That’s the theory shared by half a dozen people as to why I’ve been shivering and shaking and coughing since early yesterday: that I expended every iota of energy I had at this year’s comic con, and my body is now calling in a rest break.

(Which is a shame, because I have so much I want to put on this blog right now, except I can barely think straight.)

My own theory: My system has realized that it’s going to be a full YEAR ’til the next Con and is going into the pangs of withdrawal.

Inany event, I’ll be back here tomorrow — and preferably not tapping this blog entry via iPhone. (Which especially sucks when you can type 86 wpm on a keyboard.)

My friend Paul just flew out this morning from a week here (for the Comic Con, of course!).

Here’s what’s been going on near his house while he’s been away. It really stinks.

Just like every other man on the Internet, Peter Smith was besieged with ads promising that “Hot Singles are waiting for you!” This particular ad was on his Facebook page.

The difference:  The woman in the ad was his wife — and the image was ripped from his or her account with no permission. She had no intent to offer to procure other women for her husband.

Today as the shuttle bus from our hotel was pulling up to the convention center, our driver suddenly slammed the brakes, cursing out what someone in a seat near me called a fat old man on foot who cut right across the designated roadway, in the process almost getting hit by said shuttle. Under his breath the driver said, “Who’s this guy think he is?”

“He’s Terry Gilliam,” I said. And, from the looks of it, he was utterly oblivious to the chaos in his wake. (Which gave me a new insight into the wreckage of his attempted version of “Don Quixote.”)

Later in the day I got in to see the screening of clips from Gilliam’s forthcoming film, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.” These may be, to use Gilliam’s words, “the boring parts,” but they looked pretty amazing to me. The dream world scenes look like live-action (and, of course, CGI) counterparts to his old Monty Python animations. Someone asked Gilliam what was his inspiration for those Monty Python animations and he was gentlemanly enough to once again pay tribute to his mentor Harvey Kurtzman, the genius who taught him all about going to the library and swiping from the greats of art. (Unfortunately, he learned nothing about jaywalking.) I’m looking forward to seeing “Parnassus” — and given the visual feel of those scenes, I’m going to see it on a big screen somewhere.

Last Friday I went down to the lobby of the hotel near San Francisco airport where I was staying and told the girl at the front desk that the key card to my room wasn’t working. She asked, “What room?” I told her and she reset the card and handed it back to me. I said, “That’s it? You don’t want any ID? Give me a card for room 250, too. I wonder what they’ve got in there.” Someone else in town for the same meeting told me later that when he needed his card reset, the first thing she did was ask to see ID.

Now I’m at the San Diego Comic Con.  (More about that later, plus a photo of me standing next to a gentleman with a large flaming head.) There are six of us sharing a suite (everyone gets at least one night on the floor) and four key cards. This morning my friend who is this galaxy’s foremost Star Trek expert told me that “it’s okay, I got a room key.” “How’d  you do that?” I asked, assuming he’d traded with one of our roommates. “Oh, I went down to the front desk and told them the room I’m staying in and told them I lost the key. They gave me a new one.”

Given these two incidents within the same week, I’m now planning a crime spree of upscale but clueless hotels. If you hear that I’m coming to a hotel near you, you might consider using the front desk safe while I’m in town.

Here in November in California the voters accidentally turned married gay couples in the state into an  elite group — by passing a proposition that outlawed gay marriage (thereby restricting marriage to those gay people who were already wed). As a (married) lesbian attorney friend of mine explained, voters, and the state Supreme Court whose previous ruling created the window of time in which same-sex couples were allowed to marry, have in essence created two classes of gay citizen:  those who are (or were) allowed to get married, and those who aren’t. This is not the sort of society that courts have endorsed since the end of segregation, and it’s not the sort that will stand. Or, as some of us put it, if same-sex couples can get married in Iowa, how long can this prohibition stand in California?

What got me thinking about this again today is a story about one of our zoos in California, where a formerly “homosexual” penguin named Harry has thrown over his male lover, the penguin Pepper, for a female. (The zoo where these sexually ambivalent penguins live is, of course, in San Francisco. None of the penguins appear to wear leather.)   This has kicked up an inevitable hoohah:  if in the animal kingdom a gay penguin can switch teams, then perhaps homosexuality is indeed a “lifestyle choice” and not genetically preordained. (Expect to see this argument on the ranting evangelical show of your choice this Sunday.) This is a notion that probably doesn’t sit well with homosexuals.  Click here to read the full story.

My perspective is different. It’s this:  Who cares? Who cares if the penguin is gay or straight or even bi? I can’t imagine a productive way to keep penguins from mating with whatever other penguins they want to. It’s up to them what circles they waddle in; we really have no say. I can’t find any evidence that we’re tampering with homosexual preference anywhere in the animal kingdom — nobody’s segregating the male seahorses that like to sidle up with each other — so why start with the penguins? I don’t care if it’s their genetic implication or if they learned gay behavior from Tennessee Tuxedo. If they want to be gay, by all means, go ahead. And if they want to be straight, more power to them for that, too. In fact, I’m willing to bet these penguins don’t even put gender preference into the mix that way. It’s just a matter of who looks better at the fishing hole that day.

Now, if we can’t patrol gay behavior in animals, and if we aren’t restricting their behavior, why are we doing it with people? If there’s going to be any disparity between people and animals, so long as they do no physical harm to others, shouldn’t people have more freedom than animals?

Where were all these “judicial restraint” Republican Senators when the last guy nominated Roberts and Alito? Because basically undoing the last 50 years doesn’t seem so restrained.

The Wall Street Journal documents the astonishing sales that follow every appearance of comics’ foremost new hero:  Barack Obama. (Thanks to Doug Hackney for apprising me of this.)

No, I don’t like this sort of hero worship. To quote another hero, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Without oversight and skepticism, that great power is too often used irresponsibly. And yes, there is enormous opportunism going on here (it would be hard to believe that other publishers didn’t take notice when Marvel grossed more than a million bucks on Obama’s appearance in “Spider-Man.”).

But there are two other factors going on as well:  1) Obama benefits by comparison with the quote-unquote president he succeeded; and 2) Obama is a self-confessed comics fan, especially of Spider-Man. (Which helps explain how he got so many votes. Just counting everyone at Comic Con, that’s more votes than several key Western states combined.)

I just came back from two weeks in my original stomping grounds:  southern New Jersey, the area east of Philadelphia stretching down to become a peninsular shadow of Delaware. It’s an area of rivers, beaches, swamps, rednecks, amusement parks, many many trees, and high weirdness. (Like the famously supernatural Indian Cabin Road, which you can read about here and here — newly haunted by an endearingly odd friend of mine who moved there.)  It’s where I spent my salad days.

Much remains as it was when I left 21 years ago. I went fishing (to no avail) on the Great Bay, shooting out in the woods (four pistols:  a 357, a 45, a 9mm and a 22, as well as my late father’s double-ought thirty side-by-side shotgun), canoeing, riding rides on the boardwalk and jumping waves in Ocean City, and of course spent lots and lots of time eating clams. (Just to pass this along:  The perfect nutritionally balanced meal is four dozen clams and a beer. You heard it here first.)

But of course much has changed since I left 21 years ago, and since my boyhood. Rich Roesberg, a friend and reader of this blog, sent some photos of lost landmarks of the area that I thought I’d share.

This photo shows the infamous Garden State Park fire of 1977. As you can imagine, this was huge news at the time. (I was 15.)  Garden State Park was a horse-racing track. The success of this attraction pretty much created the boom in surrounding Cherry Hill, giving birth to the Cherry Hill Mall, the Latin Casino (which booked A-level stars like Sinatra and Liberace), and numerous other developments. When I was a kid, Cherry Hill Mall was like Xanadu. I hate malls (now), but at the time I couldn’t wait to see what wonders awaited me at Cherry Hill Mall. It’s about 45 minutes from the house I grew up in, but it may as well have been halfway across the globe. The fire above polished off the Garden State Park; it was competition from casinos that pretty much ended race time at the Atlantic City Race Course.

This is Olga’s Diner, which was on the Marlton Circle, one of those nexus points between Philadelphia and South Jersey. I just learned that it closed in 2008. When I was a young man, I had business that often brought me to this area (either selling comic books in Philadelphia, or delivering auto parts in the area later on). I can’t tell you how many times I ate at this diner. Last month when I was driving my wife and kids down from JFK for our vacation, I looked everywhere for a family-style diner like this at which to eat. I couldn’t find one. Finally we settled on an Applebee’s, one of the ubiquitous casual-dining chains that advertise constantly on TV. I’m still scrubbing the sodium from my teeth.

Yes, this is one of the famed Steel Pier diving horses shown in action. I got to see this act when I was a kid. The horse was trained to dive 60 feet through the air, a beautiful young woman on its back, landing in 10 feet of water. Cruel? Yes. (There were accusations that the horse didn’t “dive,” but fell when a trapdoor was sprung.) But it was an amazing thing to see, back when we were less enlightened about animal welfare. (I remember liking the young woman, too.) The act ended for good when Resorts International casino bought the pier.

This is Zipperhead, on South Street in Philadelphia. Not sure why this was included as a lost treasure in Rich’s email; last I checked — Rich in tow, last summer — Zipperhead was still there. And Lord knows I hope it is indeed still there. Zipperhead is where my then-girlfriend (now wife) and I would get some of our punk and new-wave accoutrements.  (She was punk; I was new wave. I don’t think there’s anything remotely punk about her any more, and given that my music of choice now serves as easy listening at airport terminals, I am feeling very old wave. When I went to see the Psychedelic Furs last month, I found myself wondering “What are all these fat old guys doing here?” Then I realized.) If Zipperhead is now a Polo store, someone must mount a charge.

The Sweetwater Casino was a somewhat-upscale (for the area) restaurant deep in the heart of the Pine Barrens where I grew up. It hugged the Mullica River that I grew up canoeing. I remember never wanting to go there as a kid because I didn’t want to eat anything on the menu. (My tastes have changed.) My parents would order something called “Clams Casino,” which I recall seeming especially repellent. The restaurant burned down in 2008, but the owners just re-opened the deck, and plans are underway to rebuild the restaurant. When my wife and I were first dating, my future mother-in-law insisted that we go to the Sweetwater Casino. I have no idea why. (At the time I thought she just wanted to see me spend some money on her daughter. In retrospect, I was pretty cheap.) She said that all we had to do was mention her father’s name (my kids’ now-great-grandfather) and we would get superior service. He was a local bank executive and a founder of another well-known local business and evidently a great patron of the Sweetwater Casino. So we went to the Sweetwater Casino and mentioned that name and got… blank stares. And then when we got inside I had to deal with the menu prices.

No, this isn’t rural Arkansas today. This is Pennsauken Mart, in Pennsauken, New Jersey. (The similarity in terrain and culture between Arkansas and where I grew up is striking. Except Bill Clinton would not have been corrupt enough for the Atlantic City area.) Yes, Pennsauken Mart was a grimy indoor flea market, but to a kid on the outlook for cheap back-issue comics, this was a mecca. (Berlin Farmers Market was even better.) The Mart was razed in January 2006 to give way to a redevelopment project including condominiums, shopping and, I’ll bet, paved parking.

Not everything that is gone should be viewed with regret. And so, finally, we have Ideal. Ideal was a woman’s clothier located in Hammonton, NJ for more than 50 years in the markedly unstylish quonset hut shown. I remember my mother and sister going there and my insisting on waiting (endlessly) in the car, comic books at the ready. (Whenever my 6-year-old boy doesn’t want to go to this sort of place, I do understand, believe me.)  So what hold could a woman’s clothing store possibly have on my memories?  It wasn’t the fashion, it wasn’t the location, it wasn’t the store, it wasn’t anything that ever happened to me there. It was their jingle. Anyone who ever heard it never forgot it — and I’m convinced it was the secret to their 50 years’ success in business. The song was everywhere, all the time, on television and radio. Take whatever pop song you think was overplayed, and then multiply by the nth degree, and you have the play record of the Ideal jingle. Which I can quote from memory:

“If you’ve got a passion for fashion

And you’ve got a craving for savings

Take the wheel

Of your automobile

And swing on down to… IDEAL!”

Thank God this place finally closed in 2008. Now women in the area are safe to be more fashionable (truly fashionable), and everyone is safe from this disturbing brain-infesting jingle. Some time hence, when the last song of my life goes through my brain as it shuts down, that song won’t be  “Hey Jude,” even with its million la-la-la’s, or “The Star Spangled Banner,” or even “Happy Birthday.” No, I’ll be mentally humming “If you’ve got a passion for fashion….” And I’ll smile knowing it’s no longer there, and no little boy is waiting impatiently in the car outside.

A little tip that I thought I’d share with other parents of small children. Sometimes the best response to a child’s complaint is this:  “Knock it off.” I have found this to be useful. (Even today.)