Another one of my rants

Interesting article in USA TODAY this week (they’re more than just pie charts y’know) about all the hidden travel expenses that hotels, airlines, and rental car firms slip in. They think they’re being clever. What the article doesn’t say is this: How much are they all losing on good will and repeat customers?

Let’s look at hotels. Ever check the prices in honor bars? Four mini-Oreos: $19. A little tin of cashews: Your monthly car payment. Should you be desperate enough to buy anything you’ll notice it’s stale because that same package of Oreos has probably been there for six months. I’m reminded of NBA goofball, Benoit Benjamin. It’s his rookie season. He goes on the team’s first road trip. He stays at a nice hotel. He sees the honor bar – all the food and little liquor bottles, and thinks “Wow, what great free stuff!” So he empties it all into his suitcase and off he merrily goes. The team gets a bill for $3000.

The point is: people who aren’t as clueless as Benoit Benjamin recognize that the hotels are taking advantage of them. And they resent it. So when hotels (and airlines and car rental companies) cry that they’re not making enough profit, the public says “We’ll sell you a Kleenex for $30.”

Room service. In addition to inflated prices for the always mediocre/always cold/always soggy food, some hotels also slip in a service charge and gratuity. What’s the difference between the two? And most hotels don’t tell you gratuity is included so many customers add on yet another tip. When they realize this, no amount of free little bottles of conditioner will appease them. 

Happy to say though that hotels are now getting hoisted on their own petards. Dollar charges to use the phone? Gonesky. We all have our own phones. Some hotels charge $12-$20 a day for internet service. Screw that. Many people have their own 3G plans. If the hotels charged $2 a day we might say, sure, for the high speed and convenience. But $12 when you can get the same plan for a month? Even the Kardashians know better (well, Khloe maybe). So instead of maybe 50 guests paying $2 a night, they get two paying $12. I’d do the math for them not without a service charge. And maybe an activity fee. 


The Golden Globes are held in the Beverly Hilton. Hundreds of media types cover it. So for that one night the hotel used to charge literally hundreds of dollars for one-day internet access, knowing the journalists needed to be on-line. Think of it. HUNDREDS of dollars. For Wifi.   Radio waves.  Today they’d be lucky to get ten bucks from the entire press corps. And I say to the Beverly Hilton “Join my network – KISSMYASS.”

In-room movies used to be a huge cash cow for hotels. But they charge as much for one semi-recent Adam Sandler leadburger as Netflix charges a month for everything. So now we watch movies we’ve downloaded or get streaming while in the room. And the porn we can access is hard-core. No more paying good money and not getting the money shots.

Ironically, it’s the high-end hotels that do most of the gouging. Go to a Comfort Inn and the internet is free along with a continental breakfast.  There's someone skinning a raccoon in the next room but still.  The USA TODAY article said a guest at a W. wanted six drinking glasses brought up to the room and the hotel wanted to charge $1.50 a glass.

The high-end hotels feel they can get away with this nonsense because of business expense accounts. And in that regard I have mixed feelings. When someone from Time-Warner gets outrageously overcharged by the Beverly Hilton, whose side are you on?

Airlines charge ridiculous prices for food. All that has accomplished is pissing off travelers and boosting the business of every airport Burger King. Yes, that Double-Whopper is going to close up an artery but it still costs less than an American Airlines snack pack which contains three Wheat Thins and a morsel of cheese.

Airlines will quote you one price for economy class but then when you book (on line because they charge you to speak to an actual person sitting in Tulie, Greenland) you find all the decent seats cost extra. An aisle is an upgrade these days. How many times over the last few years have you thought about going somewhere but decided the air travel was just too expensive and the hassle too great so you bagged it?

Advertisers now only go after younger demographics. Why? Because their contention is younger people are just starting to establish brand preferences. Us old crones (35 up) are set in our ways. We’ll never change toothpaste brands again, even if a new one comes along that actually cleans teeth. Obviously, Corporate America places a very high value on brand identification.

So why screw it up by being so blatantly greedy that you chase customers away? You spend billions to advertise and lose a potential life-long customer because you charge for drinking glasses? Is this good business sense?

Adding hidden expenses and inflating prices are practices that is backfiring.  Yes, I know profit margins are less and these mega-conglomerates have to be creative in finding new streams of revenue. But give us something for what you’re charging.

This is my concluding message to hotels, airlines, and any big business looking to slip things by us: Beware! There is a Napster out there with your name on it.

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For your Emmy consideration: Not the usual suspects

Got my Emmy ballot. Can’t say that I’ve watched all the shows or seen all the Emmy screeners. ( In some cases, are you kidding? "For your consideration:  ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA?") But of the true contenders, I have tried to sample a few.

What usually occurs is that Academy members ultimately write down the same names. So with apologies to Jon Hamm and Tony Shaloub (who will probably get nominated for MONK again even though it’s no longer even on the air) I would like to suggest a few worthy names you might not be considering.

Timothy Olyphant for JUSTIFIED. It’s amazing that someone can play a character who is so fucked up and yet so ultra cool. He does it with subtlety, charm, inner strength, and most impressive – a hat.

While we’re on JUSTIFIED, Walton Goggins deserves a nod as Boyd Crowder (red neck poet) as does Neal McDonough as a villain so mesmerizing and weird that they should have changed the title of this show set in Kentucky to BLUE GRASS VELVET.

Kelsey Grammer in BOSS leaves no piece of scenery unchewed, but he’s so commanding and displays so many sides of this complex evil-tragic-dynamic character that he is worth considering.  It's like FRASIER meets THE SHINING.


Damian Lewis and Clair Danes of HOMELAND not only deserve to be nominated but also to win. Danes is the Meryl Streep of TV and Lewis can sure play a character who keeps secrets. Did you know he’s British?

It’s time for Christina Hendricks to finally get some Emmy love. She combines the best qualities of a fine actress and Jessica Rabbit.

Martha Plimpton raises RAISING HOPE.  Oh, and give her one for Best Guest Star in THE GOOD WIFE. 


Zoey Deschanel will get a nomination for THE NEW GIRL (deserved) but I’d like to see Krysten Ritter of DON’T TRUST THE B—IN APARTMENT 23 get a nod. Adorkable is fine but funny is better.

REVENGE is best served gold – Emily VanCamp wreaks delicious havoc.

For Best Supporting Actor & Actress in a Comedy: Just list the entire cast of PARKS & RECREATION.

And finally, dark horse of dark horses – Mary McCormick of IN PLAIN SIGHT. She tosses off one-liners with more ease and skill than most sitcom stars. And she too sometimes does it while wearing a hat.

Okay, those are some of mine. Who are some of yours?

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How accurate are Nielsen ratings?

No one really knows.

There are statistical models to support their validity. They’ve been doing it a long time and have revised and improved methods over the last fifty years. But still – one schlep in Clovis, New Mexico who hates Amy Poehler because she reminds him of a girl who once dumped him could represent 2,000,000 viewers.

With more and more people getting cable boxes or satellite boxes it’s easier to track just what is being watched. But those still don’t tell you WHO is watching. How many are in the room? What are their ages? How many left the room after the 15th vagina joke on 2 BROKE GIRLS (so five minutes in)?

And then there is the issue with shows on the DVR. How long do you give someone to watch a program before it no longer counts? Nielsen has a formula but is it valid or just arbitrary?   Last week I watched a sitcom episode that I had DVR’d and noticed there were Christmas commercials in it. I’m sure the sponsors could care less that I finally got around to it. And just because someone records a show doesn’t mean he’ll ever watch it.

And if you record a show and don’t watch it for weeks, is that your pattern or you were just on vacation?

How many viewers like a show but won’t watch it on the air, preferring to wait for the DVD to come out so they can watch the whole season at once? So you’re big fans of the show but Nielsen doesn’t know that.

But wait! There’s more!

Watching content on-line. That’s become even more popular because there’s that much more television being streamed and with inexpensive devices like AppleTV you can watch these shows on your big screen TV.  And don't forget about people now watching shows on their iAnythings.  The A.C. of A.C. Nielsen stands for “Aw crap!”

And yet, all programming and advertising decisions are based on the Nielsen numbers.  Yes, it's a crooked card game but it's the only game in town. 

Radio had a similar problem. Ratings were taken via diaries issued to listeners. On good faith, you were expected to keep a detailed log of what station you listened to, when you turned it on and when you turned it off. So essentially it charted the listening habits of diligent people.

And then a few years ago the People Meter was introduced. This is a little device that looks like a beeper. You just take it with you. It picks up and documents any radio signal you hear. How accurate is this an indicator? You could be in your car, stopped at a light for two minutes and the clown next to you has Eminem blasting. The People Meter hears it and registers that you -- a 78 year-old white lady from Beverly Hills --  listens to a hip hop station.

Still, it’s a far more accurate system than the diaries. And interestingly, the results when they started using People Meters were very different from the diary input. Big case in point: the oldies format.

Before People Meters, the oldies format was out of favor. Lots of station that had been playing oldies for decades saw their numbers dwindle and bailed on the format. Even WCBS-FM in New York, maybe the country’s number one oldies station, abandoned the format for the ill-advised “Jack” format.

Then People Meters came along and what do you know? Not only did listeners still listen to oldies stations, there were way more of them and listened way longer than anyone had ever thought. WCBS-FM is back to playing the Beatles. In some markets, the oldies station -- once thought passe -- is the number one station in town.  That's a big discrepancy between diaries and People Meters. 


Might the same be true of television? If an accurate measurement could be made, might we find that shows we thought no one was watching actually had decent numbers? How many series got cancelled that should have been given another chance? Is it possible that even fewer viewers watch WHITNEY than NBC thinks and they renewed a certified bomb?

This always reminds me of the chain gang in football. These are the guys who stand off on the sidelines with the yardage markers. When a ball is close to a first down the chain gang is summoned out to the field. Two guys run out, they place the markers down and rule. Is the nose of the ball over the line? We’re talking inches here. Entire games sometimes depend upon these calls. And two nudniks run out to the field, not even in a straight line, and their word is final. Huh? In this day and age of high technology they can’t install lasers that accurately tell you whether the football has crossed the first down plane?

And the NFL could install this hardware. At least TV has an excuse – they don’t have such sophisticated methods of calibration. Damn Steve Jobs for dying before he could solve this problem too!

In the meantime, the livelihood of thousands of people in the television and advertising industry still depend on the two nudniks zig-zagging their way to mid-field.

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The scene I'd like to see

INT. HOTEL SUITE -- Day

A CANDIDATE IS HAVING A SCOTCH.   HIS CAMPAIGN ADVISER ENTERS.

ADVISER: I’ve prepared your speech for tonight's Religious Council Dinner.

CANDIDATE: Which God do I believe in for this one?

ADVISER: Still waiting on the polls, sir.

CANDIDATE: How religious are these nimrods?

ADVISER: Somewhere between tolerance-for-all and wearing sheets.

CANDIDATE: Fine. Just no kneeling or dunking anything.

ADVISER: Check. Singer Amy Grant will introduce you.

CANDIDATE: Oh. Then I will have something in common with this organization. We all want to fuck her.

ADVISER: Not according to Gallop. She trails Faith Hill by a wide margin. And Carrie Underwood – off the charts.

CANDIDATE: You and your polls. They’re all bullshit.


ADVISER: Sir, they’re accurate within a .05% margin of error. Except for audience testing on JOHN CARTER. Hard to believe Disney could miss that badly.

CANDIDATE: According to my non-scientific survey, no one in America watches television or movies anymore.

ADVISER: Sir, how can you say that?

CANDIDATE: Have you seen any of the shows that depict American politics?

ADVISER: No. I just watch DEADLIEST CATCH and GLEE.

CANDIDATE: They all portray us as back-stabbing, lying, low-life, buffoons.

ADVISER: Really? Then insiders must be consulting on those shows.

CANDIDATE: It’s staggering!  On VEEP, the chick from SEINFELD plays the Vice-President and is completely brain-dead. Her staff is one Iago after another. Then there’s BOSS starring Frasier. Jesus, everyone on that show fucks over everyone else. It’s how I imagine the William Morris Agency to be.  Or Shutter Island. And then that movie about Sarah Palin. According to that she was so fucking stupid she didn’t even know what countries fought in World War II.

ADVISER: Well, give them points for accuracy.

CANDIDATE: In all of these shows everyone swear like sailors. Including the fucking candidates. You watch the Sarah Palin movie, you’d think John McCain was in DEADWOOD. The general level of cynicism and distrust is overwhelming.

ADVISER: What about WEST WING?

CANDIDATE: A.) That was years ago, and B) that wasn’t about real politics. That was Candyland with people who talked fast. Today’s shows are way more realistic. And that’s why I believe no one watches television.


ADVISER: Because Americans would be so disheartened if they did?


CANDIDATE: No. Because I don’t understand how any reasonably intelligent person – and by that I mean one who knows that Nazis were the bad guys – could watch these shows and still buy into the bullshit we deliver to the public. How can anyone listen to our highly crafted speeches and believe we believe a single word of what we say? The photo ops are obviously so staged. I’m really going to get the Hispanic vote by eating a taco at some fucking fiesta? I’m honestly going to get more women voting for me because I wear the red tie over the yellow tie? It’s all so calculated, orchestrated, artificial and the worst part is – for the most part we still get away with it.

ADVISER: Well, BOSS is on Starz so no one sees that.

CANDIDATE: But they do see the others. And there was that George Clooney movie, IDES OF MARCH. Same thing. And if you can't vote for George Clooney, then hell, what's the point of the Constitution?  Face it, what we really do and what we’re really like is a worse kept secret than Barry Manilow being gay.

ADVISER: So what are you suggesting? That you drop the F-bomb at the Religious Council Meeting tonight? Say what you really believe? “Hi, I’m Jim Turner, I’m running for Governor, and I want to fuck Amy Grant!”?


CANDIDATE: You’re right, of course. I’d never win.

ADVISER:  She has something like fifteen kids!


CANDIDATE:  It’s just somewhat sad, don’tcha think? Here we are, supposedly the brightest, most informed people in the nation, and we only use those gifts to manipulate the public for our own personal gains.


ADVISER: Barry Manilow is gay?


CANDIDATE: (resigned): Get me the red tie.

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Throwing Neil Young out of the store

Here's another excerpt from my new book, THE ME GENERATION... BY ME (GROWING UP IN THE '60s), available for Kindle users.  Just go here or click on book cover on the right.  My sincere thanks to those of you who have downloaded it.  The paperback version will be released very soon.  Did I mention I do this blog for free and a great way to support this site AND receive literally hours of literary enjoyment is to buy this book?   (Hey, at least I'm not saying buy this book or I shoot this dog.   Yet.) 

This is from 1966.  I just got a job in the mall at Wallich's Music City Records.  

Considering that my classmates were all boxing groceries or changing the grease traps at McDonald’s, I considered myself extremely lucky to be hawking 45’s.

I manned the singles counter. That meant I helped customers, restocked the bins, and let people into the listening booths. Just like in the Hollywood store, you could sample albums for free. A lot of rock bands lived in nearby Topanga Canyon and less-nearby Laurel Canyon and would slither down the hill to check out the competition. The great Captain Beefheart was a Wallichs regular!

We had one rule: no smoking pot. We didn’t want the 70-year-old grandmother to get a contact high following Captain Beefheart in the booth, not to mention those glass cubicles served as the store window. Public displays of illegal behavior were bad for the store’s image.

The biggest transgressor was the Buffalo Springfield’s Neil Young. And he was a shithead. I used to throw him out once a week. Plus, he slept with and dumped a girl I had a crush on so I took every opportunity to kick his raggedy ass to the curb.

Two notable co-workers: Steve Hall, who went on to become a world-renowned pianist/ recording artist and died way too young. And Skip, who frequently brought his pet ocelot to work. I pleaded with Skip to lock it in a listening booth with Neil Young.

Night managers would come and go. These were usually alcoholics who owned decent suits. They’d generally last about three months. One night manager we had for awhile, who was not on the sauce was Nik Sullivan. I once asked him what he did before this and he modestly confessed he played guitar in a group. I said, “Really? Which group? Any one I’ve heard of?” He said, “Yeah, Buddy Holly and the Crickets.” “Oh bullshit!” I said. He shrugged, meandered over to the Buddy Holly section, pulled out an album, and son of a bitch, there he was.

Nik is on the left

Talk about being extremely lucky. He escaped death twice. First when he decided not to board that doomed flight that took Holly’s life, and second when I let a robber into his office who had a gun.

In fairness, I didn’t know he was a robber. Hey, he didn’t wear a mask. I was thrown. Instead, he wore a tailored suit and said he was the manager of the Hollywood branch. He had done his homework. He knew Nik’s name. So when he asked if Nik was in the office I said, “Sure, go on back.” He walked out five minutes later with a week’s receipts after pointing a loaded pistol at Nik’s head. Where is an ocelot when you need one?

Nik didn’t blame me, said anyone in my place would have done the same thing; still it’s always nagged at me that I almost got a Cricket killed.

For more samples and to order, here's where you go.  Thanks!

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Now this is what I call a wedding proposal

I predict this will be copied in seven new romcoms within the next year alone.

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Friday Questions. It is Friday, right?

Here are this Friday’s Friday Questions. Leave yours in the comments section. I’ll be doing some bonus Question days because they’re starting to pile up and I want to get to as many of them as possible.

Texas 1st is 1st:

I was watching the 1st season episode of Cheers called "Now pitching: Sam Malone." In it, Sam does a commercial for a beer. It really worked as a commercial with the setup. It even felt like it would work in the world today, maybe with a current era pitcher in Sam's role, and a real beer for a client. was this something you had seen, or did this come about from you and David?

That was a parody of a beer campaign that was popular at the time. I think for Miller Lite. We used former Red Sox great, Luis Tiant. It took about twenty takes, but I didn’t care. Got to hang out with El Tiante!

I've worked with a number of athletes.  Most are just...okay as actors.   As long as you don't place too much comedy burden on them.  The exception was Kevin McHale.  He was fantastic.  We not only gave him more to do during the week, but we brought him back for another episode.  I still think he's wasting his time in basketball.  He could have a future!

Bradley wonders:

Before computers, did you type up your own scripts or was that job given to someone else? Also, do you still have copies of these old scripts? I can imagine the early ones only ever existed on paper (and TV, of course).

When my partner David Isaacs and I began we carved the scripts into rocks. Seriously, when we started we’d get together and David would take down the script in longhand on college notebooks. I would then type them. We bought a used IBM Selectric that resulted in my first hernia.

When we wrote our first couple of screenplays we splurged and hired a woman to type the scripts for us. This was all "pre-computer".

Once we got on staff of MASH we still wrote in longhand but had our assistant, the wondrous Ginny, type the drafts.

Things changed on CHEERS. We learned how to dictate scripts to our assistant. And that’s how we’ve done it ever since.

Yes, I do have original drafts of our old scripts. I also have all the handwritten notebooks and outlines. I keep waiting for the Smithsonian to call but they never do.

I also have all my scorebooks from all my years of calling baseball.  I keep waiting for Cooperstown to call.  And waiting... and waiting... and waiting... 

Anonymous (please leave a name, even a Klingon one) asks:

How much do announcers get together? You were just in Cleveland, did you see Tom Hamilton, etc.? Are there any you particularly enjoy spending time with?

Also, most people love or hate their hometown announcer but are there any whom you think are undiscovered gems?

Announcers from various teams do socialize together. Tom Hamilton and I have been friends since we were both in the minors in 1988. I was in Syracuse and Tom was in Columbus. Same with me and Gary Cohen of the Mets (Pawtucket), Greg Brown of the Pirates (Buffalo), Terry Smith of the Angels (Columbus), and Vince Controneo of the A’s (Iowa).

I pretty much hang out with all the opposing announcers, but if I had to pick one – Eric Nadel of Texas (pictured: right) is probably my best bud on the circuit. We get together whenever our two clubs play and correspond frequently.  Imagine the shit I gave him when the Mariners scored 21 runs against the Rangers Wednesday night! He’s also a terrific announcer, by the way. So I hang out hoping that some of his brilliance will rub off on me.  I'm waiting... and waiting... and waiting...

For undiscovered gems – Andy Freed and Dave Wills, the radio team for the Tampa Bay Rays are awesome. Both are good in their own right and the chemistry they have together is special.  I used to listen to them even when their team was horrible. 

And finally, from mp:

I caught a bit of the M*A*S*H movie on HBO last week and it made me wonder about writing on a show that was adapted from a movie. (I know it was already running for a few seasons before you joined, but I am hoping you may be able to provide some insight.)

Before the show had time to set a new identity, how did the showrunners instruct the staff writers to regard the movie?

Easy. Larry Gelbart pretty much wrote the whole first season himself (not to mention seasons two through four). Along with Gene Reynolds, he forged the style and the rest of us just followed it.

When we came aboard, we first met with Gene who loaded us down with research material, history books, and the original book MASH by Richard Hooker.

Reading the book was very strange. The Hawkeye in the book was much more like the Hawkeye in the movie. So it was hard to merge Alan Alda with that character. Trapper was off the show by that point so that wasn’t an issue, but imaging Hawkeye from the text was like watching a 3D movie without the glasses.

Have a great weekend! And if you're looking for reading material (hint hint), you're welcome to order my new book.  The Kindle version is available now.  Paperback soon.  Here's where you go.   Many thanks.

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