappeared it had bids of up to $700 with several days left to go in the auction. I'm guessing it was yanked off because it was reported as a counterfeit but who knows? Maybe it got sold somewhere else for even more.

I'm going to keep mentioning this kind of thing here but keep in mind that fakes are sold every day. The instances I mention are not rare.

There should be more articles like this one by Stephen Galloway warning wanna-be screenwriters about scams.  There should also be more articles about the exploitation about wanna-be actors and people who think they can direct and aspiring costume designers, etc.  I have lately seen some very horrible ripping-off of young folks who do a few funny voices and are preyed upon by "coaches" who will promise to make them the new Rob Paulsen…and all it will cost is everything the kid has or can borrow.

I absolutely understand the feeling that you have talent and want to pursue a dream.  I am leery of those who tell you, "You can be anything you want in life if you just pursue it and don't give up."  No, you can't be anything you want in life.  If tomorrow I decide I want to pitch for the Dodgers, that ain't gonna ever happen and it won't be because I don't try hard enough.

That kind of belief — that success is merely a matter of persistence — can make a kid very vulnerable to someone who seems to be dangling the key. And the sad/infuriating part isn't even that they take your money. It's that when you might be doing something that really will help you sell your screenplay (or whatever), they lead you down a path that doesn't lead anywhere.

Do you get the sense that I'm a little infuriated by this kind of thing? And no, I never fell for any of what the article's talking about.

The stage musical of Mamma Mia! ran on Broadway for 5,758 performances and I somehow managed to miss 5,758 of them. If you did too, fear not. If there is no production of this show currently playing near you, wait a few weeks and there will be one opening…and I don't just mean this year. I mean for all eternity. Long after the complete works of Shakespeare are laying forgotten and unperformed, someone will be doing Mamma Mia! in your town.

I vaguely recall seeing the movie and thinking…

• The songs of ABBA are fun and often hard to eject from your skull once they find a place to reside within your neurocranium —
• — but I think I liked them better in the original ABBA recordings.
• Also, the plot of Mamma Mia! is of just about no interest to me —
• — and isn't it weird that someone had to come up with a storyline to wrap around all those ABBA songs to create a musical for the whole family and they said, "How about a story of a young woman trying to figure out which of the many men her mother slept with is her father?
• — and the songs don't always fit the story that well —
• — but who cares?

And that's about all I remember of the film except that in the end, all the main actors were in these weird ABBA costumes and singing the Greatest Hits without some phony concept wrapped around them, and one of them was "Waterloo" which apparently no one could shoehorn into the plot…and that was the best part.

Okay. So last night, I went to see a stage production of Mamma Mia! down at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, which is a Broadway-class theater that's not as far from Los Angeles as it sounds. I've been there a lot and the shows there, no matter who produces them, are almost always worth the drive. This one was produced by a company called 3-D Theatricals which was responsible for the stagings of Young Frankenstein, Spamalot and a few others that I didn't write about that I took Amber to see there.

Amber was busy with schoolwork this weekend so instead I took my friend Laraine Newman — and she wanted to go in part for the same reason I wanted to go in part: One of the leads in the play was our friend Candi Milo. Candi is a wonderful actress on stage and also in front of a microphone when she's doing cartoon voices.  Maybe we're prejudiced but we both thought she was out and away the best performer on that stage.

Not that there weren't others.  I suspect the folks who made up ABBA would have been real happy hearing Sophina Brown belting their lyrics and Flynn Hayward was quite adorable as her daughter Sophie.  Promos for the show said this was the first time those two roles had been cast with black performers and apart from one line about Sophie's "golden tresses," it didn't matter one bit.  Theatrical audiences have happily become totally color-blind.  Would that the whole country was that way.

We were seated second row center, close enough to get a "contact high" (a term I never liked) from the performers on stage.  As with other productions I've seen there, the actors — the dancers, especially — were having such a good time up there, the joy was infectious. Here — you may even feel a little of it in this 90-second promo video for the production…

As with the film, the best part of the show was the encore sequence at the end (including "Waterloo").  I still don't like the story or how awkwardly it leads into and out of most of the songs but like the bullet point above says, who cares? There was some great hoofing up there and some great voices and a lot of enthusiasm and good costuming and sets (all newly-designed for the occasion) so Laraine and I were both very glad we made the trek to Redondo Beach.

Sadly, the matinee today there is the last time 3-D Theatricals is putting a show into that building. Next weekend, this production moves into the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, which is about twenty minutes to the south. Future shows mounted by 3-D Theatricals will start there and stay there, commencing with 42nd Street in October. I don't think I'll be making that commute quite as often. If you want to see their Mamma Mia!, you'll need to go to Cerritos.  Here's a link to order tickets but you'd better hurry.  It's only there for two weeks and Candi said they're almost sold out.  I'm not surprised.

Last night, I went to the L.A. premiere of my buddy Lee Aronsohn's superb documentary, The Magic Music Movie. It was at the Laemmle's Music Hall Theater in Beverly Hills and since it's about an acoustical band of the seventies, the invite asked that we come in seventies attire. I didn't even dress "seventies" in the seventies so I just wore my usual wardrobe and told all the folks in tie-dyed garb and headbands that I was disguised as a narc.

The band was called Magic Music and you probably never heard of them; not unless you were in or around Colorado in the early seventies. They never released an album. They never really got on television. But Lee was in Colorado and there became a tremendous fan of their live performances. They disbanded in 1976 and went their separate ways — some remaining in the music profession, some not. Four decades later, he decided it might be a good idea to track them all down, find out what had become of them and get the band together for one more concert.

I wrote about this back here, right after I first saw this film. I enjoyed it immensely then but I viewed it online via a private link. Sometimes, you just want to see a film the way movies were meant to be seen: On a big screen with nothing diverting your attention from the movie on that big screen.

I liked it even more at the Laemmle, partly because there were no distractions and partly because I was with a live, enthusiastic audience. Sometimes, a line will only strike you funny when you're among others who are laughing at it.

It all struck me as way more interesting than any story about a band who "made it." These guys didn't, at least collectively, and you could spend an hour or two theorizing that it was because they were too afraid of success…and another few hours explaining why they were too afraid of failure. A case could probably also be made that neither was the case; that they simply didn't get the breaks or exploit them properly. Whatever the reason, they seem to have no regrets; some express genuine pride in what they did even though what they did didn't make them rich 'n' famous.

Lee and his crew did a truly fine job on it so here's a second recommendation that you go see it. It'll have special resonance if you're roughly in my age bracket (I'm 66) but it's good for all ages.

A baby elephant gets its first bath…

• Michael Avenatti is a media whore, he has no government experience and he associates with porn stars. America is not going to elect someone like that President of the United States.

• I keep reading all this talk about a "Space Force" and so far, the proposal seems to be "Let's spend an unlimited amount of money we don't have to do something in outer space but we don't have a clue what it is yet."

The original cast members of Saturday Night Live — well, the five who are still with us — accept the induction all seven into the Television Hall of Fame. Bill Murray, who was not included as an original member, also shows up to steal the evening…

An add-on to the previous item: If you are making a demo these days to try to get an agent, do not make it two minutes. Make it one minute and assume that if the listener does not hear something in the first thirty seconds that grabs their interest, they will never make it into the second thirty seconds.

If it does snag an agent and cause them to sign you as a client, your new agent will probably want you to make a new demo which they will use to try and get work for you. They will tell you how long to make that demo and what to put in it in what order.

And before someone asks me what to put in that first thirty seconds that will grab an agent, here's the answer: Something they haven't heard before that some client might want. Sounding like everyone else is the last thing you want to do. I recently listened to the demo of a young kid seeking representation. He started his demo with a killer imitation of Bart Simpson. Not only will that not get him an agent but few agents will make it past Bart to hear if he has anything else to offer.

• "Space Force" sounds like something Trump came up with to try and appeal to voters under the age of nine.

Here's a brief chat with the late Jack Davis. Among folks who do this kind of cartooning, he may be the most widely-respected and envied. His style was absolutely his and it was perfect for everything he tried to accomplish…