Working my way back into regular posting…
The Internet abounds today with speculation and rumors about the extension of talks in the SAG-AFTRA negotiation. Most of it — maybe all of it — is based on absolutely nothing. If you're behind your union, as you should be, stay behind them until you have a concrete reason to decamp. Imaginations running wild do not constitute a reason. Like the WGA, the actors are very well organized and they have the support of ~98% of the membership and a stunning number of prominent, working-all-the-time members. Remember what Ben Franklin said about hanging together.
Like a lot of folks, I'm disappointed in a couple of recent Supreme Court decisions. Kevin Drum thinks the one on Affirmative Action will not affect that many people. I hope that's the case but it's a "win" for a very bad attitude towards one's fellow human beings. And President Biden seems to already be on top of a workaround regarding Student Debt. Still, maybe Liberals should have taken more Supreme Court Justices on expensive luxury vacations and maybe bought homes for their mothers.
Comic-Con is eighteen days away — unless I'm not ready, in which case I think I can get them to postpone it 'til late August. I am currently moderating ten panels and appearing on three others. The Cartoon Voices panels, Quick Draw!, the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel and Cover Story will all be in their usual time slots, though a few will be in different rooms.
Ignore all articles that claim that the paucity of Big Stars this year spells doom for the con. The unavailability of hotel rooms proves there will be no diminution of attendees and there will be no strike by writers or actors in at least the next few years to come.
I still haven't been able to watch the rest of the Tony Awards.
If you're in Los Angeles — or even if you aren't in Los Angeles — the Nuart Theater in West L.A. is running It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World twice a day on Monday and Tuesday.
Every time I mention a screening, people ask me which version is being run. There's only one that is available in any kind of projectible shape either on film or digital. It's two hours and 39 minutes and it's the one that was in theaters a few weeks after the film's original release, after it was cut down. But it's the one the film's director-producer Stanley Kramer called the official version. I'd go if I wasn't so busy and if my friend Amber was available to go with me.
From what we're hearing, there is cause to be guardedly optimistic that Turner Classic Movies will remain the same channel we know and love. I wish I was as confident about some other divisions of that corporation.
Back soon. It'll be a few more days before the next installment of "Border Crossings."