So…do we think Chris Christie really turned down the job of Chief of Staff to Donald Trump? Or did he know he wasn't going to be offered it and he got out ahead of the story in order to try and convince people he's still important enough that he might be asked?

And if he really did turn it down, was it because he had the common sense to know that anyone in the job would be verbally abused by Trump no end, then fired and verbally abused even more?

And if Stephen Colbert was doing a new show tonight, how far into the monologue would he be saying, "Chris Christie never turned down a job or a donut"?

Today is the first day of this cold where I don't feel quite as bad as I sound. My voice is somewhere between Barry White and late-in-life Lucille Ball but my head no longer feels like a touring company of Riverdance is using it for a rehearsal hall. By Monday, I might even sound and/or feel like me.

I just received — and by "just," I mean as I was typing the previous paragraph — a "screener" DVD of Mary Poppins Returns. It says that they're pushing Lin-Manuel Miranda for Best Actor, and in the category of Best Supporting Actor, they want us to consider Ben Whishaw, Dick Van Dyke and Colin Firth. For Best Actress, they list Emily Blunt (of course). For Best Supporting Actress, they list Emily Mortimer, Meryl Streep (of course) and Angela Lansbury.

I have another New Rule for Bill Maher. New Rule: HBO has to stagger seasons and vacations so Real Time with Bill Maher and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver are never both on hiatus at the same time.

I'm now going to go eat a big bowl of chicken noodle soup. This is not because of my cold. I just like chicken noodle soup.

Our pal Floyd Norman, who worked on the original Mary Poppins movie, loves the sequel just fine. And I know Floyd well enough to know that if he didn't, he'd say so. Loud and clear.

Hey, whatever happened to my old pal, Jeff Altman? Well, he married a lady from Raleigh, North Carolina and they now live in Wendell, which is right outside Raleigh. Jeff was and I'll bet still is one of the funniest people I've ever met in my life, though lately he's been focusing on one of his other skills, sleight-o'-hand magic.

One night last century, we were backstage in the big room of the Comedy Store. Jeff was waiting to go on, which meant waiting for another comedian to finish. The gent who was on stage was a fairly well-known comic who Jeff thought was unfunny and undeserving of his rep. I kinda agreed but it didn't bother me half as much as it seemed to bother Jeff.

As the fellow on stage concluded, Jeff said to me, "You got a stopwatch on your watch? Time me and yell out when five minutes are up. I'll get more laughs than that guy did in his whole twenty-minute set and I won't say a word." Okay, fine. I took a position at one side of the stage as Jeff was introduced.

He went out there and did five minutes of wordless physical comedy — making faces, contorting his body, doing pratfalls, doing silly walks that put John Cleese's to shame, etc. It was one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen in my life and the audience concurred. I was laughing so hard I almost forgot to keep track of how long it was going on but at the proper moment, I yelled, "Time!" And Jeff immediately assumed a dignified stance and manner, took the mike and said, "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jeff Altman and I'm from Syracuse, New York." He got a standing ovation then and there.

He was not only funnier than the guy who preceded him but he was funnier than anyone else who was on that stage that night. And I've seen him do cards too. He's great. Here's where he is these days…

I mentioned earlier here today that Trump "has this maddening way of insisting that mutually-exclusive positions are both true."

Well, journalist Eric Levitz has compiled a list of seven mutually-exclusive statements by Trump about the payoffs for which his former lawyer is heading for jail.

I have the feeling that all this stuff about payoffs to cover affairs is going to just disappear when indictments start coming out relating to Russia.

A happy today to Dick Van Dyke who's 93 today — which in Dick Van Dyke Years, means he looks and moves about like he's 77. Has anyone else ever been as fine an actor as this man? Or as beloved? I hope he and his lovely Arlene are out celebrating all day and all night. And this may be an unrealistic fantasy but I'm kinda hoping they have something else soon to celebrate.

In 1988, Judi Dench won the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress in 1998 for her role as Queen Elisabeth in Shakespeare In Love. She was on the screen for eight minutes. The runner-up for the least amount of camera time for an Oscar winner was in 1976 when Beatrice Straight won in the same category for Network. Her entire part was ten minutes. See where I'm going with this?

I didn't clock how long Dick was on screen in Mary Poppins Returns. I'm guessing about five, maybe a bit less. But I can't recall an actor making such an impact to a movie…and I can't imagine anyone else in that part having that impact. It was a moment that moviegoers will not forget.

Maybe that's a silly dream on my part. Maybe Disney plans to push Lin-Manual Miranda as Best Supporting Actor because — and this is often what they consider in these situations — they feel the competition for Best Actor will be too formidable (Bradley Cooper, Viggo Mortensen, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carrell, Robert Redford, Ethan Hawke, Joaquin Phoenix, et al). But maybe there's also a shot for Dick to take home a Special Award.

And yeah, I know he doesn't need one. The world has already given him that far-better award of unconditional love. Still, it would be nice, wouldn't it?

I still have a cold that could clog the entire L.A. sewer system. It doesn't feel bad as long as I don't try to swallow and don't try to talk to producers or editors. My voice has modulated from Harvey Fierstein to somewhere north of Suzanne Pleshette, and my nose alternates between not being able to breathe in and not being able to breathe out. So, Dear Blog, I guess I'll be fine in a day or two or whenever Trump is out of office, whichever occurs first.

I'm not following the fallout from the Cohen sentencing a lot. I guess Trump has now given up denying that he authorized the hush money payments to Stormy and Karen…or is that still Fake News? He has this maddening way of insisting that mutually-exclusive positions are both true. One thing which must be frustrating the hell out of the Republicans in Congress is that they wish they had this kind of scandal stuff about a Democrat. They'd know what to do with it. They'd have the guy impeached faster than you could say "Paula Jones." And isn't that the first time in a decade or so you've seen that name?

I read a number of reviews of Mary Poppins Returns and couldn't find any real valid points in the negative ones. Those reviewers all struck me as being too stodgy to surrender themselves to the proceedings. If Lin-Manuel Miranda's performance doesn't enchant you, you may just be incapable of enchantment. Yes, this sequel does constantly echo the original. Sequels do and those who carp at this one for that would be savaging the film if it didn't. The reviews for Emily Blunt seem to be pretty good except for one of two who fault her for not being the exact same actress as in the 1964 film. I guess they figure that for what Disney must have paid her, she could at least have managed that. Ignore these people.

On last night's Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Stephen needed a volunteer for a bit. He went out into the audience, selected a lady named Pam and led her by the hand towards the stage. Seamlessly, the cameras cut to a shot of him leading her onto the stage…but it wasn't really seamless. She suddenly had a small microphone on the scarf around her neck and was holding the microphone pack connected to it in her hand. They edited out the part where she and Stephen stopped and someone put a wireless microphone on her.

This is my main gripe about Colbert's show: The editing. It feels edited and sometimes, obviously so. I could understand that if the host was so inept that they had to way overtape and then cut out his clumsy, boring moments. You might have that need if, for example, your host was kind of slow with no background in improvisation.

I have occasionally worked on TV shows where someone performed a magic trick and there was an inviolate rule: No editing. Even if it's undetectable, it's subtly detectable. Viewers will sense it wasn't really the way they saw it. I think that applies on any show that is supposed to be spontaneous to any degree…and that's what we watch late night shows to see: Real people making real conversation…and real mistakes.

Has anyone who watches The Price is Right? ever noticed how they handle the microphone problem? When someone is first called to come on down from the audience, they are (of course) unmiked and they stay that way until the next commercial break when they're outfitted with wireless mikes. If they're lucky enough to win and come up on stage to play another pricing game before a commercial break, they remain unmiked. Drew Carey uses his hand mike to catch whatever they say. If there's been a commercial since they "came on down," they have a wireless on and he doesn't have to do that.

That show is edited for pace and for tech reasons…but they don't stop it to put a microphone on someone. They do as much as they can to keep the feel that the hour-long show was recorded in one hour. Late night shows should strive for just such a feel. Or better still, actually do everything in real time.

Cookie Monster, of course…

So Mike Schlesinger picked me up and we went in and did that DVD/Blu Ray commentary track for that movie I shouldn't name until the DVD/Blu Ray company announces it. It went fine with Mike doing most of the heavy lifting with his play-by-play, and me injecting commentary and coughing. The latter will be erased from the track.

My throat was bothering me and my nose required frequent blowing. After the session, Mike and I went to Canter's Delicatessen and I inhaled a bowl of chicken soup, then he dropped me off at my house, I went to bed and awoke several hours later, sans voice.

No, that's not right. I do have a voice. I just sound like…well, imagine Harvey Fierstein after screaming at top of his lungs for a few hours. I should be fine in a day or so but I'll be spending the rest of today hydrating and napping (not at the same time) but not blogging. I'm going to post a video link then go back to bed. Ciao.

I'm due at a recording studio shortly where my pal Mike Schlesinger and I will be pretending we know what we're talking about on the commentary track for the DVD (or maybe it's a Blu Ray) of a fine movie from the seventies. Actually, I'm the one who'll be pretending because Mike actually knows this stuff. I'll just chime in every now and then with "You're so right, Mike!" It's not hard to seem like you know what you're talking about when you surround yourself with people who do. Of course, it helps if you know what you don't know.

Michael Cohen — Trump's "fixer," the man who was so good at making problems go away — just got sentenced to three years in prison. He should have hired Michael Cohen…though come to think of it, Cohen didn't exactly do a great job at making Trump's problems go away, did he?

I'm seeing a few bad reviews online for Mary Poppins Returns. Don't listen to these people.

I'll be back later.

This is for those of you who miss a time when (a) Donald Trump was just an annoying, self-promoting business tycoon and (b) Jon Stewart manned the desk at The Daily Show. It's still one of the funniest things I ever saw on television, well worth sitting through the brief ad that will probably precede it…

The jury in the trial of White Nationalist James Alex Fields Jr. has recommended a sentence for his crime, which you probably recall was driving his car into a crowd of counter-protesters at a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, 2017. He killed one and injured many others, in some cases leaving permanent disabilities.

The jury's recommendation was that Fields be sentenced to prison for the remainder of his life plus 419 years. I'm thinking a good lawyer ought to be able to get that cut in half. There's also $480,000 in fines, which I'm sure the killer will be able to pay easily. Maybe he can charge it on his NaziCard®. That's NaziCard® — the credit card that guarantees your finances will never be in the red or the black.

I was wondering where they got the 419 years figure. According to the A.P., it's "70 years for each of five malicious wounding charges, 20 for each of three malicious wounding charges, and nine years on one charge of leaving the scene of an accident." Do you think he heard that and thought, "Oh, if only I hadn't left the scene of the accident"? I also read in one article…

The jury reached its verdict after deliberating for about four hours over two days. Judges in Virginia often impose the sentence recommended by juries. Under state law, they can impose lower sentences than what the jury recommends, but cannot increase them.

I guess Fields is lucky the judge can't raise his sentence to, say, 519 afterlife years in prison. I think I'd raise it to a "billion, jillion years times infinity." He still faces trial for a "hate crime" and that could carry the death penalty. As I've mentioned before here, I don't know how I feel about the death penalty. I might be more in favor of it if we hadn't seen so many people who were sentenced to it and then later exonerated by DNA testing and other evidence.

When I've discussed the issue with folks who are fiercely for the government executing people — you know the kind who want the bailiff to administer a lethal injection just as soon as the verdict's in — that doesn't seem to matter. It's like they believe someone has to die for each capital crime and while it would be nice if it was the actual murderer, anyone who looks like they might have dunnit will do just fine.

I don't understand that thinking. But then I also don't understand why, when Fields admitted to driving the car and there was plenty of evidence that he was hot on the idea of killing anti-Nazi crusaders, it took four hours over two days to arrive at a verdict. I think mature, rational people could do that in the time it takes to make Top Ramen.

Anyway, I guess if I was forced to take a stand on the death penalty, I'd say that someone like this guy should receive the maximum punishment…and it's up for discussion as to what that should be. I don't think spending the rest of his life in prison is getting off easy, nor would his being executed make me feel any better if I'd lost someone to his criminal insanity. If I were ever properly convicted of murder, I think I'd prefer death to sitting behind bars forever, kicking myself for what I'd done.

That's what I think. I doubt I'm ever going to do anything to find out for sure.

I hope this doesn't sound like I'm being frivolous about such a horrible crime. The judicial and penal processes often sound silly and inefficient to me. The pains, both physical and emotional caused to innocent people are very real. I hope it provides some healing to those who can be healed. I just think there's a better way to do that.

Real estate developer Hackman Capital Partners has purchased CBS Television City in Hollywood for $750,000,000, beating out my highest bid by a crushing $749,999,947.45. I thought it might be a nice place to store all my old comic books.

So what does this mean? Well, for the shows that "tape" there, not much for a few years. They can stay for five and even after that, the buyers will probably operate some portion of it as a TV facility and those shows may be able to lease space there. After NBC sold its big facility in Burbank, Jay Leno's show and a soap opera or two remained on the premises.

A lot of different shows are done at Television City but at the moment, the main ones are The Price is Right, The Late Late Show with James Corden, The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, Dancing with the Stars (which airs on ABC) and Real Time with Bill Maher (which is on HBO). The question of whether these shows will go or stay has a number of components including what else is available, what it will cost and in some cases, the "look" of the program. Given five years time, I would guess they can clear enough space at the CBS lot in Studio City to take in the two soap operas…and those shows would look the same there.

The Price is Right — which would probably not look the same elsewhere — is an interesting matter. The new owners of the Television City are reportedly looking to bring in condominiums and retail stores…and I would think there would be a great appeal to keeping The Price is Right there as a glamorous tenant and maybe a tourist draw. I'm also thinking the producers of that show might be thinking this is a good time to get out of Studio 33 ("The Bob Barker Studio") and relocate to a new, modern facility that was designed for that show which will never be canceled. I can see that going either way.

Really, no one knows for sure what's going to happen except that the developers probably have some plans to start adding stores and restaurants wherever they can without disrupting production. They'll keep some of what's there, add on some of what isn't and just try to start recouping the $750 mil.

Over the next few months, I may just drive my car down Beverly Boulevard past it several times a day. I drive past that building a lot and I figure that once the development reaches an advanced stage of Doneness, it will be impossible to go past it. So maybe I can store some up for later.

M. Flaherty is asking me…

I've read a lot of pieces about Stan Lee lately. Some of them say he was first hired at Marvel because he answered an ad in the newspaper. Some say he was hired by his uncle, Martin Goodman, who owned the company. Can you settle this?

Sure. Stanley Martin Lieber — later known as Stan Lee — got his job there through his uncle but it wasn't Martin Goodman. Stan's uncle was a man named Robert Solomon who was the brother of Stan's mother. He worked for Goodman's company and was married to Goodman's sister. You can figure out for yourself what relation Stan was to Goodman but it's somewhat more distant than nephew/uncle. The confusion though is highly understandable because Stan himself told it several different ways over the years.

Sometimes, he claimed he answered an ad in the newspaper, got hired by a stranger and then discovered that his uncle just happened to work there. Yeah, I don't believe that either, especially because he also sometimes said "Uncle Robbie" hired him or said that his uncle told him about an opening and gave him a recommendation to the person there who did the actual hiring. Joe Simon, who was the editor of the comic book division when Stan was hired, wrote that Solomon brought the young Stanley Lieber in one day and said, "Martin wants you to just keep him out of the way."

So you can take your pick of any of those versions…but the point is that the hiring was arranged somehow by Stan's Uncle Robbie, and Martin Goodman was not the uncle of Stan Lee and his brother, Larry Lieber.

And don't feel bad that you thought that. I'd say that a good two-thirds of the people I've met who worked at that company during its first three decades were under the impression that Goodman was Stan's uncle. Stan himself would sometimes jokingly refer to him as "Uncle Martin."

By the way: Though Stan seemed at times to be a tiny bit embarrassed at being hired via a family connection, that was pretty common at the time — in the comic book business and everywhere. After the Great Depression with its massive unemployment, it seemed like if you were fortunate enough to own a business, the least you could do was provide jobs for all your relatives. It was easier than "loaning" (that is to say, "giving") them money.

All the comic book publishing houses practiced nepotism, sometimes to excess. Goodman had plenty of other kinfolks, many of them closer than Stan, on the payroll. And Stan himself later hired his brother Larry. If he'd had other siblings and they needed jobs, he'd have hired them too.

The Washington Post fact-checking crew has done impeccable work — and you can tell because no one has caught them in a serious error. If they had, Trump would be tweeting about it every hour on the hour. The newspaper has now decided that instead of just awarding one to four "Pinocchios" when a public figure utters an untruth, a new category is necessary. Read all about it.

And remember the good ol' days when Al Gore was branded a "congenital liar" and "unfit for office" because he once said that a magazine had written that he and his first wife were the author's models for the characters in the book Love Story? The magazine in question had said that but they (not Gore) were wrong because only Al, the former college roommate of author Erich Segal, had influenced the book. That was a "lie" back then.

Cookie Monster consorts with a known criminal…