A new CNN poll says that seven in 10 Americans believe Sarah Palin is not qualified to be President. I'm not entirely sure what that means. I think Dick Cheney is probably "qualified" to be President but I'd never vote for the guy. I can also imagine a scenario where I vote for someone I think isn't "qualified" to be President just because the alternative seems more dangerous. 47% of Republicans in this poll say she's not qualified but I'll bet some of them would vote for her. In the last election, an awful lot of this country went for the guy with less experience.
Or did most of the respondents in this poll just answer the question as if it was, "Might you vote for her?" That would be my guess. I'd also guess that in hindsight, a pretty high percentage of Americans would say that George W. Bush wasn't qualified to be President...even in his second term.
No matter which interpretation you buy, it reinforces my belief that Ms. Palin will never get much closer to the presidency than I will. What's more, I think she knows it. But I also think she knows that at least for the next few years, she has a small, loyal band of rabid followers who empower her. They'll donate money to an alleged presidential campaign. They'll pay to buy her books or hear her speak. They'll demand for her to receive a certain amount of respect and attention from the media and especially from the Republican Party. Unless she lands a lucrative alternate gig — like, say, a three-year contract from Fox News — she's not going to say "I won't be a candidate" because she won't want to diminish that group's loyalty, hopes, etc. So she ain't going away but she also ain't gonna be the Republican nominee.
Just finished a script that would have been done two hours ago if we hadn't had winds in Los Angeles knocking out the electricity today. Sweet dreams, Internet. See you in the morning.
In my line o' work, I get to hang around (and pretend to direct) some of the most talented people in Hollywood. Two such folks are the men in the pic above...two gents whose voices you've heard constantly in cartoons and commercials.
The one at left is Gregg Berger, who's been barking for Odie for years in the Garfield cartoons. He's also been heard on G.I. Joe, The Transformers, Duckman, Men in Black and dozens of others. The one at right is Michael Bell, who's been heard on G.I. Joe, The Transformers, Rugrats, Plastic Man, Speed Buggy and dozens of others. Both gents also have impressive credits in front of the camera but it's (mainly) their V.O. work which Stu Shokus will be spotlighting later today (Wednesday) on his glorious radio program, Stu's Show. If you're interested in how cartoons are voiced, you couldn't do better than to tune in and listen to these fellows. You'll also be stunned by how often you've heard them in commercials. (Bell was the guy who used to say "butter" in the Parkay Margarine commercials.)
The show airs at 4 PM West Coast Time, which is 7 PM East Coast Time. It'll be a fast two hours as Stu asks these gents about their careers and how they do what they do. Tune in at the appointed hour at Shokus Internet Radio and click where they tell you to click. I may be even be calling in to get in on the fun.
You hear that newspapers are plunging in circulation. To better illustrate this plunge, here's a chart of several leading papers and what's happened with their numbers the last two decades.
This is the trailer for The Guide for the Married Man, a 1967 movie that turns up often on cable. Back in an earlier posting here, I had this to say about its DVD release...
I'm kind of amazed that they're releasing A Guide for the Married Man since ever since I first got a satellite dish, there have been few moments when it wasn't playing on some station. For a time there, I thought DirecTV had added the All-A Guide for the Married Man-Channel to my lineup, somewhere between the channel that's all M*A*S*H reruns and the one that seems to alternate between showing Hello, Dolly and the equally-entertaining Ron Popeil infomercial for the steak knives. Guide is an odd film. Everyone in it's great, especially Walter Matthau and Robert Morse. There are cameos (briefer than the advertising would have you believe) from Jack Benny, Phil Silvers, Carl Reiner, Sid Caesar and others in that category of performer that is becoming sadly extinct. There are great looking women. There's a bouncy theme song by The Turtles. The film even has a scene where Joey Bishop is very funny, and how often does that happen?
So what's wrong with it? Well, it's one of those sixties' comedies built on the premise that cheating on one's mate is a fun, acceptable and even (in this case) noble thing for one to do. Even if you buy that philosophy, that aspect of the film seems so shallow and sitcom-silly that it's hard to enjoy. If you can get past that, you might. (Two other interesting things about the film: It was directed by Gene Kelly, and you can hear his voice pop up occasionally on a TV set or otherwise off-camera. And he originally wanted to have Matthau and Morse play each other's parts. Matthau kept declining the project until one day when he was telling Billy Wilder about this film he'd been turning down, and Wilder said, "Hey, that would work if you guys switched parts." Matthau decided he was right and said he'd do the picture if they swapped, and the studio agreed.)
Those who live in Los Angeles may get an extra jolly in that the movie was shot all over 1967 Los Angeles, but especially around Century City. Art Carney plays a construction worker...and the structure his crew is putting up soon became that big office building on the southwest corner of Avenue of the Stars and Santa Monica Boulevards. The scenes in the supermarket were filmed in what is now the Gelson's in what is now the Westfield Century City Mall, and there are scenes around the mall itself as it then looked. There are even moments in a tiny amusement park called Ponyland which was then located at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and La Cienega. It was a little rat-trap with cotton candy that seemed to exist only for divorced fathers to have a place to take their kids on the weekend when they had custody. Around 1980, it and some surrounding oil wells were torn down, and the Beverly Center was built on that land. Anyway, if you buy this film and you're bored by what the actors are saying and doing, keep an eye on the backgrounds.
Anyway, here's the trailer. You can see a few seconds of Matthau and Morse in the amusement park I mentioned — the one located on the ground where the Beverly Center is now situated...
Harrah’s Entertainment reported yesterday that it lost more than $1 billion in the third quarter. Companywide revenues were down 13.7% compared to the same period last year.
This is an amazing drop. And imagine what it would be like if I hadn't given up buffets.
October 29, 2009
