Here's Dylan Matthews with a good explainer of the House Republican Tax Proposal which was unveiled today. It's way too complicated for most Americans to understand…and I would imagine its proponents are counting on that. It's also not the final bill that will perhaps be passed by the Senate and sent to Donald Trump for signature. Since it's designed to give him a huge tax cut, what do we think he will do?
It's called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. I suspect there are people in this country who would back anything called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act even if all the actual text did was make it legal to trap and eat your neighbors' pets and maybe their children. But at least the real, current version of the bill is not going to pass without a lot of rewrites and adjustments.
Someone whose e-mail I can't find again pointed me to this video and rather than explain it myself, I'm going to steal the explanation of the fellow who posted it, David Rowen…
This music video is the culmination and fulfillment of a small dream I have had since college. I attended James Madison University, where I sang in an a cappella group called The Overtones. During my last semester of school, I was commissioned by the American Heart Association (AHA) to arrange an a cappella medley of music from Wicked, The Wiz, and The Wizard of Oz for the Overtones to perform at two Oz-themed galas hosted by the AHA. Outside of these events, the medley was only performed one other time, and since then, I have wanted to revive and revamp the arrangement, and take the creative vision to new heights. With the help of an amazing team, a stellar cast, and generous donors, the new vision has finally come to fruition. I am thrilled to present "The Oz Medley."
I love this kind of a cappella singing. I suppose I'm fortunate that I have a wretched singing voice because if I could sound like these folks, I'd join one of those groups and never do anything else. This is worth ten minutes of your time. Thank you, whoever sent me the link!
Kevin Spacey's statement the other day reminds me of one of the many, many reasons I don't drink alcohol. I know many folks who handle it fine and enjoy it and it never creates problems for them or others around them. But imagine being told you did something horrible and your best defense is that you have no memory of having done it…but you might have.
Of course, few will believe that Spacey does not remember the incident in question. My point is that if he honestly doesn't, that's pretty horrible…and it's maybe worse than if he does. It makes you want to ask the guy, "Hey, how many other minors might you have tried to rape and forgotten about?"
I also kind of wonder if a smart lawyer vetted that admission. When you confess you might have tried to rape a minor but you can't remember for sure, aren't you just inviting others to accuse you of doing other things you might not remember? Aren't you kind of disqualifying yourself as a witness to your own life?
And of course, that isn't the worst part of his "apology." It's that he handed ammo to those who, through naivete or deliberate smears, want to link homosexuality with pedophilia. I suppose, given the accusation against him, he had to finally "come out" and admit to being a "proud, gay man." But he could have separated the two concepts. He could have reminded all that just because a gay man does that kind of thing, that doesn't represent all gays any more than Roman Polanski is proof that all straight guys molest 13-year-old girls.
Mr. Spacey has never disappointed me as an actor but he sure has as a human being. And I guess it's finally time to admit that I never thought his impressions were very good.
Here's another list of the most popular Halloween candy treats. A lot of them contain peanuts or peanut butter.
There's also a list there of the Most Hated candies. Candy Corn is in second place right after Circus Peanuts. I don't believe anyone in the world has ever liked them, either.
But actually, you shouldn't pay much attention to my taste in candy since I don't like any of 'em. About ten years ago, my sweet tooth mysteriously went away and I don't find any of them appealing. When I did, I didn't really like anything but chocolate. These days, I'd rather eat gravel than M&Ms.
Peanuts? You give out peanuts? With so many kids having problems with nut allergies, apparently of a serious nature, you're giving out peanuts? Yes, you and I both like peanuts, but I'm hearing that folks are now supposed to have non-food and food treats.
Well, actually I have little packets of peanuts to give out if (big "IF" there) anyone comes to my door tonight. Considering that no one has for around seven years — and since I may not be home anyway — I don't think anyone's in much danger.
Also, each of these packets of peanuts says PLANTERS PEANUTS on it in quite legible type and has a drawing of a character who looks like a peanut wearing a monocle and top hat on it. I assume that if some kid has serious allergies to nuts, he's learned not to open one of those and devour the contents. If he hasn't, he's in a lot of trouble.
If we are to believe this survey, the top ten most popular treats to give out on Halloween are — in this order — Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Reese's Miniatures, Twix, Kit Kat, Snickers, Reese's Pieces, Milky Ways, Reese's Stuffed With Pieces, Peanut Butter M&Ms and Butterfingers. By my count, seven out of ten contain peanuts or peanut butter…and note that Peanut Butter M&Ms and Peanut M&Ms both outrank non-peanut M&Ms.
So I have a hunch a lot of people are giving out peanuts and the kids who are allergic and/or their parents are on alert. They'd better be. At least the peanuts I have here to give out are (a) clearly labelled PEANUTS and (b) never given out.
Believe me, Jim. I'm aware of the bad effects some foods can have on people. There are very popular candies that contain ingredients that are just as bad for me as peanuts are for someone who could eat one and go into anaphylactic shock. But I recognize you can't run the world protecting everyone from everything that might harm someone. These days, I'm not sure we're even that interested in protecting everyone from everything that might harm everyone.
Okay, so Trump's former campaign chairman and associate have been indicted on money laundering, tax and foreign lobbying charges. I think we can assume that since Robert Mueller chose them as his lead-off catches, he's pretty confident he's got a strong case there. The question is whether they have sufficient dirt on others that they can reduce the trouble they're in by testifying against those others.
But the bigger story today may turn out to be that in a separate matter, George Papadopolous admitted that in his capacity as a Trump adviser, he met with an unofficial representative of the Russian government to arrange meetings with Putin's office and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. That makes it a bit harder for Trump to claim this whole "colluding with Russia" story is "fake news."
I keep remembering that what did Nixon in was the slow drip-drip-drip of revelations that scared away prominent Republicans from defending him. Increasingly, G.O.P. members of the House and Senate became afraid of linking their careers to him because who the hell could guess what would be revealed next Tuesday? And at the time, Nixon was a lot more popular in this country than Trump is now.
I'm back from my Secret Mission and no, I can't tell you what it was. It was nice though to not look much at the news for several days. If you wake up each morning with a clenched face wondering, "What has he done today?", you might want to try it. Tomorrow, of course, we may find out just who gets the honor of being the first person indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller. My money's on Flo from the Progressive Insurance commercials. She's really getting on my nerves.
Jon Maki writes to tell me that back in 1986, there actually was a short-lived sitcom based on Fast Times at Ridgemont High…
It didn't air on Saturday mornings. I believe it aired, for its brief run, on Wednesday evenings and it was on CBS. It was just called Fast Times, with Ray Walston and Vincent Schiavelli both reprising their roles from the movie. Dean Cameron, who played a lovable stoner goofball in several teen movies in the '80s, had the role of Spicoli. Also of note were a young Patrick Dempsey and Courtney Thorne-Smith. I remember it being not entirely terrible, but I would have only been 13 or 14 at the time, so who knows how good it actually was? (Mostly, I think I just liked it for Claudia Wells, who filled in for Phoebe Cates, although, there was, of course, a significant lack of bikini-top-removing with her version of the character.)
I have no memory of this at all…but as you note, they didn't produce it for Saturday morning.
Entertainment Weekly has an article up about the new attention being paid to Jack Kirby for his part in creating all those popular characters now appearing in popular movies. One quibble: The author says "After returning home from the war, Kirby teamed up with Stan Lee and Marvel owner Martin Goodman, and together they came up with the Fantastic Four and birthed the Marvel Universe as we know it." That makes it sound like Jack did that while taking off his uniform and returning to civilian life. Jack came home from the war in 1945 and the Fantastic Four started in 1961.
Other than that, good article…as are most of those that quote me.
One more thing and then I'm heading for bed: My friend radio-guy Paul Harris recently had the unpleasant shock of tuning in his own station and hearing one of his colleagues giving much glory and air time to an alleged psychic. Actually, all psychics are alleged because there's no such thing as an actual one. I am amazed that anyone with an I.Q. higher than their inseam measurement ever falls for the claims of psychics but then I look at who won the Electoral College and I scale back my amazement.
Paul debated with himself long and hard and finally decided he had to say something on his own show about this and every other con-artist who claims to have psychic abilities. You might want to give it a listen.
I posted this here back on January 10, 2004. A few days ago, I got into a discussion with someone who thinks they're going to receive a writing credit on an upcoming movie for which they made a few story suggestions. They did not ever sit down at a computer or even a typewriter and write anything resembling an actual script but they feel they have input into what happens in the film and what the actors say…or naturally, it's logical that they get a writing credit.
I asked them how many other people they thought had "input" into the story. They said, "Oh, maybe a dozen of us or so." I decided it was time to rerun this piece. Everything in it still applies except my reticence to get involved in this matter with the Writers Guild. That reticence is now even much greater…
According to this article in The New York Times (which you may have to register to read), the end credits for The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King run 9 minutes and 33 seconds. They don't say how many names that involves but the previous Lord of the Rings movie (with apparently a shorter crawl) had 559 names.
This doesn't matter to a lot of people since they aren't going to sit through them, anyway. Theaters may even like it since it helps clear the place out and lets the crew get an early start at sweeping up the Raisinets boxes. But it raises a big issue for uncredited writers.
As you probably know, a lot of movies, especially action flicks and comedies, employ more writers than are listed on the screen. The first Flintstones movie allegedly had more than 30. A lot of folks who get hired to write movies now just automatically presume that someone, or perhaps many someones will follow them.
The Writers Guild of America has the sole power to determine the screen credits on a movie. (Quick aside: In my travels through the entertainment biz, I occasionally encounter someone who's involved in a potential movie in some capacity and though not a screenwriter, says they've been promised a writing credit or will demand one. They're not going to actually write in the accepted sense but they're going to make suggestions and they think they can negotiate a writing credit. If I have the energy, I explain to them that except on a non-Guild film, the studio cannot guarantee them a writing credit. The WGA can always arbitrate and award the credit to the person or persons they decide actually wrote the film. And while that arbitration process is flawed in some ways, it never awards screen credit to anyone who didn't actually produce a script.)
Back when the WGA won jurisdiction over screen credits, it became customary for them to attempt to limit them to two names or in extreme cases, three. The thinking was that (a) more names than that devalued the role of all screenwriters on a film and (b) keeping it down to two or three names might induce studios to keep it down to two or three writers, minimizing how often our work was rewritten by others. Obviously, the latter hasn't worked as intended and some writers are happy about this. They figure more writers being hired to rewrite means more writers being hired, period. But let's turn our attention to that first reason.
That it was more dignified for writers not to be part of a huge list was the thinking back when movie credits were 20 or 30 names. There was usually one credit for Make-Up and it went to the head of the department, not to the 25 folks who actually did the make-up. The head of the Special Effects division got the one credit for Special Effects, regardless of how many guys actually did the work. So it didn't seem that ignoble for someone to write a large chunk of a movie and not get his or her name on it. Most of the people who worked on the movie didn't get their names on it.
Today, most of them do…all 40 Make-Up people, all 348 guys who made the Special Effects happen, the caterer, the insurance broker, the insurance broker's secretary, the security guards, the guys who drove the Craft Services truck to the set, the people who loaded the crullers onto the Craft Services truck…
…but not the guy who wrote 20% of the movie. His name is nowhere to be seen.
Several times, I've been asked to serve on WGA committees that will explore how the credits guidelines might be revised. I would sooner put some vital body part in a drill press. Even opening the floor to discussion gets some writers so angry that flecks of foam begin appearing on their computer monitors and they accuse those who want to change things of being traitors and idiots and sell-outs and…you know, all those things Ann Coulter calls Democrats. I don't need that in my life. Still, I can't help but wonder aloud if now that credits credit almost everyone, it isn't far more ignoble to say that writing a large chunk of a movie still doesn't deserve even cursory recognition. Aren't we now saying that writing 20% of the movie is less important than doing 2% of the wardrobe handling?
The more I think about it, the more I think the whole concept of what screen credits mean has changed, and that it's nuts for the WGA to cling to the perspective of 1946. But I don't expect it to be changed. Not without some serious bloodshed within the Guild.
I watched Saturday Night Live through some of its grimmer years because no matter how bad I thought the show was at times, I was always impressed that they could do it at all. Even the worst episode was a miracle of technical proficiency and an unbelievably skilled crew. They make it look easy but I know enough about television production to know that it is anything but. This video should give you a tiny idea of how they do the seeming impossible…
This is my new annual post about why I don't like Halloween. It is an amalgam of several past "Why I Don't Like Halloween" posts with some new thoughts tossed in. Nothing that follows should be taken to suggest that I don't want you to celebrate and enjoy Halloween. It's just to explain why I don't. Here is me explaining…
At the risk of coming off like the Ebenezer Scrooge of a different holiday, I have to say: I've never liked Halloween. For one thing, I'm not a big fan of horror movies or of people making themselves up to look disfigured or like rotting corpses. One time when I was in the company of Ray Bradbury at a convention, someone shambled past us looking like they just rose up from a grave and Ray said something about how people parade about like that to celebrate life by mocking death. Maybe to some folks it's a celebration of life but to me, it's just ugly.
I've also never been comfy with the idea of kids going door-to-door to take candy from strangers. Hey, what could possibly go wrong with that? I did it a few years when I was but a child, not so much because I wanted to but because it seemed to be expected of me. I felt silly in the costume and when we went to neighbors' homes and they remarked how cute we were…well, I never liked to be cute in that way. People talk to you like you're a puppy dog. The man two houses down…before he gave me my treat, I thought he was going to tell me to roll over and beg for it.
When I got home, I had a bag of "goodies" I didn't want to eat. In my neighborhood, you got a lot of licorice and Mounds bars and Jordan Almonds, none of which I liked even before I found out I was allergic to them. I would say that a good two-thirds of the candy I hauled home on a Halloween Eve went right into the trash can and I felt bad about that. Some nice neighbor had paid good money for it, after all.
And some of it, of course, was candy corn — the cole slaw of sugary treats. Absolutely no one likes candy corn. Don't write to me and tell me you do because I'll just have to write back and call you a liar. No one likes candy corn. No one, do you hear me?
I wonder if anyone's ever done any polling to find out what percentage of Halloween candy that is purchased and handed-out is ever eaten. And I wonder how many kids would rather not dress up or disfigure themselves for an evening if anyone told them they had a choice. Where I live, they seem to have decided against it. Each year, I stock up and no one comes. For a while there, I wound up eating a couple big sacks of leftover candy myself every year.
That didn't seem healthy so one year, I actually did this: When I was at the market picking out candy to have on hand for the little masked people, I picked a kind I didn't like. So that year when no one came, instead of eating a whole bag of candy, I found myself throwing out a whole bag of candy…and wondering why that had seemed like a good idea. What I now do is that I always have on hand, not for Halloween but for me, little bags of Planter's Peanuts and if any trick-or-treaters ever knock on my door, that's what they'll get.
So I didn't like the dress-up part and I didn't like the trick-or-treating part. There were guys in my class at school who invited me to go along on Halloween when they threw eggs at people and overturned folks' trash cans and redecorated homes with toilet paper…and I never much liked pranks. One year the day after Thanksgiving, two friends of mine were laughing and bragging how they'd trashed some old lady's yard and I thought, "That's not funny. It's just being an a-hole."
Over the years, as I've told friends how I feel, I've been amazed how many agree with me. In a world where people now feel more free to say that which does not seem "politically correct," I feel less afraid to own up to my dislike of Halloween. About the only thing I ever liked about it was the second-best Charlie Brown special.
So that's why I'm home tonight and not up in West Hollywood wearing my Judge Roy Moore costume. I'm fine with every other holiday. Just not this one. I do not believe there is a War on Christmas in this country. That's just something the Fox News folks dreamed up because they believe their audience needs to be kept in a perpetual state of outrage about something. But if there's ever a War on Halloween, I'm enlisting. And bringing the eggs.
As I mentioned in the first part of this article some time ago, the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High came out in 1982 — August of '82 to be more precise. It was a pretty big hit and as some movie studios doubtlessly noticed, it was a pretty big hit on a rather modest budget.
There were no huge, costly movie stars in it. There were no exotic locations or costly special effects. So even before it came out, when the advance word within the industry was promising, there were imitations in every possible pipeline. One of those imitations was a screenplay I'd been commissioned to write. Its commissioner hoped it would have the same feel and appeal as Fast Times…and the same success.
I wrote a script and the outfit that hired me liked it but in the short time they gave me to whip up a First Draft, they changed their minds on one thing. They'd told me to put in nudity and naughty words and a few drug jokes because they were angling for an "R" rating like Fast Times. Once I handed it in, they were very happy with it but they had me do a quick rewrite to lose ten pages and to shoot for a "PG." Just a few weeks later, that suddenly seemed a more commercial way to go.
Among the things they liked: That the script, which I called Sky High, had no similar plot points and the characters were quite different. No one who'd seen Fast Times could say it was a direct copy.
An indirect copy? Yeah, probably. But not many people said that because not many people read my script. Once almost anyone realized it was that kind of movie, they said, "Thank you but we already have quite enough of that kind of movie in development."
I was paid in full for Sky High and then my agent began to use it as a sample of my writing to get me other work…and it did. It brought me a number of jobs from folks who said in effect, "We don't want to produce this but we would like to hire the guy who wrote it to write something else for us." One of the producers he sent it to was the lady who'd recommended me for the job in the first place. I will call this person The Producer Lady. The Producer Lady read it and had a very odd idea.
By now, it was early 1990. Not long before, NBC had begun shaking up its Saturday morning lineup. Once all cartoons, it suddenly contained a live-action situation comedy called Saved by the Bell that aimed at a slightly older audience. It did well in the ratings and brought a whole new flock of advertisers to Saturday morn. Indeed in the next few years, there would be less 'n' less animation on NBC Saturday AM and more shows like Saved by the Bell.
From the real Fast Times…
The Producer Lady's idea, inspired in a way by my script, was that her company would procure the TV rights to Fast Times at Ridgemont High and turn it into a series that could run on Saturday morning, maybe even on NBC, right after Saved by the Bell. At the time, Fast Times was still a big hit on cable channels and she had seen some sort of poll or survey that said it was very much beloved by the target audience for the sponsors that Saved by the Bell was now attracting. She said, That plus your Sky High script, which will show you can write funny material for that setting, is all we need!"
I was skeptical. Fast Times on Saturday morning? A lot of it was about teenagers getting laid, and while network TV was getting bolder about sex, that was only with sex between people over the age of 18 who were seen in the evening hours. In fact in prime time, they were getting more timid about minors — kids in high school — "going all the way." So the kind of somewhat-honest boy-girl relations in the movie wouldn't/couldn't be in a TV series. I didn't think they could even put on some of the PG-rated things I'd written in Sky High.
Also, the most interesting character in Fast Times, the one who hands down stole the movie, was Spicoli as played by Sean Penn. Spicoli was a well-fried pothead and if you took that away…well then, he wasn't Spicoli now, was he?
And of course, there'd be no naked people. Call me cynical but I did have the crazy thought that one of the reasons the film had done so well was the scene where Phoebe Cates takes off her bikini top. Just a hunch.
I asked The Producer Lady, "Do you think you can even get the rights?"
She said, "We'll pitch it to the network" — and I knew that basically meant that I would pitch it to the network. "It's a hot property," she continued. "It's too famous for the network to turn it down. They'll at last feel they have to develop it and if they're willing to put up development money, someone at Universal will sell us the rights."
So then I asked the Producer Lady, "Yeah, but don't you think they'll say, 'If we take out the sex, drugs and nudity, it won't be Fast Times at Ridgemont High.'"
She said, "No, the name is what they want." She added that the movie of M*A*S*H had had sex and nudity and a few drug references and that removing all those elements had not prevented it from being turned into a rather successful TV show." Off my reply of "Not on Saturday morning," she scrunched her nose and said, "Let's go in and pitch it. You'll see."
I went along with it, plotting out a pitch for Fast Times: The Kid Show, though I didn't call it that. One sunny afternoon, we went into the executive building at NBC in Burbank for an appointment with the Vice-President of Childrens Programming, who was surrounded by her aides. As is customary in such meeting, we first engaged in the customary pre-pitch banter, telling jokes and swapping gossip.
Then, suddenly, everyone in the room knew it was time. The Producer Lady made a brief speech about how she had this idea and we all thought it was the most super, spectacular, exciting idea ever to be heard within in the executive offices of a major television network." She then nodded to me and, feeling as awkward as I always do in these situations — and more awkward because I was selling something I didn't think had a prayer — I began…
"You're probably familiar with the movie, Fast Times at Ridgemont…"
And I don't think I even got to the High before the Vice-President person said, "We'd have to take out the sex, drugs and nudity and if we take out the sex, drugs and nudity, it won't be Fast Times at Ridgemont High."
I got up and said, "Thank you for your time" and I headed for the door. The Producer Lady scrambled right after me and that was the end of that, forever and ever.
Obviously, it was not the best idea ever for a Saturday morning TV program. I could make the case it was not the worst but that really doesn't matter. What matters is that if you started the clock the moment I began telling them about the project, it was the shortest pitch in the history of network programming. If you'd gone in and said, "How about a wacky sitcom with Paul Lynde as Charles Manson?," you couldn't have been out of that room in less time than I was. I'm kind of proud of that.
