We're finishing the sad task of emptying Carolyn's apartments. She had two of them and also two Public Storage lockers…and while we were at it, we moved everything out of my Public Storage locker. I am here using the term "Public Storage" in its non-generic state, denoting the actual company by that name. I am not fond of that company at the moment.

For decades, I had a big unit — gosh, that sounds sexual — in one of their eight zillion facilities. It was on the ground floor of one wing of a huge building which is supposed to have guards, alarms, security cameras, impenetrable doors and secret access codes. Sometime between late Saturday night, April 8 and the following morning, it apparently only had a few of those things. One or more people (probably more) armed with axes broke into that wing and hacked into about fifty lockers, mine included.

The doors there are not metal. They have great, strong locks but what good is a great, strong lock when you can break into the door and literally chop the lock out? Each cubicle was ransacked. Neatly-stacked rows of boxes in mine were toppled and the contents emptied and strewn about. We re-boxed but I'm still trying to figure out what ain't there no more. If someone tries to sell you some old, mint-condition copies of Groo the Wanderer or any of my books and they're carrying an ax, you'll know where they got them.

My unhappiness with the company flows from their total disinterest in the whole matter. It pretty much comes down to "Talk to your insurance man and don't bother us." (I talked to my insurance man, who's actually an insurance lady. Turns out my homeowner's policy does cover this theft and they're figuring out if it covers the labor involved in paying others to re-box and rearrange. But either way, there is this $1,000 deductible…)

When pressed further by me, the manager of the storage facility insisted she had no power to do anything…which I believe. She told me to call Customer Service — which I did — and guess what! I got another person with no power to do anything.

When I insisted on knowing who in the company could actually do something, he said I'd have to talk to a Division Supervisor. I've left a couple of messages which are so far unreturned and I suspect always will be. Either that or they'll tell me they have no power to do anything.

Which is why this tenant of 30+ years has upped and moved his re-boxed boxes to a storage facility operated by another company…something I should have done years ago. It's cheaper, nicer, better-lit, cleaner, more secure, nearer to me and operated by people you can actually talk to and who will at least try to make things right. There, one does not find the disturbing trend in business these days to try and set things up such that if you have a complaint, too friggin' bad.

There's an e-mail address and maybe a phone number which asks you to leave a message and someone will get back to you…and then (of course) no one gets back to you. Or if by some chance they do, they either don't know anything or aren't empowered to do anything about it. This has been my problem every time I've flown United Airlines in the last decade or so. Something goes wrong…and it isn't that which irks me. It's that I can't get to anyone with the authority to do more than apologize to me on behalf of the company. They've set it up so no time or money has to be squandered fixing problems or (gasp!) granting refunds.

In an odd way, I almost don't blame companies that do this because we are way too tolerant of it when we can get a bargain. When United had that recent messiness with a passenger who was dragged off a flight and injured, a whole lot of folks were infuriated and said, "I'll never fly United again!" And this is a vow that most of them will keep until they have to go somewhere and United has the flight that's cheapest and/or most convenient. Then they'll say, "Well, when you get right down to it, all the airlines are the same." I am happy to say I've found that all storage facilities are not the same.

In a few days, I may write something here about what it's like to clean out the apartments and storage lockers of a departed loved one like I have this past week. If there's a human emotion I haven't experienced during the process, I can't think what it might be. Indifference, perhaps.

Bette Midler has made a huge splash in the Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! but let's watch a couple of clips of the lady who originated the role.  Here's Carol Channing in some footage shot during her 1983 revival tour.  I think I saw this production and I remember thinking the songs were great, Carol was great and the storyline — especially the plot about the two silly ribbon clerks — didn't interest me in the slightest. Still, it was worth the price of admission for numbers like these…

If Donald Trump has done nothing, he's convinced me that almost no one these days stands on principle…or, at best, one. That's the principle that says that if our side does it, it's great and perfect and honorable and even legal…and when the other side does it, it's evil and incompetent and dishonest and they should be behind bars.

And even when you can't spin it as a capital crime or a screw-up that's going to harm or kill millions, you at least spin it as an example of sheer wrongheadedness. Barack Obama was insensitive and lazy to spend so much time playing golf, which he did once in his first hundred days. Trump is such a fine executive that he got everything done — brilliantly, his fans might add — and has had time to hit the links between 13 and 16 times so far, depending on which source you believe.

Sigh. It's like that for everything these days. Here are some links of the non-golfing variety…

• Trump keeps signing executive orders and seeing them overturned by judges. This, of course, prompts him to throw tantrums about the judges being crooked or biased or something and to threaten to use the power of the presidency to stop these outta-control men and women who somehow think they have the power to enforce laws that Trump doesn't like. Dahlia Lithwick explains that before Trump screams that the game is rigged, he oughta try learning how it's played.
• Trump's greatest strength, some said, was his skill as a great negotiator. Seth Stevenson runs down the list of botched negotiations of his first hundred days. And many pundits are now suggesting that it isn't that Trump's bargaining skills in his private business don't apply to the presidency. It's that his bargaining skills in his private business were never very good even there.
• Jonathan Chait on how the Trump Administration is trying to sell its tax cut that would mainly benefit people like Donald Trump. It involves changing the subject any time anyone asks about how it would mainly benefit people like Donald Trump.
• Frank Rich says Trump's triumph-free first hundred days are a triumph for America. Yeah, but he's got 1,360 more to do damage.
• Daniel Larison on yet another way the Trump Administration is being ineffectual: Not properly staffing the State Department.
• And the food industry is counting on the Trump Administration to do away with all those silly rules that force them to tell us what's in the food they sell us. I understand why this would be a good thing for the companies that sell not-the-healthiest food but I have yet to hear even a bogus explanation of why this would be good for us.

I probably won't watch the White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend, though I assume the remarks of featured comedian Hasan Minhaj will be quite available online. Wonder how many people turned it down before they went to him. I will be watching Samantha Bee's competing show…and I think it's a shame they didn't get her.

You are perhaps familiar with Plan 9 From Outer Space, the 1959 "so bad it's good" science-fiction movie written, produced, directed, and edited by Ed Wood. The film starred Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson, Vampira and some posthumous silent footage of Bela Lugosi, who otherwise wouldn't have been caught dead in a movie like that. I'm not a particular fan of the flick and I'm not sure I've made ever made it all the way through, which I suspect puts me with the majority of those who've tried to watch it.

Still, a few nights ago, I did enjoy — greatly — a live, staged reading of the screenplay done under the auspices of the fine comedian, Dana Gould. At least, he seemed to be in charge. There was no program book, and the poster didn't say who produced, directed, adapted or any of that but he's helmed other performances with many of the same cast members. This particular ensemble included Mr. Gould plus Bobcat Goldthwait, David Koechner, Paul F. Tompkins, Ron Lynch, Jonah Ray, Janet Varney, Matt Braunger, Pam Severns, G. Charles Wright, Deborah Baker, Jr. and Nate Mooney, and there was music by Eban Schletter and puppetry and effects by Pam Severns.

The "puppetry and effects" consisted of manipulating cutouts and transparencies on an overhead projector, thereby maintaining the proper budgetary aspect of the original. The music was underscore and sound effects, and Mr. Schletter got the proceedings off to a grand start with a dynamite overture played mainly on a Theremin. You don't hear a lot of good Theremin music these days.

The reading was very funny, in some cases just because they read the lines as written, in some cases because of way-over-the-top theatrics, and in some cases because of snide comments injected into the stage directions. The performances were all excellent and if you forced me to pick a standout, I'd say Paul F. Tomkins as Eros, the alien commander who institutes Plan 9, which involves waking Earth's dead. It was especially odd to see Bobcat Goldthwait inherit the role written for and originally performed by Tor Johnson.

I liked that the whole reading was done with a certain respect 'n' affection for the source material. It would have been easy to slip into a kind of snotty contempt for it but that, they did not do. The audience howled with laughter throughout the proceedings but — I always seem to have to throw a "but" into these things — doing the entire script made for a long presentation and you could sense the loss of energy in the last twenty-or-so minutes. I am not suggesting they trim it because then they wouldn't be as faithful to the movie. I'm just saying it went on a little long.

Word is that Mr. Gould will be mounting productions in other theaters in other towns. If one is anywhere near you, I recommend you get tickets. Unlike the film on which it is based, this is not "so bad it's good." It's just plain good.

Here is a real obit for our friend Chris Bearde.

I have been up most of the night writing something about some stupid barbarian who eats cheese dip and today, I have to return to my main line of work these days: Closing out the apartment of my friend Carolyn before the month is out and rent is due. So you won't see much of me on this page during the next twenty-four hours. Who knows? I may even get some sleep.

Hey, if you want to read something important, read Fred Kaplan on why war with North Korea is not likely unless the Trump Administration does something really, really stupid. I get the feeling that even people who love what he is doing in this country — assuming he ever gets around to actually doing it — aren't all that confident of his ability to handle foreign affairs.

And Jordan Weissmann explains why Donald Trump's plan to massively cut taxes for Donald Trump (and others who don't need it) will never make it through Congress.

I'll be back soon, perhaps having slept.

I never knew so much work went into getting rice from the field to my table. I thought it just magically appeared in Chinese restaurants…

As we zero in on Trump's 100th day, we see that his rep as The Great Deal Maker is in serious jeopardy, especially if he keeps proving unable to make a deal. I don't know that it works well in the private sector but it sure doesn't seem to work in the public one to wait for the opposition to come crawling to you. Here are some links of interest about what's going on with him and his dysfunctional administration…

• Matt Yglesias discusses the disproportionate attention given to "Trump voters" — but first we have to define that term. And don't expect these people to all abandon The Donald as they realize he's not that competent and not even that interested in giving them what he promised. The key to defeating him in 2020 is to unite the opposition between one candidate…preferably someone more charismatic than Hillary.
• Here's another Jonathan Chait piece. This one is about how in a desperate attempt to appear to be accomplishing things, Trump is now signing a flurry of executive orders that don't do much.
• Margaret Hartmann reports that Trump's plan to build the most fantastic, wonderful wall in the world — the wall that will save us from the Scary Immigrants who actually aren't really coming here much anymore — ain't going anywhere. I get the feeling that before long, Trump will erect a couple of handball courts on the border and insist those are the walls he promised to build.
• And Fred Kaplan comments on Trump's insistence that he's expanding the military. Fred's comment is that Trump may well do that but hasn't done it yet.

It's interesting to hear that Trump won't get rid of Sean Spicer because he thinks Spicer gets good ratings. Spicer doesn't but you know who does? TV hosts who make jokes about Trump being a moron. That's yuge these days.

We've all heard that Obamacare is or was deeply unpopular with Americans. I don't think so. Its negative numbers always included a sizeable number of people whose opposition to it was because it didn't go far enough, didn't provide enough coverage. They were not people who wanted the government to keep its damned nose out of health care but rather people who wanted Single-Payer or something in that area.

Also, a lot of folks who said they opposed it did want government to enforce something that would lower health costs and make it affordable for all. They just didn't trust Democrats to come up with the best possible plan and bought into the idea that Republicans could do better. Now, they're realizing that the Republicans not only can't do better but don't want to. For all the blather about "a better way," the G.O.P. leadership now seems divided into two groups: Those who want to get rid of all health care plans that help poor people…and those who want to get rid of all health care plans that help poor people but are afraid of how many voters they'd piss off so they want there to be something.

I also suspect that a lot of those who opposed Obamacare opposed Obamacare simply because they opposed Obama. With him out of power, there's less eagerness to wipe out anything he did just because he did it.

As Jonathan Chait notes, a new major poll shows that by overwhelming margins, America wants Obamacare to remain and for government to work at making it better. That's probably what's going to happen, though there may still be a few stubborn attempts to kill it because some politicians have been so hysterical in their opposition and can't move off that position so easily. Also, Trump seems to think he can hold it hostage to get concessions out of Democrats and he's probably wrong.

How long before Republicans turn their goals to (a) just limiting how much rich folks are taxed to pay for this and (b) selling the spin that the Affordable Care Act was always a doomed-to-fail plan and we should stop calling it "Obamacare" and instead call it something that makes it clear Republicans fixed it and made it work?

I should've realized I couldn't take the rest of the day off from this blog with this looming…

96.3% of voting members in the Writers Guild of America have authorized a strike to be called against companies that produce motion pictures and television. 6,310 ballots were cast and 67.5% of eligible WGA members voted.

That's a very impressive vote. You may remember that I said…

I am sure they will get that authorization but the magnitude will be critical. If it's by 51% or even 70%, the Producers will figure that the Guild is weak and divided and that a lousy offer will be accepted. They'll assume that even if we do go on strike, it won't last long. If the vote is 90% or over…well, that might make them think a bad offer won't be cost-effective. (The vote will not be 100% or even a few points shy of that because some of those voting will be writer-producers or writer-directors and some of those folks vote in what they see as the best interests of their non-writer functions.)

96.3% is about the highest number I could have imagined. And the 67.5% is just as impressive in a guild where a lot of members never vote for anything. I hope it will get some more realistic offers on the table. It should but in an era where some CEOs seem to value stubbornness over common sense, you never know.

I haven't put one of these up for a while but I have all these neat graphics I made…and don't be surprised if you see another one or two this week. Gonna be a busy week. (For those of you who don't know, the can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup signals that Mark may not be posting very often for a day or two, and also that I'll be lousier than usual about answering e-mail.) But before I go off to be busy…

If you're an active member of the Writers Guild of America, you have less than three hours to vote for the Strike Authorization. Please vote for the Strike Authorization. It is not a vote to strike. It's more like a show of unity…a polling of the members to verify that they're behind our current leadership and unwilling to accept a crappy deal. Now, you don't want a crappy offer, do you? Crappy offers are why we sometimes have to strike.

Meanwhile, the nominations are closed for this year's Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing and the recipients will be announced shortly. We received a lot of names this year but — and I mention this as something that makes me curious — a surprising number of them were of people who are ineligible for the award because they've already won it. I wrote…

To date, this award has gone to Arnold Drake, Alvin Schwartz, George Gladir, Larry Lieber, Frank Jacobs, Gary Friedrich, Del Connell, Steve Skeates, Don Rosa, Jerry Siegel, Harvey Kurtzman, Gardner Fox, Archie Goodwin, John Broome, Otto Binder, Bob Haney, Frank Doyle, Steve Gerber, Robert Kanigher, Bill Mantlo, Jack Mendelsohn, John Stanley, Don McGregor, Richard E. Hughes and Elliott S! Maggin. Those folks, having already won, cannot win again.

I thought that was clear but I guess I have to be clearer. There were at least thirty nominations for folks listed in that paragraph, including five for Steve Gerber and the one from the fellow who said it was an outrage that the judges were so "unaware of John Broome's contributions to comics" that we hadn't presented the award to him. This kind of thing puzzles me more than it probably should.

I go now to do things. See you in a day or so.

Right-wing pundit Jay Nordlinger lists some of the things conservatives overlook about Trump that outraged them when done by a Democratic president…like playing a lot of golf. A Republican friend of mine used to insist that Obama's frequent usage of the words "I" and "me" proved he was a self-obsessed narcissist who was out of touch with reality. I haven't heard that friend weighing in on Trump's insistence that he really won the popular vote, that he had a bigger turnout for his inauguration than Obama, that he's really popular despite what every single poll says, etc.

I want one of these my kitchen and then I want to have a chicken sitting on top of it to start the process…

A revival of Hello, Dolly! opened in New York the other night. It stars Bette Midler and they will probably sell every seat for every performance until she leaves the show, whenever that will be. I don't think much of Hello, Dolly! as a show but as a vehicle for Ms. Midler's return to Broadway, it's about as perfect a choice as you'll find.

The reviews are all linked on this page where you'll also find a brief video clip of the final bows on opening night.

Here's a good explanation of what's up and what's at stake in the French presidential election.

The race to secure hotel rooms for this year's Comic-Con International commences this Wednesday at 9 AM Pacific Time. You can read all about it here. Good luck. If you should happen to get the one I had last year and you come across a black sock, it's mine.