Monthly Archives: December 2020

• Joe Biden and Kamala Harris named Time magazine Person(s) of the Year. Trump insists he won and has a mountain of evidence they cheated.

We haven't had a variant version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" on this blog for a long time. This seems like the perfect one for tonight…

I doubt there are many people reading this blog who think Donald Trump won the election and is being denied his rightful second term due to fraud. But if you know someone who believes that, see if you can get them to read this article by Steve Benen. It's about how, once again, the Trump forces claim there's tons of evidence of fraud when they're arguing their case in the court of public opinion. But when they get into a real court and have to actually produce such evidence, they retreat from those claims.

The much-admired artist Richard Corben died December 2 at the age of 80 following heart surgery. His work came to prominence around 1969, give or take a few years, in the fan press and the world of underground comics. His style was unique with an awesome sense of depth and roundness and lighting effects that no one else could duplicate; not that many didn't try. He had a technical skill, particularly at coloring via techniques of his own invention. Accomplished artists would look at Corben's pages and ask, "How does he do that?"

He was, at least at first, fiercely independent. I remember a conversation between Joe Kubert and Jack Kirby early in '71 when both were editing and drawing comics for DC. Both had seen and been impressed by Corben's work in underground comics…some of the first to be published in color. Kubert explained how he had contacted Corben and offered him work from DC, expecting the artist to leap at the chance. Joe was surprised when Corden said — this is me remembering from long ago what Kubert said Corben said — "Thank you but I just want to do my own work."

Joe said he was amazed at the turndown but that they'd spoken for a while and, Joe said, "I wish I could do that." It was one of the first times an artist was "discovered" in the fan or underground press and offered work for one of the majors…and it may have been the first time the offer was declined. Jack said, "Good for him. He knows you don't have to work for DC or Marvel to do comics."

Before that year was out, Corben's work did start appearing occasionally in Warren's magazines, Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. And while he ultimately did work for DC and Marvel and other houses, it was always a matter of them publishing what Corben did as opposed to him trying to do what they published. He also started his own company, Fantagor Press, which published his work the way he wanted it published. He later collaborated more and segued into animation and wider areas but he managed to retain an enviable amount of control and independence.

I never met Richard Corben and neither did most people who worked in comics. He rarely attended conventions or put himself in the spotlight. But I sure thought his creations were amazing and so did most people who worked in comics…or read them. His widow Dona has announced that she will continue to manage the publication of his work and I'm sure there will always be a great demand for it.

Again, thanks to all who've sent cash donations for this blog which — and this amazes me as much as it might amaze you — will be twenty years old a week from tomorrow. I still haven't thought of anything special to do for the occasion. Maybe I'll come out in support of overturning the election for Trump or I'll post a great recipe for cole slaw. Just to shake things up.

Things are peaceful here these days. I continue to wince at every new coronavirus record we break and to think how different things would be if back in March, Donald Trump had told everyone to wear a mask and to stop gathering in groups for a month or two. But that might have helped everyone, not just the people who supported him.

Please stop writing and asking me what's going to happen to the comic book industry in the next year or two. You don't know, I don't know and neither does anybody else. I believe there will be an industry and at some point, it will stabilize and there will be some clear business models to follow. Before we get there though, there will be much uncertainty and a lot of executive-types who'll come and go like Spinal Tap drummers.

Comic conventions? They'll happen when they happen. No one knows about them either.

We are in a time when everyone needs two things. I mean, besides paper towels and toilet paper. We need common sense and we need patience. Common sense tells us to stay home as much as we can, wear a mask when we can't and to not go to parties or gatherings, no matter how much shpilkes you may have.

"Shpilkes" is one of those Yiddish words that comes in handier than the corresponding word in English. It means restlessness, nervous energy, sitting on the proverbial pins and needles. I'll use it in a sentence: "He couldn't sit still…he had shpilkes." Some people would say "…the shpilkes."

It goes with the part about having patience. This thing will go away. We will hug, kiss and shake hands as we always did…maybe not as freely right away but one of these days. I don't know when. You don't know when. But fretting about it won't make it happen any sooner…and rushing is probably the reason we're now in a Second Wave or a Third Wave or whichever number Wave this is. We all know this. We just have to keep reminding each other about what we all know.

As I wrote back here, I was disappointed by the stage musical version of Mary Poppins that Disney took to Broadway and elsewhere in the mid-2000's. I thought it lacked heart and magic…and a Mary Poppins with neither of those is not much good, is she? A few great moments came from what they retained from the original movie, though not necessarily from how they staged that material for the stage.

Here we have two numbers from the show performed outta-context for the Royal Variety Performance of 2019. The first, "Feed the Birds," is pretty wonderful I think because (a) it's just the song, arguably the best one in the movie, staged simply and without gimmicks, and (b) The Ol' Bird Lady is played by Petula Clark, who is — as she's been since well before "Downtown" — just a wonderful, magical performer.

The second number is "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and give me some credit for typing that without looking it up or cut-and-pasting. That too is a great song but not, in my opinion, here. It's like they were trying to make it not sound like the version we all know and we (I'm only speaking for some of us) would have preferred to hear it done more like the version we know and love. Different is not always better.

But maybe you'll like what I didn't like or even not like what I did. It's a free country. Why, we're even making the guy who got the most votes President, which we don't always do in America.

I get many of my home services (Internet, phone, etc.) from Spectrum Communications. Occasionally, I have problems with their service. This has been true with all the other companies I've had providing services like DirecTV, A.T.& T., Charter Communications, Time-Warner Cable, etc. I've never found one to be markedly better than the others but I have to live with one of them.

Here's something they all seem to do in one form or another and it probably bothers me more than it should but, hey, that's what ranting on blogs is for.

I call them about a problem. I may have to call them several times but eventually, it gets solved. At various times during this process, I find myself talking to a computer that asks me to rate the employee with whom I have just conversed. They ask me was the person polite? Did the person provide a satisfactory solution to my problem? Did the person seen knowledgeable? Did the person explain the problem to me in a way I could understand? Et cetera.

And the problem with these questions is that, 85% of the time, what I really want to say, but the computer doesn't give me the opportunity to say, is "The person was fine. It's your company that's the problem!"

I have the same problem with some food delivery services. I order something to eat and after it arrives, I'm asked by text or a recorded voice on the phone to rate the person who delivered the meal to me. Were they on time? Were they polite?

There's no opportunity to rate the person who prepared the food — the person who put mayo and lettuce on it despite my clearly typed message, "NO MAYO AND NO LETTUCE!" The timeliness of the food's arrival is treated as the responsibility of the delivery person whereas its lateness, if late it be, is more likely a function of the food-preparer not getting it done promptly…or it could be that the company is just screwed-up. I am only being asked to rate the person who is probably least responsible for quality control, paid the least and the most easily-replaced.

And often, my options are all choices that do not apply. Spectrum always asks me if the person I spoke to provided a satisfactory solution to my problem. Sometimes, they do. Sometimes, they can't. One recent call to Spectrum resulted in the Spectrum employee on the other end of the line telling me it was beyond their ability and jurisdiction to fix my problem and they'd have someone in another division call me.

So how do I answer whether that person provided a satisfactory solution to my problem? My options are Yes and No. So it could be "Yes, they weren't able to fix it so they said someone else would call me" or "No, they weren't able to fix it so they said someone else would call me."

And then no one else called me. How do I rate the person who never called me? That's a rhetorical question because they never ask me to rate him or her.

Here's yet another unusual interpretation of the song "The Rhythm of Life" from the show Sweet Charity. This is, of course, the Pontarddulais Male Choir which bills itself as "The most successful competitive male voice choir in Wales." This is from a rehearsal and they're doing the variant set of lyrics that leave out the irony and sarcasm of the original…

My e-mailbox — a different one, not the one I use for regular e-mail — is getting 10-12 of these a day. Here's one of today's. I seem to have won the chance to send him money…

Mark,

CONGRATULATIONS! You've won the Weekly Trump Patriot 1000% IMPACT OFFER!

Every week President Trump selects one of his BEST supporters to receive an exclusive 1000% IMPACT OFFER, and this week, it's YOU.

This offer is only available to you for the NEXT 2 HOURS, Ferd. After that, your offer will be given to the next Patriot in line.

Please contribute ANY AMOUNT in the NEXT 2 HOURS and you can increase your impact by 1000%. >>

President Trump knows that you've been a dedicated supporter, which is why he selected YOU for this opportunity.

He wants to know the moment you make your contribution, so don't wait.

Just contribute ANY AMOUNT IMMEDIATELY to claim your 1000% IMPACT OFFER.

The weird thing is that almost every message I get from them makes this 1000% offer. It's not something I have to act on within two hours because before the day is out, I'll receive five or six more of these 1000% offers in which they will somehow (they don't explain how) increase my donation by 1000%.

And if I'm one of Trump's BEST supporters, you can imagine what his non-supporters think of him.

This is one of "those" stories. Longtime readers of this site will know what I mean by that. I told this story many years ago, way before I began blogging, in a column I wrote but for some reason, I shortened and simplified it all down. This is the real, more interesting version — but first, this cautionary note…

For many years, I traveled to New York about once a year to meet with publishers, see friends, see shows and sometimes attend a convention. Also, I just plain liked being in New York and I expect I will again when The Pandemic is over and such travels resume. When I was picking and paying for the place I stayed, I usually stayed at a hotel called the Rihga Royal which was located at 151 West 54th Street.

Note the past tense. This is not a recommendation of that hotel because it isn't there anymore. There is a hotel there and it's the same building with a different name and different management and I have no idea how good or bad it is. It's actually changed owners and names several times since it was the Rihga.

I first stayed there in the nineties at the recommendation of Brenda, a nice lady who was my travel agent back when some of us used travel agents rather than book our flights and accommodations ourselves on the Internet. She got me a great rate and I liked it enough to stay there even after she could no longer get me as great a rate. The first time I took my friend Carolyn back there, we stayed at the Rihga.

The next time we went, I called to book it and the same room was now more than double the price…so I didn't book it. By now, not only was Brenda out of the travel agency business but her travel agency was out of the travel agency business. I looked around, found a cheaper place and made a reservation…but I didn't feel good about it.

Then I remembered something. Ten or fifteen years earlier, my Business Manager Ron had said to me, "I enrolled you in the American Express bonus points plan. Every time you use your AMEX card, you get points and they don't expire. Someday, you'll use them to take a nice vacation or something." I'd paid no attention to my running point total but I suddenly decided that maybe I should. I logged into the American Express website and found that I had something like 500,000 points. Just sitting there, unused. It was like finding money in an old pair of pants.

I called the Rihga Royal and asked if they accepted American Express bonus points for free hotel rooms. It turned out they did not.

So I called another hotel in New York I like — the Marriott Marquis in Times Square — and asked if they accepted American Express bonus points. Turned out, they did. "How many," I asked, "do I need for five free nights?" The answer: 150,000. I immediately booked us into the Marriott Marquis and canceled the other reservation. Great, terrific, perfect. Thank you, Ron.

Cut to five weeks later. It was two days before our departure when I got a phone call from someone in the Marriott organization telling me we couldn't stay for those five nights at the Marriott Marquis. Either the reservations clerk or a computer or both had erred, he explained. Two of those five nights were "blackout dates" for which one could not use bonus points. He said I had the following three options…

1. I could pay cash for the two blackout nights…a very high rate.
2. We could stay at the Marriott Marquis for the three odd-numbered nights and move to some other hotel for the two even-numbered nights.
3. I could cancel the entire reservation and find some other hotel.

I suggested a fourth option…

4. They could waive this silly "blackout dates" option and let us stay there all five nights just as they said we could when I booked the reservation.

He said they couldn't do that. I said yes, they could. He said no, the computer won't allow it. I said, "That's nonsense. Can you connect me to someone higher up in the company than you who can say, 'Gee, we screwed up here. We have to make it right for you' and authorize me to stay five consecutive nights in the hotel I booked to spend five consecutive nights in?" He said such a person would call me within the hour.

Fifty-nine minutes later, someone above him called me and said, "Gee, we screwed up here. We have to make it right for you." But he insisted that even the president of the corporation couldn't override the computer and allow me to spend those nights at the Marriott Marquis on American Express bonus points.

I said, "It sounds like the computer is the president of the corporation."

He chuckled and said, "Maybe. But I have another solution. Instead of charging you 150,000 points to stay at the Marriott Marquis, how about if we charge you 130,000 points to stay those five nights at the J.W. Marriott, which is the newest Marriott in the same area? In fact, it just opened a few days ago. The computer will let me book you in there."

I asked where it was. He said it was located at 54th and 7th, which was a very good location for me, given where I had to go while in town. That wasn't far from the Rihga Royal. I also thought, "A brand-new Marriott? How bad could that be?" So I booked it and when I got off the phone with him, I went online and looked up the exact address.

The J.W. Marriott, I discovered, was at 151 West 54th Street. That meant it wasn't near the Rihga Royal. It was the Rihga Royal. The Marriott people had bought it and changed the name.

So Carolyn and I flew back to New York as per the schedule, pleased we were going to be staying at our favorite hotel even if it was operating under an assumed name. As things turned out, it wasn't that simple.

The limo dropped us off in front of the hotel at 151 West 54th Street and it didn't say "Rihga Royal" on the front. It didn't say "J.W. Marriott," either. There was a blank sign over the front door.

A lady at the front desk asked, "May I help you?" I said, "Yes. You can tell us the name of this hotel." She said, "I'm sorry but we don't know."

She explained: It had been the Rihga Royal. Then about two weeks before we got there, it became the J.W. Marriott and the sign outside said that until a few days ago. Then there was some sort of legal squabble over the sale and several somebodies were suing several other somebodies over ownership. "The lawyers agreed the hotel should stay open and operational while the matter gets settled in court," she said. "But we had to take down the sign."

I asked, "How do you answer the phone when someone calls?"

Just then, the phone did ring and she said, "Like this…" She picked up the receiver and said, "Hotel!"

We checked in after she assured us that despite its lack of name, it was the same hotel it was days ago when it was a J.W. Marriott and weeks ago when it was the Rihga Royal. Same rooms, same staff, same amenities, same showers (the showers in the Rihga Royal could make you want to spend your entire time in Manhattan in one), same everything. The only odd thing about the place was that in some spots, you'd see the "RR" logo of the Rihga and in some, the "JWM" logo of the new (maybe) owners. When folks asked us where we were saying this trip, we enjoyed telling them we were in an Unlisted Hotel.

It was a great five days. Carolyn walked through Central Park and browsed museums. I went to the DC Comics offices, the Marvel Comics offices, the offices of MAD magazine, etc. We had lunch with Joe Simon. We ate at Carolyn's favorite restaurant, the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station.

We went to shows, including what was then the hottest, impossible-to-get-a-ticket-to show on Broadway, the recently-opened The Producers starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. I managed to get house seats from the author…and I don't mean Mel Brooks. These were the house seats of the author of Springtime for Hitler, the play within the play, Franz Liebkind. I got them from Brad Oscar, the fine actor who originated that role on Broadway. You may have seen Brad featured on this blog not long ago in this post.

Finally, it was time to return home. On a balmy New York morning just before Check-Out Time, Carolyn and I checked out and hauled our luggage out to the curb. There, we were to wait for the limo to the airport.

Outside, we noted something had changed. The sign over the door now said "J.W. Marriott." One of us said, "I guess they settled the legal dispute."

Just then, a man wearing a dark suit and dark glasses came up to us and said, "I'm sorry, folks. You can't wait here. I need to move you up the street about fifteen yards." I noticed he was wearing an earpiece and that there were other men dressed like him scurrying about. Also, a number of photographers.

I said, "We're just waiting for the limo I ordered to take us to the airport."

He said, "I understand that but I can't have you waiting here. We'll help you move your bags up to where it'll be okay for you to wait." He and another man wearing dark glasses and an earpiece moved us about fifteen yards. I asked the first man, "Are you Secret Service?"

He said — with a bit of a twinkle — "We're not allowed to say." Okay, I had my answer.

Just then, three black luxury vehicles pulled up at the spot where Carolyn and I had been standing. Two rope lines had been set up, forming a path from the rear seat of one of the vehicles to the door of what I assumed was now the J.W. Marriott. More men in dark glasses swarmed about, the guys with cameras crowded the rope lines and Hillary Clinton got out of the back seat. She waved to some cheering onlookers, posed briefly under the sign for the photographers and then headed into the hotel where, we later heard, she was to speak at a luncheon.

Within two minutes all of it was gone — the black vehicles, the men in sunglasses, the photographers, the passers-by who'd crowded around…all of it. Carolyn waved down our limo as it arrived and as its driver loaded our suitcases into the back, we saw a man on a ladder taking down the J.W. Marriott sign, returning the hotel to its anonymous condition. They'd just put it back up for the photo-op.

If I understand correctly, the hotel briefly became the Rihga Royal again, then it was the J.W. Marriott because, you know, they couldn't let that sign go to waste. At some point, it became The London for a while and now it's the Conrad New York Midtown. I hope they all kept those showers.

A couple of you have written to me about a recent (and explosive) article in the L.A. Times about the Magic Castle that said it's become a hotbed of racism and sexism. This is distressing to me as a forty-year member of the place. Actually, one is not a member of the Magic Castle. One is a member of an organization called the Academy of Magical Arts. The Academy operates the Magic Castle as its clubhouse…so by being a member of the Academy, I have access to that clubhouse when it's open, which it is not at the moment.

From what I can tell as a member who's uninvolved with the management of the place, the article is right about some things, wrong about others and a bit outdated on a few situations which have since been corrected. Lawyers, we hear, advised the Academy's Board of Directors not to respond to the reporters' questions and that may be sound legal sense but it's bad Public Relations sense. In any case, I have confidence in the current Board to fix what needs to be fixed and at the same time to deal with the alarming financial crisis created by the Castle being closed due to you-know-what.

I may or may not write a post here one of these days about sexual harassment, which I think is sometimes a too-nice euphemism for sexual molestation. Seems to me there are many varieties of it — some worse than others but all unacceptable — and that too many people lump them all together. Then they try to treat them all with one miracle remedy that might be effective on some types but not on all. I don't know how you can truly solve a problem when you don't really understand it…or try hard enough to.

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Thanks to those of you who have sent donations of money to support this blog. I have a big bill coming up and what you've sent will help. Do not expect anything special here week after next when newsfromme hits its twenty-year anniversary. I may light some candles, close my eyes and blow out the Trump Administration.

John Oliver is on hiatus but this couldn't wait…

• Every time you hear that today had the highest report of COVID hospitalizations or deaths ever, just remember: There are people not wearing masks and not isolating in order to ensure that record is broken tomorrow.

You no doubt recognize the melodious amphibian from the 1955 cartoon One Froggy Evening, written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones. The frog didn't have a name in the cartoon but in 1960, Jones was one of the folks behind the prime-time ABC series, The Bugs Bunny Show and they ran the '55 cartoon along with a bit of new footage to frame it.

For the occasion, the frog got a name — Enrico, as in "Enrico Caruso" — but I don't think it was used on the program. The only place I've ever seen it was on this drawing that Jones did for publicity purposes.

Everyone soon forgot it and some years later, when (I'm told) the merchandising division at Warners felt the frog should have a name, he became Michigan J. Frog. Both names probably came from Jones. One of the songs the frog warbles in the original cartoon is "The Michigan Rag," which unlike the other tunes in his repertoire, was not a golden oldie. It was written for the cartoon.

But you know what name never appeared anywhere? Not on the show, not on the merchandise…nowhere? The name of Bill Roberts, the singer whose voice came out of the beloved croaking creature. Mr. Roberts had a nice career singing on radio and in recording sessions and many other places but he didn't have much of an on-camera presence. Here he is singing a tune in the 1942 movie, The Yanks Are Coming…

• It's like every morning, God wakes up and ponders, "Hmm…how shall I punish Rudy Giuliani today?"