This next item is about folks who might best be described as "new professional writers," meaning that they've sold a few things but not many, and are eager to sell more.  Lately, several have written me for advice and/or sympathy as they have experienced the same baffling, dispiriting situation.  It starts via an e-mail contact with someone — we'll call that person "The Buyer" — who is looking for writers for some project.  Sometimes, The Buyer solicited applicants on the Internet; sometimes, The Writer was referred to them.  Either way, The Buyer sends an e-mail with a long breakdown of rules and guidelines, and encourages The Writer to submit pitches — samples, premises, "spec" outlines, whatever.

The Writer invests some time in cobbling up ideas, sends them off…and the next thing, he or she gets back an e-mail that asks for a price quote.  In other words, "How cheap will you work?"  The Writer, who knows little of how the project is to be marketed, where it will be distributed, etc., doesn't have enough info to cite a price but if they don't, they don't have a shot at this job.  So they do, erring on the low side.  And the next thing they receive is an e-mail that says, basically, "You're too expensive.  We're going with someone else."

For some reason, this kiss-off is usually accompanied by some sort of gratuitous insult.  One writer-applicant recently received one that said, "Obviously, based on the price you quoted, you're not a professional."  Based on the low price quote that The Buyer found exorbitant, I would say the project is not very professional, either.

I've heard of this happening often lately, and I have no real advice to offer the rebuffed scribes who write to me except this: Don't spend a lot of time auditioning, especially for jobs that pay rotten (or unknown) fees.  No one builds a career doing these kinds of assignments.  There's no money in them, and they rarely lead to the kind of jobs that do pay.  Even a beginner is entitled to basic courtesy, including the right to know the pay scales for a job before they do any try-out work.  If it's going to pay less than a hundred dollars — and some of these jobs seem to pay a lot less — you're probably better off putting the same effort into writing something you can go out and sell.  You might also want to read the three columns I posted here about "Unfinanced Entrepreneurs."  Here's the link to the first one and I'll repeat something I say in one of them…

Steer clear of those who want to exploit you.  Even when you think you have no better prospect, avoid the Unfinanced Entrepreneur.  They not only steal your work; they embezzle a little bit of your soul.

The Internet does a great job of connecting us with one another.  It also increases the number of leeches who can contact you, and makes it harder to know who — or what — they really are.  That "22-year-old blonde cheerleader named Tiffany in Malibu" you encounter in a chat room will probably turn out to be a 62-year-old fat pervert named Sid in West Covina.  The supposed publisher or producer who contacts you via e-mail and promises to make you a star may be equally legitimate.

The listing at Amazon.Com now says that my book, Mad Art, will be released December 12, 2002.  We're getting there!

This is so funny, I have to post it here.  This is an excerpt from a current Associated Press story…

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Lt. Gov. Jennette Bradley, the first black woman in the nation to hold the job, said Monday a state senator's insensitive remarks and behavior provide a valuable learning opportunity.  At a Cleveland fund-raiser before the Nov. 5 election, Senate President Doug White said he used the expression "we need to jew them down."  White said he didn't realize the remark was anti-Semitic and apologized to Jewish leaders after he learned that some in the audience found it offensive.  "The comment was a very offhand one that I had no knowledge of its sensitivity.  It's one I've used very seldom in my life," said White, a Republican from Manchester.

White also used to rub the head or shoulder of a black state senator for luck, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported.  The senator was offended but never complained, she told the paper.  "The problem with that place is you have to pick your battles," said Rhine McLin, now mayor of Dayton, referring to the Ohio Statehouse.  "You gotta work with these people."

McLin described White as "somebody who just doesn't know any better."  White disputed McLin's comments and said he had never heard of a stereotype about rubbing black people for luck.

Here's a link to the entire story, but that's the meat of it.  What is it with these people?  It's been more than a quarter of a century since the Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, lost his position due to anger over a seemingly-racist joke.  Shouldn't anyone who runs for public office have long since learned a tiny bit of sensitivity to ethnic references, if only as a matter of self-preservation?

I'm always reticent to peg someone as a racist based on casual remarks or quips — but at the very least, they don't demonstrate a lot of practical intelligence.  Never attribute to deviousness that which can be explained by incompetence.

Well it's about friggin' time they started releasing The Dick Van Dyke Show on DVD.  The first five volumes from Time-Life Video are supposed to be out any day now.  Each features four complete episodes with what I'm told is superior video quality.  If you have to pick one volume, go for Volume 2, which contains "Where Did I Come From?", "That's My Boy," "It May Look Like A Walnut," and "October Eve."  Those are the ones wherein Ritchie is born, Ritchie comes home from the hospital, the closet is full of walnuts, and an embarrassing painting of Laura turns up in a Manhattan art gallery.  They're about as good as sitcoms get.

My friend, sitcom expert Vince Waldron, wrote the liner notes and he tells me that the makers of the DVD DVDs managed to locate original network prints, which are each about four minutes longer than the cut-down versions we all know so well from syndication.  That alone is reason enough for me to buy them.  Vince, by the way, has a superb website called Classic Sitcoms, which has info and episode guides for a lot of my favorite shows.  He is also the author of a book by the same name, as well as The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book, and I recommend both highly.  (I'm not supplying Amazon links to them.  Go over to Vince's site and order them via his links so he gets the commissions.)

The lady in the above picture is Mary Tyler Moore, as seen during her pre-Petrie days, modeling for record album covers.  In the sixties, there was a store up on Hollywood Boulevard that sold "cut-out" albums, meaning that some distributor was stuck with a warehouse full of some record that nobody wanted.  At this shop, they'd unload them at the price of three for a dollar.  They had thousands of copies of some of them.  I remember a whole display window filled with The Greatest Hits of Gary Lewis and the Playboys, and I used to wonder what Gary would think if he wandered through Hollywood and spotted his "greatest hits" readily available at that price.  Anyway, the store had a zillion copies of these Mary Tyler Moore records.  No one recognized Ms. Moore so no one bought them…but collectors now pay hefty prices for them.

If you're a fan of Mary Tyler Moore, you're probably a fan of The Dick Van Dyke Show.  And if you're a fan of The Dick Van Dyke Show, check in here tomorrow for an exciting announcement.

I have decidedly-mixed feelings on this morning's decision by the Supreme Court to uphold the extension of the Sonny Bono Copyright Act — and my ambivalence is not merely because the thing is named after Sonny Bono.  Unlike many of my friends (with whom I've argued this), I am not a big fan of works lapsing into the public domain.  I do not think that writers or their heirs are greedy swine for wanting to hold onto a property that someone thinks "should" belong to all.  I think, in this materialistic world of ours, that a creation is a commodity and that society has no more right to void ownership rights than they have to say that you can't own those precious family heirlooms that Grandma left you in her will.  I also do not see the greater good that is supposedly achieved by books and movies lapsing into the public domain.  Seems to me most of what we get from that is a lot of really cheap, bad videotapes in K-Mart, and publishing houses that get to print books without having to pay an author or respect the wishes of one.

I recognize that there are cases where public domain facilitates the preservation of classic work and the creation of new art.  I just think they're the exception, not the rule.  The argument has been advanced that public domain "liberates" certain works of art, preventing copyright owners from sitting on them and keeping them from the world.  I'm not sure that's as true as some say.  I think public domain provides a disincentive for copyright owners to invest in preservation and restoration.  But if keeping great works available is our primary concern, there could be a clause in the copyright laws that said works have to be preserved and kept in print for their owners to retain custody.

I also have no great love for companies like Disney continuing to own properties like Mickey Mouse, but fear the "little guy" will get trampled by the decision that Disney has "earned enough."  In my ideal world, after the formal term of the copyright, the rights would revert to the estates of Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney, and the current company would have to go to them and reacquire the rights.

Where my feelings get mixed on this issue is that I think the Supreme Court, in saying it's okay to tack more decades onto copyrights that would otherwise have expired, is going against the Constitution.  That most imperfect of perfect documents does say something about copyrights expiring, and Congress has done all that it can to see that this never occurs.  On the one hand, I'm glad because I think copyrights should not expire, and I think that clause in the Constitution — authored at a time when it was beastly difficult to reprint anything at all — is outdated and in need of changing.  No one is talking about changing it, however; they're just doing fancy footwork to not comply.  I like the result but I don't like seeing the Constitution circumvented to arrive at it.

• Stimulus For Lawyers by Paul Krugman, New York Times
• G.O.P. Senators on the Warpath by Robert Novak, Chicago Sun-Times
• Governor Ryan Did the Right Thing by Rod Dreher, National Review

Speaking of Governor George Ryan of Illinois: As you probably know, he recently commuted the sentences of 157 men and women who had been sentenced to die for capital crimes. Whatever you think of this, you might want to read the speech he gave to explain why he did it.

Bravo is starting a new season of The It Factor, a 13-week "reality" series I enjoyed last year when it followed a group of aspiring New York actors around on auditions.  The new outing, which does the same thing but in Los Angeles, is just starting.  (It's already started, actually; the first two have aired but Bravo will run them several more times this week.)  This review in the L.A. Weekly is about as negative as any review ever written, but I still intend to see for myself.  Also, Penn & Teller: Bullshit! has finally turned up on my TiVo listings, where it's charmingly redubbed Penn & Teller: Bulls…!  By any name, the first one airs 1/24.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! debuts two days later, on January 26 with a one-time-only Sunday episode following the Super Bowl.  ABC has set up a page for it on their website where they proudly proclaim it's "the first live nightly talk show in over 40 years!"  And I suppose that's true if we forget about the show Joan Rivers did for Fox.  Which is not a bad idea.

The movie of Chicago went through many screenplays by many writers before it hit the screen.  One of those who tackled it was the brilliant Larry Gelbart.  Here, Broadway commentator Ken Mandelbaum discusses how Gelbart's approach differed from what is now playing.

I've received a half-dozen e-mails from folks who claim they've seen (or even purchased) Mad Art in stores.  They're obviously lying since Amazon is still saying it won't be out 'til December 31, 1969.  And do you think I've milked this for about all it's worth?  Yeah, me too.

If it comes down to a choice between George W. Bush and Joe Lieberman, I'm staying home.

The splendid comic book illustrator Colleen Doran gives tips on how to make a home office work for you.  Where can you read this?  Well, right here, of course.

I am informed that a second printing of Mad Art has just been scheduled.  Not bad for a book that won't be out until 1969.

Speaking of Amazon, as I seem to be doing often lately, one of the sillier spectator sports on the Internet involves their pages selling political books, specifically the "Reader Reviews" sections.  Reader Reviews are often interesting and helpful when those folks are reporting on electronics products they purchased, and occasionally on non-political books.  But when the product or its author is the least bit controversial, the "reviews" are about as honest as those e-mails we all receive about Guaranteed Penis Enlargement.  (Uh, I'm not the only one who gets those e-mails, am I?)

It's clear that 90+% of the reviewers haven't read the book.  They're lying.  They see some author on Crossfire or The O'Reilly Factor or wherever and hate him and all that he stands for.  Needing some way to express that hatred and thinking they'll do the despised one some small amount of damage, they rush to Amazon, pretend they purchased his book and announce that they found it poorly-written, filled with lies and errors, and perhaps even printed with inks which, when inhaled, cause untreatable diseases.  Up until a few months ago, you sometimes saw these "I read this and hated it" reviews on books that wouldn't be out for a few months, but Amazon seems to have modified their software so reviews can't be posted of a book until it's actually been released.  (Of course, they have trouble figuring out when a book's actually been released, but that's another story…)

The attackers sometimes pretend to be what they're not, claiming to be on the political side of the work they're lambasting, insisting that they found it a waste of money, despite this.  Once in a while, trying to seem non-hysterical, they'll give it a 2-star rating (next to lowest) instead of 1 star.  But they never cite one example that makes you think they ever cracked a copy.  Nor do their opponents, who post raves of books they also haven't seen, hoping to endorse those authors' viewpoints or counter the detractors.  (Not too much with the political books but many of the positive "Reader Reviews" on Amazon appear to be the work of the author posting anonymously, or of the author's friends.)

Amazon also lets you rate the reviews, asking you to vote, "Did you find this review helpful?"  Since almost none of the reviews, pro or con, are the least bit helpful, this referendum allows those who don't have time to post phony reviews to have a say.  If you hate the author and/or his/her thesis, you vote that you found the negative reviews "helpful," and vice-versa.  And of course, this is also done by people who didn't read the book and, if they're negative, probably won't.

If you want to see some examples of this, look at the Reader Reviews for Eric Alterman, Paul Begala, Ann Coulter, William J. Bennett, Michael Moore, or just about anyone who turns up on the political talk shows.  I'm sure a few of those comments are legit, but most of them strike me as utterly bogus.  And they aren't even clever about it.

I'm getting reports that folks who've called Feinstein's in New York to make reservations for the big Stan Freberg show are being told it has been cancelled due to "prior commitments."  You now know as much about this as I do.  I'll let you know if I hear otherwise, but maybe you shouldn't book that chartered flight just yet.

Kevin Phillips writes the best article I've seen yet about the current White House tax proposal and why it's a colossal mistake.

In case you haven't heard, the great wartime and political cartoonist, Bill Mauldin, is ailing, and really appreciates cards and letters.  Here's a link to an article that will tell you how he is and where to write.

I just received an e-mail from Robert Spina.  It's dated January 1, 1970 and it reads as follows:

Just a note to let you know your new book came out yesterday.  It was a great read and actually took my mind off the Beatles breakup.

Best,
Robert

This is getting scary.  My book, Mad Art, contains an overview of everyone who has drawn for MAD in fifty years.  If it's really coming out in '69 though, I should go back and cut out everyone who's worked for them in the last 32 years.  That would be everyone from Angelo Torres on.

By the way: The book is out and, for those of you scoring at home…

• Barnes and Noble now says the book came out this month but that they're out of stock and won't have more for 1-2 weeks.
• AlphaCraze has it "currently on backorder," which means 2-4 weeks.
• Amazon.ca (their Canadian outlet) says, "Usually ships in 3 to 5 weeks."
• Booksamillion merely says, "Sorry: This title is not currently available."
• Chapters says it came out in November of 2002 but is "Temporarily unavailable to order."
• Amazon.uk (their British wing) says, "Usually dispatched within 4 to 6 weeks. Please note that titles occasionally go out of print or publishers run out of stock."
• And Powell's Books never even heard of the damn thing.  Good for them.

In the meantime, we've jumped up another 1000+ places at Amazon in the U.S. and Mad Art is presently #54031.  But Comic Books and Other Necessities of Life (the book you can order) has dropped to #92275.  If only I could get them to list it as unavailable, I could maybe have two best-sellers…

Rarely having time to cook, I love pre-packaged, instant, so-simple-a-chowderhead-could-do-it products.  Mostly, it's a matter of scheduling.  When I decide it's time to eat, I don't want to start cooking then; I want the food done and ready to devour.  This is why I like Express Bake PotatOH!s.  These are pre-scrubbed taters that come sealed in plastic.  You just stick them in your microwave for 7-8 minutes.  By the time you set the table and wash your mitts, the thing is edible.  But that's not the main thing I like about them.  I like one line in the teeny instruction manual that comes with each one.  It says — and this is a direct quote — "PotatOH! may whistle in microwave."

Wouldn't that be wonderful?  Wouldn't you love to have your potato whistle a happy little tune while it's baking?  Maybe a chorus of, "I Only Have Eyes For You."  So far, none of the ones I've microwaved have whistled for me but I'm going to keep cooking them until one does.