I really liked the score (and other aspects) of the Broadway show, Catch Me If You Can. One of the better tunes in it was called "Butter Outta Cream" and back in this post, I linked to musical comedy stars Sam Gravitte and Jason Graae (hi, Jason!) doing a virtual/online performance of it. Here's another one, this time by Thom Sesma (who I think I may have seen on Broadway in Miss Saigon) and Quentin Garzón…

Kevin Drum thinks the U.S. handling of COVID-19 has been as good as could be expected, maybe better. I'm not sure I agree with that and this is not a Trump thing. I assume the day will come when there will be studies and commissions on what went wrong and what cam be done to make them not go wrong in the future. I would love to hear what experts like Dr. Fauci — and not just him — will say then.

I don't go out much but when I do these days, I rarely see anyone not wearing a mask. Some of them are wearing two which obviously is more effective than one but what I don't get are these stats that say one mask is X% effective and two are Y% effective. Doesn't the kind of mask have a lot to do with how effective it is?

Obviously, some are too flimsy to be of some use. When mask-wearing was just starting up, I ordered a couple of different kinds off the 'net and threw one package away upon its arrival. You didn't have to be an immunologist to tell they would do no good. Might there not be masks out there that do the work of two? A mask that's more effective than two or three of some other variety? Obviously, I intend to keep masking-up when I go out in public for quite some time.

Another excerpt from Abraham Riesman's book on Stan Lee can be read over here. It's about an article that appeared in the New York Herald-Tribune in early 1966 and drove a major wedge between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and also between Stan and his other star artist, Steve Ditko. On a list of the Top Ten reasons Jack quit Marvel a few years later, it might come in at around #5. It made Stan out to be the sole genius of Marvel and made Jack sound like a non-entity who just took dictation.

I'm quoted in the excerpt and the factual recital matches not only what Jack and his wife told me but also what Stan told me and what Danny Fingeroth reports in his recent bio of Stan. It's one of those few incidents from that period that both Lee and the Kirbys remembered the same way. (Actually, they all remembered that it was Jack's wife Roz who phoned Stan that morning and woke him up to complain about the piece but that's a minor discrepancy.)

When Riesman interviewed me for his book (which I still haven't read), he told me he was going to try to locate and interview the fellow who wrote the article that so infuriated Jack. I told him I'd bet that if he did, he'd find out that the reporter was trying real hard to get Stan to give him a job. Riesman found the guy, talked to him and then wrote to tell me, "You were right."

That was one reason Stan usually got so much better press than Jack. Stan had hiring power.

I'm keeping an eye on what The Pandemic is doing to Nevada and how the state is slowly and cautiously trying to "open up." The stats are in for last year and it turns out that for 2020, Las Vegas had — by whatever method they calculate this number each year — 19 million visitors. That doesn't mean much until you compare it to the 2019 total, which was 42.5 million. 19 million is the lowest total in 31 years.

They're loosening restrictions there. Restaurants and attractions that were limited to 25% of capacity are going to 35%. Maximum capacities in showrooms that had been at fifty people are raised to 100. That should enable some shows to reopen, though obviously not all. On March 15, some of these numbers will be raised again. You can read more about this here.

Back in this video link, I wondered aloud what the deal was with Groucho Marx's hair. Steve Stoliar — who knew the man as well as any man alive — suggests that for some reason, Groucho was wearing the toupee they gave him for the movie Skidoo.

Here in the vast newsfromme blogging empire which just consists of me, we love a cappella singing groups. Here from South Korea, we have Jang Sang-in, Kang Soo-kyung, Jeon Sung-hyun, Kim Won-jong and — last but not least — Lim Soo-yeon. As a group, they perform under the name Maytree.

This is them on Vocal Play, which is the South Korean equivalent of The Voice here but with better sets and a bigger audience. As you can see, they made quite a sensation…

43 Republican Senators voted to acquit Donald Trump. Here's an analysis of their stated reasons, most of which I suspect are not their real reasons. I would think that in most cases, they assessed how mad Trump supporters would be at them if they voted to convict and how that might affect their political future…and they assessed how rough it would be on them to explain or defend a vote to acquit in the future and how that might affect their political futures…

…and then they decided which of two bad choices they were least afraid of at the moment.

This is the way I think most politicians — including many for whom I have voted — look at their options. What's right and what's good for the people are not immaterial (usually) but the deciding factor is self-centered. And yes, I know that's a cynical way to look at things but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

The new ABC News/Ipsos Poll says that 58% of Americans think Trump should have been convicted. That includes 88% of Democrats and 64% of independents.

A lot of folks online seem really troubled by only 14% of Republicans feeling that way. I think it helps to remember that people have all sorts of different barometers on politics and reasons for thinking the way they do. A year or three ago at an outta-town convention, I met a man who felt that Abortion was not only the Number One Issue but the only one. A POTUS who destroyed everything else in this country could have this guy's support if he also stopped Abortion. And I have an acquaintance who thinks the Number One issue is and always will be the price of gasoline. If gas prices go down, whoever's in the White House at that moment is a great President. End of discussion.

If you still think Donald Trump "won" because he wasn't convicted in the impeachment trial, read David Frum. He'll tell you how big Trump lost…and will continue to lose.

My buddy Charlie Frye does stuff like this all the time…

Jonathan Chait thinks a lot of prominent Republicans, including many who voted to acquit Donald J. Trump in the Senate, want to see him prosecuted. I think so too. I have as low an opinion of Mitch McConnell as anyone but you have to give the man this: He knows how to play politics and he has his finger on the pulse of his party. His after-the-impeachment-vote remarks seemed intended to incite not a riot but some serious prosecution of a president who is no longer protected by his office.

Trump has a lot of legal problems ahead. Chait lists some and here's a list from Politifact. I know some folks who say, "Oh, he never gets nailed for his crimes" but not that long ago, these same people were saying, "Oh, he never loses elections."

So clever of Mitch to delay the impeachment trial until after Trump was outta office so Senate Republicans could have it as close to both ways as possible. They didn't have to face the wrath of Trump-lovers by voting to boot him out but they could vote with him but say, "It's just because he's already out of office." Either way, it comes down to wanting to get rid of Trump but to keep as many of his supporters as they can.

And here's a real long article by George Conway all about prosecuting Trump.

Every sixteen seconds on Facebook (it seems), a discussion breaks out on some comic book forum about why on those rare occasions when Jack Kirby was called upon to draw a cover or a panel or anything of Spider-Man, his Spider-Man did not look like the Spider-Man drawn by Steve Ditko or John Romita. Some folks seem to think there must have been a reason apart from the fact that Jack was not Steve Ditko or John Romita. Hey, when Frank Sinatra sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," he didn't sound like Tony Bennett.

I don't really know why this gets discussed so much. All the times Jack drew Spider-Man collectively represent about one-eighty-jillion-thousandth of his career. But I keep finding myself discussing it on forums. A few years ago on a now-defunct forum I wrote a long essay on the subject and I just dug it out and thought I oughta post it.

Since this topic is of interest to only a limited number of those who come to this blog — whereas you're all fascinated by every single other thing I post here — I've put this essay over on its own page which you can reach here. Don't bother clicking if you don't care about this kind of thing. Some of us do, more than we should.

Here's four minutes of video shot on the Las Vegas Strip in 1983. Very little of what you see in this video is still there, especially the prices…

Yeah, Trump won by his definition of "winning." Even when he loses by any real-world definition, he wins by his. I think this guy's on his way down, down, down…but he's like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail with his arms and legs both lopped off but still claiming victory. Trump has a lot of courtrooms ahead of him.

As we know, seven Republicans defied the wrath of party loyalists and voted to convict. Some of their statements are interesting and they're quoted in this article over at The American Conservative by Rod Dreher.

A smart journalist I know named Abraham Riesman has written a probably-controversial book about Stan Lee and it's being released this weekend. It's called True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee and you can order a copy here.

Full disclosure: I was interviewed for the book and answered a number of the author's questions but I haven't seen a copy of it and have no idea what I'm quoted as saying in it. I may not for a while. I'm waiting, as I often do with books for which I supply some help, to see if they send me a free copy. You might be surprised how often they don't. I certainly am.

I have however read this excerpt which is about the Stan Lee Media company, a firm for which I briefly worked. I've also read this article which summarizes what the book says about Stan's problems with his daughter and certain business associates, especially in his last years. I did not have the good sense to stay away from Stan Lee Media but I was smart enough to stay away from Stan's last years.

Anyway, stop writing to ask me if you should be a true believer in True Believer. I haven't read it yet.

As I've said on countless occasions, I have had an enormous range of mixed feelings about Stan Lee since I first met him in person in 1970. I almost felt like I knew him even before that from reading those comics. Not all of these feelings were/are positive. Some are but a few are sadly quite negative. And yes, I am still working on my huge book about Jack Kirby and no, I don't know when I'll be done with it.

But my conclusion is that the comics we know to be created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, not necessarily as 50-50 efforts and certainly not with Jack supplying only the visuals. I think Jack did a lot more than Stan — at least on the pages — and until fairly recently, got a lot less credit; likewise, Stan and Steve Ditko, Stan and Don Heck, Stan and Bill Everett, etc. The disparity in financial reward was even greater.

But that doesn't mean Stan did nothing or did nothing well. I have witnessed way too many Stan/Jack debates in my life and I think all are dead wrong if they lead to the conclusion that either contributed zero. This view has occasionally made me feel unwelcome on Stan Lee forums and in Jack Kirby chat groups. And just as I reject that notion, I reject the argument that neither would have amounted to anything post-1961 without the other. They were two men of extraordinary skills…just not the same skills.

A lot of folks don't want to hear about the battles and the quarrels and the screwings. They just want to enjoy the body of work…and I sometimes wish I could stop there. Instead, I think I'll stop here…for now.

• Mitch McConnell looks pretty pissed over the way Mitch McConnell voted.

As I assume you just might have expected and heard, a majority of senators just voted to convict Donald Trump. The vote was 57-43 with several Republicans voting that way either because they're very brave, very safe in their seats or very not running for re-election. Alas, it takes 67 votes to…well, you know how this works. Jon Stewart posted…

This impeachment highlights a fundamental tenet of our legal system. All Americans, regardless of status, are entitled to a speedy trial by a jury of your cowardly partisan sycophants and henchmen.

You have to wonder what's on the minds of those cowardly partisan sycophants and henchmen. I'm going to guess that ten or more figured they had two bad choices and they picked the one they thought would do them less immediate damage.

They might be right about that in the short run. But Trump is facing a lot of legal actions, both civil and criminal, which probably won't do his reputation much good. Wonder how many of those who voted to acquit today will try to hide behind, "I never thought he was a good man but I did think it was wrong to vote to convict anyone in an impeachment trial after he left office."

And here from 1968 is another one of those Kraft Music Hall shows with a cleansed-for-television Friars' Roast, this time of Johnny Carson. The dais includes Steve Allen, Dick Cavett, Groucho Marx, Ed McMahon, Don Rickles, Ed Sullivan, Flip Wilson, roastmaster Alan King and the then-mayor of New York, John Lindsay.  Someone please explain to me the deal with Groucho's hair…