Mark Evanier's Blog, page 207

Today's Video Link

This might be the oldest episode of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show I've ever seen. It's from January 14, 1964 and while the video isn't great, it's amazing that this exists at all. You'll notice the show has a very different pace from Johnny's later broadcasts and from any other talk show of the last few decades.

Johnny makes reference to his announcer Ed McMahon and bandleader Skitch Henderson sitting in for him the past few nights. I vaguely remember nights like that and I also recall a few times when Ed guest-hosted all by himself. For some reason, Ed in later years (and in his autobiography, I believe) complained that he'd never been asked to guest-host. I don't know what that was all about…

Just a Few Reminders

The Writers Guild of America is still on strike. Yes, there is a deal that our negotiators seem proud to present to us and yes, all picketing has been canceled for now. But there's still a process of approvals and acceptances that the offer must go through and this is how it always works. Some folks out there seem to think that if the offer were any good, we would have accepted it and gone back to work immediately. Nope. We always have to go through the process.

Some folks also seem to have unreal expectations about the offer. It may well be a very good offer but it cannot possibly match some fantasies I'm reading. Remember that all negotiations in every walk of life are based on the principle of Barely Acceptable. If I'm trying to buy your car and we're haggling, my goal is to offer you what you'll consider Barely Acceptable. That may be a very good amount for you but it will not be way more than you were willing to take.

And of course, let's remember that our friends at SAG-AFTRA are still on strike. A settlement with the writers may (I underlined "may") provide the basis for a settlement with the actors on some issues but actors have some issues that don't impact writers and vice-versa. Some things in our deal may be, to use the term folks use in this kind of bargaining, precedential. But not everything will be.

Also, the actors just voted by 98% to go on strike against video game companies if ongoing negotiations are not successful. So there may still be labor unrest in the entertainment field for a while. That's just how it always is in any industry that employs people who expect to be paid what they're worth and treated accordingly.

"Comic Book Movies"

Martin Scorsese has directed some of the best movies ever made and most of them convey some powerful message with skill and depth. So it's odd that when he complains about "comic book movies" and says they're a danger to the whole concept of cinema, I have no idea what the f-word he's saying. That is unless he's saying that everyone should be making Martin Scorsese movies and I don't think it's that.

I also can't believe he thinks that any force in the world can stop the film studios — including the ones that fund and distribute Martin Scorsese movies — from making whatever the public is paying to see. At the moment, that list includes what he calls "comic book movies" and so it will be until enough of them lose money that the studios turn to something else.

He also seems unaware that the studios are making plenty of films that in no way fit any definition of "comic book movies." Plenty of them were up for Oscars last year. Plenty will be up next year. Here's a list of some of them for this year…

Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, Poor Things, Barbie, American Fiction, The Holdovers, Past Lives, The Zone of Interest, Origin, Maestro, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, The Color Purple, Ferrari, Anatomy of a Fall, May December, The Bikeriders, The Iron Claw, Air, Saltburn, Dumb Money, Rustin, All of Us Strangers, Freud's Last Session, Napoleon, The Burial, American Symphony, Fair Play, BlackBerry, Priscilla, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Wish, The Taste of Things, Nyad, The Boys in the Boat, Fingernails, She Came to Me, Asteroid City, A Little Prayer, The Teachers Lounge and The Royal Hotel.

There are a couple of things in there you might call "comic book movies" but not many. Then I think back to past years when it seems like half of what the movie studios were making were imitations of Porky's, Smokey and the Bandit and Halloween. Did all those movies warp an entire generation's mind of what a movie could or should be?

Mr. Scorsese is acting like "comic book movies" are some new thing. Just to take a some-time-ago decade at random, the highest grossing movie of 1980 was Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back. The highest-grossing movie of 1981 was Superman II. The highest of 1982 was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the highest-grossing movies of the following years were Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Batman.

I dunno about you but I'd call most of those "comic book movies." And now here we have Scorsese saying of the current flock, "The danger there is what it's doing to our culture…because there are going to be generations now that think movies are only those — that's what movies are." Me, I think we've always had a movie industry that put forth a significant number of movies about which one could sound that alarm. I don't get why that's a problem now.

Day Twelve…

I miscounted. Today is the last day of our little telethon. The staff of newsfromme (which consists wholly of me) thanks all of you who've donated to the cause, which is to prevent me from being tempted by all these e-mails I get from folks who want to advertise on this site and/or send me "paid content" posts to run.

At least one said they'd pay me well for displaying a post they wrote but I had to agree to not let on that it was sponsored and that I didn't write it and I would have to allow the impression that I diligently used their product and recommended it highly…but they wouldn't tell me what the product was. Oh — and I would have to commit and sign a contract before they'd tell me what the product was. I said no, of course. With my luck, it would have turned out to be some brand of cole slaw…

Today's Video Link

This is from The Ed Sullivan Show for December 7, 1969…a couple of tunes from the singing duo of Sandler and Young, who had a tendency to turn popular songs into versions that their composers never imagined. If he was watching, Paul Simon was probably cringing at the second of their two numbers but I kinda liked them.

I saw them live in the early eighties at the old Sahara Hotel in Reno fronting "The Penthouse Pet Revue" — a show which featured a number of ladies who had allegedly appeared in Penthouse magazine walking (not dancing, just walking) around the stage in minimal apparel. In Reno then, that's what passed for entertainment…

A New Spam/Scam

As we all know, I get a lot of spam calls, many of them from home improvement contractors or people who work for home improvement contractors. I also get a lot from people with companies that pretend to have some official association with Medicare and from people who want to buy or sell my home.

One interesting and pleasant one I got a few weeks ago was from a gentleman who is running for the Los Angeles City Council in an election next March. This was the actual candidate himself calling voters asking for their support and we had a lovely conversation that was mostly about the problem of homelessness. Maybe I was snowed a bit by the direct appeal but he sure sounded smart and honest and eager to win that seat for all the right reasons.

I ended the call after about ten minutes because, as I said, "You have a lot more voters to call if you're going to get elected" but he sure convinced me to vote for him…though I won't. I can't. I looked him up online and I'm not in the district where he's seeking office. He's calling the wrong people.

So this morning, I got a call of a kind I've never received before. It's from a company that wants me to hire them to promote my book. "Which book?" you might ask. This book…

Back in the eighties, I wrote a brief run on a revival of Jack Kirby's New Gods for DC. I didn't like it very much and I could list all sorts of reasons why I was prevented from doing what I wanted to do but it wasn't all the fault of others. I screwed up, starting with agreeing to what I should have known was an impossible situation. There's a great quote that is either from Alan Jay Lerner (who co-wrote My Fair Lady) or Moss Hart (who directed it). One of them said…

In my life, I have had many successes and many failures. The successes were for all different reasons and the failures were all for the same reason: I said yes when I meant no.

I must be more versatile than whichever of them said it because I've had failures for a great many reasons. Saying yes when I meant no has only been one of those reasons. But the fact that I don't think I did a good job on the book is not the reason that when DC put out some collections of those issues a few years back, I didn't plug them on this site or put up Amazon links or anything. It's a reason but I also didn't mention them on this site is that I didn't know about them.

No one at the company told me in advance and I kinda understand that. The way DC Comics has been run since they relocated to Burbank out here seems somewhat chaotic. There have been times when it feels like someone high up in the Warner empire is occasionally calling one of those agencies that represents temporary office workers and asking, "Hey, have you got someone there who can run a comic book company for a few weeks?"

That's only about half a joke. I've dealt with some great people there but it feels like immediately after they deal with me, they either (a) get fired, (b) get moved to somewhere else in the company or (c) get the hell outta the company and go work for someone else in what they hope will be a more stable environment…you know, like being Donald Trump's attorney.

Anyway, I absolutely understand why no one let me know about these books before they started putting them out. The way I found out is that someone came up to me with one at a convention and asked me to sign it. And then when I got home from the con, there was a box of them waiting for me and eventually, I got some royalties. Whoever's there now at the company sending out contributor copies and royalties is good at his/her job.

I'm not sure that will explain to your satisfaction why I haven't mentioned these books here but it explains it to mine. You will notice that there is no Amazon link to any of these books here nor am I urging you to check them out.

So this morning, I got a call from some stranger who asked, inventing a whole new way to pronounce my name as he did, if I was "Mark Evanier, author of Bloodlines." I said no. That title did not register with me at first but then I remembered. He told me it was a wonderful, wonderful book so I instantly knew he hadn't read it. The conversation then went roughly as follows…

ME: Really? What was your favorite part of it?

HIM (after a long pause): The ending. I really thought the ending was great.

ME: Oh? Did you like the part with the elephant stampede?

HIM: That was the best part. (There was, of course, no elephant stampede in that book. At least, I don't think there was. I haven't read it since it first came out.)

ME: Okay. So did you just call to tell me how much you liked it?

HIM: Well, yes and how I think it's a shame that more people haven't heard about this wonderful book and bought it and read it. I happen to work with a firm here that…

ME: Let me guess. I pay you money and you publicize my book.

HIM: Yes, we are prepared to arrange for saturation publicity on the Internet as well as in print media. We could set up podcast interviews with you and get your book written about in publications for the book store trade. You would receive full penetration.

ME: Wow. I haven't had an offer of full penetration since I was about nineteen and I was being hit on by this choreographer…

HIM: Pardon me?

ME: Never mind. Listen, I'm going to save you some time. I'm not going to pay you or anyone to publicize that book.

HIM: But…but don't you want people to read this book?

ME: Not really. Please take me off whatever list you're using and don't call again. Oh and by the way, there are no elephants in my book.

Click. About twenty minutes later, I got a call from someone who said they were with "Healthcare Benefits, affiliated with Medicare" trying to get me to let them send me a back brace that I in no way need…and I'm not sure but I think it was the same guy. Different number but I think the same guy. And if I'd recognized his voice sooner, I would have told him, "And by the way, there are still no elephants in my book."

Day Eleven…

We had a little surge in donations yesterday and I think we'll hit my target number — the amount I was hoping to collect to keep this blog online and healthy — today. Even if we don't, my main source of income looks to be returning soon so I'm ending the telethon tonight. Jerry Lewis used to end his by singing "You'll Never Walk Alone." If I sang, most of my donors would write in to ask for their money back so I won't do that. If you're grateful that I won't…

Today's Video Link

Here's Steve Martin back in his stand-up days. This is from The Tonight Show for March 21, 1973…

Strike News!

The WGA leadership is saying they've reached agreement on a contract that they think is good enough for its membership to ratify. Read my post from earlier today about being cautiously optimistic and being wary of "the second negotiation." But this is certainly good to hear…for us and, probably, the actors.

No Strike News!

And I have no idea if no strike news is good strike news or bad strike news. It may be neither. It may just be no strike news.

I should pass on one word of wisdom conferred on me by my second agent. He said, "Always beware of the second negotiation."

The first negotiation is the verbal one in which we all agree that I will write the script for $5,000. The second negotiation is when someone commits the agreed-upon terms to paper, often taking his own sweet time about it since I'll probably commence writing before we have a signed contract. On that paper, he writes that I will indeed receive $5,000…

…and he hopes neither I nor my agent will notice that he sneaks in a clause that says that they can reduce that amount if I'm late, if my script contains spelling errors, if I write it while wearing blue jeans, if the Dodgers win the pennant, if McDonald's brings back the McRib, if you knew Suzie like I know Suzie, if I use vowels or if the producer just feels like paying me less. Oh — and it also says that I have to deliver the script to the producer's home and trim his hedges while I'm there.

That's the second negotiation. With some employers, you don't have a deal even when you all agree you have a deal.