I've mentioned Jim Benson here in the past. He has a great Internet radio show called The TV Time Machine and on it, he interviews some interesting people. There is no one in show business more interesting than Peter Falk and that's who Jim snagged for a terrific chat. Go give a listen.
There are two "lost" Laurel and Hardy films — a silent short called Hats Off and a sound color feature, The Rogue Song. Pieces of both still exist but there are no known complete prints. And you know who's still searching for them? Bob Stowell.
Fred Kaplan critiques the candidates' foreign policy statements in the debate tonight. Advantage: Obama.
I thought the debate was a replay of the first one and so are the snap polls that say Obama won.
One poll is also saying that McCain came across as too aggressive and mean. This is interesting because the Conservative sites are all moaning that McCain didn't do enough tonight to label Obama a left-wing fanatic and traitor. In other words, the Independents think he was too nasty and the right-wing thinks he wasn't nasty enough. That oughta make for some interesting strategy meetings tomorrow.
Sorry to hear of the passing of local (Los Angeles) TV legend Lloyd Thaxton at age 81. Thaxton hosted some national game shows and late in his career, produced some widely-syndicated shows. But to those of us who were L.A. teens in the sixties, he'll always be that funny guy with the afternoon dance party show on KCOP, Channel 13. (Yes, I know this show was nationally syndicated, too...but Thaxton was as L.A. as smog, nose jobs and orange juice imported from Florida.)
The show started life as Lloyd Thaxton's Record Shop, then it became Thaxton's Hop, then it was The Lloyd Thaxton Show. By any name, it was a fun hour produced on a budget of about eleven dollars. Thaxton was ingenious, coming up with a hundred different ways to pantomime or otherwise provide visuals for the hit records he played. He wore silly costumes. He did lip-sync and also thumb-syncs, with faces painted on his thumbs. He was a lot of fun to watch.
The L.A. Times has a nice obit up along with a video clip from The Lloyd Thaxton Show. It was nice to see him in action again, even for only two minutes. And it's sad to lose a clever guy like that.
For a while, John McCain was suggesting that he and Barack Obama have a "town hall" debate every week. Based on how boring tonight's was, I think we should all thank Senator Obama for not allowing that to happen.
Okay, quick reaction. I didn't hear a lot that was new, at least about the issues that matter most to people. My feeling for the last week or two is that the problem the McCain campaign has is that it keeps using lines that haven't worked. McCain has said all these things before — many times! — and Obama has a 5-7% national lead and is ahead in states that usually go Republican. He seems to think that if he says, "I know how to handle [problem]" enough times, America will suddenly realize he does and switch their votes.
I'm perfectly willing to see the G.O.P. ticket pursue this approach all the way to an Obama landslide. But if I were advising McCain, I'd say, "John, it ain't working. When you say Obama has always been wrong about Iraq, he's just going to remind everyone how you said it would be a short war, we'd be greeted as liberators, it would pay for itself, etc. You've been pursuing this line for weeks and you're dropping in all those swing states that you have to win."
McCain looked like a nicer person than he did in their first meeting but I didn't hear anything that struck me as game-changing tonight.
If the people in this "town hall" setting had remote controls, they'd all have switched over to Wheel of Fortune by now. Boy, do some of them look bored.
The one great thing about a gathering like this is that it gives us the opportunity to come together as a people. For instance, right about now, I'm sure that everyone watching would like to slap Tom Brokaw.
Good article about Stephen Colbert appearing at the New Yorker Festival recently. Let me know if you see a link to an online video of the conversation. Thanks to James Troutman for telling me about this.
I would pay real money if, just as the candidates shake hands at the start of tonight's debate, with his mic open,
Barack Obama says to John McCain: "Can I call you Joe?"
My buddy Robert Elisberg reminds us (and any Republicans who may pretend otherwise) that George W. Bush is the President of the United States. I've checked and, sure enough, Bob is right.
Another debate tonight. A lot of folks who tuned in the vice-presidential match-up were disappointed that neither candidate set some new high watermark for saying stupid things. It was supposed to be Gaffe-a-palooza and while it yielded enough silliness to keep Tina Fey in business, it wasn't like Lloyd Bentsen knocking Dan Quayle into the laughingstock category from which he never quite returned. (Then again, he did get elected...)
I suppose a lot of people are tuning in tonight to see if John McCain is going to explode and start cursing and screaming. They'll probably be disappointed, too...as will anyone expecting to hear the issues debated. Lynn Sweet explains what seem to me like very silly rules for the match-up...rules that seem calculated to minimize the chance of either candidate having to defend anything they say. (Although Ben Smith says that contrary to Sweet's report and others, moderator Tom Brokaw may be asking follow-ups.)
To me, "town hall" format debates are a sham. They're a way to make sure that tepid, pre-screened questions are posed by people who seem like they're representative of the population. But the population wants candidates to answer hard questions and for those answers to stand up to a little cross-examination and questioning...and the "town hall" construction doesn't lend itself to that. In fact, tonight, the questioners are forbidden to say things like, "But you didn't answer my question" or "But isn't that a total contradiction of what you said six months ago?"
Grown men and women who want to lead us should be able to stand or sit on a stage for 90 minutes and discuss the issues and defend their position without "rules" that limit how long they can talk, whether they can address one another directly, etc. Sarah Palin is a pretty good example of why follow-ups are needed. She sounds relatively informed and coherent until someone asks one.
I may or may not be live-blogging tonight, depending on how a script is going. Big week for deadlines around here.
Never mind all this stuff with the economy and the wars. Let's talk about something important.
This month, the Souplantation chain (which calls itself Sweet Tomatoes in some areas) is doing a special "Our Guests Choose Our Best" promotion. Each week, there will be special menu items that have been the subject of customer requests. I don't understand why, if customers like this stuff so much, they don't offer it year round...but hey, there are a lot of things in this world I don't understand. Anyway, the schedule says that they'll have my favorite — their Creamy Tomato Soup — the week of October 20-25. Guess where I'll be eating October 20-25.
It sounds like a six-day week but it'll really be seven at most outlets. The Souplantation officially changes its menu on Mondays but they give their managers the flexibility to put out the new items a day or two early if they're running low on the items that are being taken off the bill of fare. A new item could be available as early as the Saturday before and could even linger into the following week. So call ahead.
And if you eat there and like my favorite soup even a little bit, ask to speak to the manager and say something like, "I'll be back again in March or whenever you have the Creamy Tomato Soup again...but until then, I'm not setting foot in this dump." Even if you plan on setting foot in that dump without it, tell them you won't and maybe they'll get the message.
A trio of fine female vocalists — Audra McDonald, Marin Mazzie and Judy Kuhn (in that order) — sing three Andrew Lloyd Webber songs that fit together quite nicely...
October 8, 2008
