I’m sorry to hear that multiple sclerosis finally took the life of Teri Garr. She made everything she appeared in better, including “Young Frankenstein,” “Tootsie,” “Mr. Mom,” and so many more. To my knowledge, she’s the only late night guest to allow herself to be talked into taking a shower during the show. It happened on a 1985 episode of “Late Night With David Letterman,” which she appeared on to promote her new movie, “After Hours.” There was no camera in the shower, but she did shout at him from under the water, “I hate you! I don’t know why I’m doing this!” It was one of many memorable appearances she made with Dave in which he made it clear he liked her — a lot. So did I.
Earlier this week, I wrote about Jeff Bezos ordering the Washington Post not to endorse a presidential candidate despite editors having a piece praising Kamala Harris ready to go. Considering the lingering fallout from that decision, I have to wonder what constraints it will place on anchorman Brian Williams and producer Jonathan Wald when they present Amazon Prime’s first-ever streaming coverage of election results next Tuesday. Will they be able to openly criticize Trump if he makes a premature announcement that he’s won before all the votes have been counted? Will they be slow in reporting projections because they don’t want to anger the fascist madman? I’ve always liked Williams and am going to take a look at what he does that night, but if it becomes clear Bezos is pulling the reins and holding him back, then shame on all concerned.
While playing poker recently, I was sitting next to a thirty-ish guy who was talking about his girlfriend, who lives in Vancouver. I mentioned that I had been to that city in 1986 for the World’s Fair and found it to be both clean and lovely. He agreed. Then I asked him if he and his girlfriend had ever taken the ferry over to Vancouver Island, home to Victoria (the capital of British Columbia) as well as Butchart Gardens, the most magnificent botanical garden I’ve ever visited. He hadn’t heard of it, but immediately picked up his phone and said, “I’m going to ask her right now why she’s never told me about it!” I stopped him and suggested an alternative. Instead of blaming her, I said, “Why not save this information for a nice romantic time you can surprise her with?” The thought clearly hadn’t occurred to him, but he loved the idea and thanked me. I told him to chalk it up to the wisdom of an old guy.
Lastly, I saw a social media post this week from an entertainment reporter who was going to cover red carpet arrivals at a screening. I rolled my eyes because, in the post, she asked her followers what questions she should ask. This reporter was going to have maybe a minute or two to talk to celebs who showed up. If she can’t come up with enough of her own questions to fill that time, she should not have the job. I’m sure she’d defend her post by saying she wanted to make the audience feel engaged in the event, but all she did was reveal how vapid the whole situation was.