Monthly Archives: August 2019

There are a lot of prominent folks — mostly Republican, some not — who want to blame mass shootings on (a) mental health and the lack thereof, (b) a dearth of religious acceptance and/or (c) video games. Even if those were the main reasons, the problem is that none of those people intend to do anything about (a) or (c), and they won't do much about (b) except what they always do, which is to argue that everyone should embrace their particular religion.

So those are all really different ways of saying they don't want to do anything. We may or may not see some Congressperson get up and propose regulating or banning videogames but that's one of those proposals that won't last much longer than the time it takes that legislator to propose it to a roomful of empty chairs on CSPAN. Ain't gonna happen.

Mike Huckabee, who makes his living peddling his version of religion as the answer to everything, is out there peddling his version of religion. This is like me insisting that the way to stop mass shootings is for more people to buy Groo the Wanderer comic books. Come to think of it, the Groo comics might even do more good. There is no reported incident of any mass-murdering committed while reading Groo, whereas a lot of people who kill other people believe they're doing it because God told them to or because they'll be rewarded in the afterlife or something of that sort.

But I'm just writing this for the sake of writing it. I don't expect anything anyone says on this blog or in less-read sources like the New York Times to change anything. Sadly, the only thing which might move someone to constructive action would be an increased flurry of mass shootings…and even that would not motivate many someones who could do anything.

Somewhere though, there must a district or two where some Republican running for re-election gets the message that he or she might not get re-elected if they can't answer voters who demand to know why they haven't done more than blame mental health, not being religious enough and Grand Theft Auto. And maybe the next attempt to ban assault weapons will lose by a narrower margin and give some of us a wee bit more hope. I'm not counting on it.

Another interview with Hal Prince. This will give you more of an overview of his unmatched career…

Los Angeles magazine and Variety have both run articles noting the fortieth anniversary of the movie, Rock 'n' Roll High School, which I thought was one of the best films ever made for that kind of budget for that kind of audience. Fun movie. Good cast. Great poster art by my pal Bill Stout. If you've never seen it, see it.

Because of a pressing deadline and a general disgust at the news these days, I won't be posting a lot of new content for a day or three here. The disgust has a lot to do with leaders of all stripes who think that Doing Something About Mass Shootings means making speeches about how someone has to Do Something About Mass Shootings.

So far, the only actual action I see that stands a chance of becoming reality is to make sure that mass shooters get the Death Penalty. I dunno…seems to me that when a guy goes into a public place with an assault rifle and starts shooting anyone and everything, he assumes that he's going to perish in the process, probably in a hail of S.W.A.T.-team ammo. I don't get that a lot of those fellows are real worried about dying by lethal injection.

And that's the last time today I want to devote my mind to that matter or the guy in the White House.

I would have loved the evening with Dick Van Dyke even if it hadn't been such a good distraction from the news. He was sensational. His wonderful spouse Arlene was sensational. The band and his singing group The Vantastix were sensational. My gripes about the club and its food should in no way be viewed as a reflection on the show. Two very-separate things. I do not know if and when Dick will do it again but if/when that's arranged, I'll tell you about it here. After I secure my tickets, of course.

The last week, I've received a number of inquiries on a certain topic. Each of those asks when Sergio Aragonés and/or I will be appearing at another comic convention, preferably one near the residence of the person asking the question. As far as I know, we'll both be at the WonderCon in Anaheim (April 10-12, 2020) and the Comic-Con International in San Diego (July 23-26, 2020). I have nothing before that and I don't think Sergio does, either.

One gent who's written me before is angry that we don't come to his turf and acts like it's some sort of regional discrimination on our parts. It's actually because we don't get invited to his town…or if we do, they're unappealing offers. Please understand that if we don't come to your area, it's not because we hate your state and it certainly isn't because it went for Trump. One correspondent a few weeks ago actually accused me of having that petty motive. I got his e-mail saying that right after Sergio and I got back from North Carolina…a state Trump carried.

And Oops! Here I am thinking about Trump again. I'm going to go work on something that pays…not much but it pays.

This is for those of you who like to start their days dancing to a Japanese disco record about Popeye.  Admit it.  You do.

Lana Wood, little sister of Natalie, gets a profile in the New York Times and to restate her case that her sister was not the victim of an accidental drowning but was, in fact, murdered.  I have no opinion on this…just the sense that the matter could do with more investigation than it received at the time.

One really trivial matter: Perhaps Lana Wood's most memorable movie role was as Bond Girl Plenty O'Toole in Diamonds are Forever.  In the Times article, it says…

In Plenty's last scene, she is thrown through a high hotel window into a swimming pool below, which Lana accomplished without a stunt double, she said, plummeting from a towering platform on full display for an enormous crowd of gamblers on the Vegas Strip, wearing less than she had in Playboy.

In other places, it says stuntwoman Patty Elder doubled for her in the out-the-window high fall and Ms. Wood herself did the splashdown-in-the-pool shot.  This sounds to me like a confusion of the reporter, not someone claiming credit for someone else's feat.

After the mass shooting in El Paso but before the mass shooting in Dayton — that's how we tell time in this country now — I took a friend to see Dick Van Dyke perform at the Catalina Bar and Grill in Hollywood and here's my review: Terrible. Just terrible.

That's a review of the food at the Catalina Bar and Grill, not Dick Van Dyke who was as wonderful as you'd imagine Dick Van Dyke could be. In fact, he was so wonderful that an absolutely packed house (few in the standby line made it in) endured the meals that preceded the show. My steak could have been used to resole a shoe and my date left her swordfish largely unconsumed. In fairness, Stu Shostak and his wife Jeanine who shared a table with us were happier with the chicken and the mushroom ravioli.

Everyone who loves cabaret performing — someone performing on stage with a tiny band or one pianist — bitches about the lack of better venues in Los Angeles. Vitello's out in the valley isn't a bad room. The Federal out on Lankershim is passable. Everyone hates the Gardenia on Santa Monica. And then there's the Catalina and just about nowhere else. We go to these places in spite of unspectacular cuisine and the many inconveniences of parking and seating because we want to see certain performers and there simply are no better venues. (Actually, the chow is pretty good at Vitello's.)

We go because that's where you see people like Dick Van Dyke…and yes, I know that's a misleading statement. There are no other people like Dick Van Dyke, arguably the most likeable performer in the history of mankind. If you don't love Dick Van Dyke, there's something really, really wrong with you.

Yeah, he's 93. And he does pretty well up there for a guy who's 93. Sings okay, dances a little…manages to be real funny, mostly with joking about being 93 and not being able to remember what the next number is. He had help up there — from his lovely wife Arlene, from his vocal group The Vantastix, and from a pretty good band. When the band struck up the theme from The Dick Van Dyke Show and he shuffled up onto the stage, it was worth eating the Odor Eaters that were being passed off as New York Steak. There were many such moments.

He and the Vantastix opened with an a cappella "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." They closed with a sing-along "Let's Go Fly a Kite" and we all sang along. In between, he and Arlene sang some of the duets that Rob and Laura Petrie warbled on The Dick Van Dyke Show like "Mountain Greenery." Dick sang a few old jazzy songs from his childhood. They did "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and "Step in Time" and a few other tunes you'd eat cockroaches to hear Dick Van Dyke perform. Mostly, we sat there and just loved him.

In early 1965, shortly before my 13th birthday, my parents and I attended the filming of an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. I wrote about that life-changing evening here. I got to see the man in person and chat with him briefly from our seats in the front row of the bleachers. In the last few years, I've gotten to spend some time with him and it's oh-so-terrific when your heroes don't disappoint you; when what you love about them turns out to be utterly and totally justified and valid.

Last night, Dick Van Dyke didn't do one thing wrong. Unless, of course, he cooked that steak…but I could even forgive him for that. Are you beginning to suspect that I had a very good time?

I'm going to get away from the TV where people argue and shoot each other. Instead, I'm going to go see a 93-year-old man sing and dance and maybe even trip over a footstool.

It's gotten so when there's another mass shooting, no one has anything new to say. I certainly don't. Today's was in El Paso, where it's kind of pointless to ask, "How did the shooter get the gun?" I think they sell them in vending machines in that neck of the woods or you get one free when you buy a patty melt at a Whataburger in Texas.

At the moment, they're saying there was one shooter…maybe two but one is in custody. He was apparently young and white, which means this will be treated as an isolated incident. If he was black or Muslim, that would have all sorts of significance to some people but white killers, even when they're part of known hate movements, are treated as crazed loner individuals.

As of a few minutes ago when I turned off CNN, no one seemed sure if there was that second shooter or how many people had been killed or injured. Politicians are already though writing about Thoughts and Prayers, which means they have no intention (or in some cases, desire) to do anything to stop this kind of thing from happening — as it will — someplace else and soon.

Actually, I should have said "to lessen the frequency of such incidents" because stopping them altogether is impossible. And some people like to argue that since you can't prevent every single mass shooting, there's no point in doing anything to make them less likely. It's just like how, since we can't stop everyone from driving recklessly and running over people, there's no point in stopping anyone from driving recklessly and running over people.

That's about all I've got right now. Some time ago, I adopted the position that nothing meaningful will ever be done about shootings. Yeah, it's cynical but it saves me an awful lot of disappointment.

We're thinking a lot about the recently-deceased Hal Prince, the great Broadway producer-director who was involved in all those shows I mentioned in this post.  I was going to describe him as "legendary" but I've pretty much given that word up as hopeless.  People apply it so casually to folks who have very little history or importance that it's become just about meaningless…and it will probably be joined soon in that uselessness by "iconic."

Anyway, here's almost a half-hour of Mr. Prince being interviewed by producer Kurt Peterson and by my good buddy Jim Brochu.  This is from when Jim was starring in a play he wrote, Zero Hour, in which he portrayed the amazing Zero Mostel — a wonderful, wonderful play and re-creation. I'd say I hope Jim does it again someday but he'd have to add about sixty pounds to his current svelte self to do it right and I wouldn't want to see him do that.

After one performance of Zero Hour, they got Hal Prince to come in and talk about working with Zero on A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Fiddler on the Roof, both of which Prince produced. His remarks are, of course, fascinating.

At one point, Prince gets a bit confusing, talking about Forum when it sounds like he's talking about Fiddler. The history, as recounted by others who were involved in Forum, is that the show was originally to star Phil Silvers and then when he opted instead to do Do-Re-Mi, they got Milton Berle in his place. Then when Berle demanded too much control of the show, they got rid of him and Zero opened it on Broadway. That's how the show's co-author Larry Gelbart told it to me. That's how Phil Silvers told it to me one afternoon at Nate 'n Al's deli in Beverly Hills with Milton Berle at the table. That's how various books tell it. But as you'll see, it's not exactly how Hal Prince tells it in this video.

Make of that what you will. It's still a great conversation with one of the most important people in Broadway history. I wish I could call him legendary but that would just put him at the level of every single guest on James Corden's show…

As I get older, I find that the list of things I can't do is increasing at an alarming rate. I was never a great artist but I'm a lot worse now than I used to be. I used to be able to do enough sleight-o'-hand card tricks to entertain at a party but I haven't dared do that in a while. I used to be able to cook…not well but well enough that I'd eat my own cooking. Now, not so much.

The drawing and the magic got worse because…well, because I stopped doing much of either. I blame that a bit on mild arthritis in my hands and a little on this hard fact: I increasingly found myself surrounded by guys who were so good at each that it was like, "Why bother?" Seeing someone else do something way, way better than I'll ever be able to do it might inspire others but it's always been discouraging to me.

Another factor: Learning and playing on computers increasingly has consumed the time I might have spent working on my drawing or magic. And I think I simply came to love writing a lot more than drawing or practicing fake shuffles. As of last month, I've been a professional writer for fifty (that's five-oh) years and I enjoy it more and more. Each morning, I have to write something — anything, even something like this — before I can do just about anything else.

And I've given up all but the most basic, simple, mix-two-things-together-and-stick-them-in-the-microwave cooking. I was never that good a chef but I've gotten to be really bad at it; so bad that now, that the only two things I make on a regular basis are reservations on Open Table and orders on Grubhub.

Whenever I get the slightest urge to cook anything, I can easily suppress it. All I have to do is watch a few of the 73 gazillion cooking videos on YouTube. Not every last one makes me think I don't know enough to poach an egg but most do. Often, the sheer amount of time 'n' energy someone takes to make a meat loaf gets me to thinking that the place here in L.A. that makes my favorite meat loaf can deliver in a tenth of the time and I know I'll like what I get. But I have learned a few things from all those cooking videos…

One is that you can spend a lot of time and effort making meatballs and they won't come out that much better than the little frozen ones they sell at the supermarket. I'm amazed how many professional chefs who think they can make cranberry sauce better than Ocean Spray and ketchup better than Heinz concede on little frozen meatballs.  They'll tell you how to improve them but they'll also tell you to buy them.  Most chefs, that is.

And most who do Italian cooking will surrender one point on "homemade is always better."  They'll admit they can't do anything with fresh tomatoes that isn't bested by the canned San Marzano kind.

I've also learned that to be a great cook, you have to love chopping things and standing over the stove for twenty minutes, stirring and stirring and stirring.  I could never learn to love that.

Lastly for now, I often feel that the person teaching me to cook is not cooking for me.  That becomes clear when they add chili powder or chile powder (either one) to most things and cayenne pepper to friggin' everything.  Some of these guys add a pinch of cayenne to strawberry ice cream, for fuck's sake or to buttermilk pancakes.

Yes, I know there's probably a fair amount of undetectable cayenne in many of the restaurant-prepared meals I eat but I dislike spicy/hot foods so much, I can't bring myself to add it in.  Instead, I become convinced that this chef has such a different (from me) concept of what makes for good eats that I shouldn't listen to him about anything.  Not logical, I know, but on some topics, I'm not as logical as I'd like to be.

I'm probably not logical about most things that relate to cooking.  Which to me is the biggest reason I shouldn't try it any longer.

Some amazing footage of Disneyland being built — and Walt walking around, supervising the construction of his Happiest Place…

If Donald Trump came out and said he was going to drastically lower taxes for the wealthiest Americans and raise them on the middle-class, there would be massive outrage and it would become a major issue against him in the election. But apart from phrasing it that way, that's what he's done and he's now about to do more of it…counting on, I guess, the fact that most of his supporters will never figure that out.

People who knew Hal Prince remember Hal Prince.

Thank you, Mr. Prince, for The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, New Girl in Town, West Side Story, Fiorello!, Tenderloin, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, She Loves Me, Fiddler on the Roof, Baker Street, Flora the Red Menace, It's a Bird…It's a Plane…It's Superman, Cabaret, Zorba, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Candide, Pacific Overtures, Side by Side by Sondheim, On the Twentieth Century, Sweeney Todd, Evita, Merrily We Roll Along, The Phantom of the Opera, Kiss of the Spider Woman and all the rest, including the flops. They'd be dimming the lights on Broadway if you'd only been involved in any three of them.