Monday, September 29, 2008

Balloon Payments!

Comicraft, maker of the finest comic book lettering fonts, is having a "bailout sale" on Display Lettering Fonts. Good time to buy.

• Posted at 11:31 PM · LINK

Monday Evening

McCain's not going to drop Palin from the ticket. Early voting starts tomorrow in Ohio and has already begun in a couple of other states. What happens to those ballots? I don't know but it can't be good for McCain...especially since this may be another election that gets decided in Ohio.

The joint appearance of McCain and Palin with Katie Couric today was embarrassing...for her and for McCain. I know a lot of people think the Governor of Alaska is being hammered by the opposition but, first of all, that kinda comes with the job. More to the point, nothing anyone could say about Sarah Palin could make her look as bad as being treated like an idiot by her own campaign. They hide her away, keep her from most of the press...and then when she does say something, McCain goes out and retracts it and makes excuses for her. That tape of them with Couric looks like a father and his daughter sitting in the principal's office and on the way in, dad told her, "You've caused enough trouble. Just shut up and let me handle this."

Some time after the election, someone in the McCain campaign will either write or be interviewed for one of those "what went on behind the scenes" books and we may find out if a running mate switch was ever seriously considered. I'll bet it was and they rejected it as a cure worse than the disease.

She'll probably do a lot better in the debate than most people are expecting. But that's because most people are expecting her to stumble out, sound like an airhead valley girl and explain that "Roe vs. Wade" are two different ways to cross a river. The woman has got to be smarter than the current caricature...even if her own campaign doesn't seem to believe it.

• Posted at 10:33 PM · LINK

Stan Kann, R.I.P.

That's Stan Kann on the left in the above photo. That's McLean Stevenson at right, guest-hosting The Tonight Show on one of 77 nights when Stan Kann was a guest.

Mr. Kann was a ubiquitous talk show guest for years, appearing with Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin and others. He was a concert organist and TV host who had a unique collection of old inventions and gadgets, many of them vacuum cleaners. For a time, he performed at the Fox Theater in St. Louis and appeared on a local TV show hosted by Charlotte Peters, the mother of cartoonist Mike Peters.

Kann moved to Los Angeles in 1975 but flew all over the country to make appearances. When Johnny Carson or some other host needed someone to fill a spot, they'd often call on Stan to show up with an array of his gizmos, most of which did not work when he attempted to demonstrate them. Kann was frenetic and filled with energy and often clumsy as he tried to get his exhibits operating, and audiences often found it very funny. Johnny Carson would act annoyed but he knew it was good television and would always invite Stan and his silly machines back again and again.

As this obit tells us, Stan Kann died recently at the age of 83. A memorial service at the Fox Theater is planned and I think it would be a lovely tribute to his act if the curtains refused to open and the microphone didn't work.

• Posted at 6:51 PM · LINK

Where I Spent Today

I spent a fun afternoon today at the Google offices in Santa Monica, giving a talk to people who wanted to know all about Jack Kirby. It was video-conferenced to other Google offices and will be a YouTube video in the next week or two. When it is, I'll point you to it in case you'd like to see me babble for an hour and knock over the microphone stand.

The visit was fascinating. I'd heard what a great place Google is to work so it was nice to see it. If I had a big company, I'd run it like that. The offices are friendly and fun, with plenty of leisure activities (videogames, pool table, etc.) and free snacks and beverages around for the employees. Lunch in the cafeteria is free and the food, at least today, was excellent. I thought of a half-dozen places I've worked and wished I could have shown the boss around the Google offices and reminded him that no company founded in the last few decades has been more successful.

Also fascinating was a display in the lobby...a screen that shows search terms people were inputting into Google. It didn't show who was typing those searches into the little box but it did show what they were searching for. I saw two searches for info on people I know — one for The Pendragons (the great illusionists) and one search for Tress MacNeille, a fine voiceover actress who I directed in a session just last week. I also saw a number of searches that indicate that a lot of people don't spell so well...and quite a few that consisted of the name of a female celebrity (or in one case, "Mini Me") and the word "nude."

In addition to the good feelings, I came home with a goodie bag that they give to visitors. Not to brag but I am now the proud owner of a Google yo-yo. I haven't thought of a joke about it yet but I have a feeling there is one.

• Posted at 5:47 PM · LINK

From the E-Mailbag...

From "Bodwell" comes this question...

You said you found much of the debate dull. In all seriousness, what would you have done to make it more interesting? And is the purpose of a debate to be entertaining?

Entertaining? Not necessarily. But I think they're interesting when they tell you things and show you sides of the participants you didn't know.

Each of these candidates — anyone who's likely to ever be in a Presidential Debate, certainly — has certain stock set pieces and mini-speeches they've developed to all the obvious questions. If you ask anyone running for President these days, "What should we do about Iraq?," they have a rote answer. We don't need a debate to let us hear that. We can hear it in any of their speeches or town hall meetings.

What I'd like to see in these debates is candidates who are knocked off their scripts. I'd like to see them asked questions for which they don't have well-honed replies. Or at least, if they do get to trot out their house numbers, have some sort of follow-up that challenges them to defend the leaps of fact and logic in those canned responses. My problem with Jim Lehrer's moderating the other night was that he kept saying it was "time to move on to the next topic" at moments when they seemed to be about to stray from the expected dialogues.

I'd like to see more of the kind of thing some people call "gotcha" questions. Reporters are afraid of them because they don't want to be criticized if and when one candidate embarrasses themselves. I don't think there are any unfair questions unless they're setting one candidate up to spike the ball on the other. Why not ask the candidates if they can briefly describe each of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights? Or name the leaders of a couple of foreign nations where the rulers' actions may affect U.S. security? The point is to ask questions where the candidate can't just parrot a rehearsed answer. I always think it's telling when a person who wants my vote doesn't know what the Minimum Wage is or what the average person pays for health insurance.

That yearning for the all-too-rare candid response is why I always liked Helen Thomas in presidential press conferences. I know Republicans hate her but she also asked blunt, uncomfortable questions of the Democratic chief execs she's covered. It's said that before Nixon went before the White House press, his aides would prepare a list of every possible question that could be asked and Nixon would prepare responses to each of them. Then Helen would always ask something that wasn't on the list. I'd like to see a debate in which most of the questions are unanticipated. That wouldn't mean avoiding the obvious pressing issues. It might mean asking about more specific aspects of them. Did Lehrer ask anything that the candidates' aides couldn't have expected?

Palin and Biden are going to get an unprecedented tune-in for a Battle of the Wanna-Be Veeps. They both have the reputation, deserved or not, of blurting out unpredictable things. It's not so much, I'd like to think, that viewers will be hoping for a live Bloopers show with someone saying something embarrassing. I think they just want to see candidates without scripts. McCain and Obama didn't have scripts or TelePrompters but they'd said some of those things so often, it didn't matter.

• Posted at 3:51 PM · LINK

Carolina Candidate

A gentleman named T.J. Rohr is running as a Libertarian for the 87th North Carolina State House. He's a practicing attorney currently serving his second term as a Lenoir City Council member. You can read some of his positions here on his weblog and you can make a donation to his candidacy at his website.

So why am I mentioning this? I don't live in North Carolina and though I agree with many Libertarian positions, I'm not one of them.

I'm mentioning it because Mr. Rohr is a fan of many of the comic books I write. He has boxes of Groo the Wanderer and DNAgents and Crossfire and I hope my revealing that will not cost him the election. You see, I'll shill for almost anyone who buys my comics...so if you're in North Carolina, take a peek at his platform and if you like it, give him your vote and maybe a few bucks.

• Posted at 12:15 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

From a tribute show for producer Cameron Macintosh: Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber perform a duet...

• Posted at 12:09 AM · LINK