June 2011 Archives

Now, that was a weird day.

It started when I heard a hissing sound at 3 am. It sounded like water running, but I couldn't find the leak. All faucets were shut, the toilets weren't flowing, all seemed normal. And then I went outside and checked under the house in the crawlspace.

Over $800 later, the leak was fixed. That was no fun.

But it threw me off my game. I had a couple of conference calls and important business, but I remember little. All I know is that the water pipe sprung a leak, an expensive leak.

Now, I'm just gonna go to sleep. Don't talk to me about plumbing.

Where the hell was I yesterday? Here:

That's Studio A at E! Entertainment Television/G4, where the pilot for the Nerdist TV show for BBC America was taped last night. I was there to gather pictures and report on the proceedings for Nerdist.com, and I did; you can see the results here.

The guests were Craig Ferguson, who was his customary hilarious self, and another who would qualify as an icon to the target audience but whose presence shall remain a secret, at least here and at Nerdist (I think someone spilled it on Twitter, but I won't participate). The show was a cross between the standard Nerdist podcast and a warped talk show, a bunch of funny nerds being nerdy and sarcastic and smart. The audience was into it, despite technical problems (20 minutes because the "tape machine" wasn't working? Tape?!?) and many other delays. The result, if all goes well and fate smiles, will be on TV before long.

This is the second pilot with which I've had some involvement. You never saw the first one, a pilot for Comedy Central; I may have a copy on tape someplace, but I wouldn't know where to look. I hope this one sells, because I don't want to think I'm a jinx.

In honor of my ongoing writing exhaustion, here's a commercial for the IBM Selectric Typewriter:

Kids, once upon a time, this item was the single most desirable way to write. Every office had several. You got used to threading the ribbon and the correction tape, to popping the clip on the little type ball and replacing it, to the heavy body and responsive feel of the keys. It was still the standard when I started my working career, and it was several years before computers really took over the role that the Selectric held. You used a cheaper Smith-Corona at home and school, but for business, you used the IBM Selectric. It was the gold standard.

You can still find a lot of them reasonably cheaply on eBay. You don't need one, and they take up a lot of space, but there's something cool about them. No, I don't want one. No room for it.

Writing today was about as slow a slog as I can imagine. It was like slow motion. I expect the whole week to be like this. Every word was a struggle.

Here, watch this and toughen your teeth:

I vaguely remember Cue toothpaste. Yet another useless thing occupying my mind. And now it's in yours, too,

Totally unmotivated to write today unless someone pays me for it. You paying?

Then I'll see you tomorrow.

Here's a promo for a new show in the fall of 1965:

RIP "F Troop"'s Crazy Cat, Don Diamond, who passed away last Sunday at 90.

Column took too long to write. Gotta sleep. Tomorrow might be interesting. Or not. We'll see.

I used to watch this show when I was a kid:

"People are Funny" and "Truth or Consequences" were basically ways to torture and embarrass and make fun of people for small amounts of money. This episode of "People are Funny" includes a sort-of phone prank where they have a contestant call someone he claims is his friend and borrow something, with $1,000 at stake. (He pulls it off, and the friend wins a big TV) Over 50 years later, prime time is still populated by plenty of shows that are designed to trot "real" people out to be embarrassed. Hey, is "Wipeout" on?

Aggravating day, from dental work to work work. So here's some indie falsetto, Bon Iver's cover of "I Can't Make You Love Me" (with a little "Nick of Time" at the end):

Recently, Bon Iver did a different cover of the same song, in a medley with "A Song for You":

And the same, in a studio:

And the version you'll recall, Bonnie Raitt's hit:

That was co-written by Mike Reid, the NFL player-turned-country music songwriter. Interesting how having a hot indie artist cover a song makes people -- and I'll include myself in this -- admit that they really liked the original, too, even if it was a hit and an Adult Contemporary radio staple for years. It's been covered by practically everybody, but it's really, really hard to get right.

Wow, Hot Shoppes:

That's character actor Bill McCutcheon playing a DJ. He was one of those "That Guy" types, in a million things but unknown by name. Try Uncle Wally in "Sesame Street," or the coach in the awful sitcom version of "Ball Four," or "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," or countless TV commercials. He won a Tony, but people still don't remember his name. He passed away a few years ago; he deserves some name recognition, so, here.

Hot Shoppes had a cafeteria in Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, NJ when I was a kid. The food wasn't anything special -- more a grown-up's version of school food -- but I used to love getting chocolate pudding and Jell-O for dessert, especially pudding, with a little dollop of whipped cream on top. The last Hot Shoppes restaurant closed in 1999, but the company lives on. You'd know it by the name of its founder. Guy named Marriott.

For Father's Day, rather than reiterate what I tell you about my own dad every anniversary of his birth and passing, I'd rather keep things lighthearted. So...

"My son, my son!" I never really got why the son was named Augie Doggie but dad was "Doggie Daddy." What was the legal surname? Doggie? Daddy? What was dad's name, really, and was he hiding from the law? And what did he do for a living? Also, did Jimmy Durante ever demand his voice back? (That was voice guy Doug Young's impression for Daddy, and Daws Butler as Augie) And was Daddy ever going to learn not to mess with Augie's "experiments"?

So many questions. And let's not even start on Snagglepuss.

Makin' the pizza:

Old pizza, from 1970. Look, a Frisbee!:

Who would know more about good pizza than a French-Canadian hockey goalie? Gilles Meloche of the Monnesota North Stars, 1984:

I'm hungry.

For Father's Day weekend, I wrote a little bit about Dad for Nerdist, and it starts with this:

My dad wasn't a nerd. Not at all. In his youth, he was a jock, a baseball star, a third baseman at Eastside High in Paterson, New Jersey, the second four-letter varsity player (the first is in the Baseball Hall of Fame). After getting injured in the Korean War (playing baseball, that is, as one of the American soldiers sent to Germany to play ball for the amusement of the officers stationed there after World War II), he had to find something else to do. That's how he became a school teacher, then principal, and then I came along.

There's more, as part of the usual weekly wrap-up. If you're interested, go read it here.

7 Mile Shrimp is REAL good! 7 Mile Shrimp is REAL good! 7 Mile Shrimp is REAL good! 7 Mile Shrimp is REAL good! 7 Mile Shrimp is REAL good! 7 Mile Shrimp is REAL good! 7 Mile Shrimp is REAL good!:

I love local commercials.

I went looking for an appropriate clip to go with the Boston Bruins winning the Stalney Cup tonight, something from 1972, when they last won it. But there wasn't much -- just a fight from Game 6 that year, with Derek Sanderson tking on Rod Gilbert, and it wasn't even a good clip. So here's a totally inappropriate clip:

Naturally, I loved SuperBalls, because... well, I don't know. All I know is that you'd throw it and it would carom and ricochet all over the place, leaving destruction in its wake. How I didn't break everything in the house with it, I don't know. How my mom let me have these things, I also don't know. But they provided endless minutes of fun. Minutes, because you'd throw it maybe twice before you got bored. But they were staples of my childhood. And I wouldn't object to having one around right now, even if I could NEVER get away with throwing it in this house. Mom looked the other way, but Fran might be a little perturbed. Plus, I'm the one who'd have to pay to replace the broken TV.

I was about 3/4 of a mile along on my run today when I fell. I don't know what happened; one moment, I was plodding along, and the next, my legs were going out from under me and I was heading down. I'm sure that from the road it was absolutely hilarious, a pratfall for the ages. From my perspective, it wasn't all that funny. I had that momentary "oh, shit" thought, and then I made contact, landing squarely on the right side of my butt, followed by the rest of my back and my hands, which were splayed behind me in a vain attempt to break the fall. The one thing I do remember is keeping my head up, trying to avoid hitting it on the ground. That, I succeeded in doing.

But it left me bruised and covered in dirt. I got to my feet and checked myself; no blood, no broken anything, just dirt on my legs, on my shorts, on my shirt, on my arms and hands and hat and shoes and everything. After a few tentative steps to ascertain that my body was indeed working properly -- just a little soreness -- I ran to the restroom nearby, rinsed off a little, and finished my run.

That was in the morning. It's evening now.

Ow.

I'm sore. Sitting hurts. Ibuprofen is of limited use. I'm not in excruciating pain; it's more like nagging discomfort. But it reminds me that... well, I'm not sure WHAT it reminds me of, since I don't know what I did wrong. Did I step on something? Did the dirt just give way? DId my foot strike in an awkward way? I have no idea.

I'm not going to stop running, but I guess I'm going to be extra-careful now. Doing a Chevy-Chase-circa-1978 is no fun at all.

I'm coming up against the clock again. That's been every night lately. Work is expanding to fill every moment, and now it's taking time from my sleep. I'll have to adjust again. In the meantime, I'll try to post fresh stuff here, but after returning from New York and trying to get through the headache yesterday, I had so much backed up today that I'm unable to get finished tonight. Something has to give.

In other words, THIS has to give. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Flew all day with a massive headache. Tried to sleep it off on the flight. That didn't work.

But it set me back, schedule-wise. I don't even have time to post a video. Sorry.

It's late and I don't have time, so I can't tell you tonight about my day, which included a real Baldwin -- yes, one of THE Baldwins. But maybe tomorrow.

Spent the day in a conference center. In Manhattan. Which somehow makes it a little easier to take, even with the hot weather. But it's late, so let's rhapsodize:

I grew up near where I am right now. I remember hot, humid summers. Today was on another level.

It was intolerably hot at sunrise. It was worse at lunch. It was brutal in the late afternoon. I've been in hot places before -- how about 110 degrees in the desert with a flat tire? -- but this was just plain uncomfortable all around. New York was intensely terrible to be in today.

And then it rained. The day went from sunny, hot, and humid to hurricane in the blink of an eye. High winds, horizontal, drenching rain, lightning, the whole thing. Walking two blocks to the subway, I had to stop midway through the second block to wait under an awning. I had an umbrella and jacket, but they were not going to help. Every umbrella being used was being inverted.

At present, it's cooler -- it's nighttime -- and humid. Tomorrow is supposed to be showery, humid, a little cooler. If they wanted to design weather to remind me why I don't live in these parts anymore, this would be it. I've had enough, but I can't leave yet. Tomorrow, the convention; Some guys have all the fun, but I'm not one of them.

The view from my hotel room today:

Yes, I'm all about the beauty of nature.

This was an interesting day, but the next few days are going to be a little busy in preparation for that thing later this week. You know, the thing with the people. Whatever. I'm busy.

Talk to you tomorrow, if I have time....

We were watching TV the other day and TV Land was showing "The Andy Griffith Show," and it was the episode in which Aunt Bee and her friend write a song about Mayberry and give it to a teen idol who's in town, and he sings it on his show but turns it into a rockin' tune, and Aunt Bee gets all indignant and he then does it respectfully and all is well. The genius is that the pop idol's name is "Keevy Hazelton," which might be the Greatest Name of All Time, and he just happens to have his own live variety show on TV in Raleigh, allowing Andy and Bee and Opie to be in the studio for this:

Dig that crazy fake guitar playing! The choreography! The cheesiness!

But then they do it as a snoozer:

Happy ending, fade out!

"Keevy" was played by Jesse Pearson, who also played Conrad Birdie in "Bye Bye Birdie," and played similar characters in episodes of "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "McHale's Navy." He also narrated a Rod McKuen album before his death of cancer at 49 in 1979. His career sort of petered out not long after he played Keevy, but being Keevy and Birdie would count as a pretty good career.

Add this to the "I can't believe someone posted this on the Internet," from the Internet Archive, the complete radio broadcast of the Philadelphia Bell playing the Chicago Fire World Football League game on August 14, 1974, with Eddie Doucette and Mike Pyle calling the action on WJJD-FM in Chicago:

The Fire beat the Bell, 32-29; the Bell had a shot to tie it up but King Corcoran got picked off with 16 seconds left. $16 will buy you the program. What I like best is how the announcers kind of fumble names because the WFL wasn't the most stable league ever and players would come and go with little notice or information. I have some of the media guides from that season, and by week three or four they were mostly useless. I can't imagine too many people were listening to this game back then, but at least one person ran tape on it. And here it is.

Here's a "Jack Benny Program" from February 5, 1961:

Alan Hale Jr. -- the Skipper! -- as the gym owner. It's interesting that someone who was pretty spherical was cast as the head of a fitness emporium. And check out the gym itself -- not exactly similar to a 2011 health club, and it's always amusing to see actors pretend to be working out, mostly by ineffectual flexing.

And, yes, time flies: the young receptionist is played by Lisa Davis, who was 24 at the time. She's 75 now.

The column is trickling out, but I'm not finished. So.. .yes, it's another mea culpa. Can't do everything today. Maybe tomorrow.

But, yes, I watched the Mavs beat Miami with one eye, and, man, Miami just folded. The thing is that for most of the game, they had plenty of chances to put distance between themselves and Dallas and didn't until near the end, but the Mavs came back anyway. So there's a series now. Fun!

Hey, this was cool: My sister-in-law and her husband were on Travel Channel's "Man Vs. Food Nation" tonight.

They had Fish Tales Seafood Market on Himes near Gandy in South Tampa, and they were shown handing Adam Richman some fish at the beginning of the episode, and then plugging their market in a bumper at the beginning of the second segment. The place is moving and reopening soon on South MacDill, but in the meantime, they were on the Tee Vee.

Very nice!