Bothered by Spam? I may have a solution for you: GMail. You know GMail...the free online mail service run by, as everything in the Universe will someday be, the people at Google.
I've mentioned GMail here before but with reservations. Its Spam filter wasn't the greatest, I thought. I routed duplicates of some of my incoming mail through GMail for a time and it was letting an awful lot of Cialis ads through while flagging almost any message that came from somebody in the comic book industry as a probable scam. There's a lesson in there.
They seem to have improved it. A few weeks ago, just as a test, I set my normal e-mail address to route duplicate copies into a GMail address and then, after a while, I went to check. There were about a thousand messages in my box there — about 600 correctly identified as Spam and moved into the Spam folder for easy deletion. There were only three false I.D.s of legit mail as Spam and all three were mass mailings from washingtonpost.com. Another lesson.
I had about a dozen unwanted e-mails identified as Kosher but that's not bad, given the volume. No Spam filtering method is going to bat a thousand...and you wouldn't want that. You'd want it to err on the side of not labelling an arguable message as junk mail.
So how can this help you? You have a primary e-mail address that everyone knows. It's probably pretty easy for you to set that address up to forward to another address. So you get a Gmail address and set that primary address to forward to the Gmail one. Then you pick your messages up from the Gmail address, where almost all the Spam will be tidily diverted into the Spam folder. You can log into Gmail and read and answer your desired messages online there...or if you're using an offline reader like Outlook or Eudora or Agent, you set the offline reader to pick your mail up from the Gmail address.
If you do the latter, you might want to log in to the Gmail address every week or so and quickly scan the headers in the Spam folder, just to make sure there's nothing getting in there that you want. If some friend's messages keep winding up in there amongst the Nigerian banking proposals, you add that friend to the Gmail address book and his messages will not be diverted any longer.
Because of this site, I get a lot of Spam — some weeks, upwards of 20,000 pieces. I tried a number of Spam filters, some of them quite pricey. The Gmail method is free and does a better job than any of them...which is not to suggest it's perfect. Just better than any alternative I've tried.
It is, sad to say, all over the Internet this morning that Gene Colan is not well. Gene is, of course, the great comic artist who did so much work for Marvel in the sixties and seventies on strips including (but hardly limited to) Iron Man, Daredevil, Howard the Duck, Sub-Mariner, Tomb of Dracula, Doctor Strange and Captain America. In his 60+ years in comics, he worked for other publishers as well, always maintaining the highest standards of craft and sheer professionalism. That his work has brought so much pleasure to so many would be reason enough to lament his ill health, and for us all to link arms over the Internet and pray for his recovery.
Just as good a reason is Gene himself. He and his wonderful wife Adrienne are two of the nicest people you could ever want to meet...as anyone who has met them can attest. When they are at a convention, there's always a mutual two-way love fest: Gene's fans line up to tell the both of them how much his work has meant to them...and Adrienne and Gene reciprocate. That love has meant so much to them that they can't help returning the favor. With some of comics' greats, I feel I have to convince them of what they've achieved, of how widespread their influence has been. Not with Gene. He's been to the cons. He's been mobbed by his adoring public. He knows.
Which doesn't mean I can't say it anyway. Gene Colan did so much good work in comics that some of us, I fear, took him for granted. Every month for decades, there were two, sometimes three Colan-drawn books on the racks. We kinda got to expect comics to look that good because of Gene. But I can recall when he started drawing super-heroes for Marvel in the sixties. I can recall how revolutionary and world-changing that early work was.
What Gene had done in comics prior to that was, of course, exceptional. But there was a day in the sixties — the day Tales to Astonish #70 featuring his first Sub-Mariner assignment came out — when he became one of the truly exciting, innovative stylists of the American comic book. And from there on, it just got better and better.
I don't know what else to write here. It just seems appropriate to send a whole lotta love the Colans' way this morning. I hope the dire reports on his health will prove to be overstated. I hope we'll have Gene around for many more years. I hope — and of this, I am the surest — that Gene is well aware how many fans he has and how, whenever he goes, he's leaving behind an incredible body of work that will be praised and studied and appreciated by comic book fans who aren't even born yet. I just think we oughta postpone losing a guy like that as long as possible.
Randy Skretvedt knows more about Laurel and Hardy than I do...and since I know a lot, that should give you some idea how much he knows. He sent the following note. For those not in the know, Oliver Hardy's nickname was Babe. In fact, he was billed as Oliver "Babe" Hardy or even Babe Hardy in some of his early, pre-Laurel films.
Regarding L&H's appearance on This Is Your Life, Babe Hardy's widow Lucille told me that the reason for
the lengthy delay was that a tire blew out on the car taking them from the Knickerbocker hotel to the NBC studios, and that they had to walk there — which, given Babe's considerable bulk, took a while.
Stan's displeasure with the show seems to have taken root afterwards, when he viewed the 16mm print given him. He wrote in letters to fans afterward that he thought a lot of the really important people in their stories weren't on the show (Hal Roach, for one!), and that doing two lives in one half-hour meant that neither man's story was told fully enough. As for their being tight-lipped during the broadcast, Stan was concerned about making his television debut, live and coast-to-coast, in this unrehearsed surprise. Babe is much more comfortable in front of the live cameras than Stan, and we get to see his gentlemanly offscreen personality; my favorite moment comes after one of his childhood girlfriends bids her goodbye, and Babe says to Ralph Edwards, "She's still beautiful!"
Well, it's obvious Stan wasn't thrilled with the whole event. Do we have any idea why Hal Roach wasn't on the show? Or any of about two dozen of those important folks who were still alive at the time? Hal's son is on the show and that suggests to me that Senior may have been asked but declined.
It's really a fascinating bit of film, that whole episode is...certainly the only time most people ever saw Laurel and Hardy out of character. It's also a rare bit of evidence as to their popularity. The reaction of the live audience when the identity of the guests of honor is the best part.
Not to question Lucille Hardy but I'm a little puzzled by this story about the flat tire. The Knickerbocker Hotel, where Stan and Ollie were surprised, was (and still is) at 1714 Ivar Ave. in Hollywood. It's now a pretty dingy-looking retirement home. This is Your Life was done in later years from the Pantages on Hollywood near Vine but on December 1, 1954 when Laurel and Hardy were shanghaied onto it, I'm pretty sure it was at the theater at 1735 N. Vine Street which was known over the years as the El Capitan, the Jerry Lewis Theater, the Hollywood Palace and many other names. It's now a nightclub called The Avalon.
It was the El Capitan in '54 and if you went out a rear door of the Knickerbocker, you'd be no more than about fifty yards max from the rear of the El Capitan, which is presumably where the stage door entrance was located. The two buildings are practically back to back on the same block. I'm not sure why there'd be a car involved or how it could have gotten them there quicker or with less walking than merely walking there. Perhaps there was some sort of fence there that required they be taken the long way around? What am I missing here?
"Soundies," as I've explained many a time here, were kind of the music videos of their day, that day being the forties. They were short films shown primarily in jukebox devices that contained a 16mm movie projector, and which were placed in taverns, diners and other public places. Most featured a name musical performer from that period and are now interesting as a record of those entertainers. Some are just kind of silly and charming in a goofy, retro way, especially one series called "Gags and Gals" that displayed what is now, thankfully, an antiquated role for women. Here's one of them and I may link to a few others in the coming week...
May 12, 2008
