Great Halloween Costume Ideas... for 2010!

I had a notion to jump way ahead in my efforts to wish everyone a Happy New Year – eleven months to be exact. In a way, just planning a new year's eve party by itself is the epitome of living for the moment. There's a whole year still sitting there, that could use a little long-term thinking. We didn't do much of that in 2009, and look where it got us. So let's rattle some cages and set an itinerary for the NEXT holiday season, beginning with everyone's fave dress-up day!

Nowadays mostly grown-ups do Halloween, while the kids stay home and Wii. In that light, I'd like to offer – a year in advance – a few costume ideas for young-at-heart Halloween adventurers. Stunningly original outfits that are sure to be real attention-getters around any neighborhood. Enjoy.

10. AN ANNOYING NEIGHBOR WITH A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT

Old jeans. Tank-top. Flip-flops. Lots of bling. And before wearing it, store your costume in a misty cuspidor for that aroma of chain-smoker goodness.

Insist on giving that four-part tribal handshake that nobody can do right, to whomever answers the doorbell, with a loud "Awwwrriiggghhhhhh!" Don't ask, but DEMAND several helpings of candy. Complain about their yard, and how much better it would look if they took care of it as well as you do your own. Remind them how crappy everything they own is, compared to yours. Then ask if you can come back later for whatever candy is left.

9. A SACK OF MONKEY CRAP

Find a cheap gorilla mask. Create the body of the costume out of an old burlap bag – smudged liberally with spots of brown paint. Carry a concealed baggy with actual poop (horse, dog, any species of feces will do) to provide the olfactory element.

PERSON AT DOOR: "Holeeee shit, what's that smell!"
YOU: "It's me, I'm a sack of monkey crap! Give me some candy or I won't leave!"

8. A FAST-FOOD DRIVE-THRU

Fashion a body-sized cardboard box with two eyeholes, plus make your candy receptical out of an old fast-food bag of your choice.

When the door is opened, do a quick 'static' sound effect and say "ticcchhh-er-tee." When they ask you to repeat, say again "tigggcchhh-errr-teeee."

7. AN EMO ON THE REBOUND

Color your hair and nails black. Wear black lipstick and go way over the top with mascara, blush and eye-liner. Wear lots of purple, green and BLACK. Conceal a few chops of onion about your person, to help you stay teary and sniffly, and also to give yourself the air of someone who sleeps in their car frequently. Bring along some pre-crumpled sheets of binder paper, that your 14-year old niece has covered with bad teen poetry. When the door is opened, start reciting.

Then ask the person at the door if your poetry is worth all the candy in the bowl. As they slam the door in your face, scream "WHY WON'T YOU ACCEPT MY LOVE??"

6. AN iPHONE

Scan your iPhone's front on a copier, then blow it up until you have a costume-sized picture of an iPhone that you can wear! When knocking on doors, instead of holding out a bag, present a 70-page itemized bill for all the candy.

5. AN OPEN MIC NIGHT GEEK

Go for big laughs with jokes that would get a poker-face from even a sugared-up 3rd grader. When the people at the door don't laugh, flip them off. Tell them how long it took you to come up with your material. Hold your bag out for a chance at "sympathy candy."

4. A URINE SAMPLE

Cut leg holes in a huge industrial-strength plastic bag. Tape the leg holes water-tight to your thighs. Tie off the top after filling it with lemonade. Make a cap out of Saran-wrap and a rubber band. Paste a label to your chest, hand lettered: "Herpes Simplex III" or simply "Bladder Infection."

3. KANYE WEST

The minimum you need are expensive sunglasses and a hand-held microphone. When another trick-or-treater rings the doorbell, jump in front of them, and burst into a loud, improvised rap about how bad their costume is. Swat away any candy tossed at their bag. Then show up later at the same door, ring the bell, and apologize for your earlier behavior – call the trick-or-treater you had abused a true artist, an unheralded genius.

2. MIDDLE MANAGEMENT

Dress like a JCPenny closeout sale exploded on you. Hold an empty coffee cup as if there is still one more lukewarm sip left. Nod your head at everything said to you with a vacant 10-mile stare. Call out obvious single-word proclamations as if they were life-affirming mantras. Example: "Candy... ... ... awesome." High-five the person at the door. Tell them what great work they're doing. Take a fist full of Mini-Snickers bars and powerwalk to the next house.

1. YOUR PARENT OF THE OPPOSITE GENDER

If you're a guy, go in drag as your own Mom. A girl, go as your own Dad – even paint in facial hair if necessary. Explain to those at each and every house you visit, that you are dressed as your parent of the opposite gender. You will get all the candy immediately. The door will slam. The porchlight will go out. Nobody civil wants to interact with your level of sandblasted nutjob.

A letter from Kris

Dear Giftee... Dear person who has been "good" all year... tch.

I thought I would break tradition and send a letter to YOU for a change.

It's about time you knew a few things, foremost among them how Santa, yours truly, is getting a little green around the gills at being taken for granted lately.

Oh, I've always had that little complaint, but in the past few years it has really started to bug me, and now I need to get something off my chest. And I need you to sit there for a few minutes and just listen. Can you do that? Listen? It means to put down your damn "networking" gadget, take your mouth out of fifth gear and pay attention, in case you've forgotten. Don't worry, I'll be finished before your ADD kicks in and you're back sending photos of that Fiesta Taco Salad you had for lunch to your 11,000 Facebook friends.

Pause for just a second, and mentally list all the wonderful things you look forward to every year, at the Holiday Season. No, I don't give an elf's ass what religion you officially hate and feel an urge to remind everyone of it. I just mean whatever it is you like doing around this time of year; partying, shopping, hanging out with your family, the break from work, what-the-hell-ever.

You know what I have to look forward to? Can you imagine what a high-velocity cork of reindeer shit coming right at you is like? Think of a baseball pitching machine, set on "high-fast," shooting reindeer turds. Now imagine riding behind EIGHT of them.

I kid you not. You know what kind of metabolism a flying reindeer has? You realize how much a flying reindeer needs to eat? And how efficiently its body processes a pastey mixture of grain, grass and molasses??

Let me just say that by the time I'm just over the Pacific Northwest I'm ready to hurl. And the last thing I want to see when I get inside a house, is a big glass of room-tempurature milk, and a plate of stale snickerdoodles. I'm gagging right now just thinking about it.

It's a wonder I can sneak in and out the way I do, the smell alone must give me away for half a damn block.

And your gift lists... oh-gawd-take-me-now.

Why do you even bother. The Black Friday sales KO'd me a long, loooong time ago. Don't get me wrong, I so so sooo don't mind you taking some work off my back – ever wondered how hard it is to get a 67" flatscreen down a chimney? Oh, I can if I have to, sure. Yes, I'm magic and all that shit, but back when I got my magic, most people were whittling D-I-Y flutes and fiddles, and making mammy-jammy with their third cousins for entertainment.

The magic bag wasn't so heavy, then.

Yoohoo. Over here. No, let it ring. They'll call back if it's important. Or if it's irrelevant.

Just a moment more, then I'll let you get back to what ever it is you "do."

It occurs to me that you, and pretty much everyone else now, has come to take the Holidays as a time to "emo" out. To talk yourselves blue about "peace and joy," then turn the volume knob of your "belief system issues" up to ten.

Yes, I understand, traditions get old. And your parents came from a repressed generation of outdated notions and crappy music. And you're into something way better. On all fronts. Yay.

Let me tell you something. I came from the era when people died at 25 from things like a rotten peach or an infected pimple. In other words, Santa don't sweat the Spaghetti Monster, OK? You live in the age of electric blankets, automatic climate control, designer coffee and pre-bagged salad – that's why you have all this free time to be "Sky Wolf, the Enlightened One" and burn scented candles while you Wii.

Is that pink clamshell on your belt really a phone? Yeah, go ahead, grab it. Connect with your posse.

I'll just sit here and wonder why.

Wrong number? Oh, sorry. I know how much you love having that thing grafted to your ear, especially when you're doing something that requires your complete attention, like driving.

And you call ME a fairy-tale. To be honest, you're becoming pretty hard to believe in, too.

In closing... yes, it won't be long now. First I apologize for being allll-like yoo-know, harsh wid yo ass, know-whut-I'm-sayin? I was simply trying to air out a few things, not dump on your Merry. The Season really is what you make of it. I just get a little ticked when I see people who can only feel like they win by making other people lose.

Disagreeing with you doesn't make someone your target. And some people still derive inner peace, hope, strength – all that "old age" stuff, from embracing tradition. Complain to your spirit guide; maybe he/she/it/both/all-three will s'plain it to you.

Being as I'm usually a harmless passé symbol of Holiday gift-giving, and mainly just an overused presence in advertising and on greeting cards now, I assumed I could rattle off a few grievances without dousing your mood too much. Thanks for holding your breath.

Santa Claus

P.S. That's "Claus," not "Clause." I'm not an addendum to a legal contract.

A quick plug for my other blog!

You can read my movie articles, like the one below, without wading through my other random silliness, at "Laughter Wax," my classic comedy blog. Just click the title above.

Chaplin's "Limelight" – A Critical Appreciation (including the Keaton scenes)

With his Little Tramp long gone, Sir Charles Chaplin – one of the forefathers of modern screen comedy and perhaps the most important single screen presence in the history of early cinema – makes his final film, and some might say, life statement.

The scripted plot of "Limelight" (1952) may be summed up as a May-December love story set in the by-gone world where Chaplin began his career as a child performer, the British Music Hall. The story between the lines, however, is a revealing glimpse into the mind of the artist as an old man – and his final attempt to re-invent himself.

Chaplin creates a complex, if somewhat trite persona in Calvero, an aging stage clown who saves a young ballerina – Claire Bloom – from suicide, and nurses her back from a near career-ending paralysis. Their relationship as mentor-and-mentored becomes strained as he falls in love with her – and she of course never realizes it, until it's past too-late.

If it all sounds familiar, it is. Like the Tramp had done numerous times, and even the lowly barber masquerading as demagogue in "The Great Dictator" (1940), Chaplin's Calvero willingly lays everything on the altar of righteous sacrifice for the sake of an ideal.

It is a window with only an inward view. Chaplin seems to relish his own sage presence. In his sound films he never fails to gift himself with a younger – or at least naive – protégé upon whom to inflict long-winded monologues about the real Chaplin's off-camera worldview. In the silent days, interestingly, it was usually the Tramp who "discovered" these political revelations on his heroically innocent journeys.

In this rightly named finalé to his screen career, Chaplin's performance is visibly calculated. He has nothing left to prove, given his already well ensconced status in film history, and knows it. "Of course I'm brilliant," he exudes in each episodic scene, though this is not to deny the scope or formidable quality of what he offers throughout the picture. That white-haired elder statesman is still "Charlie" somewhere inside, and it shows, despite his obvious struggle to step out of the immense shadow of the Little Tramp.

For those familiar only with the Tramp, his performance here may strike a surreal chord. "Limelight" is arguably his most "talkative" talkie, and Chaplin's character is awash, nay, glowing in self-importance, even when down on his luck. The Tramp would've found this utterly incomprehensible, possibly immoral.

Chaplin was the last great silent era filmmaker to cross over to sound; a maverick holdout against the talkies. They were a blasphemy to him. And only Chaplin could have held out for as long, before finally relenting to the age of the microphone. His "Modern Times" (1936) is in fact, considered the very movie that officially closed the American cinema's silent era. Like his earlier silent masterpiece "City Lights" (1931), it was completed and exhibited well after theaters equipped for sound had become dominant.

The "Limelight" soundtrack boasts surprises on many levels. Chaplin doesn't just speak for novelty's sake, but displays a casual expertise with dialogue, and in a scene or two, a handsomely robust singing voice. The music hall boy still lurked inside him.

The mind reels so slightly for an instant: Chaplin's voice...!

As if he'd never spoken on film before, in each of Chaplin's "soundies," his voice seems to mesmerize. The ear hangs on his every word, seeking to capture it, like a rare bird. Charlie Chaplin's presence on any soundtrack is a somewhat mystical experience. Like witnessing the fleeting passage of a wraith across a dark hallway.

But with some of Chaplin's speaking roles, he'd misjudged its value. In "The Great Dictator," Chaplin's bromide-heavy speech for universal solidarity, in the final reel, is a single flaw in an otherwise peerless black satire of Hitler. On the other hand, in "Monsieur Verdoux" (1947) he definitely released his vocal powers to memorable and even haunting effect. Verdoux, a serial murderer 30 years before that term entered the lexicon, was certainly his greatest, and perhaps most successful, attempt to exorcise the Tramp; the "little fellow's" mirror opposite in every way.

Yes, Charlie Chaplin, playing a serial killer. Intrigued? Rent it!

Instead of waddling off into the sunset, Verdoux marches defiantly to the waiting gallows at dawn, after swallowing a glass of brine, with a hint of dark ecstasy – the Tramp's delicious death rattle: "I always wanted to taste it."

In "Limelight" he portrays a man very much dependent upon his voice. Calvero is a song & dance comedian. Up until his sound films, Chaplin spent four decades perfecting the caricature of the Little Tramp, living in a visual universe where voice was not only unnecessary but in some cases irrelevant – where those who spoke could only mime a stammering jaw-wag that visually stood in for the outpouring of words. The want hardly even occurs to imagine the Tramp's voice. Everything the Tramp ever needed was visual. Though Chaplin may have loosely made the Tramp a template when he manufactured Calvero, he drew an outline only, and replaced the center with a stunning departure from his realm of masterful visual storytelling – a character for whom sound and voice are not just crucial elements, but defining ones.

The Tramp's voice had been heard only once before "The Great Dictator." In "Modern Times" he takes a turn as a singing waiter, and when his crib-noted lyrics fly away during his opening dance, he sings a song of faux-French gibberish. The meaningless yet saucy non-word lyrics served to only further illustrate Chaplin's philosophy that visual presentation was the true focal point. The verbal was garnish, nothing more.

In Kevin Brownlow's incomparable book on the silent era, "The Parade's Gone By" (1976, University Of California Press), he declares that the silent and sound cinemas were more than just opposing sets of expository rules, but were in actuality two entirely different art forms. Charlie Chaplin proved Brownlow's hypothesis, although in ways that were sometimes disappointing – he would never dominate the talkies as he had the silents.

"Limelight" has a contrivance-on-rye flavor. The plot lurches and shuffles around the most obvious corners and twists. The dialogue is stiff and intemperately punctuated, though delivered undeservedly well. Chaplin unwinds his yarn like a teacher reading a storybook to a room of kindergartners; overstuffed even by 1950s standards. And as it is later revealed, all a set-up for one of his self-indulgent manifestos.

Calvero's flea circus act is over-simple, and overlong. It is enigmatic only for being a sanded-down reprise of a rare performance filmed nearly thirty-five years earlier.

During his stay at either the silent Mutual Studios, or First National, Chaplin attempted his first departure from the Little Tramp, with a character almost exactly the Tramp's opposite. "The Flea Circus" (1919), also known as "The Professor," is a freakish little presense in Chaplin's canon – a gift from an alternate universe, never officially released, but restored and viewable within some modern Chaplin documentaries. Chaplin plays a cynical, wrangley sideshow gypsy, dour and grimy, down to a moth eaten longcoat and ragged top-hat. Performing his act in a flophouse, chaos erupts when his flea performers mutiny and quickly infest everything, and everyone, in sight. Chaplin had even created a comic, misanthropic walk for this dour persona – a polar opposite of the Tramp's optimistic waddle. The only commonality was in the film's final shot, where Charlie exits into the sunset (or in this case, moonset) offering one last leg-shake to dislodge one of his insect tormentors.

Technically, "Limelight" is at times a groaner. Sound effects scream out their tinny artificiality. The most glaring sins occur in the theater scenes where the audience is clearly present on the soundtrack only, as evidenced by obvious volume manipulations to raise and lower the applause.

The one moment that earns this movie a permanent place on every cinema buff's shelf occurs in the last reel. And what a moment it is. For Calvero's farewell performance, he enlists an old friend to assist him – an old friend portrayed by none other than real-life old friend, Buster Keaton.

Though they are both slowed by age, the scene is nonetheless historic – their only appearance in a feature together, ever – and cosmic for silent comedy aficionados. Rembrandt and Di Vinci share a tea break.

Keaton's first line is so pregnant, it's hard to imagine the two men were unaware of its significance: "Well who'd have thought we'd come to THIS."

Buster's line delivery looks and sounds earnest to a fault – the still-present stage method from Vaudeville, and a main gripe among critics of Keaton's sound film work. Chaplin, meanwhile, remains aloof and catlike; an almost subconscious betrayal of his defenses being triggered by Keaton's close proximity, perhaps? Or was he simply Calvero, as his own script dictated?

Word spread that Chaplin was curt with Buster during filming, but this seems to be mere rumor. Other historical sources have revealed a few basic facts that outweigh the claptrap. Chaplin adamantly barred people he didn't like from his sets, therefore, he and Keaton were obviously on good terms. Some sources claim he personally requested Keaton – which seems most likely; rather than a cartoonish scenario of Buster Keaton answering a blind casting call for a Charlie Chaplin film.

Neither can we overlook the photographic evidence: still shots exist of Charlie and Buster working out the choreography of the scene, between takes! These details seem to dismiss any gossip of on-set tension between the two.

It's difficult to imagine Buster being hostile toward anyone on-set – if anything, he may have tried too hard to be helpful, to a point that perhaps annoyed Chaplin.

In the production of his last film, "The Railrodder" (1965), a travelogue shot in Canada, the only thing that apparently got under Buster's skin was his perception of his young director's inability to stage shots properly, in order to be matched up in editing. Keaton could only watch – and occasionally diagram for the youngster how certain on-screen business should fit together – then wander off to shed tears of anguish when his suggestions were overruled.

There exists footage of this, in the behind-the-scenes documentary "Buster Keaton Rides Again" (1965/66). The visage of the Great Stone Face openly weeping is heart-wrenching indeed. Then he sniffs it up... and proceeds to take his mark before the lens and be BUSTER KEATON. A remarkable man, under-appreciated, and used up.

But on the set of "Limelight," there were no such moments of private torment. All was as it should be; Chaplin and Keaton, each the other's only legitimate rival, yet with their private competition settled long ago to a mutual satisfaction. It was a draw. Both were content. Case closed.

They do a comic duet on stage in which Keaton plays the piano while Chaplin takes the violin. Hardly a note is played, as the comedic business involves the attempts of the two "virtuosos" to prepare to play. Chaplin emerges as the dominant performer in the scene, perhaps because he gives himself the majority of the business in the script. Despite the non-balance, this is one – and for some, the only – scene in the whole movie that causes audible laughter.

It is also the scene that displays Chaplin's showman genius in top form – not just in his performance, but his strategic involvement of Keaton, for the "skit" contains a subliminal geography of historical respect and appreciation for his chum.

Chaplin's comedic action is a study in "low" pantomime – consisting of body gags and facial expressions. Keaton's business relies on slapstick and the abuse of props – garnished by Keaton's stone deadpan. Chaplin's half of the scene perspires of the British Music Hall... Keaton's of Vaudeville. It is a testament to Chaplin's cognizance and keen measuring of his fellow silent clown's roots, against his own – and his ability to mesh them together so pleasingly. It might indeed be observed, that from all of Keaton's film roles that he did not self-direct, his best director was possibly Charlie Chaplin!

One bit involves Keaton accidentally stomping on Chaplin's violin, causing the two to briefly share a double-take at the destroyed instrument. No, it isn't the funniest thing ever captured on film, but on the galactic scale of cinematic comedy, Chaplin and Keaton double-taking at the same object has got to rank somewhere just below the Big Bang. Hardcore comedy fans may come away with the moment still looping in their minds, to the point of distraction, perhaps even missing the film's ending because of it.

Did the two men wonder if reality itself would shudder? Probably not. Did they just view it as another job? One wonders.

"Limelight" is an anomaly in Chaplin's cinema catalog for yet another reason. While important for being his last screen appearance, and rare cinematic evidence that he and Keaton shared the same planet, it is also a strange prism of distortion regarding his own theatrical moorings.

At its core "Limelight" is little more than B-movie fodder; an unremarkable work, considering the magnitude of its star. The screen personality whom at his peak was arguably the most famous human being on the globe, takes his final bow with nothing more than a death scene hardly worthy of low-budget melodrama. Calvero suffers a heart attack on stage, and passes away in the wings, watching his young ballerina enjoy the "limelight" of a renewed career.

The film's "fin" is utter cliché. Chaplin ends an incredible forty-year solo with a cough.

A white cloth is draped over his brow. Everyone looks on, including Keaton, probably wondering "oh brother," but playing his role exactly as his old pal requires him to.

Charlie does not amble off toward a horizon of tomorrow's promise, with his lady love, as he had done in "Modern Times." In fact, the final shot of that film may have served as a far more satisfying farewell regarding Chaplin's career.

When the Tramp made his final exit, so too did Charles Chaplin, only he apparently failed to realize it.

Many believed Chaplin lost his edge when he abandoned his derby hatted alter ego, including fellow silent era icon, and longtime Chaplin friend and associate, Mary Pickford. "When Chaplin got rid of the little tramp with the cane, the tramp turned around and killed him," she once said. Over a half-century later, her observation still appears spot-on.

______________________________________________________________________

This article is also located at my blog "Laughter Wax." (Click article title.)

Random Novemberness

This holiday season it's becoming a little disturbing around certain areas of the Monterey Peninsula; retailers so desperate to lure the wealthy and famous into their stores that their inner greedy morons are coming out to play. One client insists on describing their "wonderful, festive decorum" in their ads. Yes, a few people have attempted to explain to them that the word they seek is simply "decor," but their superior determination has prevailed. The best one yet is a local golf course advertising 7-day fairway passes at discount prices... and reminding potential customers in the final line of copy: "You can use the savings to buy your kids some gifts this holiday!" (Unlike last year when your kids had to make due with a card because you had to pay full price to get on the green.)
______________

Some mornings, getting up is the chief accomplishment of the day.

It isn't health care reform, it's health care payment reform.
______________

Edith visited Martha one morning, to discover her making breakfast for her husband, who was not at work, but still in bed sawing a log at eleven o'clock. "He's getting breakfast in bed, the poor dear," Martha said with a smile as she garnished the tray with a single rose in a narrow wine glass.

"Is he sick," asked Edith?

"No," answered Martha, "let me tell you what happened. He was out all night barhopping with his buddies, and came staggering home at 3 a.m. – first thing through the front door, he puked on the floor and made a vomit trail all the way down the hall to the bathroom. Then he tried and failed to get his pants off before he let loose with an explosion of diarrhea. I found him passed out on the toilet, his clothes drenched in vomit and poop... and a huge puddle of stinky pee forming beneath him on the bathroom floor. It took me two hours to mop everything up as best I could... he was too heavy to lift off of the toilet. I just managed to revive him enough to get him cleaned up and in bed an hour ago."

Edith's jaw dropped. "... And you're making him breakfast in bed?? Are you nuts, woman?? If my husband did that, he'd spend the night in the backyard with the dog – if he's lucky! Why, why, why are you doing this??"

Martha sighed happily. "Because... when I went to undress him, he pushed me away and said, 'dream on, lady, I'm married!'"
______________

Remember what an "expert" is: an "ex" is a has-been, a "(s)pert" is a drip in a hurry.

What am I thankful for? I cannot count all my friends, with all my fingers and toes. And that's just the beginning.

Money doesn't make you smart. It does, however, apparently win arguments.

If it weren't for dreams, no one would ever remember being asleep. Waking up and feeling rested or drowsy are merely clues that you've been asleep. Actual sleep is a non-experience... unless a dream is involved.

ANOTHER ONE FOR THE DAMN POETRY CORNER

I sat on the porcelain throne
Pondering adrift and afar
I rose to see what I'd done
A nail, a cork, a cigar

Randomness Or Treat!

A scientist tests a frog to see how far it can jump when frightened. He honks a siren which startles the frog into jumping four feet. He chops off one of the frog's limbs and honks the siren again – the frog only jumps three feet. He chops off another limb and honks the siren – the frog jumps two feet. He chops off a third limb, and the frog jumps a foot away from the honking siren. He chops off the frog's remaining limb and hits the siren. The frog stays put. The scientist writes in his journal: "With all limbs removed, frog becomes deaf."

If beer weren't involved, "Octoberfest" would go completely ignored in America. I have a feeling Cinco De Mayo would fade somewhat, and Independence Day would go the way of the dodo, too.

True story. The other day, a guy sitting next to me at a lunch counter was chatting up his buddies. I missed what preceded the statement, but suddenly he says, "yeah, I always order a Big Mac, hold the secret sauce." Then he chuckles to himself and says, "yeah you never can tell about the secret sauce." Then he takes a swig of coffee and adds, "yeah I stay clear of that secret sauce." A pause. Intentionally not looking, I could still hear his mental gears grinding away as he pondered how to work yet a fourth "secret sauce" comment into the mix. Loud enough for everyone to hear, I order bacon & eggs... "and... you have any secret sauce left?" Everyone else at the counter gets up. They each leave a dollar tip. You decide what it means.

Why don't banana bread and banana sandwiches taste the same? Aren't they both bananas and bread?

One of the things I'd like to do with a time machine is travel backward about 150 years or so, and take along a few common items from the present that would really mess with people's heads in that era... like Piña Colada ice cream... a pair of sunglasses... a Nerf football... a Pampered Chef catalog...

Finding someone reliable isn't the only chore these days, it's finding someone who actually knows how to do whatever it is that you hope they're reliable about.

Ever had one of those days when you think "somewhere there's a wall, calling my forehead."

ONE FOR THE POETRY CORNER:

If your speech leans heavily
toward upward inflection,
it's likely your brain
wouldn't pass inspection.

Septemberandom Memorandum

I'm willing to bet that the professional sector's largest group of functioning cocaine addicts is in the insurance industry.

'Tis better to be seen vertically than viewed horizontally.

The only evidence of life is growth. The only evidence of growth is change.

A tiger may not be able to change its stripes, but if a leopard could rearrange its spots, who'd know? Besides the leopard?

Intelligence is knowing what to do. Smart is knowing when and when not to do it.

Nobody ever slices a donut lengthwise, like they do bagels. Why is that?

There is plenty to write about, it's just not passing through my consciousness at the moment.

A GREAT DUO-MOVIE TITLE:
"What Heaven May Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia"

Would the work of an abstract artist from Indiana be called "Hoosier Dada?"

The Garrulous Spiral

This is a subject I simply cannot play passive about, although in public I generally keep my thoughts to myself. Here I am not as restricted.

More and more lately I've found myself picking my jaw up off the floor, from the increasingly harrowing stupidity my ears have been witness to – and I do not refer to political statements. I mean sheer parachute-free spelunkings into the bottomless cavern of mental absenteeism.

Let me just quote the stand-outs (with my afterthoughts in parenthesis). You be the judge. Keep in mind, all these quotes were made by adults.

It helps to hear the true idiocy at work, if you read them with an upward inflection, y'know??

Heard across a row of pumps at a gas station, on a particularly bright morning.

"Geez, where IS all that sunlight coming from!"

(Uh, that big shiny ball dealy-bob... a couple miles overhead... maybe. Just a guess.)

__________

Heard, unfortunately, at work:

"Yeah, I have this thing in my car that tells me how warm it is."

(That would be the THERMOMETER. I asked the guy who sells cars at the car sale place.)

__________

Heard in a coffee house, between two twenty-something twits, talking over their respective laptop screens:

"Then like, like, you know, the whole, like, issue of, like, the English learning thing."

"Oh God, yeah, like, all, like totally."

(May I point out something: The above conversation, though consisting of English words, is not English. I'm sure there are angels pondering what these two believed they were discussing.)

__________

I'm sorry. In the world I grew up in, adults did not talk like this. In my formative years, there was not usually a shortage of adults who were worth looking up to, in terms of emulating their character, and working to match their level of reasoning and mental maturity.

Should I be scared?

Augustus Randomus

I'm willing to call Coke and Pepsi a tie.

When Denny's redesigns the menu, they think they're fooling you into believing the food's better.

Every so often on the news, you'll catch a glimpse of the anchor-person adjusting something – his tie, his earpiece, etc. Just once I'd like to see Katie Couric straighten the torpedoes... then strike her serious anchor-woman pose. Just once.

Most of Hollywood's great stars of yesteryear could not pass a screen test today.

Don't answer a personals ad that contains, in any way, both the words "fuzz" and "butter." Just don't.

During an interview, Oprah should get up and casually put on a strap-on dildo. Not use it, necessarily, but just wear it. The look on the guest's face. That would be great.

Public farting has only been out of favor for the last 150 years or so. Not that long ago, in the grand scheme of things.

I admire people who have their shit together, I only hope they've washed their hands.

An Afternoon at Forest Lawn with a Few of My Heroes

It took 90 minutes of tramping up and down rows, and finally backtracking over a hill, to the information kiosk, to find Ernie Kovacs.

Someone had placed at his grave a tiny purple bouquet, which I immediately, carelessly, knocked over, then with great apologies re-stuck about where it had been planted. Ernie is in the Court of Remembrance, in the oval lawn in front of the mausoleum. A little red churchhouse and the open countryside are beautifully visible from the gravesite. Ernie's signature hewn right into the stone serves instead of a block lettered stamp-job, and the inscription below reads "Nothing In Moderation, We All Loved Him." We still do.

To Ernie's right are two of his daughters, Mia and Kippie.* I was glad to finally find him. I took a second sojourn inspired by Kovacs; to the intersection where he was killed, the crossing of Santa Monica Boulevard and Beverly Glenn. The power pole array at the corner is still there and it was easy to visualize taking a left turn too sharply on a rainsoaked road and spinning right into them, just like legend has it that Ernie did. Ironically, with today's better built cars it would have been a survivable impact.

Into the mausoleum, one must get past Bette Davis, standing sentinel like a pit bull. "It's going to be a bumpy night."

Inside, one might never find Lucille Ball if you expect something huge and ornate with "BALL" emblazoned upon it. She's in an urn, in a shoebox sized tomb labled "Morton" which is owned by her last husband, comic Gary Morton. Behind a bouquet of (again, purple) blossoms bigger than the grave they marked... there's Lucy.

Across this tiny sunlit chamber, Charles Laughton and George Raft keep Freddie Prinze company.

Driving on toward that little red church mentioned above, one comes to a huge court – the military section – resided over by a giant statue of George Washington, along with other brooding gods of warriors past.

Behind George, against the wall – is Stan Laurel. Sharing the plot with his wife Ida. His plaque says it all. "Master of Comedy." That's the league above any mere "King of – ". Even Chaplin revered him. Stan Laurel forgot more about the art of laugh-getting than most comedians ever know.

Like Lucy, Stan was cremated, so the marker is really just symbolic. Ida's body rests at the marker's foot.

Another good Brit rests near Washington, in front, to his right. Marty Feldman. "Damn your eyes!" "Too late."

But wait, look closer at Washington. He's pointing to something. What could it be? What could our country's father not want me to miss?

I followed his silent command, out to the front lawn of the military court. I kept checking to make sure I was lined up with his stern direction...

There, beyond the small stone wall of the court is... Buster Keaton.

This was the most emotional find in the park. I was taken unexpectedly by my own feelings.

I think (General) Washington pointing RIGHT AT Buster Keaton was what took me over the top.

Below this tiny stone with only a name and a date is a true giant. I stood there several minutes pondering. Someone had placed pennies over the loops of the sixes, as if they were eyes. A "General" golf ball rested on the stone with the word "the" scribbled on it. I actually started misting up at this small, unremarkable headstone – the inconspicuous resting place of the most remarkable man in the entire cemetery. Keep pointing, Mr. President. I got it.

On one afternoon in Hollywood, around 2001, I bought a bottle of all-purpose cleaner and a metal brush. I returned to Buster's grave and polished it up. The bronze caught the sun like it had when brand new. The Sons Of The Desert, the international Laurel & Hardy fan club, had left a pot of daisies for him, for Veteran's Day. I wondered why daisies? I went to get my camera to take a second shot of the tombstone now bright and polished, but my battery was low, and I had to get on the road. Perhaps I'll be back before too long, and take care of unfinished business.

*Since I wrote this article some years ago, Ernie's wife, actress-singer-ingenue Edie Adams has passed on, and joined the family at Forest Lawn.

__________________________________________________________________________

This article is also located at my blog "Laughter Wax." (Click the article title.)

My Uncle and the Statue

Before our narrative begins, it may be helpful to some of you born during or after the 70s, if I summarize who "Festus" was – or more accurately, the actor who portrayed him; Ken Curtis. Curtis was a popular entertainer in the 40s. He began his career as a singer in the Big Band era (as Frank Sinatra's replacement with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra), then went into acting. For a time he was one of John Wayne's cadre of regular supporting players. He was Captain Dickenson in Wayne's version of "The Alamo," and was quite memorable in the Wayne classic "The Searchers," as the guitar strumming savant who vies for the affection of Sara Miles away from Jeffrey Hunter. His greatest ticket to fame was his being cast in the long-running western TV series "Gunsmoke" as Marshall Dillon's wily sidekick and deputy, Festus. He was sort of an old west version of Barney Fife.

"Gunsmoke" had the longest run of any television series up to that time, and Curtis retired when the show finally left the air. He returned to his musical moorings in show business, and formed a trio of folksingers that made limited tours, based in his adopted hometown of Clovis, California.

Which brings us to the crux of our story. The town of Clovis is a bedroom community of Fresno. The California State University of Fresno campus overlaps the two bergs like a giant hinge. Clovis was extremely proud of its bonified TV star resident – THE Ken Curtis. In the early 80s, just after Curtis's death, the Clovis Chamber commissioned a memorial statue of him – it stood right in front of City Hall, like an Old West sentinel. Right from the get-go, there were two main problems with the statue.

First – the artist who created it had leaned toward shlock; the likeness was more cartoonish than reverent, and the statue was painted (holy freekin' crap) to look lifelike, including a peach/beige fleshtone that featured blushing cheeks suspiciously reminiscent of gin blossoms.

Second – the statue was not sculpted from a material suitable for a permanent memorial, like say, granite or marble. It was fiberglass and plaster. Repeat; a statue meant as a long-term landmark – in fiberglass. And plaster. In addition to that little choice judgment, the statue was erected at ground level, rather than upon an elevated pedestal as most statues are, to keep them at least symbolically at bay from potential vandals and pranksters. Big mistake... OH, Big Mistake!!

Now then, the original statue (yes it had to be replaced... but don't jump ahead) was posed with both its hands at Festus's lapels, as if he is happy as hell to welcome you to Clovis City Hall. The gnarly "just consumed an astonishing quantity of beer" grin on the statue's face certainly added a unique enhancement to that intended sentiment.

In short, this was a kitschy mannequin of a grizzled, drunken cowboy with a subliminal hard-on; just the welcomer that I'm sure the local civic leaders reveled in bestowing upon tourists and locals alike. In even more succinct terms, this statue was a piece of fucking shit that embarrassed the whole town.

With that scenario firmly in place, the story now backtracks briefly again, in order to introduce our protagonist; my uncle, the late Johnny L. Rankin.

Uncle Johnny, to be absolutely fair to him, was a fine, upstanding man when he wanted to be. His sense of humor was cosmic in proportions and he was a legendary prankster and walking jokebook. He was one of the earliest influences on my own humor. He also, however, had a certain mean streak that was fueled by a love for drink.

His life had some incredible career highs to counterbalance an ongoing alcoholic low. He served in World War II, and in his younger years both before and after the war, he was a working Country & Western entertainer. He was a Los Angeles area session musician on some of the recordings of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, among other popular acts of the day. He played with the band of Dave Dudley, who recorded the great trucker classic, "Six Days On The Road." (According to legend, Johnny once got pissed and threw Dave off the stage mid-song – guitar and all – into the audience. Both were shitfaced, of course. Dave wasn't hurt, but Johnny had to buy his destroyed guitar.) He performed solo in nightclubs under the stagename Johnny Lee. (No relation to the later C&W star Johnny Lee.) He also hosted, and performed on, the last live C&W radio show in southern California, broadcasting from a station in Long Beach. After his music career faded, he went into semi-tractor maintenance and was rated as one of the top semi-truck trouble-shooters in the country by Popular Mechanics magazine in the 1960s. So, as I relate this sordid tale of my uncle's mischief, I also want this document to serve as a tribute to him – for the sake of Uncle Johnny's memory, not to mention other family members who may stumble upon this – to keep his bright side reflected as well as his dark. The short description of Uncle John might be: Imagine a countrified, beer-bellied Jack Nicholson. Now back to our story...

At the time of the Festus statue's unveiling, Uncle Johnny was also living and working in the Fresno-Clovis area, as a mechanic. He was also a devoted "Gunsmoke" viewer and so made it a point to be present for the statue's debut. His first look at the Festus memorial apparently stoked a flame of indignation. Driven perhaps by rabid fan vengeance, a good portion of alcohol-lubricated prankster angst and even a touch of civicism (read: "Not in my town, gawdammit,") Uncle Johnny lagged behind after the ceremony and staked out City Hall!

He sat in his truck, chain-smoking cigarettes and probably making intermittent trips to surrounding Quikky-Marts for empowering beverage, until the early morning hours. Sometime before dawn, he got out and removed a "clubbing" instrument from his truck's flatbed toolchest. A ballbat? A crowbar? A sledge? The exact identity of the object is lost to antiquity. He then proceeded to walk over to the Festus statue and slam the fucker off at the knees!!

The statue's unveiling ceremony had been covered on the local evening TV news. The very next day's morning news opened with "Tragedy at Clovis City Hall!" with a shot of two fiberglass blue-jeaned legs standing minus a torso. The statue had stood intact less than 12 hours. The final fate of the thighs-up portion of Festus remains unknown to this day. Uncle John took that secret to the grave with him.

Festus, however, returned in the form of a second statue (see photo at top) almost as ghoulish as the first, only in a new, somewhat more dignified pose. And oh yes, now he is protected (?) by a short metal railing (the one reworking that Uncle Johnny's attack had brought about). The statue has since been moved across the street, to stand guard near the entrance to a bank, but it is still at ground level, though... proving that the Clovis City Commissars still managed to hold onto part of their original vision.

Ode To A Warhorse

I did not test drive it, but a nearly identical bright red one. One that had already been sold to someone else, but not yet delivered. With another person's car, once out of eyeshot of the dealership, I floored it, slammed on the brakes, spun the wheel and left ruts. Blasted across railroad tracks in a fashion that made audible contact with the undercarriage. Then after arriving back at the lot, pointed to another car and said "I'll take it."

I passed the dealership a week later and saw the abused red vehicle still on the block, with a sign that proclaimed "Marked Down!" I suppose the former buyer had a change of heart. I wonder why?

There were a few scars on its résumé. A previous rental, it already bore a few bruises and bumps from serving nameless under-the-radar pilots for the first thousand miles of its life. The AM radio was merely a grumbling hiss. The turn signal sometimes chose to take a nap. The dashboard service warning lights refused to cooperate. Souvenirs from battle. I had a few myself, and empathized.

My relationship with the creature was uneventful until we moved to Los Angeles together. Packed to its windows with what mostly became fodder months later, it handled the Grapevine like a barebacked philly. It took on the L.A. snarl with gusto, and hardly a complaint. It sat in miles-long freeway backups merrily playing soft rock ballads to me. It maneuvered around clueless ten-thumbed fish-tailers like a two-ton, four-wheeled gymnast.

I got the feeling that the beast loved touring Magnolia.

We courted potential playmates, gave lifts to important industry insiders, and journeyed to auditions together. Ever faithful was the career support offered by my adopted metal partner.

It slept in a funky underground garage with strangers night after night, and still greeted each morning with a confident roar.

When our luck changed in LaLa-Land, we hightailed it north together. It took the endless grey ribbon in stride, and willingly hung out in rest stops and along side roads. Never a cough. Nor a gurgle.

In Washington it again commuted me to and fro – waited long-suffering in cold parking lots, and at icy curbs. Little did I know it was hiding a worsening war wound.

Still, when time came to sojourn south again, it mastered the road with a secret limp that was never revealed – with no whine, no grimace.

It got up to a 90-mile-an-hour gallop past Mt. Shasta on a rain-slicked highway in the lone, moonlit night. It kept a game face as I released a torrent of stomach flu debris at its dashboard, and kept going.

Back in California, it bore me to odd jobs, on apartment hunts, and a four-hour trip to Fresno to visit family.

Finally, it could bare the burden no longer, and released its feeble grip on its brakes one morning on the way to work. It hobbled on its emergency brake, to the repair shop.

Once well again, we picked up the journey anew. The hills of San Francisco. The mind-numbing circular thinking of the San Jose spaghetti wad. The maddening stop-and-go of Santa Cruz. We sampled it all again.

It went unwashed for weeks at a time. Got service sporadically. And made yet another four-hour trip to visit family with its exhausted tires deteriorating into black mush.

Finally the years were taking their toll. One morning the key was turned and all that would emanate from that battle-weary throat was... silence. Many mechanics explored the inner workings, in attempts to revive the oily soul – and for brief moments, they were able to raise it from the dead. There was no heart in me to use a bullet.

At last a Dr. Frankenstein was called in to administer electrical voodoo. The monster rose to animation, artificially resuscitated and responsive via a patchwork, primitive rewiring of its dead brain.

Its final task, after nine years of adventure, was to ferry me on a search for a replacement. The end chapter is now, as the loyal zombie waits to be pulled away, to serve a charity – marching on aimlessly toward a fate unknown, but in the name of yet another noble purpose.

July, Random July

I have no problem with someone being richer than me. It's when that person has an obsessive need to keep reminding me of it, that's when we have problems.

The Ark was built by an amateur, the Titanic by professionals.

The "Big 3" network newscasts are in trouble, ratings-wise. Katie Couric seems to be the "bottom" no matter how you juggle the numbers. That's a public ménage à trois scooting closer to the gutter with each thrust.

Ronald Reagan was right about one thing: an intergalactic invasion just might be what the world needs to eliminate a whole slew of problems.

Hey kids, the big secret is that grownups are just guessing at life too.

I often wonder what plans Lee Harvey Oswald had for the weekend before he got the big phone call.

I've had a sad feeling, that we've entered a strange era in America – where all the bullshit that used to just happen peripherally, which our parents handled, now has taken center-stage, and has become modern life's main struggle to the average adult, on top of all the "normal" hardships. We've allowed the demagogues, money-changers, politico-paths and talking heads to strip the land of its ability to support the needs and desires of the common man, turn it into a giant bureaucratic colander that drains away the human spirit to achieve, and leaves only a bulk of manufactured dependency. A place where neither science nor religion retain any genuine influence, as both are simply manipulated to shore up the agenda of those in power. I've always held the belief – and still do – that science and religion are not adversaries. As we grow and come to understand both fuller, we will discover, I believe, that they are just two different languages, telling the same story. Science represents mankind's collective desire to understand his place in the universe, and religion is the expression of his deeper consciousness to appreciate it. We've abandoned both, and set the two concepts at odds with each other, just as we have turned upon ourselves from within. Everyone is a self-contained center of a personal universe – oblivious to the searchable truths of science and the self-evident insights of religious morality. We've become our own zombie plague. And now that you are cheered up...

Popping a really big pimple sort of brings on a feeling of conquest.

Tanya Roberts played the title role in "Sheena," and was a Bond girl. In her vacation-shilling radio ads for Las Vegas, she sounds like a chubby New Jersey housewife working from home part-time as a travel agent.

I stopped having a mental "Top 10 Babes" list when I realized that half of mine were by now senior citizens... or dead.

Reality check: More people are on to your bullshit than you realize. They're just being nice.

Howling at the moon doesn't make you spiritual, it makes you predictable. Think about it.

The most complicated version of Coca-Cola: Caffeine-free, diet black cherry-n-vanilla Coke Zero, with Splenda. No, that can't be it. I'll try again later.

Dreams of Dead Celebrities and a Few Not-Dead-Yet Ones

In a most vivid dream, I once had a conversation with John Wayne, one of my personal cinema heroes. In a way most peculiar, at the beginning of our chat, The Duke was young, trim and seemingly sculpted as if by Michelangelo – tall, lean and confident, the gunslinger in all those sepia-toned Republic Studios westerns of the 30s. By the time we were saying our so-longs a short while later, I was looking at the grizzled, salt-n-pepper stubbled Oscar winner of "True Grit."

The ageless advice he left me, about pursuing a career of my own in the movie business: "Pay yer dime, n' take yer chance."

I think I'm still paying my dime, many years later. The "take yer chance" part, I am learning, is ongoing.

CHUCK BERRY

At the other end of the spectrum, was a more recent dream in which the iconic rock-n-roller Chuck Berry was inflicted upon me. This was a strange one, especially in the wake of Michael Jackson's untimely demise. In the dream I was employed as a caricaturist at some kind of media event – an occupation I do have in real life, so that part wasn't strange at all. The high weirdness began when Berry showed up to entertain the crowd.

Like Wayne in the earlier dream, Chuck was young, slick and full of whatever it was that made him him, back in the day. Even his suit and slacks seemed lacquered with a layer of Vaseline – he was a hit from the moment he stepped through the door. His guitar in great evidence, he Berry-danced his way through the crowd, playing... something.

It sounded terrible, as if filtered through a tin can on a string. If that was "Mabeline," she needed a fresh coat of Clinique.

Yet the folks seemed really into him, clapping and rocking along, despite this technical shortfall. He casually improvised a few extra riffs, and approached me. Someone – I presume the person in charge of the "event" – whispered in my ear at this point, that Chuck had heard what an accomplished caricaturist I was, and wanted a drawing of himself. Fantastic. I extended my hand and motioned for Chuck to take a seat. He set his guitar down, sat, smiled, and without pause, blew a gooey explosion of grayish yellow snot all over me.

No "excuse me." No pause of astonishment. Nothing. I was so startled by this that I woke up.

Did this dream contain some cosmic parcel of wisdom, as the John Wayne dream had? If so, I'm still pondering.

MOE HOWARD

Why Moe? I have no idea. I only know that I had an incredibly strange and hilarious afternoon one deep, sleepy night, in the company of the "cruel stooge."

The fact that I actually interviewed The Firesign Theater not long ago for a feature newspaper article may have something to do with this dream, as I found myself sent to get an interview with Moe. (Not to compare the Firesigners to the Stooges – such a pairing would be like taste-testing champagne against root beer.) All the obvious questions raced through my head: Where were the other stooges? And aren't they all long dead? But none of that mattered as I finally found Moe walking along a busy city sidewalk. Bowl haircut and all.

I caught up to him, and he seemed to be expecting me – he slowed somewhat so that I could match his pace, though he wouldn't actually stop walking. "Whatta you wanna know, chucklehead" he asked?

I asked if there were somewhere we could go to chat with a little more privacy, and he led me to a nearby synagog. This is a dream, remember.

For some reason, he believed we had to sneak in. We found a slim opening in a hedge that surrounded the building, and crawled through. We arrived at a back door, and paused on a stoop to chat.

I asked Moe a question that immediately seemed to draw out his smoldering homicidal ire. "Weren't there some later films in which Joe Besser's scenes were interlaced with older footage of Curly – a sort of recycling of the originals?" Moe stared at the ground with a glazed-eyed countenance that silently shouted his contemplation of exactly what manner of physical assault to launch at me.

His fist trembled as he channeled the nuclear stooge-force, preparing to bury his whitening knuckles past my stomach, into my liver. I had obviously crossed a line. How could I have known how sensitive Moe was concerning the cinematic pillaging of Curly's comedic canon.

Just as I attempted to steer the interview into a dialogue on Shemp, Moe suddenly allowed his fury to subside, and became wide-eyed with a bubbly joy. Somewhere inside the building – violins! "Listen!"

We entered, to discover a group of young boys delivering a violin recital to a large church audience. Moe became ecstatic! "I love this!" Suddenly he bolted to a nearby piano and began a stooge-like attempt to provide accompaniment to the violinists. I got a sudden urge to flee as I witnessed a group of thuggish rectors advancing up the aisle.

We both booked out of there just as Moe pounded out a ham-fisted final thrush upon the keyboard!

I don't know how, but Moe got ahead of me in the chase. We wound up hiding in the bushes around the synagog, with the choir thugs hunting for us. Moe peered out to check if the coast was clear, and saw a Rabbi craning his neck to locate us. "How duh-ya like this," Moe muttered, "to think I have to sneak around a Jew!"

This is just a dream. And keep in mind, Moe Howard was Jewish, as were his brothers, Shemp and Curly... and though not related, Larry Fine's real name was Fineberg. I was just along for the ride here.

Somehow we escaped the baying hounds of the synagog search party, and were then back out on the street. I stood at the curb, but Moe had disappeared. I turned a 360-circle looking to see where he'd gone. I spotted him across the street – disguised as a catholic priest. He waved at me. "This'll fool 'em!"

He then produced a huge cardboard sign and held it aloft, to the bustling street full of motorists and pedestrians, his cock-browed stoogey grin beaming. The sign proclaimed in a hurried scrawl: "FUCK YOU!"

"Moe," I yelled, "I have nothing against religious people, in fact, I am one myself!"

He then ran past an oncoming bus, across the street, and gave me a loud fwappy slap in the face. "That's the spirit, puddin' head!!"

Awake!

I have sat in silent amazement at this dream, and still wonder exactly what I am supposed to decipher. Another coffee refill, please.

June Is Busting Out At Random

Little kids running and screaming make me want to, too!

If everything were really your fault, you'd go to the electric chair. If nothing were ever your fault, you'd be really boring.

If you think life should have no rules, hold your dinner out so I can take a few bites of it while I pee on your leg. You say I can't do that? Hey, you just made a rule!

Muffins aren't so great. Just the tops.

NONE of the people using laptop computers in that coffeehouse are using them to solve problems. Eighty percent of all cellphones are being used for pointless brain-free yack-yack – thirteen percent are being used to close semi-illegal business transactions, and the rest are being used by terrorists to remotely detonate explosive devices.

Psychos work in distracted collusion. The sane are alone.

Someone who deserves to be looked up on the Internet, but is inexplicably now missing from all of humanity: Daton. One name... like Madonna and Cher. Daton was a surprisingly engaging lounge singer, whose style was bright, plucky and vaguely Sinatra-like for the first song or two, but never changed from song to song... so it slowly but steadily drained down to tedium by the second-set medly, and turned into a handcart ride to Hell by his closing number. He was a mail carrier or sump-pump repairman by day, who got his "fifteen minutes" in the mid-or-late 1970s when some exec at a mail-order LP company discovered him, and actually allowed him to record a "best of" album. (Hint: there were NO preceding albums from which to glean any "bests.") The Daton album was sold on TV, a 2-record set, as I recall. They correctly surmised that nobody would want a follow-up record, so they put everything on the first. "Gum fly with me, gum fly, lesss fly awaeeeeeeeeeeeee..." It deserves to be on CD, if anyone can locate it. Yes, it's DATON!!!

Tony Bennett sings like he just finished an entire 3-foot long hero sandwich. Robert Goulet sang like he was smoking a cigar through the recording. Bing Crosby sang like he was getting a blowjob. Maybe he was, a few times.

A new beginning doesn't suggest a new attitude, but demands it!

Another thing about people who believe the whole world is centered upon them: don't let them order pizza for the whole group unless you like pesto AND jack cheese on EVERYTHING.

At Last! May Randomness!

Horses, rabbits, and geese may consume the same grass from the same field, yet the horse's shit comes out in large steaming clumps, the rabbit's shit exits as tiny pellets, and the goose's shit goes forth in long green ribbons. Consider this the next time you hear a newscast offer a segment consisting of "differing opinions" on any given subject.

Love and hate aren't the opposite ends of the spectrum, but passion and indifference.

There are people in government who wish you and I would just shut up, stay indoors and eat our Big Macs like good little drones.

Bill Clinton has done two things that no one else will ever do, at least both in the same lifetime. He's been president. And he's seen Hillary pole dance.

A few ideas of what three wishes to ask your genie:

1. A do-over fourth wish (which, when you think about it, is pointless, since you must use up a wish to wish for it – leaving you with the original three wishes. Hmm.)
2. Immunity to the coming zombie plague
3. A Dennys staff becomes inexplicably competent whenever you enter

1. The ability to produce and hurl flaming porcupines
2. Instant mastery of all dances
3. A standing 30-foot tall pile of cow shit that obeys your every command like the Golem of Prague

1. For the words "... and much, much more" in advertising to actually mean something
2. An epic, $100 million dollar film that begins with a scene of a sheepherder lighting an M-80 firecap in his ass (this one just might come true, have you seen what passes for movies these days?)
3. The first 3-D, smell-o-vision movie: of a movie ending, and a walk through the exit door of the theater, to your car. The title: "Dejavu." Guaranteed you'll be thinking about it for the entire drive home.

And we jump right into April Randomness!

What do JFK's brain and Benny Hill's porn collection have in common? They both had to exist at one time, based on the observation of recorded history, yet neither can be proven to have ever existed, because there is presently no physical evidence.

There is a one-world religion. It's called Facebook.

Facebook is a phenomenal anomaly built around a contradiction; despite so much paranoia that the cyber-culture is becoming too intrusive, destroying our privacy, every waking hour millions of people log on and give away practically every secret they have!

Best Presidential quote in 40 years. Obama, to the banking CEOs: "Gentleman, remember that my administration is the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks."

Fast. Cheap. Good. You can have any two, but whichever two you choose, you'll have to settle for the opposite of the third.

In the uncut version of the 1946 Three Stooges comedy "Uncivil Warbirds," Moe Howard utters the word "ejaculate." And does a scene in blackface.

Another old comedy factoid: Bill Cosby once tried to buy up all the old "Our Gang" films, just so he could excise the characters Buckwheat, Stymie and Farina from the historical cinematic landscape. Now, doesn't that qualify as racist on some level?

As one grows older it becomes easier to smile, and easier to dislike a wider array of things.

Is it possible to be "rested to a frazzle?"

The biggest fallacy we make when we take steps to change our environment, is that we assume we'll be in better control of the new one.

The person who asks "How bad can it be?" is the one that everyone else will hate when "it" is over.

Randomness On The March

It isn't good when your dentist's first words to you are "Don't worry, the room is soundproof."

I wonder if David Copperfield ever feels an urge to pull out an uzi and wipe out the audience when he messes up a trick? After all, they'd tell others.

We are all time travelers, moving into the future at a steady speed of 60 minutes per hour.

Today's rapidly advancing technology allows us to create spaceships that can travel, unmanned, to other planets and send back stunning images of their extraterrestrial surfaces... and to play Halo with a 10-year old kid in Great Britain who beats us using a cheat code, then disconnects after pecking out a misspelled insult about our poor bandwidth and a P.S. to go fuck ourselves.

I'm waiting for the Broadway Musical version of "Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster." You know it's gotta be in someone's head besides mine!

Someone, somewhere, considers us both fucking idiots.

You cannot split infinity, because even if you do, both halves still go on forever in either direction, and the second half still just picks up where the first half left off.

The last cookie, donut, bagel, snack item in the container is the "half-life" one. Who ever comes upon it will break it in two, and eat half... so as not be the person who denies someone else a share. Even if it has been broken in half so many times that it is now a mere nugget. They'll still attempt to leave a portion... Rare is the self-confident individual who sees the last one and takes the whole thing. He or she knows they make more – and if someone comes along wanting one of whatever it was that's now gone, the answer is simple: Go buy another box of the damn things!

I'm beginning to wonder if my ship is being pulled in by a tugboat.

Memorable Auditions IV

YOU COULD HAVE KNOCKED ME DOWN WITH A MONKEY BALL!

There's a phenomena called the Standard Hollywood Epiphany. At least that's what I call it.

It happens elsewhere, to a lesser degree, but never like it does in Star Town. You go about your day, perhaps even following a routine that has remained unchanged for months, years. You run into someone who by odd chance, just happens to cross your path in some mundane, otherwise unremarkable way. And you get a strange feeling that you know that person, as if from a past life – in fact, you know them on some unnameable but nonetheless intimate level.

In Hollywood and its neighboring southern California communities, these sudden run-ins are worth craning your neck for – worth clicking on Google about, as soon as you get home.

Anywhere else, save perhaps New York City, London or Paris, this glancing encounter might be meaningless – your eyes playing tricks. In Los Angeles, it's more likely that you've collided with a celebrity on his or her off-hours.

As abstract as it may sound, you get used to it. It matters not that their last blockbuster was a smash, or only a semi-hit, or even a dud – or if they've been out of the A-list spotlight for some time. And even more strangely, your mind does an instant full circle – from realization, and a mental reference of their résumé, back around to an everyday encounter with a fellow human.

"Mr. Affleck, could I squeeze my cart past yours? I'm after a can of those stewed tomatoes."

The odds of these incidents becoming routine, goes up, when you are on the audition trail. But the dynamic is altered; for within those boundaries you're supposedly a pro, just as they surely are. You might even get to – briefly – talk shop with them.

You get to "hang" in their sphere. A temporary confidant. And in the first few days or weeks of one's foray into this alternate universe called show business, these moments are electrifying – yet one knows not to let the cork out of the bottle until safely home, frantically dialing pals to tell them all about it.

And then something changes. You are colored somewhat by a tinge in the atmosphere. It dawns on you – the "show" in show business is what the world outside sees, as opposed to what you are assimilating to, the "business."

Finding yourself in the same waiting room as that stunning tall-drink-of-water brunette you saw last night in a Macy's commercial takes on the same ambiance as passing a coworker in the hallway to and from the copier. You are both at work.

And forget the "opportunity" factor, Mr. Howly-Wolf. It's a non-issue – she likely has an engagement ring weighing down her demurely thin hand, given her by a 7-foot tall, bald and devil-goateed, Teutonic techno-geek named Vinn, who can make the cables on a Bowflex home gym smoke like an unoiled crankcase.

When in Hollywood, do not trust that old adage that extremely beautiful women likely have low self-esteem, and just want to be appreciated by an honest guy whether or not he's as attractive as she. That may work in Duluth – but here these ladies know exactly how beautiful they are, they take self-defense classes with an ironman gusto, and if she can't bitch-slap you back into your place, her boyfriend certainly can. Begin with "hi," and end with "nice meeting you." Make it out of this audition alive, even if the role is lost.

My round-about point is that finding yourself in line with someone famous, especially "at work" is a commonplace happening in America's media capitol, and as time wears on, it becomes that to everyone involved, at all levels. I stumbled upon this, at just such an audition, for a new video game, of all things.

Now I myself do not play video games anymore, so the new releases are as mystifying to me as they are to any old fart who say, still misses rotary phones. The video game commercial being casted was for Sega Monkeyball 2, which I imagine now is a well worn old hat to most gamers, but it was brand new and ready to hit the store shelves as I arrived to read my lines.

The conceit of the ad, was that thousands of people from all walks of life were raving about Monkeyball 2 as the ultimate gaming experience, even though the product had yet to be unloaded even from the first delivery truck. Much like those 1-1/2-star stinkers opening at theaters, yet already heralded by critics no one has ever heard of.

It boiled down to all of us doing improv, praising a video game we'd never even seen the box for, let alone played. Yes, it's a huge con-job, slapped together last-minute, by advertising execs who can't even spell "scruple," to sell a product with built-in obsolescence to people who have nothing better to do than flush their money away. Business as usual.

The waiting area was ornate, with oak paneling and plush leather divans lining both sides of the room. I had never been here before. I signed in, and simply sat for several minutes marveling at the surroundings. Serious folks, these. You hafta dress like it's dinner with Dracula just to audition here!

In minutes I became aware that I was sitting on the opposite end of the room as everyone else at the audition. In fact, everyone seemed huddled around one person, who was in essence holding court. Even more stunning, was that all the others were men about my age, wearing clothing similar to mine, while this attention magnet at stage-center was dressed in something other than what I'd consider "work clothes."

Let me describe him – as you paint his portrait in your mind.

A short, pudgy Asian man, with olive skin. Ragged cut-off jeans shorts. A tank-top that looked like off-the-rack at Goodwill. Plastic and foam flip-flops. An expensive looking watch. And not a single hair on his body, save his penciled mustache and not-quite-bald-yet comb-over. I mean, he was so hairless as to look uncatchable if he were soaking wet. Like an oiled up piglet.

No chest shrubbery poking out of the tank-top. Not even any light armpit fuzz. He was like a tanned water balloon from head to toe. Normally I wouldn't mention a thing like this, but in this case it wasn't just noticeable, but downright hypnotic – it was in fact, his body's chief feature.

A Cabbage Patch Doll.

And this little potato had his audience spellbound. Every word uttered by his round, smooth jowls was pure gold to those surrounding him. "Who is THIS guy," I wondered to myself?

Well, he did look somewhat familiar, the more I watched. I was mildly curious. But then I decided not to lemming this guy, whomever he was.

I wasn't here to sit at anyone's feet and absorb crumbs of gossamer wisdom like some transfixed opossum. I was here to work – here as a pro. Let those rubbing up against Mr. Backyard Swapmeet miss the point of being here – I'm in the hunt for a callback. Yet, I was still just a bit interested, for trivia's sake, to know this guy's identity – even though he looked like he was in line for a waffle-cone at the county fair, not auditioning for a TV ad.

Remember that the word "celebrity" is somewhat deceptive in the grand scheme of the media-entertainment business. It's hardly a matter of playing by any rules, written or unwritten. There are NO rules to this contest except "Be What They Want." Being a celebrity is not synonymous with being talented, or even attractive. It's having what the Casting Person wants, and in turn, having something that the public at large decides it desires. Pat Sajak, for instance, proved that he couldn't carry a talkshow for even one season, but as the master of a large, spinning, glitter-sprinkled wheel on a gameshow, he possesses an irreplaceable brand of charisma.

The front desk gatekeeper called a name out, which apparently belonged to one of the man's cadre of listeners. His turn to audition – he rose, and proceeded to the studio door. "Nice to meet you, Your Honor."

The guy was a judge. Okay... he's an important person from another profession, here for one of his fifteen minutes, no doubt thanks to some connection from across the bench. He let someone off the hook... his payback was a free pass to a brief moment in pop-culture. He was here without his black robe... dressed in his idea of Ellay Informal. It just happened to be Van Nuys Garage Sale. Then again, who's going to tell a judge what to wear to audition for a video game commercial?

Then the real bomb promptly fell. Another of the entourage was summoned into the studio. "A pleasure, Mr. Ito."

Ito? Judge Lance Ito. Who presided over the O.J. trial. The most watched and most recounted media event of, oh, the entire 20th century, shall we say?

I sat awestruck. This guy had told the World Media to sit down and shut the hell up, on national TV. He'd browbeat celebrated attorneys like Marcia Clark, Robert Kardashian, Johnny Cochran and Chris Darden with a rueful stare and a pointed finger.

After that, endorsing a video game ought to have been like scratching a chaffed nipple.

I stared across the carpet in silence, knowing I was NOT going to get this job.

Monkeyball 2 went on to some degree of success after that commercial, but I did not. Another guy who was there didn't even have to dress up for it, because in the world of celebrity status, he had the cheat code.

Feb. Rand.

Whenever I wonder how fantastic flying cars would be, I have to remind myself that half the people in real cars either won't or can't figure out how to drive safely – with painted lines on the road yet! And clearly marked road signs. And huge overhanging directional lights on timers. Do I want those people trying to FLY something from point A to B?

The most unmanly phrase I've ever heard out of the mouth of a man, at Target: "Oooh-looky, this-n's cheaperrrrrr." Try it. There's no way to say this in any way even remotely heterosexual.

For years I thought Slammin' Sammy Firebaugh was a real person – perhaps a sports figure from the early days of football, or something similar. I Googled him and discovered... it's nobody. Just a name I'd made up – and somehow misfiled in my brain, under "long-term trivial factoids."

The reason they don't "make 'em like they used to?" In some cases, it's because the damn things weren't selling THEN, either!

I think there's something subconscious in the way we've developed keychain computer storage units with more and more memory capacity, that are more and more the size and shape of anal suppositories. Ponder that one. We are paring all life down to mere digital information, compressing it into something we can carry like loose change, and shaping it into something to DILDO ourselves with!

A coughing fit while sitting on the toilet is one of nature's instant laxatives.

Oh yes, ma'am, you CAN have TOO MANY DAMN PETS.

Sorry, but "Moons Over My Hammy" is by far the greatest thing ever printed in a Denny's menu.

More Denny's tips: Getting to know your waitress on a first name basis is not the way to get into her pants, or even get better service – it just means she won't feel as guilty for taking 45 minutes to bring you a cup of coffee, and you won't have any real right to get steamed about it – you two are buds, after all.

Sometimes the only therapy that works, is bacon.

I wonder if, on the Titanic, mere seconds before the iceberg, someone at the bar ordered a drink, and said "and make it on the rocks."

Getting older is hell, but for some reason I'm glad I was born when I was.

Those Moments

Years ago, I was sitting in a laundromat, in Merced – a central California town which should have its slogan changed from "The Gateway To Yosmite" to "the Gateway to Obscurity" – when one of its citizens-celebré came in and sat down beside me. Does she have a name? Probably, but I doubt that knowing it would lend anything to the story. I'll bet you do know her, though, or more accurately, someone just like her.

The Wandering Hag.

Self-distracted. Exact same outfit every day. Occupying a unique little bubble of private reality, muttering in the unknowable language of her people from a far-off planet – but by-gawd, she knows every human curse word, and suddenly ceases muttering to speak with Toastmasters-level clarity when she needs to utter a few choice combinations.

Guhmu-to-dapuh-mummun-widduh-humma-hummuh-FUCK YOU WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT MOTHER FUCKER GO FUCK YOURSELF!

Merced's Wandering Hag also had a small fuzzy blond dog who was her constant companion. Constant to the point that the little guy probably wanted to run away to the Pound. She pulled him along as she staggered up and down the boulevard – his tiny raw, tattered-mitten paws pushing in protest along the rough cement. His personal level of doggy Hell. Completely silent, no doubt because his doggy brain had learned that yipping and whining meant nothing to his white-haired, sully-skirted tormentor.

Mercifully, they are both probably dead by now.

Anyway, with great apparent purpose, upon entering the laundromat, she spotted me, and made a bee-line for the chair next to mine. She sat. I ignored her, pretending not to care about danger.

She saw through the pretense. She grinned. I held my poker face as long as I possibly could, then finally, fightingly, glanced over.

She revealed her ultimate secret to me.

"I know where the papers are. They're buried."

"Oh," I said? Then I geared into a mode that I have become aware that I do occasionally, much to my regret later on. I humored her – pretended that I knew exactly what she was talking about. It's an odd defense mechanism of mine, that has actually pulled me out of the crosshairs of a bad situation a few times, but most times, like this one, has just made it worse.

"That's pretty smart," I said, "if they get their hands on those, everybody is screwed."

"I know," she said. "You think I'm stupid?"

"Of course not. You knew to hide the papers, and that took brains."

"Bet your ass it did. Now stop fuckin' bothering me about it, alright?"

"Okay," I said, "sorry."

She huffed out, royally ticked that her daily routine had been disrupted.

I waited in silence for the dryer to finish.

New Year's Randomness

Watch out for pedestrians. They aren't as smart as they used to be.

She'll sleep with anyone. I'm not just anyone.

For some reason, I'm not nearly as annoyed at my neighbors for playing loud music, when it's Elvis. Why is that?

Whenever I ponder just what amount of talent and charisma is minimally necessary to earn a living in show business, I eventually think of Pat Sajak... and realize it's NONE.

The one thing that aging has definitely taught me, is to appreciate, as I depreciate.

Someone has to say it: Menudo Doritos is JUST GOING TOO FAR.

I've got an itchin' for a bitchin'! (I have no clue what it means, but it sounds great!)

A flash of tit can turn even the crappiest day around.

A thought, as we enter 2009:
If I could convince you to shut down your Internet connection... put down the remote... leave your iPod at home... never mind that your phone can do all that incredible stuff, and turn it off... take the earphones out... put the Blackberry in your coat pocket... all for just one hour? And avoid even referring to those items in conversation? Now answer this – who are you?

I Convened With Intell #1

OBAMA PICKS PANETTA FOR CIA

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Democratic officials say President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to run the CIA. Panetta was a surprise pick for the post, with no experience in the intelligence world. An Obama transition official and another Democrat disclosed his nomination on a condition of anonymity since it was not yet public. Panetta was director of the Office of Management and Budget and a longtime congressman from California. He served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that released a report at the end of 2006 with dozens of recommendations for the reversing course in the Iraq war. Panetta currently directs with his wife Sylvia the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy, based at CSU-Monterey Bay.

Now it isn't every day that one brushes shoulders with someone in a position of mysterious power and potentially nebulous influence over the lives of every American. But in light of Mr. Panetta's most recent career advancement, a'la President-elect Obama, I'm compelled to place a record of this encounter down for digital posterity.

I had just returned to Monterey, after a time of dire poverty up north, Seattle way. Needless to say I was in just as dire a state of poverty in Monterey, but finally had some work lined up, and needed to make some phone calls. I was too broke to even keep a cellphone, so I was routinely surrendering all my loose change to Pac Bell.

I was on Alvarado Street, downtown Monterey, in Ordway Pharmacy. I needed change to use the payphone outside. Since I also needed a number of sundries sold at the pharmacy anyway, I decided to get my change via a purchase. Along the way to the check-out, I also snagged myself a Tootsie Pop. Red. No, the flavor doesn't matter – but the Tootsie Pop is essential to the story.

As I got to the counter, there was one person ahead of me... it was Leon Panetta.

He was getting a prescription filled – and yes, like Gelson's Market in L.A., if you want to see celebrities doing mundane just-like-you-and-me daily tasks, Ordway Pharmacy is one of the places you might want to hang out when on the Monterey Peninsula – just don't let your loitering become too obvious. Bruno's Market in Carmel is great too – Jenn Aniston buying coldcuts... Clint in for a case of Hogsbreath Ale... that kind of stuff. Just remember they are not there to sign autographs – it's their downtime.

Anyway, so I'm standing behind Leon Panetta, holding a tube of toothpaste, a roll of Tums, a Chapstick, a small bottle of Bayer Aspirin and a red Tootsie Pop.

Mr, Panetta completes his transaction, and lingers just a moment to sort out the contents of his shopping bag. I place my stuff on the counter. The clerk asks, as all such clerks are born to do: "Will this be all?"

I don't know why, but my mischievous side bounds forth. "No, I'd like a dollar of my change in quarters, please... and Mr. Panetta's thoughts on achieving world peace in our lifetime, and possibly my lollypop free of charge."

Oh, was I flippin' ASKING FOR IT.

I recall it vividly. Without missing a beat, Mr. Panetta turns, and calmly offers, "Complete peace, globally, will take a great deal of time, patience, and a concerted effort by all the world's leaders. As for the lollypop... you're ON YOUR OWN."

With a trace of a grin on his lips, he casually walks out, his bag neatly folded closed.

Me. And the future head of Central Intelligence. The Tootsie Pop conference. It happened.