"A Great Gift Idea" is my favorite comedy album. It's from the team "The Credibility Gap" and is from 1973 or so. Apparently there never has been a digital release and it's about impossible to find in The Usual Online Places. The centerpiece is a takeoff on the Tonight Show, "Where's Johnny?", featuring the ever amazing Harry Shearer. Landers and McKean, aka "Lenny and Squiggy", were two more of four aboard. One track managed to rib the show cancelling and cutting-up Sly Stone and NET (remember before PBS . . .). It concerned a visit to his household where such preoccupations as grabbing a bottle of Calso Water and getting to bed on time, the better to facilitate a good show the next evening, held sway. Uh-huh.

One great line, and the climax of several ripostes, occurs as Sly and Cynthia are referencing "Porgy And Bess" with Sly saying George and Ira were into black culture long before public television. Earlier, though, comedian George Kirby (portrayed by one of Laverne and Shirley's hapless costars) is introduced as a house guest and artist on Stone's vanity label and comes in with the stereotype of a bad and probably no prototype in existence Jimmy Cagney impersonation: "You dirty rat, you killed my brother. It's curtains for you! I brought my rod, my-----curtain rod."

Last night in the New York Sunday Times I read a review of a book concerning the rise in use and iconic status of the Glock pistol. It was developed by one Gaston Glock. He is Swiss. And originally manufactured curtains.

So American. The not funny side.