Last Friday afternoon, Carolyn and I went to the grand reopening of the Griffith Observatory here in Los Angeles. It had been closed for five years while some $93 million was spent to make it a little larger and a little shinier. For the most part, it was a restoration as opposed to a remodelling, and some of the reviewers are saying that the place now looks pretty much the way it did when it first opened in 1935. I wasn't around then so I'll take their word for it.

The thing most visitors seem to be talking about is the procedure one needs to follow to visit the Observatory. You used to be able to just drive up there but the operators anticipated a huge crush of visitors when they reopened. So for an indeterminate time, you can't just motor up the hill. You have to go to one of two parking lots some distance away and take a shuttle…and you need to get an advance reservation for the shuttle. On the way up, they show you a little orientation video that mostly informs you where the restrooms are located.

This special section of the L.A. Times will tell you all about the renovation and the new features. If you're thinking of visiting, you might want to study a bit and decide what you want to see. I felt a bit disoriented there, unsure what to do in what order, surrounded by people who seemed to be in the same quandary. Some exhibits weren't yet open and the Wolfgang Puck cafe couldn't get their stove to work, which I guess is to be expected the first week. I assume things will get better but even if they don't, it's great to have an important L.A. landmark open again and looking good.

A poll can be a valuable indicator of how an election will probably go. A poll can also be wrong. The day before the big election in 2000, Zogby said the New York Senate race was too close to call and predicted "I think we're looking at a one point race." The next day, Hillary Clinton beat her opponent by twelve percentage points.

News sources don't like to say that any race is over because they think you'll stop paying attention to them. So if there's any possible way to claim that a race is tightening, they say that. But if the poll has a four point margin of error, a shift of two points is meaningless. If someone is working for a party or a candidate, anything they say about their internal polling is especially meaningless.

The other thing you shouldn't fall for is the self-serving reason for victory or defeat. If I was interested in reducing the capital gains tax, I think I'd be out there now saying, "A Democratic win on Tuesday will be a mandate to reduce the capital gains tax." Matter of fact, I think I'll start spinning for something useful. You know, a Democratic victory on Tuesday means that America demands more Groo comics. I'll bet that if our publisher bought ad time on the cable news networks, I could get some pundit to echo that idea. Even if they don't, no one can prove me wrong. And it makes as much sense as some things we'll be hearing this week.

Look who was just on my back porch eating the cat food.

I could watch Buster Keaton in anything…though some of the work he did late in his career makes that rather difficult. Not so with a batch of Alka-Seltzer commercials he did in 1958 and 1959, when he was in his early sixties. Your link today will show you six of them in a row, and the best one is the last of the six.

The first five also feature the voice work of Dick Beals, who has been mentioned before on this weblog…here, for instance. And here and here and a few other times, to boot. Dick is still working and still sounds just like he did then when he did the voice of Speedy Alka-Seltzer and every adolescent boy in all of animation. He and Buster make a great team, as you'll see. And doesn't Buster have the perfect face to be selling an antacid?

Ray Arthur, who's one of my frequent e-mailers here, is a Film Commissioner for the Ridgecrest Regional Film Commission, He writes the following in response to my wondering if it's worth it for Los Angeles to surrender its streets to location shooting…

The short answer is, yes, it's worth it!

Since 2000 we've seen a steady stream of film production leave not only the Los Angeles basin but the entire state of California. It started with modest incentives from Canada and has developed into multi-leveled cash giveaways and tax credits from a dozen countries and 26 states, all successfully gaining for a piece of the Hollywood pie. An easy way to understand country tax credits, provincial tax credits, discount crew wages and, at times, the dollar exchanges that create the total Canada incentive package is: for every three MOWs, movies of the week, that ABC produces in Toronto…they get the fourth one free. Estimates from FilmLA (L.A. city/county film commission and the California Film Commission) show that in the past five years the state, primarily L.A., has lost 10,000 jobs and $30 million in revenue from runaway production.

Part of the problem is that Governor Schwarzenegger has been unable to create a California film incentive package. AB777 languished in the State Assembly for two years and died a quiet death last spring. Why? For two basic reasons: the promoters of the bill/package were unable to overcome the label that it was a tax break for Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise. This was entirely false in that all the credits were for "below the line" crew, i.e., others than the 10,000 who lost their jobs. Secondly, the Assembly & Senate wouldn't consider giving a tax break JUST to film. The Republicans said, "If it's good for film, it's good for aerospace, high tech, etc." Then the Democrats said, "If it's good for aerospace and high tech, it's good for agriculture and manufacturing." Without a multi-industry buy-in, which was cost prohibitive, it was dead. While all of these industries have their problems, none have the specific type of problem the film is battling.

The L.A. Times editorial notes that, "the State doesn't charge a dime…" And that's true, because that's about the only incentive the State has. The editorial also uses the number $2.6 million a day as revenue from a feature film. I've never seen that number but I really like it!!! I think that was a total, not daily, estimate. The CFC is currently revising (read: COLA update) estimates for daily on location film production. The $$ number that most film commissions throughout the State of California use for an average size feature film, and Die Hard 76 is not average – it's huge, is $46,000 per day. That's actual disposable income into the community in which they're filming. For Die Hard, multiply that, not just by the number of days they're tying up LAX traffic but, by the total number of shoot days they're in L.A. Let's say that's 60. That's $2,760,000. And that's before the "3 to 7 times" multiplier that economists use for local disposable income. Also, that's JUST the dollars that are left in the community. Had Die Hard shot in Toronto you would have lost that income, plus the wages of 75% of the crew on that film who would have been replaced by Canadians. $2.76 million is a number that reasonable people will disagree as to the level of inconvenience with which a neighborhood/city should endure.

It's easy for me to sit in Ridgecrest, by God, California, with my $3 million in filming (down from $7 million by the way) and suggest to several million Angelenos that they look at the big picture. That the inconvenience is worth the sacrifice. But when you add the negative economic impact of the past five years, with the inability of the State legislature to take this problem seriously, I submit that is the case.

One could raise the question, "Why can 12 countries and 26 states produce quality feature films for 25% to 40% less than Hollywood?" But that's another discussion for another time.

As I read the Times editorial, they were not arguing against the concept that the government should make concessions, or that the community should endure some inconvenience to keep productions in town. They were suggesting that this particular trade-off probably didn't make sense. Since it's impossible to predict and quantify the negatives, I don't know how someone could say with any certainty that the losses and problems won't outweigh the benefits on this one. Closing off access routes to the airport sounds like something that could really cause a lot of people a lot of woes…and I wonder where the airlines and airport merchants were on this one. Seems to me that if a lot of flights are delayed, or if a lot of seats go empty because passengers missed their planes, the airlines stand to lose a lot more money than the movie will bring into the local economy.

There's also the question of how many of those financial benefits will directly or indirectly reach those who are going to suffer so that Bruce Willis can dodge fireballs on the 105 freeway. And I think the Times felt there had not been sufficient "public input" into the decision of whether this accommodation should be made. I'll bet it was a done deal before most of those who will be impacted even knew about it and therefore had the chance to object.

It's possible that this is a good deal for the community, just as it's possible that the movie wouldn't have gone to Toronto or some other town if they didn't get every possible consideration. For a multitude of reasons, including a desire to use locations that would have been identifiable as Southern California, they might have opted to stay in town and spend even more here. Some very expensive movies do film here despite lucrative offers to go elsewhere.

I'd be curious to know what proposals, if any, the local film commissions have refused lately. There have to be some that looked like they'd do more damage than good. One hopes the new Die Hard movie won't turn out to be one of them…and maybe these projects need a little more public scrutiny in advance. I can think of a few businesses out that way that can't help but get harmed by having those streets closed off.

Thank you, Ray, for the perspective. I'm always amazed that I can write about almost anything on this site and hear from someone who knows more about it than I do. Not that there's any shortage of such people or topics…

This week's episode of Real Time With Bill Maher will please you if you want to see a hapless Republican congressman fail miserably to defend the G.O.P. agenda and its leaders. I'm actually not sure what to think of a guy like Jack Kingston (R-GA). On the one hand, I admire his courage at dousing himself in A-1 Sauce, walking into the lions' den and fighting for what he believes. On the other hand, not every brave action is also a good idea and some are so hopeless that you have to question the wisdom of someone who puts himself in that kind of situation. They don't do themselves a lot of good and they may actually be harming their own cause(s) by conferring legitimacy on a stacked debate.

It isn't that Kingston is dumb but it's tough to defend Bush's Iraq policy when so many Conservatives, Republicans and military men are cutting and running, if not from it then from him. (It's also tough to defend it in front of Maher's studio audience, which is willing to boo a truly stupid statement. When Kingston tried to claim that John Kerry was actually slandering the intelligence of our troops, it warranted booing.)

In case you didn't catch the show and don't want to, I'm linking to the opening interview, which you ought to see. It's Maher interviewing Robert Greenwald, who made a new film that argues that a shocking amount of our tax dollars are going to corporations that have military contracts for Iraq but — and this warrants all caps — DO NOT DO THE JOB. American interests, including the safety of our troops, are being ignored because incompetent and dishonest companies are making fortunes without any real oversight. I am amazed not only that there isn't more outrage about this but that so many people kind of shrug and look the other way, like it's okay with them. If John Kerry had pocketed money that was supposed to go for soldiers' body armor, a lot of the folks who were outraged at his remarks wouldn't have made a peep about that.

I'd like to think this will be the next big scandal because it's about time war-profiteering and non-performance of duties got investigated. I don't have any real predictions for Tuesday but I can tell you my fondest wish. It's that my Congressman, Henry Waxman, winds up with subpoena power. He'll go after the abuses talked about in the following conversation…

Everyone who lives in Los Angeles has at one time or another been enormously inconvenienced by someone filming something. When a TV show or motion picture needs our streets, traffic is instantly rerouted, businesses are closed and "no parking" signs go up in the darnedest places. A year or two ago, my friends and I couldn't park in front of my house for a week because some Fox series was lensing a block or two away.

This is tolerated, apparently on the premise that it's good for the local economy. If you tell the studios they can't freely film on our streets, they're going to go use the streets of Vancouver or Dallas or some other city. (I mention Dallas because a few years ago, I was one of the producers of a TV pilot that was filmed there. The project wasn't of sufficient magnitude to have much impact on the finances of the great city of Dallas but the city's local film boards lavished us with freebees and perks, and for years after, I was inundated with mailings promising me the world to bring more film shoots to their town. I got the feeling that if I'd called up and said, "I'll come down there with a camcorder and shoot vacation footage but I want sexual favors from every good-looking woman in town," that could have been arranged.)

So to compete with that, L.A. will let filmmakers do just about anything anywhere for a few hundred bucks worth of permit fees. And in light of the new Bruce Willis "Die Hard" movie, more than a few people are asking why, and wondering if Bruce and his folks wouldn't be happier in Toronto. Live Free or Die Hard has received permission to close off streets all around L.A. Airport — where after all, there's almost never any traffic — and to blow things up on them. A recent announcement proclaimed to all…

Airline passengers and airport workers are advised that a major motion picture production near Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) may cause delays in getting to the airport beginning this week.

Filming will occur in three periods:
Thursday, Nov. 2 through Sunday, Nov. 5
Wednesday, Nov. 8 through Sunday, Nov. 12
Saturday, Nov. 18 through Sunday, Nov. 19

During all periods, Imperial Highway – one of the main access roads into and out of LAX — is scheduled to be closed in both directions between Nash Street and Aviation Blvd. from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and the westbound lanes closed an additional three hours until 7 p.m. The film studio has indicated one westbound lane will be kept open whenever possible to allow for airport cargo traffic ONLY to access the LAX Imperial Cargo Center at the intersection of Imperial Highway and Aviation Blvd.

In addition, during three weekends of Nov. 4-5, Nov. 11-12, and Nov. 18-19, eastbound Century Freeway I-105 between La Cienega to Sepulveda Blvds. and the freeway connectors at I-105 east to I-405 north and south will be closed from 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., while westbound
I-105 during these times will be closed on an unannounced, intermittent (or rolling) basis. Westbound I-105 also will be closed on two Sundays, Nov. 5 and Nov. 12, from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m.

Traffic plans call for motorists using westbound Imperial Highway during closed periods to detour at the intersection of Imperial Highway and Aviation Blvd. If headed toward the LAX passenger terminal area, motorists will be diverted one mile on northbound Aviation Blvd. to westbound Century Blvd. into the airport. If headed to the west side of LAX or county beaches, motorists will be diverted three miles on southbound Aviation Blvd. to westbound El Segundo Blvd. to northbound Sepulveda Blvd. to resume on westbound Imperial Highway.

During each of the three Saturday closures of eastbound I-105, airport officials are advising that approximately 300 to 350 construction trucks related to LAX's South Airfield Improvement Project are expected to be routed on southbound Sepulveda Blvd. to eastbound El Segundo Blvd. to access the I-405 freeway.

The production company stated in its letter of intent and permit applications that it will use pyrotechnics (explosives) and "gunfire for the entire time" of the filming. One helicopter is scheduled to be used during weekend filming, and "there will be larger explosions" with accompanying smoke early morning of Sundays, Nov. 5 and 12.

Now, that sounds bad but it's actually worse than that…because they're also putting out bulletins that the schedule is changing so you may not be able to count on those dates and times. It pretty much comes down to: Stay the hell away from the airport for most of November.

So is this really good for the city? In an editorial this morning, the Los Angeles Times argues it is not, and I think they're right. Any benefits to the local industry have to be weighed against all the delayed flights or crew members…and there must be some businesses that will suffer from having all that traffic rerouted.

This is a problem that has quietly festered for some time. When they screwed up the parking in my neighborhood for a week, I didn't raise a stink because it was only for a week. I figured that mounting an effective protest would take longer than that (which it probably would have) and that it wouldn't happen again for a long time (which it hasn't). But airport street closures affect too many people and I have the feeling this is going to be the outrage that forces a change in the rules. Finally.

This coming Sunday, Sergio Aragonés and I will be appearing at the one-day Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention down at the Shrine Auditorium…but never mind us. Also there will be Tom Richmond, the fine caricaturist from MAD Magazine. That's a big deal. Us, you can see almost anywhere but having Tom out here is a special treat. (Also appearing at the con will be actor David Carradine, who's probably been drawn a few times into MAD.)

I don't know exactly what time we'll be there but we'll be there.

Last July, as recounted here, we went to a lovely evening at the Hollywood Bowl saluting Stephen Sondheim on the occasion of his 75th birthday. There were many highlights but one was when the original stars of Sweeney Todd, Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou, came out and performed "A Little Priest," which has one of the cleverest lyrics ever written by the cleverest lyricist of them all. Here's that number as shot by two different people who, one wishes, had had tripods.

This interview with Frank Rich is worth a few minutes of your time, especially where he quotes this paragraph from his new book, The Greatest Story Ever Sold, which quotes someone else…

Ron Suskind, writing in the New York Times Magazine two weeks before the 2004 election, recounted a conversation with a presidential aide who spoke sarcastically of journalists and their "reality-based community." The aide, who sounded uncannily like Karl Rove, informed Suskind with great condescension that a "judicious study of discernible reality" is "not the way the world really works anymore." The aide explained: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

I don't know why the Democrats don't just run an ad blitz for the next few days showing Bush's recent statement that he'll keep us in Iraq even if his only support comes from his wife and his dog, followed by the clip of him saying he'll never dump Rumsfeld. At the end, just have an announcer come on and say, "Somebody's got to stop him…vote for the Democrat."

Jacob Weisberg itemizes some of the dishonest political smear ads currently running around the country. He believes the Republicans are stooping a lot lower than the Democrats.

A production of The Producers is opening in Las Vegas…at the Paris Hotel on January 31, 2007. This is the one that was originally announced for "late summer of 2006" but it's a little late for that now.

My pal Brad Oscar, who played Max Bialystock on Broadway longer than anyone, will return to that role. There's no word on who'll be Leo but the casting of the gay director, Roger DeBris, has been announced and it sounds like a joke: David Hasselhoff. He's going to shave his legs and put on the dress and the Nazi regalia. Say it with me: "Hasselhoff…is…Hitler!"

I'm still curious what they're going to cut. At last report, the plan was to trim the show from 2 hours and 25 minutes, which is how long it is on Broadway if you don't count the intermission, to ninety minutes. There is no way to do this and not destroy whatever is good about that show. Ticket prices will range from $75.50 to $143.50, which is even higher than what they're now getting in New York. Back there, seats run $31.25-$111.25 and many/most of them are sold at the TKTS booth for half price. This may be the first time in history that a Broadway show has ever been cheaper to see on Broadway than somewhere else.

Here's a clip from the Tony Awards of 1992. It's the big number from that year's revival of Guys and Dolls, "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat," followed by a brief snippet of the title song. Walter Bobbie, who is now primarily directing, has the Stubby Kaye role of Nicely-Nicely Johnson. (That is to say Mr. Kaye originated it on Broadway and re-created it in the movie. He made such an impression in the part that it became quite standard — Bobbie was an exception — to cast Nicely-Nicely with a fat actor or to pad a skinny one with pillows…this, even though there's absolutely no reason the character has to be heavy.)

Also in the number, you'll see Nathan Lane as Nathan Detroit, the role from which Lane got his first name. This was the first time I saw Nathan Lane perform…the first time most people saw — or at least took note of — him. It's interesting that it made his reputation because he's such a fine singer and the role of Nathan Detroit doesn't call for one. It was originated on Broadway by an actor named Sam Levene who was a terrific comic performer but no vocalist. In fact, Levene was so bad that during the "Oldest Established…" number, when he was among a whole group of actors singing, they asked him to just mouth the words.

During rehearsals, they kept taking musical numbers away from his character until finally, all he was left with was the "Sue Me" duet, which is simple enough for a non-singer. Since then, many a singing actor has been cast as Nathan Detroit (including F. Albert Sinatra in the movie) and has wondered how come he only has the one song. Sam Levene's rotten singing is how come. It is not uncommon for a production to add Mr. Detroit to the "Guys and Dolls" number (as was done with Sinatra) even though it's way out of character for Nathan D. to be singing those lyrics. There have also been famous instances when a Big Star who was cast as Detroit would demand that the "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" number be taken from Nicely-Nicely and given to his character. I've never heard of the change actually being made but I'd guess it has happened somewhere.

So you'll see Nathan Lane not singing much in this clip, and Ernie Sabella (who co-starred with him in many things, including the movie of The Lion King) is also in there. You may also catch a fast glimpse of Faith Prince in a wedding gown…and wearing a magenta suit is J.K. Simmons, who's been playing J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man movies. Have a look…

I know this is hardly the place you'd go seeking a recommendation for a good moisturizer but I happen to have one. For quite some time, there was a patch of skin on my leg that was so dry and scaly, you could have grated cheese on it. In fact, I was afraid to go into any low-class Italian restaurants for fear they would. I tried Neutrogena and a couple of other over-the-counter creams and noticed no difference. On a doctor's recommendation, I tried Eucerin and it did a little better. Then I tried a prescription drug which, since my health insurance didn't cover it, cost me eighty bucks…and it was less effective than the Eucerin, which cost a tenth of the price.

Recently, on another doctor's recommendation, I tried a non-prescription liquid called AmLactin XL Moisturizing Lotion, which is a little pricey…though not intolerably so if you buy it at Costco, which often carries it. (It's available on the Costco website.) It was also a lot cheaper than the prescription stuff and it had the added benefit of actually working. The rough skin went smooth on me in about five days and has stayed that way with only occasional reapplication.

I am not a doctor and I don't play one on TV…and of course it's possible that what works on me will do nothing for you or even have ill effects. So don't blame me if you apply this goo and it makes your elbows bend the wrong way. But I was so pleased to find a product that did what it was supposed to do that I had to share the info here with you.

Maureen Dowd interviews Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.