Monthly Archives: December 2020

As you may know, we here at newsfromme.com are big fans of the song "The Rhythm of Life" from the Broadway show, Sweet Charity. It's been a while since we've posted some of the different ways this song has been immortalized in YouTube videos. Here's one…

• If Giuliani keeps this up, he's going to lose Trump the 2016 election as well.

Recently on Facebook, someone posted am image of the cover of Superman Family #181, which had a cover date of January of 1977. It was a very odd cover signed by Ernie Chua and I replied with a brief story about it. Several Facebook users suggested I repeat it here so I will…with slight alterations…

I own the original art to this cover. Ernie Chan had just changed his name from Chua back to the original family name and he was selling original art at a San Diego Con. He told me I could have anything in his display for half-price and this was marked at $10, I have a certain fondness for the kind of cover you look at and think, "What the hell was on their mind?" So I handed him a $5 bill. He was quite amazed that I wanted it.

A few minutes later as I was walking around the dealer room with it, Ernie ran up to me and handed me a very nice Batman page he'd drawn which he'd already signed to me. I tried to pay him for it but he said, "No, I insist. I don't want that cover to be the only piece of mine you have in your collection."

He said it was the first piece of art he'd signed as Ernie Chan since all the buyers he'd signed for earlier that day asked him to sign "Ernie Chua."
Incidentally, I pointed out to him that the Superman Family cover was inked but not signed by Vince Colletta. Ernie said, "I noticed. Vince inked in my name but there was no way he was going to put his name on a piece like that."

One correction to what I posted: I hauled the original cover out to scan it for this post and I noticed that on the back of it, the price of "$8" was written. So Ernie was asking eight for it and he gave it to me for four and threw in that very nice Batman page. Don't tell me I don't know how to get a bargain. (Later on, I paid Ernie to do a commission drawing for me and probably overpaid by enough that we came out about even on the deals.)

Showtime is now running a well-made documentary/portrait about John Belushi. It's cleverly crafted with some very effective animated sequences and loads of audio-only quotes from folks who knew him, many of them (like him) deceased. There are also numerous short clips from his work. As in most such films, the short clips are sometimes frustrating teases for the entire sequences which they don't show you. In a few cases, I could remember him doing something wonderful in the part they cut out.

But overall, I was not a huge fan of Mr. Belushi. I kinda wished he'd stuck around long enough to do some movies that would make me one. Animal House was about the only one I liked and while he was quite good in it, the many parts he wasn't in were as good or better. He was in some great sketches on Saturday Night Live but so was everyone in that first cast and most of them, I thought, showed more versatility and more allegiance to what I always thought was the First Rule of sketch comedy. That's the one that says you support the others in the scene. You don't make it "every man for himself."

Belushi moved me towards both a better and worse opinion of its subject. If the picture painted of him was true, he was one of those people who often mistreated others around him but had some sort of likeable, inexplicable quality that caused folks to hold him to a different standard and forgive behavior that they'd condemn in anyone else. I generally do not like such people, especially the self-destructive kind.

And yet, so many people in the doc who knew him spoke with such affection and respect that I kept thinking, "There was more to this guy than I thought." If a documentary can achieve that, it's probably a real good piece of work. You may like it even if you didn't like him. And yes, you know how the story ends…but that was one of the tragic things about John Belushi. Even when he was alive, everyone knew how the story was going to end.

From the 1996 Broadway revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, we have this fine number performed by Nathan Lane, Lewis J. Stadlen, Mark Linn-Baker, and Ernie Sabella. I've probably seen forty productions of this show and this was one of the best…

Happy December. I usually silence the ringer on my main phone line when I go to bed but I forgot last night. At 5:55 AM, I was awakened by what I assume was a Spam-type call. I didn't answer it but it was from Huntington Park, California where I know no one. Every single call I've ever received on my cell that was from Huntington Park was a robocall trying to sell me something.

I couldn't get back to sleep so I just stared at my bedroom ceiling — in particular at a little patch of light from the street outside — until I gave up and got up. I re-read something I'd written the night before…something with which I was quite satisfied when I turned in for the night. At (by now) 7:30 AM, I was a different person reading it and I didn't like what I read and erased most of it. I'm not sure if I need to re-read my work when I'm half-asleep more often or not at all.

All those fund-raising e-mails from Trump I've written about and quoted here have reportedly raised either $150 million or $170 million, depending on which news item you read. They all say that, though the people being asked to give it are being told it's to defend and maybe overturn the election, very little of that loot is going for that. It's going into a fund Trump can use for anything he wants. At times, Trump reminds me of a guy I once worked for who said things like, "In this world, you have to look at every single thing that happens and ask yourself, 'How do I make money off that?'"

It looks though that Trump's going to use at least a little of that money to lose Wisconsin three or four more times. That's at least entertaining.