In-flight wi-fi service seems to be the coming thing…and at least one airline (Jet Blue) is experimenting with making it free. For the ones that charge, the rates look like they'll be around $5.95 for short flights and $12.95 for flights of three hours or longer. Obviously, this is fine for those who need it, and perhaps there'll come a time when I will. But there are also times when it's kinda nice that for the length of your flight, your phone is off and nobody can reach you…

The acclaimed play August: Osage County by Tracy Letts is coming to Los Angeles. It'll be at the Ahmanson Theater starting next month and spilling over into the following month.

Why am I telling you this? Because I have two tickets for it I can't use, on account of I'm going outta state for the Mid-Ohio-Con. They're pretty good seats — center of the second row of the mezzanine — and they're for October 6, a 7:30 performance. Anyone wanna buy 'em off me for the face value price of $120?

You see the guy on the left in the above photo? Never mind the clown on the right. That's me. But the guy on the left is Chuck McCann, one of the funniest and most creative humans in this hemisphere. For those of you who remember Chuck's legendary kids' show on local New York television in the sixties, no more need be said. The rest of you came to know him from his movie roles, his hundreds of TV appearance, his commercials, his cartoons, his…oh, heck. If you told me that Chuck had donned a tu-tu and danced the Swan with the Joffrey, I'd hesitate to dismiss it as unlikely. The guy's done everything…and judging from the fan worship I witnessed this year at Comic-Con, most people know that.

But what they might not know is that today's his birthday. So…much affection and a big, candle-studded cake to one of my favorite people.

It's also the birthday of another one of my favorite people, cartoonist supreme Scott Shaw! But we have a one-birthday-post-a-day rule here. So sorry, Scott. Maybe next year.

Recently here, I mentioned that if you wanted a region-free DVD player, Walmart has a model — the Durabrand — that'll play just about anything and which sells for peanuts. I don't have one of these but a number of my friends have bought 'em and liked 'em.

And now they may have to send them back. Here's the notice of a product recall due to a fire hazard.

Our pal Jim Brochu is playing Zero Mostel in our nation's capitol. The Washington Times likes him.

The warring factions in the current Writers Guild election seem to have buried all hatchets, done a big group-hug and decided that it was all a silly misunderstanding that shouldn't get in the way of Guild Solidarity. Good for them, good for us. I am back then to voting for Elias Davis, though I must say that it wouldn't bother me if his opponent, John Wells, was victorious. And since I've now filled out my ballot, that's it as far as I'm concerned.

Speaking of Jerry Lewis — as I was in the wee small hours of the morning — his annual Labor Day Telethon is this weekend. As usual, it'll be different lengths in different cities. I'll be receiving two separate feeds on my little DirecTV satellite dish. KCAL, the Los Angeles affiliate, is running it from 6 PM Sunday night through 5 PM on Monday for a total of 23 hours. WGN in Chicago is running it from 8 PM Sunday night (L.A. time) 'til 9:30 AM when they stop for a baseball game. They resume with Jerry whenever the game ends, which TiVo says will be 12:30 PM and then it runs 'til 5 PM. Assuming the game is three hours, that's 18 hours. The San Francisco station, which I can't get on my satellite, is only running eight hours.

The P.R. handouts seem to have stopped describing the telethon as being any particular length. Last year, they said it was 21 and a half hours but KCAL ran a 23 hour version and WGN aired 18. Since large chunks of the overnight programming are reruns from earlier in the telethon, it can be almost any length, and I have no idea how many hours they actually do.

Announced as performers are Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, Tony Orlando, Charo, Wynonna, Train, Bo Bice, Terry Fator, George Wallace, Lee Greenwood, Three Dog Night and many more. Betcha Dolly, Reba and maybe a few others aren't there on stage but instead pre-taped special numbers as part of concerts they were doing somewhere. There will be a tribute to Ed McMahon which will be repeated several times during the show.

A friend of mine tells me that this year, Jerry doesn't want any men on the stage with him; that all his co-hosts will be women like Nancy O'Dell and Jann Carl. But all the publicity still mentions Tom Bergeron as a co-host so I don't know what that means.

I'll tune in. I'll send some money. But I'll probably find myself waxing nostalgic for the day when it was a much bigger show with much bigger guests.

Okay, we finally have an answer to the riddle. Back here, we noted that Infinity Entertainment was bringing out a DVD of The Jerry Lewis Show and we wondered which of several Jerry Lewis Shows this was…or even if it wasn't a typo for The Jerry Lee Lewis Show. A couple of websites had it under both names.

The Amazon listing still doesn't tell you anything but your know-all spies here at newsfromme have gotten word. It is indeed the 1967 NBC variety show that Jerry Lewis (not Jerry Lee) did. The DVD features 10 hours and 40 minutes of the show, which I guess is something like the first thirteen weeks, sans commercials. Featured among the guest stars are The Osmond Brothers, Flip Wilson, Don Rickles, Joey Heatherton, Janet Leigh, Shirley Jones, Audrey Meadows, Lynn Redgrave, Barbara Feldon, Nanette Fabray, Imogene Coca, Ben Gazzara, Richard Kiley, Laurence Harvey, Harold Sakata and Nancy Sinatra. Personally, I've always loved the comedy stylings of Harold Sakata, to say nothing of his way with a song and dance.

I recall that series as being somewhat fun, though every week Jer felt obligated to engage in at least one sketch where he tried to wring every possible giggle out of a pretty unfunny and antiquated racial stereotype. I'm going to order the set and see how it all holds up today. Jerry seems to be holding up so maybe that series will, as well. Click on the Amazon link above to join me in this experiment or you can wait and see if I take one for the team.

My pal Gordon Bressack has written 'n' directed a new play that's currently running in Los Angeles at the Hudson Backstage Theater. It's called "Fuggedaboudit" and swamped as I am these days, I haven't had the chance to get out to see it. But many folks I know have had the time and they tell me it's very funny…so I'm going to try to make the time and maybe I'll even do it this coming weekend. September 4, 5 and 6, if you order tix online and enter the code word DONOR, 25% will go to OneLegacy.org, a charity that raises dough to help folks who need organ transplants. Gordon was recently one such person so the cause is near and dear to his new liver.

Gmail was down for a while today. The official explanation is over here but we know the truth. The entirety of Google (including GMail) operates off one old HP N3330 notebook computer with a 5GB harddisk and only 64 MB of RAM. It runs Windows 98 and the guy who has it at his apartment sometimes forgets to plug it in so the battery runs out and all of Google goes down. You'd think with all the money that company is making, they're upgrade at least to one of those cheap reconditioned Dell systems they sell at Best Buy…but no. Damn foolish if you ask me.