Category Archives: To Be Filed

I'm not paying a whole lot of attention to the fallout over the Mueller Report, largely because I think the pressing issue is not what the Attorney General says is in it but what's actually in it. I suppose my position is exactly the same as any Trump supporter's would be if a brief summary of a 300+ page report was issued by a Democratic A.G.: Never mind the summary. I won't believe anything until they release the entire report plus all the supporting evidence. And I might not even believe it then.

We should not be surprised that Trump and his minions are running around claiming "total exoneration." For more than a year, Trump has been running around saying "No collusion" and claiming exoneration more often than Henny Youngman said, "Take my wife…please" and he'd misquote anybody. If a weatherman said there would be no rain Thursday, Trump would say, "The weatherman just said there was no collusion and I'm totally exonerated."

I guess the idea here is that (a) they'll stall and fight and stall and fight to keep the entire report locked in a vault somewhere with Trump's tax returns and (b) they'll assume his supporters won't — or maybe can't — read and will just accept and celebrate that it says what Trump says it says so the matter is settled forever.

And I don't mean they won't read that huge report that Robert Mueller's office put together. They won't read the little summary they now celebrate. They haven't or they'd know it says the exact opposite. On page three of the Attorney General's summary, he says…

The Special Counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other — as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction. Instead, for each of the relevant actions investigated, the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as "difficult issues" of law and fact concerning whether the President's actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction. The Special Counsel states that "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

Only Donald Trump could take a statement that says "it does not exonerate him" and interpret it to say, "It exonerates me." Okay, well not just Trump but also Sean Hannity and Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway and the rest of that mob. I suppose they'd claim they mean it exonerates him on the colluding with Russia part and maybe it does. But that's not the story they're selling to their base.

A mystery has been solved, perhaps even by the Scooby Doo kids! It's why pieces of old Garfield telephones have been washing ashore on the Iroise coast in Brittany, wherever that is. Read all about it here. And thank you to the FORTY-FOUR readers of this site (so far) who have sent me a link to this story.

• The folks fighting to kill Obamacare don't have a plan that would provide affordable health insurance. They don't even want there to be such a plan for those who need it. They just want the "win" to establish they're in charge.

In timely fashion, here comes Randy Rainbow — and if you don't know the song he's parodying, it's "The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues" from Follies, words and music by Stephen Sondheim. You can watch Mandy Patinkin singing it at a concert here.

Steve Bacher, who often sends in interesting questions for this page, sent two related ones…

You asked rhetorically: "Can you listen to Michael Jackson music after this?" and answered in the negative. I have a couple of followup questions…

1. What about music by the Jackson Five, when Michael hadn't even reached puberty at the time? (There have lately been TV ads for a drug called Trelegy which featured the J5's "ABC" with rewritten lyrics. As soon as the newsers started to cover the Leaving Neverland story, the commercials disappeared, which I expected would happen…until they reappeared recently. Of course, the original lyrics for "ABC" now seem a lot creepier in the light of what we know.)

2. What about radio stations (on the air and online) and stores that have taken down Michael Jackson product? Is he going to be erased from musical history? (If this trend persists, more than a few classical composers and jazz artists could receive the same treatment, though I suppose murdering your wife's lover as Gesualdo did in the 16th century perhaps doesn't rise to the same level of moral depravity.)

I suspect with time, Michael Jackson music will become a little more acceptable but not much. There are no strict rules about this kind of thing. Bill Cosby will forever be branded a rapist, whereas I haven't seen any indications that Mike Tyson is unwelcome anywhere. He went to prison for rape and now he has a kids show. And yes, he may have been innocent and merely made the mistake of hiring Alan Dershowitz as his attorney.

I don't think most people boycott things like Michael Jackson music because they want to punish posthumously. I think it just has a negative, unpleasant air about it now and since there's plenty of other music that doesn't, why not just play something else for now? One does not even have to consider if you'll start playing it again next month or next year or next decade. We can decide that next month or next year or next decade.

I'm curious if Michael has been yanked from the playlists of places in Las Vegas where "elevator music" is piped in while you gamble or dine. He was once one of the most-heard performers in those venues and now he'd be more of a distraction and probably bring some complaints from guests. I've sent a query to someone who might know and I'll report back here if I get an answer.

For now, I don't think we'll be hearing as much Michael as we once did but some of that will pass. It may seem unfair to abandon Jackson 5 music since obviously Michael wasn't sleeping with kids much younger than himself when "Never Can Say Goodbye" and "I'll Be There" were recorded…but the point isn't to punish those songs because the lead vocalist turned into a bad guy. If they're dropped, it will be because they reminded people of him and if that makes someone uncomfy, there's no real downside to any radio station that decides to now exclude those tunes.

The revival of My Fair Lady is still playing at Lincoln Center in New York. I saw it last June and as I wrote here, I really liked everything about it except the new — and to me, illogical — ending. But it was still a great show. Laura Benanti is now playing Liza and if she's still in it the next time I get back to New York, I will probably go see it again.

She recently extended through July 7. Harry Hadden-Paton, who opened this version as Higgins and who was in it when I saw it, is leaving at about the same time. Danny Burstein, who replaced Norbert Leo Butz as Doolittle, is leaving at the end of April. The show is still playing at around 85% capacity so I assume it's not going to close when the two leads depart.

Here we have one of the best numbers as recorded for the cast album or cast CD or cast audio download or whatever they call it these days. This is Jordan Donica, who plays Freddy, singing this song about as well as it's humanly possible to sing it…

David Letterman was on The Ellen Show last week and my first observation in that The Ellen Show is an hour of commercials that get interrupted every now and then for a smidgen of program. Yes, I know the broadcast channels have commercials but there's a ratio of ads to entertainment that makes me not want to watch the entertainment. I haven't done the math on exactly what that ratio is but watch Ellen DeGeneres' talk show some day with a stopwatch and you can measure it. I like Ellen and I like the little snippets of show they sneak in once in a while but they are hard to find.

Now, about Dave: I used to think this guy was the brightest, funniest thing on television but my admiration for him began to leak at the seams when he began acting like a guy who didn't want to be there and was bored by 90% of the guests he had on. I think Jay Leno deserves a lot of credit for doing a show that rebounded from second place and went on to dominate that time slot way longer than anyone could have predicted. But some of that victory was a forfeit on Dave's part. I found him on some nights very self-obsessive and unpleasant to watch.

In this clip, he says he thinks he stayed on television ten years too long. I think so too. He's also doing that "I'm an old guy" bit which, as readers of this blog know, I can't stand. Dave, you're 71 years old. That beard everyone hates isn't fooling us into thinking you're way older. You're 71. At least wait until you hit 80 to start acting like your next booking will be the morgue. The last interview I heard with him was all about that.

His Netflix series has yet to interest me and I grow a bit frustrated with him because I'd like to think he's better than that; that he could use all that ability to connect with an audience and make things interesting to connect with the audience and make things interesting. I hope the rest of his career's not going to just be things like this…

There might not be a whole lot on this page the next few days as I need to finish my taxes and my prep for WonderCon, plus there's this script that an editor of mine would like me to complete. The nerve of that guy.

I'm also not following a lot of news as I have no interest in firm, set-in-lucite opinions about the contents of the Mueller Report from those who have not read a word of it. I'm also not interested in the conclusions of anyone who has read it if they work for Donald Trump.

I'll be back later with something. When and what, I can't say.

The Mueller Report was supposed to settle something but the Attorney General's summary of it, which is all we have, is settling nothing. William Saletan reads between the lines of that summary and there's plenty to read there.

And Jack Holmes reminds us not to confuse the summary with the report. This country is going to spend the rest of Trump's time in office (and then some) arguing over whether the summary was a fair distillation of that report. And it may get worse if/when we actually have access to the full report.

Cookie Monster makes cookies with a woman who's so perky, she might be a Muppet herself…

Dale Herbest writes to ask…

Since you've been working as a professional writer in the entertainment arts for so long, I'm sure you've worked with plenty of people you grew up loving and tried to emulate in your own work. Has there ever been a time or project where you worked with someone you really loved and admired but the experience of working with them was so bad and so disappointing that you lost respect for that person and could never really enjoy their work ever again?

Hmm. I've worked with people I would never again want to be in the same room with, let alone on the same project. None that come immediately to mind were folks I'd admired and loved before our association. I've also worked with and gotten to know people I loved on television or in comic books — or somewhere — who fell into this category: I was glad I got to know them but wish I hadn't gotten as close as I did.

It's often the case that the more time you spend with someone, the more of their flaws or weaknesses you witness. You can wind up learning a lot about their professional lives and work (good) but along the way, you also learn about their dysfunctional personal lives (bad) and even find yourself involved in their problems.

Once in a while, you find out about something they did that in an ethical or moral sense, really disappoints you.  Because you loved them on TV or in the comics or wherever, you'd like to think nothing but good about them.  And then there's that thing they did that makes it difficult.  And no, I'm not going to name names.

Sometimes, I meet someone whose work I loved twenty years ago, thirty years ago, fifty years ago or more. I tell them what their work meant to me. And then I deal with the fact that they're now seventy years old, eighty years old, even ninety. And maybe they aren't working as much as they once did. Maybe they're having trouble figuring out how or if they fit into the different world and industry of today.

In some cases — probably most cases — they're fine. They're still working. They're still financially solvent.  They understand that you can't be the hottest thing in town forever.

But once in a while for reasons of money and/or ego, they're constantly wondering why they aren't working so much. If they're performers and they once had a time in their lives when they couldn't walk into a restaurant without signing twenty autographs, they may now be finding themselves in a world where so many young people don't know who the hell they are.

Usually, they're appreciative that I do. I'm 67 now but to them, I'm a younger person who not only knows who they are but I'm often a Human Wikipedia of their past credits.  I'm able to tick off what some would call "trivia" about their careers but to them, of course, every bit of it is very important. It's rare but once in a while, it goes like it did one time when I met a comedian I'd long admired…

We were introduced at a TV studio. I was writing a show being done elsewhere on the lot and the person who introduced us mentioned that to him. We shook hands and I told him how much I'd always loved his work; how I watched it avidly when I was a kid and how I'd seen darn near everything he'd done. This was all true.

I told him — and again, every bit of this was true — what an inspiration he'd been and how he was part of the reason that I was now a professional writer, usually of things allegedly comedic. It came in part from watching all that brilliant work he'd done.

Then he gave me a look that was ever-so-slightly mean and he said, "Then how come you haven't hired me for the show you're doing?"

Like I said, I've met lots of idols and folks I've admired and it rarely goes bad. Rarely. But when it does, that's usually the subtext.

I've written here before about Teatro ZinZanni, a wonderful way to spend an evening. If you don't know what Teatro ZinZanni is, here's an explanation that I've posted here before…

Imagine a grand tent inside of which you find a swanky restaurant that serves a gourmet meal as a bevy of wonderful food servers and performers put on a show all around you. There are singers, dancers, comedians, acrobats in the style of (the comparison is unavoidable) Cirque du Soleil and artists whose skills are awesome but utterly unidentifiable. This all transpires not on a faraway stage but up close and personal. The aerial acts are practically over your head in the intimate theater. The dancers are sometimes performing not just near your table but actually on it, skillfully not stepping in the fine soup you have just been served.

This is a fine description but I need to explain more. It is sometimes difficult to tell where the attractive wait staff leaves off and the equally attractive cast takes over. Some of each serve you. Some of each entertain you. The performers roam about in character, chatting you up and entertaining you while you dine. That's when they aren't dancing…or hustling you up out of your seat to dance with them. The show is quite interactive…and did I mention the sensational live five-piece band? The compleat ZinZanni experience runs about three hours. They serve you the first course. They perform for a while. Then they serve you the second course and perform while you eat it…and so on. You leave quite well-fed and, of course, utterly entertained.

There used to be two Teatro ZinZanni outlets in this country, then for a brief time there were none and now there is one. Soon, there will be three. Their "home base" outlet in Seattle had to relocate but now it's up and running at its new location. Click here for details. In July, a new Teatro ZinZanni will open in Chicago and later this year if all goes according to plan, their San Francisco operation will reopen in its new location.

Here's a video from a Seattle production some years ago. Teatro ZinZanni features great novelty/specialty acts and one of my favorites is Mat Plendl. What does he do? He hoops…

A few weeks ago, HBO ran a four-hour documentary in two parts called Leaving Neverland. It's about Michael Jackson and about two adult men — Wade Robson and James Safechuck — who have come forward to tell stories about being in sexual relationships with Jackson when they were way, way under the age of consent. I guess some people don't believe these men are telling the truth but given the way Michael lived and acted and the number of times he was accused of this and how he admitted to sleeping (but only sleeping) with children, it's not that great a shocker.

I DVR'ed the two parts when they debuted. I also recorded an Oprah Winfrey special in which she cross-examined and interviewed the two men before an audience of adults who were molested when they were kids. Only in the last few days have I gotten around to watching all of this.

The first part struck me as taking two hours to tell a story that could have been done in twenty minutes by omitting a lot of redundant details about who touched what body parts. It was very discomforting and given the stories being told, it should have been. I spent a lot of it like anyone else who saw it, getting quite pissed-off at the parents of the boys and at others who should have seen what was going on and stopped it.

I almost quit about 70% of the way through Part One and almost didn't watch Part Two or Oprah at all but I was ultimately glad I made it through all of this. The second part was much more interesting because it was about the cover-up of the molestations by both Michael and the boys. Michael was acquitted in a jury trial of abusing yet another male child, that acquittal coming in large part because one of the two boys, Wade Robson, testified that Jackson never violated him. He now says that was a lie and you'll squirm at that failure of our justice system. Both Robson and Safechuck have struggled to cope with the whole experience since their days with Michael, as have their friends and families now that the two men are telling their stories.

I worked with Michael Jackson in the eighties on a proposed cartoon show about him. I decided the show was not a good idea and am now very glad I moonwalked off the project. It was not because of the creepy (if not ghastly and illegal) way he treated children but that was not so evident at the time. I just thought it would not be a good show, mostly because Michael was placing so many conditions on how he could be depicted. Every second he was on screen as a character would have been discussed and he clearly could not deal with not getting his way.

In fact, one of several points in the documentary that gave me a personal chill was this one: Michael asks the mother of one of the boys if she will leave the kid with him for an entire year. This woman — who was apparently fine with leaving her son in Michael's bedroom for weeks at a time — for some reason says no to a year. She then quotes Michael as saying, "I always get what I want." He said that to me about elements of the proposed cartoon show.

It's strange to be around a person who inhabits a world where he always gets whatever he wants…or at least, expects it. Our meetings were in the house he had on Hayvenurst near Ventura Boulevard in Encino. After one, my agent asked me what he was like and I said, "I got the feeling that if Michael suddenly decided he wanted Ventura Boulevard flooded with hot chocolate, that would have happened."

It may take me a while to decide how I feel about various aspects of the documentary but I can answer a few for myself right now…

Do I believe the boys' stories? Yes, I do. Do I believe they should have come forth and told those stories? Yes, I do.

Can you listen to Michael Jackson music after this? Not without thinking about what a horrible human being he was, no. And yeah, I guess I knew for a long time he was doing things like that but it's easier to flush that stuff out of your mind when you haven't heard the details or seen videos of him with a seven year-old boy who's now grown up and explaining how Michael masturbated him.

And lastly, do you recommend this documentary? If the topic interests you, definitely. If it doesn't…well, maybe it should. While I recognize child abuse is a serious problem, it's not an issue that particularly touches my life. I've never had nor wanted children and I haven't been around all that many since I was one…so it's easy to think of it as someone else's concern. And maybe the reason it exists is that too many people think of it that way, including some whose life it does touch and they just haven't noticed it yet.

As I'm sure you know by now, Robert Mueller's office has completed and delivered its report into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

I'm watching the cable news networks in rotation and I'm reminded of my favorite quote about the news media. It was uttered by the late Jack Germond and he said, "The trouble with the news is that we're not paid to say 'I don't know' when we don't know."

I became a TV writer in large part because I happened to meet a bright fellow named Dennis Palumbo. At the time — this is mid-seventies — new situation comedy writers came in pairs. If one aspiring comedy writer went to an agent and asked, "How do I break in?," the first thing he was told was "Find a partner."

Dennis and I found each other and while we weren't a team for long, it was long enough to get us some credits that led to respectable solo careers. We parted friends, veered off in different directions and we still have lunch every year or so. I hope he thinks he was as fortunate to meet me as I was to meet him.

His career has actually been careers (plural) because he not only went on to write movies — and don't we all love My Favorite Year? — but also mystery novels like his latest, Head Wounds. Most of his time though is occupied by being a licensed psychotherapist who specializes in folks in show business, most of whom are writers. I have never felt the need to go to someone in that field but if I ever did, I wouldn't hesitate to call on him because, as he did when we were a team, he really understands the mind and the needs of a writer.

Dennis is the guest this week on Ken Levine's fine podcast. If you take the time to listen, you'll hear lot of expert advice on how to write, what to do when you can't write, how to cope with times when no one wants you to write, etc. You'll also understand why I think he really understands the mind and the needs of a writer.