Following a sumptious repast at the Souplantation, my friend Carolyn and I went to see one of the funniest men on this planet, Billy Connolly. It was his closing night of a brief stand at the Brentwood Theater in Westwood and the place was packed with celebrities. If Billy hadn't shown up for some reason, half the folks in the audience — which included John Lithgow, Eddie Izzard and Ricky Jay — were probably qualified to get up on stage and perform in his stead.
Fortunately, Mr. Connolly was there. He came out around 8:05 and talked until about 10:20, careening madly from topic to topic with A.D.D. delivery. He'd start Anecdote #1 and stop halfway through to discourse on the completely unrelated Topic A. This would remind him of Anecdote #2 which he'd start and get most of the way through before he was suddenly reminded of Anecdote #3, whereupon he'd stop #2 (which he never would finish) and tell #3, then rattle on for a while about Topic B, then go back and finish Anecdote #1, which would lead into Anecdote #4 and Topics C, D and E, interrupted by additional thoughts on A. By halfway through, people were not only howling at the anecdotes and topics, they were laughing at the sheer speed with which he jumped from one to another.
It's difficult to tell you what all he talked about. He discussed Los Angeles and weird people in his native Scotland. He told a story about a dwarf on a bus and another one about a dog howling on a movie set. He discussed drug use, his career as a musician, a couple of cars he used to own, religion, obnoxious people, women who vomited on him and a great many other issues of vital concern. What he talked about didn't matter a whole heap. It was just enormous fun being with him for that spell of time.
I don't know where he's appearing next but if it's anywhere near you, get a ticket. And if you can stop at the Souplantation on the way there and have the Creamy Tomato Soup, so much the better. A great evening.
Over on the BBC website, there's an article about Stan Lee that may set some sort of record for the most errors ever in an article about someone in the comic book industry. They don't even get his birth name right, which you can do with about ten seconds of Googling.
If you know about comic book history, take a look but treat it as one of those "How many mistakes can you find in this picture?" exercises. If you don't know about comic book history, don't click. No wonder the author didn't take a byline.
This coming Wednesday, I'll be back on Shokus Internet Radio along with my friend, Earl Kress, to discuss great cartoons of the past. We once again will be the live guests on Stu's Show, hosted by the vivacious Stuart Shostak. We'll be taking your calls, answering questions, talking animation...fun stuff like that. It all happens for two hours commencing at 4 PM Left Coast Time, and make a note because I'll only be reminding you thirty or forty times between now and then. You can listen up via this here website.
Hey, this might interest someone. If you have a Series 2 or 3 TiVo and it's hooked up to an Internet connection and you have a V.I.P. account with Live365 radio, you can listen to us (or anything on Shokus Internet Radio) through your TV. I've actually done this. The V.I.P. account costs six bucks a month and allows you to listen to hundreds of different stations with the best audio quality and without waiting. Once you have one, you need to add Shokus Internet Radio to your presets and then go to your TiVo's Live365 page (it's under "Music, Photos & More") and log in to your Live365 account there. Once you do, Stu's channel will come streaming through your TV speakers. Try it if you don't believe me. Only then will you learn the folly of not believing me.
An actress friend of mine once described to me a nightmare that sounded very much like what you'll see in this short (four minute) clip. It's from some TV show and there's a singer — I don't know her name — singing one of Stephen Sondheim's most famous songs...with Stephen Sondheim sitting there to critique and correct her. It's fascinating to hear his comments...which do not include the fact that this singer, though obviously quite talented, is way too young to be singing this particular tune at all.
Quite a few people sent me e-mails on the topic of why they don't like Google or why someone else might not like Google. This message from Nat Gertler covers most of the points made by others...
Google censors search results in China at the behest of their government.
Google infringes heavily on copyrights, in projects like their digitization of libraries and on their video sites (Google Video and now YouTube). They're facing lawsuits from publishers and film and TV companies over that.
Until a recently-announced policy change, they kept track of your searches and other actions forever, which is of great concern to privacy advocates. On the other end of things, they were reluctant to share information about searches with the government for the feds to build their case defending some Internet porn legislation (which recently got defeated in court.)
I imagine that someone who is actually anti-Google will have a longer list of concerns. I'm generally pro-Google, although I do think they are sadly cavalier with other people's copyrights.
No idea on Johnson & Johnson.
Okay, those are pretty good reasons. And a few other folks suggested bad experiences when the Google Toolbar or Desktop was installed on their computers by some piece of software and wasn't easy to remove. I guess that could all lead to 6% of the population having a negative view of Google.
In the case of Johnson & Johnson, no one had any suggestions but I thought of one. They're a drug company. I thought everyone thought of them as a company that made band-aids and baby shampoo but it's not unreasonable to think that some amount of people are aware that they make pharmaceuticals, including some pretty expensive ones.
My doctor had me on one of them last year for a few months. He gave me four weeks' worth in free samples and wrote me a prescription to get filled when the freebees ran out. When I took it in, I found out that it was not covered by my health insurance and that another month of it would have been $400. It was something like six and a half bucks a pill and I needed two a day. I told my pharmacist not to bother filling it, then I wrote an e-mail to my doctor and he said, "Come on by and I'll give you more samples." I hadn't recalled that the medicine was made by Johnson & Johnson but when I just now looked them up on the web and saw they made it, I could see why some people might have a negative view of the company. I know I think a little less of them now that I've made that connection.
March 25, 2007
