Category Archives: To Be Filed

Brian Williams has canceled a scheduled appearance with David Letterman for this Thursday. I don't care a whole lot whether the man retains his exalted status as the voice of NBC News or not. I mean, if he stays and tells us one evening that the Dow Jones average dropped, I won't assume that's not true because he was once caught exaggerating some war stories. Only two things really interest me about this whole matter…

One is the way he's getting pilloried for falsehoods by people who overlook them in those they like. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — to pick one from Column A and one from Column B — were forgiven for worse by those who were happy with what those gents were doing for (or maybe to) the country. I don't think it's much of an excuse for Williams' defenders — I assume he has some even if they aren't very loud — to point this out. It's just interesting how being outraged about lying can be so selective. Frankly, I think Williams should just go out and assure America he didn't trade arms for hostages.

The other thing is to wonder just what NBC can do with him if anchoring is not, at least for a while, an option. He just signed a new five-year contract @ ten million bananas a year. Do you bench a guy like that? I think he'd do great with a talk show in the old Larry King Live! timeslot but on MSNBC. He might even get someone to watch MSNBC…but both he and NBC Corporate probably fear that a Basic Cable gig of that sort would demote him from future anchoring status. I dunno what anyone has in mind for him but the problem his network has is that even as damaged goods, he's still too, too valuable to throw away.

In other news: Bill Cosby has another accuser and he canceled two concerts this weekend in Boston, officially because of bad weather. There's been quite a cold snap around Mr. Cosby lately and I'm wondering if very many people still believe he didn't do what all those women said he did. I do still see occasional comments from folks who think what he was accused of was lechery and infidelity. There's that…but slipping something in someone's beverage (a crime all by itself) and then raping them is not quite the same thing as being horny and cheating on your spouse. I am amazed that human beings who ought to know better don't know better.

To "KeepIt100" about The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, I have to say that I like but do not love The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. I think he's terrific and I'm optimistic the show will get better…but there are some aspects of it that haven't started working for me.

One is the whole idea of doing one topic per show. First off, if you're not interested in the topic, the episode's kind of a waste. You might not give a hoot about what Jon Stewart discusses in his first segment but there's something different coming along after the commercial. Also, there's the same problem I had with Penn & Teller's Bullshit! series tackling one topic per episode…

The show was a half-hour. If they had a topic and they only had about ten minutes of interesting things to say about it, it got thirty. And if the topic was an important one worthy of hours of discussion, it also got thirty. So you either got a show with very little to say and a lot of padding…or you got a very cursory, insufficient look at an important topic. Mr. Wilmore's show also suffers from the problem that no one on the panel may have anything of interest to say about that day's topic…or, conversely, the time to say what they do have to say. Both have occasionally seemed to be the case.

But my larger problem with the group discussion is that I usually don't know who most of those panel people are…and by the time each of them has spoken twice and I'm starting to get to know them, the conversation is over.

Which brings us to the "KeepIt100" segment in which tough questions are put to those panelists who (again) I've often never heard of before. Absolute honesty is a good thing but the way to "win" that game is just to give the answer that's most uncomfortable for you to say. Let me give you an example.

Matt Taibbi is one of my favorite journalists (i.e., someone I've heard of) and he was on as part of a discussion of the movie American Sniper, which Taibbi trashed. Here's the question that was put to him by Mr. Wilmore, followed by the answer he gave…

Q: Which is more irresponsible? Clint Eastwood's approach to American Sniper or Rolling Stone's approach to the U.V.A. rape story?

A: It's us. I mean, we got that story wrong.

The audience cheered because Taibbi, who's a pretty bright guy, played the game correctly…and that may have been the extent of his feelings on the question. But this game is about giving honest responses…so what if his honest answer was more like this?

Yeah, we got that story wrong. However, when our irresponsibility was brought to light, we responded to the charges and the publisher has asked the Columbia School of Journalism to do an independent review of the story and we're going to publish whatever they say about us. We screwed up but we're determined to correct the record and to properly retract and apologize. What people in our profession will learn from our irresponsibility is that you have to be more scrupulous in fact-checking stories. What's being learned from Clint Eastwood's irresponsibility is that there's zillions of dollars to be made from fairy tales about the Iraq War that depict it the way the right-wing wishes it had been.

Now, I don't know for a fact that that's Mr. Taibbi's honest view…but if it was, he was smart enough not to say it on the show. Saying anything but what he did say would have gotten him booed for not swallowing sufficient fecal matter. Which is what bugs me about "KeepIt100." The short, uncomfortable answer may not really be the honest one.

I am not going to un-Season Pass The Nightly Show on my TiVo. I'm just going to keep watching and enjoying what's there and waiting for the show to find its way because I have a feeling it will. And yeah, maybe I'm just grousing because it isn't as wonderful as what it replaced.

Speaking of magicians who do things other magicians can't: One of the greats, René Lavand, has passed away at the age of 86. We shared his wizardry with you here.

If you watch that video a few times, you may be able to figure out how he's doing what he's doing. But you'd have to practice for months if not years to be able to do that yourself and not have people instantly see what you were doing.

Someone wrote to ask that I post more videos of unique magic acts. Okay. We live to serve. Here from an old Craig Ferguson show is Jason Latimer with a great variation on the oldest trick in the book…

James Troutman just sent me this link to a piece by PZ Myers, a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota. Myers did see Bill Maher last night (the episode that reruns on HBO 'til next Friday evening) and thinks the man is a dangerous idiot. I don't disagree with Myers except that I think the name-calling is unnecessary.

Still, I'm not giving up on Bill Maher. I find him funny (usually) and gutsy in that he says things on other subjects that oughta be said and that few others are saying. And while I don't buy his views on diet and medicine, there's zero chance I'm going to modify my eating because of them. He'll have no credibility with me on this issue until he begins warning people that our planet is slowly being destroyed by the repeated consumption of cole slaw.

Mr. Maher keeps complaining that doctors don't ask their patients, "What do you eat?" Well, mine do…and my life was probably saved by one years ago who diagnosed me with food allergies.

Though I neither have nor ever wanted children, I am interested in all the anti-vaccination arguments. If nothing else, it's interesting how so many people, as with the Climate Change debate, will place emotional feelings — what they want to have be true — ahead of or on an equal footing with overwhelming scientific consensus.

There's a certain kind of skepticism towards What The Experts Say that is healthy and which should be encouraged. Where I have a problem with Skeptics sometimes is when they start with — and refuse to budge off the presumption — that the Popular Opinion or the government's position are lies just because they're the Popular Opinion or the government's position. Many lifetimes ago, I spent some time amongst Kennedy Assassination Buffs who were willing to consider absolutely any theory of J.F.K.'s killing — a few even involving Martians — as long as it wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald as lone assassin.

That one was off the table. It was automatically wrong because "they" believed it. If you asked some of these folks what day it was, they would have checked the newspaper, seen it said Monday and then told you, "It's any day but Monday. You're a fool if you think it's Monday!" I thought some of them just felt hipper and smarter than the masses if they didn't believe what the masses believed. Personally, I think that it's fine to believe Popular Opinion is wrong but you need a better reason than just that it's Popular Opinion.

I can imagine a rational anti-vaccination argument. Some doctors (probably a lot more than a few) could come to the conclusion that a given vaccination is ineffective or has bad side effects that outweigh its benefits. At least on the cable news shows, I'm not hearing any of those. They seem to be trotting out parents who think that if their kids never get a shot, they'll never get a sickness. Or you get the old "If the government says so, it's wrong" argument. We should remind those people that it's the government that tells us what day to vote. Maybe that'll make them go to the polls a week too late to cast ballots.

My friend Paul Harris has announced he will never watch Bill Maher again due to Maher's anti-vaccine statements. I don't know if Paul saw the show last night when Maher seemed to be walking back certain of his assertions on this topic but I share some of Paul's view. I haven't reached the stage yet of not watching but I do think people should be getting their medical advice from doctors they trust — preferably, in one-on-one relationships — rather than from talking heads on cable channels. Hell, I'd even concede that Bill Maher's advice could be absolutely right for Bill Maher's body. That doesn't mean it's right for everyone who tunes in his show because they think he's funny.

No one who's been in one in the last ten years will be shocked that the RadioShack chain is going bye-bye. A few days ago, the New York Stock Exchange began delisting the company. A fewer day ago, the firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced that General Wireless Inc. has agreed to buy 1,500 to 2,400 of the approximately 4,000 stores RadioShack has in this country. They will close the others.

You'd think that an era in which we all have computers and smartphones and other electronics goodies would send sales soaring at a chain of technology shops…and it might if that chain had employees who knew anything about how the stuff worked.

Maybe someone will try that sometime…but usually, we get what killed Radioshack, which is the same thing that sank the Egghead Software chain that I used to patronize. It's the same thing that closed the CompUSA store where I used to buy computer equipment. It's the same thing that shuttered the Good Guys store where I used to buy software and computer equipment after Egghead Software and CompUSA closed. You'd go into these places, ask a question and you'd get either the wrong answer or none.

I'm not that tech-savvy but way too often at a Radioshack, I found myself explaining the products to the salespeople…or sometimes to other customers. I don't know what the pay scale was in these shops but it sure wasn't enough to keep anyone who knew their stuff around for long. The Ray Krocs of the world figured out how to set up their businesses so any minimum-wage teen could be hired and quickly trained to produce the exact same french fries. That interchangeability of service people doesn't work for every business in the mall.

If you ranked technical expertise via a four-star system with four stars indicating great knowledge and one denoting, say, my Aunt Dot's level, Radioshack made this mistake: Half of each store catered to the four-star folks without there being anyone on the premises with a four-star level of expertise. Then they ignored the three-star people, which was a mistake because that was the bulk of their potential customers. The rest of the store (cell phones, boom boxes, etc.) sought to sell to the two-star people. And most of the employees were somewhere between two-star people and Aunt Dot.

Still, it was at times a handy business to have around. I occasionally needed a certain cable or adapter in a hurry and I could usually find it at a Radioshack — and of course by that I mean, I would go in and locate it for myself on their racks. One time, I made the mistake of asking a salesperson and wound up explaining to them what it meant when we said a cable had a "male" or a "female" connector. And all the time, this person giggled because they thought it was dirty.

It's A Night in Casablanca — complete, though with commercial interruptions. Hey, even the Marx Brothers' weakest movies are not without their moments…

My old buddy Joe Brancatelli invents the perfect airline. I wish we had one like that.

On September 20, 2003 when this post first appeared, California was in the midst of a recall election involving then-governor Gray Davis. Davis wound up being replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger…and I'd be very surprised if many of those who voted to dump Gray and install Arnold thought today it was much of an improvement. The fellow who might have been better was the first runner-up, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante. I mention all this because I referenced that election in this piece on Sam Yorty, who was the mayor of Los Angeles for a long time, and way more deserving of recall than Gray Davis…

I mentioned Sam Yorty on my weblog and found myself engaged in e-mail discussions with others who recall the flamboyant (and largely inept) mayor of the City of Los Angeles. Yorty was mayor from 1961 to 1973 and darn near proved that L.A. could function just fine without anyone in that office. He spent most of his time in power either (a) travelling, ostensibly to promote trade with our fair city or (b) running for higher offices, among them the presidency.

The last of these was the more amazing since there was never any evidence that anyone anywhere wanted him to win any of these positions, except maybe for Angelenos who wished to be rid of the guy. Republican leaders didn't like him because even though the office of mayor is constitutionally non-partisan, Yorty had let it be known that he was a Democrat. Democratic leaders didn't like him because on every single issue that came along, you could count on him siding with the Republicans. His insistence that he was destined for bigger and better things almost seemed delusional. In fact, in '68 L.A. Times political cartoonist Paul Conrad began drawing Yorty in a Napoleon suit, being taken away to an insane asylum. This occurred when Yorty began claiming that he would soon be offered an important post in the cabinet of the newly-elected President Nixon. When he wasn't, Yorty hit Conrad and the Times with a lawsuit that, of course, went nowhere and made its plaintiff look even stupider.

How Sam Yorty got elected in the first place, I cannot say but I recall how he got re-elected in '69. In the primary that year, he came in second with 26 percent of the vote, trailing Councilman Tom Bradley who had 42. That looked like the end of Yorty but long before people talked about "playing the race card," he had one up his sleeve. Bradley was black, so the credo of the Yorty campaign became that if Tom Bradley got into office, he would take his marching orders directly from the Afro-American militants known as the Black Panthers. Yorty aides combed through photos of Bradley, found every one in which the Councilman's fist was clenched (including pictures of him jogging) and published them with captions that claimed Bradley was giving a covert "Black Power" signal to his true masters.

It was an enormously dirty, racist campaign. At one point, it was alleged that Yorty's backers had recruited and paid young black males to ride around key precincts in Cadillac convertibles with Bradley campaign signs on them. They were to play the radio at deafening levels and yell at old white ladies, "You'll be cleaning my house when Mayor Tom takes over!" I'm not sure they actually went that far, but they sure came close. It was an especially ludicrous line of attack if you recall how non-militant Tom Bradley turned out to be when he did finally did get into office and how groups like the Panthers all but disappeared. Yorty's racial fear campaign actually worked in '69 and he squeaked by. The next time around, the same line of attack got nowhere and Bradley easily won what turned out to be the first of five terms.

One of my favorite incidents in a lifetime of election-watching occurred during that election. Yorty, in a rare instance of doing something besides travelling and campaigning, had rammed through the City Council a number of proposals that enriched Occidental Petroleum. One was a controversial land swap deal where the city got some worthless acres and Occidental got some land which turned out to be quite rich in oil. During the campaign, Bradley charged that Yorty had a personal financial interest in Occidental and Yorty responded that Bradley was a lying fool and categorically denied any such interest. As it does more and more these days, the press stayed out of an election issue and didn't start looking into Bradley's charge until after Election Day when, of course, it meant so much less.

Turned out, Yorty himself might not have had a financial interest in Occidental but his wife did. The moment I loved came in one of Yorty's last press conferences when he was asked about this. He said something like, "I never denied that I had any financial interest in Occidental and anyone who says I did is a damn liar." One of the local news channels ran that footage, then ran a clip of Yorty saying, "Neither I nor anyone in my family has ever owned one share of Occidental Petroleum and anyone who says I have is a damn liar." I wish the media would do more of that kind of thing, and do it when it matters. (Later, I believe Yorty actually tried claiming that his wife had purchased more than a million dollars worth of petroleum stock without telling him…)

Sam Yorty died in 1998 without ever again holding public office. I have to say that I smell some of his tactics in the attempts to portray Cruz Bustamante as some sort of Chicano militant. Mr. Bustamante has not impressed me as anything more than the least offensive of a lot of bad choices I find on my ballot, but I think the attempts to tie him to extreme racial groups seem very strained. The same applies to any possible connection Mr. Schwarzenegger may have or have had to former Nazis. Come on. There are plenty of reasons not to vote for either of those men without resorting to that kind of nonsense.

Bill Carter on reporting about Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live for 40 years.

Albert Brooks does a surprise walk-on last night on The Tonight Show and Jimmy Fallon pretends he didn't know about it before it happened…

I spent some time yesterday on the phone trying to get my mother out of jury duty. If you follow this blog, you've heard about my mother who passed away in October of 2012. I keep telling the Office of the City Clerk that she's left us and filling out the appropriate forms…and they keep sending her notices to report.

I've finally decided to stop telling them. If they want to come out and arrest her, fine. I'd like to see them try.

Dee Bradley Baker is one of the best voiceover actors working today…as proven by the fact that the two times I tried to hire him, he was busy working for someone else and unavailable. If you are interested in this occupation either as an onlooker or as someone who wants into the profession, you should read his list of Dos and Don'ts for auditions. For that matter, you should read his entire site. There are coaches out there who will try and charge you a fortune to learn the things Dee is giving away for free there.

Bob Hope died July 27, 2003. The day after, I posted this…

Fans used to complain that DC Comics had misleading covers but this one sure was accurate: "America's Favorite Funnyman." Bob Hope was that, and he held the title far longer than anyone else ever has or will. I haven't really cruised the Internet much since I awoke to the news that he's passed away but I'd wager every current events/news website is making that point, probably under a banner that says "Thanks for the Memories."The obits were prepared long ago, and about all I can add to them is to recall a few times I had the honor — and he sure made you feel like it was one — of being in the presence of Mr. Robert Hope. He also made you feel like he excelled at being Bob Hope; that he knew precisely who and what he was, and that it was who and what he wanted to be: A very big, very busy star but eminently approachable in spite of the fact that you couldn't get near him. I felt this instantly the first time I met him…in, believe it or not, the bargain basement area of a May Company department store.

It was the one at the corner of Pico and Overland in West Los Angeles, a few blocks from where I then lived. It was January of '75 and Hope had just published The Last Christmas Show, a book about his overseas tours to entertain the troops. He was appearing at the store to sign copies and I was thinking of going, not so much to see him in person as to get an autographed book. But I figured the line would extend to around Bakersfield and I didn't want one that badly. As it happened, it was pouring rain that morning and it suddenly let up around a half-hour before the time of Mr. Hope's signing. "Aha," I thought wrongly, "There'll be a very low turnout."

So I threw on my raincoat and walked up to the May Company, all the time pondering what Bob "Mr. Topical Monologue" Hope might say or do. At the time, Olympic swim champ Mark Spitz seemed to be the punchline to every joke so I imagined Hope saying something like, "I wouldn't say it's wet out there but on the escalator up, I passed a halibut, three salmon and Mark Spitz."

When I got there, I went up to the third level, where the line snaked all around the floor — hundreds and hundreds of people waiting for him. I decided not to wait in it. The signs said he was appearing for an hour and there was no way even "Rapid Robert," as some called him, could sign books for all those folks in that time. (Some people had already purchased and were holding three or four copies.) He was due in twenty minutes so I decided to wander the store and return when he arrived to catch a glimpse of the man and — and this interested me more — see how he'd handle that huge crowd.

I went down to the store's basement where they sold cheap art supplies. I'd been there about two minutes when some doors behind me flew open and an entourage of men stormed in from the parking garage. In the center of the group, flawlessly attired in a pale blue-grey suit, was Bob Hope. And by dumb luck, I was standing between him and the elevator to which they were leading him.

As if I mattered in the least, he walked up to me and shook my hand. Then he took note of my damp raincoat and said, "Hey, looks like it's wet outside." How had he not noticed that on his drive there? In reply to him, I threw my line: "I wouldn't say it's wet out there but on the escalator up, I passed a halibut, three salmon and Mark Spitz." He laughed…and I guess I thought, "Hey, I just made Bob Hope laugh."

Before I could grasp the significance (if any) of that, Hope's men swept him into the elevator and he was gone. I wasn't entirely sure he'd ever been there. So I sprinted for the escalator and managed to make it up to the book-signing area just as he was arriving. The line of buyers broke into applause as he strode effortlessly to the front table and picked up a little microphone. "Hey, I wanna thank you all for coming," he said, and everyone laughed because he sounded just like Bob Hope. "Boy, it's wet around here," he continued. "On the escalator up, I passed a halibut, three salmon and Mark Spitz." Everyone laughed again. Even I laughed a half-second before I realized: Hey, that's my line.

(It is perhaps worth noting that we all laughed in spite of the fact that we all knew he hadn't taken the escalator. It worked in the joke, and that was what mattered. There's an oft-quoted story about Hope appearing once in England and telling a joke where the punchline was something like, "They went to a motel." The audience howled even though at the time the word "motel" was largely unknown in England. An American journalist who was present asked one of the people who'd laughed if they knew what a motel was. The person said they didn't. The journalist asked them why they'd laughed then. The reply was, "Because we know he's funny and it seemed like the end of the joke.")

At the May Company, Hope sat down and began signing books and I suddenly decided that no matter how long I had to wait, I was going to get one. It took about ninety minutes — longer than the announced time of his appearance but still a lot less than I'd have guessed, given how many people were ahead of me.

They had it down to a science: One of Hope's helpers gave you a slip of paper on which you were to write what you wanted Bob to write.The helper would then look at it and edit it down or make you rewrite it to keep it brief or to remove things that Bob didn't want to write. They'd then pass your book to Bob with it open to the signing page and your slip placed just above where he signed, and he'd sign. The assistants were in control and they kept it moving so swiftly, you were almost afraid to try and say something to Hope. It disappointed a lot of people who'd come, hoping to exchange a few words or perhaps get a photo ("No pictures," the aides scolded) but you had to marvel at the efficiency: A ton of books were sold and signed, and Bob didn't look like the bad guy for not engaging you in a leisurely chat.

When it was my turn, I tried to remind him of our basement encounter, hoping he'd thank me for the joke or something. He grinned and said thanks but I'm not sure he had any idea what either of us was talking about. He just had to keep the line moving. I went home, pleased to have an inscribed first edition, proud that I'd gotten even those few seconds of individual attention in the basement…and proud that I'd "written" something that fit Bob Hope so well, Bob Hope had used it. I tried telling some of my friends about it but I wasn't a professional comedy writer back then and they obviously didn't believe me.

Back then, I was occasionally spending afternoons at NBC studios in Burbank where I had an almost-legal way to get in. Once you were in, if you acted like you belonged there and knew where you were going, no one ever stopped you from visiting tapings and rehearsals. In earlier years, I'd spent most of my time watching Laugh-In tape but that show was over by '75, so I'd go watch The Dean Martin Show rehearse (without Dean Martin) or watch The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (which sometimes even starred Johnny Carson). If Hope was there when I was, I'd watch from afar as he taped a sketch for one of his specials. My most vivid memories of those moments are of him yelling at his eternal cue card man, Barney McNulty, when the cards weren't in the right order or properly legible. Shortly after that day at the May Company, I was present when he was on with Johnny. I think it was a Friday show and he was plugging his latest special, which was to air Monday.

Poaching on the set, I managed to see how it was done: About thirty seconds before Johnny introduced him, Hope strode into Stage 1 with the inevitable entourage, perhaps even the same one. He was still reviewing a piece of paper with a couple of jokes on it as the band struck up his theme song. Then he handed the page to an aide, walked out to tumultuous applause, and sat down next to Carson, who expertly fed him the questions that elicited the just-studied jokes. The segment went about as well as such segments ever do, and my overall admiration was not so much at the wit but at the sheer expertise in the delivery. Bob and Johnny were both utterly in control and things went precisely the way both wanted them to.

At the first commercial break, Hope stepped out and told Johnny's studio audience that they were so good, he had decided to ask them to stick around after The Tonight Show was finished so that he could use them to tape the monologue for his special. The crowd almost gasped with delight. Hope explained that the rest of the special had been recorded a week or two back but he always did the monologue at the last minute so it could be more topical. He also explained that the stage we were in — Stage 1 — was his design. The steep rake was because when he was performing, he liked to be able to look up and see as many laughing faces as possible.

Sure enough, not one person budged from their seats as the Carson show concluded. A different curtain was flown in for Bob to perform in front of, and he took a few minutes to run through his cue cards with Barney McNulty. When all was in readiness, Hope stepped into position and did the monologue three times. The first time through, everyone laughed a lot. The second time through, they laughed a little less. And the third time through, they laughed more than the second time, because Hope began screwing with the wording and muttering things like, "We'll cut that one." Johnny Carson was just off-camera throughout and at one point in the middle of the third take, Bob stepped over to him and whispered something that I suspect was very dirty, and Carson got hysterical. Then Hope thanked everyone for sticking around — like they'd all done him a favor —and he and the entourage disappeared. Again, my overwhelming impression was of efficiency more than inspiration. The following Monday night, what aired was most of the first take with maybe five jokes cut, and perhaps one or two inserted from Take Two.

I met him one other time and actually got to talk to him when he appeared on The Barbara Mandrell Show when he did a guest appearance and one of the producers, Marty Krofft, introduced us. Among the things we discussed were that I told him I'd just been reading a book about Walter Winchell and asked him if he was ever going to make the long-rumored movie in which he would play the gossip columnist. He said, "Oh, definitely," though he never did. He started telling me what a fascinating son-of-a-bitch Winchell had been — though he chuckled when he told the following story, which I'd already heard.

One of his first screen appearances was in a dreadful short comedy called Going Spanish. Shortly after viewing it, Hope ran into Winchell who asked him how it was. "When they catch Dillinger, they're going to make him sit through it twice," the legend-to-be replied. Winchell printed the remark in his column and the movie studio dropped Hope's contract, proclaiming they had enough trouble selling his films without him knocking them in the press. I said to Hope, "Well, that sure hurt your career" and he grinned. He could grin because, I suspect, that was the last mistake he ever made.