I mentioned I had two other complaints about SiriusXM Radio. Then when I started writing them up here, one of them suddenly seemed too trivial to mention. So here's the other one…
It's that I thought the premise of the station was to listen to ad-free programming. And maybe it doesn't technically qualify as advertising but they spend an awful lot of time on the channels they produce telling us we're listening to SiriusXM Radio and how wonderful SiriusXM Radio is and how we should tune in SiriusXM Radio. At times you want to yell at your speakers, "Are you people aware that I already have a subscription??? That I don't need a sales pitch for listening to SiriusXM Radio because I'm listening to SiriusXM Radio at the moment???"
I feel the same way when I get my subscription copy of a magazine and eleven little cards fall out urging me to subscribe.
This here's the trailer for the 1970 movie Where's Poppa?, written by Robert Klane, directed by Carl Reiner and starring George Segal and Ruth Gordon. My reaction to the film itself was mixed. I thought it was amusing but not overly so. But the trailer? I actually thought the trailer was better than the movie, especially the vocals…
A year or two ago, I was just getting into a rental car in Indianapolis when I received an e-mail from my friend, Broadway diva Christine Pedi. Christine is a brilliant impressionist (see here) and singer. I forget what her message was asking me but I made a mental note to phone her when I had a chance.
Then I got into the rental car, turned on the radio and heard, "This is Christine Pedi." There she was. Along with all else she does, Christine is one of the disc jockeys (that's not quite the term I want) on the On Broadway Channel on SiriusXM satellite radio.
That was the first time I'd heard satellite radio but I enjoyed it — well, let's say some of it — while cruising Indiana in the rental. I did manage to find some channels that didn't have Howard Stern on them and I have never heard anyone talk about sex and make it sound as stupid and unappealing as those folks on Playboy Radio. (Aside to Rick Santorum, who I just know reads this blog every day: You want to end recreational sex in this country? Have the government buy everyone a subscription to Playboy Radio. It's the Saltpeter of the Airwaves.)
Soon after I returned to L.A., I bought a new car and I got one with SiriusXM radio on it. I liked it at first but now find myself growing lukewarm to it. I have CDs in my auto — I didn't in the rental — and the car also has a USB port. I can load MP3s onto a flash drive, plug the flash drive into the USB port and play those MP3s through my car radio. It's not only the audio I pick (as opposed to what the SiriusXM programmers pick) but I can pause and resume. Just as TiVo has spoiled me for watching live TV, I'm not as fond of live radio as I once was.
Sometimes though, I listen to SiriusXM and I do like the On Broadway channel…though I can't help but note some blurry distinctions. I also listen to couple of the oldies channels — usually the fifties, sixties and seventies stations. The other day, I found myself listening to "Dancing Queen" by ABBA and I assumed I was on the seventies station but I wasn't. Turned out, I was on the On Broadway channel. All the ABBA songs that were in the Broadway musical Mamma Mia are now, I guess, considered Show Tunes. The On Broadway channel was playing the original ABBA recording, not the version performed on the cast album. A little later, I did switch over to the seventies channel and I heard…the exact same record.
I guess the definition of Show Tune has changed. I'm not saying this is good or bad but it's changed. With Broadway shows featuring tunes first recorded by Elvis or Billy Joel or the Beatles or Frank Sinatra or Olivia Newton-John (etc.), all those works are now Show Tunes. It's not a distinction about style of music…it's just where it's been played. The Frankie Valli records that are re-created in Jersey Boys are apparently now Show Tunes. The other songs Frankie and his guys recorded that didn't make it into Jersey Boys are not Show Tunes. Just a point of information.
Anyway, I like listening to SiriusXM from time to time but I think I prefer the music I bring into my car. I like the SiriusXM jazz channels and some of the "talk radio" stations…though I can only listen to talk radio until I start feeling they're putting on a show the way WWE wrestlers do instead of addressing issues. So I rarely listen for long. I like Christine's interjections between songs she plays because she has something to say. Most other "jocks" there don't…although the day the death of Davy Jones was announced, Cousin Brucie over on the sixties channel threw together a nice tribute including call-ins from Monkees fans. I even heard one of them quote the story I posted on this blog about Shelly Goldstein and Davy.
There are two other things I don't like about SiriusXM but this is running long and I have work to do so I'll save them for later. But I can't leave the topic without mentioning that folks in Southern California have a rare (too rare) opportunity to see Christine Pedi perform live on our turf. She's doing her "Great Dames" show, which is quite a delight, on April 18 at the Gardenia, which is located at 7066 Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood. The show starts at 9 PM and you'd better call for reservations because Christine has a lot of fans and the place ain't that big.
I've received a couple of e-mails from folks asking what I have against polygamy. One even came from someone who is adamant that gays should not be allowed to wed but thinks one man should be able to be married to as many women as will have him at one time.
Tell you the truth, I have no opinion, positive or negative, about polygamy. The issue has never come up anywhere near me. I know lots of gay couples but as far as I know, no couples of any sort that are triples or quadruples or any other multiple, nor do I know of any who long to be. If it ever becomes a real issue, I'll try to decide how I feel about it.
My point obviously was that laws can be rewritten without opening them up to fantastic, overstated scenarios. When we had the debate in this country about lowering the voting age from 21 to 18, the only argument against it seemed to be, "Well, why stop at 18? Why not 16? Why not 10? What's to stop us from lowering the age so much that embryos are voting?"
Well, we lowered it to 18 and I haven't even heard anyone propose lowering it to 17, let alone sending ballots to zygotes.
I am real suspicious of "slippery slope" arguments. Once in a while, you hear a valid one…where the descent down that slope is obvious and a logical extension. Most of the time, you hear them when the person can't make a case against some proposal so they make it against something that might occur as a result. You want there to be a stoplight at the corner. I don't but I can't explain why. So I argue that once you build a stoplight there, you're opening the door to them building a nuclear reactor there…or something. The point is we can let two people of the same gender marry without letting 33 people all marry each other plus the Budweiser Clydesdales.
The best Italian restaurant I ever found, Zito's, closed on Pico Boulevard (just west of Westwood) in 1969, the same year I graduated high school. Those two events may have been connected because Jo Anne Zito, daughter of the owners, was in my class and she graduated at the same time. With no evidence whatsoever, I've always thought that the Zito family was just waiting for Jo Anne to get her diploma before selling the restaurant and moving out of Los Angeles.
A new Italian restaurant named Anna's moved into the building, at first keeping pretty much the same decor. I ate there once, resented the place for not being Zito's, and decided not to go there again. I believe I had spaghetti and meatballs and wasn't impressed. That's what I usually order the first time I go to an Italian restaurant — spaghetti and meatballs. I figure if they can't do that right, there's no point in trying anything else.
A few years later, enough friends had told me how great Anna's was that I decided to go give 'em another try. I was glad I did. I still wasn't wild about their spaghetti but they had other things on the menu that were quite wonderful…especially the Cannelloni Napoletana. You got two large crepes stuffed with ground beef, cheese and the tiniest bit of spinach, all covered in a red sauce or a white sauce. It was one of the best dishes I ever had in a restaurant and it prevented me from sampling much else on the Anna's menu. I mean, why bother? It wasn't going to be any better than the Cannelloni Napoletana.
The other thing I liked best about Anna's was walking up to it. It was on the corner of Pico and Kelton. On Kelton, there was a large vent from the kitchen and to walk past it was like being in a garlic sauna that could have melted Count Dracula on the spot. It was really an arresting sensation to get that burst of warm, garlic-infused air. Every time I took someone there, I made sure to steer them past the vent and to alert them to get ready. They all inhaled deeply and said, "Now, that's how an Italian restaurant is supposed to smell!" I miss that as much as I miss the Cannelloni Napoletana.
Lastly, an honorable mention for the waiters. Anna's had great ones. They were career professionals, not outta-work actors, and some were there 20+ years. They could be surly at times, especially with folks who'd peruse the menu for a half-hour then ask, "What's good here?" But the service was first-rate and they really cared about you liking your food.
Anna's was there 41 years…until June of 2010. The owners received an offer they couldn't refuse from another restaurant that craved the real estate…so they sold. Good for them. Bad for lovers of good Italian cooking.
Not long ago, someone unearthed a color home movie of the Three Stooges. It was shot at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City on July 1, 1938 by a gent named George Mann who was half of a comedy dance team called Barto and Mann. Mr. Mann and his wife Barbara Bradford also appeared in the film.
Someone with a sense of fun and creativity recently added titles, music and sounds from the Stooges shorts for Columbia. Here's the result…
The family of Don Markstein is reporting his death at age 65 due to respiratory failure following a prolonged illness. Don was a mover 'n' shaker in science-fiction, animation and comic book fandom in the sixties and after. I believe I first met him in person (as opposed to the correspondence which preceded that moment) at the World Science-Fiction Convention in Los Angeles in 1972 and even then, he had a lot of friends and a lot of respect within the fan community.
Don and his wife Gigi founded Apatoons, an amateur press publication that was reponsible for much scholarship and research about the field of cartoons, and Don edited the magazine Comics Revue as well as several books on comic history, including The Prince Valiant Companion. He also wrote a number of comic books, including Disney comics that were primarily published overseas.
His most lasting contribution on the 'net is The Toonopedia, which he updated every day since he established it in 1999. Until recently when illness (I assume) caused him to miss dates, he would post a listing each day tracing the history of some newspaper strip or comic book feature. We engaged in some friendly e-mailed debates about some of his facts but I never questioned Don's devotion to getting things right. I hope his family arranges for someone else to continue the project.
I just saw this video of Rick Santorum being asked about his position on Gay Marriage. Usually when he's asked this, he goes into this silly riff of saying, well, if you let anyone marry anyone then you'll have people marrying multiple partners and cocker spaniels and household appliances and such. In the video, he starts down that path, realizes it's not going to fly with that audience and beats a hasty exit. Here is what I would like someone to say to this man…
You believe the law should be that one man marries one woman and there is no suggestion in there of polygamy, of one man being able to marry nine women or anything. We believe the law should be that one consenting adult should be able to marry one other consenting adult, regardless of gender. There is no insinuation of polygamy in that either but because you cannot mount a rational argument against our position, you insert all those other things into it. How about explaining what's wrong with two (and only two) people who love each other getting hitched without misrepresenting the other side's stance?
I'd imagine he'd come back with some arguable Bible quotation that's self-evident to him. That would be accompanied by some claim that once you start tinkering with the existing definition of marriage, you're opening the door to further tinkering. You know, like if we change the speed limit from 55 to 65, what's to stop someone from changing it to 165? And Mr. Santorum does want to redefine all sorts of other practices that relate to sex, like a woman's right to control her own body…
WonderCon is next weekend so the next few days will probably be filled with me rushing to clear the time and prep, occasionally pausing to foolishly wonder if there's any way I can get the event postponed a week or two. I know folks who average two or three conventions a month and I don't understand how they do it…or in some cases, why.
I have much to get done and it didn't help any that I lost that hour last night. In reality, it makes no difference but I now feel like my life is an hour behind and that's disconcerting.
Years ago, I was in Laughlin, Nevada when it came time to change the clocks. Laughlin is on the border there with Arizona, which is a confusion to begin with. Nevada is in the Pacific time zone and Arizona is in the Mountain time zone. So I found myself sitting in a restaurant in Laughlin that overlooked the Colorado River…and on the other side of the river, I could see the time on a huge digital display and it was an hour later than where I was.
I couldn't just ignore the time over there because the airport I'd be flying out of was over there — in Bullhead City, Arizona. From my hotel, it was close enough to walk to the airfield but I had to remember I'd lose an hour as I did. The nice part of that of course is that if your plane lands at 10:50 AM, you might think, "Oh, I'll be too late for the breakfast buffet at the hotel. It closes at 11!" And then by the time you get to your hotel, it's 10:05 and you still have time for waffles.
That can be baffling enough but Arizona does not, as a state, practice Daylight Saving Time. There are periods when it's in sync with the state to its west and periods when it is not. Right this moment, it's 11:30-whatever in both California and Arizona but twenty-hour hours ago, it was an hour earlier in my state. I'm sure to some it feels like Arizona is wrong and everywhere else, they're right. But actually Arizona is the place that has 24 hours in every day and doesn't move one of those hours six months later. (I'm told there are border cities in Arizona that do so much business with people crossing the state line that they roll their clocks back and forth in recognition of that. This is done just to confuse things further.)
I kinda like the extra hour of daylight…now. I have dozens of things in this house that run on timers and it used to be that I'd lose an hour just resetting them all. I once had six VCRs here, every one of which had its Time Set controls in a different place. Just remembering how to add or subtract an hour from each one was daunting. These days, fortunately, most of them adjust on their own but I do have to go around and check and then fix the ones that don't.
This morning when I awoke, the clock by my bed said it was 9:15. I couldn't recall if that clock recognized the change so I told myself, "It's either 9:15 or 10:15," and in a groggy, half-asleep fog told myself, "If it's 9:15, I probably need to go back to bed for another hour." It turned out it was 9:15 and that clock has a little switch on the back that you flip to add an extra hour or remove it. It doesn't adjust itself because, I guess, the manufacturer wants to be able to sell these in Arizona.
Little Joe's was a very famous Italian restaurant in Los Angeles. And it was located just where you'd expect to find a very famous Italian restaurant: In the middle of Chinatown.
The institution started life in 1897 as the Italian-American Grocery Company at the corner of 5th and Hewitt Streets. One account says its founder-owner was Italian-born Charley Viotto. Another credits a man named John Nuccio, also an Italian immigrant. Around the turn of the century, the city's Italian immigrant community relocated to the North Broadway area and the market followed in 1907, settling into the ground floor of a three-story hotel at Broadway and College. Eventually, the market turned into a restaurant and the hotel was torn down and replaced by a building that was just a restaurant — and a very nice one.
Along the way, the name was changed. After World War I, a number of Italian-American businesses changed their names to de-emphasize Italian heritage and some theorize that this prompted the restaurant to become Little Joe's. In 1922, John Nuccio (who if he didn't found the establishment seems to have acquired it by then) retired and sold out to his best friend, John Gadeschi. Nuccio's son went to work there after serving in World War II and when he married Gadeschi's daughter, control of Little Joe's returned to the Nuccio family and remained there ever after.
In the forties, Little Joe's became a favorite hangout of Hollywood stars. It is said that when W.C. Fields was staying at a nearby hospital to deal with alcohol abuse, he sometimes slipped out and hustled over to the bar at Little Joe's for cocktails. When the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in the fifties, Little Joe's became a big hangout for fans of the team. Located not all that far from the stadium, it was a place to go before a game or — better still — after, when players were known to stop in. If the game was being televised, some people would decide to not hassle the parking and just watch it at the bar in Little Joe's.
Over those decades, the neighborhood morphed into Chinatown. Little Joe's was eventually the last major business for blocks around that wasn't Asian in ownership and/or commerce. Business declined. It may have been the city's oldest Italian restaurant but it was not its most convenient. As the building came to need major renovation, the Nuccio family decided it didn't warrant the investment and Little Joe's finally closed down in December of 1998. It was announced that the structure would be razed and an apartment and retail complex called the Chinatown Blossom Plaza would be built in its place at a cost of $162 million. But those plans fell through and the last time I was down there, the old Little Joe's building was still standing, signage intact, fenced-off and looking pretty sad. Reportedly, a new shopping plaza is finally being erected there now.
Click above to read the Little Joe's menu
I was only there once. For years, my family and I had heard of Little Joe's. It was a very famous place to slurp pasta and everyone in my family was eager to try it. Everyone but me, that is. At the time, my favorite Italian restaurant was Zito's which was much closer and where we never had a meal we didn't love. So why travel all the way downtown to try a place which, at best, might be just as good? Good question. And the answer was that my Aunt Dot was on a "try new things" kick, lecturing us that there was something wrong with a person who stuck with the same old, same old. In 1969, on the day I graduated from high school, it was decided we'd follow the ceremony with a big family outing to some restaurant. Somehow, though it was my Graduation Day, I didn't have a vote in the matter. We were going to Little Joe's.
It was a long drive and a long wait for a table, and then the food failed to thrill us. When that happens in a place like that, you wonder if something's wrong with you. After all, thousands and thousands of people have raved about the cuisine. It can't be as bad as you think it is, can it? How could they be open all those years and have such a great reputation with mediocre cuisine? But they lasted a long time without, obviously, my business. Guess we just caught it on an off-night.
A great artist has passed. In a way, two have: Under his own signature, Jean Giraud illustrated some of the finest adventure comic stories of the 20th century, most notably the wildly-popular adventures of Lieutenant Blueberry. (The Lieutenant was later promoted to higher ranks.)
And under the name Moebius, Giraud drew surreal, imaginative tales of science-fiction and fantasy. His work was a special highlight of Metal Hurlant magazine and of its American outlet, Heavy Metal. He was easily one of the most respected and popular illustrators of graphic fiction of all time.
I am informed he passed away this morning. No other details are yet available and it's late. I would imagine the Internet will be full of tributes and sadness this weekend and for many days thereafter.
