Thursday, March 8, 2007

Today's Bonus Video Link

A writer friend of mine, Marc Scott Zicree, takes us on a tour of three of his favorite places to eat in Los Angeles. But that's not why I'm linking to this video, no sir. I'm linking to it because they happen to be three of my favorite places to eat in Los Angeles...

• Posted at 10:47 PM · LINK

Charge Account

This afternoon, I had to drive something to the post office. Which would have been no big deal except that when I went out to my garage, I found that the battery in my car was dead. Some idiot (i.e., me) hadn't fully closed the right rear door on the passenger's side when he (i.e., me) last drove the car, which was Tuesday afternoon. The dome light had been on for over 48 hours and that had run down the battery.

Actually, it still wasn't a big deal. I called Triple-A and a man was there in fifteen minutes to give me a jump and send me on my way, just in time to not get to the post office before it closed. But I got to thinking...

Obviously, I need to be more careful about this in the future, especially since this is probably the third or fourth time I've done this in my life. (In my defense: Once, it wasn't me, it was my assistant when she took the car to be washed. And once, it was because I closed the car door on a seat belt that was hanging out.) But I'm curious why this is even a problem at all with cars...or is it just with some cars?

Almost everything I own that "charges" has some sort of battery meter, often with a little warning buzzer if it gets too low. Why doesn't my car have a little meter that stops the battery from being drained if it's about to get too low to start the car? Do some cars have that? It would seem like a feature that could be installed for around five bucks, which means they could make it a $300 option and we'd all pay.

Here's an idea that I thought of once while waiting for the Auto Club in this situation. A car should have two batteries. One, which we'll call Battery A, works just like your standard car battery: As you drive, it charges and it's what starts the engine in the morning. But you'd also have Battery B, which is a smaller battery, just big enough to start the car twice. It gets charged the same way but it doesn't power anything on its own. It just holds a charge, waiting until it's needed.

When the moment comes that Battery A is dead — say, because you stupidly didn't close the right rear door on the passenger's side two days earlier — you flip a switch. Or maybe there could be an automatic connection...but either way, Battery B goes online in the car and it starts the engine. Then once Battery A is charging again, Battery B goes offline or you take it offline...and later, it recharges so it's ready the next time you need it.

Why don't they have this? Or do they have it? What am I missing here? (Even though I used to sometimes fix my old '57 T-Bird myself, I'm not too savvy about cars. When I had to look at the engine, I used to try peeking through the ignition keyhole.)

Yes, I know there are little packs of drycell batteries one can buy that will jumpstart your car. There are cables that will connect you to an AC outlet via your cigarette lighter. I even have a little portable powerpack that I could have used to jump the battery if I'd remembered to recharge it in the last year or two. I'm wondering why no one just builds something like that into vehicles. They're putting DVD players into back seats now. Couldn't there be an extra battery in the trunk somewhere? Or at least a little gauge that stops the main one from draining to the point where it's useless?

• Posted at 9:35 PM · LINK

A Thursday Evening Thought

Three weeks ago here, I linked to a Washington Post report on the dreadful conditions at the Walter Reed Medical Facility. That referral brought a few e-mails from folks who wrote, in essence, that it couldn't be true; that this was just another Washington Post lie to try and embarrass the Bush administration. In short order though, the entire story seems to have been validated, heads are rolling and everyone is scurrying to fix the problem.

Today on one of the cable news networks, I saw a number of sound bites from various folks in the chain of command over all this, all hiding behind the "I didn't know about it" excuse. I don't understand why they think that gets them off the hook. If you're in charge of making sure that our soldiers have decent medical care, aren't you admitting you've failed at your job to say you didn't know that they weren't getting it?

• Posted at 8:04 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

At last, we have some semi-decent footage of The Banana Man. I covered his history here and here but basically, this was a great old vaudeville act started by a man named A. Robins. He originally billed himself as "The One Man Music Store" and his act consisted of coming out and taking all sorts of items — musical instruments, mostly — from his pockets. At some point, he became known more for pulling out bananas and the act became more commonly known as The Banana Man. And at some point, Mr. Robins retired and sold or otherwise passed the act on. A man named Sam Levine did it in the fifties and well into the sixties, appearing on almost every live kids' show, often multiple times. It is not known if anyone else did the act between Robins and Levine but the guy who I recall seeing on Captain Kangaroo, The Mickey Mouse Club, The Ed Sullivan Show and anything hosted by Paul Winchell was apparently Levine.

This video clip starts with some brief footage of what may or may not be Mr. Robins in the 1947 feature film, Mother Wore Tights. The folks who posted this say it's Robins and they may be right...but some sources say he gave up the act in the early forties.

Most of the clip is a late TV appearance by Levine, probably on the Captain Kangaroo program. It was never as wonderful an act when he did it without a live audience and he seems a little slower and less energetic than I remember him, probably a function of age. I think though you can tell that if it was done faster and in front of a bunch of kids, it would bring down the house. (At the end, he turns his trunk into a train and pushes it off stage. I remember him always riding the train off stage, probably pulled on a cable by the stage crew. I don't know why he didn't do that here.)

This could even have been his last performance. Legend has it that once Captain Kangaroo went to videotape in the mid-sixties, it was no longer necessary to bring The Banana Man in to do his act every few months. Since he always did the exact same things, they just reused the old tape and paid him. Then at some point, the Good Captain got a new set and they called up and asked Levine to come back in and do a new performance for them. He said he couldn't; that his props had gotten too old and fragile and that he hadn't the energy (or enough other jobs) to refurbish them. Another story is that the Captain Kangaroo people didn't want him back because the props and costumes could not be laundered and so they fouled the studio with their aroma. ("I've heard of acts that stink but...")

It still isn't the ideal clip but footage of The Banana Man is amazingly elusive, especially when you consider how often this guy was on TV. I'm glad we have this much. It runs close to eight and a half minutes.

• Posted at 1:51 AM · LINK

Program Notes

Unless there's Breaking News, like they dig up Anna Nicole or something, Larry King Live will devote its Friday night show to memories of Johnny Carson.

This Sunday, early in the A.M., Fox Movie Channel is running three of Laurel and Hardy's lesser efforts back to back: The Dancing Masters, The Big Noise and The Bullfighters. As we often say here, even Laurel and Hardy at their worst is still better than most comedians at their best.

Not long ago, we made a big fuss here because Turner Classic Movies was about to show (for the first time in a long while anywhere) the Billy Wilder movie, The Big Carnival, aka Ace in the Hole. A lot of you wrote to thank me for letting you know about it. Others wrote to curse the fact that they'd missed it. The cursers have another shot at it when TCM runs it again on Saturday, March 17. We'll try to remember to give you another reminder before then but may forget.

This coming Sunday evening, TCM is running The Benny Goodman Story starring Steve Allen. It isn't much of a movie but I'm fascinated by the fact that Steverino filmed it during the day while he was still doing an hour and forty-five minutes of Tonight live every night. This is not humanly possible.

Lastly for now: If your cable company or satellite dish gets The ReelzChannel, tune in my buddy Leonard Maltin's series, Secret's Out. It's a great show about movies for people who care about movies, as opposed to current movie stars. Each episode runs about nine thousand times a week so you have no excuse for missing it. That is, unless you can't get that channel on your TV. Then we forgive you.

• Posted at 12:36 AM · LINK

March 9, 2007 • Current • March 7, 2007