A lot of folks obviously are irate about families being torn asunder in the name of enforcing immigration laws, and by Trump's implied threat that this country will keep on treating immigrants like animals until Democrats give him his Wall and every single other thing he wants in order to be a hero with his base. I don't have to tell you what I think about this.
What surprises me is the number of people who would describe themselves as evangelicals and are for this because, after all, Jeff Sessions says it's Biblical to do this. Then this afternoon, I read this posting by Alan Jacobs, an Anglican Christian who is said to be a respected author for the true evangelical audience. Here — I'll save you clicking over there and quote the part that interested me most…
The lesson to be drawn here is this: the great majority of Christians in America who call themselves evangelical are simply not formed by Christian teaching or the Christian scriptures. They are, rather, formed by the media they consume — or, more precisely, by the media that consume them. The Bible is just too difficult, and when it's not difficult it is terrifying. So many Christians simply act tribally, and when challenged to offer a Christian justification for their positions typically grope for a Bible verse or two, with no regard for its context or even its explicit meaning. Or summarize a Sunday-school story that they clearly don't understand, as when they compare Trump to King David because both sinned without even noticing that David's penitence was even more extravagant than his sins while Trump doesn't think he needs to repent of anything.
Many moons ago, I attended a political seminar where a gentleman spoke…and I'm sorry I don't have his name but he appeared to be a wizened scholar of The Bible and a man deeply critical of those who, in his view, misused that book for political purposes. He said — and this is an approximate quote — too many people know ten or twelve quotes from the Holy Book and whenever they want to try and pull rank on others over some matter, they trot out one of those quotes whether it fits or not, and throw it down as if to say 'God is on my side so it's settled.'"
He then went on to add, "If you are unable to recognize these corruptions of Scripture, it's probably because you are doing the same thing."
We're reliving a recent trip I took with my sensational friend Amber to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and New York. Day 10 was our last full day in New York but before you read about it, you'll want to read about Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, my Philadelphia Addenda, Day 7, Day 8 and Day 9. In that order.
Thursday, May 31, 2018
As has been noted on this blog, Amber loves Benihana and especially the fried rice they make. So on a drizzly Thursday, we subwayed our way to 56th and 5th and met my pal Rick Scheckman for a Benihana lunch. I first knew Shecky (as so many call him) when he was working on Late Night with David Letterman on NBC. He was in the select group of employees that Dave took with him to CBS so I also knew him all through his employment on Late Show with David Letterman.
Since I'm showing you videos of some of my friends, here's a segment from Dave's NBC show from August 24, 1988 that used staff members as actors. Shecky's the guy playing Elvis and he probably also secured the clip from The Terror of Tiny Town featured in the first bit. Finding clips and doing occasional on-camera roles were among the many things he did for Dave. When I visited him in either office, he also seemed to be the only guy on staff who knew where everything was and how to make quick computer repairs…
We move in a lot of the same circles especially around film experts, so we talked about late night TV and about old movies and about the comedy business as Amber consumed — what was it? Thirty-eight or thirty-nine bowls of fried rice? Whatever it was, she enjoyed meeting another one of my friends.
When Amber first began the dangerous practice of hanging around me, I told her, "You're going to meet all my friends and you might not like all of them because I don't like all of them. But you'll like most of them." She's met an awful lot of them now and after almost every one, she turns to me and says, "When do I get to meet the ones I won't like?" The streak continued with Shecky.
After lunch, we walked down to Rockefeller Center and I showed my rice-consuming friend around that place and told her some of its history. Then she ran off to get a broken nail repaired and I hustled over to the offices of Sirius XM Radio to guest on John Fugelsang's fine program Tell Me Everything on the Sirius XM Insight channel. As I walked in during a break, John told me, "We're going to be talking about the Samantha Bee thing," which was fine except that I'd been away from TV, radio and the 'net all day and hadn't heard a thing about whatever the heck "the Samantha Bee thing" was.
But I got up to speed (sort of) and much of the discussion was carried by John, his fine co-host Frank Coniff and another guest, author David Feldman. John also had me talk for a while about Jack Kirby…and I'm getting to be like a Chatty Cathy doll that way. Pull a ring on my neck and I talk about Jack Kirby…though with great joy and undiminished admiration. The wonderful thing about that is you can talk for days on end about Jack and you'll never get anywhere near exhausting the subject.
A fellow wrote me today, as we all prep for Comic-Con in (gasp!) 32 days. He's hosting a panel there on which he'll be interviewing several people and wanted some pointers on how to do that. I am better at it than some people but worse than most…and the secret to getting better at it is to study the most. I don't much like being on camera but I enjoy being on radio for a simple reason. Minus the visual issues, I can focus on what's being said and I am often very aware of how the interviewing is steering the conversation. My friend Paul Harris is really good at this. I learned a lot being on his radio shows and now when I listen to him talking with others, I'm aware of the skills on display.
They involve keeping things moving and asking questions that are answerable. Most questions that end with "What was that like?" are vague so they lead to vague answers. A good interviewer also poses questions in a way that gets the interviewee to the point A.S.A.P. and follows up when the interviewee omits some vital detail or says something that begs for amplification. John Fugelsang is a terrific stand-up comic but that skill, which involves working alone, does not necessarily go with playing well with others.
In fact, I've known stand-ups who forget that they're supposed to let the other person talk. John isn't one of them. On this visit to his show, since I felt more comfy there, I was more aware of how expertly he choreographs the verbal dance of three other people in his studio plus the caller on the phone. Some day, I might like to try a show like that but I know I'm not ready yet.
While I was up at Sirius XM, I ran into my friend Christine Pedi, who is one of the main hosts of their Broadway channel. You may remember her from Day 7 of this endless Excellent Adventure. She was just finishing recording her show so she came along to play audience for me on John's show and later we walked out together. I just realized that I showed you videos of some of the other people Amber and I spent time with on this trip but I didn't embed a video of Christine…so here's one. The gent with her is Seth Rudetsky who also hosts on the Sirius Broadway channel. As you'll see, he plays a mean piano and she's an incredible mimic…
As we left, Amber called and we had one of those "How did we exist before cellphones?" moments. She didn't know where I was and I didn't know where she was…so she texted me a link to a map and I followed it to a little delicatessen a few blocks away where she was enjoying a smoothie. We walked up Fifth Avenue to a subway station and in a New York minute, we were at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Times Square, heading to hook up with Charlie and Rachel Kochman in Shubert Alley…
This revival of Hello, Dolly! at the Shubert originally starred Bette Midler and David Hyde Pierce and then they left it and were replaced by Bernadette Peters and Victor Garber, who'll be in it until mid-July when Bette and David return to do six weeks. Then the show will close. This has apparently surprised many who remember how David Merrick kept the original production running forever and ever via stunt-casting…bringing in new Dollies every few months, hiring superstar Divas. I guess it was assumed the producers of this version would try something like that but nope. Midler and Pierce come back and that's it. It's kind of a shame because it's a beautiful production with great sets, costumes and choreography.
Watching it, I formed four opinions, the first being what I just said about how it had great art direction and staging. They other three are…
Bernadette Peters is absolutely wonderful as Dolly Levi.
Victor Garber is even better as Horace Vandergelder. I mean, he's really terrific and the audience absolutely loved him.
The songs in Hello, Dolly! are for the most part wonderful but the better the production is in other ways, the more obvious is that it's a very silly, pointless story. Has anyone seeing it ever cared whether the two clerks who work for Vandergelder ever get to kiss a lady? Does anyone have any idea why all these different characters keep running into each other?
Don't get me wrong: I had a great time. We all did. But it's one of those shows where the actors dutifully utter lines that convey the plot and nobody gives even half a damn about that plot. The audience we saw it with was ecstatic from curtain-up to curtain-down but they'd have been even happier if in the Second Act, they'd tossed the storyline and just done the "Hello, Dolly!" number over and over.
I love Bernadette Peters. Remind me one of these days to tell you a story from around 1980 of the one and only time I met her. If I had been cool and witty and charming, I would have told this story long ago. As it was, I was flustered and clumsy and I made a ridiculous fool of myself. This was close to four decades ago and I'm still cringing from it.
And that's right: It's been like 38 years since that happened. Why did she only look about twenty years older on the stage of the Shubert? It was an exciting evening of everyone in the place loving her…and maybe loving Victor Garber a tad more. He was crusty and funny and he alone managed to rise above most of the lines he was given. As I said, it's not a great show but it sure was a great show.
After, we went to John's of Times Square where they have great pizza and we didn't have the pizza. It was a fine, albeit long day and I've tired myself out just writing about it. So come back tomorrow for the much-briefer story of the last day of our trip…with Special Guest Star, Donald Trump! Well, actually it was just a guy who looks like Trump but that's almost the same thing.
Fred Kaplan on Donald Trump's concept of international diplomacy: You get buddy-buddy with Putin and then ask him, "Would you do me a favor and get out of Syria? Would you do me a favor, would you get out of Ukraine?" Yeah, that's how it works.
Here's Matt Yglesias with a good explanation of the charges being brought against the Trump Foundation. As far as I can tell, Trump and his minions have never offered any proof that the allegations aren't true; just countered with insults and charges of "witch hunt." I'm sure that all the folks who wanted Bill and Hillary tossed in the slammer for every possible infraction by the Clinton Foundation will hold Trump to the same standard. Sure they will…
There is tremendous outrage out there about immigrant families being torn apart. You know who's fine with it? All those folks who told us Gay Marriage would destroy families.
Even Conservatives like Rod Dreher are uncomfy with Trump lionizing Kim Jong Un as a great, talented leader. It makes you think Kim got a dub of the pee tape from Putin.
And of course, no one with a straight face can look at the "agreement" between Kim and Trump and think that Trump got anything but hosed. Well, actually, he got something that he can sell to his followers as a triumph but if Obama had come back with that, it would have been condemned as a Neville-Chamberlainesque bargain. Daniel Larison describes what it actually says.
On we march with our recap of the eleven-day trip I took recently with my stunning friend Amber to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and New York. We're in New Work now but before you read about Day 9, you'll want to read the summaries of Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, my Philadelphia Addenda, Day 7 and Day 8. Onward —!
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
This one'll be a lot shorter than Part 8. Heck, Angels in America is a lot shorter than Part 8. Anyway: Last year, I took Amber to Las Vegas and as I wrote back then…
Near Times Square in New York, there's an Italian restaurant I like called Carmine's and they've cloned it in Vegas. It's in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace and we went there Saturday evening for a dinner that felt like it wasn't served until Sunday morning. They brought the garlic bread immediately and then the entrees arrived — I am not exaggerating — an hour later. I complained to the manager who went off, investigated, then came back and said, "We screwed up" and told us the $100+ meal was on the house with his great apologies. Who says you can't win in Vegas?
Despite the piss-poor service there, Amber loved the chow when it did arrive and she asked if we could go some day to Carmine's in New York. So for lunch on Day 9, we met my pal Vinnie Favale at the one in Times Square and Vinnie brought along his son Jon. This is who Vinnie is and in case someone's reading this blog years from now and the link is dead, it explains he's a long-time exec in CBS's late night division who oversaw Late Show with David Letterman for most of its run and is now involved with Stephen Colbert's show. He's also been involved with Howard Stern's programs and other fun ventures.
We talked at length, mostly about the TV business and ate Carmine's Shrimp Parmigiana, which is indecently yummy. Vinnie is sharp and funny and he knows almost as much obscure Show Biz Trivia as I do. After Amber was suitably stuffed with shrimp, he was nice enough to indulge me with a trip down to the Ed Sullivan Theater from whence emanates Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
About that iconic venue: The place started life as Hammerstein's Theatre in 1927 — a legit house wherein the first play was a musical called Golden Dawn starring an actor named Archie Leach. After a while, Hammerstein's Theatre turned into the Manhattan Theatre, then into Billy Rose's Music Hall, then back into the Manhattan again. At the same time, Archie Leach turned into Cary Grant.
In 1936, the building turned into CBS Radio Playhouse Number 1 and thousands of radio broadcasts came out of it. In 1950, it was converted into a television studio, CBS's Studio 50. Among the hundreds of shows that would be done in there were The Jackie Gleason Show, The Merv Griffin Show, What's My Line?, The $10,000 Pyramid, To Tell the Truth and Password…but the biggie, which came outta that building from the early fifties through 1971, was The Toast of the Town, later renamed The Ed Sullivan Show. And in 1967, Studio 50 was renamed The Ed Sullivan Theater.
It has kept that name to this day, even after Ed's show went off in 1971. Game shows and other programming filled it and in the mid-eighties, the sitcom Kate and Allie graced its stage. It was during those Kate and Allie days that I got my first glimpse inside — a tour of a sad-looking studio with many, many things falling apart or in bad need of repair.
A Mr. David Letterman moved in in 1993 after the place was totally redone for him — an amazing transformation. I got inside around '95 or '96 and loved what had become of it. Colbert's occupancy in 2015 came after another complete makeover and this one removed some of the improvements made for Dave and put back some of the original architecture. It's just beautiful in there now.
Colbert's show was dark the week we were there, which was a good thing because we kind of had the run of the place. I got to talk to Pat Farmer, a stagehand who often turned up on Letterman shows in bits like reading Oprah Winfrey transcripts. His fondness for the shrine was evident and we swapped tales of its history.
The one thing that bothered me was that Colbert's set seems too big and busy and it felt like all the catwalks and its sheer height diminished the performing area…but maybe I wouldn't feel that way if I was there when a show was in progress. It was also kind of weird to encounter the ghost of Jackie Mason when he isn't even dead yet. Nevertheless, it gave me the finger. Much appreciated, Vinnie.
Thanks to Gilbert Gottfried having to cancel our podcasting date, Amber and I could have dinner that evening with my cousin David (author of this book and this book and this book and others) and his great wife Dini. We dined at Joe Allen on W. 46th Street and it's one of those restaurants where everyone dining there is either in a play or attending one so you can see parties finish eating and leave on schedules. If you go there, try the broiled chicken.
For our evening's entertainment, the four of us hiked over to the New World Stages on W. 50th, which is kind of a cineplex for live theater, to see what I'd been told was a particularly good version of Avenue Q. I'd seen the show before, though not this production, but Amber, David and Dini hadn't. It debuted on Broadway in 2003, ran six years there and has almost always since been playing Off-Broadway…and everywhere else. It has become one of the most-produced musicals of all time…and for good reason.
In case you don't know, it's a send-up of Sesame Street with puppets who curse and fornicate, set on a street where folks aren't cheery and happy and explaining the difference between Near and Far. The songs are bouncy and some linger in your head for quite a time after. This current production seems to be as fine as any with very good performers who got every possible laugh. Whenever you next get to Manhattan, go see it. It'll probably still be there.
Tomorrow: Our last full day before returning home. I'll tell you how Bernadette Peters was spectacular in Hello, Dolly! and how she wasn't even the best one in the show.
My friend Amber loves the chicken fried rice they make at Benihana. Back here, I linked to a video of a Benihana chef telling you how it's made but the one today is more oriented towards doing it at home.
There are really two steps. One is that you study the video to see what it involves. The second is that you realize that for a lot less time, money and hassle you can just drive to the nearest Benihana and buy a few "to go" orders of the stuff. Here — watch the video and see if that wouldn't be a whole lot easier…
The fine folks who run Comic-Con International today announced…
Joye Murchison Kelly, Dorothy Roubicek Woolfolk to Receive 2018 Bill Finger Award
Joye Murchison Kelly and Dorothy Roubicek Woolfolk have been selected to receive the 2018 Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. The selection, made by a blue-ribbon committee chaired by writer-historian Mark Evanier, was unanimous.
"We're really excited about this one," Evanier explains. "The comic book industry employed too few women in its early decades. Back when this year's honorees were active, their gender was horribly unrepresented among the creative talents that made the comics—and what few there were went totally unrecognized. The work of these two extraordinary ladies deserves to be acknowledged and celebrated."
The Bill Finger Award was created in 2005 via a proposal from the late comic book legend Jerry Robinson. "It's to recognize and salute writers for a body of work that has not received its rightful reward and/or recognition," says Evanier. "Even though the late Bill Finger now finally receives credit for his role in the creation of Batman, he's still the industry poster boy for writers not receiving proper reward or attention."
Joye Hummel Murchison Kelly was 20 years old in 1944 when she began working for Dr. William Moulton Marston on Wonder Woman. She had recently graduated from the Katherine Gibbs School in New York, where she had taken a psychology class from Dr. Marston. He had written almost all the scripts for his Amazon Princess and found himself in need of an assistant writer he could school in the precise way he wanted the heroine depicted, and Joye Hummel, as she was then named, learned quickly. Soon she was writing scripts on her own, mainly in Marston's New York office, where she also worked alongside Wonder Woman's artistic creator, Harry Peter. Like Marston's own stories, her work appeared in three publications — Wonder Woman, Sensation Comics, and Comic Cavalcade — under the house byline "By Charles Moulton," and none of it was credited to her. Her work appeared until 1947, and much of it has recently been reprinted to the delight of current readers. Ms. Kelly and her husband Jack will be traveling to Comic-Con so that she may accept her award in person and also appear on Saturday afternoon for a special spotlight interview: her first-ever visit to a comic book convention.
Dorothy Roubicek Woolfolk (1913–2000) served as a writer/editor from 1942 to 1944 at All-American Publications, which was allied with (and soon absorbed by) the firm now known as DC Comics. She later worked, again as a writer/editor, for Timely Comics (now known as Marvel) and EC Comics. Much later, in the 1970s, she returned to comic book editing for DC, supervising, among others, Wonder Woman, Young Romance, and Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane. For all these companies, she occasionally freelanced scripts, working on her own or with her husband, the prolific writer William Woolfolk. Though much of her work was on so-called "girls' comics" like the romance titles, she wrote for a great many superhero and adventure comics and is often credited with adding the element of Kryptonite to the Superman mythos. In her 1970s stint at DC, she discovered and gave work to a great many new writers and artists, both male and female. Her Finger Award will be accepted by her daughter, Donna Woolfolk Cross who, as a bestselling author herself, continues the family tradition.
The Bill Finger Award honors the memory of William Finger (1914-1974), who was the first and, some say, most important writer of Batman. Many have called him the "unsung hero" of the character and have hailed his work not only on that iconic figure but on dozens of others, primarily for DC Comics.
In addition to Evanier, the selection committee consists of Charles Kochman (executive editor at Harry N. Abrams, book publisher), comic book writer Kurt Busiek, artist/historian Jim Amash, cartoonist Scott Shaw!, and writer/editor Marv Wolfman.
The major sponsor for the 2018 awards is DC Comics; supporting sponsors are Heritage Auctions and Maggie Thompson.
The Finger Award falls under the auspices of Comic-Con International and is administered by Jackie Estrada. The awards will be presented during the Eisner Awards ceremony at the Hilton Bayfront Hotel on the evening of Friday, July 20.
Trump's summit with Kim Jong Un hasn't accomplished much more than to give those two men a photo-up which they obviously feel will make them look good to their respective bases. Oh, and they both may have managed to make South Korea feel like it's being abandoned by the U.S. I can get why Kim Jong Un likes that; not so certain why Trump wants to take bows for it.
But I guess if you feared the outcome of that kaffeeklatsch would be immediate nuclear war, it was kind of successful. I have a friend who feels he's scored a success if he asks a woman out and she merely refuses and doesn't call the police on him. So congrats to Trump for not creating a disaster…yet.
I'm not like another friend of mine who has decided to judge Trump on what he calls the Sean Hannity Scale. The way it works is that Trump gets credit for any accomplishment that is so inarguably good that Sean Hannity would have praised it if it had been done by Obama. Since Hannity thought it was wrong for Obama to even say he'd be open for a meeting with Kim Jong Un, Trump failed that test by even going to the meeting.
I'd really like to see Trump achieve some good things — and by that, I mean things that are good for the U.S. and even for the world. Unfortunately, he seems to think that convincing his base that he's actually accomplished something is just as good as actually accomplishing it. And I guess in his world, it is.
Canada should be pissed with the U.S. over the trade deficit of comedians. We got Jim Carrey, Martin Short, Norm MacDonald, Rick Moranis, Dan Aykroyd, Howie Mandel, Samantha Bee, Mike Meyers and Seth Rogen. All they got from us was one McKenzie brother.
