Category Archives: To Be Filed

A half dozen items back, I posted a link to a piece by Jonathan Chait on why he doesn't think Bernie Sanders can win the presidency — or accomplish much of his agenda if he does. Here is a piece by Ben Norton that is mostly a rebuttal to Chait.

This is a 1982 interview of Sid Caesar conducted by journalist John Callaway. Much of it is about Caesar's battles with pills and alcohol and how he quit…

Jon Delfin informs me that the National Lampoon documentary which debuts Friday evening on the History Channel debuts at the same time on Showtime — but without commercials. Thanks, Jon.

I have to admit that with each passing week, I am less certain that Donald Trump will not be the G.O.P. nominee. But I won't believe it until Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight.com says it's possible.

What he and his staff are saying now is that it's down to a three-man race with Trump, Cruz and Rubio. The way the primaries fall, Trump and Rubio will do better in the early primaries and if Rubio's going to win, he will come from behind in the later ones. This article charts how well each man must do (roughly) on each primary date to be on a path to the number of delegates necessary to win the nomination. If you're really interested in this race, read what they say. It'll tell you what to watch for.

Also: If you're really concerned it will be Trump, take a look at this article on the various candidates' favorability. Trump, as the headline says, is really unpopular with general election voters. And while you're at it, read Jonathan Chait on the Trump campaign's estimation of his strengths. Yow.

Rumor has it that today, it will be announced that a major revival of Hello, Dolly! is heading for Broadway with Bette Midler as the matchmaking Mrs. Levi. That could be a great rendition of that musical but you know what? I'd rather see Bette Midler as Bette Midler. To me, Hello, Dolly! is a few great songs, a plot that no one ever cares about and (usually) a lot of staging tricks.

Oh, yeah — and a great female star/legend in the lead. I guess they've got that but couldn't she just come out on a stage, sing "Before the Parade Passes By," have a chorus sing the title song to her and then do her Vegas act?

I also think someone should take Barbra Streisand into a studio with a green screen, have her act out all the scenes from the movie and then digitally insert that video into the film in place of her original performance. She's just about the right age now to play it.

I mentioned yesterday here that I don't get the Decades channel on my local cable and that I didn't want to go to the hassle of putting up a roof antenna. Quite a few of you wrote that I could get Decades with a cheap (< $20) rabbit ears antenna. You're right but I misstated my reason for not wanting to go the antenna route. My DVR won't work with an antenna; only with the one cable source. And I've gotten so spoiled by time-shifting TV programs that I can't imagine myself timing my life such that I can watch any show live.

In any case, I'm also informed that my cable company (Time-Warner) may be about to add Decades to its lineup. That would be nice. Also, several of you wrote to remind me that quite a few episodes of The Dick Cavett Show can be viewed over on the Shout Factory TV website and also accessed via Roku. This may include all the episodes that will be turning up on Decades at first.

I like an awful lot of what Bernie Sanders says and I think he's probably the most sincere, honest candidate running for the office in either party. Admittedly though, that isn't much of a compliment. It's like being the smartest member of the Cliven Bundy clan.

I do though have growing concerns about his electability — and yes, I know that a good candidate can be sabotaged by that kind of thinking. If Sanders doesn't win, we're going to hear, "If everyone who said they wished he could be president had voted for him, he would have made it!" Still, I came across an article by Jonathan Chait who makes a strong case that this just ain't Bernie's year. Part of me would like to believe that isn't so — and I still believe that a lot of things that couldn't possibly happen may happen before we get to Election Day — but I couldn't find much to disagree with in Chait's piece. At least at the moment.

This Friday night (1/22) on the History Channel: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon — a documentary on the great humor magazine. It airs at 9 PM and again four hours later on my cable channel. Consult, as they say, your local listings.

Hey, let's watch the first sixteen minutes of the 1975 Academy Awards ceremony with your host, Bob Hope. Bob makes his entrance and delivers his monologue about 9 minutes and 40 seconds in…

Here's a real good article in Forbes by Rob Salkowitz about how Jack Kirby, my one-time employer, is finally getting some of his due.

There are some very ugly arguments to be found on the 'net between folks who want to believe Stan Lee was the sole genius behind the Marvel heroes and others who argue that Jack was. It leads to the kind of ugly that causes most rational folks (or informed ones) to steer clear. I know: I've been attacked by both sides — by the Lee partisans (who forget I also worked for Stan) for my relationship with Jack, and by the Jack defenders for not savaging Stan at every opportunity.

But I am certain there is a dispassionate, evidence-based way of looking at the Lee-Kirby body of work and I hope to present it in the big biography of Jack I'm trying to finish in time for the centennial of his birth in 2017. For now though, read Rob's piece. He knows what he's talking about. And there's a show on ABC tomorrow night about Captain America that I assume will properly acknowledge Jack as more than just a guy who drew up other folks' ideas.

As we continue to enjoy reruns of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show on the Antenna TV channel, we learn that the Decades channel is soon to begin airing old, "full-length" (but minus most music performances) episodes of The Dick Cavett Show. This is good news and it would be even better for me if I got the Decades channel on my cable service. Yes, I can install a rooftop antenna on my home and get it. No, I won't go to that trouble just for this.

Cavett's show was a very fine program and if I could watch these, I'd look forward to more than just the episodes where he interviewed legends usually for the entire 90 minutes. Understandably, most of what's been available has been those installments but the show was pretty good when he just filled the time talking with three or more non-legend guests. He was a good interviewer who never made you feel that the person in his guest chair wasn't worthy of as many segments as he allowed them.

One thing I'm pretty sure they won't do but I wish they would is air a couple of the episodes where Cavett was off and guest hosts filled in. They picked odd ones like Germaine Greer, Otto Preminger, Orson Welles and F. Lee Bailey. We'll probably never see non-Johnny shows on the Carson replays either.

But I'm remembering one night when Dick was off and his replacement was Zero Mostel, who presided over 90 of the funniest minutes I ever saw on TV. Mostel's guest list included Dick Benjamin and Paula Prentiss and at first, his mission statement apparently was to get through the entire show without allowing that clichéd concept of the host asking a question and allowing the guest to answer it. The result was deliberate shambles but very funny shambles. (He unshambled it somewhat when he brought out his other guests, Dalton Trumbo and artist Jamie Wyeth.)

At least, I remember it as an incredible show. That was back in June of '71 so maybe it wasn't as wonderful as I recall. The following night, Cavett's guest host was Muhammad Ali and his main guest was Howard Cosell. Wouldn't it be great to see that one now? Oh, well. I'd settle for the Cavett shows with Cavett — if only my cable company would pick up Decades.

Yesterday, I took an Uber over to visit a friend. The trip covered 6.42 miles, took 29.05 minutes and cost me $11.79. Tipping on Uber is not expected but unless there's a big surge on, I always give the driver two bucks in cash — or more for a longer haul. This one got two and he was very, very pleased and grateful. So the trip was $13.79.

Coming back, I couldn't get the Uber app on my phone to function properly. For a long time, it refused to connect and when it finally did, it would not summon an Uber car to where I was. This happened to me once before — oddly (I think oddly) when I was trying to summon an Uber car from the same location.

That time, it took about 15 minutes before the app finally sent a car to me. This time, I was in more of a hurry so I called Yellow Cab and had them send a taxi my way. The driver was there in less than five minutes and took me home via a different route which covered 6.60 miles and took 26 minutes. The fare was $24.45 and I usually tip cabbies 20% — so the damage was $29.34.

The two trips made for a good comparison of the two services. Uber, because you can't phone them, puts you at the mercy of the app and the network working properly. This time, it failed me. On the other hand, the taxi ride was more than double the price.

Uber needs to work on the tech end but this doesn't change my mind that if cab companies are going to continue to exist, they're going to have to become more like Uber.

The other night, James Corden did a Carpool Karaoke segment with Adele that was really remarkable. I find Corden's in-studio interviews hard to watch but some of his non-chat segments are quite good and the one with Adele was quite special. In this article, one of his producers explained how they arranged it.

I think I've figured out why I don't enjoy his interviews. He brings all or most of his guests on at the same time. Now, that might make for a unique, fun conversation if they all joined in on every topic…but too often, it reminds me of what Joe Franklin used to do on his long-running, little-watched talk show. Joe would have on three guests who had nothing to do with each other and he'd just fire questions at them in rotation, serializing the Q-and-A. He'd ask Guest 1 about his profession. Then he'd ask Guest 2 about what he did. Then he'd ask Guest 3 something and then the discussion would jump back to Guest 1 and what he did.

If you were only interested in Guest 1, you had to sit through all the irrelevant banter that you didn't care about to hear the next moment he got to speak. And usually, you could see the guests who weren't speaking at the moment weren't interested either. They were just patiently waiting for it to be their turn again.

So the talk was halting and it jumped all over the place…and I've learned doing my silly convention panels, if everyone on the panel isn't engrossed, the audience won't be, either.

Mr. Corden usually manages to have one guest I'd like to hear and two or three who'll be discussing their TV series I don't watch or their new CD I'm not going to buy. Johnny Carson used to be great at making you interested in guests you hadn't heard of before. I don't think any current talk show host does that well and I'm not sure I've even seen any of them try. At least though when Jimmy Fallon brings on a guest I don't know, I can fast-forward to the next spot. When Corden is directing every third question to a guest I don't know, it's time to watch something else.

All that said, Corden's doing fine in the ratings and his YouTube hits are probably the envy of most other shows. This one with Adele is going through the online stratosphere. So maybe he's doing something right…

Fred Kaplan says Obama's approach to the Iran problem is not only working but working quite well. Does anyone think that the Republicans' condemnation of his every move is based on anything other than a belief that in order to win the presidency, one must condemn every single thing Obama does? I mean, even if Obama's really and truly wrong, that's not why Trump, Cruz, Rubio and all the rest are saying he is.

Kevin Drum reminds us that Donald Trump is not and has never been a great businessman. Most of his deals have been disasters and what has saved him has been his bluster and at times, the value of his name. This is something a lot of people will never grasp because they figure anyone who has a lot more money than they do must be doing something — probably most things — right. And if people with more money than Trump say he's not a great financier…well, that gets written off as petty jealousy.