Jerry Seinfeld directed and co-wrote an upcoming movie for Netflix, Unfrosted, very loosely (very) about how the Pop-Tart was developed.

This is a pretty funny promotional film he made for the movie.

Last year, Broadway lyricist Sheldon Harnick passed away at the age of 99.  But that means today him on the 100th anniversary of his birth.  It's a notable occasion for the good fellow who won a Tony Award for Fiddler on the Roof, a Tony and Pulitzer Price for Fiorello!, and such other musicals with Jerry Bock as She Loves Me, The Apple Tree, The Rothschilds, Rex (with Richard Richard Rodgers), and the opera Captain Jinks and the Horse Marines -- and much more.

As I've mentioned here, I interviewed Sheldon years ago when I was a student at Northwestern, and he returned to campus as Homecoming Grand Marshal.  I then made a radio documentary from it for the school radio station, WNUR, and two decades later finally tracked down his address through a mutual friend to send him a copy.  And when I told my mother after all that time that I finally found someone who knew where Harnick lived, she said, "Oh, you mean, Aunt Joan?"  I was floored.  I never had any idea that they grew up together and even went to college together.  Though. no, she didn't have his address.  When I sent him the radio documentary though and explained my further connection, he sent a handwritten note back, and the first line was, "OH, MY GOD!!!  JOAN SERED!!! (which was her maiden name.  And yes, this is the Aunt Joan who I wrote about here five Januarys ago for her surprise 90th birthday party.  Happily, she's still going strong.)  Though they've periodically crossed paths over the many decades, I was able to get them together 14 years ago when we all saw a production of his show She Loves Me at the Writers Theatre in Glencoe, Illinois.  (And yes, this was the production I've written about several times that starred Jessie Mueller before she left for Broadway and won a Tony Award for starring in the musical Beautiful.)

But enough of all that.  On with the show.  Here's a wonderful, hour-long interview with Sheldon Harnick at the Kennedy Center when he was 90, and you'll see he's vibrant and entertaining.  Know too that this isn't just an interview, but includes several of his songs from wonderful performers.

And here's one of my favorite of his lesser-known songs, "In My Own Lifetime," from The Rothschilds, which starred Hal Linden who won the Tony Award as Best Actor.  Harnick writes poetically and richly with the simplicity of almost everyday language, which is his hallmark.  Years ago, when I made that aforementioned radio documentary for the college station, I ended it with this song -- which I preceded with a clip of Harnick talking about how he'd like people to listen to his songs and say, "Yeah.  Yeah, that's true."

And we'll end our celebration with this video from when Harnick was 94. singing absolutely wonderfully one of his classics (in fact, I think one of the best interpretations I've heard of the song), "Do You Love Me?" from Fiddler on the Roof with Judy Blazer.  And I suspect Ms. Blazer is thrilled to be performing this with the song's lyricist.  All the more so since it was promoting the opening of a revival of the show.
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Over the weekend, the White House Correspondents Dinner was held.  If you didn't see the presentation by SNL's Colin Jost, here it is.

I thought he did a pretty good job.  Not every joke worked for me, but that's true for most comedy.  Also, he's not a traditional stand-up comedian, and as every WHCD headline has said, it's a terrible room for a comedy monologue -- it's a large ballroom and half the room is going to hate whatever you joke about.  But overall, it was a lot of fun to me. 

Also, he did something from his "Weekend Update" job that I haven't seen other comedians in this position do.  And I thought it worked here to his favor.  On "Weekend Update," they push for edgy jokes and not all work, and the silence just sits there.  So, I sense that Jost is used to that.  So, what he did here, whenever a joke wouldn't land -- he wouldn't look awkward and rush to the next joke...instead he did what he sort of would do on SNL -- he waited.  He acknowledged that the joke didn't get a laugh, and he'd just wait until the joke settled in (getting some additional laughs when it did) or wait to let the audience appreciate his acceptance...which also would get some laughs.

One thing to note that occurred right before he starts.  Emcee Kelly O'Donnell introduced Jost and ended by quipping about his early days in journalism in high school, showing some of his "hard-hitting" articles (like, "Teachers' Plans for Summer Vacation") along with photos of him at work in his high school days.

And so now, here it is --

And as a bonus, here is President Biden's presentation that preceded Colin Jost.  My appreciation of a president does not rely on whether he delivers a good comedy monologue, but he does a respectable job here.
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Last Friday, a friend wrote to ask my thoughts about the Supreme Court oral arguments on presidential immunity the day before.  I didn’t want to get into it then – nor now – because I would write an opus.  After all, I thought it was galling that they even took the case, rather than just leave the unanimous appeals court ruling.  But once taking the case, the conservatives sat politely as Trump’s lawyer said that under certain hypotheticals a President should get immunity for ordering an opponent killed or for ordering a coup!!!!!!!!!!
 
But there was one small perspective I did want to address.  It’s something that no member of the Court  called out, and I didn’t even hear any analyst mention either.  But if someone did, they were the exception.  It was about when Justice Samuel Alito harped on a hypothetical that if the President went to Navy Seals to murder an opponent, they would never do so because the Navy Seals were sworn to uphold the Constitution and to disobey illegal orders, because they are so noble.  While that got some light pushback, what I didn’t hear from anyone was”
 
“Putting aside that Trump wanted the military to seize voting machines…and ruminated about having Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mike Milley killed…or wanted to install Jeffrey Clark as acting Attorney General to carry out his coup plans, making all this not a mere ‘hypothetical’ debate, but a real-world serious one --
 
Are you suggesting that there is no concept of “traitor”?  That no member of the military, no matter how much they swear their duty has ever gone against their oath and done something illegal?  History is full of such people.  The United States has its own, including famously Benedict Arnold.  Or more recently, high-ranking FBI agent Robert Hanssen who was a spy for Russia and turned over volumes of critical material to them.  Or just last year, 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, of the Air National Guard, was arrested for leaking classified documents on the Internet.  They all swore oaths not to do such things. 
 
But further, if you think only that the military is immune for being a threat to break its sworn oath, are you suggesting that if Trump told Gen. Michael Flynn to kill someone he believed was a threat, that Flynn – a general, who has given support to white supremacists and who President Obama had warned Trump not to hire – absolutely wouldn’t do it, or have someone else to do it??
 
“But…but…but even more to the point – in fact, the very point -- why on earth are you obsessing about the Navy Seals???  Why couldn’t Trump just go to a lowly private who he knows from reading social media postings is an extreme-right supporter and order him as Commander-in-Chief to kill someone?  Maybe even offer him a promotion to Captain.  Or Lt. General.  The January 6 Insurrection had active-service members of the military arrested for violently breaking into the Capitol, an action that helped push the attempted overthrow of the government, and it seems like some might have been honored to get the order.  Indeed, it was specifically because so many of them insisted that the very reason they were there in the first place and breached the U.S. Capitol was specifically because they said they got an order from their Commander-in Chief.  Or -- why think that Trump would even have to order someone in the military at all?  Stewart Rhodes, the convicted leader of the Oath Keepers who is now in prison for sedition after organizing a violent attack on the Capitol, is just a private citizen – though a former Army paratrooper.   It’s difficult to imagine he would have happily acted on an order to kill if given by Trump.  There have been at least 81 active, or former members of the military and police arrested so far for participating in the Jan. 6 Insurrection.  But then, why not make it easy, take out the risk of a private citizen having moral qualms about killing someone… and just hire a hit man?!  After all, it’s well-known that Trump has mob contacts from his days in real estate.  So, he must ‘know a guy who knows a guy.’
 
“Theoretical?  Sworn an oath?  Honor-bound?  Seriously, Justice Alito???  If you can’t even trust the President of the United States, with a sworn oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution to not make your theoretical order to kill someone or order a coup – let alone a realistic one! – why in the universe would you think a member of the Navy Seals or anyone in the military wouldn’t accept the illegal, reprehensible, outrageous, treasonous order a President theoretically – or in real life – makes? 
 
“For goodness sake, Mr. Justice, we have a member of the Supreme Court – maybe even two, including yourself -- who are okay accepting bribes and hearing cases they have personal involvement in!”

It was the focus on “Navy Seals” who would never ever go against their oath, and so the Constitution is safe (never mind that the President has a sworn oath to protect the Constitution and laws and safety of America, and an acting Attorney General does, too, and we know  how much Trump tried to subvert that) which drove me up the wall.  As you may have figured out by this point.

There was a great deal of excellent analysis and criticism of Thursday's hearing.  But on this specific Alito point yammering about the Navy Seals would save us, you'd think -- or hope -- that most people analyzing the Supreme Court that day (and I do hope there was at least one), let alone a member of the High Court itself would have said, "Hold on there.  The Navy Seals??>  You're leaving the protection of democracy entirely on a rogue president not realizing that he doesn't have to choose the Navy Seals only and no one else to carry out his illegal acts, but if he did, that not one Navy Seal would ever -- ever! -- say, 'Hmm, well, y'know if the President is ordering it...'  Seriously, Justice, Alito, seriously???"
 
And that’s me not wanting to get into the Supreme Court oral arguments.

​On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest is Fred Schneider, the original front man of the rock band, the B-52s.  Unfortunately – and yes, this is my personal bias creeping in, so it might be unfair, but I think accurate -- Negin Farsad is back as guest host, and she’s her regular giggly, much too overly-enthusiastic, fangirl self, but happily the panel jumps in more than usual to ask questions, so the interview is more listenable than it might have been otherwise, particularly with his self-effacing and sardonic responses.
 
This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts around the 18:45 mark.
 

The guests on this week’s Al Franken podcast are the bestselling authors on The Trump Indictments Andrew Weissmann and Melissa Murray.  As Al writes, “The first criminal trial for Donald Trump is underway. The hush money trial over Stormy Daniels might be the first, but it won’t be the last. But will we see the other trials before the election? And what are the consequences if Trump is found guilty? We talk to Andrew Weissmann and Melissa Murray.”