Monthly Archives: September 2008

The announcement you've been waiting for…

I don't think I've mentioned it here lately but among the many courses offered at the University of Southern California is one called "Writing Humor: Literary and Dramatic," and I'm afraid it's taught by me. To switch an old joke from Tom Lehrer, those who can't do, teach…and those who can't teach, teach comedy writing. Anyway, I thought it might interest someone that starting with the Spring 2009 semester, I will probably be also teaching a course that they'll call something loftier but I'll call "How to Write Comic Books." And this was the school's idea, not mine.

I'm not soliciting students here since you have to be a U.S.C. grad student to take classes in the department that employs me. Just thought I'd mention this development…and my astonishment that comics (or as the U.S.C. brochures will probably call them, graphic novels) have come this far. I can remember back when I went to U.C.L.A., I used to sit in the back of my Economics and Anthropology lecture classes and write Daffy Duck stories for Gold Key Comics. It will amuse me no end if when I'm teaching students whatever I know about how to write comic books, one of them is sitting there working on Economics and Anthropology stuff.

This is going to sound paranoid, conspiracy-laden, whatever. But I would like to see, in every one-on-one interview with a journalist and every debate, candidates be asked the question up front, "Are you wearing any sort of device that might enable someone to prompt you with answers or notes?" It would only take ten seconds if the answer is no, and that would presumably be the answer, no matter what. One of these days, it's going to come out that some politician was secretly prompted in a debate or interview and the politician will say, "Well, no one said it would be wrong to do that." Maybe not…but it would certainly be wrong to deny it if true.

www.factcheck.org is the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, a non-partisan group that points out when folks of any political persuasion lie or distort reality. They are now being cited in an ad by the McCain campaign…and the Factcheck people say they're being misquoted.

I think the reason so much is being made of Sarah Palin is that with her selection, the campaign suddenly became about personalities, not policies. In fact, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis admitted as much, telling the Washington Post, "This election is not about issues." In any election, especially one this close, there's always the chance your side will lose. It would be painful enough for Democrats to lose to a McCain-Pawlenty ticket that managed to convince the nation they had a better handle on what to do about Iraq and the economy. It would be insult upon injury for McCain-Palin to prevail because she's a hockey mom with a big family, and voters in couple of swing states decided to vote for the ticket because of that.

It's also a little maddening that apparently Democrats can't criticize John McCain because, rumor has it, he was a P.O.W. And they can't criticize Governor Palin because she's a woman holding a baby. I'm waiting for Saturday Night Live to do a sketch where Tina Fey (of course) plays Palin and someone with a toupee of hair plugs pays Biden in their debate…and Palin-Fey brings the Down Syndrome child to the podium with her and responds to questions with, "I'm sorry…I didn't hear that because I was busy nursing."

In fact, the McCain camp is really fighting straw men, trying to claim that the mean ol' Democrats are being sexist and hostile, beating up on this lady. As Michael Kinsley (him again) notes here, that's not the case. The latest claim — that Obama called her a "pig" — is just the McCain side using an old, dishonest political trick: You scour everything your opponent says, looking for something you can yank out of context and misrepresent to use against him. Then instead of attacking you, he has to spend his time insisting, "No, I didn't mean that."

The Rove Squadron is good at this and Democrats traditionally are not. Al Gore never said he'd invented the Internet but his foes did a good job of convincing much of America he'd said it and that it was proof he was a serial, congenital and pathological liar. Today, Sarah Palin lies blatantly about the Bridge to Nowhere and her record on earmarks and a half-dozen other assertions…and there's so little backfire that she and McCain figure they can go on saying those things, at least for a while. Eventually, they'll explain it as a simple misinterpretation of the facts spurred on by the Liberal Media…you know, the one McCain used to call "my base."

I still think Obama's going to win this. It's just going to be more painful than I thought if he doesn't.

I'm always fascinated by the way people act when they see a possibly-famous person in a public place. This afternoon, I was in a medical building in Beverly Hills, taking my mother in for some dental work. I went out for a walk as she was worked upon, got into the elevator and found myself in there with two people. One was a lady I didn't know. The other was Mel Brooks.

Actually, I don't really know Mel Brooks. I've met him about eight or nine times, never for long enough that I expected him to remember me from one time to the next. Every time I'm around Mr. Brooks, I just figure it's easier for me to be introduced to him anew.

I started to say something to him then stopped myself. He seemed preoccupied and I didn't have anything clever to say…and anyway, we were on the third floor and heading down, so there wasn't a lot of time. The lady and I got off on the ground floor while Mel continued on down to the parking level. As the elevator doors closed behind us and Mel disappeared from view, the lady — who was about forty, I'd guess — said to me, "That was someone famous, wasn't it?" The following conversation then occurred…

ME: That was Mel Brooks.

HER: Who's Mel Brooks?

ME: Did you ever hear of Blazing Saddles? Or Young Frankenstein?

HER: No. What are those? TV shows?

ME: What about The Producers?

HER: The producers of what?

ME: The Producers was one of the funniest movies ever made and it was turned into one of the most successful Broadway musicals of all time. Did you ever hear of The Two Thousand Year Old Man?

The Orphan Annie eyeballs I got back from her (utterly blank) made me figure there was no point in mentioning Sid Caesar or High Anxiety or any of the other things Mel has done. So I just told the woman…

ME: Well, that's Mel Brooks.

HER: Oh. I thought he was somebody famous.

A profile of a very funny boy named Chris Elliott.

We recommend you try a bag of Popchips (or as they type it, popchips). These are low-in-fat potato crisps. They call them chips, which suggests someone slices a potato and fries the slices. I think they're really crisps, which means that someone turns potatoes into potato flour and mixes in other ingredients and then stamps out little chip shapes and cooks 'em. But even though they may try to make their product look like something it isn't, the bag I sampled the other day was pretty good.

They don't fry them like regular potato chips. They don't bake them like Baked Lays. They say they "pop" them like popcorn. I have no idea what that means but it does make them quite crunchy and tasty without a lot of fat. You get about the same calorie count as Baked Lays but I like them even better. (One drawback: They're somewhat more expensive.)

I do not own stock in the company and I do not profit in any way if you buy them. I'm just telling you about something that I tried and liked.

My TiVo has a devil of a time recording The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report since each episode plays many times and the reruns aren't all properly identified as reruns. If I just take a Season Pass for both, I get loads of repeats. Tons of 'em. There are various strategies whereby one can get a Wishlist Recording to snag all episodes except the ones whose descriptions contain certain terms that denote an unspecified rerun…but these methods don't work so well. At least, they don't work for me. Last time I tried it, it missed two Daily Shows but recorded an infomercial for Celebrity Ab Secrets.

Actually, The Daily Show isn't that big a problem. Its first telecast comes at 8 PM on my satellite dish so I set up four manual recordings — one per day for Monday through Thursday — at 8:00.

The Colbert Report first airs at 8:30 but one of my TiVos is recording Leno then and the other is capturing Letterman. It next airs here at either 10:30 or 11:30, which varies too often and also conflicts with other things I record. So I've set one TiVo to catch the 7:30 AM rebroadcast the next day.

This all works well enough except that sometimes the 7:30 AM Colbert Report broadcast is at 8:30 AM, which I think they do just to screw with me. Also, sometimes there's a Friday night episode of The Daily Show and there are often weeks (like this one) where both shows are in reruns and…well, I can still wind up with a lot of reruns or I can miss episodes if I don't do a lot of hands-on programming. Of great help is this website which lists all the talk show guest lineups and also tells what's what with Mssrs. Stewart and Colbert.

It all defeats the "set it and forget it" joy of the TiVo. Each week, I have to remember to check that all the episodes are marked for recording and I usually have to unmark at least a rerun or two due to some scheduling oddment. I'll bet Colbert could so something about this if he wanted to.

Paul Sills, who passed away last June, was to Improv Comedy what Steve Allen was to Late Night Comedy. Any time you see anything these days that even vaguely passes for "improv," it probably owes a debt, often a large one, to Mr. Sills, the founder of the legendary Story Theater and the first director of the Compass Players and Second City. (It probably also owes a considerable amount to his mother, Viola Spolin.) Sills directly or indirectly helped the careers of dozens of actors and comedians, the "direct" list including Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Ed Asner, Alan Alda, Barbara Harris and Alan Arkin.

A public memorial/remembrance of Sills will be held on Monday evening, September 22, at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood. Details are here. Many brilliant people will be there.

No matter how bad things may seem in the news, especially with the latest economic indicators and the news from the Middle East, there are certain constants that can make you feel secure. The sun still comes up every day. Flowers still bloom in the meadows. And a new O.J. Simpson trial is in progress.