Monthly Archives: May 2004

If you have the Biography Channel, you might be interested in a couple of shows that are airing in the coming weeks…

On June 4, they're rerunning "Lost in Las Vegas," which is really not a biography at all. It's a 2-hour documentary on two gents who have worked up an act impersonating the Blues Brothers, and about their attempts to get work in the "Legends" show at the Imperial Palace in Vegas. I saw this when it aired a few years ago and thought it was quite fascinating and touching.

On June 5, they're rerunning a Biography for Kids all about the Batman TV show with Adam West. It's a pretty good look at the show, complete with interviews with most of the key participants and some pretty rare footage, including both West's and Lyle Waggoner's screen tests for the lead.

On June 12, they're reairing the biography of Stan Lee from a few years back, complete with an interview with Yours Truly.

While we're at it, I want to mention two shows on other channels. I've been enjoying a show called Unwrapped on the Food Network. It's basically about how popular food items (mostly in the snack and candy categories) are made, with tours of the plants or restaurants where they're fashioned. Three episodes air later today, all about grilling hamburgers and barbecuing ribs. Most episodes do things like take you into the Hostess factory to see how Twinkies are made.

Also: The Action Channel, which is part of the all-encompassing Starz Network, is now rerunning episodes of The Green Hornet, starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee. I didn't much like this show when it first ran but they hold up better than a lot of programming from that era.

Eric Idle has written and recorded a very funny, nasty tune about the current political situation. It's called "The F.C.C. Song" and you can play or download an MP3 file of it here. It contains many of those naughty words that the F.C.C. doesn't think should be on your radio so don't listen to it if that kind of stuff would upset your equilibrium.

As a devout wallower in Watergate, I was sorry to see that two of the few honest men in that whole sordid affair, Archibald Cox and Samuel Dash, have just passed away. As the whole scandal and its investigation unfolded, there were many attempts — from both Nixon's supporters and his detractors — to portray anyone on the other side as a blind, hypocritical partisan. There were some of those on both sides but there were also men and women of honor. A lot of mud was hurled at Cox and Dash but I don't think any of it stuck. Dash in particular was viewed as so fair-minded that Republicans, including Ken Starr, consulted him on matters of law and ethics and often deferred to his judgments.

The story I remember about Sam Dash is one that I heard from someone I met who'd served in his office during the Watergate inquiry. I don't recall the name of the associate but I remember the story. It occurred during the hearings, not long after John W. Dean had testified and the Nixon administration had begun attacking him as a self-serving liar who had totally misreported his conversations with the President. This was before the investigators had learned of the existence of the famed presidential tapes. In a private interview with presidential aide Alexander Butterfield, it came out that Nixon had this secret taping system. Dash called Dean in, the aide told me, because he wanted to see the look on the man's face when he was told that there might be an actual recording of his meetings with Nixon…and therefore, a solid means of proving if his sworn testimony was true. "Based on the response, Dash was satisfied that Dean had told the truth and the investigation proceeded from there," the associate explained. "But if he'd turned pale and started backpedalling from what he'd said under oath, Dash was quite prepared to see him prosecuted for perjury." History will show that the tape matched Dean's testimony almost precisely.

I've always thought of that as the moment Nixon went on the defensive, never to recover…and Sam Dash was at the heart of that moment. Another, of course, was the Saturday Night Massacre, with Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in its vortex. Fired by Nixon, largely just for doing his job, Cox went over the President's head, directly to the American people. They made enough of an outcry that Nixon was forced to allow another Special Prosecutor…and from that point on, the President was never able to get atop the situation again.

I've had long debates with a few fellow wallowers about whether or not "the system worked" in Watergate. My view tends to be that it did not; that Nixon was brought down by a series of flukes, such as the taping system, that were not part of the system. But to the extent the system did work, it worked because of men like Archibald Cox and Sam Dash. I wish we had more of them in government.

Fingerprints don't lie. Unfortunately, human beings have been known to put the wrong name on them. Here's the story of a man who suffered because of this.

My brain must have been in idle when I wrote the preceding piece on Memorial Day. As Mitch Dutton and a couple of other folks have reminded me, Memorial Day is all about honoring war dead. It's not supposed to be about the wounded and maimed. As all my correspondent-correcters noted, we have Veterans Day to honor those who have served and survived.

What I was trying to say, and what I think is valid, is that when we talk about the human cost of war, we tend to overlook those who will carry the scars of combat, emotionally if not physically, for the rest of their lives. I phrased it poorly but that's what's on my mind.

And I hope you're having a memorable Memorial Day weekend.

Today's Doonesbury strip lists all of our Iraq-related military casualties as of the date the strip went to press, set in very tiny type to get them all in. Garry Trudeau is being accused of making a "political statement," which I suppose is like accusing Tony Bennett of singing about San Francisco. We seem to have reached the stage in this country where to mention our war dead is to dishonor them by using them in a political statement and to not mention them is to show disrespect and to make — you guessed it — a political statement. I'm not sure I've ever heard a mention of fallen soldiers from any war that did not include some subtext…either about stopping war or about how you should be proud to go and die for your country in the next one.

As folks hurl arguments back and forth about the recent military deaths, it's easy to imagine every argument being reversed. Bush has not attended funerals and there has been an active attempt to prevent photos of flag-draped caskets from being seen. That is viewed as the Bush administration trying to suppress imagery that might turn America against their war efforts and it's called disrespectful. But if Bush were to be seen at many funerals, he'd be accused of turning them into a "photo op" and if the coffins were routinely displayed, all manner of ulterior motives would be ascribed to that. And in other hands, what Trudeau did today (or what Koppel did the other week on Nightline) would be hailed as a genuine gesture of reverence.

It also bothers me that so much of Memorial Day, as well as talk of the human cost of war, is about dead bodies. I don't mean to minimize those sickening numbers in any way but they're not the whole story. Not only are lives ended in war but lives are shattered. Men and women come back minus limbs or with physical scars that will never heal. Some suffer emotional damage, as do their families. Years ago, I worked with a guy who'd spent a year in Vietnam and was still enduring nightmares and popping tranquilizers due to (he said) that experience. But he didn't show up on any stats that tracked the dead or disabled from 'Nam. On Memorial Day, guys like him never got a mention. He also never got any worthwhile medical or financial support from his government.

A lot of people in this country — a growing number, if we believe the polls — are calling for the U.S. to pull out of Iraq, quickly if not immediately. John Kerry has not called for this. In fact, I'm not sure I can explain how his position on the war is that different from Bush's, although Kerry has long been for U.N. oversight and more international cooperation…a view to which Bush seems to be moving. Still, a lot of people are attacking Kerry as if he had called for quick withdrawal or as if his Iraq plan was utterly unlike the current course of action. (Al Gore's fiery speech the other day is also getting criticized as if he'd demanded an immediate pullout…which is not at all what he said.) I don't know what's going to happen except that next Memorial Day, I'm afraid, Garry Trudeau is going to have to use an even smaller typeface…and maybe serialize the names over a whole week.

My pal Sergio made a guest appearance in yesterday's installment of the La Cucaracha newspaper strip. The idea is that one of the characters in the strip, Memo, is working at the National Cartoonist Society's Reuben Awards event in Kansas City, and he sees Sergio there. As it happens, the Reuben Awards get-together is taking place this weekend in Kansas City…but Sergio is not attending this year.

You're in a strange city. You go into a restaurant. You want a glass of Coca-Cola. What's the one word term you use to denote what you want? Well, it depends where you are.

In 1970, George Furth and Stephen Sondheim brought a show named Company to Broadway for a very successful run. It has since been produced hundreds of times across the country and discussed incessantly by theater buffs who argue about it, primarily about the central character, Robert. Robert, aka Bobby-Baby, is unmarried, unable (or perhaps unwilling) to commit to any of three comely lady friends, and badgered to marry by five couples he knows. All five couples have substantive problems in their own relationships and Robert functions as observer to these as he tries to sort out his own life on his 35th birthday.

The notion that Robert is wrestling with homosexuality has been suggested by some and rejected by others. The authors have denied it, but not all that convincingly. In fact, in a 1995 script revision, he and one of the husbands confess to having had separate gay experiences, though not perhaps the kind that classifies one irrevocably as gay. Or maybe they're both lying or maybe the scene is a dream. Furth seems to have decided to expand on that area of confusion about Robert by giving the character (and us) more to be confused about.

It has also been argued that Robert is just a cold fish and/or that his friends' marital squabbles have scared him off. A few heretics have gone so far as to opine that there really is no explanation for Robert's lot in life; that the text, deliberately or not, makes him a cipher for whom there is no rational analysis. Not unrelated is that the play is episodic in nature with a non-chronological throughline and some scenes that are arguably more in Robert's imagination than his reality. The material began life when Furth wrote it as a number of unrelated plays. Some critics have said that, despite interjecting Robert to connect the scenes, it's still a number of unrelated plays.

I have seen Company performed a number of times. That it has many wonderful scenes and songs is obvious, but I'd never decided if I actually liked the show as a whole. There were always things — usually, the same things — that bothered me about it. Still, so much was wonderful that I felt like the bad things had to be the fault of the productions, which were professional but not first-rate. I was therefore ambivalent about seeing the new Reprise! production, currently playing up at U.C.L.A.'s Freud Playhouse. Even though I had subscription tickets, already paid-for, I almost didn't go…but I did, last night, and I guess I'm glad I did…

Because now I know: I really don't like Company.

I like parts of it. This production has some wonderful performances and brilliant moments but I don't think they all add up to a show I enjoy. It's also one I think was probably a lot more relevant and meaningful in 1970 than it is now. The passage of time has also muddled an already-muddy show. The program book for this version says it's set in "now" and there are cell phones and a couple of newly-added current references. But the song lyrics still refer to reading Life magazine to stay up-to-date and "op art" and the feel of many scenes, like the one about the couple trying marijuana for the first time, is extremely 1970. So which is it — then or now? Like Robert's sexuality, the ambiguity could in theory be intriguing or it could be frustrating, and I felt more of the latter than the former.

The cast of the Reprise! version works hard and generally succeeds in their moments. Jean Louisa Kelly as Amy sings "Getting Married Today" about as well as anyone ever could. Deborah Gibson (yes, the former pop star) plays Marta and performs "Another Hundred People" in wonderful voice. Judith Light, playing Joanne, sings "The Ladies Who Lunch" about as well as anyone who is not Elaine Stritch ever will. (People love this song but I've never cared for it, nor do I understand what it's doing in this show, especially so near the end.) Christopher Sieber, who plays Robert, sings the hell out of "Being Alive"…but I'm afraid I still don't get what Bobby has to sing about by then. The other roles are filled by Sharon Lawrence, Scott Waara, Kathryn Blake, John Scherer, Anastasia Barzee, Kevin Chamberlin, Josh Radnor, Richard Kline, Cady Huffman and Amy Pietz. They're all pretty good but the production still gave me whiplash, alternating between good moments and bad.

That greatest of all philosophers, Henny Youngman, used to define ambivalence as watching your mother-in-law drive your new car off a cliff. This is pretty much how I now feel about Company. And why it'll probably be a long time before I subject myself to another production of it.

If you haven't seen the new issue of Wired, you might have missed this article on the rise of Pixar Animation.

Thanks to the many folks who sent me suggestions about what cheapo cartridges work well with Epson printers. If I decide to try them (I may or may not), I'll report on the results here.

Posting here may be light for the next few days. As you might intuit from the time on this post, I'm back in Deadline Hell, trying to get a script finished. Good night, Sweet Internet. See you in the morning.

The hardest-working, least-rewarded folks in Las Vegas are the cocktail waitresses who serve drinks to gamblers. One of them has put together a fun website about her craft and experiences. Go visit the Cocktail Doll…and don't forget to tip.

Who says there's no justice in this world?

Here's the L.A. Times obit on Jack Bradbury and here's the N.Y. Times on Gill Fox.

A joyous seventieth birthday to my friend of 30+ years, Harlan Ellison. Since he disdains the Internet, he'll probably never know I posted this but maybe the sentiment will mysteriously transfer to that Gutenberg-era "typewriter" contraption he uses. (Then again, he writes some pretty spectacular things on that kind of machine…)