Category Archives: To Be Filed

If you need a reminder of how much stupidity there is in the world, there are these people who call you — I just spoke to one — claiming to be computer technicians who need access to your computer to fix something that's gone horribly wrong with it. You have to have an I.Q. near single digits to not spot this as a scam in under three seconds…but since they still do this, someone somewhere must be falling for it.

I just got a call from "Sanford" from a 415 area code telling me he's the technician who helped me with my computer the last time, alerting me I have a deadly virus that is sending out my personal info, including all of my credit card data and passwords, to thieves around the globe. I must immediately log into the website address he'll give me so he can enter my computer, remove the virus and inoculate my computer against further infections.

Quick Rule of Thumb: Never get an inoculation from someone who doesn't know how to pronounce "inoculate."

I'm kinda curious as to how much this guy might clear if I did go, "Duh, okay!" and give him control of my P.C. I also wonder how many "go fuck yourself, you criminal asshole"s he has to hear before he stumbles across a rube…but I guess the occasional jackpots make it worth it. I get about two of these a month.

And I guess the callers themselves are pretty dense too because even after I told the guy, "Your mother would be ashamed of you for doing this, you lying piece of shit," he was still saying to me, "No, no, I am not lying. Your computer has a deadly virus!" A person any smarter than a salmon would have realized instantly he wasn't going to sell me and would have hung up and tried the next guy on his Potential Sucker List.

Maybe I should have tried telling him, "You're lucky you called me, Sanford! I just got an alert that there's a deadly virus on your computer and it's sending out your personal info, including all of your credit card data and passwords, to thieves around the globe. Quick! You must immediately log into the website address I'll give you so I can enter your computer, remove the virus and inoculate your computer against further infections!"

If I do that with every one of these clowns, I'll bet one of them will fall for it. After all, I'll even pronounce "inoculate" properly.

• ‪My prediction for the Iowa Caucuses tonight: Someone wins, someone finishes way too far below expectations and the media makes way too many assumptions about what it means.

After last night's Super Bowl game, as I'm sure you know, that guy in the Oval Office tweeted…

Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on a great game and a fantastic comeback, under immense pressure. You represented the Great State of Kansas and, in fact, the entire USA, so very well. Our Country is PROUD OF YOU!

Someone must have pointed out quickly that while the states of Kansas and Missouri kinda share the Chiefs and there is a Kansas City in Kansas, the Chiefs are technically based in Kansas City, Missouri. A few minutes later, the first tweet was deleted — as if deleting a tweet received by millions makes it disappear as if it never existed — and Trump tweeted…

Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on a great game and a fantastic comeback under immense pressure. We are proud of you and the Great State of Missouri. You are true Champions!

I would have had a higher opinion of D. Trump if the second tweet had been more like…

Oops! My thumbs got carried away. I meant to say that the glorious states of Missouri (where the Chiefs play) and Kansas (which roots for them) both have a right to be very proud.

But that would have violated a cardinal rule of the Trump administration, one that I actually suspect is drilled into everyone who joins it as part of the welcoming orientation. Donald Trump never apologizes for anything and he only admits he's wrong about one out of every thousand times he is. And if I'm wrong about how often he admits errors, it's because the actual ratio is worse than that.

I'm kind of amazed he doesn't see the value of admitting errors, at least about little screw-ups that don't matter one bit. Would he have lost a scintilla of respect from even one person who respects him if he'd owned the mistake instead of pretending it never happened? It might make it more credible when he denies errors about something important…like whether or not Hurricane Dorian was going to hit Alabama. (Newly released e-mails reveal just how bad a lie was being disseminated when Trump defended his error to the death, as he does with most of them.)

Today, Trump backers are out in force trying to claim that Trump's first tweet (i.e., the one that was quickly deleted) was not wrong…and they don't even believe that. It's just something you have to say when it's verboten to admit he was wrong about anything. And then of course, they make the leap to "Obama did the same thing" bringing up some mistake he made, like the famous time he referred to "all 57 states." But there are two differences there.

One is that Obama never thought there were 57 states. Sometimes, we all misspeak…like a verbal typo. I occasionally mistype my own name and don't notice. That does not mean I don't know how to spell my own name. In his speech when Jimmy Carter accepted his party's nomination to run for president, he sought to praise one of the men he'd bested for the position. Even though it was right on the TelePrompter and right on the typescript in front of him, he referred not to Hubert Horatio Humphrey but to "Hubert Horatio Hornblower."

Trump makes those kinds of mistakes all the time. We all do. They do not indicate stupidity or lack of knowledge. Ah, but defending them suggests a lack of humility and maybe a stubborn belief that the people are so stupid, they can be convinced you didn't X when they all heard you say X.

And of course the other difference is that Obama admitted his gaffe and laughed about it. Trump rarely demonstrates any ability at all to laugh at himself and on the rare occasions when he tries, it sounds forced and awkward. I don't know about you but I'm scared at the prospect of any person in power who, when caught in a mistake, can't own up to it; whose first instinct is to double-down on the error.

There's a difference between one of those verbal typos and actual mistakes because of missing or faulty knowledge. And then there are the premeditated, deliberate lies…like when you know your administration is doing its damnedest to remove coverage for pre-existing conditions and you're out there saying, "I stand stronger than anyone in protecting your Healthcare with Pre-Existing Conditions."

And in Trump, we often get a fourth category of lie, which is denying what he said even though there were eight cameras and twenty microphones there capturing it. So we get all these lists of Trump Lies, like the one maintained by the Washington Post. On the third anniversary of Trump's inauguration, it stood at 16,241.

I think some of the ones they list are unfair because they're in the "misspeak" category and a lot of them — like saying "We've never had an economy like this before" — are subjective. You could probably argue that at any day in the history of the U.S., the economy was not exactly the same as it was on any other day, good or bad. But what's horrifying about the list is the number of times he said something that was blatantly untrue and said it over and over and over. Those are not verbal typos. Obama only mentioned the 57 states once.

This is not me trying to convince anyone Trump is a dishonest man. I operate on the assumption that no swing voters read this blog, that the Trump supporters who do come here are small in number and that if they do change their minds about him, it will be because of his words and actions, not because of me or anyone else. Every now and then though, I feel the need to articulate (if only to myself) one of the many reasons I think he's an awful president and a worse human being. And that disconnect from the truth and inability to admit mistakes is a big one.

[Correction: The original version of this post referred to Trump as "a worse human being." In truth, it has not been established that he is a human being at all.]

• I can think of few things that will make Donald Trump madder than if Greta Thunberg gets a Nobel Peace Prize and he doesn't.

These are the Swedish Royal Guards. I believe that all music should be performed like this…

• One benefit to having absolutely no interest in football: On Super Bowl Sunday, you can get any table at any restaurant that isn't showing the Super Bowl.

John Oliver answers questions…

The New York Times has an online quiz where it asks you how you stand on certain issues. It then tells you who your ideal candidate would be, picking from among those still in the Democratic race. It matched me with Pete Buttigieg and said that I had the least in common with Bernie Sanders. I think my views aren't as far from Bernie's as that.

But you see, here's the problem with a quiz like this. I have to answer each question Yes or No and I don't think either choice correctly describes my position on most of these questions. For instance…

• Is it important that your candidate makes it a priority to work with Republicans? My answer isn't Yes or No. It's more like, "Well, that would depend a lot on how many seats the Democrats wind up with in the House and Senate. To get anything done, my candidate may have to."
• Do you view President Trump's election as an anomaly? My answer isn't Yes or No. It's more like, "I'm not surprised that a lot of Americans wanted what he was offering. I think it's an anomaly that so many people became convinced he was presidential material and could or would deliver on those promises."
• Do you want a candidate who doesn't pursue money from big donors? My answer isn't Yes or No. I think there are big donors and there are big donors. There are some who don't expect legislation that benefits them financially. The point is that the government should not be bribable…and that's a real word, no matter what my spell checker is telling me.
• Do you want a nominee who would make history based on race, gender, sexual orientation or religion? My answer isn't Yes or No. I want a nominee who can beat Donald Trump and is equipped to be a very good president. If that person is the first gay president or female president or Jewish president, fine. I just wouldn't put that high on my list and certainly not above getting the best possible administrator.
• Do you want to replace the private health care system with a universal, government-run health insurance system? My answer isn't Yes or No. I want everyone in this country to have access to highly affordable quality health care. I really don't know if we have to replace the existing system to arrive at that or whether something like a public option alongside the private system will do it.
• Do you think four-year public colleges and universities should be tuition-free for everyone? My answer isn't Yes or No. I think college should be highly affordable and people should be able to get it without going into serious debt. That might mean tuition-free or almost free for some. When I went to college, I paid tuition but it was within my means. If I hadn't had an income then, it was well within my family's means…and we were far from wealthy. We need to bring the costs down to that level. But the question suggests a binary choice: Make it free or leave the costs the way they are.

And so on.  As you can see, a Yes/No answer doesn't convey my opinion.  Also, the quiz seems to weigh all these issues equally.  I care a lot more about some of them than others…and so will you if you take it. I might care the most about some issue that's not on there at all…like, say, Climate Change, Immigration or preventing World War III.

I just got my first notice about the primary here in California, which is March 3.  They sent me a list of polling places but I'll probably vote by mail, which means I have about three weeks to decide.  I really don't know who I'm going to vote for.  I don't even know if the question I'm answering is "Which of these people would be the best president?" or "Which of these people would be the best candidate?"

I haven't even ruled out Mike Bloomberg.  This article makes an interesting case that he ranks high as answers to both of those questions.  Oddly enough, as I was reading that article earlier today, I received two identical text messages from someone I've never heard of who said his name is Joe…

MARK, This is Joe from Mike Bloomberg 2020 asking for your support.  Txt 1 for YES, 2 for more info, 3 for NO and 4 to Stop.

And then it gives me a link to Bloomberg's website.  I texted 4 and then blocked that number.  I dislike people coming to my door uninvited trying to sell me things and I'm not much fonder of them doing it on my iPhone.  I would love to know how they got my name and number.  I'm not ruling out Bloomberg because of this but I wish he hadn't done this.

Not so long ago, the lawyer Michael Avenatti — the guy representing Stormy Daniels, the guy on all those cable news shows — announced he was running for president. He expected to be in the Iowa Caucuses right about now but instead, he's in solitary confinement in the jail where Jeffrey Epstein died…which, I'll admit it is almost the same thing.

How the hell did he wind up there? If you're curious, this article will tell you.

Well, the biggest news in the world today is probably what's going on with the feral cats in my backyard. Yesterday, Murphy spent much of the day about sixteen inches from Lydia's house while Lydia slept in it, ignoring Murphy's constant howling. I don't understand how she could sleep through that but she becomes instantly alert from the sound, about eight yards away, of me popping the pop-top on a tin of Friskies® Mixed Grill.

There is still no sign of Lydia wanting anything to do with Murphy but she doesn't mind Murphy approaching the cat dish and eating the untouched portions of Lydia's lunch. I see no indications of what Murphy wants with Lydia or my yard. It may just be a search for a cat-friendly yard with a complimentary cat buffet. I'll letcha know what else I observe out there.

We probably should have known Mitch McConnell had the votes to block witnesses in the impeachment trial a few days ago when he said he didn't have the votes to block witnesses in the impeachment trial. Mitch likes to do that…lull the opposition into a false note of hope and then win at the last minute, thereby making himself look like the guy who wins the tough ones. But I don't think anyone's too surprised.

I agree though with David A. Graham when he writes, "But if Democrats didn't get what they'd hoped for, [Republican Senator Lamar] Alexander gave them the best outcome they could have expected."

And I say that as someone who's always suspicious of phony silver linings…like when the party that loses a big vote says, "This is the best thing that could have happened to us." I hear that and I always think, "You would have said that if you'd won." But this time, when there was zero chance of the Republican Senate ousting D.J.T. no matter what he did, the best Democrats could do was peel off a few consolation prizes. And with several G.O.P. Senators saying the Dems proved what they set out to prove but that it didn't justify removal…well, that's something. Guess that "perfect phone call" wasn't completely perfect.

Alexander's statement is not a great act of courage. He'll still vote to keep Trump in office and he really chickens out when he writes, "There is no need to consider further the frivolous second article of impeachment that would remove the president for asserting his constitutional prerogative to protect confidential conversations with his close advisers." In other words, it's perfectly fine to stonewall a Congressional investigation if it might reveal more wrongdoing.

And Trump will still say this vote and the one to acquit him prove he was utterly innocent, the whole thing was a hoax, Schiff is corrupt, the phone call was perfect, etc. I'm just glad to see a couple of Republicans — not just Alexander — take some cautious baby steps off the "Trump never does anything wrong" bandwagon.

Allow me to introduce you to one of the greatest optical illusions ever…the Ames Window!

Go read Jack Holmes. The article is entitled, "The Republican Senate Just Wrote Donald Trump a Blank Check to Ratf*ck the 2020 Election." Opening paragraph:

Who will stop him now? Donald Trump knows the answer after Lamar Alexander announced Thursday evening that, yeah, the president used taxpayer dollars to extort a foreign government into ratfucking the 2020 election for his personal gain — so what? A couple of Republican senators will vote to hear from eye witnesses to the American president's attack on American democracy, but not enough to actually hear from the witnesses. Mitch McConnell has surely arranged for that. Soon enough, they will vote to acquit him having acknowledged that he did it. And so the Republican Senate will rubber-stamp the president's activities with respect to Ukraine, and offer him a blank check to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, between now and an election in November that we cannot in any way expect to be free and fair.

Okay. This impeachment didn't work. Let's see if the next one does.

That's a very old photo of Fred Silverman, the superstar network programming exec who passed away today at the age of 82. It's a pic from when he was programming Saturday morning cartoons for CBS and I picked it for the following reason. Years later, when Fred was programming every single daypart for NBC, he told me that the Saturday morn position was the only time in his career he was truly happy.

I don't know how true that was but I do know that he was heavily involved in the creative end of the kids' shows he supervised back then…so much so that a lot of people credit him with creating characters like Space Ghost and Scooby Doo. That I know is not true. He put them on the air but didn't create them.

Fred's career included executive positions not only at CBS and NBC but at ABC, as well. He was probably the most famous programmer ever but as an associate of his once told me, "Fred probably gets way too much credit for the shows that were hits and way too much blame for the ones that were flops." I worked on some of those hits and flops but didn't have too much contact with Fred himself. Most of it was done through his underlings — nervous folks, all.

One time, a script I'd worked on had been handed in to one of Fred's Vice-President who had read it but also passed it on to The Man Himself. I asked the Veep what he thought of it and I am not joking and he was only half-joking when he gave me this reply: "I'll know what I think of it when Fred tells me what I think of it."

Fred liked that particular script which was a relief. I saw what happened when he didn't like a script. You might just as well forget about working for — or even watching — that network again. Still, I liked the guy.

Not that it will do you any good now but I'll tell you what I learned about the way to please Fred with a pilot script for Saturday morning. First off, at least the germ cell had to come from him. Either that, or he'd take your idea and turn it inside out so it became his idea. Secondly, put in everything. The more characters, the more dogs, the more gimmicks, the more villains, the better.

A Saturday morning cartoon pilot script should run 35 pages, 40 max. Unless you did one for Fred, in which case it could wind up running 70 or 80. One friend of mine did a script that ran 110 because there were so many characters and super-vehicles and dogs and gizmos and every one had to get some attention in the teleplay. My friend said it was a real good script until it came time to produce it and it had to be hacked down to 38. He said, "It was so terrible after that, I wish I'd put your name on it."

That was one reason some Silverman-bought shows weren't that wonderful on the air. Another was that he liked to mix and match. Often, Hanna-Barbera would have a half-dozen projects in development with Fred and he'd finally say, "Take this character out of this show and this character out of this other show and put them both in that other show along with the dog from that show we developed last season…" He sometimes thought that way when he programmed live-action for prime-time, too.

I only have one real Fred Silverman story. A friend of mine was working on a cartoon show for Fred that was marginal in the ratings. This was when Fred was running NBC. They'd done Season 1 and were waiting to find out if he was going to order a Season 2. My friend had been offered a definite job on a show on another network and he was trying to decide if he should grab the sure thing or wait in the hope that Fred would pick up the NBC show. He preferred staying with the NBC show but was worried it would be canceled and he'd wind up unemployed.

My friend wanted to know what I thought the chances were of Fred green-lighting Season 2. I said I didn't know but I had a meeting with Fred the next day about a project. "Maybe I'll pick up a clue for you," I told him.

The next day, I was in the meeting with Fred and several other folks. One of the several other folks mentioned the show my friend was worrying would be axed. Fred said — and this is a quote — "I can't wait to cancel that piece of shit."

That's a pretty definite declaration so I felt safe calling my friend that evening and telling him what Fred had said. Based on that, my friend signed on for the show on the other network, told the NBC show that he was leaving and thanked me profusely for helping him make a wise and informed decision. And two days later, Fred picked up the NBC show for a second season. Network TV is often like that but it was more often like that around Fred Silverman.

The only late night show my TiVo grabs every night is Stephen Colbert's. I catch most of the segments I like from the other shows (mostly Seth Meyer's) on YouTube but Colbert is my only late night One Pass.  I like the show a lot but a few little things bug me and I'll mention one here…

I know there are a few folks who work on the show who follow this blog so…would one of you ask your producers or someone to move the guest chair forward about four inches?  Tell them their host spends an awful lot of his interviews turned mostly away from the camera.  I cannot think of any reason why this is a good thing.

Maybe even show them the above side-by-side comparisons of how Colbert often looks when he's talking to a guest and how David Letterman looked when working on that same stage.  Come to think of it, maybe there are plans around that would show you just where the guest seat was placed in relation to Dave's seat.  It worked fine for him for more than 21 years.

Mr. Colbert is a handsome guy with an expressive face.  Unless you're doing a "twin" thing like The Patty Duke Show or Hayley Mills in The Parent Trap, why make him look like a stand-in has taken his place and you can only shoot him from the back in a two-shot?