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…
All six episodes of Comic-Con Begins were on the Sirius XM website yesterday. I know because I listened to four of the six. At the moment, none are…and the other sites all seem to only have Episode 1 now. Maybe that's how they're supposed to be released….one this week, another one next week and so on. So some of you may not get to Part Four for a while.
So far, I've heard a lot more about Dr. Timothy Leary and George Clayton Johnson than I have about anyone who ever wrote or drew a comic book except maybe for Scott Shaw! and Jack Kirby. I assume the last two parts will make up for that.
So I'm working my way through the six-episode podcast on the Secret Origins of Comic-Con International on Sirius XM. It's titled Comic-Con Begins. As I listened to the first two parts, I was thinking a better title would be something about the history of all science-fiction and comic-related fandom. I heard an awful lot of stories being told that I don't think most listeners will understand happened at other conventions, often before there even was a Comic-Con.
I'm also hearing an awful lot of anecdotes and comments from voices I recognize but I'm not certain who they are. Most of you will probably recognize almost no one. And yes, I understand it's audio-only. I understand that if you build a montage of testimony from 100+ people, you can't identify more than a few by name. I'm just saying I wish I knew for sure who'd said some of those things if only so I can say, "Well, if that person said it, it must be true."
I hope people who listen to this series will understand what is to me a key point about Comic-Con: It's huge. And it's huge because it embraces all different interests. If you're interested in adventure-themed videogames, you can wallow for four days in programming and a section of the exhibit hall devoted wholly to adventure-themed videogames. If you're into cosplay, you can have an all-cosplay convention experience. Or it's all about Marvel-themed movies or all about The Walking Dead.
In one part of the podcast, someone — and I have no idea who — was talking about how when the original Star Trek TV show was on, everybody watched it and everybody loved it. I was in high school at the time and there were kids I knew who said that…to which I'd say, "If that were true, it wouldn't be forty-ninth in the Nielsen Ratings and NBC wouldn't keep trying to cancel it."
I'm not knocking anyone's passions; merely the belief that if my friends and I love something, that means everyone else must love it. Well, maybe not. It's like those people who said, "I can't understand how Donald Trump won the presidency. I don't know anyone who voted for him!"
More than a few times, people have said to me something like, "Mark, everyone at Comic-Con goes to that Quick Draw! panel you do each year!" And I thank them but point out that Comic-Con, when they actually have Comic-Con, attracts 150,000 people a year and we do Quick Draw! once during it in a room that seats a little over 3000. You don't have to be Buckminster Fuller to figure out that not everyone who goes to Comic-Con goes to Quick Draw! 120,000+ of 'em probably have never heard of it.
So though I've been to as many Comic-Cons in San Diego as anyone, I've never experienced a lot of things that some folks in this series experienced. Never saw as much drug use as some said was prevalent. Never saw much political activism there, even during the height of the Vietnam protests. (I saw plenty of it elsewhere and even participated in some of it…but Comic-Con seemed to me a place where people went to escape from that for a few days.)
Shel Dorf. Photo by me.
I've made it as far into the six-part series as the chapter on Shel Dorf. In it, someone says…
I don't think there's any wrong way to portray Shel because everybody's view of him is probably valid in some way. But I hope at some point, whether it's me or somebody else, someone just says "I felt sorry for the guy." Because he did start this convention by many definitions and yeah, he got a lot of credit he didn't deserve. But I kept finding myself feeling sad about what happened to him.
That was my voice saying that. I should have added — or maybe I did and they didn't include it — that he was the root cause of just about all the bad stuff that happened to him; that he had a wonderful sweet side at times but an occasional hateful/bitter side that caused him to do some very self-destructive things. There was no one involved with running that convention that tried to harm him or ostracize him. He did it all to himself. On this planet, as you may have observed, there are people who do that. And when you try to help them, they just plain refuse to be helped.
And the only other two things I have to say about the series so far are (a) Brinke Stevens is an enchanting narrator and (b) I still wince when someone, purporting to speak for a group of which I feel a part, announces that we're all geeks or dweebs or nerds or misfits. I've never felt that way and I don't see why anyone wants to self-describe that way.
My longtime pal Scott Shaw! and I have had a friendly discussion that has resulted in a long Facebook thread. Scott and others say that it was the norm, back in the sixties or maybe even seventies to get bullied or beaten-up for reading comics. Again, I'm not questioning that that was what happened to them. I just have this to say: I'm 69 years old. All my life, it has been no secret at all that I loved comic books. And all my life, I have never been bullied or beaten-up for reading comics. (Actually, I've never been beaten-up at all, though I can certainly recall times I probably deserved it.)
Again, we're talking about believing that the common experiences of you and your friends are indicative of everyone's experiences. I had other kids pick on me for being younger than they were, more of a smartass than they were, allegedly brainier than they were, a worse athlete than they were and a few other reasons. Being into comics was never one of them. No one ever made me feel weird about it.
In my school, if someone said, "Hey, you know Evanier reads comic books," the almost-certain reply would have been, "Who gives a shit?" Those who worry too much about what others think of them are probably making the mistake of presuming that others think of them. That's an old saying that I just made up.
I will write more about Comic-Con Begins when I finish it in a day or three. For now, you can hear it on Sirius XM radio (this link might get you to it) or Apple Podcasts (this link might get you to it) or Pandora (this link might get you to it) and I saw it on Spotify as well. Find it and give a listen.
Hello. It may look like I am back after a brief hiatus but I'm only partly back. Don't expect a lot on this blog this week and if something does appear, it'll probably be something already written that I can publish with two clicks.
I had a whole lot of things to deal with, none of which would be of the slightest interest to you. To pare down the "to do" list to a manageable length, I had to be not only alone but to not pay much (almost any) attention to anything but me. I largely stayed off social media, largely did not look at my e-mail or the news, largely did not speak to anyone except as necessary to get a few things off that "to do" list.
I also slept a lot. Every so often, your body needs that. More importantly: Every so often, your brain needs that.
I leave you now to continue hacking away at that "to do" list. I'll post some already-written things later. I apologize for the hiatus but it's one of the reasons I don't charge for access to this blog. It's so I can put me first when I need to.
