Yeah, I'm trying to see if I can blog from my new iPhone. If you're seeing this, I guess I can.
Monthly Archives: November 2009
Today's Video Link
More Muppets. You can't get enough of 'em…
Recommended Reading
David Sirota on one of my pet political beefs. It's this mindset that government spending is immoral and destructive and we must do everything we can to slash it to the bone…except for the wasteful, bloated part of it that can be labelled "Defense." In that area, we need to spend every cent possible even if the Pentagon can't account for billions or spends it on weapons systems that don't work.
Today's Political Rant
About (I'm guessing) 85% of my Liberal friends would love for Sarah Palin to be the next Republican presidential nominee…or to at least be prominent enough in the G.O.P. primary to provoke a good old healthy Civil War within that party. I frankly don't think she'll get that far. If she runs for President (big "if"), I think she'll be running the way Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader have always run — for personal promotion, not with any delusion of victory.
But ~15% of my Liberal friends are afraid that the other Republican contenders are so weak, and her base is so fanatical, that she just might have a shot at the White House. I've never worried about that but if I did, this excerpt from her recent interview with Greta Van Susteren would put my mind at ease. Palin was asked how she might go about winning over those who don't see the world her way. Her reply?
…the book is a good tool to get — hey, read the book, and if you still don't like the positions that I take or if you don't like who I am after reading the book, unfiltered through the media, then so be it. You know, I'm never going to win you over. But at least give me a shot there in trying to figure out who I am, what my record is, what my accomplishments are and what I represent.
And then, Greta, if I can't please them, I can't please them. I'm not going to try. I'm not going to change who I am or compromise my positions, my values, in order to placate or to try to get some demographic or some group of people on board with me if they just don't get it.
Her first instinct was to push buying her book. That's what she's out doing now…promoting her product, rather than her ideology. And the rest of that answer is what you'd say if you weren't even going to win over the G.O.P. moderates, let alone the Independents and whatever Democrats might be gettable. There are plenty of things you could say without compromising your positions that would keep the door open to support from those groups. You could talk about finding common ground; of how if they hear more of your message, they'll understand that they share certain mutual pragmatic values, etc.
The problem Ms. Palin has with standing for national office is that without her hardcore supporters, she has nothing. But if she starts to moderate and reach out to those who think she's too right-wing and simplistic, she'll lose those hardcore supporters. What they like about her is that she doesn't do that. It's that "I'm never wrong" attitude that (cough, ahem) worked so well for George W. Bush. Yeah, Bush got elected with it but he knew enough to at least pretend he cared about the majority of the electorate.
Today's Video Link
You ever see this? It's The Selling of Vince D'Angelo, a short made back in '83 by Danny DeVito from a script by Michael Barrie and Jim Mulholland. It was for Likely Stories, an anthology series from the earliest days of cable television. It stars DeVito and many of his friends and it runs a little more than eighteen minutes. If you haven't seen it, you ought to. Very funny…and in many ways, prescient about where politics was heading.
Briefly Noted…
The other day here, I posted a link to a very funny e-mail exchange between an entrepreneur and a web designer. The former was trying to get the latter to do some work for free and the latter was responding in an amusing manner. I have no idea who's telling the truth here — maybe neither of them — but fairness requires that I note that the person in the entrepreneur role is denying the conversation was true. Thanks to Bob Elisberg for investigating.
Remembering Ken
As I mentioned, friends of the late Ken Krueger have put up a tribute website in his honor. There's not a lot on it yet so I'll remind you to go visit again in a week or two. You may be surprised to learn how much this person had to do with the Comic-Con in San Diego and with the lives and careers of people whose work you admire.
Poll Dance
Yesterday, I was polled by the Gallup folks on a whole range of topics. The call took about fifteen minutes and it was pleasant enough…but I had two stark observations about the questions I was asked, one positive, one negative. The positive was that the wording of the questions was absolutely neutral. I was not being nudged in the slightest towards one answer or the other. The negative was that in most cases, there were only two possible responses and that neither really gave a true picture of my feelings.
One was — and I may not be remembering the wording precisely but it was close to this — "Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your current health insurance?" My options were to choose "satifisfied" or "dissatisfied" or I suppose I could have abstained. The truth is that I am relatively satisfied with my own health insurance. It covers most of what I need it to cover…though let's be honest here. The true test of your health insurance is not whether it covers one particular prescription (I've currently having a little argument with them over one) but whether it will cover you tomorrow if you suddenly need a liver transplant. Apart from premium costs — which these days, you can't do much about — most insurance plans are just dandy when you aren't filing claims for anything more than Omeprazole. It's like asking, "Are you happy with your local fire department?" Yes, since I haven't had to call them in more than ten years, I have no complaints.
Actually, my complaints regarding health insurance have little to do with mine. I'm frustrated and dismayed at the number of friends who are ill (including a few who have actually, you know, like died) without being able to get health insurance. I also know a few who have it, or thought they had it, and are spending money they can ill afford because of what their policies don't (or won't) pay for. I think that's a horrible, horrible situation that's destroying lives just as thoroughly as any public tragedy…
…but though the pollster asked me a half-dozen questions about health insurance, no combination of answers would have allowed me to express that viewpoint. I was asked if I had health insurance (yes) and if I was satisfied with it (I guess so) and if I obtained mine through an employer (no) and if I obtained mine through a union (yes) and so on. No question that queried, "Do you think health care in this country needs a drastic overhaul?" (abso-friggin'-lutely)
I was also asked if I approved of the job Barack Obama was doing. I said yes, mainly because if I said no, I figured my answer would class me with the Teabaggers or the Republicans or some other group that wishes someone else had won the last election. The truth is that I'm annoyed that he hasn't done more of what some of us expected him to have done by now…but I can't think of anyone I'd prefer to see in the White House at the moment. (This morning, I read this article by Jacob Weisberg who argues that Obama will have had a much more impressive first year than his supporters think.) I kinda wish the Gallup folks had given me an option that said, "I'm dissatisfied but in the opposite way from how Sean Hannity is dissatisfied."
There were others like this but you get the idea. Time and again, I wanted to ask the pollster, "Can I say, 'satisfied but with some major reservations?'" That I couldn't really express my views is something I'm going to keep in mind next time I read one of those polls. They're fine as far as they go but they don't go far enough. Then again, neither does my health insurance or Barack Obama.
Today's Video Link
A belated Halloween video from the Muppets…
Recommended Reading
Among the most-read columns on this site are the ones I did about what I call Unfinanced Entrepreneurs — people who ask writers or artists to create work for them on the promise of money if and when the project becomes a success. Wise and talented people — like my pal Kurt Busiek — have enough sense not to fall for these pitches. And Kurt sent me this link to the tale of someone else who was smart enough to decline such a golden opportunity.
A Complaint About Complaints
Lately, I've had a lot of friends do something that irks me a bit, probably because I've been so often guilty of it, myself. I call it "Dead-End Complaining," though there's gotta be a better name for it out there. Basically, it's arguing about some injustice or stupidity when (a) there's no realistic chance that the complaint will do a damn bit of good and (b) it does more damage to complain rather than to just go along with it, whatever it is. I can best illustrate with an example I posted on this here blog in July of '08. I was reporting on an experience I had at the airport…
Security at LAX was the usual drag, made draggier by a raging debate ahead of me in my line. A lady who looked a lot like Paris Hilton (but wasn't) was refusing to remove her footwear…and getting very loud and strident about it. On one hand, she had a point. They were sandals — and I could have hidden a lot more weaponry or explosives in my wallet, which I did not have to put on the conveyor belt, than she could have secreted in her flip-flops. On the other hand, it was not like she had a prayer of winning the argument and having one lowly Security Agent reverse TSA policy.
"You're required to put your shoes through the x-ray," said a man of steadily-diminishing patience while behind us, we could all hear voices crying out, "My plane leaves in ten minutes" or similar pleas. For some reason, no one thought to move her to one side and debate the issue while others passed on through. Paris kept responding, as if someone was paying her to say it as many times as possible, "But these are not shoes." She was right on some theoretical level but wrong to think she was getting on her plane without complying. By the time she did as ordered, the line behind her was the length of the Nile and at least a few people had probably missed their flights.
There are many perfectly good reasons in this world to complain about what you perceive as "wrongs," the first being that sometimes, the complaint causes someone to actually right the wrong. At the very least, you put your dissatisfaction out there into the atmosphere where it might combine with the gripes of others and become a force so potent that it will foment change. That's all well and good, but in the above example, Not Paris Hilton was bitching about being inconvenienced a little and in so doing, was inconveniencing others a lot.
She was wasting her own time and compounding the inconvenience to herself…but more significant is that she was wasting others' time and wronging an awful lot of other people. If there was any chance her protest could somehow trickle up to the TSA management and promote a policy change, it was microscopic compared to making strangers, at that moment, wait longer in line and perhaps miss their flights. At some point, you also had to feel sorry for the poor Security Agent who had to endure her rage and who wasn't allowed to say, preferably in a loud Lewis Black impression, "Hey, I know it's ridiculous but I don't make the rules, lady!"
Complaining has other uses. There are times when one just needs to kvetch, just to let it out. There are times when you do it so others will reassure you that you're not the one being crazy; that the offense really is as illogical and vile as it seems. There are also times when complaints are just plain entertaining. I carry on about a lot of stuff not because I think it's going to rectify matters but because it seems like it might amuse the folks around me, especially when their frustrations match mine. If we can all make a joke out of it, that's so much better than being angry about that particular nuisance.
That said, I increasingly come to see that there are also times when complaining wastes time…and maybe fools you into thinking you're solving a problem when you're not. Lately, I've had a couple of friends call to gripe about some crappy thing that was done to them. On and on they go, not getting it when I say, "You're absolutely right. That's a stupid/lousy/unfair [whatever] thing that was done to you…and telling me about it for an hour is not going to solve anything. You need to figure out how to press on in spite of it." Often, the only possible solution is not to fix the wrong but to find a way to work around it.
There's also complaining as what, back in the sixties, we called an "attention-getting device." It's kind of like, "Show that I matter by listening to my beef" and there's also complaining as a form of snobbery…but we won't get into those. One of the reasons though that I no longer actively participate in the Writers Guild is that I realized that about 90% of the complaints I had to listen to there were in one or both of those categories.
It's a bit early for New Year's Resolutions but there's no law that says you can't make one in November. I intend to keep complaining —
- — when there's a realistic chance that it can do some good.
- — when I need to vent and it won't inconvenience anyone else if I do vent. And, lastly —
- — when I think it's funny.
But I resolve to try and not confuse #2 and #3 with #1. And I further resolve to take the time I'd otherwise spend grumbling about some destructive force that I cannot halt and use it to figure out how to dodge or at least minimize the harmful effects of that force. Most of all, I think I need to stop listening to people who do what I'm going to try to not do. Life is just too friggin' short.
Recommended Reading
Matthew Yglesias on a new idea that oughta gain more traction than it probably will. We put things like the War in Afghanistan on a pay-as-you-go basis. I always thought it was unfair that so many folks who think we can't afford things like Health Care Reform and rebuilding U.S. infrastructure believe we have unlimited resources when it comes to any kind of military action anywhere.
Today's Video Link
Bruce Kimmel is a multi-talented performer, director, writer, composer, producer, you-name-it. A few years ago, he wrote and staged a little musical revue called What If, which explored what some of the great musicals might have been like if they'd been written by…well, you'll get the premise in a jif. The performers in this clip are Alet Taylor, Susanne Blakeslee, Paul Haber, Ryan Raftery, and Tammy Minoff. Pretty funny stuff.
TeeVee Talk
I haven't mentioned this project lately for your own good…because if you start watching, you'll never do anything else with your life. But there's thing called the Archive of American Television, which is compiling a series of oral histories of the TV business. They've quizzed hundreds of performers, producers, directors, writers…even Bob Hope's cue card guy, and these are in-depth interviews, many of which run three or four hours.
If you'd like to view these videos, it's not difficult. You just have to fly out here to Los Angeles, make an appointment and go into the Academy headquarters where a nice lady will escort you to a private listening room and allow you to watch and take notes…and the first part of this paragraph is a lie. That would be worth the effort but as it happens, you can watch them on your home computer from the comfort of whatever chair you're sitting in at this moment. They don't have them all online yet but they have enough to keep you occupied for months. Wanna watch four hours of Bill Melendez telling the history of his career and how they made all them Charlie Brown specials? You're one click away from it.
If you're not interested in Bill, you can watch an interview with Andy Ackerman, Berle Adams, Edie Adams, Robert Adler, Alan Alda, Kay Alden, Steve Allen, Charlie Andrews, Army Archerd, James Arness, Beatrice Arthur, Edward Asner, Larry Auerbach, Rick Baker, Bob Banner, Joseph Barbera, Paris Barclay, Bob Barker, Cliff Barrows, William Bell, Ted Bergmann, Milton Berle, Rick Berman, Walter Bernstein, Lewis Bernstein, Barbara Billingsley, Wade Bingham, William Blinn, Lucille Bliss, Steven Bochco, Paul Bogart, Haskell Boggs, Mili Lerner Bonsignori, Ernest Borgnine, Tom Bosley, Peter Boyle, Ed Bradley, Bernie Brillstein, David Brinkley, James L. Brooks, Kirk Browning, Frances Buss Buch, Allan Burns, Ken Burns, James Burrows, LeVar Burton, Robert Butler, Sid Caesar, Dann Cahn, Stephen J. Cannell, George Carlin, Diahann Carroll, Leo Chaloukian, Marge Champion, Cyd Charisse, Glen Charles, Les Charles, Julia Child, Roy Christopher, Dick Clark, Kevin Clash, Tim Conway, Joan Ganz Cooney, Hal Cooper, Barbara Corday, Fred De Cordova, Bob Costas, Alexander Courage, Richard Crenna, Walter Cronkite, Robert Culp, Bill Daily, Bill Dana, Michael Dann, Bob Carroll Jr., Ossie Davis, Ann B. Davis, Madelyn Pugh Davis, Ruby Dee, Sam Denoff, Phyllis Diller, Walter Dishell, Roy E. Disney, Elinor Donahue, Phil Donahue, Sam Donaldson, Richard Donner, David Dortort, Mike Douglas, Hugh Downs, Charles Dubin, Betty Cole Dukert, Dick Van Dyke, Roger Ebert, Barbara Eden, Michael Eisner, Ruth Engelhardt, Nanette Fabray, Jerry Falwell, Elma Farnsworth, Barbara Feldon, Norman Felton, Mike Fenton, Dorothy Fontana, Tom Fontana, June Foray, John Forsythe, Michael J. Fox, Charles Fox, Fred Foy, John Frankenheimer, Dennis Franz, Albert Freedman, Chuck Fries, James Garner, Betty Garrett, Tony Geiss, Larry Gelbart, Marla Gibbs, Sharon Gless, Leonard H. Goldenson, Jerry Goldsmith, Andy Griffith, Robert Guillaume, Earle Hagen, Larry Hagman, Monty Hall, Valerie Harper, Patricia Heaton, Dwight Hemion, Sherman Hemsley, Florence Henderson, Paul Henning, Don Hewitt, Ron Howard, Russell Johnson, Quincy Jones, Shirley Jones, Chuck Jones, Earl Hamner Jr., Hal Kanter, Bob Keeshan, Lynwood King, William Klages, Jack Klugman, Don Knotts, Harvey Korman, Marty Krofft, Mort Lachman, Perry Lafferty, Angela Lansbury, Jack Larson, Norman Lear, Jack Lemmon, Sheldon Leonard, Jerry Lewis, Frank Liberman, William Link, Art Linkletter, Charles Lisanby, Sidney Lumet, Bob Mackie, Gavin MacLeod, Robert MacNeil, Martin Manulis, Sonia Manzano, Rose Marie, Bob Markell, Garry Marshall, E.G. Marshall, Richard Matheson, Rue McClanahan, Bob McGrath, Jim McKay, Ed McMahon, Barney McNulty, Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, Burt Metcalfe, Newton N. Minow, Don Mischer, Vic Mizzy, John Moffitt, Ricardo Montalban, Leslie Moonves, Mary Tyler Moore, Rita Moreno, Harry Morgan, Pat Morita, Sheila Nevins, Bob Newhart, Leonard Nimoy, Agnes Nixon, Carroll O'Connor, Hugh O'Brian, Don Pardo, Fess Parker, Regis Philbin, Suzanne Pleshette, Abraham Polonsky, Mike Post, Tom Poston, David Pressman, Tony Randall, Joyce Randolph, Phylicia Rashad, Frances Reid, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Del Reisman, Gene Reynolds, Rita Riggs, Pat Robertson, Cliff Robertson, Fred Rogers, Phil Roman, Andy Rooney, Meta Rosenberg, Marion Ross, Aaron Ruben, Tim Russert, Thomas Del Ruth, Morley Safer, Soupy Sales, Jay Sandrich, Isabel Sanford, Thomas W. Sarnoff, Bob Schiller, Arthur Schneider, Sherwood Schwartz, Jan Scott, William Self, William Shatner, Sidney Sheldon, James Sheldon, Fred Silverman, Doris Singleton, Erika Slezak, Bob Smith, Dick Smith, The Smothers Brothers, John Soh, Aaron Spelling, Carroll Spinney, Daniel Petrie Sr., Lesley Stahl, Jean Stapleton, Herbert Stempel, Leonard Stern, Bob Stewart, Dick Stiles, Jerry Stiller, Gale Storm, Maxine Stuart, George Takei, Noel Taylor, Studs Terkel, Grant Tinker, Mel Tolkin, Daniel J. Travanti, Ted Turner, Ret Turner, James Wall, Mike Wallace, Barbara Walters, Joseph A. Wapner, Ruth Warrick, Dennis Weaver, Bob Weiskopf, Joseph Wershba, Betty White, Joseph M. Wilcots, Andy Williams, Ethel Winant, Henry Winkler, Jonathan Winters, Dick Wolf, Ben Wolf, David Wolper, Jane Wyatt or Alan Young. And there are more to come.
See anyone there you're interested in? Go to this page…but before you do, say goodbye to your friends and loved ones. Because they'll never see you again.
Remembering Ken
Obituary for Ken Krueger. Ken's many friends have been e-mailing one another, discussing various ways to tell the world how important he was to us and to the Comic-Con International. So you'll be hearing more about the guy…as well you should.