Usually, I don't answer calls with no Caller I.D. than I recognize but the last few days, I've been waiting for an important call from someone whose number I don't know. So to play it safe, I'm answering everything except calls that say they're from Huntington Park, California.

For some reason, about a third of all the spam calls I receive are from Huntington Park. I just looked it up and Huntington Park has a population of around 60,000. I've decided that every single one of those 60,000 people is a Telemarketer. I know of no one in Huntington Park who disproves my theory.

So yesterday, the phone rings and it's a call from the 904 area code. That's almost certainly not the important caller but, hey, why take that chance? I answer and a man says, "I have your pizza here and you aren't answering your doorbell. Would you like me to leave it in front of your door?" I tell him, "I think you have the wrong number. I didn't order a pizza."

He says, "I'm calling the number that was on the order" and he reads it off. I tell him "That's my number but I still didn't order a pizza. What's the address on the order?" He reads off a street address — house number, street number — and it isn't mine and it doesn't sound familiar. I ask, "City and state?"

He says, "Jacksonville, Florida." I tell him, "I'm in Los Angeles. I'd give you my address but it might be cold by the time you got it here."

He says, "Sorry to bother you. But now I've got to figure out what to do with this pizza." I ask him what's on it and he consults the paperwork and tells me it's "Sausage, white onion, garlic and mushrooms." I tell him, "Mmmm…that sounds good. I'd eat that if I were you."

He says, "Y'know, I might just do that" and hangs up.

Okay, first thing: This video will be taken offline in a week or so…so if you want to watch it, watch it soon.

Theater in London's West End reopened yesterday with a live concert featuring numbers from everything that's reopening there. It's a little over two and a half hours of magnificent performances. If you don't have time to watch it all, pick out your favorites from the list below.

ACT ONE: 9:35 The Show Must Go On (Original Song) • 20:00 It's My Life (& Juliet) • 24:50 Heart of Stone (Six – the Musical) • 31:57 Can You Feel the Love Tonight (Disney's The Lion King) • 34:37 Practically Perfect (Mary Poppins) • 41:10 You'll Be Back (Hamilton) • 44:53 For Forever (Dear Evan Hansen) • 53:25 I Can't Go Back (Pretty Woman – The Musical) • 58:16 We Don't Need Another Hero (Tina – The Tina Turner Musical) • 1:02:23 The Winner Takes it All (Mamma Mia!)

ACT TWO: 1:29:50 The Power of Love (Back to the Future – The Musical) • 1:35:50 You and Me – but Mostly Me (The Book of Mormon) • 1:38:40 Me and the Sky (Come From Away) • 1:46:00 When I Grow Up (Matilda – The Musical) • 1:49:42 Beautiful/Spotlight (Everybody's Talking About Jamie) • 1:57:01 Bring Him Home (Les Misérables) • 2:01:15 All I Ask of You (The Phantom of the Opera) • 2:08:30 The Wizard & I (Wicked) • 2:13:11 When You Believe (The Prince of Egypt) • 2:28:18 The Show Must Go On (by Queen)

The online video starts with a long title card so I have this video configured to begin at 8:45.  Enjoy.  But enjoy before they take it down. And if you enjoy it, please consider a donation to Theatre Support Fund+, which you can make at this link…

So…as we suspected, Donald Trump did not wear his pants backwards while giving a speech.  The Snopes folks say he didn't and they're usually right about this kind of thing.  I can't believe so many people fell for this hoax.  Like I said, I wish people would stop doing this kind of thing.

My iPhone this morning had a flurry of news "headlines" that said Donald Trump made a speech wearing his pants backwards, suggesting it was evidence of senility that he'd done this without realizing it. First question: How is this possible? I don't think any of my pants are completely reversible; not unless they're like sweat pants, which is not what Trump was wearing. Dress pants are cut to be worn one way.

Secondly: Let's say I could somehow get mine on in reverse. I'm 69 years old. I've been dressing myself since I was about five. Sheer muscle memory would tell me something was wrong if I was reaching around behind me to buckle my trousers and zip up the fly. And what if I needed to use a restroom after I put them on?

Okay, I get it: Trump and his minions never missed an opportunity to spread the idea that Joe Biden was senile, confused, suffering from Alzheimer's, soon to croak, clueless as to where he was, etc. I understand the temptation to turn Trumpian tactics against Trump. I just wish people didn't do that. I wish a lot of things that aren't going to happen.

Quite a few e-mails in my inbox are now trying to convince me of the worthiness or even the brilliance of Frank Zappa music. One person even sent an Amazon gift card and specified the Frank Zappa CD they'd like me to purchase with it. Thank you all and please note I did not say I thought the guy was lousy; merely that I mostly ignored him. Truth to tell, I've probably ignored more than 99% of all the music acts out there and so have you. Maybe I'll give him a chance some day. Don't take it personally that I haven't unless you're Frank Zappa, which I'm pretty sure you aren't.

Last Wednesday, I was in Beverly Hills for a doctor's appointment and I also stopped at my bank. I was wearing a mask the entire time and every single person I passed in either building or on the street was, as well. Some mask-wearing friends have told me they've been scolded by passers-by who yell, "Take that off!" I have the feeling that regardless of the state of COVID-19 or any future diseases, mask-wearing is going to be around for a long time…and certainly during flu season. And in medical facilities and doctors' offices.

I don't know why but I just love these "flash mob" instant musical numbers. I once saw one very much like this — same song, in fact — pop up in Vegas in the spot just between Harrah's and what was then the Imperial Palace. I have no idea who organized it or why. It didn't seem to be selling anything. The film Mamma Mia! was not playing at the time nor was there any ABBA-based show then in town.

But it sure made people happy. If I ran a big casino, I think I'd hire a troupe to wander around the place and just do these in unpredictable spots at unpredictable times…

The videos of The Turtles brought a lot of e-mail from folks like — well, here's one from John Hall…

"Happy Together" was not the first hit. It was their fourth Top 40 hit and their only #1 hit. First was a Bob Dylan cover, "It Ain't Me Babe," which made the top 10. Third was my personal favorite Turtles song, "You Baby."

Okay…first and only #1 hit. Duly noted. Now, here's one from someone who didn't want his name mentioned…

Here's something you might not know about the Turtles: On the liner notes to Frank Zappa's 1965 album Freak Out was a quote attributed to a noted L.A. D.J. that said he could make him "as popular as the Turtles!" By 1971, the Turtles had broken up and three of them — Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman, and bassist Jim Pons — were all in Zappa's touring band. Cool, huh?

Cool, indeed. And right after I got that, I received this from voiceover guy supreme (and a former L.A. D.J.) Neil Ross…

One of the great live shows I ever saw was when Volman and Kaylan were briefly part of Frank Zappa's aggregation. I saw them in San Diego. They did a truncated onstage version of their 200 Motels movie which had recently been released. The high point of the show was when Kaylan and Volman, backed by Zappa's other excellent musicians, launched into a medley of their old Turtles hits. Brought the house down. Those cats could really sing! You'd have enjoyed it.

I would have. And we'll all be listening to hear Neil Ross as the announcer on the new season of Press Your Luck on CBS. (I'm not sure if it's a secret that he's also the voice of The Whammy so I won't mention that.) Then Jeff Blair wrote to ask…

I'm sure others have inquired, but did your interest in the Turtle boys follow over to their stint with Zappa?

Not so much. I can't really explain it but I never warmed to the work of Mr. Zappa. It may have had to do with a couple of interviews I caught of him where he talked at some length about the greatness of the work he was doing and the even-greater greatness of the work he had yet to do. Or something like that. Perhaps I was judging him unfairly but I pretty much ignored him after that. The one exception was "Eddie, Are You Kidding?", which I thought of mostly as the work of Kaylan and Volman.

Thanks to all who wrote in about that and/or to be generally supportive of the new mixtape feature. More to come.

In 1967, The Turtles followed up their first hit — "Happy Together" — with this tune, "She'd Rather Be With Me." I do not understand the visuals of this video at all. I have a vague memory of them performing it on some show with a lot of real cute ladies dancing around, which of course made sense…but I don't see a clip of that on YouTube.

I really liked The Turtles, partly for their music but mainly because at least the two lead performers — Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman — seemed to be pretty funny guys who never took their act too seriously. They were the only one of those groups who were more interesting when talking to Dick Clark than when singing on his program. I'll show you how funny they could be in a moment but first, here's one of their songs which I had on my becoming-infamous mixtape, "She'd Rather Be With Me"…

Okay, great song. Now, here's a clip I featured here a long time ago. This video starts with a clip from "Happy Together" which I'll feature here in full in a future mixtape post. It's followed by Volman and Kaylan explaining about the group's managerial problems. An awful lot of groups had problems like this but I doubt many (or even any) of them could laugh about it like this…

Hey, remember the other day here when we were talking about how the Archie people were bringing out a new comic book of The Shield? And remember how I wasn't pleased that in parodying the cover of Captain America #1, they'd credited Jack Kirby for drawing that iconic issue but not his partner Joe Simon? Well, the fine artist who drew that cover for Archie — Dan Parent — wrote me to say it was an unintentional oversight and that Joe's name has been added. Happy ending! Thanks, Dan!

And we see that famed lawyer F. Lee Bailey has died at the age of 87. Mr. Bailey is one of those public figures — and there are quite a number of these — for whom I once had some admiration only to see it wither and die. Even before he took on the colorful case of defending O.J. Simpson, Bailey became a symbol of the main reason people hate attorneys — this notion that the point of any trial is to prove that he, F. Lee Bailey, is so powerful that he will win. Any questions about whodunnit or that unimportant thing called "justice" didn't matter; only the courtroom supremacy of the überlawyer.

I think in some ways he kinda liked the idea that so many people thought that despite the verdict in the criminal case, O.J. was guilty. You could almost imagine the guy saying, "Hey, any lawyer can get an innocent man acquitted. I'm so good, a client can be guilty-as-sin and I can get him off." On talk shows, which he of course loved doing, his main argument that O.J. was innocent seemed to be something like, "I'm F. Lee Bailey and I say he's innocent. That should be proof enough for anyone."

I do remembering him promising to shock the world with a book he was writing — or maybe had written — that would reveal who had really committed the murders Simpson was accused of. Now that Bailey's dead, I guess we'll never know.

Fearless Fosdick was a comic-strip-within-a-comic-strip, in this case appearing within Al Capp's popular Li'l Abner strip. Fosdick was Abner's hero and every so often, Capp would give the strip over for several weeks to the adventures of this Dick Tracy parody. At first, Tracy's creator Chester Gould was said to be amused by the spoof but increasingly less so as the spoof went on and on for years and Capp's merchandising revenues from the parody character eclipsed Gould's merchandising on the source material. (Gould himself later tried doing the same thing with Charles Schulz's Peanuts.)

One way Fosdick was exploited was with a short-lived TV series performed by marionettes. Thirteen episodes were made, the first debuting on June 15, 1952. Perhaps you are of sounder stock than I am but I was not able to sit through even the one below, let alone more than that. But it is a nice novelty. Mary Chase, proprietor of the Mary Chase Puppets, directed and did a lot of it. The script was by Everett Crosby, who occasionally wrote or managed business affairs for his older brother, Bing.

The voices were supplied by John Griggs and Gilbert Mack, two New York-based character actors who were seen on a lot of TV shows that came out of Manhattan. Both had really good careers doing voiceovers from commercials and cartoons. Mack is the guy who was often called in by Golden Records and given the impossible task of replicating the voices of the star characters usually voiced by Mel Blanc or Daws Butler. He was a pretty good voice actor when he wasn't trying to do that.

Here's the first episode of the Fearless Fosdick TV show. You will not be tempted to seek out others…

Al Roker chats with Kennedy Center Honoree Dick Van Dyke. I don't know why the Kennedy Center felt the need to honor Dick now. Couldn't they wait until he's older and has accomplished something of note?

Yesterday around 4:30 in the afternoon, I was sitting here writing when I heard the sound outside of the bi-monthly traffic accident at my corner. We have them about that often and so far, no one has been seriously injured in any of them, though I suppose it's just a matter of time.

I peeked out and saw it involved a grey sedan and a white SUV and no one else, and it seemed like folks were upset but not hurt. I then saved the work I was doing, called up the program that deals with my home security cameras and watched an instant replay of the collision. One of the cameras had not only caught the whole impact but clearly showed what the traffic signals were showing. The grey car, going north, had run a red light and hit the front right side of the white SUV going east across the intersection.

When I have such video and it can settle a dispute, I go out and offer it. One time, the three drivers involved in a collision were arguing loudly over whose fault it was. The guy whose fault I knew it was was giving his description of what he claimed had happened. He had absolutely, positively not run the red light..and believe me. Ray Bradbury never wrote a finer work of science-fiction.

I wandered up to them and said, "Hi. I live in that house over there and my security camera captured the entire accident." Whereupon the fellow I knew was at fault instantly began telling a different version in which he had run the red light but only because a tree branch had obscured the signal. He said this even though it was plain to see there was no tree branch anywhere near any signal.

That arguing continued. Yesterday when I went out to tell the folks involved in yesterday's accident that I had video, it wasn't necessary. The gent in the grey sedan was admitting he'd run the red light and apologizing so sincerely that the lady in the white SUV — the lady he'd hit — and I felt sorry for him. She was shaken but forgiving.

And it made me happy…not happy that they'd had this auto accident but happy at the pure civility. The fellow admitted he was wrong and that doesn't seem to happen often in the world these days, even when someone is demonstrably, provably wrong. They want to keep arguing the inarguable. We need more "I was wrong" in this world.

And I seem to have been wrong to quote online sources that the record "Love Grows" by Edison Lighthouse came out in 1972. A great many of you wrote to tell me it was 1970. I stand corrected. Well actually, I'm seated at the moment but you get the idea.

The 1961 animated feature 101 Dalmatians changed the cartoon industry a lot…and some are still debating if it changed it for better or worse. Here's an interesting article about this controversy.

The team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby launched Captain America in a comic dated March of 1941 which went on sale just before Christmas of 1940. The first patriotic super-hero to wear a facsimile of the American Flag? Nope. The Shield, published by the company later known as Archie Comics, debuted late in 1939.

There were threats of litigation before it was decided, somewhat gentlemanly, that both heroes could co-exist. I suspect that if anyone then had dreamed how valuable a property Captain America would turn out to be, it would not been so gentlemanly.

The Shield has come and gone from the newsstands more times than I can count. One time, it was even revived for the Archie company by Simon and Kirby. Anyway, that firm is about to bring out yet another new version and the cover, seen above at right, is a parody (that's not quite the right word) of the cover of Captain America #1 seen at left.

I don't see anything wrong with that except that — and you won't be able to see this in the images above but trust me, it's there — the artist for the Shield cover signed it "after Kirby." That's a way of saying, "Yes, I acknowledge I'm copying Jack Kirby." And the problem there is that it's really a cover by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

As you probably know, I knew Jack and worked with him…but I also knew Joe. Two of my favorite people. Their memories of who did what on some stories were not identical and then let's add that scholars of their comics often debate if a given piece of work from the Simon-Kirby studio was mostly or all Simon or mostly or all Kirby.

Jack's standard answer if you asked him who did what in that studio was "We both did everything." They didn't sign that first, iconic Captain America #1 cover but if they had, they would have signed it "Simon & Kirby."

I also know Dan Parent, the fine artist who drew that new Shield cover. I don't know if he's the one who decided to omit Joe's name but I'm sure no malice was intended. (John L. Goldwater who was the publisher at Archie Comics for many years was very fond of Joe.)

It's easy to understand why Jack's name may be more familiar to some people who came to comics after there was no Simon-Kirby team. Okay, fine, that's not an excuse. Joe was a gifted and important maker of fine comic books. Let's not cancel him out of his own history.

Back in 1967, a group called Yellow Balloon defined the phrase "one-hit wonder" with their one hit. You know what it was called? "Yellow Balloon." That's right. The one hit of Yellow Balloon, a group founded by Don Grady of the My Three Sons TV show, was called "Yellow Balloon."

And you know what was on the flip side of "Yellow Balloon?" A song called "Noollab Wolley," which was "Yellow Balloon" spelled backwards. They named it that because all it was was the same recording played in reverse. I always thought that was funny. Most "one-hit wonder" performers technically had two hits because the A side of the record sold a zillion copies and then the flip got a free ride because even though nobody ever cared about it, it also sold a zillion. But Yellow Balloon actually was a one-hit wonder with one hit.

Here they are lip-syncing their one hit at Angel Stadium on the 1967 TV show Shebang with your host Casey Kasem…

Introducing a new feature on this blog…

I graduated High School in 1969. While I was there, the radio station that almost everyone on campus listened to was 93/KHJ, which called itself "Boss Radio." We all listened to other stuff — I was starting to get more interested in jazz, show tunes and (all my life) comedy/novelty records — but we all also listened to KHJ. It was kinda required of every L.A. teenager.

It was a good station if you liked hearing the Top 40 of the present and near-past played over and over with occasional older flashbacks. The disc jockeys — they called them "Boss Jocks" — were fast and funny and most of them seemed to know that they should just shut up and play records. It all had a certain nice energy…but I rarely listened to KHJ directly.

I taped KHJ. I had a reel-to-reel tape recorder that I'd hooked up to a radio so I could record off the radio…and the radio also picked up the sound of local TV stations so I could record their audio, too. I couldn't always stay up late enough to watch Johnny Carson but I could record the audio of his show…or sometimes Dick Cavett's if he had a better guest lineup. So long before there were TiVo or even VCRs, I could record TV programs and watch them — well, listen to them — at a later date.

But getting back to KHJ: I recorded a couple hours of it every now and then, then I'd do some editing, yanking out my favorite songs along with their intros and outros by the Boss Jocks. I'd splice those hunks o'tape onto one tape reel so when I felt like listening to KHJ, I'd just play that reel and hear only my favorite songs. It eventually got to be around a hundred tunes and it felt like KHJ was programmed just for me. Which it should have been.

After I graduated University High (rah!) I kept this up until around 1972, which is why I call it my 1972 "mixtape," using a noun that I don't think existed in 1972. I played that thing a lot, though less so as time wore on and the tape wore out, as did my reel-to-reel tape deck. Fortunately, I have a list of what was on the tape…though if I didn't, I could probably recreate it from memory. What was on that reel is burned forever into what I laughingly call my brain.

All those songs are now on a thumb drive, along with hundreds of others, that I can play in my car when I'm traveling somewhere. Almost all the songs that were on the tape are also on YouTube in little videos of the recording artists performing (or often, lip-syncing) those hits. So I've decided to put one of them up here every day or three in no particular order. When you see this banner —

— that means it's a song that was on my KHJ mixtape compiled between approximately 1967 and 1972. Some of the songs are from before '67 since KHJ played "oldies," defining them as anything (I think) that had been off the charts for more than about eight weeks. This is one of the later entries on the tape. It's "Love Grows," a '72 hit from Edison Lighthouse and I'm sorry I no longer have the Boss Jocks announcing and/or back-announcing the music of my high school years…