After I posted a link to this article about his hardships, several of you wrote to ask what you could do to aid Bill Messner-Loebs. Well, one thing — and this might benefit you as much as it helps him — is to purchase a forthcoming book that he's working on. Aardwolf Publishing is issuing The Three Tenors: Off Key, which is a 100+ page illustrated collection of offbeat tales from Bill Messner-Loebs, Dave Cockrum and Clifford Meth. Go to their site and place an order. Sounds like a goodie.

Do you need to wear a jacket today? Find out here. [Link cribbed from Elayne Riggs, who got it from Lis Riba. Note that it defaults to Boston, where you always have to wear a jacket. But you can enter in the name of your city and find out if you should wear a jacket today when you go out.]

And I see that John Ostrander, who has written some excellent comic books in his day, is now writing an excellent weblog.

Yeah, I know I'm not doing a very good job of not posting here for a while, but I am getting a lot done on that script.

For those of you interested in the Ben-Stein-is-Deep-Throat theory, one reader of this site sent me this link to a long essay on the subject. It makes a better case than I thought possible, but I'm still not convinced. Stein has been pretty vociferous not only that he was not Deep Throat but that he's sure there never was such a person. I can understand why he might deny it was him but not why Deep Throat would say there was no Deep Throat.

One thing that occurs to me is that if it is Stein — and this might apply to a few of the other suspects, as well — there may be a very interesting manuscript locked in some lawyer's safe. Let's say you're Ben Stein and you're also Deep Throat. For your own reasons, you don't want anyone to know of the role you played in the fall of your former boss (and favorite president), Richard M. Nixon. Okay, fine. But you also know that once you die, it's going to come out that you were Deep Throat and I would think you'd want to explain yourself and put the best possible spin on it. A book on the topic would also make a lot of money for your estate. So I kinda hope it is Stein, because if it is, I'll bet he wrote a fascinating book to be published posthumously about why he did it. But I still think it isn't Stein.

The person who sent me this link also notes that Mr. Stein has been ill lately and has cancelled a number of speaking engagements (like this one). The assumption here is that perhaps this ties in with the rumor that Deep Throat is near death. I think I'd rather assume that Stein's illness, whatever it is, is not that severe.

Cartoonist Garry Trudeau, maker of Doonesbury, broke his collarbone while skiing in Aspen on Thursday. Looks like us followers of his strip may be in for a month or two of reruns. Here's a bit more info.

Here is an excellent primer on the new TiVo to Go. I've yet to receive the software upgrade that contains it, but I have the feeling I'm not going to be using it very much, if at all. Much easier to just record shows on my Pioneer DVR with the built-in DVD burner.

I have to keep this brief and get back to work, but I wanted to mention the apparent outrage the other night on ABC's Primetime Live. We've already discussed how 60 Minutes Wednesday on CBS recently missed a big part of the story when they covered Stan Lee. On Thursday night, the ABC show devoted itself to a profile, somewhat approving, of a faith healer in Brazil. In this case, they didn't miss one side of the story…they simply declined to include it. The show interviewed the expert debunker of such things, James Randi, who provided extensive evidence that the guy was a fraud. If they'd used any decent-sized chunk of that footage, they'd have had no story…so Randi was limited to around twelve seconds. Radio strongman Paul Harris is all over this story…and even if you don't care about religious/medical con artists (or even if you believe), you might want to listen to his interview with Randi. It's a terrific example of how the news media hears what they think will sell newspapers or get ratings, and discards whatever gets in the way of those goals.

Several folks have e-mailed me with more Deep Throat speculations, mainly that the man in the garage was Ben Stein. The main evidence for this seems to be that Stein, who was a Nixon speechwriter late in that administration, was a childhood friend of Carl Bernstein. Arguing against that is that (a) Deep Throat met with Woodward, not Bernstein; (b) Stein did not go to work for the White House until after D.T. had begun supplying the reporters with info, and (c) Stein, to this day, speaks well of Nixon and asserts that there was no Deep Throat. He says that Woodward, for whom he has little respect, just made it up.

One might point out that Stein once denied he'd written the article for GQ magazine that prompted a libel suit from Joan Rivers. He eventually had to admit authorship when the magazine settled with Rivers…so he has, in a way, been an anonymous source. He also was the son of a high muck-a-muck in the Nixon administration so he could have had info to pass on before he got his job in the White House. Still, I just don't think he's the guy. It's possible, I suppose…but I think it's another example of reaching far to make it be someone we've heard of.

Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone says that the military draft is coming back.

Is your computer screen dirty? Here…let a cute cat clean it for you.

Barring something unforeseen and time-sensitive (which probably means someone dying), I will not be posting much here for the next day or three. I'm devoting my attention to a deadline and all the things I must get done before next weekend's WonderCon in San Francisco. Which reminds me: It's about time I posted this banner again. See you on a more regular basis in a few days.

That's a car that my Uncle Aaron owned in the fifties. This is the same Uncle Aaron who I mentioned in this article. Throughout the fifties, he often shot 8mm movies on two subjects. One was his travels around the world, which were extensive. The other was his favorite nephew, which was me. When he died around '62, custody of his film collection passed to me, and this included a Bell-and-Howell projector that was an antique even then. I watched a few of the movies but when you're ten, it's no big deal seeing yourself at age five. For the most part, the films stayed in a metal box in my closet, and when I moved out of my parents' home, I took them along and stashed them in a different closet.

Since I moved into my current home in 1981, they've been in — guess where? — the closet…and even if I'd been seized by some crazy urge to view them, I've had no way to do this. Uncle Aaron's projector expired a few years after he did, and its replacement, which I bought to run my Castle Films didn't survive the seventies. Every so often though, I'd notice the film box there and think, "Gee, I'd better get those things transferred to video before they rot."

Last week, I did. In the past here, I've plugged my pal, Stuart Shostak and his company, Shokus Video. He has a fine catalog of vintage TV programs that he sells on VHS and DVD, and you'd do well to browse his site and order many. But when I asked him who did good 8mm-to-DVD transfers, he replied that he did…and darned if he wasn't right. Practically overnight, he put about 150 minutes of cinema verite, Uncle Aaron style, onto DVD-R discs, and I couldn't be happier with the service or the quality. It came out a lot better than I'd dared expect.

The movies did not even begin to rot. There are plenty of things wrong with them — bad splices, scenes that are too dark, scratchy images, etc. — but I'm pretty sure all of that was wrong with them back in 1958, which is roughly the date of the last one we transferred. (I have more of Uncle Aaron's shaky cinematography, plus I have the dopey monster movies that I later made in my backyard with my friends and my uncle's camera, but I haven't gotten to them yet.)

Many of the problems, I can easily fix with Pinnacle Studio 9, which is my video-editing software of choice…though I made the decision not to "modernize" the footage with wipes or dissolves or anything of the sort. I'm just going to take out the black frames and messy splices, and try lightening the scenes of me getting my first bath. (I have a look on my face like, "Hey, get that camera outta here! Can't you see I'm naked?") I did a little tweaking the other night and it's amazing how, right here on my PC, I can correct bad edits and wrong exposure settings from 1953. I also did a frame-grab to create the above shot of Uncle Aaron's automobile.

Soon, I will have whittled the footage down to just what I want to keep. I don't really need an hour of my Aunt Dot posing with Russian peasants and waving in front of Buckingham Palace. I do need, or at least do want all that footage of me at various ages, if only to note one interesting progression. In the first reel of me, I'm being carried around since I can't walk. In the second, I'm crawling. In the third and fourth, I'm walking much the way I do now, only falling down every eight steps. In the fifth and sixth, I'm mostly dancing — probably the last time I danced, and you can see why.

As I watch it, I can still hear Uncle Aaron yelling, "These are motion pictures! Move around! Do something!" And then in the last reel, I'm doing feeble attempts at physical comedy — pratfalls, bad mime, and performing with my beloved Jerry Mahoney ventriloquist dummy. (You can actually see me doing a bad job of not moving my lips when Jerry's "talking." It had apparently not occurred to me at the time that providing his voice was not necessary for a silent film.) It all makes for a nice chronicle of my personal mobility. In a decade or two, when I'm much older and can't walk, I may edit in shots of me being carried around, just to complete the cycle.

But enough about this. Reading about someone else's home movies is only slightly less boring than being forced to watch them. I just wanted to share with you the amazing experience of getting these things onto DVD, and seeing not only myself but all those now-deceased friends and relatives. Boy, my parents were a handsome couple…and I'd forgotten how much Uncle Aaron, who occasionally let someone else take the movies so he could be in them, looked like Art Carney. If you have a box of old 8mm films in your closet, you might want to haul them out and get someone like Stuart to transfer them for you. Better still, get Stuart. Thanks to him, I have proof that I was once cute. Or, at least, cuter.

One interesting point to make about this whole scandal involving "Jeff Gannon" (or whatever his name is), the "reporter" who somehow obtained White House press credentials…

All defenses of this situation start with the premise that the news website he represented, Talon News, was a major source of news with a wide readership. They claim 700,000 users. But according to Alexa, which is the most notable service which tracks such things, Talon News ranks #640,377 in web traffic. That is, there are that many web sites that receive more hits.

By way of comparison, the site you're reading at the moment is composed of two separate web addresses. My weblog page (www.newsfromme.com) ranks #104,130, and the rest of the site (www.POVonline.com) ranks #226,035. Maybe I can get clearance to go in and participate in presidential press conferences. I'll start by asking Bush about his favorite delicatessen.

The photo I just posted of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick was taken, I think, at the taping of the post-9/11 commercial for the Broadway community. Only a few days after the disaster, someone managed — in less time than seems humanly possible — to put together an ad spot that was shot in Times Square, featuring everyone who was then currently in a Broadway show, all singing "New York, New York." Does anyone have or know where I can find a tape or DVD or downloadable video of this spot? I thought it was just extraordinary.

Trio used to run a little three minute (or so) version of it between shows, and it included the pre-record of the voice track, and showed all the people turning out on the morning of the taping, and I thought it was wonderfully inspirational. I don't know what it did for the New York theater industry — how fast it helped business come back — but it sure made me feel good to see all those people pulling together, accomplishing something that must have been a nightmare of logistics.

I had it on the end of a show that I kept for months on my TiVo, and I kept showing it to visitors and saying, "Gee, I've got to dub that off before I forget and delete the recording that it's a part of." And then…guess what. Anyway, if anyone has it, I'd love to have the whole spot as they ran it on Trio but I'll settle for just the final, 30 second finished product. (Actually, like so many of us, I'll settle for whatever I can get…)

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick have confirmed plans to star in a Broadway revival of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. It will commence in October and probably play to packed houses for however long the two of them feel like doing it.

Before you ask: Lane is playing Oscar and Broderick is playing Felix, and I have a hunch (based on absolutely nothing) that at some point, they'll try switching off for a week or so. Back when Walter Matthau was Oscar and Art Carney was Felix, they never did…though it became an Urban Legend of the theater, with people swearing they saw a performance where that happened. The rumor was apparently urged on by Matthau, who liked to put people on, telling them it had happened.

None of the press releases mention it but this will not be Mr. Lane's first time as Oscar Madison, the slovenly sports writer. A few years ago, he did it for a staged reading that is available on audio cassette. Here's the link to it but I'm not necessarily recommending you do. I did, because I love the play even if I've experienced it once too often, and this version featured a batch of my favorite actors. Nathan Lane alone was reason enough for me, but you also had David Paymer as Felix, Dan Castellaneta as Murray the Cop, Linda Purl and Yeardley Smith as the coo-coo Pigeon Sisters, and others. Great play, great cast…didn't work for me. Part of it was the fact that it was audio-only. Part of it was that I've just plain seen the play too often. And part of it was that the material, as recorded, had an odd disconnect of audience laughter and things that deserved to be laughed at. It was like a real good show having an "off" night…though of course, nothing those people do could be without interest.

I don't know how the new Lane/Broderick version will be but I do know it won't matter. That thing will sell out in a jif. And then, a year or two later, they'll probably come back — with one of them in drag — and do Barefoot in the Park.

Buzz Dixon directed me to this neat site that's all about names. They have a Java program over there — it should work on most but not all computers — that displays charts of the popularity of the 1000 most common first names. You can enter "George" and watch how it's declined in popularity or enter "Jason" and watch a big spike in the seventies and so on. I didn't particularly notice trends linked to the fame or infamy of specific prominent celebs, but I suppose there's some of that in there.