Monthly Archives: September 2018

I liked Burt Reynolds in many of his films and most of his appearances with Johnny Carson. There's something very friendly about a handsome leading-man type who doesn't take himself too seriously and can laugh at his own image.

He once appeared on a TV show I worked on but we didn't meet when he taped his spot. A few weeks later though, he dropped by the office about something else and we got introduced. We talked for about ten minutes about nothing that mattered one bit. But it did matter to me that he was the same self-deprecating guy with the hyena laugh who appeared often with Johnny.

Then one evening I was at a party and I listened as his ex-wife Judy Carne told a small group of folks how when she was married to him, Burt used to beat the hell out of her. From that point on, it became somewhat more difficult to like Burt Reynolds.

• Watched a little of the confirmation hearings. I feel like I have firmer opinions on cole slaw than Brett Kavanaugh has on any point of law.

• In light of the anonymous New York Times columnist, Donald Trump says he now can't trust anyone but his own children. The way things go with this guy, it will probably turn out that the New York Times columnist is one of his own children.

• When someone writes a book and you don't like what it says, accuse them of "just trying to sell books." That's a devastating putdown because as you know, honest authors with important things to say never care if anyone reads what they write.

Went last night to Opening Night for The World Goes 'Round, the newest musical presentation of the Reprise group. They revive old musicals for very short-but-sweet runs in the Freud Theater up at U.C.L.A. This production is there through September 16 and it stars Dawnn Lewis, Larry Cedar, Kelley Dorney, Michael Starr and my friend of more years than she's likely to admit, Valerie Perri. It was directed by Richard Israel and has musical direction by Gerald Sternbach.

Here's the plot of The World Goes 'Round: Five talented people come out and sing various songs that were written by Fred Ebb and John Kander. That's it. The songs are selected from various shows by that team (Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider-Woman, et al) and other projects for which they wrote songs. There is no storyline; just lots of good singing of good tunes accompanied by a good orchestra. It starts with "And The World Goes 'Round" and closes with "New York, New York," both of which were written for the movie, New York, New York.

If that sounds like a fun evening to you and you're within commuting distance of U.C.L.A., you should go see it because they really do a fine job of it. All the performances are strong and they cast singers who know how to "sell" the lyrics and wring everything out of them. We tend to forget — or at least, I tend to forget — how perfect some of Mr. Ebb's words were.

The World Goes 'Round was not, by the way, a Broadway show. It opened Off-Broadway in March of 1991 where it was called And the World Goes 'Round. It stayed there for 408 performances, then dropped a word, went on tour and became one of those shows that every group that stages musicals does eventually. It's a good show but just as important for some, it's a budget-balancing show.

It has a cast of five (and it's been done with less), almost nothing in the way of sets, props or costumes and you can do it with a small orchestra if need be. When your company goes seriously in the red staging Ragtime or South Pacific or any costly-to-do show, you bring in one of these to make back the dough you lost on the previous show or expect to lose on the next one. Nothing wrong with that, especially when the less expensive show wows an audience like this one did last night. Coming up next at Reprise is Grand Hotel, which requires a lot of people on stage, two of which (they just announced) will be Hal Linden and Sharon Lawrence.

Before that, there are thirteen more performances of The World Goes 'Round. If you'd like to catch one of them — and I recommend you do — here's the link you need to get tix.

This is a short interview with my pal Frank Welker. Frank is the "workingest" animation voice guy in history, meaning that he's hired and heard more than anyone else who does that kind of work. He is also so versatile that other folks who do that are in awe of his skills and also of the man himself. I've heard more than a few of his fellow voice actors express their amazement that a person who has been in such demand for that long isn't the least bit arrogant or unprofessional. Here's a few minutes with him discussing about a thousandth of a percent of what he does…

The other day, I got a furious, invective-filled e-mail from a total stranger. If I came over to your house, took a dump on your rug, stomped your cellphone to pieces and euthanized your house pets and all relatives over the age of 70, you would not get as mad as this guy is at me.

My crime? I haven't responded to a series of private messages he's sent me on LinkedIn, a service I signed up for back in the Pleistocene Era, just to find out what it was all about and if it could be of any use to me. I quickly found out that it was all about strangers asking you to give them a job, help them get a job, invest in their projects, publicize their projects and/or help them connect with someone who will give them a job, help them get a job, invest in their projects, publicize their projects, etc. I already get plenty of that in my life because I have a blog.

Could LinkedIn be of any use to me? None that I could see…so I stopped checking in here. Every day or so since, LinkedIn sends me an e-mail telling me I have 53 messages, 27 job changes and 407 new updates waiting for me on LinkedIn.

Upon receipt of the aforementioned angry e-mail, I decided to log in to LinkedIn for the first time in I-Don't-Know-How-Long. There, I found tons o' messages to me from folks who want me to give them a job, help them get a job, invest in their projects, yadda yadda yadda. Most do not give me any reason to do these things other than that they want me to and some of them are pretty brusque about it. They remind me of that guy back in high school — and you had one in your school too, I'm sure — who thought that the way to get girls to perform sex acts on or with him was to go around asking every non-hideous female to perform sex acts on or with him. Again, no reason…just "Hey, you wanna do this?"

The guy who tried this smooth approach at my school had a success record of well below triple-zero. That is to say that not only did no girl take him up on his offer but he swiftly became the obvious pick if the yearbook had contained a category for "Least Likely to Ever Get Laid." That's right. He even beat me out for that honor and for a time there, I was sure I had a lock on it.

There is something wrong with your product if that's how you're selling it. Really, really wrong.

I saw on LinkedIn that the fellow who sent me the wacko e-mail had sent me about a dozen and a half messages at first asking that I promote and recommend his self-published comic. By the last few, he was demanding that I plug this comic I've never seen or even heard of. Can't imagine why he isn't getting a lot of great press.

The Souplantation restaurant chain — known as Sweet Tomatoes in some states — has pulled a switcheroo. Usually, their Classic Creamy Tomato Soup is only on their menu for the month of March and occasionally for a week in October but all or most of their locations will have it for all of September.

This is my favorite soup. I've learned to make a reasonable facsimile of it in my kitchen for the months when they don't offer it. This month, I shall forego my knock-off and dine on the genuine article. You might like to try it but keep in mind that it doesn't grow hair or turn back time or eject Trump from the White House or perform any other kind of miracle. It's just real good tomato soup. I've been recommending it here for years and occasionally, readers of this site try it expecting something that will change the course of history. Good tomato soup cannot do this. Really, really good potato latkes, however, can.

Here's a way of finding out if there's one near you. If not, find one anyway.

For those of you who miss Jerry and his Labor Day Telethon, here's John Mariano doing Jerry with a lozenge. John is the comic and voice actor who was so funny on our Saturday Cartoon Voices panel at Comic-Con this past July. Well, actually, he was one of the folks who was so funny on that panel. Turn on the audio if it isn't already on…

Bored? Stressed? Looking for something interesting and calming to do in your life? I've got just the answer for you: Call the Tech Support line for the Seagate Company. You know — the one that makes the hard disks? Tell them you have one of their disks and that it's malfunctioning but still under warranty. Ask them how you can reformat it when Windows 10 is telling you the disk cannot be formatted.

Rather than just tell you to ship it back to them — since that would save both of you time — a nice man will tell you, "Let me look that up" and he'll put you on hold for ten minutes. I'm not kidding: Ten minutes! During that time, you'll be listening to really bad hold music but there will be a certain amount of excitement during it. Every so often, a song will end and/or there will be little sounds that will make you think your Tech Support Guy is getting back on the line with you…

…but no! It's just a hilarious prank they're playing on you because then the bad hold music will resume. Finally, he'll come back on line and ask you a brief question about your computer or what's displayed on your screen. You answer him and then that's where the real fun begins because he then places you on hold again for another ten minutes!

And after that, he comes back, asks you another question and then puts you on hold for another ten minutes!

And after that, he comes back, asks you another question and then puts you on hold for another ten minutes!

And another ten minutes! And another ten minutes!

And here's the best part of the whole thing: During all these long waits, you get to hear the bad hold music and play the "Wait, I think he's coming back on the line! No, he isn't!" game, uninterrupted by those insulting messages other companies give you telling you how important your call is to them. At Seagate, they're way too honest to lie and tell you that your call is important to them.

Finally, when the guy's back from lunch (and maybe even dinner) and he speaks to you again, you can tell him you're fed up with this treatment. That's when you demand to speak to someone higher up in the company and with an audible grin of delight, he'll put you on hold again and that's it. Game over. You're done. They will leave you there for friggin'-ever.

Why do they do this? I think the way it works is that when you first get on with them, they look up the serial number of your product. This enables them to determine how long you have remaining on that warranty and they can then keep you on hold until it expires and they don't have to fix it at all. Boy, these computer companies are smart.

Amazon is listing October 9 as the official release date for Volume 5 of Pogo – The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips by Walt Kelly.  Since I, its co-editor, have had a printed, bound copy of this for several weeks now, it's reasonable to expect Amazon will have its allotment by then if not sooner.  You can order with some confidence of a prompt delivery.

It's great material from the man I think was the greatest cartoonist ever of that kind of material.  If you prefer Schulz or Trudeau or Watterson or Capp or Segar or anyone else, fine.  We can still be friends.  Just acknowledge that my pick is a reasonable choice.

There is a fine foreword in it by Pogo Fan Supreme Jake Tapper.  Someday, he will come to his senses, give up that relatively unimportant reporting job on CNN and return to his old profession of cartooning.  There are also annotations and some special add-ins but the big attraction is two years of Mr. Kelly doing what he did so well.

I do not make a cent off how this book sells.  I just want it to sell well because it's very special material and the series was launched by someone who will always be very special to me.

A lot of my friends these days are discussing exactly how Trump is going to take the big fall. It's pretty obvious that he is. You can't have these many scandals bubbling, associates flipping, tapes surfacing, documents being subpoenaed, past statements unraveling, etc., without a big crash coming. Some combination of these Bad News for Trump stories is going to lead him to ruin and I think people are wasting their time trying to predict that scenario for two reasons…

1. We are in uncharted territory. We have never before had a president who could misbehave, name-call, get caught repeatedly lying, show that he doesn't understand his own policies and just generally display dishonesty and incompetence and not lose a substantial portion of his supporters. There are precedents from past presidential downfalls (Watergate, especially) which do or will apply but a lot of this is all new.
2. For the first year or so if this presidency, we could wake up each morning — especially those of us on the West Coast because the time zone difference gives Trump a three-hour headstart — and wonder, "What stupid, dishonest thing has he said or done today?" We still have that but the climate of investigation now adds a new morning surprise: "What damning thing has leaked or been revealed today?"

Reason 2 is the biggie and it's growing in significance.  We keep having news reports that say in effect or literally, "More bad news for President Trump.  It was revealed today…"  There's all this stuff coming that we can't see coming.  I'll betcha that a month from today, we'll be talking about scandals and dirt that are utterly unknown to us right this minute.  Some of them are probably known to Robert Mueller but even he's in for startling new information.  It's going to be like that for the rest of the Trump Presidency, however long it endures, and even after.

This morning, we have the first excerpts from Bob Woodward's new book.  Tomorrow, it'll be Something Else followed by Something Else followed by Something Else and Something Else and a whole lotta Something Elses.  New aides will flip.  New hush money payments will be revealed.  There'll be more women like Stormy Daniels and Karen Whatzhername, and new dossiers about Russia and we'll hear about new meetings which Trump did or did not know about depending on what his lawyers have told him is the best defense.

I don't know precisely what'll come out…and that's my point.  We don't know what we don't know.  But we know a lot of it's coming.

Jeffrey Toobin has written a real long profile of Rudy Giuliani with the emphasis on his current role as Trump's advocate. It is not a pretty picture of the lawyer or his client.

The history of cookies as explained by the world's foremost authority on the subject…

An obit for Marie Severin in The New York Times. [Caution: Quotes me.]

Rob Hansen takes issue with me saying that "She was also at times, an in-house censor. The EC books sometimes featured gore and a wee bit of sex and when Marie was called upon to color such scenes, she made her disapproval felt by coloring those panels dark blue or dark red, minimizing what was seen." Rob points me to an interview where Marie said that censoring was never her intention.

I dunno. I think I'm going to stand by what I wrote for now. Conscious intention or not, what she did was certainly regarded as I described by the others at EC including publisher Bill Gaines and editor Al Feldstein. They both described the result just as I said. I'll investigate further when I (ha!) have time.

And continuing with our discussion of whether anyone who worked for EC Comics is still alive: Art Lortie believes we have confirmation that Jules Feiffer (still alive) ghost-penciled one or two stories for EC, both finished by Wally Wood and maybe his then-partner Harry Harrison. In the recent book The Life and Legend of Wally Wood, Wood is quoted as saying he had Feiffer pencil "one or two stories," one of which was "Werewolf" in Vault of Horror #14. Another possible is "Only Time Will Tell" in Weird Fantasy #13. Perhaps someone can ask Mr. Feiffer to confirm or deny.