Category Archives: To Be Filed

And also go see Ken Levine (I'll be open for lunches after this week, Ken) on the topic of Hollywoodspeak. I might add in "He's dependable," which of course means, "He's not great but he is available for the minimum."

In addition to drawing really, really well, my pal Tom Richmond is one of the wisest folks I know about the business of being a freelancer. His blog today has sound advice about a not-rare-enough situation for such people: You do a job for someone and then they either can't pay you or don't want to.

To all of Tom's sage counsel, I would append this: Beware of the client who is not really in business yet, at least on the project for which he or she seeks to engage you. Too often, they're trying to assemble the pieces of a deal and for example, they're hoping to use your work to impress someone to firm up the financing via which they hope to get the funds to pay you. When they insist they have the money, that's what they mean. I call these people Unfinanced Entrepreneurs and they are to be avoided, even though it may mean turning down what would be a great, lucrative assignment if it all goes according to their plans dreams.

Anyway, beware of them and also heed Tom's caveats and collection methods.

17 Facts about McDonald's that Will Blow Your Mind.

Baby Panda. Cuter than you or I will ever be. Especially you…

Three days before he was murdered, John Lennon sat for what turned out to be his last interview. Rolling Stone has put that interview online for all to read.

I've stopped embedding Comedy Central videos because they do strange things to this page…but I wanted to recommend Jon Stewart's extended interview with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. This link will take you to the first part and I think things will roll over automatically to Parts Two and Three. The whole thing runs about 26 minutes and both men make some very good points. Christie sounds like a decent man to me about 75% of the time. The other 25%, he sounds like John McCain trying to pander to the Tea Party crowd.

Every so often, we like to feature the handiwork of a great magician. Watch Yann Frisch perform his unique, amazing version of the Cups and Balls. Thanks to Michael Hagan for telling me about this guy…

When I heard that Jim DeMint was quitting the Senate to take a cushy job with a political think tank, I figured it was just about the money. But Matt Taibbi has me thinking it's something more than that…

So the Supreme Court has decided to take up the issue of Gay Marriage. I'm a bit surprised, I guess. There seems to be an inevitability, even accepted by some who've fervently opposed it, that Gay Marriage will continue to be legalized in state after state with no going-back. As I understand it, the worst thing that can happen to Gay Marriage here in California is that the Supreme Court will rule that Proposition 8 is valid, whereupon we'll have another vote and expunge it. California voters have voted twice on this issue. The first time, Gay Marriage lost by 22 points. The second time, Prop 8 went down by a little less than 5 points…and now every single poll says that Gay Marriage would win by a comfy margin today. I'm not even sure anyone would throw a lot of money at trying to stop it.

So it seems like a waste of time for the High Court to take that up…or even to argue it insofar as 7-8 justices are concerned. Seven or eight of those minds are made-up and nothing said by lawyers is going to change them. Maybe Justices Kennedy and Roberts could just have dinner with David Boies, Ted Olson and the attorneys for the other side and kick things around.

The most intriguing scenario here is if one of the Justices has to be replaced before the case gets there next spring. I've long thought it's an odd thing that issues as important as some of what gets to the Supreme Court get decided, in essence, by whether an 82-year-old jurist feels up to doing another year or how his or her heart holds out. One of these days, we're going to have a period where several Justices need to be replaced around the same time and whoever's in the Oval Office will have the opening to completely reshape the High Court for decades to come. Our world could change a lot and it wouldn't be because the Will of the People had decreed it. It would be because someone's cholesterol was too high or a driver ran a red light.

Sorry this is so last minute but some folks in the L.A. area will pounce on it and have a great time.

Tomorrow, December 8, the superlative Stan and Hunter Freberg are doing a performance of their one-couple show, Two Funny Frebergs, at the Palms-Rancho Park Branch Library, which is located near the junctions of the Santa Monica Freeway and the San Diego Freeway in West Los Angeles. This is a wonderful hour of songs and anecdotes from two of my favorite folks, one of whom was — dare I say it? — an idol of mine when I was a youth.

It starts at 1 PM and there's no charge, no reservations. Just show up and enjoy. After the presentation, Stan and Hunter will be signing copies of their recent CD, Songs in the Key of Freberg, and Stan will be drawing pictures of Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent, the role he originated on the legendary Time for Beany puppet show. Here's a rare chance to meet Stan and Hunter and to enjoy their show.

The Palms-Rancho Park Library is located at 2920 Overland Avenue. Some of you may recall tales I've told in my writings of the Los Angeles Comic Book Club, a group that convened back in the sixties with me as its president, meeting each Saturday at the Palms Recreation Center in West L.A. This is that place, though almost no traces remain of the buildings that comprised it back when we were there. We had one member who is probably still showing up there on Saturdays and wondering, "Where the hell is everybody?"

Conan O'Brien on comedy in the future.

My pal Bob Claster just sent me a link to a treasure trove for fans of the Broadway stage. The late Dorothy Loudon was a major star of that stage and her personal papers and memorabilia were deeded over to the New York Public Library which has put them online.

I haven't had the time to go through much of it but there are some very interesting items…her contract for the 1983 smash hit comedy, Noises Off, for instance. It's always intriguing to look at something like that and see the kind of things that you wouldn't expect to find in such a document. There are scrapbooks of reviews and photos from her various projects.

Ms. Loudon was in a number of hits but also in several flops, the most notable of which was the 1969 show, The Fig Leaves Are Falling. The show was about the sexual liberation of that decade and it had a book and lyrics by Allan Sherman with music by Albert Hague. Some of you may know Mr. Hague from his on-camera role in the movie and TV show, Fame, but more of you know him for writing the music for a number of great cartoon specials including the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

And of course you know Allan Sherman from his famous song parody records. His one effort for Broadway folded after four performances and Sherman folded not long after that. The show was probably doomed from the moment the New York Times review by the notoriously inept Clive Barnes hit the streets. He said, in part…

There is nothing much wrong with The Fig Leaves Are Falling…that a new book, new music, new lyrics, new settings, new direction, new choreography and a partially new cast would not quite possibly put right.

Reviews don't get much worse than that. The cast featured along with Ms. Loudon, Barry Nelson, Jenny O'Hara and David Cassidy. Also in the cast was one of the top dancers of Broadway, the stunning Charlene Ryan, who is now married to cartoonist Sergio Aragonés. George Abbott was the director. They were all stunned and saddened when the show closed so rapidly but Sherman was especially depressed.

His life was already in turmoil as his marriage of 21 years had ended in '66, the divorce being a major point of inspiration for the Broadway show. His recording career was also pretty much over. In 1962, he'd had the fastest-selling record album of all time with My Son, the Folk Singer and a huge single hit in 1963 with "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh." But by 1967, his records had stopped selling and his company didn't want him to make any more.

It was an amazing success story, the success coming as it did so sudden…and at age 39 after years of being an oft-fired TV producer. One day, almost out of nowhere, he suddenly became a major comedy star. And almost as suddenly, it all went away.

After Fig Leaves, he fumbled about, trying to turn himself into some odd combination of Frank Sinatra and Hugh Hefner. He wrote a book called The Rape of the A*P*E, which was just unreadable. If you ever want to show someone what it looks like when a male goes through a mid-life crisis and desperately seeks the sex life he wishes he'd had when he was younger, give them this book and ask them to imagine the person who'd write it. He died not long after its publication and failure in 1973. He was 48.

Why I mention all this is that I'd always wanted to read the book of The Fig Leaves Are Falling…and there it is online in the Dorothy Loudon collection: The entire script. When I get some time (ha!), I'll give it a read. I do have a demo recording of the score and some of the songs are quite good. We have here a video of one of them sung by, of all people, Pat Paulsen on his short-lived variety show…

Jonathan Chait on the problem Republicans have in trying to keep taxes low on wealthy folks. The G.O.P. strategy has been to not let anything pertaining to taxes pass, thereby preventing any tax hikes. But now if they do nothing, taxes on the rich go up…so they have to pass something to prevent or at least minimize the raise. Interesting dilemma, huh?

Let me tell you about a man named Bill Ash, a genuine American hero. In 1939, this then-young Texan decided Hitler had to be stopped. Since the U.S. hadn't yet joined the war effort, Ash hitchhiked to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. They trained him and sent him to England where he flew Spitfires on some of the most daring missions.

In March of '42, he was shot down over France on one of those missions. He survived the crash landing, then evaded capture for months with the help of locals. Eventually, someone betrayed him to the Gestapo and he was captured, tortured and sentenced to death, only to be saved from execution by the Luftwaffe which moved him to one of the most severe Prisoner of War camps, Stalag Luft III. From there, he became the man they could not hold — a master escape artist who broke out of that camp and many others.

Any of this sound familiar? It does if you recall the Steve McQueen movie, The Great Escape. It was based on Ash's life.

Mr. Ash turns 95 years old this week. His incredible story is told in Under the Wire, a British best-seller being released as an e-book in honor of his birthday and the 70th anniversary of some of his more spectacular escapes. You will enjoy this book tremendously.

As an e-book, it's free for members of Amazon Prime. If not, you can order a copy for $9.99 here. You can get it on good, old-fashioned paper here. It would make a great gift for anyone…especially any 95-year-old war heroes you know.

Matthew Yglesias on why raising the eligibility age for Medicare is such a bad idea.