Category Archives: To Be Filed

This runs sixteen minutes and I think it's worth sitting through unless you're furious about last Tuesday's election and muttering to yourself, "We'll kill 'em next time." Rachel Maddow itemizes all the "wins" for the Democratic Party and for the kind of weak-tea Liberalism we have in this country these days. It will sound to some like a victory lap or an in-your-face gloat but at the end, she points out that it's just Reality crashing down on some folks who could have been unsurprised if they'd ventured out of The Bubble more often. So at least watch the last four minutes or so…

Our buddy Ken Plume talks with a very funny man named Ricky Gervais for about an hour…

You wonder if the Fox News watchers who were told their boy had it in the bag are going to stop and wonder what else their network is telling them that ain't true. Obama's victory did not surprise those who took the time to add up the electoral votes in all the states where the President was running ahead and did some pretty simple math. But there were folks in this country who put more faith in their hunches and desires. When they saw a few outlier polls that put Romney ahead, they seized on those as evidence that what they wanted to believe was so…and then they spread this non-scientific deduction to others. A lot of them said, "Nate Silver? Oh, he's in the New York Times and they always lie in favor of the Democrats." So even though Silver was patiently explaining why he thought what he thought and showing his work, he could easily be denied.

332 electoral votes is not, as Dick Morris called it, "a squeaker." If his prediction of Romney at 325 had come true, he would have proclaimed it as a landslide and an inarguable repudiation by America of everything Obama stood for. I don't think Obama's 332 is all that with regard to the G.O.P. agenda. I think some of it is that people just didn't trust Mitt Romney to divulge (or maybe figure out) his economic plan for the country after Inauguration Day. But it does show that a lot of what the right-wing pundits have been saying about the soul of this country has been…well, about as accurate as a Dick Morris prediction.

I was an only child. When that fact came up in conversation, I used to tell people, "My folks figured that if you get it right the first time, don't press your luck." The truth is that I was a very difficult birth. I was due on February 29, 1952 and my mother spent most of that day and all of March 1 in a hospital in agonizing pain, unable to deliver. Finally on March 2nd, they went in and got me. She was a month shy of 31 at the time and after I was out, the doctor who'd poked around inside her in order to deliver me told her, "Do not under any circumstances let yourself get pregnant again. You will never make it through another birth alive."

Her gynecologist later concurred. That little fact is always on my mind when I read debates about abortion and come across someone who believes they should be illegal with no exceptions. What would have probably happened if my mother had gotten pregnant again is that either she would have aborted or both she and that fetus would have died. The latter option doesn't sound particularly "pro-life" to me.

She told me more than once that if she had gotten in a "family way" then, she would not have hesitated to abort. The gamble that the doctors were wrong was not worth losing her life and leaving my father and me without her. As far as I know, it was never necessary. They were lucky…and also very careful. After my father died in '91, she asked me to clean out his drawer and not tell her about anything in there that I thought she wouldn't have wanted to know about. They had no secrets from each other but each had one small drawer in their bedroom which the other agreed to never open. I have not cleaned out hers yet though she told me once it held letters and photos of male friends who preceded my father. His had nothing I felt she'd care about but it did contain an awful lot of very old and unopened condoms.

I never in my life wished I had a brother or sister. Never for one second. When I went to the homes of friends who had siblings, I only heard screaming and yelling and fighting over belongings…and envy from my friends that I had my own room and the undivided love and attention of my parents. I didn't even wish I'd had a brother or sister after my father passed and I became my mother's only local relative and so had total responsibility for her well-being and needs.

She insisted to her last day on living alone…and she did if you don't count the many days each year she spent in Kaiser Hospital. Every few months — every few weeks the last few years — she'd have some sort of attack and she'd either phone me or push The Button.

What I call The Button was on a little locket-like piece of plastic jewelry she wore around her neck at all times. I called it her "I've fallen and I can't get up" button but it was not the brand you see advertised all the time on TV using that catch-phrase. When my mother got old enough that she needed something like that — a service to monitor her and send help if necessary — I checked out several and found many to be way more expensive than others. The one I chose — and we were really happy with them — was this one. I don't know if there's a better service now but I think I picked the best one around at the time I was looking.

The Button could get pushed at any hour. Occasionally, it was just a matter of me making the 15-minute drive from my home to help her get up off the floor. If I wasn't home at the time, it could be a lot more than 15 minutes and I had friends standing-by in case I was too far. But once, it was a lot less than 15 minutes…

My mother was out in the kitchen one day making herself some lunch. She slipped on something, fell…and while she wasn't injured, she was unable to get back up. The Button was pushed, the monitoring person came online to talk to her (via a super-sensitive speakerphone in the living room) and she yelled to him to call her son. The monitoring person phoned her son…who happened to be two blocks from her home at that moment. I was on my way to Stan Freberg's house for something when my cellphone rang and a man told me, "Your mother is unhurt but she needs you to come over and help her get up." I said, "Tell her I'll be there in 45 seconds!"

Usually though, it wasn't that easy. The last two years of her life, the calls — either from her or someone monitoring The Button — averaged about one every thirty days and in the two decades before that, at least one every six months. The nighttime ones always seemed to come around 4 AM, which is never a convenient time for anyone. As some of you have observed in the time stamps on postings here, I'm often up at 4 AM. All too often, I capped my workday with an emergency call and instead of heading to bed, I was in my car, racing over there. The daytime ones always seemed to come when I was in the middle of something that she dearly regretted taking me away from.

That was a significant part of the problem: The guilt she always felt for disrupting my life. I would always do my best to calm her down and convince her she hadn't yanked me away from something important. Since (a) she usually had, (b) I'm a bad liar and (c) she was so perceptive, I could never quite convince her. One reason I think she died when she did was because she felt so bad about always disrupting my life with those calls.

They came at inopportune moments: When I was on my way to deliver a speech at Joe Barbera's funeral. When I was on my way to opening night of a play I really wanted to see. When I had about twelve hours to write a cartoon script and then sleep before the next morning when that script would be recorded.

Twice, I was out of town at comic conventions. In 1995, I was in San Diego at that year's Comic-Con International, attending the Eisner Awards in a big hall at the hotel where I happened to be staying. Sergio and I had been nominated for an Eisner and I was sitting there awaiting our category when a bellman came in looking for me. My mother had called 911 or pushed The Button. In the emergency room, they asked her about relatives and she'd told them, "I only have one." She meant one within 3000 miles. "But he's out of town. I think he's at the Hyatt in San Diego."

Someone at the hospital phoned the hotel and of course, I was not in my room…but a wise hotel operator switched the call to the Front Desk. Someone there looked me up, saw I was a guest of the convention and figured I might be at the big ceremony then going on in their ballroom. They sent a bellman to see if I was and a person at the door told him, "Yes, he's here. He's a tall fellow seated at Table 1."

One minute later, the tall fellow at Table 1 was out at the house phone in the lobby talking with a doctor. The first thing she said to me was, "Your mother has had what appears to be a mild heart attack. She's resting comfortably and she wanted you to know about it but she said to tell you not to interrupt your trip to drive back."

I said, "I think I oughta drive back."

The doctor said, "I think you should too but that's what your mother told me to tell you."

I phoned my cleaning lady (who was also my mother's cleaning lady) and told her to head for my mother's house to fetch certain supplies I was sure would be needed at the hospital. Then I ran back into the Eisner Awards ceremony to tell Sergio that I was heading for Los Angeles and that he should accept without me if we won. I was just bending over to whisper to him when I heard a voice say, "…and the winners are Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier for Groo the Wanderer!"

Sergio leaped up and threw an arm around me and I found myself being led involuntarily to the stage. When we got up there, Will Eisner pumped my hand and muttered what I think was a compliment but I didn't hear it. Sergio shoved me towards the microphone and said "You go first" and if you were there and perchance wonder to this day why my acceptance speech was so lame and incoherent…well, there's your explanation. I mean, it would have probably been lame and incoherent to some extent if I hadn't been thinking about my mother and all I had to do but it was even lamer and less coherent than my norm. Ten minutes later, I was on the 5 racing north. I made it in a hair under two hours.

When I walked into my mother's room, she had two reactions, one immediately after the other. The first was, "Mark, you're here," uttered with relief and gratitude. The second was, "Mark, you're here," uttered with embarrassment that she'd yanked me away from somewhere else and made me make that drive. I ended up going back and forth two other times that weekend — once by car, once by plane — alternately hosting panels and tending to my mother's needs.

Then in 2009, I was in San Francisco interviewing Wendy Pini at a WonderCon panel when my Blackberry vibrated with the little code I'd programmed to tell me my mother had pushed The Button. I took the call, heard that paramedics were en route to her home, excused myself from the panel, dashed back to my hotel room, grabbed my laptop, taxied to the airport and jumped on the next Southwest flight home. Just before I boarded the plane, I got a call that she'd been taken to UCLA Medical Center.

90 minutes later, I was getting into my car at a lot near LAX when I received a call from a nurse, not at UCLA but at Cedars-Sinai. "I was told she was at UCLA," I said.

The nurse replied, "No, they brought her here," thereby saving me at least an hour of going to the wrong hospital and not knowing where my mother was. "She said to tell you to stay in San Francisco and not fly back here."

Instead, 40 minutes after landing, I walked into a cubicle in the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai where my mother was being treated. She had the same two reactions as above, only more severe and again, I wound up commuting back and forth all weekend.

I have many other stories on this theme but I think I'm going to break this in two and continue it next time. I've more than made the point that it was a royal pain all those years to drop everything else in my life and race over to take her into the emergency room or meet the ambulance there. So now I need to explain how I managed to put up with it. I just reminded myself that collectively, it was nowhere near as much pain as she endured between 2/29/52 and the moment of my birth. The scale never even came close to balancing over that, let alone all she did for me after.

And that was all I needed to remember.

I'm telling you about all this — and there's more to tell — because of an e-mail I got from someone who wrote…

I'm somewhat younger than you are and like you are, I believe, an only child. My father is gone. I love my mother but I am afraid of what that's going to mean when she gets older and needs someone to take care of her. I cannot afford the time or money to take care of her and while I will do what I can, I know it cannot be enough. I would appreciate any pointers you can give me about what I have to do and what I can decline to do.

I can't tell this person what they can decline to do because I have no idea what his mother will need, nor can I gauge his sense of obligation and caring. But I can tell you what I did and what I realized was the most important thing I could do for my mother. I'll tell you about it in the next part, which should be along in the next few days here.

My pal Ken Plume is a great interviewer. All he ever needs is a great interviewee. Here's Ken talking for ninety minutes with the greatest interviewee of them all, Mel Brooks…

The 250 movies on IMDB in two and a half minutes. Take this one full-screen…

One election that didn't go quite my way last night was for my Congressman. For hundreds of years, it's been Henry Waxman (D) and I've been very happy with him. With occasional exceptions, he votes the way I'd want and twice now, I've run into him at the Souplantation nearest my house, which I believe is in the same complex that houses his office. I don't know his position on their Creamy Tomato Soup but I do know that on both occasions, he took the time to talk to me about Washington-type stuff and he was either interested in what I had to say or he did a darn good impression of someone who was interested.

So I like the guy…but this time, I voted for a former Republican turned Independent named Bill Bloomfield. Mr. Bloomfield — a wealthy gent who largely funded his run for the seat — has never held public office but I heard him on a telephonic ask-the-candidate forum and I read his website and decided to toss my vote his way. He seemed serious and passionate and under no delusions that he alone could make a big difference, especially as a first-termer. I also liked the fact that he didn't say "My opponent is a Socialist and a crook and he hates America." He actually had a lot of respect for Waxman, acknowledged good things he'd done and basically said, "I think I can serve you better."

I didn't think he'd win but I voted for him because he seemed to be different. Frustratingly, the day after I mailed off my ballot, I received an ad from his campaign that bashed Waxman like most typical politicians try to bash their opponents. It tried to make a big deal out of the fact that "Waxman does not own a home in the district" and make it sound like he was woefully out of touch and didn't care what we thought. I think the person who wrote it was hoping it would be read as "Waxman does not have a home in the district," which is not the case.

Bloomfield did not win but he did better than most folks probably expected. Waxman usually gets over 60% and last election, took 65% of the vote. This time, he won 54% to 46%. 46% ain't bad for an unknown running for the first time and as an Independent in a heavily-Democratic district. Most of Waxman's former opponents got what they got from Republicans voting straight-ticket for some Republican they never heard of.

In a news article today reporting his loss, Bloomfield said of Waxman, "He was very respectful and I really appreciated it. I grew to like the guy as a person. I was always respectful, even before I'd ever met him, with his 44 years of public service. I am in awe of that. But as a person, how he treated me, how he conducted himself, I was very impressed." Wouldn't it be nice if all elections could end with the loser saying that about the winner?

Wanna buy Groucho's last car? His 1973 Cadillac Deville is going up for bids and you can read about it here. [Caution: A video may start playing upon your arrival at that page.]

I've made four or five tries so far at writing how I feel about last night's election. I keep getting about three paragraphs in before I look at what's coming out of me, delete it and start over. The first, I was afraid would read like gloating, at least to those licking their wounds at the moment. But I'm not gloating. If anything, I feel sorry for some friends who to my view, got too carried away in this nonsense about Obama being a Gay Socialist Muslim Commie whose reelection could only mean the end of the United States of America. There's an industry — quite lucrative for some — that thrives on that kind of thing so we hear it and some believe it but it's never been remotely true.

As William Saletan notes today, the guy who just won another four years in the Oval Office is darn near a moderate Republican by any reasonable standard. My most-G.O.P. friend Roger hates and fears for a long list of things Obama will do. Half of them are things Obama never said he'd do and never spent two seconds of his first term trying to do. The other half are things that Roger thought were great ideas when they were promoted by Caucasian Republicans.

So that's why I tossed the first thing I started writing. Roger would think I'm doing a Happy Dance and going "nyah nyah nyah" and he's having a rough time of it today. He's spent months telling me how America would be destroyed by an Obama victory and now he's got to face the chilling prospect that it won't be. As Matt Taibbi noted in a piece written before the polls closed, it has become way too common in American politics to predict total annihilation if The Wrong Guy wins. Elections matter but they don't matter that much.

I threw out two more things I started writing because I was trying to explain why I thought Romney lost. All I was doing was parroting what Jacob Weisberg wrote more eloquently and efficiently. Then I tossed out another one in which I started to argue that folks like Dick Morris, who forecast a Romney landslide, only did that kind of thing because when your income flows from feeding the Fox News crowd, it's kind of within your job description. I don't believe Newt Gingrich actually thought Romney would "carry over 300 electoral votes" but I think he knew that a key part of his constituency would have hurled rocks at him if he'd made an accurate prediction.  Look at how mad some of them were at Nate Silver, who just crunched numbers, showed his work in the margins, and was attacked for telling them pretty much what actually occurred.

So I don't know what to write, which is why I'm resorting to the old I-Don't-Know-What-To-Write trick. I'm pleased. I'm unsurprised. I'm optimistic. I'm not dumb enough to think we won't have the Mitch McConnells of the world now doubling-down on obstructionism and still insisting they speak for the "real" America. And hey, how about whole states voting to accept the idea of Marriage Equality? There was a sea change that went largely unnoticed last night while folks were fretting about slow vote counting in Florida. Not much attention paid to Marijuana Legalization or a lot of women candidates defeating men who seemed to be waging that War on Women.

I think it's going to take a long time before anyone really understands what happened last night because so much happened. But something sure did…and maybe that's really all I wanted to write here.

I've written here before about The Lloyd Thaxton Show, which was an afternoon teen dance party program that originated in Los Angeles. It had some limited syndication but I doubt Lloyd was anywhere near as popular in other cities as he was here with his low-low-budget broadcasts. If you'd ever seen the facilities he had over at KCOP (Channel 13) over on La Brea, you'd be amazed the show looks this good.

We have here a few minutes from a 1965 show where Lloyd introduces a new singer who lip syncs his new record. The fellow's stage name is Michael Blessing and not long after, he'd become a member of The Monkees as Michael Nesmith — and even record this same song as one of them…

Hey, if you're in New York and want to hear a smart man talk about the great Tony Bennett this Thursday night, go see my cousin. He's the Evanier that writes things that don't have fur on them or eat cheese dip.

I should have mentioned this sooner but several of you report you've already donated to Operation USA to aid the clean-up and support efforts made necessary by Hurricane Sandy. Not that there's anything wrong with sending money to the Red Cross but I send mine to these folks because I've seen how passionate and skilled they are about helping, and how so little of what I give them goes for administrative purposes. They're real good at getting there fast with what's needed. If you'd been thinking you owe this blog a tip, send the cash to them instead. I'd just squander it on silly eBay purchases anyway.

Found one more election-type article I had to link to. Fred Kaplan makes some good points about Romney. I think for a lot of his supporters, what Romney is for doesn't matter; only that he's not Barack Obama. Mitt has lately said a lot of things that, uttered by any other candidate — or even Romney himself a few months ago — would cause right-wingers to label the guy a Marxist/Socialist who had to be kept far from public office. But right now, it's like, "Well, of course he has to say those things to get elected. But once he's in, I'm confident he'll serve our agenda." In other words, the reason to vote for him is that he won't do a lot of what he says he'll do.

Here's a little over an hour with Albert Brooks…

Yesterday was a Killer Deadline Day and today's another so there won't be a lot of postings here for a while. Also, everyone has said everything there is to say about the election so I doubt I'll find anything on that topic worth linking to. No matter what happens tomorrow though, America will endure, one side will scream the election was stolen and the price of gasoline will go up.

---

I neglected to mention what I didn't like about that Al Jaffee book. For the price I paid, it was a bargain and I'm glad I ordered two — one for a friend. It's a big four-volume hardcover reprinting all of Mr. Jaffee's wonderful, clever fold-ins — but you're not going to open a book, look at one or two, then close the book and open it again the next day. You're going to look at a lot of them and…well, some things just aren't meant to be experienced in that concentrated a dose. It makes them seem ordinary and you also start to learn Al's bag o' tricks. It's like watching a magician's act over and over again until it seems utterly unremarkable that he pulls that dove out of the secret compartment in his tux.

The reproduction is not all that grand, either. The sheer skill of Jaffee's artwork deserved better. In fact, what it and most of MAD deserved was for the publisher to save better copies of the work in the first place. This was the shortsightedness of most comic book publishers, and even though MAD stopped being a comic book, its publisher William M. Gaines thought and acted like one. In most houses, it was a matter of "Why spend the money now to shoot and archive good negatives on this stuff on the possibility that someday, there may be an opportunity to profit from its reprinting?" In some, they didn't even think far enough ahead to consider the possibility…so now when those pages are reissued in fancy collections with better repro, the proper source material doesn't exist. I believe MAD sometimes does its reprinting off old copies of the published issues because that's all that's available. And their printing was never very good in the first place.

Al Jaffee's work deserves a fancy hardcover with good printing. Dumping all his fold-ins into one slipcase somehow diminishes them and the printing takes it all down another notch. But if you can get it like I did for under twenty bucks, go for it.

---

In other news: I've been doing this weblog since December of 2000 and there have to date been around 18,100 posts. I've deleted some — certainly less than a hundred — for various reasons…usually linking to something that's no longer at the other end of that link. But the rest are all now on this site. I've imported them from the various permutations of the blog and they're all here now. Along the way, a few received upgraded images and spelling corrections and a lot of old links don't work…but you can read and click at your own risk. In many cases, when I link to another post on this blog, the link will take you to one of my old blogs but I can't do anything about that in the moment. I think I have to go in and fix those, one at a time by hand. Maybe someday.

Back to paying work right after a video link that'll consume an hour of your life…