Category Archives: Uncategorized

I've taken to introducing Sergio Aragonés at events as the World's Most Honored Cartoonist. Which he is. He's appearing this Saturday at Book Soup, a fine store up in Hollywood, and there he will be signing copies of his exquisite new book, MAD's Greatest Artists: Sergio Aragonés: Five Decades of His Finest Works. If you're in the L.A. area, you may want to go and buy one. If you're not in L.A. area, Book Soup will sell you a signed copy…but you'd better order fast. Details are over on this page.

Here's an excerpt from another one of those messages from someone who's not making much money as a professional writer and wants some advice. I don't claim my advice is worth more than anyone else's but if you want to heed it, I won't stop you. In the following, I've redacted a long list of projects that the author sees as inarguable dreck. I cut it because the discussion really isn't about those works and because a couple were written by friends of mine…

…the thing that gets to me is that I watch TV and I read comics and I see work being bought that is so obviously inferior to what I do. It wouldn't bother me so much if I thought I was being beaten out by better people but some of the shows today like [LONG LIST DELETED] just stun me. My wife is sick of hearing me screaming at the TV set or throwing down some comic I brought home from the shop. I could cope with the rejection if I felt the contest was fair and that the judges didn't have their heads up their butts. How do you think I should deal with this?

By ignoring it. Really. The field in which you and I are working is a flawed meritocracy. It's all about the best work rising to the top…and sometimes, it does. But we've all seen studio heads greenlight the wrong movie, network programmers buy the wrong series, publishers publish the wrong manuscript, etc. That is never going to change and to get mad at it is like getting mad that your favorite baseball player sometimes strikes out.

Actually, I should back up here and note that when you see, for example, a TV show where the writing seems to suck, you are not seeing the writing the writer did. You're seeing his or her work after it has been through a process…perhaps rewritten by others, certainly interpreted by actors and a director, changed or skewed by many hands. It is entirely possible (in some situations, almost probable) that your wonderful script could endure that process and by the time it hit the air, it would be no better than what you're decrying…and some frustrated writer would see it and his wife would hear him yell about how being rejected when that kind of debris was selected. A writer-friend of mine who left us too soon, Bill Rotsler, used to have a saying that came to mind as I typed the above. It was, "Those who think they are the exceptions are wrong."

But even if rotten work is getting bought, don't let that anger you. In fact, don't let anything in this area anger you. Being mad can be one of the best ways to not get hired. There was a writer I used to run into at Guild functions and committee meetings who couldn't utter two contiguous sentences without one of them being about the crappy show he saw last night and how in the name of all that's holy does that garbage get bought when his brilliance goes unbought and unproduced? Having never read one word he's written, I honestly have no idea if he truly was as good as he seemed to think…but I do know that if I were in a position to hire writers, he's about the last guy I'd consider. Who wants to work with a screaming maniac?

There was a time in my past when I used to think of other writers as competition, as if the successes they enjoyed somehow subtracted from what was possible for me. When I stopped thinking that way — stopped caring about how well someone else was doing at all — I got a lot happier as a writer…and, I think, a little better. I have tons of flaws and shortcomings and weaknesses but that was one I was able (I think) to get rid of. It involved a realization that the system isn't "fair" in the way we'd like it to be. The buyers are not going to always select the best writers any more than the voters are always going to select the best candidates. Stop expecting otherwise and just do your best work…because the system doesn't always fail.

I just set my TiVo to record the Stewart/Colbert rally on Saturday, October 30 on Comedy Central — from 9 AM until Noon on this coast, though I padded my recording by a half an hour, just in case. At the moment, it looks like that's the one time the network is running it that weekend. Listings on my TiVo only extend as far as midday the following Monday so maybe it'll rerun after that…but maybe not. I'm curious if C-Span will be covering it and if so, if their coverage will differ markedly. We shall see.

This article by Timothy Noah, a writer I usually like, thinks they ought to cancel the rally because seeing all those "elitists" out acting hip on the National Mall will just piss off the Tea Party crowd and those that lean in that direction and mobilize them to vote. I think that crowd is already fired-up enough to do that and maybe Stewart and Colbert can fire up the voters who, however direction they lean, aren't out there chewing on their furniture. Then again, maybe all they'll do is just put on a good show. That's reason enough to do it.

This might interest you. It's an interview with Stephen Colbert. What's so different about it? It's from 2003, long before The Colbert Report, back when he was a correspondent on The Daily Show and working other, more lucrative gigs on the side. My pal Ken Plume questioned Colbert about his career as it then stood, what he'd done before, his love for Dungeons & Dragons and many other topics.

And while we're at it, here's one that Ken did even earlier with Frank Oz.

This is really only to members of the Animation Writers Caucus of the Writers Guild of America, West. I'm the special guest at the meeting this coming Tuesday evening at 7 PM at the WGA headquarters. I mention this again because the WGA website says it's Wednesday, October 19 and it isn't. It's Tuesday, October 19.

Also, I should apologize to the folks who run the event and were nice enough to invite me to speak. I have a knee-jerk belief that you should never take any honor seriously so I kinda mocked this and I hereby take back the mocking and thank them for thinking of me. And I'm so sincere that I just deleted the smartass remark that I wrote at first to close this item.

I voted for Proposition 19 in California, the one that would legalize some usage of marijuana…and yes, I know the federal government says that won't stop them from prosecuting those who use it. I just think it oughta be legal even though I've never used it and can't imagine I would ever use it. I feel the same way about tobacco and alcohol, and have yet to hear a convincing reason marijuana should be treated differently. So why vote to legalize something that still won't be legal? To send a message…and also because it will amuse me to see certain folks who argue for states' rights do a one-eighty and argue that on this issue, the citizens of a state should not decide what's best for them.

Also: I said here the other day that I thought that "…any time anyone of any party says 'I've got a plan to make taxes fairer,' what they've got is a plan to lower theirs and directly or indirectly raise someone else's. Several of you have sent me links to various sites where various folks offer various alternative tax proposals. I went to all those sites, looked over all those ideas…and I still think that any time anyone of any party says "I've got a plan to make taxes fairer," what they've got is a plan to lower theirs and directly or indirectly raise someone else's.

Yeah, this is going to cost some of you some money. They're about to release a 15-DVD boxed set of vintage Johnny Carson Tonight Shows. It has 50 (five-oh) episodes and a bunch of special features and clips for a running time of 1,800 minutes. That's thirty hours of Johnny…and the list of shows looks pretty good.

The set is being released in two weeks or so. You can advance order it from this link for $108, which is 10% off the retail price of $120. I suspect this set will eventually be a bit cheaper but I'm buying it now so I can watch these sooner rather than later. If you're the kind of Carson fan I am, you'll have already clicked on that link by the time you read this sentence.

Here's a plug for today's installment of Stu's Show, the flagship program on everybody's favorite Internet radio station, Shokus Internet Radio. Host Stu Shostak and his guest co-host Earl Kress will welcome Marvin Kaplan and Leo DeLyon and one main topic will be the cinema classic, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. That's Marvin at left in the photo above, taken from the memorable scene where he, Arnold Stang and Jonathan Winters do to a gas station what, given the way oil companies behave these days, some of us would like to do to a gas station. Marvin will speak about that, Leo will speak of his long relationship with Phil Silvers, and both will talk about providing voices for the great animated TV show, Top Cat.

It all happens live today at 4 PM Pacific Time, which is 7 PM back east…and you're smart enough to figure out when to tune in for your time zone. It's a two-hour show so you have a wide window of opportunity to listen in, which you can do by going to the website for Shokus Internet Radio during that time and clicking where you're told to click. A lot of folks who've taken my advice to tune in have thanked me…because Stu does a unique talk show there, just the kind of thing for anyone whose tastes bring them to this weblog.

I've pretty much given up actual cooking. I played around in that area for a time but I just don't have the patience for it. While dicing onions, my mind kept wandering to the script I needed to finish, the calls I needed to make, etc. There is a great pride in creating something in the kitchen but there's also the good feeling that comes from getting your professional work done sooner. So I'd find myself thinking: "Hmm…I could spend the next hour making this chicken dish…or I could call Fu's Palace to deliver their far superior Sesame Chicken and use that hour to finish Groo." So when food is prepared by me down there these days, it's usually a matter of microwaving, reheating or — if I'm feeling adventuresome — mixing two ingredients and then microwaving or reheating. And oh yeah, sometimes I boil pasta or cook rice in chicken broth but all in all, Wolfgang Puck is not staying up late sweating the competition.

My current favorite easy-to-make entree — and I could probably cook all day and not make something a third this tasty — is the Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roast. It's a big hunk of dark meat turkey that has been slow-roasted in some way that makes it surprisingly juicy and tasty. One yields enough meat to last me from 6-8 meals, most of which are sandwiches. If you were a better cook than me, as you probably are, I'm sure you could think of a thousand ways to mix shredded turkey with other items and make something even more wonderful…but just the turkey itself is wonderful enough for me.

Here's how you make one. You unwrap the package. The turkey sits in a plastic pouch in a plastic tub. You take the turkey out of the plastic pouch and put it into the plastic tub. You put the plastic tub into the microwave and cook it for ten minutes. When it's done, you remove and discard a large bone. I use a pair of tongs to do that, then I use the tongs to shred some of the turkey into smaller hunks.

That's it. You're done. Start eating.

Sounds easy, right? There's got to be a catch, right? There is. It's not always easy to get your hands on a Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roast. They make them in two versions, only one of which you can buy to prepare as above. The other version is sold to supermarkets which heat them up and stick them in the same shelves as the rotisserie chickens they cook on the premises. Jennie-O doesn't seem to have wide distribution that way and it isn't the best way to get this product. They sometimes sit around for hours in those displays and you can never predict when one will be available.

Much better is the heat-it-yourself-at-home version I get, which you can keep in your refrigerator and prepare whenever the mood strikes you. It's a great "emergency" dinner because you can decide to make one at 7:00 and be eating fine turkey by 7:15…and they're much better when they're freshly heated for the first time since they left the Jennie-O plant. So where do you get one? Well, this is a Tale From Costco, remember? There's your first hint.

For a while, I bought them at the Costco in Inglewood. I go there about once a month so each visit, I'd buy four and ration them one per week. They go for $3.39 a pound and they average about three pounds apiece. So figure ten bucks each. They're very handy when you're working all day and suddenly it's 10:30 and you remember you haven't eaten and need dinner in a hurry. Anyway, last visit to that Costco, they didn't have any so on Saturday, Carolyn and I went to the Costco in Los Feliz where I hoped they'd have a supply because I was fresh-out. Alas, none were to be found there either, leading me to fear they were off the Costco radar. Yesterday morning, I called the Jennie-O company and asked a nice lady where, besides Costco, I could buy them. She told me, "Nowhere. We only make those up when Costco orders them from us." She couldn't tell me if Costco was still ordering…

…so I called Costco HQ where an equally-nice lady searched her computer and told me, "Inglewood no longer stocks them…Los Feliz doesn't seem to…but they should have them at the Culver City location." Guess where I went yesterday. And even though I was in a Costco last week and another one on Saturday, I still managed to prove the old adage that it's impossible to go into a Costco and just get one thing. In addition to four Turkey Pot Roasts, I also bought a chicken-and-mushroom thing that looked interesting, the new Marlo Thomas book, a three-pack of Lysol, two cases of canned cat food for the menagerie out back, a box of Rubbermaid food storage containers…and a barbecued chicken. There was no duel-to-the-death this time for the barbecued chickens.

I have no idea if the Costco near you stocks the Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roast but if it does, I suggest you try one. My life is so unpredictable at times that I need to always have something in the refrigerator that I can prepare in a hurry. This is the best quick entree I've ever found and I'm hoping to start a run on them so Costco will continue to have the Jennie-O folks make them up.

I've been meaning to recommend the weblog of my friend Buzz Dixon, and when we had lunch last week, I kicked myself for not getting around to it. This may or may not be the best time to do this because Buzz has just posted a touching and probably perceptive obituary for his father. I never met Dick Dixon but he sure had a lot to be proud of in his son. Check out Buzz's blog from time to time. He's one of the good guys.

Several of you have written to me to second (or third or fourth or…) my endorsement of Southwest Airlines and most mentioned another nice thing I omitted: No baggage fees for your first two suitcases.

I was thinking the other day about how much simpler air travel used to be. I don't know how much of this was due to deregulation…which, by the way, people credit or blame Reagan for, though the idea of letting airlines do pretty much whatever they want started under Jimmy Carter. Reagan may just have allowed it to go too far. My sense is that deregulation helped in the short run and hurt in the long run. There was a time in eighties when it was a lot easier and cheaper to fly. My main route then was LAX-Las Vegas and it was like taking a taxi to and from Pasadena.

There had been a time — recent enough to impact my comings and goings — when one could not leave Las Vegas after about 10 PM at night. I think the airport there even closed around then…and the rumor was that the hotels insisted on it; that they didn't want you leaving town late. They wanted you to stay and pay for a hotel room and gamble all night. I think the last advertised flight left around 10 and for a brief time, there was one later, unadvertised flight.

This is a vague memory. I remember a casino host at the old Maxim telling me of a flight on one the airlines, Western I think, that left around Midnight or a bit later for Los Angeles but they weren't allowed to advertise it or list it on their schedule. Casino hosts could get you on it if it served the casino's interest to do that…say, if an entertainer was playing their showroom and had to be back in L.A. Or if some high-rolling whale could only squeeze in a Vegas jaunt if he could get back that night. And you could or I could call up and if we specifically asked for the flight by its number, the airline could book us on it. But if you called up and asked, "When's the last flight to Los Angeles?" they would say "10:10." I remember this and I think I even took it at least once.

Then in the mid-eighties, thanks (I guess) to all that deregulation, there were suddenly flights at all hours. My friend Paul Dini and I once went to Vegas for the day. We left my car at the airport, took a 10 AM flight there, lunched at Caesars Palace, gambled and sight-saw all afternoon, dined at the Riviera, went to see shows in the evening, hung out after with a friend of mine who was performing at the Tropicana…and we took a 1 AM flight back to L.A. and my car. You can't do that today. The last direct flight each night from LAS to LAX now leaves at 9:25.

Between that and the time it now takes to get through an airport, you can't even do what I did once — and I swear to you, I actually did this…

Shortly after my father passed away, I took my mother to Las Vegas for a three-night trip — going on Monday, coming back on Thursday afternoon. This would have been June or so of '91. After I'd booked the trip and Mom's heart was set, I was commanded to appear at a network meeting on Wednesday morning at 10 AM and couldn't get out of it. There was no solution but for me to commute.

Tuesday evening, fulfilling a wish of hers, I took my mother to see George Carlin perform at Bally's. Got us great seats, too. The opening act, Dennis Blair, started around 8:05 PM. Carlin took stage around 8:30 and at 9:30, he was still talking. I kissed my mother goodbye. I ran out and hopped in a cab to the airport. It took a bit of running (I mean actual running) but I managed to get on a 10:10 flight to Los Angeles which got in at 11 PM. I grabbed a cab for home and was at this desk, so help me, in time to see the opening of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson at 11:30: Two hours from ringside at Bally's in Vegas to my home in Los Angeles.

I slept here, got up in the morning, went to CBS and had the meeting — which of course was a complete waste of time. Then I took a cab to LAX and just got on the next flight (there was one every 30 minutes or so) to Vegas. I was back in my hotel room at the Rio — from which I had not checked out — by 2 PM and the trip resumed as if I'd never left.

Like I said, you couldn't do that today…not with fewer flights and having to get to the airport 90+ minutes in advance, plus it was then possible to get a cheap flight at the last minute. I also don't seem to be able to go to San Francisco for the day as I sometimes did back then.

I used to fly up for business and/or pleasure, and I could spend the evening dining with friends or seeing a show, then leave for the airport around 11 and easily get on a Midnight flight back to Los Angeles…or if I missed that one, there was another around 1 AM. Now, the last direct flight from SFO to LAX leaves at 10:35 and you need to be there 90 minutes early so I'd have to head out around 8:15. Which means I can't have much of an evening in S.F. and then fly back to Los Angeles.

I was going to write that with so many airlines losing money, you'd think they'd experiment with more late flights but I guess they've tried that or done marketing research and it's not cost-feasible. I also guess that due to 9/11, it's going to be a while before you can routinely go to an airport and just hop on a plane…so I guess I'm lamenting the passage of something that won't be coming back soon. But one of these days, someone will make it work. Someday.

I have come to regard Southwest Airlines as my preferred carrier. This may not amaze you but it amazes me as I've had a history of them losing my luggage. My last trip, they didn't lose my suitcase…just damaged it to the point where I had to throw it out and buy another. So I oughta be shunning them, right?

Nope. Lately, every time I've had to figure out how to fly from here to there, my first stop has reflexively been the Southwest site. When I realized this, I stopped and asked me why. My answer to me? Every airline can and will make mistakes. When I've had them occur on American Airlines or Delta, I encountered a general indifference to making things right…and once on United, the people there were so totally uninterested (to the point of rudeness) that I will never voluntarily fly that airline again. But when things have gone awry for me on Southwest — when my luggage somehow heads for New Zealand…and I'm not going to New Zealand…and Southwest doesn't even fly to New Zealand…there's always some helpful Southwest employee eager to undo the damage. Plus, there's a simplicity to flying Southwest that I somehow like. It just feels so easy.

They have one kind of plane. It's real easy to get the lowest available fare. You just go to their site and pick from the three kinds. The website is simple and if you have their free iPhone app, it's a breeze to check flight status or change your reservation. Then you just go and get on the plane and they have a pretty decent on-time record. Okay, so they lose my luggage. If I excluded every airline that's done that, I'd have to travel by blimp. Mostly though, I'm impressed by their customer service. It gives me the same good feeling I get at Costco: These people want to be working here and they want to help me.

At a time when most of the airlines are racking up huge losses due to inept management, Southwest has managed to turn a profit for the last 37 years. I found this old article by my friend Joe Brancatelli that explains how they've done it. And I also found this new article by my friend Joe Brancatelli about Southwest's recent acquisition of AirTran and what it may mean. I hope it means more Southwest flights and no price increases.

Yesterday, Hugh Hefner posted the following Tweet on Twitter…

I'm playing gin rummy with the guys tonight, but first I'm going to have some soup, cheese and crackers. Tasty.

Hef…please. You were supposed to be the guy who lived the life my Uncle Nathan couldn't.

George Gene Gustines profiles the legendary Jerry Robinson. I'm really enjoying the new book about Jerry, Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics by Christopher Couch. Give yourself a great present and order a copy of it here.

A couple of folks wrote to say they thought I should have been nicer or more respectful to Tony Curtis on this blog. I thought I was plenty respectful. I was just never as impressed with him as an actor as I was with him playing the role of movie star…and yes, I saw Sweet Smell of Success and Some Like It Hot. I also saw Houdini and The Great Race and The Defiant Ones and all or most of the rest. I think The Boston Strangler was his best performance…and not coincidentally, it was the film in which he was least like Tony Curtis.

Leonard Maltin shares a nice story about him on his blog and Esquire offers two must-reads. Cal Fussman has some great Tony Curtis quotes and Tom Junod recalls what it was like to profile Curtis.