don't parade in my rain

Mike the Barbarian!

2011-08-07T17:42:00.002-04:00

I present now, from a seventh-grade notebook, the beginning of a saga I have mentioned here before: Mike the Barbarian. I guess it's from around May 1982, when the Schwarzenegger movie came out. In light of a looming remake, and Mike's birthday just having passed without so much as a card from me, I figured it's a good time to post it here. (Here's a link to the post with that earlier mention; it also has a current movie tie-in, as it features Mike hanging out with his Smurf pals.)

I don't think I saw Conan in the theater, but I must have seen plenty of clips and ads for it at the time. I drew the first panel (based on the poster, I think), then Jeff took a turn, then Mike. I doubt we really planned anything out, since our respective panels suggest we were mainly interested in negating whatever plot the previous artist had advanced. Thus, it's a pretty fast-moving comic, with new characters and creatures introduced and then immediately killed. I have so far only scanned the first fourteen panels, as they took a lot more cleaning up than I realized they'd need. I wasn't planning on doing too much editing, but in some cases you could barely see the image because of the bleed-through from the reverse of the looseleaf. I put the artist's initial at the bottom right corner in most panels, unless I forgot. Later in the comic, Jeff and I booted Mike from the project because he was getting on our nerves, as he tended to do back then.

The figure laying at Mike's feet is a classmate that we picked on. He's in the woman's position of the original poster.

Mike drew this panel. I have blacked out the classmate's name. It's never too late for libel.

Although he had a knife thrown at him in the previous panel, here I kill off the classmate with an arrow. This is the only panel where Mike's face is painted like in the movie.

Here, trying to cram in as much story into my panel as possible, I have a "falling rocks" sign conveniently popping up just as the sound of a punch causes rocks to fall.

Here Jeff phones it in. Maybe he had actual schoolwork to do.

Mike (the artist, not the character) does his best to end the comic.

Again cramming my panel with exposition, a passing wizard levitates the rock and makes Mike grow slightly, but an arrow kills the wizard, leaving Mike tiny in stature. Got that? I'm not sure why the wizard says"Whoops."

Apparently Jeff noticed this little archer escaped death in the fifth panel. Why he's suddenly in a window I couldn't say, but there you are.

The miniscule Mike climbs the (presumably dead but somehow still standing) wizard's hat, and beans the archer with a rock. Whoosh. Ping. Ugh.

Deciding the archer has fallen out of a castle and not into it (who the hell can tell?), I have him summon a dragon, much to Mike's dismay.

And so I'll leave you with this cliffhanger, and a dragon by Jeff that I was pretty darn impressed with at the time. To give you an idea of my painstaking restoration of this classic, the right side of the panel (behind the dragon's wing) is the color of the paper before I cleaned it up.

This was Parts I and II. More to come! Maybe!

It's July: Do You Know Where Your Nostalgic Blogger is?

2011-07-01T10:59:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I've been remiss. Or busy, if that makes it any better. Circumstances--i.e., my computer is at my bidness, not my dial-up-encumbered home in the boonies--make it difficult to find the time to really sit and obsess over my inconsequential postings like I typically do. Plus, Facebook makes it all-too-easy for me to just throw random musty ephemera up onto the web for my friends to see, instead of here for nostalgia victims to wistfully Google. Hopefully that'll change soon; with this three-day weekend and another week off later this month, I'm going to TRY to get something on here. Maybe the ABC Afterschool Specials piece I was working on (although, honestly, I lost interest as I was scanning eight-thousand TV Guide ads because I realized that maybe I wasn't quite the fan that I thought I was, having never heard of 90% of them), or something more personal involving the peculiar contents of the old notebooks, comics and papers that have somehow survived my many moves. If there are any requests, let me know. (First one to email me "FREE BIRD!" wins a punt up the pooter.)

Just because I feel a need to put something up here for ya, here's a scan from a 50's Portland Rose Parade program that I sold years ago. It's a bunch of gals in, I think, a big champagne glass. I've never had any reason to post it anywhere, but just couldn't bring myself to delete it, mainly because of that Winona Ryder-looking honey in the fore.

Eep-a-Ma-Moo-Kah-Hee-Ha To Our Jewish Friends!

2010-12-03T13:02:00.001-05:00

Here's a YouTube "video" I've uploaded of Jeff G. and me, a short clip of an audiotape we made when he slept over my house the weekend of December 18th, 1980. We were eleven, almost twelve, and in the sixth grade. I had found the cassette on the floor of the bus, and it occurred to me that my Uncle Richie, who was staying at our house, had a little boombox on which I could record over the tape. (I think it was a recording of an Antioch youth meeting, all droning discussion and monotonous strumming.) Hopefully, one o' those days I'll get the whole thing digitized, before it crumbles to dust. It's hilarious in its own way, me with my lispy voice and sniggering, stuffy-nosed laugh, and Jeff's Tourette's-like habit of emitting a strange, crescendo squeak every so often.

We mostly used the tape to record off the TV, which seemed quite an innovation to us, and then we'd parody whatever we taped in that inimitable preteen way. Here we recorded a Hanukkah-themed station ID for WNEW, which showed a family lighting a menorah to an unseen singer. Jeff then sings his approximation of the Hebrew, not too badly I might add. Then I join in way too enthusiastically, but then realizing my over-zealousness I take it down a notch. Then Jeff sings some more and I start yelling at him that I was singing first, I guess pretending as if I was the original singer of the commercial. Jeff wisely ignores me, and gets in his "Kosher hot dog" joke once more, which cracks me up. It's really awful and embarrassing, but I just have to remind myself that I did a lot of stupid shit then. I really had no choice.

That's me with the bear puppet and combover, and Jeff as a Santa who appears to have been rolled in an alleyway. This pic may or may not be from the year of the recording.

Greetings From the Past!

2010-10-24T00:21:00.004-04:00

I just got a box of over three-hundred vintage greeting cards at a barn sale for seven bucks. I probably coulda haggled them down by half, but it seemed vaguely disrespectful. They were sent to one family--the sellers I presume--here in NE Ohio. They are mainly 1940's-60's with a few late 30's or early 70's (someone incredibly organized has dated many of them), with more than two-thirds of them Christmas cards. Pretty much all of them are written in, sometimes at length with the personal news you'd expect to find in holiday cards. There are many unique ones--pop-ups, textured, personalized, one with bells attached, one featuring a clump of hair on a man's chest (my wife just about gagged when I showed it to her), even one from 1949 which uses an optical illusion to reproduce a moving television screen picture (Santa banging away on a piano while a dog's ears and tail wiggle).

There's a card from 1944 sent by a soldier overseas, a Cub Scout card given by a den mother, one that includes a small plastic bubble containing "soil from the Holy Land," and one that's a cellophane-windowed envelope which holds a "North Pole Insurance Co." policy insuring the holder for Christmas joy and a year of prosperity.

There's a card from 1950 featuring a "new-fangled" jet flying overhead. There's a personalized one that uses the art of "Grin and Bear It" artist George Lichty, with different individual drawings representing family members (i.e., a little boy dressed as a cowboy is captioned as "Paul Jr." and the family's teen girl is a bobby-soxer dancing to 45's). It even features the sender's address. There's a really cool one depicting Santa and Rudolph sailing over the earth in a satellite (speaking of new-fangled), with the U.S. seen below. The sender's hometown of Canton, Ohio is custom-printed in, with various cities with Christmas-related names printed around it. I just noticed one is "Gay, GA." Thinking surely they changed the name in the late 70's, I Googled the town, and immediately found that Gay Road leads right to Cotton-Pickin' Fairs. There's no joke there, but I enjoy it anyway.

There's another with Santa and Baby New Year cavorting in only hats, with towels over their asses. It says "HOT or COLD / YOUNG or OLD THIS COVERS EVERYTHING!" I don't get it. I just hope there was a sauna involved. Any other explanation portends a lousy year.

And I don't know if you're aware of a certain connotion for the word "zoo," but I can tell you it makes this card way creepy.

I wish I had the time to scan almost all of them, so many cool ones. Birthdays, Easter, weddings, anniversaries and births, get well and sympathy, valentines, religious, Father's and Mother's Day, even a few of those tiny children's birthday party invitations.

Maybe I'll get some of the written notes on here, but taken individually they seemed pretty banal for the most part; it's when you see the bigger picture that they become interesting. For instance, one of the grandmothers sent many cards, particularly religious birthday cards, but rarely wrote a personal sentiment. Then, one year, she inexplicably shares a pointless story of being given a lift to a shopping center. I bet she was a load of laughs.

Hopefully, for the yule season, I'll get some of the more striking examples on here. I think some of them are really kinda beautiful...

From TV Guide, November 3rd, 1978.

2010-05-29T10:58:00.001-04:00

how old were you then.

2010-05-20T13:13:00.004-04:00

This is a "sketch story" I wrote about childhood birthdays. Sketch stories are a stringing-together of memories on whatever subject, details scrawled as quickly as I can remember them. Although I do edit the stories later, I leave the caps out and the punctuation minimal--well, as minimal as I care to.

how old were you then.

tenth birthday? eleventh? let's think.
fourth grade, '79... tenth.
my only b-day party as a child.
bob h______, chris i_____, david k_____.
that was the hardcore group, my from-first-grade posse. crazier than hitler on a hot day.
then joe a_____. john k_____. possibly andy z____, jimmy g_____. others.
i really don't remember.
no chicks. you know how that is.

anxious preparation.
i imagine mom did most of the work, my sisters ka and jackie assisting.
or perhaps this was mainly their production.
downtime before the event spent watching, portentiously, "the horror of party beach," wor-tv channel nine, saturday ten am movie.
i was missing cartoons. late march, prolly reruns anyhow.

arrivals.
party quickly gets out of hand, my monstrous friends running amok.
i excused myself to the bathroom nearly in tears, like a little sissy lesley gore boy.
i couldn't believe what an appalling bunch of cretins my friends were.
i splashed water in my face, attempted to compose myself.

i went back downstairs to the living room party in time to learn that joe had thrown my sister's shoe onto the pool. i say onto because the pool was covered with a tarp for the non-pooling season. the tarp was raised in the middle, creating a moat of filthy water around the center bubble, the shoe lying in the leaves-and-larvae muck.
i just kinda went with it from there, until, i think, the police broke things up.

i remember only joe's gift, and even his card.
the gift was a game, not stop thief but something like that, and i enjoyed it for many years.
his card, a joke involving weevils and a pun on "lesser of two evils."
it was explained to me.

actually i also got a game called laser attack now that i think of it.
it wasn't shrink-wrapped and the rules were unamusingly complicated, so it was most likely a recycle.
i recall getting it from gabriel i_____, but don't remember inviting him to the party.
maybe i was afraid not to. he was terribly large and seemingly unstable, though this didn't stop me and tiny dave k. from pouring milk into his bookbag when gabe was the new kid.
i was caught---a teacher scolded, his family doesn't have a lot of money!---and had to give him my own bag as replacement.
his sour-stinking booksack lay folded in one of our kitchen cabinets for many years.

anyway, that party. there was one photo of the assembled. i haven't seen it in at least twenty years.

another party, bob h.'s.
if i was nine, he was ten, though his b-day was less than three months after mine.
the oldest guy in class, a dude by default.
well, he was also athletic and good-looking, that helped.
his mom threw a hell of a party, a madhouse, tons of kids running inside, outside, some early june lord-of-the-flies-looking shit going on.
choice goody bags, they even taught me the word 'loot' though i didn't let on as everyone else seemed to know it.
for a smart kid i was fairly stupid.

lots of games, participation voluntary, a nice change.
jellybeans in a jar, guess the number, get the prize at the core.
the jar had four sides.
i counted beans up, then across one side, multiplied those numbers and timesed that by four. accounted for depth.
after my winning method was revealed, some kids considered it cheating.
jealous little shits.

mrs. h. may have lost it at some point.
i recall an uncomfortable crying adult moment, relief that i wasn't directly involved.

miguel c____.
party at the ground round, mid-island mall, 8mm cartoons on the wall, peanut shells on the floor, disgruntled lunch customers on the periphery.
didn't really know miguel that well, even for such a small class.
this one time there was a series of afterschool wrestling matches to establish who was superior to whom among our st. pius gang.
miguel and i grappled the longest of anyone and were hence proclaimed equal, having wearily agreed to a tie.
an unspoken rivalry took root, only to die of neglect soon after.

another time, when the whole class tried that thing where you lean forward, put your forehead to the wall and then try to lift a chair, miguel and i were the only boys who could do it. boys aren't supposed to be able to do it. i think there was teasing over this, but hell, you're not supposed to be able to sneeze with your eyes open either and i could do that too. so what?

at his party i tied a peanut to a helium balloon's ribbon and sailed it off over the ground round patronage like a hot air balloon.
much joyous throwing of popcorn.
i gave miguel a shitload of baseball cards cuz i understood he collected them.
i also gave him socker boppers, big inflatable boxing gloves, despite his being somewhat too old for them.
i understood he fought with his brother a lot. i thought the socker boppers would help.

his mother had a thick accent and a serious face and thanked me profusely for my crummy gifts.
i suspected it was a kind of spanish sarcasm.
i really didn't care. it wasn't all that great of a party. there was a clown for crying out loud. he wouldn't have passed a telemundo audition, and this was the early eighties.

jeff g____ had a party.
don't remember a blessed thing about it.
he was my best friend, don't know if i was his.
there was a frisbee given.
did i give it to him? did we go outside to toss it? was it a gift from his condo neighbor there in "the villas," the notorious embellisher steve b_____?
really, don't press, i don't remember!

oh shit i do remember.
one gift i gave jeff was a t-shirt with an iron-on transfer on it, steve martin as the jerk.
he wore that shirt a lot, til he was big and it was small. so i guess he liked it.
man, the jerk shirt.

maria pa-pee-ya may have had parties.
i remember her b-day was august 3rd--i think i remember that--because it was the closest thing to an occasion in that holiday-bereft month.
wait wait, i do remember a party. very young, maybe even my first attended.
storming outside, a patio room dimly lit by colorful-but-faded plastic tiki lights.
donkey-pinning in the dining room, a spaceship favor or something, punch rolling off sofa upholstery covers, a squabbly fight which i carefully avoided, the kind verging on slapping and scratching but soon dissipating.

a post-cake, break-in-the-rain game outside.
low sky, long wet grass soaking socks and sneakers.
an empty, broken rabbit hutch leaning, the wood gone a forlorn gray.
mainly i remember running, giddy and breathless, rounding the side of her house from the backyard and catching a glimpse of my own house across the street.

i was surprised to see it, i had felt so far away.

Maria Pa-pee-ya.

2010-04-27T10:26:00.008-04:00

There was a girl living across the street from me when I was young, and I mean that quite literally. For the entirety of my youth--the first twenty-one years--my house faced hers. The houses face each other to this day, but, strangely, other people live there now.

Twenty-one years... even if the final 21 years of your life were to be spent in an iron lung, and a squeaky one at that, they still won't seem as long as the first twenty-one. That's where you learn the billion or so details that you'll spend the rest of your life deciphering, pretending to know them like you know your own name.

The girl's name was Maria, Maria Pa-pee-ya in the schoolyard vernacular, though I couldn't quite tell you why other than that she was Colombian and the nickname sounded absurdly Spanish. More accurately, it was her mom that was Colombian, and she spoke in broken english. I think Maria sometimes found this a little embarrassing, and so despised her tauntish playground moniker.

We played together every day as toddlers, and when school reared its awful Catholic head we entered the same first grade class. I have little recollection of interacting with her at school, undoubtedly preferring the company of men, as it were. Small, screechy men. (And I don't mean Father Louie.)

Once we were back at home, Maria probably having had enough of girls and I of boys, our friendship would be instantly rekindled. That unspoken resilience describes a great difference between childhood and adulthood. When you're a kid, it's only the most important bonds that are constantly broken and mended, but as an adult it's the opposite---a labor-intensive burden like that usually just needs to be left smoldering at the roadside.

We sang spontaneous songs and our dolls mingled socially and without reservation. Our marathon sessions of whatever game held our fancy on any given day were mind-boggling. (How many matches of tic-tac-toe could you endure today?) We were friends like the way everyone should have friends, like on The Brady Bunch and the countless other shows we watched. The shows that tried to teach us about stuff like the importance of being friends, as if we hadn't figured that out already.

We had a decidedly non-amorous relationship, but not one without tension. The fights we had were monumental, if largely internal. We'd disparage and sulk, isolate and eventually reconsider. The careful process of reconciliation was excruciating and necessary. Rarely would there be a genuine resolution, because there was usually little to resolve.

I once coldly shut her out because I found hateful, anti-me graffiti on a wall in her garage. It was an ancient artifact from a previous falling-out. I think it was after this discovery that the streetlamp at the corner became a bulletin board of not only nonsensical innuendo, but of hateful sentiment and vicious rumor. It may even have been crucial to our eventual parting of ways. Of course, almost all childhood friendships fade, but certainly it can't help to have a perpetual public record of all your silly grievances right there, just one house away (Ralphie DeMarco's) at the end of the block. This gossip central was a steel, light gray pole, and our slander was invariably written in pencil (not to suggest that it could yet be erased from the forum so much as that ink pens simply wouldn't write on it). Sometimes we'd furiously scribble our nasty notes on opposite sides of the pole at the very same time, taking care never to make eye contact.

Despite our lack of romance, we were partners in our own little practice one day, if my drift is caught. We were in her house, second floor playroom, her mom downstairs cooking. The house smells of broccoli and beans... I remember this well because it always smelled of broccoli and beans. We decide, somehow, to display our mysterious goods to one another. It is risky---no lock on the door, mother downstairs... hell, it's a split level so mom's not even a full floor away---but we do it anyway. I believe it was her idea. I don't think I was ever all that interested.

We stand close, peering only down as corduroys undo. I accuse her of cheating---she's manipulating her belly-button to make it look weird. Oh, wait. Okay, I see it, I think I get it now. Hmm.

No door-bursting, wide-eyed mother here, though it wouldn't have been much more embarrassing than the time we were locked out of her house one autumn day. I threw a rock at the outer door and, sissy-arm that I was, totally missed the metal bottom half and shattered the glass storm window above. I think my idea was to make noise to attract her mother, who was presumably inside. It made some noise alright, especially the blood thudding dully in my ears as I fled to my house, through the gate, across the backyard, into the back door and up two flights of stairs. Slamming my bedroom's door behind me, I wedged myself between the mattress and boxspring and made plans for an Easter re-emergence from my Star Wars-sheeted tomb.

When I at last met up with Maria again after this incident (well after I'd been properly scolded and the window replaced), she embarrassed me by asking, in front of both our moms, "Paul, why did you break our window?" I hated her immensely then, for bringing up what I was hoping was already water under the bridge, and because she asked this question with the matter-of-factness of an imbecile, and especially because there I was with no good answer. I resolved to make sure that every time our little Opal Drive/Ruby Lane gang played Scooby Doo, she would be relegated to the part of Velma, and Ralphie's kid sister, the stringy-haired, buck-toothed Anne, would play the coveted role of Daphne. That'd learn her.

Maria's mom got into a severe car accident when we were about eight or nine or so, and so Maria stayed with us over the many weeks of recuperation. I think it was toward the end of this period, when I'd long grown weary of her ever-present pug-nosed face, that I punched her in the stomach for refusing to show me a birthday invitation she'd received. It arrived in my mailbox, so I felt entitled. She clung to the couch, doubled over and unable to breathe as I picked up the card at her feet, read it, and nonchalantly tossed it aside. I may have said something like, "Ah, who cares" before walking away in a kind of idiot victory, the very kind some men strive for and never recover from. I don't think there were any other instances of punching, but this one was enough to constitute a turning point. She had once described to me the feeling of having the wind knocked out of her when her brother tackled her one time, how awful it was. As I stepped over the invitation and out the front door, I knew I had hurt her the same way. I don't recall apologizing.

I still recall, vividly, the landmark day that found my arrival at a new threshold, the fifth-grade afternoon when my newest friend Jeff and my oldest friend Maria joined me in my room for a game of Slime Monster. Jeff had never visited afterschool before, but this time we made the required arrangements for him to take my bus home with me. Maria didn't go to St. Pius anymore so we no longer had that in common, and she didn't seem to care for Slime all that much lately, either. When she went home after the game, Jeff commented unfavorably on her, and I was compelled to agree.

Maria and I saw each other now and then after that, unavoidably so. My buddies and I would play Kill the Guy with the Ball on the side yard, and Maria would be across the street, maybe with Anne, or whomever. I didn't know who her friends were anymore.

We'd look furtively across Opal Drive during our teen years, noting each other's changes. Shortly after my father died, at my mother's insistence, I hesitantly crossed the street to bring back some of Maria's family's dishes or Tupperware or whatever. I didn't know much at sixteen, but I knew enough after three numbing nights of dad's wake to realize that this distance Maria and I had installed was probably not so wide that we couldn't say hello and talk again.

I knocked, hoping she wouldn't answer. She did. I stood on the stoop we'd sat on so many evenings, she in the doorway. It was quickly graying into early December dark, but she didn't turn on the light above the steps, just as I wouldn't have. The conversation, initially full of condolences awkwardly given and received, soon came easily and was not at all uncomfortable. There was a sudden maturity, and an understanding that took me aback even as I reciprocated it. I recall none of the exchange, whether vague plans to get together were made or mentioned, but I'm sure it ended with goodnights, and me walking down her concrete path for the ten-thousandth time.

And we, Maria and I, never spoke again.

[Author's note: Until the miracle of Facebook...]

Something I Wrote Once.

2010-04-14T11:32:00.010-04:00

Don't feel so hot today. So I found something I wrote once and rewrote it. Sometimes that makes me feel better.

Up the Stairs, Left Right Right.

I had a center room once, no windows, just a door to an unlit hallway. I was never so happily terrified as when I lived in it, quietly, lightlessly.

Did you hear of that French cave diver woman? She lived underground for months and months, and when she came out she found she just couldn't live here under the sun anymore. She had changed. So she went back. Her last note told her husband she loved him horribly.

I’ve never seen the note, but I imagine the words as written in darkness, too large, skimming recklessly off the page, without direction but not lost.

Your rhythm changes without the sun. The goddamned sun tells you when to set your clock, when to sleep and eat. But in the dark, the soundless dark, you find your own rhythm, the rhythm of yourself, unconstrained by time and light. A new pattern, but not new. When you come out, you see what you once were, what you must again become.

The goddamned sun is out today, and I wanted the dark, and that made me think of that room. Also when I think of that room, I have a half-lost recollection of a secret panel. I put things behind it, things I have forgotten, things I never thought I could forget.

And oh yes, in another room, a lighted room, a wall of taped-up papers, words dripping across them sideways in a wild hand...
several wild hands...
wild and dark.

Helpless Crotchface Imp, Indeed.

2010-03-22T13:52:00.014-04:00

...I cannot promise you
I've said goodbye to childish things /
There's still some pretty insults left
and such sport in threatening
---Elvis Costello, "Little Atoms"

"I USE THESE WORDS TO DESCRIBE MIKE O'SHAUGHNESSY."

So begins the list of epithets, seen above, found in my seventh grade school notebook, composed by Jeff G. and myself with two or three contributions in unfamiliar hands. I reproduce it here in its entirety, all 322 obloquies (minus numerous redundant entries), to preserve the mindset of an abusive, snot-nosed, homophobic pre-teen punk circa 1982. I'm fairly certain this was compiled before we were exposed to George Carlin's extensive cuss list on his HBO special. (Please note that the first page has an empty column with the heading "Good Things About Mike." What a coupla assholes.)

I had this list up on an old site for a long time, but it's been gone a while so I thought I'd throw it back up here. I was reminded of it recently when Jeff emailed me this list someone found in a third grade classroom which details the myriad varieties of bitches. If that list is indeed the work of some DC eight-year-old, well, the twelve-year-old me feels mighty schooled. Ours is still pretty good though.

Poor spelling and odd punctuation have been left intact, with occasional bracketed comments as I saw fit (parenthetical notes are original). While there are many questionable entries, I put a question mark after the ones I really have no explanation for.

Be sure to read Mike's response to the list, at the bottom, along with the hate mail I got from some guy, apparently in response to the list. Away we go...

faggot

obnoxious

asshole

retard

moron

gay

fairie

sissy

pussy shit

whimp

jerk

ass wipe

panty waste

bubble brain

air head

jerk off

jack off

homo

fool

schmuck

short

dumb

shit nipple

shit face

shit brain

shit mouth

shit person

shit head

flakey

coo-coo

sex-fiend

pussy-fart

scum

mongoloid

pervert

weakling

baby

dick

dick face

dip shit

dip stick

fart

stinky

albino

crumb

bum

urine head

penis breath

2 face

snot

booger ball

jack ass

twerp

twit

twat

duck lips

nimble nuts

micro minded

shallow

puney

dingy

dizzy

talentless

cluck

stupid

simple

xerox [meaning unoriginal]

druggie

pothead [how prophetic!]

hair brain

schitzophrenic

zit face

rock head

hoser

emble man [???]

Polish (polack)

dimwit

brainless

testie [meaning 'teste,' I assume]

led head [?]

slime

girly

slave

prejudice [?]

"tiny"

bucket of shit

fuck face [written larger than others]

ugly

pathetic

sorry

sad

drip

dirt

scumsucker

geek

pee head

mold head

numb nuts

used toilet paper

slop bucket

pig breath

freak

weirdo

Rely tampon

deuche-head

wet-nose [?]

soggy brained

slob

masher

extra-terrestal (close enough!)

pencil-necked geek

lead ass

vegetable

quirk of nature

prick

pimp [?]

barnacle-brain

myron

waste

common trash

flem (or phlegm) [interesting distinction]

squirmy

greaseball

grimy

monkey meat

spit

low life

shorty

dribble

puke licker

doggie doo

rust

queer

worm

gopher guts

loser

gigolo

lump

fungus

athletes foot

germ

smelly old sock

wet fart

algae

molecule

dildo

pekinese-face

crud

crap

vomit

vermin

parasite

potatohead

garbage

kinky

martian

pain-in-the-ass

infantile

D.O.A.

double panty-waist

mealy mouthed

lame brained

mud

slush

armpit

stoolie

cueball [?]

crude

coccus

cheap shit

ear wax

trash can

jam brain

fruit cake

sicko

udder

playing witout a full deck

B.O.

weed

egg head

gummy

wise ass

poop

meat head

toilet breath

ass pick

hemmeroid

invalid

unusual

peculiar

confused

sleazy

foul

disgusting

dirty

rotten

unpleasant

chicken shit

just plain old chicken

turkey

canary

door knob

flat tire

game over

pee wee

tree stump

"rock"

pot hole

sewer brain

bed wetter

flake

hocker

piglet

goop

weasel

virus

diseased

croup

Mr. Mastabation

mentally bent

pubic hair

seedy

dandruff

unfortunate

princess

mistake

mishap

accident

deceased

not all there

gay lord

lesi

pretty [?!?]

pore

poor

Compound W

muck head

minor mind

pecker

bird guts

wart

living abortion

Jerry's kid

birth defect

saliva

looney tune

hockey puck

emotional wreck [no wonder!]

garbage truck

nuclear waste

mucus mind

freckle

ding dong

litter

bad joke

cow sperm

ink blotch

nuisance

ferret-face

moldy orange

slug

comatose

friendless

nomad

porpoise pus

ignoramus

pollywog

stooge

Smurfy [too true...]

beatnik [?]

vile

epleptic

strange

odd

out of the ordinary

doggie

rat

nipple head

thorn in my side

bottom of the barrel

foolish

tuddball [?]

pimple

annoyance

sinis supremes [?]

illogical

bother

cowchip

dope

idiot

penis membrane

tampon breath

ass bucket

stilts

crap head

odor

helpless

crotch face

imp

shrodz [?]

moronic

bimpore [?]

foot print

cancer

horse scum

[symbol for null set]

mickey

numbskull

putz

insuperior [I imagine JG meant 'inferior']

lousy

wormshit

peckerhead

cocksucker

mother fucker

nipple juice

cock-knocker

pocket pinball player

ingrown toenail

sappy

faggot-ass

yellow snow

Mike responds, twenty years later:

You crumb. You bum. You albino crumb bum. I recall the list vividly. Circulating from gawker to contributor and so on. The miserly scrawl. The horrendous misspellings. The awe now at recognizing phrases I thought I'd only recently encountered. "Why, I've known that word all along!" The list exists as a sort of Rosetta Stone of a questionably misspent youth. I feel like Detective Kujan comprehending his bulletin board after Verbal Kint's spiel. Its Joycean results amaze me.

Micro-minded dirty canary. It reads like a surrealist manifesto without the pretension. The list says nothing but this: "We consider Mike O'Shaughnessy to be..."

The fun was in the compilation of terms. Certainly any attempt at insult was lost on me; I believe I even contributed to the list. Everyone wanted to be a part of the list-making, except for the girls, who viewed us with benign amusement and amused disgust. [Editor's note: Comparing handwriting in the list to confirmed O'Shaughnessy samples elsewhere in my notebook suggests that Mike's meager yet undeniably pithy contributions were "cancer" and "horse scum." This may remain unverifiable, however, as I seem to recall Chris Ingram adding a few terms but have nothing else in his handwriting to compare it with.]

[Whoops! This just in, from Mike... "Erratum: Indeed, Chris Ingram, not I, contributed "cancer" and "horse scum" to the list. Why I remember that, I don't know. Horse scum?" As the only other entry in a foreign hand ("ding dong") is clearly not Mike's writing, perhaps he only suggested entries and Jeff or I recorded them. Or, more likely, ignored them. Mike continues:]

Thanks to Paul Saur for unearthing the list so that future generations of dopey grade-schoolers may draw inspiration from its mammoth contents.

My favorite triumvirate? Freckle ding dong litter. [Editor's note: I had asked Mike to pick his favorite consecutive triumvirate of aspersions. For the record, mine is probably "hocker piglet goop," with "helpless crotch face imp" a close second. Strike that. Reverse it.]

Some time after putting the list up, I received a bizarre e-mail from one G_____ C___ Fat that seemed to take issue with it... I think. I present it here in its entirety, omitting only the e-mail address he gives at the end.

[subject heading:] "IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT"

Since the typical human being is selfish and likes to treat others selfishly they involve themselves into affecting the lives of strangers. For selfish reasons. They like to make innocents negative and resentful and choose to participate in human distortion and discord. For the purpose of hurt and pain. All because the typical human being is selfish.

The typical human being is also difficient in self esteem and maturity and autonomy and individuality and independence. They are really needy overgrown crybabies that need their colicky pains alleviated. It wouldn't be so bad except that selfishness and immaturity sometimes corrupt. Making these people self destructive and also immoral. The corruptions of the selfish affected many innocents and made many of those innocents negative, immature, and selfish themselves. Many of these people expect everyone to also behave selfish, immature, negative, and self destructive, involve themselves into the personal lives of strangers, and pretty much live ridiculous. Most of the human condition is ridiculous because of these people.

Insults: Sketchy irresponsible goofy anal monkey

infantile nerd colicky poop prissy cunt little shit of the universe

Shit joke shit boy

Shit of the universe embarrassment

Anal faggot telepathic nigger animal loser

Inferiority complex overgrown crybaby fagboy

Black sheep cunt bitch shit of the universe

dumbfuck shit boy loser shit joke

pathetic ignorant insectoid stack of worthless shit

Intrusive selfish inferiority complex loser

Pathetic anal shit monkey buffoon asshole

Annoying inferior pest shit boy nerdling clod

Competitive shit boy pussy loser faggot bitch

Couldn't own and control even a worthless piece of shit loser

Substandard shit men of the universe

Human men are actually rat monkey women with penises

Least in the universe shit men shit jokes failures

There ends, rather abruptly, my first real piece of hate mail. (Online, anyway; my zine got its share of angry missives, but at least Fat used spell-check---no, wait, there's "difficient.") I think the second-to-last line is my favorite. There's a horror screenplay in there somewhere. And I'm kinda pissed that, compiling the list twenty-odd years ago, we missed "nerdling clod."

Unfortunately, I have deleted the letter I wrote back to Mr. Fat, but the gist of it was that he is a lunatic. Hoping this was all a gag, I Googled his name only to find an embarrassing, flatulent treatise at a vanity press-type site. It was essentially the same thing as the first two paragraphs of his e-mail, but imagine that redundant nonsense iterated endlessly, and pointlessly broken up into identical-sounding chapters to boot. If it was indeed a joke, I wasted a lotta time searching for a punchline. You can look for it yourself, at author-me.com. When searching for his name, the first results page will have several Fat hits, which is exactly what I recommend you do before trying to read his asinine drivel.

In my reply to G. C. Fat, I pondered whether he has lucid moments anymore, and asked if he realized that all the vile things at the end of his letter are his own gruesomely sad feelings about himself, since it has little or nada to do with the list in question. I'm guessing he found my site by masturbatorily Googling some perverse phrase that inflames his twisted, shame-fueled libido. I advised he go back on his meds, triple the dose, and reconsider the relative benefits of electroconvulsive therapy. I bet he was a much weirder kid at twelve than I ever was.

Krofft on Ice.

2010-01-27T11:01:00.006-05:00

This is a story from my old site, now defunct. It's true, more or less, but I wrote it with a somewhat dreamlike tone because that's what a lot of my older memories have become, like flashes of barely recalled dreams, a vague deja vu accompanied by an undefined ache. I guess that's nostalgia.

I'm very young, pre-first grade, but not by much. I'm going to see Krofft on Ice. It's in the city somewhere, Madison Square Garden I imagine, so my mother and I are taking the Long Island Railroad. My mom won the tickets from an AM radio station, WGBB, and before we embark on our weekday journey, that station is playing in the kitchen. It is, in fact, always playing in the kitchen. Mom is one of a handful of loyal listeners, and is rewarded regularly for her unfailing contest vigilance. (Years later, thanks to mom being the appropriately-ordered caller, we drank nothing but Barrelhead Root Beer for an entire summer, and after swimming dried off with Barrelhead Root Beer towels, and that autumn we gave away Diet Barrelhead Root Beer by the case.) I think she listens to the soft rock station just for the contests, don't know if she genuinely likes the music. I guess she probably does. When they play "Black Water," she makes me dance with her. I think it's a corny song, because even I know that when the guy sings "sweet mama" he doesn't mean his mom. Right now, as I wait impatiently at the front door, bundled for winter, WGBB is playing the folk version of the Our Father, and to pass the time I try to untangle the words.

Many milestones on this day: my first trip into the big city, my first train ride, my first time seeing a severely brachycephalic dragon skating with a pile of seaweed and some hats with legs. I love Sid and Marty's menagerie of puppety oddballs--H.R., Sigmund, Lidsville, et al. They alternately amuse and terrify me. I also, around this period of my life, enjoy filling my Garanimal pants with dirt. But that's neither here nor there.

We reach Penn Station. Before the train even stops, my mother makes a great deal of fuss about the gap between the train and the platform. She is warning me about it, to be very careful crossing it. You could fall, she says. Fall into the abyss like so many other little children do, EVERY DAY, never to be heard from again. She warns me until I have an image in my tiny noggin of the train doors opening to reveal a great gaping ravine which I will somehow have to traverse. And I know, I know, in my prematurely defeatist heart, that I will not succeed.

The doors open, and I hold up morning commuter foot traffic in both directions as I solemnly contemplate the crevice before me. It is narrow, perhaps deceptively so. Mom has no reason to lie. Although it seems easily surmountable, I summon my most Spiderman bravura and leap like my unrealized life depends on it.

While holding mom's hand, of course.

The show is colorful and confusing and horrifying and loud. I think I enjoy it. There is a puppet I'm in love with. She looks like a caricature of Marilyn Monroe, all legs, lips and tits. (I look back with relief that it was not only a female character I'd chosen for an object of affection, but, in light of my years-long crush on Rudolf's reindeer girlfriend Clarice, a humanoid. Close enough.) Later in the program, there is a morbidly obese male puppet who swallows the Marilyn puppet whole. I am no longer enjoying the show.

As we leave mom purchases a program for me which I am too creeped out to look at. Somewhere along the line, we have to take an elevator. People keep crowding on, until I am separated from my mother. It's a small space, but cavernous to me, and I end up squarely behind the ass of a tremendous woman. I am literally wedged into the corner by the vastness of her posterior. She cranes her thick neck around as much as she can and smiles at me. Not an apologetic smile as I can see, but a smile that sheathes sharp teeth, a smile that masks an insatiable appetite. And I know, dammit, I know in my ribcage-rattling heart that she is going to swallow me whole.

Months, no, actually years later. I'm still very young. I wake up one day, and the day is warm and sunny. I'm up without prodding and in good spirits---must be one of the last days of the school year. A good day. My mom comes into my room, something she never does before breakfast. She says, bemusedly, that she has a bone to pick with me. She had a dream---remember that time we rode the train to the puppets on ice thing? I dreamt you wouldn't listen to me, you were being a little brat, and you wouldn't hold my hand as you crossed over to the platform. I stepped over and looked back and you were gone. I frantically called your name, and other people on the platform helped me search for you. Then they gradually started to come up to me, saying "here, I found his finger," and "here's his foot," and they were handing me pieces of your body. So you see, you see what happens when you don't listen to your mother?

And I knew, I just knew, that in fact it was not going to be a good day at all.

I wish I could have better described the waiting part, because I remember it so clearly. For winter, we'd have a storm door installed instead of the warm-weather screen door. I would stand between it and the solid door, which I would pull closed against myself as much as I could to keep the cold out of the house.

Mom told me a few years ago that we went to see Krofft on Ice with a DJ from WGBB and his young son. I have no recollection of this at all.

I wish I still had that program. I'm not kidding when I say I could not look through it. It was in a magazine rack in the living room for years, but I never mustered the nerve to look in it for fear that I'd see a picture of that grotesque puppet devouring the one I had a crush on. I later saw the cannibal puppet eat Jimmy Osmond whole on TV. That didn't bother me at all.

More Newsday Greetings? 1980!

2009-12-24T11:00:00.017-05:00

Click on the pics to enlarge...

More Newsday Greetings for Christmas--1974!

2009-12-23T11:33:00.006-05:00

Newsday Greetings From the Stars of '72!

2009-12-22T11:56:00.006-05:00

Christmas Covers.

2009-12-17T12:36:00.009-05:00

Here are the Newsday TV book Christmas covers in my collection.

1972, a cookie angel made by Jean Loomis Newman, photographed by Lee Levine.

1973. Santa'll get you for that, Walter.
Jean L. Newman also created this clay relief for the 1974 cover.

Sometime in the mid-seventies, Disney covers became the tradition. Here's 1977.

1980.

1981.

1984.

1985.

Getting Your Shopping Done Early--Like, Say, 1980.

2009-12-15T10:55:00.011-05:00

Here's a collection of random ads and stuff from the NYC newspapers of December 1980.

Season's Greetings From the Stars of 1977!

2009-12-03T15:24:00.012-05:00

Here's the Newsday TV book from Christmas 1977. They customarily printed holiday greetings from various celebrities of the day, as I've written about before. See how many you remember...
(Click on each pic to enlarge.)

Why does Fonzie have a tree growing out of his head? Only Viskupic knows...

Ahoy, Ahab!

2009-11-12T10:24:00.005-05:00

Long Island's Channel 67 has been around awhile, with incarnations as a shopping channel, low-rent music video channel, and Wometco Home Theater outlet. It began, however, as WSNL, a station meant to cater to Long Islanders who wanted local news and broadcasting. Debuting in 1973, that programming ideal only lasted about two years. I was too young to be fiddling with the UHF dial, so I don't recall any of their programming.

In my effort to keep the peculiar and obscure around, I'd like to commemorate Captain Ahab, WSNL's kiddie show which enjoyed a run from the station's inception, Thanksgiving week 1973 until its demise in June of 1975. His eponymous weekday show was described as "Ahab hosts a dockside cartoon fest," and Saturday's Wonderama-style megashow (this one called "Ahab and Friends") was "cartoons, puppets, games, birthdays and songs."

I'll let a 1974 Newsday TV Line question-and-answer column fill you in on the identity of Captain, thanks to the curiosity of C.H. of Hauppage and E.M. of Coram. (Click on the pic to see it larger than actual size.)

" [Captain Ahab is] George McCaskey, a member of the board of trustees of the Northport-East Northport School District, where he has lived with his wife Lydia and daughter Pamela (a ten-year-old aspiring actress) since 1957. He is a volunteer counselor, board member and vice president of the Narcotics Guidance Council and operates smoking control clinics. Born and raised in New York, George graduated from Long Island University, attended law school and studied at TV Workshop. He has appeared in TV and stage productions, is a former police officer, news reporter, news photographer and insurance investigator. At one time he even taught elementary school in the Beford-Stuyvesant School District. Channel 67 tells us George walked in looking for a slot on the news team and he fit the qualifications for the Captain Ahab role so well that he was signed on the spot."(I'm wondering if by saying he "fit the qualifications," they really meant the costume, like Greg Brady getting the Johnny Bravo gig.)

McCaskey had a half-hour every afternoon and then a three-and-a-half hour program on Saturday mornings. I'm guessing it was a mixture of restless tots, public domain cartoons and Wonderama-type games and guests. In the fall of 1974, the Captain was joined on the line-up by Mary Kelly's Puppet Party, and after a while his marathon Saturday show shrank to a meager thirty minutes.

McCaskey died on February 8th, 2008. To my knowledge, he was not buried at sea. I learned of McCaskey's passing from an obituary written by his daughter. I contacted her and she was kind enough to offer these reminiscences, slightly edited by me:

Capt. Ahab was a three-hour children's show as you may have mentioned. The Good Captain, played by George T. McCaskey, was a total pissa on the show. He always had a great sense of humor.

The set was a remake of Ahab's sailing ship. Captain Ahab would welcome all of us to his show, which ran live out of the WSNL studio. He had guests, cartoons, puppets, bubble-blowing contests and many other things to entertain his guests at the studio and at home.

As his daughter, I did happen to master the bubble-blowing contest. He gave out large amounts of Bazooka gum. The winner had to blow the biggest bubble first. The trick was to suck out as much as the sugar as possible, as quickly as possible. The end result was a beautifully round bubble that often popped on your face and hair (which created other issues). The winner would get great prizes donated by our sponsors--action figures, food items, gift certificates, etc.

Every show he would have fun music playing in the background and greet and interview everyone who came to the show. That segment was called "Meet the Crew." That was always a treat because Capt. Ahab would speak to each child on the set and in the audience. He would ask their name, age, likes and dislikes, sometimes asking if they were married and getting a huge laugh from the crowd. The facial expressions were priceless.

Here is a picture of Capt. Ahab with his bird on his shoulder...

The bird had a very tiny little chain on its foot so that he would not fly away. It was attached to Georgie's vest. We had to dry clean his fancy vest almost every day due to the bird droppings on his back.

The show was directed by Andy Wayman, who went on to CBS or NBC and did many daytime dramas along with other stuff.

Growing up as the daughter of Capt. Ahab was really cool. There was lots of excitement, not only on the Ahab set but also around the rest of the studio. There was a cooking show [that would be "Chef Nicola," hosted by Nicola Zanghi], so the studio always smelled of something good. Then after my Dad's show the "Home Handyman" came on. He was David G. McDonough, who now represents District 19 in the New York State Assembly, which comprises communities located within Nassau County, New York. He and George became good friends and also business associates. Dave worked for my father for years at his collection agency, which is now owned and run by my husband and I.

I wish I had a copy of his actual show. We used to have them but they were on these huge reel-to-reel tapes that are ancient by now.

Thanks for taking me down memory lane!!

And any Long Islanders with memories of the show (or WSNL), please do leave some comments...

No Soupy For You!

2009-10-09T13:25:00.002-04:00

For Lantern Fishworks, a Marvin Kitman review of the New Soupy Sales Show, March, 1979... (Click on pic to blow it up.)

Did the Seventies Really Happen?

2009-08-14T10:51:00.004-04:00

I sometimes wonder. I just got another trove of old Newsdays, and I always feel stupid for buying them until I get them. Once I pore over them, I am fascinated and amused for hours. It's all so familiar, and yet so... different.

Remember in-store promotions? Yeah, I guess they're still around, but good luck finding a paint store these days where you could stand around and kibitz with the likes of Joe Franklin, Bernard Meltzer, and Johnny the Clown.

From that same ad, Miss Lady Martin 1974. Semi-gloss? You bet. Stain resistant? I'd like to find out!

Speaking of beauty queens... well, I guess she's not a queen so much as a random girl in a bikini handing a trophy to a carpet salesman. Wonder if she took any Flack later that night--Hey-yo!

More to come...

Crusa en el Pierdo, no en el Medio Puerde.

2009-07-03T10:29:00.003-04:00

I just corresponded with a woman who was in the classic NYC commercial "Cross at the Green, Not Inbetween." She was the little girl with the spanish-speaking mother. She contacted me looking for an alternate version, where she repeats the phrase in english back to her mom. It rings a bell, but I don't have it. She told me that she got paid $38 every time it aired, until she was eighteen. That ad was filmed around 1969 and must have aired until the mid-eighties, as I recall. Judging from her age in it, I figure she got about ten years' worth of royalties, and they showed that commercial a lot. Cha-ching!

I've corresponded with a number of people who were seeking the old commercials they appeared in: 1979's MD poster boy Rocky Arizzi, who was in a McDonald's spot; Two brothers who were in a Mego Bat Recorder ad that never actually aired, plus a few other; and the Average White Band, who sought the Schlitz Malt Liquor commercial they did with Tommy James and the Shondells.

This Youtube version of "Cross at the Green" begins with the kicker from the equally-ubiquitous Ritz Thrift Shop ad. Watch, learn and enjoy (and laugh at the dingus who nearly gets his ass runned over).

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Unbelievable Jerry Lane. (Hiccup!)

2009-06-24T11:37:00.005-04:00

Just because it's been forlornly sitting in a folder for ages, here's an early seventies ad from a Newsday TV book for The Bounty, a restaurant in Hewlett. Please note that their Family Fun Time Sundays promotion features "UNLIMITED BOOZE." No wonder so many overworked Nassau County dads were such big Jerry Lane fans. ("I don't care if that man scares you, Junior, I said get in the fucking car!") I imagine Lane's menagerie of puppety oddballs (including Peppino the Purple People Eater) was especially delightful after six Rob Roys. And I like that he couldn't be bothered to give the harmonica-playing rabbit a name...

More Viskupic.

2009-06-17T15:26:00.000-04:00

As promised, more Gary Viskupic Newsday artwork, as begun in a previous post...

Here's a color cover I missed, Kung Fu, 1973, now a sort-of tribute to the late David Carradine...

I had mentioned the great, weird TV movies from back in the day, and here's Viskupic's art for one of my favorites as a kid, 1975's The Legend of Lizzie Borden.Here's an intricate illustration that accompanied an article about the new show Project UFO, a favorite of mine as a nine-year-old in April 1978.

Viskupic offered amusing contributions to the annual Christmas editions.

Finally, some random illustrations that caught my eye.

A Tachophobe Pops the Clutch...

2009-06-17T14:42:00.002-04:00

...and tells the world to eat my dust! In other words, I got the high-speed Innernets! No excuses now for long stretches between posts, although the home computer has now moved to our business (more on that another time, maybe) so we'll see if the relo impedes my bloggitude.

Tell your friends the Non-Parader is back! Zipping through cyberspace as a matter of fact! Now, off at last to see what this Bookface.com is all about...

Gary Viskupic, Shaper of My Childhood.

2009-04-02T00:05:00.026-04:00

One of the things I was glad to rediscover when I began collecting the Newsday TV listing books of my youth was the art of Gary Viskupic. Viskupic was a Newsday staff artist who won many awards for his editorial illustrations and also for his artwork adorning science fiction novels. His creepy, often trippy pen-and-ink style rarely failed to spook me as a kid, with even the more mundane pieces tending to have an unsettling quality. Looking at it now, his work often seems a little intense for a newspaper insert meant to be left lying around the family room. There were weeks I was loath to pick the damned thing up, turning the pages slowly for fear of some nightmarish Viskupic image suddenly appearing and not soon leaving my mind.

There's not much in the way of biography on Viskupic to be searched online. Best as I can tell, he's retired from newspaper work and has recently taught illustration at the New York Institute of Technology, though I didn't see his name on this year's staff list. I tried to find an email address for him so I could ask him if it was alright for me to republish his work. I didn't succeed, although I think I found his home address. Since the notion of actually putting pen to paper and writing him seemed odd--who does that anymore?--I am just going ahead and posting these here without his knowledge or consent. I have not attempted to contact Newsday about it either. How's that for a half-assed disclaimer?

Bear in mind that I am drawing upon a very limited sample of his Newsday-published work from which I have picked and chosen. Although most of the drawings would stand alone well enough, I have kept the program descriptions (including many movie reviews written by the trenchant John Cashman) intact for edification.

I present this one first simply because I remember it so well. It simultaneously fascinated me and repelled me to the notion of ever seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Here Viskupic lends a forboding air to a Mickey Rooney summer comedy series (check out who's playing his sons) with this demonic, leering jester.

His dark, delicate cross-hatching recalls the works of another of my favorite modern artists, Edward Gorey, as in this Eskimo portrait for a Wonderful World of Disney two-parter.

It is not unusual to find eyes covered, darkened or replaced with symbols, as with this drawing for a 1972 episode of Black Journal.

Here again, the simple replacement of mouths for eyes brings an unexpected eeriness to a 1973 comedy-variety special.

It isn't that Viskupic can't draw eyes--here's three for you...
...and now one big eye, in a drawing that demonstrates his recurring theme of the melding of organic and mechanical.

He also often melds natural elements...

...or technological ones.

Here are some of his color covers: Walter Cronkite, 1972...
Bob Hope, 1973...
Jonathan Winters, 1973...

Michael Sarrazin as Frankenstein's Monster, 1973...
a World War II-themed cover from '73...
...and a 1974 fall preview cover commenting on the prevalence of violent woman cop shows.
Finally, just a few more of my favorites, with others to come at a later date, with a number of illustrations for 70's made-for-TV horror movies (you know how you love those!)...

Thank You, Ed Sullivan!

2009-03-08T01:46:00.016-05:00

I've been watching, for the thousandth time, The Royal Tenenbaums tonight on IFC. I was watching it because I've mostly seen it expurgated on Comedy Central, so to see it again pristine (as I did several times in the theater upon original release) is a treat. It's an almost perfect movie--for me anyway, though I'm sure many uncomfortable with Wes Andersen's style would vigorously argue otherwise. In particular it was the ideal venue for the talents of Ben Stiller, currently vacillating between the brilliance of Tropic Thunder and the fecality of, well, just about every other movie he's done since.

On the shitter recently I was looking at a 1971 TV Guide, as I am woefully apt to do. In many ways those old editions are as current as any Entertainment Weekly or whatever the fuck have you, except Jack Lord is on the cover. In it, Anne Meara laments the cancellation of the Ed Sullivan Show, which she and husband Jerry Stiller had appeared on 47 times up until that point. She relates how she and Jerry were financially dependent on those appearances at a time when no one else was giving them a shot. "We couldn't have had our second baby if it hadn't been for Sullivan," she is quoted as saying. That second baby would be none other than Ben Stiller (whose first-ever role in a guest appearance on his mother's short-lived 70's show Kate McShane was added to IMDb by yours truly, BTW).

So, to recklessly extrapolate, we would not today have Bob Odenkirk, Janeane Garofalo or Andy Dick, co-stars of the sublime Ben Stiller Show, if it were not for old Ed Sullivan. Therefore, perhaps no Mr. Show, no Tom Goes to the Mayor or Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job, no NewsRadio or Sober House (not the best parts of them, anyway)... no, uh, whatever my gal Janeane's up to these days... So here's a big thank you, Ed Sullivan. And here I thought Topo Gigio was enough reason to appreciate you, you long-dead fuck!

Oh, and just for the hell of it, here's a strange little something for Urn O'sh--Sandy and Disney, thirty-five years after the fact. The people in those costumes are old now. Except Pluto--he died of pancreatic cancer in 1981. Meeting Sandy Duncan was the highlight of his life. Sad.

Garagiola!

2009-02-12T13:49:00.001-05:00

Happy 83rd, Joe!

It Feels Like 1974, part 2: The Stench of Rotting Minds.

2009-01-19T13:21:00.007-05:00

Monday from the January 20-26 1974 Newsday TV Book (click pic to embiggen).

Friends is on WNEW (Metromedia channel 5) at 6:25 in the morning? Even 35 years ago you couldn't get away from that friggin' show! Today's ep: "The One Where Chandler Streaks." I love that channel 67's nooner The Nassau/Suffolk Woman (hosted by the redoubtable Oren Palenik) is immediately followed by a discussion show called Mantrap. Saves me from coming up with a joke. Later they have Captain Ahab, who was a kiddie-show host I hope to write about some day this week...
I would love to see Hodgepodge Lodge again. Maybe I'll check YouTube. My only memory is of a serene, plain-looking woman in the woods with turtles. (You can see why I'm eager to find it.) Newsday writer John Cashman zings Burt Reynolds with his review of Skulduggery, on ABC at nine.
More meat! I think that grateful budget ledger may be related to Milton the Toaster.
Some good Cashman reviews on this page, plus a Gary Viskupic drawing (though not a very interesting one). I've been preparing a retrospective of Viskupic's Newsday artwork, as it's often quite demented. I can personally attest that some of the stuff he produced for the TV Book was high-octane nightmare fuel. He's done a lot of sci-fi paperback covers. Keep an eye out for that post (without holding your breath, of course).

Keep an eye out for Tuesday's listings, too! (Not you, Sandy Duncan!)

It Feels Like 1974: Funky Denim Wonderland!

2009-01-18T01:06:00.021-05:00

For no special reason, I present the entire Newsday TV Book for this week, 1974, which would be... holy crap, thirty-five years ago! Here's Sunday...

(Click on pics for larger view)

Here's Jack Benny touching up the George Burns figure at Madame Tussaud's. Say, Nat Birnbaum's got some stylin' frames!
The TV Line Q & A. Where have you gone, Lisa Raggio?
Buy a cheesy wall-sized mirror and get eight gallons for the Gremlin. Hold out for premium!

So the only folks who appeared in this Jack Benny special who are still alive are little Tony DeFranco and Harry Morgan?!?

If this running "farewell show" gag was an annual event, then this was, in fact, the real thing. Benny went permanently deadpan in December '74.

Last year she perfected her sewing. This year she's working on her figure. I say 1975 found her resolving to get her whites their whitest or die trying. Ah, nothing says "spa" like the oasis known as the Plainview Shopping Center.
WSNL (channel 67) has lots of local Long Island programming, like this afternoon's Long Island Homebuyer. (Today's hot tip: Dutch Colonial house on Ocean Avenue in Amityville, going cheap, needs new carpeting in all bedrooms but one.) Check out channel seven at 1 pm--I didn't know Tennessee Williams wrote a Law & Order episode!
Here's an innovative way to sell a hair replacement system: Shame the bald guy's wife! And hey, who the hell brushed the Chia pet? WSNL serves up "pro" hockey with the Long Island Cougars, a team I've never ever heard of. On WLIW channel 21, there's a lesson in Fortran for Morons, Geniuses and Hobbits. What did you fucking nerds do before computers and Tolkien? On World of Disney, there's part one of "Hog Wild," a title which portends a typically zany Disney romp. It's about, uh, a man crippled by an enraged sow. (Perhaps zaniness ensues in part two--a sped-up wheelchair race with Don Knotts, maybe?) Anyway, it's gotta be better than the Tim Allen movie. Oh wait, that's Wild Hogs. 67 has Howard Blankman hosting Toast of Long Island. This week: marble rye.
I suspect Shelf House is not really a showroom for wall systems so much as an outlet for a mentally unstable carpenter. Seriously, that's the Winchester House of shelving right there. The David Susskind Show features panel discussions about Harry Truman and vitamins, and that's why you don't remember David Susskind.
Westrock Beef asks: why pay ten goddamn dollars for the best steak dinner when you can buy a slab of cow out of the back of a trailer?

Boy, you thought Sunday verged on interesting--stay tuned for Monday! Oh, and the post title is courtesy Robyn Hitchcock's song, "1974." Go look for it if you've never heard it...

Who Took My Friggin' Christmas?

2009-01-03T02:31:00.008-05:00

Yeh, as always, the season zipped by too quickly. And I'm sorry, as always, that I didn't post all the obscure Christmas nonsense like I promised. Blame it on the combination of not enough time (my new job blows walrus ass by the way, to borrow a Carolla-ism) and too little patience for this slower-than-shit-through-a-sieve internet connection (I just checked my email for the first time in three weeks).

I am here now, however, because my wonderful wifey gave me a new all-in-one printer which means I now have, at long last, a flatbed scanner. All the pics you've seen here were painstakingly photographed with a digital camera and edited with Picture it!, then added with Picasa2. That's why so many of them look like crap and take so long to get on here. So right now, this second, I am testing out just how much quicker a scanned pic will magically jump onto the blog as opposed to one I photographed. Here's what should have been here on December 31st:

Guy Lombardo graces the year-end 1972 Newsday TV book...

...and here the 1974 cover.

Well, that didn't take too long, so whoop-de-doo! I'm gonna go scan a bunch more stupid stuff--lucky you! (I'll fiddle with the date to make it look like I posted them by Christmas, and only you and I will be the wiser!)

Oh, and happy new year!

Defying Frost and Storm.

2008-12-24T16:13:00.006-05:00

Merry Christmas! I didn't miss it after all! (Wink-wink.) The title refers to the fact that we lacked a white Christmas here, alas, and is taken from the lyrics of a song I'll get to in a bit...

I had a whole long post I scribbled out on paper, but can't find it. It'll suffice to say that the wife and I had a swell season, with many intimate parties (as in just the two of us), as well as a big one with many guests which was a big hit. That was, uh, this coming Sunday.

I vaguely remembered that one night after one of our little celebrations, I was drunkenly listening to some long-players. Consequently, I was inspired to write about a song I had never before taken note of. Considering that I was hammered enough to later have no recollection of writing it, the short piece is quite lucid:

My new favorite tune is "Hanover Winter Song" as performed by Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians. It's featured on one of the albums making up "An Old-Fashioned Christmas," the 1977 Reader's Digest yuletide LP collection. This five album set can be found at any swap meet for about two bucks, but check for scratches first, because if you happen to get my family's original copy you can be sure a certain ham-handed little bastard ruined it by playing the fuck out of it and then not putting the discs back in their sleeves. That little shithead!

I admit to not keeping up on the new music front (is Liz Phair still cool? Or alive?), but I can't think of any recent song to rival this one for engaging nuttiness. In fact, I defy any indie band--yes, including HttMQF--to cover this tune satisfactorily. (That's not a challenge, just my usual superlatively uninformed bluster.)

HWS is a dramatic men's choral number which emulates German drinking songs. The intensity of the tune belies the lyrical theme of, as best as I can tell, simply being comfortable. (Unless I'm somehow misreading the line "Aha! We are warm, and we have our hearts' desires!") Seriously, it sounds upon first listen like young men marching off to war, but in fact it's a bunch of college boys smoking and drinking by a fireplace. I'd sneer at them, except that's precisely what I aspire to myself. I just looked the lyrics up and here are the first verses:

Ho, a song by the fire,
Pass the pipes, pass the bowl!
Ho, a song by the fire
With a skoal, with a skoal!

For the wolf-wind is wailing at the doorways,
And the snow drifts deep along the road,
And the ice gnomes are marching from their Norways,
And the great white cold walks abroad!

(Here the singers intone: zoom zoom zoom zoom zoom zoom zoom zoom)

But, here by the fire, we defy frost and storm,
Aha we are warm, and we have our heart's desire!
For here, we're good fellows, and the beechwood and the bellows,
And the cup is at the lip in the pledge of fellowship...
Of fellowship!

I'd like to note that the song following this absurdly triumphant romp, by ironic juxtaposition, is a maudlin number about an impoverished boy in threadbare clothes selling Christmas trees to happy rich people. His name is Rags. Yep, that's his name. Man, talk about fucked from the get-go. The somber ditty was conducted by Marty Gold and his miserable-sounding children's chorus, and written by Harry Vaughn, who probably also penned the grim myrrh verse of "We Three Kings of Orient Are."

Now here's some other stuff, courtesy of the scanner my wife will give me later tonight! First, a Nassau Coliseum schedule from thirty years ago (click on it to enlarge):

I love old clip art Santas, and here's one of my favorites... Ladies and gentlemen, Hairless Santa!

Six Hicks Pix.

2008-12-02T19:34:00.000-05:00

Okay, there are actually seven Hicks pics, but we'll get to that...

I hope everyone had a swell Thanksgiving. As usual, Donna laid out an extravagant smorgasbord (with the washing up being my own usual meager contribution). Our guests left feeling festive, tipsy and crapulent, and that's what Thanksgiving is all about, Charlie Brown.

Life in Ohio is still weirder than hipster Portland could ever aspire to be. In my last post about local peculiarities, I forgot to mention the laundromat with a bar in it--called Suds 'n Suds, natch--or the realtor's office that proffers wallpaper. Then there was a Chinese joint with a sign out front reading "Keep off the glass." I presume they mean don't lean against the plate-glass window, but still, funny stuff. I am still jobless (but with a promising interview this week), wishing every night to stumble across that ideal combination of head shop and thrift store looking for an enthusiastic clerk. When I do, of course I will immediately rename the place "Second-Hand Smoke." Haw haw!

Before I get to the usual purposeless nostalgia (oops, redundancy alert), here's a preview of our Christmas card this year, minus text. Well, I don't wanna give it all away! It's an actual photo I took of our home during the first snowstorm of the season. I point out its authenticity because Donna feared folks might think I digitally added the big blurry snowflakes.

We've since put up an eight-foot blue spruce in the living room area, real old-fashioned-like (go fig, huh?).

As for bleary-eyed Christmas reminiscing, I've been thinking of the yearly pilgrimage to Hicks Nursery in Roslyn. It was a beloved seasonal tradition, as anticipated as the singular viewing of Charlie Brown's Christmas (not to mention his less-memorable Easter travails, for that was the other must-see Hicks holiday display, though neither had much to do with Christ's resurrection or paganism).

I remember strolling through the nursery year after year, freezing my twerpy ass off, marvelling at the slightly shifting elves and mechanical forest creatures. Of course, at the end of the tour we found ourselves in a gift shop, where mom was obliged to buy me some piece of junk, such as activity books featuring the Brady Bunch, and another year the Waltons. As advertised, the books kept me briefly occupied, if not exactly entertained. Maria Pa-pee-ya and I worked on a crossword in one of these books, but to my disgust she just copied the clues letter by letter into the puzzle squares in a mindless bureaucratic fashion. Another tricky activity required some sort of paper cut-out legerdemain beyond my grasp, and after a time I tore up the pages in frustration. I still hate it. Fuck you, Waltons activity book!

Here are some seventies ads for Hicks Nursery Christmas displays, taken from Newsday TV books. Click on 'em to see the larger version.

1972

1973

1974

1974?

1978? (Prolly shoulda taken notes...)

1978, or '79, or, you know, who cares.

Comment if you remember Hicks! And I don't mean my neighbors!

Greetings From the Almost-a-Palindrome State!

2008-11-03T20:35:00.000-05:00

Yeah, yeah, it's been a whole month I'm here in Ohio and I haven't hardly written or called anyone... Geez, gimme a break, my whole life is capsized over here! This place is fruity nutcake, I tell ya! So far, I've seen a Chinese restaurant that sells tennis shoes, a video store with a bar and tanning beds in it, and a farm with a sign out front hawking "cornhole bags." Three days last week it flurried like crazy, but now it's about seventy degrees. Soda is called "pop," television comes from outer space and dogs say "meow." Ca-ca coo-coo! Despite all this (plus the stress of packing and moving before even getting over the rainbow), Donna and I have managed to maintain our meager stores of sanity. (I was kidding about the meowing dogs.)

Things are going pretty well other than that we haven't gotten jobs yet, though prospects become more promising daily. We have two vehicles that allegedly provide good winter traction, including a relatively new Jeep with the absurd luxury of heated seats. We await a couch that will hopefully come before the holidays, because, as it turns out, without one there is no living to be done in a living room (even with the delightful satellite TV service I previously alluded to). Similarly, there is little sleeping to be done in a bedroom lacking blinds, as ours does. I could go on about our charming abode, but instead let me just present it to you:

Here is our view off the porch (except the corn's been mowed):

Here's our view to the left:

And to our right:

And here is an evening sky a few nights after our arrival:

Hopefully I'll get some more reporting in soon, about the trip itself (thanks, by the way, to my sisters in Utah for their hospitality and for taking me to the Norm McDonald show... Dee-dee-dee, dum-de-dum...) Oh, and Indiana sucks. Stay away from it. Oh, shit, and I almost forgot Christmas! It's almost Christmas, i'nit? Yes, yes, much to cover, backwoods dial-up allowing.

As for the Election, please give Obama the nod for the missus and me, as we fell into a voting no-man's-land and have to sit this one out. And just to let you know, last week at dinner (or "supper"), Donna's cousin repeatedly called Obama a terrorist despite having nothing to back this allegation with other than a vague notion of him not having an American birth certificate. Then her dad helpfully pointed out Barack's middle name. Yep, they really exist, Oregon liberals--I was just as shocked as you! To be fair, no one here really seems to like McPalin either, and judging from what I've heard so far, whoever wins had better bring the troops back from Iraq and make them all Secret Service...

Moving Along...

2008-09-29T15:04:00.000-04:00

Well, sorry I haven't posted anything in ages, but the last six weeks have blown by and now we're down to the moving-cross-country wire. I wanted to post a fond remembrance of Oregon and our time here, but I am literally packing the computer the moment I'm done here, and anyway maybe it's more fitting to wait until we're gone anyway. Once we're settled in (and hopefully have a connection that isn't dial-up), I'll be back posting nonsense and trivialities and, holy crap, it's almost the Christmas again, ain't it?

Love to everyone here in OR, and come see us in OH sometime, y'hear? Okay, I'm dismantling the computer now, Miss Clarke...

The Anniversary of a Date with Imaginary Significance.

2008-07-20T00:19:00.000-04:00

Alright, so I've been gone a while, persona non blogga, but you can call off the paramedics as, yes, I am indeed already dead... dead tired, that is! Tired of packing all this goddamn stuff! Still more than two months shy of moving, our home has become an obstacle-course tangle of furniture and boxes. Many once-simple tasks such as going to a window to lower a blind are now a gymnastic challenge of Pitfall-like maneuvering. We'll be having a moving sale one of these weekends coming up, so the dining area is now crammed with stuff earmarked for that.

I have a billion VHS tapes that I have acquired over years of buying old-looking unmarked ones at garage sales in hope of finding something interesting. Most of them weren't, so I'm dubbing other stuff onto them for proffering at our own sale. Right now, even as I blog, I'm making an awesomely eighties Christmas tape, with 1988's "Rock n' Roll Christmas" from Fox (hosted by Dennis Miller) paired with "Motown Merry Christmas" from '87 (hosted by the smooth-as-barium Philip Michael Thomas), both shows with original commercials that just ooze oily 80's cheese. The Motown show has a couple of Michael Jackson's Pepsi ads (tied in with the Bad album), including the one where a little blond boy sneaks into MJ's dressing room and plays dress-up in his spangly clothes. When Jacko creeps in and grins at the naughty lad, I swear it sends a chill so far down my spine that my asshole freezes shut. Other than that, the tape makes for swell yuletide viewing, so swing by and pick it up some time...

I'm really posting because I just now realized that today's date is the very one I randomly chose as the title of a poem I wrote forever ago which is on my old MSNtv site. I don't think I've reprinted it here before, as I didn't think it needed much more in the way of explanation. Here goes anyway.

The poem commemorates my acquaintance with a kid whose name I will probably never recall again. He didn't go to Saint Pius X, but I used to see him at Plainview Park when I tagged along to watch my brother play baseball there. We were both about seven years old, and although we got along great, we never made arrangements to visit each other outside of those games. Many years later, when I was fifteen, I was reading Newsday and recognized his picture. He had grown up too, but wouldn't anymore.

july 19, 1976.

i can see the boy now in his teened face.
we, playing games alongside the field
at our respective older brothers' ballgames,
only met at those games, friends
for a few summer evenings, longer than lifetimes.
i wouldn't even have remembered his name
if not for the quarter-page story.

something about how he was planning to
beat on someone with a wrench and ended up
getting shot himself. the picture shows a gentle, unsure grin and when i try to picture him
brandishing a wrench, i see only a baseball
bat almost as long as he is tall.

i can smell the sweet dirt, the cut grass,
the leather gloves that wobbled on our small hands.
i can see a lanky boy with as much anger
as will fit into a fifteen-year-old's eyes.
were our brothers on the same team?

i wonder what i've lost, what of mine has died, and
how to put it into words to place alongside his obituary.
but even with the light as long as it was,
i only knew him for a handful of days. there are others
trying now to write their own obituaries, beside
that of their friend, their son, their brother.

i'll take a guess: july 19, 1976. that may have been
one of the little league evenings. it's as good a night,
as gone a night, as any other.

this is why i hold my childhood so tightly--
one tiny piece is as long as someone's lifetime.

here lies that kid
in occasional memories
as a part of childhood
1976-1984
and as a part of death
1984-

That kid's been gone almost twenty-five years now. Maybe I still think of him because I've been seconds away from a fatally bad decision a number of times myself. And if I still think of him from time to time, I'm sure those others I mentioned do too. Probably a lot. So here's another goodbye, kid. I hope wherever you are, you're seven and it's summer.

Mr. "Black Magic" Says...

2008-05-24T00:09:00.000-04:00

"Don't drink and drive this holiday weekend--I'm half-looking at you, Dino!"

From May 27, 1973 Newsday TV Book.

See You in Hell, Harry!

2008-05-18T21:54:00.000-04:00

It was twenty-eight years ago today that Mount St. Helens went all kerflooey, blowing half a mile off its top and spewing steam and ash--4.6 billion tons of it--60,000 feet into the air.

I have a number of local newspapers of the time, including a July 13th, 1980 issue of Northwest, the (Portland) Oregonian's Sunday magazine. Even two months after the blast, the issue is filled with ads for air filtration systems, dust masks and carpet cleaners. Of course, there are also numerous stores advertising "volcanic values" and various crummy souvenirs (posters, calendars, belt buckles, ash-filled pens and paperweights, etc.).

One ad hawks a record and crudely drawn t-shirt commemorating the obstinance of this man:

That's Harry Truman, the 84-year-old coot who ran a lodge at Spirit Lake on the north flank of the mountain. According to the timeline in Northwest, he "cusses the mountain, pours himself another whiskey and Coke and refuses to leave" when residents within a ten-mile radius are ordered to evacuate. (Actually, he did leave the mountain at one point, just long enough to stock up on more hooch.) He became something of a national folk hero, and was even portrayed by Art Carney the following year in a TV movie about the event. Here's an interesting article about his life and ill-fated brush with fame. I liked the detail that he dubbed his own brand of moonshine "Panther Pee," though something tells me ol' Harry used another word less newspaper-friendly. In any case, it sounds tasty...

According to that article, Harry wouldn't desert his homestead simply because he wanted to protect his property from looting trespassers. In fact, he was terrified of the earthquakes. As Susan Hobart of the Oregonian wrote, at one point he moved his bed to the basement because the violent shaking made him feel like he was "on board a ship being tossed fore and aft, port and starboard." Harry thought that when the mountain reached critical mass, it would begin oozing lava and perhaps then somebody could swoop in with a helicopter and snatch him up. Instead, the mount exploded that morning without much warning--and precisely in his direction. Spirit Lake was obliterated and presumably Harry (and his sixteen cats) went along with it, as he was never seen after that day. Fifty-six others perished as well.

Here's the ad for that tribute record:

I don't know if "Thank You Lord, for Harry" by Shawn Wright and the Brothers Band burned up the local charts, but I'm guessing it vaporized faster than Harry himself. I've looked for it online to no avail. I'd love to hear it, or at least read the lyrics, as I have no idea what the title means. What exactly are they thanking the Lord for? For killing Harry, a frightened old man who just wanted to protect his hard-earned stuff from thieving scumbags?

Here's a comic strip from May 19th. It seems fellow drunken mountain-dweller Snuffy Smith took Harry's demise rather hard.

To All You Mothers.

2008-05-10T21:13:00.000-04:00

Here's an ad page from a 1973 Newsday TV Book. Was a "Bar B-Q" really an acceptable gift for mom thirty-five years ago? "Happy Mother's Day, ma--now hows about grilling up some steaks?"

Promenade!

2008-05-10T00:55:00.000-04:00

It's around that time yet again, for not-quite-growns-upped kiddies all over the land to prep for prom again. Say, when did the prom become just "prom," as in "going to prom" or "Christ, I hope I get me some ass at prom?" I saw a thing the other night suggesting that some kids have their parents blow 20 grand on the stupid thing. One school (on Long Island, not surprisingly) had to cancel the prom entirely because it was getting out of hand. My prom? Spent drinking in the parking lot by Syosset Lanes. There was a great bagel place in the same strip mall (probably still there), so if you could hang long enough without passing out ('til three a.m. or so), you could get them fresh outta the vat, hot as fuck and dripping with butter. Jesus, that was better than any gay-ass prom. Speaking of gay asses...

...this one displayed himself proudly for all of Long Island to see in the April 29, 1978 Newsday TV Book. His stiff Travolta-lite posturing surely inspired many Clearasil-coated Island teens to hustle down to VIP Formals for their dance lesson and free "Tuxedo T. Shirt." He looks like a LIRR strap-hanger with a wicked case of hemorrhoids.

By the way, I did go a prom later, with my first girlfriend. After the festivities, we went to Burger King to load up on grease, but the limo got stuck in reverse and we careened across six lanes of Jericho Turnpike traffic and slammed into the side of Pergament (the Home Depot before Home Depot). I took the limo company to court and won my money back, but the shady owner guy skipped town and I got squat. Fuckin' prom.

Spring Clowning.

2008-03-30T22:42:00.000-04:00

So we're moving to Ohio toward the end of the year, and I'm going through tons of crap and reevaluating everything. What can I chuck and what do I save? I have to keep in mind all those past moves when I tossed stuff and later wished I hadn't.

For instance, I have piles of fire-code-flouting paper ephemera, mainly old newspapers. I should point out that when I say "old newspapers," I mean from the seventies, historical-like, in a somewhat ordered collection. Oh, and I have every daily paper of the last few years of The Oregonian, stacked in the shape of furniture. You know, for practicality's sake.

So I'm keeping all the intact papers I grew up with (Newsday, NY Post and Daily News), maybe keeping some Portland stuff (a complete July 4, 1976 Sunday Oregonian), but getting rid of all the partial issues and random stuff that accumulates when you're that nut who buys an armload of crummy old newspapers for a dollar at estate sales.

Then there's the impersonal papers. I guess I can cast off those 16-year-old electric bills from five moves ago... Ha ha, just kidding, I threw those out last year. Then the personal papers, like scribbled-out song lyrics and set lists for a handful of long-ago coffeehouse gigs. Kept the set lists, pitched the lyrics, which exist elsewhere.

Kept the scrawled words, however, to a song Mike and I wrote for our overdubbing of the Emmett Kelly movie The Clown and the Kids.

A long time ago, I had a VCR deck that allowed you to put new audio onto a VHS tape, so we wrote and improvised a plot and songs for this dreary dollar-bin discovery. Gary Cleanberg himself compared the new score to Neil Young. And he liked Neil Young.

I'm trying to remember another song which I don't have the words for. It told, to dark strummings reminiscent of "Horse With No Name," the grim story of the Emmett Kelly character as he confessed his past to his teenage children. I believe it was called "Rotten Old Clown":

So many years and failures ago
Got drunk in the Oklahoma dustbowl
There I met up with a dirty Arab man
He was crossing the plain with his circus caravan

I got on with them circus people real well
Except for this clown by the name of Ol' Mel
Wouldn't let me bum a swig or a cigarette
Said, 'The day you met me is a day you'll live to regret'

I'll make this story short, cuz I've had a long life
Ol' Mel caught me in his bed, shtuppin' his wife
He pulled a gun and said that he would settle the score
But Ol' Mel was the one went face-down on the floor

Because of what I'd done, I was feelin' low-down
So now I wear the make-up of that rotten old clown
I married his wife and we had you two kids
But I'll never live down the dirty killing I did

This seques right into the two peppy teens consoling their father with this upbeat number:

Everybody fucks up once in a while!
It doesn't mean you have to go through life without a smile!
You picked up the pieces, you're a helluva clown,
Besides, who will care a hundred years from now?

My god, are you still reading this? I only wrote this post because I didn't want March to slip away without one. Sat down at this keyboard tabula rasa and I suspect I'm getting up the same way. Okay, so we all feel stupid, let's leave it at that, and just be glad I can't remember the words to "Everybody Hates a Clown," or the one where Emmett lures the children of Scrabbyville to the circus, singing that he will take them "to a place where magic grows and midgets can run free." Go look at something else now. Pick a link over there to the right. Lots of what I like to call "edutainment" to be found there!
(Disclaimer: "edutainment" is not a real word, hence this is not a guarantee.)

Not a New Post, But an Incredible Simulation.

2008-02-24T00:28:00.000-05:00

That was the tagline for Beatlemania, as I recall from the TV commercial. Oh, speaking of commercials, there's a new intro over at my other blog! Read my painfully over-analyzed descriptions of old tv ads, with some funny pictures and everything!

Oh, and I've changed my mind somewhat about Obama. I like him better now, though I still worry that he's too inexperienced for The Show. Best-case scenario: Clinton/Obama ticket, A.G. Edwards, Richardson on environment, Biden on foreign affairs, Kucinich wherever, Ron Paul goes the Nader route and splits the GOP vote election after election.

And to all you moron Dems who say that, if your pony doesn't get the nom, you'll "hold your nose" and vote McCain: If you have to hold your nose you goddamn babies, then do it and just vote Democrat, otherwise do us all a favor (especially our troops who will rot in Iraq indefinitely under McCain) and hold your breath altogether and die you fucking retards! I am fed up with hearing this imbecilic logic--have you forgotten what we've been through these last seven years, what we're still mired in for another year? That ain't gonna change unless we purge these Reptoids for once and for all. McCain has somehow (I guess through the "liberal media") gotten a rep for being a "maverick," even "too liberal." For Christ's sake, people, it's a fucking ruse! He's George Bush without the laughs! He has no problem with warrantless wiretapping! He was once tortured himself and gave up nothing, therefore he knows it's a worthless tactic--but he still backs the use of torture! Nothing will change with this guy!

Okay, this was supposed to be a tossed-off post pimping my other site, but it isn't anymore. I have spewed half-informed political rhetoric, employing obnoxious boldface emphasis and many, many exclamation points. Sorry. Now I may as well add that, if you get the Adam Carolla morning radio show in your area, you should be listening to it whenever possible because it's friggin' hilarious. No more Bonaduce, hooray! I am, however, annoyed that I will now be forced to watch Dancing with the Stars, as Carolla has been added to the line-up this season. Thanks, Aceman...

Not Enough Pearls, Too Many Swine.

2008-01-24T13:50:00.001-05:00

Al Gore released a video statement on his (?) website in which he endorses gay marriage.

"I think it's wrong for the government to discriminate against people because of a person's sexual orientation. I think that gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women to make contracts, have hospital visiting rights, and join together in marriage. I don't understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage to allow it for gays and lesbians. Shouldn't we be promoting the kind of faithfulness and loyalty to one partner regardless of sexual orientation? Because if we don't do that, then to that extent you are promoting promiscuity and promoting all the problems that can result from promiscuity. And the loyalty and love that people feel for one another when they fall in love ought to be celebrated and encouraged and shouldn't be prevented by any form of discrimination in the law."

Some blowhard bloggers say that this is a bad time for such a statement, as it may force the Democratic presidential hopefuls to comment. In other words, if they tell the truth about their views (i.e., yes, allowing gay marriages is common fucking sense you backwoods retards), they will alienate certain voters. However, if they simply clam up in order to appease those voters, they are compromising their integrity.

I don’t care that Gore is making this statement now. I agree with it, and if some don’t like the timing, well, let’s just call it another inconvenient truth.

I heard of Gore’s posting via The Bill Press Show, which recently supplanted The Young Turks on KPOJ, Portland’s Air America affiliate. Press took calls after playing the Gore clip, and everyone applauded Gore’s stand. Everyone except one guy. It was Mike from--well I forget where he was from, but let’s say Hogfelcher, West Virginia—who called in to opine, in a slow-witted drawl, that gay marriage is wrong because there are plenty of beautiful women in this country, therefore for a man to be with another man is disgusting. I don't think he was putting Bill on.

All I could think of after hearing that was how sad it is that we, the enlightened, have to appease and kowtow to this brand of dumb, dirty inbred because we know that to assert ourselves will likely incite these gun-toting cretins to violence against the innocent. Thus we continue to back off, letting these self-righteous mongoloids have their way. This is why the Democrats appear so weak alongside the regressive Republicans. While we are concerned about doing the right thing, the Reptoids concentrate on doing whatever will further their cause, including backing (tacitly or otherwise) even the most reprehensible stance as long as it was perpetrated by a fellow Reptoid.

I don’t know what to do about this dilemma, other than progressives taking a stand through voting (but again, that’s an ideal and not a reality). Maybe we should just start shooting people in the street—empty religious types, the happily uninformed, wrestling fans with no sense of irony, folks who view any form of reading as an unnecessary chore, etc.

Okay, I know we can’t do that. Dammit! It’s so easy to be ignorant, unashamed and immoral. Lucky fucks! I can only take solace in my written attacks, impotent as they are. So to Mike from Sisterlicker, Alabama, and all your mouth-breathing ilk: I am now taking a copious, foamy shit on your face. Ha ha!

Other thoughts on the race, quite randomly:

I say Giuliani takes it in the nose in Florida. Interesting strategy, but bye-bye now, mayor-for-life! And it was a long time coming, but I officially hate Adam Sandler, for stumping for this repulsive dictator-wannabe. (You'd think Click woulda done it, but no.)

One of Huckabee's morbidly obese kids strung up a stray dog at a Scout jamboree when he was seventeen, killing it. Good Crist-yun raisin'! Huck doesn't believe in evolution, and he thinks Jesus gave him the win in Iowa. If he gets the nomination, don't expect a Democratic lock, as many are predicting. Be ascared. Be very ascared.

Romney also has dog abuse in his past, travelling cross-country with a terrified pooch on the roof-rack, which at some point got the runs. Romney simply hosed it off and continued on his journey, the poor soaking pup then undoubtedly nearly freezing to death. (Do Mormons think animals are insects?) He sounds just like The Insider's equally oily Pat O'Brien. Again, be ascared--voters love anyone who looks like a President, even if they sound like a motivational speaker. Especially if they sound like a motivational speaker.

Ron Paul is a douche, but at least if he became President he might simply shut down the office as unnecessary and fire himself.

I like Kucinich, but get this--he's really short! Ha ha ha! And he saw a UFO! Boy, who's his running mate, E.T.? Woof-woof-woof! (Good stuff! I'm sending those in to Leno! He could sure use 'em!)

McCain seems like he aspires to be Georgie Bush. Unsettling. His first action in office may be to bomb Vietnam.

Obama, first of all, should change his name to Baracko Bama, if only cuz the initials are way better. (I'd call him Mr. BB, like on Joya's Fun School!) Other than that, I'm not impressed. Good (if frustratingly non-specific) speeches but bad debates, too little experience, undistinguished voting record, no particular causes or initiatives. Seems more than a bit arrogant--he wrote his auto-bio at, like, twenty-two. Show-off.

I'd absolutely vote for Edwards. He has plans, whether he'd actually be able to implement them or not. But in a word: Nevagonnahappen.

Hillary is okay by me. I'm fine with the notion of a Clinton tag-team, even if it means Rush Limbaugh resurges in popularity. That hillbilly heroin addict will be dead soon anyway. (That's a prediction, not a threat.)

Richardson, Biden, Dodd--any of 'em woulda been better than the best Reptoid running.

And if your humble non-parader ran? Mandatory gay marriages for everyone! I get dibs on Clooney!

Yule Never Believe it...

2007-12-25T17:20:00.000-05:00

...but it is indeed a white Christmas here in Portland, with snow coming down at a pretty good clip for a while there, and more expected tonight. Strangely, the wifey called it a few days ago, when local forecasters were still prognosticating rain for the holiday. "Just a feeling," she said. Damn she's good, and not just because she got me the first two seasons of The Odd Couple on DVD.

Also good: Our local CW station showing the original Yule Log in the wee hours this morning, yes, the very one shown on WPIX 11 all through the seventies. Now that brought back memories. Here's a scan from the 1974 Newsday TV guide heralding its broadcast that year:

Another video fragment of Christmas past making the Non-Parader's holiday a smidge fuzzier this year is a DVD found in a cheapo Davey and Goliath collection which features Christmas Lost and Found, the doughy duo's Christmas episode. (If you look at my post of the 1972 Newsday listings, you'll see it aired on three different channels that Christmas Eve morning.) Though I just barely recall it from my youth, I'm glad to report that it holds up nicely, sweet and well-animated, with many scenes unfolding in a cool shade of winter twilight blue. The first line is Davey crankily exclaiming "I hate Christmas!" You gotta love that.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Eve Listings, Newsday TV Book 1972.

2007-12-13T01:46:00.000-05:00

Here's what Long Islanders were watching that day. (Click on the pics for a closer view.)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like... Well, it's Hard to Say, I'm on my Third Whiskey Slush.

2007-12-08T22:24:00.000-05:00

The holidays are strolling along swiftly but steadily--the tree trimmed, the cards sent, the whiskey slushes poured. Ah, the best kind of slush. Certainly far superior to the kind that gets in your shoes. Its sweet boozy vapors emanate like distilled cheer, or what Yogi Yorgesson might call "yuletide yollies." (Yeah, I know, I thought his name was "Yorgi" too--go figure!)

As it is a time of sharing, here is the much-coveted Vernon family whiskey slush recipe. Just remember, it's a secret--don't tell anyone!

Two cups of strong tea (we steep like ten bags of yer basic Lipton, but you can throw a couple orange or Earl Grey or whatever you like in with it)
Large can frozen lemonade
Large can OJ with pulp (or Awake or Bright & Early or some such "orange beverage" crap)
Seven cups of water
1 3/4 (that's one-and-three-quarters) cups of sugar
2 cups of whiskey, or, what the hell, the whole fudgin' fifth. (Save the good hooch for the snooty sippers and use cheap-ass gutter bourbon--Ten High'll do ya just nice!)

Mix in a large container, like a big plastic bucket with a sealable lid. Freeze for at least a day. Scrape out the ice with a spoon and fill a glass or mug about halfway. Fill the rest with ginger ale (or 7-Up, or Squirt, etc.). Adjust ratio as desired, duh.

For a New Year's Eve party you can try skipping the soda, adding champagne instead. Be warned, however: the combination packs a punch. If you don't pace these quarrelsome quaffables correctly, there is about a 99% chance that you will be dancing on a credenza with a lampshade over your genitals around 9:30. If you're one of those types who might choose to add a couple hits of some potent cush, you may as well dial 911 first to report yourself on an imminent disorderly. (Of course, you might just fall asleep. Hard to say.)

Because it's just what I like to do, here's a few pics from the Sears "Wish Book for the 1977 Christmas Season."

You laugh now, but believe me, these guys snagged more pelt in the seventies than the Ritz Thrift Shop. (Actually, it was the guy on the right who got it secondhand, if my drift is caught.)

I know these folks are only modeling clothes, but sometimes a weird scenario emerges. In this one, the only thing more unsettling than the look on that poor child's face is wondering which parent's idea it was to wear identical jam-jams. (Was it you, Mark Ruffalo, or you, mannequin lady with freaky hand veins?)

This dapper Douche-of-Earl rocked a rib-cuffed cablestitch cardigan like no other. I like to imagine he's dancing to "Car Wash." If you want to see him with bushy eyebrows and a pencil moustache, simply turn him upside down. (Like you weren't thinking about that already!)

Erin may have been Gray
But she brightened my day!
(Seriously, I'm like Ogden freakin' Nash here.)

Here's a sultry sample from the page that you--if you were me--would have tenderized yourself to if you were a thirteen-or-so-year-old boy when this catalog arrived in your home. (I was eight in '77, and more likely to fixate on the Bionic Video Center, pic forthcoming.) Anyway, to be honest, I'm imposing my current taste onto my younger self. When stashing the WB under my mattress, I'd be just as likely to dog-ear blond cutie Jayne Modean.

She later played (I swear to Johnny H. Christ and the IMDb) "Nurse Hooter" on the ABC series Trauma Center. She was also an angelic stewardess on Cheers, a grown-up Michelle on Full House, and in commercials for Burger King (Star Wars glasses!) and Maybelline Kissin' Stick. In 1990, she married that Coulier guy from FH and divorced him two years later. (Whoa, she stuck out two whole years with that guy? Talk about the tortures of the damned!) She's a mere eleven years older than me, so I guess, for a guy of my advanced age, she'd be a cougar.

Here, the budding Lori Loughlin abashedly sports a print apron dress from the "Petticoats and Pantaloons" line. You cover those wrists, young lady!

(More to be added later. You're welcome.)

It's About That Time...

2007-11-11T21:11:00.000-05:00

I don't mean for another post, necessarily--I mean it's CHRISTMAS! Buck-ba-CAAAW! (That's an inside joke, one which I may get around to explaining here someday soon, though I'm not sure I can...)

I've seen two wreaths on doors already, and yes, I mean the Christmas kind, not the other, all-year-round-non-Christmas kind, a decoration that seems to have inexplicably popped up in the last few years. Seriously, where did all these unaffiliated wreaths come from? If I had seen a wreath on someone's door back in, say, July 1981, I'da figured the tenants for nuts. Yet I can't deny that my wife and I now have several hanging around our own home. (Hm. I guess my original supposition would still hold.)

I haven't heard any Christmas music on the radio, but Donna and I were in a store that had some playing. It wasn't on the PA system, just a boombox playing quietly by the Christmas section, but that seemed appropriate. Gotta ease into the season...

Right now I have the Holiday Ranch Campfire Memories evergreen incense smoldering. I got it at an estate sale here--copyright says 1953--but it's very similar to the kind I used to burn as a kid to give our blatantly artificial tree a little oomph.

I haven't had my first viewing of Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol yet, but TBS showed The Grinch last night, about half of which we watched. Musically, I've had a few platters on. Started with Guaraldi, of course, then skipped around my Reader's Digest collections for some choice selections: Bill Anderson's "Christmas Time's A-Coming," Bonnie Guitar's "Christmastime is Here," Charley Pride's "Out of the East." Then, the other night I dragged out a real relic of the past: The NY Islanders 1979 Christmas album, "Home For the Holidays."

I never really listened to it much as a lad, and another spin makes it clear why. It's awful. Most of the tunes are really sung by the "official singer" for the team, Joe Duerr, who falls vocally somewhere between Jack Jones and Graham Chapman singing "Christmas in Heaven" in Monty Python's Meaning of Life. The players are relegated to gruffly belting out the most childish numbers, like "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph the Rednose [sic] Reindeer." (As I recall, grammar was always optional on Long Island.)

Strangely, separating the last two songs on both sides, there's about thirty seconds of noisy, indecipherable chatting among what sounds like a cafeteria full of Islanders and their wives. Did the organization want to give fans the experience of being ignored by the team at a dinner function? Still, that rumbling din is arguably more enjoyable than the Casio-fied discotrociousness of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," or the painfully prolapsed "White Christmas." And I'm no music critic, but on "All I Want for Christmas" (very cute, fellas), the Potvins are a little pitchy, and someone clearly isn't giving their all--I'm looking at you, Clark Gillies!

I just realized I'm hammering a thirty-year-old Christmas LP by a sports team. If you're reading this, we both need help, and you even more so if you found this via search engine. Go back to it and type in "therapists" and your zip code. Me, I'm going to youtube to find the WPIX holiday movie intro from the early eighties, then I'm gonna fire up the ol' VHS... Ringle, ringle...

Oh, one last thing--here's a snap of The Feebs himself upon a recent visit to our home, relaxing with our boy Patrick. Patrick has been recovering well. The Feebs, less so.

And because I missed Halloween, here's a little something for your nightmares.

Oh, Right, the Blog! I Knew I Forgot to Stop Ignoring Something!

2007-09-28T23:34:00.000-04:00

The reports regarding my demise are quite premature--by a good five months, I'd say, or at most a bad eight. The blog is still kicking too, although my computer is so decrepit that I had to resort to acting out my password in order to jog its feeble memory, and even then it finally just took my word for it. In any case, I have plenty of ideas for really inane blog posts, but just never the time to excrete them. After all, precisely who is going to create a display for the living room of old Newsday TV Guides with Halloween-themed covers if not me, huh? *Sigh*, as that mopey asshole Charlie Brown would say. But he's dead and, to iterate, I am not.

(Why do "iterate" and "reiterate" both mean "to state again?" And why is "ginormous" in the dictionary? Let's just throw "irregardless" and "squoze" in there while we're at it. Seriously, whom snuck them in there?)

Anyway, just sit tight (or sit, tight) as I swear on a stack of musty Sears Wish Books that I will have some goddamn thing up here soon... some autumn musings, a presentation of evidence to make the case for Bushie-Bush's possible pre-senility dementia, or maybe a digital snap of said horror-ful display. As for me and the wifey, all is well, except for what isn't. (Well, that's life, and you know what they say about life--can't live with it...) The cat is getting around better, done taking pills and back to being one.

Since it's too long past to wish Mr. and Mrs. Lantern Fishworks a wonderful wedding day, I'll just say Happy seven-week (or so) anniversary! Have you mutually decided whether the toilet paper hangs off the front of the roll or the back yet? Because that's what split up Hank Azaria and Helen Hunt, you know. That and they're gay.

Welcome back, Don't Parade in my Rain! Welcome back, me! They missed you!

And to all the visitors, thanks for checking out my blog! Even though you were really only looking for the lyrics to "Don't Rain on my Parade!" (They're not here, but thanks!)

The Cruelest Month.

2007-07-28T01:48:00.000-04:00

Hey, just checking in so I don't skip an entire month in my bloggy archive. That would be terrible.

Let's see, early July, Donna's nephew Matt was here for a week, which was fun. We went to Astoria (fancy camping, Matt called it, as we take plenty of home comforts with us, like our portable TV--what, we should miss Wheel of Fortune just cuz we're on vacation?), downtown for a death metal show and the shanghai tunnel tour, out to Timberline, saw Transformers, and had a swell time.

His visit was overshadowed, however, by our cat Patrick getting out of the apartment and apparently hit by a car. Long story short, he spent a week in the hospital, and after a heartbreaking period where we thought he would be paralyzed or at least lose a leg, he's home and doing unbelievably well. He still staggers, and we have to keep him from jumping up on things, but he's walking better and better and getting back to his old cranky self. Hey, can you guess how much it costs to have a cat in the hospital for a week? D'oh!

Coming back from seeing him in the cat clinic one day, Donna and I were hit by a fully-loaded semi truck on the highway. Incredibly, our Ford truck (Ol' Yeller) just got two small dents and lots of scrapes, but no other damages, whereas the semi was tore the fuck up! So we're fine and waiting for a check. Whoo-hoo! (No, I haven't seen The Simpsons Movie yet, why do you ask?)

Then, a few days after that, someone tried to break into our apartment while I was out. Donna called 911 while yelling at the guy through the front door (which didn't deter him as he continued to pick the lock). As sheriff's deputies were responding, a cop pulled me over about two blocks away just as I was heading home. It was awfully confusing for him, that the complainant and I had the same last name, but we soon sorted it out and I got home to a very shaken Donna. The joint was crawling with po-lice, but to our knowledge nothing ever came of it. We told the apartment manager about the incident, and pointed out all the security lights that are burned out around the complex, creating dark, unsafe areas. He was very concerned, so we trust that these lights will be replaced some time in the next year or so.

Other than that, we're great. How's by you?

Once Upon a Time in Plainview.

2007-06-30T21:26:00.000-04:00

This story may be the first I ever attempted to write that wasn't a school assignment. Judging from the careful yet unsteady cursive, I'd say I was about eight when I set this down. (I suppose I didn't use my Tom Thumb typewriter because that would have taken forever.) I remember that my dad was working in the attic above my closet on the morning I sat at my desk composing it on wide-ruled looseleaf. There was an open window before me that looked out on a sunny, breezy Saturday, a day any other kid would have grabbed a ball and a glove and rounded up some friends.

Why I chose a Western I really can't say. It's not a genre that had ever held my interest, and the, ahem, simplistic story doesn't appear to have been inspired by anything other than a desire to create. I even drew a cover, as you've seen, and no, that is not a tiny man between those finely-detailed cowboy boots. It's called perspective. (And judging from that perspective, these duelers are drawing at about 1500 paces.)

Despite my deeply-instilled need to rewrite everything I have ever written (which, painfully, does not exclude this five-page, nearly thirty-year-old "manuscript"), I present it exactly as I wrote it--a first draft with no revisions. My sister Jackie made minor, restrained corrections in orange marker, but I have not reflected those here. Thanks for the encouragement anyway, sis! (I will say this for my rudimentary effort: the plot and dialogue are about as good as what you'll find in a number of films riffed upon by Mystery Science Theater 3000--I'm thinking in particular of Soultaker, Future War, Hobgoblins, or anything by Ed Wood Jr. or Ray Dennis Steckler.) Enjoy.

SHOOT-OUT

It was early in the morning when the Black Hole Saloon opened. The usual customers came in, such as John, the barber. He was looking for trouble. He was depressed, because he had a fight with his wife.

"Evening," said Henry the bartender. "Aw, shad up!" said John, "It's morning, not evening."

John sat down at the bar. "Gimme the usual," said John, "But make it a double."

All day he ordered drinks. But finally, Henry kicked him out. John the barber was the drunkest man in the world. He stumbled all over creation. Also into the sheriff.

Tex the sheriff stumbled and fell on the Mayor of Black Hole. The Mayor was furious. "You better watch yourself!" screamed the Mayor. He was yelling at Tex. Tex heard the drunk say "Ya, you betta watch yerself."

Tex was steaming, and he flung his arms out. John ducked, making the sheriff smash his knuckles against a pole. Tex was in agonizing pain for an hour.

Soon he felt better, so he went out searching for the drunk. But the drunk found him first. "Donn' I reconize you?" asked John. "You bet you reconize me! Replied Tex. Tex said, "See this?" holding his fist out. Figuring Tex was gonna punch him, John covered his face. Tex stepped on his foot.

"Ow!" screamed John. "Ooo, that wasn't nice!" Then John said, "See this?" holding his fist out. Thinking he would do the same, Tex stood on tippy-toes. John punched him in the face. Now, size don't matter, since Tex is 6 ft. 1 and John is 5 ft. 8, because Tex went flying.

Tex got up, went over to John, and just sat there staring at him. Everything was silent for a moment. Tex pulled back his arm, and like a flash of lightining, stuck John in the face with his hardest blow.

John said "Draw at ten paces." Tex said, "To the death." John spoke again. "Tomorrow at dawn. Prepare to die."

All that night, Tex thought if what he said was wise. He thought about if he gets killed. He kept hearing in his mind, "Prepare to die" But he thought of how drunk he was, and that he would have a terrible hangover. But Tex was wrong. John happens to be a fast healer.

The next morning, Tex was shaky. He was thinking how he could just stay home, since he lived secretly in an old abandon house. But he thought of how everybody was depending on him to waste the old fool.

So he went to the saloon, and sure enough, he was there. Tex had a feeling he would regret this, but he kept on walking.

John was calm as a clam much to Tex's surprise. "Ready?" asked John. "S-S-Sure I'm r-r-ready," replied Tex.

They stood back to back, and started. 1-2-3-4...Tex was shaking like a leaf. 6-7-8-9-10! Tex and John swooped around at the same time. John fired and shot Tex three times. Tex fell to the ground, and dropped his gun. The gun fired as it hit the ground. The bullet shot John in the head. John died instantly.

Suddenly, Tex started to scream, "I didn't mean to kill him!!" Tex was taken to the nearest hosipital. He died before he got there.

THE END

Phew! What a downer of an ending! Upon reading this for the first time in god-knows-how-many years, I was delighted by the detail that the town's rather cowardly sheriff lives "secretly in an old abandon [sic] house." Now that's funny. Everything else about it sucks, including the title. Sure, technically it's a shoot-out, but jeez, four lousy shots! One of them accidental! May as well have had them sitting around munching onion rings...

I remember Jackie being impressed by the simile "calm as a clam." Curious, I found that a Google search returns 18 unique uses of that phrase, including one from an old folk song. So I guess I didn't originate that, but I'm fairly certain the sheriff-as-spineless-paranoid-recluse concept is all mine.

Was I Hallucinating When I Hated "A Beautiful Mind?"

2007-06-27T15:19:00.000-04:00

Okay, here's one more example of my old writings, just cuz, reading over it, I remembered just how much I hated this piece of crap movie. So it's not exactly timely, unless you catch it sometime on TNT. Sorry if you were hoping for a review of Evan Almighty. (Tell you what, here's a quick one for Because I Said So: The wife and I walked out after half an hour, and I would rather eat my own shit than see the rest. With freezer burn, no less.)

Anybody see A Beautiful Mind? I just did. Hoofah.

Best picture, huh? How about best TV movie of the year... on Lifetime... maybe. I read a review of a book about Nash a few years ago, and was gonna pick it up cuz it sounded like it would be fascinating. Judging from this movie, though, you would think he is the world's least interesting schizo. His hallucinations are pedestrian at best, and we know from very near the beginning that they are precisely that, hallucinations. This makes the two fucking hours we watch him talk to them tedious to say the least.

The premise of the movie, as best as I can figure, involves Nash's wish to come up with an absolutely original idea, ironic in that there is not ONE inspired moment in the movie. There isn't the vaguest indication of why he does what he does, why he finds economic theory so consuming, other than the obvious---he's ca-ca coo-coo.

You might begin to believe that, in addition to several key characters, his genius is all in his head as well, as we are never let in on what his eventual breakthrough is. I don't think this is because the filmmakers were afraid the audience would be too stupid to appreciate it so much as the screenwriter was too stupid to convey it. His major credits are, after all, Lost in Space and Batman and Robin, making him the man that killed the Batman franchise (along with, fair enough, Joel Schumacher). He, too, got an Oscar for writing this shit. Reason enough to never bother watching the Oscars again.

The penultimate, allegedly heart-tugging scene involves an act meant to demonstrate Nash's belated and long-desired acceptance by his peers. He reacts by saying, "That was unexpected." In fact, it is the most predictable scene in the flick, telegraphed not twenty minutes in. Spoiler alert: the coveted pen is not even an Erasermate.

Russell Crowe is okay, with his mushy suthin' accent and twitchy mannerisms and... well, that's it. When he flops around on his electro-convulsive therapy gurney, all I could think of was an old music video of his I saw once, where he was earnestly gyrating in a hilarious, apoplectic approximation of Elvis' swagger. His acting in the ECT scene looked exactly like a horizontal version of that video, without the chinos and ducktail.

Jennifer Connelly deserved that Oscar, though--man, she sure can cry! Cry, cry, cry! Like, she can get that one tear to sit right at the edge of her lower eyelid, quivering, until it slides to her lips at just the perfect moment. She can also repeatedly punch a mirror without incurring so much as a scratch on her hand. Good actin'!

Ron Howard hasn't directed better since he popped the clutch and told the world to eat his dust! Just kidding--Eat My Dust! was a hundred times more satisfying than this pic. (Oh wait, he directed Grand Theft Auto. He only starred in EMD! Never mind.) This one looked like it was directed by committee, with the intention of carefully avoiding arousal of any complex emotion. Howard's Grinch had more depth, and that sucked mightily as well.

I swear to you I went in with the expectation of at least seeing a well-crafted movie, not looking to savage it as popular crap. But there it was, pooping up the screen before my very eyes, to what I learned upon exiting was a very receptive and moved audience. I had to wonder, is it me who's seeing unreal and totally implausible things? You guys would tell me, right, if it was just me? Right? Coo-coo! Coo-coo!

Best Songs of 1982. (Or Not.)

2007-06-26T13:50:00.000-04:00

Here is yet another list from my old site. (Oh, and happy birthday honey!)

The latter half of 1982 was when I really began taking an interest in music. This list, still secured in a ravaged Mead Trapper Keeper, covers both sides of a piece of looseleaf paper. The title is below a crossed-out "WPGS" written in balloon letters (the last three being my initials). I think it was originally intended as a playlist for the radio station of my imagination, but then I probably decided that that was kinda gay, so it became a somewhat less gay year-end favorites list.

The nerdly Trapper Keeper, festooned with Creature Feature stickers.

Four other friends, surveying my list, recorded their agreement by putting a symbol beside the songs they liked, but only Chris I_____ had the sense to associate his name with his checkmarks, and thus I include his choices here, represented by the symbol †. (The cross symbol seems appropriate, as we were probably goofing around with this list when we were supposed to be writing the Act of Contrition fifty times for whatever transgression we were currently guilty of.) The identities behind the other symbols (a circle, a star, and an X) remain a mystery, as will their preferences in Pop New Wave and flashy music video opportunists.

("in no particular order")

Da Da Da -- Trio

Peekaboo -- Devo (†)

Stray Cat Strut -- Stray Cats (†)

Runaway Boys -- Stray Cats (†)

Shock the Monkey -- Peter Gabriel

I Have the Touch -- Peter Gabriel (†)

Down Under -- Men at Work (†)

Be Good Johnny -- Men at Work (†)

Wishing -- Flock of Seagulls (†)

Telecommunication -- Flock of Seagulls (†)

Rock the Casbah -- Clash (†)

Pressure -- Billy Joel (†)

Allentown -- Billy Joel (†)

Nobody But Me -- George Thorogood and the Destroyers

Look of Love -- ABC

Some Day, Some Way -- Marshall Crenshaw (†)

Mirror Man -- Human League (†)

Love Plus One -- Haircut 100

Annie Get Your Gun -- Squeeze (†)

Town Called Malice -- Jam

Save it For Later -- English Beat

Senses Working Overtime -- XTC

Love My Way -- Psychedelic Furs (†)

Kids in America -- Kim Wilde

Chequered Love -- Kim Wilde

Really Saying Something -- Bananarama (with Fun Boy Three)

I Could be Happy -- Altered Images (†)

Desperate But Not Serious -- Adam Ant

Goody Two Shoes -- Adam Ant (†)

Talk Talk -- Talk Talk (†)

Our House -- Madness (†)

Der Comisar (?) -- Falco (†)

Once in a Lifetime -- Talking Heads (if it is a 1982 song) (†)

Romanticize (sic) -- Combo Audio (†)

She Blinded Me with Science -- Thomas Dolby (†)

Images of Heaven -- Peter Godwin (†)

Mad World -- [no artist listed, but it's Tears For Fears]

Temptation -- New Order

Let Me Go -- Heaven 17

Built For Speed (album) -- Stray Cats

Geez, not exactly "Nuggets," huh? Unless we're talking butt nuggets... Some good stuff, but yeah, quite a few steamers on there. But look at what seventh-graders listen to nowadays--also painfully impacted crap, but today's bands make Combo Audio sound like the friggin' Beatles! (Their song, by the way, was actually named Romanticide, but since no one remembers it but me and maybe Louie the Looper, I guess it doesn't matter.)

Having recently seen the documentary Spellbound, I would like to point out that this list is presented here precisely as written. I was a pretty good speller even then, though I'd like to think my sporadic capitalization (ahem, not reflected here) was due not to ignorance but rather a kind of irreverence. (Lazy carelessness is also a plausible explanation.)

For the record, I disavow any liking of Billy Joel or Human League. I mean, most of these songs are okay, the musical equivalent of melted Velveeta, but while typing out this list out I really chided my past self. TWO selections by Kim Wilde and Adam Ant, but only one apiece by the Clash, the Jam and Talking Heads? And NO Costello? (Well, okay, that was the year of "Almost Blue," so maybe I can let it slide.) Obviously a very video-influenced list, but I would give foremost credit to WLIR, which was itself somewhat influenced by MTV (though some of these songs I heard on 'LIR months before they hit the charts and music television).

Speaking of WLIR, the only thing I still have on tape of that station is a live hour with Bob and Doug MacKenzie at some Long Island comedy club, which happened around the time of this list, I suppose. It's not very funny, but it becomes amusing after reading about it in Dave Thomas' book "SCTV." He said the whole thing was a nightmare, a gig the radio station and record company tricked him and Rick Moranis into doing. They were tired and annoyed about having to do an impromptu performance, but did their best to entertain a huge crowd of drunken imbeciles. They sometimes sound like they're babysitting that Twilight Zone kid who wishes things into the cornfield, realizing that if they make one wrong move, things could get ugly. Ah, that's how I remember the Island... charming in a brutish way, and always a hint of a barely-hidden seething, the rising buzz of white noise, the threat of sudden violence... or maybe that was just me.

Crushed.

2007-06-24T21:33:00.000-04:00

I've decided that I'm gonna get rid of my creaky old website so that I may at last discontinue my MSNtv service (currently draining me of two bucks a month). I've only been keeping it because I have so many pieces of writing there. So I figure I'll just start reposting them here so, you know, I'll have them. Of course I can't just cut-and-paste the damn things; I have to rewrite them as I go, because nothing I write is ever fucking finished. There's a word for that, but I'm afraid to think about it too long.

I'm starting with a list of the crushes I had growing up, mainly because it was sort of buried on the old site. It was originally subtitled "A Timeline in Time," for no reason other than I used to get high a lot. I've added some pictures, but, unsurprisingly, many of the ones I really wanted on here turned out to be somewhat obscure. Anyway, on with the crushing!

Any of your various Rankin and Bass characters: Clarice, Rudolph's girlfriend (those eyelashes, that polka-dot bow--yowsa!) Santa Claus' wife Jessica when she was a young piece-of-ass redhead; Francesca, the chick from Mad Monster Party.

Penelope Pitstop. Do you have to ask?

Kristy MacNichol. This was dragged outta me one mid-seventies day as Maria Pa-pee-ya and I discussed the merits of different TV shows while sitting on the back of my family's toad-green Buick Skylark. Maria disparaged Kristy's looks, and I had no choice but to stand up for her.

Carole, I think, from The Magic Garden. Or was it Paula? Anyway, you know which one I mean.

Lisa Whelchel, pre-Facts of Life. She was on a syndicated revival of The Mickey Mouse Club that aired after school on WNEW Metromedia 5. This would be around '77. I know I was an early admirer, so presuming the show debuted in the fall, I must have been 8 when smitten. I remember reading an article about the show in some kiddie magazine and forlornly calculating the disparity in our ages. Nowadays she's pushing homeschooling merch for folks who don't like their kids learning of the evils of evolution.

Mackenzie Phillips. Later came to my senses and switched allegiance to Valerie Bertinelli.

Cheryl Tiegs. Looking back, this one strikes me as odd, yet I can't deny that I kept a poster of her on my wall at a surprisingly young age. I recall it as showing Cheryl sopping wet under a waterfall or something. Searching the internets, however, indicates this poster exists only in my imagination. Anyway, I have no idea where the poster came from. (This was also, of course, the era of Fawcett and Somers. I remember some patronizing adult bending over to ask me who I wanted to marry when I grew up. Clearly a victim of media brainwashing, I answered simply, "A blonde.")

One of the girls from a later season of Zoom, whom I have since learned was named Tishy, if you can believe that. I couldn't find a pic, but I think she was one of those gals who initially struck me as odd-looking, then grew on me. She had a Boston accent, which I thought was cute. I've heard that during one of the show's rap sessions, she opined that different races and ethnicities shouldn't mix. (They left that in?) I'm sure there were other Zoomers I dug, but I only specifically recall her.

Wendy Schaal, Vicki on It's a Living (or Making a Living if you prefer). What a cutie she was, in that little waitress uniform. She was later in Innerspace. Turns out she's the daughter of comic actor Richard Schaal (if you saw him you'd know him), which made her Rhoda's step-daughter, go figure.

Of course, the girls of St. Pius X. There was Regina A____ (who kinda looked like Wendy Schaal, come to think of it), but come on, who didn't have a crush on her? I believed in God for one day---the day she noticed me enough to call me "weird." I did a report on the eye in front of the class once, and, as I had practiced so many times in my head, I pronounced "retina" to rhyme with her name. Mrs. Butler corrected me, and, bizarrely, I was sure I had just somehow made my crush known. I was always a blusher, and right then you could have overcooked a Denver omelet on my face. I'm surprised they didn't call an ambulance.

Linda R______ and I went the full eight years together, but I only dug her the last few months of eighth grade, roughly the same time I discovered (and painstakingly perfected) the sin of self-abuse. I considered asking her to a dance, but before I could make my move it was cancelled because our class was a bunch of uncontrollable ne'er-do-wells. That was pretty much that. I bet she would've said yes--she had given me a Christmas card in the fifth grade right before holiday break. It said, 'Don't tell anyone, but I really like you." I maliciously yelled to her across the room, "Don't worry, I won't!" She just laughed. Later at home I tore the card into tiny pieces and stuffed them way down into the bathroom trash can. I can't deny feeling an immediate twinge of guilt over that. I'm sure there were plenty of other plaid-skirted Catholic cuties that aroused my interest over the years...

Somewhere between The Magic Garden and Lisa Welchel you could place what I can only describe as possible homo crushes: Tom Seaver, pitcher for the Mets, whose baseball card I kept tacked to my wall despite having negligible interest in the sport; and the Keane Brothers, two musical teens who had their own summer replacement series on CBS in 1977. Actually, I think I mostly liked them in an envious way, as they played instruments and were on TV. I even had them on my wall, on a cover torn from the Newsday TV guide. For the record, I also had an 8 x 10 of Lee Majors as Steve Austin on the wall beside my bunk-bed (I was a bottom, eh-heh-HEE!), but this was from the fan club package. I recall no faggy fixation, just fan admiration.

And here they are, the Keane Brothers themselves.

Found this pic on a site even more improbable than mine. When I found this, I hadn't seen the boys in well over twenty years. I am relieved to report no libidinous stirrings at the sight of the frankly rather homely brothers. (And although there is an uncanny resemblance, they're no Lisa Whelchel, that's for sure!) Man, check out those Frampton-at-the-renaissance-faire shirts! No wonder I launched a pre-pube bomb-pop, huh?

Wanted Posters.

2007-06-16T01:04:00.000-04:00

I just had a yard sale where I sold off a ton of my movie posters. (I have the leftovers posted for sale on craigslist.) I won't miss them, exactly, but I'll miss having them, if you know what I mean. It was cool to own them, but what the hell was I gonna do with them? Sure, all that blood in the Maniac poster would match the color scheme in the downstairs bathroom, but guests may have found it, ah, intimidating.

I started off my collecting in the early eighties, with posters bought or cadged from Plainview video stores. Some of the ones I have listed now were from that era, and were displayed on my bedroom walls: My Favorite Year, Eating Raoul, Heaven Help Us. Then, in one fell swoop, my collection grew enormously. One might even say criminally. Cuz, you know, I stole them.

This story--the way I tell it anyway--takes a circuitous route, which, you'll see, is only appropriate. Bear with me.

In 1986, the Old Country Twin movie theater in my home town closed down. It was a sad event, especially as it was the last of four theaters to shut down in just a few years. It was preceded in death by the Plainview Theater, the RKO Century Twin, and Morton Village. The Morton Village theater was my favorite because it was less than a ten-minute walk from my house, with the Old Country Twin a bit more of a hike (past the Plainview-Old Bethpage library, IHOP, and the Plainview Diner). But I was almost always up for a hike anyway.

As a teen, I had a penchant for roaming the streets of Plainview late at night. While my newly-licensed contemporaries were keen on driving everywhere they could, I put off getting my permit because I really just didn't care for driving. I still don't. If I could walk there, why wouldn't I?

Walking around Plainview past midnight was almost a hobby. I loved that I could just walk out of my house and stroll down the middle of the street with no one else around. I'd see a blue glow flickering in some windows, darkness in most. Once, I stood for way too long below the second-floor windowshade silhouette of a woman (the top half of her anyway) moving strenuously to and fro, throwing back her head as if in ecstasy. I was transfixed and aroused and, although certain that I would be accosted at any moment as the adolescent pervert I was, not about to give up my prime viewing spot. Then I realized she was riding an exercise bike. I laughed to myself and moved along, perhaps untucking my shirt in an effort of concealment.

After my residential ramblings, I'd make my way to the Morton Village shopping center, a long strip mall on Old Country Road, and browse along the windows of the stores, some ever-changing, some the same as when I was small (and until even today). Nothing was open, of course, until I reached Dunkin' Donuts. Then I might get a chocolate chip muffin and head home.

If I was in the mood for a long jaunt, however, I could make my way down Plainview Road to Waldbaums, the only 24 hour supermarket in the area at the time. More often, I'd continue down Washington Avenue, toward my old school, St. Pius X, but I'd stop before reaching it and instead stray into the woods at Plainview Park. It was risky--who knew what manner of drug-addled Kennedy High School ne'er-do-wells might be toking up in the seclusion of the water tower area? Might be the next Ricky Kasso! But in fact it was usually just me up there, staggering soberly through unpathed suburban forestry with only my thoughts, the moon and sometimes a light, unexpected rain rattling the leaves above me.

There was one major reason I loved late-night wandering so much: a recurring dream of my childhood. I was always intrigued by the world of adults which mysteriously continued without me as I was shuttled off to bed. I often ventured downstairs at what felt to me like the wee hours, probably closer to eleven o'clock, to see just what the heck was going on. Usually it was just TV watching, but sometimes there were people I didn't know visiting, and those programs on the television seemed like they were not meant to be viewed by us little people. Hmmm.

In this dream I walked the streets so familiar to me, but in the dead of night. But the night was not dead; it was quite animated, or more accurately, populated. The stores were all open, with friends and neighbors walking the streets with me, and not a car was in sight. Perhaps it was a premonition of sorts, a foreshadowing of our world today, where business hours have become less typical, and many people are not constrained (comfortably or otherwise) by nine-to-five conventions.

Soon enough I learned that our burgeoning 24/7 world was not exactly what I had dreamed about, and that the mysteries of the adult world, once unravelled, tended to be disappointingly mundane. As I've said before, I always liked learning more than I liked what I learned.

But anyway, in 1986, when my quiet a.m. meanderings still thrilled and inspired, I made my way to that recently-shuttered Old Country Twin and circled it, looking out back by the dumpsters for mementos. Finding none, I went to a back service door--the kind without handles--and, digging my fingertips between the door and jamb, I was amazed to find that I could pry the door open. I stepped inside, and soon was wandering through the aisles I had excitedly clambered down in near-blindness so many times. I crept behind the popcorn counter and then found the pitch-black way upstairs to the projectionist's booth. Spooked, I instead doubled back to the way I came in, carefully closed the door (making certain that I could still open it) and went home.

I don't remember if I came back that night or another, but return I did, with a hammer, screwdriver and flashlight. It was around one in the morning, and I prayed that no cruising cops would find me suspicious on this night of all nights, on the prowl with the tools and intention of B & E. I again pried my way into the theater and headed straight for the upstairs.

It was better than I ever would have imagined it. The first thing I pulled from storage was an enormous box containing... holy crap, hundreds of movie posters! I sorted through them for at least an hour with utter delight, sneezing and wheezing from the thick layer of dust on everything. I can't even remember if I took all of them, or if I picked and chose; I think I pretty much swiped the lot. So now I had a giant box of posters to tote a good mile or so home in the middle of the night. Fortunately, they were folded for easier carrying (although, aesthetically, I'd have preferred them rolled).

I began looking through the rest of the booth, and discovered there were reels of film still laying around. I wanted those too, but there was no way I'd be able to carry all that stuff, so I left them. I did look at the first few frames of one reel, and I wish I hadn't. To this day I regret the decision to leave it behind. It was the trailer for Star Wars. (I mean, yeah, what the hell was I gonna do with it, but still!)

So there I am, lugging a giant cardboard box of purloined posters down the main drag of Plainview at three a.m. As my arms cramped and my back ached, I formulated a story to offer any curious cops: This? Oh, it's a generous gift from a friend, uh, somewhere nearby. (Nah, no cop could be that dumb.) Uh, these were out in the trash behind the theater--I swear I never went inside or anything! (Yeah, that'll work.) Uhright, the imaginary officer then mused in his inevitable Long Islandese, but den whattuh tha screwdrivuh an' flashlight faw?

I stopped midway home and ditched my incriminating tools into the bushes out front of Dunkin' Donuts, which, miraculously, hadn't a single police car in the parking lot. But as one may have been arriving at any second, I continued on, hustling shadily down side streets and finally arriving home, sweaty with triumph and my ill-gotten gains.

After sneaking upstairs past slumbering family to my bedroom, I looked over my plunder with pride. I had things to do that morning, but I was too excited with illicit joy to sleep. So instead I carefully rolled, labelled and cataloged the entire lot of posters, again and again stifling vigorous sneezes. Then, well after unwelcome daylight had intruded into my bedroom, I at last slept the satisfying sleep of one who had gotten away with it. And this, at very long last, is my confession, worthless in its lack of remorse and the limitation of statute.

I really liked having those posters, but I like having this story better.

Current Thoughts and Wishes.

2007-05-30T14:25:00.000-04:00

I meant to post something for Memorial Day, but obviously neglected to. I was going to mention that Ancestry.com has a limited-time deal where you can look up old military records for free. It usually costs a subscription fee, but I think you can still do it just for registering, until June 6th or so. It's worth a look...

Anyway, speaking of memorializing, I've been thinking about mom a lot lately. Not a day goes by without it occurring to me to call her, or I think of something I want to ask her, or tell her. Of course then I realize it's too late. But it may not be too late for you and someone you love, and so I am going to publish something I didn't think I would.

This is the note that my sisters found among mom's things. It is neatly typed, and signed simply "mom." I haven't asked my siblings if they mind me putting it onto my dumb blog, but I can't imagine any of them objecting.

Mom wrote this seven or eight years before she died. I'm glad she was able to come to my and Donna's wedding after she wrote this. Donna and her family loved her, and I feel certain that mom had a good time at our somewhat unconventional ceremony. Sometimes I think Donna is having a harder time with her death than I am.

MY FINAL THOUGHTS AND WISHES......

This letter is for all of you, for all of you have been my greatest accomplishment in life. I always considered myself pretty lucky to raise seven children and I'm proud to say that you were all "good kids."

I hope you all know that each one of you was special to me, even tho I never seemed to say "I love you"...

Sometimes I think I was selfish moving here as I will probably leave you with all my burdens like selling the house and getting rid of all the junk I've accumulated. Just take the things you want and give the rest to charity. Mainly tho, I DO NOT want a funeral - I want to be cremated and my ashes scattered over Dad's grave or the waters of Sunset Beach [North Carolina]. If there be time to donate my heart, liver or kidneys, I'd like you to do that too...

Now that I'm seventy years old and seen how quickly the years go by, I've finally realized that the best of times were the times we had together.

Your families are your treasures of life - always remember to love one another, be kind, hold your tongue and temper - words said in anger can be like a stab wound that leaves a scar forever.

Today, I have no riches or wealth to leave to you, only these final words - the best things in life really are free. Just to have a partner to love, little things like kisses and holding hands and laughing together, sharing a warm bed and children to bring you joy. Now that I look back at my life, I think - I had all that, didn't I? Yes, and I thank God every night for all of you.

My love be with you always,
Mom

Because dad is buried in a military cemetery, Mom thought that she couldn't be buried with him as she had remarried. This turned out not to be true. Mom's ashes will be interred with my father this month.

If you haven't told someone you love that you love them, go ahead and do it right now.

The Fault Is Not in Our Stars.

2007-05-27T22:16:00.001-04:00

remember with peace said...
i was disgusted reading your article. who cares what you think about the truth of the documentary? She has passed and should be remembered with more respect. don't judge others. it builds up and some day you'll be burned by the libra.

This comment was left for me in response to my post about the documentary The Last Days of Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, which was shown on VH1 last week. At first I wrote a response to it, then changed it, then deleted it and wrote another, then decided to delete the comment entirely and ignore it. But now I've chosen to answer, as it is precisely this sort of thing that makes me despise most people, particularly simpletons such as "remember with peace."

First, I’ll directly address you, rwp. You found my site by Googling "lisa left eye lopez herbal cleansing." (Her name, incidentally, was Lopes, with an s, as evidenced by the 7000 times it was written on-screen during the film. Way to comprehend.) So right off the bat, I suspect you are a knucklehead who saw this movie and thought, "Hm, I'd like to know more about this highly questionable and possibly dangerous diet regimen endorsed by some reckless pop star dim-wit. Sounds right up my alley!"

As for the “burned by the libra” comment, well, I hate to break it to you, but astrology is a bunch of magical bullshit and the people who rely on it are sad and irrational. If you are looking to purify, cleanse or otherwise detoxify your body, please begin with your brain and wash away these absurd conceits. For me, that last line is beyond disgusting—it is nauseating, foolish, and, in particular, discouraging. But I’ll get back to that.

Now, as for your wondering who cares about what I think: I don’t care who cares what I think. But I thought it, and posted it, and if you are disgusted by it, so be it. I was merely examining the “truth of the documentary,” or rather the lack or distortion of it. Perhaps it was the film itself (that is, the filmmakers, or in this unusual case, chiefly the editor) that lacked respect for its subject, or more likely the viewers.

The notion of respect for human beings is one which I simply reject. People don’t deserve respect, despite every loudmouth imbecile incessantly demanding it for no reason. I respect art, concepts, nature. Things that are what they are. People are rarely what they appear to be, what they try to be, or what they themselves think they are. People’s rights deserve respect. Their actions, ideas, accomplishments, opinions (hey, how about that?) and even their intentions may deserve it. But requiring respect just for being? I don’t see it. And the notion of respecting a person’s memory is hard to divorce from that—respect earned for dying, however tragically, doesn’t register with me. (Dying heroically is another story, but again, that's an action.)

People are shit. (Ba-dum-BUM!) Not every person, but, you know, generally. We're the worst things in the universe (that we're aware of). We exhibit the unique trait of inflicting cruelty for no reason. I think it has something to do with our unearned intelligence. We are cruel because we know we can be. Sure, some other mammals exhibit cruelty, too; chimps and dolphins spring to mind, you know, the “smarter” ones. We’re just a notch above them. Somewhere along the line, our jawbones shifted and created greater cranial capacity, allowing our brains to grow, bringing about the development of advanced language and poof—chimps with checkbooks. (I sometimes think “ants between ice ages” is a more apt analogy, but in any case I didn’t mean to bring evolutionary theory into this mess of a blog-rant.)

Don’t get me wrong. There are many people I love, admire, even strive to emulate for their good qualities, but the truth of the matter is you never really know anyone. I’m sure many people go to their graves with truly black hearts, having harbored dark thoughts that they never acted upon. For instance, is a person a pedophile if they lusted after children but died having never actually molested any? I sometimes wonder about how many people had in fact gone the extra step and simply got away with it. I'm sure they are remembered with respect. Do they deserve it? Anyway, that's tangential.

As you may have surmised, I’m not a person who values religion. I have no use for it. I do, however, have a use for faith, irrational as that notion may seem. Too many people hold their religious faith like a guarantee to some greater reward, a golden ticket that they can lord over the non-believer. Many look for signs of angels or divinely-crafted images as proof of their faith, ignoring the contradiction inherent in such an idea. As I see it, that’s the point of faith—there can be no proof. Therein lies the absurdity, and yet the principle of faith is deeply instilled in the race, even for a cynical pragmatist such as myself.

My faith is rooted in—surprise!—human nature. Yes, I do believe it tends toward evil. You can peruse any major newspaper on any day and see a hundred reasons not to put your faith in humankind. That is all the more reason to cherish and encourage those who attempt to thwart our vulgar birthright. My faith lies in that next person I encounter--the belief that this person, in any given situation, will at least try to do the right thing, however subjective that idea is.

That is why I find your comment so discouraging. It is people like you, rwp, that make that faith harder and harder to summon. Superstitious. Easily offended. Determinedly unenlightened by facts and empirical evidence, preferring to indulge in stale pseudoscience and quackery. Eager to stifle another’s opinion because it doesn’t dovetail with your own.

As I've mentioned, I respect your right to your opinions and beliefs, however misguided and willfully ignorant they seem to me. Oh, there I go, judging again. (Good luck, by the way, with your own efforts to make it through life without investing any judgment. It seems to have gotten you this far.)

As the great philosopher Yau-Man Chan said, “Love many. Trust few. Harm none.” I’m genuinely sorry if you felt I did harm by posting my thoughts. I'm sure this little rant of mine has done nothing to assuage your dislike of me. Probably heightened it. Whatever. I mean, I personally don't think I'm lacking in compassion, but what the hell do I know. I’m only human.

Reality is Plural. (No They're Not!)

2007-05-26T21:43:00.000-04:00

David Booth, an office manager in Cincinnati, described his nightmares as "like watching television." What he watched was a jetliner swerving and rolling in the sky, accompanied by the sound of failing engines, and then a horrifying crash. The same scenario haunted him for ten nights in a row.

On May 22th, 1979, he called the FAA, American Airlines, and a university psychiatrist. The FAA listened to the details of the dream and surmised that he was describing a DC-10. There was little else to taken from the dream, other than a feeling of dread.

That feeling could only have deepened when, four days later, an American Airlines DC-10 lost an engine seconds after take-off, dipping and rolling onto its lightened side, then hitting the ground and exploding.

All 271 aboard were killed, as were two on the ground; the cause was determined to be a single missing bolt. In retrospect, FAA investigators said, the dream did apparently describe the scene, Chicago's O'Hare International, but not closely enough. In addition to Booth's premonitions, Lindsay Wagner, TV's Bionic Woman, was scheduled to be on that flight, but canceled due to an uneasy feeling.

Booth has since gone on to create a fascinating website which spins a world-wide web of paranoid intrigue. He claims to have had another series of dreams (ten, natch) involving, as best as I can figure, a huge mass emerging in space which destroys the Earth. This was apparently supposed to occur a few years back. (No word on how that went.) His site doesn't offer much info on his current status--he is reported elsewhere as being "at death's door"--though there are many contributions by one "Sorcha Faal," a Russian scientist whose existence is in dispute among the curious folk populating this field. Some claim that Faal is actually Booth himself. The site is a wide-reaching conspiracy theorist's wet dream, linking every aspect of New World Order panic imaginable.

Here's some more "info" on Booth, courtesy another dippy website, this one by a woman who claims to be an emissary of the Zetas of Planet X. Another fella also takes Booth to task, although otherwise the information on their respective sites seems almost interchangeable. Take it all with a mine of salt (as if I had to tell you that)...

The Force is Strong in This One!

2007-05-25T20:05:00.000-04:00

Seriously, after staring at this for a while, it looked like the ghost of Alec Guinness was hovering before before me for a good minute afterward.

Here are the instructions, as accompanying this drawing in my 1979 Star Wars Luke Skywalker's Activity Book, published by Random House:

"Luke knows that the Force will keep Obi-wan Kenobi alive forever. You, too, can feel Kenobi's presence. Just stare at the white dot on his picture for about 50 seconds. Try not to let your eyes wander. Then blink them quickly and look at a blank wall. Who's there?"

Today, as you may have heard, is the thirtieth anniversary of the release of Star Wars. The theater where it played its longest run in the US, the Westgate in Beaverton, was not too far from where I live now; alas, it was torn down last fall.

Although my love for the episode IV and V movies has not stood the test of time, I won't denigrate them here. I'll just fondly remember waiting on line with dad, playing with the toys for hours on end, and being inspired to make The Empire Spits Up.

TESU was the Super 8 reel that pals Jeff, Mike, Chris and I filmed one arduous day in 1981. I don't think we got far into the story, which, I believe, was simply the actual plot of The Empire Strikes Back with minor embellishments. I spent hours working on ape make-up for my approximation of Chewbacca. I had a fantastic, early-seventies makeup kit which you used to make rubber gorilla appliances. I've looked for it on the internets, but to no avail. For all the intensive work, I'm on screen for about two seconds. I also puppeteered a rubber Yoda (the one put out by Kenner), my work mostly consisting of nodding and ear-waggling as he sat in a tiny rocking chair.

Jeff directed, of course--it was, after all, a "Twentieth Century Jeff" production. I only recall him playing a guy who says "Fire!" Chris played Han Solo, and Mike played Luke, who in one scene activates his light saber only to find he was holding the hilt upside-down. Thus, via jump-cut, the blade suddenly appears down between his legs, nearly vaporizing his nuts. I don't remember much else, other than that the string-suspended X-Wing looked surprisingly cool flying around. And it was a warm day, of that I'm certain, as I was sweating like a constipated Sumo wrestler in my monkey get-up.

I wish I had pics to show you. Well, maybe someday you'll see the whole thing on YouTube. I know, I can't wait either!

Pix! Pix! Pix!

2007-05-25T00:15:00.000-04:00

This is your WPIX Pixxx pal of the day, Felix Unger of The Odd Couple. If you are chosen to play the Pix video game, I think you'll get a bonus prize or something if you can name him...

Oh, wait, I thought it was 1981 for a second. It happens every day, more or less. The Pix game was played during the commercial breaks among afternoon cartoons on channel 11. The games were Intellivision video games. I think they used one called Sharp Shot, with four shooting games. I only remember them using the football passing and the spaceships. (The others were a submarine battle and some kind of mazes-and-monsters thing. I know because I have it.)

You could always tell which kids playing didn't have the phone near the TV, as they'd just blurt "PIX-PIX-PIXPIX-PIX-PIX-PIXPIXPIX-PIX!!!" I remember my pal Jeff telling me he saw the Pix contest one day and he heard an irate mother in the background yell "Jimmy, get the hell off the phone!"

Who is This Snooping Busybody Looking at?

2007-05-23T20:30:00.000-04:00

We're Doomed, Redux.

2007-05-21T23:39:00.000-04:00

Much as the Fishworker lamented the dwindling of our intellectual giants, I now assert our inexorable damnation at the hands of Mother Nature. Well, you can't really put the blame on the old broad; she's just doing what comes naturally. It is we who force her hand, and create our own extinction.

Yes, I'm an alarmist. Alarm is called for, more and more each day. The polar ice cap, once predicted to melt and drown us all around 2050, now has an expiration date of around 2020. Thirteen years. Remember 1994? That was thirteen years ago. Seems like just yesterday, doesn't it? I still remember leaving the theater after seeing Eight Seconds, the bull-riding movie with the then-hot Luke Perry and then-non-Christian Stephen Baldwin, wishing I had walked out at least an hour earlier and asked for my money back. Well it's too late! Too late then, too late now! What was I thinking?

Back in the day, we filled the oceans with tires, hoping to make lovely, steel-belted reefs for the fishies. Now, those Firestone Snow-Biters careen wildly about the ocean floor, destroying everything in their path. Those oceans are being consumed by ever-increasing "dead zones," stagnant expanses where nothing can thrive. We've created an oil dependency that seemed reasonable at the time, not foreseeing that the conglomerates would ride that gusher until they squeezed out every last sticky drop, with no genuine interest in diverting finances to developing alternate energy sources for the inevitable day when that last drop, uh, dropped.

I could provide links to support my terrifying claims, but Jesus Christ! I have a life, people, so let me live some of it away from this infernal contraption (also an instrument of our demise, however amusing it is, with its vast resources of poker and pornography).

The reason I crank the Klaxon? Why does anyone, about anything? Because, alas, it finally hit home. For years now, probably close to two decades, your humble non-parader has made the effort to turn off the tap water while brushing his teeth. "Doing my part," as they say, even if only in a small way. I'm sure there are a thousand other ways I'm doing my part to make things worse, but this one little gesture made me feel better. Of course, it was the fact that I barely had to put any thought into it that was so comforting. That was also my folly.

Recently, I noticed a broken sprinkler head at a new housing development near my home, spouting what had to be gallons of water per minute. I passed it on my way to work one evening, and scowled at it, inanely. I then passed it the next evening. And again the next. For four fucking days I spied this sprinkler issuing forth a steady torrent of water, effectively negating my years of miserly conservation. Was there nothing that could have been done? Should I have called someone? Did anyone who could have stopped the deluge even know it was spewing? Who paid for that water, running pointlessly down the gutter?

I fear this is the ultimate lesson that's going to be taken from recycling and resource protection: no one will really care until it's too late.

Forget An Inconvenient Truth--I'm going to go watch The Road Warrior for the hundredth time. Maybe I'll even endure Waterworld again. Only now I'm going to take notes.

(If you are one who chooses to ignore the signs of our imminent self-destruction--and I don't blame you a bit--then just go back through this post and giggle at all the words and phrases that sound sorta dirty. You'll feel all better. "Doing my part," eh heh hee!)

The Last Days of Bloggie May.

2007-05-20T23:37:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I missed another day. I been busy! These floors aren't gonna sweep themselves, fer cryin out loud!

I just watched The Last Days of Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes--or skimmed through it, to be honest, as there's only so much astrology/numerology/holistic healing nonsense I can take. It wasn't bad, but the mystical element was a bunch of hooey, even more so after reading up on the facts, which are somewhat misrepresented by the film. Frankly, far from being other-worldly, it's an all-too-familiar story.

Lopes filmed herself and her new band as they spent a month in Honduras getting their act together, so to speak. To sum the whole thing up, she was a troubled gal who couldn't handle her notoriety, a dramatic attention-seeker who was probably not as talented as she was led to believe. Don't get me wrong, she seemed like a nice enough person, quite lovely even, but the many gifts we are told she possessed are simply not on display. She rapped and danced well, but her lyrics and art were fairly pedestrian, and the instrumental abilities she claimed are never evident in the film.

For someone who had spent as much time in rehab and therapy as she had, and who seems to have considered herself quite introspective and revealing, her explanations of her bad behavior and many arrests (including for the burning of her boyfriend's mansion) are shallow and lacking responsibility--lots of excuses and talk of her alternate personalities, "Nikki" and "Nina." She even shows off the words she carved into her forearm on different occasions with a sort of pride, as if the acts testified to her passion rather than her self-destructiveness.

The only part of the documentary that really left an impression on me is the final week of filming, because it's also the final week of her life. Her van, driven by her assistant, hits and kills a boy. (I have since read that the accident actually occurred on April 6th, more than two weeks before Lopes' death, but in the documentary it isn't presented until the end--I suppose for greater dramatic impact.) Because the boy's name was Lopez, she believes that a spirit is after her and snuffed the boy by mistake. A creepy coincidence, to be sure, but I'm guessing that randomly picking out a Lopez in Honduras is like picking out a Miller in Amish country. (Hell, in the 1990 US Census, Lopez ranked 32nd among most-common names.)

Part of her premonition rationalization has to do with the weird (but non-specific) dreams she'd been having, which the skeptic in me would guess were really attributable to her bizarre diet, consisting mainly of herbal cleansing drinks that apparently smelled like diarrhea. (Her band is even shown sneaking off to a market for junk food because they can't stand the crap she's been feeding them.) The film makes it seem as if the dreams precede the boy's death, but upon reading the facts, this doesn't appear entirely accurate. Most of the scenes with Lopes relating the dreams must have been filmed between the two accidents.

The last scene in Honduras shows the actual last scene of Lopes' life. The horrifying action freezes just as she loses control of her vehicle, which rolled into a ditch, killing her and injuring members of the band. Incredibly, seconds before the accident, Lopes is holding some sort of flat tin (containing decks of cards, perhaps) with the Coca-Cola logo prominently displayed. She holds it steady for the camera, which films from the passenger seat, while gazing seductively (and for way too long) into the lens, a pose she strikes many times during the movie. It looks like she's trying to mimic an advertisement, or maybe dropping in some product placement in hopes that Coke will fund the filming. (She is pretty much broke at this point, and has just had to pay for hospital and funeral bills, not to mention the cost of dragging her huge entourage to Central America.) When someone in the back seat asks to see the tin, Lopes hands it to her, and that's when the swerving begins.

One has to wonder if the camera was rolling during the accident that killed the child, and, if so, was there any attention-diverting horseplay going on inside the van. Apparently, the accident was never actually reported to the police, and no formal investigation was conducted, so I doubt any film was confiscated. In the reports I have read, the boy is described as simply walking--not running--into the path of the van.

Of course, you never really get the full story from even the most detailed documentary, and, as mentioned, I fast-forwarded quite a bit so my take on the flim is lacking. But the lessons to be had in all of this, as I see it? If you must shill, don't do it so shamelessly... and keep both eyes on the road.

Check out May 2007 for the follow-up, the title is something like "The Fault Lies Not in our Stars." I've been trying to make a link to that post but Blogger is being a total turd about it...

Is There a Word Meaning "Adorable and Horrible at the Same Time?"

2007-05-19T02:57:00.000-04:00

I saw a news report about a litter of chihuahua puppies born without front legs. This is the best YouTube video I could find of it, which someone videotaped off their TV. (Here's a direct link to the WCBS report and video.) The YouTube poster also wrote that this affliction is due to "over breading." I hate that--it makes them too dry! And now fewer drumsticks!

Deadlines.

2007-05-17T03:00:00.000-04:00

Dammit! I logged on four minutes to midnight to make my daily blog post, and just missed Wednesday by seconds. All I wanted to say was:

Jerry Falwell died Tuesday.

Good riddance to bad, bigoted, politics-of-hate rubbish. Bet he's taking a blistering pitchfork up the keister as I type, and thinking how reincarnation suddenly doesn't seem like such a wicked idea.

Too bad he couldn't stick around for the "end times." He once spoke about the rapture (or whatever the hell it is) and how the righteous would just vanish to their reward as they were driving cars or piloting planes and such, leaving their woeful heathen passengers to crash and burn.

I always imagined a different scenario: The Ultimate Culling of the Vile. Picture all the hypocritical, judgmental, condemning, avaricious scum who persist in making this life miserable for anyone not in lockstep, being sucked into the ground for their sentence in perdition. Unlike Falwell's gleefully sadistic vision, there would be no ill effects for those left behind. Just the limo drivers of yer various evangelists, politicians, CEO's, etc., looking into the rear view mirror at a pile of sulphur-reeking clothes on the back seat and murmuring to themselves, "Where'd that asshole go? Eh, who cares, I'm sure he was just gonna stiff me again anyway."

Read this to find out more about what a swell guy Falwell was, an article by Max Blumenthal of The Nation...

Ides of Bloggie May.

2007-05-15T21:19:00.000-04:00

Check this out! Hold your clicky-thing and move the pic in any direction, and click and roll yer mouse wheel to zoom in and out.

View high resolution panorama on Prague 360

Thanks to Jeff from Prague 360 for permission to embed it. I found it on Neatorama, which I found through an ad in Mental Floss. Just in case the code crapped out on me, I wrote yer more typical blog-type stuff too. To wit:

So... I'm halfway through Bloggie May, further than I thought I'd get. I'm sick of it already. But it's lasted longer than the Fishworks' Song-a-Day, didn't it? Hah!

The Survivor finale sucked, much as the Amazing Race's did. Yau-Man wuz robbed. Gilmore Girls ends tonight--schnickelfritz! But Rescue Me starts in a month, so yeah, we got that going for us, TV-wise.

Two things in life: TV-wise, and otherwise. Otherwise, not much going on. That I care to dispense globally, anyway. The wife n' I are swell. She's taken to calling me "Der Bingles." I don't know, but it sure makes her laugh.

It's 80 degrees today. That's too hot. I hate summer. The opposite of when I was a kid, but that's for obvious reasons. Actually, I think I liked winter best then. Now I like autumn, mainly because it anticipates winter. Adults are weird. But I was a weird kid too. I remember one summer afternoon when I was about ten, jumping out of the pool at one P.M. sharp, bringing a towel downstairs to the TV room, sitting on it soaking wet in my bathing suit and watching Nosferatu on channel 21. Odd boy.

I do way too many crosswords puzzles. I do the crazy-making one in Harper's, the Friday and Saturday NY Times (those are the tough ones), plus I bought a collection of 100 Fri-Sat puzzles. They say doing a crossword puzzle every day keeps you sharp. If I keep this up, I may stave off Alzheimer's--the one thing I was looking forward to about old age. I'm going to throw out the puzzle book and go see Delta Farce. I'm guessing it's like 79 minutes of someone waving their farts at you and giggling. Dementia, here I come!

From My Desktop to Yours.

2007-05-15T00:26:00.000-04:00

My last post garnered a comment from an Italian blogger asking for a picture of my "PC table." I wasn't quite sure what that meant (though jgerardi's follow-up comment clued me in), thinking maybe it was some kind of computer jargon I wasn't familiar with. I went to their Blogger profile and found that, indeed, their blog simply features pics of the tables or whatever where folks have their computers.

I thought about submitting a pic, but then figured, screw them, I should just post one here. So I took a photo, but then I thought it would be funny to adorn my desk with random weird junk, as it is practically bare with only boring, functional items on it--crummy printer, cup of pens and Sharpies, drawer organizer. (I also thought it would be funny to put my computer on the back of The Feeb, naked on all fours. Funny... and hot. But far too complicated. He'd have to come all the way over here, there's moving the PC and all those wires, I'd have to patiently part his back hair to ensure it would sit right... Anyway.) So I grabbed a couple things and put them out.

Then I remembered that I have an item I wanted to put on eBay--a program from the 1958 Portland Parade of Roses. The Rose Festival is next month, so I wanted to get it on there while people might be searching the internets for such related crap. So I did that instead. So now I just have this pic, with only two (well, technically three) pieces of random weird junk.

So I promise to take another pic at some point with tons of stupid tchotchkes strewn about, and whomever can correctly identify the most within a certain time frame will get an appropriately worthless prize. In the meantime, what are the not-usually-there items in this picture? (Clicking on the pic for a closer look might help.) What's on the screen also ties in with my last post...

New York, That Greasy, Grimy Town...

2007-05-13T22:21:00.001-04:00

This is a neat clip of WOR (channel 9) footage from 1976, from the end of the noon newscast. It features a Loudon Wainwright III song over shots of a long-gone-and-much-lamented New York City.

The poster, tvnewsman, has tons of this stuff. I understand he now owns the master tapes of the guy I got most of my own commercial collection from. That officially makes tvnewsman the person I most envy in the world.

Happy Mother's Day, mom, and to all you other mothers.

Go Yau Man!

Another Anomalous Anniversary.

2007-05-13T00:27:00.002-04:00

On this date in 1974, logger Jack Cochran was working with a crew in Oregon's Hood River National Forest. During his 10 A.M. break, he looked across a clearing and saw "a big hairy thing" standing about 50 yards away. Cochran was an artist specializing in animal studies, so he was able to size it up in the brief moment he saw it--he felt it was six and a half feet tall, with massive shoulders and completely covered in thick black hair. It walked away with athletic grace, disappearing into the trees.

The next day Cochran kept his eyes peeled but saw nothing. Two of his co-workers, however, went onto the woods for shade during their morning break, disturbing an enormous creature of similar description who rose up and strode quickly away. One of the men chased it but never saw it again. The sightings were reported to the Bigfoot Information Center of The Dalles, who investigated and found tracks.

A New York Times writer was quoted as commenting, "Many people have said that hallucinations or hoaxes would be unlikely to yield so tame and dull a story." (Check out other, more exciting Oregon Bigfoot sightings here.)

It seems to me, in this age of cell phone cameras and YouTube, that there should be more of these sightings captured and broadcast, or at least reports of people attempting to photograph strange things and the cameras failing, as electronics seemingly tend to do in such cases (see the writings of John Keel for theories about electromagnetic disturbance associated with various paranormal phenomena). Of course, when you go to YouTube and search for anything like this, even the most interesting footage is trailed by three-hundred comments along the lines of "this loks toatly fake nice monky siut dood roflmfao."

Here's a "Best of Bigfoot" compilation at YouTube. Some cool shots in there, and some nice monkey suits. Dood.

Fifty-Seven Years Ago Today...

2007-05-11T23:00:00.000-04:00

...Paul Trent spotted "a strange thing like a very large lid of a dustbin" flying slowly over his farm near McMinnville, Oregon (about thirty-four miles from here). He described the silent saucer as 30 feet in diameter and shining like burnished silver. It stuck around for a few minutes and then went sailing off northwesterly over the skyline without smoke or vapor. He got a few snaps off before it did.

There was no mention of the anniversary in the Oregonian, other than an ad for the annual UFO Festival at McMenamin's Hotel Oregon (which is in McMinnville, natch). The festival's website has an interesting detailed write-up of the 1950 event (link in PDF format).

Of course, this isn't technically an anniversary, considering that all moments in time are occurring simultaneously. So if you happen to be in McMinnville near where the freaky flyer was seen, go outside right now and look up--it's still there!

I'm Not So Goddamn Hot on Thursdays, Either.

2007-05-10T09:11:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'm having a better day today. Thanks for asking.

I don't have a regular Monday to Friday, nine to five-type job, which I guess explains why I have nothing against any particular day, the way others hate Mondays and anticipate Fridays. I think of this because I was watching the Bill Kurtis special about the Virginia Tech killing spree, which dealt quite a bit with past school shootings. At one point, Kurtis refers to this type of crime as a "boys only" trend or something like that. I had heard this a number of times in the reportage of this massacre, and each time thought of Brenda Ann Spencer.

She was the 16-year-old girl who, in January 1979, used her Christmas present rifle to calmly shoot at an elementary school across the street from her house, wounding eight students and killing the principal and a custodian. As the Zodiac killer once claimed he would someday do, she picked off the kiddies as they came bouncing off the bus. When caught, she said she did it because she didn't like Mondays, though she would later blame her bad day on PCP-laced pot and years of sexual abuse at the hands of her father. Read more about her at her Wikipedia page, which has links to a Snopes page and, of course, the lyrics to the Boomtown Rats hit "I Don't Like Mondays."

Maybe Spencer doesn't get mentioned as a pioneer of this notorious murderer's row because it wasn't her own school she pegged. In any case, it seems like an oversight to me. While I'm at it, here's a link to a site that auctions off killer-related items. I haven't been there, but Nancy Grace was all in a tizzy over it last night. That's reason enough to endorse it.

A Rocky Day.

2007-05-10T02:22:00.000-04:00

I ran over a big raccoon on 217 this morning. I went back to make sure it wasn't just laying there suffering, and, nope, I killed it. I've been in a shit mood since.

It was a bloodless death, but its eyes were staring. I traveled past the scene a few hours later and it was gone. So I hope at least a full belly was gotten out of it.

I like to look at Joe Coleman paintings when I'm in a shit mood.

Guess Who This Is and I'll Eat My Shoe.

2007-05-08T18:30:00.000-04:00

My profile photo seems to have caused consternation among regular readers. Here it is undoctored. Now can you tell who it is?

Click on the post title to find out, and here to read about the movie the pic is from (though I'm sure the Fishworker has figured it out by now).

Super Studs of the Seventies.

2007-05-07T21:49:00.000-04:00

Can anyone tell me what movie this guy is from?

This is one of the many hair transplant ads found in the 70's Newsday TV Books I collect. Flipping through these books, one would think that Long Island was in the grip of a male pattern baldness epidemic. It's much more likely that thousands of schlubby Island fellas like this one just felt left out of the groovy free-love-n'-mucho-drugs loop, and figured a cheesy "hair system" was their ticket in.

I just can't shake the feeling that I've seen this guy in some low-budget flick of the era, something along the lines of Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (but not that). And no, I'm not confusing him with Richard S. Castellano.

I wish I could have found the pic of Castellano that was run with his obituary in 1988. It was a close-up of his meaty mug, mouth agape mid-bellow, showcasing the furious gap in his teeth. I swear he was able to flare that gap like others do their nostrils. It almost seemed disrespectful to use the picture alongside his death notice, eliciting involuntary giggles as it did. The shot above, promoting his 1972 series The Super, was taken shortly after he became known through his role as Clemenza in The Godfather. My God, his funnel-shaped pants are a thing to behold--though they barely be holdin' his mighty grotch.

I was astounded to learn that Castellano was about 37 when he filmed that movie, younger than I am now. While it is strange to measure oneself against some guy who died twenty years ago, I must admit that, looking at this picture, I feel somewhat better about myself. And looking back at that first pic, the gruesome bald guy in the appalling shirt, well jeez, I'm Jack Lord compared to him!

Oh, the Comedy!

2007-05-06T22:44:00.000-04:00

The Hindenburg crashed seventy years ago today. Listen to an eyewitness account here, plus that weepy news guy is on there. I would make a joke about him, but I think it's still too soon.

Finger-lickin' Ducky!

2007-05-05T22:00:00.000-04:00

I just remembered that today is Cinco de Mayo, whatever that means. (I prefer Miracle Whip anyway.) I also just remembered that I have two leftover Taco Bell soft tacos in the fridge. Fiesta!

Today was the Kentucky Derby. I just read on Google News who won and have already forgotten because I don't care, but I do remember that the winning horse was the first juvenile champ since Spectacular Bid in 1979. (If it relates to the 70's in any way, that I'll remember.) So I looked up the TV Guide from 1979, and it turns out that May 5th also fell on a Saturday then--indeed, that was the day Spectacular Bid won.

Checking out the Guide, I found that if you were a New York City stoner of the era, that night you'd be forced to make the late-night viewing choice between Carrie Fisher hosting SNL (Leia in a bikini, pre-Jedi!) or McCabe and Mrs. Miller on WABC. In other words, I couldn't find anything remotely interesting in that TV Guide, although, at 7:30 pm, I do like the dichotomy of the "Girl Scout Talent Spectacular" on channel 8 against Dance Fever, with the Village People presenting "Hot Cop." And when I say "presenting," I mean in the zoological sense.

I then went to an anagram site and found that "Kentucky Derby" produces any number of uninspiring permutations. Noticing (and mentally punctuating) "Be ducky, Ken--try!" made me think of this Newsday TV Book cover from July 1972:

This cover heralds the premiere of the limited-run summer series "The Ken Berry Wow Show." Although he's duckily dressed, Ken's weary expression doesn't exactly say 'wow' to me--indeed, the anagram could be what the photographer was urging the comedic hoofer, to no avail. Much wowier is an uncredited twenty-one-year-old Cheryl Ladd on the right. Check her out some 33 years later here. Hey, Kunath, is she a GILF or what?

Gilmores Gone.

2007-05-05T00:05:00.000-04:00

It's been a week of disturbing news. At least three of the 10 Republican candidates at this Thursday's debate don't believe in evolution. Paris Hilton is going to jail, where she will undoubtedly be passed around like the inflatable sex doll that she is--I bet she'd even fit through the bars for easy cell-to-cell sharing. But worst of all--way, way worst of all--Gilmore Girls is done after seven seasons.

The Reuters article indicates that the show wasn't exactly canceled; it appears the actresses playing the titular girls (haw haw!) didn't accept whatever the network was offering. Well, all I can say to them is I hope you're happy--you made my wife cry! Yes, it's true. Donna had a sobbing fit for about half a minute, until she finally had no choice but to join me in my heartless, unsympathetic laughter.

Of course there is much speculation and boohooing over at the Google GG group, and from what I read in those posts, there is little hope of the last episode on May 15 being a series finale--it wasn't written that way, and it's too late for scenes to be reshot. When the show's creator left last season, she said she knew exactly how she wanted the last four eps to play out. Perhaps we'll never know, unless a TV movie deal pops up. What a gyp!

If you want to check out the show for yourself, it just began again from the beginning on ABC Family. The pilot was on today at its regular time of 5 pm, but they rerun episodes the following day at 11 am, meaning it will be on Monday at that time. Tape or TiVo it and then continue from there. I suppose the final season playing out now will be added to this syndication cycle.

It was a good run for a swell show. I'm gonna miss it. Sniff.

Requiescat En Pace, Gerbillus.

2007-05-04T00:29:00.000-04:00

Today (or, fair enough, tomorrow) would be a good day to remember all your past pets, wouldn’t it? Don’t they deserve a little fond reminiscing, especially if it’s been years or even decades since you last thought of them?

I’ve mentioned Brandy and Sloopy, the family beagles, elsewhere in my writings, so a quick here’s-to-ya for them. But I also had a succession of rodents as a boy, the first being a pair of gerbils I had in the first grade whom I named Felix and Oscar.

I can’t say I recall them that fondly, like “Oh, that Felix, he sure did hog the water bottle after a long workout on the wheel!” Mostly I remember the fuzzy little fuckers noisily clamoring to get out of their cage, which they often did no matter how many clips I secured their wire lid with. I even resorted to stacking school books on top of the cage, but still they found a way to squeeze their chubby asses up and out, invariably making their way into the closet.

I do remember well the many nights spent pulling toy after toy from that closet and at last scooping up the biting bastards. Then, at some point much later, my brothers and I would get a yen for a monotonous round of Monopoly or Payday, and I’d retrieve the game to find half the money chewed to shreds and a hundred tiny turds stuck to the board.

Yeh, I remember those gerbils well. Little fuckers.

No gerbils of your own to mourn? Go here and pay your rodentia respects.

Turkey in May!

2007-05-02T20:31:00.000-04:00

That's an idea of mine for the Turkey Association of America (if there is one). It's been months since the holiday season, which is certainly the big time of year for feasting on gobblers. So what the TAA should do, I surmise, is push those big birds at the mid-point of the off-season. Hence, "Turkey in May!"

Okay, there's gotta be a better name for it, but you get the idea, and so will everyone else. "Man, it's been months since we had a big ass turkey for dinner," jes-plain-folks'll say.
"Remember how good that was, last Christmas, remember that, Paw-Paw?"
"Yeah, I remember. Huh, turkey, that sounds good... Goddamn, we gotta get ourselves some fuckin' Turkey in May!"

For Mother's Day (13th), Armed Forces Day (19th), Memorial Day (28th), hell, it's even "Better Hearing and Speech" month--Turkey! And Cinco de Mayo--Turkey tacos!

The seventh would have been Darrin McGavin's 85th birthday. He's filmdom's most famous turkey lover! Plus, it's also Robert Browning's birthday--what smells better browning than Turkey? Other celeb b-days worth turkeying are Trent Reznor's on the 17th ("I want to stuff you like an animal!") and you can gobble a gobbler for Gobel--George, that is, on the 20th! This very day is the natal anniversary of Theodore Bikel and Baron von Richthofen! What the hell, eat some Turkey--had me mine last night!

I Think I Got Something to Say to You...

2007-05-01T11:39:00.000-04:00

...or not, but anyway that's my way of telling you it's Bloggie May! That's what I'm calling my experiment this month--to post something every single day for all thirty-one days of May. I'm not saying it will be expansive. I promise nothing more than maybe just a link or a random thought most days, but we shall see. I will also try to actually post each day, not just save up a bunch of drafts and unleash them at the appropriate time, which, naturally, I considered.

I've always wondered how there are people out there who can do this sort of thing, even posting multiple times in one day. I suppose A) these people "work" at their computers, and B) they don't have dial-up, which I do. (I'm not saying my connection speed is glacial, but keep in mind that I purchased this computer a long time ago by walking to a Best Buy located just across the Bering Sea.) Anyway, now I'll find out how they do it for myself.

So, announcing this fool's venture counts as my first post--let Bloggie May commence! And let me stupidly proclaim in advance: Mission accomplished!

Cashman was Money, Baby!

2007-04-27T00:17:00.000-04:00

I just got a treasure trove (well, if you're me) of Newsday TV Books from the early seventies, leading me to begin a massive "updating" of my other site, a tribute to Newsday movie reviewer John Cashman. If you dug staying up late back in the day, hoping to discover some weird old flicks on late-night teevee, do check it out...

...And the "Imus Minus Award" Goes To...

2007-04-13T21:45:00.000-04:00

...Don Imus, for his labelling of the Rutger's women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." Ha ha, what a card! (And by "card," I mean scrotum-faced curmudgeon.)

I've never liked Imus. I found his radio show idiotic (back in the Moby Worm days) or just dull (in its more recent incarnation emphasizing his indecipherable mumblings about political affairs). I think I once endured about a minute of his MSNBC show before changing the channel, having mistakenly dismissed it as a particularly unfunny Munsters episode. (Oh, the irony of the gnarled I-Man and his gruesome gang impugning the attractiveness of any other human being...)

Do I think he should have been fired for his stupid, off-the-cuff remark? Probably not. But free speech in the street and free speech on the airwaves are different ideas. The "freedom" of his speech, as owned by corporate entities, was a privilege, not a right, despite those companies trading on his rep for outrageousness. CBS Radio and MSNBC have their rights too, as do their advertisers, shareholders, listeners, and even anyone merely catching wind of whatever Imus is spewing on-air. Also, it is one thing to call blacks nappy-headed or women hos, and quite another to call a specific group of mostly black women nappy-headed hos. The former is demeaning and tasteless, but the latter is outright defamatory. (I suppose one could call into play the many stories of Imus being personally repulsive and unabashedly racist, but I've chosen to stick to the matter as publicly broadcast.)

The issue seems closer to one of slanderous speech more than anything, and in that case Imus is clearly in the wrong. He has, however, apologized profusely and made strides to speak with anyone who cares to admonish him, for which he should be commended (even if it did damn near kill the governor of New Jersey). In light of his mea culpa and its acceptance by the Rutger's team, a suspension and perhaps some other form of atonement may have been more appropriate. Conversely, what the hell do I know.

Now I hear Tom DeLay is using this incident as grounds to gun for Rosie O'Donnell's ouster. Why is anyone even listening to this asshole anymore? When Dancing With the Stars announced last year that it was featuring Jerry Springer, DeLay urged his former constituents to vote for country singer Sara Evans (saying she stood for family values as opposed to "ultraliberal" Springer) before the show had even premiered. It sure gives you an idea of how he steered his political agenda. That Evans was then revealed to have more skeletons in her closet than Dahmer was simply too goddamn sweet.

As long as we're all out gunning, though, can we just mention the many times Bill O'Reilly has used the slur "wetbacks," or the time when he was speaking before an urban youth charity and said that he hoped a black singing group that hadn't shown up yet wasn't stealing hubcaps in the parking lot?

Jeez, when you throw rap lyrics, Jesse "Hymietown" Jackson and Al "Freddie's Fashion Mart" Sharpton into this Imus mess, the whole debate gets bogged down to where I just want to retreat into...

...pointless nostalgia! Thus, I present this Newsday TV book spotlight on Imus, Plus from July 1st, 1978.

It was a ninety-minute show (counter-programmed against Saturday Night Live) syndicated by Metromedia and seen in New York City on WNEW, channel 5. The first ep featured such hot-button topics as sex education for pre-schoolers and marriage brokering, and also had John Gabriel of Ryan's Hope discussing "what's real and unreal about soap operas" and Connecticut school teacher Mary Elizabeth Bakunin, who does everything backwards. (I hope she wasn't the one teaching those pre-schoolers. I mean, sex ed was scary enough, imagine if your teacher had started with the third input!)

Anyway, the show lasted about three months, no match for those SNL repeats. Inconsequential contribution to society, indeed... Speaking of, check out the latest exciting news at my Newsday TV listings blog!

A Comlink to the Past.

2007-04-01T22:18:00.001-04:00

I recently had several boxes' worth of my past sent to me, courtesy of brother Artie, sister Jackie and cousin Jerry. They had the unenviable task of going through mom's stuff and divvying it up appropriately. Thus I got two boxes containing hundreds of posters (many of which I heisted from the Old Country Twin after it closed down around 1987), and two enormous boxes of comic books and Star Wars memorabilia. Well, now it's memorabilia--a long time ago, in a house far, far away, it used to be my life.

Like a lot of the boys I knew back then, I was infatuated with Star Wars from the day it came out. My room quickly became a shrine to it. I had the sheets, curtains (which mom made from extra sheets), lunch boxes, calendars, posters, you name it. Most of all, there were the toys, elaborately arranged around the room.

Here we see the Land of the Jawas playset (minus escape pod) and the Hoth Ice Planet playset (minus laser cannon). Notice their identical molding, and that I cleaned the Sandcrawler base but not the AT-AT base. (Click on the pics for a closer look.) Also three Hoth mini-rigs (an MLC-3 and two MTV-7's), the Droid Maker set (missing one leg, one tank tread, the hydraulic wire, the two metal axles and all but two of the little rubber connectors), a Dewback, a Taun-Taun, the Yoda hand puppet, the Land Speeder, and the Cantina playset (less the doors and the backdrop, which I remember floating around for years in the oddest places). To the right is the original base for the first twelve figures, also without its backdrop.

The awesome (and I don't throw that word around) Millennium Falcon. It's missing the piece that holds the cannon in place, and the lower hatch is busted. Other than that, I think it's all there--the lightsaber training ball on string, the false floor, the chess table, the landing struts, the dish laser...

(4/2 add: I am pleased to report that I found a great website with all the original Kenner assembly instructions online, and realized that a mystery piece which I had assigned to the leftover bin is in fact the gunner seat, which is what holds the cannon in place. I just now snapped them together, and, in the words of fellow nostophile Jean Shepherd, all is right with the world.)

The X-Wing is minus canopy and the wings won't stay open. The TIE Fighter, Darth's TIE Fighter, and Snow Speeder are all intact, I believe, except the Snow Speeder is missing the harpoon and string. I don't think any of the sounds work anymore, but most of the lights do. The Snow Speeder has the best lights and sound and they work (and yes, I flew it through the living room and attacked the cat with it). Most stickers are in decent shape except for Darth's TIE Fighter, with lots of buckling and peeling corners. I had the Troop Transport with the sound effects, but, alas, that one has not surfaced.

I don't even remember this crummy cardboard Cloud City playset, so I don't know if it came with anything. There's the Yoda statue I painted myself, a metal C3PO pendant (which Donna is determined to wear), and miniature die-casts of the X-Wing (no canopy) and TIE Fighter (tiny pilot intact). That digital watch came with a bunch of different stickers you could put above and below the readout, but I lost those. I don't know if the watch still works, but if it does, I may have to break my policy of never wearing one of the damned things. (Donna and I will make quite the pair, out and about in our Star Wars-themed finery...)

I once had all the figures released through '82 or so (I drew the line around the time Zuckuss came out--I mean, Zuckuss? Who the hell was Zuckuss?), but these are all I have left. (Note the horribly mangled Greedo at the top right, hands nailed to a Lincoln Log and liberally spattered with red nail polish, and you'll get an idea of the others' fate.) Yoda is missing his cloak and staff but amazingly enough not his snake. The stormtroopers (you could never have too many) range in condition from looks-nearly-new to yellowed to demolished. That's the original Artoo from my once-cherished Early Bird set. I just realized I neglected to put him alongside Threepio. I guess it's obvious I'm no longer a fan.

Here are the accessories I have left. Two Leia guns survived, but sadly, no Tuskan Raider gaderffii sticks. Is that white thing the Ugnaught's purse?

I know I had the large figures of Luke and Leia, but all that remains as evidence are his saber and her shoe. Chewbacca has his gun but I think a little piece is broken off, as is the tip of Boba Fett's antenna-thingy. Boba's missing his Wookiee scalps, and the thing in his backpack isn't attached anymore. Han is missing his medal, and Darth, like his tiny counterpart, has only the hilt of his saber left. Artoo still has his Death Star plans inside but his legs fall off easily and when you turn his head it goes boing! boing! boing! instead of click-click-click.

Last (and least, in the sense of missing the most parts) is the Death Star playset. It took me friggin' forever to put this thing together. I know I had the cannon that's supposed to go on the top level--what the hell happened to it? The upper posts are missing too (that's Luke's lightsaber propping up the grid), as are the rope swing, the foam garbage, and one other post. There's the Dianoga, that little minx, popping out of the trash compactor to pose.

That's about it for the toys... I'll get to the other SW stuff another time--the trading cards, photos, lobby cards, posters, comics, calendars, fan club newsletters, activity books, Presto Magix (Magices?), magazines, (including your various Mads, Crackeds, and even the occasional Crazy), etc. etc....

Redestroyed.

2007-03-25T20:50:00.000-04:00

Been angry yet today? No? Too busy watching AFV? Haha, yeah, that "Baby Loves Head Rub" should totally win. Anyway, maybe this will help ground you if you're feelin' groovy. Sorry. I have to do it.

It's a Salon article from two weeks ago (which I just heard about on a Randi Rhodes Show replay), about injured troops being redeployed to Iraq. You read that right--injured troops, ones with metal rods in their backs, who are heavily doped up on pain medications, who can barely walk due to degenerative spine and knee problems, who doze off suddenly in narcoleptic episodes, who have unaddressed psychiatric conditions, etc. etc.

The seventy-five soldiers from Fort Benning who were initially examined and classified as unfit for redeployment suddenly found themselves scheduled to go back. This was done without follow-up exams--that is, according to the soldiers themselves. A division surgeon who met with the 75 on February 15th says that they were given exams that day. The soldiers insist he just sat there, downplaying their problems and busily rewriting their profiles. Hmm, who to believe...

The army says these soldiers will be given cushy jobs, evidently not overly concerned that many of them can't wear Kevlar body armor or carry gear due to their injuries, or that at least one who depends on a breathing apparatus to stay alive may have no electricity to run it.

The soldiers, who I presume are the farthest thing from cowards, wouldn't give their names, fearing retribution. I guess they mean like the bullying revenge exacted on the whiners recovering at the Walter Reed VA hospital who have recently been made to fall in for middle-of-the-night inspections, which had never happened before the whistle-blowing about the shameful conditions there.

Now I'm reading that the redeployment of severely injured troops is nothing new. I guess the fear of our own Commander-in-Chief is greater than the fear of the "turists." When the hell are they gonna impeach this lunatic already? How many more innocent Americans and Iraqis does he have to kill?

http://www.salon.com/news/2007/03/11/fort_benning/
(May require site pass, acquired by clicking on ad link.)

Love and Thanks.

2007-03-12T20:36:00.002-04:00

Got back from Long Island Friday morning. It was a long week and I'm still catching up on my sleep. I enjoyed spending time with my brothers and sisters and their kids, and the many family members I haven't seen in years (some of whom I didn't remember at all because I last met them when I was very little), plus all the friends and neighbors from long ago. It was all rather dreamlike, which may explain why I didn't dream the entire time I was there.

Adding to that surreal feeling was a serene, windless storm which enveloped the day of mom's funeral with fine snowflakes that, despite falling steadily for hours, somehow never accumulated past a half-inch. The day was unfailingly gray, peculiar and beautiful, and that suited me just fine. Standing amid the flurries as I laid a perfect rose on her casket, I think I even smiled.

Thank you to everyone who left their condolences here, or called, or sent cards. I love you too.

I feel like I should write more about mom, who she was, what she meant to me and everyone else. It's still hard to think about. I'll just say that, if you didn't have a mom, she was the mom you'd ask for.

My sisters went down to Carolina to sort out mom's stuff, and they found a music box set out for each of them, as if she knew they'd be coming. They also came across a planning guide that mom had filled out, for funeral preparations and so forth. With it there was a note that mom had written years ago, meant to be read after her passing. In it she said how proud she was of us kids and that, although she never had much in the way of material things, she couldn't have wanted for anything, other than wishing she had told us she loved us more.

I know you're past worry, mom, but just so you know... you told us.

Finding Words.

2007-03-02T11:21:00.000-05:00

Mom died last night. She would have been 78 in two weeks. She hadn't been feeling well for a while, but this was sudden and unexpected.

I still don't know if I will be going to Carolina for a funeral, or, if she wanted to be cremated, to a memorial service on Long Island (as that's where most of my family is). Or maybe I won't go anywhere--it's impractical and inconvenient, as life and death tend to be.

Donna wants me to go. She says it will bring closure. I say closure is misunderstood and overrated. Sometimes you have as much closure as you're ever gonna get, and pursuing it further only prolongs the ache. Sometimes you think you've had your closure and proclaim so with a satisfied sigh, only to realize later that there's still pages to go (and then a whole other volume you didn't even know about).

Besides, it was Donna who brought me my closure, years ago. She was the one that made me see that it can never hurt to tell the people you love that you love them. Mom and I had never expressed this to each other, unless you count birthday cards.

Dad died in '85, also suddenly, two days after his birthday. Being sixteen, I was too wrapped up in whatever to remember to buy him a gift or a card, and I felt guilty about it so I simply said nothing. No 'Happy birthday,' no 'Good morning,' not even 'How was work?' Then he was gone, and the weight of those unsaid words pinned me for years and years. Even after dad died, I found those words hard to say, and I admit I could still say them more now. But mom and I exchanged those words at the end of every phone call for the last few years and whenever we saw each other, and I can never thank Donna enough for that.

My brothers and sisters think mom wanted to be cremated because, after my Aunt Claire died last summer, she mentioned the ridiculousness of the expense and rigmarole of a funeral. The day my aunt died, I dreamt that she was talking to me at a family picnic. I didn't recognize her at first because she was younger than I ever knew her to be, and frankly I hadn't thought of her much in years. She talked to me at length in the dream, and days later I found out from mom that she died right around the time I was sleeping. I had no recollection at all of what she said in the dream.

A few years after dad died my brother Charles got married. The night before the wedding, my mom was lying awake and crying, thinking about how she wished dad could be there. It's not fair, she thought over and over. Our dog, Rocky, who slept at the foot of her bed, suddenly got up with wide eyes and the fur of his back bristling. Mom asked him what was wrong, and then she heard three loud knocks. She didn't know where the sound came from, but Rocky settled back down and went to sleep, and soon my mother did too. The next day, mom told this to my sister Jackie, who said, "Ma, your song!" My parents' wedding song was "Always," which contains the lines:

Days may not be fair, always / That's when I'll be there, always.

When Donna and I married a year and a half ago, I read her the lyrics of that song as part of our vows. Shortly after, mom and I (along with Donna and her dad) danced to "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You," a favorite of mom's.

After learning mom was gone last night, I watched TV with Donna, holding each other, my head alternating between numb and spinning. The first puzzle on Wheel of Fortune had the category "song lyrics":

- - - - / - / - - - - / - - - /
- - - - - - / - - - - / - /
- - - - / - - -

It didn't take long for me to figure it out. This time.

I'll miss you ma. Say hi to dad for me. I love you both.

Forsaking Bonaduce.

2007-02-26T21:07:00.000-05:00

I am almost thirty-eight years old, but that didn't stop me from crank-calling a radio station today.

It was the first time I've ever done it, I think. Of course, there was plenty of goofing on local pizzerias and neighbors when I was a snotty little Long Island punk. And there was one time, about fifteen years ago, when I called a college DJ who kept cutting off songs early and saying, "I'm sorry for all this bad music, I was trying a little something different today..." After abbreviating the fifth song in a row, I called and asked the guy who answered if he was the DJ who'd been on for the last half-hour. He proudly bellowed, in his wanna-be jock voice, "Yes I am!" I said, "Just play the fucking music and stop cutting it off, you stupid cunt." After a long pause (most guys just don't know how to respond to being called a cunt), he quickly said, "Thank you very much." It didn't go out on the air, so that doesn't really count.

The impetus for my late-in-life crank-yankery was the addition of Danny Bonaduce to The Adam Carolla Show. Last year, TACS took over the Howard Stern time slot out here on the West coast, including my local station, the otherwise awful KUFO. Never having listened to Loveline, it took me a little while to get into the Aceman's shtick, but it wasn't long before I was tuning in every day. If anything, it was refreshing, after twenty years of Stern, to hear a different format. Adam is advertised as "American Genius," and the hype is not far off the mark. I don't always agree with him, leaning to the left as I do, but his rants on any topic are never less than well-thought-out and steeped in common sense. His crew had some shake-ups over the year, but by the end of 2006 the line-up (with Dave Dameshek doing sports and Teresa Strasser delivering news) was solid and had very entertaining interplay.

Then, upon returning from Christmas break, the show took a dramatic turn: Dameshek and some other, behind-the-scenes folks were gone, and Bonaduce ceremoniously added. I knew little about Bonaduce's radio career before this, other than Stern's dismissal of him as a typical shock-jock clone, so although I though it an odd fit, I figured I should at least give him a chance.

Within the first show, I was growing to dislike him. His tobacco-ravaged voice was the first thing to offend. A phlegmy gargle of ground glass, it reminds me of the old dead guy with the dirt-clogged throat shrieking "Bedelia!" as he claws his way out of the grave in Creepshow. After a few days, it became apparent that Bonaduce (or "the DB," as I have referred to him on the show's messageboard) had no interest in following along the thread of Adam and Teresa's topics; they existed solely for him to repeatedly interject long, pointless, factually dubious stories about his history of rampant drug use, his former life as a celebrity (and life as a former celebrity), his bizarre and sad home life (never mind his two unfortunate kids--if this guy has a goldfish I would recommend the state take it away), and so on, and on, and on. When he doesn't have a rambling personal anecdote about a subject, he just blurts out random facts, whether they suit the conversation or not (and much of the time he's just wrong). Interviews run horribly aground as the guests sit there largely silent, listening to the DB's endless noise. Adam's justly famous rants are blunted by his humor-free interruptions. The flow of the show is reduced to a flaccid dribble when Ace and T have to stop and explain jokes to the DB (who claims to be a comedy expert yet can't seem to grasp the simplest conventions of the form other than loudly exclaiming the creakiest gags from the Vaudeville dustbin). Not only is he a drag on the show, but the man himself just seems so unsavory--literally tasteless--that the show sometimes begins to take on this feeling too.

I listened less and less as the show became the Braggy Baggadouchey Show with Adam and Teresa, until now I check in only a few times a week, usually for less than a segment. A number of fans have bombarded the show's Danny-centric messageboard with desperate exhortations to ditch the DB (or "Can Dan" as some have dubbed the movement) and save this once-great show. Posters were lamenting the lack of anti-DB callers, so I decided to see if I could get through. I've gotten on the show many times with small contributions to various segments, so I thought I'd take a shot.

Adam doesn't take calls so much as suggestions for rants, including a bit called "What Can't Adam Complain About?" You call in, mention a topic that seems like something no one on earth can bitch about, and then he does, and vigorously. I called this morning and suggested that Ace couldn't dis new socks.

"Oh, yeah," said the surprisingly enthusiastic screener, "like fresh from the package..."
"Yeah," I continued, "they fit nice, no holes..."
"That's good!" he said, then ran through the litany of caller instructions, turn off your radio and so on.

When my turn came, Adam asked what I felt he couldn't complain about. I quickly ejaculated "Your show last year before it was torpedoed by Bonadouchebag!" Then, in a tribute to the Bababooey callers of yesteryear, I continued with

"Bonadouchey! Bonadouchey! Bonadouchey! Bonadouchey! Bonadouchey!Bonadouchey! Bonadouchey! Bonadouchey! Bonadouchey!"

It wasn't exactly Oscar Wilde, but I felt I had made a contribution, if not an impact. They hung up on me after a few Bonadoucheys, laughed it off, and Adam went on a long rant about my bogus topic. Yes, it turned out, indeed he could complain at length about new socks.

You know, I'm not even saying Danny shouldn't be on the radio. I'm sure if he had his own show there would be an audience for it. Some people like pro wrestling. I don't know why, but what the hell. I say give the DB his own show. Just stop ruining the Carolla show with him--he doesn't fit.

The DB has ten more months on his contract, if it plays out, which I sadly suspect it will. I suggest you check out the show after that, if it is still on the air. If you want to hear my call, on KUFO there is a 5-6am replay of the previous day's best bits--I suspect they will have the "WCACA?" segment on there tomorrow. [2/27 add: they didn't.] I don't know if there's a replay in other cities. Also, you can download segments at the ACS website. Will my call be excised? Don't know, don't really care.

In closing, as "Robert Higgins" once said to Peter Jennings: "And a Bababooey to y'all!"

Celebrity, Be Not Proud.

2007-02-09T21:56:00.000-05:00

So Anna Nicole is gone, a surprise if not exactly a shock. Not like when Steve Irwin died. Even given his adventurous passions, I'd once have put money on her demise occurring before his. Especially the whole stingray thing--that was tantamount to Smith being felled by a tainted Tylenol.

As a child, I had no direct experience with death, had never even gotten close enough to whiff its sulphur. I was too young to really process the passing of my last grandparent--grandma Busch, in '73, I think--so perhaps, until my dad's death a dozen years later, the closest thing I had was the ceasement of celebrities.

At my home, for most of my youth, we received three newspapers. Before school, I read the New York Daily News and the Post (over chocolate milk, ridiculously light toast--hot bread, mom called it--and a pre-bus-ride stomachache as reliable as an atomic alarm clock). Newsday was waiting when I returned in the afternoon. I began reading the papers regularly, and then more and more thoroughly, around 1979, at about ten years old or so. In the years before this, I suppose I learned of celebrities' deaths via the television news, or scanning the paper for a Social Studies assignment, or from my pee-wee pals dropping overheard current events into the shrill schoolyard palaver.

The first one I can remember is Arthur Treacher in 1975. I don't remember how I heard of it, but it meant something to me because my father had met him while overseas in the service. This fact would be mentioned by my mom whenever we drove past Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips on Hicksville Road. When Treacher died, I wondered if the restaurant would close now that he wasn't there to run it.

The first obituary I can specifically recall reading (or, more accurately, looking at) was that of Anissa Jones, Family Affair's Buffy, August 8, 1976. The show was still syndicated, airing in the wee hours, and I watched it on those occasions when I crawled out of bed predawn in anticipation of a marathon of cartoons. I doubt I understood the idea of an overdose, but the part I really couldn't wrap my head around was her age. Sixteen? But she's littler than me! The obit had a picture of a girl who sure did look like a teen version of Buffy. I figured it had something to do with how her TV brother Jody also looked older on Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.

Last photo.

1977. I knew Peter Finch was from some big movie, but mainly knew him from dying. Burt Mustin, an old, old character actor that I knew well from his many appearances on my favorite sitcoms, inevitably succumbed at last, two weeks after Finch.

Gone thirty years, but on TV every day.

That very next day, the world of my evening viewing was further decimated by the suicide of Freddy Prinze. That one really puzzled me. I thought maybe I didn't understand what the word 'suicide' meant---Chico always seemed so happy. But there was no mistaking the meaning of putting a gun to your head and shooting it, like, on purpose.

I'm not sure how I knew of Diana Hyland, as she wasn't very famous. Of course I knew John Travolta (and Vinnie Barbarino even better), so I guess I knew she was his real-life girlfriend. In any case, two months after Prinze taught me of suicide, she introduced me to cancer, another mysterious fiend whose name must be spoken in whispers.

That summer, Elvis was laid out on the cover of the National Enquirer, his unmistakable profile serenely peeking out of his coffin. He was almost certainly the first dead person I'd ever seen. I was eight. He was already so unreal to me in life that it was mainly the spectacle surrounding his demise that made an impression, with no thought given to the death of the man. A living legend slips easily into death, an irony barely recognized and yet, I think, not lost on me. By simply not ending, life only erodes the veneer. So while others lamented his absurdly abbreviated life, to me it sort of made perfect sense.

The wax replica is displayed.

Far more affecting for me was the death of Groucho Marx, three days later. Shortly before his death, I had gotten a Disney magazine that came free when mom bought detergent or something off a display at Finast, my family's market of choice. It had an article about him, with a picture of Groucho looking thin and queer in his beret. I tried to reconcile that frail Groucho with the lively, grease-painted Groucho of some of my favorite comedies, and furthermore with the expired Groucho of a newspaper headline. (Gummo died four months earlier, a departure which made little impression on me.)

Missed Gummo.

Three days after that (and less than a year after Buffy), Mr. French tipped his derby, making Family Affair viewing bittersweet indeed...

That fall, Bing Crosby went, but left one last Christmas special which I remember dispiritedly watching. Then Guy Lombardo went, and now, too, New Year’s Eve would be a whit bluer. Then Chaplin on Christmas Day? The legends fell resoundingly, like Sitka spruces in decay.

1978. The sun last sets on Robert Shaw, a favorite from Jaws and in particular Swashbuckler (a now-forgotten movie which I got my mom to take me to twice). Jim Jones took a thousand with him in an event that took years for me to comprehend. Other deaths having an impact, or at least registering: Will Geer, Bob Crane, Totie Fields, Frank Fontaine, Pope John Paul I, Keith Moon, Edgar Bergen, Norman Rockwell.

1979. Jack Soo and Ted Cassidy passed in January, again making their respective sitcoms somber viewing for a time. Darla Hood of The Little Rascals left us in June, and when I learned this I was amazed she had been around so long--she was in black-and-white, after all. Sweet-voiced Minnie Riperton warbled her last in July, and I mournfully played her single. So long to The Duke, Ethel Mertz, Arthur Fiedler, Zeppo and the Tin Man.

1980. All going sweetly thereafter: The Schnozzola, Harry O and Tonto. Mae West, Hitchcock and Sellers. The guy who wrote "The Amityville Horror." Bobby Van. Tex Avery. The Shah. The Colonel. Steve McQueen.(Steve McQueen? How is that possible?) As a die-hard Our Gang fan, I probably felt the passings of Buckwheat and Farina most strongly.

The one that took the longest to sink in came that December. I was overdue for bed when I heard over the radio that John Lennon had been shot. The next morning on the bus I bragged that I learned the breaking news at the adult hour of eleven o’clock, while my little classmates were asleep. Four years later I would read the Rolling Stone issue devoted to the Beatles, learning about Lennon and his life, and I’d cry, feeling the loss for the first time.

The ever-tasteful National Enquirer, 12/30/80.

1981. Good lord, Stymie too? God took all the fat and funny-looking Rascals decades ago, and now He was apparently working his way through the minorities. The Man joined Chico. So did Sadat and Dayan, Bobby Sands and Bob Marley. Bill Haley and Harry Chapin (not far away on the Long Island Expressway, no less).

Together again, 11/25/81.

By the time Belushi speedballed from the mortal coil in March of ’82, I guess the strangeness of watching famous people expire had sort of worn off. There would later be deaths that startled me--River Phoenix, Phil Hartman, Chris Farley spring to mind—but now when I hear of another loss, I just get that tiny tinge of sadness that defies description. Is there genuine grief there? Who is it for?

As a child, when I saw my parents react to the deaths of their own icons, many of whom I didn’t know, I always thought the same thing: They’re getting older. They’re getting older and the people they’ve watched and listened to and read about, their contemporaries, are dying. I wondered what they felt. Now I watch my contemporaries die, and it’s no longer murders and suicides and accidents and dammit-they-were-too-young, it’s cancer and just plain wearing out and oh-well-it-was-their-time, and now I realize that maybe my parents didn’t exactly know what they were feeling either.

I do know that Anna Nicole Smith was a mess, and her life was rife for jokes, and I loathed and disparaged her every time I saw that show of hers, and when I saw that she had died, I know that I was sad.

Happy Blue Monday!

2007-01-22T08:27:00.000-05:00

It seems only appropriate that my first post of 2007 should commemorate "Blue Monday," an appellation given this day by some British guy who claims that various factors make it the glummest of the year. While I might ordinarily argue that this is barely worth noting, given the photo-finish closeness of the 364 runners-up, instead I say let us embrace this crappy day and then get on with our lives. So turn that smile upside-down for a while, and follow one (or preferably all, if you have the time) of these spirit-lowering tips:

Listen to some Nick Drake (the later the better). Also the songs "Gloomy Sunday" by whomever (Costello's version being my choice, natch) and "When You're Alone" from the Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol soundtrack.

Make some boilermakers with the cheapest whiskey you can find, but substitute Nyquil for beer.

Go to a park and feed all your Prozac to the pigeons. Sigh heavily as they die at your feet.

Watch that douchebag on Fox "News" whose hair is the same color as his awful face. Jesus, he's miserable.

Rent Ponette, the saddest movie I've ever seen (or if too much subtitle reading takes the edge off your drunken sorrow, Ordinary People--oh, those poor sad rich white folks!).

Get on a bus and make eye contact with the most pitiful specimen you can find, thereby guaranteeing a soul-deflating conversation. (I hope I don't really have to clarify this, but this only applies to transit buses, not school buses--that will just get you arrested, and that's probably more depression than you need.)

Look at a picture of George Bush for an hour. Sure, you'll giggle at first--look at him!--but soon you'll start to really think about him and how he is inexorably involved in your life and will be even after he's out of office. You will be sobbing like a gassy baby in no time.

And of course, the number one woe-inducing activity of all: go to work. Today, be sure to do the eye-contact thing with every co-worker you normally avoid.

Tell me, what do you do when you feel like being sad? Remember, Rosey Grier says it's okay to cry (although he said it while strumming a guitar and wearing a turtleneck sweater, so it was actually harder not to laugh...)