Monthly Archives: March 2010

There's something very funny in the genetic codes of the Elliott family…

Not that my griping here will cause any airline to alter its policies…but I think they're missing a great way to serve their customers by imposing large "change fees" on the online switching of flight reservations, especially to earlier flights. I just tried to move when I'm flying next week to an hour earlier and to do this, American Airlines wants a $150 "change fee" plus tax for a total of $164. This is more than the entire flight cost in the first place.

I am, of course, not making the swap but there's actually, I just found out, a cheaper way to do this. Instead of paying the $150 to get on the 4 PM flight, I could throw the ticket away, go to Expedia and for $75, buy a whole new ticket on that same 4 PM flight. Isn't that handy to know? I wonder how many people pay change fees and never consider the possibility that a new ticket might cost half as much.

Why do they even have big change fees for things like what I want to do? I understand the airlines don't want passengers tying up their phone lines (and therefore forcing them to hire more people to man them) making a lot of changes…though $150 is a bit steep for a task that would take under two minutes. They also don't want people switching from a flight in April to one in August because the airline may have missed out on the chance to resell that April seat to someone else. But in this case, the flight I'm on and the one to which I wanted to move both seem to have plenty of open seats and I'd be entering the change online myself, taking up the time of no A.A. employee.

There needs to be a name for this practice — and maybe there is — of trying to make money off us making things easier for a company. Lately, I keep being hit up for a "convenience fee" of five or ten bucks a ticket when I order theater tix online or have my tickets e-mailed to me. They're charging me for not calling up, taking up the time of one of their employees and forcing them to print out and handle actual tickets. Ordering online or taking electronic delivery is more convenient for the seller. Why penalize the buyer?

But getting back to the airlines: Imagine if it worked like this. They want us at the airport as early as possible…so I get there early…even earlier than I would now get there. And once I get there but before I check any luggage, I haul out my iPhone and call up an app for that airline that quickly asks the question, "Can I get on an earlier flight?" Maybe I can. Maybe it checks the schedule and even checks the expected wait at security, which is already charted online, and tells me there's an open seat on a flight leaving in 45 minutes and I can switch from my previous reservation which leaves in three hours. If I switch, doesn't that benefit the airline as much as it benefits me? I'd get to my destination sooner and they'd have an extra two hours and fifteen minutes to maybe sell the seat I'd be vacating. If you restricted this to moving to earlier flights (not later) only via online communication, what's the downside for them?

The only one I can think of is that there might be the occasional person now who actually pays the $164 to fly an hour or two earlier. They'd lose that money. But isn't it a lot more likely that this would help them sell seats that might otherwise go unsold? Years ago when I commuted often to and from Vegas, I'd usually check in with a human being and ask that question — "Any way you can get me on an earlier flight?" Often, there was and they were glad to do it with no change fee. In the era of online booking, shouldn't that kind of thing be more common, not less?

We are not thrilled (nor given some of his campaign speeches, surprised) that Barack Obama is opening up some coastline areas for offshore drilling. I'm not sure what the actual impact will be on the environment…and I never thought the folks yelling, "Drill, baby, drill" did either…or cared.

That's been the problem with a lot of the public debate over offshore drilling. It's so rarely about what it should be about, which is to assess the downsides against the upsides and decide how many there were of each if drilling is allowed in certain areas. It's somehow turned into a battle over whether the concerns of environmentalists should ever, in any instance, inhibit the possible immediate financial benefits to human beings. One of the many moments when I lost respect for Dennis Miller was an appearance he made on a cable news show some years ago when he essentially made this argument: That if killing all the caribou in North America might save him a few cents a month at the gas station, great. Kill the damn caribou. But he didn't seem to know or care if it even would…or if any other bad things might occur. I don't think environmentalists are always justified in their militancy but they do ask questions that ought to be answered, not dismissed as annoyances that just get in the way of someone saving or making a buck.

I assume (cautiously) that Obama and his crew have studied the ups, downs, ins and outs of this decision…so I'm a little less worried than if, say, President Palin announced it. I think this planet is already enduring a number of long-term problems caused by allowing someone's short-term financial gain (often, not even everyone's but rather some private industry's) to trump environmental concerns — what's happened to the drinking water supply, for example. As with many things Obama does, I have to shake my head and say, "I hope he knows what he's doing." This still, by the way, puts him ahead of most of his detractors who have long since convinced me that they don't.

The New York Times has an article up entitled, "In All Those Pages, A Surprise or Two." It lists things that you and I didn't know were in the Health Care Reform act.

So here's what I want to know: Why are they running this article now?

Yes, I know it's a thick pile o' papers but it's been around for a while and most, maybe all of these things were not added at the last minute. Didn't our press have some duty to read and report on these items before it was all voted on and signed into law? Or if there wasn't time, wasn't that a valid news story? "Even Experts Don't Know Everything That's in Health Bill." Something like that, maybe?

I don't see anything in there that makes me that unhappy the bill passed. (I still think abstinence education is not only a waste of money but also one of those ineffective things we do that prevent effective solutions from being implemented.) I guess I'm just kinda surprised that with all the words that were written about it, all the skillions of hours of radio and TV time that was consumed in discussing it, there are things we could be surprised about now. I mean, we heard plenty about things that aren't in it…like Death Panels and public funding for abortion.

Steve Bissette is a fine creator of these things called comic books — innovative, talented and courageous. Over on his blog, he has been chronicling a moment in the industry's history when a lot of creators — Steve included — felt the business needed more courage than it was showing. A couple of comic book shops (one, in particular) were either being busted for selling "adult" comics and/or afraid such action was looming for them. A couple of powerful folks along the distribution channels were becoming concerned about the content and where it was all heading…in many ways, a valid concern. In response, well-meaning folks at DC Comics, fearing legal problems and protests, were suddenly talking of instituting "new standards" for what some called "in-house censorship."

There's nothing wrong, of course, with a publisher setting standards for what they will and will not publish. It would be irresponsible for any publisher not to care what it put its name on and no one was suggesting that they shouldn't have limits. But those of us who objected, in the little protest effort that Steve recalls, had a number of points…and not all the same ones. A batch of us signed an ad that expressed our unhappiness…but I recall thinking at the time that we did not all have precisely the same objections. Those who affixed their names to the ad agreed with the specific wording of that particular ad but not necessarily to all the ancillary objections and reasons that our fellow signers had.

There were two concerns that did dominate, which is not to say everyone was marching over both or either. One was that the publisher was seeming too eager to launder its product; that they seemed to be assuring the guy who owned one tiny comic shop in North Sparrowfart, Nebraska that if there was anything in their comics that offended him, they'd instantly take it out. Most comic book dealers are great guys but I don't think even any of them ever wanted to have everyone in their line of work have that kind of influence over the over-all product.

The other problem was that the ratings seemed quite subjective and prone to the caprices of different editors. Everyone who has ever done any notable amount of work for a company like DC or Marvel has had the following, maddening situation occur. You tell your editor, "Hey, in the next issue, I want to do a story about people who eat live chipmunks" and the editor says, "Absolutely not! We have a firm company policy against the depiction of chipmunk-eating! It's in terrible taste and we cannot allow it!"

So you drop your plans and toss away that great idea you had. And six months later, in a comic from the same publisher — and usually but not always a different editor — there's someone chowing down on Alvin, Simon and even Theodore. It's not (usually) a case of theft so much as arbitary decisions. It's that what one guy thinks is acceptable is not what another guy thinks is acceptable…and it seemed like the proposed DC "editorial standards" were an invitation for that to happen more often while at the same time pretending there was some impossible standardization going on that would prevent it. Many of us were impressed that guys like Frank Miller and Alan Moore were opposing the ratings because it was assumed that they, being superstars of sales, would be allowed to do a lot more than the rest of us. In fact, our work might be extra-laundered to compensate for their excesses. In any case, a lot of folks with slightly disparate views protested as one…and it probably looked like a more cohesive movement than it actually was.

Steve Bissette has been posting artifacts, memories and analysis of the whole crusade in a series of blog posts. Navigation at his site is a bit tricky so here's a link to Part One. Here's a link to Part Two. Here's Part Three and while I'm at it, here's Part Four, Part Five and Part Six. And when you're through with them, read Part Seven, then Part Eight, then Part Nine and Part Ten and Part Eleven and finally, on to Part Twelve. That last installment has bittersweet meaning because of the recent passing of Dick Giordano, who was in the midst of the controversy.

I do not necessarily agree with all of Steve's observations and conclusions but I'm sure he's not wrong from his vantage point of the period. There are certainly a couple of good lessons to be learned from it all. I wish I knew what most of them are.

As March goes away, so does the Creamy Tomato Soup at your local outlet of Souplantation or Sweet Tomatoes. That is, if you even have a local outlet of Souplantation or Sweet Tomatoes. Click here to find out if you do.

If you do, you only have a few more days to drop by and sip my favorite soup. Call first because it is not unprecedented for a Souplantation (or S.T.) to end a soup-of-the-month a day or so early…or to even keep it around a day or two into the next month. It'll be your last chance for a while. If the chain stays true to its s.o.p., Creamy Tomato Soup will not be back in their steam tables until at least October, when it will probably be available for one week as part of their Special Request month. Then we won't taste it until next March. I miss it already.

If you can't get tickets to the Comic-Con International in San Diego in July, consider attending the WonderCon in San Francisco this weekend. It'll be packed — but not uncomfortably, and it's not sold out. Don't be confused…and don't miss out on what is always a very fine convention. You can buy tix online at the convention website and save yourself a little time in line.

The 2010 Comic-Con International in San Diego, which takes place July 22-25 is officially sold out. And it isn't even April yet.

Conservative columnist Daniel Larison doesn't think too much of Sarah Palin. And he suggests that her supporters must not think too much of her if the best they can say about her is that she makes Democrats mad and that they'd prefer her over the current White House occupant, who they think is the worst possible person for that job.

We're hearing that the DVD release of Stephen Sondheim's Evening Primrose will be delayed a bit…but for a good reason. The folks assembling it were going to use a medium-quality 16mm black-and-white print but they've recently found what is apparently a better 16mm black-and-white print. So that has to be transferred and that will stall the release…how long, I do not know.

The show was originally done in color but that doesn't seem to exist any longer. Which reminds me of an informal debate I had some years ago with a bunch of fundamentalist film buffs. These folks were militant against "colorization" of black-and-white movies. Films, they insisted, should be exhibited and released for home video in as close to the original release version as humanly possible. They didn't even like it — and I always thought this was highly arguable on a case-by-case basis — someone restored deleted footage that the filmmakers wanted in and the studio wanted out…say, the "Cool, Conservative Men" scene in 1776.

The question naturally arose: Okay, so you detest "colorization." But what happens if a film is made in color, all the color prints are lost and it exists only in monochrome? Might not putting that film through a "colorization" not yield something closer to the original release version than using the black 'n' white print? In the case of Evening Primrose, that's probably moot. It won't be a lucrative-enough DVD either way to warrant the expense of adding color. But I can see both sides of this question and can sure imagine friends of mine arguing them for a long time.

Nikki Finke is reporting that CBS has offered the post of hosting this year's Tony Awards ceremony to Conan O'Brien but that it's unlikely he'll do it due to the terms of his NBC settlement agreement. I suspect it's even more unlikely that he'll do it because it would be a lunkheaded career move for him. The next time O'Brien appears on TV, there's going to be a massive tune-in to see him, just because it's his first time back and because people want to hear what he'll say, particularly in the trashing of NBC. It's understandable that CBS would want that audience for a CBS show but I can't fathom why Conan would want to squander the moment on a project that would in no way benefit Conan O'Brien. A Conan O'Brien primetime special, maybe. A promotion for his next new ongoing venture or the debut of that venture, certainly.

But the Tony Awards? Come now. The Tony Awards aren't and shouldn't be about the host. Conan would have to cram his triumphant return to television into a seven-minute monologue and then turn around and introduce Alec Baldwin to present the Tony for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role. That would sure waste a lot of heat.

Tom Spurgeon has a good, long obit up for Dick Giordano. It's so good I hate to quibble with a couple of things, one being that Tom makes the same mistake I did. Dick was not hired at DC by new editorial director Carmine Infantino on his way in. He was hired by departing editorial director Irwin Donenfeld on his way out. Also, Tom cites Bat Lash and Deadman as the outstanding projects of Giordano's 1967-1971 editorial stint at DC. As far as I know, Dick had nothing at all to do with Bat Lash, which was edited by Joe Orlando.

Dick did at least edit Deadman for a short time. He was handed a feature on the road to cancellation and could do nothing to change that. The same was true of most of his assignments then: Secret Six, Beware the Creeper, Bomba the Jungle Boy, The Spectre, Blackhawk, etc. His revamps of Teen Titans and Aquaman were much-admired around the office and by the more vocal fans but the former only lasted two years after Dick left the editorial division and the latter ended when he departed. A revival of All-Star Western also did not endure long after Dick left. Only one book he launched — The Witching Hour — did. Hot Wheels was not a success, nor was The Hawk and the Dove.

Enumerated like this, it sounds like a pretty terrible batting average. What was interesting to me though was that, first of all, almost everyone thought that Dick had substantially improved the books he took over…and that their cancellations were in no way his fault. Just about everything new at DC during that period lasted six or less issues, a result of a declining marketplace, a dysfunctional distribution system and (I thought) a tendency to give up too quickly on a new comic that might have found an audience. There's a saying in the theater — "No one looks good in a flop." Dick came out of his "flops" looking pretty darn good…just as he'd looked good enough after the abrupt termination of his "action hero" line at Charlton for DC to grab him.

That was one impressive thing about Dick. Another was his rep for dealing squarely with talent. And yet another was his ability to find that talent in the first place. He really loved and understood the business and it showed.

Since I have you here, I'll tell a quick story about him. The first part of it occurred around 1983, give or take a year. I was at a distributors' conference at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas and I had to talk to Dick about an editorial-type matter relating to something I was then doing for DC. We left the conference room where retailers were arguing and went out into the casino and sat at the snack bar to have our own argument. This was not a good place for me since we were surrounded by very noisy slot machines and very noisy people playing them. In those surroundings, I had trouble making my case and I kept suggesting to Dick that we go somewhere quieter. He though kept saying, "Let's stay here and settle this."

I finally realized what he was doing. I knew and he knew that I knew. Though it was a bad arena for me, it was perfect for Dick. He was hard-of-hearing and he mainly read lips. "Conversing" there, he had the advantage. The ruckus didn't distract him one bit and he handily convinced me that he was right and I was wrong. I think I gave in, in part, because I realized I'd been outfoxed and I kinda admired that.

In 1991, we were at the Comic-Con in San Diego — also sometimes a noisy place — and we got to talking about Dick's hearing problems. "It's gotten so bad," he said, "that I can't understand three words in a row on television." I suggested he try adding a Closed Caption device to his set. This was back before that was a standard feature on all new TVs. You had to buy a standalone component and hook it up to get Closed Captioning. Dick said, "I've been meaning to try one of those but I can't figure out where to buy one." I told him I'd gotten my father one at Sears. My father had passed away a few months earlier but the apparatus had made his last few years more pleasant.

Suddenly, it dawned on me: My mother had recently had me take the Closed Caption device off the set in her living room and it was still in the trunk of my car, parked right outside the convention center. I went out, got it and gave it to Dick. He took it home and put it to good, happy use for a year or two…until he got a more modern set in his studio. And at one point, he sent me a lovely thank-you note with a lovely sketch of himself working at his drawing table and watching TV. It said, "If I'd been Closed-Captioned in Las Vegas, you would have won that argument."

The American Enterprise Institute is usually described as a "Conservative think tank," a phrase that in some circles prompts comments containing the word, "oxymoron." A few days ago here, I linked to a piece by right-wing strategist David Frum in which he opined that the G.O.P. had erred big with the way it thought it could bring down President Obama. Frum said it had backfired on them and been a tremendous loss and mistake.

His blog post got major attention…and it also seems to have gotten him fired from the A.E.I. (I say "seems" because they are claiming no cause-and-effect relationship, though the timing would suggest otherwise.) In any case, I'm kinda fascinated by the outrage to what Frum wrote. He didn't argue Conservative principles one bit…didn't suggest they rethink their positions on abortion or gun control or drowning government in a bathtub. He was arguing strategy, suggesting that (1) they got their asses kicked and lost big and so (2) they need to abandon their losing ways.

Near as I can tell, there's not a lot of disagreement on the first part. When you're furious and taking blood oaths to repeal what was passed, it means you lost big. And when you lose big in anything — politics, sports, playing Candy Land, whatever — shouldn't you at least consider that what you've been doing is the wrong approach? Not trying to give anyone advice here…just curious what it was about Frum's writing that pissed on the third rail for so many of his one-time colleagues. From their response, you'd think he was suggesting surrender on the battlefield instead of changing tactics in order to not have what just happened happen again.