• I have one word for the thousands of investigators looking for the lost Malaysian airliner: Banacek.

On March 8, a bunch of folks were inducted into the Television Academy's Hall of Fame and one of them was Jay Leno. Each inductee's induction is preceded by one of his or her peers giving a little speech about him and the one for Leno was delivered by the always-controversial Bill Maher. Maher lived up to his rep and somewhat scolded the press folks who wrote those stories that cast Leno as the Bad Guy in the Conan O'Brien affair.

There are some things I don't like about Maher as a person (some of his attitudes about women) and a few things about his comedy. He has this fake laugh he applies to his own jokes the instant he senses a line is not going to get the hoped-for response. But I also find him very funny at times and there's something refreshing about his attitude of placing honesty over being liked. He has said a lot of things on television that I think others believe but lack the courage to say out loud.

The thing about Leno and O'Brien is a trivial matter, of course, but I think he's right. I also think it speaks well of Leno that Bill Maher, who does not hesitate to criticize successful people, can't find anything bad to say about him. Here's the speech. Beware of strong language, those of you who fear strong language…

If you'd like to see Leno's acceptance speech, which includes a nice shot at fellow-inductee Rupert Murdoch, you can view it here.

As Kevin Drum notes, the best advice Barack Obama is getting on what to do about Crimea is stuff like, "Obama must rally the world, push the Europeans and negotiate with the Russians." Yeah, great advice.

I am reminded of something that happened several times during Writers Guild strikes. I've been through thousands of them.  Okay, it just seems like thousands but they often start like this. Our side (the good guys, the WGA) goes in with its list of demands. The other side (the bad guys, the producers) say, "We're not going to listen to your demands. Here's our one-and-only, take-it-or-leave-it offer." And then they give us this really lousy offer full of rollbacks and reduced rights and they walk out of the conference room and refuse to participate in further bargaining. This gives us but two choices: Accept the crappy deal or go on strike. There is no other real third choice.

So we go on strike and some of our members are very angry we are on strike. Some of our members are angry if the Guild decides to use a different brand of paper towel in the men's room at Guild Headquarters. But some are really angry we're on strike and I always find myself talking to someone who blames our leadership and says —

HIM: Our committee should get in there and negotiate!

ME: The producers refuse to negotiate.

HIM: Then we should insist they negotiate.

ME: The producers refuse to negotiate.

HIM: Then we should get in there and be real tough and demand they negotiate.

ME: The only weapon we have against them is to strike.

HIM: Don't strike! Negotiate! Demand they negotiate! If I were on that committee, I could force them to negotiate!

ME: How would you do that?

HIM: By being tougher than they are!

Eventually, I expect Obama or someone on his behalf will negotiate with the Russians…but you can't force them to have those discussions and the mere fact that they sit down to negotiate doesn't mean we're going to get a satisfactory result.

On the other hand, Putin is probably a lot easier to dicker with than the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

When I was first starting out as a professional writer, I had a lot of brief 'n' odd jobs. For about six months, I wrote things on a freelance basis for a publicist who handled a lot of very famous performers. Actually, I think some of them were more famous before he began handling their publicity but that's neither here nor there.

I basically got two kinds of assignments from him. One was to "write panel" for his clients who were appearing on talk shows — usually Merv Griffin's or Mike Douglas's but occasionally Johnny Carson's. He had clients who basically had no stories to tell…and often, they couldn't get booked on these shows until a Talent Coordinator had met with them, heard a few airable anecdotes and told the producer that the performer had some good stories to tell. So I would try to "enhance" stories they already had but would sometimes wind up just making them up. A few of those humorous tales were eventually uttered from Merv's guest seat and Mike's and even from Johnny's.

The other thing he had me do was to write up press releases and bios of his clients. He'd hand me scraps of notes and it would be up to me to expand and polish them into something that might be of use to a reporter somewhere. One time when I went in to deliver some work, he asked me if I could quickly — like, immediately — write up a bio on one of his clients, a popular male singer. It was needed within the hour so I was shoved into a little room with a typewriter and basically told I wasn't leaving until I got the thing done.

I was about halfway through it when I heard a commotion in the outer office — a lot of yelling and the sound of furniture being moved or slammed or something. I went to see what it was.

What it was was the popular male singer — the fellow whose bio I was composing. He'd stormed in and began screaming at the publicist. I didn't know what it was about. I still don't know what it was about but jeez, was he angry about something. He finished his tirade, then went over and kicked in the screen of the publicist's 30" color TV set. Then he stormed out. I scurried back to the typewriter.

A few minutes later, the publicist — looking quite shaken — poked his head into the room and said, "Uh, never mind about that bio…"

A week or two later — no connection to that incident — the publicist offered me a full-time job…and by "full-time," he meant that he wanted me to write for him and only for him. I was to put in a 40-hour week for him at his office. Then in the evenings and weekends, I was not to write anything for anyone else: No articles, no books, no comic books, no jokes for comedians, nothing.

I didn't understand that as a condition of the job. If I did all the work he wanted me to do, why should he care if I wrote a comic book during what otherwise would have been my free time? He wouldn't explain. He just kept saying, "This is how I do business. Take it or leave it." I decided to leave it, he never gave me another job directly again…and I was glad to get away from him and that kind of work. That was in early 1971 and I have never been exclusive on any job I've done since then.

A few weeks after I left this man's occasional employ, I got a call from a very wealthy gentleman. I will call him Mr. Richman. Mr. Richman had been referred to me by the publicist. Mr. Richman's wife was a lovely actress, a client of the publicist and a spouse of the trophy variety. She was usually cast in the role of blonde bimbo for, as I would learn, the same reason that Billy Barty usually was cast as a very short person.

As stars went, she was not a big one but she had a not-unimpressive list of credits. Mr. Richman, being a rich man, was willing to spend whatever was necessary to make his spouse a much more famous and employed actress. So far, the gains that had been made in this area had been achieved primarily through photography and travel expenses.

Mr. Richman had hired — for a fee I presume was not a small one — the world-famous glamour photographer Peter Gowland and equally-expensive folks to do Mrs. Richman's makeup and hair. They had taken thousands — I am not exaggerating — of photos of the lovely actress in a few dozen outfits, most of them designer bikinis.

Mr. Richman, also at great expense, often engaged a top freelance news photographer. When Mrs. Richman got a two-line part on, say, a Bob Hope Special, Mr. Richman would get permission to send his photographer to the set to snap pictures of the taping — pictures which, of course, prominently featured Mrs. Richman with Bob and/or his stellar guest stars. She would go to every premiere and charity event that would have her…and the camera guy would tail along, snapping pics of her incessantly. They had thousands of these photos, also.

Her publicist — the guy I'd worked for — had little trouble planting many of these photos in magazines and newspapers. Magazines and newspapers do love free photos of a beautiful woman in a bikini and/or with a big star. However, that was not enough. What Mr. Richman really wanted to make happen for his beloved was for her to sit in the guest chair on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and be witty and funny.

She had actually been on the Carson show three or four times already but had not said more than three or four words. When they needed a cute blonde to walk onstage in swimwear, they called her, which I found remarkable. Why? Because she lived in Beverly Hills and The Tonight Show was then based in New York. I have a hunch that if you were a casting director there and you needed a gorgeous blonde in a bikini, you could find one somewhere in the city of Manhattan or the outer boroughs. Instead, she flew in — at her hubby's expense, of course — to do a job that paid way less than the airfare and lodging.

She thought she was a shoo-in to be a full-fledged guest. Johnny, after all, loved it when he could interview an airhead blonde with breasts the size of Buicks. "We have access to the Talent Bookers on The Tonight Show," Mr. Richman explained. That was because of her bikini walk-ons. Twice before, she had flown expressly to New York to sit down with the bookers for a chat that was supposed to prove she was funny and witty enough to be an actual guest on the program.

And twice before, they had decided that she just didn't have stories that were sufficiently amusing. "We're confident they'll give her one more audition," Mr. Richman said. That was where I came in. The publicist suggested that paying money to me might make that last chance audition pay off. So I went to their home — an estate so large it had two sets of servants — one for each zip code it covered. Mr. and Mrs. Richman were very gracious to me and even though I was but nineteen, very sure that I could help them achieve their goal.

He offered me a modest fee to work with her, write stuff for her and rehearse her. A very nice, impressive sum of money would be paid to me if my efforts succeeded in getting her on the show. I asked, "What if I get her on The Tonight Show but with a guest host instead of Johnny?"

He thought for a moment and offered me half the impressive sum should that happen. Then he added, "The real goal, of course, is to get her on with Johnny." But of course.

When I'd done this for other celebrities, I'd chat with them a while, take some of their real-life anecdotes and exaggerate one to make it funnier and, more important, get us to a solid punch line. Try as I might though, I just could not get even get the scraps of a decent story out of Mrs. Richman. She and I sat by her pool for an hour or more and I couldn't find any reality on which to build. I finally resorted to just making things up from the whole cloth.

The one they liked best was pretty lame. I'll tell it to you here and you can just imagine how weak the others were. Just remember I was new at comedy-type writing. But she and her husband howled when I told it to them, and when I rehearsed her in it, she was pretty adorable and funny with it. Factoring in Johnny's pre-arranged questions, it would have gone something like this…

JOHNNY: You've been on our show several times and we always have you wearing a bikini and barely letting you say anything. I feel bad about only asking you to do that so I'm glad we could get you on here, fully-clad.

HER: Oh, I don't mind it, Johnny. It's what most people hire me for. I wore a bikini on a Bob Hope special. I wore a bikini on a Dean Martin Show. [And here she would mention several movies in which she also wore a bikini.] I'm just happy for the work.

JOHNNY: And I suppose they make you audition dressed like that.

HER: All the time. A few weeks ago, a very important director wanted me to read for a scene. It was for a big, important movie and I read the script and I said, "I want to be part of this movie!" My scene was a real good one but it called for me to be climbing out of a swimming pool, dripping wet and wearing a swimsuit. So I wanted to make a great impression and I went out and bought a new red bikini just for the audition. I must have tried on two dozen of them but I found the perfect one and I paid a lot of money for it. Then I went on a vigorous diet and exercise program to get my body in shape.

JOHNNY at this point would have had about ninety possible planned ad-libs. I suggested a few she could suggest. Then…

HER: I didn't eat for three days before and I looked great. I went in and put on the bikini and read the lines for the director and I thought I did great. The next day, my agent phoned and he said, "I've got good news and I've got bad news." I said, "Give me the bad news first." He said, "I'm afraid you didn't get the part." Well, I was disappointed but I said, "Okay, what's the good news?" He said, "They loved the red bikini and they want to buy it from you and get another girl to fill it."

JOHNNY: That really had to hurt. Did you sell it to them?

HER: Of course. You know, some women would say no out of spite but I figured, I love this script and if there's anything I can do to make this movie happen, I'm going to do it. So I sold them the bikini for not much more than I paid for it…and I even fixed it up for them first. I re-sewed all the seams on it.

JOHNNY: That was very nice of you. Why did you have to re-sew the seams?

HER: Well, I have this thread that dissolves when it gets wet…

Like I said, kinda lame. But I thought it was the kind of thing Johnny and his staff would love…and sure enough, when she and Mr. Richman went back to New York, I got a call from them — staying, of course, at the Plaza.  She'd been up to the Tonight Show offices and had told that story and the others we rehearsed to a Talent Coordinator. He laughed and said the bikini story was terrific. "I'm sure it'll get me on as a guest with Johnny," she told me. But the next day, they phoned and politely passed.

Mr. Richman was giving up.  He had paid me the modest sum and there would be no more spent, no more effort.  He said she'd use the story on Merv Griffin's show or somewhere else, thank you very much. That, I thought, was that.

Eight months passed. I didn't see her listed on any other talk show but one afternoon, I tuned in Dinah Shore's program because she had Robert Klein on and before she got to Mr. Klein, she had on a blonde actress who did a lot of bikini parts…and she told the story I'd made up. Same exact story with the exact same punch line about the dissolving thread. I grabbed up the phone and called Mr. Richman to alert him it had been somehow stolen.

"No," he said. "We gave it to her. My wife went in to tryout for Dinah's show and they didn't take her, either. They loved the story but they didn't want her on for some reason. Then this friend of hers got booked because she's on a new series and she needed a story so we told her, 'We've got this one lying around that the talent coordinators over there already like.'"

26 Outrageous Truths About Children's Television…

A happy 93rd birthday today to MAD's Al Jaffee. He's one of the nicest, most beloved cartoonists of all time…and he's still drawing the Fold-In!

So what would Ronald Reagan have done about Ukraine? He might or might not have talked tough but he would have done absolutely nothing.

Then again, there are a lot of people in this country who confuse talking tough with actually being tough.

Badges for this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego will go on sale this Saturday morning. There's a kind of lottery for them that involves logging in and entering your registration code between 7 AM and 9 AM Pacific Time. Read this page for further details.

That page gives ten tips. I am going to quote the last one here…

10. Unfortunately not everyone who participates in Open Online Registration will be able to purchase a badge.

Gaining admittance to the waiting room does not guarantee you a badge or a registration session; there are simply far more people who want to attend than there are badges available. We appreciate your continued support and hope the new changes we made this year will make the process less problematic than it has been in the past.

It would be great if everyone who wants to attend this wondrous event could do so. It would also be great if everyone who wants to find a job these days could do so. There is no convention center on this planet that could hold all the human beings who would like to be at Comic-Con. If you were running the con, you might come up with a different system to determine who gets in and who doesn't but you would still have to turn the same number of people away.

For some reason, the con website seems to have omitted the all-important Rule #11 so I'm going to post it here…

11. If you are unable to secure badges for Comic-Con, do not write, phone or otherwise pester Mark Evanier to help you gain admittance.

I do not work for the convention. I'm just a Special Guest or a Guest of Honor or whatever they call us. Yes, I automatically get in each year. So does everyone who's won one of the con's Inkpot Awards. So do most people who have a decent amount of credits in the industries embraced by the convention. I am not unsympathetic to the position of those who can't get badges but I cannot help you. Each year, a couple of people get really, really mad at me when I say no, while others break my heart with tales of having promised their kids or needing access because they're desperate for work and think that attending Comic-Con will somehow get them some. I think they're usually kidding themselves with that last reason.

If you get shut out this weekend, I can only suggest four things. One is that if you know anyone who is exhibiting at the convention — someone who has purchased space to sell their wares or promote their product — you talk to them. Exhibitors may have extra badges.

Secondly: They will sell out this Saturday for certain…but there may be more badges available later. There's usually a point when returned badges will be put on sale. Badges are non-transferable and if someone can't go, they can get a refund on their badge(s) up until May 23. After that, some returned badges may be offered.

Thirdly: As I mentioned, badges are non-transferable. If someone offers to sell you theirs, don't buy it. It might not be real and even if it is, it might not get you in.

And lastly: The one thing I can suggest to those denied admittance this year is that much — maybe even most of what is grand about Comic-Con is also grand about WonderCon, which is run by the same folks and which takes place at the Anaheim Convention Center from April 18-20. Many of the same exhibitors are there, often with the exact same booths. Much of the same excitement ensues…and I will even be doing some of the same panels there. You can get a badge to WonderCon right now on that website.

Sorry if you don't get in…but please don't complain to me. Matter of fact, please don't complain to me about anything. I get too much of that these days.

I don't think it's still active but there used to be a group here in Los Angeles called the New York Alumni Association. It was an association of former New Yorkers that assembled once a year for a big party and a show. I went one year as a guest. The affair was held on the grounds of Beverly Hills High School and they had hot dogs and pizza and other delicacies from New York, then there was a big ceremony honoring some famous person from New York.

It was at this event that I met Dave Barry, a longtime stand-up comedian who I knew from his appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and other programs. I also knew him as an uncelebrated cartoon voice actor. Barry didn't do a lot of work in animation because his stand-up career took him away from Los Angeles for weeks at a time so studios were hesitant to hire him to voice recurring characters. But when he was in town, Warner Brothers often hired him for its cartoons. He was an impressionist and whenever you heard Humphrey Bogart in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, it was probably Dave Barry. You heard him in other cartoons, as well.

That day I met him, Barry was about to play Vegas. I was heading there a few weeks later so I got an invite to go see him and to hang out with him between shows. Very nice, funny man. I wrote about him here when he passed away.

Here's a video from one of his appearances at the New York Alumni Association. This is the kind of thing he did on stages for around forty years. I always thought he deserved more respect from historians of comedy…

William Saletan discusses an analogy: That denying people of the same sex the right to marry is bigotry on the same level as denying people of different races the right to marry once was. Some time ago here, I think I said that though I was firmly against both forms of discrimination, I didn't think the two situations were precisely the same. Later though, I got to thinking what the distinction might be…and I couldn't come up with much of anything; not if you leave some interpretation of some passages in The Bible out of the discussion. And in a country with separation of church and state, you should.

Saletan actually comes up with a logical one…

From the perspective of a would-be spouse, being denied the right to same-sex marriage can be, in some ways, worse [than being denied the right to marry someone of another race]. If you're attracted to someone of another race, and the law won't let you marry anyone of that race, you can find someone of your own race to marry. You shouldn't have to do that, but you can. But if you're exclusively attracted to people of your own sex, and the law forbids you to marry such a person, then everything conservatives praise about marriage — the sharing, the happiness, the fulfillment, the solemnity, the respect — is denied to you.

He's right…but the public debate about this has never been moved much by logic. It's an emotional issue and most folks' logical arguments flow from their emotional response to the question. Actually, to me, a lot of it lately sounds like the folks still opposing Gay Marriage are down to fighting it because they just plain don't want to lose a battle, no matter what it's about. They'd better get used to it.

Today (Wednesday), the guest on Stu's Show is my pal and the best friend animation ever had, Jerry Beck.  You think I know a lot about cartoons?  I'm Beaky Buzzard compared to Jerry.  He'll be taking about new cartoons and old cartoons and a lot about cartoons you'll be able to buy soon on DVD and Blu-ray…and also about ones you won't.  His visits with your host Stu Shostak are always fun and informative, so make sure you listen to this one.

Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there. Webcasts start at 4 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM Eastern and other times in other climes. They run a minimum of two hours and sometimes go to three or beyond.

Shortly after a show ends, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a paltry 99 cents each and you can get four for the price of three.

So…when last we left my grandmother, she was 89 and living in her home in Hartford, Connecticut. She had lived there for 53 years and if you think that's a long time, consider this. Her daughter (i.e., my mother) lived in the home where I was raised for 59 years. Must be hereditary.

Grandma had lived alone in that house since her third husband passed away in 1984 but five years later, she was no longer able to take care of herself. Her doctor recommended a lovely assisted living facility in Manchester, about six miles away. She toured it, liked it and asked if we could arrange for her to move in there for, presumably, the rest of her life. Easier asked than answered: When I tried to sign her up, they said there were no openings and they had a waitlist that would probably be several years. My grandmother couldn't wait for several years.

I phoned the superior of the person who told me this and he said the same thing: No Vacancies, sorry. Then I phoned the superior of the superior and he told me the same thing: No Vacancies, sorry. Since there was no one superior to the superior of the superior, I put the following to him…

"Okay, I understand you have no openings for my grandmother. Now, how do I get her in there?"

The gentleman on the phone was very nice but he said, "I'm sorry but I can't help you."

I said, "All right. Who can? I'm betting somewhere in the great state of Connecticut, there's someone who knows how to get my grandmother into your facility. I can spend money if I have to." I wasn't sure what I was asking for but some lead is better than no lead.

The superior's superior thought for a moment, then said, "There's an attorney a few blocks from here…he handles the business affairs of a lot of people who live here. He's a very nice man, very concerned with the needs of the aged. If anyone would know, he would." And he gave me that man's number.

I called him up, explained the situation and hired him. How he managed it is a long, complicated story that involved loopholes and obscure laws of the great state of Connecticut, and me acquiring some of my grandmother's assets so as to put her income level into a special classification.

If I fully understood it, I'd explain it but all you need to know is that a few days later, he called me and said, "Your grandmother is now at the top of the waitlist…and by the way, the other people on it are not being inconvenienced much if at all by this. Almost all of them are on waitlists for other assisted living facilities. I spoke to the representatives of the next three on the list and they all expect to go into other facilities shortly…and the next few after the first three aren't expecting to move into any assisted living facility for a year or two."

"Great," I said. "Now, the question is how long will it take before there's a vacancy at the one where my grandmother wants to go?"

He said, "Well, it may not be long. They have four patients there who are over 100 years old."

The very next day, he called me back and said, "Well, they now have three patients there who are over 100 years old." So a vacancy had opened up for my grandmother…and I don't think he made it happen. I was only paying the lawyer $200 an hour. That's not enough for him to go have a 102-year-old human being whacked. In California, you need at least a $500-per-hour attorney…or a government death panel.

It was a nice bit of timing. So was the fact that I had a trip to New York already scheduled for two weeks later. I phoned Brenda the Travel Agent — this was back when some of us booked flights through travel agents instead of doing it ourselves on the Internet — and we did some rearrangement. The day I left New York, I had already planned to fly to Hartford for one day to see Grandma. Instead, we made it two days and we arranged to fly my mother to Hartford to meet me there. Together, we helped get Grandmother moved-in and situated in her new home.

It was really a beautiful place with caring, efficient help. She had a nice room — small but quite sufficient. There were activity rooms with games and television. There was a gymnasium where a 75-year-old version of Richard Simmons led elderly folks in limited exercises.

And then there was the porch. Ah, that porch.

One whole side of the building was a long, long porch that faced a grassy, undeveloped area…and then on the other side of that grassy area was a small forest. There was room on the porch for several dozen people to sit and look out at the greenery and watch as squirrels made their way from the trees to just close enough to the home to be fed. It was a very beautiful, tranquil place to sit.

The food at the facility was good, too. I'd rented a car to get us around and I was going to take my mother and grandmother to dinner somewhere nice. Then the admissions officer told us, "You're welcome to have supper with us here if you like," and my mother suggested we do that and sample what Grandma would be eating. I had a baked chicken breast, whipped potatoes, steamed carrots and for dessert, a cupcake. I have had worse meals in restaurants to which I willingly returned.

Grandma was very happy with her new home and with the fact that I — with the help of that lawyer — would be handling all her finances and taxes and such, including the sale of her home as well as the belongings she'd decided to abandon. Still, when it came time for us to leave, she began crying. "I'm afraid I'll never see you again," she said to both of us. We assured her that was not so; that we'd come and see her.

My grandmother lived a little less than eight more years there. In truth, she did not see her daughter in person again, though they spoke many times on the phone. I was going back to New York often on business and I managed three side trips to Manchester while she was alive. I therefore watched as my grandmother slowly but certainly lost her ability to recall or remember anything.

She was never in pain, they told me. Her doctor described her as "happily confused." When her friends there died, she either forgot about them quickly or never realized they'd passed. When her condition deteriorated, she never knew it.

On my first visit, she knew who I was and was so happy to see me. We sat out on that porch and watched the squirrels and it all seemed so restful and serene. Then I took her to dinner at a wonderful seafood restaurant I'd heard about. When I had to go, she hugged me and cried and said, "I'm afraid I'll never see you again." I assured her she would.

Two years later, she sort of knew who I was. Again, we sat on the porch for an hour or two but I didn't take her out this time. Instead, I talked with her nurses about things she needed there. A family friend had been visiting her once a week and making sure she had new clothes when needed, batteries for her radio, etc. I made a shopping list while I was there, drove over to a shopping center and got her new outfits and a new pillow and a lot of grandmother toys.

She was very happy with the gifts but at one point, she suddenly asked me to remind her who I was. That's when I knew things were getting bad in that department. Also, when I left, she did not hug me and cry and worry that she would never see me again.

The last time I visited her, she was 96. We sat on that great, wonderful porch and she could understand who I was and hold onto that information for about twenty seconds at a time. I'd say, slowly and distinctly, "I'm your grandson, Mark. I'm Dorothy's son. You are my grandmother. I'm your grandson, Mark."

It would register but not for long. She'd say "Mark" and I'd see her eyes fill and I'd hug her…

…and by the time I stopped hugging her, she'd say, "You're a nice young man. I wish I knew who you were." That one was a very short visit. And somehow, sitting out on that porch and watching the squirrels wasn't quite as tranquil.

A few months later at the age of 97, she passed in her sleep. No pain. No awareness she was dying. Not a bad way to go.

I called Brenda the Travel Agent and said, "My mother and I need to go to Hartford for her mother's funeral on Wednesday." I expected it to be beastly expensive since we were flying on such short notice but Brenda told me about Bereavement Fares.

Some airlines offer these and some do not. With those that do, you call up and say you need to go somewhere on short notice for a funeral and they give you something like 50% off on the full-price fare and maybe waive a lot of fees. Given that on the 'net, you can sometimes find a flight for less than 50% off the full fare, that may or may not be what you want. Also, you should know that some airlines, before they'll give you one of these discount fares, make you leap through a few hoops to verify that you really are flying back to attend a funeral of a loved one. I think we had to give them the name of the funeral home and they called it to verify.

Two days later, my mother and I got on a Continental Airlines flight to Cleveland where we would change planes and then head to Hartford. This was back in the days of in-flight meals and neither my mother nor I had eaten anything before we got on the first plane. The food was inedible so we were both hungry when we deplaned in Cleveland. We had a three-hour layover there so I went up to a nice lady at our departure gate and asked, "What's the best restaurant in the airport?"

She said, "Across from Gate D-10, there's a Burger King."

I said, "No, we've got a couple hours here. What's the best restaurant in the airport?"

She said, "Across from Gate D-10, there's a Burger King."

I said, "That's the best restaurant in the airport?"

She said, "That's the best restaurant in the city."

Every time I tell this story, I hear from folks who live in Cleveland telling me of superb places to dine. Hey, I'm just telling you what the lady at the Continental Airlines gate said. I hiked down to Gate D-10 and got myself a terrible burger. My mother decided to wait until we reached Hartford…then once we were on the second plane, regretted that decision. "When we get there," she said, "I'll need something to eat in a hurry."

When we got there, all the restaurants in the airport were closed. We got our luggage and I picked up the rental car, then I picked up my mother and our luggage, then we went to the hotel Brenda had picked out. It was a Holiday Inn near the airport and as we checked in at 10:05 PM, I said to the lady at the desk, "Please don't tell me that Room Service closed at ten."

She said, "It didn't. But only because we don't have Room Service."

I asked her where we could get something to eat and she mentioned a few Denny's-type places a mile or so away. By now, it was snowing and my mother was exhausted and not thrilled with the idea of getting back in the car and driving somewhere else. I asked the desk clerk lady if she knew of any place that delivered, even if it was just pizza. There was a sports bar just off the hotel lobby and she motioned to it and said, "I think they make pizzas in there."

I asked my mother, "Could you be happy with pizza from in there?"

She said, "By now, I'd be happy with a Burger King down by Gate D-10. Just, please, get me to my room and get me something to eat." So I got her to her room, tossed my suitcase in mine and headed for the sports bar in search of pizza.

Since I don't drink and don't avidly follow sports, a sports bar is an alien world for me. This one was festooned with photos, pennants, bobbleheads and autographed balls from every local team involved in any sport more competitive than a potato race. A number of older men were sitting around watching wall-mounted television sets tuned to different events, all sans audio. The working premise seemed to be to feign interest in The Game and hit on the young ladies who worked there.

Working the bar and waiting tables were three women who looked barely old enough to drink. Each was wearing a striped referee shirt complete with whistle, hot pants, high knee socks, athletic shoes and a baseball cap. Each greeted me cheerily and said, "Welcome back!" and then the one behind the bar asked me, "What'll you have?"

I replied, "The usual!"

Trying to place this face of mine that had never been there before, she said, "Uh, remind me. What's your pleasure?"

I was going to say Laurel and Hardy movies but instead, I told her "I'd like a pizza."

She said, "Pizza? We don't have pizzas here."

I said, "The lady at the hotel desk said you made pizzas here."

She said, "I don't think we make pizzas here." Then she turned to another girl and said, "Heidi, we don't make pizzas here, do we?" Heidi didn't think so. Then they asked Ellen and Ellen said, "There's a thing that says Pizza Hut on it in the back room."

A quick discussion ensued and it was decided that, yes, this sports bar did serve pizzas but only on the day shift. Why? Because no one had asked about them for months in the evening and the three ladies on duty just then had all been here less than ten weeks. "I guess we do make pizzas here," the first lady said. "But none of us knows how to do that."

Then Heidi said, "I'll bet Alice would know how to make one. She worked on the day shift for a long time." Alice was on her break and a few minutes later when she returned, she said, "Sure, I can make you a pizza. What would you like on it?"

She dug up a menu and as I studied it and tried to decide, she made a quick inventory of the back room, came back and said, "We're out of everything except pepperoni. But the good news is we have dough and cheese and sauce." I said, "I'll take one that's half dough and cheese and sauce, and half dough and cheese and sauce and pepperoni." She said it would take about twenty minutes and went back to perform the delicate operation. The first girl drew a long, tall beer from their tap, placed it in front of me and said, "Here…while you wait, this is on the house."

I said, "Thanks but I don't drink beer." If you want to see the look she gave me, just walk around and tell people you don't breathe oxygen.

I settled for a 7-Up and she said, "Well, have a seat. The game's on. Chargers versus Broncos." (I may be misremembering the names of the teams.)

I said, "Thanks but I don't follow football." Same reaction.

Having convinced this woman I was gay, I went over to a pay phone in the corner and called my answering machine back home. There was a call from my agent. There was a call from my business manager. There was a call from an editor. There was a call from the lady who was housesitting my home. And then there was this call from my friend Harvey…

"Hi, Evanier. I was in your neighborhood and thought I'd take a chance and see if you were home. But of course, you're not. You're probably out with some beautiful woman and a bunch of your show biz friends, going to a screening or a party or something. You lead such a thrilling, glamorous life."

I thought, in reply: "Yeah, Harvey. A glamorous life. Why, do you know the thrilling, glamorous thing I'm doing right now? I'm sitting in a damned sports bar in a Holiday Inn by the airport in Hartford, Connecticut watching it snow outside while a Barbie doll dressed as a basketball referee makes me a Pizza Hut pizza, and then tomorrow, I'm going to an old folks' home to clean out my grandmother's belongings. Life doesn't get much more exciting than that!"

Just then, Alice knocked on the booth to get my attention. She said, "I'm sorry. We don't have enough pepperoni to cover the half of the pizza you wanted pepperoni on. I was thinking, maybe I could chop up some of the olives we put in martinis and put them on the pizza. Would you like that?"

I turned back to the phone and, even though I wasn't actually talking to him, I said, "Hold on, Harvey. I was wrong. Life just got even more exciting!"

To be, as they say, continued…

Hey, how about a medley of tunes from James Bond movies? (Which reminds me: Here it is the middle of March and I don't think I've purchased a new video version of Goldfinger all year…)

• Why would the CIA spy on Congress? Why wouldn't they just kidnap our representatives and waterboard them? Much easier.

Dealing with deadlines today. I tell people I feel like I'm on vacation any time what I'm writing doesn't have to be in tomorrow. Today, I'm writing stuff that has to be in today. So you won't see a lot of me on this blog 'til some things are done and in and gone.

It's interesting how my profession has changed due to the Internet. I now deliver just about everything I do via e-mail. Not all that long ago, I had to print scripts out on paper and physically transport them, either by taking them in or mailing them. Mailing cost me a few days. If they needed it in New York on Monday, I had to get it done by Friday or, before Federal Express, Wednesday or so. Now, if they need it in New York on Monday, I can sometimes finish it on Monday.

I had an argument once with a New York-based editor over that. I said I'd have the script in on Monday…and I did. I sent it via e-mail at 4:00 PM my time, which was 7 PM where he was. He'd left the office and gone home by then — and since he didn't check his mail from home, he didn't see it until the following morning. To him, I was a day late but I said, "Hey, I said I'd send it in on Monday. I sent it in on Monday." He gave me a little condescending lecture on the importance of promptness in our industry and then, as is way too usual, his firm took about three months to pay me.

General rule of thumb for writers: The more insistent they are about you getting your work in on time, the less they care about paying you promptly. Nowadays, instant delivery of scripts is expected via e-mail. I haven't heard of any publisher setting up a process via which the payment can be deposited in your checking account just as instantly.

I have worked for one animation studio that does that and it seems to work quite well. I'd deliver something and the payment was in my bank account within the hour. They told me it was easy to set up and very simple on their end from a bookkeeping standpoint.

The only downside is that they have to turn loose of the money sooner…but with interest rates as low as they are these days, they're not losing much to do that, and they say it causes writers to deliver more efficiently. If you work in publishing and you're having a problem with tardy delivery of work, you might want to look into this.

Back to the deadlines…