Thursday, January 5, 2006

Remembering Sambo's

Those of you who've enjoyed our page on Great Los Angeles Restaurants That Ain't There No More may enjoy this page another site has assembled on extinct (or nearly-extinct) restaurant chains.

• Posted at 5:18 PM · LINK

A Sure Bet

The only three certain things in this world are Death, Taxes and Pat Robertson saying something really, really stupid and divisive.

• Posted at 1:33 PM · LINK

Larry and Howard

Larry King's guest tonight is Howard Stern, thereby proving that even two guys who loathe each other can get along for an hour if they think it'll help their ratings.

Tip for Howard Stern, who I know doesn't read this site: Next time Mr. King berates you for having naked women on your radio show and talking about sexual stuff, ask him about the time he had Marilyn Chambers on his radio program. She invited him to have sex with her during the news break and then to discuss it in the following segment. Not only did they attempt it but The Iron Horse of Broadcasting (L.K.) was, perhaps understandably, unable to perform in such an odd circumstance. For all of Stern's "littering the airwaves," as King has put it in the past, I don't think he's ever gone that far with a guest, at least during a broadcast.

As everyone in the world has heard eleven times by now, Howard Stern's radio show moves to Sirius radio next Monday. I won't be springing for a Sirius subscription because of it but I'll bet a lot of people have or will. Frankly, I sometimes like Stern when he's doing a one-on-one conversation with a guest. When he wants to be, and when the guest has something to say, Howard is a very good interviewer. But every time I've tuned him in the last few years, the premise has been to bring in some poor young lady who cluelessly thinks an appearance on The Howard Stern Show will help her career, and get her to disrobe and/or talk about her sex life while Stern's cohorts insult her I.Q. and (often) her appearance. Or sometimes, they bring in some geeky, slightly-retarded male and abuse him. Neither fits into any known definition of Entertainment for me but, hey, someone must like it. Stern has always done well and one of these days, some cable TV channel will put him on uncensored and they'll all make so much money, they'll have to digitize it and store it on CD-Rom.

• Posted at 1:25 PM · LINK

Today's Political Comment

Nice to see that Newt Gingrich has come out against members of Congress taking money from lobbyists and special interests. I'm planning on coming out against overweight Jews having weblogs.

• Posted at 11:32 AM · LINK

Briefly Noted

For those of you following the saga of Stan Lee Media, this latest development.

• Posted at 11:19 AM · LINK

Quick Reaction

Jon Stewart to host the Oscars this year...

There's no cleverer comedian working today so in that sense, he's a good choice. The problem is that he's probably not a first choice. The crop of movies that will be competing suggest one of those years when few people have seen enough of the nominated films — or have enough emotion about them or their makers — to tune in to the award telecast.

There's always a tendency to credit/blame the host if the Oscar ratings go up or down, which is probably unfair. The host doesn't do that much and the bulk of the show is what it is. Some years, we care a lot about who wins Best Actress and some years we don't. This is looking like a "don't" year which is probably why it won't be Billy Crystal or Steve Martin doing that opening monologue. They don't want it said that the ratings dipped on their watch lest it taint their respective movie stardoms. It wouldn't surprise me if a few others — maybe Robin Williams, maybe Tom Hanks, maybe someone else — turned it down before the call went out to the host of The Daily Show.

Stewart, of course, has little to lose. He's not concerned with being a movie star. If the ratings for the Oscar telecast are strong, he'll get a lot of credit and some industry heat. If they aren't...well, what do you expect from some guy on a cable channel? The funny thing is that he'll probably have very little to do with those ratings, either way.

• Posted at 11:10 AM · LINK

Con Time!

Here's a quick reminder that it's only a little more than a month until this year's WonderCon in San Francisco. If you've been to the San Diego Con but not to WonderCon, think of it this way: It's like the Comic-Con International but small enough that you can walk the entire dealer's room, see a lot of panels and not wait in line for everything...but not so small that you won't have plenty to see, do and buy. It's run by the same folks and, of course, San Francisco is a great city to visit.

I'll be moderating around five panels over its three days. The one that most interests me is that Gerard Jones and I (and maybe one or two other folks) are going to sit down and discuss his book, Men Of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book. As I said here, I think it's the most important book ever written about comic book history and I believe it's very accurate. There are, however, some points with which I might take issue, and Gerry is being gracious and professional enough to chat about them with me. It's not so much that I think he's wrong about anything in particular but there are a few places where his interpretation of events differs with mine and I thought it would be educational to converse about them.

I'll be posting a list shortly of my other panels. Don't wait for it. Make your plans for WonderCon.

• Posted at 1:34 AM · LINK