North Carolina is about to vote on an amendment to their state constitution that would enshrine their ban on Gay Marriage in a firmer manner. A local writer named Tommy Tomlinson wrote a simple argument against the amendment that makes a strong case. If you know someone who thinks the drive to allow same-sex wedlock […]
I hang out a lot at a wonderful place called Farmers Market at the corner of 3rd and Fairfax here in Los Angeles. Farmers Market is full of restaurants and folks who sell produce and other edible things…so you'd figure there'd be no need around there for any other business that would sell you a […]
My friend Dave Schwartz (one of thousands of Dave Schwartzes I know) informs me that he went to see What About Dick? last night and the evening did not close with "The Dick Anthem," the song it closed with on the first night when I saw it. Instead, they did a reprise of a tongue-twister […]
This runs an hour so you probably won't want to watch it through to conclusion. But you might enjoy a few minutes of a live TV presentation of one of my favorite plays, June Moon by Ring Lardner and George S. Kaufman. The original production, directed by Mr. Kaufman, debuted on Broadway in October of […]
Jimmy Kimmel did better than I'd expected at the White House Correspondents Dinner last night, especially in the first half of his act. I got the feeling after about twenty minutes that he was wishing he'd been a bit more ruthless in editing out some of the weaker gags which were bunched up just where […]
Ron Rosenbaum resurrects a topic that not many care about these days but I do: Watergate. His particular question is whether it is provable that Richard M. Nixon, the 37th President of these United States, ordered the infamous break-in that failed and thus destroyed his presidency. As a longtime wallower, I would say the evidence […]
Number two hundred and nineteen in a series… […]
Read More… from Great Photos of Stan Laurel and/or Oliver Hardy
Helms Bakery wasn't really a restaurant but it's my website. I can write about it here if I want to. The Helms Bakery Building still stands on Venice Boulevard with much of its signage still intact…but inside, they bake no bread or cinnamon buns. It's a furniture mart in there now but once upon a […]
CNBC is running a good one-hour special about Costco these days. It is, of course, the kind of thing Costco would love to have produced themselves as it glorifies the store and its operators and tells you just how wonderful every single thing is about it. This is the way CNBC covers anything that makes […]
The White House Correspondents Dinner is tonight. Usually, they invite a comedian to perform but instead, this year they got Jimmy Kimmel. I'm uncomfy with some aspects of the ritual, particularly with the press being so darned friendly with folks they're supposed to be dispassionately covering…but I'm fascinated with it as a piece of show […]
Thursday night, as described here, my friend Mickey Paraskevas and I went to see the first of four staged readings of Eric Idle's play, What About Dick? On the back of the program book, the following was printed…. The use of photography or recording of any kind is specifically prohibited. HOWEVER, we invite you to […]
A lot of folks are mad at Barack Obama for an ad and some remarks that suggest that Mitt Romney would not have killed Osama bin Laden. On the one hand, there's something to the claim…some quotes that suggest that Romney didn't think it was such a priority. Neither, a month or two after 9/11, […]
Number two hundred and eighteen in a series… […]
Read More… from Great Photos of Stan Laurel and/or Oliver Hardy
45 Reasons Why We Can't Have Nice Things. […]
Another thing that makes me think the climate is changing (and not for the better) is the size of the crows in my area. I tweeted the other day that they're the size of Winnebagos but that was just a joke. The average one is no larger than a 1974 Chrysler Imperial — the model […]