Andrew Lloyd Webber or some company of his has been posting videos of full productions of his musicals on YouTube during The Pandemic. They have two goals, it would appear, one being to cheer up people who are stuck at home during a time when there is no theater. That's a fine goal. The other is to raise money for The Actors Fund, which is also a fine goal, though I'd like to think that the richest man to ever work in live theater is also sending them Phantom-of-the-Opera-sized checks.

Each musical posted is only available for online viewing for a limited amount of time. A year ago this week, it was this version of Cats, which is not the recent movie. It's a filming done in 1988 of the production that ran slightly less than forever at the New London Theatre on Drury Lane. It has Elaine Paige, Sir John Mills and other fine performers in its cast and it's about as good a presentation of this show as you'll ever see.

I find myself often defending Cats even though I'm not a huge fan of the musical. But I don't hate it as some folks do and I certainly don't do what some do and call it an affront to mankind and decency akin to The Holocaust, only with tails and slightly worse songs. Some people were that way about it before it even debuted, insisting that a show that dressed actors up like felines could not possibly have any merit whatsoever.

I remember smug articles in theater-fanzines of the day predicting a failure of massive proportions and then, lo and behold, it went on to become at one point the longest-running Broadway show in history. It's still at #4, behind The Lion King, though it'll probably soon be overtaken by Wicked, which is reopening shortly. And some who predicted the failure of Cats are still refusing to believe anyone ever liked it. They sound like Trump supporters insisting nobody voted for Joe Biden.

If you think the whole notion of actors in cat costumes is an abysmal concept, don't go see it. I know a few people who I think did just so they could say, "Yeah, I went to see it so I could see if it was as horrible as I knew it would be and I was right." That's like saying, "Yeah, I jumped off the roof just to see if I'd break my leg as I knew I would and I was right."

But if you're curious about the show or saw it and would like to see it once more, it's online again for 48 hours, minus the few hours since Sir Andrew or his minions put it up. Tell Mr. Mistoffelees and Rum Tum Tugger I sent you…

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is a rock remix by someone or other…

Hey, you know the thing I posted a little while ago about the sting operation that was trying to catch Trump staffers saying Trump was a stupid person? Well, Jonathan Chait wrote a better piece about that than I did. Read his, not mine.

For what it's worth, I've decided there's no reason to modify my mask-wearing. I wear one when near others except folks in my home and no one gets in here unless they're vaccinated. I still have no desire to dine in a restaurant or be in a theater. I will decide about things like parties and conventions when I'm invited to one that I might wish to attend…which might be quite a while off.

This morning, I'm intrigued by this story that a band of self-styled spies ran an elaborate sting operation, trying to trap various officials of the Trump organization into saying insulting things about Trump on hidden cameras. But this was not a group that hated Trump and wanted to bring him down. These were Trump loyalists who wanted to identify those within the Trump organization who deep down thought such things about the president.

They tried hard but were unable to entrap anyone. I'm going to guess that was due to inept trickery because there certainly were folks within that organization that thought that Trump was a dummy with severe mental problems. More than a few described him as an idiot after they left the administration or even while they were in it. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called him an f'ing moron without the contraction.

And the amazing thing about this is not that the spy ring couldn't snare anyone. It's that they felt the project was necessary. They knew there were people around Trump who felt that way about him. And the reaction to that was "We've got to weed out those people and get rid of them." It was not "Gee, maybe those people who are working with Donald Trump and came to that conclusion are accurately reporting what they've observed."

No, I don't know any more about the "Special Edition" Comic-Con in San Diego this Thanksgiving than I did weeks ago. Well, I do know that the convention center has taken the line about an expected attendance of 130,000 off its online calendar. It's still listing the event to occur November 26-29 but with no estimate of attendees. I'll bet the folks who stage this con are still not sure of how a big a convention they're planning…and if they can pull it off.

I love the musical stylings of the a cappella group Voctave even though their membership roster seems to have changed a bit since last we linked to a Voctave video. This one was just released and it's a medley billed as the themes from Disney animated shows of the nineties. They fudged a little to include Muppet Babies which didn't become a Disney show until this century but who cares? It's fun…

…and on the day that the President tells us that fully-vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks, the fully-vaccinated Bill Maher tests positive for COVID-19. There's a good reminder that vaccines are effective but not 100% effective.

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is performed by Luke, a piano student at Creative Keys Piano Studio located in Voorhees, NJ…

• When I was young, I was one of the few kids I knew who was into science-fiction. These days, everyone seems to be but too many of them think science is fiction.

You're probably seeing some version of the above announcement all over your Internet today. It's nice to see…or is it? Most folks — particularly those who never liked the idea of masking-up in the first place — are going to see that and toss their masks into waste receptacles. But that's not really what the CDC proclamation says…

There are a few caveats, however. People who have compromised immune systems, for example, should talk to their doctors about continuing with mitigation measures. And even fully vaccinated people may still be asked to wear masks in certain places, such as in hospitals or other health care settings, as well as public transportation.

The graphic above, which was tweeted by the office of The President of the United States, says nothing about "certain places." It says nothing about how private businesses and offices may still require masks. It says nothing about state and local laws that may still require masks.

And if they thought that somehow, this would encourage the unvaccinated to join the ranks of the vaccinated, I think it'll have the opposite effect: "Oh boy! Now we can go maskless and everyone will just assume we're vaccinated!"

I ain't throwing mine away.

In 1996, Nathan Lane starred in a new production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the St. James Theater in New York. Forum has been my favorite show ever since 1970 when I first saw it in a revival that starred Phil Silvers, Larry Blyden, Nancy Walker, Lew Parker, Carl Ballantine and a bevy of other fine folks including Charlene Ryan, who is now married to some cartoonist named Sergio Aragonés. (Some of you already know this but I'm going to go through this again for those who don't.)

Best evening I ever spent in a theater. From that day forward, I was like an addict trying drug after drug trying to again experience the wonders of that first high. I have been to every production of the show I could possibly see, well aware I'll probably never find one as good as that one with Mr. Silvers. But okay. It doesn't have to be that good. I'll settle for anywhere in the same ballpark.

And sometimes I've seen really good ones and sometimes I've seen really bad ones. When I started going with Amber, I warned her that our dating would include attending productions of that show now and then…and fortunately, the first one I took her to was really, really good. Less than a month later, I took her to one that was really, really bad.

One of the really, really good ones, I saw before I met her. It was the one with Nathan Lane and I saw it twice. I was in New York just before it opened and I prevailed upon one of the authors of the show, Larry Gelbart, to get me house seats. He agreed on one condition: I was seeing it before he did so after the show, I was to exit the theater and immediately text him my quickie review of it.

I told him he had a deal. So I took a lady I knew in New York to see it and on the sidewalk outside after, I texted Larry a three-word review of what I'd seen. It said: NEEDS MORE JEWS.

A few weeks later, Larry saw it and he phoned me. He said, "You were right. Needs more Jews."

Several months later I was back in New York and I again coerced house seats out of Larry. This time, the same show with the same cast was much, much better. I don't think they added any Jews to it but Lane and the other players, including the incomparable Lewis J. Stadlen, had learned how to wring every single laugh out of every single line, including many I'd never seen get laughs before.

I took a different lady I knew in New York and we loved the show. It wasn't Phil Silvers but I'd long since given up expecting anything to clear the high bar he'd set.

The next time I was in New York after that, Mr. Lane had departed the show and his replacement was…this is not a joke…Whoopi Goldberg. I am not a fan of stunt casting…of men playing roles written for women or vice-versa. I don't think I'd go see Gypsy with Nathan Lane playing Mama Rose and I decided not to see Whoopi as Pseudolus. I decided to skip it — the one and only time I could easily have gone to see a version of Forum and didn't.

Recently, someone posted this video of Whoopi doing the opening number. There are a few bad edits in this but it still makes me wish I'd given it a try…

Jonathan Chait has some wise words (it seems to me) on the matter of Liz Cheney being booted from her position of power in her party. And pretty much being told that her party is no longer her party.

I'm not spending much time watching news these days because fifteen minutes of watching news seems to turn into an hour or more of thinking about it and I have writing assignments that need my attention. Is it as simple as mainstream Republican leaders being terrified that if Trump can't call the shots in their party, he'll start his own and in so doing, take away enough voters and donors to cripple the G.O.P. for a long, long time?

No one seems too shocked by yesterday's announcement that Ellen DeGeneres is ending her very successful afternoon talk show. Still, I have a flurry of e-mail asking me to comment…and I think I did last August.

Regarding NBC's announcement that they will no longer air the Golden Globes ceremony — at least for a while: All the things they're saying about how the organization is deficient in matters of diversity are probably true but we also stand by our view that America is getting sick of shows where people who are already too rich and too famous honor each other for their awesome greatness. Frankly, the Golden Globes should have been taken off the air because no one knew who gave them out or for what or how or anything. They were on TV because someone thought they were important and someone thought they were important because they were on TV.

If you don't think politics makes for strange bedfellows, just look at some of the people who now find themselves siding with Liz Cheney.

Rob Reiner just posted the following on Twitter: "We no longer have a two party system." Yes, we do. We have the Democratic Party and the Donald Trump Party. That's two parties.

I would love to know how much work and what techniques Randy Rainbow did to make that new video of his we linked here yesterday. I still find it amazing that someone could whip that up on a home computer system. Wonder what it would have cost and how many technicians would have been involved if we'd tried to produce something like that back when I was doing variety shows. We might still be in post-production.

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is by an anonymous Brass Ensemble…

I'm a big believer in Good Real Doctors. I have found in my life that the secret to my good health is to have a good primary care physician with whom I have a rapport — someone I can talk to, someone who likes me as a patient. I have left several physicians because I felt I was merely the 10:45 AM appointment and he (or one she) had to get through with me and get to the 11 AM appointment who was already waiting in the adjoining examination room.

That primary care doc is key because he refers me to good specialists for certain needs and these men or women communicate with one another and I have my little M.M.C.N. (Mark's Medical Care Network) working for me. I do not expect any of them to be infallible but they kind of cross-check each other and they all know way more about medicine than I do and it all works fine…for me.

And I've come to feel that a key reason the M.M.C.N. works for me is that I never take medical advice from sources outside the M.M.C.N. This would include friends who think they know more than doctors. It also includes things one reads on the Internet, no matter how credible the website may look. I mean exactly what I say in the following sentence: I have had friends who I believe killed themselves by following medical advice from sources other than Good Real Doctors. That's "killed themselves" as in "died" and some of them didn't have to.

So I don't follow the advice of non-doctors or of online sources even if they are doctors. At most, I may take what I get from those sources and then ask the appropriate person within the M.M.C.N. about them…and sometimes, they say, "Yeah, that's right" but I don't assume that until they say so. I think when it comes to your health, you have to trust those who know more than you do, not those who merely claim to know more than you do.

I've been thinking about this lately as I watch Dr. Anthony Fauci go about his current assignment, which seems to consist of arguing with people who don't know what the hell they're talking about. I think when this whole Pandemic thing is over with, he will be seen as the True Hero of it all, which is not to say he was right about everything from the get-go but nobody was or could have been.

One of the things I've come to admire about doctors — especially the ones I dealt with during my mother's and my friend Carolyn's illnesses and deaths — was the skill to say just the right thing. There is a diplomacy and a sense of scale involved in telling the patient what he or she needs to hear and not to give false hopes or false fears. And you have to make sure that when you err, as is inevitable, you err on the side of caution and restraint.

And poor Dr. Fauci is trying to do this in an environment where people with personal and/or political agendas are desperate to misinterpret or misrepresent his words…or to corner him into saying words they would prefer. Here's an article about Dr. Fauci and others in his profession discussing the challenge they face in this area.

Clearly, among the abilities a Good Doctor needs to have is the ability to select just the proper words. It kinda figures a writer would be impressed by this since that's the main thing we do…or try to do.

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is a rhythm guitar version by Carlo Bacalla…