Monthly Archives: February 2005

The photo I just posted of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick was taken, I think, at the taping of the post-9/11 commercial for the Broadway community. Only a few days after the disaster, someone managed — in less time than seems humanly possible — to put together an ad spot that was shot in Times Square, featuring everyone who was then currently in a Broadway show, all singing "New York, New York." Does anyone have or know where I can find a tape or DVD or downloadable video of this spot? I thought it was just extraordinary.

Trio used to run a little three minute (or so) version of it between shows, and it included the pre-record of the voice track, and showed all the people turning out on the morning of the taping, and I thought it was wonderfully inspirational. I don't know what it did for the New York theater industry — how fast it helped business come back — but it sure made me feel good to see all those people pulling together, accomplishing something that must have been a nightmare of logistics.

I had it on the end of a show that I kept for months on my TiVo, and I kept showing it to visitors and saying, "Gee, I've got to dub that off before I forget and delete the recording that it's a part of." And then…guess what. Anyway, if anyone has it, I'd love to have the whole spot as they ran it on Trio but I'll settle for just the final, 30 second finished product. (Actually, like so many of us, I'll settle for whatever I can get…)

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick have confirmed plans to star in a Broadway revival of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. It will commence in October and probably play to packed houses for however long the two of them feel like doing it.

Before you ask: Lane is playing Oscar and Broderick is playing Felix, and I have a hunch (based on absolutely nothing) that at some point, they'll try switching off for a week or so. Back when Walter Matthau was Oscar and Art Carney was Felix, they never did…though it became an Urban Legend of the theater, with people swearing they saw a performance where that happened. The rumor was apparently urged on by Matthau, who liked to put people on, telling them it had happened.

None of the press releases mention it but this will not be Mr. Lane's first time as Oscar Madison, the slovenly sports writer. A few years ago, he did it for a staged reading that is available on audio cassette. Here's the link to it but I'm not necessarily recommending you do. I did, because I love the play even if I've experienced it once too often, and this version featured a batch of my favorite actors. Nathan Lane alone was reason enough for me, but you also had David Paymer as Felix, Dan Castellaneta as Murray the Cop, Linda Purl and Yeardley Smith as the coo-coo Pigeon Sisters, and others. Great play, great cast…didn't work for me. Part of it was the fact that it was audio-only. Part of it was that I've just plain seen the play too often. And part of it was that the material, as recorded, had an odd disconnect of audience laughter and things that deserved to be laughed at. It was like a real good show having an "off" night…though of course, nothing those people do could be without interest.

I don't know how the new Lane/Broderick version will be but I do know it won't matter. That thing will sell out in a jif. And then, a year or two later, they'll probably come back — with one of them in drag — and do Barefoot in the Park.

Buzz Dixon directed me to this neat site that's all about names. They have a Java program over there — it should work on most but not all computers — that displays charts of the popularity of the 1000 most common first names. You can enter "George" and watch how it's declined in popularity or enter "Jason" and watch a big spike in the seventies and so on. I didn't particularly notice trends linked to the fame or infamy of specific prominent celebs, but I suppose there's some of that in there.

Thinking of buying something that comes with a money-saving rebate? You might want to read this before you do.

Actually, it's not a new weblog at all. Three items ago, I thanked Frank San Filippo for pointing the way to an interesting site. What I should have done was also point you to Frank's blog. He just posted this comment on the percolating scandal about the phony reporter who seems to have been planted in the White House press corps to lob softball questions at Bush and his press secretary. I am not as sure as Frank that the Democrats haven't done things that were equally underhanded…and feel that if they haven't, they will. Still, I think this "whatever it takes" mentality is very bad for the country. It distresses me when either party is quick to condemn wrongdoing by their opponents but quicker to excuse or overlook an absence of ethics on their team.

The fine cartoonist, Don Simpson, is now blogging, which is both good news and bad. The good news is that he has some interesting perceptions on his vocation. The bad news is that when he's putting them up on the web, he isn't drawing.

Jane Mayer on the use of torture in the current war. Among her conclusions is that it's wrong, that we know it's wrong so we outsource a lot of it to keep our hands clean…and that it rarely yields the kind of information that it's supposed to extract.

Here's a website that offers a bit of circumstantial evidence that William Rehnquist — the gent who's now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court — was Deep Throat. It's an intriguing possibility that would add to the pile of contradictions about Rehnquist's personal ethics and views, but I'm far from convinced. On the other hand, of all the guesses that involve people who are known for anything other than being Deep Throat suspects, it's the least far-fetched. [Thanks to Frank San Filippo for the pointer.]

In my book, Wertham Was Right — which you can order here, he tried to mention unobtrusively — I wrote an essay about Dr. Fredric Wertham. Back in the fifties, he was the main purveyor of the theory that the comic books then being published spawned juvenile delinquency and should be…well, it's not clear what action he wanted to see happen. He said kids should not be allowed to read comic books and that the publishers should clean up their contents, but he also said that he was adamantly against censorship. Apparently, he was in favor of comic books just so long as their intended audience didn't read them. Eventually, we had the Comics Code, which tidily laundered the content of comics and got rid of most of what Wertham didn't like and, of course, kids everywhere stopped misbehaving and having social adjustment problems.

Wertham was widely mocked for supposedly claiming that Batman and Robin were gay but that's not exactly what he said. He said their lifestyle was "…like a wish dream of two homosexuals living together." Which, of course, it is — though Doc Wertham was among the very few readers who thought of it that way. But you know how these things go: Once the rumors start, they gain momentum. There are times in the comics when one can almost sense that the writer is having a little fun with that insinuation. In Wertham Was Right, which was called that as an attention-getting joke but also because I thought he occasionally was, I wrote the following…

In one issue of Justice League of America in the sixties, the heroes discover they have contracted a cosmic plague that will doom everyone they've recently touched. Green Lantern shudders to think that he has infected his eternal fiancée, Carol Ferris. The Flash realizes he has doomed his beloved, Iris West. Even the Atom thinks about the fate that will befall the woman in his life, Jean Loring…

Batman, meanwhile, thinks: "Robin…what have I done to you?"

Since my book came out, I have sometimes been accosted by someone who doubts this and thinks it's a scene that exists not in my comics but in my imagination. So the other day, when someone sent me a JPEG of the panel in question, I figured I oughta post it here. This is from Justice League of America #44, published in 1966…

There it is — written by Gardner Fox, drawn by Mike Sekowsky, with inks by Joe Giella and Frank Giacoia. I have to believe Fox was chuckling when he wrote it and, knowing Mike, he probably had to be restrained from drawing Batman playing Judy Garland records with a limp wrist.

Frank Rich on those who would see the current movie, Million Dollar Baby, as a political statement.

Ray Arthur writes…

Has Haig been discounted for practical reasons or just because Woodward, et al, said he was not? My thinking is, if Bernstein had talked too much, which he is wont to do, and Haig was D.T., they would have to lie and deny in order to protect the General. Has anyone checked Al's pulse lately?

Alexander Haig was a suspect as Deep Throat for a number of reasons, one being that he was in the perfect position to know everything. During the Watergate investigation, he went from working under Henry Kissinger to being Nixon's Chief of Staff, and he was never viewed as one of those Nixon folks who thought all reporters were evil. Moreover, the Woodward-Bernstein book, The Final Days, pretty much makes Haig out as a hero who is more interested in the well-being of the nation than in serving Nixon, and he was obviously a major source for the book.

So that suggests a close connection to the authors, and perhaps the sense that they were rewarding him for past favors. Against this, there's the fact that he seems to have been out of town on the date of at least one reported Woodward-Throat meeting. (He was travelling with Kissinger, which presumably would also eliminate Henry as a suspect. I always thought Kissinger was the real longshot surprise to be Deep Throat, but there are those who've offered to bet their homes on it…this, even though Kissinger is a lifelong non-smoker, and we all know Deep Throat liked a cigarette with his Scotch.)

Haig was so bothered by reports that he was D.T. that he not only denied it, he persuaded Woodward and Bernstein to confirm his denial. For a long period, that was the only person they'd ever said was definitely not Deep Throat. At the time, Haig seemed to be a candidate — perhaps a longshot, but he wasn't about to admit it — for the presidency, which might explain why he was so insistent on not having folks think he was Deep Throat. Some might cheer the guy as a hero, but there are still folks high in the Republican party who wouldn't have that opinion.

I think the Woodward-Bernstein denial may be enough to cross Haig off the list. They didn't have to give him the absolution he requested, and they've always known that when the day came that Throat's identity would be revealed, they'd be coping with detractors who'd say it was a lie, there was no Deep Throat. So if I were Woodward and Bernstein, I sure wouldn't want to be on record as firmly denying by name that my source was my source.

There's even footage of Bob Woodward saying, "Al Haig was absolutely not Deep Throat," which would doubtlessly resurface. I don't know if journalistic ethics say that you can lie like that to protect a source, and certainly there have lately been reporters who have absolutely lied in denying sources. But in this case, it seems like it would have been a foolish thing for Woodward and Bernstein to do, and neither of those gents has ever struck me as foolish, especially with regard to protecting their own reps.

Again, though, this is a case where some of us could be assuming way too much.

But hey, enough about our government being run into the ground financially. Let's talk about important stuff. Let's talk about delicatessens. And we'll start with this e-mail from my pal Tom Galloway…

This reminded me of when I was at UMichigan, and Harlan Ellison was speaking there. I was responsible for him while there, and come lunchtime the following dialogue occurred (from memory):

Tom: Harlan, we're taking you to lunch at a world class deli. (thinking "here it comes…")

Harlan: What?! We're in the midwest! I grew up in the midwest! There is no decent deli here, let alone a world class one. I've lived in New York City. I live in L.A. That's where you find great deli. Besides, you're a WASP from North Carolina, and I should trust you on great deli?

Tom: Trust me…

We take him to Zingerman's. While waiting in line to order, Harlan sniffed around. He approved of the Dr. Brown's, the seeds in the rye bread, etc. His sandwich was so big he could barely finish it, and I ended up getting to eat most of the noodle kugel he'd ordered. At the end of the meal, he sat back and said, "OK, you're right. I don't know what it's doing here, but it's definitely a world class deli."

Highly recommended if you're ever in the Detroit/Ann Arbor area.

Tom's a smart guy, and Harlan knows his delis. But what really impressed me was that a few hours later, I got an unsolicited second opinion. This is an e-mail from Mark Bernstein…

I just read your post on delis, and felt moved to comment. You may not realize it, but my home town of Ann Arbor, Michigan is home to one of the finest delis and gourmet shops in the U.S. It's called Zingerman's, and it's not just a local legend. Last year, it was named by Food and Wine magazine as one of the 25 best food markets in the world. Now, they don't pile the meat as high as the Carnegie (I'm reminded of Mitch Hedberg's line: "He gave me my sandwich and asked if I wanted anything else. I said. 'Yeah, a loaf of bread and more people.'"), but the quality is consistently outstanding. If you ever come back to the Motor City Comicon, I hereby offer, schedule permitting, to chauffeur you out to Ann Arbor for lunch or dinner.

Okay, so there are two good recommendations for Zingerman's and if I ever get invited to another convention in Detroit, I'm there. Meanwhile, closer to home for me, we have another one-two punch. This is from Paul Dini…

Respectfully submitted: Brent's Deli, 19565 Parthenia St. in Northridge. Best in the west, no contest. (Although the tuna salad at Nate 'n Al's is mighty good.)

This was followed by a message from Marv Wolfman…

The best deli in Los Angeles is, and has been (according to Zagat's for the last 10+ years) Brent's Deli in Northridge. It's as close to a New York deli as one can get (except less attitude). It is never less than crowded and the food is all wonderful. Brent's! Period! End of discussion!

I've been to Brent's a grand total of once and wasn't as impressed as my friends. Then again, I've had the occasional bad experience even at restaurants I like, so it's not fair to judge from one try, especially since this was some years ago. Next time I'm in Northridge — which I hope won't be soon, not because it's not a nice place but because I'm getting to hate driving that far — I will give Brent's another chance to thrill me. Mssrs. Wolfman and Dini are invited to join me, to suggest items from the menu and also, of course, to pay. The quality of any deli is enhanced by at least 25% if someone else picks up the check.

Remember when it was extravagant (or at least, barely acceptable) for some folks that the Bush prescription drug bill was going to cost $400 billion? How it is that few of those people are upset at current, undenied reports that it will be more in the neighborhood of $1.2 trillion? Here's one of those reports.

I understand that Republicans don't like to criticize Republicans and that Democrats do but don't know how to do it with any meaning. But you'd think we could all link arms and muster a little effective outrage any time any projection by any arm of government was this far from the mark.

Maybe it's like being shocked that a duck quacks, but I continue to be amazed at how reporters will try to manufacture a story where none exists. The other night, KNBC news in Los Angeles did a sizzling "exclusive" investigation that revealed that a person who has no way to knowing any of this is sure he knows who Deep Throat is, that Deep Throat is not ill, and that it's not George Herbert Walker Bush, Gerald Ford or Alexander Haig. Woodward, Bernstein and Haig have all said it's not Haig, so that last one is not much of a scoop.

They broadcast a brief, newly-conducted interview with Donald Segretti, who was one of the political pranksters employed by the Nixon campaign during the 1972 election. (This is the guy played by Robert Walden in the movie, All the President's Men.) As Watergate figures go, it would be hard to find anyone farther from the action than Segretti, who was in California throughout most of that investigation. Not only that but once it came out that he'd done some unethical things on behalf of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, everyone in the Nixon White House wanted to distance themselves from the guy. So he was not exactly in close communication…and even if he was, it was with folks who didn't know who Deep Throat was, either.

At first, I couldn't figure out why KNBC thought this fellow's guesses are any better than anyone else's guesses…and then I realized: They don't. They just knew they could get a segment out of it that sounded like inside information if you didn't stop to think about it for more than a few seconds. In the news biz, a worthless story is still worth more than no story at all.

One other thought about the hunt for Deep Throat: The vast majority of guesses and speculations about his identity have been based on who had access to the information he is known to have passed on to Bob Woodward. For instance, Deep Throat told the reporter about the gap on a crucial Nixon tape at a time when only a handful of people had that information…so most of the hunters have presumed that it had to be one of those folks. But secrets get leaked and shared all the time in Washington. Why couldn't it have been someone who heard about it from someone in that handful? If we buy the premise that one of them revealed the secret to the Washington Post, why wouldn't someone in that handful have told the guy with the office across the hall from his? Why couldn't Deep Throat have been an aide to someone in that handful who accidentally overheard something he wasn't supposed to hear? I'm not sure there's ever been a known fact about D.T. that absolutely rules out that he was a White House janitor who was within earshot when Henry Kissinger was yelling at Alexander Haig.

Almost every news story about Deep Throat has gotten caught up in the idea that it had to be someone with direct knowledge. In much the same way, they also claim that the informant's identity is known only to Woodward, Bernstein and Post editor Benjamin Bradlee. Well, uh, there's at least one other person…Throat, himself. And maybe he told his wife and his kids and his lawyer and his clergyman and a few friends. Deep Throat has been under no promise of confidentiality, and he must know that the day after he dies, everyone around him is going to be peppered with questions, and asked to confirm or deny.

But that's not as interesting a story. It's more interesting if it's a secret known to only three human beings on the face of the planet. And it's a better detective novel if you restrict the suspect list to those who could have gotten the information first-hand and then snuck out in the middle of the night to meet Woodward in that parking garage. (I always thought that parking garage was a tipoff of something. Why not have Woodward come to his apartment where there was less chance of them being spotted together? Logic would suggest that D.T. had a spouse or roommate he didn't want to implicate in his leaking at the time…or maybe he lived across the hall from John Mitchell. But maybe he just liked the 007 nature of meeting in a garage.) I'm still guessing it's Mark Felt or perhaps Fred Fielding…but we may all learn a lesson about how worthless deductions can be when you aren't careful about what you assume to be the underlying facts.

Here's the latest on Peter Paul, the financial officer behind the now-defunct Stan Lee Media. That was the Internet company that went belly-up trying to market Stan's new concepts on the web. I have more than a passing interest in this because I worked there for a few months.