HKS Altezza

This here is a monster made by HKS, a Japanese aftermarket company that cater for JDM. This is the 2001 HKS Toyota Altezza with over 550hp coupled with a 6 speed sequential gearbox. It had competed in many tracks around Japan and USA.

The HotWheels that I have here was purchased around 2003. It was one of the coolest HotWheels in my collections. If u look closely on the front bonnet you will see a shinny turbo popping out!

Coach Wooden

When I think of John Wooden I think of that Joan Osbourne song – What If God Were One of Us? The most impressive man I’ve ever met was often spotted in Du-Pars’ coffee shop in the valley. Hardly a church; they filmed scenes from BOOGIE NIGHTS there. I had the honor of spending a morning with him once. He lived alone in a condo complex in Encino on a busy street near noisy Ventura Blvd. Not exactly the Sistine Chapel.

When I was a student at UCLA from 68-72 and the Bruins were racking up National Championships every year, a few friends and I had a ritual after games in Pauley Pavilion. We’d go to Dolores’ coffee shop on Santa Monica Blvd. This was a grungy 50s style diner, one of those 24 hour joints that catered to kids, seedy street people, and lonely souls. But ten minutes after we sat down, there would be Coach Wooden with his wife and another couple coming through the door. That’s how he celebrated big wins – eating pie at Dolores’. We always congratulated him. He was always gracious. We were always thrilled just to be ordering off the same crappy menu as him.

But that was John Wooden. Humble, accessible, without any pretense. Everywhere you turn today you will find a tribute to this extraordinary man. They’re all going to make him sound too good to be true but in fact he was. No sense in just echoing them. So I’m just going to concentrate on the coffee shops and neighborhood markets and a two-bedroom condominium that looked out over a parking lot.

I accompanied a journalist friend who was doing a magazine profile on Coach Wooden. This was maybe five/six years ago. Coach let us in himself (he preferred to be called “Coach”. He hated “Mr. Wooden”). He then asked if he could make us some coffee? It was a modest two-bedroom unit. But it could have been a museum. Every inch of wall space was covered with team pictures, awards, medals, proclamations, framed programs, and commendations. I don’t know how he ever found the light switches.

He led us into the second bedroom, which he used as a den. And as Coach Wooden started answering questions a shiver went down my spine. Listening to him share his views on life and various other sundry topics in such an eloquent and yet casual manner I thought to myself, “I am truly in the presence of GREATNESS”. It’s one thing to preach a life of virtue and integrity and it’s another to actually live it. And that's what he did... every day for 99 years.

On the one hand this was the Sermon on the Mount on the other a garbage truck outside the window was picking up the complex’s trash.

After the interview he signed copies of his “Pyramid of Success” for me and my son and thanked US for coming. One of the great mornings of my life and he thanked me. Then he checked his watch. Would we please excuse him? He was meeting someone for lunch… at Du-Pars’.

I will always cherish him and strive to achieve the standards that he set.

My take on Armando Galarraga's perfect game

Quite a few of you have asked my take on the Armando Galarraga perfect game. In case you’re not a baseball fan (i.e. most of my readers) – on Wednesday night Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga was pitching a perfect game. That means he retiring in order every batter he faced. No hits, no walks, nothing. 27 up and 27 down. How rare is this feat? There have been only 20 perfect games in the 100+ year history of major league baseball. (Amazingly, we’ve had two in a month). So yeah, pretty damn special.

Galarraga was one out away. The batter hit a ground ball to the right side of the infield. The first baseman tossed the ball to Galarraga who was covering and on a bang-bang play the runner was out. But the umpire, Jim Joyce ruled that he was safe. Instant replay show indisputably that the runner was out. Galarraga was robbed of the greatest moment of his life by a bad call.

After the game the umpire saw the replay and was horrified to learn that indeed he had blown it. To his credit, Joyce was shaken, tearful, and incredibly apologetic.

The next batter grounded out and that was that.

Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball, was asked to reverse the call. He has that authority. He chose to let the call the stand, even though he acknowledged it was the wrong call.

This has sparked a huge debate. So I’ve been asked – do I think the commissioner should have reversed the call?

YES.

Most of my media compadres disagree with me. They claim that a commissioner stepping in and changing a call would open a Pandora’s Box. If he changes one call, why not another? Would this set a precedent and suddenly every other week he’s being asked to change one bad call or another? At the end of the day the Tigers won the game despite the blown call and that’s all that’s really important.

That is a valid position. Except for two things:

There HAS been a precedent set. In 1983 American League president Lee MacPhail overturned an umpire's call in the 1983 George Brett "pine tar" incident. The world didn't end.

And secondly, baseball fans – the folks that follow the game, go out to the Park, buy the hot dogs – they don’t give a shit about precedents being set. They just want the wrong made right. You’re not “giving” anything to Galarraga. He “earned” the perfect game. To deny him on ceremony is merely compounding the offense.

Jim Joyce (who is a lovely guy and normally an excellent umpire) and his family are being mercilessly harassed. No matter what he does the rest of his life this will follow him. People remember. Ask any baseball fan who Don Denkinger is and see what they say. Reversing the call will take the heat off him… and more importantly, his family.

The jury is out on whether Bud Selig is a good commissioner or a disaster. The game has prospered under his watch. Innovations like wild card teams and interleague play have been big successes. But the steroid era has been during his reign. He canceled the 1994 World Series during a labor dispute (how ‘bout that for setting a precedent?) and decided to let the 2002 All-Star game end in a tie. Rightly or wrongly, fans believe he is tool of the owners and not a guardian of the game’s best interests.

Reversing the call would go a long way towards satisfying the fans he claims to represent.

Baseball is never proactive. It only changes once its shamed into changing. It took senate hearings and the threat of losing their Anti-Trust exemption to get baseball to really attack the steroid problem. A coach has to lose his life before protective helmets became mandatory. It took embarrassing replays of bad calls to get them to employ even limited instant replay. And now, especially if this horrible call stands, good luck preventing more instant replay situations from going into effect.

The call will probably never be overturned, which I think is a shame. But it’s not like there hasn’t been a precedent for that either. Didn’t Al Gore actually win the 2000 presidential race?

A great practical joke on CBS

Thanks for all your Friday questions. I’ll try to answer as many as I can. Keep ‘em coming.

MikeN gets us started.

How much influence do the networks have on your plots?

A lot more now than they used to. Networks now insist you clear all story ideas with them. Then you have to clear the story outlines with them.

It used to be you’d meet with the network the beginning of the season, run down the direction you were going in and that was pretty much it.

On MASH we were only required to write up loglines (a sentence or two). Often we would fall seven or eight shows behind. John Rappaport, one of the MASH producers, pulled a classic stunt on CBS. The series TRAPPER JOHN M.D. was about to premiere that fall on CBS. Among the loglines John submitted was “Hawkeye is devastated to learn that his buddy Trapper John has died back in the states.”

John gets a frantic call from the network. “You can’t do that!” they pleaded. “We have a show starring Trapper John.” Rapppaport shrugged and said, “That’s not our problem.”

The network insisted they drop the story. John said, “It’s too late. We already filmed it.” The network rep was absolutely apoplectic until John told him it was a goof.

But the short answer to your question is that networks now pretty much control the stories… unless you’re a proven hit showrunner.

Dave Creek asks:

I haven't seen you mention Lucille Ball much here. How much of an influence were her sitcoms an influence on you?

Well, first of all, the only Lucy sitcom I bother with at all is I LOVE LUCY. All the later ones I thought were awful and forced.

There are some classic I LOVE LUCY episodes I could watch a thousand times and still laugh. Actually, there probably are a few episodes I HAVE seen a thousand times. She was an amazing physical comedienne. No one since has even come close.

But for the most part I was never as enamored with I LOVE LUCY as I was with BILKO, THE HONEYMOONERS, and THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW. I thought the writing and characters were sharper and funnier on those three shows.

So I guess you could say, “I LIKE Lucy”.

From Ron Rettig, one of the finest officers I had to pleasure of serving with while in the Reserves:

Why no BluRay reissue of remastered "Volunteers" with making of and writer & director interviews, etc.?

Yeah! I agree! The movie was made for Tri-Star Pictures (which no longer exists) and HBO Films (which in that form is gone). So I don’t even know who to complain to. But I would love to see that released. Personally, I think the jokes would play sooo much better in Blu-Ray. We wrote them specifically for Blu-Ray.

I would also LOVE it if the series DVDs of ALMOST PERFECT finally came out. They’re owned now by CBS-Paramount. We made 34 episodes and at the time had quite a following. A lot more people would buy and rent it than BA BA BLACKSHEEP which is out, and the friggin’ DORIS DAY SHOW.

And finally, from Mike Barer:

Who are the top unseen characters? I think of Maris on Frasier, Carlton the Doorman on Rhoda, etc. What is the thinking behind it?

Offscreen characters just broaden the world of the show. And invite the audience to use their imagination.

Besides Maris, and Carlton, there’s also Norm’s wife Vera on CHEERS, the neighbor on HOME IMPROVEMENT, “Thing” on the ADDAMS FAMILY, and way way back in the 50’s Pete’s wife Gladys on DECEMBER BRIDE. CBS later did a spinoff, PETE & GLADYS where she was shown. Harry Morgan played Pete on both series. Cara Williams eventually played Gladys. I’m sure there are other examples. Feel free to help me out.

My all-time favorite job

Earl Pomerantz, in his wonderful blog, wrote a recent post describing his “All-time favorite job”. A few readers of both his site and mine have asked me what was my all-time favorite job? Here’s how blessed I am – it’s really hard to pick. I could easily say MASH, CHEERS, or ALMOST PERFECT; each for different reasons. Throw in FRASIER too. But that’s like trying to pick which of your four kids is your favorite? So putting those shows aside, I’d have to say the winner was BIG WAVE DAVE’S.

For the 95% of you not familiar with BIG WAVE DAVE’S, it was a short-lived series that my partner David Isaacs and I did for CBS in 1993. You can watch the pilot here.

We made the pilot in March of that year. It was multi-camera, in front of a live audience. Usually you’ll have a laugh spread of two or three minutes, which allows you to trim out the things that didn't work. BIG WAVE DAVE’S had a ten minute laugh spread – pretty good for a twenty-two minute show.

We tried to edit it down to time but it was impossible. So we figured, “what the hell?” and submitted a rough cut that was seven minutes too long. The heads of CBS noted it was too long and offered to watch it with us and determine further cuts. They couldn’t find additional trims either. We were allowed to turn in that version. (When the show got picked up we had reshoot some scenes so characters didn't fly across the room when certain lines were cut out.)

It tested great. Jane Kaczmarek tested better than Bob Newhart did on his new show. We went back to New York for the May Upfronts feeling we had a real shot at getting on the fall schedule.

Unfortunately, CBS had commitments to Diane English and Linda Bloodworth and there was no room for us. But we knew they loved the show and figured we’d at least get a pick-up for mid-season.

Several weeks went by. We heard nothing.

Finally they came to us with this proposal: As an experiment they wanted to try putting new shows on in the summer. They had success with that strategy with NORTHERN EXPOSURE. They wanted to air six episodes of BIG WAVE DAVE’S on Monday nights at 9:30 following MURPHY BROWN (their top sitcom at the time).

Here was the problem: it was the beginning of June. They wanted the show to begin airing mid-summer. We’d have to assemble a staff, hire a crew, rebuild the sets, and go into production in two weeks. We had no scripts, nothing.

So we came back to them and said, “We will do it… but only under one condition. There can be NO NETWORK INTERFERENCE.

At all.

We will not run story notions by you. You will see no scripts ahead of time. No notes after runthroughs. No casting input. No rough cuts for approval. Nothing. You could watch the show on the air." (We gave them that.)

Every show must deal with Standards & Practice but even then, we said their notes had to be minor and any disputes easily resolved or we had to shut down production.

This was not about us being prima donnas; we physically could not do the show if we had to go through those hoops. As it is we would be making a lot of decisions on the fly. And we understood if that kind of autonomy went against CBS’ policy but then we’d respectfully pass on their offer. We’d take our chances that they still would order us for mid-season.

To our shock and amazement they said okay; they’d go along with that arrangement.

We quickly assembled a staff (Dan Staley, Rob Long, and Larry Balmagia), brought on Andy Ackerman to direct and Larina Adamson to gather a crew. The next three months were insane. We were writing around the clock, editing, casting, post production. But God bless CBS, they were true to their word. They did not interfere even once.

And that’s what it made it my all-time favorite job. I can’t tell you how creatively invigorating it was to have the chains removed. I think we did some of our best work (even under ridiculous circumstances). The truth is I’m sure we were tougher on the scripts than the network would have been. Rewrite nights tended to go long. But we all had so much fun.

The show aired and got a 19 share every week. We kept close to 100% of MURPHY BROWN’S audience. The headline in the LA Times entertainment section when the first week’s rating came out was BIG WAVE DAVE SAVES CBS. If you got that number today you'd get a five year pick-up.

Everything was going great (except for the Tom Shales review – he said single-handedly destroyed television, which I view as a pan) and thought we were on our way. But after the six episodes CBS cancelled us. Why? They felt they didn’t need us. They had sitcoms coming on in the fall starring Peter Scolari, Faye Dunaway, and Shelley Long and there was no need. Besides, they felt our star, Adam Arkin wasn’t strong enough to carry a series. A couple of years later he proved them wrong with CHICAGO HOPE on their network.

But that was my all-time favorite job... in television. (I have all-time favorite radio and baseball jobs too. Subjects for future posts.) And I still believe television would be better today if selected writers who have proven their worth were given that kind of autonomy.

The single most important truth in comedy

It comes from Larry Gelbart in his eulogy for Billy Wilder.

If what you're writing isn't likely to offend or annoy anyone at all, go back and start again.

My AMERICAN IDOL finale review also ran last week in the HuffingtonPost. It received a ton of comments. A number of them ripped me for being “sarcastic”, “mean”, “snarky”, and “disrespectful”. I figured, “I must be doing something right”.

Comedy by its very nature is subversive. The network note I always dreaded the most was “Could she be more likable? Could he be more nice?” Nice isn’t funny. Nice is death. Angry is funny. Jealousy is funny. Conniving is funny. Vanity is funny. You’re pointing out flaws. You’re zeroing in on weaknesses. You’re holding a mirror up to all the absurdity and ridiculous behavior we human beings exhibit. You’re trying to tell the truth (at least as you see it).

And if you are the least bit critical you are going to offend somebody. You don’t have to be Andrew Dice Clay to be accused of being too mean. Charles Schultz received those same accusations for writing PEANUTS.

It’s a judgment call. You know there are lines you can’t cross. Topics too sensitive.

But over time even those lines blur. In 1969 Senator Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge and his car plunged into the water off Chappaquiddick Island. He escaped but his passenger, a young woman named Mary Jo Kopechne did not and lost her life. Kennedy compounded the offense by fleeing the scene. It was a national scandal. No one dared make fun of it. This poor girl died. It was a tragedy.

A few years later Volkswagen had an ad campaign boasting the fact that their cars could float. The National Lampoon did a take-off of the ad showing a VW floating in water with the tagline: “If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkswagen, he’d be President today”. Many found it hilarious. Not surprisingly, the Kennedy and Kopechne families did not, and I suspect still wouldn’t.

Everyone has a different sense of humor. Just the diverse reactions to the comedy tests I post prove that. You truly can’t please everybody. And when you try you end up pleasing nobody.

My only rules are that (a) I have to be willing to take it as well as dish it out, (b) I won’t purposely try to hurt someone, and (c) I have to be willing to accept the consequences of what I write.

Look, sometimes I’m sure I go too far. On the other hand, I occasionally pull back too far. But if there’s a joke in an article that gets the most criticism it’s almost always the one that receives the most praise too. And be honest with yourself – how many times do you laugh at something really sick or mean or tasteless and say, “I really shouldn’t be laughing at this” and then go right back to rolling on the floor?

So I guess what I’m saying is, if I’ve written anything on this blog that has offended you I’m truly sorry. But I warn you, there’s a real good chance I’m going to offend you again. Maybe I already did with the Kennedy ad.

I should replace Simon Cowell

I mentioned this on Twitter and Facebook and got an unbelievably positive response. Three, maybe four people at least. So I’ve decided to really go for it.

I’m throwing my hat in the ring. I should replace Simon Cowell on AMERICAN IDOL. Crazier things have happened. Look who our governor is.

And I figure if enough people write to the producers on behalf they’ll eventually have to stop saying “who?”

The truth is, being an unknown works to my advantage. Simon was an unknown when the show first premiered. It helps that the audience has no preconceptions. At first Simon was known merely as “that fucking guy”. Ironically, that’s what people call me. Even the ones who know me. Especially the ones who know me.

As for music credentials: I was a disc jockey for many years. No, I never produced records, wrote banal songs, or hosted my own daytime talk show but I can talk right up to the vocals. So I know what makes a hit record. I’d be critiquing the contestants from a whole new fresh angle. “Siobhan, that was a terrible song selection. How can anybody read the weather over that?”

This might lead to brand new theme nights. “Billboard Number One” weeks and “Sinatra” weeks are sooo old and tired. It’s time to shake things up. I foresee “:12 second intro week”, “:20 second intro week”, and even “Top of the Hour ID” week.

Simon’s replacement has to be brutally honest. Ever hear me talk about Andruw Jones on Dodger Talk? He’s been gone for two years and just last night on the air I blamed him for the oil spill. Imagine what I could do to some sweet little 16-year-old waif who missed a note singing "The Lord’s Prayer".

And then there's the flip side (more music jargon, I tell ya, I'm a natural): Simon also praises contestants if he feels they’ve earned it. So like Mr. Cowell, if she’s cute and blond and has no tattoos I too plan to slather on the compliments.

I know from time to time I would have to spar with Ryan. But just as the members of the Algonquin Round Table felt they could hold their own in a battle of wits with the busboy, I’m reasonably confident I could handle Ryan Seacrest.

The producers always like it when there’s some friction between the judges. So they would really love me. We wouldn’t have to fabricate weenie little feuds like they’ve always done in the past. When I say “Jesus, Randy, do you really only know ten words?” or “Kara, I swear, if you say ‘artist’ one more time I’m going to jam your face into that Coke cup, “ or “Ellen, does Portia even think you’re funny?” there will be REAL fireworks! Watch the ratings soar! COUGAR TOWN will be your bitch!

Again, I’m going to need your help, blogosphere. If everyone who reads this pathetic cry for attention merely enlists 12,000 of their closest friends to also call, or send in letters, or email, or Tweets, or texts (basic text messaging rates do apply and don't call until everyone has read the entire article) I think I’ll have a good shot.

And maybe this will provide a little more incentive. If I get the job and you audition for me, just say "I contacted Simon Fuller at 8560 West Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, Ca. 90069 on your behalf" and I'll pick up on that secret code and send you through to Hollywood. What the hell? You can't be worse than Jason Castro.

AMERICAN IDOL needs help. I need help. It’s the perfect marriage.

I thank you for your support.