I've received a number of e-mails asking me if I think there's going to be a Writers Guild strike this year and if so, what the heck is it about this time? What it's about is pretty much summed up in this article in Variety. Many studios are making a lot of money off content on streaming services and more of it needs to go to the folks who create that content.

This is not just an issue for writers but the way things usually work in this town is that the writers wind up being the first one into battle on matters that affect all the labor organizations. Anyway, that article is a good summary of the issues involved.

How likely is a strike? I'm not as involved with the Writers Guild as I used to be. I just pay my dues and support the leadership, which I believe is currently very good and very smart and very realistic…but even given that, I would tend to think a strike is very likely.

J. Maine wrote to ask your obedient blogger…

I love the Sgt. Bilko episodes you've been linking to. Every word and gesture from Phil Silvers is funny. He's really a great example of a TV star who carries every scene he's in, not that the writing needs that kind of help. I don't recall laughing out loud at many situation comedies the way I laugh at Bilko and the audience sure seems to love it. Is that a live audience? It sure sounds like one. They did this with a three-camera set-up, right?

I don't know how many cameras they used and given how complex some episodes were, it's possible it varied. "Three-camera" became kind of a generic term in the industry for any show filmed with multiple cameras at the same time. There were shows that used four cameras that were referred to as "three camera" shows the same way that if two people opened a show talking to the audience, à la The Smothers Brothers or Sonny & Cher, it was sometimes still called a "monologue."

You're mostly hearing a live audience on these shows. Even shows that boast as to being "filmed in front of a live studio audience" sometimes have to dub in canned laughter here and there for editing purposes. But the audience for The Phil Silvers Show (aka Sgt. Bilko, aka You'll Never Get Rich) was sometimes not present in the studio when they were laughing. I explained this once before here on the blog so here's some of it again. For the first season and most of the second, they filmed each episode in sequence in front of a live audience. Then…

In the middle of their second season, show #60 of 143 was called "Bilko Goes Around the World." It was inspired by the then-current movie, Around the World in 80 Days and it featured scenes with that film's well-known producer, Mike Todd. In the midst of rehearsal, Mr. Todd suddenly announced that he couldn't stay until the scheduled filming night; that pressing business elsewhere beckoned and he had to go. The producers made the decision to just film the show a few days earlier, sans audience. It was still done multi-camera but with no one in the bleachers…and it turned out fine.

I'm not sure if it was immediately after Show #61 or if it happened a little later but the Todd episode convinced them that a live audience was a needless expense. Phil Silvers thought it even made the show better. Without one, they could do retakes easier so it wasn't necessary to rehearse every line and move in every scene to within an inch of its life. Silvers felt free to improvise more and to do each scene a few times, plus they could film when he and the director thought they were ready, not when the audience was scheduled. They could film scenes out of sequence if that seemed appropriate. The writers could write scripts with scene and wardrobe changes without worrying about how fast they could be accomplished. The mood on the set got looser because the actors could cuss and ad-lib and screw up without an audience there.

They could also edit out mistakes or reshoot more easily.  If you watch the first season and a half of Bilko, you'll see a lot of them left in.  There are places where actors (especially Paul Ford) forget what they're supposed to say and Silvers ad-libs around this or prompts them.  Because so much of TV then was broadcast live and those moments happened so often on those programs, there was a tendency to not do much editing on film done in front of an audience.

When an audience-free episode had been cut to time, it would be taken and shown to warm bodies…often at some sort of military facility. A cast member — one of the supporting players — would go along to welcome and "warm up" the house before it was shown. Legendary was the one time they sent Joe E. Ross, who played Sgt. Rupert Ritzik. Ross was a burlesque comic with a very raunchy act and virtually no sense of judgment about what was appropriate to say before a given audience. He got up in front of a room full of elderly women and even a few nuns and launched into jokes about hookers and rapists. Enough people walked out that it was necessary to schedule another "sweetening" screening of the episode he was hosting…and they did not send Ross out with it or any other one.

Anyway, the recorded laughs of those audiences were layered onto the shows and according to Mr. Silvers, "Nobody could ever tell the difference." If you watch them, you probably won't. Once in a while, a laugh continues over someone's line and it's obvious the actor speaking that line wasn't hearing that laugh so you may figure it out. Interestingly, the performer in such a situation is almost never Silvers, even though he had close to half the dialogue in some episodes. He just had such a good sense of timing that he knew how long the pauses for laughter should be. I'm not sure you could do that with most situation comedy actors today.

That's what I wrote before but as I read it over now, there are a few things I can add. First, I thought of a reason why Michael Todd might have had to leave town and not stay for the schedule filming date. Around this time, Mr. Todd participated in the popular fad of marrying Elizabeth Taylor so that may have had something to do with it.

Also worth mentioning is that Larry Gelbart told me there was a discussion about doing M*A*S*H, filming without an audience and then showing the edited episode to one to record laughter. They didn't because the studio decided it was just easier and maybe cheaper to go with normal canned laughter. He also said that when you're putting all the laughs in in post-production, there's just too much temptation to add in laughs that didn't come from a live audience so you might as well go all-canned.

The Crazy Russian Hacker tests devices to cut bagels in half. I think his problem here is that his bagels are too big and too soft. In my kitchen, I have the third device he tests — a gift from Howie Morris many years ago. Mine works fine.

Don't ask me why but I've been thinking a lot about how effective masking has been during COVID.  I'm not going to write a lot about this topic because I think the Internet has way too much medical advice from people who have not graduated from medical school.  There's no hard data on this but I suspect a leading cause of death stems from getting serious medical advice from people who have not graduated from medical school.  I don't think real doctors are always accurate but I think they have a much better batting average than non-real doctors.

I keep seeing these discussions about "Do masks work?" and it seems to me that's like asking, "Do medicines work?"  Some do and some don't and it depends greatly on, first of all, which ones you're talking about and, secondly, how you use them.  Does anyone really think all masks are equally effective and that they're always worn properly?

When I have gone places where I felt I should be masked, I have worn this kind, an N95 which my physician recommended.   And when I have worn them to the offices of other doctors — my dentist, my orthopedist, my podiatrist, etc. — I have usually been complimented for my selection. My urologist was even wearing the same model.

But when in public the last couple of years, I see a lot of masks that look like thin cloth…or look like they've been selected for looks, not prevention of disease…or that someone just grabbed something cheap because they had to wear a mask to gain entrance somewhere. An awful lot of them don't know it's supposed to fit tight and not be worn under your nose.

My conclusion is that masks may be useful but the studies that try to determine if they are aren't. Some of them include pre-COVID or non-COVID data. None of them seem to differentiate between high-quality masks and those made of the cheapest-possible cloth. And none of them really track how and when the people who wear them wear them.

Everything above this paragraph was written a few days ago and then I stopped, planning to finish this piece later. Then Rob Rose, a devout reader of this site, sent me this link to a very good article about this. And of course, I say it's a very good article because it aligns with what I was already thinking.

It was written by an emergency medicine physician at Yale and posted by an epidemiologist. On a question like this, you should be listening to people like that and not, say, people who write comic books and cartoons. Which is what I'll be spending the rest of the day doing.

Here's another episode of The Phil Silvers Show, aka Sgt. Bilko.  It's called "The Eating Contest" and there's a great story behind it.  I hope it's true. This was told to me by none other than Phil Silvers and if it's not 100% accurate, blame him.  Nat Hiken, who was the guy behind that series, wrote the tale of Bilko's platoon betting another platoon that their man could out-eat the other platoon's big eater.  To play Bilko's guy, he hired a very heavy man.

It wasn't working in rehearsals and Hiken decided the remedy was to replace the very heavy man with a very thin man.  Silvers claimed that Hiken leafed through an Academy Players Directory — which was like a mugbook of actors looking for work — and picked out the guys with the skinniest faces he could find.  One they called in to audition was a fellow who had more or less given up acting and who was now making most of his income working in the art department of an advertising agency.

But he got the role and he was so good that Hiken wrote him into another episode later. Those two appearances led to other work and this part-time actor became a full-time actor, though he did later write and illustrate a number of children's books. Years later, when Hiken was casting his other TV sitcom, Car 54, Where Are You?, he hired that actor for one of the lead roles. It was Fred Gwynne. Some of you might know him better as Herman Munster.

There are biographies of Fred Gwynne that tell a somewhat different story but that's the one Phil Silvers told me. And as you'll see, Gwynne is very, very good in this episode…

Two other things you might notice: One is how many actors are in this and how many have speaking parts. A lot of episodes of The Phil Silvers Show had many, many sets and many, many actors and it was a pretty expensive show to do. It ran for four seasons and Silvers told me it could have run two or three more but CBS was eager to move it into syndication and recoup some of its deficits. Again, I don't know if that's true but it was hard to not believe Phil Silvers, the man who could talk anyone into anything.

And those of you who love the musical Li'l Abner may recognize the actor playing the other platoon's eating champ. It's Bern Hoffman, who played Earthquake McGoon (the world's dirtiest wrassler) in the movie and the Broadway show. The episode was shot before the musical was cast but he was in other Bilko episodes that seem to have been filmed while the play was still running in New York. On Car 54 also, Hiken hired a lot of folks out of plays then running in New York.

Regarding the previous post, a dozen Jeopardy! watchers sent me messages like this one from past Jeopardy! champ Michael Rankins…

Just a quick thought about why Mike Towry was the Comic-Con co-founder mentioned: This current run of Jeopardy! episodes is a "High School Reunion Tournament." All of the contestants previously competed in Teen Tournaments a few seasons ago. Without actually having inside knowledge, I'd guess that the writers thought that Mike Towry being 15 when SDCC began made an interesting tie-in to the present tournament.

Makes sense to me. Meanwhile, Steve Bacher read this post and sent me this…

Your advice "Do not drink too much" reminds me of a TV ad I used to see for some drug or other that said "Do not drink alcohol in excess while using this product." I wondered: do they mean that it's OK to drink alcohol in excess while not using this product?

I would think they meant, "Our lawyers advised us to caution you not to drink alcohol in excess while using this product because saying that might help get us off the hook if using our product while drunk leads to a lawsuit against us.  Frankly, we don't care what you do when you're not using our product because we wouldn't be liable."

This was on the Jeopardy! board last night.  I'm glad they put the "co" in "co-founded" and I'm wondering why they picked Mike to single out. Guess they thought the "15-year-old" angle made it more interesting.

Right now, if you type "Who founded Comic-Con?" into Google, what you get back is: "The convention was founded in 1970 by Shel Dorf, Richard Alf, Ken Krueger, Mike Towry, Ron Graf, Barry Alfonso, Bob Sourk, and Greg Bear." They could probably have found many different lists of names if they'd looked…because the correct answer is indeed a list of names.

I wouldn't even try to make a definitive one and since Jeopardy! decided to mention just one person, I'm glad they picked Mike.  Too many times in the past, the one name that got mentioned was Shel Dorf's and that's just unfair to quite a few other people who were responsible.  (I was about to write, "Mike probably did a lot more than Shel" but that's true of several other folks as well.)

Mike Towry certainly deserves recognition and thanks for what he did to launch that "pop culture phenomenon."  And he'd be the first guy to start naming the other ones.

A lot of folks are upset to hear that…

New editions of legendary works by British author Roald Dahl are being edited to remove words that could be deemed offensive to some readers, according to the late writer's company. Dahl wrote such books as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach and Fantastic Mr. Fox.

This is one of those cases where I'm kind of on the fence, looking at both sides of the issue, not sure where I want to land. I have never been a particular fan of Mr. Dahl's work. I read a few of his books and was not motivated to seek out the others. That probably doesn't matter in this discussion, which is of the larger issues. If this hasn't already been done to some books I love, it will be.

As a writer, my natural reaction is to leave authors' works the way they wrote them…but they get changed all the time when adapted into other media. My indifference to the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is not widely shared. People love that film and other adaptations that changed what Dahl wrote. Those adaptations probably also sold a helluva lot of Roald Dahl books. His work has been kept in print and more widely read…

…and I'll bet when a lot of new readers experience the book of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory now, they're imagining Willy Wonka looking like Gene Wilder or Johnny Depp and hearing the voice of one of those men. Is that changing what Mr. Dahl wrote? Maybe. In some sense. How about if the text is unchanged but a new edition features a cover and illustrations by an artist whose drawings are contrary to what the author intended?

Seems to me there are three overriding questions here. One is should an author's work be changed at all? Should it be kept sacred, untouched and exactly like that author wrote it? If we say "No, never change it," then this discussion is over…except maybe if that author made some firm statement as to how he/she wanted his/her work handled after his/her passing. Certainly some would prefer that their work live on, be read and maybe even make money for their descendants even if that means expunging the "n" word or other things that date the work.

The second question: In the absence of clear orders from the author, who has (a) the legal authority and maybe (b) the moral authority to preside over such changes? I don't have an answer to this question but does it matter if it's a close relative who knew the author or some non-relative who never knew him or her but works for a corporation that acquired the copyrights? Some of this may come down to mind-reading dead people: "I know he would have wanted us to do this…"

Final question — and I guess these all come down to a case-by-case basis but this really does: Are the changes good changes? It's certainly possible to be on a good and proper mission but to do more damage than good. I'm not qualified to have an opinion on this regarding Dahl's books but the writer Imogen West-Knights seems to be and she thinks the changes are unnecessary and in some cases, just plain wrong.

I have no opinion on whether they are or aren't but I think this third question is the big one. If the author specified absolutely no changes, even if that means the work dies and is forgotten…well, that might not be the final word but it comes close. But then that leads us to the question about well, what if the original work remains unchanged but all adaptations are fair game? Which leads us to the question of what happens when the work goes into public domain and anyone can do anything they damn well want to it, including revisions the author would have loathed?

And before that day arrives, how likely is it that any work will be left unchanged if the entity that controls it sees an opportunity to make a lot of money off it and perhaps make it relevant to a new audience?

I apologize that this essay does not lead to many — maybe even any — real answers. But maybe that's the whole point of what I've written here. If you can make this make more sense, feel free to rewrite this piece. After I die, of course.

And here's one of my favorite episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show. It stars Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie, Morey Amsterdam, Larry Matthews, Richard Deacon, A Surprise Guest Star and the off-camera voices of Carl Reiner and Jerry Paris on the TV…

And you can see the cover page from the script for this episode by clicking here. The signature that's hard to make out is Rose Marie's.

Tim Hall wrote to ask…

I've never been to Las Vegas and it seems you've been there a lot. Can you give me some tips on where to stay, where to rent a car, what to avoid?

I'll try but let me point out that (a) I haven't been to the city in a number of years and (b) there are only about seventy quadrillion YouTube videos about what to do and not to do in Las Vegas. Most of them though are produced by folks who live there so maybe some don't provide the best advice for outta-towners.

First thing: In all the times I've been there, I've never driven there and I've never rented a car there. Driving and parking seem like a major hassle in that town and a huge waste of time.  It can take forever to get to and from where you have to park and longer than forever to have a valet retrieve your vehicle.  You'll almost think the casino plans it that way to discourage you from leaving the premises.

Add to that the traffic problem and I've never found it to be either time-efficient or cost-efficient to have an auto there, rental or otherwise. I suppose if you wanted to make a lot of day trips outside the city, it might but I don't go there to go somewhere else.  A friend of mine there once said that tourists only need a car if they want to go hiking in the desert or visit one of the legal brothels outside town.

Generally, I pick my hotel based on price and location. The rooms in my price range are all pretty much the same at the major hotels so that isn't worth a lot of consideration. I stay often at Harrah's because from there, I can easily walk to The Linq, The Venetian, The Flamingo, The Cromwell, The Palazzo, The Horseshoe (formerly Bally's), Paris, Treasure Island, The Mirage, Caesars Palace, The Bellagio and a few others.

There's very little I might want to do in that town that I can't walk to if I'm staying in that cluster. There are probably 250+ places to eat in a wide array of cuisines and costs, there are several drug stores, there are several shopping malls, etc. I might want to go see a certain show somewhere but it would probably be a cheap Lyft/Uber/taxi ride, plus there's a monorail stop at Harrah's and a few free shuttles to other locations.

Downtown Las Vegas is also a nice cluster of places to stay and eat and play. I don't necessarily want to stay downtown because people are dancing and drinking and partying at all hours in the streets but if I wanted that environment, I'd stay down there. If I stayed downtown, I probably wouldn't go to The Strip and if I stayed on The Strip, I probably wouldn't go downtown.

If you stay near one end of The Strip (The Stratosphere) or the other (Mandalay Bay), you'll have a more limited list of things you can walk to but it might be enough. Mandalay Bay is a bit expensive, The Luxor is a bit less and Excalibur is even cheaper but those three hotels have the same owners.  They're next to each other and linked by walkways and a short monorail. You could probably fill three days very nicely staying in one of those hotels and visiting the other two.

The Excalibur is one of the cheapest hotels on The Strip and much of its decor is laugh-out-loud kitsch. But from it, you can cross a street or two and be at New York, New York or the MGM Grand or the Tropicana.

Do some advance planning. If you go on a weekend and you want to partake of a buffet or a famous eatery, the lines can take over an hour. Vegas restaurants are increasingly moving away from "just walk in" to "make a reservation." You can make those reservations online months in advance if you know when you'll be there.

If you want to go to a show and it's one of the expensive, "hot" ones, buy tickets online well in advance. If you just want to go to a show, discount tickets are available to about two-thirds of them (not on a weekend) or a third of them (on a weekend) at several booths around the city. When I stay at Harrah's or what's now the Horseshoe, there are outlets of Tix4Vegas right outside.

And unless you have no choice, it's a good idea to not go to Vegas on the weekends. Everything's more expensive and crowded then.

Pace yourself. You can't and shouldn't try to do everything. Also pace your money, especially if you intend to gamble. Never gamble money you can't afford to lose and don't gamble on any game you don't fully understand. You can learn and play most of them online for free but recognize that not every casino has the same rules and payoffs for its table games. Also remember that two slot machines can look identical but have two very different payout schedules.

Keep an eye out for discount coupons. There may be a lot of them around and some may be available at your hotel's bell desk, concierge desk or the place where you sign up for the casino's rewards club. Sometimes, it's worth the time to sign up for those rewards clubs because they're free and they get you discounts. I haven't done it lately but I found a lot of very cheap rooms via the Caesars Rewards Club and I think you can sign up online.

But remember: Wherever you book, there may be a mandatory "resort fee" which will considerably raise the cost of that room. I once booked a stay at Harrah's via the Caesars Rewards Club for $0 a night plus a $35 Resort Fee.  It was still a good price but you had to read the fine print to know exactly what you were paying.  (I am not shilling for Harrah's, by the way.  I just have a good history with the hotel by that name and the others that are owned by the Caesars/Harrah's company.)

Be very skeptical of "free" offers and especially avoid invites to seminars where they offer you something to sit through a sales pitch for timeshares. If you want your picture with a street performer, check the price in advance. Bring the most comfortable shoes you own. Do not drink too much or sleep too little. Keep your cell phone charged. (One of those battery-powered chargers can be a great investment.) Remember that the price of water and other necessities will be higher at the CVS or Walgreens there and even higher in the hotel gift shop. And never split tens at Blackjack…or even play it for money if you haven't played a lot on your computer without getting wiped out in ten minutes.

Most of all, remember to do what you want to do and to enjoy yourself. You'd be surprised how many people forget that's the whole point of going.

Yesterday, we had a great episode of The Phil Silvers Show here. Here's my favorite episode of The Honeymooners. Sorry it doesn't have opening or closing credits but it was written by Leonard Stern and Sydney Zelinka…

Three different folks wrote to ask me if I could recommend a good book or other way to learn how to count cards in Blackjack. No, I can't. The books I learned from are somewhere in storage and some of what was in them is probably obsolete due to rule changes. Remember: I learned this about forty years ago and I'm sure since then, there have been hundreds of new books and computer programs and tutorials. I know I did read Beat the Dealer by Edward O. Thorp, the man many credit for inventing card-counting, and Professional Blackjack by Stanford Wong, the other historic authority. But I read a lot of books.

I absolutely do not recommend card-counting if you're only in it for the money. It's harder work than you think and there will be long stretches where you can do everything absolutely right and still lose. If the dealer is dealing themselves a lot of blackjacks and pat hands, knowing the running count won't help you.

I did it for the same reason I like to work puzzles…to see if I could do it. Once I got ahead, I quit for good. I'm sure if I'd kept on playing, at some point I would have given it all back — and more. If you do try counting cards, also try the part about giving it up. It's the only way to win.

This is the second and final tale I have of a business in downtown Las Vegas called The Golden Goose…only it wasn't The Golden Goose when this one took place. The first tale, which you can read here, occurred in the eighties (I think) when The Golden Goose was what they call a "slot joint." It was a place where you could put coins into slot machines…

…and that was about it. You just put them in and you put them in and you put them in. Oh, once in a while those slot machines might give you back a few of those coins but only to fool you into thinking that your luck was changing. The premise of the occasional mini-payoffs — and I doubt it failed much — was to convince you to put those coins and others into the machine in search of that big, life-changing jackpot that would never come.

To lure you in, The Golden Goose offered an outstanding selection of freebees, none of which were worth more than the first dollar you lost on their premises. I only stopped into the place a few times and I might have left a few bucks there…but only a few. In my dozens and dozens of trips to Vegas, I played a lot of Blackjack and once in a rare while after it came along, Video Poker. Those were my only games of choice. I never played Craps, Roulette, Keno, non-video Poker, Baccarat, Pai Gow or anything else. I don't even know the rules of some of those games…a disadvantage which stops some but not all players.

In my whole life, I probably put less than thirty bucks into slot machines so The Golden Goose was of little interest to me for gaming. I just found it and the business next door fascinating. The buildings practically screamed, like an uncommonly honest hustler, "Step right up and lose your money, folks!"

And I was especially fascinated when, as I related in our previous Tale of the Golden Goose, I met that lady out front…Audrey. Her job was to lie to passers-by and get them to come in and lose money. I have no idea how often this happened but in an uncommon burst of honesty, she warned me off from the scam she was representing. Several years later in the same spot, it happened again.

The Golden Goose was located at 20 Fremont Street. Right next door at 22 Fremont Street was a sister establishment which kept changing names and what transpired within. It apparently was called Mr. Reed's around the time of our previous tale but I never set foot inside any of the ever-changing establishments at 22 Fremont. Mr. Reed's was, at various times, a bar with slot machines, a retail outlet for cheap merchandise, some kind of diner and, at one point, a strip club. At some later point, Mr. Reed's became a slot joint called Glitter Gulch and at some even later point, The Golden Goose became a strip club and then the two businesses merged into one big strip club called The Girls of Glitter Gulch.

I don't guarantee the above chronology. I'm fairly sure though that in 2016, the combined Girls of Glitter Gulch business closed down and the following year, it and several neighboring businesses were demolished. That whole section of Fremont Street has changed tremendously starting in 1994 when a five-block stretch of Fremont was closed to traffic and turned into a pedestrian mall. Soon, a giant canopy/light show was erected overhead called The Fremont Street Experience.

On one visit in the mid-eighties, I stayed at the Golden Nugget, which was then the classiest hotel on Fremont Street. This was before the area's makeover and it was not hard then to be the classiest hotel downtown. About all you needed to achieve that stature was maids.

While downtown, I couldn't help but walk past The Golden Goose — or rather, 20 Fremont Street where The Golden Goose had been. It was now The Girls of Glitter Gulch and no less sleazy for the conversion. Where once it had been a slot joint that lured unsuspecting tourists in by making them think they'd get rich, it was now a strip club that was no less subtle in luring in men for bilking purposes.

Out front, there was a giant video screen which ran, over and over, a video of beautiful women. I mean, really gorgeous ladies. A gent in a bright purple sport coat stood outside, trying to convince passers-by of all genders to come in and enjoy the show. He kept yelling over and over, as the signs proclaimed, "Free Admission!" It struck me that he might have been standing in the exact same place where, in our previous Tale of The Golden Goose, that lady named Audrey tried to tempt me to go in and get a free keychain with my initials on it.

I had to stop and question the guy. The conversation went roughly like this — and if I sound more naïve that usual, it's because I was trying to act like someone with the I.Q. of Gomer Pyle. Usually, that does not require a lot of acting on my part…

HIM: Just pass through those doors, sir, and see some of the most beautiful woman on this planet. Free admission!

ME: The ladies on the video up there…will I see them?

HIM: You will see women even more beautiful than the women on that sign.

ME: Then I won't see the ladies on the screen?

HIM: You might. I'm not sure which ladies are working at the moment.

ME: That blonde lady dressed in red…is she inside?

HIM: She might be. She might be. I can't keep track of them all. Just step on in and look around for yourself. Admission is free. If she isn't working, I'm sure you'll find several girls who are even more attractive. It won't cost you anything to go in and see.

ME: But it is free, right? Because I don't have my wallet with me. They won't try to charge me anything?

I'm compressing the whole Q-and-A way down here. I asked that guy in the purple sport coat questions like that until he realized I was putting on an act and he began laughing. Finally, he dropped his voice and spoke to me, man-to-man in a confidential tone…

HIM: Listen, admission is free but there's a two-drink minimum. The second you walk in, they spring it on you. Someone will ask you what you want to drink and they'll immediately bring you two glasses of whatever it is and a bill for it…

ME: I don't drink alcohol.

HIM: Doesn't matter. They don't serve alcohol in there. But let's say you want a Coke. They'll instantly bring you two Cokes and a bill for nine bucks each, plus the waitress will expect at least a two-dollar tip. So admission is free but once you're admitted, it's twenty bucks. And then the girls will go to work on you and, believe me, you'll pay. You won't get any action but you'll pay. You were putting me on when you said you didn't have any money, right?

ME: Right.

HIM: Well, you won't if you go in there. And you're right. None of the ladies in the video have ever set foot in this shithole. Now, I've enjoyed this but I have to get back to work.

ME: Sure. Thanks for being the most occasionally-honest person in Las Vegas.

Which is one of the things I said to Audrey outside The Golden Goose even if I didn't mention it in Tale #1. Same location. Same kind of scam. And someone who had a moment of conscience and warned me not to buy what they were selling.

It's been a while since I was last in Vegas and even longer since I ventured downtown. At least under the Fremont Street Canopy, they've largely obliterated the kind of rip-off, drain-your-wallet dry little businesses that used to be at 20 Fremont and 22 Fremont. This is not to suggest that their replacements are any less mercenary; merely that they do it with more class.

Where a lot of those crummy little places were, there's now a state-o'-the-art luxury hotel called Circa which opened in October of 2020 in the midst of The Pandemic. It was the first hotel-casino to be built from scratch in downtown Las Vegas since 1980.

It offers 8,000 square-feet of casino space, a 35-story tower, a nine-story 1,000-space parking garage, five full-service restaurants, six bars and lounges, a three-story stadium-style sportsbook, six swimming pools some of which allow you to swim while watching a 143-foot screen made of 14 million megapixels.

It sounds and looks like a great place to stay and play…but you know what it probably doesn't have that used to be in that space? An occasionally-honest person outside like Audrey or the guy in the purple sport coat who'll warn you that if you go inside, they'll take all your money.

Hey! Are you in the mood to watch a whole episode of The Phil Silvers Show, also known as Sgt. Bilko? Of course you are. Here's one of my favorite episodes. It will make you laugh and it will also answer the question of why Nat Hiken thought Joe E. Ross was so funny that he cast the man on this show and later on Car 54, Where Are You? Mr. Ross was always funny as long as he was on a show produced by Nat Hiken…

William Berman wrote to ask…

Someone told me a story that involved you. It took place at a San Diego Con and a bunch of top comic book artists were standing around in the main hall and you walked up to them. Impishly, just to see their reaction, you said to them, "Well, I just had lunch with the best artist in the room."

Several of the artists seemed offended and they all looked at you and said, menacingly, "And just who do you think that is?" You then told them and they all thought for a second, then agreed. Some of them supposedly said, "I'd give anything if I could draw like him."

The person who told me this story did not remember who you told them it was. I guessed Jack Kirby but my friend was fairly sure this was after Jack passed away. Is this story true and if so, can you tell me who the artist was who you said was the best in the room and everyone agreed?

Yes, it's true. As for who I named, maybe some of you would like to think for a moment and formulate a guess. Then, you can click the following link and find out that it was this guy. And by the way, "impishly" is the exact way I said it.