Mark Evanier's Blog, page 274

Today's Video Link

Skies around the world are lighting up with fireworks displays to welcome in the new year. Here's one from London that's pretty spectacular. Thank you for the tip, Shelly Goldstein…

More on the Bat Cave

My pal Marv Wolfman writes…

There was definitely a Bat Cave on Owensmouth. Across the street from it was a block or two of really good antique stores which Noel and I frequented (the antique stores, not the strip club). But I remember always wondering why Warners never sued them out if their last tassel.

I suspect that if you and I drove around L.A. with an eye to spot trademark and copyright violations, we could find enough to keep the lawyers busy for years. It was especially bad when the Batman TV show was on and popular. And I would guess that the lawyers were busy with more egregious violations…or ones from which there was more money to be collected. This place down on Virgil Avenue had Looney Tunes characters on it front for many years. It apparently doesn't now but I don't know if that's because of legal action or not…

Several folks have written to say there was a Bat-themed club on Sherman Way near Owensmouth. That's apparently what my friend who worked for Filmation noticed. The building is reportedly still a strip club, sans bats. I hope at least someone there knows how to do the Batusi…and that there's a ban on jokes about sliding down the Bat-Pole.

Holy Comic Strippers!

There are few mysteries that the readers of this blog cannot solve. I was wondering where in the world a strip club called The Bat Cave was located. I didn't say this but I kinda doubted it was in Los Angeles because I would at least have heard of it. Wrong. It turns out it was in my city…

That ad is dated 1966 which is right when you'd figure someone would open such a place figuring to cash in on the Batman craze.  They might even have had their grand opening during the hour-or-so that the Batusi was a popular dance craze.

5521 Sunset would put it, as the ad says, on Sunset just west of Western Avenue. Presently, there's a huge WSS Shoe Warehouse at that intersection and its address is 5525 Sunset.  This suggests that The Bat Cave and everything around it were razed in order to build that big building which was a mega-hardware store before it was a shoe warehouse and I vaguely recall there being a giant supermarket there before that.  On either side of The Bat Cave were printing businesses as seen in this photo…

I'm also going to guess there are quite a few years between the above ad and the above photo. The law around these parts did not permit nude dancing at clubs in 1966.  That caught on in the seventies and it has never been legal at clubs that serve alcohol.

So, to take this way beyond even my level of interest, I'll theorize that the place opened in '66 with ladies as minimally dressed as the law then allowed.  At some point, they got rid of their liquor license and whatever clothing the dancers were wearing…and they probably stopped serving food then as well.  Neither food nor drink are mentioned on their signage in the two photos we have that promise nude girls within.  They didn't take down the neon Batusi sign because it would have cost a few bucks to do this.

And what I can't figure out is why I never noticed this esteemed business establishment. I drove through the intersection of Sunset and Western a lot during the seventies. My daily commute when I was working on Welcome Back, Kotter often took me past that address twice a day. I don't think I would ever have stopped and gone in but you'd think a guy in his twenties who'd read as many Batman comic books as I had would have spotted it and gasped, "The Batusi? Really? They're doing the Batusi?"

My thanks to quite a few folks who sent in info and pics.  I got one note from a friend of mine who used to write for the Filmation cartoon studio in Reseda…which is where the 1968 and 1977 Batman animated shows were produced.  He wrote that he vaguely recalled that on his way to work there, he passed a bar called The Batcave on the south side of Sherman Way near the intersection of Owensmouth.  Maybe there was another Bat Cave there or maybe he was remembering this place on Vanowen between Tujunga and Vineland…

But probably not.  That ad is also from 1966 and he would have passed it in the late seventies, plus that address is pretty far from Sherman Way and Owensmouth.   There's no longer a strip club at 11220 Vanowen but there is a strip mall.

Google Maps identifies a business there called Major Plaza Upholstery.  I have a couch that's getting a bit shabby.  Maybe I'll take it in there and ask if they can refurbish it or at least do the Batusi — the dance that no one ever did unless they were being tortured by King Tut. And maybe not even then…

Saturday Morning

I know I'm going to sound like The Joker saying this but I have discovered the location of The Bat Cave! Unless Bruce Wayne pays me one million dollars, there will be a post up here at Noon today divulging this most important secret.

Also coming here later today is a rerun of the story about what I did to ring in the year 1997…the last year I was dumb enough to not be home on New Year's Eve.

If you're staying in tonight (and you should), my pals Stu Shostak and Jeanine Kasun are doing a special and extremely-long edition of Stu's Show with guests and rare videos and Jeanine's jokes. It starts at 8 PM Pacific Time and more details can be found here.

If you don't think Joe Biden has accomplished much as President, read this article by Heather Digby Parton. You may not like some of the things he's accomplished but given the opposition he's faced, it's kind of amazing that he's accomplished anything.

Here's an article by Alex Abad-Santos that seeks to explain why, at a time when so many national restaurant chains are floundering, The Cheesecake Factory thrives. Me, I think it's because it's reliable and no matter who you take there for a meal, they can always find something they want to eat on their menu. That's assuming they can lift the menu.

A lot of my friends would be happier if they stopped looking at obit reels and montages of actors who have died in the past year and getting incensed that a favorite or friend of theirs was omitted. It's the same way with "Ten Best" lists, like someone's list of what they thought were the ten best movies of the year. They're not going to burn or erase all copies of your favorite film of 2022 just because it didn't make the Top Ten list of Shmuckface McClownfeet.

That's who compiles all the Top Ten lists, you know. Shmuckface McClownfeet.

As some of you have figured out, when I wrote here about playing Wordle, I was actually playing one of the eighty-seven jillion Wordle knock-offs that abound. I thought the name was more generic than it is.

And lastly to Bruce Wayne, who I know checks in on the blog every hour or so, a final warning: I guarantee you I am not bluffing. A million dollars by Noon today or I post the exact address of The Bat Cave. The clock is ticking, Mr. Wayne…

Picture of the Day

I have no idea where this strip club was located and when…but I'd bet serious money that if it was in L.A. or New York or anywhere he traveled, Bob Kane went there and told every single dancer who he was.

I also love the fact that someone thought that the "Batusi," which was passé about an hour after it was introduced, was a selling point for men who might not just go because the dancers were naked: "I really had no desire to see nude women but when I heard they were doing the Batusi, how could I resist?"

Today's Video Link

Muhammad Ali and Ken Norton fought three boxing matches in the seventies. Ali lost the first one in 1973 and wound up with a broken jaw. Ali barely won the second later that year. The third took place in 1976 and ended in the controversial decision. The judges awarded the victory to Ali but even he said he thought he lost.

On 9/07/1973, three days before the second match, Norton and Ali appeared with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show for some banter, some attempted psyching-out of each other and a ceremonial, unofficial "weigh-in."

This runs twenty minutes but it's kind of interesting as an example of the charisma that Ali brought to his career. You kind of understand why so many people rooted for this guy. You also see Mr. Carson's expertise in handling a segment where little could have been planned in advance…

They Don't Need Me!

I didn't mention it before but I got a notice of Jury Service for the week of December 26, 2022. And I have just completed my service without having to report for it.

I dunno how it works elsewhere but out here in Los Angeles, Jury Duty is a "one week, one trial" deal. A computer picks a certain number of jurors at random, excluding those who have served within the last twelve months. You're in the pool if you have a California driver's license or identification card, or you are registered to vote in the County of Los Angeles. If you're picked, you get the notice I received to be on call for five days.

Each day, the folks in charge of assembling juries at the courthouse in question look and see how many juries they may need to seat the next day. There's a certain number of people they think they'll need in the jurors' lounge in order to fill that number of juries and the computer randomly selects which "on call" people will have to report. Each night you call in or check the website to find out if you have to come in the next morning.

That info is available by phone after 7 PM but I've discovered the website has it much earlier, which is why I just found out they don't need me tomorrow. I'm going to guess that, this being the week between Christmas and New Year's, they haven't needed to fill many juries. The courthouse wasn't even open on Monday.

So it's like one lottery determines whether you'll have a week of jury service and when you do, another lottery decides if you'll report the next day to the jurors' lounge. Each time a jury needs to be filled, a third lottery plucks a certain number of folks out of the jurors' lounge to report to a courtroom to be quizzed as potential jurors.

This is the fifth or sixth time I've won the first lottery and had to be available for a week. Once before, it was like this week…I didn't have to report at all. Three or four times, I was selected by the second lottery but not the third. I just sat in the jurors' lounge playing on my laptop or iPad until they'd filled all the juries they had to fill that day…and then they sent us all home.

One time, by one of those weird coincidences that comprise my life, one of the other folks who had to report that day was my longtime buddy and occasional collaborator, Scott Shaw! We just sat there all day and talked about comic books and cartoons and mutual friends.

I have never been quizzed about perhaps being on a specific jury. If I had been and I was accepted, I would have had to report each day for the length of that trial. They generally tell you in advance if a trial is expected to last for a long time and give you the option of opting out.

It might, I think, be interesting to serve on a jury but if this kind of thing is hereditary, I'll never make it. My father, after he retired from his job, was dreadfully bored much of the time. When he drew jury duty, he was delighted. It was something to do and a chance to feel useful. This was back when jury service lasted one week instead of one day and during that week, he was quizzed about being part of several juries…

…but he was never accepted. Once the attorney for the defense ascertained that the job my father had retired from was with the Internal Revenue, he was instantly vetoed. He assumed they assumed that he'd be prejudiced in favor of the prosecution. Me, I think they'd veto once they found out I work on the Groo comic books.

By contrast, my mother served on several juries and even played the foreman of a jury in an episode of the TV show, L.A. Law. That's her in the red blouse in the photo a few inches above this paragraph. She found it more exhausting than sitting on a real jury and she later complained, "I didn't even get to send anyone to the slammer!" The whole story of her day of stardom can be read here. It's a lot more interesting than my week of jury non-service.

ASK me: Quitting Blackjack

Another one of those folks who asked me not to give their name here asked…

You've mentioned several times on your blog than you used to engage in card-counting at Blackjack and that you played a lot when you went to Las Vegas and won. And you've mentioned that you quit and will never go back to it. I don't think you've explained why you would quit forever if you were winning.

Because, as I've explained several times on this blog. getting ahead and quitting forever is the only way to win at a game like Blackjack. If you keep playing, you will eventually hit a bad patch of luck and give it all back. That would be bad enough but then a little, pernicious voice inside you might very well say, "Hey, you got ahead before! You can do it again!" Which would cause you to start digging deeper and deeper into your wallet, trying to get back ahead again. That can be disastrous.

I've said this many times here but I don't think I ever told about the precise moment I made that decision. I also haven't given credit to the very funny man who said something to me that prompted that decision. It was that fine comedian, Pete Barbutti.

I spent some time there with him when he was performing at various hotels. One evening after he'd done two shows, we were sitting in the lounge at the old Landmark Hotel talking. This was quite some time ago. It had to have been. The Landmark closed in 1990 and they blew it up five years later. We were talking about compulsive gamblers — the kind who even when they win have to give it back trying to win more — and Pete said the following…

"You know what the folks who work the tables here call the money you or I would call our winnings? They call it a 'loan.' You walk away from the table with $500 and they say, 'We just loaned that guy $500.'"

It wasn't a lightbulb that went off in my head. It was more like the big illuminated canopy that opened in Downtown Las Vegas on Fremont Street, about the same time they imploded the Landmark. That canopy has 49.2 million LEDs in it. It can even make me brighter.

Winning at Blackjack had stopped being fun to me. The way I played — the way I won — I might be sitting at the table for three hours to walk away a few hundred ahead. If I'd spent those three hours upstairs in my room on my laptop, I might have written something that paid better than that. And I didn't take up Blackjack for the money. I took it up as kind of a personal challenge…to see if I could do it.

Also back then, it was impossible in Vegas to play Blackjack and not inhale a lot of second-hand cigarette smoke. I dislike few things in this world as much as I dislike cigarette smoke.

At the time Pete said what he said, I was ahead playing Blackjack. And his words gave me the answer — the only answer — how to stay that way. I decided I'd proved whatever I was trying to prove and I quit and I'm still ahead and always will be. If I sound like I'm bragging, yes. I am. I'm proud that I wasn't stupid enough to keep on playing.

And I should mention that if I did ever go back to Blackjack, I wouldn't do it in Las Vegas. Vegas has become a town where there are few bargains and where the corporations who run the place are competing to see who can wring the most dollars out of every visitor. There are no more cheap shows or cheap buffets. There's almost no cheap anything. There are some cheap rooms but even those have "resort fees" that make them non-cheap rooms.

They keep raising prices and since people are willing to pay them, those prices get raised more and more. One Vegas website I follow says all the casinos are getting stingier with comps — free eats, free rooms, free show tickets, etc. They no longer give much of anything to folks who play at my lower levels.

When I was playing Blackjack, I played at tables with $5 minimums. Just try and find one now. Most casinos have $25 minimums on weekdays and some go up to $100 on weekends. Those are minimums and whether you're counting cards or not, it's not a good idea to sit down at a Blackjack table unless your bankroll is a hundred times the table minimum. If you play long enough at any table, there will be a point when the cards turn in your favor but if you get tapped out quickly, you may never get to that point.

Vegas is also changing the rules and not in ways that favor the players. When I played, a Blackjack (also known as "a natural" — an ace and a ten-value card) paid 3-to-2. If you bet a hundred and got one, it paid $150. Now, most tables pay 6-to-5 so a $100 bet gets you $120. That may not sound like a huge change but it really eats into your winnings…or as the casino would call it behind your back, your loans.

So do some other recent rule changes involving doubling-down and/or splitting pairs. If I ever tried card-counting again, I'd have to learn everything all over again as per the new rules. The only thing that would be better than the old days is that there are now smoke-free Blackjack tables around…and that ain't reason enough.

Fuel for Thought

We all have different issues that matter to us — gay rights, immigration, guns, abortion, national security, cole slaw, whatever. I have a friend who really only fixates on one: The price of gasoline. And when it comes to who to support as President of the United States, that's all that matters to this friend. If gas prices are low, the President is doing a great job. That President could accidentally call a nuclear strike on some big U.S. city and this friend would still support him just so long as the accident didn't raise gas prices.

Conversely, if those prices are high, that alone is sufficient grounds to impeach the Prez and drag him from the Oval Office. My friend doesn't even have to — nor can he — explain how any action by any President causes the cost of filling your tank to go up or down. If it happened on that Chief Exec's watch, he gets the credit or blame.

So how are we doing on gas prices these days? Kevin Drum has the stats…and yes, I know you drive by a service station that charges way more but we're talking here about averages.

In case you don't wanna click, Kevin says we're doing pretty good: "Since 2010, the average inflation-adjusted price for a gallon of regular is $3.61. Right now, gasoline is selling for 50 cents less than that."

An Unwanted Comeback

Bill Cosby says he's planning a tour in 2023 and a representative says he's looking at "Spring/Summer." Since so far, that's all there seems to be to this tour — no dates or performing venues mentioned — I'm guessing it's in the Trial Balloon category. Cosby and whoever might be involved in such a tour want to see what the reaction is to the possibility.

I would assume Mr. Cosby is less interested in money than he is in working to "normalize" his public image. That would require that theaters want him on the premises and that crowds actually queue up to buy tickets. I don't see those two things happening enough for him to be able to say, "See? The public still loves me."

This reminds me of when O.J. Simpson was a free man. I'm not sure where I read this but some pollster — I have no idea which one or how credible that pollster was — had said that XX% of America thought O.J. was an innocent man, unjustly accused of and perhaps framed for a crime he did not commit. I don't remember the number either but I'm thinking it was around 20%. Simpson, the piece said, assumed it was so and that the percentage was more than large enough to make him a very wealthy man again.

He had plans for a movie, a book, a live TV interview, t-shirts, some sort of "I O.J." club, etc. He was certain that "his people" would patronize all those projects in sufficient number for him to get back all the dough he'd paid his "Dream Team" of lawyers plus all his other losses plus more.  It reportedly came as a tremendous shock to him that (a) no one wanted to be in business with him and (b) even those who told pollsters they thought he was Not Guilty were Not Interested in his exploitations of his ordeal.  The few that went forward did something like 5% of the business he'd expected and that advisors had told him was a sure thing.

In short, even the people he thought supported him wouldn't support him. It's not hard to imagine Cosby finding out the same thing.