Over at The Uptake, it's possible at this moment to watch live streaming video of the recount going on today in Minnesota. Regardless of the outcome, the very transparency of the process impresses me a lot. There are lots of folks who will scream "stolen election" (some have already started) if their guy doesn't prevail. In particular, the Coleman partisans seem to not grasp the concept of a recount, arguing that this was settled Election Night and that anything beyond that — including recounting ballots that were miscounted or counting previously-uncounted ballots that all sides agree are legitimate — is an attempt to steal.

But doing the recount in front of webcams and explaining each decision oughta minimize both hanky-panky and allegations of hanky-panky. If someone were ever to edit together a video to show third-world countries what Democracy is all about, they'd do well to include this.

We have twenty more days before we get rid of George W. Bush, at least in a presidential capacity. Polls say 75% of Americans will be glad to see him outta there but I believe that number is low. I'm betting that least half of the 23 percent who say they'll miss him are either late-night comedians or just plain fibbing about how they feel. Even if you believe in his goals and agenda, how could you not wish someone more competent were in there pushing for them?

In my first political-type prediction of the new year, I'm predicting that Bush has one more outrageous, poll-killing act in him…something that will drive his numbers even lower before he leaves and they start their forgiving way back up to the low thirties. I'm guessing it'll be a flock of pardons (and perhaps a lot of file destruction) calculated to prevent him or his associates from being prosecuted for war crimes, including plain, old-fashioned war profiteering. An awful lot of people have pocketed zillions of dollars of our tax money because of the Iraq War — a situation which the Bush administration has always seemed to view as one of the great upsides of the whole conflict. There are other transgressions that Bush probably feels are worthy of a "Get Out of Jail Free" card.

I hope I'm wrong about this. I think it would do Democracy and our standing in the world a great amount of good to show that America is a place where leaders are accountable; that if they break laws, they get prosecuted for it. But I can't help but feel that the Bush position is going to be that no one did anything wrong…but let's just make sure no one can prove otherwise.

Over at Comicon.com, there's a story headlined, "SUPER-CREATOR TEAM-UP: NEAL ADAMS, JOE KUBERT and STAN LEE FIGHT FOR RETURN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR'S ART." It tells how those three great comic book creators are working together on a project that seeks to reclaim several portraits that a woman named Dina Gottliebova Babbitt was forced to paint at Auschwitz during World War II. A worthy cause.

But what caught my eye was a link to that story on the front page of the website. You know how headlines are sometimes truncated either by human effort or software limitations? Well, I'm not sure which but right this second on the front page of Comicon.Com under Latest Message Board Topics, it says: "ADAMS, KUBERT & LEE FIGHT FOR RETURN OF HOLOCAUST."

This article grabbed my attention. Starting today, the major drug companies have agreed to get rid of the "promotional items" they give out to doctors like pens that promote Zoloft or paperweights emblazened with the good name of Lyrica. In a sense, it's rather scary to think this was ever an effective marketing tool; that your doctor might be influenced in prescribing something for you because he had a lot of staplers in his office bearing the name of a particular drug.

My previous doctor, a very good man, had tons of that stuff around his office, which was a very large office housing four busy physicians. I don't think I was ever up there without seeing a couple of what he called Drug Ladies. A Drug Lady is an attractive young woman dressed in smart business attire who works for one of the leading pharmaceutical companies. The Drug Lady spends her day making the rounds of medical offices, wheeling in a large sample case and asking to speak with the doctor when he has a moment. Often, they wait for hours until he has such a moment, whereupon she dispenses a sales pitch, pamphlets, free samples and — I guess this part stops today — pens and memo pads and other goodies that shout the brand name.

My doctor regarded the Drug Ladies as necessary annoyances to his profession. Some physicians, he explained to me, put themselves on the equivalent of a "do not call" list or tell the receptionist to shoo them all away. He saw all comers and for a very good reason: He wanted the free samples. Matter of fact, Drug Ladies had learned that when they came to his office, they'd better bring tons of free samples and promise to ship over a steady supply. Otherwise, he'd refuse to see them and I guess they'd lose standing with their employers. Of one in particular, he said, "This office prescribes an awful lot of the drug she's pushing…and we would anyway, because it's a very good product. But her bosses think it's because of her salesmanship, and that's fine. Let them think that. What they don't realize is how much of it she smuggles to us so we can give it out free to patients."

That was this doctor's way of dealing with high drug prices. He'd prescribe something which, even with good insurance, might cost a hundred bucks or more a month to take. But unless the patient was super-rich — and some of his were — he'd also fill the prescription himself out of his closet for free. When he had me on a couple of expensive medications, I'd stagger home with bags full of little blister-packs of it. It was annoying to open all those little containers but it sure beat paying major buckos at the pharmacy.

Anyway, the tradeoff for all those freebees — and I think this was a good swap — was that the office was filled with promotional swag. Everywhere you looked, the stationery supplies had names of medications. Somewhere here, I have a Viagra® pen I picked up there years ago. I thought it might come in handy next time I have to write some dick jokes.

I dunno if this new ban on promotional items will somehow stem the traffic in free samples but I hope not. That particular doctor is now retired but I'm sure there are others supplying their patients that way. The price of some prescription drugs is appalling and anything which will enable someone to not pay those costs is fine with me.

As we noted here, Internet reports that Larry Gelbart was gravely ill were gravely erroneous. The L.A. Times checks in on Larry and finds him well.

It's going to be a much better year. For all of us.

If you've been thinking of ordering any of those great comic book fonts from Comicraft, take note: You'll never find a better time than their annual New Year's Sale! Every font in the place can be ordered for $20.09, including a few that ordinarily sell for nineteen bucks. But some of them routinely go for a lot more than that…so this is a time for bargains. Plus, they're great fonts. You have been alerted.

Scoop, which is one of the most informative and entertaining sites on the web calls this site one of the most informative and entertaining sites on the web.

About ten times in my life, I've been asked to write and help assemble shows for Las Vegas…and about ten times, the deals have fallen through. You'd think it would just be a matter of Caesars Palace or Bally's putting up the necessary cash to hire me and all the other participants…but it doesn't work that way. At least, it hasn't with any of the projects I've been offered. In each case, the show was to be "four-walled." That means the casino rents its showroom to an outside producer who must come up with all the necessary cash and assume all the necessary risk.

That's right. Casinos don't like to gamble. Maybe that's why they have more money than any of us.

This article discusses what some of the performers in the smaller showrooms face in trying to turn a profit. The shows I might have worked on were all larger and therefore, the financial complications were greater. Each time, someone had 50-75% of the financing they'd need to go forward but were unable to secure the rest of the bucks.

I never expended a lot of my time or hopes on these propositions…just took a few meetings, mostly to learn. It got so when I was approached about a new one, I'd think, "Hmm…it might be fun and educational to watch this one not happen."

Out of all this, I got a few free trips to Vegas and comped hotel rooms in exchange for spending a few hours talking with producers, talent and perhaps some hotel's entertainment director. A friend of mine once endured three hours at the Stardust (or maybe it was the Flamingo Hilton) listening to a sales shpiel about vacation time shares and he came away from it with free tickets to see Wayne Newton. I spent an hour with the guy who booked Wayne Newton discussing a possible show that might replace Wayne Newton, and I came away from it with my airfare, room and meals paid-for. Even better, I didn't have to go see Wayne Newton.

The closest any of them came to opening was a glittery showgirls-and-variety extravaganza that was initially budgeted at, I believe, $3,001,000. The thousand dollars was to be my pay for many weeks of work, though there would have been more loot if and when the show reached "breakeven." Of the remaining three mil, about 10% would go to acts — magicians, acrobats and the guy who'd juggle the books to make sure they never reached "breakeven." Another 5% went for sequins and feathers and for showgirls to not wear very many of them. Another 15% went for sets and lights and music and people to handle them or to sit around and watch those who did. Another 35% went to the casino for the privilege of letting us come in, use their showroom and attract people to come in and gamble. And the rest went for promotion and payoffs.

Payoffs would include bribes to ticket brokers and to others who might generate a positive "buzz" about our show. Four people were to be hired to each spend 8-10 hours a day taking cabs around Vegas, telling the drivers about this great show they'd seen the previous night, and how it should be recommended to every passenger. This was actually in the budget, and the entrepreneur trying to assemble things swore to me it had been done before with other projects and had yielded "po$itive re$ult$." He even managed to pronounce the dollar signs as he said it. I think the moment I realized this show was not in my future was when I noticed that I would make less money writing and helping stage it than I would if I rode around in taxis and raved about it. Also, they wanted me to work topless.

Hey, let's get an end-of-the-year wrap-up from Uncle Jay…

Here's Jason Linkins with the Ten Worst Media Moments of 2008. Hard to believe he got the list down to ten.

Anyone here remember Blue Chip Stamps? As the economy sinks deeper into the tar pits, I've been waiting for them or something of the sort to return…maybe S&H Green Stamps, which were the big deal for a time. I have a dim memory of my mother getting Green Stamps at some of the local merchants and pasting them into the little booklets. She was saving up for some item that cost eighty zillion stamps and she had acccumlated around thirty zillion of them.

Then one day, all the places she shopped were suddenly converting to Blue Chip Stamps! It was a crisis and a half, fueled by rumors that the Green Stamps empire was going under. Whatever was going to happen, it was obvious she was never going to get the eighty zillion Green Stamps so she hurriedly raced through the catalog, picked out a lower-value item and hurried in to get it. I think it was a pair of tweezers or something that valuable. The scene at the Redemption Center that day was like in It's a Wonderful Life when everyone is storming the bank, trying to get their money out before it fails.

Meanwhile, she began rebuilding the family nest egg, amassing Blue Chips and gluing them into their little booklets, saving up anew for whatever she hadn't been able to get with the Green Stamps. She finally got it, whatever it was, but it was a lot of work.

Then, around 1966, she used Blue Chip Stamps to get me my first typewriter — a blue Olivetti-Underwood Lettera 32. It looked a lot like this. In fact, it looked exactly like this…

I remember a brief moment of horror when we got it at the Blue Chip Redemption Center, which was located on Pico Boulevard near Westwood, right next to the Picwood Theater. The catalog just said "Underwood," which was an old, reliable brand of typewriter…and that's what my mother thought she was getting me. She turned in her books of Blue Chip Stamps, all of them pasted in so neatly. Then we waited for the instrument of my future career to come down the conveyor belt, out from the mysterious back room where all the Blue Chip goodies were kept.

We were unaware that Olivetti, an Italian company, had recently acquired the good old American name of Underwood…so when a box emblazoned "Olivetti" rolled down the belt, she felt baited-and-switched. And for a moment there, I feared that my new typewriter would only type in Italian, which would have meant I'd have to end every noun in a vowel. The clerk at the Redemption Center assured us that it was not an Olivetti. It was an Olivetti-Underwood…and sure enough, there was the name "Underwood" in teensy letters on the carton. We were both skeptical but I carried it home and the darn thing did indeed type. In English.

You couldn't touch-type on it. The keys required too much pressure to respond to anything but forceful thrusts of index fingers. But then I didn't touch-type back then, back before I learned the skill in high school. It's funny. Back then, Typing 101 was kind of a joke class…like a glorified Study Hall. It was something your counselor stuck you in because everything else in Period Three was full and he had to put you somewhere.

In fact, at University High, the Typing classes were even held in the same room where you'd sit if you had a period of Study Hall. Upon reflection though, of all the hours I spent in classrooms at Uni, the ones I spent learning to type have probably come in handier than any others. I almost never have to balance a Redox equation these days and I can't recall the last time I was asked to dissect a frog. It's been at least a year. On the other hand, I type every day of my life, sometimes for most of my waking hours. In fact, I'm typing right this minute, thanks (in part) to Blue Chip Stamps. If they ever make a comeback, I'm going to see if I can pick up another Lettera 32. Whenever my computer crashes, I yearn for that machine.