Mark Evanier's Blog, page 196

Yesterday's Spam Calls

I get a lot of spam calls on my phone and normally, if a call comes in and I don't recognize the number, I may not answer it.  But I'm waiting for a somewhat important call from someone who'll be calling from a number I won't recognize and when this person's secretary phoned me the other day to arrange this call, my iPhone identified her call as a "Spam Risk."  So just to make sure, I answered every call yesterday and decided to keep a log of them.

Yes, I know that answering these calls can make it more likely I'll get more of them in the future. But I really don't want to miss the important call and since I block and report the ones that aren't the important call, I figure I'm helping to bring down their occurrence. Every one of these calls came from what appeared to be a different number…

5:41 AM — This one I missed because I was asleep. Fortunately.8:12 AM — I'm up for this one but there's no one on the line. As I understand it, when this happens, it can mean one of two things. One is that it's a "phishing" call intended only to see if someone will answer at this number and if so, they include that number on a list they sell to telemarketers. Or some telemarketers use a computer program that dials several numbers at once and then the telemarketer talks to whichever number is answered first, then the other numbers that are dialed get dead air.9:02 AM — Michael from "Advanced Orthopedic Medical" calls to say they've received an "online indication" that I have serious back problems.  I tell him I have no back problems and I ask him where he got this "online indication."  He says they also have an "online indication" that I am diabetic.  I ask again where these "online indications" come from.  He hangs up on me.9:03 AM — Another call with no one on the line.9:30 AM — "Eliza" finally calls. Usually, I hear from her before nine. Eliza is a robo-calling computer voice — a sweet, friendly-sounding lady who goes by many names and fronts for a wide array of companies that I suspect are all the same company and it has as many different names as she does. She tells me she is with "Elder Care" and reminds me that it's Open Enrollment time for various health plans including Medicare. Should I be interested, she will hand me off to one of their agents — a live person, I presume — to discuss my insurance needs. I've been meaning to talk to one of those agents just to see what their hardsell is all about but I'm on another call — a real one — at the moment so I just hang up on Eliza. Next time she calls back, I may stay on the line long enough to get the entire pitch. If I know Eliza, it won't be long.9:52 AM — A non-medical call!  Evan from A.C. Care calls to offer me a great deal to have his company come by and clean out all my air-conditioning ducts.  Evan sounds like he's in a boiler room full of other callers and his accent suggests English is not his first language and maybe not even his second or third.  I tell him my home has no air-conditioning and therefore no ducts that need cleaning out — and that's true. I would never lie to Evan.  He is very polite when he thanks me for telling him that and he apologizes for wasting my time.10:21 AM — Another call with no one on the line.

11:36 AM — A robocall with the recorded voice of a man who sounds like he has a lot of testosterone in his veins.  He says he's calling on behalf of the National Police Association and that's where I terminate the call.  As I understand it, the scam here is that the organizations that sound like they represent law enforcement and ask for donations are private concerns that get away with that representation as follows: They do solicit funds on behalf of the cause they represent but then they only pass along a smidgen of the money they collect to that cause, retaining the rest for their own expenses.  They could be sending 1% or less.  The same deal is apparently true of a lot of the spam e-mails I get asking me to donate to Donald Trump or various right-wing causes.  They keep 99% or more of the money as their collection fee.   Even if I wanted to fund a crusade to lock all Liberals up in prison, I wouldn't do it that way.11:37 AM — And no sooner do I hang up on the bogus police guy than I get another one of those calls with no one on the line.  The phone numbers in the Caller IDs are different but I'm wondering if it's the same computer dialing me.  Back-to-back calls like that happen a lot.12:00 PM — A noon-time mystery call from no one but my phone said it was a "Telemarketer."  I'm starting to get worried about "Eliza."   This is the longest she's gone in the last week or two without calling me.  I hope she's okay.  If I had her number, I'd call and ask her invasive questions about her health.2:34 PM — Emma (a live person) calls from…well, she mumbled the name of her company but they do plumbing and heating.  She offers me a free inspection of my central heating system.  I tell her I don't have a central hearing system…and that's a true statement but she calls me "Liar" and hangs up.  Sounds to me like someone is not happy with their own life choices.3:19 PM — No one on the line.4:16 PM — No one on the line.4:43 PM — No one on the line.4:51 PM — "Eliza" finally calls again except now she is "Sophia" from Elder Care. Same voice, same delivery, same everything…and I'm wondering why they think folks who won't talk to someone named Eliza will talk to someone named Sophia. Does it occur to them that if I keep getting the same call from a lady who keeps changing her name, that makes the whole thing seem like more of a scam? If she'll lie about her name, what won't she lie about? Anyway, it's good to know she's still speaking to me even if I do keep hanging up on her.5:02 PM — "Eliza" calls again and this time she's back to being "Eliza."  I wish she'd make up her mind.  I hang up on her.5:24 PM — It's "Eliza" again and she's making up for ignoring me since her earlier call.  This time, I answer the few simple questions she poses and she says she'll connect me with one of her supervisors.  Ten seconds later, Steven (a live person) comes on the line and says, "Good afternoon, sir.  I hope you're having a fine day."  I tell him, "I am but it'll be better if you can tell me how I can stop getting these phone calls."  Steven immediately hangs up on me.  I wonder if Eliza knows she's working for such a rude person.

All in all, it was a rather normal day on the spam call front. I wish I'd received that important call so I could stop answering the phone every time it rings.

Today's Video Link

Lord Vinheteiro — the man who stares at us like he resents us watching his videos — plays the ten most overplayed piano pieces. He then offers to teach the ten most overplayed piano pieces to us so we can overplay them even more…

A Weekend in the Country

Stephen Sondheim owned two homes. He had a seven-bedroom townhouse on East 49th Street in the Turtle Bay Gardens section of Manhattan. And he had a country retreat, a three-bedroom estate in Roxbury, Connecticut which is located 65 miles northeast of New York City.

The townhouse on East 49th went up for sale last July and has since been purchased but the online realtor listings gave us a chance to peek inside. Now, the home in Roxbury has gone on the market. You can tour it on this webpage.

My Latest Demand

I insist that the next Republican Presidential Debate be moderated by Justin Peters.

Today's Political Comment

I have a couple of otherwise-sane friends who keep talking to me about the price of gasoline as if I can do something to change it.  I understand the need to sometimes vent about something that's bothering you.  I've done it here and will do it again but with some, talking about gas prices is getting to be like bitching constantly about gravity.  Isn't it awful that when I throw something into the air, it doesn't stay there?  It keeps coming back down, damn it!

Kevin Drum said the following as he was writing about the G.O.P. debate last night…

[Moderator] Lester Holt wanted to know what everyone would do to get prices down, and he wanted no tepid mush. He wanted to know what they'd do on DAY ONE, dammit. The answer for all of them was: gasoline. They would do…….something…….to get the price of gasoline down, which would put money in everyone's pockets. None of them acknowledged the basic fact that oil prices are set globally, which means that none of their proposals would have any effect. Nor did any of them seem to realize that the real price of gasoline is down very nearly to its pre-pandemic average.

But of course they said that. The price of gas pisses off just about every American and unless you own part of an oil company, it feels like it would involve no sacrifice on your part to rectify the problem. So it's a very safe answer. Some of the other problems might cost someone something to solve.

I only watched a little of the debate but what I saw reaffirmed my belief that a part of Trump's continuing popularity with his party — and maybe not a small part — is that they don't see anyone they can imagine as an alternative candidate. Some of those people don't look like they even have a 50-50 chance of winning a coin toss.

The only candidate up there I thought "won" the debate in any sense was Nikki Haley who seemed to be the only one who, in light of election results the night before, felt the party needs to change the way they talk about abortion. The fact that she was the only one there who could possibly ever have one did not go unnoticed…but I will get the Republican nomination for President before she will. And so will you.

Mad World Memorabilia

While searching my cluttered hard drive for some info on It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World for a post here the other day, I came across a JPG of this newspaper clipping…

Some of you may be thinking, "Jackie Mason? Barbara Heller? I don't recall either of them in the movie!" That might because they weren't in the movie. Jackie Mason was originally signed to play one of the gas station attendants but it turned out that his schedule was so full of club dates and bookings that they couldn't know if they'd have him when they needed him. I got the impression from Stanley Kramer that he thought Mason's agent had misled them about his availability. Anyway, Mason was replaced.

Originally, the two gas station attendants were to have been Mr. Mason and Joe Besser but Besser was then a regular on The Joey Bishop Show, a sitcom at the time. Mr. Bishop would not allow Mr. Besser the necessary days off to be in Mad World so he was out. I think the way it worked was that Arnold Stang was hired to replace Besser and then a little later, Marvin Kaplan was hired to replace Mason.

Rumor has it that Ms. Heller was signed to play the wife of Ben Blue, who played the airline pilot…a role ultimately played by Bobo Lewis.  But there were a lot of scenes cut from Mad World — some filmed, some not — and she might have been in or intended for one of them.

And speaking of people who were cut from the film: When I showed you the Jack Davis poster in this posting here, I meant to point out the officer on the ground below the car driven by Milton Berle. That was Allen Jenkins, a character actor probably best known for voicing the character of Officer Dibble in the cartoon show Top Cat…which also featured voices by Stang and Kaplan. A photo of Mr. Jenkins was in the souvenir book for Mad World sold at the roadshow engagements but he was cut from the movie just before its release.  He apparently played a policeman or sheriff.

And I haven't figured out where Herbie Faye might have been in the movie.  Faye, seen above with his long-time friend Phil Silvers on Sgt. Bilko, is in several stills taken during the desert scenes in Mad World. It's unlikely he would have schlepped out there in 105° heat just to say hi to Phil. Whatever he did never made it into the movie. He had to be content to guest star on just about every sitcom of the sixties and about half of the funny movies made in that decade. In show biz, he went back to the days of burlesque when he was First Banana (lead comic) and Phil Silvers was Second Banana (supporting comic).

There were others who didn't make it in…and before someone asks, as people seem to do hourly on Facebook, about Don Rickles: Don Rickles was never going to be in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and the reason he was never going to be in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is that when the film was casting, he was still an unknown, especially in the comedy world. He didn't even appear on The Tonight Show until 1965.

Today's Video Link

It's Legal Eagle Time! Devin Stone explains why Alex Jones may actually have to cough up a large wad of that money he owes the families of the kids in the Sandy Hook horror. I tend to feel sorry for a lot of people some of my friends tell me no one should feel sorry for. I have no trouble not feeling sorry for Alex Jones.

By the way: Some of the same folks have told me they enjoy Mr. Stone's lectures more when they use the YouTube feature that allows you to slow down the video a bit.  Look for the little gear icon in the taskbar that appears once you start playing a video.

There are two ads in this video.  If those annoy you, consider watching Legal Eagle the way I do…with a subscription to Nebula.  His videos there have no ads, they often include extra comments and they occasionally post a video there which never turns up on YouTube and therefore never appear on this site.  There are lots of other interesting things on Nebula also.



Hollywood Labor News

As you've no doubt heard, the SAG-AFTRA strike appears to be over. Various officials within the union need to ratify it as does the general membership but those appear to be formalities. And of course, the outcome is a deal that the union could accepted on Day One if management had merely offered it then. That's how these things always go but of course, the folks who make zillions of dollars a second running the companies have to play their little power games and lose a lot of time and money doing so. It's one of those things that never makes any sense but they do it anyway.

Comic-Con News

The way registration for Comic-Con works is that some portion of the available badges is put up for purchase as "Returning Registration," meaning that if you attended the last con, you can purchase badges for this one. This sale is then followed by "Open Registration" on another date and on that date, anyone can try to purchase badges. Later on, there may be additional (but limited) opportunities but those two dates are when most of the badges that are going to be sold are sold.

Returning Registration was last Saturday and the anecdotal reports I've heard said that it went smoothly. That is not to say that everyone who wanted badges got them but the ones who got them seem to have gotten them with a minimum of stress and frustration. There will always be those who are unable to score badges because of simply math. The convention center can hold X number of people and the number of people who want to attend is more like ten times X. Or more.

Open Registration takes place Saturday, November 18, 2023 commencing at 9:00 AM Pacific Standard Time. The Virtual Waiting Room opens an hour before that. You can find out more on this page and on this page. Our friends over at The San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog have written up their own unofficial guide that may also be helpful and you can read it here.

I would recommend digesting all this information well before the day, especially the part about having a Member I.D. in advance. I would also recommend keeping in mind that this is basically a lottery and not everyone can win. Until such time as the convention becomes a lot less popular — like, say, when I achieve my Master Plan to someday host all the panels and making sure every one of them is about Groo — there will always be way more people who want to attend than the con can accommodate. Just remember: It's not Real Life. It's Comic-Con, Jake.

And you probably will be able to get into WonderCon — run by the same people but it's smaller. That's at the Anaheim Convention Center from March 29 to March 31 next year. Badges for that will be on-sale soon.

Tuesday Evening

Three quick items and then I have to get back to a Groo story…

1. As you've probably heard, voters in Ohio have just decreed that their state constitution should make it clear that women have the right to control their own bodies even when it means getting an abortion. I think this is a very good thing and I also think that it's not just because it's the right thing to do but because, while there are many folks out there who are sincere in their view of when life begins, there are also a lot who feel that the so-called "pro-life" movement these days is not about child-rearing and pediatrics but by fund-raising and politics.

2. The "open enrollment" period for insurance plans in my state has turned into a flurry of spam calls — about 80% of the "robo" variety. Most try to sound like they're from Medicare and all wish to connect me with agents who can sell me whatever they can sell me. I think I got about 40 of them today, starting with one that came in this morning at 6:22 AM. I happened to be up then so I answered it and found a real, live human being, evidently in some other country, who seemed shocked that someone answered. I told the person that if I ever got my hands on them, they'd be the ones who needed a hospitalization plan. Then I went back to bed and slept through the next six calls.

3. In the post before the post before this one, I put up an image of one of the great posters that Jack Davis created for the movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. My buddy Scott Shaw! sent me a better scan of that image so I have swapped them out and put his in its place. Thanks, Scott! Buy his book!

See you when things settle down here. Soon, I hope.