On October 13th, I’m emceeing the BLLOTY Awards, which honors syndicated radio host Stephanie Miller and her team. BLOTTY stands for Best Liberal Laugh of The Year award.

Details are here.

You’ll note that also speaking is Democratic candidate for Congress Elliot S! Maggin — the former writer of Superman comics. He’s eager to explain how Republicans — and his district’s congressman in particular — are subverting Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

Please join us. We need more comic-book people in Congress.

Today I hiked a large section of Griffith Park behind the observatory with my kids, aged 16, 9, and 5, and the family dog. It’s about a 3-hour hike and, at times, pretty steep. Lex, the 16-year-old, insisted on wearing his new weight vest, which adds 45 lbs to your torso. (Something that Newcastle beer and Slim Jims would also do, but more enjoyably.) He is seriously into weight lifting and said his new fitness goal was to run the seven-minute mile.

“That’s nothing,” I said. “Batman ran the mile in two minutes. So did Robin.”

“He’s fictional!” Lex said, his face running with sweat. We were now over two hours into the hike.

Although I couldn’t remember the precise episode, I remember Batman turning to Robin and telling him they’d have to do that mile in two minutes or some bomb would go off. Commissioner Gordon looked concerned and Chief O’Hara was plainly aghast because Batman and Robin had just come back from running a three-minute mile in the same episode.

“Don’t tell me,” I told Lex. “I saw it. And he was about 40 years old with a paunch. And he had that heavy cape and cowl.”

These kids just don’t believe how much tougher the previous generations were. It’s up to us to keep reminding them.

After the hike, on which I also wore the vest for half an hour just to give the kid a break, I came home and bathed the dog. Then I fell asleep for an hour on the couch.

Two years in a row now I’ve attended the Western Food Expo for business reasons.

Now, as a father of three sometimes called upon to break up warring factions at the dinner table, I think I might be better served by attending this food conference — where vendors pitch their food products to prisons. (And where it’s important to keep the stick out of the corn dog.)

At some point, every endeavor done to its utmost becomes elevated to the level of an art. I will never forget when my father came to visit almost 20 years ago and led me on a walk around my own neighborhood, pointing out craftsmanship and achievement I had never noticed, especially, most mundanely but most powerfully, the cement pourings that made up the sidewalk. Every corner was stamped with the name of the firm, “J. W. Mougham.” As a general contractor and builder for many years, my father was able to note how straight and true the stress lines were, which would allow the cement, under stress from roots and shifting soil underneath, to fracture along those lines rather than breaking elsewhere. “This man knew what he was doing,” Dad said. I have never looked at sidewalks the same way since.

Which brings me to the subject of this video, which will leave me thinking somewhat differently about one of the games we used to play around the campfire. Clearly, there’s an art to this as well. To me, this display of shadow hand puppetry is astonishing.

Because according to a new book, it is an evolutionary warning that you are about to get eaten alive.

My new one-act play, “Next Time,” opened Saturday night at Hunger Artists Theatre in Fullerton. Here’s a trailer for the “Beyond Convention” festival it’s part of. (And no, my particular play is not one that involves making a sandwich, or digging a grave, or leaping through the air with sheets.)

Always choose your URL wisely.

(Thanks to Kimberly Glann for sending this in.)

All of these are legitimate companies that didn’t spend quite enough time considering how their online names might appear … and be misread. These are not made up. Check them out yourself!

1. “Who Represents” is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their Web site is www.whorepresents.com

2 . Experts Exchange is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at www.expertsexchange.com

3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at www.therapistfinder.com

5. There’s the Italian Power Generator company, www.powergenitalia.com

6. And don’t forget the Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales , http://www.molestationnursery.com/

7. If you’re looking for IP computer software, there’s always http://www.ipanywhere.com/

8. The First Cumming Methodist Church Web site is www.cummingfirst.com

9. And the designers at Speed of Art await you at their wacky Web site, http://www.speedofart.com

That’s right, the Bush administration is onto the threat from zombies.

(Thanks to newsfromme.com, where I first saw this.)

For a truly terrifying indicator of the threat we’re facing, make sure you watch to the end.

Over on Slate, they’re serializing the new graphic novel about Ronald Reagan’s life. I don’t know whether or not the printed version is in color, but the online edition is black and white — which seems perfect, because the entire enterprise seems close to a whitewash. Not since George Washington and the cherry tree have we seen such hagiography in service to a dead president. Not only that, the caricatures are bad.

Want to judge for yourself? Click here.

For me the identify of the writer is perhaps the most distressing aspect of this. I expect to disagree with some people about Ronald Reagan and his legacy (which I sum up as turning a blind eye to AIDS, plunging us into debt, manipulating the (non)release of hostages to help secure his election, starting an illegal and undeclared war south of our border, dealing arms to Iran, and launching the government investigation into our bedrooms and bookshelves). But I didn’t expect it to be Andy Helfer. In the late 1980’s, Helfer was the writer of a relaunched comic about the Shadow that brilliantly brought an absurdist filter to the subject. From wikipedia:

In the late 1980s, another DC reincarnation was created by Howard Chaykin, Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Kyle Baker, in a miniseries and sequel ongoing series. This version brought The Shadow to modern day New York. While initially successful, this version was not popular with “Shadow” traditionalists, because it depicted The Shadow using Uzi submachineguns and rocket launchers, as well as featuring a strong strain of black comedy throughout. It was canceled after an issue in which the Shadow’s head was transplanted onto a robot body.

While I have endlessly recycled thousands of comics over the years (thank you, eBay), I have held onto those. They are wonderful reading. Now it’ll be harder to enjoy them, knowing that 20 years later the writer is plumping for the guy who put all the mental patients out on the street while enriching his friends through an illegal war.

This video, courtesy Mad TV, has eerie ramifications for us all.