Monthly Archives: September 2008

Several people have e-mailed me lists of books that Sarah Palin supposedly tried to ban as governor of Alaska. I'm pretty sure this list is bogus; that it's just a list of the books that are most often suppressed and that it doesn't relate to any specific actions by Ms. Palin.

Several other people have e-mailed me their own explanations of The Monty Hall Problem, including a few who profess to be mathematicians and think I'm wrong. Most correspondents, including others who profess to be mathematicians and two I know are, understand and know I'm right.

One person who professes to be a mathematician wrote to argue my solution and to send me that list of books Sarah Palin allegedly wanted to ban. He's wrong both times.

I may not post a lot more about Governor Palin because so many other websites are doing a fine job of shredding the fibs that she opposed earmarks, that she opposed The Bridge to Nowhere, that she sold the state's private jet on eBay for a profit, that there's nothing to the ethics investigations, etc. Even a few members of this Liberal Media we hear so much about are starting to expose this stuff.

But I know I've reached the outer regions of my interest in The Monty Hall Problem. Thank you all for writing but if I don't stop discussing it now, I never will.

The Screen Actors Guild has sent out a mailing to all its members updating them on the negotiations (or lack thereof) and including a response postcard. SAG is not taking a formal vote for a strike authorization. Instead, the postcard is a non-binding, informal poll to see how the membership feels about their union continuing to try and negotiate the kind of contract it seeks.

There seem to be a couple of small controversies over this postcard. Some are arguing that it's a bad idea to do this instead of a formal, binding acceptance or rejection of the studios' last offer. Others are complaining about the fact that the postcards contain a bar code which could enable the tabulators to identify voters by name, thereby eliminating the expected "secret ballot" provisions of union voting. SAG leaders insist the accounting firm won't link names to votes; that the bar code is just there to validate that the card came from a real, eligible voting member. They also want to compile some sort of demographic breakdown to determine how different kinds of actors are voting.

You can download a copy of this mailing as a PDF from this link. There's a good chart in there which explains what the studios are offering and what the union is proposing.

In other news, the Writers Guild is complaining that the studios are not living up to some terms of its most recent contract with the union. This is about as surprising as John McCain mentioning he was a P.O.W.

In way too many deals — labor contracts or otherwise — there are three stages of negotiation. In the First Negotiation, the one that ostensibly settles things, one party agrees to pay an extra dollar. After things are allegedly settled, you have the Second Negotiation, which is where the terms are committed more formally to paper. This is when they try to argue that they didn't really agree to just pay an extra dollar; that it was understood that they'd only pay the extra dollar whenever Halley's Comet was passing the Earth.

The other party says, "That's not what we agreed to" and there are fights and threats and pretty soon everyone gets on the same page with what was agreed upon and airtight paperwork is signed. That's when they segue to the Third Negotiation. In this one, they don't pay the extra dollar because they're figured out a way to argue the meaning of the airtight paperwork; to say, "Yes, well, it doesn't say in there that we can't pay the extra dollar in Monopoly® money." We are now into the Third Negotiation.

One of the reasons the recent Writers Strike lasted as long as it did was because WGA leaders were especially insistent on nailing down the terms of the First Negotiation. They demanded an unprecedented level of detail committed to paper before they'd put the offer to the membership and the members could vote to end the strike. Still, no matter how specific you make an agreement, there seems to always be some attorney who thinks, "Hey, I can get around that." It's one of the reasons that so many people rank lawyers way down the genetic chart, down with primordial ooze, various forms of fungus, and telephone solicitors.

Tomorrow afternoon, the Boomerang Network is running Hey There, It's Yogi Bear. It's on at 4 PM Eastern but check your listing for the exact time if you want to watch or record it. It's not a bad little film and it was a happy part of my childhood.

I probably liked John McCain's acceptance speech a little more than some of the people in that hall did…and for the same reason. He didn't spend most of it demonizing Democrats and selling the idea that the world must be saved from Evil Liberals. There was a little of that, and you expect a little of that, but for the most part, he was Good Cop to Sarah Palin's Bad Cop. Some of the right-wing bloggers this morning are complaining that the ticket isn't Bad Cop-Bad Cop.

Still, there was plenty in McCain's shpiel to argue about. One part that leaped out at me was when he said…

[Obama's] plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.

The obvious response to that, and it's 100% valid, is that John McCain has spent almost his entire life receiving health care from a government-run system. For most of it, he could have afforded to go to any doctor in the country. Instead, he accepts the government-run system and tells us that at age 72, he's in great shape.

Obama's plan actually has an exemption for small businesses and a provision by which they can receive a Small Business Health Tax Credit to encourage them to offer health care to their employees. There would be nothing stopping anyone who can afford it from keeping exactly the same health plan they currently have. (You can read a summary of his proposals on this page.)

And I wonder if anyone in a non-government-run health care system has ever found any bureaucracy standing between them and their doctor. I hear rumors that once in a while, private health plans refuse to pay for things they're supposed to pay for.

Some folks who are writing me still don't understand The Monty Hall Problem as discussed here. They want to know, "Why does it matter if I switch or not? After the first door is opened, don't I just have a simple 50-50 chance?" Nope…but I can sure understand why you might think that. The explanations online are not all that clear. Let me take a whack at it…

Let's say you do not swap and you stick with your original pick. That means you have a one-in-three chance of picking the car. Nothing changes that. The fact that the host opens a door to reveal a goat does not change that because he will always do that. You still have the same one-in-three chance at the car.

Now, let's say you do swap. You still have that one-in-three chance of having selected the door that conceals the car but it's more significant that you have a two-in-three chance of having picked a goat in the first place.

When the host opens that door to reveal the first goat, he creates the following situation but only for the swapper. If you picked the car and you swap, you wind up with that other goat. If you picked that other goat and you swap, you wind up with the car.

It's twice as likely that you will be in the latter situation. There's a two-in-three chance that you picked a goat and so swapping will get you the car, whereas there's only a one-in-three chance that you picked the car and so swapping will get you a goat.

The key thing, and it's what makes this confusing to some people, is that when the host opens the door to reveal that first goat, it doesn't change the odds. He knows where an unpicked goat is and can always do that. He is not giving you any information you don't already have. You already knew that at least one of the unselected doors had a goat behind it.

What he is doing is creating the following position: Swapping will either change the right answer to the wrong answer or the wrong answer to the right answer. And since the odds are twice as great that you already have the wrong answer, swapping makes it twice as likely that you'll wind up going from wrong to right, as opposed to going from right to wrong.

There. That's about as simple as I can make it.

This evening in New York, Mamma Mia will play its 2,845th performance, which will rank it as the 16th longest-running Broadway show of all time. Hello, Dolly! previously held that honor with its 2,844 performances.

One could argue, of course, that Mamma Mia enjoys a big advantage over Hello, Dolly! in that Mamma Mia is pretty much a starless show. People went to see Hello, Dolly! because Carol was in it…or Pearl or Ethel or some other huge force of theatrical nature. The long run on a star-driven show is often dependent on how long the star will stick around and drive. If Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick were still doing The Producers, it might still be running.

But the achievement of Mamma Mia is still quite impressive. A few months ago, it passed My Fair Lady..and at the rate it's going, it will almost certainly outlast Tobacco Road (3182 performances), Life With Father (3224), the original Fiddler on the Roof (3242), the original Grease (3388) and the original 42nd Street (3486). If and when it eclipses the last of these, it will be the 11th longest-running Broadway show of all time. After that, it just might stick around long enough to beat Miss Saigon (4097) and crack the Top Ten. That would take three more years but since it's still selling out after seven years, that seems quite possible.

After that, it gets rougher. The 9th, 8th and 7th longest-runs (The Lion King, the revival of Chicago and then Rent, which closes this weekend) are all at least 1600 performances ahead of Mamma Mia and still running. If you figure roughly 416 performances per year, for Mamma Mia to overtake Lion King, Lion King would have to close and then Mamma Mia would have to run another four years. Possible, not probable.

Before anyone asks: The current longest-running show on Broadway is Phantom of the Opera, which has been there since 1988 and has played close to 8600 performances. It not only has that distinction but will probably have it for the rest of our lives.

On Sunday, September 28, I'll be among the authors talking about our books and writing our names in copies at The West Hollywood Book Fair. There's a whole section of programming devoted to comics and graphic novels and I think I'm appearing on a podcast taping at 5:00, but I expect to be around before that. The podcast is for comicsoncomics.con, a web show where comedians sit around and gab about comic books. If I don't let you know when it's posted to the Internet, it'll be because I made a bigger jerk of myself than usual.

Then the following day, I'm going to be speaking about my latest book at the Santa Monica offices of Google. As I understand this, the event will be transmitted to all the other Google facilities and will be available at some point on Google Video but it's not open to the public. Once again, if I don't let you know when it's posted to the Internet…

Lastly for now: The evening of October 14, I'm going to be part of a panel discussion at USC about the impact of political humor on the current election and, I suppose, on other ones. But I'll tell you about that when we get closer to the date.

I often plug Stu's Show, an entertainment-themed talk show on Shokus Internet Radio, a station you can hear on the very computer you're using to read this here website. I would like to really, really plug/recommend this week's installment, which is a two-hour conversation with comic legend Shelley Berman. Not only is Shelley one of the great geniuses of stand-up comedy (occasionally performed seated on a stool) but he's a thoughtful, wise man with much to say about the evolution of his art form. He is disarmingly candid in this chat with Stuart Shostak and Christopher Bay, and if you're interested in comedy, it's a very educational and fast-moving two hours.

The show first aired last Wednesday and it reruns each day until next Tuesday, so there's your window of opportunity to listen. Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, it airs at from 4 PM to 6 PM Pacific Time. On Sunday, it's on from 9 AM 'til 11 AM Pacific Time. Go to the website of Shokus Internet Radio at the appropriate time and click where they tell you to click. You'll be glad you did.

From Sam Tomaino…

I have never harassed you about political statements, but I have this question. You say that if Sarah Palin want the media to lay off her family, they should stop parading them around. Didn't Barack Obama put his family on display at the Democratic Convention? And wasn't it he who said that kids are off limits? Must Sarah Palin hide her children away just so they won't get picked on?

To some extent, yes…and even that wouldn't stop it altogether. Remember back when John McCain and Rush Limbaugh used to make jokes based on the premise that Chelsea Clinton was ugly? You're always going to have a certain amount of that. When you go into public life, you drag your family along with you.

Now, there are degrees of how much you're inviting folks to pay attention to your kin. Certainly if you claimed your son is a straight-A student and then reporters got hold of his report card and it was full of Ds, that would get mentioned. And certainly if the kids don't trot out on stage or pose for pics, it's a little more inappropriate to focus on them. But it's going to happen either way and those who enter public life need to just accept it.

A lot of it is like actors or performers who struggle to become famous and to enjoy all the perks and rewards and ego gratification that come with fame…and then complain about the downsides. There are many: You get pestered for autographs when it's inconvenient and you get hate mail and stalkers, and there are other drawbacks. But you can't have it both ways and you also can't erect a little firewall around yourself that keeps both away from your friends and family. It would be nice if you could but it doesn't work that way.

Yeah, Barack Obama rolled his kids out for inspection, too. I would have admired him if he hadn't but I guess that wouldn't have spared them from the spotlight…merely caused his opponents to suggest he was hiding them because he was ashamed of them or they weren't really his or something. I think one of the stupider things we consider at election time is whether the candidate can line up his or her family and look like a Norman Rockwell painting for twenty minutes. Not to belittle the "values" those photo-ops are supposed to represent but a lot of those portraits are illusory and even when they aren't, so what? It would be quite easy to be a good parent and still be a lousy or corrupt president or senator or whatever.

Sarah Palin's kids seem quite happy and/or willing to be used as campaign props. So were Obama's daughters and of course, so is his wife. I don't like the term "fair game" because I don't think it's a game…but as far as I'm concerned, when a candidate says, "Leave my family alone," what they're really saying is "Don't interfere with the image we're trying to sell of my home life." Similarly, when they say, "Leave my opponent's family alone," they're being gracious…and maybe distancing themselves from comments they know are inevitable. They're probably also positioning themselves to say "Leave my family alone" when applicable.

By the way: I corrected a typo in Sam's message when he referred to "Sarah Plain." Make up your own comment about that one.

Still on that deadline but here's something I had to put up here. As you all know, master voiceover guy Don LaFontaine passed away the other day. Don had been having a mess of medical troubles since about last November…a lot of ugly stuff involving growths on his lymph nodes and a collapsed lung and something really nasty called Subcutaneous Emphysema — and that isn't even the half of it.

A few weeks ago, he wrote and had circulated a letter within the voiceover community. It described all his problems and his determination to lick them. It also included, down near the end, the following paragraph. I think Don would have wanted it to reach a larger audience…

But the real point of all this is the genesis of the condition. I was a smoker, on and off, for thirty years. I quit nearly twenty years ago, but that crap has a tendency to lie doggo in your system. It finally caught up with me, and as you've just read — it ain't pretty. For those of you who are in the Voice Over business, and you think that smoking is adding some wonderful quality to your instrument — WAKE UP! Quit! Today! Whoever you are — if you smoke — Stop! All you are adding is garbage to your vocal cords, and a nice deep layer of tar and poison on the linings of your lungs.

It's especially significant that Don LaFontaine said this because, and I am quite serious about this, there have been a number of actors who kept on smoking (or even STARTED) because of him. I've heard v.o. actors say they thought it would make them sound more like Don LaFontaine and might therefore get them more work. One of them was my pal Greg Burson, whose obit you read here recently. I don't know how much smoking contributed to Greg's death but it sure didn't help.

Today is the birthday of my longtime friend, Scott Shaw! (That's Scott above at left, me at right.) Scott is a clever and gifted cartoonist, a historian of bizarre comic books and a heckuva nice guy. This year at the Quick Draw! game at Comic-Con, he dazzled the audience with a feat worthy of Ricochet Rabbit. To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Hanna-Barbera — an occasion noted by me and, as far as I can tell, no one else on this planet — I made him draw fifty (50!) Hanna-Barbera characters in a matter of minutes. He did it, like just about everything else he does, with stunning skill. Have a great Scott Day, Scott!