The Knee Defenders.

There has been a lot in the news this week about the Knee Defender.
For the wildly uninformed, the Knee Defender is a device that you bring on to airliners, and attach to your food tray, to prevent the person in front of you to recline his or her seat directly into your knees.
Before this week, you could have counted me as one of the wildly uninformed.
Once I became informed, I became wild, and rushed to the Knee Defender Website, and Googled all that I could about the Knee Defender.
After all, I am six feet, six inches tall, and have been victimized by the reclinings of others many times.
Often using my own more primitive version of the Knee Defender, arrogantly pushing the reclined seat back into it's upright position, and getting into arguments as a result.
Thus, I consider the Knee Defender a Godsend.
What is dismaying is that many in the media and in the airline industry think that the Knee Defender is a terrible thing, depriving recliners of their God-given right to recline.
They cite the reason that their are recliner buttons built into the seats.
So they must be there for a reason.
A reason sanctioned by many airlines that ban the use of Knee Defenders.
Even though they are not illegal.
Hell, there are oxygen masks built into the overheads.
That doesn't mean that they have to be used, except on rare occasions.
And there are occasions where it is fine to use the recline button.
Like when the person behind you is in an exit row, and has plenty of room.
Or when there is no one seated behind you.
I will never recline my seat when I am in regular coach, and there is an adult seated behind me.
At least without asking if it's all right with them.
It's only common courtesy.
Some airlines, like Spirit, have eliminated the option of reclining altogether.
And their seats have recliner buttons like everybody else's.
So the issue has been far from unanimously settled.
I usually try to avoid the problem by trying to get bumped up to first class, or paying a little extra for an exit row, or another row where extra legroom is provided.
But sometimes those options are not available.
Then, it boils down to a question of morality.
To the airlines, it boils down to a matter of money and cost-effectiveness.
But let's put that aside, at least for now.
The morality question is "Does a person have the right of slightly more comfort at the expense of someone else's suffering and possible injury?
Especially if that someone else is six feet, six inches tall?
To me it's a no-brainer.
I heard someone say on TV yesterday that there's no way anyone can tolerate not reclining on a five-hour redeye flight.
But if this six feet, six incher was on the same redeye flight, getting his knees crushed all the way, there's no way he can tolerate that recliner.
United Airlines is my main carrier, and they ban the Knee Defender.
So I'm waiting to see how things shake down, to see if there are any lawsuits, before I plunk down my 22 simoleans for my own personal Knee Defender.
A product I would otherwise crave.


********

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel, "Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not e-books.
But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube, and my 4-hour interview at the Television Academy's Emmy TV Legends Website.
Here's the link:
http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/mark-rothman"

*****

Rothman's Reaction To The Emmy Awards.

I thought they were just swell.
Sweller than swell.
Maybe the best Emmy Awards Shows ever done.
One of the best Award Shows ever done.
Certainly better than this year's Tony Awards, which usually sets the standard.
Except that it is overwhelmingly gay, and this year, none of the excerpts made me want to make a trip to New York to see any of the shows.
Except for Bryan Cranston as LBJ.
And he got his just desserts last night.
The Emmy telecast seemed virtually totally straight.
They didn't even have Jane Lynch show up.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
And the Oscar telecasts have been eternal snooze-fests.
But with Seth Meyers doing a superb job as host, this show just zipped along (with the help of my Tivo, the only way to watch anything.)
Whenever they went for funny, which was often, they hit the bulls-eye.
Everybody's tongues were way up their cheeks.
I was never bored.
How often can anyone say that about an awards show?
And many if not most of my choices won.
That made it even more enjoyable.
The "In Memoriam" segment was very tastefully done.
It seemed to include many more dead folks than usual.
And certainly more movie stars who did relatively little TV than pure TV people.
Billy Crystal's tribute to Robin Williams was quite moving.
As was Letterman's on his show.
A minor quibble: Maya Angelou was included prominently in the Memoriam segment.
Just what was Maya Angelou's contribution to TV?

I have not seen any of Seth Meyers' Late Night Shows.
I tried to check to see the writers credits at the end of the telecast.
The only name I recognized was Seth Meyers.
This leads me to at least suspect that he brought his writing staff out there to help him out.
I think that this is going to cause me to start watching his show, and give him a chance to capture me as a regular viewer.

********

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel, "Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not e-books.
But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube, and my 4-hour interview at the Television Academy's Emmy TV Legends Website.
Here's the link:
http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/mark-rothman"

*****

Come Fly With Him.

Check out this list of very, very popular songs of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s:

"Ain't That a Kick in the Head" (Big hit for Dean Martin. Used in lots of contemporary movies and commercials.)
"All My Tomorrows" (Big hit for Sinatra)
"All the Way" (Ditto)
"Call Me Irresponsible" (Oscar winner. Big hit for Jack Jones)
"Come Dance with Me" (Big hit for Sinatra)
"Come Fly with Me" (Ditto)
"High Hopes" (Ditto again)
"Love and Marriage" (NOT written for "Married With Children", but rather for a TV musicalization of the play "Our Town", and introduced by Sinatra)
"The Tender Trap" (Big hit for Sinatra)
"My Kind of Town (Ditto)
"Nancy With The Laughing Face" (More ditto)
"The Second Time Around" Introduced by Bing Crosby)
"Aren't You Glad You're You?" (Big hit for Crosby)
"But Beautiful" (Ditto)
"Here's That Rainy Day"
"Imagination"
"It Could Happen to You"
"Like Someone in Love"
"Moonlight Becomes You" (HUGE hit for Crosby)
"Personality"
"Polka Dots and Moonbeams"
"Sunday, Monday, or Always" (Big hit for Crosby)
"Swinging on a Star" (Ditto)
"Darn That Dream"
"I Thought About You"

Wonderful songs.
Wonderful melodies.
And I'm just scratching the surface.
What do they all have in common?
They were all composed by one Edward Chester Babcock.
Never heard of him?
Perhaps that's because early on, he had the good taste to change his name to Jimmy Van Heusen.
Still never heard of him?
Too bad.
You should have.
He was as influential as anyone else in creating the Great American Songbook.
And he provided more hits for Sinatra and Crosby than anyone else did.
They named Bob Hope's character Chester Babcock, after Van Heusen, in "The Road To Hong Kong"
He wrote most of the songs for the "Road" pictures.

I recently watched a great documentary about Jimmy Van Heusen on PBS.
Catch it if you can.
I learned that Van Heusen, aside from being a great songwriter, was also a fascinating man.
Looking at pictures and film of him, you could see that he was not at all attractive.
Totally bald, with a hook nose.
Yet, he was a chick-magnet.
The women were constantly swarming all over him.
Sinatra and Van Heusen were very, very close friends.
Van Heusen was Sinatra's shoulder to cry on when he needed one, which was apparently quite often.
When Sinatra attempted suicide after Ava Gardner dumped him, it was by trying to hurl himself out of the window of Van Heusen's high-rise apartment in Manhattan.
And Van Heusen was able to talk him back in.
You know how every guy wanted to be, and still wants to be, Sinatra?
Well Sinatra always wanted to be Jimmy Van Heusen.
Sinatra idolized him.
It was always said that Sinatra lived very hard.
That he never went to bed until 4 A.M.
Van Heusen never went to bed until 5 A.M.

And Van Heusen led sort of a double life.
From the time he was about twenty, he was fascinated with aviation.
He bought his own plane about a year later.
And he'd gotten his pilot's license and tooled around the country in it all the time.
It was his main mode of transportation.
When World War II broke out, Van Heusen immediately enlisted, and became one of the first test pilots for aircraft like the B-25 bombers.
The irony was that the other test pilots who worked alongside him had no idea that he had written all those wonderful songs.
A test pilot writing "Moonlight Becomes You"?
Even if he had told them, nobody would have believed him.
Towards the end of the documentary, Tony Bennett was interviewed.
And this seemed to be a fairly recent interview.
And Tony waxed ecstatic about Van Heusen's accomplishments.
He began rattling off the song titles.
Along the way, he mentioned the song "Teach Me Tonight", which was a big hit for Nat "King" Cole.
A voice made noise in my head.
It said "Teach Me Tonight"? Really?"
I don't think Van Heusen wrote "Teach Me Tonight".
That voice made that noise because I recalled an interview with the lyricist of "Teach Me Tonight", Sammy Cahn, in which he recalled the first time he heard a record of it on the radio.
He had no idea that it had been recorded.
So he called up the radio station that played it, and asked who the artists were who recorded it.
He was told "The DeCastro Sisters"
Then he asked who the songwriters were who were credited on the record.
He was told "Sammy Cahn and Gene DePaul".
Gene DePaul was a rather prominent composer in his own right.
He wrote the songs for the movie "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers" and the Broadway musical and movie "Li'l Abner".
But there was no Jimmy Van Heusen here.
In all fairness to Tony Bennett, anybody's entitled to make a mistake.
Or to quote one of Van Heusen's song titles, everybody has the right to be wrong.
And he was 85 years old, and looked fairly disheveled.
It was the first time I had ever seen him where his toupee was askew.
It just wasn't sitting on his head properly.
He usually took great pains in the past to make sure that he looked impeccable in it.
I guess nobody on the camera crew had the nerve to say anything to him about it.
And then I thought, when I saw that interview with Sammy Cahn, HE was pretty old.
And he was bald.
Maybe HE was mistaken.
It was a quandary.
A quandary that took me only moments to solve.
I picked up my IPhone, and for the first and only time so far in my life, I spoke to Siri.
I asked "Who wrote the song 'Teach Me Tonight'?"
The answer came back immediately: Sammy Cahn and Gene DePaul.
So Tony was wrong.
But I felt worse about his hair.
However, this doesn't diminish Van Heusen in the least.
What a great life he had.


..........


My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel, "Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed,
contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube, and my 4-hour interview at the Television Academy's Emmy TV Legends Website.
Here's the link:
http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/mark-rothman"

*****

Unfortunately, There Was A Ford In Our Future.

I usually try to avoid to avoid politics around these here parts, but with the fortieth anniversary of Watergate, and all the attending publicity in media surrounding it, I find myself hearing the same nice and kind things said about Gerald Ford, because he gave Richard Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for acts that would have sent any other individual who wasn't President of the United States directly to the slammer.
Do not pass Go.
Do not collect $200.
Go to Jail.
It was done in what I assume was an honest effort to "heal the nation".
Just as his serving on the Warren Commision was his attempt to heal the nation.
In both instances, I don't think much, if any actual healing took place.
Very few people believe the Warren Commission Report to this day.
I am pretty well convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald was indeed involved in the JFK assassination, but I'm far from convinced that he acted alone.
So, no healing for me there.
A lot of people protested at the time, when Ford pardoned Nixon.
I was one of them.
Not so much because I hated Nixon, which I did.
But because I believed that it set a terrible precedent.
That single act told America that what you heard about "No man is above the law" is complete bullshit.
And it probably cost Ford the upcoming election.
And he probably knew it was going to.
So he probably thought what he did was an act of nobility.
But if Ford hadn't pardoned Nixon, and Nixon had ended up in the Greybar Hotel, does anyone honestly think that Ronald Reagan would have been given a free pass for Iran-Contra?
Would Reagan even attempt it?
There is no thought of holding Bush and Cheney accountable for falsely getting thousands of people killed by creating a war in Iraq.
They knew that they would never be held criminally accountable.
As they should be.
But won't be.
And there seems to be no discussion about sending any of those crooks who supplied all those bad bank loans to those unsuspecting customers, to the clink.
All because of that nice, kind "healer", Gerald Ford.
Yes, I know that if there was no pardon, and Nixon faced an ongoing prosecution, and ended up wearing striped garments, the country would have twisted in the wind over it.
Perhaps for a long time.
But I think we would have gotten over it, and we'd certainly end up better than we are now.
In retrospect, that one act of Ford's is probably worse than anything Richard Nixon ever did.
Which is saying something.
I must go now, and continue to lick my wounds.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel, "Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube, and my 4-hour interview at the Television Academy's Emmy TV Legends Website.
Here's the link:  www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/mark-rothman

*****

Speaking Of Grodin....

Thinking about "Clifford", the movie I referred to last time, that I walked out on, after paying good money to see it, in which Charles Grodin disappointed me, it reminded me of another recent incident in which Charles Grodin disappointed me.
Now, don't get me completely wrong.
I have, for the most part, always admired Grodin's work, and admired him as a person, and as a talk-show guest.
But I recently listened to him on an internet podcast, where he was the solo guest for about an hour and a half.
He was his usual interesting self.
I found myself being very sympatico with his outlook on the world.
He discussed among other things, how, even at his stage of his career, he found it difficult to get meetings for people to consider producing his plays.
This is a problem that I have encountered on occasion, and it was somewhat comforting to know that I was not alone.
As he described it, he had a play running in New York that completely sold out it's run.
So he was baffled that he couldn't even get a hearing on his next play.
He then spent some time plugging his latest book.
I found the Kindle version on Amazon, and ordered it.
And I read it.
And it turned out to be an entire regurgitation of what he said on the podcast.
Practically word for word.
Either that, or the podcast was an entire regurgitation of what he wrote in his book.
In any case, I felt I should have been warned.
And I felt completely ripped off.
Even if it was only to the tune of $3.99.
The podcast and the book also consisted of a ton of name-dropping.
Almost every sentence began with "My good friend Robert Diniro", or "My good friend Candice Bergen" and like that.
Now, I know that he worked with these people, and may indeed even be good friends with them.
But I did feel rather clobbered on my head with all of this.
The capper was when he talked about "My good friend Paul Simon".
And he related the following exchange of dialogue between him and his good friend Paul Simon.
According to Grodin, his good friend Paul Simon said to him, "D'jever notice that when you're on the phone with somebody and they say, 'I've got another call. I'll get right back to you', that that's the new version of 'no' ? "
I hear him relate this anecdote, and my immediate reaction is "This is complete bullshit".
I mean who on earth is going to put Paul Simon on hold to take another call?
Who on earth is going to say "no" to Paul Simon about anything?!
Grodin was probably talking about his own experience, and decided to dress it up by having it come out of Paul Simon's mouth.
And I looked up Grodin's play that had a "sold out" run in New York.
It had mixed reviews.
This didn't surprise me.
For years, he had been trying to get a movie that he had written made.
It was called "Movers and Shakers".
He managed to rope Walter Matthau into playing the lead.
The first half of it was a total fiasco.
Once again, I didn't make it to the second half.
But I didn't have to leave the theater.
I just had to turn off the TV.
The "sold out run" for his play was in one of those Off-Broadway theaters with very limited seating capacity.
And a very limited run.
Not that difficult to sell out.
With it all, I still have a lot of positive feelings about Grodin.
But now, with his book, and "Movers and Shakers", and "Clifford", forewarned is forearmed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel, "Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube, and my 4-hour interview at the Television Academy's Emmy TV Legends Website.
Here's the link://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/mark-rothman"

*****

The Two Movies That I Walked Out On, After Paying Good Money To See Them.

I almost never pay good money to see any movie.
At the movies, or pay-per-view at home.
Of course, I exclude Netflix and pay cable, like HBO and Showtime.
But Netflix, I have mainly so I can binge-watch TV series I never saw first time around.
And HBO and Showtime, I mainly have for the boxing.
The movies I see there I consider a bonus.
I binge-watch movies in the fall and winter, when the studios send me DVDs.
Or if I'm in L.A. and there are free Guild screenings.
But on rare occasions, I will actually stroll up to the box office, take out a wad of cash, and plunk it down to see a movie.
It's usually a Woody Allen movie, which won't last in my area for more than a week, or there is someone in it whose work I particularly admire, and just don't feel like waiting for DVDs or HBO.
There were two movies in this category that I plunked down the hard cash for.
I went to one of them because the stars were Martin Short and Charles Grodin.
I'd always been a major fan of Martin Short.
I'd always felt he could do no wrong.
And I'd been a sucker for Grodin since "The Heartbreak Kid" and "Midnight Run"
So I thought "Great combination! Can't miss!"
So I loosened my wallet, parted with the dough, and took my seat.
The movie was called "Clifford".
Short played this unctuous child-man, or man-child, or child, I was never sure which.
And Grodin was his adult mentor, of sorts.
And the entire movie, at least what I saw of it, was Short being actively unctuous, constantly annoying Grodin, and Grodin either being patient with him, or losing his patience with him.
It didn't take that long for me to lose my patience with the whole thing.
And there is always that moment when you know it's not going to get any better.
So I abandoned ship midway through,, and simply considered it money wasted.

The other experience along these lines involved someone else whose movies I always enjoyed.
Rodney Dangerfield.
I'd seen his entire output and had never been disappointed.
Until I saw, or at least half-saw, "Meet Wally Sparks"
There was nothing particularly wrong with the story.
He played a politician running for office, managing to offend everyone he met.
Not necessarily a bad idea.
The problem was the execution.
Every one out of two lines of dialogue was a setup for a "dick" joke.
And every other of the two lines of dialogue was the punchline for a "dick" joke.
Now, I like a good dick joke as well as the next fellow.
But the repetitive nature of the dick jokes in this picture was unprecedented.
Rodney totally gilded the lily.
And about halfway through this one, I realized I was on the Dick Joke Express.
And I had to hurl myself on to the tracks.
Left to his own devices, Rodney had no taste.
And he was definitely left to his own devices.
I should have learned from Martin Short and Charles Grodin:
Stay in your house.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel, "Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube, and my 4-hour interview at the Television Academy's Emmy TV Legends Website.
Here's the link: www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/mark-rothman"

*****