Monthly Archives: April 2010

I have a great plumber. His name is Bobby so we call him Bobby the Plumber. I met this fellow years ago when he was working for a large plumbing company and he did such a good, conscientious job for me that I recommended him to all my friends. That inspired him to strike out on his own and set up his own small business…and by "small," I mean it's just him and a helper. He did not leave the big plumbing firm just for the increased money but because he didn't like the way they did business, making him overcharge people and suggest unnecessary repairs. That's why he decided to work for himself…and when he started working for me, he charged me around half his old employers' rates.

For around fifteen years now, maybe longer, he's plumbed on word-of-mouth: No advertising, no promotion…I'm not even sure he's listed in the Yellow Pages. Everyone he works for tells all their friends about him. I've probably recommended him to at least a hundred people I know and about 97% have thanked me. The 3% were the kind of folks who I suspect are just impossible to please so I don't hold them against Bobby.

The economy being what it is, he lately has days when he isn't rushing from client to client. If you're in L.A. or the Valley and do not have a terrific plumber, you should have his contact info. I hope you don't need him but if you do and you're as happy as I am with his service, pass him on to others.

[SAD UPDATE: I have removed the contact info because, as explained here, Bobby passed away in 2011.]

This kinda falls into the "Draw Your Own Conclusions" category…

Last evening, Carolyn and I were in a Home Depot. So were a lot of people buying paint and lumber and ball-peen hammers and flanges and such. So were a number of rats. I spotted at least two rats scurrying about, one of them large enough that I think he was wearing an orange vest and a tool belt.

Just to be helpful, I mentioned it to one of the employees there. He said, "Yeah, we have a lot of them here."

I said, "I know a place that has a whole aisle full of products to trap or kill rats." And I pointed to that aisle, not twenty feet from us.

He said, "Yeah, well, we've tried everything and nothing seems to work."

Like I said: Draw Your Own Conclusions.

As I mentioned here, an entrepreneurial concern in San Diego has offered the Comic-Con International a cool half-million ($100,000 a year for the next five years) to not move out of their fair city. I said the money would be earmarked for new shuttle services. Actually, it would go towards the current one, which I'm told is beastly expensive.

I still hope 'n' predict the con will not migrate. As my pal Tom Spurgeon notes here, "Personally and professionally I believe San Diego is the best place for them to be. It's the best location of the three to visit, "San Diego" is a significant part of their branding, the remove from LA gives it a sexy junket feel that it wouldn't have in or near LA…the Vegas option would be a disaster based on the McCarron cab line alone." Yeah, if you get in that cab line, the odds are good you'll wind up riding with David Siegel.

The decision will be made, I'm told, before May is over. Anaheim is just too Anaheim and anything within about three miles of Disneyland is just an add-on in that city. In San Diego, we're the whole show and that's where we should stay.

Fred Kaplan on the war that the U.S. is unprepared to fight: The one in cyberspace.

Bill Maher is right. If you ever chanted "Drill, baby, drill," you should get your ass down to the Gulf Coast and help with the cleanup.

You see The Daily Show last night? It wasn't as blatant in the version that ran on Comedy Central but on their website, they have the full, non-truncated interview Jon Stewart did with a gent named Ken Blackwell…and I can't recall ever seeing a guest on a quasi-news show ever fail so totally to defend and support his own position. If this had been a prize fight, the ref would have stepped in, stopped the proceedings and told Blackwell to pick up his teeth and get out.

Blackwell is a Republican advocate who's written a book called The Blueprint: Obama's Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency. Stewart kept asking him to give an example of how Obama is doing that and the replies pretty much came down to this: He's going against the Republican agenda. This is apparently the new definition of tyranny.

I'm not sure if Mr. Blackwell wrote his book because there's a lot of money to be harvested these days from books that paint Barack Obama as the herald of Ragnarok, or if we're just getting a preview of the next few elections. Is the G.O.P. really planning on running on the notion that a Chief Exec is Hitler if he doesn't appoint judges that Sean Hannity would approve of? But it was amazing to see Blackwell, who is by no means a stupid man, sit there and boot every wide-open opportunity that Jon Stewart gave him to make his case. You could almost tell that Stewart liked the guy and didn't want to win the match on a forfeit.

Talking Points Memo has embedded the full interview so I don't have to. If you only have time to watch one part, watch the last one.

We seem to be on a Neil Simon kick here lately. Jeff Abraham sent me this link to another article about Mr. Simon, which comes complete with the usual mistake of claiming that Woody Allen wrote for Your Show of Shows.

The article is mainly about shock that the recent Broadway revival of Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs was a fast failure. I don't think it's that huge a shock. Only three years earlier, a revival of one of his biggest hits, Barefoot in the Park, barely lasted a hundred performances and the Christina Applegate resurrection of Sweet Charity didn't do all that much better. His last original play, 45 Seconds From Broadway, closed after 73 performances and his last new musical, The Goodbye Girl, was also not a success despite the marquee value of Martin Short and Bernadette Peters. There have been some hits — the most recent Odd Couple revival lasted as long as Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick were willing to do it; a revival of The Sunshine Boys ran as long as Jack Klugman and Tony Randall wanted it to run — but it's been a while since the odds favored anything with Neil Simon's name on it. His last real hit was Lost in Yonkers and that was 17 years ago.

I'm a big fan of Simon's best work, and I even find his (relative) failures interesting. I'm just not surprised that audiences are not automatically flocking to anything he writes these days, at least on and around Broadway.

One other interesting point in that article: Mr. Simon says something about his old colleague Mel Brooks that suggests some hostility — something about wanting to kill him. In Simon's autobiography, he makes almost no mention of his days on Your Show of Shows, which you'd think would have yielded several anecdote-rich chapters. It struck me as quite odd. How many writers pen their memoirs and skip over their first major success?

I have a suspicion. It's that Simon has either written or is planning to write a separate book about those years but doesn't want it published until certain people — not necessarily including Mel — pass away. Wonder if I'm right…

We wrote here and here recently about a new deal that the Harrah's chain is offering in its Vegas casinos. You can buy a pass to their "Buffet of Buffets" promotion and for 24 hours, you can eat as much as you want, as often as you want, at any of eight separate buffets they have in town. Reports are that it has been a smashing success…with huge lines, which probably limit how much some people get to eat on the plan.

The price was $29.99 for a day of dining. It has been raised to $34.99 for folks who hold a Harrah's Total Rewards card and to $39.99 for those who don't. Since the Total Rewards card is free, I'm guessing not a lot of people are paying the higher price…but even if you do, it's still a bargain. That is, if you don't have to wait an hour or two to get into your buffet of choice. Apparently, at peak hours, you might.

I get thanked often for anything I post here about how writers and artists can avoid getting ripped off by dishonest entrepreneurs and publishers. (It is also, I should point out, possible to be swindled by honest, well-meaning folks. It may even be more prevalent and it's often more maddening.)

I'm going to write more on this topic. One of these days, I hope to do a long post about little psychodrama tricks that are used to manipulate creative folks…like the old "I didn't think you were just in it for the money" line that some try when you ask for the money. In the meantime, keep an eye on the blog of the wise and talented Colleen Doran, especially this recent posting. I did a panel at WonderCon with Colleen about such matters and I'm sure her words taught at least a few attendees things that will prevent them from being bilked.

Greg Ehrbar is always tipping me to interesting stuff on BBC Radio. This time, it's a six-episode series called The Comedy Album Show in which Charlie Higson (I'm afraid I don't know who that is) listens to excerpts from and comments on great comedy records. The first installment, which is about the classic Not The 9 O'Clock News album, Hedgehog Sandwich, is online at this link but only for next few days. The second show, which is about Monty Python's Matching Tie and Hankerchief, will be available Saturday.

The link in the previous message is down and will perhaps remain that way. So I'll just tell you that what you're missing is a series of photos where these folks put silly signs up in their local Costcos for "products" like Drunk Food, Vinyl Dungeon Restraint System, Windshield Touchscreen, Polo Chaps Assless, Canine/Feline Pacemaker Kit, Genuine Poodle Hat and Dehydrated Sushi. Here's a news item about the effort.

Famed unknown prankster Rob Cockerham recently decided to see if he and his minions could stir up a little trouble at Costcos all across this fair land. He printed up price stickers in the Costco shelf format but advertising silly, non-existent products like "Goat Balls" and "Stuffed Zebra" and sent folks out to unobtrusively sneak them onto Costco shelves. Take a look.