• You know, it's not that difficult to not leave your home when there's nowhere to go.

I didn't watch the Biden-Bernie show last night but I can tell you who won the debate. A friend of mine who desperately wants Bernie to win wrote me that he mopped the floor with Biden and unquestionably proved which of them was the better man. A friend of mine who desperately wants Joe to win wrote me that he mopped the floor with Sanders and unquestionably proved which of them was the better man. When people score debates, that's more or less how it goes.

I'm assuming that barring some outta-left-field turn of events, Biden has a lock on it. And that turn of events would be something like Biden getting real sick or Martians invading the Earth. Doesn't the idea of Martians invading feel a little less implausible than it did two weeks ago? You know, back when everything in the country suddenly shutting down for a pandemic seemed about equally likely?

And I'm assuming Bernie knows it's over and like Elizabeth Warren, is just waiting to see what he can get from Biden and/or the party in exchange for being a good, Biden-backing loser. Senator Sanders has been very successful at nudging his party to the left and making some of what once seemed like wild ideas seem way more possible. He's probably still playing that game because he's good at it.

You know the old saying about how soldiers go into war with the army they have, not the army they want? We also go to warlike elections with the nominee we have. I would have preferred Bernie to Joe — and maybe one or two others to Joe — but if it's indeed Biden, I'm okay with that. I hope he picks a running mate who'll make me feel even more okay with that.

From Yes, Minister. I think this is self-explanatory…

I've been thinking a lot about erring…erring on the side of too much caution versus erring on the side of not enough. All of us — and that includes you and even me — are probably doing a certain amount of both at the moment. What's happening in this country now is so unprecedented and odd that it's impossible to not sometimes err one way if not both.

So many of the questions we have now, starting with "Exactly how bad is COVID-19?" are most properly answered by "We don't know yet" and I wish more people would admit that rather than to pass guesses off as valid information. Even educated guesses by people who have long been educated in this kind of thing are still only educated guesses.

Watching the news, you've probably seen Dr. Anthony Fauci talking about the coronavirus and being very cautious about what he says and refusing to speculate on important matters. Dr. Fauci is the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. You should not be surer of what you're saying about the medical end of this than he is. You should be wary of anyone who is, especially if they drive trucks, fix computers, do cartoon voices, write comic books or deliver for Grubhub.

Their profession doesn't mean they're wrong. Their lack of expertise doesn't even mean they're wrong. We all know how often even broken clocks can be right. I think we just need to differentiate between informed opinions and wild guesses. I know people who confuse the two, especially after they make a wild guess that just happens to turn out right. I don't know how dangerous the coronavirus is but I know it's too dangerous to be guided by wild guesses…even the wild guesses of someone whose wild guesses are right once in a while.

Alton Brown on how to wash your hands…

Let's see if I've figured out how to embed this properly. Broadway's Laura Benanti, whom we all love madly, posted a message on Twitter addressing kids who were to perform in high school musicals that have now been canceled because of you-know-what. She invited them to post videos of themselves performing so she at least could see them and many have.

You can watch Laura's video and then if you click on her name, you should be able to see all the responses — videos of young men and women singing the show tunes they're not going to get to sing before an audience in their high school auditoriums, at least not now. Or you can search Twitter with the hashtag #SunshineSongs. Keep an eye out for the production of Fiddler on the Roof performed entirely by teenage girls. By God, that's the way that show was meant to be performed. What the hell were they thinking when they cast Zero Mostel?

And if I've really figured out how to configure this — doubtful, considering I'm still trying to get my Pong game to work on my TV — you should be able to see one of the more interesting entrants right below the video of Ms. Benanti.

Thanks to Bob Elisberg of Elisberg Industries for telling me about this. Many other good things await on his blog, especially for those of you who don't get enough posts on this one about what a horrible being Donald Trump is…

In early 2006, I gave up carbonated beverages. Later that year, I had gastric bypass surgery and I shed the exact same number of pounds that my friend Amber now weighs. It is not a usual side-effect of such a procedure but over the next two years, I found my "sweet tooth" going away. I had less and less — and eventually zero — craving for cake, ice cream, cookies, candy and so on…and even fruit got to be too sweet for me.

None of this resulted in any vitamin deficiency — or so my doctors said. But it did leave me with a deficiency of things I could drink. I've never had any alcoholic ones and never liked coffee or tea, never liked anything with artificial sweeteners. As a kid I chug-a-lugged milk by the gallon but in late teenage, my body began a serious non-like of most dairy products. There were other reasons for shunning other liquids and eventually it came down to one and only one thing I could drink…

Water. Not a bad only choice.

What comes out of the faucets in my neighborhood tastes like a buffalo's bathwater — not that I've ever actually sampled that liquid — so I tried buying those pitchers that filter your drinking water. All were acceptable and Brita was the best…but I thought I could do better with bottled H2O. I sampled many before deciding that Crystal Geyser was the best and now I buy it in bulk and usually have 20+ gallons in a closet off my kitchen.

I also buy it under assumed names. The Crystal Geyser people bottle water for other labels. If you go to a Whole Foods around here, you can buy a gallon of Crystal Geyser for (last I looked) $1.49. The Whole Foods house brand is 365 and they sell a gallon of 365 water for 95 cents. It's the exact same water in the exact same bottles with different labels. At times, I've also scored Crystal Geyser water under at least a dozen other names including Trader Joe's, Walgreens, Sprouts and Roxane.

(How to tell: Look at the label for the name "CG Roxane." That's the parent company. And yes, I know they just paid a big fine for illegally storing and transporting hazardous waste containing arsenic. I've forgiven them.)

As you may know, there's no food or drink available at most markets these days unless you feel like chowing down on dryer sheets and plastic forks. I have plenty of food on hand and all of my favorite restaurants that deliver are still delivering…but what about drinking water? I have about ten days of Crystal Geyser under various monikers and an uncertainty as to where and when more might be obtainable. Planning ahead is a wise thing in the current Zombie Apocalypse so I had an idea, just in case…

I just ordered a couple of Brita pitchers from Amazon. They'll arrive Tuesday.

Amazon seems to have plenty of them. They won't make the local tap water delicious but it'll be eminently drinkable. And it might be prudent to always have a couple of them plus filters on hand. Here's a link to Amazon for anyone who thinks this is a good idea.

Getting depressed by all the bad news? I have just the prescription — Randy Rainbow!

A month from this weekend, we were all going to be at WonderCon in Anaheim and many of us were going to be buying artwork and publications from the gifted folks there in the area of dealers called either Artists Alley, Artist's Alley or Artists' Alley. I've never figured out which it should be and I note that most conventions just use the terms interchangeably so I will, too.

Anyway, the ever-helpful folks at The San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog have compiled a guide to almost all the exhibitors who were going to be exhibiting and selling in that part of the convention. They've also provided links where you can contact those folks and perhaps buy online. What a fine service. Thanks, Kerry!

I have no idea where the strip club in the above pic is located, nor will I be heading for it or any such business. But I saw the photo on the 'net, thought it was funny and captured it for your possible amusement. And before I posted it, I heard a great story that kinda goes with it.

A young lady who sometimes works in another such establishment — and who I hope for her sake is corona-free — called me last night to ask if I knew of any work she could do for money. She meant fully-clothed work. I didn't get clear if the strip joint she's been working in is closing or might close or if she has just decided that letting strange men touch your naked body is not the smartest way of earning money at this time.

Anyway, she needs a new source of income and I was sorry to tell her I knew of no such opportunities. I've had a few other calls like this from folks who work in other, more-covered professions.

She took it well and then said, "Oh, lemme tell you what happened the other night at the club!" Somewhere there, for the safety of customers and performers, they have (and have long had) this huge gallon container of Hand Sanitizer. It has a little pump on the top that pumps alcohol-infused aloe the way you can pump ketchup or mustard onto your burger at a Five Guys. As she told the story…

This customer is there for a while just looking, sitting there, not buying dances or anything, not even tipping anyone. Suddenly, he gets up and starts casually strolling for the exit. Then suddenly, he runs over, grabs the big container of Hand Sanitizer and runs for the door with it. One of the bouncers and a couple of dancers who were topless chased him out into the parking lot. The bouncer tackled him, grabbed the Hand Sanitizer back and told him he was banned from ever coming into the club again.

The guy didn't try to rob them of money. He wasn't interested in the nude women. But the gallon of Hand Sanitizer was just too, too tempting. Like I said up top, it's come to this…

Most of the late night comedy shows have closed down while everyone tries to learn more about the pandemic and figure out how and when to restart normal life. A few days ago, all the late night shows were talking about remaining in production but doing so without live audiences. Suddenly though, things got worse and now most are shutting down operations for the time being. I believe John Oliver is doing a new show Sunday night, sans audience. Earlier this evening, Bill Maher did one with just the crew and staff there to yuk it up, then he's off for a week and they'll decide if he's back the following week.

But Colbert, Fallon, Meyers, Corden, Samantha Bee, Ellen, Watch What Happens Live, Kimmel and probably a few others I'm forgetting are all on indefinite hiatus and probably have sent most staffers to work at home. I'm not sure what they're waiting for. What does anyone expect will change in the next few weeks?

I wonder if anyone has thought of doing shows from home.

My pal Stu Shostak does a video podcast called Stu's Show from his home out in Chatsworth. Many of you have seen it. Most episodes, he has one or two guests there but he also does them with remote guests. I've been one of them several times, appearing via webcam from my home which is about an hour drive from his…but he also has on other guests in other states. Anyone can be on as long as that person has a good webcam and a reliable Internet connection.

Stu not only hosts but he simultaneously directs, selecting the shot that you see on your screen: One person in a box, two people in two boxes, three in three, etc. The format is not unfamiliar to anyone who watches cable news shows with lots of different talking heads in different boxes, participating from different locations.

Imagine if they installed a really good webcam in Stephen Colbert's home. I would imagine CBS could afford the best and get him the best Internet that money can buy. Imagine if in another location — isolated, unable to infect another guest or himself — you had bandleader Jon Batiste at a keyboard. Then you get a couple of interesting guests in front of webcams in their homes or wherever they are. Everyone's connected and it all feeds into a computer controlled by a director who handles the chore of switching, as Stu does himself, to close-ups, two-shots, the "Brady Bunch" look…whatever.

Everyone chats like they would on any talk show. Batiste plays us in and out of breaks and provides underscore where appropriate. The director could also roll-in prerecorded clips and toss in title cards and credits and such. It would be easy to arrange, incredibly cheap to do, way better than reruns, and I don't know why they aren't setting this up right now. Just when a lot of us are feeling trapped in our homes, the networks could be giving us fresh, topical content that doesn't make us feel so isolated and alone.

So why isn't someone trying to make this happen? Maybe they are.

In the meantime, I thought I'd embed here two amazing hunks of video…Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers doing some of their last fresh content before shutting down. Neither of them had live audiences from outside; just crew and staff members and not a lot of them. Meyers is doing prepared material but working way looser than he does in a normal show. The clip of Colbert was a rehearsal that they decided to air. You'll notice a lot of edits in it and I wonder how much of that was to hit a certain time limit or if he just went off the rails, ad-libbing and rambling. I rather enjoyed both of these…

Someday, someone will write a detailed analysis of the growing concern about the coronavirus and they will note how nothing made Americans take it more seriously than when they heard Tom Hanks had it.

You know what I wish? I wish no one's response to all this was being affected one way or another by whether they love or hate Donald Trump. And I'm not suggesting mine isn't, though when it's me, I would change "love or hate" to "respect or don't respect." I don't like the idea of the word "hate" being directed at another human being no matter how horrible he or she is.

We just have too many folks who are denying the threat, not because of any actual medical information but because they're afraid it will hurt their candidate's chances, and too many who may be exaggerating because they're so eager to see that guy gone. The two overreactions are not really equivalent because in a case like this, if you err, it's prudent to err on the side of caution. The guys who are going around saying, "It's a hoax! Let's all shake hands and cough in each others' faces!" are willing to err on the side of reckless.

I do like the quote from Neil deGrasse Tyson: "We're in the middle of an experiment. And the experiment is to see how many people listen to scientists."

I'm of course intrigued about how TV shows are dealing with it. I'm going to post a few thoughts about that later today. Right now, I'm going to see if I can get it off my mind long enough to write something for which I will get paid…that is, assuming the company I'm writing it for doesn't shut down. Maybe I'd better type faster.

Tonight, Turner Classic Movies is running The Big Doll House, a 1971 exploitation film about women in prison who can't seem to keep their shirts on. The film was shot in the Philippines for, from the looks of it, I'd say about four hundred dollars and that's including the script. But it was very successful and very imitated by different outfits and if you like that kind of film, this is that kind of film. Roger Corman's New World Pictures made it and they themselves followed it with two imitations — The Big Bird Cage and Women in Cages — featuring many of the same cast members and scenes and sets. Pam Grier was in all three.

This one and The Big Bird Cage were helped enormously by the presence of Sid Haig, one of my favorite actors in a long list of (mostly) low-budget movies. He's very funny in The Big Doll House. I'm not necessarily recommending this movie but if you do watch, watch for Sid. You can read my obit for Mr. Haig here and a great anecdote about him here.

It's Friday the 13th but it's also the 99th birthday of the longest-serving of The Usual Gang of Idiots in MAD magazine and one of the most beloved cartoonists in the world. Abraham "Al" Jaffee was born on March 13, 1921 and he began drawing comic books in 1941. He made his MAD debut in #25 (September, 1955) when he wrote an article entitled, "Baseball…Science or Skill?" for then-editor Harvey Kurtzman.

A few months later when Kurtzman left MAD to do a magazine for Hugh Hefner, Al went with him and didn't return to the pages of MAD until late 1958. He was in almost every issue thereafter, sometimes as a writer, sometimes as an artist, most often as a writer-artist. And in 1964, he originated the MAD Fold-In, which quickly became one of the essential components of almost every issue since. Only recently did he stop doing them and passed the job on to another artist.

Al is one of those wonderful cartoonists who is also a wonderful human being. Everybody who knows the guy loves the guy. Everybody who doesn't know the guy would love the guy if they knew the guy. Happy 99, Al. Hope you enjoy being middle-aged.

I want to make a small point about all these cancellations and closures and postponements we're seeing — WonderCon, Disneyland, Broadway…even the real important ones like the unveiling of the Bullwinkle & Rocky statue. We may well look back some day and decide some of this was unnecessary but we can't say that now, at least with any certainty. You might be washing your hands way more often than you need to…but we don't know. And when you don't know and peoples' lives are in jeopardy, you err on the side of possible over-caution. You have to. So keep on washing 'em.

We're also eliminating a lot of uncertainty. I was set to host six panels at WonderCon and to spend three days there. I felt that if they were going to hold it, I was going to go…but I'm 68 years old now and one of the consistent things we're hearing about the COVID-19 pandemic is that it's really rough on folks, age seventy and up. 68 is way too close to 70. A few days ago, I became convinced they'd have to postpone the con but it wasn't until I got the text message this morning that I felt a small but present weight lift off me: That's one thing I don't have to think about.

I am not worried about the virus. I'm worried about not doing the right things in a tricky situation. Contracting it might be inevitable but you want to do everything in your power to minimize the possibility. I feel a bit better today because I'm making some adjustments in how I live for the time being which I think will do that. And I don't have to keep thinking about whether to brave WonderCon and not let anyone down or to cancel on WonderCon, which was increasingly looking like a risky thing to attend. Its operators did a wise thing and I thank them for doing it now instead of waiting a week or two.

If it turns out that this thing takes a lot fewer human lives than the Worst Case projections, I hope we don't hear people saying the reactions to it and all these cancellations were foolish and unnecessary. I hope they say the fatalities were kept down by swift, smart action and responsible parties erring on the side of caution. And I really hope they say that it was an act of appalling negligence that we weren't better prepared for this and that we won't make that mistake again.