Monthly Archives: May 2020

In 2016, the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research hosted a panel discussion about Jewish comedy and comedians. The dais consisted of Gilbert Gottfried, and Robert Klein, Alan Zweibel, caricaturist Drew Friedman, my pal Kliph Nesteroff, and pop culture scholar Dr. Eddy Portnoy. The moderator is Frank Santopadre, who is unaware throughout that his microphone is not on. Much time is spent discussing Rodney Dangerfield and the genitalia of Mr. Milton Berle so parental caution is advised…

For a long time, Lydia had my back yard all to herself. I've been feeding feral cats out there for an awfully long time and I usually had a few lurking about…but when it came down to just Lydia, I started thinking that maybe she'd be the last. I thought that once she died or disappeared, as feral cats eventually do, I'd stop putting food out there. Raccoons and possums and sometimes even crows wind up eating as much of it as the cats do.

Then around February, a new cat began stopping in. Unsure at first whether it was a male or female, I named it Murphy. Murphy howls a lot but she — I finally decided it was a she — seemed to be well-behaved. It wouldn't let me get within ten feet of her but it also wouldn't get in the way of me feeding Lydia. I'd set out a bowl of chow and Murphy would wait until Lydia had had enough and then when Lydia left the feeding area, Murphy would sneak up and wolf down whatever remained in the dish. Like I said, well-behaved.

But not lately. Lately, I put out the food for Lydia and Murphy sits there, a few feet away, growling and meowing and putting out vibes that yell, "Hey! Hurry it up! Some of us are hungry!" And as the growls get louder, Lydia finally flees and Murphy scampers up and devours every single scrap of what's edible in that dish. The dish itself is metal or else she might take a bite out of it.

Then when Murphy finishes, she howls for more…but it's a self-defeating demand. When I do step out onto the porch to get the dish for refilling purposes, Murphy flees from me, sprinting clear out of the yard. I fill it, put it back out on the porch and Lydia wanders back up to finish dining.  I suppose it all works out okay.

By the way: As I mentioned, when the new cat began showing up in my yard,  I named it Murphy.  That same cat has also been seen in my neighbors' yard and they also gave it a name.  Want to guess what they named her?  Murphy.  They also named her Murphy.  I guess there's just something very Murphy about her.

If I were running the Joe Biden campaign, I would make more of the fact that when Joe Biden says something stupid, he apologizes. Especially since he'll certainly be doing more of that before the election and his opponent, of course, will be doing none of that.

Martin Short discusses various characters he's played over the years…

I don't like it when John Oliver takes a week off. The least he could do is get Mr. Nutterbutter to guest-host for him while he's away.

Busy weekend.  The last chapter of the article on Nursing Homes should be here tomorrow.  Or maybe the day after.  Or the day after.  Time moves at a variable pace when you're in isolation.  Every so often, I have a day that must be forty-five hours, given how much I manage to get accomplished in it.  But then that's almost immediately balanced by a couple of those nine-hour days in quick succession…the kind where you get up, get out of your pajamas and into actual clothes, eat something…and then it's time to get ready for bed.  You've all had them.

This week, my one-on-one podcasts have a theme in common and that theme is Groucho Marx.  On Tuesday, I will be talking with my friend Steve Stoliar, who worked as Groucho's secretary for the great comedian's final years and witnessed the antics of the controversial Ms. Erin Fleming.  Steve is also a fine writer, a student of non-Marxian comedy and a talented voice actor and impressionist.

On Thursday, I talk with another friend…Frank Ferrante, who as readers of this blog are sick of hearing, tours the continent with his magical show, An Evening with Groucho.  Frank is so good, he can even sometimes do An Evening with Groucho in the afternoon…and like Steve, he also does a lot of other things.  We'll talk about them, too.

Next Saturday is the third Cartoon Voices Panel and…well, I hope you folks are enjoying these because I am.

Holland Casinos are all over the Netherlands — a state-owned network of establishments that take money from Dutch citizens in a much more fun, sporting way than collecting it all through taxes. This is a commercial for the chain. Pay careful attention to the gaming chip in constant motion…

That's not CGI. Someone, obviously in a series of separate shots, made that chip do that. That "someone" was my oft-mentioned-here pal, Charlie Frye. The man juggles balls and clubs and tennis rackets…and he even manipulates chips like that, as you can see in this "making of" video…

Tonight, NBC is running a fourth season episode of Saturday Night Live from 10/14/1978. Why this one? Because it was hosted by Fred Willard, which is a fine reason.

I'm not sure I've seen this episode since 10/14/1978 and the only thing I recall from it is that Fred did a bit as an Elvis impersonator in the monologue and later, there was a very nice, well-executed sketch about a one-night-stand with him opposite Laraine Newman. I hope it makes the cut because this episode is being hacked down from its original ninety minutes to fit into an hour slot tonight.

BTW: The lovely Ms. Newman will be on our third online Cartoon Voices Panel a week from today. She will be joined by four other voice performers also of extraordinary talent.

Leonard and Jessie Maltin talk with Hayley Mills…

My one-time writing partner Dennis Palumbo has some thoughts about how the pandemic is affecting folks who write for a living. But a lot of this is applicable to folks who don't.

If you are into solving Sudoku puzzles (as am I), you need to see this one…

A week from tomorrow, I'll be doing the third Cartoon Voices Panel. I just "signed up" the last of the five panelists and I'm quite pleased with who I've got. I'll announce the names here over the weekend and you'll see why I'm quite pleased.

Not a lot to report. I'm not watching much news but I gather the spread of COVID-19 is being matched by the spread of a certain mindset — the "I don't believe anything that tells me what I don't want to hear" mindset. That's a good way to be wrong a lot…and unprepared for all sorts of things.

Earlier, I watched some of a very long police pursuit that dominated Los Angeles TV this morning. I find these interesting for a number of reasons, one being that they're among the few times a TV station is broadcasting something with absolutely no idea what's going to happen or when. Someone at the station makes the decision to cover a chase which could last two minutes and end in a bloody shoot-out or it could last two hours and end up in a quiet, anti-climactic peaceful surrender. Other outcomes are possible.

Many outcomes are possible with a baseball game but 90+% of the time, it ends in nine innings with one team scoring 1-3 more runs than the other. But that person decides to pre-empt regular programming (which pisses off devout followers of the absent shows) and skip all the commercials (which costs the station money). I wish I knew more about how those decisions are made. I've seen some cases where I'm sure they later thought they'd made the wrong call.

Also, the news coverage of chases is interesting with reporters who have about five minutes of actual information and have to fill 90 minutes in which nothing new happens for long stretches. For this morning's chase, I channel-surfed and on every station, the newsguy or newslady was saying, over and over, "He's driving with no regard for others." True but obvious. When you're running red lights at busy intersections, you aren't showing a lot of concern and caution.

As you may have noticed, these chases offer a lot of analogy to the virus situation we're now in. No one is sure what's going to happen, no one knows when it will end…and a lot of people are running around doing potentially destructive things with no regard for others. If only we could solve the coronavirus emergency with a couple of spike strips…