I do not live near "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" (as the great Gary Owens called it) but I fear for it. What's going on there, as described in the video below, is happening all over this country. It's the squeeze-out of non-chain businesses being replaced by cookie-cutter corporations.
I'm not totally against the changes. I can think of small businesses not far from me that I'd be happy to see replaced by a Costco…and if I owned a lot of land, I'd want to maximize my income from it. But I think we all lose when it becomes impossible for a small business to exist anywhere. Take a look…
William Saletan argues that Republicans — at least the ones in positions of power — don't really want to repeal Roe v. Wade. His case is quite logical but I haven't seen a lot of logical thinking in politics these days. If Donald Trump was logical, he'd take the five minutes to have someone spellcheck his tweets before he sends them and he'd have someone in the White House coordinate positions better so we didn't have this endless stream of one W.H. official saying something one minute and another saying the opposite or walking it back the next.
I read a lot of articles about abortion from all sides and I have watched the arguments drift from what's right for the mother and the baby towards overturning Roe v. Wade as a symbol of who's running this country. In fact, I increasingly get the feeling that a lot of Trump supporters don't really like him that much except for one thing: As long as he's in charge, they're in charge. Or at least they feel like they are. On some right-wing forums, there's this exuberance every time something Obama did is reversed, not because they think it was the wrong thing (or even know what it was) but because it enhances their feeling that this is a new country, owned by them.
There are smart people who are "pro-life" for reasons of principle and genuine religious motivation. I don't think they're right but I also don't think they're disingenuous or demagogues. If you add them to the folks who want to see Roe reversed because it'll piss off exactly the kind of person they enjoy seeing getting pissed off, I don't think Trump can miss the chance to get that wave of love from his base. But this is not a prediction because the only thing I feel confident predicting about this administration is that whatever they do, I won't like it.
Hey, you know what I sometimes do? I try to think, "What would make for the most interesting plot twist?" I'm a writer after all and that's a lot of what we do. We ask ourselves what would take this plotline in a sudden bizarre direction. On the matter of abortion, I think right now it would be if there was actual evidence supporting that theory from Paul Campos. He's that reporter who thinks that maybe when Republican lobbyist Elliott Broidy paid a Playboy model to keep quiet about an affair they had — an affair involving an abortion — he was covering up not his affair with the lady but Donald Trump's.
I have absolutely no idea if it's true…but it is the kind of weird plot development that stories involving Donald Trump seem to take. There are, of course, other possibilities.
Two weeks from tonight is Preview Night at the 2018 Comic-Con International in San Diego. This will be the 49th convention there and by an incredible coincidence, it will also be the 49th one I have attended.
If you're attending, I suggest that in the next two weeks, you take some time to study the convention website and especially the Programming Guide which will be posted over the next few days. Tomorrow, they will put up the schedule for Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, they will post the schedule for Friday. On Saturday, etc. If you have any interest, make a list of the events you want to attend and also make up a list of second and third choices in case you can't get into something. Read this about how the meeting rooms work.
It would also be a good idea to study the map of the main exhibit hall. Get a sense of where the exhibitors that interest you are located. More important for your health and sanity, get a sense of where the videogame companies are located and stay the hell away from that area!!! You will not be able to hear again for years to come and you will not be able to find your way out until the next Comic-Con or maybe the one after. Someone should design a videogame in which you, the player, embarks on the most deadly adventure imaginable: Getting through the videogame section at Comic-Con.
If you do not have passes to the convention, a place to stay or a mode of transportation, I don't know what to tell you except don't write or phone me. I can be of no help to you.
And yes, it will be crowded. You don't have to tell me that like neither of us expected that such a thing was possible. If crowds make you uncomfortable, do yourself a favor by not attending. There are plenty of places you can go and not be surrounded by others…like Toys 'R Us outlets, meetings of the Bill Cosby Fan Club and screenings of Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Many tips and nuggets of good advice can be found on the official Comic-Con website and also on the SDCC Unofficial Blog. And I'll post a few more here over the next two weeks. That's in-between packing.
There are millions of cooking videos on YouTube, many of them devoted to "copy cat" recipes of famous food items. These can be valuable. I mean, why spend ten minutes and two bucks to go to a McDonald's for a burger when you can spend more time (and probably more money) replicating one of their burgers at home?
But I understand the challenge. What I don't get is why a skilled chef would spend several days trying to make her own Lucky Charms cereal…
If Donald Trump was a football coach, every time his team lost he would tweet, "Big win! Won by huge margin! Don't believe lying sportscasters and their FAKE SCORES!"
One of the best close-up magicians alive is no longer alive. Brian Gillis passed away yesterday, a few days after suffering a massive heart attack. I have no idea how old he was but he did magic for an awfully long time.
Brian was a casual friend. I'd see him at the Castle and we'd talk about magic…and he knew more about it than just about anybody I've ever known. He made some memorable appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and it was obvious that Carson — a former magician, as you probably know — was in awe of Brian's skills.
A few months ago, I took some friends to the Castle promising them three of the best close-up guys around. Two of them were Richard Turner and Paul Gertner, both of whom "won" on Penn & Teller Fool Us. In fact, Paul won twice and the second time was on the episode that aired last night. Brian was there that night but not on the performance schedule and as a favor to me, he arranged a special show — essentially the act I've embedded below — for me and my friends, plus some Castlegoers who were invited in so we had a substantial audience. If you think the act looks good on video, you should have seen it live. I'm sorry you'll never get the chance.
Here's 22 minutes of Brian in the Close-Up Gallery in the Magic Castle a few years ago. See if you can catch when Brian steals a guy's watch without the guy knowing it…
Here's a conversation between Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the Broadway show Hamilton, and William Daniels who starred in an earlier musical about the Founding Fathers, 1776.
Larry Kudlow is the director of the National Economic Council for President Donald Trump and the Captain Peter "Wrong Way" Peachfuzz of Economics. He is always wrong. He was wrong when he was an economic advisor to Ronald Reagan. He was wrong when he was a CNBC TV host. He was wrong when he was an economic consultant to Bear Stearns and he does not limit his wrongness to matters of finance. He was a leading exponent of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, proclaiming it a dead certainty that Saddam Hussein had those Weapons of Mass Destruction that no one was ever able to find.
Kudlow was a major advocate of the Trump tax cut for the wealthy, insisting it would bring the deficit way, way down. He's been insisting lately that it's working but no one else seems to think that. Politifact just awarded his claims the coveted "Pants on Fire" designation.
We need a three-strike rule for politicians claiming "the offensive remarks [or cartoons] on my social media were posted accidentally by someone on my staff without my knowledge." The third time, they need to own it.
Alan Longmuir, a founding member of the Bay City Rollers music group, has died at the age of 70. Once upon a time, the Rollers sold — depending on which account you believe — somewhere between 120 and 170 million records. Even the low-end estimate qualifies them as one of the most successful acts of their day.
A very minor footnote in their career is that in 1978, they hosted thirteen episodes of The Krofft Superstar Hour for American television and I was the Head Writer. There are all sorts of stories around about the Rollers then and since, some of them creepy or sad…and I have no idea how much truth, if any, there is to such tales.
I just wanted to say, in case it matters in the slightest, that during our long-ago four (or so) month association, Alan was an absolute professional and the cause of zero problems. In fact, when there were problems within the group, he was the guy who solved them. I have nothing but good memories of the man. Sorry to see he's left us.
There's something oddly comforting when I think that no matter how bad my day may go, it's still a lot better than any day in the recent life of Harvey Weinstein.
