Playboy has posted online the text of an interview in this month's issue with Stan Lee. It mostly has to do with Stan's delight at how famous he is, how famous the Marvel Super-Heroes are, etc.
A lot of the history is not only at odds with my understanding but it's different from things Stan has said in the past, both in print and in private conversations. I suspect an upcoming issue of Playboy will feature a letter from Steve Ditko saying much the same thing.
Our pal Lee Aronsohn took dialogue he found on various right-wing websites and used it to make this video about Obamacare…
So Nate Silver has this new website which will, he says, try to present analysis of data without "advocacy," meaning he ain't gonna try to spin it to promote some political agenda. Whether he will actually accomplish that, of course, will be arguable. It's very difficult these days for anyone in the public discourse to respect a non-partisan who says things they don't want to hear. (As Stephen Colbert has noted, "Facts have a well-known Liberal bias.")
Amazingly, an editor over at New Republic — a publication/website that does exactly what Silver says he's going to try avoid — is offended at the concept.
For those of you being assaulted with claims that Obamacare is tanking the economy, causing fewer people to have insurance and undoubtedly is the reason Flight MH370 is missing, I suggest Rick Ungar. He's the "Token Lefty" over at Forbes magazine — a lonely job, no doubt, at a publication that worships the wealthy. For some reason, they let him (and may even pay him for all we know) write some hard-hitting columns about how dire predictions about the Affordable Care Act are not coming true. Take this article, for instance.
Today (Wednesday), Stu Shostak has two of my favorite people on Stu's Show and if you tune in, they'll be two of your favorites, as well. But that's okay. I'm a generous sort and I'm willing to share them with you. Bill and Cheri Steinkellner are a married couple of amazing talent, much of it writing talent…but Cheri's a great singer and actress, and Bill's also a fine director and one of the best teachers of improv comedy in the country. What have these people written? Well, TV shows like Cheers and The Jeffersons and Bob (the Bob Newhart sitcom where he played a comic book artist) and the cartoon series, Teacher's Pet. There have been others. They wrote the book for the Tony-nominated Broadway show, Sister Act. Bill was one of the main people behind the original Pee-wee Herman Show and he taught a lot of performers who have since become quite famous, and Cheri teaches at U.C.S.B. and has another musical she's working on and…oh, they've done way too much for Stu to cover in one show. Just tune in and hear them.
Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there. Webcasts start at 4 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM Eastern and other times in other climes. They run a minimum of two hours and sometimes go to three or beyond.
Shortly after a show ends, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a paltry 99 cents each and you can get four for the price of three.
Patric Verrone was the president of the Writers Guild of America, West for several terms, one of which thrust him into the unenviable position of leading us in a strike. Even in times of peace, that is not an easy job because…well, running any kind of labor organization is tough, especially in this day and age, and a strike puts you at war against some of the world's mightiest corporations. Plus, you can count on a certain amount of fragging from your own side. We have some members — not a majority but too many — who are so incessantly angry and nasty to our leadership that they don't deserve to have anyone good and sane run for office.
I thought Patric was good and sane and he demonstrated the skin of a rhinoceros and the diplomacy of Mahatma Gandhi after est training. (I'm not sure what that means but it sure sounds like a joke, doesn't it?) Besides, the guy's not only a writer, he's even a writer of cartoons including The Simpsons, Futurama, Rugrats and others. He is now running for the California State Senate and I just donated to his campaign.
I am not supporting him because of his cartoon work. There are plenty of cartoon writers who…well, if they ever got into public office, the entire government would be on sale next week at the 99-Cent Only Store, plus we'd be at war with Korea, the Soviet Union, Iran and Disney.
I am supporting him because I think he did a great job as prez of the WGA, and because I talked with him a lot about Guild affairs. I was impressed with him when I agreed with him, of course…but I was even more impressed when we disagreed. We had the kind of mature (at least on his end) back 'n' forth discussion that I wish I felt I could have with anyone I vote for on my local, state or national ballot. If you'd care to join me in a donation, here's where to send the bucks.
Not long ago on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart hammered Fox News contributor Andrew Napolitano pretty badly for some of Napolitano's claims about the Civil War. Last week, Stewart had Napolitano on and the latter insisted, among other things, that Lincoln tried to arm the slaves. Stewart and a panel of experts told him he was wrong. Well, according to Politifact, he was.
I often mention another friend o' mine, Joe Brancatelli, on this blog. I've known Joe since the early seventies when he was one of the first people with actual Journalism chops to cover the comic book industry. Now, he covers the airline industry. He sends me the following two "corrections" to this piece I posted the other day…
1. You're wrong to say everyone who writes on the Internet has a theory about MH370. Respectfully, I know more about airlines than 95 percent of the people who write on the Internet and I have no theory. In fact, I wrote a column last week lambasting the awful coverage of MH370 and the rampant speculation masquerading as news.
2. You're wrong to say that detective movies and TV shows have duped us into thinking this stuff is like a puzzle with pieces that become a workable scenario. Actually, a plane crash (or whatever this is…) is exactly like that. You fit the pieces of fact together and it shows you what happened. The problem with MH370? We have no facts. To paraphrase the lingo of detective movies and TV shows: We can't establish motive, we don't know the means, are sketchy on anyone's opportunity and, by the way, we can't even find the crime scene. Baffling.
I'm not even sure we're clear yet on what crime has been committed but yeah, Joe's right about the lack of facts and more right about the shameless way the media once again proves that line from reporter Jack Germond that I quote here all the time: "We're not paid to say 'I don't know' even when we don't know."
I do think people expect real-life mysteries to be as "pat" as fictional ones and this expectation leads them to think they have something all figured out when they don't. Look at the thousands (literally) of different authors and supposed experts who have figured out with great certainty, different scenarios as to how John F. Kennedy died. They all thought they had all the pieces and they all arranged them into different pictures. But one of these days, authorities should know what happened with flight MH370 —
— and then we'll start hearing that that account, whatever it is, is a cover-up and we'll hear countless different tales of what really happened…
Steven Thompson calls my attention to this brief video in which David Brenner shares his memories of that first Tonight Show shot…
And I should mention that some of my knowledge of Mr. Brenner is because I'm good friends with his ace publicist, Jeff Abraham. Jeff confirms to me that the Tonight Show from January 8, 1971 was definitely his first time doing stand-up on television and writes…
It was either one day shy of his 18th or 19th month of being a stand-up…which is pretty damn amazing when you realize most comedians don't make their Tonight Show debut until after they've been doing stand-up for about five years.
Utterly amazing. Jeff also informs me that the day after, Brenner had $20,000 worth of job offers in hand, including a slot opening for Sonny & Cher at the Sahara in Las Vegas. Buddy Hackett, who had points in the Sahara, saw Brenner on Johnny's show and urged the hiring.
Of course, the big triumph for a new comic who appeared with Johnny was to be invited over to the guest chair after his stand-up. The rule changed from time to time over the years but it was usually as follows: Do not expect panel (i.e., sitting with Johnny) until your fourth time on the show. After you finish your set, take your bow and glance over at the producer. That would usually be Fred DeCordova. He will signal you as to whether Johnny has signalled him that you are to receive the rare honor of panel before your fourth appearance. If you don't get that signal, finish your bow and get off the stage.
You had to do exceptionally well on your first Tonight Show appearance to get panel and only a few comics did. Jeff thinks that Johnny wanted to bless Brenner with that honor but that David just plain left the stage too rapidly.
A bit more on David Brenner. This was his first Tonight Show shot, allegedly (and perhaps really) his first time doing stand-up on television. The date was January 8, 1971 and they gave him an unusually long time — eight minutes. That was a long set, even back then when the program was still ninety minutes.
Someone had a lot of confidence in the guy and you can see, a few jokes in, a little twinkle in Brenner's eyes. He's doing great, he knows it and all fears of bombing and ending his career are evaporating. At the end, he hurries off the stage too fast and is many yards away when a stagehand or someone tells him that Johnny wants him to come back out and take another bow.
For a time in the seventies, this was the dream of every stand-up comic: That great Carson shot that instantly transformed you from a guy working night after night in clubs for little or no money to a comedy star, very much in demand. I'll bet you Brenner had twenty offers the next morning. It was a time when The Tonight Show had stand-up pretty much to itself, at least insofar as new comics were concerned. It stopped being that before Johnny retired.
Brenner was a regular with Carson for a long time. He guest-hosted and was at one point on the short list of potential replacements when Johnny was talking (seriously) about leaving in the mid-seventies and again in the early eighties. I don't know why but Brenner seemed to fall out of favor with Carson and the show after a while. He stopped appearing as a comic or a guest host, and they even usually left him out of those montages of Prinze, Letterman, Leno, Shandling and others who got their start or big break with Johnny. Still, he was one of the show's great success stories in that area.
Here he is, becoming a star in only eight minutes…
Nate Silver's new blog.
I seem to be the only person who writes on the Internet and doesn't have a theory as to what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. I read a number of them and it seems to me that a lot of folks are formulating what may be logical deductions based on erroneous facts.
I read one bit of Airline Sherlocking and it seems so rational and informed that I think, "Hey, this guy seems to have figured it out." And then I read another, mostly-different scenario from someone else and that seems credible…which means that at least one of these sleuths is wrong. Which makes me think both probably are.
So I dunno…I sometimes think detective movies and TV shows have duped us into thinking that mysteries are like puzzles where you have all the pieces and you know precisely what each of them means on its own. All you have to do is fit them into a workable scenario. (It was even easier on the old detective shows of the sixties. You just had to look over the cast list. Was Dick Van Patten in it? If he was, he was the murderer.)
I feel bad for the friends and loved ones of the passengers on that flight, sitting there with slowly-fading hope. Must be agony for them.
I mentioned here the other day that David Brenner was a real nice guy. Want proof? Here's a story involving the comedian, Richard Lewis…
After earning a marketing degree from Ohio State, he [Lewis] returned to New Jersey and spent five years working two, sometimes three jobs as an advertising copywriter, a librarian and a sporting goods clerk. Not until 1971, after his father died, did Lewis decide to tackle his dream. He showed up for open-mike night at a Greenwich Village club. He soon found himself driving 50 to 100 miles a night to work suburban comedy clubs.
It was comic David Brenner, now a close friend, who really gave him his big break. "We're sitting in a deli and I'm saying, 'I can't take it, man. I'm working three jobs, sleeping two hours a night.' He said, 'What do you need to be a comic full time?' I said $1,000. He whipped out a check and gave it to me. I quit my jobs and I've never looked back."
I'd heard that story for years and someone I know asked Brenner if it was so. He said, "No…I gave him cash. I never carried checks." Now, that's a good human being.
Some folks are writing to congratulate me on my seeming prescience. It's because of this story in which the New York Daily News says that David Letterman's show is pulling out all stops to get Jay Leno on as a guest. Let us note that the Daily News has a pretty lousy track record for accuracy. Let us also note that this is a pretty easy prediction to make.
The last time Leno left The Tonight Show, Letterman's folks wanted him on. In fact, they wanted him on the same night Conan O'Brien debuted to try and steal the spotlight that evening. Jay declined because he thought it would look like he was knifing Conan, little suspecting he'd be accused of that no matter what he did. He's probably wondering right now how long to wait before he goes on with Dave so it doesn't look like he's undercutting Fallon. He's probably also wondering where and when to make his first advertised guest appearance since leaving The Tonight Show and whether Dave's show is the right place to make it. I'm curious to see what he will decide.
No damage whatsoever from this morning's earthquake. Nothing fell down, not even me. It felt sharp and fast, and I had the sensation of it rolling through the house.
I guessed it was about a 4.0 and was surprised when I got up to see the number 4.7, especially considering how close it was to me. It didn't feel that strong and didn't even feel like a 4.4, which is the current scoring. If there were aftershocks, I didn't feel them.
Of course, I got up. I'm sure some folks go back to sleep but I'm just going to lie there wondering how strong it was, if anyone got hurt, if there's another jolt coming, etc. So I got up and came here to the computer. Before the Internet, a quake in the middle of the night felt lonelier and you'd dive for the radio for info and to "connect" with the outside world and make sure it was still there. How normal everything seemed online had an immediate calming effect…not that I needed much calming.
Almost my first thought was that I didn't have to worry if my mother was okay. This is the first quake of this size since well before she died.
Anyway, I wrote for a little while, then went back to bed. Not a big deal.