This first ran here on Sunday, August 9, 2015. I meant to repost it a few weeks ago when "Uncle Jimmy" Weldon passed but I forgot. Since today has been so busy I need a rerun, here it is now…

As you read this story, please keep in mind that I was nine years old at the time.

When I was that age, I would sometimes go down the street to play with a girl named Julie. I liked Julie the way a boy of nine can like a girl of eight, which is altogether different from the way he might like her, say, four or five years later. Julie was fun and Julie liked me and the only problem really was that she had way too much energy. You got the feeling that every morning, she'd start her day with a nice, healthy bowl of Sugar Frosted Sugar.

If she'd had her way, all we would have done all afternoon was run around. She wanted to run into her backyard and play on the swing set and then she wanted to run out to the front yard and roll on the front lawn and then she wanted to run back into the backyard and play some more on the swing set and then she wanted to run out to the front yard and climb the big tree out there and then she wanted to run back into the backyard for a little more swing set and then run out front to play hopscotch on the front sidewalk and then run back to the swing set…

I had energy at that age too but not like that. She also didn't want to go inside to play board games (which I liked) or to watch cartoons on TV (which I really liked). She always wanted to run around outside. Fortunately, one day I got the power to stop her from doing this.

That afternoon as we were running from the swing set to the front lawn or maybe from the front lawn to the swing set, I suddenly heard Julie scream in terror. It was the kind of scream that makes you think someone has just been murdered. "What is it?" I asked her with huge worry.

"It's…THAT," she shrieked, pointing at the hideous, deadly monster that was looming above us.

It was a dragonfly. In case you've never seen one, they look like this…

She ran from it like her life depended on it and I ran with her because…well, because she was running, I guess. We sprinted to the back of her house where there was a little hiding place behind the garage. She crawled into it and cringed in a fetal position, trembling. After a few minutes of that, she pleaded with me, "Peek out and see if it's gone."

I peeked out and it was gone. "What," I asked, "is so scary about a dragonfly?"

Julie looked at me like I was mad, truly mad. "Don't you know about dragonflies? They sew your mouth shut and you die!" This is apparently an old urban legend even in rural areas — one of those things some people believe based on no evidence whatsoever. I had never heard it before but someone had told it to Julie, thereby inducing nightmares as well as daylight terrors.

I asked, "How does a dragonfly sew your mouth shut? Do they carry needles and thread?"

She answered, "They do it. I don't know how they do it but they do it. They sew your mouth shut and then you can't breathe and you die!"

I asked, "Can't you just breathe through your nose?"

She answered, "Okay, then you starve to death. You can't eat if your mouth has been sewn shut!"

Being way too logical about something this silly, I replied, "You can go a few hours without eating. Couldn't they unsew your mouth before you starved? I once saw my mother take the stitching out of a sweater and it took like three minutes."

By now, Julie was angry with me. "Look! Would you like to have your mouth sewed shut? Even if it didn't kill you, it would probably hurt a whole lot."

I had to admit she had a point. Unless, of course, dragonflies use Novocaine.

Since the evil monster had flown off to go sew someone else's mouth shut, Julie cautiously left the hiding spot and play resumed. But she kept glancing about, ever vigilant for dragonflies of any size or hue. From that moment on, I owned that young woman.

At 4:00, I wanted to go into the house and watch a favorite program — The Webster Webfoot Show on Channel 13. On it, "Uncle" Jimmy Weldon and his duck puppet hosted some of my favorite cartoons. Julie, however, wanted to stay outside and run back and forth between the front lawn and the swing set…and all I had to do was to point at nothing and yell, "Dragonfly!" Julie would scream and we'd run into the house, make sure all the windows were locked and then, while we were in there waiting for the mortal danger to pass, watch cartoons.

After three or four, she was restless and wanted to go outside and run back and forth between the swing set and the front lawn some more. "Go look and see if the dragonfly is still around," she told me. I headed for the window but as I did, I saw on the TV screen the beginning of a Screwy Squirrel cartoon so I told her, "There are dozens of dragonflies flying about outside. They're in squadron formation!"

Julie screamed, ran into her room and hid under the bed while I watched Screwy Squirrel.

This went on for a few weeks, as I recall. I could make Julie do just about anything I wanted by merely pointing to imaginary dragonflies. One day though, I pushed it too far.

I was collecting baseball cards then so I had a lot of gum around the house. I never liked the gum as much as the cards. In fact, the gum was so horrible that given the choice, I'd have preferred to chew the cards. But the gum was light pink and not that far from the color of lips so that gave me an idea.

We were in Julie's house one day playing a board game I wanted to play, hiding from dragonflies I'd "seen" outside. After I won the game, I told her I would go outside and check for dragonflies. She thought I was so brave…maybe the last time any female believed that.

I went outside, chewed up a wad of the gum, smeared it over my mouth, then staggered back inside in a panic, making grunts like I couldn't talk. Julie screamed, "A dragonfly sewed your mouth up!" I nodded in silent agony. Horrified — and before I could stop her — she ran to her mother's room.

All the time I was there playing, her mother was in a little private study doing…well, I'm not sure what. Reading, maybe. She'd check on us every hour or so but mostly, she left us alone. Julie pounded on her mother's closed door and when Mom opened it, Julie cried in desperation, "You've got to do something! A dragonfly sewed Mark's mouth closed!"

I, of course, walked up chewing the gum and saying, "What's going on?" Julie's mother knew exactly what had happened.

"Did Grandma tell you that silly story about dragonflies?" she asked Julie. Julie said, "No, it was Grandpa! He said dragonflies sew your mouth shut and then you can't breathe and you die!" Her mother told her that was a silly superstition, scolded her for believing such nonsense and said, "I'm going to give your father's father a call and give him a piece of my mind." Then she admonished me for scaring Julie so. I said I was sorry and would never do it again.

Julie and I went outside to play and, sure enough, a dragonfly buzzed right past us. She flinched but didn't run and then we talked a little about how people believe things that aren't true. I said, "The problem is that there are things you have to watch out for that are dangerous and when you're watching out for the wrong things, the real dangerous things can get you."

"Real dangerous?" she asked. "Like what?" I told her that a fully-grown crow could pick up a 100-lb. child — like, say, either of us — and fly us off into the sky and we'd never be seen again. She was skeptical but I half-convinced her when I said, "Didn't you see the news last night? It happened to a kid who lived in Culver City!"

Julie looked around and saw several crows sitting on a nearby phone wire. I said, ominously, "Those look pretty well-grown to me!" Taking no chances, Julie insisted we run back into the house and close all the windows.

I know it sounds mean but I had a good reason. It was almost 4:00 and there was a good chance Uncle Jimmy would be running another Screwy Squirrel cartoon.

The extraordinary Simone Biles has returned to competitive gymnastics with her participation in the Core Hydration US Classic. Here she is doing it about as well as it can be done…

"Legal Eagle" Time! Devin Stone delves into the laws listed as allegedly broken in Trump's third indictment. One thing that interests me here is that Trump's side seems to have abandoned the claim that Trump actually won the 2020 election. Their defense now is more like "Trump honestly believed he'd won the 2020 election," which is not at all the same thing.

I have an acquaintance who has been telling me for some time that Trump won and that Trump has been sitting on all that solid evidence — the kind that Mike Lindell has spent zillions trying to locate. I repeatedly asked this acquaintance the following obvious-to-me question: If Trump has such evidence — and if as he also claims, Joe Biden is destroying the United States with his sham presidency — why oh why is Trump keeping this evidence a secret? Why did he lose court case after court case for an utter lack of evidence? Why is he letting the Biden presidency continue?

The answer from this acquaintance has always been along the lines of "Trump is a master strategist. He has his reasons." I think that rationale is now way past its expiration date, don't you?

Here's one of my favorite magicians, Shawn Farquhar, performing a routine that is uniquely his. I once saw him do this in person and I was about three feet from him. The impact in the room — which was mostly filled with other professional magicians — was stunning…

Before we resume: Here's a link to Part 1 and here's a link to Part 2.

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Now then: We left off with me telling you I couldn't tell you how to be sure you obtained a badge for the convention. Now, I'm about to tell you that there's no surefire way I can tell you how to ensure you have transportation or lodging…and the only thing I know about parking is that if you don't have a hotel room, you ought to think about ways you can get there without having a car to park.

The one thing I can tell you with some certainty is to Plan Early. You'd be amazed how many calls and e-mails I get in the last few weeks before the convention asking how they can get a hotel room. They're asking this long after all the hotels around the convention center have been sold-out for months and they're also asking a person who hasn't had to book his own room there for a few decades. One thing I can tell you: A lot of folks find it wise to try and book a room before they know if they'll score admission badges and before hotel rooms go on sale through the convention. Of course, you only do that if you can find an affordable reservation which can be canceled without penalty.

I also know folks who've found it easier and even cost-effective to get a room miles from the convention center and then take the trolley or an Uber to and from the con each day. My friend Phil Geiger sent me these thoughts to pass along here…

For travel, I've done the trip both driving and flying and here's my two cents worth. If someone is out of state, I recommend flying to San Diego rather than driving. Driving requires a place to park your vehicle, which can be difficult and definitely will be expensive. You can find hotels further out that have free parking (I've done that), but those are usually out of the range of public transport so you have to drive in and pay for Comic-Con parking every day of the Con (done that, too).

Parking is done by lottery (what a surprise) through ACE Parking and is independent of the Con. It's $25-$35 dollars a day (PLUS a $7.95 "convenience fee" per day) depending on the lot. Be aware there are no in-and-out privileges. Walking to breakfast or lunch this year I saw a couple hotel lots charging $50 for daily Comic-Con parking, but I do not recommend anyone drive to Comic-Con without parking reservations. They just might end up driving in circles for hours trying to park. It's better to bite the bullet and get reservations for parking when driving in.

Flying in? I tell people don't buy airfare until you know you have badges. I usually get plane tickets about 6-8 weeks before Comic-Con unless I have badges and I see a really good airfare sale earlier than that. I don't remember a sale ever happening, btw. If you can, fly in the day before your first badge and fly out the Monday after the Con. You don't want flight delays to keep you from getting to the Con when you want to and chilling out Sunday night (and sometime Monday) is pretty nice after that busy, busy con. I fly in Tuesday and out the following Monday or Tuesday (If I want an extra day in San Diego). Of course, I don't have to get back to a job so it's easy for me to add a day or two.

If I lived anywhere on or near the coast of CA, I'd probably be taking the Coaster train down to San Diego and back.

So there are some other views to consider. I'll have more tips — some from me, some from friends — in Part 4.

I've become a huge fan of Ariana DeBose. Wanna know why? Just listen to her belt this song from the show Wicked…

It must gall a lot of super-right-wingers to see Donald Trump indicted, arraigned and generally treated like a criminal on the way to the slammer. Most of them fantasized about this scene, of course. They just wanted it to be Hillary Clinton. They wouldn't have called it "Weaponizing the Department of Justice" if it had put her away and outta sight. They'd have called it "The Rule of Law."

It's kind of amazing how many people who brag about being with "The Party of Law and Order" are willing to support a presidential candidate even if it means he could be on his way to the slammer.

I didn't see much of the arraignment today. Actually, no one reading this blog did. We just heard Rachel Maddow and other newsfolks repeating what reporters in the courtroom relayed was happening. I don't know how I feel about the suggestion — in some cases, the demand — that any Trial of Trump be televised. If the Writers Strike and SAG-AFTRA Strike were on then, the producers could have held out for eight months or more because that's how long America wouldn't have been watching anything else.

Transparency is one thing but giving the lawyers and witnesses a stage to perform…well, that didn't seem to have prevented the first trial of O.J. Simpson from turning into something that Barnum & Bailey should have built a tent around.

And I frankly don't understand the argument that Trump can't be found guilty of trying to overturn the election if he really and truly thought he'd won it. Does that mean that you couldn't convict that North Carolina man who fired an AR-15 rifle inside a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C. because he really and truly believed it was the home of a Satanic child sex abuse ring involving top Democrats?

How about John Hinckley who really and truly thought that he'd wind up sleeping with Jodie Foster if he shot President Reagan?

And through all this, I wonder about Rudy Giuliani who made that long, hard struggle from being the most honored man in America to being Co-Conspirator #1 in what some are calling the greatest crime of this century. That's along with being a known sexist pig and harasser. He's gotta be thinking that in The Tunnel of Life, he should've turned left at Albuquerque.

From the 2/11/95 episode of Saturday Night Live: Here's host-for-that-night Bob Newhart performing one of his monologues…

The indictment. I read excerpts the last two days but I decided I oughta read the whole thing. I'm no expert on the drafting of legal papers but this seems clean, direct and filled with evidence — most of it from Trump's Republican colleagues — to convince almost anyone that it's a solid case. This is not to say someone couldn't construct a rebuttal case but they sure have a lot of damning points to address and counter.

But I'm not exactly open-minded on the subject of Donald Trump. I think he's a dishonest and dangerous man who cares about money and power but not about the people who give him the money and the power…and I felt that way about him when it was a far-fetched joke that he could ever win an election for anything.

So read it yourself and decide. It's only 45 pages and they're double-spaced. You've read longer blocks of text on this site about changes in the look and feel of Batman. Download the PDF here.

What kind of tree is this? Is there an expert on trees out there who can tell me what kind of tree this is? I would like to know what kind of tree this is. Thank you in advance if you know what kind of tree this is and you write and tell me what kind of tree this is.

One thing that fascinates me about the current Donald Trump indictments — and I'm not saying it fascinates me in a good or bad manner — is how many different ways this scenario can play out. Most of the possible ones look like Trump taking a very hard landing and he'll certainly be tied-up in court proceedings for an awful long time. (Everyone talking about how long seems to forget that when you lose, you appeal…so each trial can turn into several.) It kinda amazes me that at this stage of his life when he seems to have had to actually begun paying his lawyers — albeit with donors' money — he still can't seem to find any good ones.

People keep asking me for my predictions as to where this thing is going because, after all, who is more expert at this kind of thing than a guy who used to write Yogi Bear comic books? But if you insist, here's why I reply with such a resounding "I dunno." Think of all the things that could happen between now and when we get some sort of resolution in the courts and ballot boxes. There would be new scandals, new evidence, new indictments. None of us saw the stolen documents raid matter coming. Why couldn't other crimes outta nowhere be alleged?

Someone could die. I'm not wishing this for anyone but you have a lot of people involved as alleged conspirators, lawyers, witnesses, etc., some of them rather elderly and under massive stress. This whole story could take unexpected turns if someone dies, especially since almost no one will believe it wasn't murder. (A fellow I knew who was heavy into Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy theories refused to believe that the wife of Texas Governor John Connally wasn't killed as part of the cover-up even though she died 43 years after the assassination at the age of 87.)

Trump could do the unexpected…and don't ask me what that might be. But people do strange things when they're desperate and if the alternative is prison, something we'd think he'd never do might seem like it's worth a try.

Most of my friends insist his die-hard supporters will never desert him. That's probably true of some but the smarter ones — i.e., the ones wise enough to not be interviewed by Jordan Klepper — might leave him if they had a real alternative…

…which they don't right now. Trump is way out ahead of Ron DeSantis and all the other contenders are polling at numbers <5. Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy are at 2% in surveys where the margin is plus or minus 3% — so one or both of them could be at a minus-one. But I think the reason a lot of Trump fans are still with him, indictments and all, is because they've become convinced that America as we know it is doomed if "one of them" (a Republican, preferably a rabid right-winger who is white and male and willing to toss Liberals in concentration camps) isn't elected.

Right now, Trump is the only candidate who seems to stand a chance of making that happen. They may love him but they love winning more and he's starting to look like kind of a loser. It's still not too late for a Donald surrogate — same positions, no indictments — to emerge. Okay, it's not likely. But not so long ago if I told you that a politician who was in Trump's position now — all those charges plus a jury found that he'd committed rape, even though it isn't called in the state where he was found liable — you'd never believe that guy could be in the presidential race at all, let alone with a wide lead in his party.

I'm not predicting any of this will happen; just noting that these twists and a lot of others that now seem unimaginable could. This is a volatile election in a volatile environment in a volatile country. With all that volatility, you can't rule out anything except that if Trump fails to reclaim the White House, he will never admit that he lost that election or any before it. My prediction, which is worth about two dollars with a margin of error of three dollars, is that Trump will never be President again but that a lot of crazy, unprecedented shit will happen before and even after the 2024 election.

From July 6, 1976: Rodney visits Johnny…

I want to thank Special Counsel Jack Smith for delaying the big indictment of Donald Trump until I was home and rested from Comic-Con.  And I look forward to at least one more, maybe several more.

Here's a link to Part 1.

Okay: The first thing you need to do is to decide what you want out of Comic-Con. It can be as simple as "I just want to see what it's like" or as (possibly) life-changing as "I want to get into comics." Both these things happen at Comic-Con, though the latter doesn't seem to occur anywhere near as often as the career-seekers wish. I've heard from a number of folks who have a very negative view of Comic-Con because they didn't find the job of their dreams there.

Once upon a time, that was a bit more likely than it is today. Major publishers like DC and Marvel once had active portfolio evaluations, making reps available to look at samples — mainly artwork — from potential talent. That doesn't happen much now. That's not the way they find new writers and artists these days…and DC and Marvel now use most of their convention presence to promote movies and TV shows. Presently, I think you can have a perfectly rotten experience at Comic-Con if you focus on getting work.

Then again, if you self-publish and hawk your own wares, I think you can have a perfectly wonderful experience doing that at Comic-Con. Just how wonderful will, of course, depend on how good and commercial your wares are. There's a lot of competition in that room.

Get in touch with what you want. And I think that line which I just went back and italicized for emphasis, is great advice not just for Comic-Con but for life. You don't have to set one goal forever but you need to have some direction for your personal compass. Over the years, I think I've benefited from asking myself the musical question, "What do I want?" And once I have some semblance of an answer, I follow it up with the question, "Do I really want that for myself? Or do I think I want it because I see others wanting it?"  If you can answer those questions honestly, it helps.  It truly helps.

Are their certain celebrities or creators who'll be there who you want to meet? That's not a bad reason to want to go to Comic-Con. Neither is to seek certain items you want for your collection. Excellent reason. Would you find it exciting to see previews of forthcoming movies or TV shows and to hear their stars and makers talk about the work? That's a fine reason, though maybe not so much for this past convention. How about the sheer entertainment of certain programs? Or to get a drawing from a favorite artist?

Or to learn from experts about some area that interests you? Study the schedule of panels and presentations. You can have a great time going from room to room, listening to panelists and authorities.

Or maybe you just want to see the cosplayers and maybe photograph them. Or maybe you're really into gaming and want to see what's new and grab up whatever freebees the companies are offering in their booths.

I have friends in or around my age bracket who go mainly for social reasons — to see friends they only see at conventions and to drink with them. I've heard them evaluate different conventions mainly for the bar scenes — which hotels had the best places to gather and imbibe. As a non-drinker, this is of zero interest to me but it might be the best reason for you to attend Comic-Con or any convention.

I could go on and on about this but the point is that you need to have some sense of why you want to be there, above and beyond the fact that lots of other people want to be there. And once you know, you can begin planning your convention around that goal. Remember how in Part 1, I told about how a friend of mine and I went to Disneyland with no real concept of what we wanted to experience there or where to find it? Don't make that boneheaded mistake with Comic-Con.

This, of course, comes after you arrange to be there.

If you've read this far thinking I'm going to reveal the secret of how to always get as many badges as you want, I'm sorry. I may have dragged you this far under false pretenses…but you should know that the San Diego Convention Center can only accommodate X number of people and the number who want to get in is more like 10X or 20X or maybe even higher. There are methods that involve being in tight with exhibitors or being program participants but I'm not the one to explain them. It may just be one of those Facts of Life you just have to accept the way you finally figured out there was no guaranteed way to win the California Mega Millions State Lottery.

There's also no way I was ever going to fit this topic into two installments on this blog so it's no longer a two-part series. Check back here in the next few days for Part 3 and the way I'm going, that may not ever be the end of it. We'll start by discussing things like travel and lodging.

That's roughly how Paul Reubens looked when I met him at The Groundlings some time in the early eighties. The Groundlings is a local (Los Angeles) improv troupe and school that at times has seemed like the farm team for Saturday Night Live. Paul is on a long list of folks whose names you'd know who got "discovered" (or at least honed their skills) with The Groundlings.

I picked a photo of Paul as Paul because Peewee Herman, as whom he became famous, was just one of the many characters I saw Paul do at The Groundlings. In a way, it's a shame Peewee caught on as big as he did because Paul had many other "people" inside him. He being himself may have been the most interesting.

I can't say I knew him that well and I suspect most people who knew him didn't know him that well even if they thought they did. He got in trouble from time to time. He got a reputation for being hard to work with from time to time…though to that last charge, I must say the two times I worked with him, he was only a small, acceptable pain-in-the-butt. I'm not denying the experiences of others; just reporting on mine.

In the last few years when I ran into him, always at the Magic Castle, he was pretty friendly. Hearing now that he'd been battling cancer for some time, I can only wonder if there was a connection. He was very excited one time when I introduced him to Sergio Aragonés.

Others who knew him better than I did will tell better stories than I can. I just wanted to say that the Paul Reubens I knew was a sweet and very creative man. He and some constituents were responsible for one of the most memorable evenings I have ever experienced in a theater. I tell that story here and it's one of the reasons I'm thinking good thoughts about the guy today.