More on Casey Kasem

Two radio guys — Ken Levine and Paul Harris — each remember Casey Kasem.

And no, I have no comments about the end-of-life struggle within Casey's family. I don't think I know enough about what happened to have an opinion. And yes, I know that usually doesn't stop me or anyone on the Internet.

Tales of My Father #13

In recognition of what day it is…

I have written here many times of how my father hated his job. He spent twenty-five years working for the Internal Revenue Service, loathing every nano-second of it. He was bothered by the grief he sometimes had to bring upon people who were in serious financial trouble. He was annoyed at the way his superiors sometimes treated him.

He was frustrated at how there seemed to be two sets of rules as to who had to pay delinquent taxes. Rich folks with "friends in Washington" (i.e., Richard Nixon) or sometimes "friends in Sacramento" (i.e., Ronald Reagan) often did not. Poor folks with no "connections," of course, always did. They were treated like criminals whereas the Friends of Dick and/or Ron had to be coddled like royalty and remain unthreatened. On several occasions, after my father made a routine call on a Friend of Dick and/or Ron about owing vast amounts to Uncle Sam, the bill would be torn up and my father would be ordered to apologize to the Rich Guy for upsetting him so. But the Poor Mother always had to pay…or else.

You'd have to be a bit of a psychopath not to hate being in his position…but it had to be done and my father had to earn a living. Before that, he had an array of short-term jobs that weren't as stable — the I.R.S. was nothing if not stable — and which he didn't like a whole lot more. He'd worked for a time in the administrative office of a hospital and couldn't stand having to take paperwork to people who were injured and suffering.

None of them were the kind of careers you dream of having. They were all the kind of jobs you take because you can't get one of the kind you dream of having.

And I think the thing he liked least about them were that they all had a firm, concrete ceiling. When you fantasize about what you want to do with your life, you usually pick something that could, at least in theory, make you very, very wealthy. My father never had one of those jobs. He had ones that by their very nature excluded that possibility. They were jobs where if you did them better than anyone else had ever done them, you might at best be able to get a $10 raise next year. Might. It was tough to accept that limitation on your life.

None of this should suggest that he was not, on balance, a happy man. He loved — not necessarily in this order — his home, his wife, his son and our cat. He had a life that was largely free of tragedy and disaster. Once he signed on with the I.R.S., he never had to worry about paying the mortgage, buying food and clothing, affording a car, etc. He had a wonderful health insurance plan that covered him, his spouse and his kid and the only thing wrong with it was that it didn't cover the cat. Apart from paying off the house — and for a time, my orthodonture — he was free of debt.

There's a lot to be said for all that.

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My father and me. Even at an early age, I was very good at not paying attention to authority figures.

In the early seventies, he hit retirement age with the I.R.S., grabbed his pension and got the hell out, just in time to spend all day watching the Senate Watergate hearings. I have vivid memories of him sitting in front of the TV watching the Dodgers or the Lakers, yelling at the screen like he was managing from afar. He was very happy doing that but he was even happier watching the Senate investigate the Nixon Administration.

After it all ended, he missed it. If they'd rerun the hearings like old Star Trek episodes, he'd never have missed one. A lot of I.R.S. abuses were exposed for all the world to see. Years later when I met John Dean, the former Nixon aide who blew the whistle on much of that, I thanked him. On behalf of my father.

Once the hearings were over though, my father had a problem: What to do all day?

It was a small problem at first. He had my mother around. I still lived at home. He had his friend who still worked at the I.R.S. to lunch with, once a week. Then the friend went to prison for accepting bribes. Then my mother took a part-time job at a local gourmet grocery shop. Then I moved out. Then my mother's part-time job turned into a full-time job.

For a while, my father had a portfolio of stocks — nothing that was likely to ever make him wealthy. Following them was more a spectator sport than an investment. They'd go up a dime or two. They'd go down a dime or two. It was not unlike following the Dodgers or the Lakers but without Vin Scully or Chick Hearn.

It was also a place to go. Once a week, he'd go to his brokers' office where there was an entire wall covered with a stock-tracking scoreboard and a gallery where you could just sit and watch. You might sit for hours before you saw any activity on one of your stocks…and then it might only be up or down a penny or so. But it was a pleasant place to sit, read the newspaper, sip the free coffee and maybe chat with other investors and your personal broker if he wasn't busy, which he always was.

Then Channel 22 happened. Today, that UHF station runs programming in Spanish but back then, it ran stock market reports all day. Two lines of crawl ran across the bottom of the screen and my father would sit and stare at both for hours, hoping to spot one of his stocks and learn it was up a half a cent. He missed the camaraderie of the brokers' office but thanks to Channel 22, he could follow his investments without shaving and while wearing his pajamas.

One day when he did shave, dress and go to the broker's office, his broker gave him some advice: "This would be a good time to sell." My father's stocks were all of a kind that had peaked, the broker told him. "Get rid of them all now," he said. "And if you want to stay in the market, I'll advise you on others you should purchase with what you get for them." My father got out and didn't get back in. He couldn't bring himself to follow a new team. He did make some money but he didn't have that to help fill his days.

What he hoped for was Jury Duty. Jury Duty, he was sure, was the remedy for his boredom.

He kept waiting for it, longing for it. He thought it would be interesting and would give him a feeling of accomplishment — having a place to go each day, hearing the cases, pondering them, rendering a just and rational verdict. If you could have signed up to be a full-time juror, he would have done it, no pay necessary. He may even have called up and asked if there was anything he could do that would make him more likely to be called.

He was a few times but it was disappointing. He was never picked to serve on a jury…not once. It was because of his background. Lawyers would ask him his profession and when they heard he'd worked for the I.R.S., they didn't want him. I guess they figured he'd naturally side with the government.

So no jury duty, no stocks to follow, no friends to lunch with…my mother was at work and I was living somewhere else, busy with my career. What could he do all day? Well, he could come visit me from time to time. And he could ask me to send him on errands. I don't know how many times he offered to do things for me.

I understood why, of course. He'd feel useful and he'd feel more a part of my life…so I gave him what I could but I simply didn't have many things I could send him to do. And with some of them, things didn't work out well.

He loved to shop. When it was time for him to buy a new (used) car, he would take weeks. When I bought a new (new) car, I'd decide what I wanted, go to a showroom or two, haggle a bit and buy it. My first new car purchase took, I think, three hours.

My father would spend three weeks or more trading in his ten-year-old Buick for a five-year-old Oldsmobile. He would make charts and consult Consumer Reports and he'd visit ten or more lots, often several times each. Then he'd narrow it down to three possibles and go around and test-drive the potential acquisitions and see if this salesman would come down twenty bucks or that one would come down fifty…

He enjoyed the hell out of it. I think he even looked forward to things going wrong with whatever he was driving because they would hasten the moment when he got to say, "I think I need to trade it in for something newer." (He never bought an absolutely-new car in his life and that first time I did, he was so proud of me…and also disappointed that I bought it in, like I said, three hours. He would have loved it if he and I could have driven from dealer to dealer for months, making a joint decision, negotiating in tandem, etc.)

One day, I decided I needed a new TV so I decided to let him find it for me. I decided on the brand I wanted, the screen size and certain features. I wrote them all down and sent him off to find me the right set at the right price. What I would have done was to walk into ABC Premiums a few blocks away, bought the set there and just carted it home, in and out in under an hour…but this gave him something to do.

He made it take weeks. He consulted ads in the newspaper. He drove to stores all over the city. He called others. After the eighth time I told him I needed the set sooner rather than later, he came to me with the results of all his research and scientific inquiry. A set that filled all my requirements could be purchased, he proudly revealed, at Frandsen Electronics for $139.50. I asked, "Where is Frandsen Electronics?"

He said it was in Downey. Downey was — and as far as I know still is — 22 miles away.

I asked if, uh, there might possibly be a closer place? "Yes," he said, consulting his lists. "But it's more expensive and I'm trying to save you money." I asked what the next cheapest place was.

Answer: ABC Premiums, a few blocks away from me. The exact same TV for $139.95.

When I told him I'd decided to buy it from ABC Premiums, he registered a letdown, then bravely said, "Well, son…it's your money." (Yes, it was…all forty-five cents of it.) I could see he was worried about what would happen to me if I went through life indulging in such reckless extravagances.

There were other chores and errands that did not go well…and this brings us to the story of my Leather Sport Coat. I no longer wear things like that but for a time, I was often seen in this great leather sport coat I bought somewhere for around the same price as that TV. Back then, that seemed like a lot of dough to spend on one garment but it was a great addition to my wardrobe. It was more casual than your basic sport coat but it was a little dressier than a windbreaker. Here's a very old photo of me with the folks who still do the Groo comic books. Forget how much younger we looked then and check out the coat…

Stan Sakai, Tom Luth, me and Sergio Aragonés. The comic Sergio is holding came out in January of 1984 and this was probably taken not long after.

I wore it often and one day, it was in need of cleaning. My father was quite pleased when I assigned him the task of finding a place that did that kind of thing, taking the coat in and picking it up. What, as they say, could go wrong?

Well, this: When he went to pick it up, he found the laundry closed tight in the middle of a workday. A sign on the door said they were out of business.

Panicked, my father went to other stores on the block to ask if they knew what happened and how one might retrieve a leather sport coat that was being cleaned there. No one could help. The laundry was the subject of lawsuits — partners suing one another, one neighbor had heard. There was some reason to believe it would never reopen.

My father was almost trembling — no, he was trembling — when he came to me and reported what had happened. Near tears, he said, "I lost your leather coat, son. I promise…I'll buy you a new one." He acted like he'd done something horribly, horribly wrong and no matter how many times I assured him it wasn't his fault, he kept repeating his vow to replace the coat.

This went on for a week. At least once a day, sometimes twice, he'd phone to ask if we could go shopping together so I could pick out a replacement coat and he could pay for it. He would not believe that he was not responsible and he did not owe me a new coat. One night, my mother took the phone into their bedroom so he couldn't hear and she called me…

"He's so depressed about this. Isn't there something you can do?" I thought and thought but the only solution seemed to be a good, old-fashioned lie.

I went out and purchased a new leather sport coat. It wasn't exactly the same but it was close enough that I figured he wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Then I called him and said I was coming by the house and I had something to show him. When I walked in, I was wearing a leather sport coat though it was ninety degrees out. Here is the lie I then proceeded to tell…

The most amazing thing happened. This afternoon, I was driving by that laundry, the one where you took my leather sport coat. I saw trucks outside…they were loading clothes on hangers into them. I parked and ran up and told them I had a coat in there and they let me go in and search and I found it. There weren't that many leather goods on the racks so it was easy. The tag said "Evanier" on it and I had I.D. that proved I was Evanier and since the coat fit, they let me have it. See? You didn't lose my coat after all.

He was overjoyed…so overjoyed, in fact, that he didn't remember he'd never told me where the laundry was. My father slept well that night and the next night and the next night…

And then someone called him from the laundry to say they were closing the place down for good and he should come in and pick up that leather coat he left there. "Oh, we already got it," he told the caller. The caller said, "No, you didn't. I'm looking at it right this moment." He drove over, picked it up and showed up at my apartment with it.

I felt like Lucy when Ricky Ricardo finds out she hoaxed him. He was angry at me for about as long as Ricky was ever mad at Lucy, which is to say around thirty seconds…maybe less since he understood I'd fibbed for his own good. I asked him if he would forgive me. He said yes…on one condition. I asked what that condition was.

He said, "That you give me something else to do for you."

I said, "Take my new car in to be serviced. And try not to lose it."

Casey Kasem, R.I.P.

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To the surprise of absolutely no one, the legendary disc jockey, announcer and cartoon voice actor Casey Kasem has died. He was 82 and this sure sounds like one of those "glad it's finally over" deaths. He had been in terrible health for some time with his family fighting over what was best for him. It sure gave you the feeling that this is what was best for him.

There are some tapes that circulate of Mr. Kasem losing his temper during a couple of recording sessions and being less than a nice person. In fairness to the guy, let's remember these are three or four sessions out of tens of thousands that he did. I've never heard anyone else in his profession, when his name has come up, indicate that kind of thing occurred when they worked with him. My friend Frank Welker was in every one of the million-and-a-half episodes of Scooby Doo, the series on which Casey played the role of Shaggy. Frank said on several occasions that Casey was a joy to work with.

I was around him on a half-dozen occasions and that was sure my impression, too. What I didn't want to do was eat with the guy because he had very firm beliefs on what humans should and should not consume and he could get a little scolding in his expression of these views. When Hanna-Barbera set up a retirement dinner for Don Messick (the voice of Scooby), Casey insisted on dictating the menu at the Chinese Restaurant. We were all served huge platters of food some of us could not eat.

That was the most negative thing I can write here about Casey Kasem. The positive things would all have to be amazement and admiration for how much he worked and how good he was at what he did. For decades, you heard him everywhere — cartoons, network promos, commercials, radio shows, movie trailers, etc. He ushered in a new style of voiceover guy who favored personality over sheer testosterone. Someone once called him "The most successful off-screen announcer who wasn't trying to sound like God." If that's so and if there's a Heaven, he's probably finding out about now how far off he was.

Recommended Reading

You all read about the awful crash that killed James McNair and put his fellow comedian Tracy Morgan in the hospital in critical condition. You might want to read about how some trucking laws make this kind of thing more likely than it should be…and how a lot of folks think the laws should offer us even less protection from dozing drivers.

A question I would like to see put to every person who seeks public office is this: Do you think there are laws and regulations that should be passed and enforced in the interest of public health and safety even if they sometimes prevent some private enterprise from making greater profit? I think there are some who would say no…or at least say yes and mean no.

From the E-Mailbag…

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David Shrensky writes…

A quick question for you: In telling a Welcome Back, Kotter story, you mentioned being present at one of the Battle of Network Stars tapings. Was that the one where Robert Conrad went nuts about an apparent violation that Kaplan made in a relay race? Any recollection of that and/or do you think it was staged a la today's "reality shows" to make for "good TV?" I watched a YouTube clip of it and Conrad seems out of control while Kaplan is collected and even gracious, despite some wild histrionics and Conrad's ridiculous tough-guy persona. (I won't even begin to speculate about Conrad's remark about being German and killing Telly Savalas and Kaplan.) Any insight into what was "real" and what was played up for the cameras?

I wasn't at that one, though I heard about it from Gabe. That was the first one and I was present for the second one where they had the same three team captains and billed it as a "rematch" or a "grudge match" or some sort of match. What I observed was that the contest took a certain amount of reality and built upon it in all directions. Robert Conrad, as captain of the NBC team, was indeed very fierce about winning.

The whole thing was something of a hoot for Gabe Kaplan, who headed the ABC team…and Telly Savalas, who captained the CBS team, did it with an attitude of "How soon can I get my check and leave?" But Conrad acted like if Grizzly Adams didn't win the kayak race for the NBC team, they would all have to do the only honorable thing and commit Seppuku with the plastic knives from the buffet.

The producers were constantly inventing on the fly because the stars, to a great extent, had the power to demand rule changes any time two out of three captains agreed. For instance, at the one for which I was present, there was originally a rule that in the "dunk tank" event, each team captain had to sit in the tank and potentially/probably get dunked in the water. Savalas and Kaplan both refused so that rule was rewritten on the spot.

There was another rule that said that the captains would decide which celebrities on their team competed in which events but that each celebrity had to participate in a certain number of them. The captains had not selected the members of their teams. The producers, I was told, had trouble getting stars to agree to participate so it pretty much came down to a question of "Who can we get?" Mr. Conrad felt he'd been stuck with a team containing too many "stiffs" (i.e., poor athletes).  No one else thought so but he did and he demanded the right to not play some of them at all.

Kaplan and Savalas refused to go along with this as a rule change…and Conrad basically said, "I don't care what the rules say" and he threatened to walk if anyone made an issue of it. Lynda Day George was on his team and he was refusing to assign her a single event despite the producers telling him he had to. I overheard one of them saying to him, "Hey, at least put her in the dunk tank. That doesn't take any skill and she'd look great wet." I think he finally agreed to let her throw a few balls in that event in exchange for some other rule change he wanted.  To a great extent, I think he was just being loud and argumentative because it did usually result in getting what he wanted.  He is not a stupid man.

That dunk tank was emblematic of the whole project. A star from one team sat on a perch in the tank. Stars from another team would hurl softballs at a target and if they hit it dead-on with enough force, the star on the perch was dropped into the water. It was not difficult to hit the target but not all hits resulted in dunking. Part of the appeal of the whole enterprise, everyone knew, was seeing female stars in clingy nylon athletic wear get wet…and also certain males who seemed smug and in need of dousing.

Insofar as determining points towards who would win the overall game, the event was honest…but the producers did have a secret switch they could use to dunk anyone. Insofar as I could tell, they did not use it to alter the outcome of the event but did use it to make sure that, for the sake of what you call "good TV," certain people did drop if someone hit the target.

So the contests were relatively honest but I'm not sure that the presentation was.  My memory is that in the one for which I was present, ABC had it won well before all the events were over but when it aired, it seemed closer.  Several events I know were not telecast and it seemed to me that a couple were rearranged.  The teams finished in the true order but if you watched it at home, I think you saw ABC win it on the last event instead of an hour or three earlier.

The Kaplan/Conrad race at the previous Battle was…well, first, let's show everyone what that was all about…

As I understand it, Conrad's upset was real, though he and the producers exaggerated it a bit for the show, and some arguments that first occurred off-camera may have been restaged for the cameras. I think Gabe said that the idea for the one-on-one relay race came from him because he was a pretty good runner and he knew he could beat Conrad…and also that Conrad couldn't refuse it without looking chicken. So yes, there was some reality there. And there's no question Conrad lost fair-and-square.

That was a fun weekend. If I get some time in the next day or three, I'll post some other things I recall about it, including an interesting encounter with Howard Cosell and a moment when I kinda/sorta tried to "pick up" one of the ladies on one of the teams and got one of the nicest, most civilized "get lost" responses a man has ever received.  Maybe I'll even tell you how I wound up in the National Enquirer or one of those tabloids.

Helpful Hints

Stuff you can do on Google that you may not have known you can do on Google. I would have known all of this if I'd known how to search Google for it.

Recommended Reading

David Corn offers some important talking points about the War in Iraq. Boy, did we botch that one up. A good case can be made that our objectives, above and beyond finding those Weapons of Mass Destruction Saddam didn't have, were never achievable…and I'm not sure which of these two things we should be angrier about…

  1. We went to war to accomplish things that were not possible or…
  2. We went to war to accomplish things which were possible but we managed the war so poorly that we couldn't.

Either one gets you to the same place with the same loss of American troops and limbs and resources but they're different kinds of incompetence. And we should be at least as angry over that as some Republicans are over Michelle Obama advocating that fat kids could stand to eat less.

I'm also not sure if we should be angrier at those who championed this war or those who probably knew it was a bad idea and went along with it so as not to be accused of being soft on terror, squishy or weak on defense.

Deal Deluxe

Several folks have written to tell me that the new Criterion Blu-ray/DVD set of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is at their local Costco for twenty bucks. I was at a Costco on Thursday and didn't see it…but they also didn't have those great Bill Bailey corned beefs that I like to buy and cook in my crockpot. Hope they haven't stopped carrying them.

The Mad World set is the one for which I and two friends recorded a very, very long commentary track. Well, we had to. It's a very, very long movie. If you can't get to a Costco or your local one doesn't have it, you can still order a copy here for — at the moment — $30.37. If you do find it at a Costco, you can save ten bucks and put it towards the purchase of a Bill Bailey corned beef…or a bottle of Worcestershire Sauce that could fill a mid-sized lap pool.

Carla Laemmle, R.I.P.

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Carla Laemmle played the prima ballerina in the 1925 film of The Phantom of the Opera and she played the secretary who delivered the first line of dialogue in the 1931 classic, Dracula. She appeared in a number of other silent films and then in a few talkies before retiring from acting. She didn't appear in another movie until Pooltime in 2010 and she recently did a small part in a horror film that will be coming out later this year. So we're talking about a career that spanned 89 years.

She was born October 20, 1909, the niece of Carl Laemmle, one of the founders of Universal Pictures…so she was 104 when she passed away last night. I met her two or three times at autograph shows in the last decade or so and got to speak with her. I didn't learn much from her but there was still a thrill there to "connect" with so much history…especially since we are very close to the day when there will be no one alive from the silent era.

O.J. Nostalgia

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Last night, I watched a TV special recounting the O.J. Simpson Murder Case.  Those two people he killed were killed twenty years ago yesterday and an awful lot in this country changed because of that.  One thing that hasn't changed is that there are still absolutely no suspects or even semi-credible theories as to who dunnit if he didn't.

The documentary was composed of news footage offered without comment…or any visible agenda in the selection or editing.  Watching all that tape now, I was struck by how flimsy the case for Simpson was from Day One.  I was also fascinated by the video of people who celebrated when he was acquitted.  They were mostly black and I absolutely understand the joy you might have over such a verdict if you believed that the legal system in this country is rigged against People of Color.  I also understand how you could believe that.  I would love to know how many of those folks really thought he was innocent and if any still do.  I seem to recall some of the jurors later admitting they now had doubts and at least one declaring, "He probably did it but we were supposed to judge the case put before us and that case was not proven."

I started to write a piece for the blog here today about all this, then realized I already did.  Here's what I wrote here in 2010

Today marks fifteen years since O.J. Simpson was found Not Guilty of two murders that most of us think he committed. There's no doubt whatsoever in my mind. I got hooked on the case and read most of the books and watched most of the shows, though my mind has since jettisoned much of what I learned. I have a terrific memory but every so often, it thinks the way you do when you go to your Public Storage locker and you look at some crates and go, "Why am I saving that crap?" And out it goes. I'm kinda fascinated by how little I now recall of a story that I used to know so well, I could informally but authoritatively debate it at length with friends. I don't think I could have some of those debates today…but I do remember vividly winning every argument with someone who thought O.J. hadn't done it. My opponents didn't always admit I was right, of course…but you could tell they knew.

The folks who didn't think Simpson had hacked two human beings to death generally didn't know much about the case and 0% of them had an alternate theory supported by any evidence whatsoever. You'd say to them, "Well, if he didn't do it, who did?" And they'd mutter something about, well, maybe it was Colombian Drug Lords. Any evidence of that? Well, no. At the time of Simpson's acquittal, some of his lawyers and defenders promised a huge book would be forthcoming that would tell what really happened, who really killed Nicole and Ron.

You seen that book? Me neither and it's been fifteen years.

It isn't just that no one involved in the case can prove who really killed them if it wasn't Simpson. It's that no one involved in the case seems to be able to even make up a possible scenario as to who killed them if it wasn't Simpson. They can't even fabricate a story that sounds remotely plausible and isn't disproven by half the evidence. At least with the Kennedy Assassination, those who didn't want to accept the official explanation managed to offer some alternate names and narratives. I've never even heard anyone who believes the kind of vague, evidence-deprived theories that Simpson himself has put out there.

I do understand how some people just plain don't want to believe what everyone else believes. Questioning the Conventional Wisdom is usually a good thing…but refusing to ever believe the Conventional Wisdom just because others do is a great way to be wrong a lot of the time. I have this friend who buys into every single conspiracy theory about everything. It's automatic. I've said to her, "You know, if I pulled out a gun right now and shot you and you saw me do it and you survived…and if the police came and asked who'd shot you, you'd say, 'It could have been anyone except Mark Evanier!'" Some of those who don't think O.J. dunnit are in that category. Some also have such a deep, perhaps justified distrust of police that they automatically assume all arrests are false and all evidence is fabricated. And you also have those who sort of like the idea of a black guy getting away with murder and seeing so many white folks sputter about the injustice. These are the "taste of your own medicine" people.

I've talked to a number of these people, though not lately. There was a time I couldn't go to a party or other gathering without meeting one and having the subject erupt. I also met a number of people who took the wishy-washy, safe-from-all-directions position. They thought O.J. did it but that the police framed him anyway, either because they knew he'd done it and wanted to enhance the case…or because they (wrongly) didn't think he did it and just wanted to nail that uppity you-know-what. For what little it's now worth, I came to the conclusion that none of that happened except the part about Simpson killing those two people. I think all of the evidence of "framing" was either out of the whole cloth or built on some innocent mistake made by the police or prosecutors. And I suspect that if you turned a bright-enough spotlight on most major arrests in this country, you could find similar mistakes.

Something changed in this country the morning of the verdicts. We suddenly had a lot less faith in our judicial system. Everyone did or should have. I mean, if you thought Simpson was guilty, then the system had failed because it let a double-murderer go off to play golf. If you thought he was innocent, then the system had failed in a different way. An innocent man had spent a long time behind bars and had to spend his life's savings to hire skilled-enough lawyers (lawyers you could never afford) to prove that innocence. It's interesting how some opinions on the Death Penalty have changed since then. Before that verdict, those who championed the frying of convicted murderers were fierce in their insistence that no innocent person had ever been executed in these United States. I think the Simpson verdict caused a lot of them to drop that argument from their arsenal. After all, if a murderer could be acquitted, that makes it pretty credible that an innocent guy could be convicted. The widespread use of DNA testing since then has further weakened the belief that anyone who's found guilty is undeniably guilty…and of course, there's that irony there. The Simpson case is where most people learned of DNA testing…and now they believe it even though the jury in the Simpson case didn't.

That morning fifteen years ago, I was having a brick patio built in my backyard. I made a deal with a contractor and he brought in a crew of gentlemen I suspect were all or mostly undocumented aliens. I can admit this because I'm unlikely to ever run for governor of California. They were the kind of men you see hanging around outside Home Depot or a Public Storage facility hoping to get a day's work. The contractor may have gotten them from one of those places.

I invited the crew in to watch the verdict when it was announced on TV. I thought they shouldn't miss that moment of history and I guess I was curious about their reaction, whichever way it went.

When Simpson was declared Not Guilty, they all kind of shrugged. They were grateful I'd let them see it but I don't think the actual verdict mattered much to them. One said, "That's good." And then he explained that his neighborhood had been decimated by rioting during the not-that-long-ago Rodney King verdict in Los Angeles. He was afraid that if Simpson was convicted, it would prompt another such riot but beyond that, he didn't care. None of them cared. None of them thought the courts and police were fair to people in their ethnic group and income level, undocumented or not. To them, Simpson wasn't even a minority. He was just another guy with more money and more success than any of them would ever see…and what happened in his world did not relate to theirs. They assumed the guy was guilty and that that's how The System processes a guilty guy who's rich 'n' famous.

I said something like, "Well, maybe this will wake some people up to the problem." I was the only one in the room who thought that was remotely possible. The workers all thanked me and went back to laying bricks.

I think they were wrong. I told you up above what I think did change. It hasn't necessarily trickled down from folks recognizing a problem to anyone actually fixing that problem…but I don't think we're so quick now to assume that when the police say "We got the guy" that they got the guy or that a jury verdict settles the question. I know I'm not.

Okay, now we're back in real time and I'll add one more thing.  Today, Orenthal James Simpson lives at the Lovelock Correctional Center near Reno, Nevada.  He's eligible for parole in 2017 and there's a "buzz" that he may get out then.  I hope not.  Not only would it be a miscarriage of justice for that guy to be roaming the streets and the golf courses again but I'm just plain sick of him.  I don't even want to think about him again until the 25th anniversary…and then only for long enough to consider what, if anything, has changed in the world.  That's about all he's good for.  I do know that there still won't be an alternate theory of who killed those people if he didn't.

Today's Video Link

It's Friday the Thirteenth but don't fret. If things go bad, you can just tap your troubles away…

This song by Jerry Herman was written for the Broadway show Mack and Mabel and it's performed here by Anna-Jane Casey and the John Wilson Orchestra. Wilson is the guy who looks like Stephen Colbert…

Loose End

A few weeks ago, I told you here and here of my problems with Time-Warner e-mail. I wish I could report that things have gotten better but they haven't and I lack the time/strength to get back on the phone to them.

To refresh your memory: When someone writes to me at one of my addresses at one of my domains, the message is instantly forwarded to my Time-Warner account and I pick it up from there. What I did as a workaround was to open a Yahoo e-mail account and have my messages sent there also. So I pick up my e-mail messages from Time-Warner and I pick them up from Yahoo…and they should arrive in both inboxes at the same time, give or take a second or three. The Yahoo messages all show up instantly for me to download, read and maybe answer.

What about the copies that go simultaneously to my Time-Warner account? Well, roughly 80% of them come in promptly. Approximately 18% show up here somewhere between an hour and twelve hours after the copies of the same messages that come to me via Yahoo.

The remainder do not show up at all…and it isn't because of differences between the Spam filters at Yahoo and Time-Warner. Their filters do flag different messages (Yahoo had to be taught to send me my banking statements) but I check both Spam filters.

Anyway, I've given up trying to get this fixed. If and when it fixes itself, I'll let you know. For now, I'll just get my e-mail from two separate sources, delete the dupes and hope that between the two accounts, I get at least once copy of each.

Catwoman Meets Elfqueen

newmarpinime

One of my favorite moments from the Phoenix Comicon was visiting with the lovely Julie Newmar, who continues to amaze all with her age-defying existence. When I was much younger, I — being male — appreciated Julie mainly for her jaw-dropping beauty…and certainly there was plenty there to appreciate. Eventually though, I came to realize that she was also a darned good actress in both serious roles and comedic, and as I've gotten to know her, I've discovered that she's pretty smart, too. It is rare to find all those gifts in one package.

She was brought in as a guest of the con and I was going to stop by on Friday and say howdy but I think the end of the line was somewhere in Scottsdale. People across a wide range of ages were queueing up to meet her and get an autograph, and the wait was long enough without me going up and distracting her from greeting and signing. Saturday though, a friend told me there was a brief lull there so I scurried over and spoke with her and met her brother who was assisting (I guess) with crowd control as there were usually crowds there that required controlling.

It dawned on me that another friend of mine who was at the con had told me it was a long-held dream to meet Ms. Newmar so I went and fetched Wendy Pini. You know Wendy, the beloved artist and, along with her partner/mate Richard, creator of Elfquest. I've known Wendy for over forty years…since before she met Richard, even. She is also quite lovely and smart…and lately doing things besides Elfquest. Check out the graphic novel/webcomic, Masque of the Red Death if you are of age.

So I went and asked Richard if I could borrow Wendy for a minute. He was good with it so I took her over to introduce her to Julie…and it was an instant mutual admiration society between the ladies — especially later when Ms. Pini presented Ms. Newmar with a copy of the Masque of the Red Death graphic novel. Julie thought it was wonderful.

Julie even hauled out her own camera and had someone take the above photo of the three of us — me surrounded by two fabulous babes. I wish Carolyn had been with me so I could have made it three…but she was back home working on the forthcoming Volume Three of The Complete Pogo. After that book goes to press, maybe I can take the three of them to dinner and look even classier.

Today's Bonus Video Link

I enjoyed this conversation between Jerry Seinfeld and David Letterman. It's Dave interviewing Jerry about the latter's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee series. What struck me is that Dave actually seems to be enjoying the conversation. I don't think anything drove me away from his talk show more than the sense that he was bored with most of his guests.

He mentions in the interview that he's looking for a job. I'd sure like to see him do a weekly hour where he just chats with someone he finds interesting.