An Easter Memory

This ran here on April 8, 2012. That's long enough ago to run it again, don'tcha think?

Once upon a time, the May Company was the sacred place to shop in Los Angeles — especially the formidable outlet at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax. It marked the west end of a strip of Wilshire full of department stores and that strip was known as the Miracle Mile. It's still called the Miracle Mile even though there isn't a single department store left there. Orbach's is gone. Harris & Frank is gone. Desmond's is gone. Mullen & Bluett is gone and so on. The May Company's lovely building is still there but inside it now is some sort of off-shoot of the L.A. County Museum of Art which is next door.

This memory takes place back when it was still the May Company, inside and out. For two or three years running, they did a special Easter promotion involving Bugs Bunny. Ads would appear giving a special phone number that kids could call to "talk to Bugs Bunny." Well, naturally, I had to call. I think I was six or seven the first time this happened but I knew how to dial a phone. And note that I said "dial," as in running one's finger around on one of these:

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So I dialed and got a busy signal. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Isn't "cut-and-paste" wonderful? Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again. Then I dialed and got a busy signal again.

And finally, it rang. And Bugs picked up.

Well, it wasn't Bugs, of course. Even I knew then it was Mel Blanc. But it also wasn't Mel Blanc. It was the recorded voice of Mel Blanc. But even that was exciting. In later years, it would be no big deal to call some number and hear a recorded announcement. Heck, there would be times when it would be a novelty to dial a number — any number — and not get a recorded announcement. But at the time, this kind of thing was kinda rare…and the fact that it was a cartoon character was very special.

I remember the first thing he said. It was, you may be surprised to hear, "What's up, doc?" And I remember the last thing he said. It was an admonition that I should hang up now so that someone else could get through. In-between, there was a pitch to get my parents to take me to the May Company at Wilshire and Fairfax where Bugs would have a special gift for me and a special, personal message. Well, you can guess where we were going…the next day, in fact. This was a few days before Easter.

That night, I was lying wide awake in bed, as I often did. I didn't sleep much as a kid. I would lie there half the night it seemed, making up incredible stories involving cartoons and characters I saw on TV or read in comic books. They were all about my phone buddy Bugs Bunny that night and I suddenly got the idea that I'd like to hear his message again…and also, I was curious. Was there just the one message or were there several and they rotated? And what would have happened if I hadn't hung up immediately? Would the message have repeated? Would Bugs have said something else?

I checked the clock by my bed at it said it was 4:10 in the morning. I had a hunch the phone might not be quite as busy at 4:10 in the morning.

So as not to awake my parents, I crept carefully out to the kitchen, which is where our only phone was. From all that dialing earlier, I had the number memorized so I called, worrying slightly that Bugs would answer and say angrily, "Hey, didn't you call earlier, kid?"  Or maybe, "What the big idea, waking me up at this hour?"

I got a busy signal. At 4-friggin'-11 in the morning. Someone else obviously had the same idea.

I put some peanut butter on a cracker, ate it and then dialed again. This time, I got through and heard the exact same message I'd heard earlier. At the end, when Bugs said to hang up so someone else could call, I risked him getting mad at me and didn't. And I heard…absolutely nothing. After about a minute, I hung up and went back to bed.

The next day, we went to the May Company. Near the center of the top floor, there was a huge display with big cut-outs of Bugs and Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig and other Warner Brothers characters. The phone message had made it sound like I could actually meet Bugs Bunny there and while I knew that wasn't possible, I figured there'd be something like a guy in a Bugs Bunny suit or a big robot or — and I knew this was a longshot but you tend to dream at that age — maybe they'd have Mel Blanc there.

They didn't. There were two cute young girls dressed in bunny ears and tails. This was a year or two before the Playboy Clubs opened with waitresses in bunny ears and tails and I always wondered if Hugh Hefner or someone working for him drew any inspiration from Bugs' helpers at the May Company. Probably not but you never know.

One gave me a little Bugs Bunny coloring book with a bag of crayons and candy attached. The other was in charge of a telephone on a pedestal. She held out the receiver for me and I took it and heard another message Mel Blanc had recorded. It was something about how he was sorry he was so busy he couldn't be there in person but you know, "us rabbits" are pretty busy just before Easter, painting eggs and figuring out where to hide 'em. He told me to be a good little kid and eat all my carrots and to make sure his helpers gave me his special Easter gift. And then he hung up on me and his assistant yanked the receiver from my grasp.

I didn't feel cheated by this since I'd known going in I wasn't going to really meet Bugs Bunny. I remember being rather thrilled to have gotten that close to him. And then my parents went shopping.

That's about everything I remember about the Bugs Bunny promotion. I'm going to guess they did it the first time in 1958 or 1959 when I was six or seven. If I had to bet, I'd bet the latter. I know they did it at least one following year, maybe two. Same ad in the paper, same message on the phone. We only went to the May Company in response that one time, presuming that since the phone message was the same, the pay-off when you got to the store would be the same. In 1961 or so, they did the same deal with Fred Flintstone, even though, having lived before Christ, his connection to Easter was at best tenuous. A recording by his voice Alan Reed was on the phone and when you went to the May Company, they had two cute ladies in ratty cave girl outfits filling the same function as the bunnies.

What they did have, I think in lieu of a phone message, was a robotic Fred Flintstone. It was a very good likeness about five feet high. His mouth opened and closed, not particularly in sync with a constantly repeating voice recording — Fred welcoming us to the May Company and wishing us Happy Easter. His right arm went up and down. My mother took a photo of me next to him but, damn it, the pictures didn't come out. A day or two later, they trucked the Robot Fred over to the local ABC studios and I saw it "perform" on the morning cartoon show hosted by Chucko the Birthday Clown. The voice didn't work and the moving arm kept stopping and starting, and Chucko (who was a pretty funny guy) kept warning Fred that if he didn't talk, ABC would cancel his prime-time show. I assume that robot is long since gone but I'd give about a year's pay to have it in my living room.

This has been an Easter Memory…and just about the only one this Jewish kid has from his childhood.


P.S., Added in 2022: Wondering what became of that beautiful building that housed the May Company department store? Well, it's still there and it's still beautiful. But it's now the Museum of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences…

Libraries

The phone has been ringing here all day so you get a rerun instead of a new post. This first ran here on 11/22/10…

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Not long ago, I spoke at an event about comic books that was held in a public library. Upon entering the building, two thoughts collided in my brain at the same moment.

One was one of those "look how far we've come" observations. Comic books being heralded in a public library? When I was a kid, a library was where parents sent their children because they didn't want them reading comic books. Or at least, didn't want them reading only comic books.

The second observation was along the lines of, "Hey, I'm walking into a public library. How long has it been since I did that?" It had been quite a while…and the last two times were also to appear at events connected with comic books.

There was a day when public libraries were my home away from home…when I'd be in one at least twice a week to take something out or bring something back. My parents were big on the library and I almost always accompanied them. Then when I was old enough to go on my own, I went on my own. I was in one so often that if I overheard someone ask a librarian for the Dewey Decimal code for biographies, I'd call out "920" before the staffer could get the nine out. Naturally in high school, I worked in the school library…and I could have done that for a living if I'd wanted a real boring, thankless occupation that didn't pay and which would soon be obsolete. (I am not knocking librarians one bit. I admire them greatly, especially those who champion Free Press and public access to information. I'm just lamenting what has befallen the profession.)

Over in West L.A. on Santa Monica Boulevard, there was and I think still is a library I frequented. That I'm not certain it's still there should give you some idea of how long it's been. It was divided into two sections. When you walked in, the Childrens section was to your left and the Adult books were to the right. In theory, you weren't supposed to be looking in, let alone checking books out from the Adult section if you were under thirteen years of age. This is not because there was any pornography or filth on that side. They were just afraid kids might encounter a book that had the words "hell" and/or "damn" in it. I think I was around eleven (maybe ten) when I outgrew the Childrens section. I'd literally read everything in it that wasn't of the "See Spot run" variety. I'd even read all the Freddy the Pig books by Walter R. Brooks, and I didn't even like Freddy the Pig. It's just that I'd run out of books there I hadn't read and perhaps memorized.

My parents sometimes checked out books they thought I'd like from the adult section but what was obviously needed was for me to have the ability to browse it myself. That's when my mother called Mrs. Kermoyan. You may remember Mrs. Kermoyan from this anecdote. She was my elementary school principal and a big supporter of my writing and reading endeavors. I have one other story about Mrs. Kermoyan I'll tell here one of these days but this one is about how she somehow arranged for me to get an adult library card. The next time my parents took me to that library, I was handed a special, magic card that allowed me to read or borrow any book in the place. A moment of great pride.

Card in hand, I marched over to the Drawing/Cartoons shelf (Dewey Decimal 740, I knew) to see what they had for me there. I picked out a book at random, opened to a random page and found myself looking at a photo of a nude woman. What, I ask you, are the odds?

I immediately slammed the book shut — not because I didn't want to see the nude woman. I did, very much. In fact, I later checked her out in a couple of senses of that term. But right at that moment, I didn't want anyone to see me looking at the nude woman. I was afraid they'd think that was the only reason I wanted the magic card and so they'd take it away from me. One of my two great disappointments came when I realized that almost none of the books in the Adult section contained photos of nude women. I'd just gotten lucky my first time out.

That day, I checked out several books on comics and cartoons…and I later worked my way through many shelves of many aisles. Every so often, a library worker who didn't know of me would say, "Hey, you shouldn't be in this section" and I'd proudly haul out my card and show him or her, which made me feel pretty darn special. My second great disappointment would come when I learned that I wasn't the only kid my age to have such a card.

I liked taking books out of the library. What I didn't like doing was taking them back, though I always did. (One near exception came when I finally got hold of a copy of Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy by John McCabe — at the time, the only book in print on my two favorite performers. The L.A. library system didn't have a copy. The nearby Beverly Hills Public Library did. Using my aunt's address, I got a Beverly Hills library card just so I could check that one book out…and I kept it out for months. I'd renew it whenever I could renew it and when I couldn't renew it, I'd take it back, wait around until they returned it to the shelves and then check it out again. I only briefly considered claiming it was lost and paying the fine, which would have been a lot less trouble for me and for the library.)

Anyway, as I began to make a little money, I began to buy books as opposed to borrowing them…and that's about when I stopped going to libraries. A library was no longer my home away from home. My home became a library away from libraries. In some ways, that's not as good because you don't have as many delightful surprises. Then again, I rarely have to pay myself an overdue fine.

T.M.I. (Too Many Ingredients)

A rerun from June 5, 2010…

Mock me if you will but I like foods that are kinda plain. To me, a hamburger is meat, bun, ketchup and maybe some onions — no cheese, no lettuce, no tomato, no chili, no mustard, no dressing, no nothing extra. Baked potato? Butter and sometimes not even that. Hot dog? Mustard only. Pizza? Cheese is fine. Maybe some mushrooms and/or meatballs.

You would not believe the condescending sneers you sometimes get from people who think there's something wrong with you as a human being if you don't like all sorts of excess, experimental things on your dinner. Or the number of waiters and waitresses who think you can't possibly mean that you want the chicken without the chutney-mango guacamole smeared all over it.

Actually, my servers have gotten better about this since I learned to make a funny issue out of these things when I order. Nowadays if you eat with me, you're likely to hear something like this…

ME: I would like the pulled pork sandwich but without the cole slaw.

SERVER PERSON: You don't want any cole slaw on the sandwich?

ME: I don't want any cole slaw on the plate. I don't want any cole slaw on the table. I don't want any cole slaw in the restaurant. You see those people at the next table eating cole slaw? Go take it away from them and tell the manager to remove it from the menu. If you can do something about banning it from this state, I'd be so appreciative, I might even tip.

Understand that I don't expect them to actually remove cole slaw from the menu or the state, though either would be nice. I just say stuff like that because I want them to remember that the large guy at table 8 really, really doesn't want cole slaw. About 90% of the time, this works whereas when I used to merely specify "no cole slaw," I'd almost always wind up with cole slaw…and a server who'd swear on some blood relative's life I said no such thing.

It's a problem I have with most restaurant meals, especially in new eateries. Between my food preferences and my food allergies, I'm always cross-examining the waitress and asking that they leave something out. Sometimes, they can't.

I long ago gave up ordering tuna fish sandwiches in restaurants because to me, a tuna fish sandwich is tuna, mayo or Miracle Whip, two slices of some non-exotic bread…and nothing else. Most places will leave off the tomato, lettuce, arugula, alfalfa sprouts, vinegarette dressing, cole slaw, etc. that their sandwich maker likes to heap onto the bread but they can't do much about what's already mixed into their tuna salad: Celery, chopped olives, Dijon mustard, onion, dill, cottage cheese, chopped avocado and so on.

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The add-ins were not the problem. If they want to do that to perfectly good tuna fish, that's their right. My problem was the vast number of times I'd ask, "What do you put in your tuna salad?" and the person taking my order would say, "Just mayo." And then when the sandwich came, it would have chopped chili peppers or live caterpillars or something blended in. So I gave up on public tuna salad. I only eat what I make. In an upcoming post, I'll tell you how I do this…and believe it or not, I have something to complain about there, too.

For now, I just want to say: There are new moves across the country to force restaurants to divulge nutritional info on their menus. I'm not completely comfortable with this being mandated by law…though the info itself is welcome. Wouldn't you like to know before you order the Bistro Shrimp Pasta at Cheesecake Factory that a single serving contains 2,285 calories and contains 73 grams of fat and more sodium than they have in Utah?

But what I'd really like to see more restaurants do is tell you what's in what you're ordering and what can be omitted. I'd like to know before I decide that the turkey meatloaf comes in a sauce made out of the contents of old Lava Lamps and that the stuffed salmon is stuffed with teriyaki-flavored Soylent Green. It's pretty awful but it's better than cole slaw…

A Complaint About Complaints

Back on 11/17/09, I complained here about complaints and this is what I posted. Coming up in the next week or so will be a post by me that restates some of this and also tells you how tired I'm getting of people who think they're demonstrating what high standards they have by finding fault with everything…

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Lately, I've had a lot of friends do something that irks me a bit, probably because I've been so often guilty of it, myself. I call it "Dead-End Complaining," though there's gotta be a better name for it out there. Basically, it's arguing about some injustice or stupidity when (a) there's no realistic chance that the complaint will do a damn bit of good and (b) it does more damage to complain rather than to just go along with it, whatever it is. I can best illustrate with an example I posted on this here blog in July of '08. I was reporting on an experience I had at the airport…

Security at LAX was the usual drag, made draggier by a raging debate ahead of me in my line. A lady who looked a lot like Paris Hilton (but wasn't) was refusing to remove her footwear…and getting very loud and strident about it. On one hand, she had a point. They were sandals — and I could have hidden a lot more weaponry or explosives in my wallet, which I did not have to put on the conveyor belt, than she could have secreted in her flip-flops. On the other hand, it was not like she had a prayer of winning the argument and having one lowly Security Agent reverse TSA policy.

"You're required to put your shoes through the x-ray," said a man of steadily-diminishing patience while behind us, we could all hear voices crying out, "My plane leaves in ten minutes" or similar pleas. For some reason, no one thought to move her to one side and debate the issue while others passed on through. Paris kept responding, as if someone was paying her to say it as many times as possible, "But these are not shoes." She was right on some theoretical level but wrong to think she was getting on her plane without complying. By the time she did as ordered, the line behind her was the length of the Nile and at least a few people had probably missed their flights.

There are many perfectly good reasons in this world to complain about what you perceive as "wrongs," the first being that sometimes, the complaint causes someone to actually right the wrong. At the very least, you put your dissatisfaction out there into the atmosphere where it might combine with the gripes of others and become a force so potent that it will foment change. That's all well and good, but in the above example, Not Paris Hilton was bitching about being inconvenienced a little and in so doing, was inconveniencing others a lot.

She was wasting her own time and compounding the inconvenience to herself…but more significant is that she was wasting others' time and wronging an awful lot of other people. If there was any chance her protest could somehow trickle up to the TSA management and promote a policy change, it was microscopic compared to making strangers, at that moment, wait longer in line and perhaps miss their flights. At some point, you also had to feel sorry for the poor Security Agent who had to endure her rage and who wasn't allowed to say, preferably in a loud Lewis Black impression, "Hey, I know it's ridiculous but I don't make the rules, lady!"

Complaining has other uses. There are times when one just needs to kvetch, just to let it out. There are times when you do it so others will reassure you that you're not the one being crazy; that the offense really is as illogical and vile as it seems. There are also times when complaints are just plain entertaining. I carry on about a lot of stuff not because I think it's going to rectify matters but because it seems like it might amuse the folks around me, especially when their frustrations match mine. If we can all make a joke out of it, that's so much better than being angry about that particular nuisance.

That said, I increasingly come to see that there are also times when complaining wastes time…and maybe fools you into thinking you're solving a problem when you're not. Lately, I've had a couple of friends call to gripe about some crappy thing that was done to them. On and on they go, not getting it when I say, "You're absolutely right. That's a stupid/lousy/unfair [whatever] thing that was done to you…and telling me about it for an hour is not going to solve anything. You need to figure out how to press on in spite of it." Often, the only possible solution is not to fix the wrong but to find a way to work around it.

There's also complaining as what, back in the sixties, we called an "attention-getting device." It's kind of like, "Show that I matter by listening to my beef" and there's also complaining as a form of snobbery…but we won't get into those. One of the reasons though that I no longer actively participate in the Writers Guild is that I realized that about 90% of the complaints I had to listen to there were in one or both of those categories.

It's a bit early for New Year's Resolutions but there's no law that says you can't make one in November. I intend to keep complaining —

  1. — when there's a realistic chance that it can do some good.
  2. — when I need to vent and it won't inconvenience anyone else if I do vent. And, lastly —
  3. — when I think it's funny.

But I resolve to try and not confuse #2 and #3 with #1. And I further resolve to take the time I'd otherwise spend grumbling about some destructive force that I cannot halt and use it to figure out how to dodge or at least minimize the harmful effects of that force. Most of all, I think I need to stop listening to people who do what I'm going to try to not do. Life is just too friggin' short.

Libraries

Let's rerun a post that was posted here on November 22, 2010.

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Not long ago, I spoke at an event about comic books that was held in a public library. Upon entering the building, two thoughts collided in my brain at the same moment.

One was one of those "look how far we've come" observations. Comic books being heralded in a public library? When I was a kid, a library was where parents sent their children because they didn't want them reading comic books. Or at least, didn't want them reading only comic books.

The second observation was along the lines of, "Hey, I'm walking into a public library. How long has it been since I did that?" It had been quite a while…and the last two times were also to appear at events connected with comic books.

There was a day when public libraries were my home away from home…when I'd be in one at least twice a week to take something out or bring something back. My parents were big on the library and I almost always accompanied them. Then when I was old enough to go on my own, I went on my own. I was in one so often that if I overheard someone ask a librarian for the Dewey Decimal code for biographies, I'd call out "920" before the staffer could get the nine out. Naturally in high school, I worked in the school library…and I could have done that for a living if I'd wanted a real boring, thankless occupation that didn't pay and which would soon be obsolete. (I am not knocking librarians one bit. I admire them greatly, especially those who champion Free Press and public access to information. I'm just lamenting what has befallen the profession.)

Over in West L.A. on Santa Monica Boulevard, there was and I think still is a library I frequented. That I'm not certain it's still there should give you some idea of how long it's been. It was divided into two sections. When you walked in, the Childrens section was to your left and the Adult books were to the right. In theory, you weren't supposed to be looking in, let alone checking books out from the Adult section if you were under thirteen years of age. This is not because there was any pornography or filth on that side. They were just afraid kids might encounter a book that had the words "hell" and/or "damn" in it. I think I was around eleven (maybe ten) when I outgrew the Childrens section. I'd literally read everything in it that wasn't of the "See Spot run" variety. I'd even read all the Freddy the Pig books by Walter R. Brooks, and I didn't even like Freddy the Pig. It's just that I'd run out of books there I hadn't read and perhaps memorized.

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My parents sometimes checked out books they thought I'd like from the adult section but what was obviously needed was for me to have the ability to browse it myself. That's when my mother called Mrs. Kermoyan. You may remember Mrs. Kermoyan from this anecdote. She was my elementary school principal and a big supporter of my writing and reading endeavors. I have one other story about Mrs. Kermoyan I'll tell here one of these days but this one is about how she somehow arranged for me to get an adult library card. The next time my parents took me to that library, I was handed a special, magic card that allowed me to read or borrow any book in the place. A moment of great pride.

Card in hand, I marched over to the Drawing/Cartoons shelf (Dewey Decimal 740, I knew) to see what they had for me there. I picked out a book at random, opened to a random page and found myself looking at a photo of a nude woman. What, I ask you, are the odds?

I immediately slammed the book shut — not because I didn't want to see the nude woman. I did, very much. In fact, I later checked her out in a couple of senses of that term. But right at that moment, I didn't want anyone to see me looking at the nude woman. I was afraid they'd think that was the only reason I wanted the magic card and so they'd take it away from me. One of my two great disappointments came when I realized that almost none of the books in the Adult section contained photos of nude women. I'd just gotten lucky my first time out.

That day, I checked out several books on comics and cartoons…and I later worked my way through many shelves of many aisles. Every so often, a library worker who didn't know of me would say, "Hey, you shouldn't be in this section" and I'd proudly haul out my card and show him or her, which made me feel pretty darn special. My second great disappointment would come when I learned that I wasn't the only kid my age to have such a card.

I liked taking books out of the library. What I didn't like doing was taking them back, though I always did. (One near exception came when I finally got hold of a copy of Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy by John McCabe — at the time, the only book in print on my two favorite performers. The L.A. library system didn't have a copy. The nearby Beverly Hills Public Library did. Using my aunt's address, I got a Beverly Hills library card just so I could check that one book out…and I kept it out for months. I'd renew it whenever I could renew it and when I couldn't renew it, I'd take it back, wait around until they returned it to the shelves and then check it out again. I only briefly considered claiming it was lost and paying the fine, which would have been a lot less trouble for me and for the library.)

Anyway, as I began to make a little money, I began to buy books as opposed to borrowing them…and that's about when I stopped going to libraries. A library was no longer my home away from home. My home became a library away from libraries. In some ways, that's not as good because you don't have as many delightful surprises. Then again, I rarely have to pay myself an overdue fine.

Lot of Trouble

From August 14, 2009…

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Forgot to tell you what happened to me the other day. I had a meeting over at a big movie studio. I drove over and they made me park in one of those "double-deep" spaces where another car will likely park behind yours. The driver of that other car is supposed to leave his or her keys with the attendant because you can't get your car out until they move that one.

Went in, had the meeting, came out…and there, parked right behind my auto was a gleaming, silver top-o'-the-line Mercedes. I waved to the attendant and gestured that he needed to move it so I could drive my much less impressive vehicle home. Nervous and apologetic, the gent came up to me and said he was sorry but he couldn't do that. The driver had not left the key. Then he added, "I noticed it and started to run after him to get the key but then I saw who it was."

Sensing a cue, I asked, "Who was it?"

"I shouldn't tell you," the parking lot guy said. "Someone very important." Another attendant who'd wandered over to join the conversation added, "Very big movie star."

"But you won't tell me the name," I said.

"We shouldn't tell," the second attendant said. And I realized they weren't sure why but they figured I might do something in reprisal that would get that Very Big Movie Star riled and cause them to be fired. Like I might run upstairs, find out where he was and barge into his meeting. Or worse, I might post his name on my blog.

I pulled out my ignition key, pointed it at the Mercedes and said, "I really need to get somewhere. Tell me whose car this is or I'll key my initials into the side of it." The attendants went so pale that I quickly pocketed the key and assured them, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding."

We waited about twenty minutes but the V.B.M.S. did not return. They moved out the cars on either side of mine and one of the attendants kept asking me if I thought I could somehow swing my car out from there…without, of course, damaging the Mercedes. I had about three inches between my rear license plate and his front plate so I said no. I'm not that skilled a driver. Finally, one of the younger parking lot guys said, "I think I can do it."

So we let him get into my car and it was then about ten minutes of five people guiding him and yelling, "Back another inch" and "turn the wheels to the left" and "back another half-inch" and so on. All through it, the head parking attendant guy was ashen with fear that the Mercedes might get nicked but it didn't. The kid defied all laws of Physics and got my car outta there without a mar on either. I gave him a big tip and, so everyone could hear it, told him he was not to share it with anyone else, especially the guy who let the Very Big Movie Star get away without leaving his key.

While the hero was extricating my vehicle, I heard one of the other attendants mention the name of a Very Big Movie Star and I will forever assume that was the owner of the Mercedes. Since I don't have first-hand proof though, and don't want to get the parking lot guys in trouble, I won't mention that name here. But if it was indeed him, I think I understand a little more. If I were a lowly-paid studio parking attendant, liable to get yelled-upon or dismissed for not being properly deferential to the super-important, I'm not sure I'd have chased after this person and demanded his keys. Or at least, of the two, I would have been a lot less worried about pissing off Mark Evanier…

Max is Not Smart

A rare photo of Max not eating.

One of the three remaining feral cats I feed in my backyard is Max. He's the one who's about the size of a Honda Accord. This is because he is perpetually hungry and I'm dumb enough to feed him about 5% of the time he demands to be fed. It still works out to four or five meals a day.

But I'd like to think I'm a bit brighter than him. In the evening, I usually give him an entire can of some variety of Friskies containing some variety of alleged fish. I used to just dump the contents of a can into a bowl but I've since learned. Now, I split it up and put the same amount of food into each of two dishes. He devours both. In fact, he sometimes can't decide which bowlful to devour first so he goes back and forth, eating a little out of one dish, then eating a little out of the other dish, then going back to the first dish for a while and so on until he's licking them both clean.

It's the same exact food in both dishes and the same quantity I used to put in one dish. But Max is happier this way because he thinks he's getting two dinners.

Garfield Show News

I don't write much here about professional-type things I'm working on but every so often, the e-mailed questions pile up to the point there I figure it will save me time to do one of these…

We've started production on Season Four of The Garfield Show, an animated series of which I am the Supervising Producer. I don't know what my title means, either. Basically, I write or story-edit scripts and I voice-direct the actors. For those of you who care about how meaningless titles can be, I did pretty much the same job on the original Garfield & Friends TV show for CBS when my credit was "Written by" and later when with no noticeable change in my duties or responsibilities, it went to "Written and Co-Produced by."

We did 121 half-hours of that show. In the first three seasons of this one, we did 26 half-hours per season so that's 78 of these thus far. For Season Four, we're doing at least 27 so it all adds up to…well, a heckuva lot of lasagna jokes.

Season Three of The Garfield Show contains three extra-length specials. (In case anyone cares, a usual Garfield Show consists of two cartoons of 11-12 minutes each. The specials run across two half-hours and each is about 45 minutes long.) In Season Four, there will be seven of these specials.

Seasons One and Two have aired in the U.S. on Cartoon Network, which ran every episode at least as many times as their contract allowed. Season Three is already running in many other countries, some of which air it in prime-time, and it will air in America, plus I'm sure Seasons One and Two will air some more here. When? Your guess is as good as mine. One of these days. I'll let you know if I hear anything but you may know before I do.

My Trip, Part 2

This posting is more or less continued from this one.

The other thing I was oddly aware of on this trip was how much of it was made possible by technology that didn't exist a decade or two ago. This is leaving aside all the improved hardware and software components which the airport, airline, rental car company, etc. employ to do what they do. I'm just talking about things I was able to do for me because of the Internet, my laptop computer, my iPad, my iPhone and a few other little inventions that handle data. Not all that long ago, I would have booked this trip by calling a travel agent I had named Brenda…or at least, I would have phoned a couple of airlines and asked them when their flights were and then I would have had to find a hotel…

Here's a probably-not-complete list of technology-type things I did that made this trip a breeze. These are not necessarily in any order…

  • Via home computer, researched flights and prices online.
  • Via home computer, booked trip online.
  • Via home computer, researched hotels online.
  • Via home computer, booked two of my three one-night hotel reservations.
  • Via iPhone, booked the other one three hours before check-in.
  • Via home computer, researched car rental rates online.
  • Via home computer, booked car rental with Hertz.
  • Via iPhone at appropriate times, confirmed all of the above.
  • Via home computer, wrote and printed out copies of my itinerary.
  • Via home computer, researched driving directions online.
  • Via home computer, uploaded addresses to Hertz NeverLost website so they would be transferred to the GPS in my rental car.
  • Via home computer, printed out driving direction maps to have along in case GPS failed or was unavailable.
  • Via home computer, researched needed addresses (restaurants, supermarkets) near hotels.
  • Via home computer, researched airports to see how to get around and where to eat during layover.
  • Via home computer, booked space at parking lot near LAX for my car while away.
  • Via home computer, transmitted various details of trip via e-mail to folks I'd be seeing on the trip.
  • Via iPhone, checked in for flights and verified departure times.
  • Via iPad during flight, used Delta app to track progress of flight (I told one flight attendant what time we'd be getting in and at what gate).
  • Via iPad during flight, used Delta iPad app to verify that my luggage had been transferred from first plane to second.
  • Via iPad during flight, used wi-fi to answer e-mail, Tweet, post on blog, play Sudoku and, using Kindle app, read books.
  • Via iPad at airports, did some of that while waiting for flights.
  • Via laptop at Indianapolis Airport, wrote much of a Garfield script, Tweeted and caught up on e-mail while waiting for flight.
  • Via laptop in hotel rooms, did some writing, e-mail, blog posting and Tweeting.
  • Via Hertz NeverLost GPS, found my way around Indiana.
  • Via iPad during business meetings, took notes and synched them with iPhone and laptop.
  • Via iPhone, located RadioShack to purchase a needed computer part.
  • Via iPhone throughout trip, kept in touch with people (calls to my home number were forwarded to it).
  • Via Bluetooth Headset, used iPhone while driving.

…and I'm sure there are others. The biggie may be that next-to-the-last one because it's like being able to carry your home phone around with you wherever you go. Remember when we had to find pay phones every hour or three and use little beepers to call in and see if we had any messages? I was actually able to handle some important matters while driving the freeway thanks to the last two. And throughout the trip, I always knew where I was, where I was going, how to get there, what to expect when I got there and so forth.

Years ago, I was the first person I knew to get a TiVo. In fact, for the first few months I had one, I had to demonstrate it to practically everyone who came over. When some asked me what good it was, I had a very simple explanation: From now on, I am in control of my TV watching. I watch what I want when I want. I do not have to rearrange my life to be home to watch a certain show or even to program its recording. The shows I want to watch are on when I want to watch them and I can pause them in the middle, go do something else, come back to them, replay something I want to see again, etc. I own my TV instead of the other way around.

In a similar way because of technology, I no longer feel as "owned" by the problems of travel. I no longer feel as disconnected from the life I've configured for myself here. I take my phone with me. I take my work with me. I know where I'm going and how to get there and a lot more about what's going to happen when I'm there. There are variables and alien experiences, true…but they now feel like the exception when I travel instead of the norm.

Just before I left L.A., I delivered a foreword I wrote for a forthcoming book. Not all that long ago, to deliver my writing would have meant printing it out on paper, stuffing it in an envelope, addressing the envelope, calculating and affixing postage and dropping it off at the post office or Fedex, and it would arrive in a day or three. Now, it means addressing an e-mail (two seconds), attaching the file and hitting "send" and the recipient, if he's checking his e-mail, will have it in well under a minute.

I did it the modern way from my home computer just before I left Los Angeles. While in Muncie, I was in a meeting with Jim Davis and other folks involved with The Garfield Show when I received an e-mail from the editor for whom I'd done the foreword. The file was somehow corrupted.

Something like that happened to me on a trip to New York about twenty years ago. I was up at the DC offices and I called home to see if I had any messages. There was one sent several hours earlier from an editor (not with DC) saying that a script I'd sent before leaving had not arrived and FedEx had no idea where it was. Could I send it again?

What I had to do back then was…

  1. Call my assistant and tell her to rush over to my house.
  2. Call her later when she was there and talk her through turning on my computer, navigating to the proper file and printing out a new copy.
  3. Tell her where to find the publisher's FedEx number and address so she could prepare a new mailing.
  4. Have her go to the FedEx office and send off a new copy.

From the time the editor left his message telling me of the need to the time the new copy was printed out and sent was about four hours and then it took 18 more for it to get to him. Plus, there was all that hassle for my assistant having to drop everything and rush to my house.

Last Thursday, I got his message instantly, hit a few commands on my iPad and he had a new copy of the manuscript three moments later. It was on my iPad, by the way, courtesy of Dropbox.

I love technological advances. I can't wait to see what we'll have twenty years from now that will make those three moments seem like an eternity of wasted time and effort.

My Trip, Part 1

I made a whirlwind trip to Muncie, Indiana last week. Flew Delta to Indianapolis on Tuesday…a good flight, by the way. I remember when "Delta Airlines" was an automatic punchline in Johnny Carson monologues. It was just kind of accepted by all that they were an airline the way ketchup was a vegetable. The company sure did a good job rebuilding its reputation. Maybe there's hope for John Edwards.

As usual, Hertz decided to give me a much-larger rental vehicle than I'd requested. The last time I was in Indiana, they somehow thought I'd come to move pianos. This time, they thought I was going to be going around, taking children to and from school. Oh, they called it a Dodge Caravan but I know a bus when I see one. The Hertz guy said it was all they had that wasn't a sub-compact or whatever they call the tiniest, Hot Wheels-sized autos they carry. If I didn't want the bus, I could wait for something else but when I asked how long that wait might be, he had no idea. Could have been ten minutes. Could have been ten days. If he had a better estimate than that, he wasn't about to share it with me.

I took the bus and didn't like driving it. Actually, I didn't feel like I was driving it. I felt like it was driving me. I spent the night in Indianapolis then drove to Muncie the next day, stopping off en route for lunch with a friend I haven't seen in way too long.

A couple thoughts kept coming at me throughout this trip. One is the takeover of chains wherever you go these days. A few years back when Carolyn and I motored from Columbus, Ohio to Muncie, we had our hearts set on finding a rustic Mom-'n'-Pop restaurant for lunch. All we saw, at least from the I-70 was chains: Arby's, Denny's, Burger King, Bob Evans, KFC, Arby's, Denny's, Bob Evans, KFC, McDonald's, Subway, Subway, Subway, Burger King, Arby's, Denny's, Bob Evans, KFC, McDonald's, Arby's, Denny's, another Subway, Burger King, Applebee's, Bob Evans, KFC, etc. Here and there, a Five Guys or a Waffle House. "The chains," I deduced, have a lock on all the freeway locations and signs. If we want to find a non-chain place to dine, we're going to have to get off the 70 and drive a mile or two in some direction."

So we did that and we saw Arby's, Denny's, Bob Evans, KFC, McDonald's, Arby's, Denny's, Bob Evans, KFC, McDonald's, et al. No restaurants that there were only one of.

We stopped at a CVS Pharmacy just east of the Indiana/Ohio divide to get some supplies…and I must say how comforting it is in some states to know that no matter what ailment befalls you, you are never more than ten steps from a CVS Pharmacy. In Virginia a few years back, we came out of a CVS Pharmacy and standing in its parking lot, I swear, I could see three other CVS Pharmacies. At the one in Ohio, Carolyn asked a saleslady if she could recommend a great place to have lunch.

She said, "We all like the Bob Evans down by the freeway."

Carolyn explained that we didn't want a Bob Evans; that we wanted a non-chain restaurant. The woman didn't know of one. She consulted several other employees and none of them knew of one, either. (One said, "How about the Outback Steakhouse? There aren't many of them.") We ate at the Bob Evans.

It was like that on this trip, as I imagine it will be on all trips to certain states forever. I didn't eat at a Bob Evans this trip but I also didn't see many places to eat or shop that seemed to be independently founded.

So that was one of the things I thought about a lot on this trip. Another was how technology has changed the way we (or at least, I) travel. But I think I'll save that for a future posting, put this up and turn to some paying work. More later.

Strange(r) Tails

I seem to have confused a few of you about the Cast of Cat Characters in my backyard. The Stranger Cat, as we know too well, just went and died of old age. "But what," several correspondents have written to ask, "became of the Stranger Stranger Cat?" Allow me to elucidate…

The Stranger Cat was the first of the current crop to arrive on the rear porch in quest of chow. We named him The Stranger Cat because…well, he was a cat and he was a stranger. That's about as clever as we get around here. If I'd known he was going to be around so long and become such a non-stranger, I'd have given him a real name. That is, once I'd decided the animal's gender, which I had not bothered to do.

So he or she was coming around to dine, not once a day or twice but thrice or more often. "That Stranger Cat sure eats a lot," Carolyn and I said to each other. The Stranger Cat also seemed to be a bit schizo: Friendly and pettable one visit; stand-offish the next.

One night, Carolyn was working at the kitchen sink and I wandered over to the patio doors, looked out at the feline-feeding area and said, "Carolyn, I think I've figured out why The Stranger Cat eats so much. Come look." She wandered over to see what I was looking at: Two Stranger Cats. They weren't exactly twins but were easy to confuse. It was like it is with Kardashians: Once you know what to look for, you can tell them apart. We dubbed the new arrival, the one who didn't like being touched, The Stranger Stranger Cat.

I finally decided that The Stranger Cat was a male that someone had trapped, fixed and returned to the feral life. I decided that The Stranger Stranger Cat was a female to whom the same had happened. And I theorized that before the first of these fixings had taken place, The Stranger Cat had fathered The Stranger Stranger Cat. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The Stranger Cat. Not to be confused with The Stranger Stranger Cat.
The Stranger Cat. Not to be confused with The Stranger Stranger Cat.

Soon after, a huge silver feline also began coming about, asking — nay, demanding — more food than the combined consumption of both Stranger Cats plus the state of Nevada. I named him Max because…well, you know: Why not Max? Max and The Stranger Stranger Cat became quite an item so she seemed to need a real name and she became Sylvia because…well, you know: Why not Sylvia? But The Stranger Cat remained The Stranger Cat even as the handle became more ironic. He was a stranger the way Curly Howard was curly or a big guy named Tiny is tiny.

Somewhere in all this, a kitten began coming around. We called her The Kitten until she got pregnant. She was the one you may recall that I went to great lengths to trap, take in for a kitty abortion and neutering, and then released into the wild. At the vet, I had to give her a name better than The Kitten so she became Lydia, named for someone that Frank Ferrante likes to sing about.

So that's how my Fantastic Four were assembled and named and they've protected their backyard turf against most others for years. For a brief time before she was Lydia, Lydia was bringing a friend over for dinner now and then but Max set her straight about that. Max, who prefers to eat someone else's food out of their dish even when there's food in his, doesn't want anyone else around. He barely even tolerates Lydia getting anything to eat. It is sometimes necessary to place her food up high. She can and will climb but Max can't or won't.

But Max would rarely shove The Stranger Cat aside and take his food. As hoggish as Max is, he understood and dignity and seniority of The Stranger Cat, except maybe when there was tuna in the bowls. We all respected The Stranger Cat and we all miss him.

9 Lives = ? Years

Scott Marinoff, who sends me lots of great links I pass on to you people, sends me to this chart which enables one to convert "cat years" to human ones. If it's right, the Stranger Cat may have been pushing 96. Not bad for a guy who slept outdoors and ate Friskies Mariner's Choice.

The Stranger Cat, R.I.P.

Longtime readers of this blog are well aware that I feed feral cats in my backyard. There have been a lot of them over the years and though I feed them often, there are times when they're crowding my feet and howling because I can't get the cans open fast enough, and I practically turn into the Soup Nazi yelling, "No Mixed Grill for you!"

The last few years, there have been four around — Lydia, Sylvia, Max and The Stranger Cat. And if I haven't posted anything about them in a while, it's because they've pretty much stuck to their usual routines of eating and sleeping, or sometimes sleeping and eating. The eldest of these (and the father, I suspect, of Sylvia) was The Stranger Cat and as you've seen in my headline, he has left us.

I don't know how old he was but I've been feeding him for at least ten years and he was not a kitten when we met. I told the vet I took him to on Monday that I thought he might be 15. "At least that," she said, adding that he might be as old as 20. Feral cats don't live that long in urban environs. In rural, yes. But for a cat to make 20 in the city with cars is like you or me hitting 105.

I took him to the vet because he got very old in the last week or so, the way a human who's 90 but looks 70 might have a little stroke and suddenly, overnight, look 90. Two weeks ago, I watched him chase a squirrel not for food but for the sport. But this past weekend, he was limping and sleeping all day and not eating…and the vet basically charged me $80 to tell me he was very old. She could run tests, she said, but all that would do is tell us what was wrong…and what was wrong would not be treatable.

I took this about a year ago. When we let him in the house, he liked to sleep on an old towel by the stove. I tried it and it's rather comfy.

I wasn't there for his departure. I'm in Muncie, Indiana tending to the needs of another cat. But Carolyn is at my house and she stayed up with him most of the night, making sure he had water and trying to get him to eat. When he refused freshly-prepared chicken livers, she knew the end was near, and when she finally went to bed, she knew he wouldn't be alive in the morning. When I left for the airport yesterday morning, I said goodbye to him feeling much the same way.

He was an enormously good cat who never caused me any trouble. He didn't even cause much by dying since he did it the day my gardener comes. I phoned Francisco and he said he'd be over shortly and he'd take the body away in a dignified manner. The last time one of these cats died, I had to stuff it in a Banker's Box and leave it out at the curb for several days before the sanitation people came by to pick it up.

Carolyn tells me the other cats look sad. So does she. So do I. Odd how these strays show up at your back porch one day and become part of your life.

Another Supermarket Interlude

So one night a few weeks ago, I go into a Ralphs Market about 2:30 AM. There are two young men in their twenties, both with spiked hair in unnatural colors. They're loading a shopping cart with food but they're also dining as they shop. They've opened a couple of bags of chips and cookies, plus they've opened and are swigging from bottles of Snapple from the refrigerator case.

There's one checkout line open at this hour and way more shoppers than it can handle. I'm two behind them.

The checker rings them up and it comes to about $40. The one with the lavender hair swipes a credit card…and it is declined or rejected or whatever the term is. "No problem," he announces. He has another credit card…but it too is n.g. "You'll have to pay with cash," the checker tells him. Which he'd do if he had any. Lavender Head says he doesn't have a cent on him. Neither does his friend with the puce crewcut. So what do we do now?

The checker takes away the unopened groceries and does a quick total on the ones that have been opened and about half-consumed. It's about twelve dollars. "Do you have the twelve dollars?" he asks the duo.

"No, it's like I told you," Lavender says. "All I have is these credit cards." Puce nods in agreement. Lavender tries to convince him that he has no choice but to charge the purchases to one of the cards. "They're both good, I swear."

The checker explains that the system there will not allow him to charge a card that doesn't verify. "Can you call someone to come bring you twelve dollars?" No, says Lavender, he can't do that either.

The checker calls over the Night Manager and there's a discussion. In the meantime, the line of folks who want to pay and take their groceries home is stretching clear back to the meat case. The whole episode took about fifteen minutes until they told the kids to just go. Mr. Lavender shouted an apology to the line for holding things up (it sounded about as sincere as Rush Limbaugh's to Sandra Fluke) and then he and his crony left.

The store employees and many in the line grumbled about those worthless bums who had no cash and invalid credit cards. "Those cards were obviously stolen," someone said. Another shopper said, "And I'll bet they knew the cards were no good and that they'd get away without paying at all."

Meanwhile, the shopper after them paid with cash and so did the next person. Then came me. I swiped my American Express card…and it was declined. Beginning to suspect what was going on here, I swiped my Visa card. Also declined. The checker recognized me as a loyal customer and told the Night Manager, who opened up another checkout station and switched my total over there. I swiped the Amex card on this card reader and it verified fine. These things happen.

The Mail Must Get Through!

At the moment, if you send me an e-mail, I will receive it but you will receive a response that tells you your message to me could not be delivered. I don't know why it's doing this but I wish it would stop.