Podcast Tuesday: "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail"

Ron Howard and Al Molinaro on Happy Days.

This is what my campaign posters looked like.

Let me tell you two dumb stories about my past. The first happened when I was a high school sophomore in Flushing, MI. Near the end of the school year, the principal announced over the P.A. that student elections were approaching and that interested candidates should sign up in the main office. The way it worked was, students were elected at the end of one school year and took office at the beginning of the next. I had no interest in this, but one of my classmates thought it would be funny to suggest loudly that I run for president. Other students found this funny, too, and began chanting my name. 

Just like that, I was in politics. I had been challenged directly by my peers. What was I supposed to do? I didn't feel I could back down. Besides, I liked the attention, even though it was negative attention. So I ran for class president. I decided to have some fun with the campaign, canvassing the school with nonsensical posters. One was just a photocopied picture of Simon & Garfunkel with their eyes crossed out and squiggly mouths drawn in, accompanied by the cryptic slogan "VOTE BLEVINS." Never mind which office I was seeking. My lone campaign speech was just a rant that I had cribbed entirely from Bill Murray in The Rutles (1978). ("The scene is here in Flushing! The whole world's eyes are on Flushing!") It was exciting, I'll admit that.

Appealing to the lowest common denominator, I actually won the election. This was not a good thing. The joke had gone too far. My opponents were kids who actually took the election seriously and sincerely wanted to be in student government. I, on the other hand, was an idiot who really didn't want to do much of anything other than watch television. My presidency was a total bust. After mere weeks of dodging student council meetings the next year, I quietly resigned. The silver lining is that the vice president was a really nice, smart, quiet kid who had run unopposed, and my resignation meant that he was now president. Still in all, I felt so guilty about the whole sordid mess that I haven't talked about it to anyone for decades. It established an unfortunate pattern in my life: big promises with no follow-through. 

(Technically, though, since my posters and speech were all surreal nonsense, I hadn't actually promised anything. I guess we really do get the government we deserve.)

Flash forward about 10 years. By then, I was a (bad) high school English teacher in a smallish, isolated town in northern Illinois. Apartments being rare in this part of the world, I was living at a motel with a somewhat shady reputation. Next to the motel was a strip mall with an even shadier reputation. It contained a pawn shop, a massage parlor, and some third business I cannot recall. The parlor was the subject of much speculation around town. Indeed, it was one of the few local businesses that stayed open past 11. In the front window, there were sexy female mannequins dressed in lacy lingerie.

Nearly all the clientele, however, accessed the building from the back entrance. On warm nights when there was nothing much to do, I'd climb up to the second story of the motel and watch them come and go in their shiny pickup trucks. I don't think I ever saw even one employee of the massage parlor in the entire year I lived there, just the customers. It honestly did not occur to me until long after I had moved away that I could have gone to the massage parlor myself and learned first-hand what went on inside that building. I consider this a missed opportunity for learning and personal growth in my life.

What do these two stories have in common? Very little, except that this week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, my cohost and I are reviewing the December 12, 1978 episode "Richie Gets Framed," which involves both a student election and a massage parlor. How do these elements fit into Happy Days and do they make for a satisfying story? Listen and find out!

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood-Yorty Odyssey, Part One by Greg Dziawer

Three-time Los Angeles mayor Sam Yorty had a connection to our own Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Logo for Yorty's local chat show.

In Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992), actor Conrad Brooks claims that, circa 1967, Wood "was either driving a cab or working for Sam Yorty, writing campaign speeches." In that same book, Grey states that Ed Wood worked for Sam Yorty in 1964 at KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles and "may well have directed segments" of Yorty's local talk show.

Mayor Sam, as he was sometimes affectionately known, endured three tumultuous terms as Mayor of Los Angeles from 1963 through 1971. Although he remained active in politics before and after this, including two terms in the House of Representatives from 1951 to 1955, his occasional appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, per the IMDb, all occurred during his stint as Mayor. Yorty also helmed his own talk show in LA, on and off again, through the '60s and '70s, and even appeared on Truth or Consequences with host Bob Barker. 

As we begin to examine the connections between Wood and Yorty, consider the following pieces of evidence:

• Criswell, the self-styled psychic and friend of Ed Wood, likewise made his own periodic appearances on The Tonight Show—with Johnny wryly referring to Cris' predictions as "startling"—mostly in the latter half of the '60s. Cris, of course, opens Plan 9 from Outer Space and essentially emcees Orgy of the Dead. 

• Buddy Hyde is a name familiar to serious Wood fans, no doubt. He is quoted a handful of times in Nightmare of Ecstasy. Buddy produced Cris' TV show Criswell Predicts. Additionally, Buddy and Cris were invited by Ed to attend the shoot of Necromania and peruse the film's two principal sets. Furthermore, Ed and John Agar stopped by to see Buddy in 1977 to borrow some cash for booze. Buddy attended Ed's funeral service, as did Cris. And Buddy, too, worked for Sam Yorty. 

• Ed has also been credited as working on the TV series Criswell Predicts. 

So what does all of this mean?

I was googling a couple of weeks ago, digging into Sam Yorty, wondering if I could somehow find a clue that linked to Ed's involvement with the Mayor. Not far into it, I hit upon an article that startled me. It was about Buddy Hyde.

From a newspaper story about Hyde.

The article, published twice locally in Hyde's hometown of Hagerstown, MD (on October 5 and 7, respectively), is a treasure-trove of relevant details. Apart from painting a very reverential portrait of Hyde—deservedly so, as the article reveals a fascinating career—we learn of Hyde's close association with Mayor Sam Yorty. (And Christine Jorgensen?!?) 

If Ed did, indeed, work on shoots for Yorty's LA-market talk show as early as 1964, we have to wonder if Buddy was also there. Despite the quote in Nightmare of Ecstasy that Hyde produced Criswell Predicts in the late '60s, the show itself—originally 15 minutes of filler also sometimes repeated and scattered throughout the day's schedule—aired from 1953 through 1961, initially on LA's Channel 13 KCOP. Could Ed and Buddy have linked up that early, and with Cris? 

This is just the starting point for this Odyssey, ultimately endeavoring to identify the nature of Ed's work for Mayor Sam Yorty. As an accountant would say, we are also promised positive externalities. Namely Criswell. And a better handle on Cris' relationship with Ed, as well as a clearer understanding of the famed psychic's TV series, radio show, and syndicated newspaper column. 

As one final bit of ephemera: Criswell name-checked Buddy Hyde in that selfsame column, which by then was in its final days. (Also a common theme in Criswell Predicts: predicting that female impersonators would stage The Women in Vegas, "creating a new trend.") By 1975, Criswell's column retained the tagline "An Accurate Glimpse of Your Future," but Cris' picture had been replaced by a simple graphic image of an observatory and a few surrounding planets. 

Ed's star, too, had disappeared from the firmament, though not for long.

We'll return to the Wood Yorty Odyssey here, in future Ed Wood Wednesdays, and untangle the impossible story of Ed's involvement in the day-to-day dialogue of the national political scene during a cataclysmic time. 

And—oh yeah—while he was involved in that, he was also writing porn.

NOTE: Additional newspaper clippings related to Buddy Hyde and Criswell can be found at the Ed Wood Wednesdays Tumblr.

Let's judge the 2016 candidates by their website photos

Circle gets the square! One of these people could walk away with $10,000 in cash and prizes!

We're all very busy these days. Well, I'm not. But you probably are. And I'm guessing you don't have time to get to know all the candidates for president: who they are, how they spell their names, and what they generally stand for. You may only have enough time to visit each candidate's official campaign website for 5 to 10 seconds apiece, stare at the picture on the homepage, and move on with your life. After all, that gaping chest wound of yours isn't going to cauterize itself. The clock is ticking. Well, don't you worry, because I've visited the websites of the major remaining candidates, and I'm here to make some snap judgments about them, drawing mostly on purely superficial crap. Please do join me.

BEN CARSON

Talk to me. Pull up a chair and bend ol' Benny's ear for a while. That's why he's here.

HOT TAKE: Okay, this is just plain weird and unsettling. Ben Carson is the only one of the major candidates whose welcome photo seems to have been shot in a gray, featureless void. All the other candidates opted for real, recognizable locations. Was this pic actually taken in one of the corridors on the Death Star? Is that what's happening here? That queasy half-smile of his is creeping me out, as is his leaning-forward posture, and the way he has his hands folded. Is he a Bond villain? A serial killer who only kills other serial killers? "Heal * Inspire * Revive." Is this a political campaign or a goddamned day spa? Anyway, I have this theory that the candidates' photos will reveal how liberal or conservative they are. You'll notice that Dr. Carson is all the way to the right in his picture. Enough said. Also, couldn't he get a comfier chair? That's the kind of chair you sit in when you're sent down to the principal's office for talking in class.

DONALD TRUMP

Is that a peace sign? What is this, Woodstock? GET A JOB, HIPPIE!

HOT TAKE: Of all the candidates whose sites I visited, Trump had the biggest welcome image. No surprise there. I actually couldn't get the whole thing on the screen at once, so the red banner with the the word TRUMP at the top got cut off. Sorry. The rest is what you see here: Donald doing the classic "bunny ears" thing over his own campaign slogan, as if that slogan were some clueless underclassman he's been hazing all week. "Seniors rule! Freshmen drool!" You'll notice he's on the right side of the screen, too, just like Ben Carson, and they both have that "I'm a bad widdle boy" smile going. The most badass thing about Trump's site is that you can get there by typing jebbush.com into your web browser. Try it. I'm not kidding. Otherwise, this is very dull. I wanted everything to be written in money font, with maybe a shiny gold border around the edges. Step up your Scrooge McDuck game, Donald!

TED CRUZ

I swear, this is not a picture of a crooked faith healer.

HOT TAKE: Ooh, black and white! Classy! Notice where Ted is standing? Right in the center of the picture. I think that's to show that he's not an extremist like Trump or Carson, even though the former just called him "a maniac," so make of that what you will. It cannot be ignored that Ted Cruz has basically given himself a halo here, and he has his hands pressed flat together like a Precious Moments figurine of a praying child, so he's just maybe courting evangelicals with this image. Much more interesting to me, though, is the rambling slogan at the right. It's just a delicious, cheesy omelet of pure nonsense. "I'm running for President because we need to build a dynamic nation where anybody with nothing can achieve anything." So, conversely, nobody with something can achieve nothing? I'm lost, Ted. Stop praying to baby Jesus for a second and toss me a life preserver. At least he knows how to smile properly.

MARCO RUBIO

RubioBot is ready to lead America. And he makes crushed ice, too!

HOT TAKE: Well, are you ready for a new American century? A century in which the cyborgs take over the country and wrest control of the government from us lowly, imperfect meatbags with all our messy emotions? What is this thing you hu-mans call love? Marco Rubio™ is not programmed for love. Marco Rubio™ is confused by hu-mans and their hu-man feelings, but he cannot help but be curious and perhaps even yearn for something beyond the parameters of his pre-programmed system specifications. There's a prog rock concept album in this somewhere. His heart is human. His blood is boiling. His brain IBM. Even those words in the lower left-hand corner sound like something a lurching, clanking 1950s robot might say in a monotone. "Must.... watch... videos... Need... sensory... stimulation... Beep... Boop..." Another odd decision here is to put the candidate behind what looks like a tinted windshield. Is that so we won't touch him and get our oily hands on his delicate circuits?

JEB BUSH

"That's how you're gonna beat 'em, Jeb! They keep underestimating you."

HOT TAKE: This campaign has been an endless, joyless death march for Jeb Bush, and the strain is clearly showing in this picture. The mouth is smiling. The rest of the face is... not. It's too late to say we're sorry. How would he know? Why should he care? Please don't bother trying to find him. He's not there. Saturday Night Live just made fun of the poor guy for using "Jeb!" with an exclamation point as his campaign slogan, but I kind of like it. It reminds me of the old days of the Internet, when there were exclamation points at the end of seemingly every name. Maybe I'm misremembering that, and it was just Yahoo! Anyway, I don't know if Jeb (or Jeb!) stole the red "I'm In" button from Ted Cruz or vice versa, but I genuinely like the fact that he's being photographed with American servicemen. After all, they're the ones who ultimately have to risk their asses for the politicians of world. Why shouldn't they be front and center in this election?

HILLARY CLINTON

She goes through so much Purell on the campaign trail. So, so much Purell.

HOT TAKE: Hillary has, by far, the most modest welcome image of any of the major candidates. It's actually more of a banner and only takes up half the screen. By the bottom half of the screen, Hil's already into her talking points. ("Hillary's economic plan: raise middle-class incomes." Sounds pretty sweet.) In this respect, she's the anti-Trump. I wonder if this is just efficiency, or are women in politics expected to maintain a certain level of decorum and refrain from bragging about themselves too much, lest they upset the menfolk? I sensed that Condoleezza Rice was under this particular kind of strain when she was Secretary of State under Bush #2. It was like Condi was always telling herself, "Be good. Smile. Be nice." And then she'd go home at the end of the day and just scream for a half hour until her vocal cords were shredded. Anyway, you'll notice that Hillary is all the way to the left of the screen in her picture. And clad in bright blue, too! Is this subtext or just regular text?

BERNIE SANDERS

That's very interesting, sir, but can you PLEASE tell me your order? There are people waiting.

HOT TAKE: Well, Bernie ruined my theory. He's the furthest left on the political spectrum, but he's standing on the right in this photo. GODDAMN YOU, SANDERS! Anyway, the Bern-meister always looks haggard and disheveled whenever he's filmed or photographed, but at least his hair is relatively under control here. Smiling's not his bag, though. Never has been. I wonder about the shirtsleeves. They don't reach his wrists, yet they're not really rolled up in the classic "let's get to work!" fashion either. It's like he pushed his sleeves to the top of his forearms and rebuttoned the cuffs just south of his elbows. Is that comfortable? If not, is that why he's so grouchy all the time? It's hard to tell at this size, but I think he's wearing jeans. That's a nice touch. Really, a button-up shirt with jeans is how I dressed for work for years, so Bernie and I have a lot in common, fashion-wise. I also notice something odd about the photos of Bernie, Hillary, and Jeb. Why are there never any black people in these pictures? All three candidates are awash in a sea of peach-colored flesh.

Peggy Gravel for President! (We might as well.)

Do you want REAL change in America? Peggy Gravel's the woman for the job!

Foreign poster for the film.

Folks, I have found the ideal candidate for the 2016 presidential election. She's tough, she's well-spoken, and she's definitely not afraid to assert herself. Better yet, she accurately portrays the belief system of millions upon millions of voting Americans. Her name is Peggy Gravel, and she's a married mother of two from the Guilford section of Baltimore.

Does it matter that Peggy Gravel is merely a fictional character played by Mink Stole in John Waters' 1977 film Desperate Living? I honestly don't think so. One of the current GOP frontrunners, Donald Trump, is essentially a fictional character invented for the media, and all of the candidates are "playing a role" to one extent or another. So why not go all the way and nominate a made-up character from a movie?

Does it matter that Peggy Gravel is a murderess with a long history of mental illness? Of course not! This is America, the land of second, third, fourth, and fiftieth chances! And, besides, you think all those previous presidents who served in the military didn't kill bunches of people? Peggy only killed one, maybe two people, tops. As for the mental illness thing, have you heard Ben Carson lately?

But don't take my word for it. Let Peggy Gravel explain herself in her own words. Here are some choice Gravel quotes for the media to pore over. (NOTE: Feel free to substitute "America" for "Mortville" and "country" for "town" when quoting Peggy.)

Celebrity Halloween Masks: A Primer

The Point Break gang in their presidential masks. Does this arouse you in any way?

Blame it on Point Break. Without that popular 1991 thriller and its quartet of bank robbers disguised as, respectively, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Lyndon Johnson, the phenomenon of presidential Halloween masks would not be as prominent as it is today, in my opinion. The fad didn't start with Point Break, obviously, but Katherine Bigelow's film kept it going far beyond all reason. As it is, the small-but-vital industry of latex masks designed to look like rubbery, hollow-eyed likenesses of famous people is still dominated to this very day by prominent politicians: presidents, ex-presidents, presidential candidates, and even a couple of powerful governors and congressmen. I wanted to do a little article about "celebrity Halloween masks," but I kept running into the same few faces over and over. It doesn't really matter which site you're exploring. When it comes to masks based on famous people, presidents and presidential wannabes rule all. Pretty much every Chief of State from Kennedy to Obama is represented in this form. The best you can hope for is a really off-the-wall, inaccurate likeness. Take this truly awful so-called "George Bush Sr." mask, which looks to me more like Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The thing on the left is supposed to be George Bush, Sr. The thing on the right is Flea.

Aside from anomalies like that, what will you really find if you go shopping for celebrity Halloween masks in 2015? Exactly what you'd expect: a lot of Obamas, Hillarys, and Trumps, a handful of Chris Christies and Arnold Schwarzeneggers, plus some leftover Mitt Romneys, John McCains, Sarah Palins, and even a few stray Newt Gingrinches if you really go looking. Because of his marital proximity to presumptive Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton is back in a big way as a mask this year. Among the other ex-presidents, Richard Nixon is still the most popular, of course, but there are a surprising amount of Reagan masks, too. Dubya's still up there in popularity. Bush, Sr., JFK, and Carter are less common but not unheard of, while LBJ is relatively scarce. And as for Gerald Ford masks? Sorry, Ger, but those are strictly Ebay collectibles in 2015. There are plenty of Rob Ford masks, though, in honor of the buffoonish, crack-smoking ex-mayor of Toronto. In case you're planning to do a hyper-complete Point Break remake with a nine-man robbery team, here are all the presidents from Kennedy to Bush II as Halloween masks.

American History Latex: Nine ex-presidents as Halloween masks.

That'll stick with you for a while, won't it? Yep, it's difficult to get those images out of your mind. Once seen, they cannot be unseen. You'd think that presidential Halloween masks were scary enough on their own, but there is a weird sub-trend happening in this sector of the industry: rendering the politicians as literal monsters from horror movies and TV shows, often zombies, but occasionally vampires and Frankenstein monsters, too. In case you've decided never to sleep again, here's a selection of those types of masks. In this grouping, you'll see zombie Bill Clinton, two different zombie Hillarys, a couple of zombie Obamas, vampire Obama, zombie Dubya, and my personal favorite, Reaganstein. All are available to those with valid credit cards. As Peter Sellers put it in Dr. Strangelove, "It requires only the will to do so."

These monster masks are most definitely NOT a graveyard smash.

Okay, then. There's that. But what about non-political celebrity masks? Do they exist? Eh, sort of. Back in 2010, as you no doubt remember, there was a very messy, widely-publicized power struggle going on in late night television, and this led to a mini-boom in the Halloween mask industry. Of course, the mask makers didn't have the right to use the names of the actual combatants, so a clever manufacturer called Faces by Rubies came up with generic aliases. Jay Leno was "Motor Mouth," David Letterman was "Talk Show Host," and poor Conan O'Brien was "Ex-Talk Show Host." This kind of sly gamesmanship is common in the Halloween costume industry, i.e. "We're not gonna use the real name, but you and I both know who this is supposed to be." The masks themselves were appropriately hideous and bore only a passing resemblance to the real-life comedians on whom they were modeled:

Let this image stay with you throughout the years, my darlings.

Conan O'Brien, in particular, took issue with the appearance of his wizened-looking mask. In a YouTube video uploaded shortly before the debut of his TBS talk show, the ex-Tonight/Late Night host complained: "I look like a burn victim. This is just horrible. This is the face of a 95-year-old man. This is a John McCain mask that they repurposed and slapped some Howdy Doody hair on." O'Brien revisited the mask in his own likeness in 2012, when as part of a Conan segment, he visited a costume shop and found the forlorn "Ex-Talk Show Host" mask among the store's wares. As a clerk giggled and cringed nearby, O'Brien read the description on the package: "Life-like replica of a 66-year-old man-child. Watch him desperately try to win your approval." O'Brien described this text as "very accurate" and then donned the mask himself to deliver a delusional monologue: "I'm still on the air! Why are you all laughing at me? I used to be on network!" This, in turn, led to a bizarre sequence in which the female clerk donned a Conan mask as well and the two Conans pretended to make out as "romantic" music played on the soundtrack.

Apparently, nothing in popular culture has captured the imagination of the Halloween mask industry since the Great Talk Show Wars of 2010. Well, that's not quite true. Charlie Sheen's druggy, hooker-y shenanigans in 2011 inspired a number of masks as well. But that was pretty much it. Frankly, I'm disappointed. There are at least two stores in my neighborhood with a wide variety of Halloween costumes for sale, and I visited both of them hoping to see a fresh selection of celebrity masks. You know what I found? A few politicians and pretty much nothing else. No doubt about it, the industry is in a slump. I was, however, encouraged to see that my local Party City still had a wonderfully creepy mask based on Jim Parsons' popular Sheldon Cooper character from The Big Bang Theory. Spend a good, long time staring at that eerie rubber face. Doesn't that look less like a lovable sitcom nerd and more like someone who would break into your house at night and slit your throat as you slept? Bazinga indeed.

This is supposed to be Jim Parsons, not Sam Donaldson.

P.S. I dug around a little online and found a second Sheldon Cooper mask for sale. This, I'm sure you will agree, is no improvement.

The last thing you see before you die.

I'm starting to develop a bit of Trump anxiety

My scarily-accurate representation of Donald Trump. The mouth should be bigger, though.

What if it happens?

What if Donald Trump actually manages to brag and boast and bluster and blunder his way into the Oval Office in 2016? I think it could happen. I mean, under normal circumstances, blatantly insane "outsider" political candidates like this are brought down by their own scandals, public gaffes, and embarrassing statements.

But what scandal could possibly derail the Donald's already scandal-besmirched life by this point? What hasn't he already done? 

And public gaffes and embarrassing statements are what he's all about. He feeds on them. The things that weaken other candidates actually make him stronger. He's like a Bizarro Superman who thrives on green Kryptonite. 

When I said recently that Trump could be the first person ironically elected to the presidency, I was only half-joking. I honestly think there are people who will vote for him just to see what would happen if he were elected. As if this great nation of ours were some kind of backyard science experiment!

Perhaps some humor will alleviate my Trump anxiety. In that spirit, I give you a video by a very talented editor named Dominic Nero. It is tastefully titled "Trump Dumps." If you have a strong stomach, enjoy.

(today's zomby) AND THE CHILLING WORDS OF A MADMAN

With today's Zomby, I wanted to try an experiment: what if this cartoon were written by notorious would-be assassin Arthur Bremer?

Bremer's diary

A little history for those not in the know: In 1972, the emotionally-troubled Arthur Bremer (b. 1950) made an attempt on the life of controversial segregationist politician George Wallace. The former Alabama governor was not killed by Bremer's four shots at close range, but he was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life before dying in 1998 at the age of 79. Bremer spent the next few decades in prison but was ultimately released in 2007. Besides the assassination attempt, Bremer is most famous for his bizarre, error-filled journals which were published under the title An Assassin's Diary in 1973. (Note: The dialogue in the cartoon above comes directly from that book.) So what's the connection to this feature? Well, to me, Arthur Bremer is very much the Ziggy of assassins -- not just because he failed but also because of his almost touchingly pathetic motives. Bremer was not a political extremist but instead was a nonentity, a nobody who thought that the assassination of a famous politician like George Wallace or Richard Nixon would give his life meaning or purpose. The poor schmuck even kind of looked like Ziggy, with his bland, rounded, nonthreatening features.

Harmless-looking Arthur Bremer

Personally, I think Ziggy is a very dangerous little man. The world treats him terribly, and yet he just stands there passively absorbing it all. But each mishap, each insult, each slight pushes him closer to being the next Arthur Bremer. May god have mercy on the snotty waiters, pushy salesman, and grouchy cashiers of the Ziggyverse when that happens. Incidentally, Bremer's diary was the partial inspiration for Martin Scorsese's film Taxi Driver and for Peter Gabriel's song "Family Snapshot."



Perhaps someday, I will do a long-form mashup of Ziggy and An Assassin's Diary. For now, this cartoon will have to serve as the pilot. I wish it were Ziggy himself speaking the punchline and not that goddamned parrot of his, but I have to work with the cartoons I'm given.