Monthly Archives: June 2017

Charlie Rosen's Broadway Big Band — with vocalist Alan H. Green — makes the Cole Porter tune "Too Darn Hot" even hotter…

MAD magazine has been bashing Donald Trump pretty hard lately.  Once upon a time, its founding publisher — the late William Gaines — announced he wanted to cut back on jokes about Richard Nixon not because Nixon didn't deserve it but because Gaines thought too many other worthy subjects were being ignored.  I don't think Gaines actually believed that.  What I heard from insiders was this: That the magazine — which then went to press two or even three months before the date an issue would reach newsstands — was having trouble writing Nixon jokes that might still be relevant 60 or 90 days later. But Gaines did say what he was quoted as saying.

I see people on the 'net quoting Gaines to argue that the magazine is overdoing it with anti-Trump material. Well, maybe — but that seems to be true of just about everyone who's any good and deals in topical humor. I don't know how it's humanly possible to be a good topical humorist today without treating Trump like the greatest embarrassment ever.

MAD isn't even new to the Trump-ridiculing business. As Snopes just noted, back in 1992 — before Colbert or Meyers or Bee or Oliver or any of them — they were going after the guy. The only notable spoofs before that I can think of would be Phil Hartman's impressions on Saturday Night Live…which Trump was an extremely bad sport about.

File this in the "As We Keep Telling You" file: Comic-Con International has extended its contract with the city of San Diego to stay right where it is and to not, as many insist on predicting, move to L.A. or Vegas or some other town. The new pact keeps the con there through 2021.

I don't think it will ever move unless someone who is both stupid and self-destructive rises to power in that city. And as we all know, stupid and self-destructive people never rise to positions of power in government.

Here's a nice obit on one of the world's great stuntpersons, complete with a quote from me. Let's remind the Academy to include him in the "In Memoriam" reel at next year's Oscars. I don't know if they've ever put someone with his profession in there before but if they have, they haven't honored nearly enough of them.

I imagine there are a lot of Republicans who when Trump won felt confident that a Republican Congress, a Republican Senate, a Republican President and a leaning Republican Supreme Court would give them every damned thing on their Republican Wish List. Those folks have to be squirming now at the infighting in that power bloc, and at the schoolyard tweets and dishonest rhetoric of their prez.

They may still get most of what they want but it sure ain't going to come as easy as they'd hoped. And there has to be a lot of concern out there that any day now, Trump will do something illogical (or impeachable) that will further derail Republican unity of purpose. It would not be much easier for our side if Democrats controlled everything. Total victories are a nice fantasy but not realistic. And now, this…

• Kevin Drum says Trump has finally achieved something. He's driven up the deficit by a trillion dollars. Trump will respond to this news the way he responds to every bit of news that isn't an awesome triumph. He'll denounce it as "fake news" and change nothing.
• Did the Trump campaign collude with Russia and Russian hackers? A lot of people are saying the evidence is thin. Jonathan Chait says it's thicker than they think.
• The whole slap fight that Trump is having with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski strikes me as one of those incidents where no one wins because everyone looks like an ass. But if you want to follow the latest, here it is.
• And here's John Cassidy with an overview and a sane look at this silly skirmish.
• Jeffrey Toobin discusses why the National Enquirer is so utterly in-the-tank for Trump. It must be tough for the folks at the Enquirer. To sell their paper, they have to somehow out-lie Donald.

Trump has already started fund-raising for his 2020 re-election bid. A lot of folks think it's way premature. I think it's wise. It's a lot easier to raise money when your approval rating is at 38% than it will be when it's at 23%.

Here's Jonathan Chait with a good overview of where we are on the Senate Health Care Mess. I wonder if we've ever had a case where most of the majority party in either the House or Senate was so determined to ram through a measure that was polling at 17% approval. Clearly, that doesn't bother politicians much when it's polling well with their major donors.

The late Huell Howser was the cheeriest person on this planet. He was a fixture on Los Angeles television for years with a show that operated on a simple premise: Mr. Howser would just go places that interested him and ask people questions.  He was never angry, never confrontational, never upset at anything he learned and usually fascinated and delighted with everyone and everything. There used to be a comedian at the Improv who did an impression of Howser visiting a cockfight and raving about the blood and carnage.

This episode is from April 29, 2007 and it's all about the pizza business.  It starts at the Village Pizzeria down on Larchmont, which still serves a pretty good pie.  For those of you who live in Los Angeles, the website Eater L.A. just did something certain to infuriate their readers: They listed the Essential Los Angeles Pizzerias…and of course, if your favorite isn't on there, the folks who compiled it are horrid, know-nothing, Satanic-worshipping troglodytes. Village Pizzeria is on there, as is my favorite, Vito's.

Then Mr. Howser wanders to a convention in Las Vegas for the pizza business. How come nobody ever asks me to moderate panels at one of those? I always enjoyed his shows, even when I didn't think I had any interest in the topic. Maybe you'll find this fun to peek at…

And I'm going to throw in links relating to the Health Care Debate since that's somewhat Trumpy…

• Ezra Klein explains why people who think Medicaid is worthless are (a) wrong and (b) somehow under the impression that instead giving all that money to the rich in tax cuts is going to do anything for the people who will hurt by cutting Medicaid.
• Ed Kilgore explains how when Trump says there are no cuts in Medicaid, he's using a very deceptive way of measuring the numbers.
• And Kevin Drum explains how a cut is a cut is a cut.
• Trump's partial travel ban goes into effect today. As Dara Lind notes, there are still a lot of questions as to how it works and what it's supposed to do.
• And here's Ezra Klein again, this time discussing how some Conservatives seem to be trying to live up or down (take your pick) to the caricature that Liberals have of Conservatives.
• Once upon a time, weapons inspector Scott Ritter warned us that Saddam Hussein did not possess Weapons of Mass Destruction and we should not go to war there on the belief that he did. Ritter was widely denounced as foolish and gullible, and his warnings were ignored. He is now warning that Trump's claims of chemical weapons in Syria are a lie that could be used to justify another war built on a false premise. Maybe someone oughta at least consider that this man could be right again.
• Former Bush-Cheney advisor Bruce Bartlett does not think the current Republican Party is dealing well with reality. I sometimes think it's because it gets in the way of believing the world is or could be the way they wish it was.

And we won't even get into those nutty tweets that Trump was sending this morning except to note that he still thinks the worst thing you can say about anyone is that their business is not prospering…even if that's not true. And he's sure embarrassing people who want to believe in him as a leader.

Maybe the smallest dog in the world…

There has been talk of a Single-Payer Health Care Plan here in the state of California. Sounds great…but as our pal Kevin Drum notes, it's darn near impossible for the foreseeable future.

And I meant to link to this piece by Kevin which notes that Americans are becoming more and more comfortable with the concept of Gay Marriage. I guess that's because they're noticing that God did not smite us all down or send locusts to devour our children as some had predicted would occur if Henry was allowed to marry Dave.

Matt Taibbi doesn't think a lot of the press these days. It's maddening how when reporters make one mistake, a lotta folks think they now have an excuse to not believe all the true things that get reported that they don't want to believe.

Matthew Yglesias explains "Why Donald Trump can't make deals in Washington." Matt's answer to that is "The big problem is he has no idea what he's talking about."

And finally for now, the question everyone is asking: What the hell are Fidget-Spinners?

Not much posting today and I'm afraid it may be like this through the weekend. I'll be around but not often.

A brief policy statement: I get lots of requests from folks asking me to plug Kickstarter, Go Fund Me or other endeavors that endeavor to raise money. Some of these are from friends. Some are from total strangers. A few do a bad job of pretending that they've ever had any use for this blog. One casual acquaintance wrote me the other day that he religiously reads newsfromme every day and also enjoys seeing Carolyn and me at Comic-Con (which she didn't attend the last few years of her life) and hopes to see us both again there next month.

You know, I don't mind people saying to me, "Hey, I know we don't know each other…" I do mind them pretending we're bosom buddies because they want something. Every time I've been in a position to hire writers or actors, I hear from a lot of close friends I never knew I had. There's a strong "How dumb does he think I am?" factor at work here.

I also sometimes get messages that seem to think I run a free public service where you send me your press release and I print it.

For some reason the requests come in clumps — one or two a day for a week or two…then suddenly, a whole bunch all at once. Today, I've had twenty-seven. Some are surely worthy causes. Others are things that I can't recommend because I haven't seen them or don't know much about them beyond what their marketers tell me makes them indispensable. I don't know what to do with all these so for the time being at least, I'm not going to do anything.

People…I don't even use this blog to promote my own projects very often. I don't think I've mentioned the last twenty comic books I had out. Why do you think I want to promote every single thing you do?

Henny Youngman — a little late in life but still being very Henny Youngman…

The home page of Google often has these little graphics called Google Doodles that salute someone or something for a day. A movement has been started on the 'net to get Google to note Jack Kirby on August 28, 2017. That's the date Jack would have turned 100 years old if he was still with us.

I think (forgive me if I'm wrong) that this campaign was started by a writer-cartoonist named "Calamity" Jon Morris. He is urging Kirby fans to send an e-mail to proposals@google.com with the subject line of "Google Doodle for Jack Kirby – August 28, 2017." In the body of the message, explain why Jack deserves this honor. If you're the kind of Kirby fan who would take the time to do this, you probably can list fifty reasons. I wrote the following in my message to them…

Jack Kirby was one of the great creative geniuses of the 20th century, bringing us a whole visual language birthed in comic books, and co-creating characters like Captain America, The Hulk, The Avengers, The X-Men, Thor, The Fantastic Four, The Silver Surfer and countless others that will endure forever. Though widely celebrated within the comic book industry, he has not received nearly enough recognition outside that field. A Google Doodle on what would have been his 100th birthday would do much to rectify that oversight.

I don't know who crafts these things but whoever the Doodles Weaver is, I hope he or she realizes how deserving Jack is.

I have no idea if the Republican health care bill is going to pass and if so, what form it will be in by then. It does seem pretty obvious that it's a terrible bill that will create great suffering as it makes health insurance unaffordable for millions while it slashes taxes for folks who don't need their taxes slashed. It also seems to me that a lot of Republican leaders are trying to ram it through, regardless of what it will do, because to not "repeal and replace" would be to admit they might not be in total charge of the country.

Here's what I'm wondering. According to Nate Silver…

The House's bill was extraordinarily unpopular: On average, unfavorable views of the bill exceeded favorable ones by 25 to 30 percentage points. (For instance, 59 percent of Americans disapproved of the House bill, compared with the 32 percent who approved, in the most recent CBS News poll.) The Senate's bill, since it's substantially similar to the House's bill, isn't likely to rate much better.

What's on the mind of that 32% that wants to see the nation go this way with health care? I'm being serious here. I can think of a number of viewpoints here…

• I don't believe the bill will cause so many people to lose insurance or see their premiums soar. I trust the Paul Ryans of the world who say that won't happen.
• I do believe the bill will cause that many people to lose insurance and I'm fine with that. If they do, that's their problem. The government shouldn't be involved in stuff like this.
• I'm a Republican. If our leaders want to do this, I trust them.
• Nothing in government is permanent. If the bill does hurt people, it will be fixed. Republicans can fix it if they remain in power. Democrats can fix it if they take over. Why are we even talking about how many people will lose coverage a decade from now?
• It expunges something Obama did. That's reason enough for me.

I'll probably think of a few more later but mainly, I'm curious: How many people who support this bill support it because they honestly think it will lead to better health care for more people and how many because they think that it won't?

It's coming, coming! And if you're going, going, you're going to need a means of getting there and maybe parking there. The folks at Comic-Con International have updated their page on parking, shuttles and other means of transportation. You can access it right here. There's a ton of valuable info on that website that can make your visit much easier. Spend some time there before the con.