Your obedient webmaster (i.e., me) will be a guest this coming Sunday, January 12 on The Denton Randall Show, which broadcasts on WHAS radio in Louisville, KY. I'm supposed to be on shortly after it starts at 1 PM EST, talking about Mad Art, my new book on the artists of MAD Magazine. The show doesn't seem to be available online, so you all have about five days to crate up all your belongings and move to Louisville.
A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit brought by shareholders in Stan Lee Media. Here are the details. You'll notice there's no mention of my stock options.
I agree with almost every word of this article by Joe Bob Briggs. It's about those occasional news stories about how teens are increasingly turning to virginity and sexual abstinence. I concur with Joe Bob that those reports are full of swamp gas. When I was in school, we kept being asked to fill out these anonymous polls on whether we were having sex and, if so, how much. Since there was no place on the form to check off "none of your damn business," we all lied. Most of the kids who were having sex said they weren't, just in case the whole thing was a trap to figure out who was doing it and to inform their parents. Most of the kids who weren't having sex said they were, just because it felt good to pretend. And some weren't sure how to equate their limited, back-seat fondling to the definitions of sex on the questionnaires, so they just put down anything. I don't believe any of these surveys. I don't believe anything anyone tells me about their sexual experiences unless they're available on DVD.
This is kinda funny. I was just over at www.amazingkreskin.com — and you don't have to be The Amazing Kreskin to guess that that's the official website of The Amazing Kreskin. It still displays his fearless predictions for 2002, such as "If [Gary] Condit chooses to run for re-election, he will win."
There are clippings and current U.F.O. predictions and all sorts of nonsense, and I also love Kreskin's Photo Gallery in which "the bona fide mentalist" cannot seem to even identify many of the people with him in the photographs. There's a picture of Kreskin with George Kirby, but no one seems to have been able to remember George's name, so the caption is "Kreskin with famous impressionist." There's another one of him with "one of New York's leading weathermen" and one of him with "an actor from Law and Order" but he couldn't divine the names of these people. But the real treat is this announcement…
I have always used my mental abilities to predict specific events in other people's lives and while looking into the minds of others I have often discovered things that I would rather not have seen. At first, this bizarre twist to my chosen profession took me by surprise, but as I grew accustomed to it I learned how to ignore the bad and concentrate on the good. Now for my latest stunt, I have set all fear of my own mortality aside, turned my perception on myself, and decided to share my death with the world before it even happens.
He has not yet revealed the details of how he is going to share his death with us. But judging from his list of upcoming appearances, it probably involves playing a dwindling string of low-profile benefits and out-of-the-way showrooms.
I ordered several fonts from Comicraft when they had their New Year's Day sale and I really like what they sent me — especially their new font based on the lettering of master comic book illustrator Joe Kubert. Because it pretty much has to appear in perfect ellipses, computer lettering can occasionally look a bit too precise to blend with comic art, especially that which is broad or loose in style. Like I wrote in the balloon, this is probably the best one I've seen. Those of you doing comics might want to check it out.
We don't like Spyware. These are programs you download from the Internet (occasionally, without realizing you're doing so) that not only do whatever they claim to do but also, secretly, gather data about you. When you're online, they secretly transmit this data to…someone. You never really know what the data is, who's collecting it, what they're going to do with it, etc. Most often, it relates to building a "user profile" of you, figuring out what kind of consumer you are and how you can best be targeted with advertising — but other, more pernicious practices are possible.
Once I learned about Spyware, I began uninstalling it all over my computer. A program called Gator did a neat job of filling in online forms for me, like credit card info and such. But it's Spyware so I got rid of it and instead installed Roboform, which does most of the same things but without nosing around on my harddisk. A lot of download managers like Go!Zilla and free games (like some called Free Solitaire) are nice but they tattle on you, so you want to get rid of them. No matter what a program does, there's probably a safe, non-intrusive alternative.
Some time ago here, I recommended the first and foremost Spyware Detection and Removal Program, which is AdAware. This was a great program and it will probably be a great program again, but its makers are running behind in releasing its next version, which will be 6.0. The current version, 5.83 is so far out of date that it won't detect a lot of newly-developed Spyware programs. In a few cases, Spyware programs it detects have been upgraded so now, if you use the old AdAware to remove them, it does more harm than good. Until 6.o comes out in a month or so, use AdAware to detect Spyware but be careful about using it for removal, and don't assume it will find everything.
In the interim, the best detection/removal program is probably Spyboy Search and Destroy, though it's a bit more difficult to use. I'll let you know here when the new AdAware is out.
I used to look up television programming on sites like tvguide.com and tv.yahoo.com — services which show you a grid of what's on the schedule. And those free sites were fine for what they provided. However, for a measly twelve bucks a year, one can subscribe to DigiGuide, which is a more sophisticated, multi-featured way of finding out what's on and what's going to be on.
DigiGuide was originally a British-only service and that's where the company is still based. But they've extended to the U.S. (and elsewhere) and seem to cover even the smallest UHF stations I can receive. You download their software, tell it what channels you receive and then it downloads the latest program info for those channels, compiling it into a highly-searchable database. Very neat, very handy. I've spotted a lot of shows I wanted to watch that I might otherwise have missed.
You can download a 30-day trial version over at www.digiguide.com. If it doesn't help you out, delete it before the month is up. If it does, send 'em twelve smackers for a year's subscription. End of tip.
I'm just watching a very old episode of Jack Benny's TV program and here's the joke they just did. There's a cab driver played by Mel Blanc and he introduces himself to Mr. Benny by saying…
CAB DRIVERI'm Harry Gilmore. You and me went to Waukegan High School. Don't you remember? I was the one voted "Most likely to succeed." Got my own cab.
JACK BENNYOh well, isn't that nice?
CAB DRIVERHey, what are you doing now?
JACK BENNYI'm the voice of Bugs Bunny.
I'm not sure I quite understand the joke — an apparent ad-lib — but everyone (including Blanc) broke up. The audience not only recognized Mel in the role but knew who he was. Very nice.
We all love Buster Keaton. And since we all love Buster Keaton, we should all pay regular visits to his official (and quite splendid) website. Every time I do, I find several articles and other features that hook me. Earlier this evening, it was a series of articles about Keaton's famed Italian villa — a 10,000 square foot mansion he once owned in Beverly Hills. After he could no longer afford it, it went through a series of celebrity owners. One of them — James Mason — discovered an old, forgotten film vault in the back. In it were prints of several Keaton films that were thought lost, and which exist today only because Mr. Mason found them there.
The villa eventually fell into disrepair and was targeted for demolition…but a restoration company stepped in and now has it close to being back the way it oughta be. Over in the "articles" section of the website are several pieces about it, including then-and-now photos. (I can't link directly to them or I would, but they're well worth a bit of hunting.)
Good interview with MAD and EC Comics editor Al Feldstein here.
I just ordered a batch of DVDs from www.johnnycarson.com. They have some wonderful shows for sale there, and I'm a sucker for Carson at his best or even his near-best. Great stuff. However, whoever wrote up the history stuff on that site is a little fuzzy on details. Here's one paragraph they have posted over there…
"Tonight!" was originally hosted by Steve Allen in 1954. Allen's regular side-kick was Ernie Kovacs. Kovacs became known as "the first commercial television artist". Ernie Kovacs alternated hosting the show with Steve Allen. However, it was Steve Allen who established many of the standards of late night television, introducing the desk and couch and an emphasis on conversations with guests.
Ernie Kovacs was never Steve Allen's sidekick in any sense of the word; they weren't even on the show at the same time. Kovacs did not start hosting The Tonight Show until the last few months of Allen's run. The above makes it sound like they alternated the whole time, whereas Ernie only hosted two nights a week for about seven months. (It's a shame none of those episodes still exist, as they were reputed to be Kovacs at his non-gimmicky best. I've always preferred him without the camera tricks and wacky props.)
The rest of the above "history" is more arguable. Some might suggest that Sid Caesar or even Steve Allen was "the first commercial television artist." And conversation was a very small part of the Steve Allen Tonight Show. It was more like a variety show with the occasional interview, much like Broadway Open House before it. Jack Paar was the guy who first did a late night show that consisted mainly of folks just sitting around and talking.
This is all, I suppose, trivial. But you'd sorta kinda maybe think Johnny Carson's official website could get the lineage of The Tonight Show straight. Makes you wonder about a lot of the "research" we all do on the Internet.
A dispute is looming over Broadway as the Musicians' Union, Local 802, negotiates its new contract. The old one expires in March and the producers — with whom they dicker — are seeking the right to reduce the sizes of orchestras and, if necessary, rely on pre-recorded music. This kind of demand won out in Las Vegas a few years back and brought us to the point where all but a few shows there are performed to taped audio tracks. It's unlikely to happen to that extent on Broadway but any cutback would be a shame.
The union has set up a website which outlines their position, and there's an online petition you can sign to show your support. Like most online petitions, it's not likely to do much good but it can't do any harm. Of more import are some short video interviews with musicians, including this nice one with Stephen Sondheim. And I was interested to read a breakdown the union offers us of how much (or rather, how little) of the ticket prices are due to musicians' salaries. The Producers, for example, charges up to $100 for a ticket, grosses more than a million bucks a week, but — according to the union — only spends $47 grand a week, plus change, for the guys in the pit. That works out to three and a half bucks out of every ticket, which is a lot less than I'd have guessed.
Some other shows spend a tad more on musicians and, on a low grosser like the recently-closed Dance of the Vampires, the cost-per-patron is higher. But on no show is it much more than six bucks. In most cases, you're paying more in handling charges for the folks who print out your tickets than you are for all those wonderful music makers.
I guess you can tell where my sympathies are on this one.
So I have to stop in at the drugstore and pick up something. This is last evening. I'm heading into the store when a kid — maybe 16, maybe older — stops me and says, "Excuse me, sir. If I give you the money, would you buy some Miller's High Life for me?" Reminds me of the scene in American Graffiti where the kid with the glasses is outside the liquor shop, trying to score some Sneaky Pete for his date to chug. I tell the kid outside my friendly neighborhood pharmacy, "Sorry." What I don't tell him is that I've never even bought beer for myself. I'm certainly not about to buy any for a minor.
I find the item I want and take it to the checker. Ahead of me in line, a guy is buying a six-pack of Miller High Life. He's around 40 and wearing a dark blue pea coat. I think to myself, "Ah, I see the kid outside is going to get his beer."
I pay for my item, walk outside and find that two plainclothes police officers are arresting the guy in the pea coat. The kid who asked me to buy him beer is looking on, an obvious confederate of the policemen. Entrapment? Or strict enforcement of liquor laws? I don't know which, but it would be kind of comforting to think the police didn't have anything better to do than this.
Eight columns previously posted on this website have been removed. Why is this? Because I'm starting to assemble a sequel to my book (incessantly plugged on this site) Comic Books and Other Necessities of Life. Those eight columns will be in it, along with 20 more that haven't been posted on this site, plus about five more that have never been published anywhere. Don't start looking to buy this new collection because it won't be out 'til late this year, by which time you'll be sick to death of seeing me mention it here.