Also, he was a UW alum: "Marshall... attended the University of Wisconsin, a school he chose casually because a friend was going there and seemed to like it."
And: "In 1964, Mr. Brickman played banjo as a member of the New Journeymen, a trio with John Phillips and Michelle Phillips. When Mr. Brickman left the group, the couple took on two new partners and created the Mamas & the Papas. That may have seemed like bad timing, but a few years later he and a friend were invited to Sharon Tate’s house in Beverly Hills and decided at the last minute to go to Malibu instead. It was the night of the Manson family murders."
In the late 1960s, Brickman was a writer on "The Tonight Show," and he created Carnac the Magnificent!
"... and his cultural impact proved both singular and lasting. Ikea produced a Geller stool, which had bent, wavy legs. Nintendo made a spoon-wielding Pokémon character, Kadabra, who could cause clocks to run backward. References to Mr. Geller, or mangled silverware, have appeared in songs by R.E.M., Toad the Wet Sprocket and Incubus, and made a memorable cameo in 'The Matrix.' 'It’s not the spoon that bends,' a bald tyke in a robe tells Neo, Keanu Reeves’s character. 'It is only yourself.'..."
"If Mr. Geller can’t actually bend metal with his brain — and civility and fairness demands this 'if' — he is the author of a benign charade, which is a pretty good definition of a magic trick. Small wonder that the anti-Geller brigade has laid down its arms and led a rapprochement with the working professionals of magic. He is a reminder that people thrill at the sense that they are either watching a miracle or getting bamboozled."
Behold the entertainment (from 1973):
"[W]atching the Geller haters now is like watching people run into nursery schools shouting that there is no Santa Claus."
Sad to see that Charles Grodin has died at 86. Back in the ‘90s I loved watching him on his TV show and as a guest on other shows, and I also like him in The Heartbreak Kid (1972), with Cybill Shepherd.
I’m not surprised to see Rainn Wilson’s effusive tribute to Grodin, whose grimly deadpan approach to humor seems like a precursor to the cringe-inducing awkwardness of The Office.
Wilson wrote: "R.I.P. Charles Grodin, one of the all-time comedy greats. His legendary wit and dark wryness inspired me beyond all measure. Just watch this… SO FAR ahead of his time...." And links to this:
"... before it progressed to an engagement. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what was missing from that relationship, but I did know that my partner loved me despite my weird wildness, while I yearned to be with someone who loved me because of it. To further confuse matters, I didn’t even know exactly what my 'weird wildness' entailed, partly because I had spent so much time in relationships that were not conducive to personal and sexual growth."
In this terrific NYT article by Tyler Kepner, we also learn about Jim Bouton's wife of 35 years, Paula Kurman, "who has a doctorate in interpersonal communications from Columbia." Bouton had 2 strokes, one of which, 5 years ago, was "catastrophic," leading to a hemorrhage that "wiped out" his language skills. "He had to relearn how to read, write, speak and understand."
Kurman had worked with brain-damaged children many years before, and recognized troubling signs in her husband: repeating questions, difficulty organizing and categorizing information....
In her work with brain-damaged children, Kurman said, her boss would tell her to think about what remains, not what is lost. It is a lesson she applies now. Her husband can still make her laugh, still make her think. He has taken up painting again; he once studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. And he can still pitch.
“You need to learn that the person is still that person, and you have to focus more on what he can do, rather than what he can’t do,” she said. “And then you adjust.”
Most of the article is about "Ball Four" and the celebrity status it brought Jim Bouton in the 1970s. Here he is jousting with Johnny Carson in 1977
And here's "Ball Four," which could be the best book about baseball, since — as the NYT points out — it's the only sports book on The New York Public Library's Books of the Century. But if these librarians only came up with one sports book for their list, it might mean they weren't interested enough in sports to get it right.
"Ball Four" is listed in the "Popular Culture & Mass Entertainment" category — along with some novels ("Dracula," "The Turn of the Screw," "The Hound of the Baskervilles," "Tarzan of the Apes,"" Riders of the Purple Sage," etc. etc.) and 2 other non-novels: "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and "In Cold Blood." Great company to be in, no matter how much these librarians cared about sports.
What did the librarians care about? Novels. There are 12 categories, all (except "Nature's Realm") dominated by novels. And "Nature's Realm" was their way of saying science. That's the way people immersed in novels refer to science.
... that when I said that might push people toward Trump, Meade said — quite seriously — that he believed they were secretly pro-Trump.
I really don't know how "The Late Show" can have become this bad. Stewart's reliance on yelling, laughing faux-helplessly at his own jokes, and saying the words "bullshit" and "fucking" seemed really pathetic, and I think both men knew the material was awful.
And I don't know why a network show that needs ratings would offer comedy that automatically writes off half of its potential audience. What's worse is that even for the people they are trying to reach — the Trump haters — it is bad comedy. Yelling, dirty words, desperation... that's what you resort to when there are no real jokes to deliver.
And the late-night tradition used to take into account that the viewers were getting ready to go to sleep. There was a certain sweetness, a niceness. At one point Stewart does a little bit that references Johnny Carson — he holds a paper up to his forehead Carnac-style — and it just made me sad at the loss of Johnny. I longed for a make-late-night-great-again champion. I'd thought that's what Stephen Colbert was going to be.
And what was Jon Stewart doing with a dead animal on his head? I know it was a comic impression of Trump's hair, but Stewart's post-Daily-Show way of life has been a big animal-rescue facility, a sanctuary premised on an utterly unironic love for animals.
Said Meade, upon hearing Letterman's "David Letterman's Top Ten Guys Indiana Governor Mike Pence Looks Like" routine, which begins: "This is not the Indiana I remember as a kid. I lived there for 27 years, and folks were folks, and that’s all there was to it. We all breathed the same air, we were all carbon-based life forms. We didn’t care."
Meade was born in Indiana in 1954 and lived there until 1971. "I don't remember anyone, ever, saying it's okay to be gay or that you should treat gay people the same as anyone else. The only thing I ever heard was disparaging or it was joked about and behind the joking was pretty thinly veiled fear. There were no 'out' gays." Meade called Letterman "delusional" and repeats something I said the other day: "Stop otherizing Indiana."
I'm going to defend Letterman a bit, even though I'm sure Meade is right about Hoosiers and homosexuality in the 1950s. One thing is, Letterman makes no effort to understand what RFRA actually says and how it is likely to work in practice: "Honestly, I don't know what [Mike Pence] is talking about." He's operating at a higher level of abstraction, where Hoosiers are stereotypically friendly and nice to everybody. That's what he remembers, and that is the Hoosier brand. Ironically, Mike Pence — in his disastrous turn on ABC's "This Week" — relied on the same branding:
Hoosier -- come on. Hoosiers don't believe in discrimination. I mean the way I was raised, in a small town in Southern Indiana, is you're -- you're kind and caring and respectful to everyone. Anybody that's been in Indiana for five minutes knows that Hoosier hospitality is not a slogan, it's a reality. People tell me when I travel around the country, gosh, I went -- I went to your state and people are so nice....
Yeah, you're the nice people... unlike those people in other states. Well, I just have 2 things to say about that: 1. You're otherizing the people of the other states who have to be less nice for it to be noticeable that your people are so nice, 2. Niceness is a superficial quality, and it's a quality that makes it hard to tell whether the seemingly nice person thinks ill of you or not. Those stereotypical Hoosiers might hate your kind. How would you know?
By the way, has David Letterman ever said disparaging things about gay people on his show? All the jokes in there over the years, going back to the "Tonight" show appearances? I think it would be extraordinary if he didn't. Mocking gay people was, of course, absolutely the norm for Johnny Carson, who expected and got endless laughs over men who are — his words — "light in [their] loafers."
AND: The "Guys Indiana Governor Mike Pence Looks Like" routine isn't consistent with an ethic of friendly kindness and equality. You put up a picture of a man and then throw 10 shots at him for the way he looks. Letterman made a point of not even attempting to understand what Pence was talking about. Let's just make fun of how he looks. Letterman was teaching us that it's just fine to have a gut reaction to a person, to reject the stage in human relations where you see things from the other person's point of view, and to mock him for superficial reasons that have no substance at all.
IN THE COMMENTS: Laslo Spatula came up with 2 answers to my question "By the way, has David Letterman ever said disparaging things about gay people on his show?"
1. In 2011, Letterman joked about Rosie O'Donnell: "The woman she is marrying, her fiancée, was driving... and her car broke down. And guess what happened? Rosie pulls up right behind her in her tow truck." Rosie wondered what motivated him and added: "I don't remember making fun of you when you had sex with all your interns, Dave. I didn't do that. I didn't make fun of your rampant, throbbing heterosexuality, did I Dave?"
2. In 2008, Letterman had a Top 10 list of "things Jim Carrey will always say 'yes' to" including "A Fan Asking for a Hug, Unless He's a Dude" and then a shot Carrey taking a bath with Larry King and Letterman saying "Those guys are so gay!"
"As a result, when we refuse to take the media's bait, we suffer. I felt it this week when I was asked to weigh in on what other people said and did and what others' beliefs are. If you are looking for answers to those questions, ask those people. I will always choose to focus on what matters to the American people, not what matters to the media."
ELSEWHERE: In Politico, Jack Shafer purports to give advice on how to answer the "gotcha" question. He holds up LBJ as a model: "Here you are, alone with the president of the United States and the leader of the free world, and you ask a chicken-shit question like that." Oh, yeah, wouldn't you just love for the Midwestern son of a preacher man to suddenly emit an LBJ-style outburst full of Texas swagger and farm excrement?
Years ago, an Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton walked into the state Capitol media room at the end of a hectic legislative session and asked the journalists if we needed anything else from him. We had asked Clinton questions all day. We were tired. We wanted him to shut up and go home.
So I said, "Yes, governor. I know you don't know much about baseball, but when there's a pop-up behind the third baseman, whose ball is it?" The other reporters snickered. Finally, they figured: a gotcha question Clinton wouldn't answer.
Bill came up with an answer that seemed amiable and made him look good. But I don't think that's a gotcha question. It's just a casual, irrelevant question that might bring out some personality. It's the sort of question Barbara Walters used to be associated with.... What kind of tree are you?
Dame Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, who danced a pas de deux from “La Corsaire,” the Ballet Folklorico, Alfred Hitchcock, Bobby Darin, Carol Channing, Woody Allen, Carol Burnett and Julie Andrews performing a duet, Harry Belafonte, Ann Margret, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Johnny Carson, and Barbra Streisand.
Other celebrities present:
Peter, Paul and Mary, The Brothers Four, Mike Nichols, Elliot Gould, Bobby Darrin, Jerry Herman, David Merrick, Sophie Loren and Carlo Ponti, John Reardon, Gregory Peck, and Allen Sherman.
Dances danced: the Jerk, the Frug, the Watusi, and the Monkey.
LBJ and Lady Bird aren't dancing the Jerk, Frug, Watusi, or Monkey in that picture, but they are dancing, and "LBJ was the first president since George Washington to dance at his own Inaugural Ball."
A firstier first involving Lady Bird on that inauguration day is: "Mrs. Johnson was the first President’s wife to hold the Bible at the swearing-in ceremony."
ADDED: This is very sad. He's exactly my age, and I remember how much we loved him in the 1970s. The first comedy album I ever bought was "Reality... What a Concept."
AND: First appearance on the "Tonight" show, 1981:
AND: Here he is, again with Johnny, 10 years later:
The CBS News reporter Diane Sawyer asked [Sally Ride] to demonstrate a newly installed privacy curtain around the shuttle’s toilet. On “The Tonight Show,” Johnny Carson joked that the shuttle flight would be delayed because Dr. Ride had to find a purse to match her shoes.
ADDED: "The pioneering scientist was, a statement from Sally Ride Science announced, survived by 'Tam O'Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years.' With that simple statement — listed alongside her mother, Joyce; her sister, Bear; her niece, Caitlin and nephew, Whitney — Ride came out." Link.
"The pancreatic cancer community is going to be absolutely thrilled that there's now this advocate that they didn't know about. And, I hope the GLBT community feels the same," Bear Ride, who identifies as gay, said....
Of Sally Ride's sexual orientation, Bear Ride said, "Sally didn't use labels. Sally had a very fundamental sense of privacy, it was just her nature, because we're Norwegians, through and through."
I love Tiny Tim's total commitment to his character and style, Johnny's perfect mix of niceness and sarcasm, and Tim's sweetly stated superior knowledge of music history. Here's the original that Johnny didn't know:
"Things that bother you never bother me..."
IN THE COMMENTS: Mr. Forward says:
Happy Tune from the the 30's?
Sounds like Secretary of the Treasury "Tiny Tim" Geithner.
"What bothers you doesn't bother me."
Bissage says:
My father worked with Miss Vicki's uncle and I was very young when he brought me along for a visit.
That was the first time I heard the expression "hippie weirdo freak."
In such ways are the incentives to conform made known to small children.
Continuing with my reading of Dylan's autobiography. (I do Chapter 1 here and Chapter 2 here, and Chapter 3 here.)
How Dylan felt in 1987, coming off a tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers:
I felt done for, an empty burned-out wreck. ... Wherever I am, I'm a 60's troubadour, a folk-rock relic, a wordsmith from bygone days, a fictitious head of state from a place nobody knows. [P. 147.]
How he felt about his old songs then:
It was like carrying a package of rotting meat. [P. 148.]
Line on p. 147 that foreshadows the role the Grateful Dead would play in his revival:
It's nice to be known as a legend, and people will pay to see one, but for most people, once is enough.
Obviously, the Grateful Dead, who show up on p.149, knew how to do live shows that stoked a hunger to see multiple shows. The Dead challenge him to do much more with his old songs than Tom Petty ever had, and he runs off, has a drink in a bar, and feels transformed by the singer of a jazz combo in the bar. Then he's able to go back and sing again with the Dead. He seems to enjoy giving credit to the unnamed jazz combo in the bar and unwilling to credit the Dead. Somehow, I suspect it was the Dead that shocked him out of his complacency, that their ability to inspire people to come back to see them over and over made him jealous, and that the drink and the mellow music only allowed him to calm down and meet the challenge the Dead had laid in front of him.
Dylan's attitude toward his fans from the 60s (like me):
[T]his audience was past its prime and its reflexes were shot. [P. 155.]
Secret to a system of playing the guitar taught by aging blues guitarist Lonnie Johnson:
[T]he number 3 is more metaphysically powerful than the number 2. [P. 159]
Second reference in the chapter to songs as meat:
I had been leaving a lot of my songs on the floor like shot rabbits for a long time. [P. 162.]
Thing on TV that bums Dylan out: Johnny Carson does not ask soul singer Joe Tex to come sit on the couch after his song. P. 163. He seems to view this as a specific rejection of Joe Tex--did Johnny invite the singers over generally?--and he identifies with Joe Tex. Outsider.
Great play that just seemed like a big drag: "A Long Day's Journey Into Night." P. 167.
What spending time with Bono is like: "eating dinner on a train." [P. 174.]
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