The programming schedule for this year's WonderCon is now online for your perusal. Here's the link.
I'm running five panels at the con. I'll post a more detailed list in a few days but on Friday, we're doing Quick Draw! and later in the day, I'm interviewing Astro City artist Brent Anderson. On Saturday, I'm moderating a panel on comic books from the seventies and I'm running one of my Cartoon Voices panels. And then on Sunday, I'm lecturing on Writing for Animation. Details to follow.
A nice piece of card wizardry by magician Justin Flom…
Speaking of Eric Idle: Read Tom Doran's little essay about Monty Python. I'm afraid to a lot of people, the best thing about Python is all the catch phrases that can be repeated in lieu of actual humor.
Eric Idle on stuff he's written and what did — or didn't — happen to it. I suspect that by virtue of being Eric Idle, some of his unrealized projects had more chances for birth than if the same material had been written by someone less famous. But that's true of any successful writer and much of what he discusses is true of anyone with persistence and Microsoft Word.
Peter Meyerson, who wrote and/or launched some of the most popular TV shows of the sixties and seventies, has died at the age of 82. Peter had many credits on shows like That Girl, Accidental Family, Captain Nice, The Partridge Family and The Bob Newhart Show but his two biggies were The Monkees and Welcome Back, Kotter. He co-wrote the first episode aired of The Monkees and on his own, wrote many others after that. He wrote the pilot for Welcome Back, Kotter and so received a "Developed for television by…" credit as well as a piece of the hit series.
Peter initially chose not to stay with Kotter and went off to pursue playwrighting, an area in which he hoped to make some mark. During the show's second season, there was a crisis of sorts on Kotter. The Executive Producer and the network felt the show had strayed from its roots and mandate and needed to get back to its original premise. Producers and writers were gently (some, not so gently) let go and new producers and writers were brought in to course-correct the program. My then-partner Dennis Palumbo and I were among the new writers and a few weeks after we got there, Peter Meyerson came aboard as Supervising Producer. He told us he didn't relish going back to a staff position but the money was too good to turn down, plus he wanted to prolong a series in which he held a share of the profits. He didn't stick around that long but he did much to get Mr. Kotter and the Sweathogs back on track.
He and I had our differences but I liked him and learned a few things.
Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) — long an opponent of Gay Marriage, has done a one-eighty and now supports it. Why? Because he found out his son is gay and as he says, "he [the son] was still the same person he'd always been. The only difference was that now we had a more complete picture of the son we love."
Folks who believe Gay Marriage is no big deal and that opposing it is wrong seem to be having two reactions today to Senator Portman's turnabout. One is that whatever his reasons, it's good to have him on the right side. Same-Sex Wedlock is becoming increasingly inevitable across the country and maybe the conversion of a guy like Portman will ease the trauma for its opponents and speed up the process a little. I honestly believe we will see the day when those who now campaign against it will not only accept it as harmless but, like many who once opposed racial integration, will try to pretend they were never really against it in the first place.
So that's one view from the side of those who favor allowing Gay Marriage. Another is that someone like Senator Portman ought to have enough selflessness and empathy to get to that kind of awareness without it coming into their own homes like that. It's like, "Are you not going to favor medical research to cure certain diseases until someone in your family contracts one of those diseases?" Moral and political positions aren't supposed to be something you only take when they'll benefit you.
In the case of the Senator, I think I have both these views plus this one: It's really, really awkward and it makes you look like kind of a prick to deny equality to your own kid. It can sure make for some uncomfortable press conferences and interviews…and while there are those who might applaud it as a matter of principle, even some who pray to stop Gay Marriage would think less of you as a human being. At least, they'd be willing to give you a pass on this issue. There are folks out there who think Dick Cheney is the best thing that ever happened to Washington. Virtually all of them oppose Gay Rights and I never heard one of 'em lose respect for Cheney because, due to his gay daughter, he didn't.
Reviews and articles say the HBO Phil Spector movie begins with the following disclaimer…
This is a work of fiction. It's not "based on a true story." It is a drama inspired by actual persons in a trial, but it is neither an attempt to depict the actual persons, nor comment upon the trial or its outcome.
The film by David Mamet — who is fast becoming one of my least-favorite writers — then proceeds to make the case that Phil Spector didn't kill Lana Clarkson and that her death was somewhere between a suicide and an accident, emphasis on the first. Mamet has stated his belief that if Spector wasn't so famous, he never would have been charged with a crime.
I don't buy any of that. Phil Spector had a history of waving guns at people — especially women who wanted to leave his Alhambra mansion before he was ready for them to leave — and being generally irrational. I knew Lana Clarkson casually, know a lot of people who knew her well, and the notion that she killed herself because she was depressed about turning 40, as Mamet's film posits, has zero basis in reality. It's just something a lawyer made up because he didn't have any sort of viable defense and he had to say something.
I understand and in some cases have no problem with the intermingling of fiction and fact; of a writer devising dialogue and twisting known truths in telling a tale of real people. If someone hired me to write a boffo box-office screenplay about Martin Van Buren, I'd probably invent all sorts of things that didn't happen…maybe argue that ol' Marty was an alien from another world with the ability to do martial arts and make women's tops disappear. But I wouldn't do that with a story people cared about or as a propaganda effort to hope I could get the world to believe it. That was my objection to Oliver Stone's JFK, a dishonest effort (I thought) to blur fact and fantasy because sticking to facts would not "sell" people on what Stone wanted to believe but could not prove without fibbing.
It's one thing to say "Here's a version I believe of what really happened." It's another to cobble up a meld of truth, lies and spin, make it look as much like reality as you can and then try to escape responsibility for the fiction you inject by saying, as Mamet does, this is "…neither an attempt to depict the actual persons, nor comment upon the trial or its outcome." Clearly, Al Pacino is trying to replicate the actual person. Clearly, a filmmaker who believes Spector was convicted because of his fame — in a state where fame is usually a "Get Out of Jail Free" card — is trying to comment on the trial and its outcome.
That's as much as I want to say before I see the film…which I may not be able to do. It might be a wonderful viewing experience, as most of Pacino's performances usually are. I just think it's kinda disingenuous to base a movie on a true story, warp that true story into something that isn't true, then hide behind the excuse which will go largely unnoticed that it was never meant to be a true story. It's also cowardly to trash a lovely lady as you try to rehabilitate the image of the psycho who murdered her.
Jon Cozart, who goes by the name of "Paint," has a new release you'll want to watch…
David Lazarus on why "Obamacare" is a good thing.
I don't think it'll be possible for Republicans to repeal or de-fund the Affordable Care Act. What's more, I think a lot of them know that but also know that to say they can or will generates loyalty from a loud sector of their base. So the debate rages on…
The Paul Ryan budget is never going to come close to reality in this country. Neither is the House Progressives budget.
I never saw the musical It's a Bird…It's a Plane…It's Superman during its brief Broadway run in 1966 but I've seen four or five local productions of it. That's enough for me to decide that I don't like the show and am not surprised it wasn't a bigger hit. Usually, a non-Sondheim musical that only ran 129 performances on the Great White Way would disappear and never be seen again. I think it's because people so love the character that it keeps being revived here and there for limited runs.
The storyline has a fundamental problem: At the beginning, Lois Lane is in love with Superman and doesn't know he's Clark Kent. At the end, Lois Lane is in love with Superman and doesn't know he's Clark Kent. Very talented folks worked on it but I don't think they were able to juggle that limitation and create a storyline that anyone would care about. They were also torn between treating Superman as a serious hero or as a campy figure to be laughed at. So they more or less tried both and succeeded, insofar as I'm concerned, at neither.
Ergo, I won't be hustling to New York next week to see the four performances that the Encores! series is doing at City Center. If you're going or if you're interested in the show, you might be interested in this 26-minute preview of that production. Edward Watts, who's playing the Man of Steel, sure looks the part and he's surrounded by good actors. I just don't really care if I ever see this particular musical again.
By the way: If you watch this preview, you'll hear the interviewer say something very dumb about how people who are into comics will probably see their first-ever stage musical when they flock to see this show. He don't know us very well, do he?
Little girls in super-hero costumes. Almost as cute as baby pandas.
The folks who told us the Iraq War would "pay for itself" were only off by a little less than four trillion dollars. That's above and beyond the 4000+ U.S. soldiers killed and the 32,000 wounded and other human costs. Remember that the next time you hear Dick Cheney saying the Obama administration is screwing up….or anyone say George W. Bush wasn't a bad president.
Quite a few folks have written me about the "Five-Timers" sketch on last Saturday night's Saturday Night Live. No one wrote who was actually present in the studio but a lot of people wrote who have been to SNL telecasts and they said that many sketches are performed in areas of the stage where few (if any) audience members can see directly and that most wind up watching on the monitors. I guess that's the explanation as to why the audience didn't react to the surprise guests before they were seen on camera.
Also, it turns out that it was indeed Justin Timberlake's fifth time hosting the show, not his sixth. Several folks wrote to me that it was his sixth and they all seem to have gotten this from Wikipedia…which was for the first time ever in the history of Wikipedia, incorrect about something.
In other late night news, there's been no announcement from NBC or Jay Leno responding to reports that the network would soon announce Leno's departure. The last few nights, Leno and Jimmy Fallon have both done jokes as if it's true but those are, after all, jokes. Leno has Craig Ferguson on his show this Friday night so that might be an occasion to mention the topic. I'm still skeptical…not that NBC might decide to replace Leno next year but that they'd decide that now. You'd think that after all that mess with Conan, the one thing they might say at that network is "Okay, from now on, we don't cancel Jay until he's really losing." But more obvious lessons have gone unlearned in network television.
I've also received a lot of info about Miss Miller, the lady who used to practically live in studio audiences for TV tapings and live telecasts. Before long, I'll compile them into a nice post here. It's kind of an interesting story…I think.
I get quoted in the New York Times again. It's an article about how a tea company is employing the graphic novel format.