Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has been examining George W. Bush's assertions of executive power and which ones he has. Apparently, the assumption in the Oval Office is that he has whatever powers he says he has and no one can say him nay.
From what I can gather, Bush supporters do not dispute that this is how their guy operates, nor will they entertain the notion that it is not right and proper. At least, not until some Democratic President wanders into the same territory.
HBO has been running Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project, a documentary by John Landis all about Guess Who. It's filled with clips of Rickles in Vegas, interviews with Rickles at home, excerpts from old Rickles appearances and — of the greatest interest — interviews with Rickles friends and his fellow performers. It's a nice tribute to a guy who deserves a tribute if only for sheer energy and endurance.
What intrigues me are the excerpts from the man's current Vegas act, which is not all that different from what he was doing when the world first heard of him. Along the way, there were detours — attempts to position him as an actor, as a sitcom star and even as a musical performer — but they never stuck. In the early eighties, I saw him at either the Sahara or the Riviera in Las Vegas. I forget which it was but I recall my reaction to his performance. He was truly awful. A lot of people walked out on him and my party would have joined them but we couldn't believe that what we were seeing was all he was going to do. It was about an hour of singing and dancing and talking about his life and career…and most astonishing, a long speech about how each and every one of us should be constantly thanking God for blessing us with the greatest human being who ever walked this Earth…Frank Sinatra.
It was the most amazing example I've ever seen of a performer not knowing what he did for a living. Imagine you go see the world's best juggler and instead of tossing things in the air, he comes out and just tells "Knock Knock" jokes for an hour. That's kinda what it was…Don Rickles not insulting anyone and as a result, not being particularly funny or entertaining.
At some point though, the old act seems to have kicked in. One imagines God visiting him one dark and thunderous night, appearing before Rickles in a dream, telling him, "Don, you big dummy! I put you on this planet to call your fellow man a hockey puck!" However it happened, I'm glad it did. Rickles started being Rickles again. When I heard, I went back to see him again in Vegas and breathed a sigh of relief when he came out on stage, spotted a fat guy purposely placed in front by the ushers, and called out for Captain Ahab to come spear Moby Dick in Row A. (I was also relieved the designated fat guy wasn't me.)
Thereabouts, he stomped about on stage, sweating and free associating, spitting out semi-coherent but always amusing palaver. He said something about sitting in a hot tub and watching a duck sink. He suggested something about going to Vermont to suck sap out of rubber trees. He even offered up my favorite, which was the line — I'm not sure what it means but I love it anyway — about dropping his pants and firing a rocket. Every third sentence began with "I tell you this" or sometimes, "I tell you this, gang." Over and over: "I tell you this, I tell you this…"
It was wonderful. I don't know why it was wonderful…maybe just the rhythm and attitude. He was just so Don Rickles. The documentary is 90 minutes of Rickles being Rickles, and that's why it's wonderful. Try and catch it if you can. You hockey puck.
Forbes Magazine offers a wise and perceptive report on what's going on with the WGA-AMPTP negotiations…or maybe we should call them non-negotiations. In any case, I think any report is wise and perceptive when it quotes me.
Al Scaduto was born in 1928. I don't know anything about his personal life and I never met the man but I can tell you about his neat and tidy career. In 1946, he graduated from the School of Industrial Art and immediately got a job for life with King Features Syndicate. At the time, one of their star cartoonists was Jimmy Hatlo, who was responsible for two strips — Little Iodine and They'll Do It Every Time. (Little Iodine started as a recurring character in the other strip and proved to be so popular that she graduated to her own, Sunday-only feature.)
Hatlo was assisted by a guy named Bob Dunn and in '46, Scaduto began assisting Bob Dunn, working on both strips and on the comic books of Little Iodine, which ran from 1949 until 1962. Hatlo cut back on his work during the fifties and died in '63 but the transition was seamless, with Dunn and Scaduto there to pick up the slack and replicate the Hatlo style. Generally, Dunn wrote the gags and did some of the pencilling, while Scaduto did most of the pencilling and all of the inking on They'll Do It Every Time. Hy Eisman did much of the art on Little Iodine until that strip ended in the mid-eighties.
Dunn passed away in 1989 and Scaduto took over writing They'll Do It Every Time along with drawing it. He was reportedly still at it when he died yesterday on his 79th birthday. His pal and fellow cartoonist Mike Lynch has the sad news.
You've probably heard the new outrage that CIA interrogation tapes were destroyed, perhaps in violation of the law. Of all the pieces I've read about this, this one by Kevin Drum seems to have the most logical handle on the whole situation.
Monty Python's Spamalot is playing all over the world. Above is a scan of a blurry Polaroid photo of me on stage with the national touring company when they were playing Columbus, Ohio a few weeks ago.
Meanwhile, an Australian TV reporter checks in on the London company of Spamalot. The gentleman wrongly thinks that "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," which is in the show, was from the movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail but otherwise, it's a nice little segment on the production with some good clips.
The other day here, I linked to a fine article by KC Carlson about what comic book collecting was like back in the (cough, cough) old days. Something later went amiss with the link so I took it down. This one should work.
In case you haven't heard, negotiations have broken down again in the WGA/AMPTP talks…although frankly, from what we've heard, it doesn't sound like a lot of negotiating was actually going on even when the two sides were together and talking. (In case you're not up to speed, here's a report on the breakdown from the AMPTP side and here's one from the WGA side. Guess which one I think is more rational and represents good faith bargaining.)
What does it mean? Well, the first thing it means is no negotiating for a while. The AMPTP has demanded that the WGA drop six topics from the talks or there will be no more talks. As a complete outside observer, it seems unthinkable to me that the WGA would just drop these issues except as trade-offs for genuine concessions. But the AMPTP is not offering anything in exchange for dropping them except a resumption of talks that, so far, haven't been particularly fruitful.
So it sounds like this strike ain't gonna end until '08. The AMPTP posture is not one from which they can easily back down. They can't come back in next Tuesday and say, "Hey, remember that stuff we said on Friday about how we weren't resuming meetings until you dropped six issues? Well, forget it. That was just the liquor talking." It's going to take a couple weeks of sidebars and backchannel talks before the two sides — probably with a couple of outside parties doing shuttle diplomacy — arrive at some sort of understanding that will allow the dialogue to resume. The AMPTP may even try to plunge into an early deal with the Directors Guild, although the DGA may decide its against their own best interests to be used that way.
One thing to keep in mind if you read over the AMPTP's list of the six areas they will not discuss with the WGA: In them, you'll see some references to the Guild demanding to be paid more than the producers receive for something. Here's an example from their press release…
The WGA proposed a system of compensation for Internet programming that, when applied to the WGA and the other guilds, could result in producers paying more to the guilds from Internet programming than the producers actually receive in revenue from such Internet programming.
What that's all about is what they call Hollywood Accounting…ways of hiding the money from people who receive a share. Here's how it works. Let's say I have a movie studio called Klopman Pictures. Let's say you write a movie for Klopman Pictures and according to our deal, you're to receive 2% of the revenues that the producer receives. Then let's say the movie makes a zillion dollars.
You probably expect to receive 2% of a zillion but that's not how it works, Bunky. You see, the zillion is what Klopman Distributing — a separate company that I just happen to also own — collects. Then Klopman Distributing has to pay its expenses, which includes half a zillion dollars to me as a consultant. Then they deduct a 25% distribution fee. Then they lop off their FedEx expenses and the cost of the staff and what everyone spent on lunch, plus they have to pay rent (to the Klopman Realty Company) for the suite of offices that house Klopman Distributing…and by the time all these amounts are subtracted, what they pass on to Klopman Pictures (i.e., "the producer") is considerably diminished. I just did a rough calculation and I figure it's about $17.45. So you get your 2% of that amount. Don't spend it all in one place.
So when you read that the WGA is demanding "more than the producers receive for something," it's all about that kind of math. It means the WGA wants some sort of compensation that's not reducible to 2% of seventeen bucks. The tip-off is that phrase: "…what the producers actually receive." That's language you stick into a contract when you're preparing to argue that there's some money involved that you didn't "actually receive." In our hypothetical example, I'd be arguing that $17.45 is what the producer "actually received."
So that's what that's all about. Most of the other areas they're resisting are ones that would give the WGA more power. It's all very depressing but I think they're wrong if they think it's going to weaken the Guild.
I've been feeling guilty lately because with my trip and with various deadlines and disasters at home, I haven't been able to picket as often as I feel I should. Looks like I'm going to have ample opportunity.
I am sitting here at Farmers Market, having lunch with my friend, Len Wein. Len doesn't seem to believe I can post to my weblog from my BlackBerry. So this is just to show him I can.
This is a fellow named Jeff Hoover who does an uncanny impression of…well, just watch…
L.A. Weekly columnist Nikki Finke is reporting pure pessimism about the WGA/AMPTP negotiations. Says she, the "moguls" are close to walking out and not returning until February at the soonest.
Which leaves us with the question of whether…
Which is it? I'm inclined to think "c" is most likely with "b" as runner-up. There must be dissension among the studio heads and labor lawyers who are bargaining…or in some cases, refusing to bargain. And even the ones most eager to make a deal and end this thing probably figure the way to get there is to act like they're ready to walk out and let the WGA hang for a few months. A certain amount of what's going on is probably the Persistence of a Strategy. That is, the approach the AMPTP is taking to these negotiations of stonewalling and occasionally offering something that sounds generous but isn't…that's an approach that usually works for them. They've increased their revenues by billions (that's billions with a "b") with that approach.
It isn't working this time. We wouldn't be 33 days into a strike that is destroying all their schedules if it had worked, and it's showing no signs of starting to work, nor is there any reason to suspect it will begin working when it comes time to dicker over the same sticking points with the Screen Actors Guild. But it's kind of the only trick they know or can all agree upon.
Turning to my e-mailbag for a moment, I have this from Gary Emenitove…
Does NBC have any connection with Johnny Carson's Tonight Show episodes anymore, or is their ownership entirely elsewhere? Perhaps NBC could run old Carson shows rather than the old Leno shows? I'd imagine the ratings might spike — at least for older demographics — and this could even be a sales boost for the Carson DVDs that seem to be available everywhere. Personally, I'd make it a point to watch.
You, me and probably not a lot of other folks, Gary. No, as far as I know, the Carson family owns all those shows and NBC doesn't own any piece of them. Generally speaking, there hasn't been much interest in the marketplace in Johnny's old shows. I don't think the DVDs have even done that well. A couple of other folks wrote to ask me if NBC could stick on old Steve Allen or Jack Paar episodes. The answer is that even if those tapes existed — and sadly, very few do — they'd be a huge gamble that would go contrary to everything that ratings trends of the last few decades have indicated.
Since about the early seventies, a belief among those who program the late night shows has been that age lessens an episode's rebroadcast strength. I don't think you could look at the ratings and come to any other conclusion: Audiences do not want to watch old late night shows…and the older the rerun is, the less likely people are to watch. This was certainly Mr. Carson's belief. In the seventies, he got rid of his "weekend" reruns because of it. He cut back on his weeknight reruns and increased the percentage of new shows, even though it meant a higher percentage of all Tonight Show broadcasts would be guest-hosted.
He even changed the time frame from which they selected their reruns. In the sixties, when it came time to select an old Tonight Show to rerun with Johnny on it, they usually reached back at least a year. By the eighties, they were only reaching back a few months…and were avoiding shows with too many references that would remind viewers they were watching an old one. Even then, there was a belief that the program was particularly vulnerable on rerun nights. The occasional period when some other show seemed to be gaining on Carson was blamed, probably rightly, on that. During the period when Arsenio Hall's syndicated talk show was giving Carson a strong challenge, it was attributed to new Arsenio shows having the advantage on old Johnny episodes. Mr. Leno's ascension to The Tonight Show had a lot to do with countering that. Since J.C. wasn't about to start working more days per week and since his reruns were underperforming, Jay was hosting the show more and more and keeping the numbers up.
This all explains why Dave, Jay, Conan and the others usually draw their reruns from only a few weeks back and sometimes run an episode a third time, rather than go back even farther for one that's never rerun before. The older a show is, the more likely viewers are to change channels in search of something current. That's a pretty solid principle these days in late night programming…which is why I don't understand for the life of me why NBC is running Leno shows from 1994-1996. Not only that but throughout each episode, they keep putting up the original broadcast date to make doubly sure you know you're watching what is, by the current standards of network television, a truly ancient episode. As if seeing Chris Farley doing belly-flops didn't make the point.
Was this someone's bold notion? Did someone think viewers were dying to see Jay with darker hair (and sometimes even his old bandleader) making contemporaneous jokes about the Clinton administration? We always admire buck-the-conventional-wisdom thinking but given the numbers, it ain't working. Is NBC reasoning that since they're soon to lose Jay in that time slot, this would be a good time to drive viewers away from it? Letterman is running shows from last year — older than they would normally have selected but not as old as Leno's. Both shows are suffering. Even Nightline is sometimes beating them, which is remarkable given that we aren't currently in a hostage crisis or another Katrina. But Jay's being hurt a lot more than Dave. (Tonight's Tonight Show is from 2004, which is a little better.)
I joked the other day here that NBC was running them to see if they could embarrass Jay into returning to work. A friend of mine who works for Leno and is equally baffled called to say that explanation made as much sense as any of them. Let's see how soon the network reverts to recent reruns. If they don't and if this strike goes on as long as Nikki Finke thinks it might, NBC could do what CBS, ABC and others have tried and tried to do but never been able to achieve: Destroy The Tonight Show.
Judging from the ratings, not a lot of you are watching the hoary reruns of The Tonight Show at NBC, for some reason, is showing while Mr. Leno and his writers are on strike. Last night, it was a show from January of '96 and the lead guest was Chris Farley, who was either coked-up or might as well have been. Back when we could pretend his excesses weren't likely to kill him — he died in December of the following year — Farley seemed like a very funny, lovable boy. It's a little harder to see him that way now.
I find the old shows fascinating in their way but I'm not surprised America doesn't want to watch jokes — there was one on Tuesday's rerun — about how President Bill Clinton wasn't likely to get elected to a second term. It's interesting to see what passed for Current Events back then and also to see what Leno's show was like back then before he decided, for example, to stop trying to do characters in sketches.
More interesting to me would be to know what was on the mind of whoever decided that during the strike, they'd dip back into the days when Leno's hair was just going charcoal, and he was doing shows that he never wanted to have rerun. They're not making audiences happy and I doubt Jay is thrilled about them. So how come they're not dumping that approach and doing what Letterman's doing, which is to dig back no farther than last year, even if it means running some episodes for the third time?
This annoys me. We're on stormwatch here in Los Angeles and at the moment, it doesn't look like that big a storm. But you wouldn't know that from the L.A. Times. Here's the lead paragraph from an article they put up at 9:06 AM…
A significant rainstorm is expected to barrel into Southern California late today, dumping up to 3 inches of rain over two days and prompting the National Weather Service to issue flash-flood warnings.
And then later on in the article, it says…
The rains, which could range from 1 to 3 inches from downtown L.A. to the mountains, are expected to bring a considerable snowpack — with up to a foot of snow at elevations above 7,000 feet.
At least an inch of rain in downtown Los Angeles? Up to three inches? That's what they're suggesting but that's not what the National Weather Service — the article's only source for forecasts — is actually saying. This is from the 5:30 AM Special Weather Statement from the NWS, which as of this moment is still their official forecast…
General rainfall amounts are expected to range between one half and one inch across coastal and valley locations…with locally higher amounts possible across Los Angeles County and areas near heavier showers or thunderstorms. Most foothill and mountain areas can expect between one and three inches of rain…with highest amounts expected on the south facing slopes of the San Gabriel range.
1-3 inches of rain in the mountains is not uncommon from a storm that drops a third of that in the L.A. basin. Flash-flood warnings in mountainous areas that have recently burned are also pretty standard even with a weak storm. It looks to me like the forecast is really for a half-inch to an inch across most of L.A. and 1-3 inches in the surrounding mountains, especially the San Gabriel mountains, where the topography doesn't have a lot to do with what we commonly think of as Los Angeles. It could be seventy degrees where I am and snowing on those hilltops.
But the point is that there's a big difference between a half-inch to an inch of rain in the flatlands and 1-3 inches. This storm may do some damage and it may even be bigger than the National Weather Service is predicting. But their current forecast is being misrepresented here. I wish people wouldn't do that.
At the convention in New York a few weeks ago, I got to meet a lot of folks I previously knew only via e-mails and weblogs. One was Clifford Meth, who has become an important presence in publishing these days, especially working with a new firm called IDW. He has a new project coming out this month called Snaked, described as a "noir horror story." I've liked what I've read of Meth's work and the fact that he started developing this one with our mutual friend, the late Dave Cockrum, makes it especially intriguing. The art is by Rufus Dayglo, who's been working for 2000 AD, mostly on the Judge Dredd strip, so I'm going to keep an eye out for this one. Maybe you should, too.
Here's the wonderful performer Tom Lehrer…with Spanish, non-rhyming subtitles, no less!