A crab eating chips or crisps or whatever they are…

This is probably not so but I keep thinking that the reason the Republican Health Care Bill is so utterly terrible is so Donald Trump can step in and say, "Wait! I promised the American people we would not cut Medicaid and that everyone will have great, affordable healthcare and I cannot allow this!"

Then they'll improve it a little. Instead of being really, really, really, really bad, it will just be really, really, really bad. They'll still cut Medicaid but maybe by a few million less. Trump will then proclaim it a great bill that fulfills all his promises and he, of course, is a hero…and a lot of people will believe this when he signs the damned thing. We're actually to the point in this country when they might be able to get away with this for a while.

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As he expected, John Oliver is being sued by the main coal mining company that he blasted in this week's episode of Last Week Tonight. You can read the complaint here and while I'm no lawyer, it does seem written by an attorney who was thinking, "This'll never stand up but the old man is furious, he wants it done and I'm being paid well so…" It sounds like the complaint Trump's lawyers whipped up when Bill Maher suggested Trump's father was an orangutan.

I just looked up that suit, by the way, because I wasn't sure if it was an orangutan or a baboon. It was an orangutan but I noticed this in the articles about the suit being dropped: "Michael Cohen, a lawyer for Trump, is playing down the move, saying 'the lawsuit was temporarily withdrawn to be amended and refiled at a later date.'" I believe that's lawyer-talk for "We had a losing case but we don't want to admit it."

Back to Mr. Oliver and the Coal Baron: Good for John Oliver. More journalists — and that's what he is, no matter how he professes to be just a comedian — should be doing stories that make big companies angry enough to file lawsuits. And I'm surprised they didn't directly sue the guy in the squirrel suit.

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Comic-Con International is now less than a month away. Please do not ask me if I can get you passes, no matter how many terminally-ill children you promised.

Also do not ask me if I can help you get some panel added to the schedule. That ship has sailed. Invariably though, I hear from someone days before the con who wants to know how they can get a big room to promote their latest project. The program guides have already been printed and they just now realized the utter necessity of doing a panel, preferably in one of the larger halls on Saturday afternoon.

I will be on or hosting 13-14 panels, several of them about Jack Kirby. When you add in planned meals with friends and business associates, business meetings, interviews, presenting the Bill Finger Award, signing copies of the new edition of Kirby, King of Comics and other obligations, my personal schedule for the 4.5 days (including Preview Night) is at 25 items. If I can figure out when to add "Sleep" somewhere in there, it will be at 26.

The full Programming Schedule will be online for your inspection two weeks before the con. We're not supposed to reveal a lot before then but folks keep writing me to ask if there'll be some sort of memorial for my beloved Carolyn Kelly. There will be a panel about her, her father and her father's possum on Friday morning at 10:30.

So you're having a bad day. Your job's in jeopardy. You can't pay your bills. Republicans in the Senate just unveiled a really horrible Health Care bill. Well, don't despair. Just take a cue from composer Jerry Herman and singer Anna-Jane Casey and Tap Your Troubles Away…

Someone asked for an Amazon link for Al Franken's book so they could order it and I could get my teensy commission. Here it is and thank you very much. I haven't had time to finish it yet but I'm enjoying what I've read. It is not one of those books that even politicians I support usually write which are (a) obviously ghosted and (b) all about how we're right and they're wrong and you just have to keep supporting me and supporting me and we'll save the world.

Franken is an interesting fellow and I've thought that since a time when no one would ever have believed he'd amount to anything, let alone a U.S. Senator. When I was doing variety shows for NBC, he was on Saturday Night Live. One rarely heard his name in the halls here on the opposite coast without the word "asshole" somewhere in the same sentence and often the word "smug" preceding it. He was anything but a politician, alienating people left and right, seeming to enjoy when they thought he was rude and insensitive, just so long as his career was advancing.

At the time, if you had said that guy would wind up in the senate, it would have been a joke. In fact, it would have been the exact same joke as at the end of National Lampoon's Animal House where they say that Bluto — the John Belushi character — wound up as a United States Senator.

At some point though, Franken seems to have realized that he was on a dead-end path. His partner in writing and performing was a funny but self-destructive guy named Tom Davis, and Franken finally separated from him and explored new career possibilities. How he wound up as the junior senator from the great state of Minnesota is what this book is about and it's also kind of about how he changed as a human being. I'm up to the part where he begins running for the senate and his opponents are taking many of his old jokes and citing them as examples of serious (and insane) policy proposals that he had supposedly once made. It would be like if someone claimed that Robert Klein had a physical affliction that made him actually unable to stop his leg.

I've met Franken twice. One time was when my old friend Aaron Barnhart was in town. Aaron was the TV critic at the Kansas City Star and one Friday evening, we went over to CBS Television City on a two-part mission. The second part was to be in the audience for that evening's telecast of Dennis Miller Live. The first was to visit the offices of The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder prior to that show's taping for the evening. Aaron wanted to meet one of his heroes, TV critic Tom Shales, who was a guest that evening.

I was not a fan of Mr. Shales and Aaron kind of wanted to be alone with him so he went into Shales' dressing room while I waited in an outer office with the other guest for that evening. It was Al Franken and while we chatted a bit, he was mostly talking with the guest host for that evening, a guy named Jon Stewart. I said darn near nothing as the two of them conversed but I remember thinking I was in the presence of two of the smartest people I'd ever met. I also remember thinking, "This is the guy everyone kept saying was a smug asshole?" Not that evening, he wasn't. He still hadn't thought of running for public office then but when he did, I was probably less surprised than most people.

The other time I met him was in 2003 and I wrote about it in this post. Reading it now, I can't understand why I left out part of the story. I wrote about how at the public appearance, Franken was verbally assaulted by one questioner and he offered to talk one-on-one with the guy after the event. He had a lot of copies of his book to sign before he could get around to that.

I was there with my good friend, the late Earl Kress, and with my best friend, the late Carolyn Kelly. My, how things have changed since 2003.

We got signed books from Franken and talked with him as long as we could — a matter of seconds because there was a long line of others waiting for autographed books. The guy who'd gotten so outraged at Franken was at the end of the line, still fuming and eager for his face-to-face with the not-yet-Senator. I sensed a chance of trouble and suggested to Earl and a couple of friends that we stick around. It did not seem impossible that the outraged guy might get physical and I thought that might be less likely if Franken was flanked by a bunch of us. Also, I kind of wanted to see what was going to happen.

The outraged guy was upset that something in Franken's new book — the one he was signing, the one about how some right-wing pundits fibbed and got facts wrong — was factually incorrect. I don't recall what the supposed error (or "lie") was but it seemed pretty trivial to me…one of those arguable discrepancies that you could write off to one awkward choice of words. Whatever it was, Franken gave the man way more time and respect than I thought was warranted. As it turned out, that was about all this person really wanted — to have someone actually listen to him and not dismiss him as a kook, which would have been a natural dismissal, given the way he was acting.

I am paraphrasing from memory here but as I recall, Franken said something like this: "I don't think you're right and I don't think this is a big or even a medium-sized issue but I'll look into it." And then he said — and I think his confronter liked this because he knew Franken was being candid with him — "The honest truth here is that even if I did get it wrong, there's not much I can do to correct it. I'll mention it in some public appearances if I can squeeze it in but the way our press works, corrections almost never catch up with the original error. And since no one else, including the people it's about have ever complained about the alleged error, I really don't think anyone's going to care. But you care about it obviously because you came out here and I care about it because I hate making errors…so I'll look into it and I thank you for bringing it to my attention."

If that doesn't sound like it would have satisfied a guy who a half-hour earlier was screaming and frothing, maybe I'm not recalling it with enough precision or maybe you just had to hear Franken saying it. He looked the man right in the eye and gave him all the time the guy wanted to state his case and then respond, and it did satisfy him and I was really impressed.

We had not told Franken we'd hung around as contingency bodyguards but he'd figured it out. Once the fellow was gone, he turned to us and said, "Thanks for sticking around to protect me, guys, but as you can see, I didn't need it. Besides, I used to wrestle in college. I think I could have taken him." The man had eight inches and at least a hundred pounds on Franken so we all laughed.

I've liked him ever since that moment…or maybe it would be better to say I've liked what he's turned into. I'm eager to finish the book and see how he did it.

I know there are people reading this who think that Senator Al Franken is no less the smug asshole than the putz talking about his very own decade on Saturday Night Live. If I wanted to see Donald Trump's agenda succeed, I might think so, too. Nevertheless, I'm really, really impressed with people who find it within themselves to change for the better. I think Al Franken did and that's why — never mind the political stuff — I'm enjoying reading how he did it.

As readers of this blog are aware, my lovely friend Carolyn Kelly left us on April 9. She fought cancer until the end but there came a day when I knew she knew she wasn't going to survive. It was when she said to me, "If I don't make it, will you make sure the Pogo series is completed, just the way we planned it?" I promised her it would be.

I also promised we would maintain the same high standards she had set for the project, which was the most important non-medical thing she ever tackled in her life. Understand please that by "important," I mean important to her. The series, which is reprinting her father's classic newspaper strip in full, may also be important to you but I didn't promise you it would be finished. I promised her. Either way, there will be no more delays.

Volume 4 will be out well before Christmas of this year. It will include a remembrance of her, a foreword by Neil Gaiman and some of the most brilliant cartooning ever done. Here's the cover…

I started this blog on 12/18/2000 without much idea how long I would do it…and also without blogging software. What was available at the time wasn't very good and I decided to hand-code the messages here for the first few years. I had no idea I'd still being doing it 6030 days later.

Over the years, I've deleted some posts and rerun some posts. I suspect the two numbers about coincide so let's just ignore that. As of when I post this message, there will be 24,459 posts on this site, which works out to a smidgen over four per day. At this rate, I will hit the 25,000 mark on November 3 of this year. I have decided that Post #25,000 will be my response to one of our "ASK me" questions where you send in a question and I write something that I hope will answer it.

Please keep sending those in. I will continue to answer them but I'm going to save the best one I receive between now and October 15th to be #25,000. There will be an actual, tangible prize for the submitter of that question — a copy of some Groo book (my choice) signed by Sergio Aragonés and me, and if I can get them, Stan Sakai and Tom Luth. And no, second prize is not two Groo books. There is no second prize. And there's no prize if I answer your question but not as #25,000.

I'm looking for something that will prompt me to write something kinda long and of interest to most of the folks who come to this blog…and I'm probably not going to pick a political question.

Don't rush. You have plenty of time to come up with one and send it to this address. May the best Blog Reader win!

Wondering whether or not you should believe Bill Cosby? Well, Laura McGann does and she gives us a good way to look at the whole ugly story.

Here's Chapter Three in our little reality show as ace magician Misty Lee builds her new show, a process which started with auditioning and hiring dancers.  The show debuts July 28-30 at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood and tickets can be scored here.  This installment deals with a part of the audition process which is usually a lot tougher than the auditioners imagine.  It's the part where you make the decision about who you hire and who you thank so much for coming in. If you're just joining us, you might want to first watch Chapter One and then Chapter Two…

I'm going to write a longer post about this one of these days but I've been thinking lately that some of us need to realize something: That in politics nowadays, consistency of thought and principle is nowhere near as important as winning. Not even close.  Republicans were outraged that Obamacare was passed without enough transparency or time but are fine with their alternative being passed with way less of each. It doesn't matter. We no longer fault our politicians for saying or doing today the opposite of what they said last Tuesday.

Remember "I'd rather be right than president?"  There is no honor today in making that choice.  If you lost, you're a loser.

I mean, it might make us uncomfy down deep to see our side fudging or even reversing itself on principles.  Not winning, however, makes us less comfy so we look the other way, double-talk our way past the flip-flops and refuse to admit the bullshit factor of at least one of our two contradictory firm positions. Democrats do less of that than Republicans but that may just be because Democrats aren't winning.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't keep pointing out when someone is saying or doing exactly what they said was horrible when said/done by the opposition. We just should maybe stop expecting it to matter so much. Now, this…

• Ezra Klein writes about how one of Trump's big problems is that he doesn't listen to his staff, doesn't operate on the premise that you hire people who just might know more than you about something. That is why he keeps contradicting what his own spokespeople say. Klein writes about Al Franken and Franken's new book, which I'm now in the process of reading. What impresses me about the book so far is that the book is not "I'm great so here's why you should always support me," which is the message of most books by active politicians. Franken really writes about his own experiences and what he's done right and wrong. Often, what's he's done wrong is that he hasn't grasped that his new job (U.S. Senator) is a lot different from his old jobs in show business. It's a lesson Trump could stand to — but will probably never — learn.
• Matt Taibbi believes Megyn Kelly vivisected Alex Jones in that much-publicized interview. I caught some of it and thought, "Yeah, people who know the guy is full of crap will grin that she made that obvious. People who like what he says will ignore any cracks in his credibility." A real vivisection would change some minds among his followers…though I think those folks are more likely to reassign their genders than their faith in a guy like him. I do however agree with other things Taibbi has to say here.
• As Eric Levitz notes, hardcore Trump supporters think this whole Special Counsel Russia Thing is a "witch hunt." When does anyone who doesn't like where an investigation is going not dismiss it as a "witch hunt?" I actually know one Trump voter whose support for Donald J. is waning, not because he thinks the administration colluded with Russia but because Trump's reactions to the charges have made the guy look incompetent and insane. My acquaintance who is falling out of love with Trump says, "He doesn't look like an adult who can rationally deal with things."  Makes you wonder why.
• Jonathan Chait makes an interesting point: The Republicans are now not attempting to pass the idealized dream of Health Care that Conservatives have always wanted. That clearly will never fly with the voters. What the G.O.P. is trying to pass is a castrated version of Obamacare that will allow Big Tax Cuts For The Rich now and will hide some of the downsides for the poor and middle class until after the next election or two.

Make sure you see the segment John Oliver did about coal on his program last Sunday night. The only thing I don't like about Oliver — and I'll put up with it, of course — is certain interjections of irrelevant, distracting jokes into some of his pieces. This one was so on-target and informative, I wish he hadn't made some of those pit stops along the way to go for laughs.

The TV Academy has put together a very nice page about Bill Dana, full of history and quotes and videos. Go see it.

Bill Dana was great in front of the camera. His character Jose Jiminez may have been something of a stereotype but it was a sweet, non-threatening funny one which even some folks concerned with the image of Latinos gave a pass. His sitcom, The Bill Dana Show, only lasted two seasons (September of '63 to January of '65) but it was really good and if some cable channel would just start rerunning them, you'd enjoy them a lot.

He was also a terrific comedy writer, responsible for fine material uttered by others, especially Steve Allen and Don Adams. About 75% of Adams' career was built on jokes and bits that Dana wrote for him, including catch phrases like "Would you believe?"

I met Bill a few times but can't for the life of me think of one good anecdote about him. He struck me as nice and funny and very enterprising. Occasionally, when you meet someone you previously laughed at on television, the actual person is a disappointment because they're dour or bitter or sleazy in some manner. Bill Dana was none of those, and from what I could tell, he was loved and respected by his fellow makers of comedy.

Here's a good overview of his long and fruitful career, and here's Part One of an interview that our pal Kliph Nesteroff did with him and here's Part Two. All I can add to all that is that I really liked the guy as Jose and even more as Bill.

Let's march back to November 9, 1982 and David Letterman's old NBC show. His guest is the great Hal Roach, producer of some of the finest comedy films of the previous century including the best Laurel & Hardy and Our Gang movies. Do not believe the story he tells about the house his crew accidentally destroyed or the tale of how he hired Stan Laurel.

About a year after this, a friend of mine and I went to visit Mr. Roach and his memory was a bit better and we spent a few glorious hours discussing his work. We also spent some time discussing the way the world and Hollywood had changed. In particular, he wanted to know if "these young actresses today" were really that easy to get into bed. I recall having no good way to answer that so I said, "Probably a lot easier than they were in your day but not as easy as most men would like." He also told me a few good dirty jokes. I liked him a lot and he enjoyed our chat and told me to "come back anytime." I still cannot explain why I never went back. Anyway, here he is in '82 with Dave…

First off, that guy in the purple car has been taken into custody. I'm sure you were all concerned about that.

Secondly, we've been having a small software glitch here lately. As some of you have noted, the versions of some posts that were initially put up here were not the final versions. Until I corrected them, you had incomplete earlier drafts instead of the final versions. I think I've fixed this but if it happens again, we'll all know I haven't.

Thirdly, posting will be light tomorrow due to a day full of appointments and deadlines.

Saturday night, a bunch of us went to see Puppet Up!, the show I recommended here and later here. Judging by the number of folks who came up to me and thanked me for recommending it on my blog, I should be getting a commission. It was again a wonderful entertainment and everyone enjoyed it a lot, including (based on his reactions) Eddie Izzard, who was sitting not far from us. I will try to let you know when more performances are scheduled but they may catch me off-guard. The show doesn't advertise. They just announce on their website they're doing it again and all the tickets disappear in a flash. That should tell you how terrific it is.

Lastly for now, I mentioned Joe Pyne in a post earlier here. Craig Robin informs me that the Smithsonian magazine just ran a big article which you can read here. One possible quibble: It says Pyne was lured to Los Angeles by KTLA-TV and became a top-rated talk show host here. I don't remember him ever being on KTLA. I remember him on KTTV and on radio station KLAC.

Reader-of-this-site Sue Weitzman wrote to ask me how I would compare Pyne to folks today like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. I think it's pretty much the same act, though Pyne spent less time with political types and more time with people who claimed to have ridden in flying saucers, He also liked anyone he could denounce as a filthy hippie. Perhaps as a result, I don't recall any moment when it felt like Pyne was influencing elections or popular opinion or anything that actually changed government. And I think he was more entertaining than anyone today in the sense that, say, professional wrestling or guests on The Jerry Springer Show throwing punches are entertaining.

I'll see you tomorrow but probably not for long.

I got hooked watching this police chase through Orange County that's not on local TV but is streaming on the 'net. A guy in a purple car — reportedly stolen — is leading officers from various Orange County departments all through Orange County. It's been going on for over an hour and the suspect has been doing a pretty good job of eluding the cops.

The reporters, groping for things to say, keep monitoring the police band and telling us little things, including hints about what the pursuing officers have planned, plus they're wondering how the pursuee in the purple car is able to keep changing where he's going, just when the officers are setting up spike strips, traffic blocks and other tactics. Uh, maybe he's listening to their coverage or talking to someone who is?

A sexually-inappropriate squirrel…