Hey, did you read the message I posted an hour and a half ago? This one? Someone allegedly named Rick Strandrel of Rock Island, Ill. had a letter printed in the Chicago-Tribune that borrowed generously from text of an item I posted here.

Well, it turns Mr. Strandel has been busy. Pretty much the same letter appeared last Monday in the letter section of The Washington Times. Here's a link to that page.

But it doesn't stop there. If you scroll down a ways, the same page in The Washington Times has a letter signed by "William Stosine of Iowa City, Iowa" that's plagiarized from this item that I posted about the S-CHIP expansion veto.

This is not the first time Mr. Stosine has cribbed from my postings here. Back in February of '04, my words turned up in a couple of newspapers over his signature. Here's one example and here's another.

I'll bet you ten bucks that Rick Standrel and William Stosine are the same person. In fact, I'm pretty sure I know what his real name is and it isn't either of those.

Someone posted this on YouTube. It's a promo for a 1980 production of Oliver! that played the Aquarius Theater in Hollywood. Shani Wallis was playing Nancy, Dick Shawn was playing Fagin, Tessie O'Shea was playing Mrs. Corney and Stubby Kaye was playing Mr. Bumble. I remember when it opened and got pretty good reviews. That, plus the fact that I always liked the show, Dick Shawn and Stubby Kaye caused me to want to see it. At the time, I was working for Sid and Marty Krofft and our offices were at KTLA Studios, just a few blocks from the Aquarius.

So one day on my lunch hour, I walked down Sunset to buy tickets. At the box office, the lady looked surprised. It was like, "Really? You want to buy tickets?" I convinced her I did and she sold me a pair with an unmissible sense of skepticism. Her attitude made me suspicious and so did the seats I got: Third row center.

I walked back to the office and happened to mention to Sid Krofft that I'd just bought tickets to the production of Oliver! down at the Aquarius. Sid said, "I heard that was closing." I told him no, I'd just bought tickets for the following Saturday night.

Then I walked down to the stage where the dancers were rehearsing a number for the show we were about to tape. I invited one I knew to go with me to see Oliver! and she immediately said, "It's closing." I said, "No, it isn't." She said, "Yes, it is. My roommate's brother is in it. I just called her about something and she told me."

I went back to my office, phoned the Aquarius box office and got, I think, the same lady who'd sold me the tickets an hour earlier. "Is the show closing?" I asked her. She said no. I asked her if she was sure. She said, "Wait a second…I'll check." She put me on hold for about four minutes, then came back on the line and told me the show was closing. This was on a day when there was no performance scheduled and she said they weren't sure at the theater if there would even be another one but they'd been told to stop selling tickets and start issuing refunds.

I walked back to the Aquarius and she gave me my money back and an apology. She said, "We're always the last ones to know." Another lady in the box office chimed in, "I knew. We've only sold twenty-three tickets for tomorrow night and there are twenty-five people in the show." That was my introduction to an old show business maxim that I made up as I walked back to the office that day: When you have more bodies on the stage than you have in the audience, you're in trouble.

Here's the ad for the show I didn't see…

Bill Maher does his Real Time show on HBO live at 8:00 PM Pacific time, I believe. I TiVoed the 10 PM rebroadcast of it on HBO2 and there was a big, sloppy edit in the show, just at the top of New Rules. Anyone have any idea why?

On the matter of these flag pins, I find myself in amazing agreement with this letter that was published yesterday in the Chicago-Tribune…

Waving the flag pin

Some people are questioning Sen. Barack Obama's patriotism because he doesn't wear an American flag pin on his lapel ("His lapel naked, Obama makes a fashion statement," News, Oct. 5). This is three notches below ridiculous. A gesture that small should never be confused with actually doing something meaningful.

It's like the folks who buy a $3 sticker for their car and act like they've made a substantive contribution to the war on terror. Putting a flag on your car or coat is just about the dictionary definition of "The Least You Can Do."

I think of something my father told me. He worked (reluctantly) for the IRS and dealt with a steady stream of very wealthy people whom he caught doing everything in their power, much of it illegal, to not pay taxes. This was during the Vietnam War and some of these rich men were quite vocal that the U.S. had to spend every nickel necessary to build every conceivable weapon to defeat the communists, but God forbid it should be their nickels. Dad said every one of them had an American flag in his lapel and thought that merely wearing it made him a Good American.

Is Obama a Good American? If he genuinely defends the Constitution and the principles on which this nation was founded, then yes — regardless of what's in his buttonhole. Anyone who works against these principles is not — and it wouldn't matter if he had a flag, the Statue of Liberty, Plymouth Rock and John Wayne on his lapel.

Rick Strandrel
Rock Island, Ill

That's a great, sane way of looking at this situation…and I have to praise Mr. Strandel for his fine writing skills. Where does someone find such eloquent words?

Oh, wait — I know! He finds them here.

Y'know, I don't mind the guy stealing my writing…but he also stole my father. Thanks to Kim "Howard" Johnson for letting me know about it. (And Alan, if this is you borrowing my words again, it's okay with me but you could ask my permission.)

I made a boneheaded error the other day here, saluting Joe Simon on his 92nd birthday. I should have saluted him on his 94th birthday, which is what yesterday was. I saw 92 on some other website and it reminded me, "Oh, I have to write my Joe Simon posting," and I didn't think.

So happy 94th birthday, Joe. You look years younger. Two, anyway.

Here's an odd little bit of film. Some time in the fifties, Bob Clampett and his Time for Beany crew whipped up this little short promo pitch for a charity for the radio and television industry. It's a racy little routine that reminds one of the "horny wolf" cartoons that Clampett and Tex Avery made in the forties. I assume this was shown at some sort of industry dinner or gathering.

This was done after Stan Freberg and Daws Butler left the show, the precise date of which no one seems able to determine but it was probably either late 1953 or early 1954. In this film, Don Messick is the narrator, Irv Shoemaker is the voice of Cecil, Jim MacGeorge is Captain Huffenpuff, Walker Edmiston is Beany and the Wolf, and I think that's Joanie Gerber playing the old lady. In the credits at the end, I see a name — Naomi Something — who I'm guessing is the Marilyn Monroe-type actress playing Little Red Riding Could. And you can also spot the name of Lloyd Turner, who was the main writer for Time for Beany around this period. Lloyd had an amazing career that stretched from gag writing for Warner Brothers cartoons, all the way through writing comic books for Western Publishing and on to story-editing and writing All in the Family and other top TV shows.

Here it is. Looks like they had fun making it.

Bill Watterson — that's right, the Calvin and Hobbes guy — reviews the new book on Charles Schulz.

Jack Hitt discusses the Reagan "Star Wars" missile defense system into which this country has poured zillions of dollars and loads of hope with no reasonable evidence that the thing can ever work.

You know, I understand why someone would want to believe there could be a magic genie that could protect us from that kind of attack, just as I can understand why some folks are so gung ho about the U.S. spending so much on hardware for defense. What always puzzles me is why the question of whether the hardware will work is treated like some nitpicky technicality. It's almost like some people think spending billions on planes that won't fly or defense systems that won't defend is still better than not spending as much on protecting this great nation of ours.

Okay, so how many times today are we going to hear someone joke about how the Supreme Court just voted 5-4 to give Al Gore's Nobel Prize to George Bush?

This one got right by me in the article I linked to yesterday morning — the one about how NBC will soon be relocating their studio…

"The Tonight Show put us on the map" said Burbank Mayor Marsha Ramos. "Without that line from Johnny Carson, about 'beautiful downtown Burbank,' most people wouldn't even know that we exist. When The Tonight Show leaves, there will be a portion of our heart that will be empty."

As several of you reminded me, Mr. John Carson did not coin the term "Beautiful Downtown Burbank." It gained national fame on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, especially as uttered by the show's announcer, Gary Owens. And it actually originated years before that on Gary's radio show here in Los Angeles. He used that term many a time and introduced it into the Laugh-In library of catch-phrases.

I called Gary earlier today to double check and he said he'd been flooded with calls about it and had done several TV and radio interviews in the previous few hours. A lot of folks are sad that NBC will be vacating those historic premises and, of course, some are irate that the Mayor of the city doesn't even know who gave the town its famous nickname. Maybe Congress can vote a resolution condemning her. That would be a lot more important than addressing the problem of Iraq…or as we call it, Beautiful Downtown Baghdad.

This site is about to do some of you a huge favor. If you live or have recently lived or worked in the state of California, that is.

Go to this page and enter your name. This is not a scam or a hoax or a trick to sell you penis enlargement creme. It is the Unclaimed Property Search for the State Controller's Office. Via circuitous means, money that is owed to you may have wound up in their coffers and they'd like to find you and send it your way. This they cannot do this unless you tell them where you are and fill out a mess of forms…which may be well worth the effort. Then agan, it may not…but you won't know until you go to that page and do a search.

Some tips: Unless you have a very common name, do not enter your city. Some of the money waiting for you may be c/o the address of your union, a past place of employment, an old residence or mail drop, a union, a lawyer, a business manager, etc., so your current address may not yield a match. Also, you might try entering variations on your name — Robert, Bob, Rob, etc. and try it with and without a middle initial.

And, most important: Enter the names of dead relatives and anyone else to whom you may be an heir. I have a deceased uncle in there who has $1700 waiting for him or whoever is legally entitled to claim it. I think it's me.

I pointed this website out once before and a lot of you got a lot of money, especially if you were a current or past member of either the Screen Actors Guild or AFTRA. Some of the amounts may be too trivial to bother with but just entering friends' names in the last twenty minutes, I found a couple of large sums due to folks who could really use the loot. So let's spread word of this around. If you don't want to bother explaining it to everyone you know, just send them a link to this item. (Right click below where it says LINK and then you should get a menu that will enable you to copy the link. It'll say either "Copy Shortcut" or "Copy Link" or something of the sort, depending on your browser. Then you can paste that link into an e-mail or two.)

So…have you heard the one about the shoplifting seagull?

Ezra Klein on a rather pathetic attempt by some parties to smear a twelve-year-old boy and his family who spoke out against George W. Bush's veto of the S-CHIP expansion.

I'll admit it was kind of a cheap political stunt for the Democrats to trot out an injured child to campaign for aid to sick kids…though no cheaper, and certainly more relevant than the endless stream of firefighters, soldiers and children that George W. Bush uses in his photo-ops. (Anyone remember what he was doing on 9/11 when the planes hit the buildings?) But the response in this case was just meanness and misrepresentation…and of course, they wound up proving the opposite of the point they were trying to score.

So I'm on the line right now to the Washington office of one of my senators, Dianne Feinstein. My call was answered by a recording of the Senator's voice telling me that all lines are busy and that I can either hold or call back later…but if I hold, my call will get disconnected after two minutes. What company makes a phone bank that works like that? Can you imagine a company that wants you to buy something from them having phones that hang up on you if they're too busy?

Wait. Someone coming on the line.

Okay, I'm back. I just told the person who answered that I am a voter in California and that I want Sen. Feinstein to vote against amnesty for the telecommunications companies involved in the FISA wire-tapping mess. He dutifully took down my zip code and said my opinion would be tallied. (Why I feel this way, I should explain, is that I'm always suspicious when someone claims they've done nothing wrong but need to be protected from accountability for what they've done.)

I wonder if any Senator or Congressperson has set up something that I would think would be very easy to set up. It would be a website where their constituents could register to vote on the issues of the day. I mean, as it is, I could have been living in Pennsylvania or Portugal and told the guy on the phone I was a California resident. What if there was a site where I could actually register and they could verify my Californianess (in my case), maybe by sending me my password via postal mail or checking my Mastercard billing address or something…and each week, they'd put up questions on which I could express my opinion? There could also be a little comment box where I could add my reasons in 100 words or less.

It wouldn't in any way be binding on my representative but I would think it would at least be a good p.r. move on the part of an elected official. Wouldn't you be at least a little impressed by a Congressperson or Senator who arranged such a thing? Especially if they promised to read all the comments that were submitted?

I don't know whether Al Gore will win the Nobel Peace Prize tomorrow or if it will do anything to jar him loose from his "I am not a candidate" position. But I do know what I'd like to hear him say if he does win: "Thanks…but I'm not accepting your award until you take back the one you gave to Henry Kissinger."