Rats.

In case you were wondering if my blatant attempt at sucking up to Mark Evanier succeeded: it did not.

He did post the correction I had emailed him about, but he declined to provide in conjunction with the correction a link to this here fine and dandy blog, as I had hoped (okay, begged).

I tell you what, it would've been nice to be linked by a blog which probably gets so much traffic that, let's face it, if the tiniest fraction of it clicked through to me, it would've doubled my daily visitors within ten minutes. But I'm not bitter. (No more so than usual, anyway.) He still runs a hell of a blog, and it's still a kick just to get my name mentioned on it.

I think the problem is I say "fuck" too much. I wouldn't link to a vulgarian like me if I were him, either.

Ojai Film Festival

My lovely hometown of Ojai, CA has just concluded its annual film festival. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to see any movies this year, but I did get a chance to admire the wonderful art done for the Festival's poster and catalogue, by Ojai's own Sergio Aragones (click the picture for a larger view; you can see Sergio, sporting his trademark handlebar mustache, in the middle of the page, slightly below and to the right of Peter Pan).


(My posting of this art, by the way, has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I just sent an email to Mark Evanier -- regarding a minor factual error in a recent Saturday Night Live-related post of his -- and am hoping that my posting art by a close friend and collaborator of his will make him view my blog with a favorable eye. Nothing whatsoever.)

I have a small anecdote about my experience volunteering for the Ojai Film Festival a couple years ago. Wanna hear it? Too bad:

I was manning the information hotline at Ojai's Tourist Board. Which was hardly a hotline; for the little work I had to do, it was a tepidline at best, probably even a frigidline. I wasn't getting a lot of calls, is what I'm saying. But then I got a call from Rich Thorne. (No, you're not supposed to know who he is. I'm about to explain it.)

"Yeah, I'm Rich Thorne," he said, after I answered with "Ojai Film Festival Information, how may I help you?" "I'm one of the filmmakers. Where do I pick up my filmmaker's pass?" This was a pass that would let him into all the private parties, screenings, etc.

Well, by remarkable coincidence, I already knew Rich Thorne was one of the filmmakers. The evening before, I had seen Mother Ghost, which he had directed, and which was written by and starred Mark Thompson, of L.A. (and nationally syndicated) radio's Mark and Brian. It was a surprisingly touching short film, about the main character's coming to grips with his mother's death, and was packed with stars I can only assume were doing Mark a favor out of personal friendship, from (the always sexxy) Dana Delaney, to Charles Durning, to Garry Marshall, to Kevin Pollak and beyond. I was a little thrilled that I had the director on the phone.

"Oh, I saw your movie last night!" I said with sincere enthusiasm. "Mother Ghost. I thought it was really great. And the audience really loved it, too. Good, good stuff."

And without a pause, without a single iota of acknowledgement of the compliment, as though I hadn't even spoken, with undisguised impatience and dismissiveness, Thorne said, "Yeah, look, where do I get the pass?"

So I told him. And I silently filed away the new knowledge that, for certain Hollywood types, the "thank" in "thank you" is only four letters long, and begins with "f".

POTPOURRI

TV: I'm getting way behind in my TV watching, which isn't healthy for my TiVo at all. It's backlogged with episodes of The 4400, Insomniac with Dave Attell, Less Than Perfect, the movie Clerks, and, unbelievably enough, last week's Amazing Race, which I usually watch as soon as possible. I think I'm nearing the TiVo danger zone, where shows are going to be automatically deleted to make room on the hard drive, if I'm not careful.

Speaking of TiVo, I'm a little alarmed by reports (found via Mark Evanier) that it's not doing so well, business-wise. Which I can't believe. Everyone should have one. It's the greatest invention since... well, television. They're dropping the prices this month. You must get one, I'm telling you.

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MOVIES: Run, Ronnie, Run

I loved Bob Odenkirk and David Cross' Mr. Show, which spawned this film, but I didn't much care for the film itself. For one thing, it's inspired by a sketch from the show which I never liked in the first place: Ronnie Dobbs, a poor, stupid, white trash troublemaker, becomes famous for being arrested multiple times on a Cops-like show, and eventually an entire show is built around him getting arrested every single week. The movie stretches this thin concept way beyond its breaking point, while adding in various weak satires of other reality shows (a Survivor rip-off in which the losers are killed and eaten), and it fails to ever really pick up steam.

There are tons of cameos by some very funny people (such as Ben Stiller, Garry Shandling, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Patton Oswalt, Scott Thompson, Patrick Warburton, and, most random of all, Jeff Goldblum), but they never really do anything funny. I mean, when you've got Dave Foley and Andy Richter and Sarah Silverman in the same scene, and my only response is, "Eh," you're doing something wrong. The only one of these cameos that worked for me was Jack Black's performance of a hilariously vulgar song in a "deleted scene" from a Mary Poppins-esque musical.

There were a number of laughs throughout the film; I especially enjoyed the music video interlude by faux soul group Three Times One Minus One (played by Bob and David), and a Mortal Kombat-style fight scene toward the end had me in stitches. But I mostly felt like this film was a series of missed opportunities. The central concept could've been utilized to better effect, and the film could've been funnier still if the central concept weren't such a dud to begin with. Good job on putting Nikki Cox in a bikini for most of her scenes, though. Very good job.

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"Summer, if you grade-grub one more time... I will send you back to the first grade."

I have to admit, I did a little grade-grubbing yesterday. About 7:30 PM, I noticed that I had 89 hits via my Sitemeter counter. So I pinged my blog (that sounds dirty) to get it refreshed on the Comic Weblog Updates page. I'm not proud of myself. But I finally got triple digits in hits, which I take pride in. Oh, wait, I guess I am proud of myself. Anyway, just before midnight, the site received its 100th hit of the day, which is a landmark for me. Drinks are on the house!

TV: I'm Ted Koppel, and this.................................. is Nightline

A nagging question about last week's Democratic Convention coverage by The Daily Show was just cleared up for me on Dana Steven's Surfergirl TV blog (which I have under my links, yet I had to be made aware of the post by a link on Mark Evanier's blog... the blog world, it's all so incestuous, isn't it? Oh, man, I dread the Google searches that word is gonna net me. I've already gotten a hit from "women+and+dog+fantasies". Why, I don't know. But I digress).

My nagging question was, why didn't Ted Koppel show up for a scheduled interview on Thursday's Daily Show? Stewart didn't even mention Koppel's absence, which I thought was weird. Dana Stevens appears to have the answer: on Wednesday, Koppel spoke to Stewart on Nightline. And it appears Koppel does not much care for Stewart or The Daily Show. I wish I had seen that segment; it sounds like Koppel went off on Stewart, although it also sounds like Stewart held his own, and perhaps was even more gracious than Koppel deserved.

That's a shame, because I have a tremendous respect for Koppel, but he really doesn't get it. People aren't watching The Daily Show as a news source, as he accused Stewart, they're watching it (or at least I am) to get an alternate spin on the news. Stewart's coverage of the coverage of Al Sharpton's speech at the convention is a good example. Several media outlets treated the speech dismissively, writing Sharpton off as little more than a crank, with nothing of significance to say, with Chris Matthews for one actually interrupting the coverage of the speech because he felt it lacked importance. Stewart and The Daily Show, meanwhile, showed an impassioned Sharpton enthralling and galvanizing the convention with his words.

Is The Daily Show's take more reliable? Not necessarily -- but it is a different take, a take that can see past the old conventional wisdom of Sharpton as no more than a jogging suit-clad loudmouth, a take not bound by network sensibilities or political filtering. Even if you don't like Stewart's take (and certainly he -- and the show -- are more biased toward the left than not), you have to admit he often presents a candid, bullshit-free side to the news which other, "real" news outlets should be ashamed for neglecting.

Bloggin' about bloggin'

I need to update my links list. But it's so damn tedious.

Firstly, I need to create a sub-category, as Mike has done, for the Associated Comics and Pop Culture Webloggers of Ventura County, CA and Outlying Environs (aka Dudes I Know in Real Life), which include Dorian, Corey, and Ian.

Speaking of Ian, his entries about his experiences at the SD Comic Con have been linked to by Mark Evanier's News from me and Heidi MacDonald's The Beat, which is pretty frickin' cool. I'm so jealous. Not only does he make the Con pilgrimage, but he's also getting linked all over the place for it. (Not as jealous of the links as Mike was [insert smiley face here], because I've actually had the distinction of being name-checked in Mark Evanier's blog, too, back before I had a blog to link to. If you click that link, I'm the only Tom mentioned on the page... and yes, that's my real last name. No jokes, damn your eyes!)

I also have to note which of my blog links are represented on the Comic Weblog Updates page, and which are not. I've been neglecting visiting those blogs which don't appear on the Update page, and that's just wrong.

Also also, I must take up Milo George's generous offer of amnesty from SquirrelNation (even though I think my position as Pope of the Holy Squirrel Empire may trump his secular rank of General), and add The Unofficial John Westmoreland Memorial Tribute Webring to my links, while I still can.

If only Blogger had an easier method of adding links than having to alter the template for my entire blog. Frankly, it's more trouble for me to change the links than it is for me to just bitch about it like this.