Monthly Archives: October 2020

The other day here, I told you that Garrett Thomas was one of my favorite magicians. Want to see him do another trick? He doesn't do one in this video but if you get a deck of cards and a note pad and pen, and if you follow his instructions precisely, you can do one…

Okay…someone who's going to vote for this man, write in and explain this to me…

Mark,

We have exciting news.

The FINAL debate between President Trump and Sleepy Joe Biden is TOMORROW.

President Trump knows he can't WIN AGAIN without you, so he's requested that we reach out to a few of his TOP supporters, like YOU, to become a Presidential Debate Member.

As a member, not only will the President turn to YOU for input, but your name will be broadcast LIVE during the debate for the ENTIRE world to see.

We're only offering this to a few of the President's most trusted supporters, like YOU. Spots are limited.

This is your chance to stand with President Trump and show the world that the Silent Majority will NOT be SILENCED!

We're sending him an updated roster soon and we want to make sure he sees YOUR NAME.

Contribute ANY AMOUNT RIGHT NOW to get on the Presidential Debate Membership roster and your name will be displayed LIVE during the debate tomorrow.

Thank you,

Team Trump 2020

So I'm guessing the "input" he's going to turn to me for will be to send questions which I am to answer while donating more money, and my name will be shown on some sort of YouTube broadcast of the debate on some Trump channel there. Is that it? And does he really think that he won that first debate but can't possibly win the one tomorrow night without my help…which by the way, he's not going to get.

And how is he making all these campaign appearances when he's studying roster after roster hoping to find my name on it? Someone…please help me.

I suppose a fitting tribute to James "The Amazing" Randi would be to be very, very skeptical about reports that he has died at the age of 92. But Penn Jillette has tweeted it's true and if you can't believe one liar and con-artist about another, who can you believe?

If you weren't familiar with the work of Mr. Randi, he was a magician for many years — that's where the "Amazing" in his name came from — but he turned into a guy whose specialty was educating the world to scams and hoaxes and rackets like charging people to communicate with their dead loved ones or claiming to be able to read minds. He didn't much like the word "debunker" but that's what he was, exposing psychic faith healers and other frauds.

I was honored to be part of a group that dined with him one night at the Magic Castle. No one at the table except Randi said much because he was such a fascinating conversationalist with insights and opinions and anecdotes that we all found riveting. I know his work will live on because I know how many others in and around the world of magic were inspired by him…and like me, are very, very sorry he's not around any longer. Unless this is a scam and he is.

• I feel sorry for Rudy Giuliani and feel he's been mistreated, perhaps illegally, even though I know he would love and defend every bit of it if it had been done to a political opponent.

• I believe what we're now witnessing is most of America developing herd immunity to Donald Trump.

Newspapers that have never endorsed anyone for President before are endorsing Joe Biden. And so are 94-year-old comedians…

Baby panda just wants some human contact…

One of my favorite entertainers, Tom Lehrer, is officially releasing the lyrics to many of his songs into the public domain. On his website, you can download a lot of those lyrics and read the announcement of what you're free to do with them. I have a feeling we'll be hearing a lot of them.

Kevin Drum has real good advice for anyone who's worried that there's still a chance of Trump winning a second term. His chances will never be zero but if you want to be reassured that it's a slim chance, just look at the way he's acting. He sure doesn't think he has a good shot at it.

I guess this falls under the category of "Jobs It Hadn't Dawned On Me That Somebody Has." But someone has to drive the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile around. In fact, at least six people do because there are six Weinermobiles.

Someday I hope to see one of them involved in one of those live televised chases as it's relentlessly pursued at high speeds by a Mustard Truck that does a P.I.T. maneuver and rolls it into a van full of sauerkraut.

Here is the story of one Weinermobile driver. And here's the page on which you can find out when a Weinermobile is wandering your way…or even request one for a special event.

One of the "foolers" on this week's Penn & Teller Fool Us is Garrett Thomas, who is in my opinion one of the three-or-so best magicians working today. And I'm talking here of magicians who excel as magicians, as opposed to those you love to watch because their delivery, timing, patter, style and/or personality are delightful. There are plenty of guys who are a joy to watch not so much because of the magic but because of how entertaining they are, even doing a trick you've seen a jillion-and-a-half times.

I've seen and spoken with Garrett at the Magic Castle and watched as he's fooled not only non-magician guests but some of the best magicians I know. He invents all his tricks and some of them have stumped Penn & Teller in the past when performed by others without (apparently) Garrett's consent. He told me a year or three ago that he was not inclined to go on the show himself so I was surprised (and pleased) to see that he finally did.

Penn & Teller are not fooled as often as viewers of this program might think. Often, they — and by "they," I mean mostly Teller — can think of five different ways a feat could be done but the rules of the show don't allow them to guess all five ways. So they say they think it was done by Method A or B and it was really C or D so the performer gets a trophy. But this time, I think they really were baffled. So was I, just as you will be…

Not only have I not decided whether or not to watch the big Thursday Night Debate, I've almost been thinking of predicting it'll be called off because Trump is exhausted, Trump is demanding changes in the format, Trump is accusing Biden of cheating, etc. Something I haven't seen in any article about the debate is whether the candidates have to pass COVID-19 tests before it.

That was in the rules for the first one but Trump arrived late and managed to not take the test. One might assume that in light of what then happened, the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates would absolutely insist on it this time. But one might assume all sorts of things, especially in this time in our history, which do not happen.

Kristen Welker, a White House correspondent for NBC News, will serve as moderator. I think instead, it would liven things up if they brought in Frank Welker and had him ask each question in the voice of a different cartoon character.

Ms. Welker will have a button with which she can mute either debater's microphone if said debater interrupts the other too often. If Trump just stands there yelling his interruptions sans mike, I would hope — but do not expect — that Mr. Biden would turn to him and say, "You know, if you conducted yourself like a normal person does in a debate, they wouldn't have had to install those buttons." I do expect that Trump will insist that the buttons are there to rig the proceedings against him and that he was muted whenever he was about to score a devastating, election-upsetting point.

Here's one second from every Looney Tune and Merrie Melody made by the Warner Brothers cartoon studio. This is more fun than you might expect…

[UPDATE: I should have realized these are just Looney Tunes.]

Wow. Trump's current argument seems to be that we have to stop Joe Biden from becoming president because Joe Biden would listen to scientists and medical authorities. And we can't have that.

I dunno if there's any truth in the shitpile of allegations against Hunter Biden that Rudy Giuliani is now peddling — the one Fox News refused to disseminate because they thought it had credibility problems. But I doubt that anyone anywhere really thinks the Trump family is squeaky clean with regard to financial dealing. Nor can I see anyone who thinks that Donald Trump has been a terrible president looking at these charges and saying, "Gee, maybe America does need four more years of Donald Trump."

If someone tries to tell you there are no allegations of financial impropriety against the Trumps, show them this list.

A day or three ago, actress Kirstie Alley from Cheers came out on Twitter as a staunch Trump supporter. Our pal Ken Levine, who wrote many of the words she uttered on that series, has responded.

Nothing has disgusted me more about the Trump mob than the chanting of "Lock her up!" As Amanda Marcotte notes in this article…

That chant was a Trump-rally greatest hit in 2016, aimed at Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on the fallacious grounds that she had supposedly committed some crime for which she was escaping justice. (As usual, this was pure projection from Trump, who knew at the time he was a tax fraud and serial sexual assailant, whereas decades of effort to turn up some kind of malfeasance to pin on Clinton have resulted in bupkis.) This time, even that thin pretense was dropped, as the chant was aimed at Michigan's Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who hasn't been accused, even falsely or facetiously, of committing any crimes.

Whitmer's only "crime" is being a woman — and a conventionally attractive woman, at that — who Trump can't control. Trump has spent months publicly lashing out at Whitmer, who, like most Democratic governors, rejected Trump's demands that she ignore public health recommendations to slow the coronavirus spread. Instead, Whitmer instituted restrictions that have likely saved tens of thousands of lives. Trump and his loyal followers haven't let go of this, and keep obsessing over what he clearly sees an unforgivable act of female defiance.

I don't think it's wholly misogyny. Trump wants to lock up Obama and Biden and probably anyone who does not worship him. If I told him you're not a supporter, he'd probably want to see you behind bars because, to him, that's a crime. But certainly he and a lot of his associates are really bugged by strong women like Whitmer, Hillary, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Kamala Harris. I wonder if he's fantasized about having one of his foes hauled off in handcuffs. based on charges he'll divulge after the ballots are all in.

Here are two segments from 60 Minutes — one which aired tonight, one done for the web. In these, Dr. Jon LaPook who is a medical correspondent for CBS talks with Dr. Anthony Fauci about you-know-what. Dr. Fauci is so misquoted (sometimes deliberately) and at times suppressed that it ain't a bad idea to hear from the man himself.

Over the last few decades, I've found myself embroiled in a number of arguments — some of them, potentially life-threatening — over whether one should trust mainstream doctors about everything or about nothing. It has always seemed obvious to me that both extremes were very, very wrong and yet many people do not seem willing to find a middle ground.

Me, I allot my trust on a sliding scale. Someone who has a medical degree and has practiced for years gets most of it but not all of it. Someone who has never studied medicine but has read a lot of websites gets a pretty small hunk of it…but neither group gets 100% or 0%. My present physician is very good as are the specialists to whom he sometimes refers me…and even then, I check what they tell me with him. My answer to questions like "When will you stop isolating?" and "Will you take a vaccine?" is "I'll wait until my doctor advises me and if I have any doubt, I'll err on the side of caution."

Yes, I've had friends who listened to doctors and are now dead. I've also had friends who refused to listen to doctors and are now dead. In some cases, it's not clear if the doctors or lack thereof led to the outcomes.

Anyway, here's Doc Fauci. I find him interesting, though I'll be more interested in any books or interviews from him after this thing is over and he no longer has to walk a strict non-political line to retain his position and standing…