Category Archives: Uncategorized

Tomorrow morning, Turner Classic Movies is running How To Murder Your Wife. Here's a message I posted when Showtime ran it ten years ago…

Showtime is running How To Murder Your Wife, a 1965 movie that Jack Lemmon, it is rumored, very much regretted making. It's kind of an interesting film because it has a good, fun feeling and a lot of great performances. Terry-Thomas is quite splendid as Lemmon's "Man" (i.e., butler-valet) and Eddie Mayehoff, a very underappreciated comic actor, walks off with every scene he's in. Lemmon twinkles, Virna Lisi is stunning, the music is great…and somehow, the whole thing falls apart from a stupid story with a stupider resolution.

Lemmon plays a comic strip artist who's a confirmed bachelor. His art imitates his life and vice-versa so when he accidentally gets married to Lisi, his comic strip character (Bash Brannigan) gets married in the strip. Both creator and creation undergo changes, not necessarily for the better, and the cartoonist finally decides to murder the wife in the comic strip…only this gets confused with murdering his real wife. When the real wife runs away, Lemmon is charged with her murder…and in order to make that part of the story happen, screenwriter George Axelrod and director Richard Quine have to just ignore how the actual judicial system works. For example, it is somehow decided that Lemmon can be charged with First Degree Murder even though there is no physical proof that anyone has been killed, thereby suspending habeas corpus years before anyone had ever heard of Alberto Gonzales.

Lemmon goes to trial — and I'm going to go ahead and blow the ending in the next paragraph because it's so lame, so consider this your SPOILER ALERT…

Lemmon goes to trial and decides that his only chance of not being sent to the electric chair is to (a) confess to a murder that never happened and (b) convince a conveniently all-male jury, in a five minute speech, that murdering your wife is a good thing. I was thirteen years old when I saw this movie and even I was sitting there going, "Come…on!" Easily one of the silliest scenes ever to appear on the screen, and I don't mean that in a good way. The whole film, if you think about it with the slightest bit of logic, is quite ridiculous and it's a testimony to Mr. Lemmon's charm (and Mayehoff and Thomas) that it's still almost worth watching…once.

Cartoonists love it, not for the plot but for the absurd life style of one of their own, and the occasional shots of comic strips and of "Lemmon's" hand drawing them. Obviously, a real artist had to be engaged to do this and when Mr. Lemmon was signed, he told the producers that as a kid, his favorite comic book was a strip called The Sub-Mariner and he wondered if they could get that feature's artist. They tracked down Bill Everett but he was then coping with too many alcohol-related health problems and he reluctantly declined the job.

Instead, they hired the great Alex Toth and his first assignment, which he did, was to whip up several newspaper-style strips that ran in the Hollywood trade papers to announce various signings and the upcoming commencement of filming. Toth was also supposed to "stunt double" Lemmon's drawing hand for some shots in the film until someone noticed a teensy problem: Lemmon was right-handed and Toth was a lefty. Alex also began arguing with the producers over something-or-other (Alex was always arguing over something-or-other) and he walked off the project. His replacement was Mel Keefer, who did all the artwork in the film and played Jack Lemmon's drawing hand.

Because posting is light while I'm at Comic-Con, we bring you a Golden Oldie from 10/24/08…

As you may recall, my kitchen was annihilated last year by a burst water line. When I began the process of getting it rebuilt, I had no idea I was embarking on my life's work.

The current task is to find a new light fixture to install on the wall over my new kitchen sink. This should not be difficult. Millions of homes have kitchen sinks. Most have lights over them. There must be a big market for them. Why, oh why, can I not find one?

I tried looking online, clicking my way through a dozen or so sites which offer hundreds of light fixtures. I'm looking for something that would use two standard, non-Halogen bulbs and can fit in a space about a foot wide. I don't want something frilly or ornate and I don't want something with such dense globes that only half the light ever makes it out into the room. You would think this would be simple. Yeah, you would, wouldn't you? I found a few maybes on the websites of lighting companies but nothing that I was so sure of that I was willing to buy it without seeing it in person.

This afternoon, I had to go out to the Warner Brothers lot to be interviewed for little behind-the-scenes videos that will appear on two upcoming DVDs of cartoon shows. One is of the 1979 Saturday morning Plastic Man series, which I worked on for one season. The other is of the 1985 syndicated Jetsons revival, which I worked on for about an hour.

I'm not kidding…about an hour. I was summoned to a meeting where a short-term Hanna-Barbera exec who didn't seem to have ever watched the original show began talking about "modernizing" it. I asked why he thought it necessary to "modernize" a show that was set in the future. While he was trying to come up with an answer, I added that I thought the '62 version was pretty darn good and in no need of improvement. There are certain projects in one's life where if you're lucky, you get a sense very early on of "This is not the project for me" and you can get out while the getting is good. The ensuing discussion convinced me this was just such a project and I was back in my car and heading home before you could say "His boy, Elroy."

Anyway, whilst out in Burbank, I took the opportunity to visit a huge lighting fixture shop out there. Nothing on display matched my needs but a pushy salesman who looked way too much like Morey Amsterdam told me he could get me any fixture made in the world. "Just pick it out," he said as he motioned towards a wall of bookcases that contained about as many catalogs as I have of comic books. I thought of challenging Morey to give me a joke about two camels and a sailor, but instead asked if he could point me to the catalog that might contain what I wanted. He shrugged and said, "Any of them…just flip through 'til you see the one."

I flipped for about fifteen minutes before my eyes glazed over and I could look no more. "Tell you what," Mr. Amsterdam said. "You on the Internet? Browse around websites, find what you want, then print it out and bring it in. I can match anything you can find and get it for you." I told him I'd tried the Internet and come up empty. (By now I was growing weary so I didn't bother telling him that if I could find it on the Internet, I could just order it on the Internet. I also didn't ask him if he had a brother who'd been working at Hanna-Barbera in '85 but I was tempted…)

Before I hit the road, I ducked into the lighting store's men's room and — wouldn't you know it? — there, over the sink was pretty much the kind of fixture I was seeking. I went back to Morey and said, "I can show you what I want but you'll have to come into the bathroom with me." If someone said that to me, I wouldn't follow them in there but he did.

He studied the fixture for about six hours and then told me, "I'm not sure where to get those." I'm beginning to get the feeling that by the time my kitchen is finished, those reruns of The Jetsons will look like they're set in the past.

A few hours ago, I posted a rerun of an old article from this site, then just realized I'd re-posted that one not along ago. So I took it down and here's one I haven't repeated. It's from 2/25/09, which should be long enough ago for some of you to forget it. Heck, most of you have probably forgotten what I posted yesterday.

A number of folks have written to thank me for my advice re: the fine new movie, Coraline. That advice was to rush to see it and, better still, avoid reading notices or watching previews of it. This does not just apply to Coraline. Frankly, the relentless promotion of some movies these days has damaged the whole film-watching experience for me. Time and again, I find myself in this situation: Some new movie I might like to see is about to come out…and by the time I could see it, I've seen it.

So many clips on talk shows. So many plot summaries and dialogue quotations in reviews. I try to avoid those ubiquitous "first look" and "The Making of…" featurettes on cable TV but that ain't easy. A few years ago at a party, I found myself in the midst of a discussion about the first Spider-Man movie, which I have never watched in a theater or on a DVD or on cable. But I'd seen enough of it in promos that I held my own in the chat with what I thought were folks who'd all seen the film. At the end, when I mentioned I hadn't, several others admitted as much. Twelve people had all discussed the strengths and weaknesses of a movie, only eight of us had sat through it and no one thought that was odd. Moviegoing has become that kind of experience. Actually going to the movie is only a part of it.

One of the joys of Coraline for me was sitting there, not knowing where it was going, being surprised at many a turn. More often watching a movie, I find myself sitting there thinking, "Oh, I see…we're leading towards that scene that the star showed two night ago on Leno." This is not so much a matter of Spoilers as it is of experiencing a film out of sequence.

I remember some wonderful moviegoing adventures where it really helped that I didn't know what was coming. I saw Blazing Saddles the night it opened. If I'd waited two weeks, I would have seen 70% of it via Mel Brooks talk show appearances but that evening at the Avco Embassy, every joke came as a total surprise, including the part where the characters run right out of the movie. (It also helped that night that Mr. Brooks was in the house. Before Blazing Saddles started, they were running a commercial for the L.A. Times and you heard this familar voice yell out from the back of the theater, "Get this shit off and show my movie!")

I saw Network at the Writers Guild Theater a good six weeks before it hit regular cinemas. The place was packed and no one knew one thing about it other than it was Paddy Chayefsky taking a shot at television. By the day it opened, half of America was screaming "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," having seen it in the promos and clips. It was a lot more effective to not know what was coming. (I was sitting next to Ray Bradbury when I saw it. When the film ended, he looked around the hall and said, "There isn't a person in this theater who isn't wishing he'd written that.")

This matters more with some movies that others. I kinda knew how Frost/Nixon ended before I saw it so seeing clips beforehand didn't particularly diminish the experience. But there have been a number of movies lately I didn't bother to see…because I'd already sorta seen them.

Here's a short item that I posted here on 1/4/2003…

So I have to stop in at the drugstore and pick up something.  This is last evening.  I'm heading into the store when a kid — maybe 16, maybe older — stops me and says, "Excuse me, sir.  If I give you the money, would you buy some Miller's High Life for me?"  Reminds me of the scene in American Graffiti where the kid with the glasses is outside the liquor shop, trying to score some Sneaky Pete for his date to chug.  I tell the kid outside my friendly neighborhood pharmacy, "Sorry."  What I don't tell him is that I've never even bought beer for myself. I'm certainly not about to buy any for a minor.

I find the item I want and take it to the checker.  Ahead of me in line, a guy is buying a six-pack of Miller High Life.  He's around 40 and wearing a dark blue pea coat.  I think to myself, "Ah, I see the kid outside is going to get his beer."

I pay for my item, walk outside and find that two plainclothes police officers are arresting the guy in the pea coat.  The kid who asked me to buy him beer is looking on, an obvious confederate of the policemen.  Entrapment?  Or strict enforcement of liquor laws?  I don't know which, but it would be kind of comforting to think the police didn't have anything better to do than this.

I think I need to clarify something. Back in this message, I was talking about the great villain Darkseid, created of course by Jack Kirby. The actor Jack Palance had just passed away and I wrote…

The style and substance of this master antagonist [Darkseid] were based on just about every power-mad tyrant Kirby had ever met or observed, with a special emphasis on Richard Milhous Nixon. Nixon was kind of the monster du jour for many in 1970 and he's still a fine template for various forms of villainy.

Beyond that kind of thing, it is not uncommon for comic artists to "cast" their creations, using someone they know or have observed as reference, and Kirby used Jack Palance as a model for Darkseid. I don't mean that he thought the other Jack had ever tried to enslave the universe…but Kirby had been impressed by one or more Palance screen appearances. They inspired some aspect of Darkseid…a look, a posture, a gesture, whatever. Most of all, it was probably a voice. When J.K. wrote dialogue for his comic book evildoer, he was "hearing" Palance in some film.

As I browse the 'net, I discover that this is being cited as "Mark Evanier says Jack Kirby based Darkseid's appearance on Jack Palance." Well, not exactly. Maybe I could have been more precise but it was more a matter of something about Palance's style and probably his voice that informed the character, not particularly his face.

Also, I should have said this: I don't think Jack ever based any character wholly on anyone, even those that might seem obvious. I remember at least three people we discussed who went into Funky Flashman. With Kirby, it was always an amalgam and sometimes, the reference points — while significant to Jack — would be quite invisible to anyone else. For example, the visual for the character of Big Barda was inspired by a Playboy layout of singer-actress Lainie Kazan…but that doesn't mean Jack was drawing Lainie Kazan. And the essence of Barda's personality clearly came from others, especially his wife Roz.

Do yourself a favor: Don't get too deep into trying to figure out that Jack based this character on that movie star. This is never a question with a simple answer and never just about the visual. He took elements of certain characters from certain performances by actors or from historical figures based on their deeds. Unless it was something like drawing Richard Nixon or Don Rickles into a story as themselves, the characters were all amalgams and they were points of inspiration, not models.

And while I'm at it: I keep seeing folks saying that Jack based the character of Granny Goodness on comedienne Phyllis Diller. I don't think so. He might have said that later as a joke…or if some enthusiastic fan came up to Jack at a convention and said, "I think I realized something, Mr. Kirby! You based Granny Goodness on Phyllis Diller, right?", Jack might well have said, "You figured it out," rather than disappoint the kid.

But I was working for Jack at the time and we talked a lot about Granny and I never heard him mention Phyllis Diller, nor did she ever play the kind of heartless villain Jack thought Granny Goodness was. I have a vague recollection that he did mention Shelley Winters and maybe even have a photo of her around…but that doesn't mean he based the whole character on her, either. At most, her performance or image in some role would be just one component.

Here's a rerun from 4/27/05. I no longer get these odd calls. I just get a steady stream from contractors who want to fix my house, people who want to sell me solar panels, agencies that know I'm about to turn 65 and want to sell me supplemental Medicare plans, and recorded people who want to give me free vacations or sell me a back brace…

A few years ago, I had a flurry of odd calls at my home. The phone would ring on one of my many incoming lines, I'd answer it and I'd hear a woman's voice say, "Oh, sorry. I have the wrong number." And then the party on the other end would hang up…only the party seemed to be a computer of some sort. The woman's voice was recorded.

I theorized that this was some sort of "fishing" expedition on the part of some firm that was compiling phone numbers to sell to someone. Perhaps they were looking for phone numbers that would be answered by fax machines. Perhaps they were trying to separate data lines from voice lines…something like that. But obviously, the mere fact that I answered the phone gave them whatever information they were seeking.

Recently, I have begun getting odd text messages on my cellphone. First off, it's odd that I'm getting text messages at all since only a few people have my cellphone number and none of them are set up to send a text message. But these communications come in every day or two, usually in the evening, and they say things like, "Going to bed. I love u" and "Cannot do lunch tomorrow. I love u." They are not from anyone I know.

The text messages are accompanied by the sender's phone number. I tried voice-dialing that number but it goes to a modem/data line, which is even odder. In theory, it should go to someone's cell phone. I thought of sending a text message back but the modem line thing made me suspect it might be a scam to locate cellphone numbers that are set up to receive text messages. I'm afraid that if I write back, I will validate my number and it'll be sold to hundreds of companies that will send me text messages offering to refinance my home or enlarge my breasts or enlarge my home or refinance my breasts or something. I'm assuming that if some real human being is text-messaging their loved one at the wrong number, they'll find out about it soon enough.

It reminds me of a time about 15 years ago when some guy kept phoning my house and asking for Donna. I did know a Donna then, but she wasn't here and I quickly determined that the caller was passionately in love with, and desperate to talk to some Donna I did not know. Something had gone wrong between them and he was certain that if he could just talk to his Donna, they could straighten it all out and get back together and eventually marry and have kids, etc.

At first, he called over and over, refusing to believe that he had the wrong number. He was certain I was lying to him and that his Donna was in the next room, avoiding him. I thought of saying something like, "Yeah, she's here but she's in the pool having sex with a bunch of accountants," but he sounded so serious, I was afraid he'd open his wrists.

I finally convinced him he really and truly had the wrong number, and he read me the number he thought he was dialing. It was one crucial digit different from mine. He apologized and hung up to dial the correct number…and sure enough, he got me again. This happened three or four more times in a row, like he was accidentally dialing not only the wrong number each time but, oddly, the same wrong number.

Finally, I told him something was probably wrong with his phone dial. The two was registering as a three. He said, "No, it's this damned faulty redial button. Every time I push it, I get you."

Donna was smart to get out when she did.

This is a rerun from 2/14/02. It's one of those things that still amazes me I didn't notice it sooner…

It's funny how something can be staring you right in the face for years and years…and suddenly, one day, you notice that which you should have noticed long before.  It's been there all along but somehow, you just didn't notice it.  If you click on the illo above, you'll see a reproduction of the front of Fantastic Four #7, published by the then-blossoming Marvel Comics Group way back in 1962.  It has an interesting but not spectacular cover which I'd looked at dozens of times over the years without spotting that which I recently spotted.  Actually, there are several interesting things about this cover.

One is that, a week or three ago, my friend Will Murray pointed out to me — and I concurred with — his theory that Jack Kirby actually inked this cover.  Jack almost never inked at Marvel and a few weeks ago, if you'd asked me if he'd ever inked any Fantastic Four covers, I'd have said, "Certainly not."  But this one sure looks like it was.  Joe Sinnott inked the insides of #5 and was supposed to be the regular embellisher thereafter but, a page or two into #6, he suddenly found himself buried in deadlines and he turned the issue back.  Dick Ayers finished #6 and took over from there on.  Apparently, in the shuffle, it was necessary to have someone else ink this cover and Jack wound up doing it.  (As a general rule of thumb, the cover to an issue was finished around the same time as the insides of the previous issue.)

Will further notes that this cover probably also shows us the way Jack "saw" The Thing at the time — the way he was pencilling ol' Ben Grimm.  The odd texture of the character's epidermis changed a lot as different artists inked Kirby's pencils, though they all seem to have made him less claylike and more segmented than Jack intended.  Eventually though — and perhaps to some extent because of the inkers — Jack began to pencil the character less claylike and more segmented.

But neither of these is as interesting to me as this:  All those of you who ever met Jack, take a close look at the drawing of Mr. Fantastic.  Stare at it for a few seconds.  I did…and I was amazed that I'd never before noticed how much the character looks like Jack — especially, Jack as he must have looked around 1962.  In fact, the more I looked at it, the more it looked like him.  (I met Kirby in '69 so perhaps it looks more like him to me than it does to those of you who met him later, or only saw later photos.)  I always knew he drew himself into most of his stories — emotionally, if not visually — and, of course, there are blatant autobiographical elements to The Thing, Nick Fury and any other character who was ever caught puffing on a cigar.  It was no secret that Jack identified with most of his recurring heroes but I suddenly found myself saying, "My God…how could I never have noticed before how much Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards looks like Jack?"  And now that I've made that connection, I doubt I'll ever be able to shake it.

On 12/08/02, I posted this here about the second host of The Tonight Show, Jack Paar…

Jack Paar was a nervous, superstitious gent and when he was working at NBC, he usually declined to ride the elevators at Rockefeller Center. Instead, he would reach his office each morning by an intricate series of stairwells and shortcuts. His route took him through the usually-deserted Studio 6B where later that evening, he would do The Tonight Show.

One day, Paar arrived at the studio much earlier than usual and, when he walked into 6B, he found himself walking onto a live (live!) broadcast of the game show, Play Your Hunch.

The studio audience went berserk and Paar, finding himself unexpectedly on live TV, attempted to flee. But the show's host, Merv Griffin, ran over and got a vise-grip on the bewildered star's arm to keep him there so he could conduct a brief, funny interview. Paar swore he had no idea that his studio was being used by another program each morning. "So this is what you do in the daytime," Paar quipped to Griffin, who had occasionally sung on The Tonight Show.

Later, Paar admitted he was impressed with how Griffin had "milked" the accident for its maximum entertainment value by keeping him there. He gave Merv a shot guest-hosting The Tonight Show and when that went well, it led to Griffin becoming a candidate to succeed Paar. When Johnny Carson got the job instead, NBC signed Griffin to do an afternoon talk show which debuted the same day. It was their way of keeping Merv "on deck" in case Johnny bombed — which, of course, didn't happen. Griffin went on to host his own long-running talk show in syndication and also became a producer of hit game shows.

Around the peak of his success, Griffin was asked to reflect. He said, "If Jack Paar hadn't been afraid of elevators, I'd be hosting shows like Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy! instead of owning them."

I thought it might be interesting to repost this item which ran here on June 30, 2003. I'll save you doing the math. That was 13 years, 6 months, 4 days ago. In it, as you can see, I note that people are always calling for Constitutional Amendments…and then nothing happens. They say we absolutely must have it and then they do nothing or almost nothing about it.

I would guess that in the 13 years, 6 months, 4 days since I posted this, there have been many thousands of calls for Constitutional Amendments that someone feels are desperately, vitally necessary…and not a one of them has moved an inch towards being voted upon, let alone adopted.

Dr. Frist, by the way, left the Senate in 2007. Though he had been one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress, he said that as a doctor, he would have voted in favor of the Affordable Care Act. One can only speculate what his support for it might have meant had he still been in the G.O.P. leadership. Anyway, here's what I wrote back then…

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist wants a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Has anyone ever calculated the follow-through rate when prominent politicos call for a Constitutional amendment? I doubt it…but I'm guessing it's well under a thousandth of a percent.

Quick: When was the last time a move to amend the Constitution went the distance and actually occurred? Answer: 1992. And that was a provision with no opposition whatsoever — a technicality about Congressional paychecks.

Before that, the last amendment that actually was passed was to lower the voting age to 18, back in 1971. I recall very little opposition to that one. And before that, it was another uncontested, no-opposition change about presidential succession in 1967.

It's been close to 40 years in this country since we've passed a Constitutional amendment that had more than token opposition. But every week, when some Supreme Court decision or act of Congress doesn't go their way, someone's on Meet the Press, saying we need and will pass a Constitutional amendment undoing that loss.

I doubt even Dr. Frist thinks we'll ever see an amendment like he describes. He just thinks it's good politics to say that. It makes his supporters think the battle is not over and that if they keep throwing campaign contributions and efforts at Frist and his party, something will happen. But since that amendment is never going anywhere, it won't do much to energize the opposition.

This ran here on October 12, 2005. I think it's self-explanatory…

I promised a week or two ago to post more about "official" comic book fan clubs but then I got distracted by a bevy of great comic actors dying on us. There will be several more posts beyond this one about the Merry Marvel Marching Society, which Marvel Comics threw at us around the close of 1964. For a buck, you got a membership card (seen here), a button, a welcome letter, some stickers, a button, a memo pad and — best of all — the "Voices of Marvel" plastic record in which Stan Lee and most of those then creating Marvel Comics welcomed you to the club. I'll write about the rest of the kit later but that record was and still is wonderful. One of the first times I interviewed Jack Kirby, I asked him about it…

ME: That record seems so weird. Was it recorded in the office like it sounds?

KIRBY: No, it was in a recording studio. We rehearsed in the office. Stan treated it like he was producing the Academy Awards. He had this script he'd written. He'd written it and rewritten it and rewritten it and as we were recording it, he kept rewriting it. We all went into the office, more people than there was room for. When you weren't rehearsing your part, you had to go out in the hall and wait. No work was done that day on comics. It was all about the record. We rehearsed all morning. We were supposed to go to lunch and then over to the recording studio, which was over on 55th Street or 56th. I forget where it was. But when lunchtime came, Stan said, "No, no, we're not ready," so most of us skipped lunch and stayed there to rehearse more. Then we took cabs over to the recording studio and we were supposed to be in and out in an hour or two but we were there well into the evening. I don't know how many takes we did.

ME: On the record, Steve Ditko isn't heard. They say he slipped out the window. I assume he just refused to be part of it.

KIRBY: Steve was much smarter than we were about those things.

ME: Have you listened to the record lately?

KIRBY: No, and if you try and play it for me, you'll be out the window with Ditko.

It was quite a relic of that era in comics. In 1967, they put out a "new, improved" Merry Marvel Marching Society kit with a different pin and a different membership card and other different items…and a different record. This one, alas, didn't feature more Abbott/Costello banter betwixt Lee and Kirby. It just had the theme songs — opening and closing — from the Marvel Super Heroes TV cartoon show that had recently debuted.

As you may have guessed by now, we're going to let you hear both of these classic recordings. Marvelite Maximus Doug Pratt has transferred them to MP3s and he says it's okay if I post links for you all. You can hear the "Voices of Marvel" recording by clicking here…

And you can hear the second record (entitled "Scream Along With Marvel") by clicking here…

I may be kinda busy the next few days — too busy to write any long posts — but here's a replay of one I wrote on 11/13/2004 following that year's presidential election and results which caused a lotta folks to wonder if the right ticket had won. Draw whatever parallels to our current situation that you may like. (By the way: Michael Badnarik was that year's candidate of the Libertarian Party. I didn't remember him either and had to look him up.)

It's hard to get on a political website this week without confronting the question of whether our recent presidential election was fixed. This is a shame because it largely overwhelms what is probably a more valid, fixable issue, which is whether our recent presidential election was run with all possible competence. It may well be that no one tried to rig the vote in any way but that there were still a lot of errors committed and undependable machines employed, and that the people responsible need to be slapped around a little and forced to correct things.

Unfortunately, Americans don't seem to get mad about the possibility that votes were lost or miscounted unless they think it caused their side to lose an election. After the mess of 2000, I can't recall a single prominent Republican expressing outrage that the machines yielded such arguable results, that voters were wrongly purged from the voting rolls, that ballots were confusing, etc. Some quietly urged a reform of the system, if only so that their side wouldn't get accused of cheating the next time…but there was no public outrage from the winners, and the losers were too busy charging fraud to deal with what may have been simple ineptness.

If principle trumped partisanship, both sides would have been equally incensed…and probably about errors, not rigging. Most of the improvements that were put in place seem to have been a matter of local officials knowing they could not defend their voting machines and procedures and not wishing to become "the next Florida." In some cases, it would seem they replaced old, unreliable systems with newer, unreliable systems…and that the appeal of paperless voting machines is not that they're easier to rig but that it's more difficult to prove if they're just plain wrong.

My hunch is that the recent election was not stolen but that there were an awful lot of irregularities that should not have occurred. My further hunch is that if angry Democrats were to shut up about the vote now, there would be a lot less impetus to fix those irregularities.

I know this was not likely but I kinda wish John Kerry's concession speech had instead said something like this…

It now appears that when all the ballots are counted, we will not have enough electoral votes to win the presidency…however, Senator Edwards and I have decided that it is not in the best interest of this country that we concede at this time. We have dozens of reports of questionable vote counts, of precincts that logged more votes than they have registered voters, and of provisional and absentee ballots that have not even been opened. Many of these are in states where they cannot possibly affect whether the state's electoral votes go to us or to the President…but that doesn't matter. Most of these are probably innocent, explainable errors…but that doesn't matter, either. Every American has the right to have his or her vote counted, and to have it counted accurately and given the same respect as any other vote.

We do not expect the result of this election to change but in the hope of changing how votes are recorded and counted in the future, we have decided not to concede until we are satisfied that every vote — whether it is for us, the President, Ralph Nader, Michael Badnarik or Daffy Duck — has been counted, and counted properly. If you are upset that this delays the resolution of this election, I'm sorry. Please direct your outrage to the people who are paid to count the votes accurately and, in some cases, have not done this.

There would have been howls of anger and charges of "sore loser," I'm sure. But I think most of America would have respected it, and it might have done some good. In this day and time, there's no excuse for a vote count the losers can't accept just as readily as the winners.

I posted this just before Thanksgiving of 2003…

Having recently done a big "Bah, Humbug!" to Halloween, we now turn our attention to Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is no great deal to me, and really hasn't been since about the time I got out of school and it no longer yielded a four-day weekend. When you're self-employed, you're like the atheist who is dismayed at the lack of holidays in his life. We work when we have to work and taking four days off just puts us four days behind. Then there is this matter of parades. Once upon a time, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was a joy carried on both CBS and NBC.

One year, one channel was almost exactly a half-hour ahead of the other so if I saw a float I liked on NBC at 8:42 AM, I'd make a note and switch over to see it again on CBS at 9:12. The parade was festive and colorful and if it was freezing in New York, as it usually seemed to be on Thanksgiving Day, I could sit in sunny Los Angeles and watch other people shiver and exhale visible breath. But the last few times I tuned in to the Macy's festivities, they were only on one channel, they were truncated down to supposed highlights, and what was there was pretty much a marching infomercial for upcoming movies and TV shows, toy promotions and videogames. I suppose there was always some of that but it had gotten too prevalent and pushy for me to enjoy.

So what's left to love about Thanksgiving? Well, big family gatherings to eat turkey were fun in their way, but most of my family has passed away and when what's left gathers, it only reminds us of lost loved ones. Plus, eating turkey is no big deal. Since I cut way back on red meat, I dine on turkey two or three times a week, and I'm not the only one. Year-round turkey consumption in America is way up. Lately in the market, you find it in all sorts of forms — burgers and filets and ground turkey and turkey meatballs. Someone has even brought out a turkey-and-gravy soda. If they could figure out a way to get a potato and some carrots in there, they'd have almost everything I eat in one bottle. And everything I like about Thanksgiving.

Here's a replay of a post from October 25, 2008 which might be relevant today…

Last evening, I was napping — or rather, trying to nap — when I heard someone pounding on my door. Turned out, it was a McCain volunteer working the neighborhood, trying to convince folks to save the world from the inexperienced commie-terrorist on the ballot.

We have a simple policy here at Casa Evanier: We don't buy anything from or give any money to anyone who comes to the door that way. Ever. If you were going door-to-door handing out free hundred dollar bills, we'd slam said door in your face. Especially unwelcome are those who think a brief porch visit will prompt me to change my religion…and the McCain worker was perilously close to that category.

Still, she seemed like a nice, sincere person…nice enough that instead of scolding her for waking me up or mocking her for thinking she could possibly make one bit of difference, I talked to her for a few minutes. She admitted that California was a lost cause and even told me that she'd been ringing doorbells all day and didn't think she'd flipped one voter from blue to red. The few positive notes had come from other McCain backers thanking her and encouraging her…but also, she told me, declining to donate cash to a lost cause. I did say to her, "John McCain has written off this state. Don't you think it's about time you did, too?" (For some reason, possibly because I was still half-asleep, I forgot to tell her that I'd already voted. As bad as the odds of her convincing me seemed at the moment, they were actually worse.)

One of two things she said that made an impression on me came when she admitted her efforts wouldn't change the outcome but explained, "I just couldn't sit and do nothing." In other words, she was standing on my welcome mat, not so much for the nation's benefit as her own…and y'know, I could almost respect that. She's not going to swing California's 55 electoral votes over to the McCain column but she might make herself feel a little better for having tried. In a like situation, I think I'd feel like I was compounding the loss, adding a colossal waste of time (mine and others') to all the other bad things I believed to be occurring. But obviously, she and I do not see the world in much the same way.

The other lingering impression was not something she said so much as the urgency in her voice. She's scared…scared Obama might be a secret Muslim and/or radical who'll destroy America with a socialist agenda. (I said, "Yeah, he might even start partially nationalizing banks," but she didn't hear me or didn't get it.) On the one hand, I think the current McCain-Palin crusade to make people feel as she does is great — great because it isn't working. Every day, their campaign demonizes Obama by another notch and every day, another state that formerly seemed bright red moves to pink or even light blue. On the other hand, it's a shame to scare people like that. They panic, they get ulcers, they divide our country and spread apocalyptic visions of the future…and worst of all, they knock on my door and wake me up when I'm trying to sleep. That kind of thing — the waking-me-up part — has got to stop.

We did this back in 2008 and it was fun and I don't know why I didn't do it in 2012. We're going to have a contest to predict the outcome of the presidential race next week! The prize will be absolutely nothing but you'll be congratulated on this blog and that's worth a couple of Trump Steaks.

How many electoral votes will Hillary Clinton receive? Take your best guess, put the number down as the subject in an e-mail and send it to…

• vote2016@newsfromme.com.

I'm obviously presuming Secretary Clinton has this in the ag-bay but if you think Trump's going to win, you can still play. Just send in a guess for Hillary below 270.

Only numerical guesses in the subject line will be counted. You can leave the body of the message blank except give me the name you want me to announce as the winner if it's not your handle. I may or may not announce some runners-up but you just never know what I'm going to do.

You can enter as many times as you want but only one guess per e-mail and only your last e-mail will be counted. So if you send a guess on Friday and you change your mind later and send another one on Sunday, only your Sunday guess will count. All entries must be in our special e-mailbox by 1:00 AM (Pacific Time) on Tuesday morning, November 8. The winner will be the earliest vote received with the correct total…or the closest guess if no one hits it on the button.

I will declare a winner whenever I think the final electoral total is official and unlikely to change. This may not correspond to when Donald J. Trump thinks that.

Since it's my contest, I get to go first. My guess is 350.

Someone wrote to ask me about this post, which was placed here on 3/25/07 and I figured I might as well rerun it here…

So about forty minutes ago, I'm in my friendly neighborhood CVS Pharmacy and a lady shopper comes up to me. She says her "favorite actor in the whole world" is over in the next aisle…and I guess she's so excited about it that she has to tell someone. So she tells me and naturally, I ask, "And who might that be?"

She says, "John Candy," and my immediate thought is just what yours would be in this situation: "I don't think so." As I'm thinking that, she's telling me how much she loved him in Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

Let's leave aside the question of how someone could be your "favorite actor in the whole world" and yet you're unaware they died thirteen years ago. Let's just focus on what I should do. Should I tell this young woman (she's about forty, I'd guess) that she didn't just spot John Candy in the Toothpaste Section, across from where they sell the Just For Men hair color? Or should I let her keep her little fantasy of having seen her fave in person? She'll probably find out one of these days…but is it my business to shatter her happiness?

Just then, she points to a gap in the aisles and says, "There he is," and I can see the person she thinks is John Candy. There, wearing a green t-shirt and shorts, is Andy Richter. "Do you think it would be okay if I went up to him and asked for an autograph?" she asks me.

I think to myself, "Hmm…I wonder if Andy Richter would enjoy being mistaken for John Candy. He might get a great anecdote out of it, one he could tell on his next talk show appearance. Or he might just feel insulted…I don't know." I decide to save the lady the embarrassment and I break it to her, as kindly as I can, that John Candy passed away some time ago.

She asks me, "Are you sure?"

I tell her I'm sure.

She turns and walks off, looking very sad indeed. I don't know if she's sad just because her "favorite actor in the whole world" is dead or if she's sad because she feels humiliated by her mistake. Either way, it sure doesn't feel like I've done this woman a favor. I should have let her go up and tell Andy Richter how good he was in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. If he was insulted, too bad. He could handle it.