From 60 Minutes Australia, we have this portrait of Steve Martin and Martin Short and how much they love each other…

One thing you've gotta say for this Administration: There's always something new to get outraged and/or worried about. That's why I dismiss people who talk about the next presidential election and the issues that will dominate it as if we have a clue what they'll be. We don't even know what the main issues will be a week from tomorrow.

All of a sudden, we're talking about War with Iran…and of course, Trump seems to be on all sides of that issue. He wants it, he doesn't want it…the only thing he's consistent about is that if it happens, he will be tougher and more victorious than any other leader who's ever gone to war in the history of mankind. I think he thinks that to win any confrontation, you don't have to be rational or smart or even know what the battle's about. You just have to keep talking about how tough you are.

I don't care if he says he doesn't want that war. I won't be convinced he doesn't until he gets rid of John Bolton who is to war and regime change what Cookie Monster is to ginger snaps and snickerdoodles. So we'd better know what we'd be getting into even if Donald doesn't. Here's Fred Kaplan who does seem to know.

This ran here on October 6, 2012…

As I've mentioned, my mother (Dorothy Evanier) worked for several years at Jurgensen's Market, a Beverly Hills establishment that sold mostly-imported foods at prices that would send Mitt Romney scurrying to Food4Less. We used to joke that each week, she could either take home her paycheck or a can of olives.

She ran the gift-wrapping department in the back and over the years, trained dozens if not hundreds of young women in that fine art. My mother could take decorative paper and ribbons and wrap a turd so you'd be thrilled to receive it. When the most important of the Really, Really Rich people ordered gifts sent from Jurgensen's, the order-taker would often write "Dorothy Wrap" on the little order-routing slip. That meant that my mother was to handle that present herself.

The teen-age (mostly) girls who worked for her loved her and twice, she picked out ones she thought I'd get along with and extolled the wonders of perhaps dating her son, the TV writer. Her efforts led to two awkward, not-to-be-repeated dinners. One of the women was really only interested in seeing if I could hurriedly arrange for my profession to also be her profession without, of course, her having to do anything. The other lost interest in me when she found out that I not only didn't like to get high but that I'd never done it and never would. Still, I appreciated my mother's advocacy and that she wasn't trying to find me a wife; just someone I'd enjoy being with.

She and the girls worked in a back room at Jurgensen's where every day, celebrities shopped. They all, my mother included, wanted to see the celebrities so a code system was instituted. In the main part of the store, there were clerks and salespersons and the folks who manned the meat counter and bakery. If a real big star was on the premises, one of the employees there would get on the P.A. system and say, "Dorothy, would you bring out a J-19?"

There was no such thing as a J-19. There were no items numbered in that form at all. "J-19" was code for "Celebrity shopping in the store." The females in the back room would hear that and everyone would peek out and ogle the star of the moment. Then it was back to the wrap session.

One time, the butcher announced, "Dorothy, would you bring out a J-20?" That code had not been arranged in advance but they all figured that it was his way of saying, "Superstar shopping in the store." Everyone spied…and sure enough, there was Barbra Streisand looking at cucumbers or squeezing cantaloupes or something.

Thereafter, there would be other J-20s along with the J-19s. Every so often, a brief argument would ensue as to whether, say, Carol Burnett was a J-19 or a J-20. The wanna-be TV writer I went out with was outraged when Burt Reynolds was identified as a J-20 because, she said, his last two pictures hadn't done much business. It's a cruel town.

Then one day, one of the wine stewards took to the public address system to ask, "Dorothy, would you bring out a J-21?"

All package-wrapping abruptly ceased. My mother and her charges all knew that meant Super-superstar on the premises…but who might that be? If Barbra Streisand was a J-20, who could possibly top her fame to be worthy of the designation of J-21? My mother told me, "We spent so much time debating who it could be that we almost missed looking to see who it was." When they did, what they saw was not a star but an overweight derelict. A homeless person — perhaps the only one in Beverly Hills — was wandering the aisles. Beverly Hills is the kind of city that would have overweight homeless people.

My mother went up to the steward and said, "Ha-ha, very funny joke." The steward asked, "What do you mean?" She said, "Playing a joke on us, telling us that hobo was a J-21." The steward suggested she take a closer look at that hobo. And just then, he walked right past them so she could. That was when my mother recognized it was Marlon Brando.

That evening, she told me the story. I asked her if everyone in the store agreed that Marlon Brando was a J-21. She said, "The older ones did. But the younger employees…I don't think any of them ever saw A Streetcar Named Desire."

Prepare yourself for nine minutes of show tunes that are sung way too often. Don't thank me. Thank the TheatreUCF Musical Theatre BFA Class of 2019…

Everyone, please stop saying Joe Biden has a "lock" on the Democratic nomination. I doubt that in American history any non-incumbent has ever had a nomination sewed up this far ahead of the conventions…and the world of politics is more volatile than it's ever been. I still wouldn't bet money on Trump being the G.O.P. nominee.

The Broadway revival of My Fair Lady, 97% of which I liked, will close July 7. I think that's somewhat sooner than the theater community expected.

To promote his new book, Howard Stern has done a big interview with Terry Gross of N.P.R. At times, it feels like he's on an apology tour to atone for much of the behavior that made him rich, famous and The King of All Media. While I recognize his skill at mesmerizing an audience, I've never been fond of Mr. Stern's act but still, I find myself somehow disappointed for him describing his old routine as "second grade humor" and offering rationales for it. On this page, you can hear Part One, read excerpts from the transcript or read the whole transcript. This page has Part 2.

With all this talk about a reversal of Roe V. Wade, I'm wondering how many people who support that are under the impression that an overturn would end abortion everywhere.  Not in some states, it wouldn't.

Also, can anyone point me to a real simple, non-slanted website or video that would explain the medical realities of abortion?  As Christina Cauterucci notes, a lot of the lawmakers voting to ban it have no idea how it works and what is humanly possible or impossible.  I think a lot of people — most of them, male — could use some basic explanations. Thanks.

It'll be brief because I think way too much is being said on this topic by men. In fact, I think way too much is being said by people who are interested in the "win" but not particularly in the life of either the child who may be born or the life of the mother who may bring that child into the world. There are many people who care about both of those things but I don't get that they're driving the current efforts.

In my experience, the people who genuinely care about the lives of pregnant women and the children they may birth are horrified at the notion of prosecuting women who abort or just miscarry, and investigating doctors who attend to women who abort or just miscarry. One of my previous physicians once told me, "These people [meaning the anti-abortion crowd] won't be happy until no one wants to be an obstetrician anymore. That'll sure do a lot for the birth of healthy babies."

I have met "pro-life" people who were genuinely compassionate. Along with believing the government should stop abortion, they believe the government should pay for good pre-natal and post-natal care. They also believe those who might engage in sexual acts should have education about and access to contraception. I don't necessarily agree with other things they believe but I wish there were more of those compassionate people in the current debate. It would also be nice to have more people who would listen to actual doctors and to the kind of people — I believe they're called "women" — who can actually get pregnant.

Tim and Harvey…

FactCheck.org says Donald Trump repeated seventeen of his biggest lies over seventeen hours — between 8 PM on May 8 and the end of a press conference at 12:49 PM the following day. That's a pretty amazing achievement when you consider he was asleep for a large part of those seventeen hours. Maybe he's learned how to lie in his sleep.

Donald Trump likes to dismiss his opponents with insulting nicknames…and I must admit that I used to do that too, in a way. Of course, I stopped when I was in about fifth grade.

Lately, he has called Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg "Alfred E. Neuman." Alfred is, of course, the well-known cover boy on MAD magazine. My pal John Ficarra, who not so long ago was the editor of that publication, has something to say about the comparison.

I didn't have anything to say about Doris Day that everyone else wasn't saying but I may have just enough to justify a post here about Tim Conway. I've met a lot of funny people in my life but I can't think of one who was more naturally-funny than Tim Conway. In a way, it's both unfair and appropriate that so many people think of him mainly as "That guy who made Harvey Korman break up laughing on The Carol Burnett Show." It's unfair because those were cheap, easy laughs and Conway was hilarious in so many other ways.

But it's also appropriate because he made just about everyone around him break up laughing, myself included. The few occasions when I spent any amount of time with him, I was laughing and he wasn't even trying. That was just the way he was, the way he talked.

One of our last encounters was at a wake for Chuck McCann's son Sean. The room was full of comedians but you wouldn't have known it from the mood, which was understandably funereal. Laughing out loud was not forbidden but it sure would have seemed indecorous. I got to talking with Tim and it struck me that he was trying real hard not to be funny and not to call attention to himself at a ceremony that was only about Chuck and his family.

And that was clearly hard for Tim Conway…which struck me as funny.

Those sketches on the Burnett show were controversial within the TV community and especially on the staff of that show. At the dress rehearsal, which had a live audience present and was taped, Conway and the others would adhere to the script. Since Korman knew what was coming and it had been rehearsed that way before, he rarely broke up or broke character. Afterwards, Conway would check with the director and ask, "Did you get it?" If the director affirmed he had an airable "straight" version of the sketch, Conway was permitted to screw around during the final taping, adding in things Harvey didn't expect. It usually meant Harvey would be reduced to helpless tears of laughter.

The working premise was that in editing, they'd look at both versions and decide which to air. The nearly-unanimous verdict of the staff was that the first version, where they actually did the script, was a much better sketch by every measure except which one the audience would enjoy more. So they almost always broadcast the second. Gary Belkin, who was one of the show's writers — often a writer on the sketch in question — was constantly pissed about this. He once told me, "It was usually a choice between a well-written sketch and a Bloopers episode and they decided audiences would rather see the Bloopers version."

Belkin added, "The shame of it was that Tim was always better in the first one. People didn't get to see what a great comic actor he was when he wasn't focusing on trying to make Harvey break up."

Of course, Tim Conway showed how good he was in other places. He did movies (including a couple of underrated ones with Don Knotts) and was on other variety shows. He did his Dorf videos and he had an amazing number of TV series: McHale's Navy (1962-1966), Rango (1967), The Tim Conway Show (1970), The Tim Conway Comedy Hour (also 1970), The Tim Conway Show (1980) and Ace Crawford, Private Eye (1983). My then-girlfriend Bridget had a tiny, uncredited-and-usually-cut recurring role on Ace Crawford and I visited the set once. Though the first episode had yet to air, Tim was making jokes about how he hoped this one would last long enough to time a hard-boiled egg.

In addition to the above shows, Tim was in a staggering number of other shows and unsold pilots because everyone thought he was hilarious. They just couldn't figure out how to package it into a TV series.

Then for many years, he toured America with a show that featured Harvey Korman and himself, usually accompanied by a friend of mine, Louise DuArt. Louise would do her stand-up routine and also assume Carol Burnett's roles in sketches recycled from the Burnett program. Conway's company produced and booked most of these shows, renting the halls, managing the publicity and selling Dorf videos and other "merch" in the lobbies. They were wildly successful (and lucrative) and the two I attended were packed with very happy audience members. When Harvey insisted on cutting back and taking it easy, Tim did the shows with Don Knotts and later with Chuck McCann until his own health forced him to take it easy.

The last few years, it's been common knowledge that he was failing. In 2013, I attended an event where he and Carol Burnett chatted and though I tried to say it nicely in the post, it was obvious something was the matter with Tim. A few years ago when he was not present for a big, televised salute to The Carol Burnett Show, you knew he had to be in pretty bad shape.

He was just a little oasis of joy whenever he appeared. I'd close by saying we're going to miss him but we've been missing him for over a decade now. Just a funny, funny man.

Comic-Con International is 64 Days Away!  That's a little less than two months so I'd better start unpacking from last year.  The convention continues to announce Special Guests, many of whom they deem as important to the history of the sprawling beast that is Comic-Con International.  I was announced today along with many others.  More names will follow.

My friend, the talented cartoonist Carol Lay, informs me that the movie Bathtubs Over Broadway — which I raved about here — is now playing on Netflix. Well worth your time.

I linked earlier today to a video of the old song, "Ain't She Sweet?" Jack Lechner tells me something I didn't know; that songwriter Milton Ager wrote it about his newborn daughter Shana. As noted here, Shana grew up to become the noted journalist, Shana Alexander.

Lastly, it looks like I'll be on around ten panels (as moderator or panelist) over the three days of Heroes Con. Those three days are at the Charlotte Convention Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. They're June 14-16 and you can find out more about them over at the con website.

I went back to Maltinfest on Sunday and again, a large part of the fun was hanging out in the lobby talking with people of like interests and sensibilities. That was one of the things that made the gathering more pleasing than watching the same films at home on DVD. Another was seeing them on a big screen in an actual movie theater with an audience.

Yet another was hearing the intros by Leonard Maltin, with and without his daughter Jessie, and yet another was that each feature they showed was preceded by a short subject. I took a friend with me to see Absolute Beginners, the 1986 British musical film and before they ran it, they ran a 1933 Screen Song from the Max Fleischer Studio, "Ain't She Sweet?' with Lillian Roth leading the audience in singing-along. It began with an animated sequence of Fleischer-style animal characters and then —

Wait a minute. Why am I describing this film to you when I can show you? Here it is…and make sure you follow the bouncing ball and sing along…

We all sang along at the Egyptian, partly because the film was so infectious and partly because Leonard's wife Alice threatened to brain anyone who didn't. And don't think she makes hollow threats.

I enjoyed it. In fact, I enjoyed it more than Absolute Beginners, which struck me as lots of style and very little substance. The movie was very controversial in its day and I suppose still is. It has some stunning, wonderful moments starting with an astounding tracking shot that runs something like six minutes and introduces several of the key characters.

What's it about? Well, it's kind of about what Wikipedia says it's about…

The film takes place in 1958, a time in which pop culture is transforming from 1950s jazz and early rock to a new generation on the verge of the 1960s. London is post-World War II, but pre-Beatles/Stones. The storyline incorporates elements of the 1958 Notting Hill race riots. Young photographer Colin falls in love with aspiring fashion designer Crepe Suzette but she's only interested in her career. Colin tries to win her affections by taking a crack at the big time himself. Meanwhile, racial tensions heat up in Colin's neighbourhood of London.

But in a way, I thought it was about a lot of clever staging and camerawork and that the storyline, such as it was, was not served well by the style. A lot of folks felt that way and I'm again going to crib from Wikipedia…

Upon release, Absolute Beginners received immense coverage in the British media. At the time, the British film industry was perceived as being on the point of collapse (with the recent failure of the film Revolution). However, the film was panned by critics and became a box office bomb. Some of the criticisms included stylistic anachronisms, such as the mini-skirt and decidedly 1980s music from the likes of The Style Council and Sade, the bowdlerisation of [Patsy] Kensit's character (Crepe Suzette had been depicted as a promiscuous "negrophile" in the book), and the casting of [David] Bowie, who made it a condition of his musical contribution. Although the film was not a success, Bowie's theme song was very popular in the UK and reached number two in the charts.

Some folks at Maltinfest loved it. For me, it fell into the category of "Didn't Like But Glad I Saw It" and I'm glad I saw it on a big, real movie screen because what was good about it would not have been so good on my home screen.

It was followed by more lobby-chatter and then we traipsed back into the theater for the closing event, the much-anticipated — and some folks came just for this — screening of Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. Preceding it was this 1928 short featuring the well-forgotten comedy team of Shaw and Lee…

That's what vaudeville was like, folks. Those men probably did that act exactly that way thousands of times on stages across the country. We laughed at a lot of it and I suspect we'd have laughed more in 1928 when we hadn't heard some of those jokes all our lives.

Then came the pièce de résistance, if not of Maltinfest, then certainly in the careers of Martin-and-Lewis impersonators Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo. And arguably, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla was not the worst movie in which Mr. Lugosi ever appeared, though it might have been in the bottom two.

I cannot give you a full review of it because we couldn't stay for the whole thing. Having seen it before though, I can say that if it was all like the first reel of the newly-discovered 35mm print, it never looked better. I know Mssrs. Mitchell and Petrillo have a vast cult following — I even met a gent there who's working on a biography of Sammy Petrillo — but I think it would have been a funnier film if they'd cast it instead with Shaw and Lee.

Still, it was a fun way to end a film fest that sure seemed to please its attendees. I eagerly await the second Maltinfest next year. And the one after and the one after…

I've been spending this weekend at Maltinfest, a film fest run by my longtime pal Leonard Maltin, his wife Alice and their daughter Jessie. There are interesting films being shown and at least as much fun as watching them is hanging out in the lobby, chatting with other attendees.

The premise of the event is to show movies — mostly from the last few decades — that Leonard thought deserved more attention than they got when they were released. A fine example would be Big Eyes, a film which totally eluded my notice when it came out at Christmas of 2014. Directed by Tim Burton and produced and written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, it's the story of Walter and Margaret Keane. He became famous for paintings of little, tiny children with big, sad eyes…but the secret was that he didn't paint them. She did.

Amy Adams played Margaret. Christoph Waltz played Walter. And as fine as Ms. Adams was, I thought Mr. Waltz did a stunning job of playing a guy who starts out as rather lovable and charming…but as the film progresses, you increasingly want to leap into the screen and beat the ever-lovin' crap out of him. It's really an amazing performance and how it didn't get nominated for every award in the book is beyond me. Maybe some voters felt it's not that big a challenge to come across as The Worst Person in the World when you're playing The Worst Person in the World.

Walter Keane really was, seizing the credit for his wife's work — at first, he claimed, for marketing reasons. He was a better interview and at the time, The Art World didn't take women seriously. But it's quickly apparent that he loves the spotlight a little too much; that being hailed as one of the leading artists on the planet is just too, too thrilling for a guy with no artistic talent of his own. Things turn very ugly and I'd probably be doing you a disservice if I told you much more than that.

Sitting there in the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, I was struck by many things but one biggie was how much I enjoy seeing a movie without knowing anything about it — in this case, apart from a few brief introductory remarks from Leonard. I had not seen any clips of this film. I had not seen its stars on talk shows discussing it. I had not read reviews or seen a trailer…or anything. And while I had a vague sense of where it was going from having read a bit about the Keanes before the film was made, the movie surprised me a couple of times, turning right when I was expecting it to make a hard left.

I really don't get why folks at Comic-Con rush to panels that promise a "first look" at an upcoming movie they really want to see. When the advance trailer for Stan & Ollie was posted online, several dozen of you wrote to tell me it was there and to ask what I thought of it. I'm sure you meant well but since I wanted to see the film, I very much didn't want to see scenes from it out of sequence and out of context. And I really didn't want to form any sort of opinion on it based on snippets. For much the same reason, when I read a murder mystery, I don't start by peeking at the ending and finding out whodunnit. I want to follow the itinerary the author laid out for me or any reader.

After the screening of Big Eyes, Leonard interviewed Alexander and Karaszewski, mainly in three areas. One was the long, maddening struggle to get the film made. Despite all their success and credits, it still took around twelve years and might not have happened at all. Another topic was getting the rights to the story from Margaret Keane. She's still alive but that troglodyte of a husband of hers is gone. Lastly and of greatest interest was discussing how faithful to the truth the film is. If its writers are to be believed, it's pretty faithful.

Anyway, I'd write more but I'm heading back to Maltinfest. Maybe I'll see some of you there.

In the above photo, I don't know who the woman in the center is but the man is Edmund G. "Pat" Brown who was then the governor of California, a post occasionally since then held by his son Jerry. The woman on the left is my mother, Dorothy Evanier. She worked on the elder Brown's campaign in 1962…the one in which he beat Richard Nixon.

Today as you know is Mothers Day. This week, I'm going to rerun here the first three "Tales of My Mother" essays I posted here shortly after she passed away in October of 2012. This one ran here on October 5, 2012.

Near the end, you'll notice I tell a story about a man I called "Howard Producer." I disguised his identity not because I was afraid it would cost me work but because he was a man I felt didn't have much of a sense of humor. He passed away two years later so if you want to know who he really was, he was this person. And that said, here's the first of my Tales of My Mother…

For about ten years after my father retired, my mother worked part-time for a small chain called Jurgensen's Markets. Around Christmas, she worked full-time and overtime.

There were at least four Jurgensen's — one in Beverly Hills, one in Westwood, one in Hancock Park and one in either Glendale or Pasadena. Pasadena, I think. This was not a place where most of us would do our marketing. It was a rich person's market with alleged-gourmet food and sky-high pricing…in other words, not a place you went to stock up on Franco-American canned spaghetti. They didn't carry it and if they had, they would have charged you five dollars…per strand. My mother worked mainly at the one in Beverly Hills where at least half the commerce involved one person in show business ordering wine and/or a fancy gift basket delivered to some other person in show business.

She did me an enormous service there. I do not drink wine or anything alcoholic…and I never saw any non-beverage component of a Jurgensen's gift basket I'd consider eating. So if she saw one about to be delivered to me, she would intercept and re-route. She'd call and say — this was just before Christmas when there were a lot of presents flying about — "Jimmie Komack is sending you a basket of exotic cheeses and your agent is sending you a bottle of wine" and I'd say, "Great! Change the cards and send the cheeses to my agent and the wine to Jimmie."

We did this for years…as long as she worked for Jurgensen's. Sometimes, it wasn't as neatly symmetrical as that but it spared me having a lot of bottles around I didn't want. Often of course, I received wine that didn't come from Jurgensen's but we had a solution for that, too. I'd take those bottles over to my parents' house when I visited and my mother would sneak them into Jurgensen's and send them out for me via Jurgensen's delivery methods. After we did this for a while, she felt guilty so she told the manager and offered to have the costs deducted from her paycheck. The manager laughed, decided it was a great idea and he began bringing in unwanted bottles that had been delivered to his home and having them sent out to others.

My favorite moment in all this came when I was working for a producer named…well, I'd better not give his real name because he might still hire me again. I'll call him Howard Producer and tell you that he was a very important Hollywood-type person and he was also a wine snob. The one time he allowed me into his home, I was subjected to a ritual that was apparently required of all visitors — a tour of his wine cellar. It was huge and temperature-controlled and filled with bottles that he fingered like rare Ming Dynasty artifacts.

Though I tried to explain to him that I did not know one wine from another, he would cradle one and say, as if it was the most impressive thing one could possibly say, "This is a 1947 Bordeaux from the hinterlands of Greenbriar County and it was bottled on a rainy Thursday by the infamous Maria." Then he'd wait for me to adopt a jealous expression and indicate that I realized what an awesome thing that was to own. I learned to just go "Wowww" a lot. I also learned that he took his wine seriously. Didn't even snicker when I asked, "Hey, you got any Manischewitz around this dump?" and followed it up by inquiring, "What's a good year for Ripple?" Come to think of it, he didn't laugh at anything I wrote for him, either.

So, getting back to Jurgensen's: That same year, my mother called and said, "I have a bottle of wine here for you from Howard Producer. Where do you want me to send it?" I thought for a second and told her, "Send it to Howard Producer." I thought it would make a nice Christmas present…give Howard back his own wine.

It saved me shopping for something. It saved me getting it delivered and paying for it and it also saved me having to figure out what to do with that bottle of wine. But the best moment came when we went back to work after the holidays. Howard came by my desk to thank me for the wine. Then he leaned in carefully and said, "Listen, next time you send out wine to people as a gift, check with me and I'll suggest a few. It's important to make a good impression in this town and you don't want people to think you're the kind of guy who'd give out that kind of wine."

If you have a blog and want to get a ton o' e-mail, just post a message about having problems with your shoulder. I thank all of you who wrote in — mostly to suggest I google "frozen shoulder" — but there sure were a lot of you. I will guardedly investigate some of what you all said — "guardedly" because it has been my experience that the 'net is full of the worst kind of quackery so none of it can be taken at face value. I do have good doctors though and I'll run a few of your long-range diagnoses past them.

Our friend Mike Kazaleh says that what's missing from the 33-minute print of The Nut House are some animated gag sequences. I suspect also missing is an actual introduction of the cast along with an up-front credit for Jay Ward and Bill Scott.

I've also received quite a few suggestions of New York Delicatessens that are worthy of being identified as New York Delicatessens. Quite a few of you touted the new Times Square location of The Pastrami Queen. I may give it a try next time I'm back there even though its menu contains what it for me the single scariest sentence in the English language: "All sandwiches served with cole slaw."