Kevin Drum, who invented Friday Cat Blogging, isn't doing any today so I will. This is The Stranger Cat, who has been feeding at my back door for many months now. Actually, there are two Stranger Cats. There's the Stranger Cat you see above, who is not shy about sitting on the porch and howling 'til fed. Then there's the stranger Stranger Cat, who asks for nothing and rarely comes near a human. They're probably related but I wouldn't presume to guess how.
The Stranger Cat demands food, eats a little of whatever is put in the dish and then wanders off. During all this, the stranger Stranger Cat is either lurking in a far corner of the yard or peeking through a hole in the fence from the adjoining property. When the Stranger Cat finishes dining, the stranger Stranger Cat sneaks up and helps herself to whatever's left. Should anyone approach, the stranger Stranger Cat stops eating and sprints out of the yard...except that once, I was actually able to go out and pet both. I don't know what made that possible that one day. Anyway, they have a nice tag-team arrangement worked out there. Sometimes, I even see the Stranger Cat standing watch as the stranger Stranger Cat eats.
We also have a couple of Stranger Possums out there and the occasional Stranger Raccoon. There are also a lot of huge Stranger Crows in my yard lately. I still seem to be the only person worrying that the crows in this area are now the size of Toyotas. Someone needs to look into this.
Yesterday, we linked to a piece about Jack Hanrahan, an Emmy-winning comedy writer who's been living on the streets of Cleveland. Here's a link to an update which tells us that his plight has brought forth many offers of assistance. And I know some folks in Hollywood are doing much to help, as well.
We're always wary of polls here, especially when they seem to confirm that which we'd like to believe is so. This new one from the Pew Research Center — which I assume never took a survey to determine if that was a good name for a polling service — is therefore to be taken with great caution. Others can analyze its findings in a lot more depth but the bottom line is that the Bush/Cheney/Rove policies are driving voters away from the G.O.P. and also from traditional G.O.P. positions. This does not seem to be a case of Democrats doing anything right but of Republicans scaring people away.
One thing that caught my eye was this item...
The public expresses highly favorable views of many leading corporations. Johnson & Johnson and Google have the most positive images of 23 corporations tested. At the bottom of the list: Halliburton, which is viewed favorably by fewer than half of those familiar enough with the company to give it a rating.
How could anyone have a bad image of Johnson & Johnson or Google? I mean, let's leave aside someone who might have worked for one of those companies and been routinely flogged and caned while there. If you're part of the general public, what could possibly bother you about either firm? All you probably know about Johnson & Johnson is that they make band-aids and baby shampoo. Google is for most people, nothing more than a free search engine that gets you where you want to go on the Internet. Where are the negatives in any of that? How did those companies get even a 5-6% unfavorable rating, which is what the survey says?
I can understand people having problems with McDonald's or Coca-Cola, feeling that the companies are too pushy in selling unhealthy products. I can understand people having bad feelings about any of the airlines mentioned due to bad flights. I can see being down on Pfizer because it's a drug company and there have been some charges of it paying off government officials to keep drug prices high...and the low ratings for Exxon/Mobil or Halliburton are easy to fathom. A lot of people probably hate Starbucks just because they're so hard to avoid.
But what's the complaint that 6% of respondents have about Google? What exactly has that company done to bother anyone?
Steve Winer, who among his other accomplishments used to write for David Letterman, shares with us the story of Calvert DeForest's unlikely leap to stardom...
As one of the two writers responsible for the film, King of the Z's, I thought you might like a little background on Calvert's rise to fame. All the obits that I've seen seem to suggest that David saw the film and then sent staffers out to find Calvert. Not quite. The film Karl Tiedemann and I made was a parody documentary about the world's cheapest movie studio of the 40's and 50's. We cast Calvert as one of the major players in the fake film clips from that studio. David and Merrill Markoe saw the film and became intersted in us as writers. During our interview with them, Merrill said "We're looking for someone like that little guy in your movie for our show," and I said, "You're not looking for someone like that guy. You're looking for that guy." We were ultimately hired for the show and brought him with us. (The Melman name was Merrill's, as was the Frankenstein bit that opened the first show).
Calvert was a very sweet man who always wanted to be a star and through this somewhat unusual crossing of personalities, became one. I have many great memories of Calvert and "Melman," but the one that comes to mind first is the night Bob Hope and Calvert were on the same show. Calvert was star struck and went up to Hope to compliment him. Hope, who had watched Calvert work from backstage, told Calvert that he thought he was very funny too. And as I watched Bob Hope compliment Calvert DeForest, I remember thinking: "Only in America!"
I'm going to miss him.
We already miss him. A lot of people have written to tell me of encounters with Calvert and how sweet he was to them. I only had two encounters with the guy, one a brief meeting up in Letterman's NBC offices. He was trying to make small talk with the office staff and I remember thinking, "My God...this man really can't ad-lib." Couldn't even say anything bright standing in the reception area. But that was okay because he had some sort of odd quality in front of the camera that made him fascinating to watch, even if he was just cluelessly reading cue cards.
I have to admit I've never been a big fan of humor (or attempts at humor) that come from putting the stagehands in sketches or counting on the utter lack of professionalism on the part of the deli owner around the corner. With occasional exceptions, I don't find these bits funny. I think they're often a substitute for actual writing...and maybe a way of protecting the host, preventing him from having to compete with someone who might upstage him a tiny bit. But Larry "Bud" Melman was a usual exception. He was genuinely funny and not just because he was awkward and inept. When they did bits like "Ask Mr. Melman," Dave's writers knew how to write for the guy and give him lines that worked when they were read right and worked even better when read wrong. The point of the bit wasn't just his clumsy delivery.
And hey, some people said that all Bob Hope did his last twenty years in show business was to read cue cards badly...
I think this is from Caesar's Hour, the series Sid Caesar starred in after Your Show of Shows. It's a pantomime sketch with Sid and Nanette Fabray miming "Argument to Beethoven's 5th." It runs about six minutes and it's a very nice piece of material.
March 24, 2007
