I lack the skills — and therefore any desire — to do what the Great Internet Chefs do.  Still, I sometimes enjoy watching their videos — that is, just as long as they adhere to certain rules…

1. They have to be cooking something I might ever eat.  I have loads of food allergies so that lets out many possibilities, especially meals that are of foreign origin (Italian food excepted), spicy, hot in the Tabasco Sauce sense, and/or full of unpronounceable components.
2. They must occasionally cook something that does not require cayenne pepper.
3. No cole slaw…ever.  But that should be self-explanatory.
4. They have to at least fool me into believing they know what they're talking about.
5. And they have to explain what they're doing and why in language that I, a culinary cretin, can understand.  If their lessons cause me to think, "Oh, so that's why chefs do that." they earn bonus point with me.
6. They mustn't overwhelm me with phony competitions where their friends rate what's been cooked. Some of them seem to think the results of such "test" prove, once and for all, that their way of preparing that meal is the only correct way and all others have just been proven totally wrong.
7. And when the time comes when they themselves taste what they've cooked, they have to not overact and overdo telling us how absolutely perfect and delightful and fabulous and yummy and Fit for the Gods their results are.

One of my current faves is a gent named Brian Lagerstrom who has hundreds of videos up.  If I were to decide to cook something elaborate — and don't worry, I never will — I think I'd trust Brian's instructions.  He seems to cook well and he certainly explains well.  With two weeks left before Thanksgiving, he's just posted a lengthy but worth-watching video on how to prepare the traditional feast for that holiday.  Here are his instructions and he's also offering — for absolutely free! — written instructions in PDF format.  This is the care I'd like to think goes into whatever I eat on Turkey Day…

Thirteen or fourteen years ago on this blog, I was occasionally recommending that you click over to a website called The Same Picture of Dave Coulier Every Day. I just clicked over myself to that site for the first time in more than a decade and it was somehow comforting to see that they're still at it.

I have a friend who is super-worried about this possible third term that some in the MAGA crowd are talking about, mostly (it seems to me) because it makes people like my friend uncomfortable.

Yeah…but half the time we see him lately, Trump looks like a man who's about to keel over and he's becoming increasingly less coherent. He can't even lie as convincingly-to-his-base as he used to do. Has no idea who the criminal he pardoned was? The Donald Trump of just a few years ago would have come up with something way better.  If Biden said that, Trump would have cited it as incontrovertible proof the man was brain-dead.

The cost of almost everything is up. A lot of people, including a lot of his supporters, are facing unaffordable increases on what they paid for health insurance. His poll numbers are down in every category. More people in this country now approve of hemorrhoids.

And he now has a full-scale sex/pedo scandal erupting all around him. How big it gets may depend on how irrefutable some of the evidence is, like if there are photos or video…but it ain't gonna disappear and a lot of Republicans, especially those up for re-election soon, aren't going to defend him on this one.  A lot of folks in this country have reclassified "pedophilia" as a condemnation you hurl at anyone you don't like…and there don't even have to be any minors involved.

He brags about creating peace in six seven eight nine (the number keeps changing) wars but most of those cease-firings are imaginary and in the ones that aren't, people are again killing other people. He brags about his "beautiful" tariffs but the justices of the Supreme Court, including some he appointed, seem primed to rule them illegal and maybe even decree they must be refunded.

Through this all, he looks more detached from voters than ever. They have genuine, life-damaging concerns and worries. He's showing more interest in remodeling White House bathrooms and building a faux Mar-a-Lago/Trump Casino onto a once-revered D.C. landmark.

Plus, all sorts of lawsuits and prosecutions of his enemies aren't going his way and Democrats are winning all the recent elections…

…and someone's worried this guy's going to win a third term?

Yeah, there were times in the past where he looked like he was finished and he somehow squeezed by or even triumphed. Me, I don't think he'll finish his second term, let alone win (or even cheat) his way into four more years beyond that. And yes, I could be wrong.  Note the disclaimer above.  But I think there are a lot more likely things to worry about…like the damage he will do to this country and the people in it before he goes away.

There was a time in this country when there was a very real possibility that various state and local governments — and maybe even the Feds — would outlaw (or even worse, regulate the contents of) comic books. The main outcry was against the ones that were about crime, horror or sex but some of the proposals would have done real damage, perhaps even fatal, to the publishers of Donald Duck and Archie.

As we all know, it never came to that, in part because calmer heads prevailed and in part because the major publishers sufficiently defused the issue by what they called "self-regulation." They set up this thing called the Comics Code to launder the content of their comics and — as perhaps a semi-intended side effect — drive a lot of smaller publishers (i.e., competitors) out of the marketplace.

But let's not get too deep into those weeds that right now. What I wanted to call your attention to is this website which a gent named Brian Puaca has set up. His goal is to document the public protests against comic books between 1945 and 1955 that included tossing comic books into a big pile and setting that pile aflame. So far, he's confirmed more than fifty such demonstrations…and we can only wonder how much money most of those books would go for today. I mean, there had to be a couple of first issues of Superman and Batman in there, right?

Go take a look at what Brian's doing and if you can help him with his research, please do. There are some very important lessons to be learned from that mania. (Come to think of it, there are very important lessons to be learned from most manias.)

I'm not sure who The Piano Guys are but they went to some sort of retirement home and put on a surprise performance of a Charlie Brown medley. So I've suddenly become a fan of theirs. Maybe it'll have the same effect on you…

The other day, I mentioned the late comedy writer Ray Jessel as the writer of that Love Boat episode with Carol Channing, Della Reese, Ann Miller and Ethel Merman. My great friend Shelly Goldstein, who knew Ray pretty well, informs me — and I quote — "The Follies scripts (and songs) were written by Ray Jessel and his wife, Cynthia Thompson. She didn't always get full credit on the songs, but they definitely wrote them, and the scripts for Love Boat, together." Good to know.

My pal Jeff Wasserman found this online obituary for George Dougherty, the mysterious hero of the comic book industry I mentioned here.

Is it possible that what's in the notorious, much-discussed-but-little-seen Epstein Files is as bad for Donald Trump as his critics believed or maybe hoped? It's sure starting to look that way but I'll believe it when everyone sees it.

The all-mighty algorithms that control what I see on certain websites keep showing me videos where folks are covering What New at Costco. Which is fine but about 75% of what they found at their local Costco is not to be found at the Costcos in Southern California. I also keep seeing raving positive endorsements of certain restaurants that look like someplace I'd love to dine…and then I find out the restaurant is in Saddlesore, Wyoming or some other city I'm unlikely to ever visit. Couldn't there be a little box to check somewhere that says "Only show me stores, restaurants and events within 50 miles of my zip code"?

I'm also seeing an awful lot of short videos of Porch Pirates — people who sneak up and steal your Amazon deliveries off your front step — and then the package explodes, knocks them on their asses and spraypaints them in purple glitter. I suppose some people get a smug feeling of "They deserved it" but I keep thinking of that nice gardener of mine who sometimes moves my packages closer to my front door.

Oh — I haven't mentioned this in a couple of hours…

Here's a reminder that this coming Saturday (November 15), I and others who contributed to the above book will be appearing at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California. There's a panel discussion about the book at 2 PM and it's sold out but it's still a great opportunity to buy a copy and get it signed by Yours Truly and many other cartoonists and Peanuts scholars who helped make this book possible. It's also a great opportunity to see that wonderful museum. Details are here. And on Sunday, I and most of the same folks will be at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. Details about that event are here.

Also, in case you're in need of reminding: Open Registration to attend next year's Comic-Con International is this Saturday. The convention takes place July 23-26 but I'm going to be hosting so many panels for it that I'm going to get started and host some here at my house in late May and all throughout June. If you drop by, be careful about moving any Amazon packages you find on my porch.

I just got these from someone who asked to be anonymous but who asked questions that are pretty easy to answer…

Before Jack's Fourth World series, he had a lot of character designs he had created without being quite sure if, where, or how they would appear. But months prior to joining DC, did he have any conception of the overarching idea of the New Gods and then retrofitted some of these earlier characters into the saga?

Yes.

If so, was the idea of the New Gods initially conceived as a possible evolution of where the Thor comic might go –- or did he realize that Marvel wasn't likely to discontinue or change a successful comic?

Both.

Gary Cundall wrote to ask…

Did Jack Kirby have a favorite character that he created, or a favorite character maybe that he didn't create? Was his current project always his favorite character?

Taking the middle question first: Jack's favorite character that didn't create was unquestionably the original Captain Marvel — the one who appeared when young Billy Batson said, "Shazam!" Jack and his partner Joe Simon produced the first full issue of Captain Marvel in his own comic after the hero had debuted in stories by others but he certainly did not feel it was in any way "his" character. He did though think the Good Captain was the best super-hero of his era.

Something some people don't know: When DC Comics made a deal with Fawcett Publishing in 1972 to revive the then-defunct property, that was Kirby's suggestion. And he wanted to edit the comic but DC wouldn't let him. They gave it instead to one of their senior in-house editors, Julius Schwartz who didn't particularly like Captain Marvel and considered the comic perhaps the greatest failure of his career — both creatively and financially.

Some time after the book was canceled, I told Julie that Jack was still a little sore they hadn't let him edit it and that he felt if they had, he could have made the comic a tremendous hit. Schwartz replied, "I wish to God they'd let him do it too."

Jack did not really have a favorite among the characters he created or co-created. He kind of took the stance that if he could find a way to make it enjoyable for himself, it would be enjoyable to the readers. I think he was a bit partial to the more overtly autobiographical ones but he liked them all. The only one I ever heard him say he didn't like was Ant-Man, which he thought was just an uncommercial idea.

And yes, about 96% of the time, his favorite character was the one he was doing at the time. The 4% would include comics he didn't create and didn't want to work on like the Justice, Inc. comic or the 1975 version of Sandman, which he called the assignment he disliked the most of his entire career. Usually, if he disliked something he worked on, it was because of editorial interference, not the selection of character.

Here's a capsule version (four minutes and forty-five seconds) of the famous episode of Love Boat which featured Carol Channing, Ann Miller, Della Reese and — I think in her last performance — Ethel Merman. This episode aired February 27, 1982 and the segments that comprised the story of all these diva ladies was written by Ray Jessel, whose musical videos I have occasionally featured here.

Every time I see this episode mentioned online, someone offers up the fact or theory that they got Della Reese because they were unable to get Pearl Bailey. I have no idea if that's a fact or a theory…

This, I'm told, is a photo of George Dougherty, a genuine war hero if my pal John Ficarra is to be believed. And if you can't believe the former editor of MAD magazine, who can you believe? According to an article in today's Washington Post by John…

Quiet, unassuming George Dougherty was a P-47 fighter pilot in the Army Air Corps, 5th Air Force, 72nd fighter wing. He flew more than 206 combat missions and 510 combat hours over New Guinea and the Admiralty Islands, for which he was awarded multiple medals, including the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1944.

He was also — and I am in no way suggesting this is as important as winning World War II — a hero in the history of the comic book business, especially in the fifties when the industry was under fire for the alleged promotion of juvenile delinquency. Publishers — especially the smaller ones — had a lot of trouble with distribution, printing, financing (etc.) and they needed a hero. Dougherty was one to many of them, helping on the business side and advising not only Bill Gaines at EC Comics and MAD as Ficarra notes, but also other small houses including the short-lived company run by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. He's a figure from that era I'd like to know more about.

Here's a link to John's article. I warn you that the paywall at the Washington Post is sometimes difficult to surmount and it was for me even when I was a paid subscriber, which I no longer am. That's because the Washington Post is no longer the Washington Post. Journalism these days could use more heroes too.

Randy Rainbow's back!

The United States Supreme Court has, as almost all the serious SCOTUS watchers predicted, declined to take on the case of Davis v. Ermold.  The "Davis" in this case was Kim Davis, the clerk in a Kentucky government office who refused to issue a marriage license to two men.  Her stance wound up getting her briefly jailed and then she lost a lawsuit from one of the gay couples she denied and has been fighting a $360,000 judgment against her.'

Some websites in recent months have been fretting (or hoping) that the high court would take on this case, thereby allowing the current makeup of that court to grab the opportunity to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges.  That was the decision that cleared the way for same-sex marriage in this country — you know: The decision that was supposed to mark an end to America as we knew it and to bring God's (or someone's) wrath down upon us all for Biblical Immorality.  So far, I haven't seen much of that wrath and the institution of marriage seems fairly unscathed.

But there are still folks out there fighting that battle.  In some cases, they seem to earnestly believe that the future of Mankind is at stake if folks of like gender continue to wed.  Some, I get the feeling, merely want to erase the "loss."  That's a lot of what MAGA is all about: They feel they have to win every battle, no matter what's it about, to prove that they run this country.  In this instance, my Cynical Side (which often posts on this blog) thinks what we had here was a good, old-fashioned Max Bialystock con job: Get people to donate to a certain-to-lose cause and keep the money.

The Supreme Court said they would not hear the case and there were no announced dissents.  Even Clarence Thomas, because apparently no one was bribing him to do so, didn't say, "Wait a minute!"  This court at this time has zero interest in relitigating Obergefell — and if they did, they'd wait for a case that was more about the core issues of that dispute.  Ms. Davis's appeal to the highest court in the land was to try and argue that she shouldn't be penalized for sticking to her moral principles.  As I understand it, the part of the suit that might have given the Supremes an opening to revoke Gay Marriage was kind of tacked onto the original suit later.

I'm guessing the add-on was because there was money to be made there.  Not very many people were willing to donate to say Kim Davis should be allowed to not issue marriage licenses.  Not many people would ever be in the position of having to do that.  So the cause became "This is our chance to destroy Same-Sex Marriage but we need money to do this!"

Now, I could be wrong. Maybe my Cynical Side is just being too cynical. That's hard to be in the current political environment but maybe — just maybe — the funds collected did all go for the purpose the donors believed. And maybe they still would have sent money if they'd known how unlikely it was that the Supreme Court was going to reopen the matter but they took the chance anyway. After all, Springtime for Hitler did rather well. Even a guaranteed flop just might be a hit…but in this case, I don't think so.

For reasons both nostalgic (it was the first real musical I ever saw) and qualitative (it might just be the best musical ever written), I am a big fan of My Fair Lady. There isn't a dull moment or a less-than-wonderful song in it. I am therefore delighted with a new, recently-recorded and recently-released CD of it. It's by Sinfonia of London and it's the first complete recording, including all of the incidental music and several pieces that were cut from the show during its outta-town tryouts.

Here's a little preview of it. If it makes you want to order it from Amazon, here's a link to order it from Amazon. Right now, you can sample many of the numbers from it on that page and you can hear the overture in the video embed after this one…

And now, this is the one with the overture…

I started to write what would have been a longer piece about the shutdown and rumors they might be making some progress towards ending it…or, more likely, just negotiating a temporary cease-fire so they can start this battle up again later.  Mostly, I wanted to express my shock at headlines like this…

…which can only bolster the belief that the Republican-controlled government doesn't give two or even one shit about ordinary Americans who are suffering or fear they'll soon be suffering — hungry and unable to afford health insurance. Trump used to be a little better at optics and at making his supporters feel like he'd watch out for their interests.

Anyway, the piece was starting to get long and it just said what a lot of other folks online are saying more eloquently. So I'm just posting this to save the little headline I captured. Someday, we'll all look back on headlines and news clips like that and wonder how the hell this country let it get that bad. Right now, I'm wondering if one Republican leader turned to another Republican leader and said, "Y'know, it just dawned on me that Thanksgiving's coming up and the thing that most Americans want that week is efficient air travel and enough food on the table!"

The recent World Series got me to thinking back to when I was a kid and my father and I — and sometimes, my Uncle Nathan — would go to Dodgers games. I can't remember much that I liked. The traffic to and from the stadium was always terrible and the parking was awkward and overpriced. A few times, my father tried saving a buck or two by parking in a nearby residential area where folks who seemed to need the income would let you park on their lawn for a dollar less than parking at the stadium. That meant a much longer walk to and from the stadium that, to me, didn't feel like a good trade-off for the savings.

But mainly, I recall the time we parked at the stadium but didn't see the game. My father bought the cheapest-possible tickets and they were "stand-by" seats. You didn't get in if the game was sold out and this time, it was. To make matters worse, when we returned to his car, the parking lot was so crowded with cars in its aisles that we couldn't get out. And of course, there would be no refund for the exorbitant parking fee.

It was something like 102° that day and my father, Uncle Nathan and I spent about five innings in that lot — in a car with no air-conditioning and with limited access to refreshments or restrooms. A number of other Dodgers fans were in the same predicament and we all listened to Vin Scully calling the play-by-play on the radio, plus we could hear directly the sold-out crowd roar time and again. It all sounded a lot more interesting than anything my father and I ever got to watch from the bleachers.

Around the fifth inning, a couple of folks attending the game came out, got in their cars and left — for what reason, we had no idea. The spaces they cleared sparked an excited reaction from one of the other folks out there with us who couldn't get into the stadium. He announced that it was now theoretically possible to clear an exit route if certain of us could move our cars with surgical precision.

It was like "If you turn your wheels all the way to the left and back up exactly four inches then this guy can turn his wheels all the way to the right and move forward exactly three inches, then this guy can back up six inches…" Rubik's Cube had not been invented at the time but when it was, I was reminded of that day in the Dodgers' parking lot.

My father was apprehensive about trying to move his car that precisely. Half an inch too far and he'd scrape paint or worse with some stranger's Cadillac and he'd of course need to leave a note and deal with that and maybe even insurance companies…and it was just too potentially messy. Another captive Dodgers fan who by then was desperate to get out volunteered to move my father's car…and while he did it a millimeter at a time with everyone yelling contradictory instructions, he managed to do what needed to be done.

An inning or so later, a half-dozen autos had been carefully repositioned and a path to freedom was finally cleared. We got out and got home well before the end of the game which had gone into extra innings. If we'd waited in the lot for the final out, we'd have been there way longer than we expected.

That may have been the last time my father ever attended a game. If it wasn't, I'm pretty sure it was the last time he bought the cheapest seats. The next time I was in Dodger Stadium, I was 68 years old and I was there to get a COVID vaccination.