An awful lot of controversies are raging in this country at the moment, all of them more important than the Cracker Barrel restaurants changing their logo. No one is being imprisoned or deported because of the new Cracker Barrel logo. No one is dying or losing their access to medical care because of the new Cracker Barrel logo. No one's constitutional rights are being trampled on because of the new Cracker Barrel logo.

I'm not even sure anyone is going to eat at Cracker Barrel because of the new Cracker Barrel logo. Apparently though, some people who have often gone to eat at Cracker Barrel in the past are not going to eat at Cracker Barrel because of the new Cracker Barrel logo.

I was hoping this would turn out to be one of those controversies I could ignore since I have never eaten at a Cracker Barrel. But this morning on Facebook, I came upon an exchange where someone said they'd never eaten at a Cracker Barrel and others jumped on them saying you're not a True American if you've never eaten at a Cracker Barrel.

I confess: I've never eaten at a Cracker Barrel. And suddenly, I feel the need to defend myself for never having eaten at a Cracker Barrel.

I think I have a good excuse. The three states in this country in which I have spent most of the last fifty years are California (about 97% of the time), Nevada (maybe 2%) and New York (maybe 1%). In the state of California, Cracker Barrel has locations in five cities: Camarillo, Victorville, Rialto, Rocklin and Bakersfield. I do not recall ever being in any of these cities and I'm not even sure where a couple of them are.

There are three Cracker Barrels in the state of Nevada and they're actually in cities I've visited — Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Reno. But when I've been in those cities, I almost never leave the areas where the hotel-casinos are located and those areas don't have Cracker Barrels. In fact, the last time I was in Reno, the Cracker Barrel there hadn't even opened.

And the Cracker Barrels in the state of New York are in Binghamton, Cicero, Clifton Park, East Greenbush, Fishkill, Horseheads, Rochester, Watertown and Williamsville. Again, my life has never taken me to any of these cities and I have no idea where they are.

I just don't travel all that much. And I've never been the kind of person who goes very far out of their way to experience one particular restaurant.

So I've kind of been waiting for Cracker Barrel to come to me and a few years ago, they almost did. No one opened one in Los Angeles but briefly — and by "briefly," I mean for a couple of weeks during the COVID lockdowns — there were billboards around L.A. saying that one could have items from the Cracker Barrel menu delivered. Someone had apparently set up or was setting up a "Phantom Kitchen," presumably in partnership or affiliation with the Cracker Barrel chain. A Phantom Kitchen means that there's no restaurant you can actually visit but there is a place somewhere where someone prepares meals that you can order through Doordash, Grubhub, Uber Eats or any of those.

I made a mental note to maybe give it a try but before I could, the billboards disappeared and there was no option to order Cracker Barrel food on any of those apps. I have no idea what happened but I suspect Russian Interference.

I also suspect it didn't matter. From what I'm reading, dining at a Cracker Barrel is for some not about merely consuming zillion-calorie Chicken Pot Pie…although if it's as good as some say it is, that might be reason enough. But for many, it's about the experience of visiting a little vestige of America that barely exists anymore except in the memories of folks who may be somewhat misremembering. It's about the gift shop and the hominess and stepping into a simpler time and country…kind of like attending one of those Princess Breakfasts at Disneyland where little girls in tiaras can dine like royalty in the castle before they have to scurry to stand in line like mere commoners to get on Space Mountain.

If I'm reading the protests about the new logo right, they're not about the new logo but about the mere fact that there is one. Because Cracker Barrels aren't supposed to change.

One of these days, I suppose I'll get to one…and the folks who consider me unAmerican for not having done so already will stop questioning my love of country and my patriotism. Until they find out that for most of the same reasons, I've never been to a Waffle House.

It's that Rainbow guy again, doing that voodoo that he do so well…

John Oliver's off for a few weeks but he left us this twelve-minute masterpiece…

A lot of websites and videos are talking about a scorching debate on CNN in which Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett ripped former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee a new orifice, pointing out his unceasing hypocrisy. It's a great story but as the folks at Lead Stories point out, it didn't happen.

A New York Appeals Court threw out that $500 Million Civil Fraud judgement against Donald Trump and Trump has been doing what he always does, even when he loses. He's claiming total victory, total vindication and solid proof that it was all just a hoax perpetrated by his enemies. But as Shirin Ali points out, it's none of that and it's not even over.

Trump and his aides have been claiming that nearly a quarter to a third of the people living in the United States are not American citizens. Melissa Goldin of The Associated Press looks at the real numbers and finds they're lower…a lot lower.

Just heard of the passing of Guy Lillian last night at the age of 76. No cause has been mentioned but he'd been dealing with severe gastric problems and Parkinson's Disease for some time. Lemme tell you a little about Guy…

Guy was a retired lawyer (mostly a public defender) and a prominent figure in science-fiction fandom in the southern states. Many years earlier, he was a prominent figure in comic book fandom, gaining notoriety for his appearances in comic book letter columns, especially in DC Comics and especially in the ones then edited by Julius Schwartz. Since I was often in those same letter columns, people somehow assumed we were friends but we didn't meet until one day in the early seventies at some comic book convention in New York. Here's a photo I took of Guy with Julius Schwartz that day…

Guy is the one on the right, of course, but in an e-mail that I think was our last communication some years ago, he mentioned the photo and joked how he now looked more like Julie.

In the mid-seventies, Guy parlayed his connections from those letter column appearances into a job at DC Comics, assembling (ironically) letter columns and doing miscellaneous editorial work. He was starting to move towards writing comics when he decided that that profession (and New York) were not for him. He moved, married, got his law degree and expended his fannish energy towards s-f. We kept vaguely in touch but not for many a year. I remember him as a very, very bright guy and it's always sad to lose someone like that.

The Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters group was a neat little club founded in 1966 with, as I understand it, two goals. One was to preserve the history of West Coast broadcasting — radio and television — and it was pretty successful at that. Materials it accumulated are now housed at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library and I believe at other institutions that will preserve them and make them available for research. The other goal was to honor those who had made significant contributions to radio and TV, especially (but not exclusively) in Southern California.

The P.P.B. was pretty successful for a long time in the latter goal, as well. Mostly, the honoring was done with monthly luncheons, each honoring one or more of those significant contributors. I was a member for a while — unfortunately, late in the organization's existence so I missed a lot of the biggies. But there were still some star-studded luncheons and this video will give you an idea of what they were like…

Get the idea? They were wonderful events with wonderful speeches and wonderful gatherings and really, really bad food. How…bad…was it? One time when I somehow wound up on the dais as a speaker — I think the honoree was June Foray — I was seated next to Gary Owens, who was often among those of us honoring/roasting the Guest of Honor. As soon as we were served our lunches, Gary reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of energy bars and began passing them quietly to those seated near him. He whispered, "I've learned to not eat the food at these and to come prepared."

Wise man, that Gary Owens.

The awful chow was probably a minor reason that the group was in decline over the last decade or two. Among the other reasons was that the membership was getting older and older, and young people were not joining up in sufficient numbers to balance the losses. Also, they were having trouble finding worthy honorees…or people who wanted to help run the organization. And then the Sportsmen's Lodge in Studio City — the place we met, the place that served the inedible entrees — closed down and no centrally-located, reasonably-priced replacement could be found. Also, there was this thing you may have heard of called COVID and…well, let's just say the group died a slow, inevitable death. It changed its name to the Hollywood Media Professionals and that didn't change anything.

The folks who'd been keeping it on life support have just announced they're going to stop doing that and I doubt anyone could blame them. It was a great institution in its time but that time is not this time. I'll miss everything about it except the meals.

From the 1986 Tony Awards telecast, here's a nice little medley of Broadway tunes performed by Ann Reinking, Juliet Prowse, Sandy Duncan, Bea Arthur, Nell Carter, Karen Morrow, Bernadette Peters, Rex Smith, Dorothy Loudon, Cleo Laine, Stephanie Powers, Hal Linden, Leslie Uggams and Helen Hayes…

Fred Kaplan explains what's going on with the Russia/Ukraine War. You remember that one…the war Trump was going to settle in 24 hours?

I seem to have accumulated some dangerous Internet Algorithms. Any time I'm browsing a site like Facebook or YouTube — any site which shows me short videos by random contributors — I'm deluged with "medical advice," mostly what to eat and what not eat. Once in a while, the advisors might (might!) be doctors of some sort but usually, it's just some dude or dame standing around in the aisles of a Costco. There are very few foods on this planet that one of them won't tell you, often with a note of urgency in their voice, will kill you dead within a week.

I've said this before on this blog and I'll probably say it again many times. Years ago, I came to the conclusion that what works for me, health-wise, was to find a really good physician and build up a relationship with that physician. I do not expect this person to be infallible but he — in my case, it's a he — will be accurate a lot more often than any non-doctor, especially one of those guys standing around in a Costco telling me how eating one of their rotisserie chickens is more lethal than chug-a-lugging a Cyanide Smoothie.

So I trust my doctor and I trust any specialists to whom he refers me. It has been my experience that good doctors know who the other good doctors are.

In addition to not trusting "medical experts" whose offices seem to be in a Trader Joe's, I do not trust generic medical advice like "Everyone needs to cut out seed oils" or "Everyone should be drinking almond milk." Due to my various food allergies, there are dozens of foods you can eat that I can't, almond milk among them. The current mania to ban food dyes may be correct but it doesn't feel like it's being driven by people committed to following actual science.

I, of course, trust absolutely nothing advocated by our current Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He may well turn out to be the worst thing Donald Trump has done to us.

I've always loved a certain kind of actor — the kind who turned up at one time or another in almost every show I was watching when I was kid. Guys like Peter Leeds, Tom Pedi, Ed Peck, Dabbs Greer, Lou Krugman, the pre-M*A*S*H Jamie Farr, Herb Vigran, Herbie Faye — there's a long, long list — rarely had regular parts of those TV shows but they always seemed to be guest-starring. Dave Ketchum, who just died at the age of 97, was a regular on a few shows like Camp Runamuck, Get Smart and I'm Dickens, He's Fenster…but most of the time he turned up in guest roles. Producers and directors knew he was reliable and always did his job well.

Dave's job was not just acting. He did stand-up comedy. He wrote for a lot of TV shows. He was in a lot of commercials. I never worked with him but we got to talking on Writers Guild picket lines and he seemed like a nice, funny guy. Here's a rundown on the career of that nice, funny guy.

Here's film of Los Angeles and Hollywood in the thirties. The audio and the colorization are fake but the memories are real…

Trump claims the EU gave the United States a $600 billion present he could spend however he wanted. Daniel Dale over at CNN says no, he didn't. Steve Benen agrees with Dr. Dale.

While meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Monday, Trump threw out some statistics and versions of history that Daniel Dale says are not true.

Trump has made some really stupid, untrue statements about mail-in voting. Daniel Dale lists some of them and explains why they're wrong. FactCheck.org has more.

Trump says that "The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future." And for this Politifact awards him their coveted "Pants on Fire" ranking.

Trump feels he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize because he's ended seven wars. The Associated Press does not agree with his list.

The Associated Press also has yet another update in the long list of statements and actions that prove Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

And Trump's ongoing insistence that any statistics that don't reflect well on them must be vicious lies extends to stats about crime in Washington, D.C. FactCheck.org explains why, as usual, he's wrong.

My pal Gary Sassaman has another installment up of his series, "Tales From My Spinner Rack!" In it, Gary reminisces about comic books he collected avidly when he was a kid and as I was a kid at roughly the same time collecting the same comics, his pieces strike a fine chord with me.

This time out, Gary discusses "The 25-Cent War," a moment in 1971 when it was necessary for DC and Marvel to raise their cover prices. They'd been offering 32-page comics for fifteen cents and with this increase, through some matter of possibly-illegal collusion, they both went to 48-page comics for 25 cents…but in Marvel's case, not for long. After one month, Marvel switched back to the 32-page format offering it with a cover price of twenty cents — a chess move which practically destroyed DC.

As some of you know, while I loved the content of a lot of DC Comics from this period, I thought the management of the company was totally inept. Their 48-page format comics were part new, part reprints and the readers hated the mix. Marvel, meanwhile, was giving their wholesalers and retailers a better deal on the 20-cent comics and it was all downhill for DC for several years after that, even after they gave up and went to twenty cents too. Things weren't helped by DC's tendency to give up on new products if the first or second issues didn't sell, and by a lot of bad, cluttered covers and…well, there were other missteps.

This is all my opinion, not Gary's…but you can see what he had to say about it all when you enjoy the latest edition of "Tales From My Spinner Rack!" Enjoy…

I meant to post this yesterday but life, as it often does, interfered with my plans. Yesterday was the anniversary of the passing of Groucho Marx — a day that meant Mixed Feelings for those of us who loved the man and what he represented on-screen. I had the honor of being in his presence three times — one, when he was still able to walk and talk pretty much as he always had; once, when he was so "out of it" that a planned TV appearance had to be canceled; and once, up at his home, when a party of sorts spiraled around him and he just sat there, unable to say or understand very much of our brief conversation.

You can perhaps understand how I went home from that third visit feeling that Groucho was already gone.

If I had met Steve Stoliar that day at Groucho's house, I would have felt badly for him. Steve was a devout Groucho fan who stumbled into the dream job of assisting Groucho in the comedian's last few years. His book, Raised Eyebrows, recounts that bittersweet experience becoming involved in Groucho's last days, struggling to remain non-partisan when others were starting to fight over the body and whatever it owned. I highly recommend Steve's book and while you can buy it on Amazon, it's better if you buy it from the author who will personalize it for you.

But I didn't meet Steve back then. I met him and we became good friends thirty-five years after Groucho passed and since then, we've logged a lot of hours talking about all things Marx as well as other topics. Occasionally, it's about being present for and perhaps participating in the last years of people we'd admired from afar in their younger days. It's a very strange position to find one's self in.

Groucho meant a lot to a lot of us as he may have to you. His was a unique comic voice…and attitude…and body language. He was funny in just about every way a person can be funny on a stage and the things he said, whether ad-libbed or written by great comedy writers, were eminently quotable. I'm glad I met him that first time…and a little less glad for the other two encounters.

Tim B. sent me this one…

You've mentioned many times on your blog that when you started collecting comic books, you bought a lot of your collection at second-hand book stores for a nickel each or six for a quarter. So you lived through the period when the prices for old comic books began to go way up from that. What were your thoughts when that began happening?

Some disappointment. It was a great deal of fun to go to those stores…and not just for old comic books. I loved used book shops because you never knew what you might find. At that point in my life, I was not entirely certain what existed to be found. I usually browsed the book shelves along with the little display where they kept the old comics.

But the back issue comic books themselves held such joy for me that I considered them way underpriced when I was buying them for five cents each. When I could find an old issue I didn't have of Superman or The Fox and the Crow for a buck or two, I didn't hesitate to pay that. And as the prices went even higher, I was getting into the industry and it somehow seemed less important that I locate every issue of every comic book.

I'm not sure I can explain why. As I began attending comic book conventions, I didn't scour the halls looking for missing issues. Meeting the creators of the comics and listening to them became more important to me. One of the reasons I don't go to cons much these days, apart from San Diego and WonderCon, is that I'm not going to meet anyone at a con who wrote or drew a comic book I loved as a kid.

Your question brought two incidents to mind. One was that there was a used book shop downtown that I frequented in the six-for-a-quarter days and then somehow, I didn't go there for a couple of years. One day — this would have been around early 1970 just before the first issue of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide was published — I was in the area so I popped in. The same proprietor person ran the place but instead of piles of old comic books priced to move at a flat price, he now had essentially the same comics bagged and boarded and on file…and priced for ten or twenty times what I could buy them for elsewhere.

The "prize" of his offerings was what he had graded as a "mint condition" copy of Fantastic Four #13. It was nowhere near what any experienced dealer would have called "mint" but it was in better shape than my copy so I thought of buying it —

— until I saw the price he'd put on a sticker on its bag. I don't remember what it was but I remember thinking, "Wow, that's about ten times too much!" I put it back and the man, who'd seen my Sticker Shock, got really insulting about it. He said something like "Obviously, you aren't a true collector because you don't realize what old comic books are going for these days!" But that was something I did know about. I was then a frequent patron at the comic book shops up in Hollywood — Cherokee Book Shop, Collectors Book Shop, Bond Street Book Shop and until they sold out to their competitors, Argosy Book Shop.

If you had a comic book priced at three times what Cherokee sold it for, your price was four or five times above what you could pay elsewhere. We had a brief back-and-forth over his pricing and this guy just thought I was the stupidest kid to ever wander into his musty emporium.  I walked out without buying anything and the next time I drove by the place, it was — like most old book shops were before long — outta business. If he'd stuck around for ten or so more years, he might have gotten his prices…but not then.

The other story that popped into mind when I got the above question involved a comic that DC put out late in 1965 — Superman #183. Here, I'll show you the cover…

And in case you can't read it on your screen, I'll enlarge one part of that cover…

Can you make it out now? This is a 25-cent comic book that DC put out of Superman reprints at a time when the only "press" comic books were getting was about how people — some of them grown adults — were going into places like Cherokee Book Shop and paying what seemed then like astronomical prices for old comic books. I mean, you might pay a couple hundred bucks for a copy of Batman #1!!!

DC stuck some old Siegel-and-Shuster reprints into this issue — being careful to remove the then-forbidden names of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster — and they had Superman on the cover talking about how collectors were paying "$30.00 and up for a perfect copy!"

A year or two after this issue came out, a grown adult — I'd guess in his late twenties — walked into a meeting of our comic book club which met every Saturday at a public park in West Los Angeles.  He announced loudly that he was willing to pay "good money" for copies of Superman #183.  He was not interested in anything else but he paid a buck or two for any copies of Superman #183 that were on the premises.  He haggled a bit, only offering the lower price for what he considered not "perfect" copies.  His odd shopping spree seemed based on two dubious premises…

Dubious Premise #1: DC had recently published a comic book that sold for 25 cents on the newsstands and collectors at the time were eager to pay $30.00 and up for copies of that 25-cent comic book.  I mean, Superman said so right on the cover and if you can't believe Superman…?

Dubious Premise #2: Everyone else was too stupid to realize what a gold mine this was.  You buy a comic book for a quarter and promptly turn around and sell it for $30+.  He was the only one smart enough to pounce on this opportunity.  Even those collectors who then would pay $30 and up for a copy of Superman #183 didn't realize stupid people were still selling them for a tiny fraction of that amount.

This was a grown man operating on those two Dubious Premises.  We had twelve-year-old members laughing at him.  And yes, a mint copy of that comic now sells for a thousand bucks and up but so do a lot of other comics he could have bought at the time.  When he paid a buck for a copy then, he thought he'd made an immediate $29 dollar profit (at least!) off someone too dense to read what the cover said.

I don't know what happened to that guy.  We never saw him again.  Part of me kinda hopes he's reading this blog post and thinking, "You idiot!  I have ninety copes of that book and some day soon, I'll sell them for a million bucks each!"  Or maybe he's sobbing that he let them go in 1978 for a measly twenty bucks.