Category Archives: To Be Filed

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.

No, I don't believe that Donald Trump will drop out of the race and I don't believe, as some are theorizing, that he's trying to sabotage his own campaign. I think the truth is, as it often is, real simple: Trump wants to be the most famous person on the planet. Always has, always will.

There are reports that when John Kasich was in discussions about maybe being his running mate, Kasich was told that as vice-president, he'd run everything. I can believe that. It's always looked to me like Trump cares about the fame and fortune of Donald Trump and nothing else. He wants the title and the ceremonial portions of the gig, plus he probably has some thoughts about legislation that would be favorable to Donald Trump.

Beyond that, he doesn't care. Doesn't care about abortion or gay rights or health care or anything else except to the extent that certain stances help him get elected and would keep his approval rating up. But as long as he can veto things if they harm him personally, he doesn't care. That's why his stances seem so malleable and he seems to know surprisingly little about foreign affairs, laws, the Constitution, etc. Once he's sworn in, someone else can handle all that.

What looks like self-sabotage to some is, I think, a matter of him retreating to what's worked for him in the past. Successful people tend to do that, especially if they don't fully grasp why they've been successful. They cling to old habits like a fierce superstition. I once worked for a guy who had the kind of money that matches the low-end estimates of the Trump fortune. This fellow — the one I worked for — would go around the office shutting off lights whenever possible and asking secretaries to type on both sides of a piece of paper to save money.

It was often pointed out to him that he was spending a lot of his time trying to save fifty cents and maybe he had better, more lucrative things to do instead. He agreed (sometimes) it didn't make sense but could not stop. Deep down, his view was that turning off lights and trying to save on paper were the kinds of things that had made him wealthy and he was afraid to abandon those practices.

In a more political context, I remember an interview with Michael Dukakis not long after he lost the presidency to George H.W. Bush. It was pretty obvious in the closing weeks of that campaign how it was going to go and when it did, Dukakis was asked why he hadn't tried changing his style of campaigning. His reply was along the lines of "Hey, that style got me the Democratic nomination for president!" It had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams and he couldn't dump something that had worked for something new and untested.

I suspect that's how it is with Trump. It got him this far…and I'm sure at Trump rallies and almost everywhere he goes, it feels like he couldn't be doing better. Everything we think pegs him as an uninformed, impolite looney brings big cheers at his speeches. To the extent there's any sort of logic at work, it probably goes roughly like this: If I don't have those mobs swooning over me, I got nothing. Also, I think he just plain loves mobs swooning over him…and he doesn't do the polite statesman thing very well.

Anyway, that's what I think about him at the moment and I think I'll try to get through the remainder of the weekend without thinking about him. 92 days until all this is over.

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

My friends who want to see Donald J. Trump in the White House will probably want to skip this post. As you know, here at newsfromme.com, we believe that following the election is following the Electoral College breakdown. Everything else is just noise.

The map looks pretty darn good these days for Hillary Clinton with even usually-red states like Arizona and Georgia possibly in play. More significant is that she seems to have a double-digit lead in Pennsylvania. The Trump "path" to 270 votes has long involved flipping Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, all of which Obama won twice. Clinton is also up in Ohio and Florida — around six points, last I looked.

If Trump loses any one of those three, victory is very difficult but still mathematically possible. A lot of other states that now look safely blue — say, Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire — would have to go unexpectedly crimson. Clinton has consistently led or tied in every major poll of all three except for one apparent outlier in Pennsylvania.

If he loses two of the three…well, his chances of becoming president aren't a whole lot better than yours. At this rate, you might even beat him.

Can this all change? Sure but I think it's going to take something more than Trump calling her a mentally-unstable liar. That kind of attack loses its effectiveness when increasing numbers of voters think it best describes the guy hurling it. (A good question — one I doubt can be answered with any certainty — is to what extent what we've seen in the last week or so is a matter of voters liking Hillary more or liking Donald less. It's surely both but I get the feeling it's mostly the latter.)

Obviously, Trump's situation will improve but to knock her out, he needs a Game-Changer. A sudden financial crash is looking unlikely, especially after last week's Jobs Report. A major terrorist attack on American soil might shake things up but it's far from certain that one would drive voters to Trump, a man with no history of expertise in foreign affairs and a lot of recent gaffes.

The most likely scenario would be some huge, undeniable scandal proving that "Crooked Hillary" was indeed crooked. If you cruise the right-wingier sites, you'll see a constant certainty that such a scandal has been found and proven beyond any doubt whatsoever, and that an even bigger one will be revealed any day now. Each of these, going back many years, was or is certain to drive her from the race and into prison.

If I were a Hillary-hater, I think I'd be real tired right now and disappointed in all the folks who, dating back to Whitewater, told me that they absolutely, definitely had the goods on her and that there was zero chance of her getting away this time. I might still think she was evil but I'd adopt an "I'll believe you have the proof when she's actually indicted" attitude. Maybe that's just me.

Todd Klein, who is one of the best letterers to ever work in comics, is also a pretty good historian. He recently completed (I think) a series over on his blog about the various offices of DC Comics for which he's worked in his career. With a lot of help from others, he dug up photos, not just of the star writers and artists but of the other folks who made the comics come out — people in the art department, licensing, contracts, overseas sales, etc. Here are links to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6.

Todd's history starts in 1982 as DC moves from 75 Rockefeller Plaza to 666 Fifth Avenue. My own history with their offices started in 1970 when they were at 909 Third Avenue…in a building that seemed way too corporate and serious to have comic books produced within. Over the years, it seemed to me the various offices got more casual and fun, and the average age of an employee seemed to get younger and younger…though there were always longtime staffers around to tell you how it was in "the old days." I have (mostly) fond memories of visiting the various offices, hanging around and meeting people and sometimes conducting actual business.

It's about time I posted Part 14 in this series of friendly counsel to those who want to sell their writing or sell much more of it. Part 1 can be read here, Part 2 can be read here, Part 3 can be read here, Part 4 can be read here, Part 5 can be read here, Part 6 can be read here, Part 7 can be read here, Part 8 can be read here, Part 9 can be read here, Part 10 can be read here, Part 11 can be read here, Part 12 can be read here and Part 13 can be read here. You might want to review Part 13 before reading what follows…

---

To spec or not to spec? You're a writer. Someone offers you the opportunity to write something…but there's a catch. No payment is guaranteed to you. You write it and if they like it and use it — or even if they just use it — you get paid.

So it's a gamble. Should you take it? It depends. As we said in the previous installment, there are good gambles and there are bad gambles. I think most writers take way too many bad gambles. I sure did so some of this is in the category of "Learn From My Mistakes."

In my case, it usually wasn't because I was desperate for work. I usually had work. But someone who seemed trustworthy ("seemed" is italicized for a reason) offered me what seemed (there's that word again) to be an opportunity to write something I really wanted to write. Did you ever sleep with someone and then realize later you'd let the wrong part of your body make an important decision? If you haven't, good for you. I have and it feels a lot like doing spec work you shouldn't have done. The main difference is that the word "screwed" has a somewhat different definition.

Writing is one of those professions that most folks do out of passion. They want to make a living at it but they also want the world to see or read what they create…and to see their name on it. Often, they have some friend or relative who's hectoring them about giving up…

"Look, you may well have talent but this is not working out for you. You're not earning enough to live on. Isn't it about time you forget about becoming a world famous writer and you got an actual job instead of living the way you've been living?"

If you're hearing things like that, it's easy to inflate in your mind, the likelihood of some possible project becoming definite. Real easy. After all, you're good at fantasy and imagining happy endings. That's why you became a writer, isn't it?

So you meet a producer who has some connections to financing. He's looking for a certain kind of script — a kind you think you could write. Maybe this producer has produced something in the past. Maybe he hasn't but he sure sounds like he's got most of this financing thing together and will soon have access to the thirty million dollars necessary to make the movie he has in mind. (Possible Red Flag: The thirty million is a near-certainty but he somehow doesn't have the funds to pay you a few thousand dollars up front to start creating the script on which he's going to spend that thirty million. He has a great, logical-sounding explanation as to why he doesn't but he doesn't…so you'll have to write on spec.)

Should you gamble on this?

Or you're yearning for success in print and you meet someone who's got a book they'd like you to write for them: Their idea, your labor. They have some connection that is certain to be able to get it published and another that can promote it right onto the New York Times Best Seller List. (Possible Red Flag: This is a sure-fire, can't-miss moneymaker but somehow, there's no money to pay you up front. And of course, they have a great, logical-sounding explanation as to why there isn't…so you'll have to write on spec.)

Should you gamble on this?

Either opportunity could go the distance and lead not only to success with that project but to the others that will follow once you have one good thing produced or published. One hit usually begats another…and another and another. Are you going to turn down all that begatting?

To me, the default answer is no. No, you should not gamble. And you should never gamble because you think, "Why not? It's not going to cost me anything." Get that thought outta your head immediately, my friend. That premise — that writing doesn't cost the writer anything — is the operating assumption of every producer or publisher who wasted weeks, maybe months of your life, getting you to write something which he is not going to get produced or published.

The world abounds in what I call Unfinanced Entrepreneurs. These are people who want to become producers or publishers but they lack a certain asset that is very, very important to either of those professions. They lack money. That's the first thing a producer is supposed to be able to produce. If he or she doesn't have it — or if he/she does and doesn't want to gamble it — then they have to get you to gamble to make their project happen.

How do you know when to spec and when not to spec? There's no simple answer to that since every situation is different and since your situation may be different from someone else's. But I sat down and made a list of some indicators that would make me wary…

• You're writing something which if one particular buyer doesn't buy it, you can't really sell it anywhere else.
• You're writing something for a project that you're not 100% certain will ever happen at all.
• You're writing something and your fee, if they like the work, has yet to be determined.
• You're writing something for people who, if they do like your work, might not have the money to pay you.
• You're writing something where the terms of employment — who'll own it, credits, whether you receive royalties (and if so, how much), how many rewrites they can demand of you, etc. — have yet to be determined.
• You're writing something for people who really aren't sure what they want.
• You're writing something for people who just might not even read what you hand in…or have it read by someone with actual hiring/power in their company.
• You're writing something for people who are soliciting so many auditions and so much spec work that the odds are pretty damned daunting.

I ran that list in our previous installment and what I've decided to do is to go over it item by item for the next few chapters in this series, however many it may take. Let's start at the top of that list with…

• You're writing something which if one particular buyer doesn't buy it, you can't really sell it anywhere else.

This may be the most important one on the list. Someone comes to you and says, "I'm trying to assemble an anthology of short ghost stories. Would you like to write one on spec?" Okay, that's not bad. If this guy can't get the book together, maybe you can sell the story somewhere else. Just make sure you retain the rights and can pull it from his project after giving him a reasonable amount of time to place his book. Oh — and also make sure it's clear, preferably in writing, what you'll receive if he does get the book published and what rights you'll be giving up for that money.

What you don't want to do is this: The guy comes to you and says, "I want you to write a story on spec of my creation, Bartholomew the Lactate-Intolerant Giraffe." You write it and then the guy doesn't like it or his publishing deal falls through. Well, there aren't a lot of other places you can sell a story of a lactate-intolerant giraffe, especially if other elements of it are specific to his creation.

You need to make the distinction between "speccing" (awkward word) your own work and someone else's. It's one thing to invest in your own projects. You have an idea for a great original screenplay or a novel? Write it. Write it, polish it, finish it and then go out and try to sell it. Maybe you can do that. Or maybe you can't sell it but it'll get read by someone in a position to actually hire writers who'll say, "Hey, this person's a pretty good writer." You probably wouldn't be too broken-up if instead of producing your original screenplay, Sony Pictures wanted to hire you to adapt a novel they bought for Bryan Cranston. (Hey, and once that's a hit, your original screenplay will become more commercial.)

A lot of working screenwriters became working screenwriters that way. They wrote a spec screenplay that one or more producers wanted to produce…and while the deal never quite coalesced to produce that particular script, it got around the industry that there was this new, hot writer. Suddenly, other producers who were looking for someone to work on one of their projects thought that writer might be the one. They probably also thought, "I'll get him [or her] while he's [she's] available and cheap!"

Nothing in these articles I'm writing should ever dissuade you from spending time and writing your own work. I'm warning you about the old Jewish curse, "May you have partners."

If you spec on someone else's project — an idea they had, a property they control — then you're doing their work. They're involved in what happens with what you wrote and your ability to do something with it is limited. Also, your remuneration often becomes dependent on them selling their project and/or maintaining an interest in it. I've told this story before on my blog…

A writer friend of mine was approached by an Unfinanced Entrepreneur who held the rights to the life story of a noted personality in the news. Dustin Hoffman was, the U.E. claimed, eager to star in a movie based on this person's experiences. So, allegedly, was Al Pacino. "I need a screenplay," the Unfinanced Entrepreneur said. "Dustin promised me he'd read it right away and so did Al. If either one of them likes it, we can write our own ticket at any studio in town."

My friend fell for it. He figured, "Hey, even if the movie doesn't get made, Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino will be reading my work. Maybe they'll hire me for some other film." The U.E. was even willing to draw up a Letter of Agreement covering the matter. (This is rare for Unfinanced Entrepreneurs but, of course, this one didn't obligate him to my friend in any way; it merely said that, if the script was placed with a studio, the writer would receive at least Writers Guild scale — which he'd have gotten anyway.)

So the starry-eyed screenwriter spent the next five months, night and day, researching and writing a 125-page script. He was very proud of his handiwork and, in idle moments, even fantasized about Dustin and Al both loving it and fighting over the lead.

When the script was done, he sent it over to the U.E., who called to say he had moved on to other things and allowed his (unpaid) option on the person's life story to lapse. It's very easy to drop a project when you don't have any money tied up in it.

The writer scurried around, trying to acquire the rights to the story he'd just spent five months turning into a screenplay. Turned out, the subject had already sold his story to Universal for megabucks and they had a top screenwriter adapting it. No film was ever made from it but that's irrelevant to this tale. What is relevant is that my friend was stuck with a script that consumed five months of his life and guts — a script which he couldn't sell anywhere. He couldn't even get Dustin or Al to read it.

This happens a lot to writers who write on spec, meaning for others. If they didn't commit up front to paying you, they rarely care if you ever get paid. They figure, "You gambled, you lost, not my problem!" The fact that you may have lost due to their efforts (or lack of efforts) never bothers an Unfinanced Entrepreneur. They're usually too busy finding the next sucker who'll write something for them without pay.

There will be more examples of all this in our next installment. And the one after and the one after and the one after…

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

• Chris Christie says "We must stop Hillary Clinton from getting to Washington." Sounds like we're in for more phony bridge closures.

• Trump says he has two thirds of the black vote; cites a poll conducted by a guy who only asks Omarosa, Arsenio Hall and Dr. Ben Carson.

Our pal Kliph Nesteroff interviews one of the cleverest writers around, Merrill Markoe. There's a lot in there about the 70's Laugh-In revival which introduced Robin Williams to American TV. I have a strange fascination with that show. I have lotsa friends who worked on it — including Sergio Aragonés, who was a cast member.

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

If you're thinking of leaving the country if your candidate isn't elected president, my buddy Joe Brancatelli has some travel suggestions for you. Joe wrote me that he had me in mind, along with a couple of other friends, when he wrote this piece. But I haven't even bothered to read it because I have no intention of leaving no matter who wins. I'm an American born white guy who owns his own home and has money in the bank. I'll be fine no matter who wins, just as long as we don't have some nut who'd get us into a nuclear war and —

Hold on. Maybe I'd better go read Joe's article.

A new Stephen Sondheim musical is on the horizon — and by "horizon," we mean maybe in 2017. Since Mr. Sondheim is 86, it might be a good idea to hurry it along a bit, huh? Maybe?

No word on any productions of the musical based on the Jerry Lewis film, The Nutty Professor. Jerry's last known announcement of it definitely opening on Broadway as that it would be there in November of 2014. It's not on any lists of shows that are set or likely to open there in the foreseeable future. Surely some theater company somewhere would like to do it?

See that comic book cover at left?  See the great logo on it saying SWAMP THING?  That great logo was the handiwork of the man at right.

For around five decades, you couldn't read DC Comics without seeing and surely enjoying the contributions of Gaspar Saladino, who passed away yesterday following a long illness. Sources vary on his birthdate but he was either 88 or 90.

Gaspar was a letterer — one of the best in comics and the man responsible for so many iconic logo designs. He was born in Brooklyn and attended Manhattan's School of Industrial Art, picking up occasional money inking for comic books. Throughout the forties, he dabbled in comics for minor publishers but his main career trajectory was towards fashion art.

After a stint in the Army, he decided to try and find something steadier at one of the major publishers and showed his portfolio to Julius Schwartz at DC. Schwartz was unimpressed with the art but impressed with the lettering…and that was how Gaspar found his life's occupation. He lettered for DC for more than fifty years.

Schwartz had first call on his services for a long time but Saladino's crisp, attractive lettering could be found all across DC's line and he occasionally moonlighted for other publishers, particularly when asked by an artist-friend. (Online sources say he lettered the early issues of Eerie for Warren Publishing. They're wrong. His work for Warren was minimal.)

Until around 1966, Saladino was the second banana letterer at DC, the first being Ira Schnapp. Schnapp was a gifted calligrapher and designer who was responsible for most of the cover lettering, logo design and house advertising there for years. In '66 when artist Carmine Infantino was brought into management (eventually becoming publisher), he attempted to modernize the look of DC by replacing Schnapp with Saladino. Thereafter, Gaspar did most of the cover lettering, logo design and house advertising. Schnapp left the company in 1968.

Gaspar designed hundreds of logos for the company and as time permitted, worked on the insides.  When Swamp Thing by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson became both a financial and creative success for DC in the seventies, everyone agreed the comic wouldn't be the same without Gaspar's distinctive and expressive lettering.  When he had to miss an issue, the point was proven.  He also occasionally worked for Marvel, often under the name "L.P. Gregory" or merely "Gaspar," and was called upon most times when MAD needed someone to do fancy lettering.

Many comic book letterers, including frequent award-winner Todd Klein, cite Saladino as an inspiration or even mentor. He truly was an artist himself, able to craft sound effects and display lettering that were as good as any artwork over which they appeared. His basic balloon lettering was clear and organic and more than a few artists were known to ask, "Can you get Gaspar to letter my work?" He was also super-reliable, putting in long hours at the drawing board when necessary to meet deadlines.

I interviewed Gaspar one year at a comic convention — before a room packed with professional letterers who regarded him as a master. He was a genuinely humble man, delighted to find that so many people noticed and appreciated what he had done. Take a look at this page of Gaspar lettering designs and tell me if you wouldn't be a little conceited if you could letter this well.

I'm trying an experiment: Binging on reading about the election for one hour every morning, then pretending it doesn't exist the rest of the day. So far, it's been a total failure but I live in a world where people don't let total failure stop them from trying the same thing again and again and again and again. Trickle-down Economics, denying Global Warming, Abstinence Education, "Pray the Gay Away," recent Adam Sandler movies…some people like to try things that don't work over and over, rather than to admit to some harsh unreality in their thinking. There are even people talking about Newt Gingrich as the guy to lead the G.O.P. out of its current hole. Like the Republicans don't have enough trouble.

My current goal is to get to Election Day without losing certain Trump-supporting friends as friends. Most of 'em seem to currently be falling back on the old "The press is biased against us" meme that we all embrace when the news is not to our liking. I think the press is biased…towards what sells papers and engenders clicks and tune-ins. At the moment, that's the narrative that Trump's campaign is an outta-control garage fire that threatens to consume the home to which it's attached. I have no doubt that if they could write that about Hillary's operation, they would…and maybe at some point, they will. Certainly, Trump will have better weeks than this one before this thing is over.

But you have the Fox News poll saying she's ten points ahead of him, which is hard to dismiss as the lies of the Liberal Media. Ten points is way more than we'll probably see either candidate ahead on November Eighth but it's a frightening number right now for Republicans. In 1980 when Reagan beat Carter by nine points, the Democrats lost 34 seats in the House and in 2008 when Obama beat McCain by seven, Republicans lost 21 seats in the House. To flip the House of Representatives from R to D would take 30.

Meanwhile, this article by Harry Enten shows that Trump is hurting Republicans in a lot of their Senate races. So are we going to see a lot of G.O.P. candidates distancing themselves from the presidential nominee or even disavowing him?

I don't begin to think Hillary has it won…not when every day brings some new issue outta nowhere. Today, people are suddenly writing about the possibility that Mrs. Trump entered the country illegally. I dunno if it's true but we're in for a lot of jokes about how Trump wants to build that wall, not to keep Mexicans out but to keep his wives in. Before long, Hillary will have just as bad a week and the folks on my side can all fall back on how the press has always had it in for her.