Monthly Archives: July 2019

Nate Silver is to me, the pollster of pollsters. He doesn't poll himself but he kind of polls the pollsters and parses their polling to arrive at a wider look. He's now saying Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris are about equally likely to win the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders is one tier below them and that no one else stands much of a chance. If that's so, then all the shrieking and moaning about a 24-candidate race was unnecessary because we got down to a four-way contest in record time. Now, we just have to get through debates where Michael Bennet and Andrew Yang get equal time with the actual candidates.

But I also question if the field is really that predictable. The rest of this election sure isn't. We have a volatile political atmosphere and a volatile incumbent and I doubt even Trump's staunchest supporters would be surprised if he said or did something outrageous or if any of the umpteen ongoing investigations turned up more scandals and possible crimes. We may still find out he committed some wild, still-prosecutable financial fraud or that he was born in Kenya or that he really did shoot someone on Fifth Avenue.

That's my position: That things will happen that we can't possibly imagine now. There will be numerous game-changers and some of them may make all conventional political wisdom and polling — the kind Nate Silver employs — irrelevant. Too many things that could never have happened have already happened.

I have often mentioned my beloved friend Shelly Goldstein, whom I count among the most talented people I know…and I know some damned talented people. Shelly is a fine writer of comedy and a fine vocalist of songs. She combines these things at which she's so fine into a cabaret show called "How Groovy Girls Saved the World." It was great when she performed it to sold-out crowds here in Los Angeles. I see no reason to think it won't be as great or greater when she performs it on Saturday, August 3 at Studio 5 in Evanston, Illinois.

You will love it if you love female vocalists of the sixties like Petula Clark, Mama Cass and Jackie DeShannon. You will love it if you love funny songs because Shelly intersperses the hits of the sixties with her own compositions. If you love both those things, you will go and never leave.

You can get ticket information here. I will probably not be there because Studio 5 is 2,034 miles from my house and after my recent trip to North Carolina, I'm giving up air travel for a while. Shelly's show might almost be worth crawling that far. I guarantee you no trauma counseling will be necessary.

I've been watching America's Got Talent lately — occasional peeks at the show on NBC and, more often, on YouTube. I like a lot of what goes on there. Sure, much of the show is configured to create inspirational, tearjerker moments. Fine. But they do it well, certainly better than any of their imitators. That show James Corden did a few months ago was so forced and unreal that it made me appreciate the simplicity of AGT all the more.

But you know what I don't like? I don't like "Watch me risk killing myself" acts.

I didn't always feel this way. In fact, I worked for a few years on a TV show that featured some of them and it didn't bother me there, possibly because my behind-the-scenes position enabled me to see that the stunts weren't as dangerous as their performers (and my show) made them out to be. There sometimes was an element of danger and a few people did get hurt on our program but you think, "Well, this is the profession they chose for themselves. They all weighed the possible risks versus the possible rewards and decided to go ahead."

I still feel some of that way but I less and less want to watch it. My thought process now goes more or less like this: Is it an out-and-out magic trick that looks dangerous but in reality, there's zero chance of actual harm? I can enjoy some of those but at times, there's an element of deception that bothers me. On the other hand, is there a real chance that the performer will be injured or killed? Increasingly, I don't want to watch it and don't think it should be encouraged.

I started writing this piece a few days ago, stopped with the paragraph directly above and decided to get back to it some other time. I'm back finishing it because I just read this news item…

A magician was taken to hospital over the weekend after reportedly being struck on the head with an arrow during an on-stage performance gone wrong. Entertainer Li Lau, who works under the name "One Crazy China," suffered an injury at the 2019 National Arts Festival in Makhanda, South Africa.

It was a trick wherein "One Crazy China" (apt name) was supposed to escape from some kind of restraints so that a crossbow fired by an assistant would not strike him in the head. Something went wrong and it struck him in the head. This line in the news report helped shape my view of the incident…

The art organization's chief executive, Tony Lankester, told the paper that trauma counseling would be made available to members of the audience who witnessed the accident.

There is something wrong with an act for which trauma counseling is ever necessary. And why didn't they offer it that time I went to see Jackie Mason perform?

In the seventies, a lot of folks were shocked and disbelieving when it came out that Dick Van Dyke — sweet, funny, wholesome Dick Van Dyke — was an alcoholic and had been one for some time. In 1974, he starred as an alcoholic businessman in the TV movie, The Morning After, and later revealed that it was based on his own addiction. On November 14 of that year, he talked candidly about it on The Dick Cavett Show. Here's an excerpt from that program…

And from the same show, here are Dick and Dick talking about Stan and Buster. My thanks to Robert Brauer for telling me about the first link.

There is a bit of good news about Donald Trump: He may be about to rid himself of the foreign policy of John Bolton, a man who demands war and regime change everywhere from Iran to Sesame Street. Fred Kaplan thinks it's likely.

Kaplan also thinks that Trump's obvious jealousy of dictators who can kill those who cross them is no longer a joking matter.

Okay, I seemed to have massaged my sleeping hours back to normal and I got all my pressing, must-go-to-press work in so maybe things will be more normal around here for a while. It'll get tougher as we inch towards Comic-Con which begins, let me remind you, sixteen days from now. The news of what panels will occur when is supposed to be embargoed until the convention itself announces the schedule but I seem to be about the only person honoring that. In any case, they'll begin posting the schedule on their website on Wednesday and going day-by-day until it's all up.

In light of our last Video Link, a couple of folks wrote to ask me what my favorite candy was back when I ate candy. I never consumed a lot of candy but when I did, there was nothing I liked better than the Russell Stover Cashew Patty. It looked like a coaster you'd set a drink on but it was just cashew pieces covered in quite-delicious chocolate. If a law was passed that criminalized all forms of candy except that one, I would have been fine with it. Simple. Tasty. And oh so satisfying.

They stopped making them decades ago. I heard or maybe I assumed that the Cashew Patty was swept away when the Russell Stover folks started a line of low-fat, low-sugar candies. They now offer the Russell Stover Cashew Cluster pictured above which I assume is the same chocolate and the same cashew pieces, though possibly not in quite the same chocolate-to-nut ratio. In any case, I liked chocolate-covered cashews as much as I ever liked any treat but I haven't had that kind of thing in twelve years. I haven't even had my favorite cookie, though friends still occasionally buy me a sack of 'em.