I received a lot of messages about the item here concerning Souplantation not making good on its gift cards. Most of them said something like what Karl Kuras wrote in this e-mail to me…

Long time fan of the blog and kid who grew up on the D&D cartoon and Garfield and Friends.

I'm also a lawyer who practiced bankruptcy law for many years. The Souplantation peoples' hands are probably tied on the refunds. Once a person or company (yeah, the Supreme Court thinks they're one and the same) begins to prepare for bankruptcy proceedings they are barred from paying any of their creditors.

The "court" they refer to is probably the bankruptcy court which will determine the priority of debtors and whether enough funds are left for the repayment.

I'm the last person to defend corporate America but this is sadly the best they can do under the circumstances.

No, I think they could have said something like, "We really appreciate all of you customers who bought gift cards and we wish we could somehow redeem them. But we're plunging into bankruptcy proceedings here and they're governed by laws that take most of that out of our hands. If it turns out there's any way we can make good on those cards, we will." They could have been much nicer about it.

I also seem to recall that there was some restaurant chain years ago that went outta business but still arranged with some other chain to offer something to gift card holders. The other chain wanted to see if they could inherit some of the loyal customers of the going-outta-biz firm so they offered to honor not the face value of the gift cards but some percentage up to a certain amount.

I knew about how bankruptcy court takes over in these situations. I was just amazed at how callous that second paragraph was towards folks who'd paid good cash for those gift cards and will probably never see a nickel on the dollar. The soft-serve frozen yogurt at Souplantation should have been that cold.

Here's a profile of our friend Frank Welker. This article way understates how much this man has worked.

Here's another one of those Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals that's on YouTube for forty-eight hours, a few of which have already expired as I post this. This is Cats but not the recent movie version. It's a filming done in 1988 of the production that ran slightly less than forever at the New London Theatre on Drury Lane. It has Elaine Paige and Sir John Mills in its cast and I think it's fairly entertaining. But then I didn't hate the recent movie as much as some folks did…

Here's quite a find — and thanks to Steve Stoliar for telling me about it. It's from 1952, as am I, and it's a film made for the sponsors of Groucho Marx's TV show, You Bet Your Life, to be shown at some sort of national sales convention. Groucho, glancing often at off-camera cue cards or his secret projection screen, comes off as the kind of person who should have been ridiculed by the Marx Brothers. We are promised a backstage tour but the film never goes backstage and there's no real tour — but it's worth watching…

I find that my life is more pleasant here in the Fortress when I don't pay a lot of attention to two closely-related topics: Donald Trump and what this global pandemic is doing to our world. The trick, I think, is to pay just enough attention so you know what to do to help yourself and those around you…but to not dwell on (a) bad news that teaches you nothing and (b) bad news about which you can do nothing. Hearing that Trump said some new stupid thing falls into both categories, especially since today's stupid thing will be forgotten by Sunday and replaced by three others.

(Someone wrote to ask me about "Obamagate." I think it's a reminder that with his attacks on Hillary, Trump learned he can fire up his easily-fired-up base and convince them that his opponents should be thrown in prison without actually pointing to any actual law that has been broken. And I wonder if anyone has said to him, "Uh, Mr. President…is it such a good idea for you to be promoting the concept of prosecuting former Presidents?")

Mostly, I try to focus on things I can accomplish…like getting Volume 7 of The Complete Pogo off to press and finishing my new book on Jack Kirby. They're not as important as saving the world from COVID-19 and POTUS-45 but I can actually do something constructive about them.

For a while on this blog, I ran a running tote on how many friends I'd lost due to their hysterical support of Donald Trump. I'm thinking of starting a new one tracking how many people I've had to cut out of my life because I'm sick of hearing them rant about how horrible he is. They're not trying to convince me. They just want to vent and I don't enjoy being vented at.

You need someone to talk to? Get a mynah bird. Tell it what you just have to tell someone. We'll both be happier…me because I don't have to listen to it; you because it'll listen to you all day and all night and disagree with you a lot less than I will.

This will only interest folks in Los Angeles. Remember the sadness when it was announced that Nate 'n Al's Delicatessen in Beverly Hills was closing forever? Well, "forever" turns out to be a little less than two months.

It's back, at least for a while. The menu has been pared back and like all L.A. eateries, you can't go in and eat a meal there but you can do take-out. And if you want deliveries, they're on Postmates. I intend to try that soon.

Just a reminder: Tonight at 7 PM my time (which is Pacific time), I will be interviewing my longtime pal Paul Levitz about DC Comics, the company of which he was a vital part for thirty-something years as an assistant editor, an editor, a writer, a publisher and the president of the whole danged operation. I know a lot about DC but Paul knows a lot more. If you're interested in the firm or its comics, this is not a conversation you want to miss.

It'll be live on www.newsfromme.tv and I'm going to try and embed it here but the embeds don't always work for every browser. You can certainly watch the replay later but it may be more fun live and if you're watching on a YouTube page (like this one), you can send comments and questions our way. I can't guarantee we'll get around to answering all your questions but I can guarantee a long dialogue about the company I worked for from afar and Paul worked for from anear…

Every so often, the last chapter of a story ruins the whole thing. As you know, I was a big supporter of the Souplantation chain, promoting them here often. Their tomato soup even got nice mentions on the TV shows, The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men because of this blog's relentless plugging.

They've sent an e-mail out to all the folks on their mailing list and also posted a statement on their website. The first paragraph is very nice but the last one makes me sorry I patronized and recommended them so much…

As you may have heard, we are unable to re-open out 97 Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes restaurants due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The outpouring of love on social media has been overwhelming and we are so grateful to all of the sweet memories you have shared with us. We would like to thank our 4,400 team members for their dedication and love they have shown to our local communities. We will miss you tremendously and wish you all the best.

For our gift card inquiries, refund options are limited at this time. You may be able to dispute the purchase with your bank or credit card company. Otherwise, there may be an alternative option available through the court in the future.

In other words: "Yes, we know a lot of you paid us in advance for future meals but since we're shutting down, we're not giving you that money back. If you don't like it, you can go to a lot of trouble to call your bank or your credit card company and see if they'll give you a refund — yeah, like they're really going to do that — but we got your money so we don't really care unless someone takes us to court over this."

I wish I had those sweet memories of the place but this kind of kills any I might have had. And I don't even have an unused gift card.

Stars of the musical comedy stage recall their worst auditions. How could that not be fun to watch?

As you may have noticed, I have combined my expertise at hosting panels at comic conventions (which pays nothing) with my expertise at blogging (which pays nothing) and moved into the new field of webcasting (which pays nothing). I still quite haven't mastered this last skill. So far, the beginning of every webcast I've done has had some screw-up due to operator error, a software glitch or both.

The first minute or so of last night's Conversation with Dick DeBartolo looked like a bloopers special but once we got going, things were okay from my end and Dick was very interesting and funny. People are watching it online in surprising numbers and you may want to follow the trend.

Tomorrow night, I'll be chatting with my longtime friend, Paul Levitz. When I first knew Paul, he was publishing fanzines and saying he didn't want to spend his career in the comic book industry. Next thing I knew, he was either President or Publisher of DC Comics. (He was both at various times but I'm not sure of the order.) What changed? Well, we'll be discussing that and many other things about that company but one thing I know changed was that Paul, once he got into a position of power, he did a lot of things that turned DC into a much better company to work for…which meant he also indirectly turned Marvel into one, as well.

Between us, we know almost everything about DC Comics. If you're interested in almost anything about that company, especially in the last three decades of the previous century, join us live at 7 PM Pacific Time.

And of course on Saturday, we have the second online Cartoon Voices Panel. I have done the job a good voice director does, which is to assemble a great company of voice actors. This one is Rob Paulsen, Kaitlyn Robrock, Gregg Berger, Debra Wilson and Jim Meskimen. In theory, there's no way I can mess this up but, of course, I will…somehow.

Next week, I'll be doing two more one-on-one conversations. On Tuesday, May 19, Scott Shaw! and I will be discussing the early days of what they now call Comic-Con International and at some point, we'll switch over and talk about working for Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. On Thursday, May 21, the wonderful comedy writer-producer Cheri Steinkellner and I will discuss her work on The Jeffersons, Cheers, Bob, the cartoon show Teacher's Pet, the Broadway show of Sister Act and a whole lotta other things. I have a lot of interesting friends…

So…two months of near-isolation. Thanks to the phone, the Internet, Zoom and other forms of communication, I don't feel as isolated as I might but still…

People keep asking, "When do you think this will end?" and the answer, it seems to me, is increasingly, "Whenever you decide it's safe for you to end it for yourself." The folks out there rallying for legislation to "reopen" do not convince me that (a) they're listening to medical authorities or (b) my best interests matter to them.

Some of them sure want us all out there, bolstering the economy with normal activity even if it kills us. Look at this news item, especially the incredible sentence I've highlighted in my excerpt…

Leading U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci on Tuesday warned Congress that a premature lifting of lockdowns could lead to additional outbreaks of the deadly coronavirus, which has killed 80,000 Americans and brought the economy to its knees. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a U.S. Senate panel that the virus epidemic is not yet under control in areas of the nation.

"I think we're going in the right direction, but the right direction does not mean we have by any means total control of this outbreak," Fauci said during hours of testimony. He urged states to follow health experts' recommendations to wait for signs including a declining number of new infections before reopening.

Someone is sitting before a Congressional committee trying to convince them to listen to medical experts about a medical matter instead of just substituting their own hunches and guesses and hopes.

This is not new. We've been through this with Climate Change…elected officials who have to preface their speeches with "I'm not a scientist but…" ignoring scientists on matters of science. This is not much different from "You know, I've never studied surgery but I'm pretty confident I can perform a liver transplant on you."

So I'm staying in. They're going to "open up" whatever they want to "open up" because they think a lot more sick and/or dead people is a reasonable price to pay for immediate economic and/or political gains. I can't do anything about that except to not participate and hope that enough Americans don't participate that it doesn't spike the death toll, which is still going up, like the tote board in the closing hour of a Jerry Lewis Telethon. (If you want to know a good measure of how to tell when it's going down, read Kevin Drum's piece about the R₀ metric.)

Also, read Kevin about this simple fact that's being shoved aside: Even among Republicans, the consensus of Americans is that there's a big danger in trying to reopen the economy too soon.

The government can reopen public gathering places but they can't force us to go gather in them. I'm still fine here in the Fortress. I hope you're fine in yours. You probably are if you're in yours.

Many moons ago, I wrote a now-outta-print book called MAD Art, all about the artists who've drawn for MAD magazine. It was one of those dream projects because I got to interview just about everyone who was alive at the time and had drawn for MAD, a publication that has been an important part of my life since I purchased my first copy at the age of ten. I've also had the opportunity to know and talk with a lot of the MAD writers…but not enough. Like, I've known its most prolific writer, Dick DeBartolo, for many years but we never sat down and talked for any great length of time.

That changes tonight. I'm going to talk to Dick about MAD and you can listen in. We'll also talk about his career as a writer for game shows and as the "Giz Wiz" who appears on ABC News and elsewhere…but most of it's going to be about MAD. Dick had his first byline in MAD #69 — one issue before I began reading it — and continued writing for them for more than half a century! At one point, he went 459 consecutive issues without not having a new piece appear!

So we'll be talking, starting at 7 PM tonight Pacific Time…and I don't know how late we'll go but it oughta be fascinating. Like I said, you can listen in by joining us at www.newsfromme.tv then. The show will repeat for all eternity at that address but I promise you a better time if you watch it live…plus, you can send us comments and questions if you watch on the YouTube site as we're doing it. I will also try to stream it on this page but that doesn't work with all browsers and you can't post messages to us here. Don't you want to watch me ruthlessly interrogate MAD's Maddest Writer?