Monthly Archives: May 2020

This is Part 2 of what I've now realized will have to be a three-part piece about S.N.F.s (Skilled Nursing Facilities) and how I dealt with them when my mother — and soon after, my girl friend — were being assigned to them. Part 1 is here and should be read before proceeding with this chapter.

Let me remind you: Some S.N.F.s are quite satisfactory and perhaps even very good at supplying the services they are supposed to supply. But some are not and my mission was to get the two most important women in my life, one at a time, into the best S.N.F.s available at the moments of decision. My mother had spent one night in a bad one and it was one of the ghastlier nights she ever endured. I was determined she would never experience another one like that…

But how to prevent it? The rules of her Kaiser health insurance mandated that after her doctor ruled she was well enough to leave the hospital, she either had to go to a private home (hers or someone else's, which would have meant mine) or move to the first S.N.F. in that area that (a) Kaiser had a contract with and (b) was ready and willing to accept her. In neither her home nor mine could she receive the care and treatment she needed.

To solve this problem, it was important to remember that there were no human villains involved; at least none that I could talk to…so getting testy with individuals wouldn't help. The problem was with the rules…and while rules can sometimes be artfully bent, they cannot (usually) be broken. In this world, I think we often spend too much time arguing about rules with people who don't have the power to change or waive them. What you can do occasionally is to find ways to get around them.

If I was going to circumvent them to her advantage, the first thing I had to do was to fully understand those rules. Several of the folks with whom I dealt at Kaiser were very friendly and helpful. They were willing to explain the system to me, especially since they could see that I only had one concern here, which was to do what was best for my mother.

When the moment came for her to be moved to an S.N.F. this time, I asked again for a list of the possible locations. As I recall, there were seven of them. A symathetic staff member there tipped me off that two of them would probably not please me. They'd had complaints about them — not enough (yet) to sever their association with those businesses but enough to warn me about them. I visited the other five, politely asking for a tour of each…and by now, I'd learned enough to ask better questions.

The person taking me on the tour was always some sort of administrator at the facility and they were all very proud of the businesses they ran. I listened to their sales pitches but I also tried to get away from them and explore a little on my own. This wasn't hard to do since all those administrators were very busy people and they kept being called away from our tour to handle some matter. But if they weren't, I'd just ask to use a men's room and I'd visit not just one but every one I could find. That told me a lot about the cleanliness of that S.N.F.

And I'd strike up conversations with other employees there. Most people who get into any kind of nursing or medical care have a solid streak of empathy in them and as long as I kept it friendly and casual, they figured I was not going to get them into trouble for anything they told me. One question I asked that told me a lot went something like this…

"This seems like a nice place but I just have to make sure. I had my mother in another Skilled Nursing Facility recently and it seemed like a nice place when I toured it. But late at night, she said, people were screaming and yelling a lot. That doesn't happen here, does it?"

You would be amazed at some of the candid, "don't-tell-anyone-I-told-you-this-but…" responses that evoked. The administrators taking me on my tour all denied that ever happened but the nurses, orderlies, interns (etc.) were honest and I often heard something that caused me to immediately scratch the place off my list. I wound up crossing off all five available S.N.F.s and went back to the lady at Kaiser who was in charge of arranging to move my mother into one of them.

"Those are the only ones in our working area," she told me. "She has to go to whichever one will accept her." I asked if I could get a list of — and go inspect — the S.N.F.s in the adjacent working area.

Kaiser is a big organization. They were trying to move my mother to an S.N.F. within a ten mile radius. "Well," I asked, "what about outside that ten mile radius?" She didn't know why that couldn't be done but said that a certain Mr. So-and-So (I forget his name) would have to okay it. I went to see Mr. So-and-So and our conversation went roughly like this…

MR. SO-AND-SO: I've been here nine years and no one has ever suggested this.

ME: I've been bringing my mother to Kaiser for a lot longer than that and I'm suggesting it. Look, if my mother suddenly moved her residence to twenty-five miles away, you'd make the nursing homes in that area available to her. And you'd assign a Kaiser doctor in that area to check in on her in the nursing home in that area. Why can't we do that without her moving her home?

MR. SO-AND-SO, after thinking a bit: Well, the only problem I can see would involve transporting her farther. We have ambulances and drivers who are supposed to stay within the area.

ME: I have a car with a full tank of gas. I will get her there and take her home and whatever else has to be done. Besides, my mother would much rather have me drive her somewhere than one of your drivers and it won't use up their time or the gasoline Kaiser pays for.

He thought for another few seconds and then said those wonderful words, "I can't think of a reason to say no." An hour later, I was driving around that adjacent area, checking out S.N.F.s that were more than ten miles away. I found a real good one in Torrance. It was 22.3 miles from my home but I decided it was worth the drive. If I could time my visits to not involve driving at rush hour, I could get there in about 40 minutes.

The place was so far superior to options closer to me, I decided it was worth the commute. I had a nice chat there with the fellow who ran the place and we bonded. Turned out he had once been an avid reader of Marvel Comics and was delighted to meet a guy who'd worked for both Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. I'm reasonably sure though that wasn't the main reason he agreed to make a private room available for my mother and to tell Kaiser that they would welcome her.

As I left there, confident my mother would like the place, I had a sudden thought. Some of you may recall a long, maddening tale I told here back in this message. I was hiring caregivers from an agency that supplies such folks and while we had some good ones, most of them didn't stick around long and I caught two of them — one after the other — stealing money from my mother.

Those ladies were immediately fired but even after I supplied solid proof of their crimes, the police never got around to arresting or charging or even looking into the matter. I did sue the caregiver agency and they reimbursed me for the losses.

Most of the caregivers we had for her were fine and honest and a few were pretty good. The best one was a lady who I wished had stayed with it but she had to give up caregiving for personal matters. As I was driving home from my inspection of the S.N.F. in Torrance, I suddenly realized something: That great caregiver lived in Torrance! I pulled over to the curb, found her number on my phone, called her and asked if she was interested in part-time work helping out my mother there. When I told her which S.N.F. it was, she said, "That's about six blocks from where I live. Absolutely!"

So that's how my mother not only got into a good Skilled Nursing Facility but also had her own private caregiver there who'd come by whenever I couldn't. The caregiver did her laundry and brought her better food than they served at the S.N.F. and kept her company and ran errands for her. If you had to be in a place like that, it was about as good an experience as it was possible to have.

My mother returned to that S.N.F. a couple of times. She passed away there and all the right things were done. And it was only possible because we found a way around the rules.

This has been the second of three parts here on this topic. In our third and final installment, I'll tell you what happened when I had to find the right S.N.F. for my dear friend Carolyn. This one was more difficult but I found a new way around the rules…one that was inspired by the legendary Sgt. Bilko. It did not involve lying as he sometimes did. Anyway, you'll understand why I'm illustrating this story with photos of him.

Click here to jump directly to Part Three

This evening, I will be talking with my longtime friend Cheri Steinkellner, who was Cheri Eichen when we met. She was a regular performer on Pink Lady and Jeff and I was the Head Writer and if the show had been as wonderful as she was on it, somebody might've watched it. Since then, Cheri — working mainly with her husband Bill Steinkellner — had become mainly a writer and producer of hit situation comedies, a couple of great animation projects and they were nominated for a Tony Award for the book of the musical of Sister Act.

Bill is one of the most high-praised directors and teachers of improv comedy and Cheri is a powerhouse in that world, as well. They're two of my dearest friends and she's quite brilliant and quite lovely and quite worth interviewing…which I'll be doing tonight at 7 PM Pacific Time. You may be able to watch it live on this page but you'll certainly be able to watch it live over on this YouTube page — and there, you can comment or ask questions.

If you miss some or all of it, the show will be available for viewing almost immediately after on my You Tube page…and while you're over there, would enough of you please subscribe to get me over the 1000 Subscribers mark? It doesn't cost anything. And while you're there, you can also watch some of the other webcasts I've done. If you haven't seen either of the Cartoon Voices Panels, they're especially fun. Thanks!

We have to say goodbye to the very nice and bright Charles Lippincott — "Charley" to his friends and he had an awful lot of friends. Charley did many things in the worlds of motion pictures and publishing but the one that most impresses people was that he is credited with supervising the advertising and promotion that made Star Wars the box office/merchandising juggernaut that it was. He did that for a lot of movies including Alien, Westworld and many more, including Judge Dredd, on which he served as producer.

Charley was loved and respected by many and I wish I'd known him better than I did. My pal Craig Miller knew him very well and in his new book about Star Wars and its marketing, Craig wrote this…

Charles M. Lippincott, usually known as Charley, went to USC Film School at the same time as George Lucas. Charley became a Publicist, first at MGM, and worked on a lot of projects. He worked with Alfred Hitchcock on Family Plot. 20th Century Fox hired him to work with George Lucas on Star Wars.

Charley's title was Senior Vice President, Advertising, Publicity, Promotion, and Merchandising of Star Wars Corporation. Quite a mouthful. He oversaw every aspect of Star Wars related to those areas. And more.

Not to take away anything from George, whose creative mind conceived, wrote, and directed Star Wars. Or the film's producer, Gary Kurtz, whose knowledge of production got the film made. Or creative geniuses like John Dykstra, Richard Edlund, and countless others at Industrial Light & Magic who reinvented special effects to make miracles happen. They all made a great movie that wouldn't have happened without them.

But without Charley, I don't think Star Wars would have come close to the success it became.

Charley was responsible for a lot. He made sure every character, every name, every image was properly copyrighted and trademarked. He made the licensing deals (along with Marc Pevers, an attorney who was Vice President of Licensing at 20th Century Fox) for the merchandise that, despite the enormous box office gross, was the real profit center for Lucasfilm. He was even part of the pitches to the 20th Century-Fox Board, to help convince them to make the movie.

And he masterminded the campaign that truly changed the way movies were publicized. I'm quite proud to have worked with him.

Such a shame we can't all converge for a big memorial to the guy. It would be packed.

This is where you want to be…

Here's another video of my buddy Charlie Frye, this time showing him juggling five clubs in slow-motion. A few years ago, Amber and I were in Las Vegas and we visited Charlie and his spectacular spouse Sherry in the home where they live when not touring the globe.

We were in this room and I asked Charlie if he could show Amber a video or two of his performances since she'd never seen him, as I have so many times, on stage. Instead, he picked up clubs and other props and put on a full show for us and it was, of course, amazing.

In my life, I am surrounded by people who do things very, very well: Voice actors who can sound like anyone, artists who produce incredible drawings, magicians who can make you think you're watching real magic, puppeteers who can bring cloth and foam to life, etc.

I can do a little (very little) of some of these things and that, I think, gives me an extra appreciation for those who take them to a much, much higher level. How do you do what Charlie does here? It probably requires a certain innate ability which some of us just plain weren't born with…but it also requires decades of devotion and practice…

There are dozens of these "lotsa different performers in their homes" videos, many done for good causes. This one features 23 West End actresses who played either Elphaba or Glinda in the musical Wicked, raising their fine voices in the best song from that show.

The good cause is The Make A Difference Trust, which helps those "experiencing hardship because of the ongoing coronavirus crisis." It's like the British version of The Actors Fund here. This song has probably never been sung better — or with more genuine meaning…

I have a whole bunch of questions about what equipment I'm using for my webcasting videos. It's the same PC through which I do most everything else in my life and it happens to have a pretty good Internet connection.

I use a Logitech C920 webcam which I bought from Amazon in April of 2018 for $50.99. Logitech no longer makes it, offering instead the C920S which is said to be better…but it's about as hard to find these days as a case of hand sanitizer. It listed for $79.something when places like Amazon and Best Buy had 'em but they don't. Folks are selling alleged new ones on eBay for around $120 and May the Buyer Beware.

The headset I use is also a Logitech. It's this one — a combo headset and microphone which plus into a USB port. A friend is sending me Logitech's wireless, lightweight version and I'll be experimenting with that.

Most of the voice actors I'm interviewing on those Cartoon Voices panels are in their home studios working with professional-grade (sometimes, very expensive) microphones and then they use Apple-style ear-buds or some sort of headset. You can webcast with just the microphone and speakers built into most webcams but there's the danger that your microphones will pick up the sound of others speaking through your speakers and feed it back, muddying up the audio. That doesn't happen when you use ear-buds or a headset.

The conferencing is done via Streamyard, which seemed to me the best choice of about six I looked at. There are dozens of other options with new ones debuting every day so there may be something better but I'm happy with Streamyard. And that's about everything.

This is a long story but I think I can get it into two parts. If you are a regular reader of this site, you might want to wait until Part 2 is posted and read them both in one sitting. I won't be offended. You will also understand why I am illustrating it with photos like this one of Phil Silvers in his iconic role of Master Sergeant Ernie Bilko…

A recurring theme in stories I write is that the hero outsmarts the villain. One reason I haven't done more in the super-hero vein is that I don't relate to victory through sheer brute force and power. I understand that that is often the denouement of conflicts in real life but not so much in my life. We who follow comics all have our Batmans. Mine is the one who out-thinks The Joker instead of out-crazying him or beating the crap outta him.

Outsmarting an opponent isn't possible all the time. It may not even be possible most of the time. But there are cases where the best resolution comes where you figure out how to "win" via strategy rather than by threatening and/or screaming and/or pounding on the desk or someone's face. That did not work when I had a problem with the kind of places that are called "skilled nursing facilities," regardless of how skilled the nurses there may be. And let me make it clear: Sometimes in my experiences, they were very skilled and very good at what they were supposed to do. But not always.

I first had this problem with my mother, who kept having attacks that put her into the hospital. My mother lived to the age of 90 and, given the number of cigarettes she went through for about 73 of those years, even she was amazed she lasted that long. But the last ten or so of those years, she became almost blind, almost unable to walk, unable to eat anything she liked, unable to stray too far from a bathroom, etc. Worst of all were the numerous times either paramedics or firemen or I had to take her into emergency rooms.

On the door to her home, there was a little lock box. In the lock box was a key to her door so that if I wasn't present, emergency personnel could get in and help her. Sometimes, I had to give them the combination over the phone. Sometimes, the private monitoring service to which I'd subscribed would notify the emergency personnel that she needed aid and they'd give it to rescuers. But the last few times when firemen came, they didn't need to be told the combination. They'd been there so often, they remembered it.

She received very good care at whatever hospital they took her to…and if it wasn't Kaiser Permanente, she would soon be transferred to the local Kaiser Hospital because that's the kind of insurance she had and Kaiser likes to treat its patients at their hospitals instead of paying the bills at other hospitals. Also, all her records were at Kaiser and she knew most of the doctors there and they knew her. I probably mentioned this before somewhere but because of her, I spent so much time at that Kaiser Hospital that when I went down to the cafeteria, the cashiers would automatically give me the employee discount. They saw me so often, they assumed I worked there.

Eventually, she would be released from the hospital. Sometimes, the doctor would okay her going home. Sometimes though, she would need additional care of the kind provided by a Skilled Nursing Facility, and I will henceforth abbreviate that term because I'll be using it a lot here. I don't know if it works the same way everywhere but here is how it worked with Kaiser…

Kaiser had (and I assume, still has) contracts with local S.N.F.s. These places are independently owned and managed but they agree to provide beds and care for Kaiser patients who are sent there upon discharge. They also provide space for Kaiser doctors to drop by each day and check on the Kaiser patients there. I would assume that because of volume, Kaiser pays a rate for this far less than you or I would pay if we just wanted to check someone in there or if they were referred by a doctor who wasn't part of a plan like this.

So let us say you're in the hospital and your doctor can't justify keeping you in the full-facility hospital and thinks you need to be in an S.N.F. for a while. A coordinator at the hospital makes up a page to send to all the local S.N.F.s with which they have deals. The page tells the S.N.F. who you are, what's wrong with you, what kind of treatment you will require there, how long you might be there, etc. When I dealt with these matters, these pages were faxed to all the S.N.F.s but I'll bet they're all e-mailed these days.

Someone in charge at each S.N.F. looks at the page and determines, first of all, if they have a bed for you and if they have whatever might be needed to do what the doctor says must be done for you. You might require certain equipment or physical training or you might have to be there a long time. In essence, they decide if they can take you or not and they so notify the hospital.

Under the terms of your insurance, once an S.N.F. has agreed to take you, you must leave the hospital. In some cases, you could elect to go home or to the home of a loved one who can care for you but often, that is not practical. It was not practical whenever my mother was discharged and it would not be practical a few years later when my friend Carolyn was discharged from the different hospital where she was being treated.

But in that situation, you have to leave. You cannot say, "I don't want to go to that S.N.F. I want to stay here in this hospital."

Well, you can say it but it generally doesn't do much good. Even if you have good insurance — and my mother and Carolyn both did — it's not going to pay to keep you in the hospital if your doctor says you should be in an S.N.F. and one is willing to take you. If no S.N.F. can take you, you remain in the hospital but only until some S.N.F. can and will accept you.

The first time my mother was to be released to an S.N.F., I insisted on going there first and checking the place out. It seemed acceptable…barely. But I didn't know what to look for, plus it was much better in the afternoon when I made my inspection than it was in the evening when I drove my mother there and checked her in. At night, other patients were screaming…about what, we never learned. And the nurse assigned to my mother was rude and negligent. At 7 AM the next morning, my mother phoned me and said, "Please…get me out of here!"

I hurriedly dressed and I did not go immediately to that S.N.F. Instead, I drove to Kaiser Hospital, parked my car and made my way to the employee parking lot where I located the empty parking space of one of my mother's doctors there. Fortunately, I knew his day off and it wasn't that day.

Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into his parking space to find…me. I explained to him what had happened and he said, "You go get her. I'll get the paperwork started." I sped to the S.N.F. and felt like The Prince rescuing someone from The Dragon as I packed my mother up and took her out of there. This was done over the objections of an S.N.F. staff member who insisted she could not be officially released until they'd received the proper orders from Kaiser. I was daring them to stop me as I loaded my mother into her wheelchair but then the paperwork arrived.

Thirty minutes later, she was back in a bed at Kaiser Hospital. She stayed there instead of going to another S.N.F. until it was decided she could go home.

A month or two later, she was back in Kaiser and about to be released…but not to go home. She was to be moved to a Skilled Nursing Facility (to unabbreviate for a moment). I told the lady in charge of such matters that the one she'd been in previously was unacceptable. She told me Kaiser no longer put patients in that S.N.F. They'd canceled the contract with them…the result of an investigation requested by my mother's doctor there, based on what she'd told him and what I'd told him. (That S.N.F. remained in business, by the way. I have no idea if it underwent improvement but someone was putting patients in there even if Kaiser wasn't.)

But now I had to deal with the question of what to do to prevent my mother winding up in a place equally as bad…or worse. And that, dear readers, is where we shall leave things until Part 2 of this story which will be here in a day or three.

Click here to jump directly to Part Two

The Rainbow Connection…

From 10/23/1973: Johnny Carson welcomes The Ace Trucking Company to The Tonight Show. The A.T.C. consisted of Fred Willard, George Memmoli, Michael Mislove and Bill Saluga. Not long before this, Patti Deutsch had left the group. For this sketch, Fred plays the judge, George plays the widow, Michael plays her son and Bill plays Mr. Raymond Jay Johnson Junior…but you dasn't have to call him that.

I remember seeing the A.T.C. when they were playing at the Ice House in Pasadena…and just about every club in Los Angeles that was even remotely suitable for their kind of comedy. They were always very funny and Fred was a special standout. He sure holds this sketch together…

Here's a profession you might have considered pursuing: Taste Tester for Pringles…

Well, let's see. I had a dead possum in my swimming pool over the weekend. I'm taking it as a Godfather-style warning from someone who's afraid The Complete Pogo series will beat them out for an Eisner Award this year. I also have no hot water in my house but a plumber's coming later today to see how much he can charge me to correct that situation.

Try as I may, it's impossible to shut out all news of Trump from my life. From what I gather, he's absolutely perfect in everything he does and anyone who suggests otherwise is a lying idiot who's totally corrupt and their business is failing and they have lousy ratings and they're probably ugly, too. I find it kinda fascinating that the worst insults that Donald Trump can find to hurl at anyone is that their business is failing, they have low ratings and/or that they're physically unattractive. And of course, usually their businesses aren't failing, their ratings aren't low and they look better than he does…or no worse.

End of Trump comments for this message and, if I can manage it, this week.

Getting back to something that gives me joy: Below is the final cover for Volume 7 of Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips: Pockets Full of Pie. It is off to the presses well ahead of schedule for a release date of October 13. Reports indicate that Friday the Thirteenth will be falling on a Tuesday this year.

Honesty compels me to say the following. In normal times, there would be no question of the book coming out on schedule; not when the printers have it this far ahead of its publication date. But these are not normal times and the books are printed overseas. It would not surprise me if that person I'm not mentioning suddenly decided to close U.S. borders to any import from a country with a "K" in its name. All publishers around the world are dealing with at least a small amount of uncertainty these days. Matter of fact, probably any business that relies on foreign manufacturing or labor is less than 100% confident of anything more than about eight hours into the future.

I remain insufferably proud of this series. I'm also proud to be fulfilling my promise to my late love, Carolyn Kelly, who wanted the series she launched to keep on reprinting her father's magnum opus all the way to its conclusion. Volume 7 puts us more than halfway there.

Carolyn spent the last ten months of her too-short life at a facility that was part "skilled nursing facility" and part "assisted living residence." I'm sure most of you can tell me horror stories about what happened to a loved one in one of these but — I beg of you — don't. I have heard way too many of those tales and I do not need convincing that some of them are nightmarish places that no one who is loved by anyone should ever be in.

Carolyn was in the best one we could find and I still think no better choice was possible. Still, that facility is today awash with COVID-19. As of a month ago, they were reporting 20 deaths and over 17 then-current cases of the disease. Those numbers are surely way higher today and every now and then, having spent nearly a year of my life visiting that building almost daily, it depresses me to imagine what a ghastly, depressing place it must be now. It wasn't exactly Disneyland during the Main Street Electrical Parade back then.

I'm not mentioning its name but this is the situation at many such businesses around the country. Anyone who believes this pandemic thing is a hoax to unseat certain elected officials should visit one, maskless.

Nursing facilities are as much a necessity of life as hospitals these days — especially when some hospitals are still jammed at times. I dealt with such places when my mother was dying and again with Carolyn and I did learn one trick that helped a little. I'm going to write a post in the next day or so to tell you about that trick in case you ever need it (you might) though it may only work in certain select situations. If it does work for you, please pass it on and give credit for it, not to me but to the person who inspired it…Master Sergeant Ernest Bilko.

On Thursday, I'll be interviewing my friend Cheri Steinkellner, who with her husband Bill worked on The Jeffersons, Cheers, Bob and many other shows including the animated series, Teacher's Pet and the Broadway musical of Sister Act. Among other vital questions, I'll ask her what it's like to accept an Emmy Award presented by Milton Berle when he doesn't want to get off the stage.

The next Cartoon Voices Panel will be Saturday, May 30. And wait'll you see the lineup I'm lining up.

Several folks have sent me links to this article in the New York Times. In it, media columnist Ben Smith dares to question whether Ronan Farrow is as good a journalist as his fame suggests. Says Smith, "At times, he does not always follow the typical journalistic imperatives of corroboration and rigorous disclosure, or he suggests conspiracies that are tantalizing but he cannot prove."

Curiously, Smith does not delve at all into the scandal that seems to be of primary importance to Farrow: The relentless attacks on his alleged father, Woody Allen. Might that not tell us volumes about what Farrow thinks constitutes solid proof or relevant evidence? So I don't know what to think of any of this.