Category Archives: To Be Filed

The Great Hotel Room Lottery for Comic-Con 2013 is tomorrow. Before then, you should go to this page, read up on how it works and decide on some hotels wherein you might wish to lay your sleepy head.

They have more rooms than ever available this year. This probably means they'll all sell out in twenty minutes instead of fifteen…but if you get shut out, don't despair. More will become available later. Each year, I get angry/weepy calls and e-mails from friends who didn't get a room and who somehow think there's a reason to complain to me. I can do nothing to help you, people. A few weeks later, almost 100% of these folks manage somehow to secure a place to stay and all is well. Happy hunting!

Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter visit Google. This was recorded between the time O'Brien left The Tonight Show and before he started his series on TBS…

Through the miracle that is TiVo, I watched the Academy Awards in about a third of its 3.5 hour running time so it wouldn't be fair for me to review it in full. I caught most of Seth MacFarlane's spots and thought he did fine when he wasn't talking about himself and not-so-well when he was. When you get your chance to host the Academy Awards, try to remember that the most important thing about the ceremony is not that you're hosting it.

Once we got past the sketch about what a bad, offensive host MacFarlane was, things seemed to go well enough. It felt like a few too many musical numbers but that's not a huge complaint. As I say every year, I think people are way too harsh on these telecasts. Folks say it's too long but it's not supposed to be a short show. There are lots of awards to give out and lots of commercials to show. People also complain about the winners as if there was something the producers of the Oscars could do to change them.

Really, they're just the Academy Awards. Unless you're up for one or working on the broadcast, they shouldn't matter much to you. And if they seem too long, get a TiVo.

I continue to battle with Time-Warner Cable on the matter of my mother's cable TV service. A day or two after she passed away in early October, I phoned up to have it turned off. Within another day or two, her cable feed ceased but the billing did not. They continued to debit her credit card for a month or two until I noticed and called up and said…well, pretty much what you'd expect me to say. In response, I was told I did not have the power to cancel her cable TV service. I had the power to cancel her other utilities. I had the power to cancel her bank accounts and move all her assets into mine. I even had the power to sell her house, which I think we're doing this weekend. But turn off her HBO? Nope. I would have to fax or bring in a copy of her Death Certificate, they said.

I said I had not yet received her Death Certificate. They said they would have to keep billing her until I got it and brought it in but they once they had proof, they would terminate service and refund whatever had been paid since her passing. I pointed out they had already terminated service; that we were being billed for a service we no longer received. They told me no, the cable was still active. Since there's no longer a TV in that home, it wouldn't be easy for me to go back and check but at the time I took the TV out, the cable was not functioning like a good cable should.

I canceled her credit card (something I had to do anyway) so they could no longer bill her phantom cable service to it. They began sending her larger and larger bills with attached threats, the main threat being that they would turn off her cable TV and there would be a substantial penalty for later reinstating it. Still, I need to get this cleared up. When I finally obtained Death Certificates, I carried a copy over to a Time-Warner office where I got a lot of blank stares and employees wondering why I was handing them something like that. I explained and a nice-but-bewildered lady behind the counter went off to ask a supervisor to supervise her handling of this crazy person who had for some reason brought in information about his dead mother. The supervisor came over, looked at the account info on a computer, then asked me if I was there to make a payment.

I told her no, I wasn't. She warned me that I was in danger of having my cable TV turned off. I told her it wasn't mine and they'd already done that, then I explained all about the Death Certificate. She said no, service was still on at that address…and her evidence of that seemed to be that I was still receiving bills for it. Finally, she called someone somewhere and discovered I knew what I was talking about — admittedly a rarity in my life but oddly undeniable in this case. They accepted the paper and said they'd forward it to the appropriate department which could cancel the billing and issue a refund.

Apparently, they did forward it to that person but when I got another bill yesterday and called up about it, I was told that that person was on vacation and would act on it shortly. Being "on vacation" is not an excuse for you not paying your bill but it is an excuse for them not issuing a refund.

Somehow, I doubt this will be cleared up soon. I've decided it's not at all about shutting off my mother's cable service. I've decided it's a plot by the Time-Warner Corporation to get even with me for conning DC Comics into publishing Fanboy.

I always liked the theme song to the Road Runner cartoon show. Here it is in Korean…

As I've probably made clear here, I think we have a real Health Care Crisis in this country — one that's bankrupting some people, killing others and even bankrupting and killing a certain number. If one armed man was doing a hundred-thousandth as much damage, we'd have every cop for miles around working overtime to stop him and bring him in. But we let the Health Care problem continue, at most applying small band-aids like "Obamacare." What I like best about Obamacare is that it does something, as opposed to every single one of the alternatives proposed which have all been to do nothing but pretend it's something. I also like that Obamacare opens the door to doing more.

Recently, a journalist I like named Steven Brill authored a 26,000 word article for Time that deals with the simple question of why everything costs so much when you go to a hospital. You may have seen him the other night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. If you didn't, watch the extended interview that was posted online. If you did see him, watch it also because so much more of interest is said in this version.

Here's a link to the entire article. It's long and I'm not suggesting you not read it. I will suggest you not read it until you have the time and stomach to be outraged about the situation. But I will quickly summarize it for you…

Hospitals charge so much because they and their suppliers want to make as much as possible and they know you have no choice but to come up with the money.

That's pretty much it. If you're brought in with a broken leg and it would cost them $500 to set it, they could charge you $500 or they could make a 100% profit and charge you a thousand. So they weigh the pros and cons of each alternative and then they decide to charge you $12,000 because they know you're stuck. It is also significant in Brill's piece to note how little of these windfall profits go to the actual doctors and nurses who treat patients. Most of it goes to super-well-compensated executives, drug companies or suppliers of medical equipment.

As I said, it'll make you mad. This is not about Free Enterprise and The Free Market. There can be no Free Market when you're carried in on a stretcher and the folks treating you can do whatever they feel proper to do to you and then hand you an inflated bill for it. For a market to be free, both buyer and seller have to have the power to opt out. No, this is all about gouging the ill and injured.

An hour with Stephen Colbert, recorded at Google when he was pushing his latest book…

Nate Silver takes another stab at forecasting the major Oscar winners. I have the feeling he could be as wrong about these as he was right in calling which states would vote for Obama. There simply isn't enough available data about how the actual voters are thinking. Noting that Tommy Lee Jones won the Screen Actors Guild award for Best Performance by a Supporting Actor might be an indicator of who's getting that Oscar if Jones won by a wide margin. But if he beat out Philip Seymour Hoffman by one vote — and we don't know that he did or didn't — then it's pretty feeble evidence of a winning trend. My sense from picking up on the "buzz" in Hollywood is that Robert DeNiro, ranked by Silver as the least likely, is going to win this Academy Award tomorrow night.

The "buzz" is also telling me Sally Field in the corresponding female category. Silver says, "If Sally Field or Amy Adams wins instead, it will probably be time for me to retire from the Oscar-forecasting business." Perhaps it is. Then again, critic Richard Roeper — who claims the best track record as a seer of such things — is saying Field is the unlikeliest winner.

The ones I think Mr. Silver will get right — Argo for Best Picture, Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor — are pretty easy calls. Almost every critic is saying that based mostly on "the buzz." If I had to bet on Best Director, I'd bet Ang Lee but would not be shocked by Spielberg. I'm not looking at any other awards when I say this; just hearing and reading what the Hollywood community is saying.

Silver was able to predict the vote for Obama because there were 100+ polls that showed not only how many people planned to vote for him but who they were and why they said what they said. Unlike politics, there is zero information as to what voters are thinking, why they're thinking that way…and even who they are. How many people voted for Alan Arkin last time he won? We don't know and there's no polling of the folks voting this year or any year…no info that Likely Hispanic Voters between the ages of 18 and 49 are trending towards Jennifer Lawrence. If Silver's right in categories like hers, it'll be good guesswork…but probably only guesswork.

You still have time to get in an Oscar Pool and if you do, don't think you're giving yourself an advantage to vote Silver's predictions. Your hunch is as good as his. Or mine. The only safe wager is that the morning after, there'll be a zillion messages on the 'net saying it was The Worst Oscar Show Ever. Because the morning after, there are always a zillion messages on the 'net saying it was The Worst Oscar Show Ever.

This article seeks to explain why so many delicatessens are closing. Not that all the reasons they cite are invalid but I think the author missed an important point. She mentions Junior's Delicatessen in Westwood and a Jerry's Deli in Costa Mesa as local closures that signify some kind of trend away from deli fare and Jewish culture and such. I think it's worth mentioning that all the outlets in the Jerry's Deli chain have gotten really, really poor lately…and Junior's was plunging in quality and raising prices. I love deli food but I've learned the hard way to avoid any Jerry's…and I only went to Junior's for the location, not the cuisine.

For what it's worth, my favorites in Los Angeles are Canter's on Fairfax and Nate 'n Al's over in Beverly Hills. Nate 'n Al's no longer has that great celebrity clientele. Once upon a time, you'd go in and see Milton Berle and Doris Day and Phil Silvers and folks like that. Now, on a good day, you might catch Larry King — who's partners in another deli a few blocks away but seems to still like Nate 'n Al's — but that's about it.  Still, the place is usually crowded because the food is still good. As my Aunt Dot used to say, "Potato salad to die from," which for some odd reason is a compliment.

Anyway, my point is that when a mediocre Jewish delicatessen closes, it might be because it's Jewish or because it's a delicatessen. But it might also be because it's mediocre.

Hollywood Reporter discusses why Donald Trump is likely to lose his lawsuit against Bill Maher. Do we think this thing will even see the inside of a courtroom?

Hey, in honor of the Academy Awards, watch my indecently-talented friend Christine Pedi recast Les Miserables…

It's that time of the year again. Each July at the Comic-Con International, we present something called the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. Actually, we present two of them — one to a deceased writer of the past and one to someone who's still with us. Ideally, the person who's still with us will be with us at Comic-Con to receive it in person. So around this time, I solicit nominations of who you think oughta get one. If you have a thought, I'd love to hear it but please, remember the following…

1. This is an award for a body of work as a comic book writer. I put those points in bold because every year, people send me — in the clearest demonstration I've seen that comic books impair one's reading skills — the names of artists. One person wrote me last year to suggest John Buscema. I wrote back to him that John Buscema was a wonderful artist, not a wonderful writer. The fellow wrote back to argue, "He co-wrote an issue of one Marvel book once so he qualifies." No. Doesn't work like that.
2. Bill Finger in his lifetime received almost no credit for his work and nowhere near a respectable share of the revenue it generated. So this award is for a writer who has received insufficient reward for his or her splendid body of work. It can be insufficient in terms of recognition or insufficient in terms of legal tender or it can, of course, be both. Every year, someone writes me to say, "How can you have an award for comic book writing and not give it to Stan Lee?" Well, maybe because he's the most famous, well-compensated person in the history of the medium. Frankly, I think if I called Stan and told him we wanted to give him an award because his work was so uncelebrated, he'd slap me. Right after he fired his publicist.
3. A person can only win this award once. So far, it has gone to Arnold Drake, Alvin Schwartz, George Gladir, Larry Lieber, Frank Jacobs, Gary Friedrich, Del Connell, Steve Skeates, Jerry Siegel, Harvey Kurtzman, Gardner Fox, Archie Goodwin, John Broome, Otto Binder, Bob Haney and Frank Doyle. Those folks are therefore ineligible.

Beyond all that, it can be anyone with a body of writing work in comic books. Not strips. We've fudged the definition to include MAD but will fudge no further. My address is on this page. If you have a thought, I'd love to hear it and pass it on to our Blue Ribbon Judging Committee, none of whom has a blue ribbon. Thank you.

Fred Kaplan thinks the next war may be a cyberwar. This probably means we'll be waterboarding all our Facebook Friends.

Tuesday evening, I went to see the fabulous Shelly Goldstein perform her act to a delighted crowd at the Catalina Bar and Grill in Hollywood. The evening was a smashing success and when next she plays someplace you can see her, I'll tell you about that and about how good she is.

On my way in, I ran into a friend of mine named Saratoga Ballantine — an accomplished actress who has also co-directed a documentary I've been meaning to plug here. Saratoga and her friend Dea Lawrence made Troupers, a look at veteran show business performers, one of whom was Sara's father, The Amazing Carl Ballantine. They interviewed him and also Pat Carroll, Kaye Ballard, Bruce Kirby, Marvin Kaplan, Ivy Bethune, Justine Johnston, Allan Rich, Jane Kean, Harold Gould, Connie Sawyer and Betty Garrett. It's a terrific portrait of a kind of performer who is, sad to say, becoming extinct. The film is called Troupers.

Where can you see this film? Well, in Los Angeles it's running tonight (Thursday) on KCET, Channel 28 at 9 PM. If you're setting a TiVo or DVR, you may have to search for the name of the program on which it's airing, which is Open Call. Keep your eye out for it elsewhere as it's quite wonderful. The trailer here should give you some idea of how wonderful…

American Airlines and U.S. Airways are merging. This is good only because it will mean we'll have one less dysfunctional, money-losing airline out there.

I know this is a bad idea but to find out just why, I turn to my buddy who knows everything about airlines, Joe Brancatelli. Here's one article by Joe about it and here's another.