Master caricaturist Drew Friedman spotlights another of his ilk with the great TV Guide work of the great Jack Davis. I can't get enough of Mr. Davis's work and am looking forward to a new, very thick art book that's currently being assembled.
And hey, I also love what Mr. Friedman does. I want to commission him to do a drawing of me but I'm going to wait until I'm about eighty because he's especially good at Old Jews.
Former head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn pled a firm Not Guilty this morning to charges that he raped a maid in a New York hotel. I'm not quite sure why many news reports are saying that he's charged with "attempting to rape" the woman in question. This is turning into a He Said/She Said kind of case and apparently She Says she was raped.
So if they did indeed find traces of Mr. Strauss-Kahn's semen where it shouldn't have oughta been, what's the story here? News reports suggest his defense will argue that whatever happened was consensual; that they'll say the woman is a liar and dredge up whatever they can from her past life to prove she's just the kind of person who'd do such a thing. I'm trying to think if there's anything — anything else they could say. If the physical evidence is what reports say it is, is there any other scenario that makes DSK the innocent victim here? Can we dream up one where it was all an innocent misunderstanding? Maybe the man's bodily fluids were forged by an international conspiracy that's out to frame him. Hey, that happens to me all the time.
But who knows? Maybe his lawyers and Ben Stein are right. I hate following these kinds of tabloid-oriented stories but I shamefully admit I'm hooked. Strauss-Kahn has an awful lot of money to spend on his defense. I'm curious as to what it's going to buy him…and whether they're angling for the best terms they can get in a plea bargain or if they're really going to go to the mat and try to get him a complete acquittal.
And I can't help but notice that Ben Stein's been awfully quiet about this lately…
The Sahara Hotel in Vegas has closed. Wanna buy a piece of it? Or just look at photos of what they're selling off? Then go to this website. If you hurry, you may be able to put in a bid on Redd Foxx.
I just saw the above headline online and couldn't help but think: What a great name for a grizzled old sidekick in a western movie…maybe one who gets caught trying to trade a Senate appointment for political favors. Gabby Blagojevich. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
Steven Paul Leiva gives an opinion in an argument that will only grow more complex through future technological advances. It's how to define "animation" in a world where there are things like Motion Capture and other techniques that do not involve someone sitting at a drawing table and starting with a blank piece of paper…or, I suppose, sitting at a computer and starting with a blank screen.
For reasons of length I assume, Leiva's piece only scratches the proverbial surface of the debate. For starters, you have to discuss how much some Motion Capture projects have artists altering those images. Then you need to address Rotoscoping — the time-honored process where a live-action film is shot and then artists trace it and use it as the basis for animation. You'd probably have to differentiate the way someone like Max Fleischer used Rotoscoping on his early cartoons from the way W. Disney used it on his features…and later, the way Ralph Bakshi used it on his Lord of the Rings film. Especially in the last of these, there was "animation" that is less animation than some of what results via Motion Capture.
But maybe it's all animation in some way, and certainly there will be projects in the future which further confuse the line of demarcation. I don't have any strong feelings about this debate except that I think we're going to hear an awful lot about it. I also think that nothing will ever be resolved to the satisfaction of anyone except maybe a party who's more likely to win an Oscar because some entity has decided that Film A is a cartoon whereas Film B, which some people think is a cartoon, isn't.
I just posted a lot of content so I won't feel guilty when I mostly abandon you all for the next few days. I have deadlines like you wouldn't believe so while I may still be posting here if the need arises, it won't be often for the next few days. Things should get a lot easier in my life after Tuesday and if I owe you an e-mail, I might not get to it 'til then. Thank you for your continuing patronage in this, our time of serious distraction.
Like a lot of folks who get paid to create silly remarks, I wrote my share of Dr. Kevorkian jokes. I mean, a doctor who kills people? It was stealing the money to come up with lines about that…and Dr. Kevorkian made it even easier by occasionally saying something outrageous or dressing up in a funny costume.
And yet I've long believed that his essential cause — that people deserve the right to die with dignity and without prolonging pain and suffering — was correct. I'm not saying the Doctor always served that cause well or that he didn't break the law…but I think that law is wrong and you have to have a certain admiration for a man who puts his life on the line for something like that. I have seen no report, no article…nothing to suggest he had anything but selfless motives. You sure don't get rich being constantly on trial for murder.
We had some family friends whose later years were a perfect example of why it is barbaric and just plain cruel to prolong some lives beyond a certain point. They were two of the finest, most wonderful people you could ever want to know but then the husband's health deteriorated rapidly to the point of No Return. There was no chance he could ever again have anything resembling an actual life…and taking care of him killed his beloved spouse of 50+ years. Never mind that it also wiped out their savings and forced her to sell their condo. It destroyed her health, as well. If the kind of thing Jack Kevorkian advocated had been available, the husband would have demanded it, he could have died without so much pain…and his widow would have lived twenty more years of comfort instead of ten months of impending homelessness.
Yes, yes. I understand how some believe that life is sacred and that it should be preserved at all cost. I just don't understand how anyone can look at situations like that — and there are so many — and see any sort of compassion or humanity…or even much of a respect for life.
I had a friendly debate recently with a comedy writer friend over whether it's fair or even honest to base jokes on premises you know to be false. Al Gore never said "I invented the Internet" but it was sure a breeze to write humorous material that claimed he had. I composed some of that too, knowing full well that it was perpetuating a fib that his political opponents were spreading about him. I wonder to what extent all the easy giggles that could be wrung out of Dr. Kevorkian's exploits distorted a serious issue and made his campaigns seem frivolous or devious or just plain unserious. There is something to be said for the viewpoint that comedians and comedy writers aren't supposed to frame public opinion or report news. They're just here to get laughs.
And then there's the other side of that question. I don't have an answer for myself, let alone for anyone else. It's just that every time I've seen the name of Dr. Jack Kevorkian in the last ten or so years, I wonder if we wouldn't be better off if we'd taken that man more seriously.
And I see that John Edwards would have been better off if he'd paid more attention to Anthony Weiner's crotch than his own. Let that be a lesson to all of us.
For the last two days, I've paid more attention to Anthony Weiner's crotch than my own. There's something very wrong with this.
Good night, Internet! See you in the morning.
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has posted an incredible online library of artifacts of Hollywood and World War II — photos, articles, film clips, etc. Don't click over there unless you're prepared to spend at least an hour browsing. I was going to link you directly to it but instead I think I'll link to Leonard Maltin and let him tell you all about it first.
My buddy Vince Waldron notes that on Monday, June 6, Turner Classic Movies is running North to Alaska, Operation Madball, Five Golden Hours, It Happened to Jane and Bell, Book and Candle. Those are about half of the movies in which the legendary Ernie Kovacs ever appeared. And while he's not legendary for his films so much as for his TV work, it's still great to see him in these. Of them, he only really stars in Five Golden Hours — not a great film — but the rest have him in large supporting roles, often backstopping Jack Lemmon. It Happened to Jane is a pretty good, underrated film though not so much because of Ernie. Check out some or all of these.
Chuck Lorre was not at the Van Dyke/Reiner evening. My pal Lee Aronsohn was. At the event, he introduced himself to Dick Van Dyke as the Executive Producer of Two and a Half Men…which he is. Someone apparently overheard only the credit and thought, "Oh, that must be Chuck Lorre!" and told others. There's a good example of how misinformation spreads.
It's a program/app that I can access on my home computer, my iPad and my iPhone, keeping them all in sync. It's mainly a notes program but you can use it as a journal or diary and also make "to do" lists with it. You'll can adjust fonts and you also have no problem exporting its data when you later want to switch to some other program. Oh…and I'd like password protection, too.
I've tried Evernote and it does a lot of that but it seems weak on the export capability and there doesn't seem to be any way of adjusting font size or page format, such as for lists. I could live with it but before I start pumping data into it, I'd like to see if there isn't something better. Anyone have a suggestion?
Had a great evening last evening courtesy of Writers Bloc, the local non-profit literary organization that stages must-attend author events. Last night, it was Carl Reiner interviewing Dick Van Dyke…and how could that not be wonderful? Amusingly, Mr. Reiner decided to skip most talk of Mary Poppins, Bye Bye Birdie and even The Dick Van Dyke Show and instead focus on the less-discussed moment in Mr. Van Dyke's life with special emphasis on his failures. There weren't many (hosting The CBS Morning Show, a couple of movies…) so the topic kept drifting back to successes but certainly not all of them. I'm not quite sure why but there was no mention whatsoever of Diagnosis: Murder, which Dick only did for eight seasons.
What was mentioned incessantly was how much Reiner and Van Dyke love and respect each other. It kept coming up over and over again. Dick also kept insisting that his successes were all mostly a matter of luck…of just being in the right place at the right time. Carl disagreed with the premise and when Dick said, "He [meaning Carl] just plucked me out of obscurity and put me on his show," Carl responded with "No, I found you on the Broadway stage starring in Bye Bye Birdie."
The place was packed, not only with Dick Van Dyke Show fans but also two more cast members — Rose Marie was there as was Larry Mazzeo, who under his stage name of Larry Matthews played Ritchie Rosebud Petrie. I had dinner with Rose a few weeks ago and despite being confined to a wheelchair, she's still Sally Rogers and as sharp as ever.
And the place was also packed with comedy writers and producers and actors. Someone told me Chuck Lorre was even there. Oh — and you know who else was there? Barbara Bain. She was not only in one episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show as an actress but she had another important function. She was such a fine laugher that, Reiner explained, they'd try to get her in the audience and seat her near the microphones that picked up the chortles of those in the bleachers. Those laugh tracks, he said, were later used by the infamous Charlie Douglass, who for a long time was Hollywood's Wizard of Canned Laughter, supplying laugh tracks for other shows. So Ms. Bain's laughter was heard not only on the Van Dyke show but countless others. (I suppose mine could even be in there if they used the audience reactions to the one episode I saw filmed.)
Trying to remember other stuff…it almost didn't matter what they said. It was just so great to see the rapport between the two of them. And afterwards, Dick signed his new book for a very long line of folks who went home very happy.
I've long been an attendee and cheerleader for Writers Bloc events. Last evening, I especially noticed the incredible skill and organizing capabilities of its CEO, Andrea Grossman. I think I know what it takes to put on something like that and it isn't easy to do badly, let alone well. Andrea does it very well indeed, which is why I always have such a good time at these events. Everyone seems to. I already told you about their upcoming, sure-to-sell-out one with Albert Brooks on June 28. I'll keep telling you about what they have coming up but don't trust me. If you dwell close enough to attend these things, check out their website and get on their mailing list.