Monday, February 14, 2005

A Bright Idea

George W. Bush says he wants to get rid of government programs that don't work. How about if we start with the National Ballistic Missile Defense Project?

• Posted at 10:37 PM · LINK

Attention, Everyone Else!

I am always way behind on e-mail but at the moment, I'm farther behind than usual. This will only get worse until after I return from WonderCon in San Francisco. So please bear with me. And here's another plug for the best events up there...

• Posted at 7:51 PM · LINK

Attention, Bill Maher!

Okay, I don't think he reads this weblog but maybe somebody does who could call this to his attention...

Bill...I'm watching you on Larry King Live, and you just said some very nice things about Johnny Carson. But then you said to Larry, "Sim holla bim," and explained that you use that phrase often because it was what Johnny always said when he was playing Carnac the Magnificent. Not quite.

The phrase is "sim sala bim." These were the magic words coined and made famous by the late, great magician, Dante. It's sometimes spelled as one word — "simsalabim" — but the middle part starts with an "S," not an "H." This became a very famous phrase/word in the world of professional magicians, and many a rabbit-producer utilized them. Carson probably used it when he was in that line of work. (You can see Dante in action in a Laurel and Hardy feature, A-Haunting We Will Go. He says "sim sala bim" about eight thousand times in it.)

I agree with some of what you said on the show about the environment and the War in Iraq and Social Security and the deficit, and disagree with other things...but that's trivia. Misquoting Carson and Dante is monumental.

• Posted at 7:04 PM · LINK

Throat Notes

Over on Slate, Timothy Noah explains why William Rehnquist could not have been Deep Throat. But more interesting is the assertion that the "Deep Throat is dying" rumor may be bunk. This would not surprise me.

Like me, Noah thinks D.T. was Mark Felt or Fred Fielding. Like me, he thinks there was a Deep Throat, and he explained why some time ago in this article.

A couple of folks have written me with their concern or belief that one of these days, when one of the suspects dies, Bernstein and Woodward will just say, "It was him," and we'll be expected to take their word for it. One reader wrote that he doesn't believe there was a Deep Throat and won't believe a posthumous revelation without a hell of a lot of proof. At the same time, I received this from my pal, Mike Catron...

Some years back (probably 2002, which was the 30th anniversary year of the Watergate break-in), Woodward was live on a C-Span call-in show discussing Watergate. As you know, I do a lot of videotaping at conventions, but I've also done sit-down recollections with comics pros and relatives and done a bit of cinema verité on the little town in which I live. Anyway, I faxed or e-mailed C-Span during the program and, by golly, the host (it was probably Brian Lamb, but I don't remember for sure anymore) read my question to Woodward.

I suggested that, come the day Throat's identity is finally revealed, it's conceivable that certain folks might decide to cry "foul" and claim that the recently-departed figure, not able to defend himself any longer, was not Deep Throat at all, that Woodward had just chosen someone and smeared their memory, their service to their country, etc. And that there never really was a Deep Throat. I suggested that Woodward might want to head off such criticism by videotaping a discussion with Deep Throat to get the man's story in his own words. (I was ready to jokingly offer my services to record such a conversation, but I think I dropped that at the last minute).

Woodward's response? "Interesting."

So, did such a tape already exist by then? Or might my "conversation" with Woodward have prompted him to arrange such a taping? Either way, I hope so, on a number of levels. As much as you hope there's a manuscript in a lawyer's safe somewhere (I also think it likely that Woodward and Bernstein have already written the final book in their trilogy), I hope there'll be a DVD to accompany it.

Yeah. It's certainly conceivable that they said to Throat, "Look, we'll keep your secret 'til the day you die, like you want. We'll even let you deny it and call us liars and everything...but you have to give us a way of getting our good names back later. So sit for an interview that will let us prove it then, and we'll keep the secret." And whoever Throat was, it's certainly possible that he'd want some sort of statement out there to explain why he did what he did. So...yeah, there could be a tape. And a book. And a CD. And you've got to figure in the movie rights and a video game and the Deep Throat theme park where you get to meet Hal Holbrook in a garage...

• Posted at 4:42 PM · LINK

Alfred E. Off-Broadway

We're about to get the first CD release of the score for the 1966 revue based on guess-what-magazine. Longtime Mad scribes Larry Siegel and Stan Hart did the book, with music by Mary Rodgers and lyrics by a couple of folks, one of whom turned out to be Stephen Sondheim. You can read more about it here and order the new CD here. I've never seen a production of the show, which had an amazingly sparse afterlife. You'd think a small musical with such name recognition would be snapped up by little theater groups and college troupes...but nope.

Rumor has it that it only ran as long as it did in New York because Mad publisher Bill Gaines had made a bet with a friend that the show would play for two years...so when it seemed primed to close before that, he waived royalties and even kicked in cash to keep it open at a loss. I do have the album, which I enjoyed, but it's always nice to have these things on CD.

• Posted at 8:52 AM · LINK

Game Show Gumby

My pal Kim "Howard" Johnson is the world's foremost authority on Monty Python and the author of several books on the subject. I hope he knows about something else because he's a contestant this week on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? His run, however long it lasts, starts on Tuesday and concludes on Wednesday. I have a feeling it's going to go like this...

"Is that your final answer?"

"I told you once."

"No, you didn't."

"I most certainly did..."

...and so on. His segments were taped some time ago but he hasn't told me how he did, so I'll be tuning in to see if he's buying, next time we have dinner.

• Posted at 12:26 AM · LINK

Ditto Marx

This is a solid recommendation of a new DVD that's due out in late March. There are many people in this world who imitate Groucho Marx and usually, it doesn't go much beyond walking like their tie's caught in their fly, plus they mime a cigar and wiggle eyebrows that look like they have friction tape on them. An amazing exception is Frank Ferrante, who's been criss-crossing America for many years now, usually with one of two Groucho shows. Groucho: A Life in Revue is a small play written by Arthur Marx (Groucho's son) and Bob Fisher. It's quite funny, though sad near the end, and you may have seen it years ago, in person or on Showtime, with Gabe Kaplan. Marx and Fisher have revamped it a few times, and the version taped for PBS, starring Ferrante, is even better.

This is what's finally coming out on DVD and you can pre-order it here. I suggest you do.

At other times, Ferrante appears in An Evening With Groucho, which is an even smaller play (just him and a piano player) which has yet to be recorded for PBS or DVD or any kind of commercial release, as far as I know. If you want to see it, you'll have to go see him live — as I did, a few years ago. Over on his website, he has a list of where he'll be Grouchoing, and it really is a must-see performance. I've never seen an impersonator climb so totally inside the guy he's doing. He even ad-libs up to Groucho standards.

This post was inspired by this one over on Gary Sassaman's weblog. As you'll see, he raves about Frank the way I rave about Frank. And if you can't trust two Marx Brothers freaks, who can you trust?

• Posted at 12:12 AM · LINK

February 15, 2005 • Current • February 13, 2005