Orson Bean is a wonderful actor and wit and game show host and I've really enjoyed his past books, especially an autobiography he penned called Too Much Is Not Enough. Good stuff.
Recently, he wrote a novel called Mikey with a spiritual theme to it. He has not been able to find a publisher for it because, he says, it's been deemed "too profane for a Christian publishing house and too Christian for a traditional house." That means it's about God and redemption but people in it cuss a lot and have a lot of sex.
Since no one's racing to publish it, Bean's agent suggested putting it up on the Internet. I haven't had the time yet to read Mikey and might not for a while. But it's Orson Bean and I figure that even if I don't like it, you might. So you can click here to read it — you'll need to have Adobe Something on your computer — and I'm not so much recommending it as telling you that it's there. Stan Sakai told me but I don't think he read it, either.
I keep seeing this TV commercial for a bladder control medicine called Enablex and it's been driving me nuts, trying to figure out who that is doing the voiceover.
Before 9/11, I had a low opinion of Rudy Giuliani. After 9/11, I had a much higher opinion of Rudy Giuliani. Since then, it's dipped back below the pre-9/11 level...and he sure hasn't helped matters by wrapping himself in that awful day and trying to get so much Teflon out of it. Worse, he seems to have a candidacy that has nothing else going for it but his 9/11 credentials...which is why it's so sad to see this article by Wayne Barrett. It basically says that even the esteem for 9/11 is undeserved and that his actions relating to the attack reflect a lot of bad judgment and self-interest. If someone sees a good rebuttal to this, please let me know...but I fear it will be come to seen as accurate history.
The best part of the piece is a great caricature of Giuliani by an artist named John Kascht. I was unfamiliar with his work but I found his website and discovered he's always that good.
I haven't been to Philadelphia in many years but I have to get back there soon. Why? No, it's not to have a cheesesteak, although I will. It's because I yearn to visit the Stoogeum, the first — and I'm betting, for a time, the only ever — museum devoted to the life and times of The Three Stooges. This article will tell you all about the place and make you yearn to visit.
Todd Allen takes a look at the folks who are hired to dress up in costume at comic conventions to help promote a booth and/or product. This is becoming something of an industry unto itself.
While I'm near this topic: I keep getting e-mails from folks complaining about the crowded aisles at conventions. This is obviously a problem, especially when the resident Fire Marshall is ready to shut things down. But I think some of the complainers don't get that for the folks who operate those exhibits (and pay mightily for booth space), crowding the aisles is the goal. Just as at some of the panels that preview new films or DVD releases, they're delighted when people can't get in. If you're promoting a new movie or product that's coming out next year, one of the reasons you spend the bucks to go to Comic-Con — one of the reasons you drag your cast and director down there and give out free stuff — is so that you can announce, "Interest in this is so strong that at Comic-Con, people lined up six hours early for a panel and we turned thousands away."
If you're one of those thousands, it sucks. But from the standpoint of the promoter, it's a job well done.
I'm not saying this should always be tolerated or encouraged, or that the convention couldn't/shouldn't do more to minimize crowds and long lines for things like this. But let's recognize that sometimes, the con and the exhibitors are working at cross-purposes. If I get a little time later — this is a Big Deadline Weekend for some of us — I'll post an anecdote about Buffalo Bob Smith that illumines the point.
August 12, 2007
