Category Archives: To Be Filed

• Figured it out: Trump's strategy is to get his poll numbers below 15% so he's ineligible to participate in the presidential debates.

This one's from Lee Byrd…

On Twitter, a lot of people are answering a question using the hashtag #firstsevenjobs. You list the first seven jobs you had. What would yours say?

This is pretty simple: Writer, writer, writer, writer, writer, writer and writer — in that order. Later on, I made a few bucks as an artist, an editor, a director, a producer and even a reluctant performer but I considered all of those as extensions of my writing position — like, I've been a writer-artist and a writer-editor and a writer-producer. If I leave aside income from investments or things like that but include times I've taught writing, I'd guess over 95% of my lifetime income has been from writing. I'm really, really inept at anything else…and envious of folks like my pal Ken Levine who have actual other professions.

Three more women performing "Up the Ladder to the Roof"…

• Wracking my brain to figure what insane thing Trump will say tomorrow. I'm thinking something pro-pedophilia.

• So excited. I had "tells people to shoot his opponent" in a "What jackass thing will Trump say next?" pool. Odds were 3-to-1 against.

Jonathan Chait wonders if Donald Trump will weasel out of the debates with Hillary Clinton. I dunno. Common logic says that Trump needs a public K.O. to reverse the trend of his plunging poll numbers…but as Chait notes, "the 'candidate would never do something stupid' model has a poor record of predicting Trump's behavior so far."

Trump is saying he'll do it but he has to see the rules and make sure the moderators are acceptable to him. In other words, he has to be The Boss here and everyone has to appease him, plus he's setting up excuses in case he decides to chicken out. If he does, he has to be able to explain to his supporters that he could have mopped the floor with her but pulled out as a matter of principle and because everyone was trying to rig the debates against him.

I wonder if he is emotionally capable of walking out on a stage from a position of weakness. It's likely that Trump's poll numbers will be better by September 26, which is when the first one is scheduled. But as of today, Nate Silver's site has Hillary with a 94.7% chance of winning in the "if the election happened today" model and that's a lot of ground to make up for someone who needs to dominate every situation he's in. And I would think that the fact that it's a woman leading him by a wide margin would make it even more difficult.

I am, as I've said, supporting Hillary Clinton for reasons other than that she is not Donald Trump. I think she's very qualified for the job and I think the accusations of dishonesty against her are all either outright lies or people holding her to a unique standard, one they do not apply to those they otherwise wish to vote for.

But I do have some reservations about her, mostly relating to hawkishness in foreign policy. Daniel Larison has the same reservations, though like me, he's a lot more worried about what President Trump would do in these areas.

When I asked readers to send me questions to answer here, I got this one from three different readers. This version is from Michael Kelley, who's been watching the old Tonight Show episodes on Antenna TV…

In the beginning of the Johnny Carson repeats, a stage fellow throws a big disk thing up to another stagehand above. What in the world is it?

That's what's called a gel. It's a color filter for one of the stage lights. So you have one guy up on a ladder adjusting a light that's mounted way up high and he yells to a guy below to toss him up a certain kind of gel that will tint or diffuse or otherwise alter the output of the light…and the guy below throws it up to him.

One of the more interesting aspects of TV and film production — and it's amazing how so many people in the business pay no attention to this — is what the stage crew does. The setup or the teardown on some stages can be acts of mesmerizing skill and efficiency and even physical strength or daring. I've seen stagehands scamper up and down ladders that you couldn't get me on for Leonardo DiCaprio Money.

One of the first times I wrote a variety show, the crew had to do the "load-in" in one night. A game show called Liar's Club was taping on our stage until 8 PM. At 8:01, they had to be out — all their sets, all their gear, everything — and this army of grips and lighting guys and set people just moved in…and they had until 10 AM to bring in and set up everything, including a full-size working merry-go-round.

I decided to see how this was done, partly for fun, partly for education. I went to Canter's Delicatessen and bought a sack of sandwiches. Then I drove to the studio, found a spot on the stage where I thought I wouldn't interfere or get trampled and I just watched and passed out free sandwiches to anyone who wanted one. It is still one of the most astounding things I have ever witnessed — all these people working all night, hauling in huge scene flats and furniture and assembling and placing everything exactly where it was supposed to be. It was like seeing a city erected in fourteen hours, much of it right before my eyes.

I left about 4 AM because I had to sleep and get back there for a 10 AM rehearsal. When I returned, some of the men (and women!) who'd been working all night were just wrapping up…and indeed, there was a working merry-go-round on the stage. Several children of staff members and a few beefy stagehands in t-shirts were riding on the horsies.

If you work in TV or movies and you've never seen this, go see it some time. It will give you a much, much greater respect for the people who do this kind of thing for a living. Tossing those lighting gels up is just about the easiest thing they do.

I got busy yesterday and forgot to post this. This is three more women performing "Up the Ladder to the Roof"…

Donald Trump made a major economic address today. There are many places on the 'net where you can read it or view it but if you don't have time, it comes down to basically two principles…

1. Make sure that nothing gets in the way of rich people getting as rich as possible.
2. And maybe at some point we'll figure out a few things to help out the poor and the middle class.

There's more to it than that but really there isn't much more to it than that.

Fred Kaplan tells us the kind of world destruction that could be caused by President Trump. Here's a paragraph to give one pause…

And it's worth noting (as the New York Times reminded its readers, who probably haven't had cause to ponder these matters for a quarter-century or so, on Wednesday) that, when it comes to using nuclear weapons, the president decides and acts alone; the system is set up that way because, in the event of a surprise attack, there would be no time to consult with the National Security Council, much less with Congress. Electing a president bestows upon a single man or woman the power to blow up the world.

I think one of the better things that can be said for Trump regarding foreign policy is that there's a good chance he doesn't care one bit about it; that what he's saying now is what he thinks he has to say to get the votes of the kind of people who might vote for Donald Trump, and that if elected, he'd turn all the major decisions over to others. Still, even if that's so, it's scary that we don't know who those "others" would be and that he could still overrule them.

Some months ago in this message, I solicited questions for me to answer on this here blog. I answered some then got distracted — and I'm going to blame this on Donald Trump since this election, you're apparently allowed to blame anything you want on the candidate you disfavor. Anyway, I'm going to start catching up on answering questions I received so feel free to send more. This one is about Jack Kirby and it comes from Neil A. Hansen…

I was curious about something and hoping maybe you could enlighten me considering you have worked in both media of which I am about to address:

When I look at Mr. Kirby's material especially when it comes to the way his conversation scenes are animated, and the way he knows how to draw very dynamic figures in action, did his experience as an in-betweener on Popeye have any influence, conscious or otherwise in his comic book work or is that thought a lot of hooey?

I think it's high on the hooeymeter if you're talking about his drawing style. At least I don't see any impact there. The main influence of Jack's limited time in the animation business back then seems to me to have been a matter of "That's what I don't want to do with my career." The many things that are wonderful about that business seem to have not seemed wonderful to Jack, especially the assembly-line nature of it where one man only did a teensy part of the process.

As a comic book creator, he could conceive the project, write it or co-write it, draw it and wind up with a finished product that came either wholly from his mind or his and one or two other people. As an animation in-betweener, he created nothing. He assisted the guy who drew ten-second segments of Popeye's actions. That was a character neither of them thought of functioning in a story that neither of them thought of. At that level of the animation process, the idea was to draw like everyone else and not invent anything distinctive.

That wasn't Jack. There are artists who are real good at being part of a team and blending in and helping turn someone else's vision into reality. Jack was not one of those people. He also told me once that the whole physical set-up at the Fleischer Animation Studio — row after row of artists sitting at drawing tables slaving away — reminded him uncomfortably of the garment business. Jack's father was in that line of work and it felt limiting and confining to Jack. He was very glad when he got out of it.

As a kid who also yearned to escape his father's debilitating profession, I absolutely identified with that.

Three more women performing "Up the Ladder to the Roof"…

Speaking of older comedy legends I got to meet, Here's a rerun from July 11, 2010, all about chatting with George Burns a few times back in the mid-eighties. Looking back on it, I'm wondering why I didn't make it longer.

I could have retold what he told me about Al Jolson, whom he described as "a great entertainer, simply great" but one who was famously disrespectful to other performers. Burns said and — this is an approximate quote —

In Vaudeville, the way you knew you had a lousy act was that Jolson was willing to have you on the bill with him. If you were any good, he didn't want you on that stage before him because you might get applause. He couldn't stand any applause that wasn't for him. He'd leave the theater while other performers were on and if he had to be in his dressing room when others were on stage, he'd turn on the water spigots or do something to make noise so he wouldn't hear applause coming from the theater when he wasn't on.

When the Stage Manager came by to tell him he was on in five minutes, he'd ask how the act before him was doing. Stage Managers learned that the answer to that question was always "Lousy. The audience would walk out but they're sitting there waiting for you, Mr. Jolson."

I was never spectacularly impressed with Mr. Burns as a singer or hoofer, though I liked the old Burns & Allen TV shows, of which he was not only the co-star but the producer as well. I did really like hearing his show business stories and he was pleased to have an audience (me) who was well below his age bracket. Here's what I wrote then…

Not long ago, I was telling my friend George about visiting another fellow named George and I said, "I wrote about this a long time ago on the blog." The first George e-mailed me later and said, "I did a search and no, you didn't." Apparently, I didn't so I will now do.

Around 1986 or so, I was doing a show for Sid and Marty Krofft, who tended then to move from studio lot to studio lot. We were working on one of the older ones in Hollywood and one day, I noticed a parking space for George Burns. I owned a copy of Mr. Burns' 1955 book, I Love Her, That's Why, so I brought it into the office and left it there until a few days later when I spotted a car in his parking space. That's when I took it over to his office and asked the secretary there (a temp, I think) if I could leave it with her, have Mr. Burns autograph it to me and then pick it up later. She looked at a little 3-by-5 card I'd tucked into it with my name written out and under it, I'd added, "The name may not look it but I'm Jewish."

As I'd kinda hoped, she got on the intercom to the inner office and told her employer that a "young Jewish man" had a book he wanted signed…and I remember thinking that compared to George Burns, Jerry Lewis was a young Jewish man. I also remember a little tingle when I heard the unmistakeable voice coming back to her over that intercom. He asked, "Which book?" and was apparently impressed that it was not his recent release but rather one that suggested its possessor was a true fan. "Send him in," he said.

I was sent in. George Burns, sans toupee, was sitting behind a big desk, looking more like a captain of industry than an old vaudeville hoofer. He asked about my surname and I gave him my stock line about how it was made up by the immigration department. Some guy at Ellis Island, I explained, said, "Here come some Jews. Let's give them real stupid last names!" If I had to pay myself royalties every time I've used that joke, I couldn't afford it but it usually gets a laugh and it got a good one from George Burns.

He offered me a chair and we talked for about an hour, during which I learned that Al Jolson was a putz, Danny Kaye was a putz, Groucho Marx could be a putz at times, Eddie Cantor was rarely a putz, George Jessel was the biggest putz of them all and Milton Berle had the biggest putz of them all. We talked about the night back in '72 when Groucho did a sad (because he was so old and out of it) one-man show down at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown L.A. I'd seen Mr. Burns leaving in a limo after it was over and I asked him his thoughts. As expected, they were all about how Groucho had humiliated himself and how, and I quote, "I sure hope I die before I go out that way." Years later, when Burns was approaching his 100th birthday and it was advertised that he'd perform at Caesars Palace on that milestone day, I thought of that. He did make it to 100 but didn't make it to that stage.

There were, as you might expect, a number of stories about his friend Jack Benny — who, by the way, was definitely not a putz. The one I remember best was about how in the late sixties when strip clubs began featuring total nudity, Mr. Benny couldn't believe that there were places you could go, pay five or six bucks and see beautiful 21-year-old women dancing without any covering at all. The two of them had, with dark glasses and turned-up collars, ventured into one such place once in some other city…and of course, been immediately recognized, much to their shame. Burns did a semi-decent impression of his old friend asking why didn't they have places like that when he was younger, could enjoy it more and was on radio and not so easily recognized? There were also many tales of Burns sending Benny into fits of unrestrained laughter. Mr. Benny was a famously good audience.

So was I that day. As it started to feel like it was past time for me to go, Burns said he'd enjoyed talking to me as "batting practice" for the big game later that day when he'd be sitting in Johnny Carson's guest chair. He had a piece of paper on which he'd jotted down some lines he intended to use. The main topic was to be how he was dating a woman in her forties — "robbing the cradle" was how he described it — and he read aloud a couple of things he intended to say and asked if I thought they were funny. I told him which ones I thought were and then said, "Why don't you have Johnny ask you why you don't date women your own age? And then you say, 'There aren't any.'" Burns laughed, thanked me and wrote it down. Sure enough, that evening on The Tonight Show, there it was. Got a darn good laugh, too.

That's just about all there is to this story. Before I finished my Krofft job and checked off the lot, I stopped in two or three other times for briefer chats. George (he finally asked me to call him that) always greeted me by asking, "Did you get laid last night?" Even if I hadn't, I told him I had and he'd sound amazingly like George Burns when he muttered, "Good, good." Once, I asked him, "Never mind me. Did you get laid last night?" He answered, "Of course…that is, if by 'last night,' you mean 1957." Then he grinned and added, "Actually, it was more like 1970 but 1957 is funnier."

He was right, you know. 1957 is funnier. So was he.

Stan Freberg died a year ago last April. If he hadn't, he would have been 90 years old today.

Please forgive me if instead of writing wholly about him, I write a little about myself in this piece. I am a fortunate man in that I was inspired by a lot of talented folks when I was younger and then went on to know and even to have close relationships with many of them. My mother always told me that when she was pregnant with me, she was a steady watcher of Time for Beany, a pioneering television show with miserable production values but brilliant writing, acting and concepts. I got to know well the three main talents behind that show — Stan, Daws Butler and Bob Clampett.

They were all very gifted, influential men. They were all very nice to me. They all treated me as an equal even though I clearly was not. (As far as I could tell, all three treated everyone as an equal, including people who were amazingly even less their equal than I was.)

I remember vividly playing Stan Freberg records over and over and over again in my parents' bedroom when I was a child. That was where the one record player in the house was and almost any time one of them wasn't sleeping, I could go in there, shut the door and listen to Freberg over and over and over. I did not "get" all the cultural references. Often, he was parodying something about which I knew nothing other than that his parody, whatever it was making fun of, was quite wonderful.

I'm not the only person who felt this way. A Freberg-Butler record that aped and spoofed Jack Webb's TV show Dragnet was a smash hit in Australia several years before Dragnet was ever seen or heard in Australia. People just thought it was a funny record.

Stan made funny records. Stan made funny commercials. Stan made funny voices in cartoons. And it wasn't just that they were funny. They were also memorable. They stayed with you because they not only got to your sense of humor but to other portions of your brain. He made you laugh but he also made you think.

"Made you laugh but he also made you think." That's a cliché used to promote a lot of comedians who were lucky if they could make you do either but it was really true in Stan's case. I always felt a little more creative and smarter when I listened to Freberg or got to be around Freberg. I'm not saying that I actually was either of those things…but I felt like I was. Maybe that's almost the same thing.  One thing I did observe that even into his eighties, that mind of his was always working.  It was a tad slower but it was always working.

One time, I was sitting in his living room talking with him while his wonderful wife Hunter was out running an errand.  They were nearly inseparable and she took such good care of him but just for a half-hour, they were apart.  Stan was telling me an anecdote and as he was nearing the punchline, the doorbell rang and I went to accept a parcel from a U.P.S. driver.  By the time it had been signed-for and the guy was gone, Stan had forgotten where he was in his story.  I started to prompt him but he said, "No, no…let me come up with it myself."  It was kind of a personal challenge at his age.

All on his own, he remembered where he was and he started to resume the story.  That's when the phone rang.  The person who'd sent the package was calling to see if it had arrived yet.

Stan said, "Yes, it just got here.  Yeah, I know it was supposed to be here two days ago but you should have specified Next Day Delivery."  Then he added, "And while you were at it, you should have taken out Punch Line Insurance on it.  That's where you pay a few bucks extra and they guarantee the delivery man won't interrupt a joke you're in the middle of telling."

I don't know if the person on the other end of the line laughed but I sure did.  If Stan had still been in the advertising business, I think U.P.S. could have had a whole new campaign.