The Mooch

I'll just say it. I love the Mooch. But that wasn't always the case.

At first glance, Anthony Scaramucci would seem to be the perfect swamp creature, cut of the same $1000-a-yard cloth as the rest of the scumsuckers who were employed in Cadet Bone Spurs administration. He got his bona fides working for years at Goldman Sachs, who coincidentally issued my Apple credit card. I get 2-3% cash back on every purchase so I have mixed feelings. Plus I grew up with a kid named Steve Goldman. No relation.

I may be getting off track here.

Anyway, Anthony was, as the kids say, money. Just the kind of person the daughter-lovin' traitor-in-chief likes to surround himself with. So for eleven days, Scaramucci was breathing rarified government air at taxpayer's expense as White House Director of Communications.

For all eleven days, I pretty much hated him like I hated anyone who'd support and associate themselves with the unstable genius and his unhinged, self-serving, racist democracy-destroying policies. But the tide started to turn for me on his last day, when he was fired for leveling some choice, well-deserved obscenities at Trump's live-in Secretary of Nazi and human fleshlump Steve Bannon.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Like everyone who's made a quick departure, the Mooch started hitting the talk/news show circuit. Big ships turn slowly, but with each appearance, over time, I began to see his changing opinion about his former boss. It was like watching a flower bloom. It was just that beautiful.

At first, he left the White House but still supported the president.

Then he supported the president, but wished he'd listen to his more experienced advisors.

Let's just skip ahead: now he thinks Trump is a scum-sucking, insane, sex-offending, enemy of all that's good in the world, a gigantic loser and festering piece of shit that needs to go to a Shawshank-like hole cell as soon as humanly possible.

That's an opinion I can get behind. The Mooch has come around, and it's not because it's in vogue. You can tell by watching and listening to him he's seen the light and means what he says. I always try to catch him on Bill Maher or Stephen Colbert. I listen to his podcast. And I imagine with each appearance how pissed his old boss must be.

Plus the man's name is now a universal unit of measure, as in "I have to be out of this apartment in three Scaramucci's!"

So yes, despite the fact he was briefly employed by the worst president in history, his casual dress is Armani and his hair is slicker than an Exxon oil spill, I like the Mooch.

In fact, there's really only one thing that bothers me. Does anyone else see it, or is it just me?

What is sis-boom-bah

Unless you like your jokes professionally tamed, the edges sanded off, watered down and served with an extra helping of corn, you already know that night after excruciating night, Jay Leno proves he isn't worthy. Certainly not of the job he's had hosting The Tonight Show since 1992 - with the exception of the seven months Conan did a far better job of it.

Jay Leno wants you to believe he's a good guy, a man of the people. The kind of talk show host you can have a beer with, and who'd never take your show away from you just because his new one flopped and he wants his old one back. Well, not so much on that last one.

To realize how bad Jay Leno actually is in the modern late night era, all you have to do is watch Letterman. Or Jimmy Kimmel. Craig Ferguson. Or Jimmy Fallon (who ever thought anyone would be saying that?).

But before all of them, there was Johnny.

Johnny Carson owned late night in a way no one else ever will. Every night, almost, for thirty years Carson put America to bed with style and wit that was at once ahead of and very much a part of its time.

When I was a kid I remember watching The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson one night when I was up late fighting a particularly nasty flu. It happened to be the night of what was perhaps his most famous line as Carnac the Magnificent:

Carnac: Sis boom bah.

Ed McMahon: Sis boom bah.

Carnac: Describe the sound made when a sheep explodes.

It was the first thing to make me feel better in a week. If Johnny was on, things were okay in the world. Even if they weren't.

The reason Carson's on my mind is this week's Newsweek features an article by Bill Maher remembering Johnny twenty years after his retirement. It's a good article.

The first night Leno hosted The Tonight Show in 1992, he didn't mention Carson's name once. Not to thank him, not to acknowledge him, nothing. When asked about it, he blamed it on Helen Kushnick, his notoriously overbearing manager and agent who got him the show. Many people say she orchestrated Johnny's retirement so Leno could get it.

For all his posing about being a good guy and putting out this straightforward "you know me" "I'm a regular guy" image, the fact he didn't ever thank Carson betrays Leno for what he was at the time: an ungrateful coward who didn't have the guts to stand up to his manager and do the right thing.

I'll never forgive him for it.

But his punishment is what he's become. Jay Leno, before he got the Tonight Show, used to be the best stand-up working anywhere. He'd do Springsteen-length sets. I used to love seeing him, and hearing material that was fresh, original and edgy with cleverness and insight. I imagine the Leno that did that material isn't the same one he sees now when he looks in the mirror.

Despite his publicity machine, and because of his slighting Johnny that first night, Leno will never be a class act.

Certainly not anywhere near the one he replaced.

Guilty pleasures Part 1: The Final Destination movies

Developing a blog post that can be turned into an ongoing series is not a new idea. My fellow blogger at Round Seventeen has a series of posts called Things Jews Don't Do. And I've done it as well with a couple posts, like Why I Love Costco, and The Luckiest Actor Alive. Now I'm doing it again with Guilty Pleasures. It's like what Hollywood does over and over. Take one idea, recycle it, and wait until people are sick and tired of it.

Then do it again.

So here we go. First up, the Final Destination movies. I’ve seen them all. I'm not proud. But I sure am entertained.

I'm the first to recognize that the money I spend on tickets for these movies could be spent on better things. Like books. Or dry cleaning. Or the college fund (just kidding: what college fund?). But then I wouldn’t have the pure joy and satisfaction of watching a bunch of snotty teenagers who're just asking for it get what’s coming to them.

And by that I mean death. Dead as disco.

Seriously, who doesn’t like to see that?

Every Final Destination movie has the same group of four or five kids. You know the ones: the brainy guy. The smarmy guy. The good girl. The slutty girl. The nerd.

Somehow, they all manage to avoid dying in a plane crash, or a roller coaster derailing, or a race car crashing into the stands. You know, everyday stuff.

Well apparently Death has a quota to make and a timecard to punch. And he gets pissed when people don't die when they're supposed to. So he has to track the kids down and off them one by one.

The great part about these movies for me is the Rube Goldberg way the killings are done. Intricate, clever and way over the top. I don't know which I liked better - the girl stuck in the car wash with her head out the sunroof that won't open, or the guy getting acupuncture who winds up falling off the table and impaling himself on the needles.

I know I'm not doing these scenes justice. You have to see them for yourself. Or not.

On the New Rules segment of his show, Bill Maher had a joke about all these movies. He said the producers of Final Destination need to look up the meaning of the word "final."

For my sake, I hope they don't.