Can you believe Ray Stevens is still performing and making records? He's 82 and he's still at it. Back when I put "Gitarzan" on my mixtape, he often had hits in the mainstream Top 20 or at least the Top 50. At some point, he narrowed in on a country-western audience and did just fine. He's had a couple of his own theaters over the years and starred in a couple of syndicated TV shows that I don't think ever made it to TV here in Los Angeles.
I liked a number of his records, mainly for the sheer silliness of them. He also never seemed to care what other artists were recording or where the music business was going. He just put out Ray Stevens record after Ray Stevens record. Here's a video (and re-recording) he made of "Gitarzan," long after it was on the charts — which it was in 1969. It adheres to the old show business rule that you can't go wrong with a bunch of guys in gorilla suits…
And while we're on the subject of Mr. Stevens, here's a song he recorded that came out too late to be on my mixtape. It's called "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow." I remember when I first heard it, I thought, "That's great but I'll bet Stevens didn't write it." I was right. It was written by Dale Gonyea, who I recall popping up in Los Angeles showrooms and in the credits for TV shows where he wrote "Special Musical Material." Very funny guy…
Several folks have written in to tell me that Petula Clark wasn't lip-syncing in this video I linked to. Someone took a video of her singing "My Love" somewhere and overdubbed the record. They're right and I should have noticed that.
Someone else (one person) wrote to point out what they thought was a grievous error. I said my little mixtape, which I am reconstructing via video links here, was "compiled between approximately 1967 and 1972. Some of the songs are from before '67 since KHJ played "oldies," defining them as anything (I think) that had been off the charts for more than about eight weeks." This person wrote to ask how "My Love" could have been on it since it came out in 1966.
David Leonhardt charts how COVID-19 is making a comeback in some areas of this country…some notably non-vaccinated areas of this country. Oh, I hope this is not so but it apparently is.
It was one thing when we didn't have the means to combat this disease. It's quite another when we do and people don't want to use those means because…well, I understand fear of putting a relatively-new drug into one's system. Then again, I do know (semi-distantly) a guy who won't get the vaccine for that reason but if you handed him an unlabeled drug and said, "Here, this'll give you a glorious high," it would be in his veins faster than you could say "Timothy Leary."
The ones I really don't get are the ones who took a position that the virus was a hoax, there was some sort of plot to vaccinate Americans to control their minds, all that stuff about people dying was phony, et cetera…and now they'd rather get the Delta variant than admit they might have been wrong.
Lastly for now: Way past the announced deadline and way past the time the judges decided, folks are still sending me nominations or this year's Bill Finger Awards for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. Those nominations will roll over to next year so no harm done. Six posthumous recipients for this year will be announced shortly. Next year, we hope to present one — hopefully, more than one — to someone alive.
Since I've written a lot here about late night TV in the past, I have a few e-mails asking why I haven't written anything about the last Conan show with Conan O'Brien which aired this past week on TBS. I guess I don't have as much interest in late night as I once did.
Leaving aside John Oliver, the only show I regularly TiVo is Stephen Colbert's and more than half the time, I watch highlights from an episode on YouTube, then delete the show from the TiVo without watching the recording. I wonder how much of the decline in late night viewing is from folks like me who figure, "Why watch the whole hour when I can watch the best fifteen minutes online…and miss all those commercials?"
I watch YouTube videos from Seth Meyers — especially "A Closer Look" — and now and then clips from James Corden, Jimmy Fallon, Bill Maher, Andy Cohen and Jimmy Kimmel. As much as I don't like Donald Trump, there are times when I'm just plain oversaturated with jokes or even criticisms about the man, especially late at night when I'm trying to calm my brain down before beddy-bye.
I've barely watched Conan O'Brien on TBS. I tried. Really, I did.
I thought he was wonderful for about the first half of Late Night on NBC. There was really sharp comedy writing on that series and as David Letterman noted when he famously guested there, they were doing a lot of it every night. And Conan, I thought, was terrific at playing straight in most of those sketches and bits. He was also really good at letting his guests talk and staying out of the way when they were en route to a great punchline.
At some point though, the show began doing less and less prepared material and more and more of the show, it seemed to me, was Conan trying to see how much he could talk about nothing in particular. I had the same problem with Letterman in his last decade.
I greatly admire what Conan did…coming from nowhere, getting a job few thought he deserved and then doing it so well that he came to seem like a natural for it. It's really one of the great stories of Show Business. I just thought he got too slick at it and his shows became too much about him trying to top his guests.
If you loved him, fine. Obviously, a lot of people did and I'm curious to see what he does next. And maybe part of my problem is that there are just too many talk shows out there and too few variations between them.
The Atlantic has an important article up about William Barr and his refusal to go along with the myth — or as he is quoted as calling it, bullshit — that Donald Trump won the election. Here's a key excerpt from the piece by Jonathan D. Karl…
Barr also looked into allegations that voting machines across the country were rigged to switch Trump votes to Biden votes. He received two briefings from cybersecurity experts at the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. "We realized from the beginning it was just bullshit," Barr told me, noting that even if the machines somehow changed the count, it would show up when they were recounted by hand. "It's a counting machine, and they save everything that was counted. So you just reconcile the two. There had been no discrepancy reported anywhere, and I'm still not aware of any discrepancy."
Read the piece if you can. If you can't — The Atlantic has a weird paywall situation going there — at least read Alex Henderson summarizing it on Salon.
I came across some more photos I have of Steve, like this one of him with Jack Kirby…
…and I thought, "Hey, there's a good excuse to write more about Steve." It's been nice these days to see so much written about him on Facebook and other social media services. Everybody who knew him liked him. Everybody who'd heard of him but didn't know him wanted to know more about him.
When I first met Steve, he was what you'd call The Quiet Type. He didn't talk much. In our old Comic Book Club, that made him unique because the other twenty or thirty guys talked, usually loudly and all at the same time. He was usually there with his brother Gary — they were very close — and Gary was easily the more talkative of the two. It took me a while to appreciate that when Steve did talk, he almost always had something to say that was worth hearing.
The more we worked together, the more I came to appreciate that about him. At the club meetings, he'd sit and listen to everyone else — which was at times very entertaining — and he'd just enjoy the show. It's often harder to be a good listener than it is to be a good talker. And the more we worked together, the more Steve had to say…so before long, he was a good talker and a good listener. It's tough to master either of those skills, let alone both at the same time.
People just liked him and he was discerning enough to get some good ones into his life. The best was Diana, who was his wife for 23 years. They both chose well. Some of my longtime friends, when they selected mates, you'd look at the two of them together and think, "Oh, this is not a natural coupling." Steve himself once described another couple we knew as "a mix of oil and oilier." But with Steve and Diana, you could tell they were very, very good for each other. I wish we'd all gotten together more.
Here's a photo taken at my 60th birthday party. The gentleman at left is Bruce Simon, a great friend to both of us, and that's Steve in the middle. Bruce, Steve, Gary and I all went down to San Diego for the first San Diego Comic-Con — and I just figured it out: That was 50 years, 10 months and 24 days ago today…
The last time Steve and I talked at length not on the Internet — just the two of lunching alone — one topic was how so much we'd learned from Jack Kirby was beneficial in our lives. There was plenty there to discuss. Steve said the main lesson he'd learned was "Always be nice to every human being." Just to be a bit ornery, I named three people who we both felt had seriously wronged Jack and I asked, "Should he have been nice to them?"
Steve chuckled and said, "You forget! Anyone who harms Jack or cheats him immediately qualifies as not a human being!"
Diana has requested that those who wish to make a donation in Steve's honor direct that money to the place Steve would have wanted it to go. That would be the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center. Of course.
It's one of my favorite singers of the sixties (and the seventies and the eighties, etc…and my friend Shelly Goldstein and I even went to see her perform just a few years ago), Petula Clark. Here she is with her 1966 hit, "My Love"…
Before the number of years Derek Chauvin would serve was announced, we noted that "The popular/safe wisdom would be somewhere in the 20-25 range." His Honor decided to split the difference and go with 22.5. I don't really have an opinion on whether that's too little or too much because I figure Chauvin has other punishments yet to come and very little chance of ever resuming anything resembling a normal life.
And no cop who thinks at all is going to think it's okay to kill a suspect because the price for that is "only" 270 months in prison. Unfortunately, too many will probably think Chauvin is the outlier…the unfortunate officer who got held accountable. But it's something.
I couldn't help but make a connection. We have that too-rare example of a policeman who was punished for excessive force. And then you have these new reports about how, when people were protesting the murder of George Floyd, then-President Trump wanted violent action taken against the protesters…
"That's how you're supposed to handle these people," Trump told his top law enforcement and military officials, according to [Wall Street Journal reporter Michael] Bender. "Crack their skulls!" Trump also told his team that he wanted the military to go in and "beat the f–k out" of the civil rights protesters, Bender writes.
"Just shoot them," Trump said on multiple occasions inside the Oval Office, according to the excerpts. When [Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark] Milley and then-Attorney General William Barr would push back, Trump toned it down, but only slightly, Bender adds. "Well, shoot them in the leg — or maybe the foot," Trump said. "But be hard on them!"
I can't think of a glib closing line here. I just thought the two matters ought to be mentioned in the same blog post somewhere.
I'm kind of half-watching the sentencing of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. Various people are now speaking about how terrible and worthy of severe punishment the deed was and there's a split screen of them on the right, Chauvin on the left. Chauvin is probably glad he's wearing that COVID mask.
I have no idea if there's a spark of humanity and decency in Derek Chauvin. If there is, it must be severe punishment to have to sit there and listen to these speeches. If I were in his position, I think I'd break down and tearfully ask the court to just have someone shoot me on the spot and end it all. I can't help but wonder what this man might think the rest of his life will be like.
Commentators are saying that the sentencing guidelines demand a minimum of something like 12.5 years. The prosecution is asking for thirty. The popular/safe wisdom would be somewhere in the 20-25 range…but even if what he gets is on the low end, Chauvin still faces Federal charges and perhaps civil suits. And there are probably people who, if he ever walks out of prison, would like to beat the crap out of him and kneel on his neck for a while. He will never put his crime behind him.
I have zero sympathy for the guy. If he was ever a decent human being, I guess I feel sorry for that decent human being for turning into the fellow I'm seeing right now on the split-screen. He looks like he's paying careful attention to what's being said by the people who for the most part are crying and/or damning him to Hades. Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's an act and he's thinking about all the police officers who have been involved in altercations where someone died and he's thinking, "How come I'm the one who has to pay for it?"
If Medical Science wanted people to take the Delta strain of the virus seriously, they shouldn't have named it after an airline that never arrives on time.
One of the nicest, best people I ever met died this morning at a hospital here in Los Angeles. Steve Sherman had been in failing health for some time, spending way too many hours of his life hooked up to dialysis equipment. The last few years, he had good days and bad…and I am so happy that on one of those good days last year, we spent some time recording a video chat. I've embedded it below so those of you who never had the joy of knowing Steve can spend a little time with him. You might understand why I feel blessed that I met this fellow back in 1968.
Steve was a writer, an artist, a photographer, a puppet-maker, a puppet-performer…if it was creative, he did it. He was my partner for several years working first for a crooked mail order firm and then for the most amazing man either of us ever met…Jack Kirby. During our years with Kirby, we had amazing adventure after amazing adventure, moments of joy and anguish and the chance to bask in the enlightening aura of one of the few humans I heard called a "genius" who was actually deserving of the title.
Steve, me in the back, and Jack and Roz Kirby
I do not recall Evanier and Sherman ever having an argument, then or since. When we disagreed, we disagreed like gentlemen and that was way more Steve's influence than mine. As we were learning from Jack, I learned a lot from Steve.
We met in '68 when he and his brother Gary showed up at a local comic book club that I was the President of. All three of us got along great from the start. Steve and I worked together until we stopped working together…and then, as fate would have it, we continued occasionally working together.
When I left Jack's employ, Steve stayed on and continued to be a great friend of the Kirby family. But being Jack's assistant didn't pay all that well because…well, Jack didn't really need an assistant. Steve wanted to get into the entertainment industry so he got himself hired by the cartoon studio Filmation for a few years, then segued into the world of puppetry.
That led to him working for Sid and Marty Krofft. But it had nothing to do with the fact that I was working for Sid & Marty Krofft. After several years there, Steve and another fine puppet maker/performer Greg Williams struck out on their own and formed Puppet Studio, building and operating puppets for TV, movies, commercials…everywhere. When ABC needed someone to build and operate a puppet named O.G. Readmore to host the ABC Weekend Special series, they hired Steve and Greg. And it had nothing to do with the fact that they'd hired me to write it.
Puppet Studios did puppets for Pee-wee's Playhouse. They did them for a show I liked called Riders in the Sky. They did puppeteering of all kinds, melding into new technology and animation. There are a lot of folks in the puppetry field who cling to the way things were done back in the days of Kukla, Fran and Ollie. Not Sherman and Williams. Their creations were very much Today — with a few rooted in Tomorrow — which is why they were so much in demand.
You can read all about this fine enterprise and see a longer bio of Steve on their website. The bio will tell you some of the other things Steve did of a creative nature. There were a lot of them.
Here's a photo of Steve, me and Steve's brother Gary. If we look morose in the photo, we probably should. That was taken in Jack Kirby's studio right after we attended Jack's funeral. Gary died in 2009.
I guess the thing I want you to know most about Steve is how in over fifty years, I never found even a teensy-tiny reason to be annoyed with him or to think he was being dishonest or foolish or anything of the sort. He was smart. He was industrious. One time when I was asked to write some "roast" jokes about him, I couldn't think of a damned flaw to base them on. I think I settled for kidding him about not being very talkative when he had nothing to say…which of course is not an insult. It's a compliment.
I could go on and on about this fellow and I guess I have. So I'll just post the video of our conversation last August. It may give you some idea of what a terrific guy he was. It will give me a reminder of what it was like to know him and I intend to watch it from time to time for that reason. Just as soon as I can do so without crying.
As I'm sure you've heard, judges from the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court unanimously suspended Rudy Giuliani's license to practice law in their state. The stated cause was making false claims he made about the 2020 election.
This article by Jeremy Stahl quotes much of the ruling and it's quite amazing with Giuliani saying something was definitely true and then denying it and then saying it again and saying he had hard proof and then not producing it and citing anonymous sources with no credibility and…
