Peter Pan Goes Wrong

In celebration of the wife’s birthday a few days earlier, last week we went to the Ahmanson Theatre at L.A.’s Music Center downtown to see the hilarious “Peter Pan Goes Wrong,” a play where everything goes askew, from missed cues, forgotten and mangled lines, mishandled props, and falling sets. (We saw the Mischief Theatre Company’s earlier production, “The Play That Goes Wrong,” in the same venue in 2019, so knew what to expect.) While all the mayhem, of course, is carefully staged and choreographed, it’s nevertheless a sight to behold live and in real time!

Joining in the fun this evening as the guest narrator was actor Bradley Whitford (as himself) who also becomes a “victim” of the incompetence and miscues of the production. (At one point, appalled at how everything has gone awry, he mutters, “You know, I’m only doing this because of the strike!”) Actor Daniel Dae Kim is scheduled to take over the role near the end of August.

Upping the ante from the previous production is that actors must contend with a runaway revolving set—and since this is ostensibly a production of Peter Pan, out-of-control flying harnesses as well! (I should add that this production also encouraged a lot of audience participation—leading to some hilarious (and ad-libbed) retorts from the stage. (At one point, one of the actors blames the poor education system in the U.S. for the reason “Americans don’t understand Shakespeare!”)

And we totally lucked out in getting great seats—I purchased them last minute on Goldstar, an authorized discount ticket reseller. Though you choose the section you want to be seated, you don’t choose the specific seats. However, the site guarantees the best available seats at time of purchase and that our four tickets would be together. We selected rear orchestra and ended up in the middle of the house, about 20 rows from center stage! (Before the show, I even bumped into an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in about 15 years!)

Though traffic was awful getting there (we left early so that we could get dinner first not far from the venue), taking an hour to get from West L.A. to downtown, about 12 miles, it took only 20 minutes to get home after the show at 10:30 p.m.!

Actors' Gang Summer Shakespeare in the Park, 2023 Edition

Every weekend in August, the Actors’ Gang Theater in Culver City (adjacent to West L.A.) mounts a fun, free Shakespeare in the Park show that’s family friendly and usually a mashup between a Shakespeare play and other familiar pop culture characters/properties.

We’ve seen every production since it began in 2006, initially taking our kids. Past productions include “Harry Potter Hamlet,” “Much Ado About Avengers,” “Toy Story Tempest,” “Mighty Morphin Midsummer's Night Dream,” and “Titus the Clownicus.” They’re about an hour in length, with plenty of comedy, audience/children participation, and frequent musical/dance interludes. (Until a few years ago, every production included a Michael Jackson “Thriller” dance sequence featuring the whole company.) And like most Actors’ Gang productions, they’re usually edgy, with layers of comedy to entertain both children and adults. The productions use much of Shakespeare’s language, with the Shakespeare characters cleverly melded with their pop culture counterparts.

This year’s show was “Much Ado About Pooh,” as Christopher Robin, Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore visit Owl and his family in the Hundred Acre Wood. For those familiar with the play, Pooh and Piglet fill the roles of Claudio and Hero (as best friends rather than romantic partners), while Tigger and Rabbit are Benedick and Beatrice. (Eeyore plays the role of the troublemaking Don John.) Though there is trickery and deceit, by the end of the show, balance is restored, and the show’s narrator concludes with a short lesson about the importance of communication, forgiveness and understanding.

As I said, it’s a fun, entertaining show—nearby businesses and Culver City are often name-checked. And at this year’s show, the masquerade scene opens with a dance to “Pink Shoe Laces” that has recently become a popular TikTok dance challenge (I’ve known the song since I was a kid, since we had it in the house on a 45 record!). Prior to the show, they also told the audience that the day’s secret word was “mischief” and that everyone should scream when someone uttered it.

It’s great fun for children and adults—in fact, even though our kids feel they’ve outgrown it, my wife and I continue to go every year. Afterwards, we had a lovely late breakfast down the street at a restaurant in the flatiron-stye Culver Hotel, now a boutique hotel and historic landmark. (Since the MGM lot (now Sony) is located nearby, it housed many Hollywood stars in its heyday. It also was where the little people cast in the Wizard of Oz stayed.)

The show runs Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m. through August 27.

I should note that Actor Tim Robbins, one of the founders of the Actors’ Gang and currently its artistic director, was on hand the Sunday we attended as well. He provided a welcome, using the occasion to express support for the SAG-AFTRA strike. Robbins founded the Actors’ Gang in 1981 while a student at UCLA, during a period I was there. In fact, my now-wife and I caught many of their shows when they performed in other parts of L.A., including Hollywood, before settling in Culver City. In January, they re-mounted a play they had performed at UCLA, “Ubu the King”—after the show, I was able to chat with Robbins briefly and tell him I remembered the original UCLA production!

Meet My New Mac Mini

Bought a new Mac! However, after owning two iMacs previously (2009-17, then 2017-present), I decided to get a Mac mini. The mini is considered Apple’s affordable “entry level” Mac so I’d never considered one before. But after researching and seeing great reviews for it—especially now that it sports Apple’s new M2 chip—I learned that the machine is plenty robust, and figured out that I could buy more computer for less money, despite the additional expense of a monitor since the mini doesn’t come with either a monitor or a keyboard. Indeed, with the upgraded configuration of 16G RAM (I formerly had only 8G) and a 1TB hard drive, the entire system cost nearly $700 less than an iMac with identical specs!

Fortunately, for once, I planned ahead. After I purchased the Mac mini online and waited for confirmation that it was ready for pickup at my local Apple Store, I researched and purchased a monitor (a 27” ASUS ProArt Display) and an appropriate HDMI adapter to connect it to the mini. (BTW, Apple’s recommended standalone 4k Apple display monitor is $1599. So, yeah, no. The Asus monitor was listed on several lists as a sweet spot between quality and affordability, below $300.)

The main reason I wanted to upgrade was because my iMac’s operating system (OS) was way out of date, dating to 2019—but if I upgraded the old machine, many of the programs on it would no longer work and I would lose access to my data. Some apps had already stopped updating due to my out of date OS. Knowing this day was coming, I spent the past year preparing for this migration, intermittently looking for replacement applications, which I fortunately achieved for the most part. I’ve written about this elsewhere but, in short, I weaned myself away from Adobe’s Creative Suite by moving to ClipStudio Paint and the robust Adobe knockoffs from Affinity—Photo, Designer and Publisher (my last comic book issue was completed using this new software). As part of this effort, in 2021 I also migrated my website from html/css format (created on Adobe Dreamweaver) to WordPress!

I’m glad to report that the migration went relatively smoothly, using the Macs’ built-in Migration Assistant. I initially connected them via wifi, but learned that method could be very slow (some people reported it taking as long as 20–30 hours!). Connecting them via lightning cable didn’t seem to take, but I ultimately connected them with an Ethernet cable. Took about 6 hours, which I let run overnight.

When I returned to the machines in the morning, the new computer was up and running, with the same settings and customizations as my old computer. There were a few hiccups early on, but otherwise, I spent the morning checking functionality and updating some apps and drivers. My main concern was ensuring that my 11x17 scanner, purchased in 2009, still worked, as well as a few obscure apps I use to track sales and inventory—and they all did, the scanner thanks to an updated driver. At present, my graphics tablet doesn’t seem to be working properly and an updated driver doesn’t seem to be available, but that will be relatively easy to replace if necessary.

Since Macs have become generally chintzy in their number of USB ports (the mini comes with just 2), I was glad that my existing USB hub that connected peripherals like external backup drives and the scanner re-connected seamlessly to the new system. I should note that the new monitor provides an additional 4 built-in USB ports too! Best of all, the computer is amazingly fast—even in downloading files and connecting to the web. It’s clear that my old iMac had slowed down and become bottlenecked, so this upgrade was overdue and timely!

Found Footage from SDCC 2010!

My 5-year-old son appeared on a tv news story about Comic-Con in 2010, and I didn't know about it until last night!!!

So last night, I wanted to play something in the background that wouldn't require my focus, while I did some work. Looking for something on YouTube, I came across a random piece posted by the CBS television news affiliate in San Diego—it appeared to be an hour-long special about the history of the San Diego Comic-Con that dropped during the convention a few weeks ago. (It's 40 minutes, so I'm assuming that was without the commercials).

The opening had what I thought was a fairly brief yet grounded history of Comic-Con, followed by a series of reports from different years and decades of Comic-Con.

The story they included from a 2010 broadcast suddenly made me yell out, "Oh my God!" in delighted surprise. For there on the screen was my then 5-year old son being interviewed (he even gives his name) dressed as Batman. The reporter seemed quite smitten with him lol. He's even wearing a Rob Hanes Adventures pin button! (Btw, our son just turned 18 a few months ago). I only have a vague recollection of being told that he had been interviewed by some news reporter on the floor during the show, but wasn't present myself, and had never seen it nor knew whether anything had ever aired. We think that's my brother (not my wife) holding his hand. Of course, I immediately called out to my wife and son to come watch.

If I recall this incident correctly, I think they cut the best part of the interview. Apparently, the reporter asked him, "Who's your favorite superhero?" To which I was told he replied, "SUPERMAN!"

Below is the 16 second clip from the piece that I recorded and saved for posterity.

Click here to view the full news special.

[Update: In quickly scanning the show again, I just noticed that the 1996 segment does a quick pan of the Independent Comics area—just past my own booth that year, since it starts with cartoonist BC Boyer, who I shared a booth with and was neighbors with a few years during this period. At the end of the pan shot, you can see cartoonist/artist Paul Pope.]

Capsule Reviews (17)

The White House Plumbers (mini-series on Max)

I know the story of Watergate fairly well, but here’s a fresh take, told as high black comedy, primarily from the point of view of Watergate plumbers Howard Hunt (played by Woody Harrelson) and G. Gordon Liddy (Justin Theroux). Playing it as farce fits the story and characters—whatever success and respect Hunt and Liddy may have achieved working for, respectively, the CIA and FBI, as political fixers (they called themselves plumbers because they promised to plug the leaks), they are portrayed as bungling amateurs ith delusions of grandeur. Too caught up in self regard and confidence—and, indeed, initially only a sideshow to Nixon’s re-election campaign—they tripped themselves up and ultimately brought down the entire administration. (As shown in the series, those in the campaign wondered why dirty tricks were even necessary with polls showing Nixon comfortably well out in front of his opponent, McGovern, who was in meltdown.) Indeed, in many ways, when one looks at the basic incompetence at the heart of the January 6, 2021, attempted coup—and in Trump’s brain trust in fighting the election results—it’s hard not to see that the GOP hasn’t changed all that much. Nor has the far right’s zealous and somewhat irrational hatred and fear for liberals, also on display in the show.

Theroux nearly steals the show as Liddy—while Hunt clearly is as much a true believer in their cause, Liddy makes Hunt seem like the sane one. (In one hilarious scene, as Liddy makes a presentation of proposed dirty trick operations, each one more half-baked than the other, Hunt desperately tries to shut Liddy up when he is unable to read the room of Nixon staffers who are appalled at the inanity and extremes of their suggestions). Ultimately, however, it’s Lena Heady as Hunt’s wife, Dorothy, who steals the show. A competent agent herself, Dorothy is the glue that holds their family together and tolerates her husband’s efforts to get back in the game to salve his ego. But in the penultimate episode of the series, in which she is the focus, both the character and the actress become a force of nature as she tries to open her husband’s and Liddy’s eyes to the fact that they are being made scapegoats. She knows there is no true loyalty in their world and they owe nothing to those who would gladly have them take the fall for all the President’s men.

Powerless (CW)

Powerless was a short lived mid-season sitcom that only aired 9 of 12 episodes on NBC. I vaguely heard of the show and after it came across my radar again, I decided to seek it out and found it available for streaming free on the CW app.

Set in the DC universe, actress Venessa Hudgens plays Emily Locke, who is hired at a subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises in a second-tier metropolis called Charm City, as the new Director of Research and Development at Wayne Security, a subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises that develops products to help superheroes and ordinary people fight and protect themselves against supervillains and the collateral damage they cause.

The show has the trappings of a typical offbeat workplace comedy, á la The Office, Community, and Parks and Recreation. The strong cast of quirky characters includes, among others, Hudgens, Danny Pudi (who was in the cast of Community, and currently is part of the ensemble of another great workplace comedy, Mythic Quest), and Alan Tudyk. (As one would expect, Tudyk is particularly hilarious and unhinged, as Bruce Wayne’s jealous, resentful, narcissistic, and much less intelligent cousin.)

This is a comedy that definitely finds its rhythm with well defined quirky characters who drive the stories and comedy, with a bit of heart and character growth and self-revelation in most episodes. Unfortunately, I suspect that the show’s very low-rent special effects and production values, and the second/third string superheroes making cameos in the show, undercut its appeal. Existing in the netherworld between superheroes and sitcom comedy probably limited its appeal to comics fans and general audiences alike. In many ways, Disney+’s She Hulk mini-series more successfully pulls off what this show tried to do, more effectively integrating into the Marvel universe than this show does into the world of DC Comics.

Rogers: The Musical (YouTube/Disney Theme Parks)

After referencing and showing, largely as a goof, a short number from a fake (but hilarious) Broadway musical about Captain America called “Rogers: The Musical” in Disney Plus’s Hawkeye miniseries, Disney has produced an actual live full-length mini-musical (about 40 minutes) that currently be seen at its theme parks, including at Disney’s California Adventure.

In terms of catchy music and reflecting the tropes of musical theater, it’s a terrific and entertaining show, essentially telling much of Captain America’s story from his first film (Captain America; The First Avenger) to the first Avengers film, the Avengers, using the romance between Cap and Agent Carter as its spine. The musical includes fun songs and show stoppers like “Save the City” and “I Can Do This All Day!” The full show, with music and lyrics by musical theater stalwarts Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, is now viewable on YouTube.

Shortly before the San Diego Comic-Con, friends of mine told me they were planning to go to Disneyland (before attending Comic-Con), so I suggested they check it out. They loved it lol!