• Tonight when he should be prepping for the most important meeting of his life, Donald Trump is staying up, composing outraged tweets about the low-rated Tony Awards, that failing actor Robert DeNiro and all those gay people who stood and clapped for what DeNiro said.

On we go with this diary of the eleven-day trip that I took recently with my friendly friend Amber to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and New York. Before you read about Day 7, you really oughta read about what transpired on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6 and my Philadelphia Addenda.

Monday, May 28, 2018

Left the Philadelphia Marriott at 10:15 AM, took a cab to the 30th Street Station, ate breakfast at a Dunkin' Donuts there (hey, not bad) and stumbled onto the 11:25 AM train to New York. That meant shlepping our bags down an escalator and onto the train. Despite having shipped all our soiled garments back to L.A., my suitcase weighed about as much as I do and a nice lady who was stronger than I am helped me get it up onto the overhead rack. Turns out she's a physical trainer and she lives in L.A., not far from Amber. By the time we got to Penn Station, the two of them were fast friends and I think/hope we'll be seeing more of her.

The train got into New York around 12:30, fifteen minutes early. Finding our way out of Penn Station, where many have perished in the same quest, used up the time we'd gained and then some. Through dumb luck, we lucked into daylight and one cab ride later, Amber and I were at our Times Square hotel, several hours before our room would be ready. Instead, we checked our bags, went out for some lunch and then took the subway down to Lincoln Center to pick up the tickets for our Tuesday evening theater-going.

I don't know how many of you know about House Seats. Here's a definition that I found online…

Every show on Broadway holds a certain number of seats offsale to the general public called "house seats." They are reserved for the authors, producers, cast, theater owners, etc. and are generally released 48 hours prior to each performance if not used.

Even if all the good seats for a show — or even all the seats, period — are sold, there may still be house seats. They hold some back just in case a Very Important Person or one of the stars' parents or someone with clout suddenly wants to go to an otherwise sold-out performance. If Mike Pence was in New York and had a sudden yen to see The Boys in the Band, they would stick him in a house seat. That's assuming the producers wanted to let him in at all.

Often, I either know someone in a show or I know someone who knows someone in a show and house seats can be achieved. They are not free unless, of course, the person arranging for them wants to pay for the tix themselves, which they never do. But they are almost always better seats than you can get via Ticketmaster or Telecharge or any other official source and more importantly, they're not marked-up to scalpers' prices. The seats I got for our Tuesday evening show cost me $187 each. Scalper sites were asking $700 and up for comparable rows.

On a New York visit many years ago, I learned something the hard way. When I procure house seats for something and they don't send me specific seat numbers in advance, it's a good idea to go to the box office as far as possible ahead of showtime and grab the physical tickets. As long as they're sitting in the box office, some box office employee may be tempted to give them to someone more important than I am (a category which only includes everyone else in the known free world) and stick me in the last row of the balcony facing away from the stage.

When Nathan Lane was about to debut in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum — this was '96 — one of its authors, Larry Gelbart, graciously arranged for me to get house seats. Foolishly, I thought I could go to the box office fifteen minutes before showtime and claim them. As I tell people, an unfunny thing happened on the way to that show. Gelbart's prime house seats had been given to someone else and my date and I wound up in, literally, the last row downstairs at the St. James Theater.

I don't know if they've fixed this since but that last row was not only leagues from the stage, it was also torture for anyone over about 5'10". I'm 6'3" and there was so little legroom in that row, I could not sit in the seat and an usher informed me it was either there or come back another night. I wound up leaving the seat up and sitting, none too comfortably, on the front part of the cushion. I could do this, of course, because there was no one seated behind me.

Nine months later when I was in New York again, Mr. Gelbart was nice enough to get me his house seats again. They were in the second row in the center on the aisle, where I could have been the first time if I'd had the smarts to pick my house seats in advance. That time, I did. Lesson learned.

So Amber and I made the trip to seize our well-placed tickets for the next night. I also had house seats for our Thursday night show but those came via a PDF that was e-mailed to me and it had our seat assignments…so advance pickup was not necessary. Then it was back to our hotel where our room was ready.

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At 6:30, we met Charlie Kochman and his splendid wife Rachel for dinner at a highly-recommended Italian restaurant which I won't be recommending. Then we hiked over to the Avenue I was takin' them to…42nd Street. The show we were attending is a revue playing there called Newsical. Simply put, it's ninety or so minutes of topical songs and sketches performed by four very talented people and one pianist.

It's a very low-budget presentation, so much so that they don't even have printed programs, nor did the players' names seem to be posted anywhere. On the way out, I asked if they had anything that would tell me who those four talented performers were and they didn't. Fortunately, I knew one of them — my longtime friend Christine Pedi, who's been featured on and off Broadway, on Sirius XM radio (she's one of the hosts of their Broadway channel) and most importantly, on this blog. That's Christine above, dressed as a statue that Donald Trump would probably like to tear down because it welcomes immigrants.

From Christine, I got the names of the three other performers: Michael West, Scott Foster and Susan Mosher, with Ed Goldschneider on the piano. They're all wonderful and deserving of recognition. Betcha you see some of them soon in other shows, maybe even shows that have program books.

The show, which was written by the also-undercredited Rick Crom, is a lot of fun. One particular song about Sarah Huckabee Sanders (played by Christine) must be a fairly recent add and it's still playing in my head. As with all decent political satire these days, you'll like the proceedings better if you don't like Donald Trump. In theory, it oughta be possible to do something funny from the other POV but it never seems to happen, just as Liberal-oriented talk radio never seems to reach the largest audiences. As I've written elsewhere, doing political humor from a Conservative stance is like trying to write a Marx Brothers movie and make Margaret Dumont the funny one.

We went out after with Christine and ate and talked and ate and talked and talked, talked, talked…and that was about it for Monday. Tune in tomorrow as I try to explain why I liked 97% of the new production of My Fair Lady.

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• If you'd like to visit any foreign country and have them welcome you as an American, you'd better get there before Trump does.

Ray Bradbury called his classic book about censorship Fahrenheit 451 because that's the temperature of burning paper. This department is called Fahrenheit 212 because that's the temp when human blood comes to a full, rolling boil.  It's for items in the news like this one…

A white South Carolina man who managed a buffet restaurant near Myrtle Beach admitted in federal court this week that he had beaten and verbally abused an intellectually disabled black cook, forcing him to work over 100 hours a week without pay for about five years, according to the Justice Department.

In pleading guilty to one count of forced labor on Monday, the defendant, Bobby Paul Edwards, 53, said that he had used violence, threats, isolation and intimidation against the victim, John Christopher Smith — or "JCS," as he is identified in court documents.

Mr. Edwards, who could face up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced, admitted that while he was in charge, from 2009 to 2014, he beat Mr. Smith with a belt, punched him, hit him with pots and pans and burned Mr. Smith's bare neck with hot tongs, according to a Justice Department statement released on Tuesday. He also used abusive language and racial epithets against Mr. Smith.

Full story here.

We interrupt our journal of that eleven-day trip that I took recently with my fine friend Amber to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and New York. Before we leave Philly and move on to New York, I have a few things to add, starting with this photo which I plumb forgot Amber took. It's me and Jake Tapper…

Note that Sergio Aragonés is behind me. Sergio is always behind me except when he's in front of me.  Also note that for the rest of my life, this is about as good as I'm ever going to look.  That's the reason you should never wear a tuxedo.  If you don't, people can at least say, "Well, maybe if you put him in a tux…"

I should also have mentioned that Mr. Tapper gave a very nice speech at the convention about his love of cartooning and how he pursued that profession for a long time before turning to journalism.  He was there as this year's recipient of the National Cartoonists Society's A.C.E. Award, the "A.C.E." standing for "Amateur Cartoonist Extraordinary."  It's for someone who has distinguished themselves in the public arena but either cartoons on the side or once set out to become a cartoonist and changed careers.  Past recipients have included Carol Burnett, Jonathan Winters, Jackie Gleason, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Orson Bean, Ginger Rogers, Al Roker, Denis Leary and Morley Safer. It's — and this is openly admitted — a shameless way to get a famous person to appear at an NCS awards ceremony.

Tapper spoke just before the intermission in a pretty long awards show.  He was there with his father and I figured that when we took that recess, he'd seize upon the opportunity to get the heck outta there…but no.  I think his father left but Jake Tapper sat there 'til the end and was on his feet applauding for the Reuben winner and at other appropriate moments.  I was impressed with that.

He spoke about the award in this interview and this seems like a good spot to also insert this video of him with Garry "Doonesbury" Trudeau…

Several of you have written to ask me about the National Cartoonists Society and how one joins. I refer you to the NCS website which happens to be down as I write this but will probably be back online shortly. Basically, you have to be a professional cartoonist or someone who fits in well with them. The NCS has regional chapters that meet often and once a year, they have their Reuben Weekend gathering, which is both a party as well as a place where cartoonists learn from one another and address issues facing the profession.

Lastly, I've had a number of requests like one from Jim Guida who wrote to ask me for — and I quote: "Less stories about old television shows, more photos of Amber." Here are two more from the evening of the NCS Banquet. Click on the pics to see them larger…and if you think she looks good now, wait'll next month when the braces come off…

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The Tony Awards are tomorrow evening and there are a lot of articles online where supposed experts are predicting who will win and sometimes also stating who should win. Often but not always, those are the same names.

I see in the predictions a consensus that Angels in America will absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it, bet-the farm win as Best Revival of a Play (and should) and that there is zero chance that Andrew Garfield, Nathan Lane and Denise Gough won't rightfully win for their work in it as Best Actor, Best Featured Actor and Best Featured Actress, respectively. The predictors are also so certain that Glenda Jackson will win for Best Actress in a Play for Three Tall Women that the other nominees should just send her their congratulations now and not bother coming to the ceremony.

Maybe those are locks but I see many a Broadway Nostradamus who is certain of some win where another disagrees. Depending on who you read, The Band's Visit, Mean Girls and SpongeBob SquarePants are all utterly certain to win for Best Musical. Barring the unlikely three-way tie, some folks who are absolutely certain are going to be absolutely wrong.

I saw but one of the nominated shows — the revival of My Fair Lady, 98% of which I thought was wonderful. I'll tell you about the 2% when I get around to that night in my trip diary. How well it will fare tomorrow evening I can't say because I didn't see the shows it's up against. But if the number that's performed from that show is "Get Me to the Church on Time," make sure you catch it. It probably won't be. They'll probably opt for something with Higgins and/or Eliza, perhaps "The Rain in Spain," maybe truncated to allow a segue into a few choruses of "I Could Have Danced All Night."

But Norbert Leo Butz performing the "Church" number was one of the most exciting things I ever saw on a stage — so much so that a lot of the seers are saying he will definitely win for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. And of course, a lot of them are saying that about other nominees.

We continue recounting the eleven-day trip that I took recently with my fine friend Amber to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and New York. Before you read about Day 6, you really oughta read about what transpired on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 and Day 5.

Sunday, May 27, 2018

I awoke Sunday morning feeling like I'd been away from home for six months, all the time reminding myself that we weren't yet at the halfway point of the trip. Amber felt the same way and we reminded each other to enjoy the leisurely pace of our last full day in Philadelphia. For the most part, we were (and still are) glad we decided to hit three cities in eleven days but there were moments when it didn't feel like the best idea I ever had.

I was moderating the MAD panel at 11 AM and before it, I caught the last half of a presentation that Charlie Kochman was doing in the same room about the great cartoonist Rube Goldberg. Rube has probably not received his due since he, unlike many of his peers, did not leave us with a truly iconic and legendary character; not the way Elzie Segar left us with Popeye or Charles Schulz left us with Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

Then again, Rube did get his name in many dictionaries as a noun or adjective referring to a very silly, elaborate invention…and the top cartooning award — the Reuben, which was presented the previous night to Glen Keane — was named for Mr. Goldberg. Those count for something. His work is often reprinted — though probably not as often and as much as it oughta be — and there are books like this one inspired by his work…

Charlie was the editor of Rube Goldberg's Simple Normal Humdrum School, written by Jennifer George and illustrated by Ed Steckley. It's a fun book to give a kid or to read if you are one or have ever been one. Here's a link if you wanna get a copy. In an ideal world, Amazon would deliver yours by having a pussycat knock a bowling ball off a shelf which would turn on a fan which would blow a kite across the room which would knock over a lit candle which would burn through the ropes of a catapult which would fling a copy of the book across the room into a FedEx box…

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The Rube Goldberg presentation was followed by the MAD panel. I've moderated well over a dozen MAD panels over the years and most of them blur together in my memory. This one won't because though no one imagined such a thing at the time, this was the last MAD panel to feature Nick Meglin on it. A week later to the day, he was the late Nick Meglin and a lot of us are still reeling from that.

In the obit I wrote, I hope I made it clear how utterly vital Nick was to the creative and financial success of MAD. Most people are aware of its founding editor Harvey Kurtzman and his successor, Al Feldstein…and you all know of Don Martin and Mort Drucker and Al Jaffee and Sergio Aragonés and Dave Berg and everyone else in the Usual Gang of Idiots. Their contributions were credited and it was kinda obvious what they did. What Nick contributed is a bit harder to explain and once I came to fully understand it, I felt I had to do my part to help others to know. He was kind of the Vice-President in Charge of Funny.

Here's a photo from the panel. It was taken by Kevin Segall…

Nick is the guy seated.  MAD's recently-retired Art Director Sam Viviano is the man leaning on the chair next to Nick.  From the left, the others are Ryan Flanders, Bill Morrison, Grant Geissman, Tom Richmond, Sergio and Yours Truly.  Ryan was a designer and talent scout for the old MAD, Bill's the editor of the new MAD, Grant's a fine musician and the world's greatest expert on MAD not counting me, Tom is its star caricaturist and I have no idea what Sergio does.  But I know what Nick did and I want the world to know.

Nick was the guardian of the magazine's sense of humor when it was growing up.  And since that helped shape my sense of humor when I was growing up, I feel a great debt to him.

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The MAD panel was the last seminar-type event of the weekend. Many NCS members then spent the afternoon at a nearby library giving drawing demonstrations but Amber and I went to eat at the Reading Terminal Market (where I did not have turkey) and packing The Box.

The Box was an idea I had to avoid having to squish eleven days of clean clothes into our respective suitcases. The previous Monday, I packed the clothes we'd need in Philadelphia and New York in a big crate and shipped it to myself at the Philadelphia Marriott. In our luggage, we took the clothes we'd need in Vegas. Then when we got to Philly, The Box was waiting for us and we had our clothes for that town (including my moth-eaten tux) and for the next town. Before leaving Philadelphia, we would pack our New York clothes in our suitcases and ship everything else back to Los Angeles.

This was a brilliant notion, especially since the Philadelphia Marriott has a 24-hour FedEx/Kinko's in its lobby. It turned out to have one teensy complication but we'll get to it.

That evening at the hotel, there was a Farewell Dinner and a chance to say bye-bye to everyone. Amber and I turned in early because we had a big day ahead of us. The next morning, we had to catch a train for New York, New York, a helluva town.

Before I close down this installment though, here's a little video with Nick Meglin in it. It's fuzzy but watchable footage from two New Year's Eve parties hosted by longtime MAD writer Dick DeBartolo. He's the one who stole his mustache from a member of the Village People. You'll briefly see MAD publisher William M. Gaines doing a magic trick, and you'll see two musical performances — a year apart — from Nick…

Click here to jump to the next day of our trip

Josh Marshall says that if Russia had a wish list of what it wanted to see happen in the United States, it would look an awful lot like Donald Trump's agenda: "If candidate Trump and President Putin had made a corrupt bargain which obligated President Trump to destabilize all U.S. security and trade alliances (especially NATO, which has been Russia's primary strategic goal for 70 years) and advance the strategic interests of Russia, there's really nothing more remotely realistic he could have done to accomplish that than what he has in fact done."

Amy Davidson Sorkin on Rudy Giuliani's attack. I doubt there are very many people in this country who think Stormy Daniels' story of an affair with Donald Trump is false. There are, however, those who think they if they deny, deny, deny and attack, attack, attack, the story won't do their boy any real damage. And there is of course, Giuliani who will say anything he's told to say.

Here's a list of all of Robert Mueller's indictments and plea deals in the Russia investigation so far. Not bad for a fake witch hunt which hasn't done anything.

Trump is now claiming he's caused some major, for-the-better changes in Iran via the stance he's taken against them. Daniel Larison says this is an outright lie.

And Fred Kaplan tells us what to expect (and not to expect) when Trump sits down with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un this Tuesday in Singapore. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

This is another page in an after-the-fact diary of the eleven-day trip that I recently took with my wonderful friend Amber to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and New York. Before you read about Day 5, you really oughta read about what transpired on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4.

Saturday, May 26, 2018

Amber and I were somehow up early enough to hit the 8 AM NCS Breakfast Buffet which preceded the 9:30 AM NCS Business Meeting. Since I am a member and she is not, she could not attend the Business Meeting. I went and she headed back upstairs to bed or maybe out to get some makeup or accessories for the evening's gala formal dinner.

Would that I could have sent her to the meeting in my place. No insult is meant to the biz proceedings of the National Cartoonists Society but behind closed doors, we do not discuss the denuclearization of North Korea or the secret peace negotiations between Alex Jones and his marbles. We talk about Top Secret, hush-hush classified stuff like where the next NCS convention will be held and about where to get good deals on art supplies.

There were seminars and such all afternoon. I absented myself from some to go out to a CVS Pharmacy. My feet were now pretty much back to normal but I purchased a few items I thought might help keep them that way, given the considerable walking ahead of me on this trip. Then I went over to the Reading Terminal Market, which oughta be paying me out of their advertising budget to mention them on this blog.

I decided that before I made my lunch selection, I would walk up or down every aisle, studying every booth.  There are well over a hundred of them, some selling cooked food, some selling raw food and some selling things like books and housewares.  It took about forty minutes, every second of which was fascinating, before I decided I would eat…wait for it…

…the same thing I had there the day before: The roast turkey from a stand there called The Original Turkey.  Some things I saw looked good but nothing looked better except maybe at one or two stands that had long, long lines.  I was just about to go buy a plate o' turkey when my cell rang.  It was my friend and editor (yes, those things can go together) Charlie Kochman.  He asked where I was.  I told him.  He said, "I'll be right over and I'm bringing Nick."

Charlie showed up with our mutual pal, Nick Meglin.  I showed them both around and talked them both into having the turkey.  If I ever take you there, I'll talk you into having the turkey and you'll thank me for it.

The tables where one consumes one's purchases seemed to be full so we took our meals back to the Philadelphia Marriott and took occupation of a deserted ballroom. We ate. Nick told stories about working with Bill Gaines on MAD. They loved the food. It was one of my favorite moments of the whole trip.

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The cocktail reception began at 6 PM even for those of us who never drink cocktails. Amber and I spent the hour before getting dressed — me, donning my tuxedo with the tiny holes chewed by moths; her, doing her hair and putting on The Greatest Dress In The World. I have spent our entire relationship telling her she's beautiful without fancy clothing or any makeup whatsoever. I still believe that but maybe a bit less since I saw her all dolled-up and ready to hit the party…

There, we had a good example of what we in the magic world call Misdirection. When we walked into the party, no one noticed the moth holes in my tux. Hell, I probably could have been wearing no pants and no one would have noticed.

We mingled with well-attired cartoonists. One of them was former-cartoonist-turned-CNN-journalist Jake Tapper. Even a couple of cartoonists who don't like how his network covers Donald Trump — they deviously quote him in full and in context — found Mr. Tapper to be a very nice, intelligent man. He was genuinely impressed to be among so many cartoonists and very familiar with the work of many of them. (I wasn't even familiar with the cartooning of everyone on the premises.) He and I had a long conversation, much of it about Walt Kelly and Pogo.

As you may know, I am an editor, along with Eric Reynolds, of Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips, a series from Fantagraphics reprinting my favorite of all newspaper strips. It turns out Jake Tapper is also a huge fan of it and a collector of original artwork from the feature. Volume 5 will be out around Halloween with a foreword by Mr. Tapper and we didn't ask him to do it. He asked us if he could…and, well, of course he could.  It's a very enthusiastic, well-informed piece.

I thought the awards ceremony was too long…but then, I think every awards ceremony since the Early Middle Ages has been too long.  Sergio Aragonés and I presented a couple of them. At the end of the evening, the biggie — the Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year — was presented to Glen Keane, who gave a touching and lovely speech. The audience seemed very happy with the choice and with what the winner had to say about it. That's the great thing about awards. Sometimes, they make everyone real happy.

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Everyone mourning Jerry Maren today is mentioning how amazing it is that he was a part of The Wizard of Oz. But I was at least as impressed by another role he had on the same lot that same year…

Last week on Ken Levine's popular podcast, you could hear Part One of a two-part interview with me and we talked about my work in comics with Jack Kirby and how I broke into TV writing. Ken has just posted this week's episode, which is Part Two. On it, we talk about maybe the weirdest job I ever had — the infamous series, Pink Lady and Jeff — and about casting voices for cartoon shows.

And while you're over there, listen to some episodes of Hollywood and Levine that don't have me on them. Ken is very good telling stories from his own amazing careers (plural) and he's good at interviewing his talented colleagues who guest with him. Highly recommended.

We're going day-by-day reliving an eleven-day trip that I recently took with my great friend Amber to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and New York. Before you read about Day 4, you might do well to read about Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.

Friday, May 25, 2018

The Philadelphia Marriott was crawling with cartoonist friends. Every trip through the lobby, I'd run into some. When we went up to pick up our badges, we ran into some. In the elevator, a woman who was not with our group asked me, "What kind of convention is this?" I told her it was a gathering of the National Cartoonists Society and she sighed and said, "I hope no one draws an insulting cartoon about me."

Amber and I had planned to do sight-seeing for part of the day today as there are many fine sights to see in Philadelphia and we saw only a few our last visit here. But I needed to do some foot repair and not walk a lot, and Amber still didn't have an appropriately fancy dress for the appropriately fancy dinner the next night — something that would look proper alongside me in my tux and divert attention from the moth holes in my tuxedo.

We brunched at the Reading Terminal Market. She had fried rice. I surveyed the countless offerings and decided on the same thing I had the last time I was there — the turkey at a stand called The Original Turkey. Terrific food, well worth traveling 2,718 miles from my home. Then she went off in search of The Greatest Dress in the World and I went back to my room to attend to sore feet and to finish up a script that should have been done by half-past Vegas.

I wrote for a while. Amber occasionally texted me a video from a Macy's changing room of her trying on a dress to get my opinion — certainly one of the reasons the Internet was invented. She picked out a great one.

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The NCS had a casual-dress welcome party/dinner that evening and we all cheered as an award was presented there to veteran cartoonist Arnold Roth. I'm of the mind that every organization that gives out awards gives out way too many of them but this one made so many people happy (not just Arnold) that it seemed very right.

I spent a lot of time that evening and over the next few days with Nick Meglin. He was funny and altogether Nick-like and none of us, of course, imagined that soon there would be no more Nick Meglin. The time we spent together now seems very special and I'm very grateful for it.

Tune in tomorrow for the next installment of Amber and Mark's Excellent Adventure with our special guest, Jake Tapper.

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Sigh. Another obit. Jerry Maren, who apparently was the last surviving actor to play a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz, has died at the age of 98. Being in that film was an impressive credit but some of us are equally impressed that the same year, he appeared in At the Circus with The Marx Brothers.

And he worked his entire life, though you may not have always known it was him inside some rather odd costumes — like portraying denizens of McDonaldland in many commercials. Jerry stood 4'3" but he wasn't just hired for his height or lack thereof. He was a real good actor.

He was one of several "little people" who played the character of Little Oscar for the Oscar Mayer company. He was the main guy who played Buster Brown for the Buster Brown shoe company. He was a kind of mascot on the original Gong Show. He was in the famous film Superman and the Mole Men starring George Reeves. He really had an impressive career.

I met and talked with Jerry on several occasions, mainly when we both showed up for one of Frank Ferrante's performances as Groucho Marx. The last twenty years or so, Jerry was one of the few people you could meet who'd actually been in a Marx Brothers movie…but that was just one of hundreds of great name-drops he had. He'd worked with half of show business, being active in the business from around 1938 to 2010.

His career and life took a definite downturn in 2011 when Elizabeth Barrington, his wife since 1975, passed away. She was around the same height and often worked in films as a stand-in or stuntwoman for child actors. They were a delightful couple.

Thinking about Jerry reminds me of a moment at one of those Hollywood Shows where one can meet movie and TV stars and buy autographs. Mickey Rooney was a featured guest and he was behaving like Mickey Rooney, meaning that he was yelling and getting upset about nothing and yammering about things that no one else could understand. At one point, for reasons invisible to others, he announced he was leaving and stormed out of the hall. Someone said, "There goes the oldest, shortest great actor in the room."

And someone else pointed to Jerry Maren, barely visible behind a table where he was sitting and signing photos…and the someone else (who I think was me) said, "Wrong both times."

• I just turned on my TV and caught a little of some show that amazingly did not have Steve Harvey on it. Is that even legal? I hope nothing's happened to him.

You're reading about an eleven-day trip that I recently took with my terrific friend Amber to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and New York. Before you read about Day 3, you might want to read about Day 1 and Day 2.

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Checking out of the Excalibur Hotel in Vegas turned out to be not much easier than checking in but we were somehow outta there and heading for the airport by 9:30 AM, just like it said on my schedule. We grabbed a bit o' breakfast at the terminal, hopped on an American Airlines flight for Philadelphia, landed, got a cab and were at the Philadelphia Marriott by 8 PM.

It's a very nice, well-run hotel though our bathroom had the same, admittedly-minor problem that the Excalibur had and that's been true of just about every hotel I've been in for the last few years. Why are folks who design showers so unaware that people who take showers need someplace to put their bar of soap, their little bottle of shampoo, their little bottle of conditioner, etc.? The hotel even supplies versions of these little condiments for your scalp but rarely gives you a place to have them at the ready when you're wet and naked and have soap in your eyes and you need to grope for them. Our hotel in New York would turn out to have the same failing.

Note To Every Hotel In The World: They sell these at WalMart, they sell these at KMart, they sell them at Target, they sell them everywhere and they cost under $20 and can be installed in under three seconds.  I do not want your tiny soaps and your tiny bottles of lotion.  I can bring my own big soap and my own travel size potions and I need someplace to put them, whereas I really can't pack my own shower caddy.  Thank you.

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My feet weren't up for a lot of walking that night in Philadelphia so we had dinner at a Maggiano's across the street. I'm not usually fond of Italian food as prepared by chain restaurants but Maggiano's is awfully good, especially when it's right across the street and your feet hurt.

One disappointment today. Next Wednesday in New York, I was supposed to record my second appearance on Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. The first one (which you can hear here) was done with me in Los Angeles and Gilbert in Manhattan along with his co-host, Frank Santopadre. But Gilbert's wife Dara e-mailed me with more apologies than necessary that Gilbert had to go do a job out of town that week…so we'll have to do an in-person show another time, hopefully soon.

Have I explained why we went to Philadelphia? I'm a member of the National Cartoonists Society and every year on or around the Memorial Day weekend, the NCS holds its annual get-together, which used to always be in New York but now rotates around the United States. It's called the Reuben Weekend because its centerpiece is a fancy, black-tie banquet where cartoonists in formal wear present awards to one another and one person wins the society's highest honor, the Reuben Award. There are also parties and seminars and shop talk and an awful lot of cartooning camaraderie. And we're also here for another reason: To eat.

Last September when we were in Baltimore for the Baltimore Comic-Con, Amber and I and our pal Marv Wolfman made a one-day train trip to Philly to do some sightseeing, to see our pal Frank Ferrante in a play and to lunch at the Reading Terminal Market. As I explained here, the Reading Terminal Market may well be my favorite place to eat in this country. Here's another little video tour of the place for those of you into Serious Food Porn…

A few weeks later, Amber and I were at the New York Comic-Con and I ran into Bill Morrison, who is both the new editor of MAD and the current prez of the NCS. Bill told me he'd just signed the deal for the 2018 Reuben Weekend to be in Philadelphia. I instantly thought, "Gee, that would be an opportunity to eat again at the Reading Terminal Market." Then I thought how silly it would be to go all that way and spend all that money just to have a couple of great lunches.

I was thinking that as Bill said, "We're going to be at the Philadelphia Marriott."

I asked, "The Philadelphia Marriott that's directly across the street from the Reading Terminal Market?" He said yes and I said, "Amber and I will be there."  Tune in tomorrow to hear how we were there along with Bill, Sergio Aragonés, Tom Richmond, Mike Peters, Sam Viviano and dozens of other fine cartoonists, plus the (now, sadly) late Nick Meglin. One of my last memories of Nick is showing him around the Reading Terminal Market.

Click here to jump to the next day of our trip