William Saletan thinks that the worst thing anyone can do that will enrage Donald Trump is not to accuse him of lying but to provide evidence that he's lying. It's an interesting distinction and it explains a lot about his hatred of the press and his campaign to get people to disbelieve what reporters say simply because it was said by reporters.

It's him again…

SmilerG has a follow-up question to our piece here about cue cards on variety shows…

I'm wondering why physical cue cards are still used these days. I'd think hand-printing them with the required big markers on card stock is "old school."

Electronic prompters have been around for a while and surely could be more quickly created (loaded), with less labor and cost. Newscasters use the version of prompters that are attached to each camera, but aren't there also stand-alone versions? These wouldn't require sketch actors to look right into a camera, as the stand-alones would be positioned differently, more like the traditional cue cards.

I think the main reason we still have cue cards is that some performers simply prefer them…and that alone is reason enough. They find them easier to read than any prompter device they've tried so that's that.

But I can think of other reasons, one being that you don't have to worry about the prompter going down or tech problems. There's a guy standing there with all the lines written on big cards. That's pretty foolproof. On those news shows where someone's reading off the prompter, they nearly always have a printed-out script right in front of them because prompters do fail. A lot of shows think of the cue cards as the back-up for the prompters.

Also, that guy (or gal, I should note) with the big cards can move around easily to just the right position, holding them higher or lower in an instant, more or less moving with the performer who's reading from them. There are stand-alone prompter devices but they're not as rapidly moved…yet.

And sometimes, they want more than one line of dialogue displayed at a time. The cue cards Johnny Carson used for his monologues were not held by anyone. They were laid out side-by-side in front of them so he could decide to jump from the third joke to the fifth or skip one and come back to it. If you watch his old monologues, you can catch him peeking to the right (on your screen) for his first jokes and to the left for his last ones. There are other comics who when they read from cards, want two or more displayed at a time and the cue card holding person knows how to instantly do that.

There's a bit of personal rapport that exists between a performer and his/her cue card person that you don't get when it's coming off a TelePrompter operated by someone who's not right there on his or her feet on the edge of the stage, just three feet away. That may factor into it at times. I remember watching Bob Hope taping a sketch with his eternal cue card guy, Barney McNulty. Barney was to cue cards what Alexander Fleming was to penicillin. He held Bob's cards for something like half a century and every time Bob read a line wrong, he'd blame Barney, and Barney would apologize even though everyone knew it was Bob's fault.

Their relationship was a significant part of the atmosphere on those stages. I'm not sure I can explain why but it wouldn't have been the same without a cue card person there. When it wasn't Barney and Hope fumbled a line, Bob would blame whoever it was and say, "Hey, how come we couldn't get Barney today? He wouldn't have made that mistake."

Penny Marshall starred in or directed many, many things that were very, very successful and made a lot of people happy. She also made a ton of money and may have turned down more offers to act or direct than any other Hollywood figure of her generation.

I had about a half-dozen encounters with her, most of them brief although she was a guest star once long ago on a special for which I was head writer. In each case, she treated me and everyone else around us like we were all beings from a warring planet who were disguised as friendly humans so we could get close enough to murder her. I'm sure she wasn't like that all the time and I wish I'd seen the other side.

Her work will endure and it'll make a lot more people happy. I hope she knew that.

On December 18, 2000, this blog was born. The site had a different name and address, and there was really no good blogging software then so I hand-coded it. But that was no big deal because I figured to only post an item or two each week. That plan didn't last long.

Eventually, I converted to this name, this address and this software, after a few years with a different software. As soon as I post this, there will be 26,119 posts up here. If that sounds like a lot, look at it this way: This blog started 6,574 days ago so it's an average of only a little less than four a day.

I have not written them all, at least by myself. A crop of very sharp readers (I like to think…) send in good questions or recommend fine links. So some of you deserve some of the credit.

In that time, I have occasionally thought about blogging less but never for long. I don't think I've ever considered giving it up…or taking advertising or setting up a paywall or anything which might make it more profitable. The Amazon links bring in roughly the amount of money that it costs me to have this thing online via a not-cheap hosting company that almost never goes down. Since I moved to them a few years ago, we've averaged about sixteen minutes a year of offline time. My two previous hosting companies were averaging sixteen offline minutes a week and sixteen a day, respectively.

That's about all I have to say here. Thank you for your support and your patronage. And I'm sorry I can't give up all that paying work and just do this for a living. The previous sentence is only about 10% accurate.

One of those videos I post each year just before Christmas and maybe my favorite…

Take it away, Michael Kilgore…

At the end of your dream scenario of Alec Baldwin renouncing his role for the duration, I pictured that in my mind with him obviously reading the statement off cue cards, as he so often does, which would ruin the effect. I suppose that's a necessary trade-off for getting that level of celebrity to keep coming back, but I find staring offstage as noticeable as you find Colbert show editing.

In your variety show background (or elsewhere), have you ever had to nudge an Important Guest Star away from the cards to improve their performance?

No because all of the variety shows I worked on were taped and then edited for broadcast so the use of cue cards was severely limited. I only recall one or two times we used them on the shows I did for Sid and Marty Krofft and there were good reasons in those few instances.

I can almost justify the use of cue cards on Saturday Night Live because it is live and if an actor "dried up" (forgot his or her lines), you'd wind up with on-air break-ups or prompting or other breaches that are less professional than using cue cards. You're also dealing with a succession of guest hosts who don't have experience in live television and sometimes with sketches that are rewritten at the last minute. You kind of need the cards there in case of emergency. I would agree though that some actors aren't good at avoiding the kind of offstage staring that rankles you. When I worked with Dick Clark, he was real good at reading cue cards without looking like he was reading cue cards.

I think maybe I've been giving D.J. Trump too much credit.  For a year or three now, I've been looking at his infamous tweets and thinking there was method in their madness; that while they seemed nonsensical and petulant to me, they weren't directed at me and must have been achieving some desired effect on his base.

To folks like me, they seemed like little mini-tantrums by an unstable guy who got pissed about something, snatched up his iPhone and thumbed out the first primal thought that came into his mind without running it past a saner head or even asking himself, "Will it help me or anyone if I send this out?"  Even I take that pause before I post to the 'net and I'm not under investigation, subject to impeachment, imbued with the power of the presidency, etc.

I really thought he wasn't just firing without thinking but his over-the-weekend whine about Saturday Night Live making fun of him causes me to think, "No, he really is that childish."  I guess he doesn't ask anyone, "Do you think this is a wise thing to send out?" before he hits "Tweet."  Even the White House Custodial Engineer could have told him he'd just look like a big baby, and that the crackdown he calls for will never, ever happen.

The SNL sketch that sent him off — reportedly, their It's a Wonderful Life "remake" — wasn't even the harshest thing they've done about him. The cold open I'd like to see them do would go something like this: They'd have an Oval Office setting and they'd trot out all the usual players — Matt Damon as Brett Kavanaugh, Ben Stiller as Michael Cohen, the shirtless guy as Putin, etc. — and right in the middle of it, Alec Baldwin stops in mid-sentence, everyone on stage freezes and Baldwin breaks character…

He pulls off the wig, turns to everyone and says, "I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore. This man is no longer a clown to make fun of. This man is doing so much damage to the country I love and causing so much anxiety and pain among the poor and the non-white that I can't make fun of his hair anymore. This is much more serious than that."

He walks off, the other cast members look at each other to ask "What do we do now?" And then they all realize he's right and they start pulling off their wigs and appliances and in unison, they tell the camera, "Live from New York…" etc., and the show proceeds with no more Trump imitations. Until he's no longer a threat.

My cold is gone…and thank you all for the home remedy suggestions, none of which I followed. I find that the few illnesses I get go away in a few days if I get lotsa sleep, drink lotsa water and don't stress out.  I don't know about your health but following what Trump's done lately has sometimes been hazardous to mine.

I'm writing something today that I really like.  I don't know if anyone else will but I'm enjoying writing it so I think I'll do just that the rest of the day and make this the extent of my blogging.   I'll be back to you tomorrow.

A baby chick is born…

I'm already sick of articles handicapping the 2020 election. We are in the most volatile and unprecedented time ever in terms of this nation's political news. No one knows what the Mueller Report is going to say or even when it's going to say it. No one knows who'll be indicted, who'll be convicted, who'll be exonerated or what the crimes, if any, may be. They don't even know for sure if Trump can or will be indicted on at least one crime we already know about.

And you just know that two months from now, we're going to be talking about scandals that no one has heard about right now. I dunno whose scandals they'll be but there will be some. And Trump looks like he's about one sizzling revelation away from running screaming down Pennsylvania Avenue. Six months from now, we could have a trained otter somewhere high on the Presidential Succession List.

So don't tell me Trump can't win or can't lose. I won't even entertain predictions as to which country he'll be a citizen of by Memorial Day. Don't tell me that on the Democratic side in '20, it's going to be Biden and Beto…or Hillary and Elizabeth Warren…or a slate consisting of an iRobot® Roomba® and a guy who talks like Jerry Lewis but in Swedish. Nobody has a clue.

In the ten days between now and Christmas, there's going to be at least one game-changing revelation about somebody or something that no one can imagine at this moment. Maybe Natasha will flip on Boris and reveal that Trump offered a $50 million apartment to Fearless Leader. The only thing you can bank on with any assurance is that no matter what Lindsey Graham says, there's a video clip somewhere of him saying the exact opposite.

That's all I wanted to say. Thank you for listening.

I've never had a reason to want to go to Bakersfield, California but I might just consider it now. Turns out, it's the location of the last Woolworth luncheonette counter. Wouldn't you like to eat there just once? I mean, even if the food stinks, which it probably doesn't but even if it did?

I presently have three comic book conventions scheduled for 2019, all of them so close I'll be driving to them. Two are in March and one is in July. Here are the two for March…

March 7 thru 10, I'll be down in San Diego for the San Diego Comic Fest, a casual, not-too-big gathering where you won't find massive crowds, long lines, big movie stars, hundreds of people dressed as Harley Quinn, an exhibit hall the size of the Louisiana Purchase…or very much that isn't about comic books or cartoons.  I've been to most of these and I always have a good time.

Those of you who think conventions have gotten too big and too crowded and too full of cosplayers and A-thru-K-level "celebrities" selling their signatures do have an alternative, you know.  There are hundreds of smaller conventions, many of them themed to narrow areas of interest.  This one's not that narrow in that it's themed to comics of the past (mostly) and a few related areas.  Clicking the banner above will take you to their website where you can check out the Guest List and get more details.  And if you want a somewhat larger con, just three weeks later we have…

WonderCon is run by the same folks who run Comic-Con International in San Diego every July so you know they really know how to throw a con.  It's a smaller affair, roughly a third the size.  That means that instead of having ten times more things that you want to see, you will only have 3.33 times as many.  That can be a major advantage, especially because you can get badges for it.  Right now, all days are available.  This will not be the case in March or maybe even February but at this moment, you can get them.  Also, if you've never been to the San Diego affair and what you've heard intimidates you, here's the shallow end of the pool.

Again, click on the banner above to get more info.  I'll tell you more about the panels I'll be doing at both cons once I have more of a clue.   And of course, the third convention I'm scheduled for next year is Comic-Con, for which badges are no longer available.  These two aren't sold out so get in while you can.

A federal-type judge in Texas has just ruled that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. Before you become enraged or even celebrate, read Kevin Drum's take on the situation. This is the kind of thing he's really good at.

Cookie Monster goes to the library…