The Sunshine Brothers

I wish this was the full show, but it’s at least a lot of it – 67 minutes – and it’s well-worth this treasure otherwise being lost.  It’s Dick Van Dyke and Jerry Van Dyke starring together in Neil Simon’s play, The Sunshine Boys.

This is from a five-performance the brothers did as a benefit at the Malibu Stage Company in Malibu, California, playing the comedy team of Lewis & Clark whose antipathy for one another during a 43-year career has kept them for speaking to one another in 11 years since they retired.  The production took place in April, 2011 when Dick was 85 and Jerry was 79.  Jerry directed, and had been bugging Dick for years to do the play and finally wore him done.  They subsequently repeated the show for three performances later that year in Texas. 

The sound quality isn’t very good, but acceptable enough as long as you turn the volume up.  Jerry has the bigger role here as ‘Willie Clark’ (played by Walter Matthau in the movie adaptation), I suspect because, if he had to bug Dick for years to do the show, his brother preferred the smaller part, as ‘Al Lewis’ (that George Burns did in the movie).  I think that the casting might have been better if they’d switched.  But I’m equally sure they’re doing the roles they wanted to.

There’s one other oddity.  For some reason, their production does not include the fictional team’s classic “doctor sketch” which the show builds to.  Instead, the Van Dykes do a brief song and some related banter (not in the play), including a joke that’s highly self-referential, though of a sort that’s “oh, what the heck, let’s throw it in” cute.  The best I can figure is that this helped keep the show shorter for them.  It’s a shame, since the doctor sketch is a very good homage to vaudeville, but it’s nice to see them sing together, and the new material is brief.  (In fact, I have the sense that they might have trimmed the play as an accommodation to the age of the stars.  When the show premiered on Broadway with Jack Albertson, as 'Willie' and Sam Levene as 'Al'-- who I saw both do it in Los Angeles -- they were 65 and 67 respectively, around 15 years younger than the Van Dykes.  Indeed, it's quite possible that this video, maybe, was the bulk of a trimmed-down production.  Just a guess.)

This isn’t the definitive production The Sunshine Boys.  And for all the things that aren’t great about the video, this is too historically wonderful to have a record of – and to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxgQ82d48zA

Popcorn in Bed

Here’s another “Popcorn in Bed” videos hosted by a young Canadian-American woman named Cassie, watching and commenting on a classic movie for the first time.   She watches this one alone.  When I saw she was going to watch “As Good as It Gets,” I wanted to see her reaction at the end, and decided to just jump through it.  But what I almost immediately realized is that because the film is such an extremely funny, blunt, edgy, even at times dark rollercoaster ride filled with unexpected turns, it fit overwhelmingly into a joy (even more than most of the others, fun as they are) for the very reason watching these videos do what they do best – showing her utterly bewildered reactions at almost every moment…as well as me getting to re-watch so much of such a great film.  So, I watched the whole thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiYK7mXhHRA

Bad Day at Black Rock

It was a tough day for Trump at NATO yesterday as he continually struggled to…well, make sense.

There he was, misidentifying Iran, the country he attacked and is literally at war with. As he put it --

“We had 111 missiles shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan.”

And there he was confusing a country with…well, something else entirely.  As he praised Turkey’s dictator Recep Erdogan of the host nation, Trump noted –

“And that’s why he runs such a successful and good company.” 

To his great credit, Trump did immediately recognize his mistake, that Turkey was not, in fact, a business enterprise, and quickly added, “country.” Something he failed to recognize, though, with the Islamic Republic of Japan.

And there he was, sitting next to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, when Trump nodded towards the Ukrainian leader and asked the press --

"Do you have a question for President Putin?”

On the good side, he can identify a giraffe.

So he says.  We haven’t actually seen the proof, mind you.

There was more, throughout the day, including saying he wanted to cut off all trade with our NATO ally Spain, and also refuse entry to any of the country’s officials.  Whether he has the authority to do that is another matter, especially since we have trade agreements.  With an ally.  And the moment when Trump hesitated what to call the JCPOA, President Obama's nuclear treaty with Iran, and finally settled on "JCPOC".

Person, woman, man, camera, TV.

There was an interesting segment yesterday on Nicolle Wallace’s show that dealt with Trump’s muddled day.  Her guests Tom Nichols, John Heileman and Michael McFaul (which is quite the Murderer’s Row of guests), and they were all excellent, but Nichols in particular stood out.  Sharp, detailed and so world-weary dismissive of Trump.  At one point, they played a clip of Trump saying something convoluted, and host Wallace, confused, asked Nichols what he thought Trump was trying to say.  Nichols thought for about three seconds and then recognized that the only honest answer he could give was a bored, dismissive shrug, immediately followed by, “I don’t know.”  Nicolle Wallace then jumped in to say how she’s actually a bit better at figuring these things out because she has a three-year-old child.  So, Nichols asked her, “Well, what do you think he was saying??”  And she started in on her analysis…but got SO twisted in trying to explain what she thought that…she just stopped cold and said, “Oh, I don’t know.”

But for me, the Trump moment that stood out the most was not him having one of his dementia moments of forgetfulness – and let’s be clear, if President Biden had referred to Iran as “the Islamic Republic of Japan.”  Or identified the nation of Turkey as a “company.”  Or called someone sitting next to him who was not Vladimir Putin “Putin.”  Or done all of that on the same day, the media would have a field day and that would have been the headline story.  As perhaps in this case, it should have been, but this is seen as just “Trump being Trump,” which is true – but Trump being Trump is an 80-year-old man with dementia – but rather was Trump putting his mania on full display.

Wrapping his conference up, Trump, of course, made it all about himself.

“They respect us as a country," Trump said. "They didn't respect us two years ago. They laughed at us. NATO laughed at us, everybody laughed at us. They don't laugh anymore.”

“And they're, you know, just again, if you could have seen the respect and the love in the room and it's love really for the country, for our country. I don't want to say ‘me’ because you'll say, oh, he's so conceited. He's such a conceited person. But they do.”

“I mean, you know, they, like the job I'm doing,” Trump continued. “They said, ‘We love, sir, we love you.’ These are grown people saying that. Isn't that nice?”

“Maybe, I don't know, maybe they're trying to get to me. And, in a way they did, because there was tremendous unity in that room."

To start with, no, people don't say Trump is "conceited." They say he's a "malignant narcissist," which is actually a medical term for a sickness. Someone who will even burn down his own house if he doesn't get his way. Someone who takes pleasure in the suffering of others.

Not "conceited."

We could only wish for “conceited.”

And furthermore, yes, they do actually laugh at Trump.  We've seen "caught-on-tape" video of that. The ridicule is hard to miss.  And, no, there was not “tremendous unity” in that room.  Unless you mean among all the leaders who were not Trump.  Unity??  This after Trump blasted NATO, insisted yet again that he wants to own Greenland, and said he wanted to stop all trade with NATO partner Spain.

But no, to Trump, all he heard – all he ever hears – in a mythical voice rumbling around his head telling him, “Sir, we love you.”  Something I wouldn’t be surprised to learn, is something he hears even when he’s in a room alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUhJw6pyFUc