Sooner than I'd expected, the Comic-Con International folks have posted the panel schedule for Comic-Con@Home. Here once again is the list of the three panels I'm hosting there along with (now) the times you can catch them…

GROO MEETS TARZAN – Saturday, July 24 at 12 PM
me discussing the soon-to-be-released Groo Meets Tarzan mini-series with Sergio Aragonés and Thomas Yeates.

CARTOON VOICES – Saturday, July 24 at 6 PM
me interviewing four great Cartoon Voice Artists: Candi Milo (Space Jam: A New Legacy), Wally Wingert (Arkham Asylum), Jenny Yokibori (The Simpsons) and Zeno Robinson (Pokémon).

THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL – Sunday, July 25 at 12 PM
me discussing Jack with artist Walt Simonson and writer-publisher Paul Levitz.

The times given are the times these panels will go live on the convention's YouTube page. Soon after each of mine goes live there, it will be available on this site and you can watch it at any time. There are many others besides my three and you can find the entire schedule here.

Here's another one of these…the openings of the 37 programs that made up the prime-time schedule on ABC in the Fall of 1961. There are more cartoon shows in there than you might expect…

Comic-Con@Home — which is what they call the online-only version of Comic-Con International — takes place July 23-25 on the computer you're using to read this website. There are all sorts of online opportunities to buy stuff which doesn't much interest me but but which will delight many. You can find out all about it on the convention website.

There will also be a great many online panels and the schedule for them will be posted soon. I recorded three…

THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL
me discussing Jack with artist Walt Simonson and writer-publisher Paul Levitz.

GROO MEETS TARZAN
me discussing the soon-to-be-released Groo Meets Tarzan mini-series with Sergio Aragonés and Thomas Yeates.

CARTOON VOICES
me interviewing four great Cartoon Voice Artists: Candi Milo (Space Jam: A New Legacy), Wally Wingert (Arkham Asylum), Jenny Yokibori (The Simpsons) and Zeno Robinson (Pokémon).

Dates and times of these panels will be announced shortly and at some point, they will all be posted on this page.

I'm getting about one e-mail per day now asking me when Sergio and/or I will be appearing at live, in-person conventions. Neither of us would be doing a lot of that even if there'd been no global pandemic but the next one I expect to attend is the Comic-Con Special Edition which will take place in San Diego November 26-28.

Just about nothing has been formally announced about it but I expect it will be a smaller version of the usual Comic-Con International. I'm assuming a smaller Exhibit Hall with fewer exhibitors and programming with fewer panels…but still quite enough of all that stuff to please a lower number of attendees. I'm also assuming there won't be a new wave of viral concerns that will keep me and others away but I think we've all learned by now that it's hard to count on anything in the Age of COVID.

There are other conventions popping up here and there. I passed on the few that invited me and had no interest in the ones that didn't. After (probably) spending Thanksgiving Weekend in San Diego, I'm thinking the next will be WonderCon in Anaheim, April 1-3, 2022.

By Thanksgiving and certainly by April 1 next year, I expect to not be worried about catching any versions of the coronavirus. However, just to play it safe, I'm planning to cosplay as the Golden Age Sandman so I can wear a gas mask and I'll be brandishing some sort of weapon that can fire Pfizer darts into the foolishly-unvaccinated.

Next Monday, all 43,945 Subway sandwich shops will be closed and when they reopen on Tuesday, every one of them will have a somewhat new menu with somewhat new sandwich components. There will be a couple of new breads available and there will be new, better ham, turkey, bacon and other ingredients. They are pointedly not changing their tuna, which has come under fire lately by lawsuits and news reports that charge it is not real tuna.

They insist it is, has been and always will be real, 100% tuna…and maybe it is. Under all that mayo, it could be mattress stuffing for all I can tell.

(If you yearn to know more about the upgrade, here's a PDF of a press release about the changeover.)

All of this is fine but I hope in the upgrade, they're upgrading the cleanliness and efficiency of their stores. I used to be a regular customer of Subway. As a person with many, many food allergies, I sometimes depend on chains that offer no surprises. McDonald's may not be the best place to eat but when you're out somewhere and need to grab a bite in a hurry, it's easy to find one and I always know exactly what I'm going to get. Same with Subway.

The last few years though, the Subways into which I've gone have seemed understaffed and undercleaned…and I got one tuna sandwich which may indeed have been "premium 100% tuna" but not for over a month or so. Also, twice in the last three years, their app told me a certain Subway outlet was open and it even took my order…but in one case, I got there and found the store had closed an hour earlier than the app said. In the other, it had been outta-business for weeks but no one had told the app.

What I felt they needed was not better ham but better management. And I've never been in one that didn't feel like it needed one more employee than they had on duty.

Anyway, I'll give the one nearest to me a chance after next Tuesday and try their new menu. I hope someone thinks to tell their app about it.

Coming in at Number 13 on our countdown are The Beach Boys with "Wouldn't It Be Nice." It's from 1966 and for some reason, it doesn't have a question mark in its title. I saw this wound up as #97 on Billboard magazine's Top Hot 100 songs of 1966 and I thought it must have come out late in the year. I couldn't go anywhere without hearing it. But no…it came out in July. Meanwhile, Wikipedia says…

The song was inspired by [Brian] Wilson's confused infatuations for his sister-in-law Diane Rovell, who projected an "innocent aura" that he wished to capture in "Wouldn't It Be Nice." Lyrically, the song describes a young couple who feel empowered by their monogamous relationship and fantasize about the romantic freedom they would earn as adults. It subverted past Beach Boys songs, which had normally celebrated material possessions and casual flings, and inaugurates the themes that recur throughout the rest of the album.

I never thought of it that way, perhaps because I never thought of it any way. But I guess that's as good an interpretation as any…

Two of many things that bother me about politics these days are closely allied.  One is the Outrage Industry.  Something happens that is not 100% in lockstep with your political beliefs and instantly, others on your side are spotlighting it and screaming about it and possibly distorting it to try and get you as angry about it as they can.  In some cases, they're using it as clickbait to get you to pay attention to them on TV or on the web; in others, they're trying to get you to feel you're in a war and they need you to get more furious against your common opposition.

And the other is this notion that if someone says something you don't like, you respond with The Worst Possible Insult You Can Think Of.  When I make unintentional detours to websites where this kind of mindset holds forth, I see this.  The most frequent seems to be to accuse the person you don't like of being a pedophile.  There's no evidence or any children being molested at all and certainly nothing connecting the accused to any such heinous crime…but it is probably The Worst Possible Insult They Can Think Of.

A close runner-up is to accuse the person of hating America, which I always think is an empty, usually-baseless accusation.  I mean, if the person is on record as saying something like "You know, I really despise the United States," okay.  Then it would be valid.  But people who hate America rarely say it and people who accuse others of hating America can't read minds and know that.  It's just something you say when you don't have a real criticism but you want to throw something.

Okay.  So the other day at a pre-Olympics match, an 98-year-old World War II vet played the National Anthem on his harmonica.  Members of the U.S. National Women's Soccer Team seemed in some videos of the event to be turning their backs on the man and the Outrage Industry had a new opportunity it couldn't resist.  The athletes, of course, were widely accused of "hating America."

They weren't accused of hating harmonica music or hating the National Anthem — which I think a lot of very patriotic Americans think is not the best song that could have that distinction.  They weren't even accused of hating that one World War II veteran. They were accused of hating America. Rod Dreher, a Conservative pundit I often follow, wrote…

The U.S. women's team is the overwhelming favorite to win the gold in Tokyo, but after this stunt, I'm rooting for anybody who plays against the U.S., because I don't want to see those two ungrateful creeps shame this country by doing that stunt on the platform in Tokyo.

Why do I often follow Mr. Dreher? Because even though I disagree with much of what he says, he strikes me as a smart guy. And unlike too many pundits these days, he admits when he's wrong. He posted this comment he received…

Rod, I'm afraid you've been duped by a clickbait story designed to gin up outrage. First off, you have your facts quite literally backwards. As it happens, the players you highlight in the photo are facing toward the veteran playing the anthem…The players who are accused of "turning their back[s]"…all of whom are vehemently and correctly denying this story on Twitter…turned solely [to] face the large, highest flag to their right.

And to his credit, Dreher admitted his mistake and apologized. Very few people in today's political arena ever do this. Standard Operating Procedure these days when you're corrected seems to be to insist you were right, double-down on your accusation and call everyone who thinks you were wrong a pedophile.

I love silent movies, especially comedies and especially when they're presented the way God and Cecil B. DeMille intended — at the proper projection speed and with proper musical accompaniment. I also like to see them with an audience but we'll settle for two out of three here. For some time now, a gent named Ben Model has been presenting great silent pics online. He's a fine pianist and an expert on the material he's accompanying, plus he brings in other experts to supplement his online presentations.

Each week, he offers up a program of well-selected silent comedies and he does these live online, though we're about to look at one that was recorded on June 13. The point is you can watch them live every Sunday at 3PM Eastern Time. There's a lot of talk and history preceding each film and I find it all fascinating.

If you don't — if you just want to watch the movies — you might want to catch the replays so you can fast-forward. One friend of mine told me he started doing it that way but one day, he watched a little of the commentary and history, got hooked and now watches Ben's presentations live or delayed, start to finish.

Either way, it's free…though I think an occasional donation is in order. Mr. Model and his crew do a great job.

To perhaps get you hooked, I selected a Silent Comedy Watch Party from a few weeks ago with two great shorts. There's Harry Langdon in one of his best ones, All Night Long and even better is Buster Keaton in Cops. In my opinion, Cops is about as good a comedy short as anyone ever made. It's joke after joke, great physical feat after great physical feat…and as a bonus, you get a nice look at how Los Angeles looked in 1922.

Langdon can be an acquired taste so if you're totally new to silent comedies, start with Cops, which starts in the video below at this point. Then go back and watch the commentary that precedes it. Then go back and watch All Night Long. Then plan on joining future Silent Comedy Watch Parties and catching up on ones you've missed. Or you can just watch all of this one in sequence by clicking below…

This runs 24 minutes but if you're anywhere around my age (69), you'll want to watch the whole thing as I just did. It's a video compiling the openings to the 42 different TV shows that comprised the Spring 1962 prime-time TV schedule for CBS.

I was ten years old then and I remember almost all of them…

Here's another one of those ZOOM orchestras performing a tune — in this case, "Home" from The Wiz. The superb vocalist is Landi Oshinowo…

I just spotted this post on Twitter and it appears to be true…

The National Weather Service is forecasting the hottest part of Death Valley to reach 130 degrees Fahrenheit this upcoming Sunday! This is likely the highest temperature ever forecasted by the NWS or any weather agency across the globe.

And I found myself thinking of all those people who will read that and say, "Why should I care? I don't live in Death Valley!"

• Today's potatoes are from CBC Farms in Parker, ID. Where else?

Here's ten minutes of stunning video of Las Vegas in rather high-def. Take this full-screen and see if you don't enjoy it as much as I did. This may be as close as I get to that city for quite some time…

I go almost nowhere these days. Yes, I know COVID is not the threat it once was…and yes, I know the Delta variant may well be more of a threat than many people believe…but there's another reason I go almost nowhere: There's nowhere to go.

I don't think I'd be comfortable sitting in a movie theater these days close to others but I don't have to make that decision or overcome that fear/discomfort because there's nothing out there that I want to see. In truth, I wasn't going to very many movies before most of us had heard the word "coronavirus." No one I know seems to be having any parties except in The Magic Land of ZOOM. There are no plays I want to go to…no concerts…

And I'm perfectly happy in my house as long as I have my computers, high-speed internet, my TV and voluminous piles of DVDs and Blu-Rays, and selected company visiting me. Not counting walks for the sake of walking, about the only places I go are doctor offices and markets…and I don't go to many of them. I have learned the joy of having Costco deliver groceries and of getting the stuff I can't get at Costco — or don't want a three year supply of — via other services.

But the other day, I had to go somewhere near a new (open since January) Amazon Fresh store. As an online customer of Amazon Fresh from time to time, I thought I'd pop in, see what they had and pick up some of the things I usually get delivered by Amazon Fresh. I was afraid it might be crowded but as it turned out, it wasn't. In fact, it was close to empty. The aisles were full of Amazon Fresh shoppers scurrying about the store filling orders from the shelves.

It's a huge store and they have aisle after aisle of groceries and I went up and down each of those aisles and I bought…

…absolutely nothing.

It's a beautiful store and they have all sorts of high-tech ways of interfacing with the Amazon app on your phone, including charging the whole thing to the credit card you have linked to it. They have these magic shopping carts that will keep a running total of the prices of everything you put in them, including weighing your bananas. (I didn't use one of the magic carts. I used a regular one and didn't find anything I wanted to put in it.) There are little stations where you can "Ask Alexa" where to find the goddamn Rice-a-Roni.

The produce and meat counters looked great. And yes, they had paper towels and I use paper towels but I have a case of Costco paper towels. And I have cases of certain canned goods I often consume…and I have three unopened boxes of Cheerios from Costco and I have plenty of Rao's Marinara Sauce…

I was hoping to find items in two categories. One was that there are certain things I order from Amazon Fresh that I haven't found anywhere else. I still find them on the Amazon Fresh website where at this very moment, they're telling me I can order all I want of them and get free 2-hour delivery on any order over $35.00. But I couldn't find them on the shelves of the Amazon Fresh store where, I'd assumed, my orders were filled…but maybe not.

It wasn't that I couldn't find them. Alexa didn't know either so I reverted to the primitive method of asking human beings. Those humans were filling online Amazon Fresh orders but they said this Amazon Fresh store doesn't carry everything that Amazon Fresh offers online. Neither could explain how that works.

Then there was the other thing I hoped to find there: They offer a lot of prepared meals like carved meats and pizza and soups and sushi. That's all supposed to be available after 11 AM but at 11:40 when I was there, most of it was not. The pizza was but it didn't look too appetizing.

So I left empty-handed or empty-carted or whatever the term is. I like the cleanliness of the place. Amazon Fresh looks fresh. I liked the innovative computer/internet integration. I just couldn't find anything I wanted to buy. Mr. Bezos and his crew need to work on that part of it.

Danger Man was a British TV show starring Patrick McGoohan as secret agent John Drake. It ran over there from 1960 to 1962 and then they stopped making 'em for a while. They started up again in 1964 and made new episodes of a slightly-revamped version until '68 when Mr. McGoohan quit to do The Prisoner.

I know people who will argue until they're the color of a Smurf that The Prisoner was a sequel to Danger Man and that McGoohan was playing the same character. I also know people who will argue until they're the same hue that he was not John Drake in that show. Do not — repeat: DO NOT — send me your views on this because I don't care and because I think The Prisoner is a more interesting show if we aren't sure about that.

CBS aired Danger Man here in 1961. Later, when they brought the series back and aired the new version, it had a new title (Secret Agent) and a new theme song. The song was written by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, and Johnny Rivers recorded the short version heard on the show. It got so much attention that later, during a live engagement at the Whisky a Go Go night club here in Hollywood, he recorded the longer version he performed here, there and everywhere. It was a very big hit…

From 1966, it's The Cyrkle with "Red Rubber Ball," a tune which reached #2 on the charts that year. I'm looking over the list of The Cyrkle's other records and the only one I recall ever hearing was "Turn-Down Day," which did not make my mixtape. "Red Rubber Ball" was written by Paul Simon of Simon & Garfunkel and Bruce Woodley of The Seekers and I recall liking the tune although I never saw a sun in the sky that in any way reminded me of a red rubber ball.

But it's a nice-enough song in spite of that and I can always make my friend Shelly Goldstein laugh by telling her, "Hey, you're not the only starfish in the sea."

I don't know what show this clip is from but I think it really is them lip-syncing. Back when I was doing variety shows, we usually had groups mime to their records or pre-recorded tracks and a very experienced TV director told me, "Very often, you'll find that the singers will do a good job but they'll be consistently a fraction of a second behind their voices on the track. That isn't a problem in itself because you can always slide the track a few frames and put their lip movements in perfect sync with the track. The trouble is when you have a drummer in the shot because most drummers are precisely on the beat so if you slide the track, you put the drummer out of sync. Usually, I have to split the difference but a better way is to just not get the drummer in the same shot as the singers if you can arrange it."

It doesn't look to me like they had that problem in this video but once the director told me that, I began to notice it on a lot of shows where singers were lip-syncing. They were in sync but the drummer wasn't — or vice-versa. And now that I've mentioned it here, you'll probably start noticing it.