I have a couple of friends who still support...well, I'm not sure if they support George W. Bush because they support the War in Iraq or if they support the War in Iraq because they support George W. Bush. But some of them do and a couple of them don't seem to understand why so many of us support neither.
To them...to anyone who's wondering...I recommend spending two and a half minutes and watching Keith Olbermann tick off a list of past rationales and statements that have been offered in support of our nation's efforts in Iraq. It's rather an amazing list and you can watch it over at this link.
I'm afraid I don't have a great Yvonne DeCarlo anecdote to toss up here today. The one time I ever saw her in person was around 1965, the first time I took the Universal Studio Tour. Today, that experience is like an amusement park ride with stunts and effects, but back then, they used to actually take you where movies and TV shows had been or were currently being filmed. At one point, we all got off the tram and were led through "an actual star's dressing room." In this case, it was allegedly Yvonne DeCarlo's...and it was a nice little room but there was really nothing of interest to see in it. There was certainly nothing that indicated Yvonne DeCarlo had ever set foot in the place and I got the feeling that the next tour group to shlep through would have been told it was where Gene Barry or Doug McClure got dressed.
A little later, we were back on the tram and it was ambling past the stage where The Munsters was filming. We didn't get to go in but Al "Grandpa" Lewis was dawdling outside in full make-up, fiddling with script pages. He acted like he was trying to memorize lines but it was obvious that he was trolling for attention, waiting to be spotted by the tourists so he could feign annoyance...but still come over and sign autographs for his adoring public. I mean, if you're dressed up as Dracula and your skin's painted blue-green, you don't loiter where the trams go by unless you want to be noticed.
Anyway, Mr. Lewis signed and bantered with us...and then someone spotted her. Yvonne DeCarlo, partially but not fully made-up as Lily Munster, was rushing towards the stage door. In contrast to Grandpa, she was trying to not be recognized. The people on our tram started calling to her, yelling "Lily" and "Miss DeCarlo," hoping she'd come by and scribble out a few autographs, too. But she gestured and waved as if to say, "I'm really sorry but I can't" and disappeared inside. Grandpa Al waited until he had everyone's attention back and then announced, "They haven't finished turning her into a monster yet. She doesn't like people to see her at her best."
Big laugh. I'll bet it wasn't the first or last time he used that line.
I'm sorry I don't have a better Yvonne DeCarlo story than that because she was, at least on-screen, a classy lady who had an incredible career. I hope the reason they hadn't finished her make-up wasn't because we'd thrown her out of her dressing room. She deserved better than that.
Max Boot, who has pretty solid credentials as one of them, warns that Conservatives are likely to blame the failures of Iraq on the media. And he says that's nonsense.
As I explained in this article, I was always a fan of the great ventriloquist, Señor Wences. I didn't always understand what he and his many voices were saying but I used to enjoy just watching him. It was quite a thrill to meet the man on two occasions, one being a party to celebrate the fact that he had just turned one hundred.
Señor Wences did essentially the same act for around seventy years. It varied due to time restrictions and sometimes had to be altered because of the particular venue in which he was playing. But it was still the same wonderful act, and he knew it backwards, forwards and in about eight languages. Here's six minutes of that act...
George W. Bush is going to address the nation this evening, reportedly to tell us that he's going to ignore the wishes of most of the nation (and a surprisingly high percentage of our military leaders and Republican members of Congress) and proceed with "The Surge." It may not be much of a surge because we don't have enough troops for that. And it may take quite some time to surge properly...but damn it, we're going to surge. Okay, so it'll mean a lot more of our soldiers getting killed. Isn't that ever so much better than Bush having to admit he screwed up?
It reminds me of something I used to say when I worked on a lot of variety shows. I had a producer who'd come up to me before every sketch and ask if it was going to be funny. I'd always say yes and then I'd point to one of the other writers and say, "In fact, I'm willing to put his job on the line."
And is there something symbolic in the fact that on one network, Bush's speech will be pre-empting Deal or No Deal?
It will interest at least two regular readers of this site that I know of to hear that NBC is not going to waste a new episode of that game show tonight. They're rerunning the one from last Sunday — the one with the lady who was a fan of the movie Grease — and then in the time zones where the presidential address displaces Howie and the models, NBC will join Deal or No Deal in progress, after the speech.
Personally, I think Bush should just have 26 models come out with his Iraq plan. Each model would represent one percentage point of his approval rating by this time next week.
This morning, I linked to a commercial with Mark Wilson promoting his 1960 TV show, The Magic Land of Allakazam. He's a great magician but the trick in that spot wasn't all that impressive. This one is. It's Wilson — aided by "the lovely Nani Darnell" — performing a terrific version of the classic trick "Metamophosis" on a 1981 HBO Special. It runs a little less than four minutes.
January 11, 2007
