"See? I told you so"

Even Chicago Sun-Times Columnists Richard Roeper agrees!

Memo to the editorial cartoonists of the world: I love the creativity you show in your work, but the next time a celebrity dies and you're thinking about doing a drawing of God or St. Peter greeting the celeb at the gates of heaven, hmmm, maybe not. It's been done about a million times by now. (Not to mention the fact that some of these famous folks hardly led ticket-to-heaven lives.)
Thanks for your consideration.

The final count of editorial cartoons for Bob Hope (collected on Slate.com):
Bob Hope meeting St. Peter: 11
Hope & Crosby in Heaven: 4 (they're playing golf on the clouds in 3 of 'em) But where's Dorothy Lamour? She's dead, too!
Entertaining troops in Heaven: 5
Simple portraits: 6
"Thanks for the memories:" 3.

Hollywood writer Mark Evanier has added lots of good stories and correspondence about Hope on his weblog. Among the fun facts we've learned: Mention the licensed DC Comics series "The Adventures of Bob Hope," and he'd proudly point out that he owned a complete run of the series, which ran from 1950 to the late 60's. Also, that he really did have a photograph of Gen. Patton pi**ing in the Rhine River. It appears from these reminiscences that if you got to visit Bob at home, you were bound to be entertained. Evanier also points out that most of these cartoonists seem to be totally unable to draw Bob Hope! The most distinctive schnozz in the entertainment world! Come on!

And yes, my ranting was originally inspired by an essay written a few years back by George Carlin. He has reprinted it on his own website. Carlin was more accurate than even he could have imagined: CBS really did have the major Bob Hope tribute special, not NBC.

Addendum

I started on the previous rant yesterday, before Bob Hope died (and how many times will you hear or use the phrase "finally died" today?). So let's count the number of cartoons tomorrow that show St. Peter meeting Bob, and telling him "Thanks for the Memories." I predict that a slightly lesser number of cartoons will show Bob reunited with Bing and Dorothy on "The Road to Heaven." After that, golfing with Bing on top of a cloud. Betcha.

In fact, I bet most of those cartoonist had their Bob Hope Tribute cartoon all drawn years ago and ready to run, just like a newspaper's obiturary department. All they have to do is date it and submit it.

So let's wonder how many personalities already have clich�d memorial cartoons prepared for them: all the ex-presidents, no doubt, um, Clint Eastwood, who is 73, after all (St. Peter will be telling him, "Go ahead, make my day!" Yuk, yuk, yuk). The Pope and Billy Graham (the cartoons there would be just too easy).

And this is not to take anything away from Bob at all, but I notice the obit on CNN.com said Bob had been "Known as 'Mr. Entertainment' or 'the King of Comedy'." Really? Just about everybody worthy of a Friar's Roast has been "Mr. Entertainment." The only nickname I remember applied exclusively to Bob was "Old Ski Nose."

Are Cartoonists People?

  Here's a rant that been fermenting in the back of my head for awhile, and I'm finally getting it out.
  Editorial cartoonists are supposed to be able to summarize world events and distill them into a single image that makes a salient point, maybe even provoking a laugh. So howcum it is when some celebrity dies, their tribute cartoons are almost universally lame! Lame like Tiny Tim. "I'm talking 'Night Court' in its fifth season lame!"
  When Katharine Hepburn passed on, most of the editorial cartoonists once again centered their "tribute" aound a weak gag involving the recently deceased meeting St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. If you go to Daryl Cagle's cartoonist roundup on slate.com, you can see them. About half have St. Peter announcing "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner!"

  For this they give out Pulitzer Prizes.

  Coming up second in the pool of possible ways to remember someone who's been in the public eye for generations, is St. Peter fuming about Kate's determination to wear pants in heaven. You remember, how she scandalized all of fifteen people in polite society by insisting on wearing a pantsuit only SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO! It's like Garrion Keillor once said, No matter how famous or successful you are in life, back in your home town you'll always be the kid who dropped an easy pass and cost cost his team the homecoming football game. And how many writers have you seen reference him and Eric Cartman at the same time? Dig through that archive for the Mister Rogers tributes, and you'll see pretty much the same thing. (And too bad Barry White had to die less than a week afterward. No icon for the Icon of Love [I know Buddy Hackett died the same day as Kate, but I don't think anyone outside of the entertainment trades was planning a tribute. Sorry, Buddy])
  So what's the deal? Why are these guys so hard up for a nice thing to say about someone that they'll go back to a clich? from Grandpa's Sunday School lessons?
  Maybe they are. It seems editorial cartooning is still stuck in the world of clich?: lying politicians growing Pinocchio noses, Jimmy Carter the peanut farmer or Gerry Ford the clumsy oaf (just see how many cartoonists use those crutches when either of those two gentlemen passes on). Eighty years after the comic strips stopped having characters react to a joke by "flopping" off-panel, editorial cartoonists will still feature "feelthy" Frenchmen in berets and striped shirts, or Congressmen with their skinny ties and wide-brimmed black hats. I guess if you want to make a point quickly, you need to use imagery that's been with our culture ever since Thomas Nast first drew donkeys and elephants to represent the political parties.
  Still, it was kind of disappointing that when browsing the archive of Kate Hepburn cartoons, only one of the cartoonists featured just drew an affectionate portrait. I'd think if an entertainer or artists really meant something in your life or worldview, that's the best thing you could do.

All Killer, No Filler?

Was just reading some news squibs about the fact that some bands, specifically Metallica and Red Hot Chili Peppers have refused to have their music sold online via Apple's iTunes Music Store. Their rationale was that they were unhappy with the service for allowing customers to download indivudal tracks, with the rationale that "Our artists would rather not contribute to the demise of the album format," This, in turn, has sparked the usual flaming on the discussion boards about how albums today have maybe two good songs, while the rest is just filler crap. Some songwriters have responded that they feel none of their work is filler, but represents their best efforts, and artists don't spend a year of their lives working on what they think is just filler, blah, blah, blah�
I'm here to tell ya [old man voice] these kids today [/old man voice] must not remember that when singles artsits in the early 60's--and that's most rock 'n' roll artists--were accorded the honor of putting out an album, they were just one or two hit singles and a lot of filler. Check out any original Motown album: you get one or two of the Supremes' latest two hits, and then ten cuts of show tunes, or covers of songs made famous by other Motown artists. I can understand an artist still wedded to the concept of an "album" as a single unit of music that he wants to control: Brian Wilson mixed most of the Beach Boys' LPs, especially "Pet Sounds," in mono so the listener couldn't fiddle with his vision of how the music should sound (that and he was deaf in one ear). But if you really want your album to be an intact "vision," then you have no business releasing singles from it to radio. That instantly divorces those songs from the experience of listening to the album.
Besides, each songwriter may think each of his efforts is excellent, but record companies determine early in the process that "these" songs will be the singles, which will have videos made for them, and which will get the extra production boost. No matter how much the creative person protests, there are less worthy songs on a CD that many consumers resent paying $18.99 for, and would prefer to have just one or two songs.

The way to really fly

Haven't had a chance to mention that my commuting time was severly hampered last week. Seems one of the trestles on the Illinois Central line that my Metra Electric train runs over burned down the night of June 22. I learned this as I was driving to my station Monday morning the 23rd: No trains would be running south of 115th Street (I'm at about the 215th Street area). So I decided my best bet would be to drive to the Metra Rock Island station in Oak Forest-- a bit of a detour involving driving through road construction either on Cicero Ave. or I-57. Made the train there, which ends at a different station meaning I walk further to work, only managed to be half-an-hour late. Tuesday, Metra announces that all affected riders should go to the Oak Forest station. Bigger crowds all 'round. They also "anticipate" the bridge will be repaired by the following Wednesday, July 2.
Wednesday, Metra breaks down and charters lots of buses to meet riders at some of the Electric stations and shuttle them to Oak Forest. We continue operating this way the rest of the week.
But, on Monday, June 30, they announce the viaduct has been repaired, and we can go back to using the Electric line a day early! That's pretty good for a public infrastructure project!
Now if only they could start that rehab of the Randolph Street station, which had all its amenities town out 3 years ago, then had it's rebuilding stalled while the city rebuilt Michigan Avenue, then its bloated Millenium Park project.

Worst Movie ever? (At least physically)

In one respect, yes. I saw Decasia over the weekend at Facets uptown. It�s kind of a �found film� project, compiled from film archives across the world, of old, unstable nitrate film in various stages of decomposition. It s indeed a little disturbing to watch. We see the images of people, sometimes barely discernable amid a swarm of flaked off emulsion, bubbles in the film itself, or images �solarizing� from an unstable fixed image. The scenes most commented on by critics has been one in which two boxers are sparring, but one of them is completely obliterated by a column of black streaks, leaving his partner to appear to be trying to hold back oblivion itself. Another scene shot at an amusement park shows a swirling miasma of emulsion on the left side of a frame, from which the cars of a whirlygig ride materialize. Given the premise of the movie, many less startling scenes take on an air of urgency. The films� subjects, who had done nothing more than walk in front of a movie camera years ago, now appear to be holding on to the last remnants of their souls. Even though these people likely died years ago, the film seems to represent the only trace of existence, now in danger of fading into oblivion. But again, this is due to director Bill Morrison's choices in presenting and editing the film; most of the subjects went on to live their lives without concern for the film they were. Heck, some of them may even be still alive.

Only problem in seeing the film is that it was produced as a backdrop for contemporary dissonant muscal piece by Michael Gordon, kind of a Philip Glass wannabe. That kind of work is best heard in shorter pieces, and not always sober.

Still, I'll willing to be confounded, challenged or frustrated by a movie. Just don't insult me for forking over my money to see it.

Fatal Porch Collapse in Chicago Kills 12

I had a link to this story in the Sun-Times, but of course it's expired by now�

Isn't your first reaction to think "those people should've known better than to...?" Just like with the nightclub tragedies of a few months ago, it's our way of compartmentalizing people different from us (in those cases, urban black clubbers and/or mulletheads, in this case Lincoln Park yuppies) and convincing ourselves that we would have better sense than to join 100 other people and a couple of kegs on a wooden fire escape.

But when herd mentality takes over, a lot of us will go along with the crowd, because if they're doing it, it must be all right. Just like Mom suggested: if all my friends jumped off a cliff, maybe I might, too. I would also think that the building where this party was held had a rickety-looking metal fire escape, there might not be so many people on it. But we're now pretty much conditioned to think that a structure built with treated lumber, that resembles the decks now built onto many homes, is a deck, and therefore we move the party there without a second thought. I'm sure quite a few decks on single family homes have collapsed over the years, but because many are no more than a few feet off the ground, there are usually no fatalities like this one.

To compound the case, the local news last night made frequent mention of the fact that the owners of the building were based in Canada and �could not be reached for comment.� Now that sure makes them sound like a couple of greedy absentee slumlords. But gee, maybe the owners couldn�t be reached because TV reporters were trying to call a business office on a Sunday?

Time to play a little catch-up:

The Homebrewers Conference was a lot of fun, even though I didn't win anything in the National Homebrew Competition. Thursday was Club Night, at which I helped man the BOSS booth. At least I got people to sample my Chile Beer and agree that there is such a thing as Chile Beer that doesn't suck. Also brought a crock pot of my Green Chile Pork Stew, which was halfway eaten before somebody remarked that it was still cold� the specialty outlets at the hotel didn't work right, and I needed an electrician to bring a power block (even then, one attendee told me it was "still the best food here!").

I was registered for all day Saturday, but my pal Nelson wanted to go, and I talked Barb into coming, so long as it was just to the "Real Beer Real Food" night. I not only can't rememebr how many beers I had, I'm not sure I remember how many different kinds of beer I had. A lot of mostly sausages and cheeses were sampled, not to mention Eli's Cheesecake.

"Actor and Star Trek alum William Marshall passed away last week. He was 78."

You know, it pains me to admit that I had never associated the actor who played Blacula with his guest role on Star Trek (as Dr. Daystrom, who built "The Ultimate Computer" which took over Enterprise and screwed up a war game by shooting at other starships for real). Somehow I just never encountered that little piece of trivia in all my years of Trek geekdom. Worse yet, I didn't know he had also been The King of Cartoons in Pee-Wee's Playhouse.
Some years ago, an acting friend of mine played Roderigo in a Steppenwolf production of Othello opposite Gary Cole as Iago. The night I came to see it, Marshall was there after the show because the actor who played Othello was a friend or a student of his. I didn't say anything to him I didn't think he wanted to talk to some fanboy who had nothing interesting to say. Oh yeah, and Cole went from that production straight into his own TV show, Midnight Caller. Now he's better known as the "new" Mike Brady (But he's also Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law!).
I do remember Marshall had one of those wonderful, oratorial speaking voices, being as he was of the time when black actors had to get years of cred in theatre roles in New York or London, which usually meant more than one Othello, before Hollywood would even think of putting them on TV in a dignified role. Thus any black actor on TV before The Mod Squad had that Ossie Davis style of precise and declamatory speaking that added extra gravitas to their roles. I think that at that time, if a producer was willing to use a black actor at all, at least it would be in a positive role.

The National Homebrewers Conference is next week. I've sent my chile beer on for the final judging in the National Homebrew Competition. It'll be a tough sell, because it counts on there being at least one judge who's a real chile-head. Designed a small label for the commemorative mead that attendees will receive, and I'll post it after the conference.

One reason I'm posting all of this is to put a few more links on the web to my new Cafe Press page, where I'm selling T-shirts, beer mugs and other items with my homebrew beer labels. A link like this one will help push my site up a little in Google searches, so they say.

Repeating an oldie but goody:

This was one of my earliest posts, from June of 2002 (ah, memories). I accidentally deleted it from the Blogger interface, but kept fudging the template so it still shows in the archive. Now that I've switched templates, I'm just re-posting it so it won't end up overwritten.

This past weekend (June 15), I discovered a little custom car show being held in a local McDonald's parking lot. Along with the rather out-of-place stock Prowler and Viper (maybe there was Chrysler money involved), was an interesting, albeit usual assortment of restored and customized cars. Like a 1966 Ford Cobra, a low-rider car whose owner happily demonstrated its hydraulics, all the way back to a '26 Ford Model T. Some, like the Cobra, needed only to be restored to their original condition to impress; others were chopped, lowered, revved up and otherwise refitted into impressive street rods. Some had extra banks of batteries in the back to power a honkin' sound system. There was even a Rav 4 fitted out with both video and DVD players (running "The Fast and the Furious," natch).
I think nearly any male who was a kid during the 1960s has had some acquaintance with the hot rod culture. We had at least issue of "CarTOONS" magazine, we assembled Aurora models of hot rods original built by George Barris or Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. At the very least, we wanted to cruise around in the Batmobile, or sit in Eddie's seat way in back of the "Munster-mobile." We might even have met some of favorite TV stars at a "World of Wheels" appearance.
That America's love affair with the automobile was expressed in a large, distinct hot-rod culture has been covered extensively elsewhere. Perhaps, though, we should consider revisiting the world of "Kustom Kars" in our everyday lives.
After all, look at the buying frenzy that surrounded the P.T. Cruiser. Ford will probably get similar results with its reintroduced Thunderbird and its Forty-Nine Roadster, and BMW is re-introducing the Mini Cooper from England.
But why stop there? Why pay a premium to be first on your block to buy a snazzy new car when everyone else on the block is just to get their a little later. Are still impressed with someone who has a Cruiser?
I just think that if I am ever at the point where I have $40,000 to blow on a car (yeah, right), why should I clutter the highway with yet another Mercedes? I'm going to a custom shop and having a car customized for me. Maybe a late 40's cabover pickup truck, with captain's cars swiveling to a portable snack galley. With not just a DVD player, but a Sharpvision projector in the bed so I can face it to a wall and have my own drive-in movie show. With that kind of audio gear, I'd just need one iPod to be an outdoor DJ, too.
It would also need a nive intimidating flame job around the front of the cab, to blow some of those piggy Lincoln Navigators off the road for a change.

What I'm wasting time reading these days:

I was finally induced to pick up the Oxford American, a magazine of "Southern writing," because it was the annual music issue. It comes with a CD of over 24 interesting artists who are each profiled in the magazine. It's a great eclectic mix, all the way from a Blind Willie Johnson waxing from 1926 to My Morning Jacket, who are headlining this week here in Chicago; as well as the requisite early Willie Nelson song (the accompanying article makes clear that Willie is America's Spliffmaster General. And one time in your life, you're going to need to hear Del McCoury's bluegrass rendition of Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning."

Also finally subscribed to Cool and Strange Music, the fan magazine of any and all types of estoeric and odd records. My first issue cover featured Rudy Ray Moore, but more interesting was the profile of "Josie and the Pussycats," which turns out to have been quite a boundary-breaker for Saturday Morning cartoons. The web site linked above also has many links to some of the best wierd and bad music sites on the planet. Getcher dose of Shatner and Nimoy singing all at once!