A whole buncha photos of Sinatra, Dino, Sammy and the rest of The Rat Pack hanging around Las Vegas.

If you ever need a reminder that there are stupid people in the world, just peek in your spam folder. You'll find an awful lot of messages that were sent en masse on the premise that somewhere out there, there was someone dumb enough (or in some cases, dumb and desperate enough) to respond.

Lately, I've gotten this one about forty times, all allegedly sent by different women with different names. This one is from Lorelei…

Are you up? Let's chat!

I'm aching to do something, really naughty, with you in your bed. It's so naughty, in fact, I'm afraid to even ask it. Can I? Do you want to hear it here, or somewhere else?

Call me a cynic if you like but I get the feeling that Lorelei just might not be a woman who really wants to do something really naughty with me. In fact, the odds are good that it's not from a woman at all. Maybe a guy. Maybe an enterprising bot. If the fact that I got forty of these with different feminine names attached didn't make me suspicious, I might still have some questions, the first of which would be "Why me?"

It would be followed by "How does this alleged woman know I'm in any position to do this naughty thing with her?" Lorelei got my e-mail address (God knows where) but does she even know my bed and I are on the same continent as her? She can ache all she wants to do this really naughty thing with me but if it can't be done over the Internet, it can't be done.

And how does Lorelei know that if we did meet, we wouldn't take one look at each other and one or more of wouldn't run off, screaming in horror? And why do I suspect that what she wants is not my body but my Visa card number? And if by some chance this is from a real woman who really wants me, how could I get properly aroused with someone who has such weird comma placement?

Millions of these things are sent out every day in this world. I get at least ten a day telling me that I am due for a settlement in some amount of five to seven figures and I need to get in touch with the stranger who e-mailed me to collect. There must be some success rate that makes the sender figure it's worth their time.

Since Bill and Hillary Clinton first burst onto the national scene — well before either ran for President — one persistent correspondent has sent me a steady stream of e-mails that basically say this: We have incontrovertible proof of massive crimes committed by Bill (and/or Hillary) and we can put him (or her or both of them) in prison but we need your donation to make it happen.

I've been getting these since at least the early nineties. For the sake of discussion, let's say 1992 so that's thirty years…and no less than three a week. So that's like 4,600 messages…and the only way they've changed is that they used to be mostly about Bill and now they're almost exclusively about Hillary.

As we have all seen once again with the "Big Lie" about Trump winning the last election, if someone says they have firm proof of something outrageous and they don't produce it, they don't have it and never did. If my constant e-mailer does have evidence that will send Hillary to prison, he's done her an enormous favor by sitting on it for three decades.

But someone's got to be sending him some loot or he wouldn't have taken the time to compose 4,600 messages. Either that or he's just terribly lonely with nothing to do. I'm thinking maybe I should try and fix him up with Lorelei. They might be very happy together assuming they both exist at all.

March 18, 1981 — Garry Shandling's life changes a lot, mostly for the better, with his first appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. I knew Garry briefly when I was working on Welcome Back, Kotter and he wrote a pretty good script for the show which was wholly — and I mean every word of it — rewritten by the staff, mostly by my partner Dennis and me.

It wasn't Garry's fault. The show had changed producers and direction, and if the producers who'd hired him had still been in charge, much of what he wrote would probably have made it to air. But the new producers had to prove they were different from the producers who'd been fired so they couldn't just go with what the fired guys had commissioned and midwifed. Garry later cited that experience as one of several reasons he decided to try stand-up. It was a long, slow journey from that to this…

Raphael Martinez wrote to ask — and he isn't the first person to ask some version of this…

As one of those writers who can't not write and seems to have no trouble getting assignments, is there anything that would make you retire?

A complete drying up of work or not being able to write at a level of quality you're satisfied with would be the only things I can think of, but neither seems to have been an issue throughout your career. And of course health issues, but that could cause any given person to retire.

Folks who ask this question usually conflate the act of writing with the pleasant experience of being paid for writing. It's great when the first thing leads to the other but with some of us, the latter is not mandatory. A sense of what will yield payment (or an actual, binding deal that will pay for sure) does often give direction to what we write. As long as I've been doing this, a high percentage of what I've written has had a lot to do with what I knew or thought would result in a check. The only thing that has changed since 1969 when I began is that nowadays, it sometimes leads to a direct deposit.

I suppose I might consider retiring from writing if there was anything (spelled a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g) else I wanted to do in its place but there never has been. I like writing and if I someday can't write for you or someone else, I'll just write for me. In fact, my increased "@home" presence during The Pandemic has given me keyboard time to write some things that may turn out to be just for me. I have no idea where, if anywhere, I can send them when they're completed to my satisfaction…assuming they'll ever be finished on that basis.

So no, I can't conceive of ever retiring. But then a lot of things about my life have surprised me so who knows?

Arnie Kogen has long been one of the top comedy writers in the business. Among the shows he's written for — and this is a very partial list — are Candid Camera, The Les Crane Show, The Jackie Gleason Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Dean Martin Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Rich Little Show, The Tim Conway Show, Donny and Marie, Evening at the Improv, Newhart, Empty Nest and MADtv. He's been nominated for six Emmys and won three, all for The Carol Burnett Show. Personally, I'm more impressed that he began writing for MAD magazine in 1959 and had articles, including some of the best TV and movie satires, in 179 issues.

I mentioned in this piece here that I did my earliest writing, including that naughty book I authored under the revered name of Mary Margaret Underburger, on an Olivetti-Underwood typewriter. That brought the following e-mail last Tuesday from Mr. Kogen, accompanied by a scan of his old business card. Here's Arnie and that card…

My full-time occupation from 1959 to 1963 was typewriter salesman for Olivetti-Underwood.

My part-time occupation was comedy writer for MAD Magazine, Morty Gunty and almost every other stand-up comedian except Stewie Stone. Perhaps that 122 page novel written by Mary Margaret Underburger was typed on an Olivetti sold by Arnold Kogen or one of his associates. If you're still in touch with Ms. Underburger would you ask her if it was written on a Lettera 22 (an award winning portable) or some other Olivetti-Underwood model. Just curious.

Hope all is well, Mark. Enjoy the rest of springtime.

And I thought it was very nice of the man to wish me that on the first day of Summer. The following is what I wrote him in return…

Glad to hear you once had honest work as a typewriter salesman. Frankly, I think this world could do with more typewriter salesmen and fewer comedy writers. I'd be out selling typewriters if I had the necessary skills.

I still have the typewriter of my youth. It was a Lettera 32 and a photo of the actual one I typed on is attached. It was obtained with Blue Chip Stamps, which were like Green Stamps, only blue. So was the Lettera 32.

The Blue Chip Stamps redemption catalog described it only as an Underwood. My mother ordered it and was somewhat upset when it turned out to be an Olivetti, figuring it was from a foreign country and therefore cheaply made and inferior. But it worked well even if the scripts Mary Margaret and I produced on it were cheaply made and inferior.

I would still be using it but it's impossible to buy ribbons for the damned thing, thereby forcing me to use this friggin', more complicated computer. The Olivetti-Underwood could do everything the computer can do except order from Grubhub and blog. It could even — and I'm not sure how it managed this before there was an Internet — download porn.

Arnie wrote back to me and said, "Next time we meet I have a few interesting Olivetti-Underwood stories for you. They're not as hilarious as that Flip Wilson story on the Tonight Show but perhaps more amusing than watching 600 ganache chocolate cakes being made." I don't know about that.

By the way: I do know my readership and many of you are probably searching the 'net already to see if there's anyplace to buy a typewriter ribbon for an Olivetti-Underwood Lettera 32. Well, I beat you to it. Before the Internet, they were impossible to find but today, I can find them and they aren't even that expensive. One online merchant has them for eight bucks, which isn't much more than I paid for them in 1969. I also notice that there are dozens of the typewriters themselves being offered on eBay for a low of about $70 including postage up to $700 and up. It was a fine machine in its day but I can't imagine even addressing an envelope on one today.

Once upon a time, my pal Gary Sassaman was heavily involved in the planning and execution of Comic-Con International. Over on his blog, he's been posting some wonderful stories about his experiences. The latest installment — which you can read here — is about dealing with big stars and big studios who wanted to do big promotions of big movies at the big convention.

If you like it, you'll want to go back and read earlier installments and this link will help you get to them. The earliest ones are about what Gary did before becoming involved with Comic-Con and those are worth reading also.

The latest from Jordan Klepper…

Two things to keep in mind about videos like this: One is that if you were a devout Trump supporter and you began to see evidence that he was a liar and a fraud and that he should be in prison, you might come to think that was true. But that would be a gradual process. You wouldn't come to that massive change of mind at one revelatory moment and you might not want to come to it when a TV camera was trained on you.

Secondly, you might then think, "Okay…so he's a liar and a fraud who belongs in prison. That's unfortunate but now I guess I have to support a liar and a fraud who belongs in prison to get the America I want." And you might continue to do so until such time as a champion emerges who seems likely to get you the America you want without being so obviously a liar and a fraud who belongs in prison.

I still believe there are an awful lot of people in this country who are of voting age and who don't want that America. There are more than enough to install leaders who want what they want and to overturn these radical-right victories. It's just a matter of getting those people to the polls…and then dealing with losers who'll never admit they lost fairly. Not easy but far from impossible.

• It's nice that so many companies are pledging to cover travel expenses for employees who need abortions but (a) part of the right to get one was the right to privacy, meaning you don't have to tell your boss, and (b) unemployed women get pregnant too.

I talk about all sorts of things on this blog…whatever's on my mind and a few things that obviously aren't. My opinions are worth exactly what you pay for them if you've never clicked my donate link and even less than what you sent if you did. The following — which is not about comic books or TV or old comedians or politics or the politics of old TV comedians in comic books — is being offered without any claim of expertise. It's about one of my favorite foods.

It's the Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roast, a bone-in, slow roasted turkey thigh that I consider one of the yummiest things I've ever eaten in my own home.  But don't go running out and trying to find the above package in your local stores.  I don't think they make them in that form anymore.

They used to.  I wrote about them years ago here when I was buying them at Costco.  I'd take home four or five from their refrigerator case, stick a couple in my freezer and the rest in the main part of my refrigerator.  Then I'd heat one up, either in the microwave or my roaster oven, and eat dark meat turkey for two or three days until it was totally consumed.  Since they came fully cooked, all I had to do was heat them and even I, a person who is to cooking what Rudy Giuliani is to winning lawsuits, could handle that.

Alas, Costco stopped carrying them.  I searched everywhere and made a pest of myself talking to folks who worked at Jennie-O.  For a time, I found them in similar packaging in the prepared food section of the self-service meat displays at Ralphs Markets, which is the arm of the Kroger Corporation in California.

Then they stopped carrying them.  If you're a big fan of the kind of music you hear when some company has you on hold, call the number that Kroger or Ralphs gives out to call in and sound off about what they carry in their stores.  You'll hear hours upon hours of that delightful music interspersed with ads to use their website.  I don't think I ever got through to a human being there.

I found the Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roasts briefly at Sprouts Markets but they changed to something that I guess they thought was just as good but it wasn't.  And briefly, one Ralphs near me had them, not for sale as a packaged Turkey Pot Roast but warmed and shredded and sold by the pound as Turkey Fajitas from a steam table in their service deli.  But I don't think I'd had one for over five years (probably longer) until last Monday.

A week ago today, while placing an online order at a Ralphs near me, I saw them listed as among the eats they carry.  I called up and a man in the deli department said, "Yeah, we have them."  I jumped in my car, drove directly there…and they didn't have them.  They had a rotisserie turkey breast (i.e., white meat) from another company — one I'd tried and found close to inedible. That's what he thought I was asking about when I said, "Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roast."

"Okay," I said to him. "But your website clearly says 'Jennie-O Turkey Pot Roast.'"  I showed him the listing on my phone and there was a photo of one that looked like this…

He looked at the image and said, "We don't carry those." He polled everyone else working there that day and they agreed. No one could explain why the website said they did but one had a suggestion — that I call in on Monday and talk with the Service Deli Manager who doesn't work weekends. I did…and he said, "Yeah, we have those. We just took a batch out of the warmer to put in the display where we have the rotisserie chickens." I made him swear on the life of any children he has or might ever have and to promise to hold two for me. Then I drove over and bought two of these…

It's the exact same thing but though the Ralphs website calls them "Turkey Pot Roast," it doesn't say that anywhere on the packaging.  It says, "Slow-Roasted Dark Turkey."  That may be the cause of the confusion…and if it isn't, I'm sure it will be.

Meanwhile, this page on the Jennie-O website will tell you what's in them and if they're sold near you.  I would not take the latter info as infallible.  They show a number of stores carrying them in my neck of the woods but of the eight I phoned — six (including two Ralphs) didn't know what the hell I was talking about.  Maybe they'll be carrying them soon — or maybe they do but like the folks on duty at my local Ralphs last Saturday — they don't know they do.

They'd had them in some refrigerator (and not on display) there at that Ralphs that day but no one working there had ever heard of them.  Yesterday, having consumed the two I got on Monday, I went by and while there were no heated ones out with the rotisserie chickens, the manager happily sold me two unheated ones from the back.

I'd rather get them that way. I keep 'em in the fridge and then when I want some, I scoop a proper portion into a microwave-safe dish and get it warm in my microwave-safe microwave.  They're juicier if I heat them than they are if the store does and then they sit there until someone comes in and buys one.  (Note by the way that these are bone-in, meaning that the weight of one includes a large bone you remove and discard.)

Years ago when I was an uncompensated shill for the ones sold at Costco, about twenty people wrote to thank me for suggesting they try 'em. I hope to receive more such thanks again.

Last Christmas, not long before the new Broadway production of The Music Man opened with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, Ms. Foster missed a few performances due to you-know-what. Her understudy, Kathy Voytko, filled in as Marian the Librarian, which led to a memorable and highly viral curtain speech by Mr. Jackman praising Ms. Voytko and others who cover roles and sometimes go on with very little notice or rehearsal. If you didn't see that speech or need to refresh your memory, here's a link to it.

I guess it was inevitable. A few weeks ago, it was Mr. Jackman's turn to be out with the same you-know-what and taking his place was understudy Max Clayton. Here's the curtain speech that Sutton Foster gave the first night Mr. Clayton went on. No doubt the audience was unhappy not to see Hugh Jackman — especially those who took a second mortgage on their homes to be able to buy the tickets. But as you'll see here, they seem to be pretty happy at the "memorable event" nature of the performance…

YouTube has lately been full of videos showing amazing feats of mass baking…some company ouputting hundreds of this or that.  This one shows the production of 600 ganache chocolate cakes and it's fascinating how much of it is done by hand, apparently by human beings whose jobs consist of working in a confined space, doing the same thing all day, over and over and over and over and over and over and over…

This is obviously not the blog to which one comes for a deep dive on the issue of Abortion…you know, that thing the Supreme Court kinda/sorta outlawed this morning. It has not been an issue that has had much direct impact on my adult life except as a political concern.

I am not unsympathetic to the feelings of those with honest moral issues about it but I don't think they have been the ones driving the bus on this topic. I think they're the ones who have been manipulated by and exploited by those who knew it was an issue that could get votes and donations.

If you want to convince me you have a genuine caring for the unborn, show me some meaningful concern for what happens to those children once they're born…or for the women whose lives are harmed in some way by being denied the right to control their own bodies. After she had me (by emergency Caesarean section), my mother was told that she came close to dying in the process and shouldn't try it again…which explains why I was an only kid. When I hear people insist that abortion must be illegal in all cases, I think, "Gee, that person who claims to be 'pro-life' doesn't put much value on the lives of women like my mother who may risk death in childbirth."

That and one other thing helped shape my thinking on this matter. Around 1978, a lady friend had me join her in a counter-demonstration against a group that was picketing what they claimed — probably wrongly — was an "abortion clinic." It wasn't really but the protesters got physical trying to deny entrance to pregnant ladies seeking much-needed free care to keep them healthy until they could give birth…and, of course, after. I may tell that story here one of these days but I don't want to write it up now when I don't have time to do it properly. And again, I'm not sure this is the right blog for this topic at all.

Today, I'm mostly distressed at this war escalating. I just saw an ecstatic person on CNN saying that the issue of Abortion in America has now been settled once and for all. I think the opposite. I think we're going to be hearing about it every day a pregnant lady or a provider is arrested…or some woman dies because she couldn't obtain a safe 'n' legal termination of a pregnancy. Which sadly may mean every day.

The fine folks who bring you Comic-Con International announced today their eighth and final list of Special Guests at this year's convocation and — surprise, surprise! — I'm on it. I'll be moderating a bunch of panels, including most of the ones I usually do, and I'll be having a very good time there.

The con starts in 26 days (!) and the full schedule of events should be posted two weeks before each day. That is to say the schedule for Thursday, July 21 will be posted on July 7, the schedule for Friday, July 22 will be posted on July 8 and so on. If you're attending, I urge you to study these schedules when they're posted. Make a list of what you want to attend and also list some second choices if you can't get into your first choices. You will have a much better time there if you do a little advance planning of this kind.

Also — and you can do this right now by clicking here — check out the convention policy regarding vaccinations and face masks.

I guess that's all I have to say right now. I'm sure I'll think of other things.

Peter Parlagreco sent me a photo that he found online and he has a question about it. The photo below is a better copy that I had in my files but here's Peter's question…

I just saw this photo on Tom Brevoort's site and was wondering if it really is you in the Red Skull mask. If yes, any story attached to it? Just curious.

Yes, it's me…and once more, I can't imagine how someone couldn't recognize me.

Sadly, there's not much of a story here. This was taken back in the days when my pal Steve Sherman and I were working for Jack and also — though we would soon quit — for a company called Marvelmania International. Marvelmania was doing mail order stuff with Marvel Comics, taking orders for posters and decals and stuff and, once in a rare while, actually sending the folks who ordered what they ordered.

Marvelmania had done a promotion with the Marine Corps "Toys for Tots" charity and during it, the guy who ran Marvelmania had persuaded various firms to donate items to the campaign that he might be able to then also use for Marvelmania's own concerns. Among these were costumes of Spider-Man, Thor and Captain America.

There was then a gent named Don Post who made and sold rubber masks of all sorts of ghastly creatures. Among other places, they were advertised in the rear of Warren Magazines like Creepy and Famous Monsters of Filmland. The Marvelmania guy saw one of those ads, noticed a skull mask that Mr. Post sold and said, "Hey, we can get a costume of the Red Skull!" He persuaded Don Post Studios to donate one and Steve spray-painted it red…so we had a reasonable facsimile of Captain America's major villain! Mr. Post later began selling them in red but I don't know if he got the idea from us.

One day when Steve and I went out to Thousand Oaks to work with Jack, we took the mask along. I put it on. Steve took the photo. That's about the extent of the story. Don Post died in 1979 but apparently his son has made arrangements with this company to reissue and extend the mask line, and they'll soon be bringing them out. You can see the skull mask over on their website.

PBS is airing the Mark Twain Award Ceremony in which the coveted prize is bestowed on Jon Stewart. If you don't watch the whole show, at least watch Mr. Stewart's terrific acceptance speech…