Judy Henske + Woody Allen = ANNIE HALL?

Here's a bit of a "fumetti" from a vintage issue of HELP magazine. Attempting to be a humor magazine for adults who may have outgrown MAD, each issue was an uneven mix of funny photo captions and a highlight "fumetti," where actors (usually including at least one famous comedian) offered up page after page of a live action comic strip. 

In a parody of The Untouchables, the cast not only included Judy Henske, but a key member of her band, John Forsha. And along with Woody Allen with a mustache, playing "Mr. Big" of the crime syndicate, there was a bit part for Terry Gilliam. 

It's been said that Judy opened for Woody Allen at a few early Greenwich Village gigs, while others say there was more to it than that; little Woody and big Judy were an item for a while. AND, more than that,   Woody based his "Annie Hall" character partly on Judy. Certainly it wasn't a coincidence that both the fictional Annie and the real-life Judy were both from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. 

NY POST gets TRUMPIER - INSANE COVIDIOT COVER STORY TODAY

 

Maybe the New York Post wants to boost its sales on Staten Island. The Covidiots over there (the only borough to vote for Trump) may be fairly illiterate but they would LOVE that Cuomo photo, and want to frame it. 

The Post has always been schizoid. Politically, it is conservative and slants the news that way (obviously). And yet, the paper is best known for covering juicy, if not grotesque, stories of sex and violence. Remember the "Headless Body in Topless Bar" headline? 

We've seen more than the usual restlessness from Covidiots who run bars that defy the law, or mass dangerously to protest face masks and DEMAND the right to be Typhoid Marys and spread the disease to Anti-Vacc morons and others who won't get the flu shot when it's available. 

Cuomo acknowledges that indoor dining does spread Covid but the percentage is not alarming. (Meaning, what, if 10 strangers sit in a pizza joint at a time, and the joint serves 100 people in the afternoon, only two will be in the hospital afterward??) 

What Cuomo may be saying is why put more lives at risk when many restaurants have had the money to put up elaborate shacks on the sidewalk for outdoor dining, complete with space heaters? 

Another important point is that now, the major spread is home visitation. It's parties in homes. Some reports say that up to 40% of Covid victims show no symptoms, and like Typhoid Mary, are carriers. They might show symptoms after weeks and weeks of being too close to friends and relatives, and they might skate with a mild case while someone they infect could lose their sense of smell and taste for months if not years, or have other health risks, or...die. 

Indoor restaurant dining often involves entire families sitting at a table and being loud and obnoxious for an hour. "Waiter, put these two tables together there are EIGHT OF US!" And then what? There have been many cases in the news of Covid outbreaks traced to ONE idiot who came to a party, or to a wedding, or to a festive gathering in a restaurant. 

Jesus Christ, this is the time to SAVE lives, not put them at risk. A Christmas Party for 8 or 12 or more family members crowded around a table at an indoor restaurant? 

It's responsible to be careful, but the New York Post has never been known for restraint. Anything to sell papers and get some notoriety. All publicity is good publicity to them  (including this piece). If even one life can be saved by cautious law-making, why doesn't the Post think so? 

Same day in the Daily News: 

Peace Pipe for the anti-Semitic Roald Dahl -- 30 Years Late

Roald Dahl, the beloved, BELOVED author of children's books, skated off this Giant Peach of a planet back in 1990, stubbornly sticking to his anti-Semitism. Back then, as now, hating Jews is pardonable. You don't see any "Jewish Lives Matter" banners anywhere. 

In fact, crimes against Jews are played down. When an Orthodox Jew is beaten up in Brooklyn, the perp is never identified by race and "hate crime" is rarely charged. Stats show that more bias crimes are committed against Jews in New York City than any other race, color or creed. All around the world (if you care to check any issue of the Wiesenthal newsletter, Jewish people and their businesses are targeted, and violence and deaths practically ignored. Some countries cheerfully allow posters of Hitler and offensive caricatures, if not outright lies from people or the press that would be an outrage if it was against a minority group more prone to violence and protest. 

But back to rotten Roald, who, perhaps to his credit as an honest man, spouted his "logical" hatred of Jews in various interviews. Most notoriously in 1983: “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere. Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”

Seven years later, the year of his death, Dahl doubled down: “I’m certainly anti-Israeli and I’ve become anti-Semitic in as much as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism.”  

Fast forward 30 years, and out of nowhere, the Dahl website now has a little apology for grandpa's nasty comments. So don't boycott buying a Dahl book, or look too closely at whether there are anti-Semitic characters with over-sized noses in any of the illustrations or movies. Just what prompted this caveat is unknown, but certainly over the years anti-Semites have seized on Dahl's words to help justify their hatred. But here it is, and it's welcome:

Hooray Historic election of Kamala Black Harris -- Jews, Native Americans....don't matter.

Once the election was finally official, there was the outpouring of glee that centered mostly on the historic Kamala Harris election: "FIRST BLACK!"

But since Obama got there first, the media had to add, oh, "WOMAN!" and "ASIAN AMERICAN" even.  

As you see, the Business Insider made it a trifecta: FIRST BLACK AND ASIAN AMERICAN WOMAN VP. 

This country was taken away from the Indians, but we've never had an Indian elected to a high office. Who cares. They stay on reservations and keep quiet. 

Jews? The most persecuted race on the planet for over 2,000 years? Still abused worldwide? They don't matter. As boxing champ and proudly self-titled "Gypsy King" Tyson Fury will tell you they own all the banks. They're also lawyer, doctors and accountants so who the hell needs one as a President or Vice-President?

And so what if they're not on TV much anymore. Flip those dials and there are plenty of black faces, women, even sitcoms about Asians, but Jews are OUT. And Indians were never in, except for what, a few westerns? Is there even an ethnic music category on the Grammy awards? Some minorities are trendy, and yes, it's great they get elected, but it's a bit offensive to think that equality means it's ok, not even worth mentioning, that a Jew hasn't a chance (Mike Bloomberg) and the Jewish Vice Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman was just a futile throw-in on a doomed campaign from Mike Dukakis. 

The eagerness to show the new equality (for some races and not all) presented itself when Obama won. Yes, a great moment. But "First Black President!" Uh...why didn't and why doesn't anyone tell it is like it is? 

Obama was "the first Mixed Race" President. But that wouldn't sell newspapers, and would ruin the emotional appeal and reduce hope and esteem. Since he looks 100% Black anyway, forget that he was raised almost completely by his white mother. 

Kamala's election sparks hope for females (never mind Hillary Clinton got 3 million more votes than Trump last time out). Mostly it was "BLACK" in her description, despite the Indian mother and Jamaican father, and kept way in the distance, any reference to having a white, Jewish husband. 

Indians...still on the reservation, lucky that in the PC and #me too era, somebody actually bothered to say "Hey, the Washington Redkins should finally change their name."

Jews. No respect at all...except racists at universities re-writing the history of Israel, or Farrakhan gleefully calling Jews names. Bookstores want authors of color, and it's hard to even find a book by the hot minority writers of the 50's and 60's such as Salinger,  Mailer, Uris, Wouk or Roth. Broadway wants shows of color and the old days of "Fiddler on the Roof" "Milk and Honey" or Jackie Mason...are truly over. People want the next "Hamilton" or a version of "West Side Story" without any whites, or play versions of things like "To Kill a Mockingbird." Or re-casing things like "Joan of Arc" so the lead is a woman of color. (A Jewish Joan of Arc? Oy! What for?) 

Another religion seems to be getting an interesting shrug. 

There was no hoo-hah about Joe Biden becoming the first Catholic President since John F. Kennedy. There was nothing in the election about that issue. Reporters weren't yelling questions about The Pope or other issues that were part of the Kennedy campaign. 

Nice to know being Catholic in a predominantly Protestant (WASP) country doesn't matter much. That's the reverse of the apathy on Jews and Native Americans. 

Mike Bloomberg was pretty much laughed out of contention when he ran, and the reason was obvious. His religion. The best he could do was donate $100 million to try and sway voters in Florida with TV ads. Guess what. He was matched by a Republican Jewish Interesting, there was no hoo-hah about Joe Biden becoming the first Catholic since John F. Kennedy, and really, nothing in the election about that issue. Nice to know being Catholic in a predominantly Protestant (WASP) country doesn't matter much. 

Speaking of not mattering: Jews. Mike Bloomberg was pretty much laughed out of contention when he ran, and the reason was obvious. His religion. 

The best he could do was buy $100 million in TV ads in Florida to try and swing that state for Biden. Too bad. It didn't work.

The reason wasn't Sheldon Adelson, the 87 year-old Republican/Conservative loving billionaire who donated just as much as Bloomberg in Florida, and millions more around the country. Not that his benefactors like him or that his influence seems to have in any way affected the lives of Jewish-Americans in a positive way. Yeah, a few Republicans may vote for Israel because they like Adelson's donation money, but Jesus came from there, and Jon Voight and Pat Boone are for the country too.

Bloomberg's money was wasted in Florida, and not really because the ads from Adelson were an influence. The fact is, the Jews are a minority in Miami Beach, and fewer of this aging bunch leave their gated communities, since they are surrounded by drug addicts and lunatics. They aren't courted by real estate agents anymore because of the rising number of gated communities for rich WASPs like Trump. 

Let's remember it was over 60 years ago that Miami was a true tourist destination for Jews, and guys like Myron Cohen played The Fountainbleu (which was name-checked in an Allan Sherman song for being such a Jewish-oriented hotel). Disney, a noted anti-Semite, was long dead when they built up a Disney resort to help make Florida seem, well, less-Jewish! 

"Saturday Night Live" broadcast the night of Biden's finally-projected win. As usual, there was Alec Baldin to skewer Trump. But there was nary a joke on Biden (played by Jim Carrey), not even some good-natured kidding that "Sleepy Joe" managed to win while Rip Van Trump dozed and Tweeted in smug confidence. Harris was played by Maya Rudolph, who few know had a white father. (Well, not many know who her black mother was...singer Minnie Ripperton). Maya is of course always described as "black actress" or "black comedy star," and it'll be a long long time before race truly doesn't matter and describing people that way becomes un-PC.

It'll be a long time before anyone follows the notion of George Foreman. I read George's book. Early on, he wrote that he was NOT going to describe anyone who helped or hindered him by their race. Wanting to know the race of somebody else? "Ask yourself why that matters to you," wrote preacher George from Humble, Texas.   

The big grins of hope are for the Biden-Harris ticket to stop Covid, Global Warming, and bring more affirmative action to anyone of color. Meanwhile, who do you think had more hate crimes against them in New York City than any other minority? The Jews, by far. Clocking Orthodox Jews on the streets of Brooklyn is so common, along with swastika graffiti and other abuses, newspapers hardly cover it or bother to show the perps or ever follow-up to see if the perps were found much less sentenced. 

A Jewish candidate for Assembly in NYC had her offices spray painted, with antiSemitic notes -- TWICE. The story was mentioned by the Weisenthal Center, but ignored by the local NYC newspapers. Perhaps, singled out for being Jewish (despite a Gentle last name), it was no coincidence that in her election district, she struggled to win re-election while all the others running for local seats in congress, or wherever, breezed with no trouble and won by runaway margins. 

 

LATE NIGHT FIGHTS TRUMP AND HIS “BLUE STATE” COVID INSANITY

We are no longer in the Johnny Carson era of “let’s forget the day’s problems and joke about Doc’s clothing.” And that’s a good thing. Because things are so SERIOUS we need more COMEDY.

Oh, you can always watch the puppy, Jimmy Fallon, if you want to see people crack eggs on each other, or do spit takes. You can say up for pudgy James Corden who will dress in drag, sit in a car and sing karoake like a schoolgirl, and weep whenever he hears “Penny Lane” or “I Enjoy Being a Girl.” 

But if you want late night with guts, most certainly dial up STEPHEN COLBERT and follow with SETH MEYERS.

The latest outrage from Trump? Among many, his assertion that Covid isn’t a big deal, it’s going away, and it only affects the “BLUE STATES” and so to hell with California and New York anyway. (He may have a point about New Jersey).

Quoth the Orange Man:

“Blue states had tremendous death rates, If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level that I don’t think anybody in the world would be at.”

He called for an end to restrictions on the freedom of the people, telling all governors: “We know the vaccines are coming, so open up your states,” RED or BLUE. 

Stephen Colbert’s reply was to mock Trump and suggest yet another idea: 

"Hey, we know you don’t have any winter clothes yet, but go stumble into the blizzard. I ordered you a parka, it’s supposed to be here between October and next August.”

As for “If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level that I don’t think anybody in the world would be at,” Colbert paused: 

“I’m not entirely sure where to begin there. This is unspeakably monstrous, especially for the president of the United States….This is like being asked to speak at a funeral and saying, ‘We’re here to mourn the passing of Kevin but if you take him out of the equation, this is a pretty good party. I got to ride in a limo!’”

“Also, and I know this is going to shock you, Trump’s wrong! The states with the highest Covid death tolls are New York, New Jersey, Texas, California and Florida, which are of course not coincidentally the states with the largest populations in the country. The highest rate are in all the states Trump won [red states Texas and Florida]. He’s just saying if you don’t count the states with people, he’s done a great job. Forget the presidency – I wouldn’t trust Trump to run a middle school field trip.”

“We’re all human beings. Donald Trump is the only one who doesn’t care whether Americans live or die…There’s big news about the pandemic. THERE STILL IS ONE!” 

“Late Night” had Seth Meyers take a “CLOSER LOOK” at “Caligula” Seth’s word) Trump’s latest insane statements. He said: 

“Things are so insane that we’re skipping past multiple layers of news at once,” Meyers said of the depressing list. “We don’t have time to process the fact that the government has a fucking heat ray because we’ve already moved on to the fact that they considered using it against peaceful protesters. That’s the same weapon the Martians used in The War of the Worlds.”

As for his response to Trump’s assertion that Covid isn’t so bad if you take away the BLUE states:

"By the same token, if you take out all his albums, Kid Rock has had a fantastic career.” And when a witty Mort Sahl type rejoinder isn’t suitable, a Sam Kinison remark is just fine: 

"Go fuck yourself, you rotting, soulless business ham.” 

He also mentioned the government’s thoughts on potentially using a “heat wave ray” to discipline crowds and protests. He noted, “He’s repeatedly claimed a Covid vaccine is right around the corner, while experts say that’s not true.” 

Always capable of seeing both sides, Seth said:  

“I’m sure he’s not our first sociopath president, but he’s definitely the first one who’s open about it. He’s the kid who lights ants on fire for fun.”

Alfred Hitchcock - right man on "The Wrong Man" and look-alikes who don't

I gave another look at "The Wrong Man," a film I hadn't seen in decades. It was a pretty depressing piece of work. Being a "true story" (the only one Hitchcock made faithfully based on fact) he filmed it in almost documentary form, without a lot of his usual directorial touches (except for a jarring moment where the camera kept shaking, trying to reflect Henry Fonda's inner turmoil and nightmarish dilemma).  

Another moment that gave Hitch a chance at some cinematic artiness, was the ultimate scene where Fonda the "Wrong Man" comes face to face with the actual criminal. The images of the two men overlap, but...the effect isn't that convincing because the two men do NOT look alike. How could there have been such an appalling case of mistaken identity?  

As Poe's hero of "The Oblong Box" might say, my "old inquisitiveness" got to me, and I decided to find a picture of the actual "Wrong Man," musician Manny Ballestrero, and the guy who was mistaken for him. Guess what, it shows what Hitchcock might call "perverse human nature," because in TRUTH, the two don't look alike: 

While Manny does look like more of a weasel, the type who'd commit a petty crime, he doesn't look like Charles. The ears are different. The mouth is completely different. The receding hairline  and prominent nose? Maybe similar.  

"The Wrong Man" would be much less of a story if one could HONESTLY say "wow, what a fantastic case of lookalikes...the poor guy got into trouble because the eye witnesses couldn't tell the difference." But they could if they weren't so hysterical and myopic. How....HUMAN they were. 

To think that a few women would declare that Manny was THE MAN, without a DOUBT! They would swear to it in court, and create a situation that caused tremendous legal and medical fees (Manny's wife had a nervous breakdown and wasn't the same even after 2 years of institutionalized treatment).  

Hitchcock had to have been delighted in proving what a nightmare it is getting involved with the police, and how hideous it is to think that "eye witness testimony" is reliable every time.  

Ballestrero was so shaken by the ordeal that he quit his job at the Stork Club, left New York City, and moved down to Florida for a new life and a new climate. The deals he signed with Life magazine for a big article on the case, and with Hitchcock for filming is story, barely covered the bills from his lawyer and the sanitarium his wife lived in for two years.  

His story remains with us thanks to "The Wrong Man," even if most film buffs consider it one of Hitchcock's flatter, least suspenseful and most grimly unappealing movies. The fine work of a glum, long-suffering Henry Fonda and an increasingly fragile and spooked Vera Miles don't exactly lead one to call the film "entertaining." But as an example of human nature gone wrong, suspicion afoul, and eyewitness foolish, it's all true, and all right.  

You can go to YouTube and see Manny attempt to fool a panel including Polly Bergen and Dick Van Dyke via "To Tell the Truth."  

Why you are NOT reading THE NEW YORKER anymore

 Despite the offer of a tote bag (and the threat from the government to ban plastic bags...someday), you are NOT subscribing to The New Yorker. 

Since dentist and doctor offices tend to be scrubbed clean of anything that might have COVID on it, especially magazines, and most libraries are still closed, you probably haven't even seen The New Yorker anywhere for free. 

And really, most everyone has better things to download off the illegal torrents than a clueless magazine that can't figure out if it should keep pandering to rich people, or to try and nab Millennials and what used to be called BUPPIES (Black Urban Professionals) but now fall under the title of "people of color." (As opposed to colored people, of course. Let's play semantic games, which could be deadly if you say the WRONG THING.) 

A random recent issue of The New Yorker? Let's start with the gruesome off-putting cover. What the FUCK is going on here? Is this BLACKFACE or some well-meaning attempt to publish a bad collage that somebody did while social-distancing at a progressive day camp in the Hamptons? 

Did this cover immediately entice African immigrants? Members of the Maya Angelou Fan Club? Whoever is planning to update "The Golden Girls" into the "All Black WOMEN?" 

Continue to pander, there's a piece on the haplessly idiotic presidential campaign of Kanye West and his running mate. WHY care about this? What next, John Lahr on the literary merits of "Keeping up with the Kardashians?" A long, long profile on why the world will never recover from the death of Kobe Bryant?

Is there ANYWHERE that is safe from looking at Kanye West's moronic pouting face? What else are we supposed to take seriously? Oh, God no...the SHIT that is called RAP MUSIC? Sorry, I'm not even going to start a sentence with SORRY, on this. I'm NOT sorry that RAP MUSIC is SHIT. That's what it is, and the only good thing I can say about it, is that it's forced its practitioners to at least TRY to learn how to read and write. Even if the result is some of the most inept rhymes anyone can drawl, 'yall, because in the Fall when urban sprawl bites yo' ass and you pass and step on the gas, then you realize with yo' eyes that time flies and nobody has time to always rhyme something. Know wuttum sayin'? 

The New Yorker takes this shit seriously and expects people to spend $8.99 an issue? 

Well, pull off my Jimi Hendrix shirt and call it a doo rag. Who wouldn't want to read about some rapper jerk with one of those corny names everyone thinks is cool? A rapper named Sheff G....yes, let's read all about HISTORY, and remember what MATTERS these days. It sure ain't Dylan no more. (Excuse me, no MO') 

However in their oh-so-politically-correct insistence on showing us what MATTERS these days, The New Yorker does make a few mistakes. Like, how come the lax security guard at the art museum is BLACK? Are you implying a BLACK security guard is not going to do his job properly? Listen, one false move like THIS could get you protests, looting, and rioting. How terrible if The New Yorker offices that once welcomed S.J. Perelman, Thurber and Woody Allen, got reduced to burnt rubble because of an OFFENSIVE CARTOON that is RACIST, ya'll.

Ah, the cartoons. Always, the excuse with The New Yorker was that you could always count on getting a laugh or two. Chas Addams. Peter Arno. Robert Day. Frank Modell. Wm Steig. (Ok, Steig was often confusing more than funny). Guess what. They're all dead. Trying to keep up the standard, which usually includes arcane references, is pretty tough. Here's The New Yorker hoping its aging subscribers will snicker because they "GET" that this cartoon is referencing "WAITING FOR GODOT." Ah, ha ha, and what IS he waiting for? How relevant to ask that question some 60 or 70 years after the fucking play was considered daring and new? 

One of the complaints about The New Yorker in the 60's and 70's, was that some cartoons weren't "funny, ha ha" as much as laments or whimsies. Saul Steinberg baffled some people, but if his work wasn't a "traditional cartoon" at least it was art. 

NOW, New Yorker cartoons that aren't remotely funny, are also not remotely artistic. A 12 year-old could draw some of the "things" that have appeared in print, including this sample issue. How in the world did THIS get published:

What kind of house is that, junior? Why are your figures so stuff and primitive, junior? Do you understand that a house generally has windows, junior? 

Also in The New Yorker are the whimsical little doodles to take your mind off solid pages of dry-as-Margaret Chase Smith's-vagina prose. Even THAT has gone downhill, like a NYC bus trying to go uphill. 

Can you say that YOU or your gifted child couldn't draw shit like this? 

FUNNY. What happened to FUNNY? 

You won't find it in the drearily titled "Whispers and Murmers" page, where some witless hack who keeps failing to win the cartoon caption, branches out into a full page of tedium. The item for this issue is...uh...somebody imagining if people centuries ago were talking like today. Or something. This isn't exactly Lord Buckley or Robin Williams doing faux-Shakespeare. It sure ain't Monty Python and the Holy Grail, either:

You can click that image if you want to see it bigger, and are in need of something to bore you in order to get to sleep. It does beat counting sheep. 

What else did you like about The New Yorker? No, no, it was NEVER the poetry. The poetry in The New Yorker always seemed like transcript droning from somebody on the psychiatrist's couch.  

It's poetry because it's shaped like poetry. 

Since there aren't any movie theaters open, The New Yorker isn't TELLING YOU what FILMS (they do not call them MOVIES) you should see. They did offer a look at some art galleries, and of course, there are book reviews, which in today's warped and reverse-racist thinking, have to be DOMINATED by women, women of color, or women with odd ethnic names. Men may make up half the population, but they are now treated like a minority in the world of books. 10% of the reviews may be from male authors, but THAT IS ALL, and try to make them males "of color." 

Every issue will try to have one or two non-fiction pieces, to balance the awful fiction pieces. You can tell these, because these are the ones that are illustrated with photographs. Pictures of nasty, ugly rotten mean racist vicious POLICE OFFICERS is always good for some woeful piece on the urban problem of not letting people of color simply walk around with weapons and not risk being frisked. 

Since The New Yorker is a weakly...most important riot and looting news is stale by the time it gets into the dry hands of a writer for the magazine. So instead of relevancy, you can usually count on The New Yorker to flog some bit of past history that you better remember or it will repeat itself like the onion and kale tart you should NOT have bought from Whole Foods. Oh, Joe McCarthy. Sure...

One of the big reasons, in the PAST, to get The New Yorker was, aside from nodding (but not laughing out loud) at the cartoons, and checking gallery openings and what films were playing, was THE ADS. How the hell do you buy a flexible brim hat, suitable for hiking in wooded areas of Westhampton or upstate, without a mail order ad in The New Yorker? How can you snap your fingers and realize that a fur coat IS exactly what granny would want? What completely useless junk can fill up your shelves JUST in case you EVER get a visit from William F. Buckley Jr? 

That was the old days. These days, even the ads suck. Here's part of a full page ad for back-to-school look-like-a-ghoul fashion? The girl looks so miserable, you might mistake her for 13 year-old autistic Swedish lecturer on the plight of tuna in Japan. (PS, there is nothing ANYONE can do about the way Japan is fucking up tuna, whales, and just about everything that China isn't fucking up). 

She looks like she lives in Ibsin's Doll House for the Insane. Or the Glass-Faced Menagerie of the Dysfunctional. (On the latter, you can write a thousand word essay on whether I'm referencing Tennessee Williams, Salinger's Glass family or BOTH. But don't send it to ME. Send it in to The New Yorker. They'll publish just about anything, as long as it's boring. 

Mort Sahl - "The Future Lies Ahead" by a Nose (prognosticating the proboscis)

Mort, at 93, was recently interviewed for a documentary on Robin Williams. It's very touching that when Sahl first began appearing at a tiny theater in Mill Valley, Robin arrived (via bicycle from his nearby home) to see him. He was the only one to come backstage after the show. 

Shy, with his head down, Robin told Mort, "I always wanted to meet you." And thus began a long friendship. 

Well, the little theater is of course closed due to the pandemic, and Sahl has not chosen to be one of those Facebook celebs to ZOOM a show from his living room, so we haven't heard anything new, or enjoyed the old anecdotes, for quite some time. Which leads to this bit of trivia filler: 

The great nose shortening. Mort did pretty well with his nose...Phyllis Kirk, Yvonne Craig, China Lee...there's quite a list. But there came a time for a change. Many wondered why he went for the nose job, but then again, people have long doubted Sahl's keen ability to predict the future, or anticipate what could become a total disaster. 

Back in 2004, NY Times critic Bruce Weber, in reviewing Mort's show downtown, alluded to Mort's blunter look by comparing him to Jerry Stiller!  

A few days later, Jerry Stiller (along with his wife Anne Meara) was at the show, and during the (atypical) Q&A session that ended the evening, he stood up. "Mort, I just want to say that I read the Times piece, and I think you are a VERY attractive looking man!" 

This got laughs and some knowing applause. Afterward, I took a photo of the two friends: 

Mort had a line, which he's probably re-used at the Mill Valley theater now and then, about how if you take up a consistent position in this country, "eventually you'll be tried for treason."

Plastic surgeons may tell you that there's nothing consistent about the human face, and that over the years, parts can sink or sag, making other parts (especially the nose) look a lot bigger. Since that photo from 2004. it's been proven that what may have seemed a bit odd at the time, was prudent. As Mort's aged in his 80's and 90's, and his features have gotten a bit smaller, his nose seems well proportioned!

As to what he would have looked like without the nose job, one "hesitates to speculate." Just to make it official, here's a screen cap from the Flushing Hospital website, and from Medline: 

The Pandemic...terrible, isn't it? Nothing much to do but wait it out, and instead of talking about Covid-19, we take our minds off it by discussing plastic surgery! It does confirm that on most any subject, including the future, Mort has insight. He knows! (He also doesn't stoop to puns. The only one I remember is when he talked about "a bust of Nixon -- who may be busted!" He immediately apologized: "That was a pun.") Anyway...onward.  

Rapist-Murderer Being Freed -- while Cosby is denied

 Find some logic in this one. An able-bodied 70 year-old who laughed after the rapes and murders of two women in a home invasion...is being freed. 

An 83 year-old blind man, who had a signed and sealed resolution to his case with both the victim and the prosecutor, remains behind bars. 

Ayala contributed nothing to this world. Nothing but pain, humiliation and misery. 

The disgraced Cosby had, and it can't be taken away or minimized, some 40 years of being an important figure in black history and the struggle for equality and the defeat of segregation. Generations of comedians were influenced by Bill, thousands benefitted by his donations to charity, and millions found their days brightened by his performances. 

And yet, the excuse for freeing Ayala is that COVID-19 might get him. So let him, what, go out and party on the beach now? Romp in the park? Continue living while two women never got that chance and spent their last hours terrified and tortured by him? 

And the excuse for keeping a wheelchair-bound legally blind 83 year-old in prison is...is what? That he'll live in blurry darkness under house arrest in his home, and remain shunned by almost everyone? 

Here's more on Ayala, the model citizen worthy of parole: 

Bill Cosby still in jail despite COVID concerns - while rapist Ibrahim Bouaichi was set free to KILL HIS VICTIM

Talk about a "Dangerous Sexual Predator." That would be legally blind Bill Cosby, over 80 years old and being ferried around prison in a wheelchair. 

While Covid-19 concerns have freed a variety of people currently incarcerated, Cosby doesn't qualify.

Why? The hanging judge who went after him over two trials branded him a "Dangerous Sexual Predator," despite a lack of violence in the case over which he presided.  

which seems to be taken very literally. Some of the most violent rapists ever to be locked up behind bars don't have "Dangerous Sexual Predator" attached to their name. Certainly not Ibrahim Bouaichi. He was in jail for rape, released due to Covid-19 concerns and...he killed his accuser. 

The dangerous sexual predator is generally considered to be someone with a knife, a gun, or a pair of clenched fists for whom rape is just part of the violence. 

The killer in this case, is some 50 years younger than Cosby, with perfect eyesight, and not walking with a cane, and not famously recognizable to EVERYBODY in America. 

If Cosby is released to serve the rest of this time (and he could be dead before the sentence ends), he would be in home confinement. Monitored. 

The killer in this case, was set free to kill. 

The Cosby case is currently on appeal, with the most salient point being how it's possible to arrange a deal with both the prosecutor and the victim, and then to have that signed and agreed upon outcome voided by an ambitious new prosecutor with the help of an obviously biased judge. 

While there have been cases of a widely loathed celebrity getting convicted on a lesser charge (Al Capone for tax evasion, O.J. Simpson for trying to get back some stolen memorabilia), none have been quite as flimsy as the situation with Cosby. 

Now with "disgraced" usually added to his name, Cosby, the "disgraced comedian" and "disgraced Jell-o pudding endorser" and "disgraced PhD" is not likely to do much if he's out of jail. Not when he's under house-arrest and has maybe a few hundred people on YouTube even bothering to follow him. 

Despite his unfortunately chosen title for his last stand-up show, "Far From Finished," Cosby is finished.  He's just not as finished as Karla Dominguez. And that tragedy is just an example of how warped and easily played the courts are. 

Limericks Ripped from Today's News #4959285902 the Nude Protest

What's the Social Justice Whore protest?

Trader Joe's says SCREW YOU to the PC Pussy Cats

I doubt it was my hilariously brilliant blog post of July 21st that had anything to do with it but...

TRADER JOE'S decided NOT to cave in to a thousand wussy morons in Oregon with too much time on their soft little hands.

DAMN right. There was nothing wrong with Trade Joe paying some respect by naming their Italian import products "Trader Giotto." Using the Italian word for Joseph was intended as RESPECT. So was importing actual Italian products from ITALY instead of fobbing off mass-produced junk pasta and crap-sauce on people. Too often the products we buy with homey-sounding names are coming from huge factories that bought the name and kept nothing else, not even the original recipes.

Who DOES own Ronzoni and Buitoni and Ragu these days? And who ever, EVER thought Chef Boyardee was authentic? If you want to know, the guy's name was Hector Boiardi and he was an Italian immigrant who sold out to American Home Foods way back in 1946. The company is currently owned by the Chicago outfit Conagra Brands, Inc.

Are Ronzoni products imported from Italy the way so many Trader Giotto items are? That company is owned by Riviana Foods Inc of Texas. Buitoni is now owned by Nestlé the same evil company that wants to buy up American springs and construct factories to siphon all the water and bottle it. They own Poland Springs, among others.

Ragú is run in America by the un-Italian-sounding Mizkan, and by Symington's in England and Ireland. Let's just say that Trader Joe's doesn't have THIS kind of question asked:

I haven't noticed any Italians sulking, rioting or looting because Trade Joe's sold "Trader Giotto" products. No, it was a bunch of wussy idiots with a petition. Italians haven't taken a knee over the outrages being sold by Ragu or the lack of "real Italians" making pizza at Dominos or 7-11.

Thankfully, Trader Joe's took a step back, realized it was a small, goose-farting bunch of bird-brains causing all the trouble, and that their vast millions of patrons are FINE with the way the place is run. No joining the goose-step of political correctness based on limp-wristed whimsy or the snivels and trembles of Social Justice Warriors who don't know what it's like to really be in a fight.

People only WISH there was a Trader Joe's nearby, and if their wish was granted, that it wouldn't have such long lines and be so fucking crowded!

Dead SCREW and limping AM METRO NEW YORK have something in common: CREEPY ADS

Until Internet porn (Craigslist, Twitter, Pornhub, anywhere whores and "free sex" flourish) SCREW was a success.

The reason was the back pages which were loaded with hooker ads. Once the whores could infest dating sites and and hook-up sites and crawl all over blogs and stink up forums, SCREW was through. Al Goldstein made a spectacular belly-flop into bankruptcy.

Back in the day, SCREW staffers would routinely find themselves in the same elevator with bottom-feeding and bottom-selling skanks and trannies and loonies, all getting off on the 4th floor to pay CASH for their ads. Well, that was SCREW.

For a while, tottering on the brink but not QUITE stooping too low, the Village Voice and New York Press got some hooker ads and, being sluts, gave their newspapers away. This didn't last long. While Al Goldstein struggled as a greeter at a second-rate smelly deli downtown, and got an apartment courtesy of being a veteran and then from the charity of Penn (the talking half of Penn and Teller), the masterminds at the Village Voice and New York Press found themselves in bad shape, too, and so did their smarmy and smug columnists who began to live La Dolce Fuckoff, because their writing wasn't going to get them work anywhere else.

AM NEW YORK and METRO, which had people hawking the free papers at subway entrances (the mouths of the dry-sewer) began to tremble. While they kept boasting of massive circulation, the truth was, in January of 2020, that they had to cling to each other to stay afloat.

Yes, and you can't make these names up, Schneps Media executive Cliff Luster was given the daunting task of leading the two rival newspapers into one giant rival to the struggling Daily Snooze and the New York (Left at the) Post. A guy named Pozarycki was allowed to stay on and go from amNewYork’s editor-in-chief to the head of the NEW AM METRO NEW YORK.

So what's happened. Yes, So What.

2020 has been a terrible year, so why expect that a merger of two newspapers would be good news? It hasn't turned out that way.

Sometimes, although the kiosks are usually empty, you can snag a copy of the paper. It's got a crossword puzzle. It's got the usual grim headlines about Covid-19. It's got a few readable items from the news services (rather than local writers). A wire service piece let New Yorkers know that John Cleese was going to let them pay $20 to stream a concert for tonight (August 2nd). Not exactly local news, but good news.

Not so good news is that the paper has almost NO ads. The ones it has, it shouldn't have. That includes the creepy "WANNA HAVE FUN" phone chant ad (dial a few numbers and the word PANTIES). Worse, are all the ads from "healers" and "psychics." Nothing tells you how low your readership is, than ads instructing gullibles to hurry and get help to "remove all kind of Black Magic, Witchcraft, Evil Spirits, Curse..." and learn how "one call one visit will change your life" thanks to some bearded character who will "stop divorce" and "reuinte lovers" and deal with "court cases."

Yes, this is a NEW YORK CITY newspaper, not something you find under somebody's birdcage in Jamaica or Haiti.

How CHEAP is an ad in the paper? ALL they can get are con artists and lunatics? They can't even get a Papaya joint or Gristedes or a massage parlor in Queens to take out an ad? ALL they can get are a bunch of sad "psychics" selling to the dumbest of the dumb? Maybe the people who pay for ads on behalf of Cohen Optical or Sephora or Morton Williams see this junk and figure, "Oh, this paper must really have a circulation that's tiny, and the readers have a tiny IQ to match. They're not customers we want!"

When I was editing RAVE, the most important person on the staff, aside from ME, was the ad manager. We needed and got those full-page ads from vodka companies, car companies, and from Panasonic and others. We had inventive gimmicks, too, like "infomercials." An advertiser sponsored the joke page, or the "bright new comic" page or a page on upcoming comedy films and stand-up concerts on cable TV. It's pretty sad that in today's climate, it's hard to find some business majors who can help out the English majors, and keep a publication afloat.

It saddens me to see what's going on with this sorry Schneps situation, and they must be aware of how tawdry it looks to have such scuzzy people buying ads and making their ad page look so foul. They've had some good writers and editors working for them, especially AM New York in the early days, and watching what is going on is like walking through the terminal ward at a bad city hospital.

A while back, the GAEBLER website published a list of brices for a column inch in some of the "also running" newspapers in town. $22.00 for the Brooklyin News, $50 for the Black Star News, $59.00 for the African-American Observer, $60 for El Diario...while the Daily News was demanding $435 and the New York Post $711 and the Nw York Times $1,196. The struggling New York Sun (long since out of business) was begging to get $57. AM New York, pre-merger, wanted $329. At this point, it's pretty clear that if the ONLY people who want to take out ads are running storefront hook shops, little stink apartments full of candles, or doing low-rent business in some slum location, then the paper is going to be printed in red ink soon enough.

It's damn depressing. The world of journalism...newspapers, magazines...and the world of books have taken a beating. There's competition from plagiaristic websites, from pirate blogs, from torrents that routinely give away everything in PDF and ePub and MOBI format, and of course we have such grand sources of entertainment and Fake News as TWITTER and Facebook with their idiot memes and the morons who believe them.

You get what you pay for, and if you don't pay for that free newspaper in the kiosk, and you don't pay for the "news" from the website that puts "for entertainment purposes only" in small letters on the page, you get what you deserve.

Under Wilhelm De Blasio (what WAS his original German last name), "quality of life" is so bad, you don't even need to sniff METRO NEW YORK to find a phony psychic. They chain up their A-frame signs to lampposts and bike racks and bus shelters and anything else, while 311 phone operators say "Uh, what's the problem? What law is being broken?" Fill in an online form and you'll get a response two weeks later from the police or Sanitation saying "we didn't see anything."

Do you suppose any of these clowns who advertise their services ACTUALLY can accomplish anything? To judge from the headlines about rape, murder, looting and mayhem in the DAILY NEWS and NEW YORK POST, it seems the EVIL SPIRITS are winning.

SETH ROGEN gives a pass to anti-Semitism and Israel hate and GETS INTO THE PICKLE HE DESERVES

I was "sort of" looking forward to glancing at Seth Rogen's "Fiddler on the Roof meets Sleeper" movie. You know, where a guy who looks exactly like Tevye falls into a pickle vat (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, oy oy oy oy oy oy oy) and like Woody Allen's character in "Sleeper," emerges bewildered in a new era.

THIS:

But in promoting the film, he turned up on the Marc Maron podcast, and as you'd expect the talk got around to Judaism and, ha ha ho ho oy oy, what the listeners would or wouldn't find offensive. Like Lenny Bruce wannabe's the idea was to be real daring and controversial, after alerting the audience to watch out, I'm gonna be offensive, ha ha ho ho oy oy.

Seth Rogen, perhaps channeling the opinionatedly idiotic Joe Rogan, seemed to declare that supporting Israel was a "silly" thing to do, because religion is "silly" and so is the idea of a group of like-minded people being in the same place:

"To me it just seems an antiquated thought process. If it is for religious reasons, I don’t agree with it, because I think religion is silly. If it is for truly the preservation of Jewish people, it makes no sense, because again, you don’t keep something you’re trying to preserve all in one place — especially when that place is proven to be pretty volatile, you know?"

No, I don't know. You know?

I don't think Seth Rogen has been beaten up enough. Nor Marc Maron.

Maybe they need to live in Flatbush or Bushwick or some other Bushwack area of Brooklyn where, if you look like a Jew, you just might find yourself lying on the ground with a flattened nose.

Rogen, age 55, grew up in Canada. Not Brooklyn.

JEW LIVES DON'T MATTER in some parts of the world, and don't count on Brooklyn being sympathetic. Not when there are people who will take a stroll a few blocks into a Jewish neighborhood there, JUST to coldcock a Jew.

Mayor De Blasio (aka De Lousio) who got elected by escorting his black wife all over Brooklyn and Queens (not so much Manhattan where there's still a white majority), could care less about Jews. His TV ads featured his black son, and traded in on the idea that his black son would not, if De Blasio was elected, have to worry about "stop and frisk."

The ads didn't seem to offer an assurance to Jews that they wouldn't be subject to "stop and PUNCH."

Wilhelm De Blasio (the man had a German last name which he changed) would much rather NYC be loaded up with Muslims than Jews. Trick or TWEET:

But let's get back to Israel. Let's bypass the fact that despite the amount of Jews in New York (second only to Israel) and how many are centered in Brooklyn, "assmilation" seems to have only given Jews a black eye and a sense of fear. Because they don't matter. They don't riot, so they don't matter.

Seth figures that Israel is stupid for having so many Jews. The Promised Land? What a load of SHIT. Pat Boone, a devout Christian who has offered tours (with his friend, a rabbi) wrote the lyrics to "Exodus." He wrote them on the back of a Christmas card. They begin:

"This land is mine. God gave this land to me."

But Seth is the scholar and historian who knows it all. And to him religion is "silly."

It might be, but don't say that to the Muslims who destroyed the WTC, shot up an Ariana Grande concert, or destroyed a funny bunch of Frenchies in their magazine office. Not everyone this religion is "silly." Six million Jews lost their lives in the Holocuast because Hitler didn't think religion was "silly."

Oh, but let's all watch the next SILLY movie from Seth Rogen. Ha ha ho ho oy oy.

One thing anti-Semites love is when a Jew turns on other Jews, and most of all, betrays Israel. "See, even other JEWS think Israel should be wiped off the map. It's not just the Ayatollah!"

Noam Chomsky has made a living being a Jewish Benedict Arnold, but he isn't really as well known as Seth Rogen. To have Seth Rogen on the side of the anti-Semites is a major victory for the haters.

See? Here's a Jew comedian and he's NOT like Lenny Bruce or Mort Sahl or Mel Brooks. He's anti-Israel! He thinks religion is SILLY. He tells us paranoid Jew-haters exactly what we want to hear:

"I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel my entire life!"

Let's repeat that:

"I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel my entire life!"

When the ADL came to me, Ronald L. Smith, and asked for my help, I didn't speak that phrase:

"I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel my entire life!"

I got them Jerry Seinfeld for their fund-raising dinner.

The next year, I got them Joan Rivers for their fund-raising dinner. As the editor of RAVE, which was the Playbill of comedy clubs, I was glad to make some calls and get these things done, and help supervise the comedy portion of the evening. Joan Rivers said: "Of COURSE I'll do it. We're taking a beating." WE meaning The Jews. That included ISRAEL.

I've had dinner with Jackie Mason, with Mort Sahl, with many of the great Jewish comedians...ones whose fame did not rest on films with titles such as “Sausage Party” and “Knocked Up.”

Mel Brooks, Joan Rivers, Jerry Lewis...these are people from a generation or two before Seth's, who know exactly what anti-Semitism is, and how important a Jewish homeland is. My late friend Brother Theodore was not a religious Jew, but he was BURIED as one. I know. I took a shovel full of dirt and landed it on the plain wooden box he was in, and watched as the cemetery workers filled in the rest. What he told me of the concentration camp he was in — remains vivid in my memory.

Rogen, at some point during the podcast, woefully noted that Israel came into being but...other people were on that land! Can you imagine? The Jews, who have been around longer than the Christians, and longer than the Muslims (that is, if you don't happen to believe crackpots like Malcolm X and Louise Farrakhan), had the NERVE to take back land that was stolen from them.

And Rogen seems equally aghast that Jews would want to live in a "volatile" place where they are constantly being attacked and terrorized by NICE PEOPLE LIKE THE PLO and HAMAS and all kinds of superbly peaceful Palestinians.

In other words, why fight when you should "gather up your things and get thee out?"

Move? To where? A big reason there are "blue eyed Jew devils" in Israel (much to the misery of the Farrakhan and Malcolm types) is that Jews who looked like Kirk Douglas were kicked out of Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, and everywhere else. When they turned up in France, England, Denmark and Sweden, they were attacked and punched and murdered. They had two choices: Israel or America.

America is not a Jewish State. It is not a HOMELAND for the Jews...the wandering tribe of 2000 years. Israel is.

Somehow, all the fine anti-Semites of the world, including Peter Gabriel, Patti Smith, Roger Waters, etc., fixate on Israel as the one country in the world that practices apartheid, won't allow anyone but their own, and is totally unwilling to compromise. The Palestinians? Lovely. They've put together peace plans galore that are very fair. (YEAH?) And as for North Korea, China, Boko Haram of Nigeria, Turkey, Syria, and all the other hot spots of the world, and that includes the border between England and Ireland...meh. No problem. Ethnic cleansing in Russia? Never heard of it. Coptic Christians being burned out of their churches in Egypt? Who cares. The ONLY thing that bothers so many people is ISRAEL. What a coincidence. That's where the Jews are.

Seth Rogen is so concerned that Palestinians owned Israel? There are a lot of historians who say it does NOT belong to the Palestinians.

Seth Rogan lives in America, and that land was owned by the Native Americans. NO question about that. He's not moving, is he?

Fortunately there's been SOME backlash against Seth Rogen and other misinformed Jews ready to join Noam Chomsky in helping Jews all over the world get beaten up and killed. Oh, and after a Jew is dead, there is no rest because a tombstone can be desecrated.

If you happen to get the Weisenthal Center reports, you know that Jews continue to be harassed and brutalized. In Sweden, of all places, a Jewish female doctor was harassed until she had to flee for her life. "Oh, that's just ONE incident..." The Weisenthal news magazine would be the size of an unabridged dictionary if it listed all the incidents of anti-Semitism in the world. It's increased, not decreased.

The number of Nazi flags being waved, the number of crude cartoons being circulated, the number of death threats on the Internet...all on the rise.

Meanwhile Seth Rogen seems to be figuring that there are enough second, third and fourth generation Jews, half-Jews, one-fourth Jews, and "I'm not religious" Jews around...that they'll always want to see his films and be very reasonable about the right to his opinion, and/or that somebody's opinion has nothing to do with his art.

He's certainly not figuring that people "of color" are going to rush to see his Tevya Does Sleeper movie.

Seth reminds me of a Woody Allen line about a Jew who was not Orthodox, not Conservative but "reformed. VERY reformed. A nazi."

When people ask me about Israel, I tell them my own reasonable point of view: The Israelis are not saints. They are, in fact, pretty similar in looks and attitude to the Palestinians and to most of the others in the Middle East. They'll take land if they can grab it. They have a sense of entitlement. But they are NOT as nasty as to burn down churches, throw gays off roofs, circumcise women, or refuse to let somebody who isn't of their relgion play in a damn tennis tournament. If there's a conflict between Israel and Palestine, don't take sides any more rigidly than you would if it was England vs Ireland. There's plenty of room for negotiation and the issue isn't a simple "get out, you have no right to live there."

The National Review, among others, wasn't thrilled with Rogens remarks and you can read all about it:

Why Seth Rogen's Anti-Israel Rant Matters And in case you're having link problems, here's a chunk of it:

Here's the last paragraph from The Jerusalem Post: