Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
Trump's lawyers keep fighting in the courts over a New York law that, if you just read it, says that his tax returns can be subpoenaed. And they keep losing.
Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
As the House Intelligence committee continues to release transcripts of its in-secret hearings, Trump continues to complain that chairman Adam Schiff is doctoring the transcripts. But lawyers for some of the witnesses whose testimony has been released don't seem to think that, nor do Republican members of the committee who participated in those interrogations. Will Trump stick with his charge and refuse to retract it? Hey, does a goose go barefoot?
An Article of Interest
Trump and his minions continue to demand that the Whistleblower be identified and cross-examined. It's pretty obvious that they want to smear the guy (and scare off other potential whistleblowers) and that if they can in any way discredit him — say, if he voted for a Democrat in the last twenty years — then they'll argue that that voids his allegations and proves them to be phony. Never mind that most of them have been independently corroborated, in many cases by Trump appointees and associates. William Saletan discusses how much corroboration there has been.
In 1977, the film The Goodbye Girl was a surprise smash hit. It had a screenplay by Neil Simon and its two leads — Marsha Mason and Richard Dreyfuss — were nominated for Academy Awards, as was the film itself. Dreyfuss won his category, becoming at the time the youngest Best Actor in Oscar history. Very much a successful film.
In 1992, it was announced that Mr. Simon was transforming his screenplay into a Broadway musical of the same name. If ever an upcoming show looked like a guaranteed smash, this was it. Just the fact that it was Neil Simon and a beloved storyline sold a lot of tickets. When it was announced that David Zippel and Marvin Hamlisch were doing the music and Michael Kidd was directing, they sold more. And they probably couldn't have found two bigger stars to star than Bernadette Peters and Martin Short.
The advance sale was huge. So were the problems during rehearsals and tryouts. So was the disappointment of many when the show finally opened on March 4, 1993. The previous Neil Simon musical, They're Playing Our Song, ran for 1,082 performances. The Goodbye Girl closed after 188.
How could "the show that couldn't fail" fail? There were many factors and in his autobiography, Mr. Simon blamed everyone but Mr. Simon, implying he thought it was a terrible idea to try to make that movie into a stage musical. He didn't really explain though why he agreed to do it. I mean, it wasn't like he needed the money or the credit.
I saw one of the 188 performances and we somehow got tickets at the last minute…in the front row! I liked parts of it, especially David Zippel's lyrics which I thought were often funnier than what was coming out of the actors' mouths when they weren't singing. Before I explain what I didn't like, give me a sec to put up one of these…
There. Read on at your own risk. Like most musicals, the plot was about two people who shouldn't be together and maybe don't even like each other for most of Act One winding up very much in love. Anna never imagined she'd fall for the King of Siam. Marian the Librarian was repulsed at first by the traveling salesman, Harold Hill. Eliza Doolittle never dreamed she'd care about Henry Higgins…and in The Goodbye Girl, Paula McFadden (Bernadette on stage) never thought she'd have anything but disdain for Martin Short's character, Elliot Garfield.
You know how it's going to end before they even start the overture but you're going to pretend you don't, just as you pretend you don't see the wires that fly Peter Pan around, just as you pretend you don't know the ending of any play you've seen before. Well, with The Goodbye Girl, it was hard to pretend. From the moment he set foot on that stage, Martin Short was so funny and so adorable that you got angry with Bernadette's character for not falling in love with him ten minutes into the play. After fifteen, I wanted to marry him. That she kept treating this hilarious, wondrous guy like crap was more frustrating than amusing.
I also thought the set was confusing and that Short snuck in too many Ed Grimley gestures along with the occasional taste of Jerry Lewis. He made you laugh but as Martin Short, not as Elliot Garfield. I liked him better (but laughed at him less) a few years later in a revival of Little Me. It's not surprising that there have been few revivals of the musical of The Goodbye Girl.
There was one last night. The Musical Theater Guild here in Southern California puts on one-night "concert" performances of musicals that are rarely performed. There's almost no budget, almost no sets or costumes, a three-piece orchestra and precious little rehearsal time. They stage and learn each show in twenty-five hours, which is all Actors Equity will allow for this kind of production. The last one I saw there, which I don't think I wrote about then, was Barnum, which is usually done with a cast of no less than eighteen actors and often more. They did it with eight.
Wendy Rosoff and Will Collyer
They did The Goodbye Girl with thirteen, which is more than enough. Thanks to clever directing by Linda Kerns and standout performances, this shoestring, makeshift, ragtag staging was more enjoyable to me than seeing Bernadette and Martin on the stage of the Marquis Theater on Broadway. All the performers were good but I'm just going to single out Wendy Rosoff (who played Paula), Will Collyer (Elliot) and an amazing young actress, Maya Somers, who played Paula's daughter Lucy. Everyone on stage was carrying scripts and reading from them but Ms. Somers looked at hers less than anyone else. Oh — and there was also an actress named Jenelle Lynn Randall who played Mrs. Crosby and demonstrated a stunning musical comedy voice and, like most of her co-stars, a keen ability to get every laugh they had in the script…and then some.
I think the reason this performance worked for me was that Mr. Collyer acted it and played a guy you didn't want to marry every time he delivered a line. And Ms. Rosoff played her part a bit more human, a bit more conflicted. Obviously, no one can prove it but I think Neil Simon would have been very happy with their interpretation of his words. They convinced me that The Goodbye Girl was, while not a great show, better than I thought it was in 1993. I'd be recommending you rush to see the other performances of it if there were any. Since there aren't, you'll just have to take my word for it.
If you just watched and enjoyed the John Oliver segment, try watching the musical number again but with the Closed Captioning on. It makes some amusing mistakes.
I said less than two weeks ago here that I was waiting for John Oliver's follow-up on the lawsuit that Coal Baron Bob Murray filed against him. Last night, Mr. Oliver came through with it and it did not disappoint.
We're soon to enter an extended period when he and Bill Maher will be on hiatus. I can live without Maher — like him at times, get annoyed by him at others — but John Oliver is doing one of the smartest shows that's ever been on television. Here's the latest example…
One of my favorite political commentators, Kevin Drum, occasionally posts this and it's very good advice…
Donald Trump's tweets are not aimed at you and me, and analyzing them as if they were will lead you badly astray. They are aimed solely at his core supporters in the electorate and the media.
In other words: don't think of them as endlessly outrageous and provocative ("How can he say something like that?!?"). That gets you nowhere because you're starting from the wrong premise. Think of them instead as routine communiques that Trump thinks are necessary to retain his base support. This allows you to analyze their meaning both more accurately and far more interestingly.
And I don't care if she looks annoyed at having her picture taken. I pay for everything she eats except for the occasional mouse. She can damn well earn her keep here as a model…
I'm posting this via cellphone because my beloved Internet is out. And of course, one of the main benefits of "bundling" services is that when your web connection is out, so is your TV, telephones and for some bizarre reason, also your downstairs toilet. Maybe the toilet's a separate matter.
Anyway, my ISP has no idea when these services will be restored. A nice lady on the phone told me that a lot of their repair personnel is out trying to fix things in areas being affected by brush fires. Brush fires, by the way, are now more plentiful in Southern California than Whole Foods Markets. And somewhat less expensive.
I'll be back when I'm back…and not a moment before.
Hey, it's the Ambassadors of Harmony! I haven't run one of their videos here in a long time. As I understand it, each year a highlight of the Barbershop Harmony Society's International Convention is when these guys put on one of their elaborate presentations. This is the one from the 2019 gathering a few months ago and to do it, these folks all had to paint themselves sepia…
What is it with delicatessens closing? The two biggies in New York — The Stage and Carnegie — have both closed in recent years. Yes, there are other unhealthy places to eat in New York including eighty-seven million pizza places and delicatessens like Katz's and The Second Avenue Deli but something sacrilegious occurred when those two famous delis, which not so long before always had lines out the door, shuttered. (For some odd reason, I like that the Second Avenue Deli has two locations and neither one is on Second Avenue.)
And now it's happening in the other city which almost prides itself on having restaurants that contribute to the cardiac problem…Las Vegas. Not so long ago, they had a Stage Deli at Caesars, a Carnegie Deli at The Mirage (which is closing shortly) and two outlets of the great Los Angeles shrine to corned beef and latkes, Canter's. There was a Canters in the Tivoli Village food court and it closed in July of '18. There was also one in the promenade at the Linq and it went away this past February. (The Canter's in L.A. is still open but it recently cut back its 24-hour table service to just Friday and Saturday nights.)
I could understand these closures occurred in an America that was on an "eat healthy" kick but as darn near every TV commercial for fast food proves, that ain't the case. I'm waiting for Little Caesar's to announce a new pizza that is all cheese with no vegetables and it comes in a box made completely out of bacon. Last week here in L.A., a woman in a Mercedes-Benz did serious damage to her car trying to cut in line to get a Popeye's Fried Chicken Sandwich.
I'm going to try to answer my own question: I think one thing that has harmed the deli business is that sandwiches got too big. When someone says, "Wanna go to the deli for lunch?", the mind goes to something that looks like the photo above — too big to finish (and priced accordingly) and even too big to fit into your mouth. Even if I order a half-sandwich at Canter's, I have to deal with 50% of the above. It's the wrong ratio of bread-to-meat, it's going to fall apart when I pick it up and I cannot dress it with mustard in a way that will give me the proper amount of mustard while biting into the lower two-thirds.
I also can't finish the whole thing but I have to pay for the whole thing. If I get one of those "to go" and take it home, I grab some of my own bread, redistribute the meat and turn it into three easier-to-eat sandwiches. But if I dine in, it's not a sandwich. It's an overpriced problem.
Some delis have multiple sizes of sandwiches and it's possible to get one that doesn't look like it has a glandular condition. The ones where I've seen that on the menu all seem to have them priced to discourage you from ordering the smaller one so it feels overpriced. So the size of the portions and the price scare people off…
…I think. Anyway, that's my guess as to why delicatessens aren't as popular as they once were. You got a better one?
More people have written me about comic books based on Broadway plays…and actually, except for Warp, I think what we're talking about is comic books based on movies that were based on Broadway plays. A number of folks mentioned Annie to me…another one of which I didn't think. In this case, we have a comic book based on a movie based on a stage musical based on a comic strip.
When the movie based on the Broadway musical was coming out in 1982, Marvel got the rights and had writer Tom DeFalco and artists Winslow Mortimer and Vince Colletta whip up an adaptation in comic book form and then they printed it in three formats: As a tabloid-sized comic and as two issues of a regular-sized comic.
I've received a number of other examples of comic books based on movies based on non-musical plays like No Time for Sergeants but I think we've taken this topic as far as it's worth. Thanks to all who sent in suggestions.
Sorry I skipped a couple of days here. Every so often, I need some Trump-free time in my life.
Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
There are a number to pick from but I'm going to go with the one that brings the headline: "Court Fines Trump $2 Million for Diverting Money From Veterans Fundraiser to His Campaign." Remember when stealing from Veterans was a bad thing?
Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Apparently, we're leaving the phase where Trump describes his quid pro quo arrangements as "a perfect call" and insisting that if you "read the transcript" (the one which says right on it that it isn't a transcript), you'll see clearly that no crime was committed. The new phase is that, yes, there may have been a crime but Trump is innocent and the ones to blame are U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland, Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and maybe even the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney. Trump is already claiming that he barely knew Sondland.
An Article of Interest Derek Thompson reports — surprise, surprise! — that the big G.O.P. tax cuts for wealthy folks that were supposed to grow the economy for all failed to do this. As they do every time it's tried…
Donald Trump's signature legislative achievement was the corporate-tax cut he signed in 2017. Republicans said it would grow the economy by up to 6 percent, stimulate business investment, and pay for itself. None of those promises have come to pass. GDP growth has declined to less than 2 percent according to the latest report, released yesterday. Business investment has now declined for two straight quarters, dragging down economic growth. And the federal deficit exceeds $1 trillion.
There's some good news about the economy in there too but when Trump brags how great he's been for business investment, someone oughta throw those numbers in his face.
I have known Craig Miller since — literally — the President of the United States was Lyndon B. Johnson. You may have heard or read of the Los Angeles Comic Book Club, of which I was President back in the sixties. Craig was a founding member of that club. In fact, some said he was the founding member but I learned never to get into that dispute because it could lead to fisticuffs.
More interesting is that Craig, among his many other positions, was the original Director of Fan Relations at Lucasfilm when they made Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and other stellar productions. Nowadays, every movie or TV show that has any sort of "fantastic" element to it employs or contracts with experts to promote said film or TV show in the fan press and at conventions. Craig was one of the first of such experts and as such, probably responsible for some arguable fraction of Star Wars becoming such a phenomenon.
He has just released a book called Star Wars Memories: My Time In The (Death Star) Trenches and in it, he writes of those years of his life. There are a lot of books about Star Wars behind-the-scenes but this is the only one written from Craig's unique perspective and position. I read it in galleys and was impressed enough to tell him that when it came out, I would highly recommend it to readers of this blog. Well, it's out and it's real good and if you want to see for yourself how good, you'll order a copy, preferably from my link. Go for it.
Here's an oddity. In 1929, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made a short called Double Whoopee. It was one of their last silent films and it is most notable for a brief scene with a then-largely-unknown Jean Harlow. She played a woman who gets much of her dress ripped off…a star-making part if ever there was one back then. A lot of people think this is one of several shorts that Stan and Ollie made when transitioning to sound — films issued in both sound and silent versions because many theaters in this country were not yet equipped to play "talkies."
The confusion is because there was a sound version of Double Whoopee. It just wasn't made in 1929 and doesn't feature the voices of the on-screen actors. In the late sixties as a pilot film for a projected series, a group of Laurel and Hardy fans dubbed the film with voices, music and sound effects. The main voices were done by Chuck McCann. They only did one film this way and I'm not at all sure how I feel about it…
People are always writing to ask me my opinion of the latest blockbuster movie release. I'll save you the trouble: I probably haven't seen it and might not for some time. Sometimes, that's because nothing I know about the film attracts me to it. Sometimes, I'm just busy and going to see a movie is one of the few things I can postpone for a long time and then experience.
This wasn't true when I was much younger. A film made the rounds and then it disappeared. It might later turn up on TV, trimmed and censored and interrupted by commercials and reduced to the small screens we had in those days. That was bad enough…but it might also become highly unavailable. I remember when my friend Rob Solomon and I went to see the original version of The Producers with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. We loved it so much that we sat through it twice because we were afraid it would go away and we'd never be able to see it again. Today, I have a copy of it on DVD and somewhere in my storage space, I think I have it on Beta, on VHS and on Laserdisc.
In 1967, that simply did not seem possible. But in 2019, I'm not sure I can think of one movie I ever liked that I could not be watching in the time it would take me to find the DVD and jam it into one of my players. Most of them, I could also locate and begin playing via some "on demand" service without even budging from the chair I'm in right now. That will certainly always be true of any current movies. No, I haven't seen Joker yet. But one of these days when I have time, I will. And it will be the exact same movie I could go today and see at the Cineplex.
That is not true of a play I might want to see that's playing now or a concert or a lecture or a stand-up comedy act. It's not even true of a lot of TV shows. The ones I record automatically on my DVR are mostly like those of Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Bill Maher…shows that are timely and disposable. I might not be able to see those particular episodes six months from now and/or they might not have the same meaning to me then. But I'll bet you I'll always be able to watch the latest episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and the experience will be the same as if I watched it tonight.
My life changed a lot when I got my first VCR in late 1976. From that point on, I controlled television, it did not control me. I didn't have to be home and in front of my TV set at 11:30 to watch Johnny Carson. I could start watching it at ten minutes past midnight or the next day or weeks later. Once I got my first TiVo in 1999, it was easier. Today, it's even easier because we have shows On Demand or shows that rerun several times during the week. That's great. I'd like to see The Irishman but I'll do that when I'm good 'n' ready.
I have friends who don't think that way. They want to see the new movie everyone's talking about so they can talk about it and feel they're very "today." That's fine. I just wish they'd stop doing what someone did to me yesterday and it prompted me to write this. I ran into a buddy the other day and…
BUDDY: I want to get your take on Gemini Man. I didn't think it was as bad as some people are saying. What did you think?
ME: I think I didn't see it. What made you think I had?
BUDDY: Well, it's been open for like three weeks now. I guess you're waiting for it to hit Netflix, huh?
ME: I'm waiting until I feel like seeing it and have time to see it. It might be years until I get around to it if I get around to it. It might be a period piece set in the past by then. Don't you ever watch a movie that came out a year or three ago?
