Category Archives: Uncategorized

Last night, I linked to a blog entry about an encounter between Jerry Lewis and some protesters. Rogers Cadenhead digs a little deeper into the matter.

I don't know where the tradition started but a lot of weblogs can't let a Friday pass without hurling a cat picture at you. I took this one about a week ago in my backyard. We have two stray cats who are nearly identical except that one is not shy about demanding to be fed and the other is very timid. So the gutsy cat howls until I fill the dish with Friskies, eats some and then turns the bowl over to the timid cat. It is highly unlikely I will ever get a photo of both of them together so you'll have to settle for some pics of the bold one. I'll post another next Friday if I remember. Then maybe you'll see this cat's lovely face.

I am told by my secret spies that the just-taped Tonight Show — the one that airs this evening — is quite wonderful with Jerry Seinfeld delivering a very strong stand-up spot on weddings. Also on the bill is the great Shelley Berman. You might want to set the TiVo. And if you don't have a TiVo, you might want to run out, buy one and set it.

One other thought just popped into the airy open space of my mind, and I thought I'd throw it out here in case anyone else wants to ponder it. The Bush Administration is currently wrestling with two related scandals. One is the whole matter of who leaked the CIA status of Valerie Plame Wilson. The other is the question of whether the White House hyped, manipulated, lied or otherwise misrepresented intelligence on behalf of their Iraq war plans. Both scandals may ultimately have innocent resolutions but at the moment, they're crippling the administration's ability to make the case for "staying the course" in Iraq.

Bush isn't doing press conferences because, among other questions he'd rather avoid, he doesn't want to be asked if in light of recent revelations, he's going to make good on earlier pledges to dismiss anyone — Karl Rove, say — who was involved in the outing of Ms. Plame. Cheney doesn't want to be asked if he told Scooter Libby or Bob Woodward or anyone else. Neither prez nor veep wants to have reporters throw some earlier quotes at them to defend, like Cheney's line about Saddam reconstituing his nuclear weapons program. Two years ago, newsfolks didn't press such matters. Today, some would.

If there's a case to be made for continuing the current course in Iraq, it's not being made in the most effective manner, which would be Bush or Cheney fielding questions in a real give-and-take venue. They can't do that because of all these questions they don't wish to face. And when they make speeches about Iraq, as both have lately, the headlines and sound bites are all about their defense of pre-war intelligence handling and their attacks on their critics. Nothing about why pressing on in Iraq is a good idea.

If anyone can point me to a good article that does make the case, I'd like to read and link to it. I don't buy the argument that we have to press on because we'll look like Surrender Monkeys if we pull out. (If you buy that premise, there's no such thing as a war plan we shouldn't see through to its conclusion, no matter what it costs us.) I don't buy that Democracy is imminent in Iraq and that it's worth any amount of American lives and dollars to see that happen. I especially don't buy that it will dishonor those who have fallen to change the plan that's getting their fellow soldiers killed. But I suspect there is a better case for Bush's approach than we've been getting lately and I'd like to hear what it is.

End of political ramblings for now. The next five postings, whatever they turn out to be, will all be about show business and comic books and raccoons in my yard. You know…the stuff that really matters.

This morning, Congressguy John Murtha (D-PA) gave an emotional speech in which he called for the immediate pullout of U.S. troops in Iraq. Murtha is a Democrat but he's also a highly-decorated veteran with a history of supporting U.S. military action, so his position is not something that can be dismissed lightly. If nothing else, he provides a certain amount of moral cover for those who've backed the war in the past and wish to quietly move away from that position. Here's a link to the text of what he said and here's a link to a partial video.

Yesterday, I posted here that I thought the Bush strategy on how to defend itself against charges of lying was not an effective one. For some reason, about a dozen correspondents read that piece as if I'd written, "We must surrender in Iraq and admit we were wrong to ever think that Saddam Hussein had to go." I don't believe any part of that. Truth to tell, I don't know what to do about Iraq and we should all be glad I don't have to decide. I just think what's going on there now is a disaster with no light at the end of any proverbial tunnel and that we have to do something other than what we're doing. That a guy like Murtha thinks we oughta withdraw (a.s.a.p.) is worthy of attention. It hasn't completely convinced me but I'll bet it'll convince another 1-2% of the American people. And that, in turn, will convince a few more members of Congress who are up for re-election next year.

The other day, I put up a birthday salute to Jonathan Winters. A number of people have written or told me that when they saw it, their first thought was, "Oh, no! Jonathan Winters died!" Sorry that you jumped to that conclusion and, yes, I know this site does run a lot of obits. I guess I need to acknowledge the living more often. Either that or title such pieces something like, "Jonathan Winters Still Alive!"

Which reminds me: I'm way overdue to check in and see if Abe Vigoda is still alive…

Yep. Abe's still hanging in there. If you view your Internet through the browser called Foxfire, it is possible to download an extension (add-on) that will monitor Mr. Vigoda's status.

A couple of folks have written to ask when I'll post some stories about TV producer-host Ralph Edwards, who passed away the other day at the age of either 91 or 92, depending on which obit you read. None come to mind at the moment beyond what I posted last year in this article. I only met Mr. Edwards once and all we talked about was the memorable time Laurel and Hardy appeared, quite against their will, on his show, This Is Your Life. It still ranks as one of the great uncomfortable half-hours in television history. If I think of anything else worth posting, it'll be up here.

Every few days, someone writes to ask if I still have a parade of cats, possums and raccoons coming to my back door every night. So here's a photo taken less than fifteen minutes ago. I'm told that a possum living in the city rarely has a life span of over eighteen months so this handsome fellow could be the great-great-great-great-grandson of the first critters I spotted out there nibbling on the cat food.

And now, I must get back to work. I have a lot of mouths to feed.

Jerry Lewis has a bad evening. It's all reported by Will Pfeifer over on his weblog.

Here's an example of why Keith Olbermann has become my favorite TV newsguy. You've probably all read about the revelation today that some senior official in the Bush administration "outed" Valerie Plame Wilson to super-reporter Bob Woodward before the time that Lewis "Scooter" Libby is alleged to have told another reporter about her. Almost all the news sources out there are quoting Libby's lawyer as saying…

[Woodward's] disclosure shows that Mr. Fitzgerald's statement at his press conference of October 28, 2005 that Mr. Libby was the first government official to tell a reporter about Mr. Wilson's wife was totally inaccurate.

Which would make Fitzgerald wrong if he'd actually said that. On the Countdown show today on MSNBC, Olbermann played the actual tape of Fitzgerald's statement at that press conference. And what Fitzgerald said was…

Mr. Libby was the first government official known to have told a reporter about Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife.

Not exactly the same thing. And this is the kind of thing reporters ought to catch. Every time anyone in the news misquotes someone or twists provable facts, the press ought to point that out instead of just letting it pass. Too many newspeople have just gotten into the habit of letting everyone have their say and not holding it to any standard of accuracy. That's not covering the news. It's just turning over your cameras and microphones to the newsmakers.

Dick Cheney, whose approval rating is two points below cold sores (but still a full point ahead of groin pulls) has joined the "If we were wrong, so was everyone else" crusade.

My thinking on this whole issue seems to be evolving to the following rule. I think we should get rid of everyone in government who thought Saddam Hussein possessed serious Weapons of Mass Destruction and either had a nuclear weapon or was close to getting one. Maybe these government officials were duplicitious. Maybe they were just gullible. I don't want either kind in any position of power.

There would be one exception to this. That would be if that government official can say "I was deceived" and — and this next part is crucial — is taking whatever steps they can to ferret out the deceivers and take the appropriate action against them.

Back in the Wacky World of Watergate, there was something Nixon did — or rather, that he didn't do — that caused a lot of people to think he was guilty of something. What he didn't do was to get mad at those who had broken the law. He complained a lot about the press and about the Democrats, both of whom wanted to get to the bottom of who'd dunnit. But he never pounded on the desk and yelled, "Damn it! This is the Law and Order Administration and we're going to find out who authorized these break-ins and no matter who they are, they're doing hard time for it!" In the same vein, a lot of people decided O.J. Simpson was guilty of that double murder because he only spoke (and rather unemotionally) about "finding the real killers" — and then only as a means of clearing his own name. He didn't shout, "I'm going to find the bastard who killed the mother of my children and make him pay for his sick crime!"

The current White House line seems to be admitting — or coming darn close to admitting — that the administration acted on bad intelligence. Okay, I think we all know that by now. I might be willing to believe that the Bush crew had no hand in the doctoring or slanting of that intelligence if I saw somebody high up in that crowd saying, "The President of the United States cannot conduct a war based on faulty information. We're going to find the people responsible for this, fire them and maybe prosecute them." Until they do, a lot of people (including myself) are going to believe that they don't do that because they know such an investigation would uncover massive fraud and/or incompetence where they don't want it uncovered.

I'm guessing that by Thanksgiving Day, Cheney will be a point below groin pulls…and giving leprosy a run for its money.

The Writers Guild, of which I am a 30 year member, is taking on the issue of Product Placement in movies and TV shows. This is not a new practice. It dates back at least to the 1949 Marx Brothers movie, Love Happy. Assuming you made it to the end of that gobbler, you may remember a chase scene near the end involving illuminated advertising signs. Legend has it that they were there because the producers were short of completion bucks. As the story is told, they sold plugs in the movie they wouldn't have been able to otherwise finish. There must be earlier examples.

The Guild has whipped up what they're calling a "white paper" on the practice to provide an overview. This page has a list of links to articles about it and here's a link to a PDF file of the white paper. And I don't know how effective it'll be in calling attention to the problem but they've also put up a webpage called Product Invasion where you can give commands to a subservient Donald Trump. Give it a try. It's pretty funny.

I just made a wrong turn at the Washington Post website and discovered Sudoku puzzles. If you're looking for a way to get nothing done for the next few hours, go try one. But don't come whining to me about how addictive they are.

Fred Kaplan is as mystified as I am about George W. Bush's new excuse about the pre-war intelligence.

That Penn and Teller special last night reminded me of some ongoing debates within the magic community having to do with ethics and misrepresentation. When a magician tells you that no camera tricks were employed in the taping of his show, that's supposed to mean that no camera tricks were used. But that same magician also told you that he put the three of diamonds in his pocket and he didn't. A lot of magic involves lying and getting you to think the trunk is empty when, in fact, the trunk contains three geese and two showgirls. Some in the magic biz have argued and continue to argue over which misrepresentations constitute lying and which are just acceptable parts of a trick.

Any magician on TV will tell you that no camera effects are used and that what you're seeing at home is exactly what you'd see if you were there live. But of course, there's plenty of wiggle room in that claim. All these shows are edited, especially when they do the big tricks. It really took thirty minutes to "vanish" the jumbo jet or the Empire State Building or whatever they made disappear. It may even have required two or three takes. All this is chopped down to five minutes and you are, in one sense, seeing just what you'd see if you were there. You just aren't seeing all of it because that would make the trick seem less spectacular and maybe even boring.

Is that a camera trick? Maybe.

And while you may be seeing what you'd see if you were there, you're also seeing what you'd see if your attention was as rigidly controlled as the camera's lens is on what they want you to see. If you were there and you looked slightly to the left or right, you'd see exactly how the trick was done. What makes it work is that you can't.

Another camera trick? You might say that.

Magicians, live and on TV, will often tell you that no confederates or audience "plants" are employed and sometimes, that's true. But sometimes, it's not. It's a running joke among magicians to wonder aloud how certain magicians can make any money when so much of their audience is on their payroll. Is it lying to bring up someone out of the audience and pretend they're not in on the trick when in fact, they are? Or is it like saying the trunk has no secret doors when it actually does? These are issues that magicians debate. Or should debate.

Throughout most of their special, Penn and Teller got around most questions of honesty by simply showing you how they did everything. Years ago, when a rogue magico was exposing tricks in a series of Fox TV specials, a lot of magicians cursed his name and/or reassured one another that it didn't matter; that the magic of magic was in the performance, not in the secret. With some presentations, it's both but in most cases, it doesn't ruin a trick because you know about the trap door. Heck, with some tricks, you can't fully appreciate how good the magician is or how much skill it takes to do what he's doing unless you know what he's really doing. It sure never ruined my enjoyment of a ventriloquist to be well aware that the dummy's voice was coming from the guy next to him with the quivering lips and forced smile. Penn and Teller are clever enough to do a two-hour magic show, expose all the tricks and still be entertaining.

And then at the end of their special, they pulled a super-reverse gag on the audience and on all of magic. If you didn't see it, let me summarize: The big finale, touted in ads and all through the special, was that they would make a full-size submarine disappear. Which they did. It was on the bottom of a lagoon, surrounded by scuba divers with underwater video cameras…and I guess the implication was that you at home were seeing what you'd see if you were one of those divers.

Penn kept saying over and over, "We're going to tell you how we did it" and just before they showed it, he admonished us that if we wanted to preserve the wonderment, we should close our eyes and look away. I'm guessing less than 1% of the viewership opted not to peek. If you looked, what you saw was this not-too-convincing CGI trick shot of three helicopters flying the submarine away on cables.

Much of America said, "Ah, of course, that's how it was done" but of course, that's not how it was done. (There are a couple ways they could have done it. I'm guessing they used the same method Copperfield used to vanish that airplane in one of his first specials.) Few people probably noticed the special effects footage didn't look all that real. Few people probably noticed that Penn initially described the sub as weighing eight tons and that he later added a syllable and it turned into eighty tons, which may have been a deliberate hint for the terribly-observant. Even the lesser weight would be quite a strain (and balancing act) for three helicopters, to say nothing of the fact that if the idea was just to raise the submarine vertically, it could have done that under its own power. Nothing in the special said that those divers couldn't or didn't look up. Come to think of it, nothing in the special even claimed that none of the divers were confederates who were in on the gag.

It was a great trick but it wasn't the one most viewers thought they were seeing. By showing us how all the earlier tricks were done, Penn and Teller had done what every good confidence man does: Gain our trust. Then once they had that, they tricked the home audience so well, most of it didn't even know it had been tricked.

You see? Even when you think you know how the trick is done, you too can be fooled.

Always fun to wake up in the morning and find out what you got wrong. An avalanche of mail this A.M. (more letters even than want to sell me Viagra) inform me that the special on the first five seasons of Saturday Night Live did come out on DVD. I apparently missed it because I checked on a DVD site by searching for the full name of the show and it was listed only as SNL: The First Five Years. It appears to contain about an hour of material that wasn't on the original telecast so I think I'll order one and take a peek. If you'd like to order one too, here's an Amazon link.