Category Archives: To Be Filed

This is Lewis Black on Jimmy Fallon's show Friday night. I don't have a Season Pass to Mr. Fallon's show on my TiVo — the first time I ever haven't had a Season Pass to The Tonight Show since I got a TiVo, which was like the first week anyone in the country had a TiVo. I TiVoed Fallon's show at first then found myself not wanting to watch them. My attitude became, "I don't need to TiVo this. If there's anything wonderful on the show, I'll hear about it and I can watch it on YouTube." And that's happened, I think, twice since he took over.

Then I noticed Lewis Black was on and I figured, well, I love him so I'll record that episode instead of catching him on YouTube and I set it…and here's how fate works. Friday night, we had a power failure in my area from, I suppose, all those folks running air conditioners because it was so hot. It didn't last long — just long enough to shut things down here for about two minutes. My TiVo was recording when it hit and then when power came back on, it had to reboot. Once it did, it started a new recording to get the rest of the program that was interrupted. And what I got was a two-part recording of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Part One ended with him introducing Lewis Black. Part Two began with him thanking Lewis Black for the great routine. The power failure edited Lewis Black out of the show.

So I had to watch him on YouTube after all and I figured since I did, you might as well.

Mr. Black was on to promote his new stand-up special, Old Yeller, which debuted earlier that evening on Epix and which my TiVo captured without editorial interruption. Black is my favorite stand-up working today but I didn't feel this was one of his best. It sometimes is like he's running out of things to bitch about and he's bitching about some topics just because he needs X minutes of new material. There are times I felt that way about another favorite, George Carlin. I'd think, "Is he really that outraged about that?" Here, however, is Black doing the kind of thing I enjoy. Even if it is about colonoscopies…

Okay, so I'm not posting much lately. Sorry. I will more than make up for it tomorrow with another Tale of My Mother.

I didn't link this year to the videos of the White House Correspondents' Dinner because I've started to get real uncomfy with the whole concept. I used to be interested in it from the viewpoint of a comedy writer observing perhaps the toughest stand-up gig in the world and how various comics rose (or didn't) to the challenge. That's still of interest but there's a certain overriding phoniness to the occasion; to all these folks who accuse each other of destroying America and human lives all getting dressed-up to joke and act like Milton Berle and Buddy Hackett insulting each other at a Friars Roast. I haven't quite sorted out how it bothers me or even that it should but until I'm clearer on it with myself, I don't feel like writing about the event. If you want to view the speeches or highlights, there are only about eighty thousand places on the Internet to find them.

A list is circulating on the 'net of folks CBS is allegedly considering for Craig Ferguson's time slot. The list is Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Ian Black, Joel McHale, Aisha Tyler, Jason Jones, John Hodgman and Amy Schumer. I am skeptical this list actually came from a significant CBS source. It sounds like a list any blogger could have made up, which is not to say CBS might not have discussed any or all of these people. I could imagine any one of them doing a pretty good show. Real CBS sources are saying that there have been no discussions and that there will be no announcement before the upfronts, which are on May 14.

I don't believe the first part of that. Some of those folks are in-demand and are getting offers for other projects every day. If they decide they want Neil Patrick Harris, for instance, they at least have to open discussions now with his reps to see if he's interested, to get a sense of what kind of commitment he would want. What if he gets a huge offer for a movie that will occupy him for all of 2015? Or an offer of a contract for a different show, talk or otherwise, on a different network? His reps are not going to let N.P.H. lose out on those other gigs on the chance that CBS might offer him the 12:35 slot.

Personally, I think Les Moonves knows exactly who they want even if they haven't firmed up a deal. He must have made some decision as to whether CBS wanted to pursue Harris for another prime-time series…and that might be the reason Neil doesn't succeed Ferguson: Because CBS wants to see if they can steer him back to prime-time. But I do believe they won't be making the announcement until after the upfronts if only so it doesn't detract from the other business they hope to do there. And my money is still on Neil Patrick Harris with a small side bet on Aisha Tyler. Norm MacDonald, who's been out there campaigning for the job, probably has about the same chance as Donald Sterling…which is a shame because he's a very funny guy. (Norm, not Don…)

Last month was the first in this blog's existence when the income from my Amazon links and PayPal contributions didn't pay for the bandwidth the blog consumes. That was a function of the former going down and the latter going up. It's not a big deal if I have to pay — I can afford it — but I thought it was worth a subtle hint. Thanks in advance to anyone who takes it.

I was at Costco yesterday and I bought a barbecued chicken, a package of raw New York Steaks, a case of canned cat food, some notions for the bathroom, a package of batteries, a package of light bulbs, some supplies my Cleaning Lady demanded (someday, she'll figure out that she works for me) and a box containing enough Cheerios to last me three years or until my June visit to Costco, whichever occurs first.

Oh, yeah — and I bought a huge package of paper towels. When you depart Costco, there's an employee at the exit who checks the items in your cart against the items on your receipt…and it doesn't matter how many you have or how they're piled on top of each other in the cart. This employee can miraculously and instantly and with obvious x-ray vision, determine that the purchases in your cart precisely match the items on your receipt. I believe they're also not allowed to let you out unless you've purchased a huge package of either paper towels or toilet paper. Most people get one of each just to make certain they're permitted to leave the building.

And I also bought the complete collection of Yancy Derringer episodes on DVD. This may come as a surprise. Those of you who memorize every word of this blog like you're supposed to do, will recall that in this post almost two years ago, I wrote about my fondness for that old TV series, I gave you this Amazon link to order the complete set and I told you I'd advance-ordered it.

Which I had…but there was a problem with something else I ordered at the same time and that whole order got canceled. I somehow never got around to reordering the DVD which turns out to have been fortuitous. Back then, it was $31.44 and as you can see in the above pic, I got the same exact DVD yesterday at Costco for seventeen dollars. There were 34 episodes of the series so that's fifty cents a Yancy. (If you'd like to use that Amazon link now, the price as I type this is $18.71. Or you could go to Costco and get toilet paper and a barbecued chicken while you're at it.)

As we've discussed here before, a lot of shows I enjoyed in my youth have not aged well. Neither have I but leave that aside. I still think every episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was later rewritten and refilmed to make it silly and chintzy-looking. They were not like that when I first saw them. I now can't believe I watched more than three episodes of My Favorite Martian without getting tired of their one plot. (Uncle Martin has accidentally been transformed into a _____ and Tim has to find him before he _____.) Today, if you were determined to get me to watch multiple episodes of Land of the Giants, you'd have to strap me into that chair that they put Malcolm McDowell in in A Clockwork Orange.

But some shows hold up. I've been watching Adam 12 lately on MeTV and before that, they ran the entirety of F Troop and I'd forgotten what a good show that was. And of course, shows like Sgt. Bilko and The Dick Van Dyke Show and Car 54, Where Are You? only seem to get better with each passing fall schedule. I caught some Yancy Derringers on MeTV and other cable channels and I enjoyed them enough to commit to all of them. Jock Mahoney was awfully good in the title role.

I can't believe that in that earlier post, I neglected to tell you of my own encounter with Mr. Mahoney. It was at one of the first San Diego Cons back at the El Cortez Hotel. These were the cons that we now call Comic-Con International.

Today, they're full of movie and TV stars but at this one, which must have been around 1975, Jock Mahoney was one of the biggest TV and movie stars on the premises. Kirk Alyn, who had played Superman in some movie serials, was usually at the cons and you could sometimes spot David Carradine walking around…but that was about it. Mahoney, who had once played Tarzan in a couple of very poor Tarzan movies, was hanging out with Russ Manning, who was drawing the Tarzan newspaper strip. I was then writing and editing Tarzan comic books — though not for long — so you figure that when Russ introduced me to Mr. Mahoney, we'd all talk about Tarzan.

But we didn't. We talked about Yancy Derringer…which pleased Mahoney a lot because he thought very few people at the con knew who he was and that none of them remembered the elegant Mr. Derringer. Somewhere in what I jokingly call my files, I have a photo of Jock, Russ and me and if I ever find it, I'll post it here, assuming I don't look too stupid in it.

I wish I could remember everything we talked about. I know I kidded him about always stealing Pahoo's lines. (Pahoo was Yancy's Indian sidekick and he never spoke.) I know we talked about how he had been a stunt man and was now involved in some program/school that was training new stunt people. And I know we talked about his stepdaughter, Sally Field. But mostly, we talked about what I'd liked about Yancy Derringer, which was how classy and non-prone to violence his character was. At a time on TV when everyone was shooting at everyone else, it was a welcome relief.

He seemed to be in fine shape but later, someone told me he was still recovering from a stroke a few years earlier. He died in 1989. If you buy the DVDs or just catch some episodes somewhere, you'll see why he was one of my favorite TV leading men.

I agree with this video…

For a guy who's pretty healthy, I find that I have an amazing number of doctors. I have my Primary Care Physician, of course, but my phone book also contains the numbers of my dermatologist, my dentist, my ophthalmologist, my gastroenterologist, my proctologist, my urologist, my cardiologist, my podiatrist, my orthopedist and a vascular surgeon who helped me with a circulatory problem relating to my recent knee problems. (I am only listing doctors to whom I will probably return some day. There's also, for instance, the gent who performed my Gastric Bypass Surgery in 2006.)

Generally what happens is that my Primary Care Physician (or P.C.P. for short) refers me to a specialist and I go to see that specialist and I either like that specialist and continue to see him or her as needed…or I don't like that specialist and I go in search of someone else who does that same thing. I went to five dermatologists before I found one I liked enough to call my own. I also went through a couple of P.C.P.s before I found the one I have now.

What made me not like certain doctors? My main complaint has not been their competence as men and women of medicine. I've only left two because of that. Mainly what's driven me away has been not being able to get their attention. When I went to them, they either were in too much of a hurry to get on to their next patient or they passed me on to a Physician's Assistant in their offices.

The worst of the "too busy" guys was a world-famous nutritionist I went to long before 2006, before I had my weight generally under control. I asked my current P.C.P. to send me to the best nutritionist he knew of and he recommended a man I'll call Dr. Occupado. "He's a genius," my P.C.P. said…but he added, "You may have trouble getting an appointment." Sure enough, when I called up, they said the next opening they had was in the middle of May. I was calling the first week of March.

I made the appointment anyway and showed up on time, expecting to spend a half-hour or more discussing my various eating disorders and food allergies and what I should and shouldn't eat. Instead, I waited well over an hour for a whopping five minutes with Dr. Occupado. He gave me some good information before bolting for his next appointment…but how much good can a doctor do you in five minutes? I never even got to tell him about the allergies…and since he charged above 'n' beyond what my insurance would pay, I spent about $100 for those five minutes.

Still, I sensed this was a brilliant doctor who could help me so on my way out, I made another appointment…and I got lucky. He had an opening in June.

In June, I went back and after another considerable wait, got another five minutes from Dr. Occupado. He had, he explained as he walked in, an interview waiting for a very important magazine. I started wondering if any of the magazines I worked for would send me to interview him but at that moment, the only one was Groo the Wanderer and all I would have gotten was nutritional information on cheese dip.

Still, the five minutes I got were not without their benefit and I still thought the man knew his business so on the way out, I stopped at the desk. The woman there asked me, "Would you like to make an appointment for your next visit?" I said, "No, I'd like to make four appointments for my next visit. I would like to book four appointments, one right after another."

This was me trying to outgame the system…which once in a while in this world, it's possible to do. I figured this way, he couldn't leave me for his next appointment because I would be his next appointment. And I had this crazy idea that this "stunt" would make him realize I needed some special attention and maybe he'd see me for as long as I needed, if not that day then someday.

For about thirty seconds, I thought I was so, so clever. That was until the woman said as she paged through her calendar, "I'm sorry but if you want four appointments with him, they'll be in July, September, late October and then there's one open just before we close down for Christmas."

I asked, "Does he have four consecutive appointments open any day in July?" She said, "Yes but other patients have tried this and I've been told not to book them that way."

I left without making even one appointment.

The lasting value of my attempts to actually get doctored by Dr. Occupado was this: Since then, when I meet a new doctor, I try to find a way to work that tale into the conversation. It's my way of telling them up front what I consider lousy doctoring, just to see what they say. Many of them know of Dr. Occupado and nod in understanding…and then they make sure they spend enough time with me. Either that or they show their true colors early on and I can quickly write them off as a long-term relationship.

None of my current specialists ever rushes me but I couldn't have written those words two days ago. Yesterday, I made a change. Over the last year or two, one doctor began going the Physician's Assistant route. It wasn't that I could only see him for five minutes. I couldn't see him at all. I'd make an appointment with him, go into the examining room to await his usually-delayed entry…and instead. a P.A. would come into the examining room, introduce him or herself, and begin doing his job for him.

So, what exactly is a Physician's Assistant?

A physician assistant or associate is a healthcare professional who is licensed to practice medicine as part of a team with physicians. Physician assistants are concerned with preventing and treating human illness and injury by providing a broad range of health care services under the direction of a physician or surgeon. Physician assistants conduct physical exams, diagnose and treat illnesses, order and interpret tests, prescribe medications, counsel on preventive health care and may assist in surgery.

In other words, "I'm not a doctor but I play one in a doctor's office."

The bait-and-switch did not sit well with me and the Physician's Assistants — I went through three there — told me so little, I had the feeling they were researching my condition on Wikipedia. That, by the way, is where I found the above definition.

I have no idea how much the first P.A. knew about the particular area of medicine because English was not his first language. It did not seem to be his second, third or eighth, either. I am used to not being able to understand the nouns doctors use but with this guy, I couldn't parse the verbs, adjectives or adverbs, and only the occasional article. After three visits where I felt like I was being treated by Sid Caesar, I specified that my next appointment be with The Doctor himself.

I went to see him, waited in the examining room…and in came a different P.A. He was a nice guy and I could understand him. But my insurance and I were paying full price and I was getting about a third of a doctor.

On the way out of my second and what I'd decided would be my last appointment with P.A. #2, I ran into the real doctor in the hallway. He was all smiles until I told him I was not happy seeing people from a temp agency instead of him. "I supervise them all very carefully," he assured me. "They're giving you the exact same treatment you would get from me."

I said, "Are you telling me that these people who do not have the legal right to call themselves 'doctors' know as much as you do?" He said no, of course not, though someday they might. I said, "Well, it's my health here and I'd kinda like to entrust it to the most knowledgeable person in this office. Every time I come here, there are more and more names on your door. On my way in, I checked for mine because I thought it had to be a list of patients."

He laughed, apologized and promised that my next visit there would be with him…and it was. Unfortunately, there was also this woman there, observing and listening and taking notes. And after ten or so minutes, he turned me over to P.A. #3 and left. So now I've left him.

My P.C.P. gave me a new referral and I got all my records from the busy specialist's office and gave them to the new guy. The new guy isn't a new guy to medicine — he's been practicing for thirty years — but he's new to me. And he doesn't have any Physician's Assistants. When I go there, there'll be nobody there for me to see but him.

Matter of fact, he needed some blood from me and I figured he'd do what every single doctor of my lifetime has done, which is to call in a nurse and have her take it. Instead, he had me roll up my sleeve and he hauled out the equipment and took it himself. I'm 62 years old and I can't recall a person with the title of "doctor" ever taking blood from me before.

His nurse had taken my blood pressure and jotted down my height and weight before I saw him, and I asked him why she wasn't taking my blood. He leaned in very confidentially and told me, "It makes her squeamish." I think I'm going to like this guy.

Biola University is a private Christian university located in Southern California and committed to biblically centered education, intentional spiritual development and vocational preparation. Each year, they stage the Biola Media Conference, which their website describes as "an event for Christians in Hollywood to gather and spur one another to become not just better at their craft, but the best."

This year's will be held tomorrow in Studio City and the 2014 Biola Media Award honoree is my idol, Stan Freberg. Their press release says, "We are excited to have the legendary Stan Freberg join us for BMC 2014. Known best for his work on the radio, Freberg has integrated his faith into popular culture, inspiring generations of media and entertainment creators. His works are classics, and 70 years later, Freberg remains active in the industry."

I think they're underselling their honoree a bit here. Radio has only been a part of Stan's amazing career which has included movies, hit records and television. When he pioneered the funny commercial, a lot of critics said his spots were the best things on TV. It's a big honor for a man who's received a lot of them…and a special one. Stan's father was a Baptist minister who attended Biola.

More details on the event, including how to attend, are over at this website.

Cookie Monster and the Beetles (not to be confused with the Beatles) sing a song parody set not to "Hey, Jude" but to a tune that's meant to be confused with it…

Zip Lines are all the rage in some areas. Skip the rest of this paragraph if you know what a zip line is. What a zip line is is a long, strong cable strung between two points, at least one of which is elevated. You pay money, they strap you into a harness and you go on a ride from Point A to Point B, sorta flying. It's over quick but some folks love the sensation…and then there are those of us who are sane and look on this "attraction" the same way we'd view someone asking us if we want to buy a ticket to be hit over the head with Gallagher's Sledge-O-Matic. Or worse, see Gallagher's act.

There are several zip lines in Vegas with more soon to open. The most popular is Slotzilla, which recently opened downtown. It shoots you down Fremont Street on a 850-foot cable, launched from a 77-foot platform…but they're not done yet.

In a few months, they expect to open what they're calling a "zoom line." This will be higher and faster and it will put you in a horizontal position so you'll be flying like Superman. I'll bet most people will pretend that's who they are when they do it (or maybe Green Lantern or maybe Thor…) and if the harnesses will allow it, which they probably won't, I'll bet some people will try to do it in costume.

If you've always fantasized about flying like a super-hero for four blocks of downtown Las Vegas, this might be the best opportunity you'll ever have. Me? I've never had a flying dream or flying fantasy in my life. These days, my big fantasy is to be caught up on deadlines.

Many years ago, I was in Vegas near a previous zip line and a friend tried to talk me into it. I had an excuse. I was heavier then and exceeded the maximum weight limit…so that ended that discussion. Now, I weigh a lot less and I could do it. But just because you can do something doesn't mean you should…or that you want to. I don't want to but I offer this information since some people probably want to. Heck, some people even want to go see Gallagher.

One of many good things about Craig Ferguson's show: The requirement that he not poach on Letterman's guest list very often has meant that he's had on a lot of authors. If you're my age, you may remember authors as talk show guests. When Mr. Carson's show was ninety minutes, you could often find one in the last twenty or so. (Actually, Colbert and Stewart often have authors on and sometimes, they don't feel like "filler" that was booked so the writers didn't have to come up with one more segment that night.)

Here, nine authors who've done The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson recall what was good about being on with CraigyFerg…

Abbott and Costello with the famed movie tough guy, Mike Mazurki…

Peter Hartlaub is the pop culture critic at the San Francisco Chronicle…and a guy who's pissed that WonderCon is no longer in that city by the bay. I don't live there but I'd like it back there too, though not necessarily at the expense of the one in Anaheim.

My understanding is that the folks who decide who and what gets to convene in the Moscone Center in S.F. simply do not value the convention highly enough to take it on other than a "Well, if we can squeeze them in" basis. The first year WonderCon was not in S.F., there was major renovation going on and the number of conventions that could be accommodated was low. Now it isn't but WonderCon still has trouble getting good dates. They have been offered space in the Moscone but, for example, they were offered it once for a weekend when another convention already had most of the Moscone booked and had filled local hotels and driven the price of lodging to extremes.

In the meantime, Anaheim — to which WonderCon fled when the Moscone slammed the door during their renovations — has worked out better than anyone expected. I don't see the organizers giving that up. What they might be open to is an additional WonderCon per year back in San Francisco. That is, if they could secure good dates late in the year. How about it, Moscone? I loved going to a big comic convention in the heart of that city up there.

Thank you, Tom Galloway, for telling me about this article.

Al Feldstein, who helmed most of the E.C. Comics and turned MAD Magazine into the most-read humor publication in the history of the world, has died at the age of 88. He passed at his home in Livingston, Montana where he retired in 1984 to spend his days painting. No cause of death has been announced.

I took the above photo of Al in the MAD offices in the mid-seventies. I made it clickable so you can enlarge it and see just what his workspace looked like — the typewriter on which he'd "spec" the type of every article in the magazine, the rubber cement jar, the proofs, the version of the potted plant "Arthur" on his window, the vintage MAD cover painting on the wall, etc. It is said that when Al edited MAD, he worked with a ruthless ethic, locking his door and rarely joining in on the general office merriment. He was obsessed with getting the magazine out on time and with utter clarity.

Some of those who worked for him (and me, when I visited and took this photo) thought he was cold and too business-like and that he showed surprisingly little sense of humor to be the editor of that publication. And it's true that a lot of its spirit and funny came from its superb roster of freelancers and from others in the office. A lot of what I laughed at, I now know, came from Assistant Editor Nick Meglin, for instance. But Feldstein was the guy who drove the bus…who got MAD on time after its founding editor, Harvey Kurtzman, proved unable to meet deadlines. And even if others discovered some of the great artists and writers who made that magazine so wonderful, Feldstein was the guy who recognized and hired the talent.

Before that, he was the editor-writer of Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, Weird Science, Crime SuspenStories and other legendary E.C. Comics. There were tons of imitations but the E.C. books stood out (and sold better), in large part because of Feldstein. We'd be hailing him as a giant of comics even if he'd retired after pressure groups forced E.C.'s comics off the stands. He didn't retire. He just left…and then one day, he returned.

Kurtzman, of course, was unable to keep the company's remaining title, MAD, on the newsstands with any regularity. He was also fighting with publisher William Gaines over the "package" (the cheap printing) and his deal. Finally, it came to a head: Kurtzman either had an offer from Hugh Hefner to create a similar magazine or he had reason to believe such an offer was looming. Either way, he went to Gaines and demanded 51% of the business or he'd walk. Gaines told him to run, not walk, and hired Feldstein back to run MAD. Since Kurtzman had been creating so much of the magazine himself and since most of his staff went with him to do the new magazine for Hef, Feldstein faced this absurd challenge: He not only had to get the publication on-time, he had to almost completely build a new talent pool of contributors. In short order, he had Frank Jacobs and Mort Drucker and Dave Berg and Don Martin and so many others who made the magazine successful. A bit later, he even hired a man named Sergio Aragonés.

I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with Al at conventions. In retirement, he was a much nicer person than he was as an editor. He was also a little perturbed that so many people seemed to think Harvey Kurtzman did everything on MAD and that all those great E.C. Comics wrote themselves. He went to cons to remind people of his contributions and also to sell the very fine paintings he did. Some were western scenes. Others recalled his days with E.C. and MAD. You can still see some of them on his website.

Here's an obit on him. I will have more to say about what he did and why I liked him so much when I finish my current workload. This is a kind of tribute to the way he worked: I'm going to meet my deadlines and then write about him. That was how Al operated.

I love to share coincidences with you and I just had a good one in my life. As I will explain in more detail here shortly, I'm helping assemble a book for Harry N. Abrams Publishing, the fine folks who issued my book on Jack Kirby. This new one is called The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio. It's a big book of covers and pages produced by Joe Simon, Jack Kirby and the artists who worked with them in the forties and fifties, and everything is printed from the original art so you'll see the erasures and white-outs and pasteovers and such. Much of the artwork came from the personal collection of Joe Simon. (The book, by the way, is produced in cooperation with the Joe Simon Estate and the Jack Kirby Estate and it'll be out around the end of summer. You can advance-order a copy here if you're in a hurry.)

So today, I'm writing little notes on all the pieces in it, explaining where each one came from and who drew it and such…and less than an hour ago, I come to this story called "Credit and Loss," which was drawn by the great Mort Meskin and which ran in Chamber of Chills #24, published by Harvey Comics in 1954. It's a wonderful story but I start to wonder if it should be included in the book. The original art was in Simon's archives and Meskin was an important contributor to the Simon-Kirby operation…but Joe and Jack did not edit or package Chamber of Chills and this book is all about material that Joe and Jack created or at least supervised.

We have more than enough material for the book if I omit it. Then again, it's a great example of Meskin at his best. Then again, it's not a Simon-Kirby product. But wait: If it's not a Simon-Kirby product, doesn't the fact that Joe wound up with the original art suggest it might have been in some way? Ah, but is "might have been in some way" reason enough to include it with all this other fine comic art that definitely was in every way?

So I start writing out the end note, trying to word it accurately and I figure I'll read what I wrote and decide if the story stays or if it goes. And just as I finish writing an evasive, equivocating paragraph that convinces me it should go, my phone rings and it's Sid Jacobson calling. You know who Sid Jacobson is? He was an editor for Harvey Comics. In fact, he was the editor of Chamber of Chills in 1954!

I hear from this man every five or six years but he somehow picked that moment — the moment I was writing about this comic he edited — to phone me with a question about Comic-Con. I answer him and then I tell him what I'm writing at that very moment and what I'm pondering. Sid says, "Let me look up that story and call you back." Three minutes later, he calls back to say, "That story must have been sold to us by Simon and Kirby because I never met Mort Meskin. The only place it could have come from was Joe Simon."

So it's in the book. And I feel like I'm in some Chamber of Chills. Do these things happen to other people or is it just me?

Y'know, the more I watch everyone in America dumping on Donald Sterling, the more my feelings about it all match those of Mike Pesca, who feels the punishment is not fitting the crime.

I guess when I or anyone says that, they have to make it perfectly clear with emphasis that they believe racism is evil and that Sterling, from what little we know about him, seems like a pretty awful excuse for a human being…so I'll say all that. But something just feels wrong to me about making this guy into The Worst Criminal in the World when he has committed no crime and had no trial, all based on a private conversation. I don't believe he was "set up" and made to seem like something he's not by the person(s) who leaked the possibly-illegal recording of him. But…well, read what Mr. Pesca wrote. Mark Cuban is right. In America, people are allowed to be morons.  We don't have the right to hang them in the town square just to prove how much we loathe racism.

Steven Zeitchik notes some notable omissions from the Tony Award nominations.

This is why I often argue that producers of awards shows are unfairly criticized when folks say their telecasts are boring or low-rated. The Tony Awards is, after all, a contest. People tune in to watch contests involving people they know and care about. It might have made for a more exciting show this year if the nominations had included Denzel Washington, Daniel Radcliffe, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and several others — or if, say, Woody Allen's show had gathered more nominations, leading to the possibility that Woody might show up. (Not likely, I know, but some people might still have tuned in so as not to miss the exciting moment if he did.)

I'm not saying that these people should have gotten nominations…merely that it's not the fault of the telecast's producers that they didn't and that the Tony Awards will be, as it usually is, largely a contest between shows and performers that most of America has never heard of. I am more interested in the theater than the average American and I don't even know who some of these people and shows are.

In the meantime, I have this question from Douglass Abramson…

If Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a Broadway premiere, according to the Tony website, how does it qualify for Best Revival of a Musical? I thought that all productions were considered original, for Tony nominations, if they were making their Broadway debut and that a production had to have been on Broadway before to qualify for the Best Revival awards. Did something change, or have I just not understood the qualifying process since the revival catagories were created?

The Tony Awards form a committee each year to decide what qualifies for what awards and to make judgment calls between new plays and revivals, lead roles and supporting roles, musical and plays, etc. They seem to favor past precedents over the actual written Tony rules but they made this determination, as I understand it, because Hedwig has had so many previous productions, including an off-Broadway one in 1998. The producers of the musical do not seem to be objecting.

More controversial is this one: Audra McDonald is currently starring in and getting raves for Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, a one-woman show (one woman plus a three-piece band and a dog). In it, she plays Billie Holiday and sings around twelve of that legendary performer's best songs. You'd figure a dozen tunes would qualify it as a musical, right? Nope. They decided it was a play. Maybe I'd understand this if I'd seen the show. Anyway, it's an award show. It's not supposed to make a whole lot of sense.