Monthly Archives: November 2019

The Chick-fil-A company has announced it will no longer donate to anti-LGBTQ organizations. None of the news stories I've seen today (like this one) really say why other than to suggest the firm is eager to expand into areas where an anti-gay stance might make them unwelcome. They sure seem to be opening or building a number of new outlets in the Los Angeles area. Some of the reports suggest caution, saying the company has proclaimed this before and not followed through.

I ate at Chick-fil-A a few times before their stance became known and notorious. I've eaten there twice, I think, since…once because I was in an airport and famished and it seemed to me to be my only option, once when I was in a hotel and just plain too exhausted to walk much farther than the Chick-fil-A next door. I thought the food was pretty good for what it was and did not feel even a smidgen of Liberal Guilt.

Then again, I've also avoided them for that reason and, to be honest, because the ones I drive by always have too long a line at their drive-thru window. Or sometimes — and this is true — I think, "Hey, I'll be driving past Chick-fil-A. Maybe I'll stop in and pick up a sandwich"…and then I realize it's Sunday and they aren't open.

My attitude on things like this has long been that if it makes you feel uncomfy to give your money to a business because of something like this, fine. Don't. But don't think you're making a real contribution to the cause of fairness to LGBTQ rights and don't think you're part of a movement that will bring the fast food chain to its knees. Based now on the fact that Chick-fil-A seems to want everyone to stop thinking they donate to anti-gay efforts, maybe I need to rethink that second point. Maybe it has made a difference…

My pal, the esteemed Disney historian Jim Korkis, has this to say…

I am getting a lot of questions about Disney not running Song of the South on Disney+ because I wrote a book called Who's Afraid of the Song of the South? with a foreword by Floyd Norman about the making of the film and the controversy surrounding it. You are right that Disney isn't releasing it because it wouldn't generate enough income to offset the bad publicity even with disclaimers.

SOTS is probably the most misunderstood film in Disney history. First off, it doesn't take place during the era of slavery. It takes place after the Civil War during Reconstruction. That's why Uncle Remus can say he is packing up and leaving. He is a free man. If he were a slave, he would be considered property and wouldn't be able to leave. The people working on the plantation are sharecroppers not slaves and one of the reasons the father goes to Atlanta is to raise money to pay them.

Here is an exclusive just for your column that doesn't appear in my book because the exciting and frustrating thing about Disney history is that there is always something new being discovered. For the 1948 Academy Awards, James Baskett received an honorary Oscar for his portrayal of Uncle Remus. According to columnist Hedda Hopper's autobiography that I recently read, the Board of Governors was opposed to the award because "Baskett played a slave and the feeling was that Negroes should play only doctors, lawyers and scientists." Jean Hersholt, the president, argued in Baskett's favor until four in the morning at which point he gave his ultimatum: "If he doesn't receive an Oscar, I shall stand up tomorrow night and tell the world the whole disgraceful story." The board gave in and actress Ingrid Bergman gave Baskett his Oscar.

To me, the best argument for Disney releasing Song of the South is to just end this silly controversy. If they did, I suspect there'd be people who would try to gin up some sort of outrage because they think that would help empower them for some larger purpose. Most people would ignore it or — if the "ban" intrigued them, they'd buy a copy, watch it and wonder what all the fuss was about. It's a pleasant enough film and the animated sequences are somewhat delightful.

But the whole movie is probably best known for its unavailability and once it loses that, it will be largely forgotten. It commits the greatest sin a Disney movie can have these days. There are no princesses in it.

Speaking of John Oliver, he's doing a few stand-up gigs during his hiatus. Here he is from many years ago when he did a lot more stand-up than he has time for nowadays…

Stu Shostak just phoned me to say that there's a new episode tonight of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver…their season finale. My wording of an item earlier today on this blog made it sound like last week was his season finale. No, it's tonight and it reruns all week. My D.V.R. is set to record it and I trust yours is, as well. I have revised the earlier post.

As we all know, Trump suffered a certain humiliation the other day when John Bel Edwards won re-election as the Governor of Louisiana, over challenger Eddie Rispone. Louisiana is a very red state, Edwards is a Democrat and Rispone is a Republican who had Donald Trump out campaigning for him at rallies. Conservative columnist Rod Dreher lives in Louisiana and he writes of how he was unsurprised and why he voted for the Democrat over the Republican. Some of the reasons Dreher gives for the victory seem pretty sound to me.

For some reason, about once a week I get this question from someone. In this case, it's from Mike Frank…

Would you know if there has been any consideration to putting out a "restored" edition of Jack Kirby's New Gods? One that had all the faces returned to what Kirby originally drew?

A lot of people seem to be under the impression that the faces Jack drew on his characters were altered when New Gods was originally printed. Nope. What Jack drew is what the inkers inked and what the inkers inked is what was printed. What was changed was the way Jack drew Superman and Jimmy Olsen (and in a panel or two, Perry White) in the issues of Jimmy Olsen that Jack wrote and drew…and Superman in his guest appearance in Forever People #1. I explained a little bit about this in an item which I posted here in 2003, I said…

DC recently issued the first of two volumes reprinting Jack's Jimmy Olsen stories, just as they were originally published. There is no way to actually restore what Jack did — only a few stats of a few panels have survived — but there was once talk of having someone (probably Steve Rude) redraw the redraws into more of a Kirby style. In fact, I somewhat instigated such discussions before finally becoming convinced that it was impractical. You really wouldn't be resurrecting what Jack did since those drawings are lost and gone forever. You'd just be trading one set of non-Kirby drawings for another. It might have a certain commercial appeal but it wouldn't exactly undo what was done to the work in the first place.

I should add one other thing which I may also have said here before. To the extent we're concerned with how Jack Kirby would have felt about his work being altered today — and some folks who claim to be his devout fans clearly don't care about this — he was very clear. He didn't like his work being "tampered with" then and he wouldn't like it now. I don't claim to be an expert on how Jack would have felt about some things today but on this point, he was as clear as clear could be. He didn't like being rewritten. He didn't like being redrawn. He tolerated a certain amount of that then because as a working professional back then, you had to tolerate a certain amount of that. But on anything more serious than fixing a spelling mistake, he never said, "Oh, I'm so glad they changed that."

I believe he would have been fine — even pleased — to have his work receive better coloring than it did then. He didn't like anything the DC colorists did then and certainly did not regard the coloring as his work. About the only time he even got to approve any part of the coloring on the books he ostensibly edited for DC was when he got them to replace their color scheme for Mister Miracle, which he thought was awful, with one that Steve Sherman and I worked up. When he asked them to change some of the other character color designs which he disliked, the Production Departments simply refused.

This is not to say he would have liked all of the recolorings that have been done on recent reprints; merely that he would not have objected to the whole idea of the work being recolored. And what he would have liked best was if someone could have colored it the way Stan Goldberg or Marie Severin colored his work at Marvel in the late sixties. He liked mostly flat, bright colors that separated the planes of his work, giving the panels a feeling of depth without calling too much attention to the coloring itself. He would not have liked what some current-day colorists do which is to try to add details or special effects to the basic drawings in color and/or to redefine the contours of the anatomy.

Anyway, there are more reprintings of New Gods and the other Fourth World comics ahead. I believe that that series — which Jack was told at the time had limited commercial appeal — will be in print in some format for the rest of my life and beyond. One of these days, I think DC Comics should hire me to write a special foreword which will be saved for the 100th Anniversary Edition. Because there will be one.

Just for reference, Bill Maher is on hiatus until January 17 (not January 18, as HBO says in some ads) and John Oliver will be off until February 16. This past year, I've come to like Oliver more and Maher less, especially when Bill veers to the subject of medicine and health.

I'm still marveling at Mr. Oliver's bringdown of "coal baron" Bob Murray on the last Last Week Tonight seven days ago…and curious about something I would have thought would have been a major (if not the major) part of it. One of the main reasons Oliver was talking about Murray and his company in the first place was Mr. Murray's unrestrained support of Donald Trump as the guy who was going to revitalize and save the coal industry. Last week, Oliver accused Murray of starting World War I and defacing the Mona Lisa…but not a word was said about how spectacularly wrong he was to back a man who has been spectacularly unhelpful, even damaging to the coal industry.

Since Trump promised to "bring the industry back, bigger and better than it's ever been," revenue in that industry has plunged, plants have closed, companies (including Bob Murray's) have filed for bankruptcy, jobs have been lost, etc. If you want to know more about it, read this recent article in Forbes. You'd think John Oliver and his staff would have found a way to work that in.

Here's a few moments with my current favorite stand-up comedian, Jim Jefferies…

• I just saw a headline that said "Trump Gets Physical" and, so help me, I thought for a second he was starting to try and beat up people he doesn't like.

Yesterday's Bad News for Donald Trump
Well, there are sure plenty of items to pick from…

• Former U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was pretty effective in her testimony Friday. She blew up the G.O.P. talking point that when Trump pressed Ukraine for investigations, he was trying to root out corruption, rather than dig up dirt on a political opponent.
• And when Trump tweeted attacks on her during her testimony, he opened himself up to charges of trying to intimidate a witness.
• Meanwhile, Trump buddy-enabler Roger Stone was found guilty on seven criminal counts mostly relating to helping Donald Trump…you know, by doing things like trying to intimidate witnesses.
• And you have state department officials going around saying that Trump damaged Ukrainian national security, U.S. national security, and U.S. international credibility.
• And David Holmes, an aide to William Taylor, said in private testimony that he heard the phone conversation where Trump asked Gordon Sondland how things were going with the push to get the president of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.  According to Holmes, Sondland told Trump that Ukraine President Zelensky "loves your ass" [meaning Trump's ass] will do anything he's asked to do.
• Plus, there's now some evidence indicating Trump and Rudy Giuliani directly ordered Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman (the two Soviet-born businessmen arrested last month at Dulles Airport) to undertake what Parnas described as "a secret mission" to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

So take your choice. And by the way, you know that it wasn't absolutely necessary that Ukraine uncover actual dirt on the Bidens. Trump would probably have been satisfied with anything so long as the Bidens weren't cleared and he could say the investigations were ongoing. Then all through the election, Trump would have said, "Oh God, I'm hearing from sources in Ukraine that they're finding so much corruption…they can't even finish the investigation, there's so much of it."

Yesterday's Outrage by Donald Trump
Again, many to pick from but I'm going to go with Trump's attacks on Marie Yovanovitch, not just because because they were ill-timed but because, like most Trump smearing of anyone, it was factually incorrect.

An Article of Interest
Daniel Larison discusses Trump's misuse of the President's power to pardon war criminals. He's a lot nicer to those who commit atrocities than he is to the ones who perform genuine acts of heroism and merit.

Hey, Newsfromme'ers! Remember the other day when I showed you a video starring that great musical mob, the Ambassadors of Harmony? They painted themselves up to look like they were in a silent movie and gave a helluva performance.

One of those grey gents was Terry Carlisle, a reader of this blog and a 26-year member of the Ambassadors. He sent me this…

It was certainly a pleasure and an honor to perform our "Charlie Chaplin" set this summer at the annual Barbershop Harmony Society International Contest, but I would be remiss if I failed to tell you that we finished second with that show package.

The chorus that finished first performed a near-flawless show package also, that was, in a word, heart-stopping, and as such, they are certainly entitled to copious recognition. Their set achieved a new high score in BHS chorus competition history. I thought you might like to also see some of what they did. I promise it's worth your time.

"B.H.S." stands for the Barbershop Harmony Society and Terry sent me a link to the winning performance, which was done by the Westminster Chorus. It's not only worth my time but yours, as well. Thanks, Terry…

Bill Maher does his show Real Time live from CBS Television City. I drove by it earlier today and I could hear him tearing up tonight's monologue and starting over. What a news day. No one's complaining the impeachment hearings are dull now…and it's nice to see Robert Mueller's "witch hunt" is still catching witches.

I received two e-mails from friends after I posted here that I think airing the hearings on so many channels is an unnecessary duplication of efforts. One friend is adamantly pro-Trump and other is just as adamantly anti…and they both disagreed with me for the flip sides of the same reason. The both think that having it on so many channels will draw more viewers which will have the result of, depending on which you believe, making America see the hearings for the sham they are or making America realize that Trump is even crookeder than anyone thought. You can guess which friend thought what. Me, I think that as long as viewers are reminded the hearings are in progress, they'll find their way to a channel that's covering them.

I continue to be impressed with the "Eat Shit, Bob" musical number performed last Sunday evening on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. What with all the dancers and singers and folks in squirrel costumes and location set-ups, that was not cheap to do. It was like they were saying to Bob Murray, "You made us spend $200,000 to fight a frivolous lawsuit, Bob…so we're going to spend almost as much to call you names!" What does it cost to shoot sixty dancers in Times Square even — as I assume from how few onlookers there were — in the middle of the night? Nice to see Brian d'Arcy James, star of musicals like Shrek and Something Rotten playing the HBO attorney.

• I'm very worried. What if the government is going to try imprisoning everyone who has a back tattoo of Richard Nixon? Does anyone know a good dermatologist?

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
Republicans continue to argue that whatever deal was made to withhold aid to the Ukraine until the leadership there agreed to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden was made without Trump's knowledge. According to Jonathan Chait…

Yesterday, however, William Taylor testified that a member of his staff heard [Gordon] Sondland, in Kiev on a cell phone, speaking with President Trump, and that Trump asked about Ukraine opening "investigations." After the call, Sondland told the staffer, David Holmes, that Trump's highest priority in Ukraine was securing an investigation of the Bidens. Today, the Associated Press reports a second staffer, Suriya Jayanti, also heard the call.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Trump continues to believe that the main thing going well in the Middle East is that "we" (presumably meaning the United States) is somehow getting the oil in the Syrian fields. The Department of Defense insists this is not so but Trump either doesn't care what they think or just likes saying it.

An Article of Interest
Matthew Yglesias and Andrew Prokop have compiled what they call "The ultimate guide to the Donald Trump impeachment saga." I don't know how ultimate it is but it will certainly answer a lot of questions you may have about the whole messy business.

It does not however answer one of mine. In large part, these hearings revolve around the phone conversation that Trumph had with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, and what was said in a "transcript" of that conversation that was released by the White House. Trump said it was an "exact" transcription of the conversation "done by very talented people that do this." But right there on the transcript is this disclaimer:

CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation. TELCON is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty "Officers and-NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation. The word "inaudible" is used to indicate portions of a conversation that the notetaker was unable to hear.

So my question is: Is there a better transcript or a recording of the call? And if the White House doesn't have one, does Ukraine? If not, why not? And if so, am I missing demands that it be produced? Especially after Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified that there were important things said that were omitted from the "transcript?" It seems to me this would matter.

• The folks at KFC are introducing a "plant-based" version of their signature product which used to be Kentucky Fried Chicken. Some time ago, they got rid of the word "fried" and now they're getting rid of "chicken." Kentucky, you're next!