Monthly Archives: November 2021

And of course, we have to include Tom Lehrer's memorable ditty…

Quite a few folks wrote me about what I said yesterday about Chris Christie. Our pal Doug McEwan wrote to say, "I think one reason Chris Christie's book is flopping is that the people who would most want to read Christie's book are mostly illiterate." I think the point is that nobody wants to read it.

No one cares about Chris Christie. He is well past the stage where he's likely to matter in any way in politics. Once upon a time, he had some appeal as a Republican who was (briefly) able to work the middle of the road and win the governorship of a usually-Democratic state. But he left office with an approval rating two points below that of cold sores. He was never going to win an election again but he might have wrangled an appointment in the Trump Administration — and indeed, he claims he turned down Chief of Staff.

But now even Trump doesn't want him around. And voters don't want a middle-of-the-road guy these days. Not being loathed by the opposition party is proof you're a traitor to your party. Christie's trying to sell himself as a sensible Republican who admits Trump lost…but who also wants and needs Trump supporters. Can't be done. You not only can't sell a candidate from that stance, you can't even sell a book.

If Rodney Dangerfield hadn't died on us, he'd be a hundred years old. That's as good a reason as any to watch 100 Rodney Dangerfield jokes. (Actually, it's more like 98. There are a couple of repeats in here but just go with it…)

The last few weeks, it's been hard to turn on the TV without seeing Chris Christie plugging his new book. I kept hearing in my head that little earworm that was once placed there by a Hanna-Barbera cartoon: "He's here / He's there / He's everywhere / So beware!" And speaking of cartoons, I was afraid to turn on a rerun of my old Garfield & Friends show for fear he'd had himself edited into an episode.

But he was all over, doing his little act where he denounces Donald Trump, then says he might vote for him next time because Trump's definitely gonna run, then he walks that back and says Trump might not…then Christie says he hasn't decided about entering the race but argues against the notion that he won't. The guy's on all sides of every issue and, as Eric Boehlert notes, his book and comeback tour are flopping big-time.

Rob Salkowitz has a positive report on the Comic-Con Special Edition last weekend and I also heard (mostly) positive things from others who were in attendance. It was smaller, it had wider aisles, it had very little "celebrity" presence, it was a lot more about comics than about Hollywood, etc.

I'm glad to hear it was a success and I'm glad I made the decision I made not to attend. I wasn't ready for it.

The same fine folks who run Comic-Con will be running WonderCon in Anaheim from April 1 to April 3 next year. And the (presumably full-size) 2022 Comic-Con International in San Diego is set for July 21 to 24 with, I assume, Preview Night on July 20. During Covid Times, I have made it a point not to guesstimate that it will all be over by any particular date. We've all been wrong when we've done that. But I'm going to try to transition out of Stay-At-Home mode and work towards being ready for both.

Speaking of Stephen Sondheim…

There are a lot of articles appearing about Stephen Sondheim and it feels like every interview he ever gave is resurfacing. A lot of the interviews are the same interview, repeating the tale of how he gave a musical he wrote in his teen years to Oscar Hammerstein, thinking Hammerstein would produce it on Broadway and instead, Hammerstein said, "It's the worst thing I've ever seen" and proceeded to teach the young Sondheim how to do it right. But there are interviews that cover other ground and I'll try to point you to some of them in the coming weeks.

Here's a link to an article that Frank Rich wrote in 2013 that somehow escaped my notice then and since. It will tell you a lot about that extraordinary composer.

I wrote here about a trip my mother and I took to New York in 1959 when I was a mere seven years of age. I have a surprising number of memories from that trip and one was a lunch we had at The Automat. At one point, there were many Automats in New York and by '59, they were disappearing one by one.

Don't know what an Automat was? This video, promoting an upcoming documentary, will explain it better than I ever could…

I don't recall which Automat my mother took me to but we were staying at the Hotel Taft which was on Seventh Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets so it probably wasn't the one advertised above at 57th and Sixth…which may not even have been there by '59.  I gather they all looked pretty much the same, at least on the inside.

I do remember what a fun place it was, especially for a kid and I somehow remember what I had to eat: A turkey sandwich on white bread, a side dish of cooked carrots, a lemonade and a piece of very rich cake with strawberries and whipped cream.  And I even remember wishing we had a place like it back home in Los Angeles. If it had been next door and I had enough change, I never would have eaten anywhere else.

It's odd that we don't see places like this opening left and right these days. When you call a business, you're usually aware how much they don't want to hire human beings to talk to you. When you go to the market, they'd really prefer you use the self-service check-out. Even paying to park your car is often automated to the point where there's not one flesh 'n' blood human being in sight. So, someone's got to be thinking, why not a chain of restaurants that totally eliminates people waiting on diners?

I'm not advocating for this. I don't like the depersonalization of businesses or the job losses. I just like the idea of seeing my food before I commit to paying for it. It's the same reason I like cafeterias…or places like Subway where you can actually see the person assembling your lunch and stop them before they reflexively smear Russian Dressing all over what I ordered. And that Automat was just so much fun.

So in the space of twenty-four hours, Amazon's price for this certain box of Planter's Salted Cashews has gone from $17.09 to $21.98 and then to $24.11…and now it's at $28.99. The last time I purchased them, they were $15.06 and the time before that — not that long ago — I paid $11.24. You can check on the current price here.

I'm going to stop tracking this because I've made my point: Some items on Amazon just go up in price and down in price rapidly and for no visible reason. If a couple of bucks matter to you, you have to keep your eye on this.

I've received a number of interesting e-mails from folks telling me how to track prices on Amazon,. I'll post some of it in a few days. My thanks to all who wrote in.

I am of Jewish heritage but only on my father's side. Because my mother was Catholic and both families frowned on two such people getting married, they basically raised me to be nothing in particular. This has worked out a lot better than folks who are devout to one faith or another would probably admit.

When asked what I am, I say I'm Jewish even though there was never any thought of me being Bar Mitzvahed and the last time I set foot in a synagogue it was to attend a Purim Festival when I was around fifteen.

When I was young, we did a few of the Jewish traditions and ceremonies…like I did have a Menorah and for a few years, we'd light the candles each year until one year when we just plain forgot. For no particular reason, I've decided that this year, I'm going to celebrate the eight days of Hanukkah by posting a different Hanukkah video each evening. Cover your head and watch this one…

There are an awful lot of articles online about Mr. Sondheim and I won't pretend I've read all of them or even most of them. But the best one I've come across that attempt to explain about what made him special was this one by Isaac Butler.

A few hours ago in Times Square in New York, there was a memorial for Stephen Sondheim with Lin-Manuel Miranda speaking briefly and then an assemblage of (mostly) Broadway performers singing the most appropriate Sondheim song. Someone posted two video clips on YouTube and in the unlikely event I configured things correctly, they should play — one after the other — in the window below.

I still have very little desire to leave my home, especially since the plumber just left and I now have hot water again. But as I watched this, I kinda wished I was in Times Square instead of sitting here obsessing on the price of cashews…

The price is on the rise. Last night, it was $17.09. When I got up four hours ago, it was $21.98. Now it's $24.11. You can watch it go up and down for yourself here.

I wonder if someone has invented "snipe" software for Amazon. It would be a program that constantly monitors the prices of things you buy regularly and then alerts you or places an order when an item's price hits a certain level. I also wonder how Amazon's price guarantees apply when you buy something at one price and six hours later, it's cheaper.

I'm home this weekend as opposed to being at the Comic-Con Special Edition down in San Diego. What I'm hearing from down there is "Low attendance on Friday, some bottlenecks with getting in (badges being issued, vaxx cards being checked, etc.) and a pretty good crowd there yesterday." One friend who asked I not quote him by name wrote me…

I guess it's a success. I had a very good time but it was a little eerie with everyone wearing masks including some very creative ones. It's just a little strange to be in that room at what looks a lot like Comic-Con as we know it, and not be elbow-to-elbow with people in Klingon suits and on a Saturday, no less. I wouldn't have thought I'd miss the crowds the way I did. But there were dealers around and I did score some bargains.

There wasn't much in the way of celebrity encounters and the panels upstairs seemed to be displaced by a lot of gaming. There wasn't much on the schedule that intrigued me and everything that did was highly promotional. But I'm glad I went for one day.

I'm hoping it'll be regarded as a success. I felt a smidgen of guilt at not attending and therefore supporting the con committee's efforts towards normalizing our world. It's just that I'm not quite ready to be in a building with lots of other people…even way less people than are usually in said building when I'm present. If I hadn't withdrawn, I would have spent the last few weeks wondering if I wasn't making a really dumb mistake.

So I'm glad I didn't go and I'm glad other people did. Best of both worlds. Besides, I've been very busy here tracking the price of cashews.

Like all of you, the first thing I do in the morning is check the current price of that box of Planters Salted Cashews I order from Amazon. Right now, it's $21.98. You can check it for yourself here.

I won't be doing this forever but I made up the graphic and I feel I have to get some use out of it.