When I worked for Jack Kirby in the early seventies, my partner was a very clever, nice gentleman named Steve Sherman. We later went our separate ways with Steve becoming an expert maker and operator of puppets. And by one of the umpteen weird coincidences in which my life abounds, there have occasionally been TV projects where I was hired to write and Steve was hired to do puppets.
That's me on the left, Steve on the right at last night's official opening of "Comic Book Apocalypse: The Graphic World of Jack Kirby," an exhibit in the main gallery at the CSUN Art Galleries on the campus of Cal State Northridge in Northridge, California. The word balloon in the photo was on a gigantic blow-up of one of Jack's panels. Steve was not really saying those things.
The exhibit is up through October 10 and features more than a hundred pieces of Jack's artistry, lovingly curated by Professor Charles Hatfield, the man behind a course offered at CSUN called "Comics and Graphic Novels." He did a splendid job.
If you are a fan of Jack's work, you will want to see this exhibit. Steve and I were not the only Kirby-connected folks who were impressed by it last evening. The place was packed with writers and artists and other creative folks who'd either worked with Jack or just been inspired by him. The other day, I wrote a piece here about how personally invigorating it was to be around Kirby and/or immerse yourself in his work. That was the undercurrent in the gallery last night.
I am awaiting more photos that people took there and promised to e-mail to me so I'll be writing more about the event. It was so wonderful though I had to say something now. Personally, anything that gives me even a molecule more of insight into Kirby is something worth experiencing.
I had seen most of those pages before. I'd even touched and worked in meaningless ways on a few of them. Still, a piece of art is different when you see it professionally framed and even a bit more different when you see it in a museum setting, displayed on a wall in a manner that underscores its importance. The context simultaneously says something about the work while holding it to a higher standard. Boy, those pages were impressive there.
I probably need to apologize to a few people there. I was a bit overwhelmed by it all. I get very happy in an eye-moistening way when I see Jack being properly celebrated and recognized for what he did. Parts of my mind were in other places and I had trouble coming up with the names of a few people I encountered at the event, especially just after I arrived. If you were one, forgive me. I know who you are. I was just having a little trouble remembering who I was.
I'll probably go back a few times before October 10. In fact, I'll be back there tomorrow at 10 AM to participate in an event called the Curator's Talk — Charles Hatfield and me talking to a roomful of folks about Kirby. I think it's open to the public. The whole exhibit certainly is and it's free, though you'll probably pay six bucks to park on campus. If seeing the exhibit gives you even a dab of Kirby-fueled inspiration, that might be the best six bucks you ever spend. If not, it's still worth it for the pretty pictures.
Ed Kilgore writes about the campaign against "political correctness." I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about the term and an occasional puzzlement as to what some people mean by that but first, here's a key except from Mr. Kilgore's piece…
The Trump supporters and proto-Trump supporters I know are upset by things like having to listen to Spanish-language messages on customer service lines, not being able to call women "chicks" without someone frowning at them, and having to stop telling racist jokes at work. That's what "political correctness" is code for: having to worry about the sensitivities of people who were invisible or submissive not that very long ago.
That's what I sometimes (note the "sometimes") think is being said when someone condemns "political correctness." They're saying they should have the right to say bigoted things without anyone thinking they're a bigot. They certainly should not suffer any personal consequences from it. It reminds me of when Sarah Palin was arguing that if someone like the head of Chick-Fil-A made anti-gay comments, it had a "chilling effect" on the rights of free speech for him to lose business because of them.
My concept of Free Speech works kinda like this: Mutt has the right to say he thinks gays are evil or Jews are mercenary devils or the Holocaust didn't happen or women should stay barefoot, pregnant and underpaid. And Jeff has the right to say he thinks Mutt is an asshole and to shun him or to not patronize his business or whatever. (I also don't think boycotts are usually effective but if it makes you feel better to not buy paper towels made by the Koch Brothers, that's your right.)
I do sometimes agree with people who complain about "political correctness," such as when someone is way overreacting to a joke or trying way too hard to not offend people with skin the thickness of fishnet. When I use a gender-specific pronoun to discuss who might be our next president, I usually say "he or she" but if I say "he" only, that does not warrant a scolding as if I'd said no woman could possibly be qualified.
I am generally anti-censorship. To the extent demands for "political correctness" are being used to stop people from expressing their opinions, I'm against them…but it's evolving away from that. Demands for "political correctness" are becoming demands that if someone says racist or sexist things, we not brand them a racist or a sexist.
And there also seems to be an undercurrent of belief out there that if a statement is "politically correct," it could not possibly be correct. No, it's not automatically wrong if it offends no one…and it's not automatically right if it does, either.
Jack Kirby would have been 98 years old today. Here's a photo I'll bet most of you have never seen.
It was taken in late 1969, not long after I met Jack and not long before he rocked the comic book world by quitting Marvel and signing on with DC. I can't think of a single current analogy in comics or in any medium which would be a comparable jolt. I wanted to write here something like, "It would be as if [Name] quit CBS and went to work for NBC" or "It would be as if [Name] quit the Yankees and went to work for the Dodgers." But no names I could plug into those sentences would equal the impact of the news back then.
This photo was taken either by me or my friend Steve Sherman. It was taken in a party area at the Brown Derby restaurant on Vine Street in Hollywood. That's right: It's Kirby at the Derby. Jack, Steve and I had all gotten involved in that year's Toys for Tots campaign for the U.S. Marine Corps — a most worthy cause that collected donations of toys and steered them to kids who might otherwise have been forgotten by Santa. Jack donated his artistry for that year's Toys for Tots poster.
The guys in the costumes were friends of a promoter we'd all gotten involved with. That's a real long story that is told in this long, long biography of Jack I'm writing that has been a long, long time in coming. No, I don't know when you'll be able to buy a copy but I'm finally able to finish it and am attempting to do so.
Suffice it to say this promoter guy was trying to prove to Marvel that he could make their characters a lot more famous than they already were. He'd convinced the Marines to put Marvel heroes on the poster and he'd gotten some local costume companies to make three costumes under the impression that they were donating to the charity. In truth, he intended to use the suits afterwards for other purposes that would benefit his own enterprises.
Someone out there will be interested in this: He persuaded Western Costume — the biggest company ever in that business and the leading supplier of wardrobe for TV and movies — to agree to make a Captain America costume. Then the folks at Western discovered that they already had a Captain America costume, perhaps the only one then in existence. The one they gave him was the one made for actor Dick Purcell in the 1944 Captain America movie serial. That's it above with ear holes cut into the head piece since Cap's ears didn't show in the serial. And no, I have no idea whatever became of it.
Anyway, Jack was at the Derby for a press event to kick off the Toys for Tots drive and when either Steve or I set up this photo, Jack immediately went into the above pose, explaining that you couldn't just stand passively when you were being photographed with Thor, Spider-Man and Captain America. No, you sure couldn't. So consider that a picture of four super-heroes. I'm not sure the one with the cigar wasn't the most incredible of the four.
That's about all I have to say about this photo but I have an unlimited number of things to say about Jack, starting with the fact that he was one of the nicest people I ever knew and easily the one who most deserved the label of "genius." Some folks didn't pick up on that right away because he talked like a guy in an old Warner Brothers movie about the mob and his mind careened from topic to topic with restless abandon.
This is hard to explain but being around him, I came to the conclusion that his brilliance had a lot to do with being able to make unusual associations. He would take two or more seemingly unrelated concepts or elements — things mere mortals like you and I would never connect — and he'd connect them and arrive at something very, very wonderful. You might never be able to discern the starting points; never be able to fathom how he linked A to B and wound up with a C that resembled neither…but he did.
He talked like that, too. I'd be chatting with Jack about, say, Richard Nixon. Nixon was a big topic for everyone in 1969 but more so for Jack who created many a super-villain using but one of Nixon's odd quirks as a starting point. Jack, like so many of us, was fascinated that such a twisted personality could somehow ascend to be President of the United States. (Thank Goodness that these days, no one that warped ever even becomes a serious contender for the job.)
So I'd be talking about Nixon with him and suddenly I'd be talking about cling peaches with him. Or Mount Kilimanjaro. Or staple guns or something…and I'd go, "Huh? What the hell was the segue and how did I miss it?" Sometimes, days or even years later — and I'm not kidding about the years — I would figure out how we got from Topic A to Topic B. Sometimes, not.
There's a quote from Stephen Sondheim that I like. He once said, "The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is that you know there's a solution." There was always a solution with Jack. Alas, those of us who live in one world at a time were sometimes unable to figure it out. Still, it would not shock me if at some point, some great Kirby Villain started life because Jack started musing about Nixon with a staple gun.
Those two qualities of Kirby's — the Cagneyesque way of speaking and the seeming disconnects in his speech — caused some people to miss how smart the guy was. One of many reasons he left Marvel shortly after this photo was taken is that so many important people there thought he was kind of demented and treated him as a useful idiot.
He told them that characters like the ones surrounding him in the picture would someday be billion-dollar properties appearing in major motion pictures and known the world over. As a vital contributor to the existence of those characters — in many cases, the main creative force — he wanted a piece of that action. This he was denied by men who sounded like Mr. Bumble registering shock that Oliver Twist wanted a smidgen more gruel. And being limited in the visionary department, they of course never dreamed the material would be as lucrative as Kirby said it would be…so they had to grab 100% of what there was while they could. Ergo, no cut for Kirby.
People ask me these days: "What would Jack have said if he was here to see Thor and Captain America and the Avengers and other characters he helped launch become super-heroes of the box office?" That's real easy to answer: He would have said, "I told you so."
He did. He really did. I can't swear he would have imagined Ant Man doing quite as well as he has but the others? Absolutely. He predicted it to me and to Steve and every single day to the wonderful Mrs. Kirby and to others. He predicted lots of things I doubted or at least questioned at the time but have lived to see come true.
I get accused at times of gushing too much about Jack. Fine. If there's anyone I've ever known who deserved a surplus of gushing, it was Jack Kirby. I still think at times I'm underestimating the guy. His work has endured and its popularity has grown to the point where I'm sure it will affect generations as yet unborn.
Tomorrow, I go out to Cal State Northridge in the Valley for the formal opening of a major exhibition of Jack Kirby artistry. You might assume I'm attending to pay tribute to a man who meant so much to me and you'd be right…
…but I'll confess to something. I also write about Jack and host panels about him and attend events about him for selfish reasons. Not only was Jack supremely creative but little flecks of that were contagious. When you were around him, you just plain felt more creative. It was not just me and it was not just people who became professional writers or artists or filmmakers or whatever. He treated everyone as an equal; as someone who at least potentially could make something wonderful. He stood on fertile ground and when you were with him, you did too.
I was seventeen when I met this man. I was already earning money as a writer but I had no particular confidence that the jobs I'd gotten weren't flukes and that I could continue in my chosen profession for the rest of my life. That I finally decided I probably could had a lot to do with being around Jack, seeing how easily it poured out of him and — and this was key — understanding how hard he labored to bring all those good ideas to fruition. Not only was his brain amazing but so was his work ethic. That was one of countless things I learned from him, not that I am always able to apply it.
I felt smarter and more creative around him. The stories and art he left us still have that impact on me as does just writing about him and thinking about him and nurturing my connection to him. I may even be a teensy bit smarter now than when I started writing this blog post but even if I'm not, I feel like I am and that counts for something.
I think I've told this story here before but after Jack died in 1994, I heard from lots of people who wanted to tell someone (anyone!) how much Jack inspired their lives. Most of that rightly went to his widow and life partner, a wonderful woman named Roz who made it possible for him to do what he did and protected him when no one else would or could…but I got a few of the letters and calls. I understood the ones from artists and writers and guys who made movies or wrote gaming software. I was a little surprised at first to hear from a spot welder who wanted me to know how Jack's work inspired him to become a better spot welder.
It wouldn't shock me to run into that spot welder at the gallery showing. I'll bet you everyone who goes out to Cal State Northridge to see that exhibit — like everyone who immerses themselves in the voluminous, perpetually in-print works of Jack Kirby — comes away from the experience a little smarter, a little more creative, a little more confident. If you ever got to meet Jack, you understand totally why that is. If you never had that honor, ask anyone who did. We all feel the same way.
A week or two ago here, I wrote about what I liked about Uber and what I liked about taxis. I have since found a new thing I don't like about Uber: There's no one to talk to.
You cannot phone Uber. There is no number to call. No matter what goes wrong, you cannot get a live person on the line. You have to send an e-mail to their customer service people who, in dealing with a current problem I have with them, have proven to be pretty useless. You write to them and say, "I have a problem with A" and a few days later, they write back to you to say, "We need more information from you to help solve your problem with B." One of them wrote back to me at my e-mail address to tell me he couldn't do anything to solve my problem because he didn't have my e-mail address.
My problem is this: Uber has rider accounts and driver accounts. Since I am only a rider, I have a rider account. The other day, I accidentally clicked in the wrong place and found myself in the process of applying to drive for Uber. This, I do not want to do. I don't even want to drive for me, which is one of the reasons I use Uber at all.
So now Uber is demanding I finish filling out the driver application, giving them my insurance info and a scan of my drivers license and all sorts of other info I have no intention of giving them. There are things I need to change on my rider profile but their software won't let me change them until I finish filling out my driver application which I'm not going to do. No one at Uber's help desk seems to understand this problem, let alone know how to fix it.
I'm probably going to have to just abandon that account and start a new one. I wonder if Lyft has anyone minding the store.
Your recent Fred Astaire video was a treat, but its focus on music and dance made me curious. I think you've written in the past how there are safeties to make sure that no one knows the winner until the envelope is read. And that there are procedures to handle if the wrong person is announced.
So what about those pit musicians there? Do they have a copy of every nominee's theme music on their stands, and do a frantic page-turn as the winner is announced? Did they have to have all those extra arrangements made, parts copied, and tunes rehearsed? That a lot of paper to keep on the stand and not get out of order. I wonder how that was handled.
Yes, they have tunes prepared for every nominee. It's not as many songs as it may seem because if a film gets eight nominations, that one piece of music can serve for all eight possible trips to the stage. And some films (like many documentaries) don't have identifiable music so those winners can take their walks of triumph to one of a few generic tunes the conductor has at his disposal.
Now, if you asked me this a few years ago, here's what the rest of my answer would have been…
The musicians don't have all the sheet music for the evening in front of them. During commercials or clip packages, someone distributes packets covering the next few awards and takes away the old ones. But it still takes a bit of fancy juggling. Not only do they have that music to deal with but you also have musical numbers, music to go in and out of commercials, music to play for the live audience during commercials, play-on music for presenters, play-off music for winners, etc.
But now I'm wondering. I heard a few years ago that was someone was trying to configure a system whereby the musicians would be looking at computer screens instead of music on paper. Has that ever been tried? Does anyone know?
We sadly note the passing of Bud Yorkin, a fine gentleman and also a fine director, writer and producer. He was 89 and had been in poor health for some time. The obits hail him for his work — with partner Norman Lear — giving the world such ground-breaking situation comedies as All in the Family, Maude, Good Times and Sanford and Son. I was equally impressed with the movies the two of them produced together which included Divorce American Style, Cold Turkey, Start the Revolution Without Me and one of my favorites, The Night They Raided Minsky's.
Minsky's was one of Mr. Yorkin's favorites, too. It's somehow missing from his IMDB listing but he worked on it and every time I ran into him somewhere, he was pleased that I knew of it and asked him about it. His hair and mine apparently grew at the same rate because we had the same stylist and every time I went in for a trim, he was there for a trim.
One time while we waited, he gave me a long explanation of the troubles the picture encountered when in the midst of shooting, Bert Lahr — who had a key role — passed away. They decided it would be wrong to scrap his last performance and bring in someone else so they trimmed the part down to pretty much what Lahr had filmed.
They augmented it with a few moments of a double shot from the rear and Will Jordan dubbing in Lahr's voice but they left Bert Lahr in the picture. It was one of many problems the film had but Yorkin said he was glad they didn't take the easy way out and dump all that footage.
The hair stylist wasn't the first time I met Bud Yorkin. I met him when he didn't hire me to write on his series, What's Happening? and again when he didn't hire me to write on his series, Carter Country. These two examples show you have a wise producer he was. I'm going to miss running into him. He was a nice man and he made a lot of great movies and TV shows.
I missed this when it aired. The Sunday Morning after Jon Stewart's last Daily Show, he was interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning by former Daily Show correspondent Mo Rocca. It's a nice little chat…
Ed Kilgore thinks that all this talk about Joe Biden jumping into the presidential race — especially on a ticket with Elizabeth Warren — is folks making something out of (so far) nothing. Sure looks that way.
I'm at least trying to not post much more about Donald Trump because I still believe his campaign is mainly about getting attention and not being too specific about what he'd do as president. This piece by Jonathan Chait though is too good to not link to. Chait points up the strong disparity between what Republican rank-and-file voters want and what their presidential candidates work for. Does anyone think Mitt Romney ever really cared about stopping abortion or anything else that wasn't about money? And yes, Democrats have a similar disconnect.
My pal Vinnie Favale is Vice President of CBS Late Night Programming, East Coast. He sent me this photo of the marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York which had its official lighting just the other night. Looks like this show is actually going to happen but I'll believe it's definite when my TiVo lets me take a Season Pass for it.
I'm really looking forward to doing this. You probably saw that they released the list of Colbert's first week guests: George Clooney and Jeb Bush on the first show (September 8) followed the rest of the week by SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Schumer and Stephen King. These choices suggest to me that Colbert plans to talk to his guests rather than challenge them to games where they crack eggs on their heads.
In the music department, his house band will be spotlighted the first night, followed by rapper Kendrick Lamar, country star Toby Keith and the Paul Simon tribute band, Troubled Waters. I think the Paul Simon tribute band should demonstrate a passive-aggressive attitude towards an Art Garfunkel tribute band and complain that it doesn't get the same recognition as the John Lennon tribute bands.
A press release also promised many surprise cameos on Colbert's first show. I suspect Jon Stewart will not be among them as they'll want to save that "reunion" for some future show where it can be advertised. I do wonder if Jimmy Fallon will do a walk-on as Colbert did on Fallon's first Tonight Show. They were time slot competitors then, too.
I'd really like to have a great late night show in my life. I like Jimmy Fallon but don't like his show. I don't like Jimmy Kimmel and don't like his show. Actually, it strikes me that the writing on Kimmel's show is pretty good when it gets out of "practical joke" mode but I can't stand the host.
One evening recently, I channel-flipped between the two Jimmies and it struck me that both of them were fawning over their guests to the point of practically licking their faces but the key difference between the two men was this: Fallon seems to really and truly believe in the awesome greatness of everyone in his guest chair. Kimmel seems to think everyone is an asshole but the job of talk show host requires you to say what he says. My friends who work on both shows will probably now e-mail to tell me that's not the way either of them really is and they may be right. But it's how they come across to me.
I still haven't made up my mind about James Corden. He fawns a la Fallon but is a much better interviewer. He looks awkward doing the stunts and remote bits the show attempts. When Letterman or even Leno went to strangers' doors and knocked, it seemed in character and that they were in control of the segment and its premise. Corden looks like his producers made him to do it and he's embarrassed. He's gotten a lot of acclaim for musical bits he's done and I think the reason those work is that he seems comfortable doing them.
And I've given up on Conan O'Brien. I really used to like the guy his first ten-or-so years on NBC. His show had very sharp writing and he knew how to play straight for Andy Richter, his guests and various walk-on characters. At some point, it's like his handlers slapped him and said, "No, no! The audiences want to see you. Why are you letting other people be funny?" and he became the guy at the party who won't shut up and tries to make everything be about himself. He talks at his guests instead of to them.
On top of that, all four of these shows have an odd studio vibe to them. It almost feels like the audience is full of paid extras who've been told to act like they're having a good time or they won't get their checks when they leave.
Many years ago, Johnny Carson had one of his many mini-feuds with TV Guide. The magazine didn't much like him — he wasn't cooperative enough, they felt — and he didn't much like them because of things like this. They ran an item that said his show, especially during the monologue portion, occasionally added in canned laughter when the live audience failed to sufficiently guffaw. Carson and some of his employees adamantly denied this…and as far as I know, they weren't doing that.
I don't think anyone has made that accusation against a talk show in years. If anything, the opposite is now true. Studio audiences, aided sometimes by warmup comedians who encourage this attitude, seem to feel it's their job to play the role of a wildly enthusiastic studio audience. They respond to everything like they're part of the show as opposed to being the people for whom the show is performed. (And some talk shows have been known to employ audience wranglers to fill their seats, especially with young, attractive people.) So we now usually have this environment in which every remark is hilarious and every guest is deserving of a standing ovation.
Since I usually don't think that, I find myself increasingly feeling like I'm not part of the audience for some of these programs. I think that's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to Colbert's show. His show on Comedy Central didn't have that feel. The studio audience loved him but it felt to me like they really did and that the laughter was earned, not forced. Of course, I also think Colbert is more talented than anyone else doing a talk show these days so wild applause and laughter will probably not seem phony.
