It doesn't seem to be getting much attention in the news but the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes is negotiating a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The old contract doesn't expire for another 16 months but a new deal with the I.A. is just a formality so they might as well get it out of the way early. There will be minor adjustments and the I.A. will get some sort of token payment for New Media — a benefit of the WGA strike that I.A. leadership decried.

Bargaining was expected to be concluded a few days ago but they've run into a complication. There's a new law on the books called The Pension Protection Act, and the union's pension plan has to be recalibrated to fit. It should all be worked out soon. In the meantime, the AMPTP is scheduled to open negotiations with SAG and then AFTRA, so the IA negotiations may not resume for a while.

The more I think about it, the less I think I can predict what will happen with SAG and AFTRA. The bifurcation of that bargaining unit (as explained here) is such a wild card that almost any outcome could result. I don't think I'd wager any money on it being good for actors, however…especially not good for them in the long run.

Hey, let me tell you about Michael Hoey. Michael Hoey is one of those people who've done just about everything a person can do in show business. His father, Dennis Hoey, was a great character actor best known for his recurring role in the Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone. Michael grew up in the entertainment industry and had a special vantage point to understand Hollywood and how it has changed over the years. He especially has wise perceptions and great anecdotes about powerful folks including Jack L. Warner, Darryl Zanuck, Walt Disney, George Cukor, Elvis Presley, John Ford, Mel Brooks, Charlton Heston, Jimmy Cagney, Angela Lansbury and Robert Blake. In high school, he had a band with Mr. Blake.

Michael has written an engrossing memoir that chronicles his life and career, his interactions and observations with folks like the above, and his stormy (at times) relationship with his father. He recently gave me a copy and I expected to like it because I've always enjoyed talking with him, but I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. The man has worked as a film editor, a director, a producer and a writer. (In the photo above, Michael's the guy on the left, going over the script he wrote for Live a Little, Love a Little with its star, Elvis Presley. Hoey worked on a half-dozen Elvis movies and the behind-the-camera stories from those jobs are worth the price of admission, all by themselves.)

What really impressed me about the book was the same thing that always impressed me about Michael. He's a very smart man with a grounded-in-reality outlook on a field that often veers wildly from sanity and realism. He writes about Elvis, for instance, with a passionate but rational perspective that one does not see in much writing about the man. He writes about everything that way.

The book is called Elvis, Sherlock and Me (How I Survived Growing Up In Hollywood), and you can order a copy from this page. I suggest you do this.

Well, I feel a lot better about the whole thing this morning. As you may recall, I caught The Kitten in the trap last night about eight. I moved it and her into the garage and she was about as uncomfortable as you'd be if I crammed you into one of those little cages. I soon discovered that she was relatively calm and accepting if she couldn't see anything or anyone. If I had the towel over the cage and the lights out, she was serene and quiet. If she saw me coming in to check on her, she began howling. So I stopped going out to check on her.

This morning, I confirmed with the vet that they could take her today and then I went out to the garage. She was peaceful until she saw me and then began howling. (By the way: Remember I said I put a piece of cardboard down on the floor of the trap? Well, she'd gnawed and clawed it into confetti. It looked like Rip Taylor had gotten into the cage with her and done his act. Talk about cruelty to animals…)

I covered the back seat of my car with newspaper and towels, then placed the trap with her in it on top of all that. I was expecting her to yell and meow all the way to the vet's but once I covered the cage, she quieted down and I didn't hear a peep out of her the entire journey; not until I took the trap out of the car at the vet's office.

She should be ready to come home tomorrow, and they say I should keep her in the trap in the garage for a day or two before returning her to the wilds of my backyard.

While I was filling out forms at the veterinarian's office, I came to the place where I had to fill in the name of the patient. It seemed insensitive or wrong somehow to write down "The Kitten" so I pulled a moniker out of thin air…or more likely, a song Groucho used to sing. Henceforth, The Kitten shall be known as Lydia. That's what I'm going to call her in the future whenever I speak to her. Whether she'll be speaking to me remains to be seen.

So I set the trap again around a little before sundown, baiting it with some steamed cod I got yesterday from my favorite Chinese restaurant. I cut a piece of cardboard to line part of the floor so The Kitten wouldn't have to walk on grating when she ventured inside to get the cod. And then I covered most of the trap with a towel and left it there on the back porch where I usually feed The Kitten and many other critters.

I ran down every twenty minutes or so to check on the trap, as I've been doing since I started this hunt last Saturday. This evening, The Kitten was wandering around, occasionally sniffing the outside of the trap, just as she's been doing all week. Occasionally, another neighborhood cat — including the one I caught last night and the one I caught a few days ago — were hovering nearby and I chased them off. Around 7:45 when I checked, that was the situation. A little after eight, I went down and found The Kitten inside the trap…and very unhappy about it.

Actually, "unhappy" doesn't begin to describe it. Screaming. Yelling. Clawing at the cage walls. Struggling to reach through and claw me or anything nearby. Very upset.

I've moved the trap and its new inhabitant into the garage for the night. The expert tells me to keep her in the dark and not to worry too much about feeding her. Apparently, they can't perform the surgery if she's eaten in the last 12 or so hours.

I did not feel joyous about my "catch." Well, I guess I'm relieved that after a week of this, this part is over…but The Kitten is so miserable in that trap — and I can imagine the agony of riding in the car tomorrow, to say nothing of being in the vet's office. I tell myself it's for the better and that it had to be done, and I absolutely believe that. It just doesn't feel like that right now.

I hadn't seen this when I posted the previous item but something called nerve.com has posted what someone there thinks are the 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time. About ten of them would make my list. In fact, they don't even include the one I'd probably rank as Numero Uno, which would be the take-off on This is Your Life by Sid Caesar and his constituents on Your Show of Shows. They do have the Python "Dead Parrot" sketch as their number one but for some reason, they have an odd version of it posted.

Ignore the question of whether their picks really are the fifty best. Just think of it as fifty links to funny material. Then, after you watch their picks, go watch my choice as the funniest sketch ever done, at least on network teevee.

Next week, I may be going to New York. I say "may" because my tickets are on American Airlines and with them, who knows? Regular readers of this blog have shared big troubles with Southwest Airlines and bigger ones with United. Let us all hope you aren't subjected to a series of steam-releasing posts about American.

April 18-20, I will be a "featured guest" at the New York Comic Con, which is being held at the Javits Center. When I'm not doing panels there, I'll often be found hanging around Booth #1825, which is the exhibit space for Harry N. Abrams Books, publishers of Kirby: King of Comics. I think the premise here is that you buy copies and I write my name in them. (Hint: On Saturday from 1 PM until 2 PM, the legendary Joe Simon will be there to sign along with me. If I were you, I'd go then…and I'd elbow me aside to get Joe's signature.)

When I'm not doing that, I'll be — here's a novelty — doing panels…

On Friday from 2 PM to 3 PM, I'll be one of the panelists discussing the life and times of the great Mr. Will Eisner in room 1E10-1E11. This panel follows a special screening of an excellent documentary on the man, Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, which starts at Noon.

Then from 5 PM 'til 6 PM, also on Friday, I'll be hosting a panel called "The State of Animation," along with a fine animation producer named J.J. Sedelmeier, whose work I've always enjoyed. I'm not sure yet who else will be up there but whoever it is, they'll be discussing where the cartoon business is today, especially in light of new methods of animation and new avenues of distribution. This all takes place in room 1E16.

Saturday from 11 AM until Noon, I'll be back in that same room, 1E16, officiating at the Steve Gerber Memorial Panel. It'll be a bunch of Steve's friends (and I think some family members) sitting around, swapping Gerber stories. Joining me so far will be Mary Skrenes, Buzz Dixon, Len Wein, Frank Brunner and many others. An hour ain't nearly enough time so get there early.

Finally…on Sunday from Noon until 1 PM, I'll return to room 1E10-1E11 to preside over a Jack Kirby Tribute Panel with many of Jack's beloved colleagues. I don't want to mention the names because we haven't confirmed them yet but if you're at all interested in Kirby, you'll want to be there.

And those are my convention plans.

If you can't make it out to the con and you're desperate to get a copy of my Kirby book signed, I'll be doing that on Friday evening, April 18, at Jim Hanley's Universe, a fine comic shop located at 4 West 33rd Street in the shadow of the Empire State Building. I'll be scrawling my John Hancock in any books placed in front of me between 7 PM and 9 PM there.

Other than that, I'll be roaming the streets of Manhattan, annoying publishers and eating at fave restaurants, and I think I'm also going to go watch Nathan Lane play the President of the United States. Click that link to see some funny promos.

This is all assuming I get there. I may spend those days back here, staring at an empty cat trap.

I was going downstairs to check on the trap when I heard the snap. It had been sprung! My heart and I raced down and out to the back porch where, sure enough, I found a trap containing one very unhappy feline.

Unfortunately, it was the wrong unhappy feline.

And boy, was it upset to be in there…kicking, howling, slamming the sides of the trap. When I opened the door to let it out, it rocketed out there doing just under Mach 1 and I thought, "Well, we won't see that one in the yard again"…a prediction that held true for a good eight minutes before it was back and heading into the trap. This time, I chased it off before it got all its whiskers through the entrance.

The Kitten apparently witnessed the whole incident and I thought (again, wrongly) that it would make her less likely to go in there. Not so. A few minutes after I'd reset the thing, she walked in, got a few bites of the food in there…and strolled out, missing the triggering footplate. She's good at that.

We always make that mistake of thinking that an animal has a thought process identical to a human. They can be very smart but not in the same way we can be very smart. Well, some of us can be very smart. I, for example, am dumb enough to be up at this hour, writing a script and running downstairs every twenty minutes or so to see if I've caught anything.

Do you know I've written network television shows that didn't last as long as this whole, as-yet-unfulfilled incident of The Kitten? And some of them were almost as funny.

I'm giving up 'til the morning light and I just closed down the trap. I don't think I could sleep, worrying that some terrified, claustrophobic possum was in there being traumatized. It's bad enough The Kitten's going to have to be in there…and note that I still have an utterly groundless optimism that some day, she will be. So good night, Internet. And good night, Kitten. Wherever you are.

I'm very close to giving up on this. I've been trying since Saturday to get a probably-preggo pussycat into a humane (they assure me) trap so I can take her in for shots and fixing and whatever else a vet can do for this most feral of felines. She walks around the trap. She sits by the trap. She even feigns that she is about to go into the trap. This last is done just to get my hopes up so they can be dashed anew.

So I'm very close to giving up…and I would if I could think of any better scenario. The Kitten is homeless and fertile and will only create a whole litter of others in the same state.

Earlier today, I tried the hands-on approach again. I put on some gloves and had my assistant Tyler standing by with that plastic pet carrier I purchased. I figured it might be easier, if I just picked up The Kitten, to put her in that and then transfer her to the trap. (The vet for some reason requires that I bring her in in a trap, not in a carrier.) It took a half hour of petting and maneuvering to get her into a position where I could pick her up. She did not like it. She did not like it a lot.

She kicked and hollered and squirmed and there was no way to get her little body through the door of the carrier. I finally lost my grip and she sprinted for the adjoining zip code. I've decided this will never work, even if I throw (as some of you have suggested) a towel over her. I think it's the trap or nothing.