Friday, December 8, 2006

Friday Afternoon Rambling

Is it my imagination or has Tony Blair started to sound more and more like George W. Bush? Unfortunately, George W. Bush isn't sounding more like Tony Blair. He's sounding more like an impressionist doing George W. Bush.

I don't recall if I made it up or quoted it from somewhere but in an article I wrote 25 years ago, it said that by the time they leave office, all presidents look like the Paul Conrad caricature of themselves and sound like David Frye impersonating them. Bush is well ahead of schedule.

And say, whatever happened to David Frye? The last time I heard him perform was not on TV or a record or even in a club. A comedian I was writing for played me back a message the man had left on his machine. Frye was upset because the comedian had done a joke on The Merv Griffin Show that was — arguably, I thought — similar to a joke in his own act. He called, got the machine and left this long but brilliant twenty minute scolding, the first three minutes of which were in the voice of William F. Buckley, followed by four minutes of George C. Scott and then a few of Al Capp and a couple of appearances by Richard M. Nixon and so forth. (It was actually more than one message because every time he took a medium-length pause, the machine cut him off. So Ted Kennedy or whoever he'd been doing at the moment would call back and resume that particular tirade.) The recipient of the complaint was pissed at the accusation but he had to admire the skill and admit that he felt somehow honored by this long message accusing him of plagiarism.

Then a couple days later, I was out on a date in Westwood Village and I spotted Mr. Frye in the Tower Records up there, flipping through the albums in the Comedy section. He was unshaven and looked like he wanted to be alone so I didn't say anything to him.

Fifteen minutes later, my lady friend and I were walking down Westwood Boulevard and we saw an elderly woman fall on a flight of stairs that led up to a Hungry Tiger restaurant. This was back when there were Hungry Tiger restaurants. My lady friend was schooled in First Aid so she ran up and started helping the woman while I located a pay phone. This was back when there were pay phones. I called for an ambulance and then when I returned to the scene of the accident, I tried to politely shoo away some of the people who were clustered about, looking at the injured woman and asking if there was any way they could help. One of them was David Frye. He said, "Is there anything I can do?"

I think I said something like, "You can do Nixon." He laughed and gave me that furrowed brow look that all Nixon impersonators did because they'd learned it from watching Frye. I remember thinking that the beard stubble made the facial impression frighteningly accurate. Then he walked off and I've never seen him anywhere since. This was something like thirty years ago.

From about half past the Johnson administration until the fading days of Watergate, Frye was one of the most popular impressionists in the business and certainly the King in the area of political voices. Does he still perform anywhere? Is he even still alive? The guy was really remarkable.

• Posted at 12:46 PM · LINK

E-Mail Woes

As you may recall, everyone in my neighborhood was recently switched — against our will, I might add — from Comcast High Speed Internet to Road Runner High Speed Internet. Road Runner has done such a poor job that they keep sending out apology e-mails and, since they apparently don't trust their own assurances that everything's getting fixed, apology paper mails, as well. As well they should. A quick check of recent e-mail arrivals suggests that about half of all I receive are arriving promptly but others are dribbling in hours — in some cases, days — after they were sent.

One friend sent me an e-mail that demanded an urgent reply. When he didn't receive one in twelve hours, he sent another message. And then the next day, he sent another. All three arrived simultaneously in my inbox, six hours after he sent the third. For some reason, mail sent from America Online accounts seems to take especially long. At one point, Road Runner was marking everything that came from an AOL address as Spam but that problem seems to have ceased. The funny thing, of course, is that Road Runner and AOL are both owned, as we all will someday be, by Time-Warner.

My Internet connection also disappears about once a day for 10 or 15 minutes. Naturally, it seems to only occur when there's something I desperately need to send out immediately. This is obviously an advance on the technology that makes your printer break down only when there's fifteen minutes to get the job printed out and delivered to FedEx.

We're dealing with it all as well as we can. But there's not a whole lot we can do.

• Posted at 9:21 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Another five and a half minutes of old cereal commercials. The best one in this batch is a Bullwinkle spot about halfway through. And look for the Sugar Smacks commercial with narration by Paul Frees. Fun stuff.

• Posted at 8:26 AM · LINK

Stu's Show

Hope you tuned in yesterday to catch a fast (where does the time go?) two-hour interview of moi by Stuart Shostak on his new Shokus Internet Radio channel. We only covered about 10% of the topics Stu wanted to get to but that was plenty. We — and by "we," I mean mostly me — discussed my childhood, my early days conning people into paying me money for writing, working with stand-up comedians and on Welcome Back, Kotter; writing variety shows for people who didn't speak English very well..and of course, the story of Jack LaLanne trying to punch me out in a trendy Hollywood eatery. I'm not one for physical brawling but I will take on most bodybuilders over the age of 85. Especially when they're a foot shorter than me.

If you didn't hear any of that, you're not outta luck. Quite the contrary, you're in luck. It reruns several times on Stuart's channel, which means you can hear it right on your computer. It airs again today and tomorrow from 4 PM to 6 PM (West Coast time) and 7 PM to 9 PM (East Coast time). Then it airs on Sunday from 10 AM to Noon (West Coast), which translates to 1 PM to 3 PM (East)...and then you can find additional air times on the schedule. To listen, go to this page and select a browser...and you don't have to just listen to me. There's a lot of fine programming to be heard 24/7 on Shokus Internet Radio.

Leaving aside time spent on a going-nowhere-fast freeway to get to the spacious Shokus Broadcasting Complex, I had a fun time. I'll be back to cover some of the other queries on Stu's list...but don't wait for me. Tune in to his station and enjoy. I'm listening right now and hearing a great Harry James record. Much better than that guy who was on yesterday for two hours talking about himself.

• Posted at 8:06 AM · LINK