I had a link to this song here a long time ago but it got deleted. Here's a different instance of my favorite vocalist, Audra McDonald, singing "Baltimore"…

One of the most amazing people I've met in show business is my friend and occasional employer Sid Krofft. Marty's pretty amazing too but this article in the L.A. Times is mostly about Sid, who at age 92 looks a decade or three younger and still has the unrestrained imagination of a nine-year-old. Sid's Sunday podcasts are delightful, mostly because he is. And yes, I've been to that home of his and it's the single-most impressive residence I've ever seen in my life. Check him out some Sunday.

Remember when we were all worrying about The Ozone Layer? Remember when some folks were really worried our planet was doomed because it was disappearing?

Well, you don't hear much about that these days and there's a reason why.

This may interest some of you. It's close to half an hour of casino gambling expert Sal Paciente showing clips from movies about cheaters and discussing how authentic the scenes were. I once spent a lot of time learning about this kind of thing for a movie script that I wrote for a studio that closed down two years later. If they'd made my script, they could have been outta business in one.

In connection with it though, I spent a lot of time at Blackjack tables and read a lot of books and talked to a lot of experts and even got some amazing tours. One was of the counting room in one casino and it looked like Uncle Scrooge's money bin in there. There was literally money all over the floor and when I exited, I was just about strip-searched to make sure none of the loot was on my person.

Another was of the surveillance room in another casino — the room from which experts spy on the players and also on the dealers. In this particular gaming establishment, they seemed more "on the lookout" for dealers being in cahoots with players than with players cheating on their own. They also showed me how if a known cheater walked into hotel in town, they were all instantly alerted to his whereabouts.

It was all fascinating…and I also learned enough that while I could card-count and win a few hundred dollars at one casino or another, it was a foolish risk to go much above the "few hundred dollars" level. They didn't mind a guy winning $600 or $700 because they figured (a) he'd resume playing later and give it back or (b) seeing him win that money would inspire other players to play…and they'd lose more than that winner won. But I still gave up Blackjack and, really, all gambling.

Here's the video. You may note the number of ways in which what this man is explaining intersects with my interest in magic…

I continue to be aghast at how a man who was so honored and respected twenty years ago has done everything short of molesting farm animals in public to lose all that respect. The latest is Rudy Giuliani's admission that much of the "evidence" that he claimed in public to have of voting fraud came from that most reliable of sources — some guy on the Internet. And that it was evidence that Mr. Giuliani deliberately did not fact-check. I would assume the reason he didn't fact-check was that he really didn't care if it was true or not…and if he found out for sure it was false, he might feel a little worse about spreading it.

Among those who still insist Trump won the election, there seems to be no awareness that guys like Giuliani were fighting with two kinds of evidence: The kind that would stand up to scrutiny in a court of law and the kind they knew wouldn't. The latter kind was disseminated to rally the public, keep Trump's followers mad and behind him, and to get donations. This was the kind they rarely presented in court lest the lawyers be laughed-at or even disbarred. What little they did present in court was pretty feeble.

Here's Brett Bachman explaining about a smear that Rudy spread about an employee at Dominion Voting Systems…and don't take Mr. Bachman's word for all this. You can read the transcript of the deposition and it's pretty amazing, especially when you remember that Rudy Giuliani was supposed to be a very accomplished (and expensive) attorney.

I don't cook much but I occasionally do something simple with chicken parts. The following lesson from Adam Ragusea is of some use to me. Perhaps it will be of some use to you…

• I used to tell people that "Free Advice is worth exactly what you paid for it" but lately, it seems the bottom has fallen out of that market. Most of the Free Advice I see given these days is worth a lot less than what you paid for it.

A little over 570 days ago, my primary care physician told me about The Shutdown…how I should plan on staying home a lot and avoiding contact with others. This "pandemic" thing we were hearing about was more real than we thought, he said. A few days later, most of America would be told what he told me and I decided to follow his advice. I don't think my doctor is infallible but I think he knows a helluva lot more than I do…and more than any non-doctor I see offering advice about this thing.

None of us then thought we'd be where we are today. I thought the shelter-at-home plan might last a few months. I also thought it would be way more difficult and depressing than it has been. I'm fortunate that my occupation and lifestyle were already centered on staying home. It wasn't that big a change for me. Along with feeling bad for those who got the damned disease, I feel bad for those whose lives were ruptured by quarantining…people who lost jobs, friends, businesses, important social contacts, things they loved to do, etc.

I continue to take the position that no one knows when this will end or if it will get worse but I'm cautiously trying to get out of my house a little more. Today, my friend/assistant Jane and I went to the Magic Castle up in Hollywood for lunch. Masks were worn (except while eating, of course) and vaccination statuses were checked. It's the first time I've set foot in the club since late February of 2020.

The Castle has changed a bit. Each October, they apply some sort of Halloween overlay that changes the appearance of much of the place and they're just starting to apply it. But most of it is still the Castle of which I've been a member for forty years. It felt like being home but then I also felt like being home in a real sense. This Pandemic has really turned me into a guy who doesn't want to leave his house if he can possibly help it.

I know I have to get over that and that's one reason I have provisionally agreed to be a Special-Type Guest at the Comic-Con Special Edition which starts in 56 days. I need to start practicing for being somewhere else and not here.

The Kino Lorber company issues a lot of great movies on DVD and Blu-ray and does a fine job restoring these films and packaging them with the proper extras. I'm one of those folks who isn't satisfied that a movie he likes is easily available for streaming. I like to own a physical copy and I am glad that there are companies like Kino Lorber that put films out for purchase. But I also like streaming channels so I can watch films before I decide to own them and Kino Lorber has just gotten into that business, too.

Beginning today, you may be able to get Kino Cult, a new streaming channel with what they call "cult" films. I'm never sure what that adjective means in this context and think maybe "weird" or "not for everyone" would be a better descriptor. In a way, I think calling something a cult film is like calling it a "guilty pleasure." Both terms to me mean the same thing: "This is a strange movie with lots of gore and/or sex and/or a bizarre mindset and I don't want to be judged for liking this kind of thing."

Personally, I don't judge anyone for liking something (unless it's illegal) and I don't fault them for liking things that I don't like or even things I can't conceive of anyone liking. And with that in mind, I intend to explore Kino Cult because they have an awful lot of stuff I've never even heard of. You might want to give it a look. It's available on Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV and other video-on-demand apps. Look over their offerings at this page and prepare to be really, really baffled at some of what's available.

Jack Kirby would have been pleased to see this "answer" on tonight's episode of Jeopardy! And what would have pleased him most was not that it showed he was famous but that he was being credited as a co-creator. He did not see that often when he was alive.

He saw himself being praised as a great artist — and when he complained to Stan about not being acknowledged for inventing (or co-inventing) characters and comics, Stan's response was usually to praise Jack more as an artist. Happily, Jack is now formally acknowledged the way he wanted to be…and yes, I know: Too little, too late. But "better late than never" is applicable here and we have to settle for that.

I have respect for a number of things Stan Lee did during his long career but I do not buy any of the excuses that absolve him of blame for Jack not getting the credit he deserved. Hell, if he'd just said in public (or in depositions) some of the things he said to me in private, he could have lived up to that line about how with great power comes great responsibility.

And in case you're interested, the contestant on Jeopardy! who rang in on this answer was their long-reigning champion, Matt Amodio, the guy who starts all his responses with "what" even when "who" or "where" would be more proper. His response to this one was "What's Kirby?"

I just watched (on my iPad), the first episode of The Problem with Jon Stewart, which I think is the first thing I've ever watched on AppleTV.  As with addictive drugs, the first one's free and then you pay…in this case, $4.95 a month for AppleTV.  I shall do this because the show is, as they say, Must See Television.  It's worth five bucks a month all by itself and they're only, I believe, doing two a month.

If I were a right-wing guy, I might be suspicious.  The problem addressed in this first outing of The Problem is U.S. soldiers suffering from exposure to toxic chemicals from "burn pits."  This is one of those issues any human with even a teensy nugget of empathy would be ashamed to not care about.  Presumably, future episodes will address more controversial topics.  I'd think, "Yeah, he's right about this but he's trying to win my heart over and then he'll hit me with his Liberal Propaganda."  Well, maybe.  But that doesn't mean he won't be right again.

It's a solid, well-produced show and if you forced me to find a fault in it, it's that it makes its point in a smattering of minutes, then hammers it home over and over.  Jon, you had me at "soldiers suffering due to these burn pits." But just when I thought the show was preaching to a choir it had already converted, Stewart gave us an interview with a gentleman in government who's at the heart of this problem and any possible solution…and therefore gave us an insight into why government sometimes doesn't work they way we want it to.

So I'm signing up for AppleTV. The next installment is apparently about why people don't want to wear masks and how foolish that is. And just as Mr. Stewart is frustrated that the solution to the burn pit problem isn't happening A.S.A.P., I'm a little frustrated that we have to wait two weeks for that episode.

Here's a preview of Episode #1.  Don't bother watching it.  Just pick up any Apple-connected device and watch the entire program…

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In was a ground-breaking show that ran on NBC from January of 1968 to March of 1973. It changed network television and launched a lot of careers and now somehow manages to look incredibly dated but also ahead of its time. The show was a co-production of its hosts, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, and George Schlatter's company. There was later much bad blood and squabbling between the hosts and Schlatter over proceeds and credit for the show.

Four years after Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In left NBC, Schlatter brought it back for a series of specials as Laugh-In with no mention of Mssrs. Rowan and Martin…or of anyone who'd been in the cast of the original version. Instead, he assembled a new cast of largely unknown performers, many of whom remained that way.

This is the first episode of that revival and it aired on September 5, 1977 to, as I recall, very mixed reaction and not-great ratings.  The critics seemed to feel that the lack of any real host or hosts yielded a lack of focus and made the show seem way too disjointed.  I thought it was a mistake to throw so many unfamiliar faces at us with no names attached.  The performers were not identified until the cocktail party sketch near the end.  It starts at 41:40 if you want to zip ahead to it.  I can't match most of these people up to the roles they played throughout the show either.

The big guest star was Bette Davis. The cameo guests included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Garner, Henry Winkler, Ralph Nader, Rich Little and Barry Goldwater. And the troupe consisted of Sergio Aragonés, Antoinette "Toad" Atell, Nancy Bleiweiss, Ed Bluestone, Kim Braden, Claire Faulconbridge, Wayland Flowers (and Madame), June Gable, Jim Giovanni, Ben Powers, Bill Rafferty, Lenny Schultz, Michael Sklar and Robin Williams.

Robin Williams was obviously the breakout star but I'm more interested in the first name among the regular players: Sergio Aragonés.  Could that possibly be my friend and partner, the world-famous cartoonist from MAD and Groo the Wanderer?

It could be and it is.  Sergio did the cartoon graphics throughout the show and was a writer-performer in many of the pantomime blackouts.  He's the guy with the Sergio Aragonés mustache, dressed as a Karate expert and a Mexican general among other guises.  There's a bit in there with a cartoon Sergio studying the navel of a lady in a swimming pool and he not only drew himself but they shot that at the home he had back then in the Hollywood Hills.  He was in all the other episodes of this Laugh-In and turned up on some other shows produced by George Schlatter.  You can spot him here and there in the margins, too…

• I'm getting stricter. I'm now refusing to be alone with myself without proof of vaccination or a copy of a negative COVID test taken within the past 72 hours.

The Fifth Dimension appeared many times on my old mixtape. "Up, Up and Away" was one of many hits for them written by Jimmy Webb and when it came out in May of '67, it was played almost non-stop on KHJ radio.

In fact, I recall the competing Top 40 radio station in L.A., which was KRLA, countered with a version of the record that incorporated its call letters into the lyrics. I have no idea if the Fifth Dimension recorded a special version for them or if KRLA got permission to have soundalike group come in and dub different lyrics over some lines…or what. But at points in that version, the vocal would be "K-R-L-A" instead of "Up, Up and Away," even though the tune called for five syllables there instead of four.

That's about all I can think to write about this song other than at some point, I got awfully tired of hearing it every time I turned on the radio. It's fine but not when heard incessantly…

I just convinced a lady I know to get vaccinated. We'd talked about this before and she was not an anti-vaxxer, though some of her friends are. She just hadn't gotten around to deciding if her pro-vaxx friends were right or her anti-vaxx friends, most notably one from the latter group who seems to have incontrovertible proof that hundreds of thousands of people have died soon after receiving one of the three popular vaccines.

You may not have heard about these hundreds of thousands of people because various sinister forces have done a great job of keeping it quiet. But you can't fool this friend of hers. He would know. He fixes mufflers for a living.

Actually, I'm taking credit I don't fully deserve for her decision. It was me but more effectively, it was all the places she now can't get into without showing proof of vaccination or a very recent test. These include concerts she might like to attend, restaurants she might like to patronize, the place where she works and her folks' home for Thanksgiving. She's not afraid of COVID. She's afraid of exclusion and I don't get it but, hey, if it works…

I canceled my trial subscription to Paramount+ which I only got so I could watch the Tony Awards. I wonder how many people signed up for that reason and how many of us canceled. Now I have to contend with Apple TV so I can watch Jon Stewart's new show which starts tomorrow. Some of the advance publicity makes it sound like Last Week Tonight With John Oliver Jon Stewart but of course we shall see.

Early episodes of Mr. Stewart's tenure at The Daily Show have been popping up on YouTube and they remind me how this guy was good when he started and he just kept getting better and better.

Lastly for now: How amazing that we are no longer surprised, shocked, outraged or even that interested when a recount in Arizona confirms that Donald Trump lost that state in the 2020 Presidential Election…and he just goes out and tells everyone it proved that he won.