My TiVo's set to grab the Academy Awards tonight but I won't be watching in real time. We all have performers who usually fail to amuse us and near the top of my list is Jimmy Kimmel, plus it's always felt wrong to me to have the host be someone who's not a major motion picture star or Johnny Carson.

Actually, I don't think even a favorite film actor could get me to sit through all the self-congratulations and thanking of agents…but the show is sometimes fun when you have it all on a digital recorder and you race through it in twenty minutes via fast-forwarding.

My pal Ken Levine will be reviewing it on his fine podcast, and he has this article up about what it must be like to write that telecast. Like him, I came close to getting that gig once. A gent who produced the Oscars one year told me, "If I do it next year, you'll be one of the writers" and then he chose not to do it the following year.

I did work on one award show and it was chaotic but a lot of fun except when Lorne Greene decided he didn't like the speech someone had written for him. He'd had it for days and had rehearsed it on camera earlier but he waited until fifteen minutes before he was to read it on live television to demand new copy. I hadn't written the piece he suddenly wanted changed but it fell to me to placate him and I had to write the new lines with a big marker, right on the cue cards. Then I ran into the booth and told the director he'd be hearing a new speech there and I had no copy of it to give him.

Award shows can be crazy that way. One year, a lady I know worked as a Production Assistant on the Oscars and just before the ceremony started, the producer handed her a new presenter speech. It was hand-written on yellow legal paper and he said, "Here — get this typed-up and distributed!" She had about fifteen minutes to type it, copy it and get it to all the parties who'd need it: The director, the stage manager, the TelePrompter operator, etc.

Panicked, she raced to a trailer that was being used as a production office. This was back when the ceremony was at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and also before computers. She burst into her office and found Steve Martin, sitting at her desk in his tuxedo, rewriting the speech he was to give in about a half an hour. She yelled at him, "I need to type this up NOW!" and he apologized, grabbed his paper out of her IBM Selectric and immediately vacated her chair.

It wasn't even a self-correcting Selectric. When she sat down and made a bad typo, she grabbed for the Liquid Paper and screamed, "You used up all my white-out!" Martin apologized again and began running around through the other trailers, trying to find her more Liquid Paper. He found some, the page got typed and disseminated and later, she and Steve Martin both made amends. I just love the idea of the number one box office star in America scurrying through trailers, dressed in a tux, trying to locate office supplies in a panic.

Enjoy the show. And if you're at a party where everyone's going to do a shot whenever Trump gets slammed, make sure you have a Designated Driver for the rest of the month and all of March.

So…I guess Donald read my post this morning. Maybe Colbert does have a shot at it…

The Academy of Magical Arts — that's the organization I belong to which operates the Magic Castle as its clubhouse — has released the following statement. It's quite good, though someone got the name of the organization wrong…

The Academy of Magic Arts Mourns the Passing of Daryl

HOLLYWOOD — Feb. 25, 2107 — For Immediate Release — The Academy of Magic Arts (AMA) and the Magic Castle mourn the passing of celebrated magician and AMA family member, Daryl.

Daryl, who was performing at the Magic Castle this week, was found dead on the club's premises on the evening of Friday, Feb. 24, and his death has been ruled a suicide by the Los Angeles Police Department.

The magic community mourns the loss of one of our most beloved and talented performers and the AMA's deepest regrets and heart-felt sympathy go out to Daryl's family.

Daryl was a World Champion, first-place FISM Gold medal winning, close-up magician with over 40 years of experience in both performing and selling the finest magic in the world. Daryl performed as a headline act at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for seven years fine tuning his already encyclopedic knowledge of magic. Daryl has performed literally thousands of shows for audiences as diverse as the Witch Doctors on the South Pacific island of Vanuatu to the movers and shakers of the political world at the Presidential Ball in Washington, D.C.

Also: Many news sources reported — and this seems to have come from the always-accurate folks at TMZ — that he was found hanging in a closet dressed only in his underwear. Officials at the Castle are saying he was fully dressed.

The Castle has reopened for business-as-almost-usual today and is serving brunch about now. From all reports, the staff there handled the matter with dignity and efficiency, though of course a lot of visitors last night had their visits truncated and were inconvenienced. I am in awe of how well everyone there dealt with the situation.

As I wrote early this morning, I did not know Daryl. I think I saw him perform there a few times and if I'm remembering correctly, he was very good. Beyond that, I feel that one way you show respect for someone like this is to not speculate baselessly on why they did it, what brought them to that decision, etc. I do (sort of) understand why certain people I knew thought that was the proper course of action for them but you never know for sure and certainly not with strangers.

If any good has come out of this incident, it's that on the Magic Castle member forums, members are exchanging phone numbers and saying, "If you ever feel you need someone to talk to…" Not that I'm suggesting it would have prevented what happened last night — maybe it would have, maybe not — but it's good to have someone to talk to, someone who can perhaps offer a clear head when you don't have one.

My good friend, the late Lorenzo Music, used to volunteer one night a week to answer phones at what he called a suicide prevention hotline, always adding that most of the time, the people who called weren't seriously considering that. They just needed someone to talk to who was willing to listen and not judge.

I'll bet he was good at it, especially because desperate callers sometimes recognized his voice. "Hey, you sound like that cat in the cartoons," they'd say, and he'd tell them who he was and it made the calls become very friendly. Also, a couple of times, callers with severe drinking problems were talked into getting professional treatment by Carlton, Your Doorman. That's putting it to good use.

One of the good things Donald Trump may accomplish as president is to do away with the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, which has increasingly struck me as an awful ritual. It's still technically supposed to happen but I can't see Trump sitting there being a good sport as some comedian roasts him, nor can I imagine all the members of the press sitting there as Trump tells them how horrible he thinks they are.

I can imagine him wanting to go through with it if all the news outlets that report his failings and who do fact-checking are excluded and all the speakers get up and say he's the most awesome, fabulous president ever and he did indeed beat Hillary in a landslide. That could happen but I doubt the organization that traditionally throws the White House Correspondents Dinner will go along with that. Maybe Trump will announce he's going to throw his own dinner to honor himself and he'll force Mexico to pay for it.

We seem to be one step closer to the W.H.C.D. not happening at all. Various organizations are canceling their traditional after-parties. I assume this is because they have to plan and put down deposits now and doubt the event will go forward as planned.

Samantha Bee is hosting an alternative dinner for charity on the night that the W.H.C.D. will take place if it takes place. That's great but it doesn't go far enough. I'd like to see the dinner not be canceled this year. I'd like to see them go ahead with it, book Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers to speak…and if Trump won't show, just have Alec Baldwin take his place in character. And maybe when it's time for "the president" to speak, have Baldwin get up and read a speech comprised wholly of things Trump has actually said. At last, the White House Correspondents Dinner might serve a healthy purpose.

Is your Smart TV smart enough to snoop on you? Maybe…in which case, you might want to consult this article on how to turn off certain "spying" functions on your Visio, Samsung or LG television sets. I have an Insignia brand TV — a pretty good make, by the way. They sell them cheap at Best Buy. I found a place in Settings to "limit ad tracking" and turned it off on mine.

A magician committed suicide last night at the famed Magic Castle in Hollywood, the exclusive club for magicians. I've been a member for thirty-six years and I can't recall anything — not even the fire a few years ago — that triggered the emotion I see on members' websites and forums tonight. The deceased was a performer there, well-known to most though I'd never met him. I can't help but think about the poor staff member who found the body and who had to have wondered if he or she had walked into an elaborate, poor-taste practical joke.

I wasn't there last night. Around 9:40, I got a text message that the Castle was closing down for the night due to a "medical emergency." It didn't take a lot of web-surfing to read what had really happened, though the performer's name had not been released. It's standard practice to not make that public until the person's family has been notified, though I wonder if that's always wise. Sure, it would cause a lot of shock to the deceased's loved ones…but it did cause a lot of anxiety to those of us who heard, in effect, "Someone you probably know has killed themselves. We'll tell you in a few hours who it is."

As I said, I didn't know the gent but a lot of names did run through my skull before I found out who it was.

In my lifetime, I think I've known about eight people who killed themselves. At least two were in such advanced stages of incurable, debilitating diseases that I could well understand it. They certainly spared themselves a lot of pain and their loved ones, a lot of pain and trouble and expense. If I'm ever that bad off, I might well decide to take that route before they did. The others had either made such a mess of their lives that they felt they couldn't go on, or had suffered a personal tragedy, like the loss of a life-partner.

One did it in the messiest, public way he could think of — a way which caused great pain and shock to those who knew him but also to total strangers who had the bad fortune to be there when he did it. Years later, some of them were still under psychiatric care because of it. In that case, my initial feelings of sorry and sadness for my friend turned to a fair amount of anger for doing it the way he did. Some of us may soon feel that way about the fellow who took his own life, not at home but in our clubhouse, disrupting business and ruining many evenings.

I don't think it's a bad thing to be angry at a dead person. You just have to remember that your anger can't do a lot.

Another bit of Rowan Atkinson. Should I mention that this is "unsafe for workplace?" Guess so…

Our president just did a mini-press conference and barred any news organization that wasn't overtly conservative. Yeah, it's about trying to marginalize the press that doesn't report Trump's every utterance without non-positive comment but it's also because the guy is simply incapable of answering non-fawning questions. Here are some links…

• So Trump says that "very few people" are covered by Obamacare. Fact checkers everywhere — like here, here and here — are pointing out that this isn't true. His plan seems to be to replace it with something much worse, insist it's better and to call anyone who disputes him a liar.
• And Sarah Kliff explains what the much-awaited Republican "replace" plan will probably involve. Apparently, those who said it would cost less and be better meant it will be better and cheaper for really rich people.
• Frank Rich thinks that Trump's rollback of transgender rights is just kind of a warm-up for curtailing the rights of other minorities, particularly their rights to vote.
• Many of my friends who think Trump is a horrible leader took some comfort when he spoke of repairing America's infrastructure. That, at least, would do some good and create some real jobs. Okay…but Matthew Yglesias says that may not happen because it might get in the way of tax cuts for the rich. In a Republican congress, nothing can get in the way of tax cuts for the rich.

I'm going to take the weekend off from this kind of thing to work on a script. If you want a lot of dumping on Trump, just watch the Oscars.

We are nearing the time when badges will go on sale for this year's Comic-Con International. This means we are also nearing the time when badges will be sold-out for this year's Comic-Con International. The time between the first of these moments and the second might well be less than the time it takes to warm a Hot Pocket in the microwave. In any case, I want to suggest that you not (repeat: NOT) rely on this blog to tell you when the first will occur. You can find out by keeping a careful watch on the Comic-Con website.

And while you're over there, remember that there are still badges available for this year's WonderCon, which occurs in Anaheim from March 31 through April 2. I am a guest and I will be — surprise, surprise — hosting a number of panels there including one on Jack Kirby, an April Fools Day edition of Quick Draw!, and a Cartoon Voices panel. WonderCon is always my second-favorite convention of the year.

Your Obedient Blogger had a very good time last night at a performance of For Piano and Harpo, a new play by Dan Castellaneta. It's about pianist, author and superwit Oscar Levant, who was one of the smartest and most troubled figures in the arts back in the previous century. Dan plays Levant and gives a performance that should make the playwright (i.e., him) very happy. He does not do this alone. He's aided by an amazing cast — Deb Lacusta, Jonathan Stark, J.D. Cullum, Gail Matthius and Phil Proctor, all of whom play at least three different people in Levant's life, often making lightning changes of wardrobe and emotion.

One of Cullum's roles is Harpo Marx, who was a friend of Levant's and who welcomed the pianist into his home for a year…not that Levant gave him much of a choice. The contrast of the two men is stunning: Harpo played crazy. Oscar was crazy. And most of the play is watching Oscar work through his neurotic quirks and depressions in an asylum and in his everyday life.  Cullum was terrific as Harpo and even better as a mute inmate in that asylum.

There are moments that are very funny and then abruptly, they become moments of human suffering and tolerance. Deb Lacusta has some chilling scenes, keeping it frighteningly real as Levant's wife June, who suffers because of the man she married. It is, in a way, the most important role in the play besides Mr. Levant. She plays other women in his life as well…and I kept saying to myself, "Gee, she's a good actor."

But then so is everyone on that stage. Stark is amazing as Jack Paar, George Gershwin, Levant's doctor and several other parts. Matthius portrays a mesmerizing (and at times, very funny) asylum resident, June's sister, Oscar's mother and others. Proctor expertly acts as Harpo's butler, Oscar's father, another asylum dweller and others. You could hear members of the audience gasping at the sheer versatility and the rapid pace…and at the delivery of dialogue clever enough to be in Oscar Levant's life.

Dan wrote a very good play, disappeared into the lead role and surrounded himself with a compelling world, sane when it is least believable and insane when it is most believable. We have director Stefan Novinski to thank for much of that.  I guess you'd call this a rave so — full disclosure — I confess that I know most of these people.

Following the performance, I played emcee for a 20-minute "talk back," interviewing the actors and the two musicians — David O, who played the piano and Jillian Risigari-Gai, who played the harp. Among those in the audience who participated were two Marx Brothers authorities — Steve Stoliar, who was Groucho's secretary in the last years of that great comedian's life, and Joe Adamson, who wrote one of the best books on the brothers, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo. We didn't have nearly enough time but I did ask Dan about the future of this play, which closes at the Falcon Theater on March 5. He said there is no future yet to speak of but he's hopeful of other productions.

If you live within commuting distance of Burbank, you might still be able to score some seats and go see it. There are some available. If not, be like Dan — hopeful of other productions, preferably near you. This play is too good to not live on.

Busy this afternoon with a script…and tonight, I'm moderating the "talkback" for Dan Castellaneta's play which I wrote about here. Tonight's performance is sold out. In fact, most of them are sold out but they added a few more performances so maybe one of them still has seats left. Go check here.

No Trump Dump today but take a read of Jonathan Chait. He's right. If Trump's taxes came out and he admitted on them that he'd made a couple million making child porn and selling U.S. military secrets to Kim Jong-un, the Republican congress still wouldn't act. They'd probably hold ten more Benghazi hearings just to try and sell the idea that Hillary was the real threat. The only way they'll ever hold Trump accountable is if he becomes such a political liability that he looks like he's going to drag the party down to defeat soon.

A few days ago, the National Weather Service was predicting more than an inch of rain on Sunday so the folks doing the Academy Awards scrambled and began setting up tents to protect all those lovely gowns and rented tuxes. But things change and now they're saying mostly light showers in the morning petering out throughout the day. The tents may still come in handy but they may not be necessary.

We've found on more person — super-dealer Bud Plant — who has been at every single Comic-Con International so that makes five of us. Anyone else?

As you know, a source of constant annoyance to me is the stream of unsolicited phone calls I get, trying to sell me on hiring the caller to do construction work on my home or install solar panels. Lately, I've had a new one. Next week, I turn 65 so I'm hearing from Medicare Supplemental Insurance sellers. Many of them do their best to sound like they're from the actual governmental Medicare office and if I let them get through their whole shpiel, they would sign me up for their product, making me think it's a necessary part of completing my Medicare enrollment. This is even slimier than the contractors who call and try to convince me that we spoke last year and I told them to call back because I'd be ready for a free estimate about now. If Trump will do something to stop these calls, I will stop posting about what a rotten human being and leader he is.

Here's a funny bit from Late Night with Seth Meyers.  Thanks to Shelly Goldstein for calling it to my attention…

My pal Paul Harris notes that the opening titles of Stephen Colbert's show now say it's "live on tape." As Paul notes, it's impossible for a show to be "live" if it's been recorded for broadcast later. And it's not "on tape," either. It's a digital recording.

But I'd like to point out that it's even worse than that. If "live on tape" means anything, it means that the show is recorded in real time with no edits. Colbert's show is edited all the time. The cold opening comedy piece is always pre-recorded. If Colbert ventures out on the street, as he did last week with Robert DeNiro, we see him exiting the main part of the theater and then they cut to an exterior segment that was recorded earlier. And sometimes, they just plain edit an interview that ran long or got boring.

When he has done shows "live" (for real), they sometimes pre-record most of the show earlier, then do live segments at the proper time. They've been known to even bring in two audiences, one for the non-live portions done earlier.

I would love to see a show like that done live — or at least recorded in one non-stop effort with no edits. Alas, late night TV prizes polish over spontaneity. Once upon a time, it was the other way around and that was one of the big things that separated late night from prime time.

Also, the other day, I caught an interview with James Corden, who was talking about his experiences hosting the Grammy Awards. He mentioned that his late night program ran new shows Monday through Thursday, then aired a rerun on Friday. This is not so. His show goes on in most time zones after Midnight…so he has new shows that air Tuesday through Friday and a rerun that runs Saturday morning. And I really can't bring myself to watch Jimmy Kimmel's show but do they still call it Jimmy Kimmel Live? It's recorded earlier, too.

Paul Ryan, who's always seemed to have no mission in life other than to see that wealthy folks get more out of government and pay less for it, claims in a Tweet that…

Freedom is the ability to buy what you want to fit what you need. Obamacare is Washington telling you what to buy regardless of your needs.

So I guess he's going to push for a health plan that will make it possible for everyone, including those who can't afford to pay and/or have pre-existing conditions, to obtain the kind of health insurance they think is right for them. That's terrific! I mean, he must understand that not being able to get health insurance or going bankrupt due to medical bills is certainly not freedom, right?

When last I posted my Friends-Lost-Because-of-Trump Counter, we were up to seven. Two of them have since apologized and patched things up but recently, another acquaintance got furious with me for that Tweet I tweeted when it was announced that Michael Flynn had resigned.  To save you the trouble of scrolling down, here it is again…

Hope there's video somewhere of Trump telling Michael Flynn, "You're fired!"

This brought me a vituperative e-mail laced with personal invective from someone who I guess never liked me as much as I liked him. Essentially, he called me a scumbag liar (he used nastier language) for saying that Flynn was fired when in fact he quit because Donald Trump is loyal to his people and would never in a million years actually fire someone. Sure, he'd do it on a "Reality" Show but never ever in real life.

I was accused of spreading "fake news," which is the new term folks use for any news story they don't like, even if it's true. By the time I read this crazed message, Trump's official spokesguy Sean Spicer had already said…

The evolving and eroding level of trust as a result of this situation and a series of other questionable instances is what led the President to ask for General Flynn's resignation.

I sent that link to the guy who shot back a new round of insults and the claim that it proved I was wrong because asking for someone's resignation is not the same thing as firing him. Maybe in a microscopic sense he's right but it's kind of like the scene in The Odd Couple where Oscar demands that Felix remove a plate of spaghetti from the poker table and Felix laughs disdainfully and says, "It's not spaghetti! It's linguini!"

Well, now it's garbage.

Looks to me like something ain't working for the Trump people, which was this idea that if they stay on message — insisting that every single thing he does is a huge, smashing success and every report to the contrary is a lie — they could get enough of the country to buy it. It's the old trick we've discussed before of thinking that never admitting you're wrong is the same thing as always being right. There's always a point where that stops working.

Despite the loss of a "net" six friends who back Trump, I still have quite a few. The dividing line between the two groups seem to be that the ones I've kept believe that he's preferable to the alternative and/or he'll change things in this country that they think he should be changed…but they aren't willing to believe all the bullshit. They don't believe he got the largest electoral landslide in history and that he really won the popular vote…or would have if those millions of phantom illegals hadn't voted.

They don't even think he's a good human being who knows what his administration is doing. They just think they'll like most of what he does. I can kinda respect that even if I think they're wrong about what should happen…and maybe even whether Trump will do what they want. I think I can stay friends with these people just so long as they don't tell me I'm horribly wrong if I confuse spaghetti with linguini.