Glad I spent 45 minutes writing and formatting that post about New Orleans — because now it seems to be gone, a victim to some “improved” or new tool of WordPress. What you’re now seeing on the page is only the very top of that post; wish I’d written it in a text document first, instead of straight into the blog. Well, maybe I’ll try it again tomorrow.
I just got back from four days in New Orleans. As promised, the music was great and so was the food. I made sure to eat crawfish, grits, beignets, blackened catfish, cajun chicken, gator, oysters, po’ boys with remoulade, and every other sort of local delight I could find. To give you an idea of how seriously they take food in New Orleans, please note the photo below. That’s right — that’s an Arby’s.
For the second year in a row, badges for this year’s Comic-Con International sold out within an hour. Three of us were online and group-texting our waiting status starting when badges went on sale at 8 a.m. At 8:40, one of us was able to get badges for the three of us, and 13 minutes later it was sold out. Given the frenzy that Comic-Con now induces, this wasn’t surprising, but it still warrants attention.
Could I have gotten in some other way? Probably. I have a connection who got me a Pro pass last year; I’ve been told for years that I qualify for a Pro or Press pass (for some years, I wrote extensively about comic books; those pieces are still in print, and have been reprinted in various books over the years); and I have two Pro friends who could take me as a guest. Some of my friends can’t understand why I haven’t gone this route all along (my first Comic-Con was in 1988), so here’s the explanation again: So much of what I do is already “work-related” (tied to paying writing work or to my company — which, again, is paying writing work) that I’ve been happy to hold onto this one thing that’s purely for enjoyment. I’ve never “worked” Comic-Con and I don’t want to. I’ve been happy to pay for the badge and support what is, after all, a (large) non-profit. How large? When I finally was able to get into the online queue to buy a ticket, I was #29387 in line. I had read that the Con was selling 60,000 badges. Total estimated revenue from those badges alone: $10.5 million.
To give you a sense of how Comic-Con has grown, especially recently, revenue was $5.6 million in 2005; in 2009 it was $10 million. I understand there was a little global economic collapse in the middle of that, but in the depths of it, Comic-Con still had double-digit annual growth. I think attendees would sooner let their loans default and their pets die than miss Comic-Con. (By the way, if you ever want to check the IRS 990 filings by a non-profit, here’s the link.)
The year 1988, when I was newly moved to California and drove down on a lark to San Diego to attend “San Diego Comic-Con” with my roommate, is long gone. Now you practically need Eisenhower to plan your landing.
I couldn’t help noticing that Inc. magazine, which every month pays tribute to a recently deceased entrepreneur who’s made a lasting impact, this month decided to profile Richard Alf, one of the founders of Comic-Con. Here’s their obit.
In other news, I’m getting up tomorrow morning at 7:20 because, you guessed it, badges for this year’s Con go on sale at 8 (and will no doubt be sold out by 8:01). Yes, I could get in free, but I’ve been faithfully supporting the Con since 1988.
Which makes it all the better news that the show has been extended for one more weekend, which means it runs this weekend, and next, closing March 11. Here’s where you can get tickets (if you can).
In the publicity shot at top provided by the La Jolla Playhouse, you see Sara Wagner as Esme Coughlin in my play Dead Battery, plaintively making calls from within her teenage son’s car to learn more about his life, his death, and her own culpability. You also see a couple of audience members. (Look: Another sold-out performance.) I have to say, it’s an amazing voyeuristic experience living out these little playlets from inside the cars they take place in, and it’s a testament to the phenomenal work of some very very talented actors. My wife (admittedly perhaps biased) cried just reading the script; imagine how it feels being in that car while this grief-demolished woman struggles to maintain her self-control; now imagine what it takes for an actor to do that performance 15 times a night. I am enormously grateful to Sara and to my director, Paul Stein, who is also the progenitor of the entire Car Plays concept. I’m grateful to them both, as I hope you can see in this shot below, taken over celebratory beers at the local bar on opening night last Thursday.
Nice to see that this review on LATimes.com “as been corrected.” Phew!
That’s how long my friend Doug drove today just so we could have dinner together.
He was in southern California from Texas, just overnight. He had a meeting in Carlsbad (that’s just above San Diego), while I had a series of meetings up here in Burbank. The only time slot we had in common was dinner — so Doug drove two hours up and two hours back just so we could meet for dinner. After we ate, as he was walking back to his rental car and I was getting ready to head off to City Hall, he said, “Well worth it!”
This is not the sort of commitment made by passing acquaintances. To drive for four hours to spend 90 minutes together, you’ve really got to be a friend.
For rent:
Beautiful open-plan loft space situated in bucolic surroundings. This freshly built one-room hideaway, nestled in the bosom of fruit trees providing natural shade, works with its natural environment and is open to both wind and solar. Its compact design ensures efficiency, while allowing affordability and comfort exceeding tenement spaces in lower Manhattan. A simple rope system dumbwaiter ushers goods from ground level. Photos below only hint at the possibilities.
Note: Please do not disturb current occupants. These members of the construction crew are now squatting, but will be removed.
I’m pleased to report that “The Cowboys” still works as it did 40 years ago, for boys at least.
I was thrilled beyond measure when, after John Wayne’s character Wil Andersen is shot five times by Bruce Dern’s evil cattle rustler, my son Dietrich said, “He’s not dead.”
I hit pause on the DVR and asked him, “Why do you say that?”
“He can’t be. He’s just faking it so the boys don’t get hurt.”
This was exactly my reading of the movie 40 years ago when I was his age. Somehow, this restored my hope that somehow today’s kids are not utterly jaded. When it was over and I asked Dietrich what he thought of the movie, he told me how much he’d enjoyed it, and that his favorite part was when the boys all had their revenge on the bad guys who killed Mr. Andersen. Of course — as intended.
The movie is compelling filmmaking for 9-year-olds; for the rest of us, from the beginning scene showing what’s clearly a stunt double for a fat old John Wayne taming a breaking a wild horse, to the triumphant scene where 10 kids, mostly preteen, outwit and outshoot a gang of 11 grown men, it’s science fiction. I’m sure I never noticed any of that when I was a kid. Here’s something else that’s changed in my perception: Now it’s a movie populated by people I’ve known, which makes it harder to focus on purely as a work of fiction. I hadn’t realized that Mark Rydell was the director and producer; some years ago, I co-taught a class with Mark Rydell (although we met in person only once). Now I wish I’d told him what an impact this movie made on me as a child. Lonny Chapman, whom I knew a bit through the Group Repertory Theatre (which is now named the Lonny Chapman Group Repertory Theatre), has a small role as the father of one of the boys. And now whenever I see Bruce Dern in something, where I used to think fondly of the early environmentalist science fiction movie “Silent Running,” now I think of speaking with him a couple of times in recent years, including at his wife’s art opening. (Along similar lines: I was telling a friend last week that whenever I think of Scott Bakula, all I remember is being surprised seeing him in the audience at my tiny little theatre once when he was in the prime of his career. Whenever something like that happens, it’s like: “Audience, audience, audience, major TV star, audience, audience….”)
The other thing that I now notice about “The Cowboys,” something that is so transparent to an adult, is that it’s a movie about fathers and sons. Both of Wil Andersen’s boys died before reaching their prime; now he has a chance to serve as a father figure in what will be a life-transforming experience for these boys. There’s a scene where two of them are tempted by prostitutes — my son had no idea what this was about, and I’m sure I didn’t either at his age — and in another scene, Roscoe Lee Browne’s character tells Wes that with these boys he has another chance at fatherhood. I can see why the film resonated then, and now, with boys of a certain age.
Who was the first superhero? Maybe it was Abraham Lincoln.
And here’s another moment of pop-culture history that shook my childhood: The episode of “Star Trek” where Kirk teams up with Lincoln, and Lincoln gets killed. Again. (And Kirk has to carry on the mandate of fighting for “the good.”) As a kid, it made me sad to see that. As an adult, I have to observe that some people just seem fated to die for a cause.