John Oliver is off this week but even when he's off, he's on…

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, says that he and a group of Republicans who don't want to see Donald Trump in the White House have recruited a third party challenger. I don't believe this and for the simplest of reasons: Bill Kristol said it. I have found that if you disbelieve everything Bill Kristol says, you'll be right an impressive percentage of the time. Donald Trump of course heard about this and immediately lashed back with the claim that Bill Kristol is a loser and a dummy and I hate to say it but Trump is right. Rude but right. He's wrong about just about everything else but he's right about this.

I don't know what's going to happen here and that's my main point: We don't know what'll happen here. Kristol says they have a candidate and it's "an impressive one, with a strong team and a real chance." Is it? The first name that comes to mind is Mitt Romney but I don't know how much of a chance he'd have. He couldn't win the presidency when there wasn't another candidate in the race dividing up the right-wing vote and when he didn't get a late start and he had a major party's backing. Then again, Kristol may not have meant "A real chance to win the Presidency." He may have meant "A real chance to screw Donald Trump and throw the race to Hillary." Hard to say.

Still, the point I want to make is that this could be a real game-changer — maybe not but we can't say for sure yet. Those of you who are certain Trump's going to win in a landslide or that Hillary is going to cream everybody…you need to remember that in the 161 days until Election Day, there will be plenty of game-changers. Not only is this thing not over until it's over but it isn't even close to being over.

This is nice. Ira B. Matetsky, a longtime reader of this site, located an online treatise about soldiers from the American Expeditionary Forces (A.E.F.) who returned home from Europe in 1919. It was written by Edward A. Gutiérrez and it contains two lines about my Uncle Henry derived from an interview conducted with him that same year…

Austrian-born Corporal Henry Evanier, resident of Hartford, enlisted in the National Guard on 14 April 1914 at the age of nineteen; for Evanier, his time spent in France, "Made my love for fellow men much more." A clerk at Aetna Life Insurance Company in Hartford, Evanier had served with the border service in Mexico prior to the war.

I believe Uncle Henry, who passed away in 1962, spent his entire career in the military. I did not know about the border service but now that it's out, I fully expect Donald Trump to condemn him for allowing in so many rapists who bring crime and drugs into this country.

Today's Memorial Day. You probably already knew that. I originally posted the following on Veterans Day of 2010 but it's just as appropriate for Memorial Day. It's all about my Uncle Henry, the guy in the photo below. I don't have a whole lot of memories of Uncle Henry. Darn near everything I remember about him is in this article…

It's Veterans Day so I thought I'd write about my Uncle Henry. One of his brothers (my Uncle Nathan) served in the Army, hated every second of it and refused to ever discuss those years except to generally condemn the way officers treated privates, at least where he'd been stationed. This created some friction with Uncle Henry, who spent his adult life in the military and according to family legend was at one point the highest-ranked Jew in the Army. I don't necessarily believe this but my Aunt Dot (his sister) did and sometimes said it was only because our bizarre surname didn't make it obvious he was Jewish; that if he'd been a Goldberg or a Schwartz, he never would have attained whatever rank he finally attained…Colonel, I think.

I don't know if any other Evaniers of his generation served. My father was 4-F and I don't know about the others. Because of Uncle Nathan's feelings, we never talked about it much. The only time I recall more than passing mention came in 1962 when Uncle Henry died and we drove down to San Diego for the funeral. Before that, we'd gone there almost every year to visit Uncle Henry and his wife, Aunt Phyllis, who lived in a lovely home in La Mesa, which is just outside San Diego. The only memories I have of those visits are of the utter boredom you have when you're a kid in a roomful of adults and you're largely uninvolved in any conversation. So I sat there reading comic books I'd lugged along and I suffered through the ordeal. The next day, my parents and I would do the San Diego Zoo, which I enjoyed enough to make up for the visits to Uncle Henry's.

We didn't hit the zoo on the funeral trip. We drove down on a Sunday and I remember spending the night with my folks in a real crummy motel room, selected for its proximity to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in Point Loma. My father was deeply depressed over the loss of his brother and at first, he wouldn't let me turn on the TV because it seemed inappropriate. As 8:30 neared, he realized he'd miss his favorite comedy show — Car 54, Where Are You? — and he decided that might cheer him up. So we watched that evening's episode. He didn't laugh, my mother didn't laugh and I felt I shouldn't, either.

The next morning, we dressed up and went to a very long service which was held outside by the gravesite. My father, my Uncle Nathan, my Uncle Aaron and I were the only males present not dressed in starched, formal military dress. I got the feeling we were among the few who'd really known Uncle Henry.

Just before speeches commenced, an official of some sort took us aside and told us that the program would conclude with a "salute" that involved a line of soldiers firing rifles in the air. Aunt Phyllis, who had been frail even before her husband of 40+ years had died, had been cautioned about this but the official suggested that "you men" (10-year-old me included) stand by her for the finale because the noise would probably upset her. We agreed to do this though I wondered why the military was saluting Uncle Henry in death by upsetting his beloved partner in life. As a kid, I spent a lot of time wondering why grown-ups did many of the things they did.

Sure enough, after a raft of speeches, a line of armed soldiers marched out in precision drilling manner, following orders barked out by some senior military official. My memory is that these were not all Army; that the whole ceremony was a mix of Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, etc. Uncle Henry was Army but he'd spent the last ten or so years as some kind of intra-military liaison coordinating activities of the various branches, operating sometimes out of Naval facilities. After much marching about and showing-off, the soldiers hoisted their rifles and waited for the command to fire. I was standing next to Aunt Phyllis's chair and she was trembling, dreading the "salute" like it was some horrible ordeal she was being forced to endure. I wanted to yell for them to call it off but everyone was so serious about this seemingly-mandatory ritual that I was half-afraid they'd turn those rifles on me.

Finally after what felt like hours of waiting, they fired into the sky. We were standing about twenty yards from a little groundskeeper shack and at the sound of the rifle shots, every glass window in the cottage exploded and all these serious, unsmiling military guys leaped about three feet in shock. For a flash second there, it felt like a Three Stooges comedy. I don't know why but that's what I thought of and I laughed out loud until I realized Aunt Phyllis was fainting. My father and I stopped her from falling off the chair and a male nurse ran over and tended to her needs. She recovered, of course…but the fact that someone with medical training had been standing by for this possibility further baffled me. They'd actually anticipated something of the sort might happen and had still pressed ahead, "honoring" my Uncle Henry's service to his country by doing something that caused such discomfort to his widow.

My parents and I drove back to Los Angeles that afternoon in (mostly) silence. Occasionally in the back seat, I could be heard snickering about all those rock-serious soldiers leaping about in fear. After a while, even my folks agreed with me that it was kind of funny…or at least funnier than the previous night's Car 54, Where Are You?

In the seventies, Aunt Phyllis died and I was notified that I was named in the joint will of Henry and Phyllis Evanier. For weeks, I expected some small amount of money…but one day, a box arrived and it turned out I'd been left all of Uncle Henry's medals and decorations. Included were dozens of clippings and certificates and they were the treat because they gave me a new appreciation of all that my Uncle Henry had done. From what I could tell, he'd never seen combat…never laid his life on the line to liberate a village or topple the Nazi/Commie menace. Still, he'd more than earned all those ribbons and promotions in rank by utter competence, getting jobs accomplished with precision and accuracy. There was one partial article that suggested my Uncle Henry had solved so many problems relating to keeping certain military bases operational that President Eisenhower had phoned him from time to time to thank him for preventing disasters. The box also contained the official 1947 photo of (then) Major Evanier which I have scanned and posted above.

Today on Veterans Day, it is right and proper that we salute the courageous men and women who go off to war when our leaders, rightly or wrongly, deem it necessary. Matter of fact, we should probably salute them enough on other days that this one is nothing out of the ordinary. But I wanted to remind you all about guys like my Uncle Henry who also have a lot to do with all that the military does for us. They also serve, those who sit and shuffle papers.

One of my favorite comedians, Irv Benson, died May 19 at his home in Port Jefferson, N.Y. He was 102 and that is not a typo.

Don't know who Irv Benson was? Let me tell you. No, I'll do better than that. I'll show you. Watch this video from the 1966 Milton Berle Show. Benson's the guy in the balcony…

But Irv Benson did a lot more than heckle Milton Berle. Irv was one of the last — maybe the last comic from Minsky's Burlesque. He played there and in vaudeville in the thirties and forties. In the fifties and after, he turned up in a number of touring shows that re-created the golden days of burlesque and was often tapped for TV guest roles. Johnny Carson had him on many times playing a stagehand who interrupted the show. Once teamed with a comic named Jack Mann in a vaudeville act, Benson later teamed with the last surviving straight man from the days of Minsky's, a delightful fellow named Dexter Maitland.

In the eighties, Maitland and Benson provided the comedy doing classic sketches in a Minsky's production that ran at the old Hacienda Hotel in Vegas. (I actually first saw them live around 1982 co-headlining with Sandler and Young and a bevy of Penthouse models in The Penthouse Pet Revue at the Sahara Hotel in Reno.) When I went to Vegas, I'd have dinner with Mr. Maitland and sometimes with Mr. Benson, then I'd take in their show. It may sound like Old Comics doing Older Jokes but I never got tired of watching two expert comedians demonstrate the fine art of Comedic Timing.

I particularly loved this joke which Benson would do with Maitland, though it worked better when he did it with Milton Berle…

BENSON

You're too close to the microphone.

BERLE or MAITLAND

How far should I be?

BENSON

You got a car?

I'm not sure what else to say about the man except that I sure wished I'd thought to roll tape when he got to telling me stories about the old days. Benson was one of those guy who just lived and breathed comedy and he did it all across this country for at least six decades, maybe seven. Utterly, totally remarkable.

Even if you're not supporting Bernie Sanders, this oughta put a smile on your face. It's Dick Van Dyke (age 90) dancing when he introduced Senator Sanders at a rally the other day…

Donald Trump thinks we should "look into" an old allegation against Bill Clinton of rape. Joe Conason thinks that if we do, we should also "look into" an old allegation against Donald Trump of rape.

I must say that one of the weaselier tricks in Trump's arsenal is raising questions that others are supposedly asking. It's one thing to say "I believe Bill Clinton (or Hillary or Bernie or anyone) has done this awful thing and here's why I believe it…" That may be promoting a lie but at least you're taking responsibility for your own accusation. When you say, "Some people are saying this…I dunno…I'm just asking questions," that's real craven. And it's pretty irresponsible to try and spread a charge like that if you really and truly don't know anything about it.

Hey, everybody! It's Part 11 in my series of articles about how writers can deal with no one wanting to pay them to write. Part 1 can be read here, Part 2 can be read here, Part 3 can be read here, Part 4 can be read here, Part 5 can be read here, Part 6 can be read here, Part 7 can be read here, Part 8 can be read here, Part 9 can be read here and Part 10? Well, Part 10 can be read here. Part 11 can be read right after I skip a line…

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There. Here we are at Part 11 and this time, let's talk about money. Writers need to make money. That might seem obvious but it apparently isn't to the myriad of people we encounter who expect us to write for them for little or no cash because, after all, we're artists and we are primarily motivated by passion for our work and a burning need to express ourselves. Nary a week goes by where someone doesn't approach me, trying to finagle me into writing something for little or no remuneration. Here is a list of key points that writers need to remember about their profession…

1. It is vital to make a decent living, one which allows you and your loved ones (if any) to live in a safe environment with sufficient food, medical care and other necessities of life.

There are other key points but that one's so important that I'm going to skip the others.  You need those things I just mentioned and you also need some bucks in the bank for emergencies or lean times — oh, and clothing might be nice, too. And maybe a car and gas to run it. And the tools with which to write and you can probably think of other must-haves. The fact that you're a professional writer — or someone who longs to be one — does not change that. Not in any way. If you're nervous that you won't sell the script you're now writing, just think unsettling your sleep will be if a non-sale of that script would cause you to lose your home.

It should not come to that. When you're on the ledge is when you're liable to make really, really bad career decisions. As a writer, you'll probably get lots of offers you should decline. You should say no to insulting pay rates and to projects for which you have zero passion. You should especially turn down those Jobs From Hell where you'll be working for some guy who combines the worst traits of the Tasmanian Devil, Vlad the Impaler and Phil Spector. That's why you need money in the bank. You can't pass on a job when they're dangling the bucks you need to not get evicted this week.

There may also be times in your life when you want to work on a play or a novel or some idea you have which could result in the creation of something wonderful which you'll then go out and try to sell. To write that dream project, you may need to turn down some paying work, which may mean living for a time off your savings. You can't live off your savings if you don't have savings.

So do not be afraid of making money. Money can be very empowering. For one thing, it frees you from having to worry about money.

Now, am I suggesting that if you're a writer and you aren't making enough to live on, you go get a job waiting tables or selling pants or driving for Uber? Well, that might not be the worst idea in the world but wouldn't it be better to get a job writing?

Not being able to pay your bills as a writer may not be a problem of talent as much as of timing. Some publisher might read that spec novel of yours next week, decide you're the next Stephen King and agree to lay a big advance on you. Or it might be eighteen months before you connect with that person and he gets around to reading it…oh, and the advance will be paid six months later. I just thought of another key point that writers need to remember about their profession…

2. The money almost always takes longer to arrive than you'd like and longer than you'd expect. This is obviously true with shady or underfunded producers and publishers but it's also true of honest ones who are flush with cash.

Right there's another reason why you shouldn't try to live from check to check. I knew a writer years ago who was owed a huge, six-figure payment from Universal Pictures. No one disputed it was due him or questioned the amount. It just somehow took six weeks for someone there to issue the check and during that time, he had to borrow money to live on until it arrived.

If you have to go look for a job because you don't have a check like that en route to you, why not look for a writing job? One that may not be what you eventually want to do but which can keep you solvent until you get to it?

When I started out, I wrote for local magazines. I wrote press releases for a publicist. I wrote one semi-naughty novel under a fake name. I wrote speeches for people who were willing to pay to have speeches written for them. I ghost-wrote some advertising work for another writer I knew. It was not the kind of writing I wanted to do but it was writing.

Then I began writing comic books…and yes, I know there are folks reading this who'd think they'd found their calling if they could write comic books 'til they were as old as Stan Lee but this was 1970. Comics then didn't pay that well and the folks who'd then been doing them for most of their lives didn't seem all that happy about it or properly rewarded. Even Stan Lee then wasn't too happy about it or properly rewarded. It was a great job for me though. I was fast and I was learning and I was still living with my parents and I was young and I was getting my work published in a professional situation and I never had to wait tables or stock shelves or run a deep fryer.

I'm not in any way knocking people who do do those jobs. It's just that if your goal is to be a writer, most non-writing jobs don't get you any closer to that goal. The less glamorous/lucrative writing gigs do however give you some money and also some experience writing. You learn about how to set up your work area. You learn how to pace yourself at the keyboard or whether it helps you to write out things in longhand first. You get practice formulating a sentence in your head and then transferring it to the manuscript. You learn that you write better when you arrange your day so you go to bed early and get up early to write…or write until early in the morning and then sleep 'til 3 in the afternoon.

Also, I think there's a skill to meeting a deadline — learning how to budget your time, learning how often to take a break, etc. You can cultivate a sense of when it's going too slowly or too rapidly. If it's going too slowly, you may not have time to keep to that pace. If it's going surprisingly swiftly, you may need to pause and decide if the speed is because you're really, really in the zone or really, really off-course. It's probably one or the other.

I learned — and this is just me I'm talking about here — that it didn't work to write out much of an outline or even notes for myself; that I had to work it out in my head and store it there. I can't tell you why but that's the way I learned I did my best work. I'd think through my story, often during a long walk, and get it to a certain stage of completeness. Only then could I sit down at what was then a manual typewriter and begin filling the paper. There was such a thing as thinking it through insufficiently and there was also such a thing as too much. I developed an instinct as to when I had the right level.

That level changed over the years as I got a better sense of my own strengths and weaknesses and it changed a lot more when I segued into writing on a computer. But the point is I had to know how to figure out where I was doing to go and roughly how I was going to get there before I began putting things down in what I hoped would be their final form.

And then there was the most serious thing of all, perhaps: I had to develop a sense of when what I was putting on the paper was going nowhere or was not up to whatever standard I wished to meet. I had to be able to sense I'd made one or more wrong turns and I had to learn to make the sacrifice of figuratively (sometimes, literally) tearing up the last few pages or maybe even all of them. That is sometimes a hard thing for any writer to do, especially when you think there's some good stuff in there and now no one will ever read or hear it.

None of this is unique to me. Every writer has to go through certain areas of self-discovery and to find out how best to do what they want to do. I know writers, many of whom I respect a lot, who do their work in ways that seem alien to me.

They get up at dawn and never write after the sun goes down. Or they have to physically leave their homes and go to an office somewhere to write. They require certain music playing at a certain volume. Or they demand absolute silence. They need the phone turned off and little chance of interruption. Or they need to not have the sense of total isolation that can come from being totally isolated. They write out long pages by hand on yellow legal pads, then edit and refine as they type it into their computers. Or they can't write on Microsoft Word, they have to use some version of Wordstar from the Bronze Age with certain tab stops and margins. I even know a few writers who can't use computers at all and so produce magic on the kind of primitive manual typewriter that I wrote on at age 14.

There's nothing wrong with any of that…if it works for you. As a writer, you no doubt have one or more dream assignments — things you want to write, jobs you want to get. If and when you get a shot at them, you'd better have all the basics mastered. That is no time to be figuring out how to set up your office or to learn Movie Master Screenwriter or how to write out an outline for yourself.

Now, you may notice that in this piece, I have subtly changed topics on you. It started out to be a piece about how as writer, you need to earn a comfy living and not always be worrying about your electricity being turned off or the Visa people sending a S.W.A.T. team over to surround your home and order you to throw their credit card out the window. It has since morphed into an essay about the importance for a writer to become comfy and efficient writing and to learn how to be productive and meet a deadline.

I did that little switch because I think these are two problems with the same solution: If you can't get the writing position of your dreams, get a lesser one to tide you over. Find a magazine to write for or find an ad agency that needs someone to whip up press releases or go out and write porn (a lot of successful writers have at one time or another) or write pamphlets or ad copy or training manuals or whatever else may be out there.

If you think it would be embarrassing, you don't have to put your name on it, don't have to tell your friends about it. Just make sure it pays and it would also be good if it requires you to write something — anything — and to deliver it on a timely, professional basis.

Don't think of it as admitting defeat because you aren't writing major motion pictures or showrunning a hit TV show or getting your plays produced on Broadway. Think of it as temp work that can help you out financially for a while and prevent you from having to take a job that does not relate in the slightest to what you really want to do. The money from that temp job might save your home and give you enough of a safety net that you can spend more time writing and less time fretting over bills. And the disciplines and experience of that temp job just might help you to someday use that more writing time to write that major motion picture, showrun that hit TV show, get those plays produced on Broadway…

In February of this year, the animation community and everyone who ever knew Joe Alaskey were saddened to hear of Joe's passing at the age of 64. As I wrote at the time…

Joe was an on-camera impressionist and comic actor but he achieved his greatest fame doing voices for animated cartoons, including the role of Grandpa Lou Pickles on Rugrats (following the late David Doyle) and many of the major Warner Brothers characters, especially Daffy Duck. Joe won his Emmy in 2004 for his portrayal of Daffy on the series, Duck Dodgers.

This afternoon, friends and family members gathered together at Joe's favorite restaurant out in Encino (this place) and told wonderful stories about him, then we ate wonderful food that Joe would have been happy to know his loved ones were eating. I was one of the speakers and like those who preceded and followed me, I spoke of a wonderfully talented man who was passionate about his work and who did it so well. (One of those who followed me was Bob Bergen, who speaks for Porky Pig usually and who did in the Duck Dodgers show. So you had Daffy's loyal assistant eulogizing Daffy…sort of.)

If I'd taken notes, I could maybe quote some of the great stories told but I'm a lousy reporter and I was enjoying myself too much to think about that. It was just plain great to spend a little more time with Joe and to hear others' experiences with him. Mine were all wonderful — like the time I had him on a Cartoon Voice Panel at Comic-Con. As I usually do, I asked all the panelists to tell us of some job they had for which they received no billing or attention…something we might be surprised to know they did.

Joe must have had thousands to pick from but he mentioned that he had looped (i.e., replaced the voice of) Jack Lemmon in a few scenes of the movie of Glengarry Glen Ross. I believe it was for the "laundered" version of the film for when it was shown on TV or airplanes or something. Anyway, he went in and imitated Lemmon and redid every line with a naughty word in it…which now that I think of it may have been half the movie. Then he demonstrated for us a flawless mimicking of Mr. Lemmon's voice.

We did not plan the follow-up. I remembered that the first time I'd seen Joe — he was doing stand-up on some TV show — I was impressed by an uncanny facsimile he did of the voice of Walter Matthau. I asked him if he ever did Lemmon and Matthau together, as heard in the film of The Odd Couple.

I don't know if the audience saw this but I sure saw Joe look for a moment like I'd thrown him a high inside slider curve. This was instantly followed by a twinkle of pleasure at the challenge and then I saw Joe's face scrunch like he was rapidly fast forwarding through his memory, running the whole damn movie so he could select a choice exchange. Less than five seconds after I'd asked, Joe performed about a six-line excerpt playing both Walter/Oscar and Jack/Felix. It was dead-on perfect and the audience gasped, then lustily applauded.

Audiences fake applause all the time. We applaud when someone is introduced even when we have no idea who that is. But we don't fake gasping. Three thousand people at that moment gasped aloud at the awesome talent of Mr. Joe Alaskey. And well they should.

It was a great party, Joe. Sorry you weren't there…but I guess, in a way, you were.

There are a number of companies like Reelin' in the Years which collect and license video footage for commercial use. They don't sell to private collectors but they market the material for specials and home video releases and for use on other shows and such. They've been offering the archives of The Merv Griffin Show and now they're handling The David Frost Show.

Frost hosted this series on American TV from 1969 to 1972 — and it got a certain amount of publicity due to the fact that he simultaneously lived in and did another show in Great Britain. He would literally make a transatlantic commute each week to the U.S., tape several shows, then fly home. I believe in the middle of doing all that, he even went to Hollywood for a few days and did an episode of Here's Lucy wherein Lucille Ball's character was hired to accompany him on those flights and guard him from intrusions so he could sleep.

Frost's U.S. talk show came about because Merv Griffin, who was a hit with one in syndication, accepted a deal from CBS to do a late night network show opposite Johnny Carson. Group W, which had syndicated Griffin's show, hurriedly threw together a show with Frost to offer to stations which now had that hole to fill in their schedules. The Frost show was 90 minutes but was also offered in a 60 minute version that ran in some markets.

The emphasis on the Frost show was less on comedy than on hard-hitting interviews and his producers did manage some incredible guest bookings, as you'll see in this sizzle reel. I hope some cable channel starts airing these programs in their entirety…

Our pal Joe Brancatelli writes about what a mess the T.S.A. has become at airports. And Joe makes a good point: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton aren't talking about this because they don't have to wait in line for three hours and still miss their flights.

Jonathan Chait points out how adept Trump is at lying and more or less getting away with it. It's amazing to me — and maybe even kinda impressive in a way — that he can do this without his devoted followers becoming any less devoted. And at the same time, they insist Hillary will say anything to get elected.

I missed noting an important day in my life yesterday. Ten years ago yesterday, I checked into a hospital and had the size of my stomach reduced via Gastric Bypass Surgery. I have done many foolish things in my life but this was not one of them. Since then, I have been thinner and healthier and I'd say I was happier but I've always been pretty happy so I'll just say I've been happier with myself.

I started to write a little essay reflecting on the operation, then paused to look up what I'd written here on the fifth anniversary and I'm not sure I can improve on this…

Five years ago today, I had Gastric Bypass Surgery. It was all part of my continuing effort to persuade my stomach to withdraw to its 1967 borders.

I have not written a lot about it here in the last few years because I thought it would bore those of you who aren't considering such a procedure and it might mislead any of you who are. I really and truly had an ideal experience with no real discomforts or complications, and I don't want anyone to take the plunge, thinking they'll have as easy a time of it as I did.

I'm still in touch with a lady who had it done at the same moment and she's had a helluva time, including three follow-up surgeries and a lot of hospitalization and physical problems. Still, she says she does not regret doing it since what she would have experienced without it would have been worse…and not just because that might have included death. Others who've had it done, I'm sure, may feel they would have lived longer and happier without it.

My weight still fluctuates within about a twenty pound range which doesn't seem to have a lot to do with what I eat. It probably has more to do with how often I get up from this here computer and go out for a long walk. At the moment, I'm inching downwards. I've lost about ten in the last month. I'll go up, I'll go down but the general trajectory has been very, very slowly down. That's a bit of a disappointment after the immediate results of the surgery. I lost the first 65 pounds in the first 65 days.

Almost immediately, I began to sleep less and better. I eat less…and find that many of the foods I used to eat are no longer as appealing. High on that list is anything with a lot of sugar in it. In January of '08, my sweet tooth inexplicably disappeared and I no longer had any interest in cookies, cake, ice cream or even fruit. I am told this is not usually or even often a side effect of G.B.S. and could even be unrelated. At the same time as the pleasure from sugar disappeared, my list of acceptable beverages dropped down to water and almost nothing else. I do have the occasional protein shake and even those can't have sugar in them. Never having cared for artificial sweeteners, I use a protein drink flavored with Stevia.

I could go on and on about the health benefits of what I had done but I won't because someone reading this might become convinced to try it based on my experience…and then they might not have my experience. I've learned enough about this process to know that many, perhaps most do not. I do suggest that if it sounds like something you need, you look into it. You'll need to weigh the costs and risks and benefits, all of which may be unique to you, and then decide.

It helps an awful lot to have a great personal physician — someone you really trust — and you should go to a really good surgeon, preferably someone your physician knows and recommends. Clearly, there are a lot of doctors and clinics out there doing this procedure who should not be doing it and I'd be especially wary of those who advertise lap bands like some new cell phone rate plan. Heck, I'd be wary of those who advertise at all. But the main thing is to do the research…and then have the surgery, if you have the surgery, because you decide and not because someone nudges you into it.

All of that is, of course, common sense. So is the simple premise that if you can lose the weight without surgery, you should.

I couldn't. My physician (who sadly, is no longer my physician because he's now on special assignment, doing amazing missions for your United States Government) guided me through several attempts, then concluded they would not work for me. He had a whole technical explanation that I will muck up if I attempt to replicate it here. It had to do with my blood sugar levels and a tendency for my body to retain amounts of water that equalled the capacity of Lake Michigan.

So five years ago at this moment, I was sitting in the waiting room over at Cedars-Sinai Hospital — or as most people call it, Cedar-Sinai. I was waiting for a 10 AM surgery that didn't happen until…well, they started jointly prepping me and the lady I mentioned above around 1 PM and we went under our respective knives in adjoining operating rooms around 2. Only they didn't use knives for the serious stuff, at least with me. It was laparoscopic surgery, which means they make tiny incisions which heal invisibly. When you sign the consent form, you give them permission to switch to the old-fashioned, cut-you-open path if the presiding surgeon suddenly decides it's necessary…so when a patient awakens after, the first thing most of them ask was, "Were they able to do it laparoscopically?"

That's apparently not what I asked. A nurse in the recovery room told me I asked, "Can we send out for pizza?" That sounds like me and I'm sure I meant it as a joke.

But this kind of surgery is not a joke. It's pretty darned serious, which is why I never want to encourage anyone to do more than look into it…and to not trust just anyone who's available or affordable. And like I said, if you can drop a hundred or more pounds without it, by all means go that route. I have only envy for those who can do it themselves.

Not much I can add to that except to say that I'm still very glad I did it and cannot think of a single thing about my health that worsened. Had I done it years earlier, I might not have needed my right knee replaced last year — another bit of surgery I have not regretted in the slightest. I will say though that I think both good experiences had a lot to do with connecting with real good doctors who were experts at what they did.

Which makes me think of one bit of advice I should include: The Internet is a great place to gather info but only if you know how to ignore info. There's a ton out there of the anecdotal variety and it may do more harm than good. If I'd hit certain websites — or listened to certain "friends" — I might have gone into those two surgeries with a lot of misinformation or needless worries. No matter what you're thinking of having done to yourself, there's someone out there with a story of how it killed their uncle.

Do not base your medical decisions on someone else's story of how it worked for them or didn't work for them. There are outliers in every category and of course, what helped me might not help you and vice-versa. I think one of the smarter things I did in both cases — the Gastric Bypass and the Knee Replacement — was not to tell everyone (or post about them here) before I did them. I consulted several doctors I trusted, matched up things they all told me, used a little of what I sure hope was common sense…and made my decisions.

On the 'net, you can find sites that will tell you Donald Trump was personally hand-picked by Almighty God to come and save the United States from the utter devastation wrought by the Gay Kenyan Obama. It doesn't make a lot of sense to get your medical information via the same browser.

This is a rerun of one of the first videos I ever embedded on this site. I think it's still funny and its message grows ever more relevant to the world in which we live…

Mike Martin sent me an e-mail with subject line "What would Jack think?" It's about a new storyline that Marvel has going with Captain America…

So, obviously the fan base is up in arms about Marvel's new "not a gimmick" that Captain America has been a deep cover Hydra agent all along (so deep that he has prevented their world conquering plans multiple times, apparently). At times, you have quoted Jack Kirby as saying (and I'm paraphrasing) that he didn't mind what later creators did with his characters because that was their take on the subject and it didn't invalidate his work.

But I'm wondering if this storyline's claim that "he has been a Hydra agent all along" might be a bridge too far, since it essentially injects this new take on the character into his entire 75 year history. What are your thoughts?

I haven't seen the comics but I would say it is a "gimmick" the way I define that word, maybe not the way the comic's makers do. It's become very popular in comics — and to see why, you just have to look at the sales figures — to come up with these character-changing events. Some character dies. Some character marries. Some character gets a new costume, thereby abandoning an iconic one. Some character loses a limb or key power or otherwise undergoes a startling change. Some character gets a sex change. Whatever. Eventually, they all get undone, if not by the folks who made the particular issues then by their successors. It ain't good for the merchandising and the long-term health of the property to maul it for very long.

And of course, at some point, someone in the office says, "We've really lost the theme and concept of this comic." And then the jarring gimmick is to take it back to its roots.

I'm a little reticent to say how Jack would have felt about some things. I know his strong feelings on some topics. On others though, you have to remember that Jack was a vast thinker who didn't always view the world or some aspect of it as we (mere) mortals would. He sometimes surprised me with his "take" on some issue and when he did, it was usually because I was looking at a tree and he was looking at the entire forest.

That said, I feel safe to say that the first question Jack would probably ask would be "Is it a good story?" If it isn't, then it's a bad idea right there. If it is, then you go on to Question Two, which would be "Does it box the current and future writers in and damage their ability to create good stories?" If the answer is no, then fine. If it's yes…well, that's why these premise-altering storylines are usually reversed and the dead character is brought back to life or the marriage is forgotten or the whole thing turns out to be a dream or a clone or they just plain reboot the strip and start over.

I would guess that just of stories that continued Kirby characters after he'd departed and were issued during his lifetime, Jack probably never looked at 90% of them. Of the remainder, he rarely recognized anything but the characters' visuals — and sometimes not even that — though he was usually too polite to say so. I can think of a few times he objected to something if he found it personally offensive…and if this new series has Captain America spouting anti-Semitic slogans — yeah, probably. But then he would have objected if they had someone else's hero spouting anti-Semitism, too.

You're right. He didn't much mind what others did with his characters. If they could take what he left them and use it as the starting point to craft new, excellent issues, that was great. He just objected to anyone claiming that he and his successor were collaborating on a single body of work. To Jack, his issues were his issues and they were independent from that other guys' issues. It's kind of like "Build on the land I've left you but please don't strip-mine it." That's good advice in many aspects of life.