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."

Here's a photo of two of my favorite people. The guy on the right is the late Jack Kirby. I've written at least ten million articles about how terrific Jack was, plus I have a real fancy book coming out in February all about him.

The fellow on the left, looking like he wasn't wild about having his picture taken, is Joe Simon. I've probably only written about five million articles that address the greatness of Joe so here's a brief summary. Joe was one of the true pioneers of comics. He was one of the first "Renaissance People" in that he could do everything. He could write, he could draw, he could letter, he could design, he could edit. Whatever it took to create a great comic book, he could do it. Kirby used to say, "Joe knows comics," and that was the highest compliment Jack could bestow on a colleague. He was especially impressed with Joe's ability to sell a comic — to conceive or recognize a saleable idea and then to know just how to design the cover, layout the book, etc. The comics created by the Simon-Kirby team were classics, every one of them, and that was in large part because Joe knew comics.

He still does. I'm delighted to wish my friend Joe Simon a happy 92nd birthday today. Hope there are many more of those to come.

NBC is announcing firm plans to close down some or all of its Burbank studio and to move operations to a new facility that will be built over on Lankershim across from Universal Studios. Apparently, the traffic over there on Lankershim is not quite impossible enough. It's still possible to get through there once in a while and they need to stop that.

The story also says that when Conan O'Brien takes over The Tonight Show in 2009, he will broadcast from a studio on the Universal lot. I think this is the first time they've admitted what everyone has presumed since the handover was announced; that Conan would not do the show from New York.

Looming over and under all of this, of course, is the question of what becomes of Jay Leno. He's lately begun doing jokes about NBC throwing away the one thing on their network (him) that's working well. There are rumors he's dickering with Fox about a competing late night show that might even start at 11:00, giving him a jump on Conan and Dave at 11:35. I suspect the rumors come from no source whatsoever; that everyone's just assuming that there are or will be discussions with Fox.

Because his ratings are still strong, Leno is in one of the best bargaining positions in the history of show business. He's like a star pitcher who has his best season ever just as he's becoming a free agent and can entertain all offers. The question is what, apart from the job he's been doing for the last umpteen years, the guy might crave. Once upon a time, NBC was in the awkward position with Mr. Letterman that they were desperate to keep him but unable to offer him the one thing in the world he wanted, which was The Tonight Show. It may be that the network is now in the same position with Mr. Leno. And just how embarrassing would it be for the network if Jay went over to Fox and did a show that beat Conan?

Woody Allen's first album of stand-up comedy may be all-time single funniest record of its kind. Every comedian of the generation after him studied and envied that album, especially a short, hilarious routine called "The Moose."

Our clip today is from an English TV show of the mid-sixties. It's Allen performing that routine in less that ideal circumstances. His timing is a little off and the audience isn't particularly receptive…and also, he decided he had to adjust a few lines, including the all-important last one. Still, footage of Woody Allen doing standup is rare and this may be the only footage ever of him performing this routine…

Fred Kaplan on what we can still accomplish in Iraq.

People ask why I link to so many Fred Kaplan articles and I would think the answer would be self-evident. He's the only guy I've seen out there writing straightforward, address-what's-really-happening pieces about Iraq. One of the things that made me decide the war was a botch was that the arguments about why we're fighting all either fell apart (We're there because Saddam has Weapons of Mass Destruction, we're there because a wonderful democracy will fall easily into place without him, etc.) or they were just too vague. Lately, in the last category, I keep getting e-mails from pro-war folks whose case never seems to go much deeper than "We have to win there because we're America and America always has to win." I think I'd like a little more than that, along with a specific definition of what will denote a "win."

Boy, we get answers fast around here. Barry Mitchell writes…

The sketch artist wearing the smock in Dick Van Dyke's Bosco commercial is local New York-area TV weatherman, Tex Antoine. He's famous for two things: illustrating his forecasts while drawing his character Uncle Weatherbee, and in the 1970s, being forced off the air in disgrace. Antoine was commenting on a news story that preceded his segment, and had the poor taste to ad-lib, "Confucious say: if rape is inevitable, sit back and enjoy." Or words to that effect. His long TV career was over in a flash.

Which is not surprising, especially since the preceding story was about the violent rape of a five year old girl. It was in 1976, by the way. Can we think of anything stupider that's been said on a newscast since then? I mean, besides about 20% of everything said by our elected officials?

Preeeeesenting…three and a half minutes of commercials for Bosco, the chocolate syrup that seemed to sponsor about half of the shows I watched when I was a youth. Of interest in the spots is Bosco's identity crisis: Sometimes, they tried to sell it as something that was good-tasting and decadent, and sometimes it was a "milk amplifier" that added vitamins to the cow juice. After all, we all know how milk isn't healthy for children unless you add a lot of sugar to it.

Also of interest is that one of the commercials features Dick Van Dyke as spokesguy. I'm guessing this was from around (or slightly after) 1956 when CBS was using Mr. Van Dyke to host kid-oriented programming like Cartoon Theater and the occasional family movie special. This was before he starred on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie and well before The Dick Van Dyke Show. I wonder who the cartoonist is in this spot.

Bosco was introduced in 1928 and it's still available in stores. They have the original chocolate flavor (natural cocoa with malt extract) but there's also a strawberry version, a "berry blue" variety, a caramel Bosco, a sugar-free chocolate Bosco and Sugar-Free Bosco Pancake Syrup. My impression is that Bosco once had a pretty large share of the market but then the Hershey's and Nestlé's corporations made a move on the syrup shelves and managed to whittle Bosco down to a smaller company. One of these days, I'll have to edit and upload a series of Bosco commercials that Daws Butler did which were, like everything Daws did, marvelously entertaining.

Here's an obit for Enrico Banducci. It says in there that his birth name was Harry Banducci but all the comedians I was with last evening — including one mentioned in this obituary, said his real surname was something that sounded Jewish. Perhaps they were in error or maybe it was a joke I didn't get.

I never set foot in the place but I always heard about the legendary nightclub, the hungry i in San Francisco. It was always typed that way — in all lower case — and it was located at 599 Jackson Street in the North Beach district. A stunning number of famous acts — comedians mostly but also musicians — either got their start there or got famous performing there. The list includes Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Barbra Streisand, Jonathan Winters, Bill Cosby and Godfrey Cambridge. No one has ever done an official tally but I suspect that more "live" performance record albums were recorded at the hungry i than at any other performing venue in the country. Tom Lehrer's last album was done there. The Limeliters did their biggest album there and The Kingston Trio did several. So did Mort Sahl, so did The Smothers Brothers…and so on. For most of its existence, the hungry i was owned and operated by a flamboyant gent named Enrico Banducci, whose real name was not Enrico Banducci but rather something more Jewish and less colorful.

Earlier this evening, I was at a gathering of what might politely be called "older comedians" and it was announced that Enrico Banducci died this morning. Almost everyone in the group had either worked for him or dealt with him in some professional capacity. Not one of them had anything but praise for his ability to spot talent and his honest business policies.

For comedians to feel that way about a club owner…that's unheard of. And a fine tribute to Mr. Banducci.

As noted in this article, the family of Charles M. Schulz is not happy with an upcoming biography of the creator of Charlie Brown and Snoopy. They gave total access and cooperation to David Michaelis so he could write Schulz and Peanuts. Now, they're giving a lot of publicity and attention to the book by announcing that it unfairly stresses the dark side of "Sparky" Schulz. Aren't you more intrigued to know that it delves into Schulz's affairs and disturbances? Even if you aren't, most of us are.

I didn't know Schulz that well, though the six or seven hours I spent with him total over the years are six or seven more than Michaelis did. I found "Sparky" to be genial, very courteous and somewhat more complex than the shallow guy that was often depicted in articles about him. He had a certain arrogance of ego that I considered understandable, given what he had achieved. It was probably less than that of most people with similar bank accounts and accomplishment. Yeah, he thought the world concurred that he was doing the greatest comic strip ever produced and that he'd invented the most popular characters in U.S. popular fiction…but it's not like he was all alone in that viewpoint. Probably the worst things I ever heard about him from his close associates were tales of him handling collaborative endeavors (dealings with the syndicate, production of animation or merchandise, etc.) the same way he handled his strip, which was that no one's opinions mattered but his own. Again, given what he achieved, that's not so surprising. Or awful.

I've ordered the book — which you can do from Amazon by clicking here — but it will join my "to be read" pile, which is now about the height of the Space Needle in Seattle. By the time I get to it, I expect to have heard the opinions of many who were closer to Schulz than I was but not as close as his family. I'll let you know how many grains of salt I decide to afford it.

One of my favorite musical groups of the sixties was The Turtles. It wasn't so much that I liked their music as that I just liked them. They clearly didn't take rock stardom seriously and it always seemed like whatever they were doing, they were having a great time doing it…and some of their music was pretty good. I mean, how can you not love a group that will stick "et cetera" into the lyrics of a love song? The Turtles broke up around 1970 and the two key members, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, worked for a time with Frank Zappa, then struck out on their own under the names "Flo and Eddie" for a while. Now, they've regained the legal right to the name "The Turtles" (they lost it for a while, which is why they were Flo and Eddie) and they occasionally tour and do "oldies" shows and such.

Our clip today is four minutes for a documentary that was done a few years back on The Turtles. In it, Volman and Kaylan explain the group's constant wars with those who would manage them. A friend of mine in the record business told me that these four minutes should be required viewing for anyone who's thinking about becoming a professional musician. It's a tale that is, alas, not unique.

Here's a paragraph from a New York Times article headlined, "Democrats Seem Ready to Extend Wiretap Powers"…

As the debate over the eavesdropping powers of the National Security Agency begins anew this week, the emerging measures reflect the reality confronting the Democrats. Although willing to oppose the White House on the Iraq war, they remain nervous that they will be called soft on terrorism if they insist on strict curbs on gathering intelligence.

Just who are they worried is going to call them soft on terrorism? The 63% of the country that wants us out of Iraq? They're not going to call someone who forces an end to this war "soft on terrorism."

And if they're worried about the 35% that wants us to stay…well, that 35% is going to hurl that insult at anyone who opposes Bush in any way. Matter of fact, no matter what Democrats do, Republicans are going to call them "soft on terrorism." Joe Biden could go catch Osama and strangle the guy with his bare hands and not change that.

If I were a Democrat in Congress, I'd be more concerned with 63% of the country calling me "soft on political courage."

Parade Magazine interviews Stephen Colbert.

The other day here, I told about two guys who I spotted in a local supermarket, denuding the shelves of every kind of solid chocolate they could find. I had no idea why they were doing such a thing and neither did the employees of the market. I appealed to you here for theories and you folks supplied many…

• Nick Varga wrote, "My thought on the chocolate puzzle is the it might be something like Dinner: Impossible from the Food Network. D.I. is a show where the chef needs to put together a unique gourmet menu with limited time and resources. But they would've had cameras around filming them, or at least to catch them coming out of the store with all that high-carb stuff.
• Dave Lowe says, "My gut feeling is they might be some P.A.s or prop people buying chocolate for some gag or set decor. I know in my work, I've had to do similar and felt the odd stares from fellow shoppers. Case in point, years ago I worked on a Nickelodeon game show and would have to clean grocery stores out of whipped cream for pie fights or apple sauce and green food coloring for "slime" making.
• Bryan, who asks that his last name not be used, suggests, "The only thing I can think of that would have those guys buying up chocolate is that I've heard that (some of) the candy industry is wanting to change the formulation of the stuff. If that were about to happen, maybe these guys are planning to hoard the old stuff and eBay it.
• Jim Guida just asks, "Why wouldn't someone buy that much chocolate?" Good point, Jim.
• Patrick Shaughnessy thinks, "They were stoned." And Alex Ness had much the same idea: "They were hippies who were planning to smoke much dope and needed to acquire predope munchie material."
• Nat Gertler points out, "When this has happened in the past, this has ended up with (a) the purchaser being investigated for terrorism or (b) the purchaser getting a golden ticket, but still being beaten out by Charlie and his Grandpa for the real prize, inheriting the factory, oompa-loompas and all."
• Edward Douglas also went the Wonka way with it: "I thought it would be pretty obvious that those guys were planning a trip down to Loompaland where they'll be living like kings for the rest of their natural lives."
• Joe Frank's thought is that, and I quote: "Maybe they're trying to get into the Guinness Book of World Records under the Biggest Zit category."
• Someone named Frank theorizes, "My guess it's for a college/frat/charity Halloween party for kids." And Buzz Dixon offers, "My guess would be a college fraternity initiation prank" while Michael Schlesinger has two guesses — "College initiation ritual or really deranged scavenger hunt."

Well, your guesses are as good as mine…better, actually, since I don't really have one. But there were no cameras in evidence and the guys didn't look like dopers. Then again, neither have most of the dopers I've known. I will add one more piece to the puzzle, though: Until one e-mailer mentioned it, I forgot that we're approaching Halloween…and one of the reasons I didn't figure that into the possibilities is that when I saw the guys' carts, I didn't see any Halloween bags of candy. Maybe I missed them but I'm thinking they hadn't grabbed up the big bags of miniature Hershey bars that were for sale there in Halloween packaging. Maybe, as Ellery Queen would say, that's a clue.