This excerpt from Martin Short's autobiography is headlined, "My Saturday Night Live Hell." I don't think he gave it that title because it doesn't sound all that hellish to me.

Will Durst on the threat of Ebola. It's sounding more and more to me like the bigger threat is people who want to benefit from scaring others about it.

We set the clocks back an hour last night and I was so immersed in writing something that I got confused. I looked at the clock in my computer taskbar, saw it said 1:25 AM and had to wonder, "Is this the first 1:25 AM today or the second?" I had to look around the house until I found a clock that didn't automatically update itself to realize it was the second.

Tonight, of course, is the gala Stan Freberg Tribute at the Egyptian Theater. I'm not sure if any tickets are still available — there's no one I can call at this hour — but if you want to be there, you might try this link and see if it'll sell you a seat.

I'm co-producing the event with two great guys named Howard Green and Arthur Greenwald, and I'm amazed at how much there was (and still is) to do. I think Arthur and I talked on the phone twenty times yesterday. Howard and Arthur have both done a lot of these and their wisdom is invaluable but, as I'm learning, wisdom and experience are essential but so is the commitment to just plain doing the work.

I'll probably write a long post about the process next week. I'm less interested in telling you folks about it than I am in having a written reminder to myself. Next month when someone asks me to get involved with a tribute to Gallagher, I want to be able to re-read that piece, remember how much time 'n' attention the Freberg evening required and then say, "No, I don't think so…" I'd do it for Stan but not too many other people.

One friend of mine once told me something about organizing an event of this sort. He said, "Something will go wrong that you can't possibly anticipate. You can sit down and make a list of 100 things that might go wrong and what does will not be on that list." Can't wait to see what it'll be. I'm thinking the projectors will blow up and we'll have to simulate the clips from Stan's career with hand shadows. I'm going to go practice doing the Lone Ranger commercial…

A handful of remaining tickets are at this moment available for the Stan Freberg Tribute tomorrow night at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. Fandango handles the ticket sales for the Egyptian and right this second, you can order tix via the Fandango app for iPhone or Android phones. The Fandango website does not seem to know about them. I have no idea why this is. However, you can access the mobile app page from your computer by clicking here. Once these are gone, there will be no more.

Hey, remember that play I saw the other night? The one I liked a lot? Well, here's a little sample of it. Tickets can be obtained here.

A dozen or so tickets have become available for the Stan Freberg Tribute tomorrow evening at the Egyptian Theater. Check back here in a little while and I should be able to tell you how to get one or more of them. I don't know yet if they'll be going up on the online ordering site.

Mark Binelli on the disaster that has resulted since Kansas tried the old "supply-side" theory of trickle-down economics. It's never worked anywhere but that won't keep certain folks from fighting for it.

I have a theory that years ago, a bunch of rich folks hired an unscrupulous economist and said, "We need an argument we can advance to poor and middle-class people that they'll somehow be better off if we don't pay taxes." He thought for a while and came up with this.

They said to him, "Won't that harm the economy?" and he answered, "Yeah…but what will you care? You'll be richer than ever."

Tomorrow evening, of course, is the big Stan Freberg Tribute…and I don't mind telling you that an awful lot of hours have been spent planning it. More will be spent today, mostly on finalizing video and prepping the Egyptian Theater. My co-producers are Howard Green and Arthur Greenwald and we've divvied up what has to be done. I, the non-green co-producer, don't have to deal with installing lights, testing audio, coordinating with the theater's staff, etc.

This is a wise division of labor because I'm a ninny at that kind of thing. If you left it to me, we'd wind up running the whole evening off one Kenner Give-a-Show Projector. Stan and his work deserve better than that.

One hard part has been deciding which of his work won't get in. We have only so much time and Stan has done oh so many things. I suspect that one big "takeaway" from the evening will be that folks will be amazed at the man's versatility. Shortly after it's over, I may have to begin slapping people who come up to me and say, "Why didn't you show my favorite thing of his?" Because we didn't have nine hours, you cloth-head!

We are, of course, sold out. There seems to be a slight chance that about ten seats will become available. If that happens, I'll tell you about it here and you can all mud-wrestle for them. We have at least one person who is flying over one thousand miles to be there and to get Stan to sign a couple of his treasured Freberg records.

I would tell you about other things going on in my life lately but there don't seem to be any of them. Look for other topics to resume on Monday, though I will have a long Tale of Something or Other for you tomorrow. You'll like it. It involves a TV star and a stripper.

Misconceptions from the movies…

Fred Kaplan thinks things are not going well in our nation's battle against ISIS. That's not comforting to hear.

I don't know if I should believe the allegations of rape by Bill Cosby and this posting is not about whether they're true or not. It's about how if even two of those surfaced about most other stars, that other star's career would be kaput, over, bye-bye. But multiple, similar claims against Cosby have been around for years and not only has no one arrested him, I don't think any talk show ever didn't invite him on or mention them.

The Queen Latifah Show apparently just canceled an upcoming Cosby appearance…though I believe the official story is that he asked to postpone. That and some reported cash settlements with accusers seem to be the only damage Mr. Cosby has sustained.

Like you, I love Bill Cosby the Performer and perhaps a little of that love is protecting him. Mostly, I would imagine it's that we've never heard talk of an actual arrest or prosecution. If we hear about the allegations at all — and many people have not — a little part of our brain thinks, "I don't want to believe that about Bill Cosby…so I won't until the cops come for him. If they don't, maybe it's not what they say."

We can all understand why some victims in such a situation would be reticent to push for prosecution. The Cos is a beloved and powerful person. He could easily afford lawyers and detectives who would go through an accuser's past with a microscope. If he were ever to go on trial, a media circus is more than likely with TMZ and other outlets milking it for every drop. It might be very hard to put such a horrendous incident behind you if you became notorious as The Woman Who Accused Bill Cosby.

We don't always treat rape victims well in this society. In the O.J. Simpson case, the prosecutors and investigators had their reputations assaulted, too. Maybe some of them are a little leery of engaging the kind of legal team William Henry "Bill" Cosby could afford.

As you can probably tell, this whole thing bothers me a lot, starting with the fact that if he is guilty, there's a good chance he can get away with it in terms of the law. But I'm also amazed that he's gotten away with it as much as he has in the court of public opinion. Thirteen accusations? My God.

The Stan Freberg Tribute is on for this Sunday evening, commencing at 7 PM sharp at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. If you don't have your tickets…well, don't say I didn't warn you. We're sold out.

A lot of folks have written to ask me if they'll be able to get Stan's autograph that evening. We've arranged for Mr. and Mrs. Freberg to be available after the event and they're bringing some books and photos to sell, plus Stan will sign records, posters or any Frebergian memorabilia you care to bring along for the customary price of $25 a signature. There will be a table in the lobby following the big on-stage gala.

Several folks have told me that they're planning to go to the Musso & Frank Grill across the street and have dinner before the show. This will be a good trick since the Musso & Frank Grill is closed on Sunday. May I recommend Miceli's, a fine Italian eatery on Las Palmas near Hollywood Boulevard? And may I recommend that if you've never been to Musso & Frank, you go there some time when it's open? One of my favorite places to dine.

I wonder what Cole Porter's reaction would have been if, when he wrote "Anything Goes" in 1934, you'd told him that some day, two guys who I think live on different continents would collaborate via something called "The Internet" to make a video in which each of them took two parts in singing four-part harmony on his song, then recorded imagery with computer graphics and distributed it to the entire world via something called "YouTube." I have a feeling Mr. Porter would have thought there was something way more shocking than a glimpse of stocking…

It can be dangerous to go see a play written by a friend. Heck, it's scary enough seeing one in which a friend is performing…but at least then if it's an excruciating evening, you can say something like, "You deserve to be in something better." When you know the author…well, what do you say with your mouth when your face is frozen from witnessing the opening number of Springtime for Hitler? You're stuck with ambiguous, faux compliments like…

• "This is an evening I'll remember for a long time!"
• "Only you could have come up with something like this!"
• "That was memorable! Truly memorable!"
• "I've never seen anything like it before!" (Or if the horror is how much of the play was stolen from real good ones, "It reminded me of so many of the classics!"
• "This was much, much better than so many things that aren't nearly as good as this!"

Fortunately, I needed not a one of those last night when Carolyn and I went to see A or B, a new comedy having its world premiere at the Falcon Theater out in Burbank. My pal Ken Levine had the decency to write a real good and clever script that held our attention and kept us laughing throughout.

You probably read Ken's fine blog and know his work. If so, you can skip the following paragraphs about who he is, which I stole from an online bio. (If you do read them, pretend they mentioned that Ken's TV work has been done in partnership with another clever gent, this one named David Isaacs)…

Levine's career has spanned over 30 years. He worked as the head writer of M*A*S*H, producer of Cheers, creative consultant of Frasier and Wings, wrote episodes for The Simpsons, The Jeffersons and Becker amongst others. Levine also co-created three of his own series including Almost Perfect starring Nancy Travis. A or B? is Levine's second stage play. His first, Upfronts and Personal received several stage readings in Los Angeles and New York with cast members including Jason Alexander, and Ed Asner.

Within the last 20 years Levine did radio/TV play-by-play for the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, and San Diego Padres, contributed to ESPN and Fox Sports, as well as hosted Dodger Talk for eight years on the Los Angeles Dodgers Radio Network, of which he was twice named Best Sports Talk Host by the Southern California Sportscasters Association. Levine carries an Emmy, two Writers Guild Awards, and Peabody and Humanitas recognition.

So the guy's done something. I suspect you'd know that if you saw A or B? with no clue as to the prior experience of the author. It's really well-crafted and every line is either funny, insightful or — most often — both.

It's about a man and a woman (I told you he was clever) and about the many ways in which their relationship might develop. Initially, she meets him for a job interview but, as so often happens, there's a rumbling of romantic attraction from the get-go. What could result if she doesn't get the position but does wind up sleeping with him? What could happen if she does get hired and the love connection submerges, only to surface later?

A or B explores many possibilities. Each time the actors play a scene in which "A" happens, it's followed by one in which "B" happens instead. I'll admit to briefly losing score a few times but I never lost my interest in those two people and how their lives evolved.

Ken had a great assist in making that happen. The direction by Andrew Barnicle is sharp and smooth. And the two people are portrayed by two first-rate actors who get every bit of humor and meaning out of every line. The guy is Jason Dechert, who somehow manages to be handsome, smart, naïve, strong, vulnerable, serious and funny, all at the same time. The gal is Jules Willcox, whose energy and personality just sparkle from the first line of the play. She, like Dechert, goes through a rainbow of emotions, often doing a 180° reverse from moment to moment, but still maintaining a human, consistent characterization.

These are not easy roles that Ken has written and he got really, really lucky to find two people who could handle sudden changes that might have given lesser actors a bad case of whiplash. That was another thing that held onto my interest and wouldn't let go from the start until the final curtain. That…and the fact that they're both so adorable that you really feel you're watching a couple and not actors portraying a couple.

Well actually, there was no final curtain because the Falcon doesn't have a curtain…but you know what I mean. If you haven't been there, it's a little jewel box of a theater that I suppose exists because Garry Marshall has just too much money and didn't know what to do with it all. (Ken engages in a shameless bit of product placement: Ms. Willcox's character keeps talking about the movie Pretty Woman, directed by the Falcon's owner. There are also, as on Ken's blog, references to Natalie Wood and to the destructive micro-management practiced by TV networks these days.)

The Falcon is out in Burbank, across the street from the Bob's Big Boy. The play runs through November 16 and there are tickets left but not many. If you know Ken, don't worry. It's safe to go. You'll be able to tell him you had a great time and you won't have to lie.

Here's a real nice rendition of a song I like even though I totally disagree with the advice it gives. But then I don't suppose whole generations would fall in love with a tune that said you should forget about wishing on a star and instead come up with a good, realistic goal for your life and then go out and try to make it happen…