A common sight in Los Angeles during "Awards Season" (basically for the Oscars or Emmys) are billboards all over town for movies or shows -- or sometimes actors -- that say "For Your Consideration," directed at voters from the organization in question Or to be more subtle, some just say FYC, since at this point everyone in town knows what it means. And the trade papers of Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter tend to be filled with full-page ads for this, as well, and are more often where you'll see "For Your Consideration" ads for individual achievements, including the technical crafts. (Less so in this days of online content, but it's still prevalent.)
A couple days ago, I saw a rare and absolutely refreshing twist on this, killing two birds with one amusing but also admirable stone. It was a billboard promoting the TBS show, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.
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The New York Times broke a major story on Sunday about the relationship of Trump and the Kushner family to Deutsche Bank and money laundering. One of the more notable passages is -- “The transactions, some of which involved Mr. Trump’s now-defunct foundation, set off alerts in a computer system designed to detect illicit activity, according to five current and former bank employees. Compliance staff members who then reviewed the transactions prepared so-called suspicious activity reports that they believed should be sent to a unit of the Treasury Department that polices financial crimes.” As the Times reported, Deutsche Bank higher-ups bank rejected the recommendations and were never reported to the U.S. Treasury Department. Oddly, it does not appear that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was able to get this information. As a result, it seems likely that this could bring about another investigation, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning expert on taxes, David Cay Johnston (whose work I love, not that that adds any credibility here -- but still...). Just because a transaction (or multiple transactions) appear illegal doesn't mean it is, especially in real estate. But Johnston explains in pointed terms how reality in this instance lines up, “We know for a fact that Donald Trump has been involved in money laundering in the past, fined for it. We know that Deutsche Bank is fined over $600 million just for laundering money for Russian oligarchs..." and what we've now also found out is that Deutsche Bank's own computer system alerted them to "illicit activity" in Trump's foundation -- which we know for a fact was just shut down by the New York state Attorney General. We also know that though other banks refused to lend money to Trump, during that same period Deutsche Bank lent him $2.5 billion -- indeed when he became president, Trump owed them $300 million and was the bank's biggest creditor. As a side note, we also know that Trump has sued Deutsche Bank to keep it from releasing bank records that have been subpoenaed. So much for "full exoneration." So much for, "The Mueller Report is in, so it's all over." That was only Act One. It's only beginning. You can read the full Times article here. Just for the heck of it, lets end with one of my favorite songs by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock, though it's from their least-successful show, Tenderloin, a musical that dealt with the underbelly of New York City. Here's the song about graft, "How the Money Changes Hands." The guest contestant on the 'Not My Job' segment of the NPR quiz show, Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! is Steve Ballmer, the first business manager of Microsoft, later president of the company, and current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers NBA basketball team. As a basketball team owner, Ballmer is known for his wild enthusiasm, almost at the level of maniacal. His interview with host Peter Sagal never gets to the point of maniacally enthusiastic, but you can hear his profoundly-upbeat nature through every sentence.
From the archives. This week's contestant is Wiley Newbold from Morgantown, West Virginia. And I wave the white flag. I could hear the hidden song -- and hear it easily. But I just didn't have a clue what it was. Nor did contestant...though he did an admirable job on his own working his way through the possibilities to guess it. And it's a well-known enough song. As for the composer style, I'm sure some will guess it. But it's a style that overlaps with a few people, and I just didn't get it.
I was sorry to read about the passing of author Herman Wouk, passed away at the seriously-impressive age of 103. Among his many books, Wouk won the Pulitzer Prize for The Caine Mutiny. He was given the first-ever Lifetime Achievement award for fiction writing by the Library of Congress. Back in 2015, I posted a sequence from What's My Line?, from when he was a guest contestant on the show. I felt it only right and proper to post that video again today, along with what I wrote at the time. It's a wonderful segment, and one of my favorite from the show for it's fun twist, and for his cheery good nature. What I wrote was -- As I've noted, the great fun for me of the Mystery Guest segments on What's My Line? is when they have people on who you'd never expect to see on a TV game show. And this fits right in with that -- although officially it's not the "Mystery Guest" segment. However, the contestant is well-known enough that the panelists play the game with their masks on because he's a popular novelist. It's Herman Wouk, author of such classics as The Caine Mutiny, Marjorie Morningstar and The WInds of War, [as well as War and Remembrance -- the latter two which were made into acclaimed TV mini-series[. However, the segment is great fun for another reason -- and not just because of having a best-selling author on with panelist Bennett Cerf, head of Random House. It's because one of the panelists is the great radio comedian Fred Allen...and much earlier in Wouk's career (known for being such a serious, thoughtful writer), he worked on the staff for Fred Allen's comedy radio show. This is the full episode, but Herman Wouk comes in early, around the 2:30 mark.
The other day, a friend who is on Al Franken's email list sent me his latest note which explained he had had begun a new new podcast. In part, he wrote --
"Since I left, I’ve had so many folks ask me to re-enter the fray. Well, check out The Al Franken Podcast by going to AlFranken.com. Fray, here I am." His note was thoughtful, about some of his projects, but being Al Franken it was also pretty funny, starting -- "It’s great to be back in touch with you! How have you been? That’s terrific! But rather than making you go to the trouble of setting things up with iTunes or TuneIn or any other podcast source, we make things easier for you (sometimes) at Elisberg Industry. Here's the debut episode -- |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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