Fred Kaplan explains the Mar-A-Lago document scandal and concludes Donald Trump is in a heap of legal trouble. Does anyone think that if Barack Obama had done the same things, Trump and his supporters would not be demanding that America skip the trial and proceed directly to a public beheading?

You all with be relieved to know that my TiVo's guide now lists Harry O as airing on MeTV Plus at 4 PM starting Mondays. They're starting with Episode 1 of Season 1. MeTV Plus has also been airing old episodes of Hawaii Five-O (the Jack Lord version) which was another show I often enjoyed.

I want to thank all of you who wrote to tell me of a local market in your area that carries Heinz Vegetarian Beans, especially the guy in Alaska. I'll stop in on my way back from a lunch meeting and grab a couple of cans.

I have no comment on the Student Loan Forgiveness except this: A lot of folks who are fine with your, my and their tax dollars going to very, very rich people sure get upset when that money goes to people who are not very, very rich.

I also have no real comment over the release of the Mar-A-Lago affidavit. It's only been out for an hour or so and journalists are still scrambling to figure out what much of it means. Any minute now though, we should begin getting the articles about why urging this document's release is the latest mistake of Trump and whatever lawyers he can find to represent him this week. Every Trump move lately seems to generate those articles, even from people who are supposedly on his side.

To answer a question I keep getting asked in e-mail: I have absolutely no convention plans or appearances lined up. Barring further plagues, I'll probably be at WonderCon in Anaheim, which is March 24-26 next year. That's all for now.

As most of you know, one of my neighbors when I was growing up was Betty Lynn, an actress who did many things in her long career but was best known for playing Thelma Lou, the girlfriend of Deputy Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show. The Lynns were more than neighbors to the Evaniers. They were more like extended family, and Betty was more like my unofficial aunt.

Late in life, Betty moved from West Los Angeles to the town of Mt. Airy, North Carolina — a town that prides itself on resembling and celebrating The Andy Griffith Show. So I didn't see Betty for a long time but in June of 2019, while in North Carolina for a comic book convention, I made a side trip to Mt. Airy and spent the day with Betty. I am oh-so-glad I did because Betty passed away in October of last year. She was 95 years old.

Since 2004, she had been working on her autobiography with two gents — Jim Clark and Tim McAbee — and it was very close to going to press. Jim and Tim finished it up and it has recently been published as Becoming Thelma Lou. It's a very good book that isn't just about The Andy Griffith Show. One of the oddities of becoming famous in show business is that people forget about all the other stuff you've done. The story of how Betty (born in Kansas City, Missouri) found her way to Broadway and then to Hollywood is a fascinating one with much in there about entertaining the troops in World War II, working in radios and movies and on live television…and many other shows on which she appeared.

I heard most of these stories from Betty…and reading the book is like sitting with her and having her tell them to you. There were stories in the book I never heard and many I enjoyed experiencing again. I highly recommend getting it, which you can do by clicking here. I wish she was here to sign it for you. You would have loved her. I certainly did.

Okay, you've been warned. Readers of this blog have read a lot here about certain foods I cannot eat. This post is about something I not only can eat but often do. Since I was a wee lad — and yes, I know those of you who've seen me recently will have trouble believing I was ever wee but I was — I've been eating Heinz Beans…

…and not just any Heinz Beans but Heinz Vegetarian Beans, the ones that come in the green can. My mother served them to me when I was wee and continued to do this as I grew increasingly less wee. When I began buying my own groceries, I bought them. One can find them in any local market in the 8 ounce size and the 16 ounce size as seen below…

…or I should say, "One could." Apparently, for many months now, there has been a severe shortage of Heinz Vegetarian Beans around this country…or at least in markets that get my business. I didn't notice because I don't buy my Heinz Vegetarian Beans when I go to the market or order online from them. Every few months, I order a case (twenty-four 8 oz. cans) of Heinz Vegetarian Beans from Amazon and put them in my cupboard. When I'm close to running out, I order another case.

The last case I bought arrived on January 28 of this year and I probably finished off the earlier case and dug into this one around the beginning of March. I immediately noticed these weren't quite as good as they usually are but what I didn't notice was that the expiration date on these cans was way closer than usual. Usually when I get a case, I have two years to consume them.

I figured I just got a not-as-good-as-usual batch but I didn't eat them as often as I usually do. Recently though, I opened a can, took one bite and threw them out. That's when I finally looked at the expiration date. It was September of this year…less than a month away.

I immediately checked out other online sources — Amazon and a few others. None of them has the 8 ounce size. Amazon has the 16 ounce size but the price is way up. None of the local market has even a single can of Heinz Vegetarian Beans.

But I did notice that all the online merchants had cases of something called either Heinz Beans or Heinz Beanz.

Heinz Beans and Heinz Beanz are both described as"Baked beans in a deliciously rich tomato sauce" and the ingredients seem to be pretty much the same. They're also not that different from my beloved Heinz Vegetarian Beans, though I don't think the kind I've been eating since I was wee are baked. I ordered a few cans of Heinz Beans and also a few of Heinz Beanz figuring, "How different can they be?"

Well, I found out: Very different. And not, to my taste, very good. So I called the Heinz Consumer Support number and spoke to a nice lady who told me Heinz has been having an immense shortage of many of their products since The Pandemic began. She assured me it's only temporary and there will come a day when the green cans of Heinz Vegetarian Beans will be as available as they ever were. But she declined to speculate on when that day might be.

I didn't say this but I would guess that they're putting all their resources towards making sure no one can't get Heinz Ketchup. They have a huge market share of ketchup consumption and might feel it would be jeopardized if people start having to try other brands. Some people don't seem to know that there are other brands.

But that's just a theory on my part. She consulted her computer to see where I might obtain some of the limited cans of Heinz Vegetarian Beans that are out there. No market within a hundred miles of me has the 8 ounce cans. Two small markets that are, respectively, eight and ten miles from me might (might!) have a few of the 16 ounce ones. I think I'll just patronize the Sellers' Market and pay what it'll cost to get some 16 ouncers from Amazon.

I also asked the lady on the phone what the difference is between Heinz Beans and Heinz Beanz. She said they're pretty much the same product but one is made in Canada and one is made in Great Britain. There are slight differences in the formula and one of those countries thinks the product is more commercial with the extra "Z."

I guess they're okay but you know how it is: You get used to a certain taste and your sensory buds get frustrated when they don't receive it. When I eat another brand of beans — I recently tried Bush's and VanKamp's — I'm not disappointed because I don't expect them to be exactly like the beans of my childhood. But when beans with the name "Heinz Vegetarian Beans" on the label don't taste like the Heinz Vegetarian Beans I've known all my life, they just taste wrong to me. I'm going to give my Heinz Beans and also my Heinz Beanz to my Cleaning Lady.

We've been talking here about Comic-Con in years past and I mentioned the El Cortez Hotel in San Diego. Here's a brief TV news item about the con when it was at that hotel back in 1975. Shel Dorf is identified as the founder of the annual event and that's not exactly true. It's kind of a mistake that Shel encouraged and which no one bothered correcting very often in the con's earlier days.

In almost every news report back then about comic conventions, reporters fixated on one of two aspects or both: People dressing up as colorful characters and/or people paying then-outrageous sums for old comic books. You rarely saw anything about the contents of comic books or about the people who made them. This report is fairly typical. Jerry Siegel, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Gil Kane and many more important figures in the industry were present at the '75 con but they go unmentioned.

If and when I post some news coverage of more recent conventions, you'll see a lot about people dressing up as colorful characters and/or the presence at cons of stars of smash hit movies and TV shows. And even this report talks about Star Trek…

A friend of mine in Las Vegas just e-mailed to tell me that work crews are removing the name "Bally's" on the outside of Bally's Las Vegas, the big hotel at the corner of South Las Vegas Boulevard and East Flamingo Road. The place started life in 1973 as the MGM Grand but in 1986, Bally's — a company that started by manufacturing pinball and slot machines — bought the casino-hotel and renamed it.

A new hotel called the MGM Grand opened farther down the strip in 1993. It is still there and still named the MGM Grand. I think.

The Bally's company was purchased in 1996 by Hilton Hotels and then in 1998, Hilton split off all its casino-type operations into a company called Park Place. In 2003, Park Place was renamed Caesars Entertainment since they owned Caesars Palace along with other hotels. Then in 2005, Caesars Entertainment was acquired by Harrah's Entertainment.

Thoroughly confused? Wait, it gets worse: In 2010, Harrah's Entertainment was renamed Caesars Entertainment Corporation.

And worse: Back in 2003, one of the oldest casino-hotels in Vegas, Binion's Horseshoe, got into a huge legal battle with the the Culinary Workers Union and the Bartenders Union. A messy situation ensued and when it was over, Binion's Horseshoe was acquired by Harrah's, back when it was still Harrah's, but they soon sold it off to a company called MTR Gaming. Harrah's retained the rights to the name "Horseshoe" and some other intellectual property so Binion's Horseshoe became Binion's Gambling Hall.

Caesars Entertainment Corporation has been using the name "Horseshoe" on some of its properties around the world so now Bally's is being renamed Horseshoe Las Vegas. That's why they're taking the name "Bally's" down.

Back when I was playing Blackjack and counting cards, my two best winning streaks occurred at the original MGM Grand on The Strip and at Binion's Horseshoe downtown. Counting those cards was tough but not nearly as tough as keeping track of what any of these places was named and who owned them at any given moment.

Well: My Spectrum TV guide says that MeTV Plus starts running Harry O episodes next Monday at 4 PM, commencing with Episode 1 of Season 1 and proceeding right through the list, Monday through Friday. (Spectrum supplies my cable TV and it actually sometimes works.) But the guide on my TiVo has no mention of Harry O and it says there's an episode of Streets of San Francisco in that slot on Monday. You would think that in this era of stunning scientific breakthroughs, everyone could get this kind of thing right but at least one of these sources is wrong.

The musical group Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds consisted of Dan Hamilton (lead vocals and guitar), Joe Frank Carollo (bass guitar) and Tom Reynolds (keyboards) and in 1971, they recorded "Don't Pull Your Love Out." The group was formed out of the remnants of a band called The T-Bones, whose biggest hit was "No Matter What Shape Your Stomach's In," an instrumental version of a song that had been heard in Alka-Seltzer commercials.

That was all I ever really knew about the group. This record came out in Spring of 1971 and it was everywhere for a few weeks. I don't have any personal stories about it other than that a friend of mine used to sing a rather dirty and amateurish parody version of it. You can probably guess what the title line was turned into…

This blog may not have the most readers but it has some of the most informative. I said in the previous message that it was unlikely any channel would be rerunning Harry O soon. Perhaps I was wrong. Several of you have informed me that MeTV Plus (not to be confused with MeTV) will be running them at 3 PM, Monday through Friday starting this Monday.

The advance listings on my TiVo know nothing about this — they have Police Woman reruns listed for that time slot — and the online MeTV Plus website listings are not very complete or current. So this may not be true but I have a feeling it is. If you see anything definitive online, lemme know.

MeTV Plus, in case you don't know, is a spin-off channel from MeTV. MeTV focuses more on comedy. MeTV Plus has more cop shows and dramas and is not in nearly enough markets yet.

Well, some of you are. They ran the 42 episodes of the 1974-1975 detective series Harry O on Decades this past weekend and quite a few of you wrote to thank me for alerting you it was there.

The show starring David Janssen debuted on ABC the day before NBC debuted its series about a private eye who lived on the beach, The Rockford Files. The latter was the bigger hit, running six seasons compared to two for Harry O but I thought Harry O was by far the better of the two. I liked The Rockford Files but I loved Harry O.

And three of you wrote to say you caught episode #10 of Harry O and noticed that its opening scenes, which saw a man being murdered in the streets of San Diego, were shot outside the El Cortez Hotel. In 1972, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1981, the El Cortez was the site of the San Diego Comic Convention. You can see that episode — not one of the series' best — on YouTube.

It'll probably be a while before any channel runs these shows again. In the meantime, you can order the two volumes of Harry O on DVD here and here but they ain't cheap. The price seems to fluctuate but it doesn't fluctuate far from around $42 each.

Right now, you can buy all six seasons (120 episodes) of The Rockford Files on 22 DVDs for thirty bucks. I already own the two Harry O DVDs but if I didn't, I'd still think they were the bigger bargain.

Here's David Seville with his Chipmunks selling Post cereals. You know, if you have kids and you feed them enough sugary cereal, they'll start sounding like Alvin, Simon and Theodore…

From Frank Antonides…

We were having a discussion on a comic board about how many Golden Age artists are still alive. I told folks about how I used to attend your Golden Age panel at SDCC and how they were typically videotaped. Many folks expressed an interest in seeing the recordings and I wondered if they have ever been made available for purchase? If they are I'd love to pass on the information on how to purchase them and if not will they ever be available?

Very few folks who wrote or drew comics in the so-called "Golden Age" are still alive and the few who survive are either unable or unwilling to travel to conventions these days. Even if COVID were not an issue, I don't think you'd see a lot more of 'em at cons.

Once upon a time, it was fairly easy for me to assemble a Golden Age Panel each year, especially with the aid of a gent named Dave Siegel who did a lot of the legwork to track down folks who'd worked in comics long ago but weren't in the then-current comic book community. But as you might imagine, it got tougher as the years went by. At one point, I quietly switched it to the Golden-and-Silver Age Panel so I could include people who worked in comics in later years but even those became impossible to fill.

I forget what year we did this but we then introduced something called "That 70's Panel" with comic book creators from that decade…and even that became a problem. There were still a lot of folks from that time period around but very few who wanted to attend Comic-Con. This year, because I knew quite a few who were not attending because of The Pandemic, I didn't even try. If COVID is not an issue next year, I may (may!) attempt to throw together a seventies panel but I'm not confident it can be done.

And yes, every year I still have some version of this conversation with at least one person who approaches me…

SOMEONE WHO APPROACHES ME: I love all these panels you do but why don't you do a Golden Age or Silver Age panel anymore?

ME: Okay, name three people at this con who are qualified to be on it.

THAT SAME SOMEONE: Uh…

And then their eyeballs disappear like Batman's when he puts on his mask and they stagger away, bumping into pillars and cosplayers.

The panels of the past were sometimes videotaped…not professionally but just as a record. There are dozens of problems that would need to be worked out before we could make them available in any form and I need to start dealing with those issues and talking with the other folks involved. I think those videos will be available some day in some place or some form but I can't tell you how or when or where. It's a more complex matter than you might imagine.

What's involved with raising the first baby panda born in Singapore?

Slowly but surely, life is drifting towards normal in a world where The Pandemic is of less and less concern. It's still out there. People are still catching it. People are still dying or being seriously hospitalized. Nothing in this post should suggest that masks aren't a good idea in some situations, hands should not be washed or COVID is no longer a concern. But if you're like me, you're now doing some things you refrained from doing before we all heard the word "coronavirus." I have gone to a party, gone to a movie, gone to a comic book convention.

I have not gone to Las Vegas and it may be a long time before I do.

Oh, wait. I misspelled a word in that previous paragraph. I should have written "lonnnnnnnngggggg." And this not so much because of disease but because I now have no reason to go there and plenty of reasons not to.

I used to go to Las Vegas a lot. There were a few months in the nineties when I was there as much as I was in my home in Los Angeles. Here are some of the reasons why I went there and why those reasons no longer apply…

• I got hooked on Blackjack and more specifically on counting cards in Blackjack.  It was not so much a money thing with me. I never tried to win that much. I just wanted to see how many times I could leave a Blackjack table with more money than I had when I sat down…and once I'd done that enough times, I decided to quit while I was ahead. Why does this reason no longer apply? Because I quit, because I have no reason to start again (it was hard work) and because I'd have to learn how to do it all over again. I've forgotten all the little formulas and a lot of rules have changed, like so many casinos now pay 6-to-5 on a natural, whereas they used to pay 3-to-2. (A "natural" is when the dealer deals you an ace plus a ten-value card.)
• I love "old show business" and in Vegas, I could go see and often meet comedians and variety acts who'd been at it for years. I got to hang out with Dave Barry and Pete Barbutti and Irv Benson and so many other comics I knew from television. There were also longtime hotel employees around with great stories about Vegas in the fifties and sixties. Why does this reason no longer apply? Such people are all either dead or retired.
• I liked going to buffets, not so much for the volume as the variety. When you have as many food allergies as I do, you tend not to be adventurous in your ordering. But at a buffet, I can see the food before I put it in my mouth and often get a sense of how risky it might be…and I can have one bite of it on my plate instead of a whole order. Why does this reason no longer apply? Because since I had gastric bypass surgery in 2006, it is physically impossible for me to consume enough food at any buffet to feel I got my money's worth. That's especially true because of what buffets in Vegas now cost but I'll get to that topic in a moment.
• For part of my Vegas visiting, I was dating a showgirl in a show at one of the casinos. Apart from liking her a lot, I liked hanging out backstage at the show, talking with all the performers and the stage crew and everyone. Why does this reason no longer apply? Because that show is no longer in Vegas and neither is she. In fact, they imploded the entire hotel and built a new one on that land, and the lady I was seeing is now in another state, happily married with several children.
• I was occasionally there on business, writing for some comedian who was playing there or meeting with someone about a TV project…or something. At least three times, I was there to help a producer "pitch" a proposal for a Vegas show which they would produce and I would write. Why does this reason no longer apply? The "pitched" shows were never bought and I haven't had any business there lately.
• After my father died, I took my mother to Vegas three times because she loved going there but needed someone to get her onto the plane, off the plane, through the airports, into her room, etc. Why does this reason no longer apply? Eventually, her health would not allow her even that luxury and even more eventually, she passed away.

And also, for much of the time I was commuting to Las Vegas, I had a lot of "comped" free rooms, some because of all that Blackjack I was playing. I don't get those anymore.

But maybe the biggest reason I'm not going to Vegas is this: It's become incredibly — almost insultingly — expensive.

I'm on a few message boards where people in the "business" end of Las Vegas discuss the business. During The Pandemic when the casinos were as dead as one of those corpses they keep finding in Lake Mead as the water level drops, this was the consensus: "When COVID ends, we're going to have to spread around a lot of comps and discounts to lure vacationers back to Vegas." That turned out to be a very bad prediction. When the hotels reopened, mobs stampeded back to fill them.

No incentives were necessary. Suddenly, everything was selling out and when they raised prices — which is what you do when you're selling out — people were still stampeding. The most popular buffet in town at the moment seems to be the Wednesday night Lobster Buffet at the Palms. Last time I looked, admission to it was $64.99 per person and waits of more than four hours have been reported. Every week or two, they raise the price some more and they still have four-hour waits to get in.

It's like that all over Vegas. The most expensive buffet is the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars. That's $69.99 and there are several others in that price range. Shows are the same way. Here are the top and lowest prices of some of them…

A seat to Penn & Teller runs $106.47 to $239.48. Rod Stewart at Caesars Palace is $75.00 to $323.10. Shania Twain's new show will run you $99.21 to $1,259.79. The Michael Jackson-themed Cirque du Soleil® show at Mandalay Bay has seats from a low of $131.13 to a high of $283.73. Barry Manilow at the Westgate gets $94.42 up to a top of $422.98. And you don't want to know what it will cost to take in Adele's upcoming Vegas residency. Just sign your house over to her and that might (might!) get you into the rear balcony.

Some of those top prices include a meet-'n'-greet and/or souvenirs but the point is that good seats are not cheap these days. They're also not empty. It's like that all over the city and lately, all sorts of hidden fees are being added to hotel bills and restaurant checks. And yes, yes, I understand why they're doing it and frankly, if you and I had a business and we could double our prices without losing a single customer, we'd probably do the same thing. (Well, I might. You're much nicer than I am.)

But you get the point: I don't know how to go there without feeling like I'm Tourist-Trapped and being played for a sucker. I'm not going to say it's the principle, not the money, because frankly it's both. No matter how much wealth you have, there are moments when you just feel you're being treated like a pigeon and not an especially smart one at that. That city used to be so much fun.

Add in the fact that every time I see video or photos of present-day crowds downtown or on The Strip, I think, "Gee, if I was eager to catch COVID, that looks like a dandy place to catch it," and…well, it may be a long time before you see me there.

Downtown, a few blocks from The Fremont Street Experience, there's an alley into which I once blundered. It was full of homeless people, many of them practically sleeping on top of each other. Vegas has a large homeless population and it makes sense: It's warm most of the year, much of it's open 24/7, a lot of food gets thrown away or donated to missions, and big winners have been known to be generous with street folks who ask for spare change or Bitcoins.

But the folks in that alley were such a contrast to the opulence and riches you see elsewhere in that city. I sometimes think of them all sleeping in that alley and I just know that whoever owns that alley is now charging them a $39.95-per-night resort fee. Plus tax.

The other question put to me by Adam J. Elkhadem concerned Marvel's official, company-run fan club in the sixties, the Merry Marvel Marching Society…

I was absolutely awestruck to see you cited in Stan's Soapbox proposing the various M.M.M.S. acronyms in the pages of Fantastic Four. What a neat early claim to fame! How did you come up with these and what was it like to see your suggestion printed and later adopted?

I started writing a reply to Adam and experienced a wave of déjà vu. Suddenly, I was telling myself, "You've written this before" and I realized that, damn it, I had. I wrote about it here.

To it, I'll add that (a) I tend not to run into Stan Lee much these days and (b) that it was always a thrill to pick up a comic book at a store and find that a letter of mine had been accepted for publication. Obviously, it was a bit less of a thrill each time it happened but as I then had every intention of becoming a professional writer — or at least trying to become a professional writer — it was nice to feel I could at least get stuff I wrote published, sans pay.

And it was less of a thrill the few times — maybe more than a few — when what was published with my signature was not exactly what I'd written; when someone at DC or Marvel had decided my letter needed a rewrite to perhaps invert what I'd said or make a joke letter sound more like a serious statement. I finally stopped sending in letters for that reason.

And in hindsight, it was even less of a thrill than that. When I got into the business, I realized that it wasn't all that big a deal that some editor (more often, an assistant) had chosen my letter to be printed. I'd thought what I'd sent had stood out from a pile of a couple hundred submissions. Turned out, it was more like they needed eight letters to fill the page and they'd received twenty or so, half of them incoherent or saying next to nothing…and one or two in Crayola®. It was no great achievement to stand out from that stack.

So I guess I was thrilled at the time but I learned I shouldn't have been. And that included the ranks for the Merry Marvel Marching Society.