And if you get tired of looking at the Gondwana Namib Park in Namibia, here's a webcam pointed at the Okaukuejo waterhole in Etosha National Park, also in Namibia. At this one, you will often find elephants, the occasional rhinoceros and a few other animals that don't seem to hang out much at the Gondwana Namib Park.

With both webcams, you'll often find long periods of time when no one seems to be thirsty, especially when it's the middle of the night in Namibia. But if you use the little YouTube slider and move it to the left, you can scroll back through previous hours and see who's been there lately. I'm really having a good time looking at these places. It's exciting to see animals in the wild with no humans around to impact their behavior. I feel the same about some Trump rallies…

This is kind of interesting. As I've mentioned many times on this blog when we've been discussing polls, there's one called the Rasmussen Poll which always swings wildly Republican/Right Wing. A lot of the poll aggregators don't include it in their aggregations because it always seems like such a skewed outlier. Needless to say, it's almost always the one Donald Trump cites when he wants to argue that he's way ahead and not long ago — I believe before Biden said "Arrivederci" — they showed D.J.T. winning the Presidency by ten points.

Well, the Rasmussen Poll is now showing Harris/Walz one point ahead of Trump/Vance.

I wouldn't take that as firm proof of her dominance. It is, after all, within the Margin of Error. But it's gotta be causing Trump to hurl ketchup bottles at the walls. If you're watching that webcam I linked to earlier that shows you the watering hole in Namibia in Southern Africa, you may see the animals being scared off by the sound of him screaming.

And for those of you who want to contribute to keep this blog free, free from paid ads and free from being purchased by Elon Musk…

This is such a great video link that I shamelessly stole it from the website of my friend Paul Harris. To assuage some of my guilt, please go over to Paul's website and read a few articles. This will be no hardship for you because everything he posts is of interest, especially when he hauls out an old audio file of some interview he did with someone exciting during his 40+ years of radio broadcasting.

This is a live feed — not a pre-recorded video — of a webcam focused on a watering hole within the Gondwana Namib Park in Namibia. At times, you will find no sign of life in the shot but at other times, you will be able to watch as giraffes, ostriches, hyenas, cheetahs, warthogs and other animals approach the waterhole to drink or bathe or cool off. The webcam is on 24/7 so it's just like any streaming cable channel you might watch. If you don't like what's on now, check back in half an hour. Here's the live feed…

And in case there's no wildlife there at the moment, here's a pre-recorded "highlight reel" of some of the creatures you might see there if you keep checking in. I may wind up watching this more than Comedy Central…

Here's Julie Andrews singing a jazzed-up version of a song from My Fair Lady that she didn't sing in My Fair Lady…

Hey, here's a website that might amuse you for about three minutes. It's called Random Street View and when you go there, it takes you to some random place on Google Maps. I just went there and it plunked me down in the middle of the General Anthony Clement McAuliffe 101st Airborne Memorial Highway in Easton, PA. I always wanted to visit there.

You can set it to restrict your landing spot to a specific country or you can just let it take you wherever it wants you to go. On my next try, I wound up at Toila-Oru, 41714 Ida-Viru County, Estonia…just where I was thinking of moving if Trump wins.

Not much change anywhere. Harris is still a few points ahead of Trump but just a few. This makes his supporters nervous that she'll beat him and her supporters nervous that she won't. Trump keeps doing things like his visit to Arlington and his double-talk on Abortion that you'd think would cost him voters but I don't think any one or two missteps will. The cumulative effect might but not any one thing. It looks like the next few weeks will be a lot of anger at judges and prosecutors who want to hold the 45th President accountable for misdeeds. I wouldn't expect a lot of talk about policy except maybe on the debate stage if/when that happens.

Kevin Drum has a good explainer up about what happened with the withdrawal from Afghanistan which was not as much of a mess as some make it out to be.

Things are getting worse on the legal front for Rudy Giuliani. I suspect that will be the case every week for a long time so let this be a lesson to us all. If any major media outlet ever dubs you The Most Respected Man [or Woman] in the Country, try to live up to that label. Don't act like it's some ongoing version of The Purge for you and laws no longer apply.

And lastly for now: Trump said recently in an interview that he would win California if Jesus Christ counted the votes. Okay…but every single poll now shows him losing the state by about two-to-one — and Adam Schiff is trouncing Steve Garvey in the Senate race by about the same margin. So are all the polls rigged, too? I'd love to hear how that works.

Someone on Facebook posted this photo of Jerry Lewis and Artie Forrest, probably in Vegas, probably there for Jerry's annual Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. Artie was at least the director and often the producer of that ritual year after year.

Arthur Forrest also may have held the world record for the most hours or live and quasi-live television directed by anybody. He was a lovely man who had done just about everything you could do in TV and nothing bothered him. If in the middle of a live telecast, the studio had been attacked by Godzilla, Artie would have calmly handled the crisis, getting everyone to safety while all the time making sure he got a good shot of the towering monster as he crushed the sets under his feet.

To direct for Jerry all those years, you had to have that skill set.

Seeing that photo got me thinking of one of those "might have been" episodes of my life that didn't happen. I had worked with Artie on a number of shows and one year, he asked me to be a writer — I think maybe the only writer — on that year's telethon. It meant about three weeks in L.A. writing intros and speeches for Jerry and then about a week in Las Vegas for rehearsals and the actual live telecast. The money offered was, at it so often is, in that "Barely Acceptable" category and that was not a surprise. He said everyone was working for minimums since, after all, the more they paid us, the less went to help Jerry's Kids.

If anyone else had told me that, I would have called Bandini on them. I'd worked one day on another telethon and the folks running it could not disguise — almost bragged, in fact — how much of what was being collected went into their pockets. But this was Arthur Forrest…as honest and straight-talking as anyone I'd encountered in the teevee biz. I instantly decided that if I did it, it wouldn't be for the money but for the experience. And ten seconds later, I decided I wouldn't do it at all, at least that year.

I'd worked with Jerry and I knew he was like that Milton Bradley Time Bomb game I'd played as a kid: You knew it was going to go off. You just didn't know when — or in Jerry's case, about what. I also had other work to do those weeks and wasn't sure if I could juggle both. A live show has all sorts of "This has to be written right this minute" situations and I couldn't be sure how many of those I might encounter.

There were a few other reasons not to do it but the ones in the above paragraph were enough. I told Artie no but said, "Maybe next year?" He said he'd ask me again and then he didn't. I don't recall why. Maybe he didn't produce the telethon the following year.

In any case, I watched much of the telethon I didn't work on and kind of regretted my decision. There were guest stars it would have been fun (or at least interesting) to be around. There were some Special Musical Material spots — songs written for the show — that were the kind of thing I liked to do. I kept thinking of spontaneous jokes I wished I could teleport onto Jerry's cue cards. I really felt like I'd made the wrong decision.

Then a week or two after, I had dinner with a lady I knew who'd worked on the telethon as a Production Assistant. I asked her how Jerry was and she started telling me stories about yelling and fighting and making impossible demands and what the guy who took the job I declined went through…and I decided I'd made the right decision. That show was a lot more fun to watch than it would have been to work on.

And, speaking of telethons…

In 2017, September 1 was designated as "Letterer Appreciation Day." I actually don't know who designated it as such but reportedly, they picked the first of this month because that was the birthday of the late Gaspar Saladino, who is/was (I guess) the favorite letterer of whoever made the decision. Actually, there have been many great letterers in comics and that list would include Ben Oda, Artie Simek, Rome Siemen, Howard Ferguson, Sam Rosen, Abe Kanegson, John Costanza and so many more.

I am pleased that we appreciate letterers on September 1 because they sure don't get sufficient recognition the rest of the year. It has always been one of the two most unheralded jobs in comics, the other being the coloring. Letterers, especially in the era when it was all done by hand instead of computers, often had to do emergency, stay-up-all-night services or a comic would be late for the printers and/or some artist might have nothing to do (and therefore no way of earning a living) for a few days.

And their work is a vital part of the artistry of any page on which it appears. I remember once when Jack Kirby was looking at a page of original art that he had penciled and Joe Sinnott had inked. It was the first page of a story and there was a big, bold story title on it lettered by Artie Simek. Jack pointed at Simek's handiwork and said, "That is the most skilled part of this page!"

Any list of great present-day letterers would certainly include Stan Sakai…and it's easy to overlook him because most of the time, he does comics where he writes, draws and letters. Thus, we tend to think of him as a full service creative talent, not a letterer. But he of course letters and often wins awards for so doing, and also for the comic he does on his own, Usagi Yojimbo.

Since Sergio Aragonés and I began producing Groo the Wanderer back in the late seventeenth century, Stan has done all the lettering save for a small number of pages (like eight or so out of thousands) and always (ALWAYS!) on time, usually overnight. That he does it so efficiently is amazing. That his work is always so perfect is a great bonus. Here's a video of Stan at work in honor of Letterer Appreciation Day…

If, like me, you have trouble understanding why a guy who seeks the highest office in our land would go to a military cemetery and grin and give a "thumbs up" signal…well, Jonathan V. Last has what seems to me like a good explanation. Simple summary: Because wherever Trump goes, it's not about where he is or what others might be feeling. It's only about him.

And speaking of what I was speaking about in the previous item here: In 1970 when Jack Kirby quit Marvel Comics and defected to the enemy — otherwise known as DC Comics — one of the first of many characters he created for his new publisher was Morgan Edge. Mr. Edge was the slimy, mob-connected Chief Exec of the massive entertainment conglomerate that owned, among other things, The Daily Planet and the Galaxy Broadcasting System…those places where Clark Kent worked. And here, I'll quote Wikipedia quoting me about the guy…

Morgan Edge first appeared in Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133 and was created by Jack Kirby Kirby based his physical appearance on actor Kevin McCarthy, while his personality was inspired by television executive James T. Aubrey. According to Kirby's production assistant Mark Evanier, Kirby "wanted to explore the theme of organized crime gaining a foothold in corporate America — particularly a giant media conglomerate. Given the shady background of the company that acquired Warner Bros. and DC [i.e., Kinney National Company], it was something of an inside joke." However, under prodding from editorial staff who preferred Edge to be an ongoing supporting character rather than a villain who would ultimately have to be brought to justice (and thus written out of the series), the "Morgan Edge" connected to Intergang was revealed to be an imposter.

Actually, I think the editorial folks (and some above them) were just plain uncomfy with connecting a big media conglomerate like theirs to organized crime. That's why they turned the Morgan Edge that Kirby created into that freshest of all plot ideas…an evil twin.

Jack had read much about James Aubrey in the news and it really didn't matter for Jack's purposes if it was true or not. To him, it was just an idea with great story possibilities and he thought that DC had missed out on a lot of them by nicening up Morgan Edge. Aubrey at the time was getting a lot of bad press and alienating a lot of creative talent doing things like…well, for one, cutting 28 minutes out of Blake Edwards' latest movie.

Today in the "I Shoulda Known" Department, we have this: Last night after watching the great Blake Edwards documentary on PBS, I noted how one of his films I'd never seen — Wild Rovers (1971) — was reportedly ruined by studio interference. Studio Head (though not for long) James Aubrey severely hacked down its length, enraging Mr. Edwards such that he packed up his family and moved to Switzerland to get away from H*O*L*L*Y*W*O*O*D. I asked which home video release restored the film to the way its maker wanted it…and here comes the "I Shoulda Known" part…

This morning, I received this message from my real good friend, Mike Schlesinger. Mike used to work for Sony where his job basically came down to knowing which great old movies they owned and telling them how to market them for current moviegoers. Here's what Mike wrote me…

As the person who actually did "restore" it, I can tell you that the Aubrey version runs 109 minutes and Blake's version runs 137 minutes. That's the surest way to know which one you're watching. AFAIK, all releases from Laserdisc forward have been Blake's.

I put "restore" in quotes because it turns out there was one "international" negative that somehow escaped Aubrey's slimy hands, and I simply made the new prints from that. It was later used to preserve his cut.

Fun fact: This is also how I rescued Ken Russell's The Boy Friend.

And Mike didn't mention it but he also did the same thing with another Blake Edwards film, Darling Lili. I'd long thought that Edwards' later film, S.O.B. — which is about a director fighting back when his movie is destroyed by a studio head — was mostly about Darling Lili. Turns out, it was more of an amalgam of the two experiences…and Mike was also involved with Edwards getting to recut Darling Lili for home videos years after its butchering for general release. Amazingly, the Director' Cut in this case was shorter.

Amazon is offering a Blu-Ray of Wild Rovers and they say it's two hours and 17 minutes…so that would be the Edwards restoration. I just ordered a copy of it and while I may not get around to watching it right away, I will. You can click that link and get your own copy and if we both enjoy it, we'll have Mike Schlesinger to thank. Oh — and maybe Blake Edwards, too.

I just watched and can highly recommend the new American Masters profile on PBS, this time covering film director Blake Edwards. I liked a lot of his movies and, as sometimes happens with a filmmaker, felt a kind of connection to the guy. And it's a good documentary as evidenced that it made me want to re-watch some of his movies and see a couple that I've missed.

I also understand a little bit more what one of his quirkier movies — S.O.B. — was all about. It was about how a studio head — Jim Aubrey, who was widely despised when he ran MGM and before that, CBS — drastically recut and ruined Wild Rovers, a movie of which Edwards was very proud. I see online that most of the omitted footage was restored for at least one DVD release. Can anyone tell me which DVD or Blu-ray release it was?

So I recommend the profile of Mr. Edwards — and while I have your attention, I recommend clicking on the below link…

I didn't write anything when Phil Donahue passed away recently and I should have. He was the most successful of the small (and getting smaller) group of TV talk/interview hosts who have done it with some dignity and a dearth of sensationalism. If you watch the video below, you'll find moments when he talks a little too much and tries to draw unhappy memories from his guests…but he always kept that down to a minimum and tried to ensure that they felt interviewed and not exploited. I wish we had more like him today.

This is an episode of his show from 1990. The original production of A Chorus Line was soon to close on Broadway and members of the original cast — as this interview makes clear — received but a teensy fraction of its financial success for sharing their personal memories in workshops. They co-authored a book on their experiences and their appearance on Donahue was to promote it. I met one of these people at a party once and at least this performer carried a lot of resentment over how little they made off the show. So did Neil Simon who did an uncredited/uncompensated "punch-up" of the script.

If you've been reading this blog for a long time, you may remember this video. It was a link a long time ago here but that link's dead so here's your connection to a much better copy of the program…

Donald Trump, who said just days ago that he would be "great for women and their reproductive rights" now says he'll vote against a Florida initiative which would give women greater reproductive rights. He's said a great many other contradictory things about the abortion issue plus outright lies like that the pro-choice movement is pushing laws that permit executing babies after birth.

I would think any reasonable person would look at all these statements and conclude that Trump has no policy on the matter of abortion; that at any given moment, he'll say whatever he thinks will get him donations and votes, and that he'll say the opposite the following week if it will help him. No one (including Donald Trump) knows what the hell he'd do on abortion-related matters if he gets back into office.

Meanwhile, the man is also — once again — confusing himself with Superman.

Folks like the author of this article are queuing up to watch whatever there is to watch of Jerry Lewis's never-completed, disowned 1972 non-movie, The Day the Clown Cried. Most do not seem eager to see it because they think there is hidden wonderment there. Most seem to expect it to be exquisitely awful and the eagerness to see this exquisite awfulness is odd to me. I understand curiosity about such a thing and we've certainly heard more about this film than…well, almost any other movie Jerry Lewis made including the ones he wanted people to see.

And I understand that in his lifetime, Mr. Lewis was often very arrogant and probably over-praised by many, including himself, as a great performer and filmmaker. There might be some sort of karma to be found in this movie to whatever extent it proves that he was undeserving of most of that praise. I get it, I get it.

I had several encounters with Mr. Lewis in my lifetime.  He was rude to me when I was about eight years old and years later, he was rude to me when he was a guest star on a TV show on which I was Head Writer and I later saw him be rude to others.  Again, I get it, I get it.

At one point, I might have been in that line to see what there is of it…and I know folks who believe their lives will not be complete if they don't. I told this story here some time ago on this blog…

One day back when we all had our video on VHS tapes, I was printing up fancy labels for some of my homemade recordings. The labels came on a sheet of twelve and I had eleven to print…so I was going to waste one label on the page. On a whim, I used the last one, printed THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED on it and slapped it on an old cassette I was otherwise going to toss. I put the tape on my shelf of movies, spine out for all the world to see. I just wanted to see if anyone would notice.

No one did until a few months later. A friend came by and was waiting in my video room while I got ready so we could leave for a restaurant where we were meeting others. Suddenly, he saw the tape. He yanked it off the shelf, thrust it at me and yelled, "PUT THIS ON! I must see this movie!" I started to tell him he didn't but he interrupted and shouted, "NOW! I must see this movie NOW!!!"

Imagine if you will that some evil villain has tricked you into drinking a fast-acting poison. Imagine you're getting dizzy and your knees are buckling. Imagine that your only hope is an antidote and that the only clue as to where and what that antidote is is on a videotape. Imagine how you'd act in that situation, then triple the intensity and you have an approximation of how my friend acted at that moment. He was five seconds from knocking me to the floor and jamming the tape into my VCR himself.

I finally explained to him that it was a joke. He didn't believe me and I had to run a little of the tape to show him it was not what the label said. I thought he was going to cry.

I have never been that eager to see anything in my life; not even a Donald Trump concession speech. I was a modest fan of Jerry's, which I guess means I respect the length and breadth of his career and in some ways, his charitable work…but not most of his output. Last week for no visible reason, a lady friend and I watched You're Never Too Young, which was one of those (dean) and JERRY!!! movies.  I remember enjoying it when I saw it when I was twelve or so.  Not so much last week.

On some of the rare occasions when Jerry discussed the film, he said it was an incomplete mess of which he was ashamed and he didn't want anyone to ever see it.  Then again, he seems to have made provisions such that X number of years after his death, people could…and that X number has passed.  So I guess it's okay, especially if you weren't a fan of the man and want to see him at his worst.  And like I said, I understand all about curiosity.  I know I'm doing a bad job here of explaining why this makes me uncomfortable but it does.