Sergio and I were just over at the Farmers Market (this place), a great spot for lunch in Los Angeles. We were finishing our meals in the upper patio when we suddenly heard interesting, energetic music from below and wandered down to see what it was. Turns out it was a group called the Masanga Marimba Ensemble…a troupe of young folks who bang away on seven Guatemalan and Zimbabwean marimbas while one of them plays rather traditional drums. The Market had engaged them to play for a few hours this afternoon and they were quite wonderful, attracting a large crowd that stood there, clapping along and occasionally dancing to their infectious rhythms. During their break, I bought a CD that they had for sale. That's how much I liked them.

You can hear a few samples of them if you prowl around on their website and even order the same CD if you like what you hear. I'm going to keep an eye on that site to see where and when they're performing again.

Sorry I didn't post anything yesterday but I've been busy for about the last twenty-three hours. Got up at 7:30 yesterday, worked on a script for an hour. Got dressed and left the house around nine. Stopped at a McDonald's for breakfast and arrived at the funeral for my pal Greg Burson at ten.

It always seems odd to say that a memorial service was nice or well-done, but Greg's was. His two sons and his brother spoke. Gary Owens spoke. Greg's one-time agent, Jeff Danis, spoke. I spoke. Voice actress Sharon Mack spoke. Burson would have been amused that two voice actors who are often confused with him — Gregg Berger and Greg Berg — were both in attendance.

The service adjourned to the gravesite up the hillside. Getting from where we were told to park our cars, walking down a slope to the burial spot, looked to all like a plot by Forest Lawn to drum up business. One of the older woman there was thinking aloud that she should not bother trying to make the long, hard walk back up to the road. "Maybe I'll just stay here and let them dig me a hole," she said.

But she was in the caravan that then drove over to the Tam O'Shanter, a fine nearby restaurant, for post-funeral eats. Then I drove over, picked up my friend Carolyn, and we went up to hike around Griffith Park for a while. Then I took her to a Korean grocery store to buy vegetables and Miso. Then I took her home. Then I sped to my house to meet my contractor to discuss what men are going to do to my home in the coming weeks. Then voice actress Laura Summer came by to pick up a CD I'd made her of her work on Garfield. Then I drove over to a nearby hospital to see someone. Then I drove over to my mother's house, stopping at a Gelson's Market on the way. Then I drove back to the hospital to deliver something from Gelson's to my friend there.

Then I came home, sat down here to write and apart from food breaks (for me and to feed cats out back) and bathroom visits, I haven't done anything but work on a script and write this. I think maybe I oughta go to bed, don't you? Good night, Internet. See you in the morning. Oh, wait. It is morning…

How to watch the Beijing Olympics online.

John Edwards was right. There are two Americas. And you're apparently allowed to have a woman in each.

Boy, there are a lot of reasons to be disgusted by (or disappointed in) John Edwards today. You can almost pick and choose the ones you want to feature. Having the affair is a moral and human failing but it's also just plain foolish. Anyone who aspires to high office in this country oughta know that there will be powerful forces out there, paying money to people who can expose this kind of thing…and I still don't get why he thought he could meet with "the other woman" at the Beverly Hilton in the middle of a press junket and not be spotted.

His confession/ apology is pretty lame, too…like he thinks if he grovels enough, someone will still give him a shot at the White House someday. Maybe he could run on a ticket with Gary Hart.

I keep getting e-mails asking me why I haven't reviewed or recommended Blake Bell's new book, Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko. There's an easy answer to that: Insufficient time to give it the thorough, attentive reading it obviously deserves. But just flipping through it and reading a hunk here and there, it's obvious that it's a very handsome book full of well-chosen Ditko art, and that Blake has done a fine job of digging out as much biographical info on his subject as is humanly possible.

Ditko is, of course, famous for being reclusive and refusing to grant interviews — a policy that makes you J.D. Salinger to some people. Those who've spoken with him lately say he is perturbed by some of the "prying" that's being done in print and on video into his life. My impression, admittedly remote (I haven't spoken to Ditko or exchanged correspondence with him in twenty years but we have mutual acquaintances) is that he's bothered less by the attention than by the conclusions and interpretations. He often declined interviews by saying "I prefer to let my work speak for itself" and is now stunned that everyone does not hear the same thing from it.

If he reads Blake's book, he will probably find plenty to disagree with, which of course doesn't mean that he's right and the book is wrong. Matter of fact, if ever there was a comic book artist whose work left itself open to disparate analysis, it's Ditko. In what I've read, Blake avoids the easy, oft-made mistake of trying to see everything as a slavish representation of something from the works of Ayn Rand. He also does a great job of reminding us just what was so great about Ditko's work when he was able to really be Steve Ditko…and that's about all I want to write about the book until I have time for a cover-to-cover read.

You can order a copy of it from Amazon by clicking here. If you look around on that page, you can probably find one of those exciting Amazon package deals where you can order Blake's Ditko book and my Kirby book together for $52.79, a discount of $0.00 from the price of buying them separately. All you save is one click but, hey, if you can save one click a day, you might avoid Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

An interview with Don LaFontaine, possessor of one of the most-heard voices in the history of the entertainment industry. Thanks to Charlie Glaize (owner of another voice you hear a lot) for letting me know about this.

Jack Kamen, best known for his work at EC Comics, died yesterday at the age of 88. The cause of death is being reported as cancer.

A native of Brooklyn, Kamen was born May 29, 1920 and at one point in his life was heading for a career in illustration and sculpture. In 1941, he began getting work as an illustrator for pulp magazines…an endeavor that was interrupted by a draft notice. Upon his discharge, he found the pulp market in decline and so began picking up work for comic books, primarily for Fiction House where his clean style fit in well with the preferred look of their line. He was especially good at drawing pretty women, a skill that often typed one as an artist for romance comics.

That's what he was doing when he began his career with EC Comics and then, as they replaced their romance comics with horror, crime and science-fiction books, he stuck around to work on them. Some readers called him their "unfavorite" and wondered what a guy who produced such clean, shiny drawings was doing in horror comics. But publisher William Gaines and editor Al Feldstein believed Kamen was a valuable asset; that his sexy girl drawings added to the commercial appeal of their books. Scripts were written for him with that in mind.

When EC folded their main line, Kamen drew several issues of a new book for them called Psychoanalysis, which mainly consisted of people in therapy lying on a couch and describing their problems. It didn't sell and when EC folded its comic line, Kamen segued to advertising art, occasionally bring a "comic book" look to assignments. In 1982, he supplied the EC-like key art for the Stephen King motion picture, Creepshow.

In recent years, Kamen basked in the spotlight of his sons' accomplishments. Dean Kamen invented the Segway and the iBOT Mobility System. Another son, Barton, is a doctor who is now the Chief Medical Officer of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jack Kamen at the Comic-Con International in 2000. He was delighted by the attention that attendees gave to his work, and also by being reunited at the con with so much of the old EC crew. And an awful lot of people were delighted to meet him.

An interview in The Wall Street Journal with Paul Levitz, top guy at DC Comics. Don't miss the little sidebar of advice about breaking into the business.