Monthly Archives: January 2020

Many of you have let me know that the song "Dear Sweet Sewing Machine" was not put back into the show Fiddler on the Roof for its 2015 Broadway revival.  Instead, the two actors who would have sung it if it had been recorded it as a bonus for the cast album and there was a music video shot of them performing it.  I mistyped and said it had been reinserted into the show itself and I have corrected that item.  Thanks to all the correctors.

When Fiddler on the Roof opened on Broadway in 1964, it opened without a song called "Dear, Sweet Sewing Machine" which had been part of it in outta-town tryouts. Someone decided they didn't need it or it wasn't as good as the other songs…or something. When Fiddler got its seven-millionth revival on Broadway in 2015 — okay, okay, it just feels like seven million — that song was recorded for the cast album.

Here's a video of it performed by the character Motel (played by Adam Kantor) and Tzeitel (Alexandra Silber) from that revival. The older man looking on with great pride is Sheldon Harnick, who wrote the lyrics for Fiddler and therefore had great reason to be proud — and also wealthy…

If nothing else, the movie of Cats has triggered a lot of conversation with friends. A few hated it. A few didn't hate it but didn't love it a lot. I'm not sure anyone I discussed it with really liked it though most agreed that it wasn't as bad as some said and that if you went to see a movie based on the musical Cats, the movie you got was exactly the movie you should have expected.

The word "schadenfreude" came up a number of times. Are you familiar with that word? Here's a definition I cribbed off Wikipedia just in case you aren't…

Schadenfreude is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another.

There's a famous quote that goes "It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail." If you're curious as to who said it and you search via Google, you'll see it attributed to dozens of different people — enough to assume that we'll probably never know who originated it. Maybe lots of them did independently of one another because it's a pretty obvious observation about human nature.

As the years go by, I less and less like to see schadenfreude and am ashamed that I ever smiled or felt glee at someone's troubles, failures or humiliation.

Now, this doesn't include a few things…like when I feel someone has wronged someone (me, included) and some twist of fate closes down their business or gets them fired or sends them to prison or otherwise means that they can never do that wrong thing again to me or anyone. I think it's okay to be elated by that and sometimes when I predict it and it happens, I'm just plain pleased that I was right.

But as I get older and (I hope, I hope) wiser, I less and less like that sense of delight some display when a certain TV show gets canceled or a certain movie fails — a movie or TV show that never harmed anyone except maybe to take up some of their time with a disappointment or cost them the admission price. (And come to think of it, I may have witnessed more schadenfreude at free screenings than at showings where everyone had to shell out for a ticket.)

Years ago, we did on modem-accessed Newsgroups what we now do on modern-day social media — i.e., debate and discuss. I participated in a number of forums devoted to comic books and animation, plus one about Broadway musicals that was at times waist-deep in schadenfreude. There was a lot of it on the comics 'n' cartoon forums…

…but on the Musicals forum, a show would open, get pasted by the critics, post its closing notice…and you could practically hear the erections of some as they gleefully gloated at their keyboards — and this from people who professed to love musical theatre. Audiences had been unhappy, money had been lost, actors and others were thrown out of work, careers had perhaps been damaged…and these people were so, so happy. It bothered me so much I had to get off that forum.

Read this passage from the book, The Street Where I Live: A Memoir by Alan Jay Lerner. Mr. Lerner is writing about the first out-of-town preview of a show he wrote with Frederick Loewe…

It was the custom in those days for agents, actors and various members of all branches of the theatre to attend out-of-town opening nights to "wish you well," which is theatricalese for "hoping you die." They would all assemble for a quick bite before the curtain in a restaurant called Kaysey's, across the street from the theatre. To illustrate the collective attitude, there was one agent who always arrived for out-of-town openings with scripts under her arm and a flashlight so that she could read during the second act. As I was leaving the restaurant, one of the "dear shits," as they were lovingly known, stopped me and said: "How is it, Alan?" I remember my answer distinctly. I said: "I have no idea what the reaction of the audience will be, but I genuinely believe it's the best musical I ever saw." I realized it was a cruel thing to say but I could not help it. That was how I felt.

The musical, in case you haven't guessed, was My Fair Lady and when it made it to Broadway, it would be one of the biggest hits ever there and a lot of critics would say it was indeed, the best musical they ever saw. But people attended it hoping it would be a disaster because, I guess, if it was a success, it wouldn't be their success.

Speaking of the unimportance of early primaries, here's the other segment that Buck Henry did for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Again, I caution you about the weirdness of Comedy Central video embeds. It might take a while to load and it might be preceded by a commercial of some length. This ran on 9/24/2007.

In an interview, Buck said he enjoyed his two stints on The Daily Show and didn't understand why they didn't call him about doing more. I'm only speculating here but I'd guess that he had little involvement in the writing of them and they felt that, while it was nice to have an older correspondent, flying him in to read (sometimes awkwardly) from a TelePrompter didn't seem to be a great use of him. But there could have been a number of other reasons…

I see all this polling online about the Iowa Caucuses, which are less than a month away. Bernie's up. Bernie's down. Joe's got a lock on it. Joe can't win. Bloomberg's spending like crazy. Have we forgotten that this is not the election? Yeah, the winner sometimes does go on to get his or her party's nomination. Last time out, Hillary did. But the winner in Iowa on the Republican side was Ted Cruz, who didn't come close to his party's nod. The election before that, Rick Santorum won and the time before that, it was Mike Huckabee.

I think we're giving this way too much importance. Today, the polls are within the margin of error for a four-way tie between Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg and Biden. I dunno who'll win. I don't even know who'll be in the lead this time next week. But it does suggest to me that whoever loses won't lose by enough to count them out of the race.

Which reminds me: In 1992, Tom Harkin got 76% and that didn't give him any sort of lock on the nomination. Bill Clinton, who later got it, finished in fourth place with 3%. Why do we care so much about this ritual?

I have a fascination with how once-successful businesses can undergo a change of ownership and rapidly turn into less successful businesses. We've talked here about how Sears and KMart stores are closing every which way and now I'm watching one of my favorite restaurant chains slowly disappearing on us.

We're talking about McCormick & Schmick's, once a vast network of places to go for really good seafood. It started in Portland, Oregon in the seventies and began slowly expanding. By 2009, Bill McCormick and Douglas Schmick had almost a hundred restaurants across the United States and Canada but in 2011 — not that long ago, really — things changed. The company's largest stockholder bought out shares, took the company private and in January of 2012, the chain was absorbed into the Landry's group which owns or controls several other chains including Morton's Steak Houses and Joe's Crab Shacks.

What has Landry's been doing with the McCormick & Schmick's restaurants? As near as I can tell, mostly closing them. I used to take my mother to a lovely one down on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. It closed. Then I took her to a huge one in downtown Los Angeles, which was a great place to dine if you had tickets to a show at the Music Center. It closed.

Not that far away in El Segundo, there was a great McCormick & Schmick's where we often went. It's gone and when it shuttered, there were only two left in locations where I might ever go — the one a few blocks from where WonderCon is held in Anaheim; the other in San Diego, in the Omni Hotel right across the street from where they hold Comic-Con. So I still had places I could spend all the bonus dining points I'd accumulated.

But wait. On New Year's Day just past, employees at the San Diego one reported to work to find there was no more restaurant there. That McCormick & Schmick's has gone bye-bye on us. I just spoke to someone at the Omni who said it will not be replaced with another restaurant because, well, how could anyone possibly make money with a good restaurant right across the street from the San Diego Convention Center? (He didn't say that. That's my sarcasm. I would think in that spot, you could be empty 360 days a year and show an annual profit just from business during Comic-Con, especially if you're willing to serve people dressed as Harley Quinn.)

The person at the Omni told me that the little cafe they have there, which has been more of a bar with appetizers, is being expanded to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. I guess they know what they're doing but I'm not sure whoever's calling the shots for McCormick & Schmick's does. Other M&S's in this half of my state have also closed and the one in Anaheim seems to be the last one in all of Southern California. At least, I think it's still there. I haven't checked today.

I don't pretend to be an expert in the restaurant business — or for that matter, in my own. I know that success in dining establishments has a lot to do with the prices of real estate and leases and what else could go into a given location that might be more lucrative for the owner of the property. Dining habits do change over the years, too. But I also know that if you handed me a group of successful restaurants to manage and a few years later, all but one of them was gone, there's at least a strong possibility that I had done something wrong.

In yesterday's obit for Buck Henry, I mentioned his brief stint as a correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and asked if I was the only person who remembered it. A few of you did and my buddy Dana Gabbard steered me to videos of his two appearances. That's all he made and this was his first one. The Comedy Central website is a little screwy with its video embeds so this may take a few seconds to start and you may have to sit through a commercial or it may not work at all. But if it does work, you'll see Buck Henry on The Daily Show for 8/8/2007…

Fred Kaplan discusses how Trump and those around him have decided to pretend that Article I of The Constitution doesn't exist or that Trump has the power to override it…or something. This is another one of those "If Obama had done that…" matters.

Most of the writers over at the American Conservative website seem pretty unhappy with Trump engaging Iran as he has, and also with the position that Congress has no right to declare or stop war, nor should they even be providing oversight over the Executive branch. Here's Daniel Larison, again saying a lot of the same things Fred Kaplan is saying. Also, read Rod Dreher.

Yet another investigation of Hillary Clinton — this one urged on by Mr. Trump — has failed to find any trace of those actual crimes that her detractors claim were so obvious and undeniable. I remember some of them, when Trump was elected, saying it was only a matter of weeks until Ms. Clinton would be doing hard time. And you have to kinda think there's nothing Donald would love better than Hillary in the slammer unless it was throwing Barack in there with her.

And you may remember that I've said here, probably on more than one occasion, that one of the phoniest, nastiest accusations anyone can make in the political world is to say that someone "hates America." It's like, "Never mind what he's said or done. I've looked into his heart and I know he hates America." And I think I also wrote about the similar hollow insult that was hurled at so many folks who opposed the Vietnam War and wanted to bring our troops home, soon and safe. That was the charge that "they hate our troops." Well, now we have Republican senators saying that "Democrats love terrorists." It's another thing you say about some opponent when you have nothing real to say about them.

Here's another rerun…probably the last for now since I will finish the killer-deadline script within the next few hours. I hope. This is another of those "incredible coincidence" stories from my life and if you ever doubt these are true, ask anyone who's known me a long time. Ask Marv Wolfman or Paul Dini or Sergio Aragonés or Brinke Stevens or Steve Sherman or Jewel Shepard or anyone else who'll tell you, "Yeah, these things happen to Mark." This piece first ran here on 10/2/14…

Another story about a car I owned. This one is rather short but the coincidence in it is worth sharing with you.

In 1992, I bought the '93 Lexus…a very good car, by the way. It cost me twice what another new car might have cost but it also lasted twice as long as another new car might have lasted. It was not as extravagant an investment as it might have seemed. A friend of mine who bought a new Chevrolet — a Cavalier, I think — around the same time compared notes with me years later. He wound up spending a lot more money than I did once you factored in repairs and its shorter life and the pittance of resale value.

I'm thinking this story took place in '94 or '95…around there. Maybe '96. Whenever, it was before the Comic-Con in San Diego had a Preview Night on Wednesday. It opened Thursday so I decided to drive down Wednesday evening after rush hour. Wednesday afternoon before the trip, I took the Lexus in for routine servicing. My Service Consultant — his name was Andy — performed the scheduled ritual, rotating tires, checking brakes, changing oil, etc.

I got my car back at 3 PM and left L.A. for San Diego at 8, driving straight through without stopping. I pulled it into the circular driveway at the Marriott next to the convention center, let them unload my luggage and then left the Lexus for the attendants to valet park. I was checking in at the desk when one of them ran in and said, "Sir, we can't start your car."

As it turned out, neither could I. Absolutely dead. A number of attendants tried to push it to one side out of the way and they couldn't do that, either. The wheels were all locked.

Lexus then had its own proprietary version of the Auto Club. From inside the immobile car, I phoned and they told me nothing could be done that night; that I'd have to wait 'til morning and they'd dispatch a flatbed to take it to the nearest Lexus dealer. They also told me about a secret switch that had to be disengaged in order to push the car when it wasn't running. (I believe this feature did not appear on later models.)

That done, we pushed it to one side so departures and arrivals would not be impeded at the Marriott and I went up to my room and off to sleep.

Next morning, I went to the con and hosted a panel. I also arranged with a friend to host my Noon panel in case, as seemed likely, I didn't get back in time. Then I ran back to the Marriott just as the flatbed truck was arriving. Somehow — though it was parked on the curve of a circular driveway — they got my car on the truck. I rode with it as it was taken to the nearest Lexus dealership, which was in Kearny-Mesa ten miles away.

We arrived at the garage. The new head of the Service Department, there on his first day, took one look at it on the Flatbed, recognized my license plate and said, "My God! I know what I did wrong!"

It was Andy, the guy who'd been in charge of its servicing the day before in Beverly Hills. That had been his last day there before he started down here. Even while my car was still on the truck, he realized he'd forgotten to reconnect some cable under the hood. The driver unloaded my car, Andy popped the hood and reconnected the cable, it started and I drove back to the Marriott.

I got back in time to host my Noon panel. I think it was about Incredible Coincidences in comic books and how things like that never happen in the real world.

Very funny, very clever man, that Buck Henry. He was a screenwriter (The Graduate, Heaven Can Wait, Catch-22 and many others). He was a TV writer-creator (Get Smart, Captain Nice, Quark and others). He was a movie star. He was a wonderful talk show guest.

He was an important guest host during the first five years of Saturday Night Live…practically a member of the cast. One of the few times I got to speak at length with him was at a party one night at Leonard Maltin's house. There was another guest there who kept trying to get Buck to say that he was pissed because SNL seemed to have largely forgotten him once they could secure major motion picture stars to host. If Mr. Henry felt that way — and I don't know that he did or he didn't — he was not about to say it despite much hectoring from this other guest. I thought he was as good on that show as anyone who was ever good on that show.

He was also involved in something I vaguely remember from Jack Paar's prime-time show, the one he did after he left The Tonight Show. I'll let Wikipedia tell you about this aspect of Buck Henry's career…

From 1959 to 1962, as part of an elaborate hoax by comedian Alan Abel, [Henry] made public appearances as G. Clifford Prout, the quietly outraged president of the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, who presented his point of view on talk shows. The character of Prout, who wished to clothe all animals in order to prevent their "indecency," was often presented as an eccentric but was otherwise taken seriously by the broadcasters who interviewed him. "Prout" received many letters of support from TV viewers, and even some unsolicited monetary donations, all of which were invariably returned, as neither Henry nor Abel (who had no intention of following through on the Society's stated aims) wanted to be accused of raising money fraudulently.

And am I the only one who remembers that once or twice in his later years, not long before he became seriously ill, Henry appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart? He was a correspondent dealing with issues that affected older folks.

That party at Leonard's was one of the few times I got to speak with the man. The others were all on Writers Guild picket lines where, when he wasn't speaking with admirers like me, he carried a picket sign in one hand while holding (and reading) an open book in the other. He was just as humorous and clever in person as he was when he was on with Johnny Carson or anyone like that.

I seem to recall one appearance when Johnny asked — and this was apparently not a question Buck knew was coming — how he wanted to die. Buck thought a moment then said, approximately, "I want to be unbelievably old. I want to be withered beyond belief. I want people to be saying, 'I thought he died years ago.' and to be amazed I'd lasted to that age." It was very, very funny.

I'm sorry he didn't get to go that way. But at least, he was always very, very funny.

You've all seen sleight-of-hand.  How about some sleight-of-kneecap?

If you want to know where we are with Iran, read Fred Kaplan and Daniel Larison. These men are far apart on the political scale on most issues but they generally agree on matters that relate to U.S. military action and keeping the peace with other countries. They both say it's far from over over there.

Seems to me Trump's goal now is to get to the exact same place with Iran that Obama achieved with The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (AKA "The Iran Nuclear Deal") but to be able to argue that he was right to renege on it and what he's accomplished is so much better. And if there have to be assassinations and wars and uncertainties and tensions to get there, it's all worth it because, you know, it's all about Trump.

Forget Iran for a while. Let's talk about more serious matters. ABC has announced that sometime this Fall, they will air a live performance of what is sometimes still advertised as "The New Mel Brooks Musical," Young Frankenstein. Let us consider some obvious questions…

First, who's going to be in it? The folks who'll make that decision may not know yet but when I heard about this, the first name that popped into my mind was Martin Short as Dr. Frankenstein…though come to think of it, he wouldn't be a bad Igor, either. Maybe they'll want someone younger and better known to the youthful audience for the bigger role. I'm guessing Cloris Leachman at age 93 is not up to playing the role she played in the movie but didn't play on stage as Frau Blücher (horse whinny) but wouldn't that be neat?

Legend, which may not be untrue, has it that she auditioned to recreate the role in the musical but Mel turned her down as too old. She was 81 then. She went on to appear on Dancing with the Stars and that convinced Mel she was not too old and they were in talks to have her join the Broadway production but it closed before that could happen.

If Cloris is out of the running, how about Andrea Martin, who won great acclaim for playing it in the original production? How about a lot of the folks who were in the original production? None of them were what was wrong with that show. Which bring us to the question: Which version of the show are they going to do?

The Broadway version opened in November of 2007 and ran until January 4, 2009 for a total of 30 previews and 484 performances. How the show fared financially is unknown because its producers, breaking with theatrical tradition, declined to release information on its weekly grosses and other relevant info, but it's widely assumed they were disappointed. They'd clearly expected to best The Producers, which ran 2,502 performances and won twelve Tony awards. Young Frankenstein got three nominations and won zero.

In August of 2017 — ten years after it hit Broadway — the show debuted in England in a somewhat-changed version. Brooks and his co-author Thomas Meehan had made many changes to the book and dropped several songs and added several new ones. One of those dropped was "Join the Family Business," which I thought was easily the best number in the show.

The Broadway version is apparently the one performed anywhere else these days when a new production is mounted. It's what was performed when Amber and I saw a local staging in October of '17. Will the ABC telecast use the original script, the rewrite seen in Great Britain, or will it be an amalgam? And what are they going to do about certain words in either script that one usually does not say on network television? We shall see.

I meant to post this when it was more current. It's James Corden with a Hanukkah tune from Boys II Menorah…

William Saletan says that Mike Pompeo is lying about the lethal drone strike on Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Of course he's lying. That's in his job description.

Fred Kaplan suggests that the problem with finding a diplomatic solution to the situation with Iran is that no one around Trump wants that, perhaps because none of them has any idea how to do that.

Daniel Larison believes that "Congress must vote to cut off all funding for a war with Iran." They won't but they should.

Lastly: I don't usually find anything I think is linkworthy on Reason, the prominent Libertarian site, but you might want to read Matt Welch. He says, "The truth, which literally hurts, is that every administration lies about war, particularly (though not only) about its reasons for initiating deadly force." I think he may overstate his case a bit…but only a bit.