Following up on the previous post: Here's Allan Sherman on a 1967 Ed Sullivan Show. By this time in his career, he'd lost a lot of weight and ditched the "Jewish" part of his act, the glasses, the crewcut and his wife of 21 years.

Refused permission to parody Mr. Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night," Sherman instead did an original soundalike song and in live appearances, he interspersed numbers like this one (off his ninth and final album) with attempts to sing serious tunes, many of his own authorship. Audiences who wanted the little fat guy singing the kind of tunes that made him famous were disappointed but it ain't a bad song…

In 1962, I was ten years old and one of my heroes was Allan Sherman. Sherman had been a comedy writer and producer, and had spent most of the preceding eighteen years going from job to job to job, constantly getting fired. His biggest pre-'62 success was co-creating and producing the popular game show, I've Got a Secret from which, of course, he got fired. He had done a bit of performing here and there, mostly singing song parodies for (mostly) Jewish audiences.

In late '62, Warner Brothers Records released an album of his song parodies called My Son, the Folk Singer. Everyone expected it to die a quick death in record stores, just like dozens of other comedy records by performers no one had heard of. Instead, it quickly became the fastest-selling comedy record ever and Allan Sherman became one of the biggest stars in all of show business…briefly. His stardom and success didn't last long.

His peak was probably the following year when a single off his third album was a smash hit. It was called "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh," subtitled "A Letter from Camp." He guested on all the big TV shows. He had his own special. He played The Hollywood Bowl twice — I was in the audience both times — and then his star began cooling…to some extent because he decided he didn't want to be a short, fat comedian who wore glasses.

He wanted to be…well, at times he seemed to want to be Frank Sinatra but he didn't have the voice or style or just about anything one would need to be Frank Sinatra, especially in the late sixties when Frank Sinatra was struggling to be Frank Sinatra. Sherman tried to be a playwright and composer for Broadway but his one attempt opened there in 1969 and lasted all of four days. Other failures followed other failures and he passed away in 1973 at the age of 48.

About fifteen different funny people inspired me to get into the business of writing silly things and he's on that list. He especially caused me to start writing song parodies and poems, as did Stan Freberg and MAD Magazine…especially MAD writer Frank Jacobs. I never met Mr. Sherman though I did have one unpleasant encounter with him via other parties. I wrote about it here.

I did meet a number of people who knew him, including several who claimed to have ghost-written a lot of his best material. I'm reasonably certain some of those claims were valid as were tales of Sherman not being as nice and funny in person as he was on a stage. Most used the term "self-destructive." Still, I admired much of what he did. Some of his records still hold up well if you can find your way through the outdated topical references.

In 1965, just before his stardom began its vertiginous plunge, he published his autobiography, A Gift of Laughter. At the age of thirteen, it had a big impact on me and on how I write when I write in the first person and try to be amusing. I have recommended it to many people and some time ago on this blog, I said the following about it…

I don't necessarily recommend the book as actual history, however. You may have seen me mention my high school buddy, Bruce Reznick, who occasionally sends in items I post on this weblog. Bruce's father is the great comedy writer, Sidney Reznick, and he was a featured player in one anecdote in A Gift of Laughter. Sidney says it ain't so. A number of other Sherman friends and co-workers I've encountered have suggested that what he wrote is not exactly what they remembered…and notably, Sherman omits one key verifiable fact from his life story.

He tells the rags-to-riches tale of how he went from unemployed, unemployable TV producer to Big Comedy Star practically overnight…but fails to mention that My Son, the Folk Singer was his second record. He had previously done a much less successful — perhaps because it was "too Jewish" — single of "Jake's Song" and "A Satchel and a Seck." I guess it would have cluttered his life story and made it seem less exciting to know that he wasn't a smash hit with his first attempt at a comedy record.

This is not uncommon in autobiographies. When Moss Hart wrote Act One, he told the tale of his maiden success as a playwright, making Once in a Lifetime sound like his first work to make it to Broadway. It wasn't. His friend, Alan Jay Lerner, also left some early failures out of his autobiography, The Street Where I Live. There are many other examples.

What's odd (and oddly endearing) about Sherman's book is that it's filled with flops and humiliations as a comedy writer and producer. He owns up to an awful lot of them but pretends like when he finally tried recording song parodies, he struck gold his first time out. I don't fault him for that. I just think it's…well, kind of strange. It doesn't make me love his work any less, though.

I should also mention that one of Sherman's old associates told me that the book was largely ghost-written. That also does not make me love it any less.

When I've recommended it to friends, I caution them that it can be hard to find. Well, it was…and Amazon is currently offering a hardcover of the original edition for $579. It ain't that good. Fortuitously though, they have a Kindle edition available for reading free as a loan or you can purchase it for $2.99. It's definitely worth even the higher of those two prices.

It will tell you the happy, rags-to-riches side of Allan Sherman's career, stopping just before the descent. There are also a couple of great, funny stories about Harpo Marx in it, especially in the first and last chapters. Go for it.

The Writers Guild is currently holding elections for its officers and Board of Directors. I haven't decided yet who's getting my vote so nothing here should be taken as an endorsement or non-endorsement of anyone…but I'm intrigued that David H. Steinberg is running. This is not David Steinberg the comedian. David H. is a former lawyer who has recently worked on No Good Nick, Yo-Kai Watch and a number of other shows, and I believe he was involved with some of the American Pie films.

Some time ago, I read the story online of how, on behalf of his fellow Guild members, he took on a ruthless exploiter of some of us. Here's a Twitter thread in which he details his battle with Taco Bell.

I was attending U.C.L.A. in January of 1970 when "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon and Garfunkel was released and you couldn't go anywhere without hearing it. I remember one day when I was walking across the campus, they were playing it on KHJ, as they seemed to do about every hour. Some kids were picnicking on the lawn and I heard the first part coming out of a transistor radio one of them had. By the time that radio's sound was out of earshot, I was hearing the middle part from someone else's radio and the ending came out of yet another radio.

The record went onto my mixtape but I don't think I really appreciated the song itself at the time. It was a nice tune but I didn't feel any real emotional involvement in it; not until the early eighties. I went over to the apartment of my then-current lady friend to pick her up and take her to dinner and a movie. When I got there, I found she'd decided to overrule me. We were going to stay at her place, order in Chinese Food and watch The Concert in Central Park on HBO.

I said, "I thought you'd watched that a few times already." She said, "I have but I haven't watched it with you." I'm still not sure what that meant but okay. We watched it and I don't remember anything except what a huge impression "Bridge Over Troubled Water" made on me that evening. That was a much better performance than the record.

The 1970 record was fine but what they did with it in Central Park was a performance by Art Garfunkel, singing with utter sincerity to a certain person he cared about who was at that moment in need of both physical and emotional support. And ever after when I heard the 1970 recording, it felt to me like a group effort with a whole bunch of musicians playing and Mr. Garfunkel singing some lyrics that someone else wrote, accompanied by a backup voice or two.

And yes, I know someone else wrote those lyrics.  Paul Simon was also a backup voice on the record.  But the words just sounded so meaningful and sincere coming out of Art Garfunkel in Central Park…so here's the song, not from the record that was on my mixtape but from the performance on the special…

Costco is out of Kirkland Paper Towels and Kirkland Toilet Paper. This is not a good sign.

I feel like I'm in one of my "Don't look at the news too much" periods. I'm as concerned as you are about the disasters — political and environmental — and our inability to address, let alone solve any of them. I just don't have anything new or interesting to say on these topics. It's times like this I find myself quoting this great thing that Jim Henson once said…

At some point in my life, I decided, rightly or wrongly, that there are many situations in this life that I can't do much about — acts of terrorism, feelings of nationalistic prejudice, Cold War, etc. — so what I should do is concentrate on the situations that my energy can affect.

Smart man, that Jim Henson. I think I'll spend this weekend concentrating on the situations that my energy can affect.

Oh…and sleeping. I think I need to get more sleep.

A lot of people reading this probably never heard of Mal Z. Lawrence but for about sixty years, he was a popular stand-up comedian in select circles. His main venues were hotels and theaters and anywhere that catered to a largely Jewish audience…preferably one that knew a smattering of Yiddish. He was an opening act for stars in Las Vegas and other gambling meccas but largely, he was what they called a "Catskills Comic."

Back when there were a number of resorts in the Catskills Mountains that catered to a (mostly) Jewish clientele, he was a star in those showrooms. And when that industry declined, he played other places — a lot of them in Florida — that appealed to the same crowd.

For a year or so on Broadway and touring for years after in the eighties, he was a part of Catskills on Broadway, a show that consisted of four comedians who'd either perfected their acts in the Catskills or could have. All the comics in Catskills on Broadway were good but they almost always had Lawrence close the show…because no one could follow him. Like a fine juggler who's been at it so long he's become incapable of missing, Lawrence had done it so long, he was incapable of not pleasing his audience…that is, when he was in front of the right audience.

I met him once when through a series of odd coincidences, I found myself at a table in the New York Friars Club lunching with him, Louise Duart, Freddie Roman, Corbett Monica, Dick Capri, Jackie Gayle and Henny Youngman. It was close to impossible to get a word in edgewise at that table but fortunately, I was seated next to Mr. Lawrence and when our fellow diners were chewing, I was able to tell him how much I enjoyed his act.

He asked me if I was Jewish and I told him I was half-Jewish. He said, "So I guess you just get every other joke."

Here's a video of about 25 minutes of Mal Z. Lawrence…and if you start watching, you may have trouble stopping because he had that kind of machine-gun delivery. But notice the utter professionalism of the man. He takes command of the stage and never lets go. And if one of his lines doesn't land with the audience, he has another already on its way.

As the New York Times obit will tell you, he died last Monday at the age of 88. He was one of the last of his kind…

Boy, when I go, I hope I hope even half as many people miss me as seem to be missing Lydia, a cat most of them never met.

Because several folks asked: I've decided to stop feeding strays of any species in my backyard, at least for now. Maybe someday if I can figure out a way to be more selective — like feeding possums and cats I've named without feeding raccoons and cats I don't know — I might resume. But for now, the buffet is closed. (This message is for any possums who follow my blog. Sorry, guys.)

I did talk to my lovely friend Betty Lynn the day after her birthday. She was a little pooped from all the celebrating but she'd doing well. Here's an article that ran in her hometown newspaper.

If you're a fan of our Groo Meets Tarzan mini-series, you have about three days to e-mail me a letter that I might (might!) publish in issue #4. Use the e-mail address in the comic book.

If I subtract the number of reruns, I'm at around 29,100 posts on this blog. I recently paid my annual fee to my hosting company which does a way better job than my previous three hosting companies of keeping this blog online and pretty swift to respond to your clicking. If you've been thinking of sending in a donation, this would be a really good time to do it because that fee is pretty steep. The PayPal link is to the right. Thank you.

The second issue of Groo Meets Tarzan seems to be out and available from discerning comic book vendors across the land. I haven't received my copies yet but that's okay. I know what's in it. This is the second of four issues that took place during the Comic-Con in San Diego last July…the one that really didn't happen. If the con had taken place, this is what would have happened at it, I assure you.

You can always find the latest Groo News — and I know you just can't get enough of it — at www.groo.com. Also, Sergio and I are making silly little videos answering questions from Groo readers and I should have started posting them weeks ago. Here's the first one we did…

I had three Turtles songs on my mixtape — "She'd Rather Be With Me" (which I covered here), "The Guide for the Married Man" (which we'll get to) and this one…"Happy Together." The song was written by Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon and legend has it that every other recording artist in the world had been offered the song, passed on it and been chagrined when The Turtles grabbed it up and had a very big hit with it.

Here they are on The Ed Sullivan Show performing it in 1967. It's hard to believe that when some adults saw this, they said things like, "Those hippies should get haircuts and get jobs."

• There's too much news these days…just too much news. I'm beginning to think that when all these 24-hour news networks came along, God said, "Gee, that's a lot of time to fill. I'd better create more natural disasters and political upheavals."

For the first time this century, I will be feeding no recurring feral cats in my backyard. Since "Jackie" showed up one day in 1991, I've had a fairly constant stream of them dropping by to partake of the Friskies Buffet. Some came and disappeared swiftly enough that I never gave them names. Some came regularly enough that I did…and there were a few in the second category who basically lived out there.

As far as I can tell, all but one of the ones who earned names lived way longer than the norm. The one who didn't was one who got hit by a car. At one point, as some of you may remember, I was up to four regulars and Lydia, who died today, was the last of that four.

Just how long feral cats live with and without human assistance is apparently the subject of much heated debate among cat doctors and fanciers. Whatever the answer, I'm pretty sure Lydia beat it. She first turned up out there in 2007. The following year, I trapped her, took her in to be spayed — a tale told here — and released her back into the yard. The veterinarian who operated thought she was at least three then which would have made her sixteen today. Another vet — one who saw her later — guessed she was even older.

You needn't write to tell me she had a great, long life. I know that. What I don't know is if I want to take this moment to close down the Feline Golden Corral I've been running out there for a few decades. It fed not only cats I intended to feed but also a steady array of raccoons, possums and cats I never saw enough of so that I assigned them names.

In the past, any time one of my steady customers died or disappeared, I had at least one other one coming around for grub…so I didn't think about shutting it down. If I'm going to, this would be the time. Lydia's been pretty much alone out there since August of 2018 when her friend Sylvia died.

For about six weeks last year, little Lydia had the occasional companionship of a feline I named Murphy the Mystery Cat since I never found out its gender or where it was dining the 3-5 days a week it didn't dine here. As mysteriously as he or she came, Murphy disappeared around April of last year.

Lydia never seemed to mind being alone. I think in a way she liked not having to compete for the supper dish. What did seem to bother her — and I'm attempting a bit of pussycat mind-reading here so this may not be so — was the deterioration of her physical condition. She couldn't run. She couldn't climb. She developed a bad limp. The less spry she was, the more she seemed afraid of my gardeners…other animals…even sometimes me.

I will miss her. I won't miss the Lydia who was lame and in pain the last few weeks but I'll miss the healthy Lydia. Often, she slept in that little house in the first photo in this article. I can see that house from the window of the bathroom in my bedroom. First thing in the morn when I was in that bathroom, I'd always peek out to see if Lydia was in her house. If I saw her there, it put a top-o'-the-morning smile on my face.

When I didn't see her there, it didn't mean anything bad. It just meant she'd gotten up before me and she could be anywhere on my premises or in the yards of my immediate neighbors on several sides. So it didn't depress me to not see her there. But it might, tomorrow morning.

I'm getting a lot of questions about Comic-Con Special Edition, which is scheduled to take place November 26-28 (i.e., the weekend after Thanksgiving) at the San Diego Convention Center in that town they named the convention center after. Here's a brief Q-and-A about it and as you'll see, there are many Qs and I don't have many As. In fact, you can skip this entire post and go look at the con website and know pretty much everything about it that I do…

Q: Is it still on?
A: It would appear that the folks who stage this thing are pretty determined to stage this thing.

Q: Might it still be canceled or postponed?
A: We live in a world now where anything might be canceled or postponed. No one can say for sure if The Pandemic will be better, worse or about the same 86 days from now when the con is scheduled to open.

Q: What should I do if I need to book travel soon in order to get a flight on Thanksgiving Weekend?
A: I don't know.

Q: When will badges or exhibitor space be made available?
A: I don't know.

Q: How big will this thing be? Will we have the run of the entire convention center?
A: I don't know. I don't know.

Q: Will all the hotels that are usually available for Comic-Con be available? Will the convention offer deals for them? When will we know about this?
A: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Q: Will attendees have to mask and/or show proof of vaccination or a recent test?
A: I don't know. Oh, wait. I can answer this one. Or at least direct you to this post which the convention released yesterday.

Q: Won't these policies make things rough for cosplayers?
A: Yes. And while I love cosplayers — or at least the ones who don't crash into me or stab me with props — I could support a policy that anyone who thinks their cosplaying is more important than protecting others should be tossed out and banned from all future Comic-Cons. The con hasn't said they'll do this but if they do, I'm behind them on it or some similar action.

Q: But I really want to cosplay at this convention and this mask thing will ruin whatever I come up with. What should I do?
A: Go as Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H.

Q: Are you going to attend?
A: I don't know. I mean I really don't know. I have some time before I have to decide and I intend to use it.

I keep having to remind myself of my own advice, which is to accept and deal with the fact that life is way more unpredictable than usual because of COVID-19. No one knows when this thing will end. No one knows how bad it will get before it does. Advance planning is very difficult and it may be for quite a while.

San Diego Comic-Cons are usually wonderful things that I greatly enjoy. I miss them. But there are many things that I miss that I understand would be dangerous at the moment…and maybe you and I disagree as to how dangerous. Maybe I'm being too cautious…but given the choice of being "too cautious" or "not cautious enough," I'm going to opt for "too cautious" every time. After all, I'm going to be seventy years old next year and I would like very much to be seventy years old next year.

I understand that if you post anything on the Internet about current events, you're supposed to have firm, "I-am-absolutely-right" viewpoints on all the issues at hand but I'm afraid I don't. I'm reasonably sure that it is a good thing that the U.S. is out (or nearly out) of Afghanistan and that both Democrats and Republicans kept us there — and did a lot of misrepresenting to justify keeping us there — for far too long.

But that bit of deception and incompetence was too bi-partisan for either side to score many points over it so everyone's going to get a pass on that waste of lives and money. We're not going to talk about who to blame for getting us into it or who to blame for not getting us out of it sooner. Republicans are going to hammer Biden for how he got us out of there because of course they are.

I've become just about numb to politicians and pundits being outraged at the opposition party. Their job descriptions these days seems to be looking at what The Other Side does and spinning it, no matter what it is, as corrupt, stupid, senile, immoral, self-dealing and certain to lead to the destruction of the United States. If Biden spilled his iced tea, Ted Cruz would be on Hannity within minutes explaining why it's the end of America as we know it.

Here's what I'm waiting for: The Democrat or Republican — I'll settle for either — with the courage and integrity to not play this game; to tell his or her "base" that the other side did something good. I expect to wait a long time for this. And if it's an elected official who does this, he or she might not be one for long.

Regarding the pullout in Afghanistan, Kevin Drum — a pundit I like because I don't think he does that — makes a pretty good case that things over there have gone as well as could be humanly expected. But I don't hear too many Democrats making that case and I don't expect any Republicans would dare and nothing I've read has coalesced into a solid opinion for me.

The same is true of another current issue that someone asked me to comment on…the parole of Sirhan Sirhan. It's easy to say he should rot in prison forever for what he did. Hell, you could say that of anyone convicted of committing any degree of murder and just be done with parole for such people. I saw one web post from a lady who seemed to be saying, "We should never parole anyone who murders someone I've heard of."

Somewhere in this state, there's a parole board and doctors-of-the-mind who actually interviewed Sirhan as he exists today and arrived at some sort of evaluation…and I have trouble just discarding that as irrelevant to the discussion.

Often, a jury returns a verdict that seems cockeyed to those of us who didn't sit in the courtroom for eight weeks and hear every last bit of evidence and sit ten feet from the witnesses. I don't think that should be ignored. They might not be right but they do know a lot more than I do about the case. What I know comes in short bites conveyed by a news media I do not think is always as competent as we'd like it to be.

Sorry for the uncertainties but I'm like that at times. If you want a firm opinion, I've got one for you: The folks who say to wear masks and get vaccines are right and the ones who say it's a hoax and unnecessary and that being told to wear a mask is like Nazis carting Jews off to be executed are wrong and making this thing last way longer and be much more destructive of life and the economy than it had to.

Julien Neel, my favorite one-man quartet, sings my least-favorite Beatles song…

Hello, Dolly! opened on Broadway on January 16, 1964 and played there for a then-record 2,844 performances. When it finally closed two days after Christmas in 1970, a lot of theater reporters doubted that any musical would ever best that number. Wrong! The Phantom of the Opera, the revival of Chicago, The Lion King, Cats, Wicked, Les Misérables, A Chorus Line, the revival of Oh! Calcutta!, Mamma Mia!, Beauty and the Beast, Rent, Jersey Boys, The Book of Mormon, Miss Saigon, 42nd Street, Grease and Fiddler on the Roof all did it…and some of those are still running. In fact, Phantom of the Opera has now had more than four-and-a-half times as many performances as Hello, Dolly!

But Dolly! was still a triumph and it lasted as long as it did because its producer, the infamous David Merrick, kept bringing in Big Star Names for the lead when the first Dolly Levi, Carol Channing, left the show.  They included — not in this order — Pearl Bailey, Phyllis Diller, Betty Grable, Mary Martin, Martha Raye, Ginger Rogers and Ethel Merman. (And here's something I didn't know until I just looked up that list: One of the actors who played the male lead of Horace Vandergelder for a while was Richard Deacon. That's right — Mel Cooley on Broadway!)

The casting of Pearl Bailey was heralded as an especially shrewd bit of stunt casting because they restaged the show with black actors including Cab Calloway as Horace. Here, from a 1967 episode of The Ed Sullivan Show, is a number from that production…