• You know, I worked with Richard Pryor and it somehow never occurred to me to ask him how Marlon Brando was in the sack.

This koala loves to have its tummy rubbed. But then, who doesn't?

Derek Tague, who lives in New Jersey, just sent me this…

It's great that you're alerting your readership about a rare live performance by Dick Van Dyke. Unfortunately, I reside on the wrong coast and, hence, will not be able to entertain attending. However, many of the live vehicles you recommend are prohibitively expensive for the average person to attend. I accessed the "Buy Tickets" link and the ducats range in price from $50.00 to $75.00 (VIP).

There are hidden, inherent implications whenever anybody uses the term "VIP." This is shorthand for "very important persons." In essence, the venue is implying that anybody who cannot afford the higher pricier seats are not "very important." How can you possibly subscribe to such a dehumanizing rubric? Answer me that, Mister Green Lantern.

V.I.P. tickets to events have become a pretty well-established marketing ploy for ticketed events. I dunno what it means in the case of Dick's show but they usually include some kind of "meet-and-greet" opportunity to get an autograph and/or a selfie or something. A lot of house managers and promoters won't book events if they don't get the extra bucks from selling V.I.P. packages. Or if they can't, they'll likely compensate by raising prices for everyone. In a sense, the V.I.P. purchasers make your L.I.P. (Less Important Person) tix more affordable.

Or sometimes V.I.P. just means better seats. Almost any place you go for a live event is going to charge a little more for better seats.

By the laws of nature, they're also going to have better seats and worse seats so someone is going to wind up in the worse seats and I guess you could call being seated in one of them a dehumanizing rubric. I wouldn't feel slighted by it any more than when I get on a plane and have to walk past folks in First Class to get to where my seat is…usually somewhere out on the tail assembly.

Non-V.I.P. tickets are just plain ol' tickets — usually the same seats at the same price as if the deluxe kind wasn't offered. Yeah, many of the live events I recommend are prohibitively expensive for some. I also think they're worth the money if you have it.

But I also recommend cheap shows. I've often pushed Instaplay, a great improv show that a bunch of my friends do from time-to-time. The next one is March 3 and a ticket, including service fee, is $12.89. I also highly recommend another improv show, The Black Version. The next one of those is February 26 and a seat for that will run you $21, also including a service fee. Neither of those is prohibitively expensive unless you add in the cost of air transportation from and to New Jersey.

The only unfair thing there is that I still don't understand why when I book online using the time of no employee of the firm selling me the tickets, I need to pay a service fee. I always feel like I'm the one performing the service.

[UPDATE, a bit later: I am informed that the "V.I.P." tix for Mr. Van Dyke's show at the Catalina merely get you better seats, nothing more. For what it's worth, there are some really bad seats in that club. The room is "L"-shaped with the performers at the corner, usually only playing to one side of the "L". I mention this not to push the more expensive tix — which I did not buy, by the way — but just to alert you that you may not be happy with where they sit you.]

Last September, I told you about attending a rare live performance by Dick Van Dyke and a great jazz band out in the valley. Well, they're doing it again. Dick and the same fine musicians will be performing one show only on Tuesday, February 27 at the Catalina Bar and Grill in Hollywood. Tickets will sell out and they'll sell out soon. I already bought mine so you can buy yours at this link. He's a great entertainer and he even dances darn well for a man of 92…better than I have at any age. Then again, there are hippos that can clear that low bar.

• Trump wants a military parade, I guess so he can feel more like Kim Jong-un. He'll probably want them all carrying flaming tiki torches, too.

Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca do the "Slowly I Turned…" Niagara Falls sketch without making any slow turns or mentions of Niagara Falls…

Jeff Edsell writes to ask…

I had a question about writing and revision. If I look over something I've written and I'm not happy with it, I have a lot of trouble deciding whether I should dig in and try to revise it and make it better, or to virtually crumple up the page and start over from scratch. Are there any rules of thumb you use to determine the best route?

Well, it depends on if I know why I'm not happy with it. There are an infinite number of reasons possible but there are two that stand out above all others.

One is that I've tried to wedge a good story into a bad place. That's a mistake that I believe has led to some of the poorest writing I've done. I had what I thought was a real good idea..and let's say it was for a comic book story. Suddenly, I was asked to write an eight-page story for something and I decided to use that real good idea for it. As I wrote, I slowly realized eight pages wouldn't do justice to the idea but I stubbornly pressed on, leaving out every part of it I could possibly leave out and rushing every speech and action.

The end result? I wrote a pretty poor story…and worse, I wasted that good idea. After that, I couldn't go back the next month and redo it at the proper length. Those instances hurt a lot.

So when I'm not happy with how a script or article is going, I ask myself if what I have is a good story in a bad place and if so, I save that idea for another time and try to come up with something else and start anew. That can be tough when you have six days to write a story and you've wasted three or four of them writing the wrong story. Just remember it's easier to recover from staying up all night writing than it is to recover from publishing a stinker.

This problem also happens when your story is too short to fill the allotted space. And sometimes in the middle of writing something, I start feeling, "You know, this wasn't such a great idea after all." I have a folder on my hard disk called "Unfinished Posts." It's full of things I started writing for this blog and a few paragraphs into them, I started thinking, "No one's going to care about this…even I'm losing interest in it."

Into that folder it goes. I sometimes go back through them later and find some way to make one interesting. That's usually done by lopping off a few paragraphs at the end and plotting another course from a wrong turn. But a lot of what goes into that folder never comes out because it wasn't worth finishing. I do not concur with writing teachers who teach that you must finish what you start. It's better to admit when you've had a lousy idea and see if you can come up with a good one instead.

If that's not the problem…if the piece does seem worthy, look back for the wrong turn you made. You introduced a new plot point that knocks the story off-balance — or worse, isn't necessary at all. Playwrights who have to keep the cast size down for budgetary reasons usually go over their later drafts and ask of each character, "Is there a way to cut this role?" If there is, you usually should.

Also, if something I'm writing isn't working and time permits, I like to put it aside, write something else for a bit and then go back to the story that isn't working. Sometimes, the solution is so obvious, you'll actually slap your forehead with the palm of your hand.

But try anything. Write anything. Sometimes, exploring further in the wrong direction can make it more obvious as to why it's the wrong direction. Go back to the last time a major character had to make a major choice…and then have him or her make the other choice and see where that takes you. The point is to keep writing and, one hopes, keep thinking. And don't panic. Just remember that if it's unfixable and has to be junked, you're still ahead of writers who refused to do that and instead, put out something awful.

Our pal Frank Ferrante usually wanders the land doing one-nighters or occasionally two-nighters with his wonderful show, An Evening With Groucho.  Starting Valentine's Day next week, he'll be doing fourteen shows in the same place — and the same place is a venue with special significance to Marx Brothers fans. It's the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

You can't read a book about the great plays of the Twentieth Century without learning about the ones that tried-out and were shaped at that theater…or about legendary productions that played there and nowhere else. Few are the superstars of Broadway who have not graced the stage of the Bucks County Playhouse. George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart were frequent patrons and several of their shows were birthed there. They even once did a production there of their The Man Who Came to Dinner with Kaufman in the role based on Alexander Woollcott and Harpo Marx in the role based on Harpo Marx.

And now Frank's going to be there impersonating the Great Groucho through February 25…ten performances of An Evening With Groucho, many of them in the afternoon. If you're anywhere near the place, click there to obtain tickets. After you see it, it is not necessary to write me and thank me for the recommendation but many people do.

Several times on this site, I've mentioned a funny comedian and voice actor named Dave Barry. Don't get him confused with the funny columnist Dave Barry, who writes books. The Dave Barry I'm talking about was an actor (best credit: Some Like It Hot), a frequent stand-up comic on Ed Sullivan's show and opening for big stars in Vegas, and you heard him in a lot of classic cartoons, often imitating Humphrey Bogart or other celebrities. I ran this obit when he passed away in 2001, ending a career that basically consisted of 66 years of making audiences laugh.

I've written other things about him which you can easily find with this site's search engine. I think he's one of those comedians who never got the recognition he deserved. I was delighted recently to hear from his grandson Brett, who sent me a link to a video of his father performing in 1992. Some of it's material that was honed and perfected over many years but a lot of it's fresh and topical. He even starts with a joke about Woody Allen…

The first response to my long post about Woody Allen came from Tom Schmidt. Here it is in its entirety…

You think Shemp was a better Stooge than Curly? Seriously?

Yeah. This is not something I feel strongly about but I have a lower opinion of Curly than most other folks who love the Stooges. Or maybe a better way to put that would be that in the Moe/Larry/Curly films, I value Moe and Larry more than most folks do. I think the films with Curly are generally better but that's mainly because of bigger budgets and better writing.

I certainly don't dislike Curly. I don't even dislike Joe Besser or Joe DeRita and when people say they weren't as funny in their films as Curly was in his, I point out that Moe and Larry weren't as funny in the Besser/DeRita films as they were in the ones with Curly, either.

The story of the Stooges' career is, for me, the story of a varying set of funny men who managed to still be entertaining even as the budgets and writing declined year after year after year and their films turned into cheap rearrangements of stock gags and stock footage. They were the guys who rode the two-reeler format all the way down to its demise. Shemp, to me, was the one who usually managed to be better than the material he was given.

But like I said, I don't feel that strongly about this. If you prefer Curly, we can still be friends.

It's been a while since I wrote anything here about the Woody Allen matter. I think the last time, my view was that he didn't do it but I probably didn't sound as adamant as some of the people we now see insisting that he's — as they used to say in Doonesbury — GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY. The more I read about this case though, the more I move towards NOT GUILTY, NOT GUILTY, NOT GUILTY.

Seems to me that a lot of people have made up their minds about this matter based on hearing about 50% of the story. In today's online world, that's a lot. It seems to happen with every controversy, as does the tendency to stake out a position and refuse to ever budge from it no matter what additional info comes to light.

Stubbornness, of course, way predates the Internet but nowadays, just as you are never more than two clicks away from porn, you are never more than two clicks away from disinformation or from someone who concurs with and reinforces the stupidest thing you may have chosen to believe. I can easily find people who agree with me that Shemp was a better Stooge than Curly, that Batman was better when he wasn't psychotic and that cole slaw should never be taken internally.

What I'll get from them is a lot of "You're so right" and many bogus corroborating "facts"…but I could still be wrong except, of course, about the cole slaw.

I was a little reticent to get into the Allen/Farrow brouhaha again here for several reasons, chief among them that I absolutely support the #MeToo movement and think it's waaaaaay (with at least six a's) overdue to call out and expose human beings who don't act like human beings — i.e., Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, et al.

I know and have known women who have been abused doubly — first by men who abused power in order to abuse women; secondly by a system that made the women afraid to say or do anything about it. I'd hate to be accused of not supporting a crusade that empowers the powerless simply because I have some doubts about one specific allegation…or even a few of 'em.

And it's not just about women. Isn't it still the #MeToo movement when it empowers men who are abused by men or women who are more powerful? If it isn't, it should be.

Secondly, I like and respect Woody Allen the comedian and filmmaker. Like a lot of folks who do, I'm not particularly enamored of most of his recent films but that's irrelevant to the question of whether he did the foul deed that so many have decided he did. In any case, I don't want to make the easy-to-make mistake of siding with him just because I liked Annie Hall or Midnight in Paris or his old monologues. I didn't make that mistake with Bill Cosby or a few others and I don't want to make it here.

And thirdly and lastly for now: I see a lot of people whose belief that Allen is a pervert and a molester starts with the fact that he dated and wed a woman 35 years younger. That seems to be all some need to hear to believe any allegation about him, especially of a sexual nature.

I would not argue with someone who said that the break-up with Mia and leaving the nekkid photos where they could be found was foolish and/or cruel.  If you care at all about this nastiness, you know what I'm talking about. I might though wonder if we know as much about that whole story as we think we know. I wonder that about a lot of stories in the news about the private lives of public figures, including the Trumps, the Obamas, the Clintons and anyone named Kardashian, Baldwin or Jenner.

I would argue with someone who insisted, as so many do, that Woody wooed and married his own daughter. Soon-Yi was the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow and André Previn. And having decided Allen did one terrible thing, others who dislike him figure that proves he did or probably did any terrible thing that is charged.  That leap, I don't buy.  I keep thinking of something one of my college professors said once: "A faulty argument is a faulty argument even if it points to the truth."  Even in the Court of Public Opinion with its general lack of rules, a person should not be convicted of a serious crime via a faulty argument.

So that's one thing that bothers me about the case against Woody Allen.  Another is the push to ignore the older brother of that seven-year-old girl who of course is also the younger brother of Soon-Yi.

Moses Farrow is now a fully-grown professional family therapist, which suggests he might have some understanding of families and how dysfunctional some can be. He doesn't think Woody did anything wrong in marrying Soon-Yi and does not believe Woody molested Dylan. Those who are pressing the portrait of Woody Allen as child molester have dealt with Moses's contrary accounts by simply pretending he does not exist.

Yesterday's New York Times had another article by Nicholas Kristof, the columnist who more than anyone else perhaps has been driving this story that Allen molested Dylan. A self-described close friend of the Farrow family, he repeats a lot of the damning things he's said over and over about Woody but as in so many of these pieces, there is no mention of Moses.

I'm going to quote here from one of the few columnists who has acknowledged his existence, Hadley Freeman…

…in the past 26 years the only new development has been the emergence of Moses Farrow, Dylan's older brother, who has become increasingly vocal about the abuse he claims he suffered at the hands of his mother; he claims Farrow brainwashed her children about Allen. Dylan has dismissed her brother's allegations as "irrelevant". But why is one child's claim of abuse irrelevant and another's urgent?

Good question.  So many of those who say we must "listen to the victims" seem to not want to listen to Moses — or for that matter, to Soon-Yi, who has similar tales of abuse.  That's a large part of what I was referring to earlier about passing judgment on this matter based on 50% of the evidence.

I mentioned earlier that I was hesitant to write about this controversy for several reasons and I've named two.  A third has to do with what I see as another of those faulty arguments.  There are those who, leaving aside the question of whether Woody had any sort of actual parental role in Soon-Yi's upbringing, insist that someone's desire to have consensual sex with a much-younger woman of 20 proves he must have wanted the non-consensual kind with a seven-year-old child. I can't see how it follows for anyone that the gap of years 'twixt Woody and Soon-Yi suggests any predilection for pedophilia. I have a self-interest here which will be addressed beginning in the next paragraph.

Yes, there are those who find the age difference in the Woody/Soon-Yi relationship creepy, just as some think it's wrong when two consenting adults of the same gender get together….or two consenting adults of different races. Me, I've long believed that if two people are consenting adults, their sex lives are none of my business and if the relationship works for them, great. There are 876,000 divorces in this country per year so obviously, Mr. Allen and his mate of 2.6 decades are happier together than millions of pair-ups where both parties were of approximately the same age. Over a much shorter span, I have been quite happy in my current relationship with a lady who is 42 years younger than I am.

I'm embarrassed to say I balked at speaking up because I didn't want anyone saying, "You're just defending him because you like younger women!"  I do like some younger women. I also like some older women. My last lady friend was older than me and I was with her for twenty years.

When the present one wises up and dumps me, I'll hope to find someone else I like and as long as she's an adult and wants to be with me, her age won't matter one bit. (For the record, the last time I so much as fantasized about a woman under the age of eighteen, I was under the age of seventeen. That's what happens when you skip grades and everyone in your classes at school is older than you are.)

I do not know Mr. Allen.  We've never met, though we do have some mutual friends including my cousin David, author of this book on the man.  David, who I consider a smart guy and a good reporter, believes Woody is innocent but his conclusions are his and mine are mine.

Also, a recurring topic on this blog, because it is a long-held concern in my life, is the wrongful conviction of innocent people. I posted something about that recently and many times before that. Since the dawn of man, innocent people have gone to prison or even been executed based on fallacious testimony. Does anyone doubt that's still possible?

And also, I see all these articles online where folks wrestle with the question of how to view the work of Woody Allen now that he is a proven child-molester.  Before I do that, I'd like to be convinced he's a proven child-molester…and so far, I'm not.

More dominoes…

That's what I'm doing. There's something oddly calming and pleasant about feeling, just for a few hours, that you're on a different planet.

Ignore this. Zz73