Category Archives: To Be Filed

At the Miami Book Fair, I was approached by a young man who wanted advice on how to become a professional writer. I asked him if he was a non-professional writer. He said no. But if and when he gets the chance to make a living doing it, he'll start writing. That's the wrong time and reason to start.

I told him he's kind of missed the point of the profession he's looking to get into. You don't start by getting people to pay you for your work. You have a lot of bad writing to get out of your system before you'll produce any of the stuff that's worth money. (And yes, there are the occasional exceptions. There are also people who win the lottery. Don't bet your life you'll be one of them.)

He asked me what I loved about writing and wasn't satisfied with my answer…but I was quite serious. The lesser reason is that I enjoy sitting here, creating something out of nothing, winding up with a script or an article or an essay that someone will enjoy. That I'll also get paid for it is a nice bonus but really, it's that feeling of building something that is the core of my secondary reason.

My primary reason? It's because it's what I do best.

Now, let me clarify that: I don't mean "best" compared to anyone else. I mean "best" compared to other things I might do. I've always been terrible at most activities that involve manual labor, especially if they call for a sense of balance, great manual dexterity or selling. If I ever had to be a salesman, I'd be the kind who couldn't get anyone at a Tea Party convention to buy an Obama Voodoo Doll. I can do math but only in short spurts. (That was another reason, along with those I mentioned in a recent post why I gave up counting cards in Vegas.)

I'd also be terrible in any profession that involved essentially doing the same thing day after day. I know non-writers who look at folks like me and think we do the same thing over and over but unless I'm writing the same story — e.g., Scooby Doo scripts — it doesn't feel that way to me. (And yes, I'm kidding about the Scooby Doo scripts. In fact, one of the things I've enjoyed about them is the challenge of trying to make them not the same story again and again.)

Let's see what else: I can't cook very well. I'm terrible at foreign languages. I don't like driving. I used to be pretty good at lettering and passable at simple drawing but that skill has atrophied since I got a computer with Adobe Photoshop and a lot of fonts on it. I certainly can't sing or dance and my upper limit of "performing" for audiences maxes out when we do "Quick Draw!" at Comic-Con.

And maybe the biggest impediment to me doing anything other than what I do is this: When I'm not writing, my mind tends to wander to what I might be writing if I was home writing. So I'm a writer. And the reason is, honest to God, that I'm lousier at anything else I might be.

Whether I'm as good as or better than others is irrelevant. I figure I'm better than some, worse than some and that's as far as I want to think about that. All I know is I'm better at writing than I would be fixing drain spouts or running a drill press. (To drive that last point home, I have an essay coming up here about how I suffered when I had to take Woodshop in junior high school. To steal an old joke from George S. Kaufman, I managed to make it through without ever grasping the scientific principle of a hammer.)

But, getting back to writing…

There's that quote from Dorothy Parker which I cite here every so often just so I can disagree with it: "I hate writing. I love having written." I don't hate writing and wonder why anyone who did would choose that as a profession. That's like someone who hates dogs becoming a dog groomer. Or someone who hates having to lie getting a job at Fox News.

I love writing. I don't mean I love every assignment, of course. But even the worst one I've ever had to get through was better than going off and becoming a coroner's assistant or the guy who chops up the onions at Fatburger or something.

Which is why my advice to that fellow at the Miami Book Fair was not to become a writer if you have to become a writer. If you just start writing one day because you want to…and if you keep doing it whether or not there's money in it…you're off to a good start. It doesn't mean your work is any good but it does mean there's a better chance of it being good than if you get into it because it looks like an easy buck. For most writers, the buck is not easy and if there's a buck at all, there often are not many of them.

Every year, the folks at Turner Classic Movies whip up a stylish "In Memoriam" reel of folks in the film world who've died in the past year. I don't know why they release this early in December since somebody in movies is going to die in the next two weeks, but this is how they do it. In the past, they've gone back in and edited in additional people.

Here's the one for 2014 as it now stands. These are so nicely done that I've seen people wonder why the Academy Awards bothers to do their own. Why don't they just use the TCM reel? Probably because they don't agree they can't do something as good or better, want something shorter, don't want to publicize another network and also because the TCM videos aren't edited to allow for nice applause moments. But they're still great…

I imagine anyone who cares about such things has read model Beverly Johnson on the time she (says) she was drugged by Bill Cosby, presumably as a prelude to rape. I'm guessing we're near the point where anybody who can be convinced has been convinced and the rest wouldn't believe it unless you showed them movies of it. Even then, some would probably insist it's camera trickery.

Unless I missed one, all the alleged incidents occurred long enough that the Statute of Limitations has run so no criminal prosecution is possible. So…do we think Mr. Cosby stopped doing things like that? Or do we think his people quickly "bought off" anyone since then to ensure their silence?

In all the articles I've read, I haven't seen anyone wonder about that. I also haven't seen anyone ponder how many rich and/or powerful people there are out there who are sweating, destroying evidence and/or paying off past victims of similar behavior. Even if by some hard-to-imagine twist, Bill Cosby is innocent, a lot of people have to be worried. Rape is the kind of crime that's quite under-reported for a wide array of reasons. Victims fear they'll be put on trial or that they won't be believed or that they'll let themselves in for hell from the rich rapist's lawyers or they just plain want to forget about the experience.

Women coming forth as Cosby's accusers have done is every rapist's nightmare. They count on all the above reasons plus others to keep their sick deeds secret. A lot of them have to be thinking, "If they could expose what Cosby did, they could dig up my transgressions, too."

I guess that's a good thing. Make 'em sweat. And make them and others think twice about doing that kind of thing in the future.

To those who wish I'd get back to talking about Show Biz and Comics: Sorry but this blog is largely about what's on my little mind at the time and what's on it right now is this: The moral disconnect in a nation where folks who are hysterical at the tiniest, arguable failing of their political opponents can then dismiss a program of torture that was both misrepresented and ineffective.

I'm starting to buy into the theory — Daniel Larison is one of many advancing it — that we didn't really torture to stop that utterly-mythical ticking a-bomb in Times Square. We tortured because the folks in charge had to prove to themselves and each other how tough they were.

Dr. Tongue welcomes us into The 3-D House of Beef…

There's one thing Fred Kaplan doesn't believe in the Senate Report on Torture. He doesn't believe George W. Bush didn't know about it earlier than the report says.

Oddly enough, I think this puts Fred in agreement with Dick Cheney. Cheney denounced the report (which he claimed to not have read much of) as "crap" and one of his assertions was reported as follows…

Cheney said he also rejects the allegation that his boss, President George W. Bush, was kept in the dark. "He was in fact an integral part of the program. He had to approve it before we moved forward with it," Cheney said. "He knew everything he needed to know and wanted to know about the program."

That's not a very stirring endorsement of Bush, and the last part of Cheney's statement in a way contradicts the first part. Did Bush know everything or did he avoid learning everything in order to have the kind of "plausible deniability" that Fred writes about? Fred says there's no way what the C.I.A. did was a rogue operation. Cheney said the same thing. On other matters, I think they disagree.

Okay, so I've read a whole mess of articles about the Torture Report…about as many as I can stand. If you want to read one good commentary, read Andrew Sullivan as he points out how past defenses of torture based on theory look rather foolish given the realities revealed in the report.

My view is just my view but here it is. If you believe torture is a barbaric war crime that does little good but to make us the Bad Guys in the eyes of the world, you ought to be outraged at the people who did this.

If you believe torture is morally justified and effective — and to do that, you usually have to make up a science-fiction story about a ticking A-bomb somewhere in Manhattan — then you ought to be outraged at the people who did this. You should be outraged because they did it so badly and recklessly, including torturing innocent people and people who were misidentified, and who had to hide what they'd done from our own leaders…and who didn't get any real useful information out of it.

When all is said and done, Martha Stewart will have served more jail time than all of the people who did it and authorized it and hid it and lied about it, put together. And there will probably be more people in this country who will be furious at those who gave us Obamacare than at those who gave us Abu Ghraib.

For a few years of my life, I was frequently found not in Los Angeles but Las Vegas. There were about nine reasons I was there so often but one was that I was interested in Blackjack, more specifically in counting cards in Blackjack. It was, I swear to you, not so much for the money as the personal challenge. I just wanted to see if I could do it, I did it and then I quit.

I never had what they call a Gambling Problem. Even though I've been to Vegas every year or two since then, I haven't bet so much as a nickel…and I never in my whole life played craps, roulette, poker or most of the other games there. I just liked Blackjack.

One reason I stopped because I was significantly "ahead" in playing that game; not "ahead" enough to live off for a long time or anything. But I was "ahead" enough to feel I'd won and I knew that if I kept playing, no matter how well I played, I would hit a streak of dark luck and give it all back. And then I'd feel stupid and maybe even that I had to start all over again and get back to that number — which would make me feel even stupider if I then dug myself deeper into a monetary hole.

Counting cards was starting to feel less like sport and more like work. In fact, some times, it paid less per hour than going back up to the room and working on those scripts. So I went Cold Turkey and gave it up…and have never had the slightest urge to do it again. I'm not even sure I could do it again today; not without a load of practice.

Another reason I gave it up was that I was hearing a rush of stories of nastiness and threats when the casinos "backed off" card counters. That basically means they stop you from playing, which is their legal right. They can do it at any time for any reason. They can eject you because they don't like the color of your socks and that, by God, is that.

They don't usually get nasty with people playing at my low level but, well, you never know. I was "backed off" once at the Las Vegas Club downtown…and of course, it was for the wrong reason. I was counting cards there but the specific incident that caused them to oust me was unrelated to counting. (I told that story here.) I started thinking that if it happened once, it could happen again and if it happened again, it might have been even less pleasant. So there was another reason I got out.

Our video today is of a counter being "backed off" in a casino. I'm a little suspicious this isn't staged because…well, you piss them off when you count cards but an even better way to piss them off would be to go in there with a hidden video camera and put what you shot up on YouTube. But if it's a fake, it at least replicates the real way it happens. The pit boss who stops the fellow from playing looks like every pit boss I ever had a problem with in Vegas. Every one of them, I swear, looked like Chris Christie. And they were all wearing the exact same suit.

The player, as you'll see, tries to reason with the guy and negotiate his way back into the game…or to perhaps get a refund of the money he's down at that moment. This was probably a waste of time because, like I said, they can stop you at any time for any reason and there's really no appealing that decision. What the pit boss is proposing — the guy can play as long as he "flat bets" an entire shoe — would be one of the stupidest ways imaginable for a player to play.

Really, the way pit bosses deal with counters is just to get them the hell outta there. The pit boss would never be faulted by his employer for stopping suspicious players, only for allowing them to proceed. What he's basically saying to the guy is, "I'll let you play as long as you'll probably lose." The only way to win when you gamble is to quit when you're ahead. Controlling how much you bet and when you stop are the two main advantages a player has. You need them to have a chance against games which are configured to favor the house.

Here's the video. I don't guarantee it's real but it does show you how the process works…

A date has finally been announced. David Letterman will host his final episode on Wednesday, May 20, 2015. Why a Wednesday? Well, they didn't mention this in the press release but that's the last day of the May ratings sweeps period that year.

Final guests have not been announced. I'm wondering if he'll even have guests on his last show — Johnny didn't. But for his last show with guests, whether it's 5/20 or the night before, I'd guess Regis Philbin or Bill Murray plus some superstar music act. I sure wouldn't mind for the last one if Dave just sat behind his desk and talked for the full hour.

Also unannounced is what Dave will do next. I heard a few months ago that he was in discussions with CBS about some future relationship. Furthermore, I heard they were holding off on announcing a final date so they could announce at the same time that Letterman would remain in the CBS "family" and would be doing…something. That they haven't doesn't mean he won't; just that if he is, they aren't ready to say what it might be.

Personally, I'd love to see him do a weekly one-on-one interview show. Dave lately seems to average about one guest per week who he seems genuinely glad to have there and is interested in. Have those folks on for the hour and let them just talk: No stunts, no stupid human tricks, just a conversation. Of course, the trouble with this idea is that Letterman is notoriously reticent to be in prime time — and such a low-key show might look chintzy in prime time — and there's real no place to put it in late night. If they put it on Saturday nights at 11:30, it would get slaughtered by SNL.

So I can't imagine what they're going to do there. I also can't imagine what they're going to air at 11:35 weeknights between May 21 and the time Late Night with Stephen Colbert is ready to go. I'm hearing that could be upwards of ten weeks. Months ago, the thinking over there was apparently to not have a talk show on that real estate (Dave reruns or guest hosts) but something like reruns of Big Brother. Wonder if they're still thinking in that direction.

And I wonder what Colbert's going to do between December 18 and whenever he debuts on CBS. That could be 30+ weeks, which is a long time to expect your fans to remember you and remain loyal. He could pop up on The Daily Show and I wouldn't even be surprised to see him guest host for a week or two to give Mr. Stewart some time off. But I'll bet he wants to do a lot more than that to remain au courant and, as they say, trending.

So…lots to think about. And isn't it nice to have a topic that isn't about rape or torture?

Dick Cheney was lying about torture.

Today is the annual Christmas Gift-Giving episode of Stu's Show.  Join your genial host Stu Shostak as he welcomes a bunch of folks who'll talk about gizmos and books you can buy this year for your loved ones or even for yourself.  The roster includes Dick DeBartolo, who has been writing for MAD magazine since Alfred E. Neuman had a full set of uppers.  Dick is also known as the "Giz-Wiz," an expert on neat gadgets and electronic goodies that can make your life easier or at least more fun.  He'll talk about a wide array of such items while three authors — Dwayne Epstein, Herbie J. Pilato and Julian David Stone will talk about new books about television. Tune in and get your holiday shopping done the Stu's Show way.

Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there. Webcasts start at 4 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM Eastern and other times in other climes. They run a minimum of two hours and sometimes go way longer. Shortly after a show's over, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a measly 99 cents each and you can get four shows for the price of three. Then you can take the money you save and buy more of the great gifts you'll be hearing about on the show. Simple?

This may be more interesting than it sounds. It's an entire hour-long episode of The Price is Right but shot with extra cameras to show you all the backstage doings and how everything is done.

Once upon a time, I was fascinated with this show, not because of the game and certainly not because of its host. I finally stopped watching it because Bob Barker was so self-obsessed and condescending to the players. It also didn't help that I'd heard so many bad stories about the guy from folks who worked on or around the show and wanted him spayed or neutered with a pair of hedge trimmers.

But I was amazed at the directing and staging and what these folks were able to do in a small studio (way smaller than you'd think it was when watching at home) and in pretty much real time. They edited but not much. If before this series ever existed, you'd gone to the network and pitched it, telling them what you had in mind, the reaction would probably have been, "Hey, that sounds great but there's no way you'll ever be able to actually do that, especially not for the kind of money you'd have to do it for."

Still, they did it as a half-hour and that was remarkable enough to anyone who knew the limitations of TV studios, the current equipment, human ability, etc. That emboldened them to double-down and go to an hour and, by God, they made that work. It's a very difficult show to pull off and somehow, they've done millions of them. I poached on the stage there a few times and was astounded. (Something you don't see in this video: The corridors outside the studio. You can't walk down them during a taping because they're jammed full of cars and other prizes and games and props and all. I once could not take the shortest route to a meeting in that building because there was a damned yacht in the way.)

One thing you may not know about game shows: The producers are always obsessed with not getting sued. Losing contestants have been known to take recordings to their lawyers to search for loopholes or anomalies in the game play. In the showcase segment here, one of the bidders — the winner, as it turns out — bids $25,500 but says "for the car." Well, she's actually bidding for an entire showcase of prizes, only one of which is the car. During the commercial break that follows, there's a brief discussion among producers and the director (Adam Sandler, obviously not that Adam Sandler) about whether to edit or retape the bid. They decide not to change it since she did win and, I suspect, because the other guy was so far off.

The last time I went to a taping, well before the Drew Carey days, there were tape stops during the commercials to give the crew time to strike the last game and set up for the next one, and also because Mr. Barker was having a good time chatting with the audience and encouraging them to fawn over him. In this video, they don't stop but I'll bet that at times, they have to.

Give it a look. You may not care for the show but see if you aren't impressed with the fact that they're able to do it at all…

The seven key points from the C.I.A. report on our use of torture…

1. The C.I.A.'s interrogation techniques were more brutal and employed more extensively than the agency portrayed.
2. The C.I.A. interrogation program was mismanaged and was not subject to adequate oversight.
3. The C.I.A. misled members of Congress and the White House about the effectiveness and extent of its brutal interrogation techniques.
4. Interrogators in the field who tried to stop the brutal techniques were repeatedly overruled by senior C.I.A. officials.
5. The C.I.A. repeatedly underreported the number of people it detained and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques under the program.
6. At least 26 detainees were wrongfully held and did not meet the government's standard for detention.
7. The C.I.A. leaked classified information to journalists, exaggerating the success of interrogation methods in an effort to gain public support.

So: They did it. They did it poorly. They lied to everyone, including the White House and Congress about what they did. And it didn't work.

And nobody's going to prison or paying any sort of penalty for it.

The McDonald's company has a problem. Sales are plunging and they don't seem to know what to do about it. They're reportedly experimenting with a new gimmick where you can go in, tell a touch screen what you want to order, component by component, and your burger or sandwich will be made to order.

Will this work? I think not. People don't not go into McDonald's because some burgers come with pickle chips on them. They don't go in because they feel stupid eating at McDonald's or want something better than you can ever get at a McDonald's. I suspect "feel stupid" is more prevalent. It's why every time they've tried to make McDonald's feel like someplace you'd take an adult to dinner, it's failed miserably.

Hey, Ronald! You serve food that's for kids and/or convenience…nothing else. That's all you are. That's all you'll ever be.

I confess. I patronize the chain occasionally and when I do, it's for only one reason: I need to get something to eat in a hurry and that's my best option. Nothing else is around or open or if something is, it's either (a) something much slower, (b) something quite unfamiliar or (c) a chain I like less including but not limited to Burger King, Carl's Jr, Jack-in-the-Box, anyplace that serves tacos or KFC.

I like chains. Having as many food allergies as I do, there's something very comforting about predictability in my food. I like that no matter where I am, I can go into a McDonald's and know exactly what I'm going to get. ("Predictability," by the way, is still one of my two reasons noted above why folks go there. It's a sub-category of "Convenience." So is the fact that often, it's safer for me than any nearby alternative. And unless there's a Five Guys — and I might not have time for a Five Guys — better.)

So I patronize Mickey D's but I rarely dine there. I drive-thru because, well, I feel uncomfy eating at those little plastic tables. Between those and the general ambiance, I feel like I'm snacking in a nursery school.

Some of it is being waited on by teenagers…or worse, by adults you know are being paid like teenagers. And some of it is…well, it's McDonald's. I'm wondering if the main reason their sales are down is that decades of McDonald's jokes — remarks about how it's tacky and low-class and exploitive of its help and there's no meat in their burgers — are just finally catching up with them.

Okay, I'm really going to try not to blog today after I post this. Too much to do. I also have a whole bunch of these soup can graphics to use up. Here are a few quick thoughts before I go…

I watched Peter Pan again, albeit with one eye while training the other on computer maintenance tasks. I liked him (Mr. Walken) a bit more and I liked her (Ms. Williams) a bit less. One of my problems with Walken though is I like a Captain Hook you can hiss and boo and then feel some joy when he's defeated. There was something kinda sad about Walken's Hook. He was acting defeated before he was defeated. Also, I think there's something wrong with a musical in which wires get more screen time than Kelli O'Hara.

Today is the first weekday in a while when I haven't seen a new bit of bad news for Bill Cosby. Then again, it's still morning.

There are settings in most browsers that will allow you to filter out porn on the Internet. I'd like a setting that prevents me from seeing offers of boxed DVD sets of TV shows I liked until such time as I've watched the boxed DVD sets of TV shows I liked that I already have.

The internal injuries to my knee, sustained a week ago this evening, are healing nicely. The epidermis, however, is not so it's off to the Dermatologist this afternoon. I seem to have found the only Dermatologist on Wilshire Boulevard who's more concerned with the health of one's skin than its appearance. See you later.