Monthly Archives: June 2008

The Tax Policy Center has done an analysis of the tax proposals of Senators McCain and Obama. A lot of it is way too complicated for any of us to understand — and maybe for Senators McCain and Obama to understand, too — but here's the bottom line…

Although both candidates have at times stressed fiscal responsibility, their specific non-health tax proposals would reduce tax revenues by $3.7 trillion (McCain) and $2.7 trillion (Obama) over the next 10 years, or approximately 10 and 7 percent of the revenues scheduled for collection under current law, respectively. Furthermore, as in the case of President Bush's tax cuts, the true cost of McCain's policies may be masked by phase-ins and sunsets (scheduled expiration dates) that reduce the estimated revenue costs. If his policies were fully phased in and permanent, the ten-year cost would rise to $4.1 trillion, or about 11 percent of total revenues.

And here's the next-to-the-bottom-line…

The two candidates' plans would have sharply different distributional effects. Senator McCain's tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes, almost all of whom would receive large tax cuts that would, on average, raise their after-tax incomes by more than twice the average for all households. Many fewer households at the bottom of the income distribution would get tax cuts and those whose taxes fall would, on average, see their after-tax income rise much less. In marked contrast, Senator Obama offers much larger tax breaks to low- and middle-income taxpayers and would increase taxes on high-income taxpayers. The largest tax cuts, as a share of income, would go to those at the bottom of the income distribution, while taxpayers with the highest income would see their taxes rise.

There's a lot more to be read here, including a PDF of the entire report…but those are the money quotes. Anyone here surprised? The Tax Policy Center is somewhat partisan but I usually don't see many who disagree strongly with their projections on stuff like this. If you see another analysis that seems to, let me know.

Here's a pretty good article by John Horn and Nicole Loomis on how some big TV and movie stars get into financial trouble. It doesn't delve much into another aspect of the problem, which is bad investments…but the core problem is there either way. To be in Show Biz usually means having a highly unpredictable income and you can easily gear your spending to one level and then, suddenly and without warning, drop to a lower tier.

The examples in this article, like Ed McMahon and Lorenzo Lamas, may not be deserving of a lot of sympathy. I mean, maybe they should have seen that it could happen and bought smaller homes and used fewer limos. There are, however, people who don't spend lavishly — who acquire modest homes and cars and such — who find themselves in a similar financial pickle. I can think of a dozen cases just among my contacts where someone was on a series or in a successful movie…and while they made decent money, the sums were nowhere close to the astronomical numbers that everyone presumed.

I'm thinking of one guy who was a regular on a very popular TV show…but he'd made a bad deal going in, and he was earning a lot less money than you might have expected. He felt pressure to be a little lavish in his purchasing, not because he wanted to splurge but because he felt embarrassed to be seen flying Coach or driving an old car. He was getting a ton of fan mail and he felt he had to spend the money (and this was costlier than you'd imagine) to hire someone to answer it all and send out the requested autographed photos. And of course, acquaintances said and did things that made him feel he had to pick up checks, loan money, etc.

He lived on the financial edge, assured by agents that in his future would be some new series or movie role that would yield megabucks such that his means would catch up with him. But then his series was cancelled, no lucrative offers followed…and his spouse began having serious medical problems about the time his Screen Actors Guild insurance ran out.

Again, some may not have a lot of sympathy for the guy. After all, he did get to be a star there for a while, and a lot of people would gladly trade places, bankruptcy and all. Still, it's a side of the industry you don't read a lot about. Not everyone in TV lives in a huge mansion. Some live next door to a lady who waits tables at Chili's…and find out one day that they can't even afford that.

I just realized! It's been six months since we checked to see if Abe Vigoda is still alive!

Here's William Kristol on Fox News Sunday, December 17, 2006…

I think she's taking some risks in staying on the center, not going to left, which is intelligent. She can still beat the left-wing democratic candidates, I think. And then she's pretty well-positioned for the general election. So this is all good for Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single democratic primary. I'll predict that right now.

Here's a serious question: Can anyone think of a single pundit or columnist who has ever lost their standing in the field because their predictions were frequently dead wrong? Anyone?

Less than twelve hours from now, commencing around Noon today, I'll be signing Kirby: King of Comics at Hi-De-Ho Comics in Santa Monica. Come by. Buy a book. Get it signed. Buy some other stuff. If you like, I'll sign it too, even if I had nothing to do with it. I'm not sure how long I'll be there but I'm guessing around two hours.

Film buffs have been worried about what was lost in that fire on the Universal Studios lot and rumors have spread that some irreplaceable reels of film were destroyed. They're still saying no…but an awful lot of prints were lost, which means that revival houses and film fests that were scheduled to screen 35mm prints are outta luck. Read about it here.

I won't be posting a video link today but I'll mention that the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center has posted a video of a panel I hosted at the New York Comic Con, interviewing two of Jack's best inkers, Joe Sinnott and Dick Ayers. It runs about 55 minutes.

Also, I wanted to mention that Jack's grandson Jeremy, a most talented young man, has set up a website about his grandpa and is also promoting some of the properties that the family controls. Go visit The Jack Kirby Universe.

And while I'm at it: Every year at the Comic-Con International in San Diego, I host a panel about Jack featuring folks who've worked with him. This year's, which takes place on Sunday morning, will delve into a part of Jack's career about which many of his fans know little. It's his years in the eighties working in TV animation…and among those who'll be participating will be Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, whose cartoon studio employed Kirby for some very happy years of his life, working on Thundarr the Barbarian and other shows. I'll also be co-hosting a panel on Friday about the Ruby-Spears studio, and I'll get Joe and Ken to tell how they started Scooby Doo and other Saturday morn superstars.

In the next week or two, I'll preview some of the other panels I'll be helming at San Diego…sixteen of 'em in all. Yeah, I know that's a ridiculous number but they're all things I wanted to see so I might as well moderate them and be guaranteed a seat.

I have a whole bunch of these piled-up so let's try and get caught up. This one's from Neil Shurley…

I saw a scene-by-scene comparison on the web a while back (I'm pretty sure done by Jaime Weinman on his blog, Something Old, Something New) that demonstrated that Lerner seemed to have utilized the film Pygmalion for source material for the movie My Fair Lady rather than Shaw's original play. The example that sticks out in my mind is the scene in which Higgins pops marbles into Eliza's mouth. That scene was lifted from the 1932 movie and didn't appear in the original play, according to what I read at least…

It doesn't…and there are other parallels, including the whole matter of the ending. I think the Broadway play was based much more on the screenplay than the original Shaw play. I'm guessing that this is something Lerner was afraid to admit because there were potential legal complications there. The movie was produced by Gabriel Pascal, who had originally engaged Lerner and Loewe to adapt Pygmalion into a musical. They worked on it for a time, then gave up. After Pascal died, they took up the cause again but there were all sorts of complications with the Pascal estate, which was contested by a wide array of past women in his life, some of whom he'd even married.

I'm not sure exactly what could have happened but I don't think Lerner wanted certain parties to figure out how much he'd taken from the screenplay.

I heard from a couple of Chick-Fil-A employees who asked that I not use their names. One of them wrote…

I enjoyed your commentary on fast food today, and I can confirm for you that Chick-fil-A chickens all arrive frozen to us. We thaw them for two days in refrigeration and then prepare them for breading and frying. Because Chick-fil-A uses a pressure-cooker style fryer, the filets and other chicken products cook very quickly sealing the juices in which is part of what makes them so good.

I should also note for you that they fry in peanut oil (as noted on their menu) and the "healthy" option grilled chicken actually has more fat content than the fried chickens due to its marinade. That tidbit is buried in the nutritional information in their restaurants.

I suspect the difference between the Chick-Fil-A sandwich and the McDonald's knock-off is that the McDonald's chicken filet probably arrives breaded and frozen, and that it's fried the same way as the fries and not in a pressure cooker. It is, after all, only one item on a very large menu, whereas it's the signature item at Chick-Fil-A.

And someone else sent this link to a summary of the Chick-Fil-A political connections and writes…

I don't know if you would care, but founder Truett Cathy is a major contributor to right-wing Christian organizations like Focus on the Family and Campus Crusade for Christ.

I care but not enough that I'd skip patronizing Chick-Fil-A if there was one nearby to patronize. I tend to think boycotts rarely do more than make the boycotter feel like they're doing something. Once in a while, I feel uncomfy giving money to some business…like I stopped buying my gas at Exxon and Mobil after the Exxon Valdez oil spill and you can see how the loss of my business has decimated their income. There are also publishers whose books I won't purchase because I think the company has done unethical things.

I can't quite explain why some of these situations bother me and others don't. Maybe it's that sleazy ethics bother me more than just having political views with which I disagree.

That's all I have time for now. Posting here, by the way, should be light the next day or so as I have to spend many, many hours in a recording studio wearing my director hat. But I'll be back to you soon.

In 1967, Groucho Marx published a book of his letters called — of all things — The Groucho Letters. These were letters he'd donated to the Library of Congress, and you can see one of them on this page.

Several years ago, my buddy Frank Ferrante, the great Hackenbush Impersonator, read some of them for a BBC radio special. It was recently rebroadcast and for the next few days, you should be able to hear it from a link on this page. Do not dawdle as it will only be there until the end of the week.

Thanks to some reader of this site named mightygaijin, who sent me the tip. I believe the BBC has some upcoming Groucho specials and if anyone sees them online before I do, please let me know.