Absent a confession that he'd killed Chandra Levy and dumped her body into the gloppeta-gloppeta machine*, I thought Gary Condit did about as bad as humanly possible in his interview with Connie Chung the other night.  No, I take that back: He actually managed to do worse in the interview he did right after that with a local reporter in his home town of Modesto.  I caught it on my satellite dish…and he not only looked even sleazier, he made his performance with Ms. Chung look worse, because he kept robotically repeating the same answers he gave there, over and over, draining every last droplet of sincerity from them.

It was like a game we used to play in improv workshops where you're given two lines of dialogue and, no matter how the scene plays out, you have to answer with one or the other.  In Condit's case, they were "Out of respect for the wishes of the Levy family, I'm not going to get into that" and "I've been married for 34 years and I'm not a perfect man."  Since not one of the questions asked could have been a surprise to the guy, you'd think he'd at least have planned some different ways to not say anything.

I have relatively little interest in Mr. Condit and, while it would be nice to see Ms. Levy turn up alive and well, I have no more interest in her than I do in any of the hundreds of men and women who manage to vanish each year in this country without the media going on Red Alert.  The law enforcement officials who are charged with searching for Chandra Levy must feel trapped between the proverbial rock and hard place: They are incessantly hectored for not doing more to find her, but they know there's no acceptable answer to the question of why they're doing more to find her than they do to find anyone else.

What does interest me, sort of, about all this is how gleefully irresponsible the media has become in all this.  Bogus reports of other affairs…oddities in the Condit household…reports of phone calls that actually didn't take place?  Doesn't matter.  Condit, they've decided, is guilty of something; if he didn't break the law, he's at least a hypocritical wife-cheater…so he and his family are fair game and accuracy is not required, especially during Sweeps Week.  Early on, I had a faint hope that he'd turn out to be the Richard Jewell of Public Figures but there's no way that's gonna happen, no matter how this thing plays out.

What also interests me is this: Gary Condit is not some schmuck who got caught cheating on his wife.  He's a seasoned politician schmuck who got caught cheating on his wife.  He's experienced at evading dangerous questions and double-talking his way past topics he'd rather not address.  People are upset because they think he's weaseling past all the hard queries…but that's in the Job Description we've come to define for elected officials in this country.

We expect politicians to lie and evade and then, if they're people we like, we forgive evasive answers and fibbing as some necessity of elected office.  How many people do you know who were upset about all three of the following:  Bill Clinton's "I never had sex with that woman," George Bush's "I was not in those Iran-Contra meetings" and Ronald Reagan's "We did not trade arms for hostages"?  Most folks expressed outrage about one or two of those…but when it's their guy caught mutilating the truth, they rationalize or change the subject or say "The other guy did worse" or mutter, "Out of respect for the wishes of the Levy family, I'm not going to get into that."

Mr. Condit is being no less candid than most politicians in America if you ask them a question that they know will cost them votes.  If he really thinks he can survive and win re-election, it's probably because he knows that, in the end, honesty garners little reward at the ballot box.  I don't think it'll work this time…but, sad to say, it usually does.

(P.S.: For the funniest comment so far on it all, check out what Joshua Micah Marshall had to say by clicking here.)

*An obscure reference to a joke in the Jack Lemmon film, How To Murder Your Wife.

I've recommended articles by Joe Conason before and I'll highly recommend his current one.  It's about Dick Cheney stonewalling on his energy commission while Republicans are leaking details of Bill Clinton's confidential conversations with Ehud Barak.  Here's the link.

And another aspect of the same situation is covered over on Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points.  Go there by clicking here and read down the page a bit because he keeps adding new items at the top..

Our pal Lorenzo Music passed away on a Saturday morning and I posted an obit here that evening.  Word of his departure didn't make the wire services until Tuesday or Wednesday but it was all over the Internet by Sunday night, prompting many, many expressions of regret…and a few folks pondering if, perhaps, it wasn't on the news sites because it wasn't true.  On newsgroups, message boards and in a few e-mails to me, four or five people were wondering if perhaps I was grossly-mistaken or pulling some wretched-taste hoax.

My first reaction — apart from wishing it was a mistake or hoax — was to take a bit of umbrage.  It was like, "Didn't these people look at my site?  Didn't they notice that I was someone who'd worked with Lorenzo?  Who obviously knew him?  There's even a photo of me with him up there."  But then I realized something which I'll put it in bold italic type because I think it's important: These people were right to be skeptical.

Absolutely.  The Internet is a repository of spurious information, some of it packaged to look very knowing and official, indeed.  It is also a dandy place for hoaxes and miscommunication.  Lately, those who follow news of the comic book industry on the 'net have witnessed one outright death hoax and another misunderstanding — both about professional artists, both so authoritative that even insiders were taken-in by them and passed them on.  You should be suspicious of everything you read on the Internet, even if you read it here.  Hell, you should be suspicious of everything you read in a newspaper or hear on the news…

Just received my copy of Groucho: A Photographic Journey, which is a fancy new book by Arthur "Son of…" Marx.  It's a beautiful book of photos, most of which I'd never seen before.  And if I'd never seen them, odds are you haven't, either.  If you care enough about the Marx Brothers — Groucho, of course, in particular — to want to see wonderful photos of them, offstage and on, you need this book.  You can order it from www.amazon.com or, if you want to pay a few bucks more and get it autographed, order it from www.grouchoworld.com.  At the latter, you can also order the CD and home video of Frank Ferrante's glorious Groucho replication.

Well, no one I care about died today, so we'll put another $20 in the jackpot…and I'll use this space to plugone of my books.  Last year, Sergio Aragonés and I did a six-issue mini-series for DC Comics and all six issues have just been reprinted in a nice, little trade paperback book.  It's called Fanboy and it's the story of an aspiring comic book artist named Finster who has occasional troubles separating Reality and Fantasy.  Sergio drew the Reality and an awe-inspiring array of guest artists drew the Fantasy: Neal Adams, Marlo Alquiza, Brent Anderson, Jordi Bernet, Will Blyberg, Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, Joe Giella, Mike Grell, Matt Haley, Russ Heath, Phil Jiminez, Bob Kane (posthumously), Gil Kane, Joe Kubert, Kevin Maguire, Frank Miller, Jim Mooney, Kevin Nowlan, Jerry Ordway, Wendy Pini, Steve Rude, Marie Severin, Bill Sienkiewicz, Tom Simmons, Dan Spiegle, Dick Sprang, Bruce Timm and Bernie Wrightson.

If you follow comics at all, a few of your faves are surely on that roster.  I had enormous fun doing it and I hope it shows.

What you see above is a bad picture taken from the cover of one of Dave Barry's comedy records.  This is not the Dave Barry who presently writes a syndicated humor column.  This is the other Dave Barry, and he passed away recently.  Here's the AP wire report…

Actor-Comedian Dave Barry Dead at 82

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Comedian Dave Barry, who opened for a number of top performers, including Wayne Newton, died Thursday. He was 82.

The comedian, who was not related to the Miami-based humorist of the same name, was born in New York City and started his career at age 16 on radio's "Major Bowes and the Original Amateur Hour."

He moved to California in the early 1940s and served in the Army during World War II entertaining troops.

Toward the end of that decade, Barry began performing in Las Vegas at the El Rancho Hotel. He was featured at the Desert Inn in a revue called "Hello America." He opened for Newton for more than eight years.

Barry had television and film credits, most notably in Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot," in which he played the role of Beinstock, the band's manager. In the latter part of his career, he entertained on cruise ships and appeared in the "Follies," a Palm Springs, California, variety show.

This report doesn't tell you a lot of things about Dave Barry — like, for instance, that for a dozen or so years there, he performed on Ed Sullivan's show as often as any stand-up comedian.  It doesn't tell you that he actually was performing intermittently in Las Vegas as recently as 1988.  He made them laugh in that town for something like forty years, which is quite an accomplishment.

It also doesn't delve into his not-inconsiderable work as a voiceover artist.  He did his first cartoon work for Famous Studios when that operation was still based in Florida.  Barry (who was then going under the name, Dave Siegel) was playing at a hotel in Miami.  A man from the audience approached him at the bar after the show and said they needed someone to do the voice of Bluto…so Barry played Bluto in Seein' Red, White and Blue and perhaps one or two other films.  When he moved to Hollywood, he sought out similar work there and got some, mainly for the Columbia cartoon studio and Warner Brothers.

For the latter, he was their all-star celebrity impersonator for a time, specializing in Bogart.  Any time you hear someone doing Bogey in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, it's probably Dave Barry.  He was also called upon to do numerous bit and incidental parts, and often supplied a trick voice that he claimed to have invented — a bubbly kind of thing that made it sound like he was talking underwater.  This, he also used frequently when dubbing voices for Paramount's Speaking of Animals series.

He was also Elmer Fudd in the 1958 cartoon, Pre-Hysterical Hare.  Barry told me he filled in a number of times for Elmer's original voice, Arthur Q. Bryan, on kids' records but also in the cartoons, sometimes being called in to do one line in a film that was otherwise voiced by Bryan.  No one has been able to identify Barry playing Fudd in any records but he did once play Bugs Bunny on a record where Bryan was Elmer.

Had he remained based in Los Angeles, Dave Barry would probably have been a voice actor with as many credits as a Don Messick or a Paul Frees.  He was enormously versatile and a tremendous mimic.  But his stand-up act was his bread-'n'-butter and it took him away from the voice market for weeks and months at a time, prompting employers to turn to others and forget about him.  A lot of what he did do when in town was looping and dubbing for movies.  He was, for example, heard in Roger Corman's film of The Raven, making sounds for the title character and dubbing voices for Peter Lorre and Vincent Price*.  In at least one movie, he redubbed all the dialogue for the Indian actor, Sabu, to make him more intelligible.

I only had the pleasure of meeting Dave on two occasions, both regrettably brief, but I saw him during what was probably his last Vegas stand, and he was terrific.  Age had not slowed down his timing one bit…and, by the way, if I understand correctly what he told me, he was actually older than it says in the above obit.  He was proud of his work in animation voicing and lamented that he should have stayed in L.A. and done more of it.  When I met him, which was just a few years back, he hadn't done a cartoon voice since several DePatie-Freleng shorts of the mid-sixties, and I was hoping to find a part for him in one of my current projects, preferably doing Bogey.

Sorry that didn't happen.  But he merits the best thing you can say about a deceased comedian: He truly was a funny, funny man.

P.S. The fact that Barry occasionally redubbed dialogue for Vincent Price has apparently caused some folks to presume he's the guy who does the Vincent Price imitation in the Bugs Bunny cartoon, Water, Water, Every Hare.  Not so…and it was also not Vincent Price himself, as has occasionally been assumed — or Walker Edmiston, as has been reported in at least one published source.  It was an actor named John T. Smith, who was heard in other WB cartoons, usually doing a gravelly villain voice.  He was the dog in Chow Hound and the construction worker in No Parking Hare, to name two credits.  Both have also sometimes erroneously been attributed to Dave Barry.

Want to know my problem with the press?  A lot of it is demonstrated by a commentary piece that ran recently in The Wall Street Journal lambasting Hillary Clinton and apparently misrepresenting a lot of facts in order to do so.  Over on a website called ConWebWatch, an author named Joe Moran laid down a pretty strong case that the editorial was, to put it politely, full of manure.  Here's a direct link to his article.  Please let me know if you ever come across anything that proves Moran is wrong orif you spot anyone other than Hillary-partisans finding fault with this piece.  I think a lot of absolute nonsense has been printed about just about everyone in public life, be they Democratic, Republican or None of the Above.  And you so rarely see (a) the source correct the error and/or (b)  anyone rise to object unless it's consistent with their political agenda.  If it slams the guy you're against, it's true, end of story.

I also think that any reporter or pundit who spends more than ten seconds on Al Gore's beard, or who reads any deep character or political insight into it, should be fired immediately.

Good editorial in the New York Daily News about our alleged president's financial planning.  Here's the link.

NBC has been running and rerunning a limited number of vintage SCTV episodes in the Later slot, every night after Conan O'Brien.  I'm told that they're not airing a wider array of episodes because, being up in Canada and all, the original series was very lax about clearing rights to the songs they used.  Ergo, to broadcast certain episodes these days would require skillful negotiation and some hefty fees, so we get the same ones, over and over.  Some (not all) of them are actually worth it…though you won't be enjoying them for long.  NBC has decided to take Later back to the talk show format and to bring in Carson Daly to sit behind the desk, commencing early next year.

This is an interesting move and I can't say I really understand it.  Before they began running SCTV, NBC was trying out different hosts in the job, reportedly to try and find the perfect one.  What they wound up discovering was that it really didn't matter who hosted the thing.  The show got a 1.5 rating no matter who sat in the big chair.  It would have gotten a 1.5 if you'd hosted it or I'd hosted it or your Aunt Tillie had hosted it.  Didn't make any difference.  The ratings only fluctuated when a superstar guest appeared or when Mr. O'Brien provided an unusually strong lead-in.  After a year or three of immaterial host tryouts, NBC announced they would use the time slot to test out new concepts and innovative programming…and they promptly came up with the new and innovative notion of airing reruns of an old show they already owned and had on the shelf.  The SCTV reruns, by the way, have been pretty consistently getting a 1.5 rating, what a surprise.

So why dump free (or almost free) programming that gets a 1.5 rating to bring in a show they'll have to spend money to produce and which will get a 1.5 rating?  The only explanation that makes any sense to me is that they have bigger plans for Mr. Daly…as they once did for Greg Kinnear and a few of the temps who replaced him.  In any case, you won't be without access to SCTV for long.  They're finally about to release some episodes on VHS and DVD — and we can only hope they haul out some that haven't been repeated into oblivion lately.  The Godfather parody with Guy Caballero as the Don was brilliant but it loses a little something the nineteenth time you see it.  Except for the part where Eugene Levy plays Floyd the Barber.

Every day, Monday through Friday, I make a point of visiting Comic Book Resources, a fine website that covers the funnybook biz.  There, you'll find some fine columnists, including Steven Grant and "Gail," and you'll also find the daily column of my long-time pal, Scott Shaw!  It's called Oddball Comics and it's an outgrowth of a slide show Scott has been presenting for years at conventions, always to capacity (and delighted) audiences.  In the show and on the site, Scott presents some of the weirder comic books ever published — the kind that makes you wonder what, if anything, the editors were thinking that day.  And no comics were ever odder than the ones that appeared on the comic called Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane.  This week, Scott presents five thoroughly-bizarre Lois Lane covers, including the two above.  Rush to Scott's website by clicking here and enjoy his witty, informative commentary on this cover and others.

Back in the Sixties, a comic book series called T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents failed to attract a large-enough audience to keep its publisher afloat.  How odd then that, more than thirty years later, there are enough fans of the comic to warrant a whole issue of Comic Book Artist devoted to it.  But there apparently are.  Jon B. Cooke and his thunderous squad of interviewers and researchers have tracked down most of the surviving contributors for interviews, and even dug up heretofore-unpublished artwork.  The result is a terrific overview and a tonweight of comic book history and information that would have been lost if Jon and Company hadn't cobbled together this issue.  So far, every issue of CBA has managed something of the sort.  I only wish it had come along years ago, so more creators could have divulged more info before they left us.

You can pick up a copy at any good comic shop or by visiting the TwoMorrows website and, yes, I'll even supply you with a link.

I've received a number of e-mails asking me who's going to take over as the voice of Garfield now that Lorenzo Music has left us.  (I've also received an embarrassing number of phone calls and e-mails from folks who covet the job.)  The answer is that no one involved in the Garfield business wants to discuss it now.  Too soon, too soon.

Attention, Three Stooges fans! Saturday evening, American Movie Classics is running Soup to Nuts, an almost-never-seen, 193o feature starring Ted Healy, for whom the Stooges were originally stooges.  And in in supporting roles, you'll find Moe, Larry…and Shemp, since this — the Stooges' first screen appearance — was made before Shemp left the group and was replaced by Curly.  (Years later, Curly had a stroke, whereupon Shemp returned to the act in his stead.)  The movie was allegedly written by the famed cartoonist, Rube Goldberg, who has a small cameo.  Most of it was ghost-scripted, however, by Lou Breslow, who later wrote some of the weaker Laurel and Hardy movies.  Probably not a cinema classic but, hey, it's history.

The Broadway show, The Producers, not only sells out every night, they also sell standing room and any tickets that become available due to cancellations.  Someone who attempted to purchase the former recently posted a message to one of the newsgroups that tells how the process works.  Here's a link that oughta allow you to read this message.  (By the way: For those of you tracking such info or holding tickets for September 4-9, Matthew Broderick is taking that week off.)

Some people think that Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, The Hulk and many other super-guys had their greatest adventures in a series of one-page Hostess ads that ran in their comics in the seventies.  And it's true: Seeing Batman battle the Joker for hostess of a couple of twinkies or Dr. Octopus purloining Spider-Man's fruit pies was kinda entertaining (in a silly way) and no worse than certain of their "real" exploits.  You can see them for yourself because someone has set up a website that purports to display every one of these four-color classics.  Get there by clicking here.

I would like to recommend a political reporter/commentator to you.  His name is Joshua Micah Marshall and he writes for, among other outlets, Slate, Salon, New Republic and The American Prospect.  Every day or so, he posts an interesting "Talking Points Memo" on his website and I find them always worth reading.  See if you don't, too, by clicking on this link.

You are gazing on the rarely-seen face of writer-actor Lorenzo Music, who passed away ten days ago, and who was — as I and many others have noted — a wonderful creative force and friend.  This photo is fairly recent and it was on a handout at the memorial service held last night at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills.  A rather spectacular assemblage of talented folks were present and, while it may seem odd for someone to say they had a great time at a memorial service for a pal…well, let's just say that Lorenzo, who had given us so many entertaining shows during his life, was responsible for yet another last evening.  Everyone always wants to know who was at these things so here's a brief rundown of just some of those who were in attendance and whose names may be familiar to you…

The speakers included Bob Newhart, Jack Riley, Ed Asner, Beverly Sanders, Alan Barzman, Patti Deutsch, Marcia Wallace and several others, including Yours Truly and a pretty funny rabbi.  In the audience, one could spot Peter Bonerz, Gary Owens, Avery Schreiber, James L. Brooks, Stan Freberg, June Foray, Thom Sharp, Rosanna Arquette, David Arquette, Julie Kavner, Maurice La Marche, Tress MacNeille, Gregg Berger, Laura Summer, Danny Mann, Mary Gross, Edie McClurg, Dan Castellenetta, Julie Payne…and I'm probably leaving out at least fifty other names of popular actors, both on-camera and voice, to say nothing of the non-SAG friends and family that packed the Writers Guild Theater.  A rousing gospel choir closed the formal event which was followed by a party that Lorenzo would also have loved.

Some of those folks knew him from his days as a writer and story editor on the now-legendary sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  He was also usually responsible for the show's warm-up, greeting the audience and getting them all in the proper mood to laugh at Mary and Ted and Murray and Mr. Grant.  His warm-ups were also legendary, at least within the business, for Lorenzo was superb at holding an audience in rapt interest, and just listening to him made people smile.

We all smiled a lot at the memorial service.  And laughed.  And there were even a few tears, but not that many.  I think we've all moved past that, as you have to in life, and we were there to share stories of our friend, to embrace his wonderful family and to indulge in one big group hug.

Lorenzo…I don't know if they have Internet connections where you are but, assuming they do and the hook-up's fast enough to read this page, I want to say the following to you: I hope you heard all the warm, loving and funny tales that were related last evening.  I hope you know how terrific everyone thought your wife and kids are and that we meant all those nice things we said about you to them.  And when I go, I hope I have at least a fourth as many wonderful and fascinating friends turn out to say good-bye to me.  I only wish you could be one of them.

No, I haven't forgotten you, my friends.  I've just been buried up to here in deadlines.  (In case the webcam isn't working and you can't see me, I'm holding my hand under my chin.  The third chin from the bottom, in fact.)

We will be back soon with new comments and links and fun things to do.  Just as soon as a couple of assignments stop breathing fire and smoke.

I neglected to thank B. Baker for the tip-off on the article about The Projectionist.  Thank you. B. Baker.

How do you know when political reporters have absolutely nothing to write about?  Answer: They write about Al Gore's chances in 2004.

Isn't it a little early for that?  All this talk about who'll be the Democratic nominee for prez in '04, how he'll fare against Bush, whether Cheney will be on the ticket and so on strikes me as way more than premature.  By the time that election begins for real, there'll be completely different issues and players before us.  We may or may not be at war with Iraq.  We may or may not have had more terrorist attacks.  The economy may or may not have made a solid recovery.  There may or may not have been hundreds more Worldcom/Enron style scandals.  Cheney may or may not be in decent health.  Et cetera, et cetera…

Other, unpredictable issues of equal importance may have — probably will have — emerged.  On September 10 last year, few (if any) imagined that fighting terrorism was about to become Job One.  And when it did, few imagined that fighting corporate corruption would soon become an issue of as much importance as it has.  Add to all this the fact that at least one prominent politician will get indicted for some crime, some prominent politician will say something so stupid their constituents will desert him, some prominent politician will have a sex scandal…

Again, et cetera, et cetera…

I have only one prediction, which I've made here before.  I think, in '04, the question will be, "Do you feel safer now than you did on September 11?"  If most voters feel that, as a result of the actions of the current administration, they're less afraid of annihilation, Bush could get caught humping a sheep and still win a second term.  If they feel not enough has been done and/or that "the war" (whatever its scope at the time) has been bungled, almost anyone will be able to beat him.  The other stuff may matter in terms of Congress because the less the country trusts Bush on the economy, the more likely they are to want Democratic representatives to stop him from running amok.  But none of it has anything to do with who'll win the presidential election of 2004 or even who'll be on the ballots.