Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Bad Hare Day

Alan Light sent me this link to a page of photos of prize-winning rabbits. Just go look and see if there haven't been times you've felt like that.

• Posted at 6:34 PM · LINK

Today's Political Follow-Up

As noted, I'm very interested in the pro-Iraq War arguments, especially those that don't spring from a "Bush doesn't make mistakes" demagogy. My request for links has brought me this article by Christopher Hitchens, this piece by Fouad Ajami, this article by Victor Davis Hanson and this weblog by Bill Roggio. What I mainly notice is that most of these explain why the goal is or was proper and even if the execution has been horribly botched, we have to "stay the course" because if we did it right, it would be well worth doing. I suspect that will become the position of more and more hawks who can't deal with the way things are going over there and over here.

• Posted at 3:15 PM · LINK

Slow Down...You Move Too Fast...

Yesterday afternoon, I came as close as I ever have to killing another human being...and the guy wasn't even an inept TV producer. At least, I don't think he was. He looked to be about twenty and he was riding a shiny new motorcycle on Third Street, darting down an imaginary lane that he thought existed between the real ones in which I and many other folks were driving. He was ducking and weaving and when he abruptly pulled in front of me, I had to brake and steer madly to the right to avoid getting his innards all over my hood. I came within about four pixels of crashing into him or someone else.

Two blocks down, I stopped for a traffic light and the kid was next to me, gunning the engine on what I think was a brand new Kawasaki. I yelled to him, "That's not a smart way to ride" — and I guess he didn't hear me because his response was, "Today's my birthday." Or maybe he did hear me and expected me to say, "Oh, it's your birthday. Then by all means, drive like an idiot!" Before I could say anything else to him, the light turned green and a nanosecond later, he was doing sixty down the boulevard, zig-zagging between Hummers and Hondas.

I don't know what it is lately but everyone's driving like they're desperate to get on The World's Wildest Police Videos. Maybe it's the proliferation of Starbucks outlets. I gave up caffeine about a month ago and since then, it seems like the whole world is a silent movie projected on a sound projector. Everyone and everything is about eight frames per second too fast. If it were up to me, those electric signs on the freeway wouldn't be displaying fraudulent estimates of how long it'll take you to get somewhere. They'd just flash in big letters, WHAT'S THE HURRY, BUB?

It's a lesson we all need to learn — especially that kid on the Kawasaki. I don't know if that cycle was the best birthday present he's ever received...but I have a feeling it'll be his last.

• Posted at 2:34 AM · LINK

Sign In, Please...

All this talk about What's My Line? reminds me that I should alert my friends in the Los Angeles area: Tomorrow (Wednesday) night at the Acme Comedy Theater in Hollywood, you can see the wonderful What's My Line? Live show — four witty panelists, a fine host, a lovely hostess, a great musician, three contestants and one Mystery Guest. None of them are the people in the above photo but that's only because the people in the photo are all dead. If they were still with us, they'd be proud to participate in this faithful and funny re-creation of the original series.

You can go tomorrow night or you can go next Wednesday night...but after that, the show's taking a hiatus. So you might want to go before that happens. It's a lot of fun and the details are all here.

• Posted at 2:10 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Not long ago here — in this post, to be exact — we were talking about the famous Abbott and Costello comedy routine, "Who's on First?" So today, I'm linking to a six minute version of it that they did on (I think) The Colgate Comedy Hour. Looks like that's where it's from.

Anyway, one of the things I find interesting about watching those two guys at work is that Bud Abbott's contribution goes so unnoticed. Everyone thought Lou Costello was the guy who did all the heavy lifting in that team and that Abbott was getting an enormous free ride. But you can see it in this clip if you watch carefully: It's Abbott who's running things. Costello is getting the laughs and pulling focus and it's all about him...but Bud's the one who keeps driving the routine forward. A couple of times, Costello bobbles the words and Abbott is right there to get things back on script.

In burlesque and vaudeville, it was traditional for the straight man in a comedy act to get paid more than the comic. Part of that was because the straight man was usually expected to dress well and to do other emcee duties...but part of it was because it was recognized that he had the harder job. When Abbott and Costello teamed, that's how it was — Bud got 60%, Lou got 40% — and it stayed that way 'til they got big and Costello insisted on a change. Thereafter, the percentages were reversed. This was probably fair in the sense that audiences loved Costello and were generally indifferent to Abbott...but appearances can be deceiving. The more I watch Abbott and Costello, more conscious I am that Abbott contributed just as much to their performances.

Before we get to our film presentation, I need to mention something. The other day here, I told you a way to capture the video clips that are embedded on this site and others, and suggested you might want to do this because clips sometimes get removed from the web. Well, that's happened with the Tom Lehrer video I linked to a week ago last Friday. If you notice that any of the other embedded videos here go dead, let me know so I can remove the link.

Okay, that's all I wanted to say. Take it away, Bud and Lou...

• Posted at 12:27 AM · LINK