Thursday, November 11, 2010

For Those in Los Angeles...

On Friday, November 19, the wondrous Stan and Hunter Freberg will be interviewed by the tall 'n' loud Penn Jillette at a Writers Bloc event. It's being held at the Writers Guild Theater on Doheny near Wilshire in Beverly Hills and it starts at 7:30 PM. Admission is $20 (such a deal) and you can reserve seats at this website, then pay when you get there. Bring along extra bucks to purchase a copy of the new CD by Stan and Hunter and get it signed.

On Saturday, November 20, my frequent employers, Sid and Marty Krofft will be honored and interviewed at a special screening of their 1970 feature film, Pufnstuf, at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. The film will be shown at 3:30 PM and Sid and Marty will be quizzed by Olivia Munn of The Daily Show. Following the film, there will be a free reception across the street at Every Picture Tells a Story, an art gallery that specializes in snazzy pop culture artwork. Get tickets to the Aero at this website.

Please note: I get a ton of e-mails asking me to plug bookstore signings in Jerkwater, Alabama and other stuff I'm not likely to attend. This section is just for events that I'm enthused enough about that I'm probably going to be there. If I listed all the events I'm asked to mention, this blog would be so boring nobody would read it. You understand...I hope.

• Posted at 2:14 PM · LINK

Stan on the Street

In July of '07, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce voted its annual list of celebrities who'd be honored in the coming year by having their names embedded in the sidewalk on or around Hollywood Boulevard between Vine and La Brea. The list that year, which I discussed here, included the name of Marvel Comics' own Stan Lee.

The recipient has five years from the date of the vote to schedule his or her ceremony. I don't know what Stan's been waiting for but he's finally set the date: Tuesday, January 4th, 2011. (Is there a Marvel-related event, like a movie opening that week? That might explain the scheduling. It might also tell us who's paying the fee for this honor, which was $25,000 when Stan was selected but is now $30,000.) The precise location hasn't been announced nor has the time, though I think most of these things start at 11:30 AM. I'll try to post the info here before it happens. The unveiling ceremony is free to attend, though you may need to get there early.

• Posted at 12:37 PM · LINK

Uncle Henry

It's Veterans Day so I thought I'd write about my Uncle Henry. One of his brothers (my Uncle Nathan) served in the Army, hated every second of it and refused to ever discuss those years except to generally condemn the way officers treated privates, at least where he'd been stationed. This created some friction with Uncle Henry, who spent his adult life in the military and according to family legend was at one point the highest-ranked Jew in the Army. I don't necessarily believe this but my Aunt Dot (his sister) did and sometimes said it was only because our bizarre surname didn't make it obvious he was Jewish; that if he'd been a Goldberg or a Schwartz, he never would have attained whatever rank he finally attained...Colonel, I think.

I don't know if any other Evaniers of his generation served. My father was 4-F and I don't know about the others. Because of Uncle Nathan's feelings, we never talked about it much. The only time I recall more than passing mention came in 1962 when Uncle Henry died and we drove down to San Diego for the funeral. Before that, we'd gone there almost every year to visit Uncle Henry and his wife, Aunt Phyllis, who lived in a lovely home in La Mesa, which is just outside San Diego. The only memories I have of those visits are of the utter boredom you have when you're a kid in a roomful of adults and you're largely uninvolved in any conversation. So I sat there reading comic books I'd lugged along and I suffered through the ordeal. The next day, my parents and I would do the San Diego Zoo, which I enjoyed enough to make up for the visits to Uncle Henry's.

We didn't hit the zoo on the funeral trip. We drove down on a Sunday and I remember spending the night with my folks in a real crummy motel room, selected for its proximity to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in Point Loma. My father was deeply depressed over the loss of his brother and at first, he wouldn't let me turn on the TV because it seemed inappropriate. As 8:30 neared, he realized he'd miss his favorite comedy show — Car 54, Where Are You? — and he decided that might cheer him up. So we watched that evening's episode. He didn't laugh, my mother didn't laugh and I felt I shouldn't, either.

The next morning, we dressed up and went to a very long service which was held outside by the gravesite. My father, my Uncle Nathan, my Uncle Aaron and I were the only males present not dressed in starched, formal military dress. I got the feeling we were among the few who'd really known Uncle Henry.

Just before speeches commenced, an official of some sort took us aside and told us that the program would conclude with a "salute" that involved a line of soldiers firing rifles in the air. Aunt Phyllis, who had been frail even before her husband of 40+ years had died, had been cautioned about this but the official suggested that "you men" (10-year-old me included) stand by her for the finale because the noise would probably upset her. We agreed to do this though I wondered why the military was saluting Uncle Henry in death by upsetting his beloved partner in life. As a kid, I spent a lot of time wondering why grown-ups did many of the things they did.

Sure enough, after a raft of speeches, a line of armed soldiers marched out in precision drilling manner, following orders barked out by some senior military official. My memory is that these were not all Army; that the whole ceremony was a mix of Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, etc. Uncle Henry was Army but he'd spent the last ten or so years as some kind of intra-military liaison coordinating activities of the various branches, operating sometimes out of Naval facilities. After much marching about and showing-off, the soldiers hoisted their rifles and waited for the command to fire. I was standing next to Aunt Phyllis's chair and she was trembling, dreading the "salute" like it was some horrible ordeal she was being forced to endure. I wanted to yell for them to call it off but everyone was so serious about this seemingly-mandatory ritual that I was half-afraid they'd turn those rifles on me.

Finally after what felt like hours of waiting, they fired into the sky. We were standing about twenty yards from a little groundskeeper shack and at the sound of the rifle shots, every glass window in the cottage exploded and all these serious, unsmiling military guys leaped about three feet in shock. For a flash second there, it felt like a Three Stooges comedy. I don't know why but that's what I thought of and I laughed out loud until I realized Aunt Phyllis was fainting. My father and I stopped her from falling off the chair and a male nurse ran over and tended to her needs. She recovered, of course...but the fact that someone with medical training had been standing by for this possibility further baffled me. They'd actually anticipated something of the sort might happen and had still pressed ahead, "honoring" my Uncle Henry's service to his country by doing something that caused such discomfort to his widow.

My parents and I drove back to Los Angeles that afternoon in (mostly) silence. Occasionally in the back seat, I could be heard snickering about all those rock-serious soldiers leaping about in fear. After a while, even my folks agreed with me that it was kind of funny...or at least funnier than the previous night's Car 54, Where Are You?

In the seventies, Aunt Phyllis died and I was notified that I was named in the joint will of Henry and Phyllis Evanier. For weeks, I expected some small amount of money...but one day, a box arrived and it turned out I'd been left all of Uncle Henry's medals and decorations. Included were dozens of clippings and certificates and they were the treat because they gave me a new appreciation of all that my Uncle Henry had done. From what I could tell, he'd never seen combat...never laid his life on the line to liberate a village or topple the Nazi/Commie menace. Still, he'd more than earned all those ribbons and promotions in rank by utter competence, getting jobs accomplished with precision and accuracy. There was one partial article that suggested my Uncle Henry had solved so many problems relating to keeping certain military bases operational that President Eisenhower had phoned him from time to time to thank him for preventing disasters. The box also contained the official 1947 photo of (then) Major Evanier which I have scanned and posted above.

Today on Veterans Day, it is right and proper that we salute the courageous men and women who go off to war when our leaders, rightly or wrongly, deem it necessary. Matter of fact, we should probably salute them enough on other days that this one is nothing out of the ordinary. But I wanted to remind you all about guys like my Uncle Henry who also have a lot to do with all that the military does for us. They also serve, those who sit and shuffle papers.

• Posted at 12:12 PM · LINK

My Drug Problem

I have problems with pharmacies. I don't know why. The system seems pretty simple. Your doctor writes a prescription or phones it in to the drug store. You go over. They fill the prescription. You pay for the prescription. You take home the prescribed item. Why does it so rarely work like that?

Last night, I had to go pick up a prescription for my mother. I called the pharmacy, they said they had it in stock and about two hours later, I went over to get it...and it's worth noting that this wasn't one where anyone had to mix anything. They didn't even have to count out pills. Someone just had to take a tube of ointment off a shelf, slap a label on it and hand it over to me. When I went in, a nice lady said, "It'll take ten or fifteen minutes." Okay, fine. I sat down with my iPhone and did iPhone-type stuff for the next thirty minutes before a different, not-as-nice lady called me to the window and I had the following exchange...

SHE: I'm sorry. We're out of this medication.

ME: I called up two hours ago and I was told you had it.

SHE: Well, maybe someone came in during that time and got the last tube we had of it.

ME: It took you a half-hour to figure that out? Shouldn't someone tell me that when I bring the prescription in?

SHE: Yes, they do. The computer's supposed to tell us that when we take your order. (Checks computer) Oh, I see. We weren't out of it when you brought the prescription in. We sold our last tube of it about ten minutes ago.

ME: While I was waiting for the prescription that I was told would be ready twenty minutes ago.

SHE: That can't be right. (Checks computer again) Okay, I see now. We had a tube for you when we accepted the prescription but then someone else came in with a prescription for the same medication and somehow, they got the last tube.

ME: They came in after me?

SHE: According to the time stamp here, yes.

ME: Okay, so let me see if I have this right. I came in. I handed her (points to nice lady) the prescription. She checked the computer and it told her you had it in stock...

SHE: Correct.

ME: And then someone else came in with a prescription for the same medicine and she checked the computer and it told her you still had it in stock...

SHE: Correct.

ME: ...even though you only had the one tube.

SHE: Correct.

ME: And then you gave it to that person instead of me.

SHE: Correct.

ME: Even though I was here first.

SHE: Correct.

ME: Shouldn't the computer have indicated that you didn't have a tube for that other person?

SHE: No, because when we took that order, we weren't out of it.

ME: Because you hadn't yet filled my order? The one that I was told would take ten or fifteen minutes?

SHE: Correct.

ME: Shouldn't I have gotten that tube?

SHE: I'm sorry. It's first come, first served.

ME: Yes but I was here first.

SHE: True but the other customer was served first.

ME: Let's move on from this. When I can get this ointment for my mother?

SHE: I'll make sure we order it and we should have it the day after tomorrow. Better call first to make sure we have it before you drive over.

ME: I called first today and you said you had it so I drove over. And then when I got here, they told me you still had it.

SHE: Yes.

ME: So how do I make sure that next time you tell me you have it, you still have it when you get around to filling my order?

SHE: (Thinks for a second, then...) I guess you just have to trust us.

There was then a brief discussion of me maybe going over that evening to another pharmacy in the same chain. The computer said they had the ointment in stock but it didn't say how much they had of it, nor could it guarantee that they wouldn't sell what they had before I got there and they got around to filling my order. The way my mother's insurance is configured, it will cost about $100 more to take it to a druggist outside this chain. I think they're doing all this to give me a headache so I'll need to buy my own prescription.

• Posted at 9:17 AM · LINK