White Guys Can't Jump - OR WRITE BOOKS ANYMORE. Eww, who needs WHITE GUYS?? BAN THEM!

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The World's Oldest Dog

I think the Daily News should hire me to add more detail to their captions.

Like so.

JOHN SIMON dies; and is REVIEWED, positively and negatively. Diana Rigg and Mort Sahl

Two famous people in the theater world died this week. Dr. Jonathan Miller got less attention, probably because he moved from comedy to "higher arts." Fewer and fewer people know what "Beyond the Fringe" means, or that at one time, in the 60's, he was part of a revolutionary comedy troup that dazzled England and then America with satire. Few seemed to know or care that Miller became a BBC producer specializing in Shakespeare revivals. He also wrote and hosted "States of Mind" for the BBC.

He passed away while in the mist of Alzheimer's. Some say death can be kind that way. Better to be clueless, and returned to childhood, than to be afflicted with ALS, for example, a slow process of body decay while the mind is alert.

The other death? John Simon (May 12, 1925 − November 24, 2019), who lived a long and active life, and suffered a very quick death. At 94, he had a stroke and that lowered the curtain. He apparently had no major health problems and was stricken while attending a social event.

The first I saw of John Simon, was when he was one of the guests on a "Dick Cavett Show" with Mort Sahl.

It started with a handshake...

But that was more like fighters touching gloves before the war. With the very first question to John Simon, the battle started, and Mort was the one heading for the canvas.

As I mentioned in my book, "The Fight for Tonight," the two became adversarial immediately. The fight was started by John Simon, who was well known for his acerbic opinions (having insulted a variety of actors, actresses and writers while writing his theater reviews).

As Jack O'Brien eulogized, "We feared him. We loathed him. We quoted him endlessly. He was ruthless. He was hilarious. And he was usually right!"

Mort's monologue, which got some hisses mixed with the chuckles, touched on Simon-esque insult:

“That whole women’s liberation thing is really incredible, when they equate words like ‘sexism’ with ‘racism.’ I’ve never met a woman who’s an intellectual. I’ve met a woman who will wanna come on with me....There are no intellectual women. They get a couple of stickers on their Volkswagen, a couple of daisies... and then they’re intellectuals. They’re really not interested in what’s going on.”

His banter with Cavett, and his stand-up spot, drew some hisses and much less chuckles. This was 1970, not 1960 when Sahl was at his peak and misogynistic jokes were welcomed. Like: "A woman's place is in the stove." Now guys like Mort, and also Norman Mailer, were encountering criticism over their macho quips.

Enter the next guest, whom Cavett noted was called "Bad John" by some. John Simon. Cavett opened by asking Simon, "Are you still in search of an intellectual woman, or do I have you confused with someone else?"

"No," he said, "as a matter of fact I've known quite a few intellectual women in my life."

Mort interrupted: "Any actresses?"

John replied, with his spiced Hungarian accent and slow, deliberate cadence,"Perhaps not, but perhaps there are probably as many intellectual women as there are intellectual ex-nightclub comedians.” This brought whistles and applause.

Mort, accustomed at zinging people on stage alone, couldn't muster much of a reply, except to say that Simon's interests were petty considering "the country's on the verge of a nervous breakdown."

As the jousting continued, with the audience on Simon's side, Sahl said, “Bad manners don’t work anywhere, even on television."

Simon's calm, measured reply: "I think, I think condemning a whole sex to the darkness of un-intellectualism isn’t exactly the best manners.” More applause for Simon. The debate ebbed and flowed, with moments of mutual agreement, and attempts (by Mort) to pin Simon and even insult him. At one point, he praised Robert Blake's courage, and implied Simon had none.

For the entire fracas, there is, of course, YouTube:

Mort Sahl vs John Simon My other early awareness of John Simon, was when he took on another favorite of mine, Diana Rigg. Around the same time as the Cavett show, Simon reviewed Rigg's play "Abelard and Heloise," which was probably selling tickets only because there was a nude scene. John Simon didn't think this was worth the ticket:

"Diana Rigg is built like a brick mausoleum with insufficient flying buttresses."

Years passed, and Rigg compiled an entire book of mean critical remarks: "No Turn Unstoned." She had also mentioned on a Cavett show in the 80's that her nude scenes weren't intended to show off a perfect figure. When interviewers sympathetically told her that John Simon was known for being cruel with his wit, she'd add, "Let's not forget ugly!" If she needed any back-up, she could thumb through the only slightly less caustic reviews of Roger Ebert to find him defending performers and smacking Simon: "They can't help how they look, any more than John Simon can help looking like a rat."

There's apparently no record of John Simon describing Ebert's looks. But, fat jokes are too easy.

After many decades as the feared reviewer at New York magazine, Simon was fired, probably in the name of PC purity, but perhaps so that a cheaper reviewer could be hired. John, as many veteran writers did in the days when the Internet began to take over, bounced around working for other magazines and venues, but with diminishing power. Age also was a factor. If even the respected Clive Barnes was cut loose from the New York Times, it was no surprise that in his 80's, Simon was considered old fashioned, and his complaints too stuffy and professorial.

Old theater reviews are of little interest to anyone, and marginally, old movie reviews. These days, everybody's a critic, and the proof is how few newspapers even have an arts critic, and how most people simply go to the "Rotten Tomatoes" website to see what people think of the latest film. Still, for a while, John Simon remains legend, for some of his quotable insults, and for the occasional moment in real life that was colorful, like the time an actress, following a bad Simon review, dumped her dinner on his head in a restaurant. Which might have had John agreeing, partially with Mort Sahl, that "bad manners don't work anywhere." Except it brought him even more fame and attention.

'Tis the season when Religious Fanatics pay people to kill Trees

What says "God" more than destroying his natural beauty?

Rationalization. "We'll recycle these trees by turning them into MULCH. Mmmmm, MMMMMMMULCH!"

Funny, not so much, that there are so many religious fanatics that like to kill things...whether human or the natural gifts of nature.

Ooh, Jay Leno's Korean Dog Eating Joke, NY Post borrows from Variety, and AGT Demographics

There was an interesting article on the New York Post website. Why was it interesting? It was taken from the VARIETY website.

Let's give the Post credit for giving credit. This is more than most websites do, where people are assigned to simply re-write news from the original source. Since facts can't be copyrighted, it's not technically "plagiarism."

The article was supposedly about the quick demise of the two female judges who had replaced Mel B and Heidi Klum. Having watched -- suffered through -- much of this "guilty pleasure," fast-forwarding a lot, I can't say that the two women were terrible. They showed a lot of poise for first-timers, and their burbling -- er, judging -- did contain a decent amount of accuracy. AGT is a heavily scripted confection. It's possible that the ladies' original comments after acts were "Ow wow," and "Awesome," and somebody on the staff wrote more cogent things which were then taped and inserted later.

It SEEMED like both were doing a decent job. The Post -- er, VARIETY -- researched the firings, and insisted that the black judge had worn too many "ethnic" hairstyles (as if the producers couldn't ok them beforehand, or resort to wigs) and the blonde judge made too many taste-challenged mistakes in wardrobe. Well, yes, she wore some revealing blouses but she had nothing to reveal. She was flat-chested, so there wasn't a lot of cleavage on display.

The Post -- er, Variety -- seemed to contradict itself on the firing of the black judge. She was fired even though the show "generated 25 million social media impressions, approximately half of which engaged directly with Union (the black judge). Why fire the most popular judge on social media?

The article pointed out that "This year’s “AGT” finale drew approximately 10 million viewers, down 3 million from the year before but top rated in the 18-49 demographic." Bad news and good news, huh? NBC's Jimmy Fallon is now losing in the Late Night war, but NBC chortles that he has more 18-49 viewers, the ones who are more prone to buy any shit advertising in a TV commercial.

The fact is, "America's Got Talent" has some good sob stories, sometimes very bizarre variety acts, and remains the only outlet for such oddities as sand paintings, close-up magic, and new stand-up comedians (who aren't actually new, but usually pros who have been playing the comedy club circuit for ten years, waiting to get a TV break).

The lead story for the article was about Jay Leno, of all people. Jay was a celebrity judge on one segment. In the course of the backstage hi-jinks, he ad-libbed a wisecrack that got the black judge upset. No, it wasn't a black joke that Kevin Eubanks would've laughed off. It was about Koreans eating dogs. For the record, don't Koreans eat dogs? In Korea? It might be a bit of a stereotype, but unlike saying blacks love watermelons, we know EVERYBODY loves watermelons. Not EVERYBODY eats dogs. Koreans do, so what's the stereotype? Everyone knows the stereotype is about Koreans in Korea, not in America. There are parts of the world where people eat rats roasted on a stick.

So one of the judges made a big stink over Jay's joke, and how un-PC it was. Fine. It was edited out. It wasn't a great joke anyway, but ad-libbing comedians don't have a great percentage rate of great wisecracks.

PS, it's estimated a MILLION dogs are eaten in South Korea. How high the figure is in North Korea is anyone's guess. This number should alarm dog lovers, and some might even suggest that a Jay Leno joke would only help shame the practice. It's the same joke-shaming that was used by ethnic comedians (such as Chico Marx) whose broad parody of stereotypical accents led to more assimilation. Artie Kaplan's song "Bensonhurst Blues" had a line, "Your grandmother's accent still embarrasses you." But yes, the next generation made sure NOT to have that accent, because it was more distracting than colorful.

The bottom line with AGT is that it's become wearisome and predictable. Cute kids will make it into the finals. Rottenly annoying aerobic "dance" groups will make it. Maybe two out of ten in the finals will deserve to be there. Along the way, there will be the endless distractions of not enjoying a performer's routine because of constant cut-aways to see the reactions of the judges, as they stare in awe or feign fright over an acrobat's stunt. The show will also help incompetent magicians hide their obvioiusness from the eager channels of YouTube where "reveals" are popular and the moment of trickery is exposed with a big red arrow. Worst of all, the show will remain a vehicle for Simon Cowell's chicanery.

It used to be that Simon got attention for insults. Now, he's transformed into the worldly wise genius (who gave us so many boy bands). At least once every season, he'll grandly raise his hand and STOP the karaoke music on somebody. After a suspenseful pause, he'll declare, "I don't like the song. Give me another. Go away for an hour, learn another one, and perform it." What follows is, of course, a massive triumph, as the supposed amateur somehow memorizes another song and performs it flawlessly." First off, a judge is supposed to judge, not give favoritism to a struggling act. Secondly, the more often it happens, the more stagey it looks.

At this point, it seems Simon even rehearses his mistakes, the same way a Kardashian rehearses an eye-catching "wardrobe malfunction." The big hilarious moment from the last series was when he told a comedian "your fate is in your hands." And then, oops, he forgot, the comedian was born with dactyl hands and that was the subject of 70% of his jokes.

Did Simon deliberately say the wrong thing to get massive attention, YouTube hits and Twitter screeches? We don't know for sure, but as the show's ratings continue to dip, it's obvious more and more people no longer care.

Cartoons in The New Yorker - "Darwin was Wrong"

Remember when The New Yorker ran funny cartoons?

Remember Chas Addams, Peter Arno, Lee Lorenz, and Frank Modell? Remember the art of Steinberg and Steig?

If you thought this cartoon was at the level of Hustler...it is. But it was published in THE NEW YORKER.

Gahan Wilson - Dementia, Death and -- in the latest issue of The New Yorker

Some have known that the legendary cartoonist Gahan Wilson was suffering from dementia. On his website, a few of his original cartoons were being sold to raise money for his care.

There was also an active GoFundMe page for him:

There was a short video clip explaining that Wilson and his wife were in assisted living, that his wife had died leaving him alone and unable to care for himself.

It seemed clear that he was no longer drawing anything, and might not have even been able to raise money by signing copies of his various books.

I was surprised to see a new Gahan Wilson cartoon turn up in The New Yorker:

I remember meeting Wilson when he performed a demonstration of his cartooning. He was, of course, nothing like his image. He was a mild-mannered sandy-haired gent with a calm demeanor. He had a big easel, a huge pad of paper, and rather than miraculously drawing a cartoon on one sheet, he used seven or eight to show the structure of how he created his work. The subject wasn't horror, it was Sherlock Holmes. He finished up with a pun about Holmes, gave a little nod to the applause, and left. There was an instant rush to get to the easel and to the sheets of paper with unfinished cartoons that had dropped to the floor.

Maybe one of those will be on eBay this week.

How many Gahan Wilson cartoons are still in the offices of The New Yorker or Playboy, not yet seen? I guess we'll wait and see.

Art Buchwald - the old column on Nixon comes back to haunt us at the Trump impeachment hearings

Art Buchwald was taken for granted back in the day.

He knocked out his political humor columns on schedule, and to some, it was hackwork. To others, he and Russell Baker and a few others were a nice snicker on a slow news day.

He didn't turn up on talk shows much, and unlike Mort Sahl, he didn't present himself as a cool iconoclast. He was kind of pudgy and funny looking and had a New Yawk speech pattern.

As you'd expect from topical humor, Buchwald books are an eyesore in thrift shops and used book shops.

Still, now and then a column he wrote still resonates.

Today, the impeachment hearings on Trump have people taking sides. Just as they did when there was talk of Nixon resigning:

Wait on Line for a Blondie autograph? "Don't bother, we got plenty" says Barnes & Noble

Back in the old days when a book was in your two hands, and not an ePUB file on your "hand held device," a big deal was an AUTOGRAPHED COPY.

Guess what. It doesn't seem that people care that much about autographs anymore. Most celebrities say that when they're accosted by fans, it's: "Can I take a SELFIE WITH YOU?"

Of course it's easy to Photoshop yourself with a celebrity, but still, TAKING A SELFIE is what people want from a star encounter, not an autograph. And now...people don't want to own REAL books. A Kindle version will do. So...

It's a bit rare to find long lines of people waiting outside Barnes & Noble, eager to get a signed book. Especially when the celebrity is NOT going to pose for selfies and is NOT going to sign any "sell this on eBay" stuff other than THE BOOK.

Gee, it looks like Barnes & Noble didn't have big lines for quite a lot of authors. Or did they just ask the authors to sign a hundred more copies to try and MOVE the books? Either way, LOTS of autographed copies are for sale.

If you check eBay, there's more proof that the glamour of the autographed book has faded. After a celebrity does a signing, a bunch of dealers put their items on eBay. There are few takers for double the price. There are still few takers when the dealers try to get rid of these things at list price.

The digital age has done plenty of damage to copyright owners, to photographers trying to make a buck, to how people socialize, and yes, to how people want to enjoy their movies, TV shows and BOOKS. The answer with movies, TV shows and BOOKS is via download, via streaming, and whenever possible, FREE thanks to bloggers, forums and torrent sites.

I was actually thinking of standing on line for Debbie Harry's book, but another thing about book signings is...they are unpleasant. The point is "keep the line moving," and rightly so. Glomming a celebrity in 3D for a few seconds, and seeing the book signed, really doesn't compensate for the hours involved in transit and standing on line. Not unless you REALLY wanted the book.

In this case, I know I wouldn't have time to say, "Remember the "Blondie Nudes" that premiered in my magazine, ROCKET...or the interview I did with you in OUI?" In fact, she didn't mention her nude modeling in the book at all. Not a surprise. When I interviewed her for OUI, she shrugged off the nude pix that appeared in ROCKET, and the other nude pix that men's mags managed to get.

Then again, rape, according to her book, was not a big deal either. She briefly recounts a thug who looked like Jimi Hendrix, who pushed his way into the apartment she shared with her boyfriend. He stole everything he could carry, and raped her. But as she writes, the rape was not as painful as losing the guitars:

"SPOOKED" by the NEW YORK POST

Come on now, NY POST, somebody in the copy-editing room having a little racist humor fun?

I know, the defense is "we HAVE no copyeditors..."

"What's your name?" "Mark" "Mark? Sounds like a hare-lipped dog!"

That was Red Skelton at Carnegie Hall.

Red had a running gag where the prop man in the wings was supposed to toss him a chair, a hat, whatever he needed for a mime routine.

Every time, the prop man's toss was short. Red would shake his head or mouth an obscenity, and go get the prop.

Finally, he called out to him:

"What's your name?"

"Mark!"

"Mark?"

"Mark!"

Red turns to the audience: "Sounds like a hare-lipped dog!"

At the end of the show, during his usual pathos-filled benediction, Red said something like, "If there's a moment when you are feeling sad, or not well, and you can remember something I did tonight, and it makes you smile, then my job has been fulfilled."

That's the main thing I remember from that night!

And the Mark joke is almost as funny as Zuckerberg's face.

The nice thing about Fascist Zuckerberg and his FACEBOOK page (which has been accused of spying, treason, and everything else), is that they are SO reasonable.

If you are tired of seeing dozens of idiot FACEBOOK "sponsored" ads on a subject you detest (like ONLINE GAMBLING GAMES), you simply go to a template where somebody has somehow signed you up for seeing ONLINE GAMBLING GAMES, and de-tick every box.

Then you'll see even more of them.

PS, Zuckerberg's wife married him for his looks, not his money.

Her previous boyfriend was a hare-lipped dog.

The unlucky 13 SONGS soon to be banned by NPR - National Public Radio

“Aqualung…eyeing little girls with bad intent.”
Discriminates against the elderly.
JETHRO TULL

“I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice she said LOLA.”
Singles out a voice of color.
KINKS

“I’m dreaming of a White Christmas.”
Implies there’s something wrong with snow of color.
BING CROSBY

“God Bless America.”
Doesn’t mention Mexico or Puerto Rico
KATE SMITH

"She loves you, yeah yeah yeah"
Exclusionary to the Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Non-Gender communities.
Should suggest the options of "he, they, and it" as alternatives.
THE BEATLES

"Teen angel, can you hear me?"
Necrophiliac pedophilia
MARK DINNING

"My eyes adored you. Though I never laid a hand on you, my eyes adored you."
Offensive to blind people and amputees.
FRANKIE VALLI

“Love is kind of crazy with a spooky little girl like you.”
Clearly derogatory toward short people of color
CLASSICS IV

“Sugar pie honey bunch, I can’t help myself!”
Promotes unhealthy eating that can lead to diabetes
THE FOUR TOPS

“That brownstone house where my baby lives is Mecca to me!”
Trivializes holy Muslim beliefs in sacred ground
GENE PITNEY

“This is the evening of the day. I sit and watch the children play.”
Encourages pedophilia and stalking.
ROLLING STONES

“It’s good to touch the green green grass of home.”
Promotes legalization of marijuana
TOM JONES

“I’m Henry the 8th I am, Henry the 8th I am, I am.”
Makes fun of the mentally ill
HERMAN’S HERMITS

The Woody Allen Witch Hunt Again? Twitter Bird-Brains Squawk Their Guts Out

Woody Allen trending on fabulous TWITTER?

Oh. Somebody interviewed Jeff Goldblum, and Jeff said he'd probably work with Woody Allen again. IF there was a part? IF a movie studio dared bankroll Woody Allen at this point?

And as long as the situation remains the same: ONE charge from ONE person with a pretty big ax to grind on behalf of hersef and her Mama Mia (Farrow)?

Somehow, the self-important Twitter Bird Brains all have to rush to post their worthless opinions on this...all of them smug and sure that they know ALL the facts.

History repeats itself. And repeats and repeats in everybody's ear.

There was a time when everyone was convinced Fatty Arbuckle was the most perverted rapist of all time.

There was a time when Chaplin was considered a pedophile and so evil he had to leave America.

And now the ant-hill chorus rises again, buzzing about how Woody somehow is a serial pervert, has always been a pedophile, and should be in jail.

Gosh, the Twitter Bird Brains screech, why ISN'T he in jail?

Maybe because there's no case?

Nattering ninnies loudly state their opinion-as-fact charges that Woody's been a career pedophile, as if he's Larry Nasser (the serial pedophile who abused Olympic athletes) or "Jared" the Subway sandwich spokesman (who boasted about how much he enjoyed paying for underage prostitutes).

No, there's been one allegation, and only one.

Here's a typical smattering of pompous and ignorant mob mewlings from people who somehow think they mstter. Wow, a few hundred equally ignorant twits agree with them, only because they expect agreement in return on some moronic thing THEY want to TWEET about.

Nobody learned from the Arbuckle case or the Chaplin case?

Nobody's learned from all the movies and TV shows about mob violence and kangaroo courts and lynch mobs?

As they say, "haters gotta hate," and Social Media is really little more than a collection of stupid people who find themselves in the "power" position of being able to caw and croak on the Internet. Lazy news websites actually quote Tweets from utterly unknown people who have no education, no legal degrees, nothing but the networking "skill" to obtain the same thousands of asshole-followers as everyone else. The sick fact is that this rubbling rhubarb actually influences things.

"Hmmm, did you see Woody Allen trending on Twitter," jerky Jeff Bezos might be told. "Better find a way to break the contract with him, even if Miley Cyrus appeared in that TV show he did to begin the Amazon association...and just because Scarlett Johannson stood up for him, gosh...he's TRENDING and six or eight thousand people are in a huff."

Besides, he's old. He's Jewish. He's VERY expendable. Never mind that he's an Academy Award winner with an astonishing amount of credits as a writer and director. The "woke" people are GRUMPY.

Once upon a time, the people who stabbed Arbuckle in the back, and kicked Chaplin to the ground were at least "journalists" of some type. Yes, yellow journalists, tabloid journalists and gossip columnists, but at least they worked for newspapers. At least they could write a sentence and might just get sued if they stretched their facts too far, or if their "opinion" turned to libel.

Twitter? It's an army of ants. The celebrity Leinengens who get taken down can't point to one individual ant. It's thousands of them all with the same moronic "lock him up" remarks, the same misinformation, the same ignorance, and the same desire to simply get more LIKES for their loudmouth bullying.

On Twitter, putting together even ONE sentence that actually makes sense is not needed.

People rush to Twitter every day just to post..."RESPONSE MEMES."

These are "clever" animated gifs that usually involve eye-rolling, palm-slapping, finger-waving, or stolen scenes from copyrighted movies that might have some face-making or a slapstick fall.

The other day, Whoopi Goldberg said something or other and, as usual, the kneejerk reaction to anything on "The View" is thousands of sphincter-brains rushing to their computer GIF folder to find JUST THE RIGHT "Giphy" to get LIKES:

What happened to real book reviewers and real film critics? There was a time, when I was reviewing for the Chicago Tribune and Video Magazine among others, that the goal was to hire experienced writers, college educated reviewers, people who were experts, to guide readers into making decisions on what might be worth their time to read or watch.

Editors and publishers with equal or even greater education and experience chose who they hired.

Now a few faceless morons who run huge companies (like Twitter and Facebook) simply let anyone with any alias come along and stink up social media.

What happened to the tough reporters, the beat journalists, the news hounds who built up years and years of contacts and learned how to write hard-hitting and true articles?

They've been supplanted by blowhards and provocateurs — twits who can preside over a tittering morning TV show of lurid gossip and smirking, or get handed New Yorker assignments and book deals because they are the right trendy ethnicity or sexuality, or have a famous mother named Mia Farrow.

Now it's the unwashed and unwiped who should be UNPLUGGED...soiling Social Media with their pomposity, their REACTION MEMES, and their mob mentality and bullying bilious bullshit.

And everyone from Al Franken to Jeffrey Tambor to Woody Allen (hmmm, all Jews) has to run for cover. The big thrill is to watch somebody who actually IS famous get taken down by a bunch of uncreative dumb-fuck nobodies.

The Comedy Team That Never Was

The Jeffrey Epstein Rumors...

The FIFTH of November -- John Lennon is on one of MY songs? Really? Well...

Another Halloween has passed, and my album "Ha Ha Halloween" is no longer topical.

HOWEVER, it's THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER. So...

I mention a curious bit of trivia. A John Lennon sound effect appears on one of my album tracks.

I CREMATED MABEL The song "I Cremated Mabel" was a salute to Zacherley. Actually, I was hoping he'd record it, but I was too late. He'd signed with somebody who had an album of new horror-novelty songs for him, and it was already in the can.

When I was working on that song, I had various verses and the chorus, and I was mindful of songwriting technique: what about the bridge? Shouldn't there be a bridge?

NO, I didn't feel like going off with a new melody and a new direction for a damn "bridge." Instead I mocked the whole idea, with the jolly and macabre narrator saying things like "Now it's time for the bridge..." and a bunch of ghouls shouting "bridge! bridge! bridge!" It was a running gag in the song, and then, finally...the pay-off would be to do the bridge.

Right?

Suddenly there's a twang like something being detonated, and an explosion. Punchline: "They've blown up the bridge."

Searching around in my sound-effects library I somehow couldn't find a good explosion, but then I remembered that John Lennon had one at the end of "Remember." He said that he simply had no ending for the song, so he threw in a reference to Guy Fawkes Day and an explosion. "Fifth of November" rhymed with "Remember." That was basically it, and it seemed to work. And it did.

And so, years and years before rappers were "sampling," I borrowed the explosion. The legal basis would be "what are your damages?" None. Nobody ever came up to me and said, "Hey, I recognized that explosion on "I Cremated Mabel." How many people come up to me at all?

I have a Lennon "guest explosion" on my album. Attention Beatle fans who have to own EVERYTHING....

Robert Evans the Rapist -- as remembered by Diane McBain

You might remember Diane McBain. Sadly, and most likely, in regard to a Christmas Eve rape that she wrote about in Cosmopolitan.

She was a starlet who had appeared quite often in Warner Bros. TV shows.

Wikipedia rather unkindly opens with this:

Diane McBain (born May 18, 1941) is an American actress who, as a Warner Brothers contract player, reached a brief peak of popularity during the early 1960s. She is best known for playing an adventurous socialite in the 1960-62 TV series Surfside 6 and as one of Elvis Presley's leading ladies in 1966's Spinout."

Diane McBain can be bought on eBay from a variety of the "dupe anything without permission" vendors:

McBain is currently living at the Motion Picture County Actors Home.

She returns any fan mail requests for autographs unless they come with a check. Something like $25.

But oddly enough, she was offered the chance to have a VeRO rep on eBay remove — free of charge — the photos above which violate her intellectual property.

She declined.

She could've allowed the photos to remain on the condition that the dealers donate 50% automatically (eBay does the deduction) to the Motion Picture County Actors Home, or any other charity of her choice.

She declined that, too.

As it turns out, the Christmas eve rape, at the hands of two brutal Latino creeps wasn't her first.

. The death of Robert Evans sparked her memory of his crudeness in Las Vegas when she was 19. No, he's not around to defend himself, but who would doubt her story? As posted on Facebook:

Producer Robert Evans passed away last week. He was an accomplished professional. I have read several glowing articles about the fellow. But I want to gift Evans with his #metoo moment, which he was sadly and cleverly denied during his extremely fortunate lifetime. In my personal experience, he was a rapist and a blackmailer. I can't say it more honestly than that. When I was a very naive nineteen years old (he was eleven years older), he took me across the border into Nevada (it is and was against the law to transport a minor across a state border for the purpose of sexual relations), and to Las Vegas where he wined and dined me. He was so charming, and he gave me $200 with which to gamble. He wanted to get rid of me after dinner, so he could play Craps with his friends in peace. I thought he was being generous, and oh so enchanting. I was wrong. He was only conning me as he has apparently conned many people along the way. I won $1,000 (in 1959 dollars - significant money at the time) at Blackjack that night. For me, it was a windfall. I was so horribly in debt that I was grateful for the opportunity to pay off some bills.

For the record, I own my naive youth. I had no interest in a physical relationship with this guy. I had no interest in taking money from him. I recognize that I should not have been so trusting, and I should not have put myself in a potentially compromising situation. But at that age, distrust did not inform my judgement. I was naive, but that did not give anyone the right to assault me.

It was late when we finally got to our hotel suite, where he had promised me my own bed/room, and privacy. I was sadly misled. I won't go into the gory details here, but he forced himself on me and raped me. After we returned to LA, I refused to see him again, but finally relented when he said he had something important to talk about. The idea of seeing him terrified me, but I went because I thought it was important to tell him how I really felt about what had happened. He had another line of attack in mind. He threatened to blackmail me if I didn't give him the total of my Blackjack winnings, because, he said, the money was his! I had already returned the original $200 he had given me, so I didn't believe I owed him anything, but he threatened to ruin my budding career with negative publicity. He said, to my utter disbelief, that he would go to the press and say that I seduced him and had intended to take advantage of him! If the powers that be believed his story, it would violate the morals clause in my movie contract. Ultimately, I decided I could not jeopardize the new and wonderful opportunities I was getting at Warner Brothers Studios. I was in the middle of filming the title role in Claudelle Inglish based on the Erskine Caldwell novel. I had already spent my Vegas winnings paying off my financial obligations. Based on my small acting income, it was a struggle to give him the money he demanded. But I did. I had to borrow it from my good friend.

There have been many opportunities over the years to name him as a my rapist, but I have resisted because I always feared he would come after me again; he had the power to do it. I am aware that he ruined the lives of other women - personally known to me - along the way, and he managed to damage me psychologically for all of my life. Only a person who has gone through such an assault could fully understand. But now I need to speak my truth.

Getting over what happened hasn't been easy; I'm not sure I will ever "get over" it, but keeping it bottled in after reading the accolades he has received in the shadow of his death - and knowing what I know - doesn't seem to be an option anymore. I am sharing this to lighten a terrible burden I've carried for way too long, and to embolden other women who have been subjected to abuse and assault in their personal and/or professional lives. This happens all the time. I'm sorry I didn't have the strength to speak up many years ago.

Meanwhile, on Ebay, she's still being used by men.

Lena Dunham's got a SCARING condition. Why, just look at the ugly photo.

Read the Daily News' description of Lena's illness. It's not just SCARING on Halloween!

So, Daily News, if I take up your offer of paying two bucks a week to read everything on your website, will you use ANY of that money to hire a proofreader?