Monthly Archives: September 2020

Were you wondering what Donald Trump and Joe Biden said to each other after the debate? No, I know you weren't but just play along so I can introduce this video for you. Here they are in the elevator after all that mud-wrestling, courtesy of Master Impressionist Jim Meskimen…

I think we could all use this song this morning. Here's my favorite one-man singing group Julien Neel with some changed lyrics but the message is the same as it ever was…

Countless online comments and articles today are suggesting that in subsequent debates, the Moderator should have a mute button of some sort to cut off the microphone of a debater who goes over his time limit and/or keeps interrupting. That might be nice but, first of all, the rules of these debates are drawn up in advance and all parties must agree to abide by them. Trump would never agree to that if only because his ideal world is one in which the office holders can silence the reporters, not the other way around.

Secondly: If Chris Wallace had had such a button last night and had used it, Trump would have gone right on ranting and his voice would have been picked-up by Biden's microphone and Biden would have heard him and been just as distracted. They weren't that far apart. And of course, Trump would have also gone off on how the proceedings were rigged against him. He's incapable of not complaining he's being mistreated.

Okay, I get it. You want to see them in little glass booths like on a quiz show and the Moderator can turn their microphones on and off. Good luck getting Trump to agree to that.

I agree it was a shitshow but that's the point. Trump turns everything into a shitshow. He's like the blind guy who always wants to plunge the room into darkness because he's used to functioning in that situation and others aren't. If you're good at screaming and bullying, you always want to create that environment. It gives you home court advantage. I don't think it's a bad thing that the world saw that last night.

This Friday evening, our pal Frank Ferrante is hosting a two-hour event to note the 130th birthday of Julius H. Marx, better known as Groucho. It's a good excuse to get together a buncha folks — including Dick Cavett, Leonard Maltin and Harpo's son Bill Marx — to talk about the man AKA Otis B. Driftwood, Rufus T. Firefly, Wolf J. Flywheel, J. Cheever Loophole, Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush and Captain Jeffrey Spaulding.

Why does this manner matter? Because he was funny and because he was irreverent and because he was influential and because he continues to matter. That's right: He matters because he continues to matter. Some of us will never let go of him. I'm sure Frank and his guests will have plenty to say about why. I'm just not sure he can keep it down to two hours.

Tune in to the Evening with Groucho Facebook Page this Friday at 4 PM PDT. And tell 'em Groucho I sent you.

A few days ago, I posted a link to an indiegogo campaign for a book some friends of mine are doing and I stand by that recommendation. However, it prompted a flurry of messages from good friends, casual friends and some total strangers asking — and in one or two cases, almost demanding — that I promote their book, event, video, project, whatever. I have had such flurries in the past and with each flurry, I get more and more annoyed.

When such requests some, they come in such volume that if I acquiesced to them all, this blog would have so much advertising that you wouldn't want to read it. Hell, I wouldn't want to read it.

It's annoying when strangers (or folks who barely know me) ask because I like to think I do this blog to entertain whoever happens by, not to sell them stuff. I've turned down a number of offers to "monetize" this blog by accepting paid advertising and/or putting it under the umbrella of some big, commercial website. I like the fact that it's no more commercial than the occasional cut I receive if you order something via one of my Amazon links.

And it's annoying when friends ask for that reason and because…well, sometimes my friends do things that I don't feel like recommending. That's awkward.

So please don't ask and don't send me photos and graphics that you want me to post to support your endeavor. I don't even plug my endeavors that much on this site. (I also have a general distrust of crowdfunding efforts, having been ripped-off by a number of them that sounded like they'd deliver what my credit card was charged for…and didn't.) You can tell me what you're doing and I might (might!) be moved to write about it. But if you ask for a plug and especially if you send me advertising you want me to post, the answer is no. If you saw the flurry that's presently in my e-mailbox, you'd understand why.

Here's the Washington Post fact-checker.

I agree with Jonathan Chait's review of The Debate. And with Eric Levitz on why Biden (probably) won the debate.

And while I would have liked to see Chris Wallace be more forceful in getting Trump to play by the rules, I don't think there was much he could do. And a case could be made that he did his job by letting Trump be Trump. That's who the guy is and the world got to see it. Why is that a bad thing?

Trump apparently thought he scored some points against Biden by repeatedly bringing up Hunter Biden. Now, the fact-checkers are saying Trump was wrong about Hunter B. being "dishonorably discharged" from the military and the claim of a multi-million dollar payoff is, at best, arguable. But even if Trump was right, is that going to move votes? Hunter Biden isn't on the ballot and he isn't on any list of issues that voters care about.

I have the feeling there'll be a lot of uncomfortable questions put to Republican Senators and Congressfolks tomorrow and a lot of evasive non-answers.

And now, I'm going to try to go back to not paying attention to the guy in the White House who, I hope, won't be there much longer.

The busiest humans on the planet this evening were professional fact-checkers. If you're interested, here are links to Politifact and The New York Times. It is perhaps worth noting that they got these online quickly because so many of Trump's fibs are ones he's made over and over and over…

Okay, I watched the thing. Did you get the idea that about a third of the way into it, Chris Wallace looked like he wanted to get out of the news business and go make BBQ Bacon Crispy Chicken Sandwiches at Burger King?

I suppose many/most Trump fans liked his I-Don't-Play-By-The-Rules bluster. He succeeded in rattling Biden a few times but I think it was obvious to any watcher that that was the game and that being loud is not the same thing as being right. The fact-checkers are playing Catch-Up right now but it looks like Trump got ten things wrong for every one of Biden's.

Seems to me Trump is going to lose support for his unwillingness to genuinely condemn white supremacists and militia groups — he basically told them to "stand by" in case violence is needed — and for all his rambling about a fake count in the election. But he's behind, he needed to get some Biden supporters to swing his way and I don't think he managed that. He just proved that Donald Trump is exactly what his opponents say he is. And Biden did a lot to dispel the charges that he's slow, has no endurance, etc. Whenever I've stumbled onto Trump-supporting chat boards lately, they all seemed dead certain that he would never show up for the debate at all.

It was also effective that Biden kept talking directly to voters and reminding them that this election is about them and in their hands. Trump kept talking to Chris Wallace. My take is that what most people who watched will take away from the debate is that it was a mess and a "shitshow" and a disgrace on many levels…and that wasn't because of Joe Biden.

Promoters of the L.A. Comic Con have announced a public event for December 11-13 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. In this item here, I mentioned that they had yet to announce any guests. Well, they have now…Frank Miller on Saturday and the cast of My Hero Academia on Saturday and Sunday. Over on this page, they list all the things they're doing to try and make the event safe for attendees.

One line there says, "With input from the City, County & State, we will continue to adapt L.A. Comic Con to be both super FUN and diligently SAFE." I don't know if they've spoken to anyone at the city or county levels but we now have California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly saying that to his knowledge, no one associated with the event has consulted with him.

The state's counties are classified via a four-tier system which decides the threat of COVID-1 is widespread (purple), substantial (red), moderate (orange) or minimal (yellow). According to this report, "…guidance for convention centers should also be out soon and that could possibly provide a road map for reopening, but they will not be in the purple tier and most likely not in the red tier where indoor and outdoor concert venues remain closed." So maybe the convention will have to move wholly online or postpone or maybe Frank Miller, properly masked and sanitized, will come to your homes to sign stuff.

A few folks wrote to ask what the odds were of me attending. They're about the same as the odds of Donald Trump getting the black vote because they agree no one since Abraham Lincoln has done as much for their people. My non-attendance is partly because of the COVID thing, partly because they won't invite me, partly because I have no interest in attending and partly because as I've been stating on this blog for years, "I've always thought the L.A. Convention Center is a real terrible place with a confusing and fragmented floor plan, horrible parking and ghastly traffic for some distance in any direction." That's a cut-and-paste from this blog post from 2015 but I said things like that many times before.

I would love to think that by the middle of December, the threat of the coronavirus will be so minimal, one could attend a public event like that without fear. I don't think it will be.

Tonight's debate begins at 6 PM my time. I'll probably decide around 5:55 if I'm going to watch it live or wait 'til later and watch the highlights, leaving open the possibility of watching it in full on YouTube or elsewhere. One nice thing about the Internet is that you can watch things like this minutes, hour or even days later.

I've probably said this before here but I'm not a fan of these debates. The time limits prevent anyone from giving an answer of any substance and often, candidates get cut off just as they're getting to the topic I want to hear. It's a format that invites zingers much more than actual discussions of policy. There's a small live audience tonight — about seventy people, I believe. One report says they'd all be tested for COVID-19 before being admitted. I'm hoping they'll also be screened to make sure neither candidate is packing the place with supporters.

I guess the thing that always bothers me about them is this argument that your guy "won the debate." You don't "win" this kind of debate the way you win a baseball game by scoring more runs or win a golf tournament by taking fewer strokes. There's no numerical scorekeeping. Still, both sides will be out in force afterwards, making arguments they could have pre-taped about how their guy "won" in some non-numerical way. I suppose you could say that someone won a debate if their polling numbers moved significantly to better positions but that movement, if any, won't be known for some days. And it won't necessarily be because of the debate because there are plenty of other recent news items that could have budged them.

I'll make one prediction: The biggest tune-in for a presidential debate ever. Donald will probably consider that alone a "win" for him, regardless of how well he does or does not do.

• Trump Administration now demanding that Joe Biden undergo DNA testing before debate to prove that he is not McLean Stevenson.

I remember really liking the 1980 movie Fame.  I saw it at a Writers Guild screening and a few weeks later when it was released for mass audiences, I took a date to see it and she loved it, too.  A few years later, it was a TV show and a jacket and a chain of acting schools and a merchandising bonanza and I was unsurprised when it was announced that someone was turning it into a musical for Broadway.  I probably said, "Gee, I'll have to go see that."  But it never got to Broadway.

It has played all over this country in many, many productions.  There was even one in Los Angeles in 1994 (in Glendale, actually) but somehow I never got out there to see it, nor did I see the off-Broadway production that played in New York for about eight months.  My enthusiasm for it may have been diminished when I heard that its book was substantially different from the movie and that they only used the title song and nothing else from the film score.

So I've never seen it.  I have though seen this video of the opening number and it…well, you can only judge a musical by its opening number a bit more than you can judge a book by its cover.  I have friends who watch the sample numbers presented each year on the Tony Awards telecast and we don't judge the shows but we do say of a performance, "That doesn't make me want to buy a ticket."  See if this number makes you want to buy a ticket for Fame — The Musical…

• I have the feeling that at this very moment, Randy Rainbow is shooting a video with lyrics set to the tune of the ABBA song, "Money, Money, Money."

As you know, I've been paying very little attention lately to The Election.  Proof of that is that I went ahead and announced a webcast tomorrow night at 7 PM, not realizing that tomorrow night is the first presidential debate.  I haven't decided yet if I'm going to watch but I'm fairly sure everyone else is.  So I'm postponing tomorrow night's webcast to a later date to be named later.  If you plugged it somewhere, please unplug it.