Also, Labor Day weekend still feels to me like the end of one year and the beginning of the next, because it still feels like the start of school. I’ve been out of school a long time (and I wasn’t even really in it that much when I was in it), but coming around this corner of the year always feel like the end of one lap and the beginning of another. (This is not because of the Jewish New Year, which starts next Wednesday night, as meaningful as that is in many other ways.)

It’s all about the echo of school. Of new pants and shoes, and loose-leaf binders, and pencil sharpeners in clear plastic colors (always looking for green), and making book covers out of grocery bags, and printing the names of the books in Magic Marker in big letters that get more and more crowded in as they get closer to the edge.

I had the best public schools at the best time in our history, safe places that had slow kids in with sharpies (and everyone learned just fine) and let boys run out their energy without medications, and even allowed fistfights to proceed (just so far) until the nearest teacher (man or woman, almost all women) would step in, separate the combatants and say something you’ll never hear again: “Okay, now shake hands and be friends.”

No expulsions, no law suits, no “Speed-dial the grief counselor!” No robotic administrators parroting regulations about zero-tolerance (which, of course, means zero help, zero comfort, zero justice and zero common sense).

I walked to school from Kindergarten through 12th and graduation. We had music and art and sports and an attendance officer who struck serious fear in the hearts of everyone just by walking down the hall and glowering, and male teachers in high school who took “disruptive” boys into the hall and, well, punched them (hard) in the arm — which, unless you’re stupid, is exactly what young boys want in the first place: to be rough-housed. (I was in that hall quite a bit, and always thought a wallop meant the teacher liked me.)

There was one day a year called “Dress Down Day” where everyone could wear jeans or shorts, but the rest of the time even the poorest kids had slacks and button-down shirts, and white shirts every Thursday, assembly day.

Ah, well: The Glory that was Rome.

So at least some of you must be wondering by now why I’m talking about Labor Day and arm-punching when today’s title is “Robert Schimmel,” a comedian who just died.

Robert was a friend; and I mean the real definition of friend, not some show-bizzy version where “my dearest, closest friend” means, “Although we haven’t actually met, the two of us could do business together if someone held guns to our heads.”

We like each other and respected each other, but the first is more important: We liked each other. And I suppose I intentionally started on something else, because there is so much loss in life to balance the gain. I guess we never really look at it each time it shows its face. But there is so much happiness available in life.

And Robert had so much loss in his, but he still had such a gleam of happiness in his eye; and I never knew how he did.

The guy gets Hepatitus C in the Air Force from a transfusion, has a heart attack, has his eleven-year-old son get cancer and die from it; gets a sitcom, films the pilot, gets it picked up (on the air), gets a whole network behind him, gets anointed as the next big thing… and then gets cancer himself. (That was the end of that TV show. He survived the cancer, but you know people: No one was going to want to anoint him with anything after chemo and radiation.)

Gets divorced (a messy one), gets remarried, works hard and reinvents himself — and then has a relapse.

Another divorce (even messier), goes to Arizona to help his sick father take care of his dying mother, who dies, stays to take care of his father (while his father took care of him), goes on the waiting list for a new liver…

And then this. A car accident. After all that, a car accident. His daughter was driving, and she’s stable, as they say, and he had another son in the car, too. Also eleven.

This one survived and seems a hundred percent.

Samuel Becket once wrote, “The tears of the world are a constant quantity. Where somewhere, someone starts crying, somewhere else someone stops.”

Here’s something you won’t read in any of the papers, and it’s really the whole point of this clog.

Robert’s parent were both Holocaust survivors. His father was marched out of their concentration camp with thousands of others as the Americans were advancing in the winter of ‘45, in order to… Oh, who knows what those horrible folks were even thinking at that point. They marched the prisoners, in no coats, until they died or dropped. And when they dropped, trying to catch a breath, they walked over and shot them — as calm as a glass of tea. Robert’s father dropped, along with his best friend, and a guard walked over and killed him. Otto, the father, was next to him, and he was the one shot, weakly holding up a hand and whispering, “No. Please.”

Then the guard turned to Otto and… Shot him? No. He screamed, “If you want to live, get up and keep going.” And somehow Otto did.

And a few years later, Robert was making people laugh in Las Vegas.

Here’s the thing, though. One night, Otto told Robery after a show, “You were good. You know, I always wanted to be a comic, but, well…” Can you imagine? Is life weird enough?

And here’s the deepest part: Otto never forgot that moment in the snow on that march. And one day Robert said to him something I still find extraordinary. Did you catch it? It was what the guard said.

If you put it in different hands, at a different moment, with a different feeling, Robert said, it’s actually the greatest, deepest, simplest advice in history:

“If you want to live, get up and keep going.”

Robert Schimmel certainly learned that lesson. Get up and keep going. He never gave up. He was a terrific comic, but maybe that was his greatest gift: Get up and keep going.

Not a bad lesson for all of us to learn. With all the things in his life, I told him once, even Job turned to God and said, “Gee, now I don’t feel so bad anymore.”

Have a great Labor Day weekend. And then, get up and keep going.

(P.S. If you feel like it, that new show of mine is available for free by subscribing to iTunes: “This Week With Larry Miller.)

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY, AND NO ONE YOU LOVE GOT SICK AND DIED, AND NO ONE SHOT YOU WHEN YOU GOT TIRED… FOLKS, TURN ON A GAME AND CRACK A BEER, BECAUSE YOU ARE WALKING IN TALL COTTON.

HOLD IT! IMPORTANT NEW ADDITION BEFORE THE CLOG!

Well, maybe not that important to you. (It is to me, though.) I love doing Adam Carolla’s show weekly, I just love it. And now he and Donny have asked me to do mine as well. Jeff Ross, also part of Ace Broadcasting, Adam’s company, is producing, and the first one went on… today! And I’m very pleased.

I love working that way, improving and riffing. It’s like a kind of comedy-jazz to me, and I get to roam and explore and tell stories that would never have worked as stand-up or in a script or an essay — or even a clog.

SO: It’s available now for free. Hold on, let me get this… Okay, you can subscribe for free through iTunes.

If that sounds like I was just re-reading something I was given word for word without understanding any of it, you’re right. (I feel like I’ve just sung an “Abba” song.) It’s called “This Week With Larry Miller — Or Any Other Week We Think Is Funny.”

Anyway, I hope you like it. I’m going to do one a week, and the new ones will be out every Wednesday. Jeff just called and said it was up/on/out/playing.

AND NOW, BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED CLOG.

Manny Ramirez was sent to the Chicago White Sox yesterday. Some of you are sports fans, some aren’t, but my thoughts today don’t really have to do with sports, per se, but how we view our stars of various types. (By the way, it strikes me that I don’t really know what “per se” means, although I’m pretty sure it’s not the way a hep-cat of the thirties would pronounce the name Percy. Someone write in and define, please?)

The way we treat our stars tells more about us than about the stars.

Some people hated Manny from the start. There are many Boston Red Sox fans who hated Manny the second he left Boston (after some eccentric episodes). One of my sons is one of them. He’s a very good, maybe a terrific ballplayer, himself, and has been a diehard Boston fan since birth — no, a lunatic Boston fan. He will defend trades from eight years ago, and, although he has a wonderful, light, joyous sense of humor and loves nothing more than to laugh, there is no lightness or humor in him when the Red Sox come up. This proves, if nothing else, that you can catch the full virus here in Southern California.

He hated Manny in 2008, when he arrived here mid-season, and, like other Boston fans nearer to Copley Square, kept saying, “Just wait. You’ll see. He’ll disappoint you.”

Then there were the folks who threw their hands up about the steroids, or whatever it was he took for a while that, I guess, we now know he shouldn’t have taken, but were legal, or not illegal, at the time — or something.

And, of course, the last few months haven’t gone well.

I guess my own attitude starts with a wonderful line from the great Edna St. Vincent Millet. (I don’t know the exact words, so I’m going to paraphrase.) “My candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night. But oh, my dears, and oh, my friends, it casts such a beautiful light.”

She was writing about the twenties and it’s leaping souls, but I’d like to relate it to this moment.

Manny Ramirez did something, though briefly, that very few people ever do. He made people happy. I’m not a Dodger fan — per se, heh-heh — but when he arrived in the middle of 2008, well, he shed such a beautiful light.

He thrilled people. Whether they were baseball fans or not, everyone knew that this guy’s energy had unified a team, and that when he was on the field… Well, you smile. Even if you weren’t watching the game, you smiled.

Something in the world was happening, and instead of tears and head-shaking and fear and struggle and anger, someone had brought happiness.

Just from hitting a ball? Yes. He was so good, and his tide lifted all boats, and people talked about him, and strangers smiled and pointed at each other’s shirts.

Well, all the things after that? The salary disputes, not getting to training camp ontime, the suspensions, the injuries, the lost focus, the impenetrable personality?

I guess none of that matters to me, because for a few months in the history of the Earth and it’s people, and America and its people, and baseball and its people, and fans and venders and writers and children?

Well, he shed such a beautiful light. And that’s enough for me. If we all could figure out a way to shed beautiful light for a few months, every one of us, a few weeks even. Even a few days. Lord, what a change the world might see.

I wish him well in Chicago, because despite his flaws — anyone else out there have any flaws, by the way? — maybe he’ll shed a little light there, too. If he does, even briefly, it’ll be bright enough to see all around America; for anyone with enough soul to want to see it.

I’ll be looking. Who doesn’t like to smile?

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND HAD SOMETHING OTHER THAN THE ELEMENTS OF YOUR LIFE TO WATCH, SOMETHING YOU WANTED TO SEE, SOMETHING YOU HOPED WOULD WORK? FOLKS, SMILE WHEN IT HITS, AND DON’T BE TOO MAD WHEN IT STOPS.

We eat a lot of eggs in our family. One of the kids loves them one way, the other kid loves them another way, my wife likes them a third way, I can eat them any old way, and I cater (literally) to all their tastes — not because I desperately fawn over them begging for approval, but because my vanity insists I can do four different dishes, and four different toasts, and four different fruit combinations, and four different table settings; and have them all piping hot and ready at the same instant.

When I’ve accomplished that, and everyone is seated and happy, then — and only then — do I revert to a crushed, bent servent standing off to the side, with wide, desperate eyes begging for approval. If I had a chef’s hat, I would be twisting it in my hands.

Ooh. Make that five different dishes. I make one for the dog every day when I make everyone else’s breakfast, and he only likes it one way, scrambled. One might think that dogs would be less picky than people, but that’s another case where “one” would be wrong. Perhaps he was more open to food variety when he was on the streets of Compton before some kind soul picked him up and brought him to the shelter I got him in, but here at Stately Miller Manor he turns his snout up at fried, sunny side up, poached, boiled, hard-boiled — anything. He doesn’t eat it. Then I either have to throw it out and obsess the whole day about what I’ve wasted, or pick it up out of his bowl, wipe off the dog food dust all over it, rinse it in the sink, and eat it myself. I fully admit that both choices are completely loony; but there it is.

He loves scrambled, though (but not too small). I make his separately, one egg, just one egg only, please, Vasily, and serve it to him in the exact same way, placed over (placed, mind, not thrown or shoveled) on exactly the same amount of his regular food, at the exact same time, with the exact same pat on the head and the exact same words. I believe he appreciates this consistancy, although I’m willing to admit that perhaps he appreciates the actual egg more and has no sense at all of who I am or what I’m saying.)

Good Lord, our dogs are as spoiled as we are. Oh, what the heck, right? Why not? We won’t be able to indulge ourselves like this under the coming caliphate, so might as well still have a little more American excess for a while longer, eh? Web sites like this will be capitol offenses, but our children can still tell their kids about the way things used to be. Maybe.

Oh, why be gloomy? Back to eggs.

SO WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON WITH OUR EGGS?

What is it, two weeks ago, a rumor, then a news report: Thirteen hundred people, then two thousand, sick from Salmonella; no one dead, Thank God, but Salmonella is no joke, and can easily be fatal. (Always struck me as an odd name for a disease. Do salmon get it, too? Does it come from them? If so, does the bacterium jump out of the water like the fish themselves going upstream to, you know, heh-heh, “spawn”? I’ve jumped a few waves myself in service of that noble end) and onto a passing egg truck?

My wife says the disease is on the shells of the eggs, not inside, but I’ve long since stopped trusting her. Just kidding, she says it’s on the outside. But how? Does that mean something occurs in the process of the chicken, er, laying the thing (the thought of which has always revolted me so much I choose never to think of it; like any committee meeting in Washington).

How did anyone ever track it down to those two big farms? Is it just them? Is it the “feed” the way the news said? What does that even mean?

Most important: Is there any way to ever know that the cycle of the scare has passed, or will another few days just go by until some pale, bloodless flack steps up to a podium and says, “The problem is solved. Enjoy your omelettes.”?

One of my kids is off at a ninth-grade orientation at a camp site his school took them to for the weekend. (I know; I don’t have the slightest idea why they’re there, but, as you would be, I’m just THRILLED it gives the tartier ninth-grade girls a chance to hula dance for them in a Forest Primeval, to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, away from my stern, all-knowing eye.)

Where was I? Ah, yes. He’s coming home tonight with his red badge of courage; my wife is taking the other one in a few minutes to get his school supplies and clothes (we’re as prompt on that as we are on holiday gifts, which we always purchase two minutes before midnight of the appointed day).

And I… I thought that I’d write to you and then pop off to Ralphs with the shopping list that only I can correctly prepare, which has the usual prosaic products — and every four lines, in bold, angry capitol letters, the word “EGGS”.

But I won’t get them, I guess. I know the folks at that store (seriously) as well as I do anyone in my various workplaces, and I trust them, and they’ve already leaned over several times and said, “Hey, we have no idea. They tell us it’s fine, but I don’t know. Crazy thing, that Salmonella.”

Yeah. Crazy.

I wonder if bacteria and viruses will behave any better under Sharia law? Guess we’ll all find out.

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND HAD PLENTY TO EAT AND DIDN’T NEED EGGS, SAY THANKS FOR HOW LUCKY YOU ARE, AND WHEN THE ALL-CLEAR WHISTLE SOUNDS, PICK UP A GIANT PALLETTE OF FARM-FRESH EGGS. JUST TRY NOT TO THINK ABOUT THE THRESHOLD THEY CROSS TO COME INTO THE WORLD.

In other words, on a really, REALLY hot day, would you see a coworker after lunch, say, or bump into someone on the street, smile, say hello, and then, “Hot enough for you?” And then the other guy chuckles a little and says — what? “Yeah, boy, it’s a scorcher,” or “Boy, howdy, it’s up there, isn’t it?”

Supposing he was just about to say it to you, though? What then? Now he has the second part, the straight man, and just gets to nod and chuckle and say something that comfirms it? Would it be impolite for him to say, instead, “You know, I was just about to say ‘Hot enough for you’, but you beat me to it by a hair. You always say it first, if you don’t mind my saying.”

And then what does the first guy say? “So? What do you want me to do, wait until you wise up enough to spit it out? It’s a public domain joke. If you’re so fired up to say something funny, think of it first and shout it out as I’m walking over. Something like, ‘Watch out, Bill, you might slip on that egg. The one that fried itself on the sidewalk because, you know, it’s so hot today.’ That cuts off “Hot enough for you?’ every time.”

And then the second guy says, “Nah, I like the classics. I’ll make you a deal. If I see you again before Labor Day, I get ‘Hot enough for you’ twice. From Labor Day until the World Series, you get to say it twice. I’ll take two more from then through Columbus Day, and you can have it all through Indian Summer, if we get one.”

But what if Bill doesn’t agree? Have there ever been fist fights over “Hot enough for you”? Tempers flair in the heat to begin with, so I think it’s likely.

Are there are similar jokes in winter? As far as I know, there’s no “Cold enough for you?”

I guess I’m thinking this way because it’s very hot today in the San Fernando Valley. Not so bad, I guess, but around 105-107. It was hot yesterday, too, about the same, and when I took one of the kids to football practice, I almost — ALMOST — said it to one of the coaches, but pulled back at the last second. That’s as close as I’ve ever gotten.

See, the thing is, I like that we say things like that. I like that we Americans are just the tiniest bit knuckleheaded and corny (I certainly am: I love puns, the dumber the better), and I like that we’re friendly enough, even with each other, to want to say something pleasant to pass the time.

I don’t imagine anyone in France saying things like that. Or Germany. Or China. Maybe India (seriously: the sweetest, most open people I’ve ever met). And definitely not places like Syria or Yemen. God knows it’s hot enough there to want to say SOMETHING, but somehow I don’t think they’re strolling up to each other looking to be lightly witty.

My dad used to tell me how when it got really hot in Brooklyn in the summer, his mom moved a mattress out onto the fire escape, and he and his brother and sister would sleep there; under the stars, as it were. I asked him once if it was cooler out there. “Nah,” he said. “But everyone else was out on their fire escapes, too, so it was kind of like a little party. No food or drinks or anything, just a people-party.”

God, I still don’t even know what it means. “Hot enough for you?” I was just looking at it again. Hot enough for me? Is this hot enough… for me? I don’t know, I… I guess so. So what? (I’m probably missing something as obvious as the nose on your face. Or my face. Which is it? Oh, skip it. I’ve never had much of a sense of irony off stage; which is probably ironic in itself.)

It was so hot yesterday, I had a gin and tonic when I got home around nine, and my wife said, “Gin and tonic, huh?” And I sagely sad, “Yeah, you know, it’s a good summer drink.”

And she said, “Is that why you made it?”

And I said, “No, it was all we had.”

And she said, “So why did you say it?”

And I said, “Wow, you got me. Isn’t that what people say?”

Another great married moment where the two of you look at each until somebody laughs. In our case, we laughed at the same time; the way we usually do.

Now there’s one more thing I don’t imagine husbands and wives doing in most parts of the world: laughing together at the silliest things. A lucky people, we are.

Even if our World Series is so close to winter now it will never be hot enough again to comment on.

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND WERE LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE AN AIR CONDITIONER TO TURN OFF, BE GRATEFUL. ON THE OTHER HAND, I GUESS WE’LL NEVER HAVE THE FUN OF SLEEPING ON A FIRE ESCAPE IN A PEOPLE-PARTY.

Correction: My wife is having a little league party at our house today. I am rolling hoses and carting things back and forth with roughly the same urgency as the Joads leaving Oklahoma.

My wife told me last night about the party, and we went through the same pavane, the same orchestrated dance steps we’ve essayed so many times before:

“Tomorrow’s the little league party.”

“What little league party?”

“Don’t do this. I told you about it two months ago. Then I reminded you two weeks ago. Then I reminded you two days ago.”

“Uh-huh. May I ask you something? Have we just met? Do you retain no sense or understanding of what it means to tell a man something two months ago? You told me two months ago? I’m sure you did, but it would’ve had the same effect if you’d told it to a picture of me.”

“I need you all day to help get ready.” (Women have a magnificent instinct of when to move on.)

“You really told me two days ago?” (Men have no instinct of when to move on.)

So it’s Sunday, noon, and the boys and I have been following orders. (I just heard her voice from the den: “Okay, all this bedding, all these pillows, all this, take it into my office.” Yup, there he goes, number two son right by my desk with an eleven-year-old armload of bedding and pillows.)

And the — Oh, drat. The music just came on. I’m calling out now. Hold on.

Well, that was a mistake on my part. She knows I hate background music in life, and she’s getting the right speaker balance ready for when our guests arrive, and the seventeen-or-so, voice-changing boys start clamoring for more Gerry and the Pacemakers.

I love this voice-changing moment in male growth. It seem like they go from Mickey Mouse to James Earl Jones in two weeks.

I was on the road last weekend and called home, and my older boy answered, and I said, “Oh, sorry, Mr. Robeson, I must’ve gotten the wrong number. As long as I’ve got you, though, would you mind doing a couple of bars of Old Man River?” Perhaps you can imagine the depth of the silence on the other end of the line after that one.

A quick memory on the great Paul Robeson: My dad, God bless him, was born in Coney Island, in Brooklyn, in 1928 (Mermaid Avenue, I think). In fact, he was born on their kitchen table, not such a crazy thing in those days. A woman went into labor, the men were shooed away, and three or four other women from the apartment building came down and did what needed to be done. In this case, my Aunt Ettie, my grandmother’s sister, was the catcher, and my grandmother leaned back and out came my Aunt Arlene. All done. Whew. Then my Aunt said, “Hold on, Flora, I don’t think you’re done.” And out came my father. Twins. (So much for prenatal care in Brooklyn in the twenties.)

My grandmother laid herself back down on the table, but it was just the two.

Good Lord, they were all so tough in those days, I’ll bet she cleaned off the table and made dinner.

Anyway, my dad went to Abraham Lincoln High School in Coney Island, which was as magnificent a facility as many small colleges in those days. (Perhaps it’s not quite as magnificent anymore.) And one day, he told me, Paul Robeson came there to make a speech. All the boys (it was a boys’ school in those days; something else we ought to take another look at) were loaded into the auditorium, in their little white shirts and short ties, and the great Robeson, already a star in many ways for ten or twenty years, spoke.

I remember my dad saying the first thing he said was, “I… the grandson of a slave…” Perhaps you can imagine that deep, powerful voice saying that. Then, my dad said, he talked about what it meant for all those young men to be at a school named for Abraham Lincoln. Then, he sang Old Man River.

Gone, now, all of them, Robeson, my father, all the other young men in white shirts and ties, all the teachers who must’ve been standing around at the walls around the auditorium, all the custodians who must’ve taken a moment to sit up in the balcony and watch, all the mothers wheeling carriages to stores at that moment outside the school, all the German soldiers already goose-stepping into the Sudetenland at the same time across the world, all the Americans stationed in Hawaii swabbing down the Arizona so it might be pretty enough for it’s upcoming date with the Japanese air force. All gone.

“I… the grandson of a slave…”

My older boy and his friends from the team were warming up for a game in the cage a few weeks ago, with their voices changing, laughing at a bawdy thirteen-year-old joke. “Hey, that bat looks rusty.” “That’s what she said.” “Huh-huh. Huh-huh. Huh-huh.”

But I heard those voices changing and thought of my father and his story. “I… the grandson of a slave…”

Time for me to see what my wife needs. Pick up more ice probably. It’ll be great today, because it’s what she wants, and I’ll do my part, and at the end of the day, I’ll thank her and kiss her, and I’ll mean it all.

Maybe some day other fathers will be watching their children and remembering a story we told them. That would be nice. I think maybe that will be the nicest thing of all.

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY, AND PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT NEEDED YOUR HELP FOR SOMETHING SIMPLE LIKE WINDING UP A HOSE… THANK THEM FOR GIVING YOU THE CHANCE TO HELP. AND A QUICK GLANCE UP AND ANOTHER THANK YOU WOULDN’T HURT, EITHER.

This isn’t about age, by the way. I’ve been like this since I was nineteen. If I make it to a hundred and three, all my friends will be able to say, “Hey, look at this, Larry hasn’t changed a bit.”

Anyway, as you may have heard, Rod Blagoyevich, the impeached and convicted ex-governor of Illinois was found guilty yesterday of a felony. (I actually can never remember how to spell his name, and I’m too lazy to go upstairs. I’m just going to call him “Blago,” which sounds like a resort city on Krypton.)

I intentionally loaded that last paragraph up with highly charged (so to speak) words. “Impeached,” “convicted,”, “ex,” “guilty,” “felony.”

Here’s another way to write that sentence: “Rod Blagoyevich, run out of office in the blink of an eye by the same thieves and manipulators and corrupt souls who were laughing and drinking with him right up until the second his name hit the papers — at which point they all ran away from him and stepped up to podiums holding bibles and tear-stained hankies to denounce him — beat back the empty words and vain posturing of a martinet federal attorney, who was beaten on twenty-three out of twenty-four charges after going in front of cameras a year ago before charges were even brought to say how the case was already won and that Abraham Lincoln was turning in his grave. Blago was convicted of one charge that I reread this morning in the newspaper SIX times and STILL couldn’t understand. Not to worry, though, the judge and the federal attorney said they’ll just retry him on all the other counts again and again at public expense until they can write the results the way they want, even though there’s a tiny principle in the history of common and American law that says no one should have to be tried for the same crimes twice.”

Yeah, yeah, I know I loaded that up. But there’s something that always raises my hackles. There are lots of things that raise my hackles, but one of them is when self-righteous opportunists and prigs and hypocrites eat one of their own for fun and profit.

There’s a great moment in a great noir movie, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (great, great piece, Van Heflin, Barbara Stanwyck, Lizbeth Scott and — I think — Kirk Douglas’ first part), where Van Heflin is finally motivated to take right action instead of leaving town and saving his own skin.

He stares off into the night and says, “I don’t like getting pushed around. I don’t like people I like to get pushed around. I don’t like ANYONE to get pushed around.”

And, yes, I’m rooting for Blago, and I’ll tell you why.

I have no faith in the virtue and decency of a shattering majority of local or state or federal prosecutors, the folks who go after people and charge and try them.

So many cases in the last thirty years, it seems to me, were just cocked up so this man or woman could move his career along. I can’t imagine how many innocent people, large and small, have been locked up to rot so that Mr. So-and-So could run for congress or governor on a “reform” or “law and order” ticket.

The worst and most recent — already out of our memories — was that awful little man Nifong in North Carolina when those Duke lacrosses players were falsely charged and raked over the coals for a while. They were obviously innocent and charges were dropped — and Nifong knew it all the time. You knew it, I knew it, everyone knew it, and Nifong knew it, and his pudgy little apology made me sicker than if he hadn’t said anything.

Yes, the issue had race and money and privilege attached, but I hope those young men spend at least part of their lives finding some way to help those without the luck they had who are weeping, unseen and innocent, in cells all over the country.

So is Blago innocent? No, and he’s certainly not weeping. But I guess, number one, I respond to people who fight, who don’t curl up in a ball and cry.

God, I’m too cynical, but I don’t have the slightest faith in ANY governor or elected official. Illinois, and Chicago in particular, must be the most corrupt places in America. Illinois makes Louisiana look like Thomas More’s “Utopia”. The sweetheart deals and back room nods and payoffs must be legion. The state assembly that impeached, and the state senate that convicted, did it in less time than it takes to get a second drink.

I assume Rod Blagoyevich DID say he was going to try to “sell” that senate seat. Does anyone out there do it any differently? Do you or I think for a second that any state pol in two hundred years has ever done anything with out asking for a quid pro quo?

I already know my nephew and several friends will take me to task again for not seeing how wonderful government can be. I know many people who think this glass is half full.

The late Richard Daley, longtime mayor of Chicago, whose son is another longtime mayor of Chicago — because once you’re a lord, your first-born son gets to be a lord, too — once had a neat line that’s either horrifying or funny.

Daley was asked how it was even possible that every single member of his family, down to remote cousins and uncles, was employed by the City of Chicago. Without even the slightest hesitation or doubt, Daley shot back, “Anyone who doesn’t take care of his family can kiss my Irish a– !”

Well, okay. I hope I’m taking care of my family in a slightly different way. But, God, I don’t know, maybe we’re all corrupt and fooling ourselves in ways small and large.

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND A TEAM OF FEDERAL AND STATE PROSECUTORS WITH NO SENSE OF HUMOR AT ALL WERE EVEN MOMENTARILY SLOWED IN THEIR DAY AND NIGHT LUST TO LOCK YOU UP FOREVER… ENJOY THE NEXT COUPLE OF NEWS CONFERENCES, BECAUSE THERE’S A WRECKING BALL BEING LOADED UP RIGHT NOW, AND IT’S AIMED FOR YOUR PERFECTLY-COIFFED HAIR.

I think some of you guys are right: Whatever that flight attendant did or didn’t do, maybe it was calculated, maybe it was too rash. I don’t know. I guess I always have the first urge to romanticize stray behavior, and anyone “acting out” or living the Popeye fantasy (”That’s all I can stands, and I can’t stands no more.”) appeals to me, but I guess this event is one of those things that can be painted four different ways; and two or three of them wouldn’t be good.

It made me think again: That bus driver years ago in New York, the one who just decided to drive to Florida? It’s true, but even the short article in the paper I read when I was ten or so didn’t have more than just a few details. Was it a cool thing he did? Maybe not. I thought it was, but I suppose there’s no way to know now.

The world is different now, less innocent, more dangerous, and I guess there’s less room for odd reactions. I remember a Spencer Tracy movie from WWII where to cover his penetration of a Japanese prison camp he pretends to be drunk and punch some guards, and set fire to a cabin. Then Sidney Greenstreet tries to excuse it the next day and free Tracy by telling the commandant he was just fooling around.

“Three of my men were wounded,” says the commandant, “And your drunken friend tried to destroy the camp. I can’t just excuse that.”

And Greenstreet shrugs and smiles and says, “A man who gets drunk and doesn’t try to destroy something has wasted his money.” And the commandant nods and smiles, too, and lets him go.

It’s only seventy years ago, but is that outlook better or worse than today? I don’t know; maybe both.

I guess I got a brief kick out of the flight attendant not taking it anymore and going out with a bang, but maybe I’m wrong. And if he does get some kind of reality show or TV deal, is that valid or an outrage?

Again: maybe both. (I wouldn’t watch it, but then again I’ve never even seen American Idol or the dancing show, so you can’t go by me.)

So, yesterday: Nice drive from Lakeside, Ohio (on the Erie, which is beautiful, but must be a terrible place to win a beauty pagent: “And now, please welcome Miss Eerie…”) to Cleveland, short flight from Cleveland to Chicago, and then Chicago to L.A.

Which is a long flight. I must’ve flown Chicago to L.A. fifty times, seriously, and every single time I’m surprised at how long it is, because something in my head keeps thinking Chicago is in the middle of the country, but it’s not.

I always take a minute on flights to stretch in the back and kibbutz with the flight attendants a bit. It’s good to get up and stretch, and even when it’s a brief chat, I think making pleasant contact with people is somehow very valuable in life. When you look at another soul and smile and yack for a second, it’s as if you’re really saying to each other, “We may never meet again, but now we know we’re alive together, and the world is a tiny bit closer.”

In the same reasoning, I almost always look to say something to supermarket checkout clerks and folks in elevators, and especially older people on line with one item, who look as if maybe they just came out because they were lonely.

Another guy got up to chat in the back, too, a very funny doctor from Pittsburgh who takes his whole office to L.A. every year, and then I found out that for him it was more than just a chat…

The flight attendants had to put a very angry young guy next to him for, oh, safe keeping, as it were. The young fellow was seated originally in front (Southwest, all coach) next to a heavy set older man who needed a wheelchair, and the young guy didn’t like it — but in kind of a crazy way. He said the old man “didn’t respect him” and other slightly weird phrases, and then got angry and yelled at him, and — believe it or not — insisted on being put where he could have more use of the arm rest.

Then, when the flight attendant tried to calm things down, he yelled at her in a very rude, abusive way, and told her things like: do your job, mind your own business, get this, get that…

This guy was in his twenties and had long hair and a beard and was on the short side, about five-five. He was playing some kind of video game with an almost loony focus on his face, and would then explode again, and a couple of times went to the bathroom for twenty minutes — a pretty long time for your own bathroom, let alone one on a plane.

The flight was sold out, and one of the folks from the doctor’s office was nice enough to switch, but not as nice as the doctor, name of Jerry, who volunteered to sit/baby sit with the — what would you say? — jerk. And I watched him, and he did it with such strength and good humor, I was really impressed. He was a big man, the doctor, I mean in the imposing sense, and wasn’t afraid of anything.

And I told him, “Buddy, I think you’re doing your good deed for the day; maybe the week,” and he laughed and said, “Well, maybe he’s doing something in that bathroom he shouldn’t be doing, but I think he’s just three or four things, like OCD and paranoid and ADD at the same time, kind of a perfect storm of syndromes, and maybe he feels closed in on the plane and threatened.”

Then he said something that made me laugh. He said, “Of course, we used to call that just being an a–hole, but then guys like me wouldn’t be able to make a living with a fancier diagnosis.”

I smiled at the flight attendants — who, by the way, were calm and professional and not worried at all — and went back to my seat to read another one of my sword and shield books (I love anything that goes back nine hundred years).

I don’t know what else happened the rest of the way, but I do know this: When we landed and the bell went off and people stood, one of the ladies made an announcement I’ve never heard before: “Folks, would you please all sit down again. Just please, everyone sit back down again.” Everyone did, and it a minute it was obvious why.

Three airport policemen came on and walked calmly to the back where the fellow was sitting, and by the expressions on their faces we could all see they were pretty calm and focused themselves.

Boy, folks, anyone with half a brain sees those uniforms and those slender, pumped up physiques (L.A., remember) and those guns and has GOT to think, “Whoa.”

Well, I don’t know what this young fella’s problem was, but he calmed right down, too, and they walked him off. I’m not saying that’s the answer for everything, but within three seconds that guy was as pleasant and calm as Mahatma Gandhi on a stroll.

I saw the flight attendants in the terminal talking to other cops taking notes, and we said goodbye, and I saw the doctor again down at the luggage carousel. (By the way, can we please get a better word for the place luggage comes out than “carousel”. How about “The Thirty Minute Slide”?)

Anyway, Jerry the doctor told me, “Hey, I tried. I said to him the last hour of the flight, I said, ‘Buddy, if I were you, I would get up right now and apologize. I would apologize to the flight attendants and then ask them if you could go up and apologize to the old man, and I would make all those apologies REALLY good. You may not be certain of a lot right now, but here’s one thing you can know for sure: You’ll be much happier sleeping in your apartment tonight than wherever those fellas are going to take you once you get into the system.’” But, Jerry said, the kid just wouldn’t straighten up and kept mouthing off and getting rude.

Until, of course, the very fit guys in the tight uniforms with the guns and the very focused eyes came on. But, just as Jerry said, it was a tiny bit too late then.

Ah, well. I wished Jerry and the folks from his office a nice time out here. And then I got my bag and went home and got into bed. One of the kids was at a movie with his friends, and my wife was going to see a non-husband-y show at the Hollywood Bowl with her friends, Susie and June, and I cuddled with the other kid and the dog and a couple of cans of beer as we all watched Inglourious Basterds, which we’ve all seen before, and I think is just terrific.

I don’t know how the young hothead from the plane spent his evening, but I’ll take mine anytime.

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND DIDN’T THINK THE BEST STEP FOR YOU WAS TO YELL AT AN OLD MAN AND A YOUNG WOMAN AND SPEND TWENTY MINUTES IN A VERY SMALL BATHROOM… FOLKS, YOU’RE WALKING IN TALL COTTON.

I’ll tell you what I mean in a second. First, to the Golders, Dave and Delores, my mom’s old friends, I’m glad Laura wrote in, and sorry it takes me so long to do things. I wish you the best for many years. I hope we all check in with my mom in heaven after breaking the human survival record. All the blessings.

I’m leaving again today, on a jet plane, to do a show in Lakeside, Ohio, which, as I said to my kids last night, is (I’m guessing) very nearby some sort of body of water. I’ll let you know. Hopefully be back Saturday, and then next clog Sunday.

So. I think Steve’s name, if I remember, is Steve Slater. He’s the flight attendant from Jet Blue who went a little ker-blooey the other day. And from what I know, I’d like to break through the din and say that I not only support him, but I wish the various mechanisms of punishment would stop turning and leave him alone.

As I understand it, from an online article in the New York Post, Steve has been a flight attendant for 28 years, he’s on a flight the other day working, it’s the end of the flight, they’ve landed, the plane is taxiing to the gate (or just about at the gate), and a passenger, a young man, stands up and starts gathering his bags from the overhead bin. Steve walks over and gives the standard, “Please sit back down, sir, ’til the pilot turns off the seat beat sign,” to which the witty young man replies, “F— off.”

Then, roughly: Steve storms back up front, makes an announcement over the P.A., “To all the passengers, it’s been a great 28 years. Goodbye!” Then he deploys the inflatable slides that most of us only know from the end of Wesley Snipes movies, grabs a couple of beers from his own cart, slides down and quick-walks over to his car in the employee area and drives home.

For some reasons they didn’t find him right away (Who are “they” by the way?), but they have now, and I guess he’s under some kind of detention or arrest. There are rules about deploying those inflatable things.

Well, I think there should be rules about passengers saying, “F— off.”

I guess I want to say, I’m on Steve’s side. I don’t even know what that means, but I am. Are there awful flight attendants. Sure, there are awful everythings. But I’ve flown close to three million miles around America and Canada, and let me tell you something about flight attendants. Their main job, in fact their only job, is not getting you peanuts, it’s safety.

If, God forbid, anything ever went wrong on your flight, it’s the flight attendants who are trained to save your life. Maybe no one listens to those little speeches up front, but the flight attendants are ready to do all sorts of things to try and get people out safely if they have to. And let’s not forget that the first American murdered on 9/11 was a flight attendant (who had her throat savagely ripped open with one of those box cutters).

They don’t make a lot of money, they serve a LOT of extraordinarily rude people who want more of this and less of that and want it NOW, they take incredible guff from spoiled drunks, they settle disputes, and they keep far many more plates spinning on the average flight than you may think.

But, okay, what about Steve? Well, I just think it’s very human to snap like that. I think we should give him another couple of beers, a few weeks off, and send him back to work. Most important, don’t charge him with anything.

Whatever happened to someone in charge just saying, “Okay, everyone calm down, the guy just snapped a little, let’s all cut him a little slack.”

I mean, 28 years of carrying people butts around for them and placating their whining, and then he had the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. He didn’t hurt anyone, he didn’t steal anything (Oh, what’s a couple of beers), he just said to himself, “That’s it. Twenty-eight years of this, and I’ve just got to get off this plane NOW.”

He’s not insane, he just took all he could take and had to get away IMMEDIATELY.

Years ago, when I was a kid, I remember a story in the New York area. A New York City bus driver one cold winter night, on duty on his run, suddenly decided he was going to drive to Florida. Right then. In his bus. That night. With his passengers. He wasn’t threatening, he just turned around and told everyone what he was going to do, some got off and wished him luck and some stayed on.

And then he drove to Florida.

Didn’t make it the whole way, filled up the tank a couple of times at truck stops and made it to Maryland, if I remember, but, see, even as a kid — and even now — I think what he did isn’t bad. He just snapped a little. Again, he wasn’t crazy, he wasn’t dangerous, he just said, “I’ve had it.”

What’s so bad about “just having it?” I don’t know what happened to that driver, but I’m guessing about the same thing that’s going to happen to Steve the flight attendant.

Maybe I”m a little crazy, but I think it’s actually very healthy for all of us if, every so often, a few of us blow a gasket and drive to Florida.

I think it’s a little funny, too. Lord, there’s so much mayhem and cruelty in the world, take all the people who can’t take it anymore, give them a hug, and put them back to work.

I would far sooner trust that bus driver, or Steve the flight attendant, as the mayor of a big city, than any of the other serious ego-maniacs we have now. And that is not hyperbole.

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND DIDN’T BLOW A FUSE, IN YOUR HOUSE OR YOUR HEAD, BE GRATEFUL, AND CUT THE OTHERS A LITTLE SLACK, AND GIVE THEM A FEW DAYS OFF INSTEAD OF A FEW WEEKS IN COURT.

And it reminded me that, once upon a time, I didn’t know what Tim Hortons coffee was. In case you don’t know, it’s a chain across Canada (must be hundreds of them, maybe more), and it’s really terrific stuff. No offense, but I’ve never been much of a Starbuck’s fan.

I say no offense, because whenever an American company does well I always think, “Good for you, keep going, I hope you hire a zillion people and make a zillion bucks a day, and keep growing forever.” And I really mean it, even though, in this case, I don’t like Starbuck’s coffee. It’s too dark or strong or too something, and always tastes a little burnt to me.

Plus, I was never a fan of being pressured into saying the goofy words for the different sizes. It’s like certain restaurants where they force the employees to say, “Howdy, pardner,” to all the customers when they come in. A nice smile, decent food and a clean restroom are more important to me than a lackluster, “See you at the next roundup!” as I’m leaving.

I like what I call regular coffee, diner coffee, unadorned right-up-the-middle coffee. It doesn’t have to be from Liberia or Sumatra — in fact, I probably wish it wasn’t. Why do we want to eat or drink things from places we wouldn’t go if they gave us the trip for free?

Tim Hortons is, I think, terrific coffee, and somehow each franchise makes it really good.

Here’s the thing, though: Until I knew what it was, I didn’t know what it was.

The first part I had in something shot in Canada, I was on the set the first day and went up to the food area, and there were three huge pots of coffee; and they were labeled with masking tape and Magic Marker, respectively, “Regular”, “Decaf”, and “Tim Hortons”.

And I thought, “Wow, I don’t know who Tim Horton is, but I guess he really likes his coffee a certain way.” So I poured myself one from the “regular” pot and went on my way.

Every day I kept expecting to meet Tim Horton somewhere but didn’t. Maybe he’s one of the actors, I thought, or a producer with very specific tastes. But I just never seemed to catch him to say hello.

Then one day the director, Dennis Dugan, was at the coffee table pouring himself a cup from… Tim Hortons. And I said, “Dennis, what are you doing?”

And he said, “Having some coffee.”

And I said, “But that’s Tim Hortons.”

And he said, “Yeah, it’s good, I like it. Have you tried it?”

And I said, “No. It’s Tim Hortons. You don’t care?”

And he said, “Care about what? Try some.”

And I said, “Of Tim Hortons? Where did you grow up, in a camp of Gypsies? I guess you and I are just different people,” and walked away.

Dennis and I became great friends and still are, but I’m pretty sure he thought I was out of my mind that day.

But the stupidity doesn’t end there. It took (no kidding) the second part I had there before I realized what it was. I was on the new set and saw the same three pots, including the Tim Hortons, and thought, “Oh, this is crazy now. This guy and I have been on two movies together now, and still haven’t met. I’m going to find him and say hello.” So I asked one of the production assistants who Tim was, and could she introduce me, and she politely laughed and walked away, no doubt thinking, “These actors always think they’re funny even when they aren’t.”

Several days later I picked my head up from the paper on the way to work and saw three or four Tim Hortons stores and realized just how bright I could be in life.

So Saturday night in Montreal one of the owners of the theater came up to me in between shows and asked if I wanted some poutine.

It’s apparently a specialty food in the area that everyone loves: French fries, gravy and pizza cheese, which, not surprisingly, is pretty good.

How could it not be, by the way? Any possible way you combine those three things it will be good, right? I mean, JUST fries or JUST gravy, or JUST pizza cheese is good.

Here’s the thing, though: I’d never heard the word and didn’t know what it was. So when the guy leaned over backstage in a dark area and said, “Hey, feel like a little poutine tonight?” Well, I didn’t know he said “poutine”, I thought he said… Well, perhaps you can imagine what I thought he said. Something slang and vulgar and… well, wonderful, but not something you expect someone to just offer you. At the very least it’s a little too familiar.

And I said, “Poutine? Did you say poutine? Did you just offer me poutine?”

And he enthusiastically said, “It’s considered a local delicacy.”

And I said, “Buddy, it’s considered a local delicacy everywhere, but frankly I’m a little shocked. I know everyone speaks French here, but still. I mean, thank you, but I think you have the wrong guy. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to, but it’s not the way I’m, you know, trying to live.”

Mercifully, he cleared it up just a few seconds later. And I had a moderate helping between shows, and you know what? It was very good.

Especially when you wash it down with a nice hot cup of Tim Hortons.

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND SOMEONE OFFERS YOU SOMETHING THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING ELSE, ASK WHAT IT IS FIRST, BEFORE YOU MAKE A COMPLETE PICKLEHEAD OUT OF YOURSELF.

I guess we’d all like to think it used to be called manners.

On the heels of Paul’s German restaurant story — and I was thrilled to hear that, in fact, the whole place cracked up; what a cool moment that is — I have one, a true one as well, from a friend. I swear I can’t remember if I’ve told it, but I don’t think I have, and I’ve enlarged it, and am going to make it part of my act.

My friend Breslau was hired years ago to make commercials and form production in Germany, and met some very nice people at the studio, and they kept him on to consult on comedy, of all things. They had sitcoms, but they didn’t think they were very good, and they wanted to know why.

Breslau hemmed and hawed for a while, until one day they finally said, “No, please, tell us,” and he just blurted out, “Well, you killed all the funny people!”

They just looked at each other and nodded and said, “Ya, vell, that’s it, eh?” And he said, “Well, yeah. It’s a big part, I think. If you want to start a basketball team, the best way to begin is probably not to shoot all the tall men.”

You know, Germany was very close to getting the atomic bomb at the end of WWII. We think of nuclear weapons differently today, but back then everybody was racing, Germany, Japan, Russia, us, and it wasn’t at all clear on who would get there first. One little development here or there, and the world might have been very different. And even though Germany was clearly on its way to losing, if they could just crack that formula…

And I always imagine the German high command sitting around in April of 1945 looking back with regret… “Ach, we might still have won with that bomb, if only ze scientists hadn’t all decided to work for America.”

“Scientists”? “Decided”? You mean scientists like Einstein and Oppenheimer? And Mandelbaum and all the Schwartz’s and dozens of other folks who felt that perhaps hanging around Hamburg and Heidelberg just then wasn’t the best idea? Those scientists? Are those the ones who might have put you over the top?

God, life is so weird.

Wouldn’t you like to say, “So, you say you’re looking for one group that seems to consistently produce funny people and scientists? Hmm, that is a tough one. Funny people and scientists, funny people and scientists… I’m stumped.”

Plus, all the money that left that no one could trace. Sounds like you could’ve used a good accountant. Let’s see, comedians, doctors, accountants… if only there was one group, a sort of one-stop-shopping to find all of those…

“Ya, it’s a puzzle, all right. God, these chairs are uncomfortable. What ever happened to that wonderful furniture store run by that nice old man? He had good chairs.”

Yes, it’s a puzzle.

You know what, folks, it’s another astonishing piece of luck for you and me, another in a series of blessings that can’t be beaten. Whether or not we all agree on which level of comedy is exactly right, here we are, in so many conflicts, years later, of all types, all backgrounds, all — if we choose — capable of looking back and finding humor in some of the most horrible moments in the human experience.

Every time I make a dark joke over the years and feel bad and a little guilty, my wife always says, “Don’t worry, God knows what a joke is.”

I think maybe that’s exactly right.

(I’m going away for a few days to do a few shows in Canada, and this old computer — that I’m still working on, yes, yes, I know — can’t connect on the road. So I’ll see you in another clog when I get back Sunday night.)

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND WERE THE ONE LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO LOOK AT THE WORLD AND FIND THE SMALLEST RAY OF HUMOR IN IT… THINK OF THE OTHERS WHO WERE NOT SO LUCKY AND THANK THEM. MAYBE BY NOW THEY’VE LEARNED TO SMILE AGAIN, TOO.