Slowly but surely, life is drifting towards normal in a world where The Pandemic is of less and less concern. It's still out there. People are still catching it. People are still dying or being seriously hospitalized. Nothing in this post should suggest that masks aren't a good idea in some situations, hands should not be washed or COVID is no longer a concern. But if you're like me, you're now doing some things you refrained from doing before we all heard the word "coronavirus." I have gone to a party, gone to a movie, gone to a comic book convention.

I have not gone to Las Vegas and it may be a long time before I do.

Oh, wait. I misspelled a word in that previous paragraph. I should have written "lonnnnnnnngggggg." And this not so much because of disease but because I now have no reason to go there and plenty of reasons not to.

I used to go to Las Vegas a lot. There were a few months in the nineties when I was there as much as I was in my home in Los Angeles. Here are some of the reasons why I went there and why those reasons no longer apply…

• I got hooked on Blackjack and more specifically on counting cards in Blackjack.  It was not so much a money thing with me. I never tried to win that much. I just wanted to see how many times I could leave a Blackjack table with more money than I had when I sat down…and once I'd done that enough times, I decided to quit while I was ahead. Why does this reason no longer apply? Because I quit, because I have no reason to start again (it was hard work) and because I'd have to learn how to do it all over again. I've forgotten all the little formulas and a lot of rules have changed, like so many casinos now pay 6-to-5 on a natural, whereas they used to pay 3-to-2. (A "natural" is when the dealer deals you an ace plus a ten-value card.)
• I love "old show business" and in Vegas, I could go see and often meet comedians and variety acts who'd been at it for years. I got to hang out with Dave Barry and Pete Barbutti and Irv Benson and so many other comics I knew from television. There were also longtime hotel employees around with great stories about Vegas in the fifties and sixties. Why does this reason no longer apply? Such people are all either dead or retired.
• I liked going to buffets, not so much for the volume as the variety. When you have as many food allergies as I do, you tend not to be adventurous in your ordering. But at a buffet, I can see the food before I put it in my mouth and often get a sense of how risky it might be…and I can have one bite of it on my plate instead of a whole order. Why does this reason no longer apply? Because since I had gastric bypass surgery in 2006, it is physically impossible for me to consume enough food at any buffet to feel I got my money's worth. That's especially true because of what buffets in Vegas now cost but I'll get to that topic in a moment.
• For part of my Vegas visiting, I was dating a showgirl in a show at one of the casinos. Apart from liking her a lot, I liked hanging out backstage at the show, talking with all the performers and the stage crew and everyone. Why does this reason no longer apply? Because that show is no longer in Vegas and neither is she. In fact, they imploded the entire hotel and built a new one on that land, and the lady I was seeing is now in another state, happily married with several children.
• I was occasionally there on business, writing for some comedian who was playing there or meeting with someone about a TV project…or something. At least three times, I was there to help a producer "pitch" a proposal for a Vegas show which they would produce and I would write. Why does this reason no longer apply? The "pitched" shows were never bought and I haven't had any business there lately.
• After my father died, I took my mother to Vegas three times because she loved going there but needed someone to get her onto the plane, off the plane, through the airports, into her room, etc. Why does this reason no longer apply? Eventually, her health would not allow her even that luxury and even more eventually, she passed away.

And also, for much of the time I was commuting to Las Vegas, I had a lot of "comped" free rooms, some because of all that Blackjack I was playing. I don't get those anymore.

But maybe the biggest reason I'm not going to Vegas is this: It's become incredibly — almost insultingly — expensive.

I'm on a few message boards where people in the "business" end of Las Vegas discuss the business. During The Pandemic when the casinos were as dead as one of those corpses they keep finding in Lake Mead as the water level drops, this was the consensus: "When COVID ends, we're going to have to spread around a lot of comps and discounts to lure vacationers back to Vegas." That turned out to be a very bad prediction. When the hotels reopened, mobs stampeded back to fill them.

No incentives were necessary. Suddenly, everything was selling out and when they raised prices — which is what you do when you're selling out — people were still stampeding. The most popular buffet in town at the moment seems to be the Wednesday night Lobster Buffet at the Palms. Last time I looked, admission to it was $64.99 per person and waits of more than four hours have been reported. Every week or two, they raise the price some more and they still have four-hour waits to get in.

It's like that all over Vegas. The most expensive buffet is the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars. That's $69.99 and there are several others in that price range. Shows are the same way. Here are the top and lowest prices of some of them…

A seat to Penn & Teller runs $106.47 to $239.48. Rod Stewart at Caesars Palace is $75.00 to $323.10. Shania Twain's new show will run you $99.21 to $1,259.79. The Michael Jackson-themed Cirque du Soleil® show at Mandalay Bay has seats from a low of $131.13 to a high of $283.73. Barry Manilow at the Westgate gets $94.42 up to a top of $422.98. And you don't want to know what it will cost to take in Adele's upcoming Vegas residency. Just sign your house over to her and that might (might!) get you into the rear balcony.

Some of those top prices include a meet-'n'-greet and/or souvenirs but the point is that good seats are not cheap these days. They're also not empty. It's like that all over the city and lately, all sorts of hidden fees are being added to hotel bills and restaurant checks. And yes, yes, I understand why they're doing it and frankly, if you and I had a business and we could double our prices without losing a single customer, we'd probably do the same thing. (Well, I might. You're much nicer than I am.)

But you get the point: I don't know how to go there without feeling like I'm Tourist-Trapped and being played for a sucker. I'm not going to say it's the principle, not the money, because frankly it's both. No matter how much wealth you have, there are moments when you just feel you're being treated like a pigeon and not an especially smart one at that. That city used to be so much fun.

Add in the fact that every time I see video or photos of present-day crowds downtown or on The Strip, I think, "Gee, if I was eager to catch COVID, that looks like a dandy place to catch it," and…well, it may be a long time before you see me there.

Downtown, a few blocks from The Fremont Street Experience, there's an alley into which I once blundered. It was full of homeless people, many of them practically sleeping on top of each other. Vegas has a large homeless population and it makes sense: It's warm most of the year, much of it's open 24/7, a lot of food gets thrown away or donated to missions, and big winners have been known to be generous with street folks who ask for spare change or Bitcoins.

But the folks in that alley were such a contrast to the opulence and riches you see elsewhere in that city. I sometimes think of them all sleeping in that alley and I just know that whoever owns that alley is now charging them a $39.95-per-night resort fee. Plus tax.

The other question put to me by Adam J. Elkhadem concerned Marvel's official, company-run fan club in the sixties, the Merry Marvel Marching Society…

I was absolutely awestruck to see you cited in Stan's Soapbox proposing the various M.M.M.S. acronyms in the pages of Fantastic Four. What a neat early claim to fame! How did you come up with these and what was it like to see your suggestion printed and later adopted?

I started writing a reply to Adam and experienced a wave of déjà vu. Suddenly, I was telling myself, "You've written this before" and I realized that, damn it, I had. I wrote about it here.

To it, I'll add that (a) I tend not to run into Stan Lee much these days and (b) that it was always a thrill to pick up a comic book at a store and find that a letter of mine had been accepted for publication. Obviously, it was a bit less of a thrill each time it happened but as I then had every intention of becoming a professional writer — or at least trying to become a professional writer — it was nice to feel I could at least get stuff I wrote published, sans pay.

And it was less of a thrill the few times — maybe more than a few — when what was published with my signature was not exactly what I'd written; when someone at DC or Marvel had decided my letter needed a rewrite to perhaps invert what I'd said or make a joke letter sound more like a serious statement. I finally stopped sending in letters for that reason.

And in hindsight, it was even less of a thrill than that. When I got into the business, I realized that it wasn't all that big a deal that some editor (more often, an assistant) had chosen my letter to be printed. I'd thought what I'd sent had stood out from a pile of a couple hundred submissions. Turned out, it was more like they needed eight letters to fill the page and they'd received twenty or so, half of them incoherent or saying next to nothing…and one or two in Crayola®. It was no great achievement to stand out from that stack.

So I guess I was thrilled at the time but I learned I shouldn't have been. And that included the ranks for the Merry Marvel Marching Society.

Singer-performer Helen Grayco died this morning at the age of 97. The last time I saw her, which was about ten years ago, she could have passed for 65. She was a beautiful lady, inside and out, and in her heyday a magnificent vocalist.

Talk about starting young. By the age of eight, Helen Greco — she later changed it — was already a singing star on radio in Tacoma, Washington — the city of her birth. A few years later, Bing Crosby discovered her and she relocated to Hollywood where she had small parts in a number of movies including A Night at the Opera. She toured with many of the top bands of the day including Red Nichols' and Stan Kenton's but is best remembered for her long association with Spike Jones. She performed on his records, tours, radio programs and TV shows…and they married in 1948.

She continued to perform, but not often, after Spike died in 1965 and pretty much gave it up after she married restaurateur Bill Rosen in 1968. While dating her niece, Kristine Greco, I got to visit with Helen a few times. She was lovely and charming and she had the kind of sense of humor that was probably mandatory to be married to Spike Jones.

Here she is performing on one of Spike's shows from 1955…

We haven't had a Barbershop Quartet number here in quite a while. Here's the U.S. Army Chorus singing one of my favorite Sondheim tunes…

I have a whole new flock of fund-raising e-mails from the Donald Trump campaign about the Mar-A-Lago incident. Reading them, you wonder if whenever there's what we might call "bad news" for the man, the first thought in his office isn't "Great! We can take in a lot of dough fund-raising off this!" Wouldn't it be interesting if at this point, Trump has decided he really doesn't want to be president again and all he cares about are (1) staying out of jail and/or paying fines and (2) raising money?

I keep hearing people ask of each Trump scandal and investigation, "Will this be the one that finishes him off?" I don't think any one matter will. I think the steady drumbeat — every week or so, a new possible crime — will finally cause enough Trump supporters to decide he's no longer electable…and maybe some will get sick of him letting them down. After Biden won, a number of them wrote me to say, "You'll see! Trump has solid proof that the election was rigged!" And of course, he never had any such proof.

Some of his supporters — the kind Jordan Klepper has a knack for locating at rallies — will never abandon him. But a lot of the less hypnotized ones have got to be sick of "their guy" never being able to back up his claims…and worried about the scandals or crime allegations that could come out after he's nominated. A major argument against Hillary when she ran against Trump was that she was always being investigated.

Here's a recently-compiled list of all the investigations and cases against Trump or involving him that are currently ongoing. And since that list was posted just a few days ago, the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump organization, Allen Weisselberg, has pleaded guilty to tax fraud.

If you think that list is the end of it, just remember: Not that long ago, you didn't know anything about the F.B.I. raiding Mar-A-Lago in search of top secret documents.

Longtime comic book artist Tom Palmer passed away yesterday at the age of 81. Born in New York in 1942, Palmer initially went down the path of realistic illustration and portraits but he was also a tremendous fan of comic books, especially the old EC books he'd devoured as a teenager. Working in advertising in the sixties, he chanced to meet Jack Kamen, who had drawn for EC, and began asking Kamen how one might go about getting into comics. Kamen was out of that world by then but he introduced Palmer to his fellow EC artist Wally Wood, who was still involved in that field.

Palmer assisted Wood briefly, then got a recommendation from him to see Sol Brodsky, who was then the guy at Marvel who took a look at new talent. Brodsky arranged for Palmer to pencil an issue of Doctor Strange, which Stan Lee thought was competent but unexciting so they assigned the next issue to Gene Colan to pencil. Palmer was disappointed to be "fired" after one issue but he accepted an offer to ink Colan's work…and when they saw what he did with it, he became a regular inker of Colan's work, there and then for a long run on the Tomb of Dracula comic. Fans also praised his work inking John Buscema on The Avengers (and elsewhere) and Neal Adams on The X-Men (and elsewhere).

In fact, Palmer was so popular as an inker that he was rarely given the chance to pencil a comic book — or better yet, pencil and ink. When he did, the results were so good, some of us wished he'd do more of that. He remained very much "in demand" for the rest of his career and his son, Tom Palmer Jr., followed him into the business as an editor. A very talented man.

Adam J. Elkhadem wrote me with two questions. The second one was about the ranks of the Merry Marvel Marching Society and I'll answer that here tomorrow. Here's the first one…

For years, I've read most of my Jack Kirby comics through TPBs, but have finally started reading them in the original staple-bound editions. I am blown away by how the color shows up on newsprint, especially in the Joe Sinnott-inked Fantastic Four issues. I was wondering if you had any information on who colored these issues. In some cases there are lots of forms and values dictated purely by color. Did Kirby and/or Sinnott play a role in these, or was it someone else (as you know, the colorists aren't among the four credited names at the beginnings of these classic comics, and I've never understood why).

Well, first I'll tell you why. The assembly line method via which comic books were created back then made it difficult to credit the colorist. The credits were lettered by, of course, the letterer. At the point in the process when the letterer was working on the pages, the writer and penciler had both done their work so they knew which names to put into the credit box for those functions.

They also knew who would probably be inking the story since that person was the next one to get the pages to work on…so they'd have that person's name lettered-in. At times, the story might wind up going to a different inker, in which case they'd change the inker credit, usually near the end of the process when the completed pages were being proofread and mistakes were being fixed or the editor asked to have some caption or word balloon changed.

But at the time the credit box was being lettered in, the story was several weeks from being assigned to a colorist. Often, they had no idea who'd wind up doing it so they just didn't bother putting in a credit or leaving space for one to be added later. Later on, the unfairness of that began to really bother people and around 1972, they began to add it in, usually during that proofreading phase.

Now then: The earliest Marvel super-hero comics were mainly colored by Stan Goldberg, who otherwise worked for the company drawing books like Millie the Model. He was the guy who decided the Hulk should be green. He colored most of the books there — not just those by Mr. Kirby — but there were occasional jobs by others. Sol Brodsky, who was the production manager then, told me he colored an issue or two of something now and then, and more than a few covers. He didn't remember specific issues and there are no written records so this information is probably lost to the ages.

It is almost certain that Joe Sinnott never colored anything for Marvel. Jack Kirby recalled coloring a few covers when they were in a jam but no one remembered which ones so, again, that info is probably lost. One thing to keep in mind: Marvel paid very little for coloring then so Stan Lee was not reticent, if the coloring on a cover didn't grab him, to say, "Let's have someone take another crack at that." So whatever covers Jack or anyone colored might have been recolored by someone else.

In the years 1961 to 1964, Marvel tried out a number of editorial assistants who didn't last…who worked there a few weeks and then were gone. It's likely that some of those folks colored something while they were around…but probably not lead stories or major books.

Then Marie Severin joined the staff. In interviews, Marie gave several different dates as to when that happened but I think it was late 1964 or early 1965. She probably colored a few comics on a freelance basis before going full-time for Marvel, whereupon she began to color most of what Stan Goldberg couldn't do, and she did most of the covers. She was also heavily involved in the design of the line art for those covers. As Marvel got busier, others eventually did a lot of the work. Some artists like Jim Steranko and Tom Palmer usually colored comics they worked on. Bill Everett did too, and colored a lot of stories he didn't pencil or ink, as well. He colored many of the issues of The Mighty Thor he inked over Kirby…but not all.

So the best answer I can give you is that Kirby's work at Marvel in the sixties was mostly colored by Stan Goldberg until Marie joined the staff, whereupon she handled a lot of it…and there were occasional jobs by Bill Everett, Sol Brodsky and others. And that may also be the best answer anyone will ever be able to give you.

Jack loved the way his work was colored at Marvel and used to cite Marie as the best colorist ever in comics. When he went to work for DC, he missed her and Stan G. And as far as DC's Production Department was concerned, Jack committed an unforgivable act of blasphemy when he told them he didn't like the way they colored his work. They thought the coloring at Marvel sucked and the coloring at DC was the best ever…and Kirby saw it in just the reverse.

Even though Jack was the editor of his DC books, he had trouble finding out who exactly was coloring them. But we know a lot of them were colored by Jerry Serpe, Tom Nicolosi and Tatjana Wood, and at least a few by Paul Reinman. Most of the covers at DC then were colored by Jack Adler, who was the head of DC's coloring squad. I interviewed Adler at Comic-Con in 2004…at least, I think that was the date. This was years after he'd clashed with Kirby and even years after Kirby had passed away but Mr. Adler was still shocked and somewhat angry that Kirby thought Marvel's coloring was better.

This weekend, the Decades channel is running a marathon. Starting at Noon (Eastern time), they're running 42 episodes of the 1974-1975 detective series, Harry O starring David Janssen. That's the entire series minus the two TV Movie pilots that preceded its two year run. Consult your guide to see when it starts on your TV. (Here's the entire schedule.)

I thought the show was very good in its first season and even better in its second. The first thirteen were shot in San Diego and in them, Private Eye Harry Orwell often clashed with Police Lieutenant Manny Quinlan, played by Henry Darrow. With Show #14, they relocated to Los Angeles where Orwell often clashed with Police Lieutenant K.C. Trench, played by Anthony Zerbe. I can't think of two characters in television who had a more delightful adversarial relationship than Orwell and Trench.

I won't be watching since I have all the episodes on DVD. But if you don't, here's a good opportunity to set your DVR, grab a few and sample them. I would recommend Episode #20 ("Lester"), Episode #21 ("Elegy for a Cop"), Episode #23 ("Anatomy of a Frame") and Episode #36 ("Mister Five and Dime"). But most of 'em are real good.

Or if your D.V.R. has enough space, maybe you can record all 42 and just start watching with the first show. As with all TV detective shows, many of the episodes involve some friend of the hero and the friend has either been killed, framed or kidnapped. But even when they did one of those stories, they always put a neat twist on the proceedings.

It's Randy Rainbow Time! He's run out of show tunes unless you think being in Beatlemania makes a song into a show tune…

Recently, my health insurance changed and I now get my prescriptions via a firm called Express Scripts. But on the advice of my local pharmacist, I also signed up for three prescription discount services that anyone can sign up for — GoodRX, Kroger RX Savings and SingleCare. On all four sites, you can enter the name of a medication you take and the dosage and it'll tell you where you can get it and what the price will be. The discounters are not insurance companies but they sometimes are cheaper.

Maybe you already knew this but I was amazed at the price variance. There's one medication I take which is $1371.70 from Kroger RX Savings, $1391.00 from SingleCare, $1306 from GoodRX…and with my Express Scripts insurance, it's $50. (These and all numbers I'm quoting here are for a 90-day supply.)

Okay, so Express Scripts is way cheaper, right? Not always. There's another medicine I take which is $71.87 at Express Scripts, $12.00 from Kroger, $19.27 from SingleCare and then GoodRX gives me a wide range of pricing depending on where I pick it up…

The lowest is Safeway Markets where it's $4.15 and that would be great except that the nearest Safeway with a pharmacy is 302 miles from me. Next lowest would be either a Von's Market (6 miles from me), a Pavilions Market (2.4) or an Albertson's Market (5.6), all of which will give me those pills for $9.43. The odd thing about this is that Von's, Pavilions and Albertson's are all owned by the same company that owns Safeway.

Express Scripts also wants $725 for a prescription that is $9.19 from Kroger, $15.72 from SingleCare and $12.74 at Safeway, Von's, Pavilions and Albertson's. Express Scripts is way cheaper on almost everything else I take but when it isn't, it really isn't.

The pharmacist who told me about these discount cards — and there are apparently others — also told me he'd been quietly applying some of them to some of my prescriptions to lower the prices I pay. He can do this with certain discounters even if I don't sign up for them. He suggested I look at some of my recent pharmacy bills and see if any of the prices I'd paid could be lowered by applying the right cards.

I went home and found that one recent prescription filled at his pharmacy (not by him) could have been $14.00 cheaper if a different discount had been applied. When I went back and showed them, the pharmacist on duty apologized and issued me a refund for $14.00. Maybe some or most of you have known this about this kind of thing all along but it was news to me, not to be confused with newsfromme.

Here's our friend — the Legal Eagle — breaking down the possible charges connected with the seizing of those documents at Mar-A-Lago…

I sleep about five hours a night but not always the same five hours. Before Comic-Con, it was generally 3 AM to 8 AM. 10 PM is, I've found, a great time to write because my phone rarely rings (unless it's Sergio) and I'm not thinking about calls I should make. But since around Comic-Con — and I'm not sure it caused the change — the five hours are more often around 11 PM to 4 AM, and right now, I've been sitting here writing since about 4:15. I'm one of those people who, if I wake up for any reason, I'm generally up until further notice.

4 AM isn't a bad time for writing. The phone is still not a distraction…and won't be until around 9 AM, by which time I won't feel that annoyed at the interruption since I already got so much work done today.

Except that as I was typing the first paragraph of this post, the phone rang.

The Caller ID pegged it clearly as a Spam call and I usually don't answer those but I was curious: What kind of business thinks it's a good idea to call people at six in the morning? Might not that be a good way to make people more hostile towards whatever you're selling?

So I answered and it was lady with an accent of no identifiable region asking if I'd be interested in selling my house. At 6:08 in the morning.

My latest way of dealing with such callers, assuming they're not of the robotic variety, is to ask them where they got my phone number. They never know…or claim to not know. This lady told me, "You're on a list I was handed. I don't know where they come from."

Since this call is about real estate, I figure she must have my address there and she admits that she does. What follows goes like this…

ME: So it shows you I'm in Los Angeles. Do you know what time it is in Los Angeles?

HER: Six in the morning, I guess.

ME: What time is it where you are?

HER: A little after 9:00 in the evening. [I suspect she's in The Philippines.] I like to get a few hours of calls in before I go to bed.

ME: What time do you usually get up in the morning?

HER: Around eight or so.

ME: And how would you feel if someone woke you up at 6:00 in the morning?

HER: I wouldn't like it.

ME: But you call people at 6:00 in the morning their time.

HER: Yes, I've found that people are usually home then.

ME: Aren't some of them mad that you wake them up?

HER: Some are.

ME: So mad that they won't answer your questions or say they're interested in selling their houses?

HER: Yes but no matter what time I call, people are angry that I called and they won't answer my questions or they say they're not interested in selling their houses. Calling at this time, I reach more of them.

True conversation. Hey, at least it made me laugh and gave me something to write about here. I think I'll go back to bed and see if I can manage another hour of shuteye.

Talk about leaking classified government material! Here's why there was so much crime in the sixties in this country: Criminals could find actual police secrets on boxes of Post cereals. All they needed was the Dick Tracy Magic Decoder, which looks strangely to me like a piece of cardboard with holes punched in it…

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, I had some respect for Alan Dershowitz. Alas, he long ago joined a list of sorta-right-wingers that have since left me wondering if I was wrong about them back then…a list that includes Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and John McCain. I'd like to think I wasn't wrong; that they merely veered into Crazyland because they saw opportunities therein.

Anyway, in the limited time I allow myself these days to look at recent political-type matters, I read Professor Dershowitz's piece for The Wall Street Journal about how Donald Trump is being treated in the most prominent of the current investigations. You may need a subscription there to read the whole piece but I can't help that.

It is however an amazing piece of trying to gin up a scandal where there isn't one. In his rebuttal article, Joe Patrice explains to the Professor of Law that different alleged crimes that might violate different laws at different times and had different levels of cooperation from the targets of those investigations might just not be comparable.

• I'm keeping an eye on eBay for my chance to buy one of Donald Trump's stolen passports. Please don't bid against me.