I spoke the other evening to a friend in Florida who's between hurricanes. He's not too worried for his area but pretty concerned for folks not-all-that-far from him. If you live in an area that's threatened and you're reading this, I hope it's from a safe place even if you had to evacuate to get to it.

And it's hard to think of much more beyond that at the moment but I'll try to come up with one thing…

Oh, I know. I'm getting a ridiculous number of spam calls lately from folks who claim to be calling from Walgreen's Pharmacy — a business which has no business whatsoever with me. They've never filled a prescription for me or sold me anything more medicinal than a bag of Cheetos. Nevertheless, the callers want to "update" my records with them and they have all sorts of medical-type questions they want to ask me. If I play along at all, the questions go like this…

LYING CALLER: We need to verify the name of your primary care physician. Could you let me have that please?

ME: Don't you have that in your files?

LYING CALLER: Yes but we have so many names here. Please tell me the name of your primary care physician.

ME: Read me some of those names and I'll tell you when you get to the right one.

LYING CALLER: There are too many here to read to you. Just tell me the name of your primary care physician.

ME: It's Boombatz. Dr. Vinnie Boombatz. Do you see him there on your list?

LYING CALLER: Ah, yes. There he is…

But I actually had one of these lying callers go honest on me. He told me he was calling from Walgreen's and I said, "No, you're not. You're just trying to gather information that's none of your f'ing business and you're going to ask me to name my primary care physician." And he said, "You're right. This is just a scam deal but it's the only job I could get" and he hung up. This guy would never make it in politics.

The auctions are open! A group of cartoonists have done or donated drawings to the cause of electing Guess Who as the next President of These United States. As I understand it, the funds collected go to groups backing the Harris/Walz ticket so here's your chance to score a lovely piece o' art and contribute to that effort.

Here's a 1986 profile of Joe Barbera on 60 Minutes. First, some notes: The voice actor you'll see briefly is Stanley Ralph Ross, who was more of a writer (he wrote the Adam West Batman show and developed the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman show among many other credits) but he sometimes acted and did voices. Huckleberry Hound was not the first product of the Hanna-Barbera studio. That honor belongs to The Ruff & Reddy Show.

There's a scene in there where Barbera is pitching to NBC execs and I, who pitched to them myself many times, recognize Phyllis Tucker Vinson and Sam Ewing. There's a creative meeting with writers and artists at the H-B studio and I recognize Glenn Leopold, Tom Ruegger and Iwao Takamoto.

And I think when Joe is talking about networks laundering his shows, he's overstating the problem somewhat but I've written about this elsewhere here. It is a nice portrait of a fascinating man who was a great salesman and an important part of a lot of lives, mine included. Thanks to "John G." for sending me this link…

Something of interest will be here later today. No, let me amend that: Something will be here that's about as interesting as anything ever is on this blog. You'll be the judge of whether it's of interest to you…as this post probably is not. But I'm dealing with deadlines and meetings these days and I'm also looking in horror at what the poor folks in the path of that one-two hurricane punch may be living through..and of course, we hope they all live through it.

Marjorie Taylor Greene says that someone somewhere is controlling the weather. I wish that was so because then maybe more benevolent weather controllers could take over and stop this horrible destruction. I don't think that's possible but maybe we could do a lot more to prepare for events like this.

Did you ever see this? It's a music video for Herb Alpert's rendition of "Puttin' on the Ritz" and it's said to have been shot in one continuous take with no edits. One online page says it's a creative collaboration between Alpert, artist Glenn Kaino, filmmaker Afshin Shahidi, producer Kerith Lemon and choreographers Napoleon & TabithaD'umo. The lead dancer is Vincent Noiseux. This has been around for a while but somehow I never was aware of it until recently…

The Charlotte Observer, a newspaper in hurricane-devastated North Carolina, has published an editorial entitled "Shame on Donald Trump for worsening NC's Helene tragedy with political lies." You can read the entire piece here but I'll quote just the beginning…

Western North Carolina is trying to pick up the pieces left behind by Hurricane Helene, which decimated the region, leaving communities destroyed and a death toll in the triple digits. This is not a situation to capitalize on for political gain. But former President Donald Trump has politicized the situation at every turn, spreading falsehoods and conspiracies that fracture the community instead of bringing it together.

And it ain't much nicer to Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the self-described "Black Nazi" who's running for governor and is only, according to the latest poll, seventeen points behind his opponent.

What is with these guys who don't understand that human lives are involved here? That people are killed, homes are destroyed, businesses are outta business, etc.? I don't think there's any greater test of leadership than leadership in a time of life-threatening emergency.

Less than thirty days to Election Day, it looks a lot closer than anyone would like but I'm still optimistic. Yeah, it's maddening that they continue to lie and lie and lie — and you know who I think "they" are — but it's looking more like desperation than anything else. Here's Politifact face-checking a speech Trump gave the other day. And here's Jonathan Cohn debunking JD Vance's claim that Trump "saved Obamacare."

I do get that there are people in this country who are super-paranoid about "immigrants" to the point there they don't differentiate between the legal kind and the illegal kind. And I get that that fear is not lessened even if they recognize that some or all of the Trump/Vance horror stories are fabricated. I still think Harris/Walz will triumph…and that if they don't, that'll be the main reason.

Apparently, Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't believe that nature can change the weather but that secret cabals of humans can.

The new document dump from Special Counsel Jack Smith is even more damning than we first thought and new details keep emerging. Josh Kovensky covers some of them.

And to wrap up for now, here's a new commercial from The Lincoln Project that I would think would swing some votes in the right direction…

Jim Walton, who originated the role of Franklin Shepard in the musical Merrily We Roll Along sings a tune from that show…

We are still interested in what becomes of the Jim Henson Studio Lot — formerly owned by all sorts of people including Herb Alpert, Red Skelton and Charlie Chaplin — over on La Brea Boulevard in Hollywood. Rupert Murdoch's New York Post and other outlets reported it had been purchased by the Church of Scientology and that caused all manner of reactions across the Internet. But the Henson folks have now issued a statement saying, "In regards to recent rumors about the sale of the La Brea studio lot, the Henson family is not in any business dealings with the Church of Scientology, and that organization is not in consideration as a potential buyer of the property."

So we dunno what's happening there but it seems pretty certain it is not a done deal the way the Post and other sources were claiming. A lot of those getting it wrong also seemed to think that Scientology was acquiring the famous Muppets as well, which could never be the case. Most of the known Muppets are either owned by Disney or are in business relationships with the folks who bring us Sesame Street. They wouldn't come with the buildings. The Jim Henson Company as it now stands owns current projects that it has developed — like Puppet Up! — and I suppose it could be sold but there is no indication that it has been or that the family is willing to part with it.

I've had a couple of requests for updates on how my broken ankle is healing since I broke it 258 days ago. Here's your update: It's healed. At least, the doctor who did the surgery looked at x-rays and complimented his own work. The problem though is that the foot attached to said ankle hasn't fully healed from having various rods and screws inserted into it…so the ankle is fine but the foot isn't.

Thus, I am still having trouble walking, part of which has sometimes been because the knee on that leg is worn out and in need of replacement. Various injections keep it lubricated for periods of time but I'm generally having balance issues. I can walk but not well, especially on uneven ground. Still, it's better than it was last month when it was better than the month before when it was better than the month before…and so on. I guess I'm just lucky to be in a line of work where you can earn money while sitting down.

And that's basically your report. By the time I do another one of these, I expect to be balancing better than Simone Biles. So it may be a while.

A recent interview of a very smart, funny man named Michael Palin…

"Gary from Buffalo" wrote to ask…

You have mentioned on occasion that you were friends with Norman Maurer, son-in-law of Moe Howard. Did you ever ask Norman if he would introduce you to Moe? Seems like that would've been a great opportunity to ask for a ceremonial eye-poke. For that matter did you ever meet Larry Fine or Joe Besser/Joe DeRita?

Well, Curly died two months before I was born and Shemp died when I was three so that let them out. I met Moe on two occasions — not through Norman — but nothing that was said was any more memorable than "I've always enjoyed your films" and "Thank you." He was very nice and like all his partners, way shorter than I imagined.

I met the other three. I made two or three trips (I think two) out to the Motion Picture Country Hospital where Larry Fine was living after his stroke. However many I made, they were all pretty much carbons of each others. Larry was a sweet man who was delighted to have the company but he had about twelve anecdotes and no matter what you asked him about, you got one of the twelve. He did not remember everything about his past and if you'd pointed an AR-15–style rifle at him, he couldn't have told you what he had for breakfast that morning. But I enjoyed spending time with him.

I met Joe DeRita at a one-day comic convention down near Disneyland. He was there to sign photos for money…which is fairly common these days for famous folks but it wasn't then. Kids who wanted to meet him — most of whom didn't seem to know the difference between him and Curly Howard — were shocked that his signature was not free. After a few unpleasant encounters, Mr. DeRita decided to stop charging. Meanwhile, a few tables away from him, famed starlet Edy Williams was selling and signing posters of herself, some of which were pretty darned naked. She left that day with a nice wad o' cash. Joe DeRita looked at one of them and said, "Maybe I should have posed like that!"

I had a great chat with Curly Joe, much of which was about his pre-Stooges film career and his times in Vegas working in splashy, big-budget burlesque revues. But we kept getting interrupted by kids who wanted to meet "Curly," and some of them went away thinking they had.

I met Joe Besser in the waiting room at Hanna-Barbera. He was there that day to record a voice track for some cartoon show — Yogi's Space Race, I think — and I spotted him sitting on a couch and pounced. We talked about everything except his time as a Stooge…which I'd been told was not the happiest gig of his career. Someone who knew him well later told me that it bothered Joe that some people knew him from that and only that, which to him meant they were unaware of 80% of all he'd done…or just plain disinterested.

We talked about him working with Abbott and Costello (he loved them) and Joey Bishop (he didn't like the man) and so many other things. I recall an awkward moment when he asked me about my career and what I'd done and as I replied, he kept saying, "Well, if you're such a fan of mine, why didn't you hire me for that show?" I had that happen to me with Soupy Sales and a few others and there was never an easy way to respond. But I did like the guy and it was fascinating to hear him talk in his not-in-character manner…with occasional lapses into the Joe Besser I knew from TV.

So to sum up: I met two-thirds of the six men who'd been full-fledged members of the Three Stooges. I liked 'em all. I wish I'd had more time with Moe. None of them slapped me or poked me in the eyes or broke pottery over my head. If I sound like I'm bragging…well, yes, I guess I am.

And watch this…

In case you haven't guessed, I'm busy meeting a deadline so that's why all the video links. I'll be back writing more for this blog before long. Meanwhile, here's the latest installment of Everything You Need To Know About Saturday Night Live. We're up to Season 14, another really good one. I will not be saying that when we reach some higher-numbered episodes…

Yesterday as you know, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan released a slightly-redacted version of Special Counsel Jack Smith's blueprint for prosecuting the January 6th case against Donald J. Trump. It's pretty devastating — a portrait of a man who said, in effect, "I don't care if I lost the election, I'm going to be President anyway." Kim Wehle explains some of what's in it.

Steve Benen takes apart some of Trump's more insane claims about how good he was for our economy.

Here are some interesting thoughts about political candidates debating from Olufemi Taiwo.

And the best reporting on the debate we just had was done (as usual) by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog…