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Pardon my treacle for a moment while I allow myself a little stroll down memory lane...

It got hot here today, nineties in the Valley and just very warm here by the ocean. We went for a walk in the neighborhood after dinner, the breeze was fairly stiff and dry and the temperature still hot, the sun was rapidly going down, and I had one of those moments where your senses transport you back to another time. The weather, the surroundings... something triggered this:

It was about 1964 or 1965. We- Mom, Dad, Joan, me- were in the Rambler, pulling into the gravel lot of the Paramus Drive-In on a summer evening. I don't know what movie we would have been seeing, but I could feel the warm breeze with the windows rolled down, I could hear the car wheels grinding to a halt, I could see the clunky speaker/heaters on the poles and the sounds of the playground up by the screen and the smells of the snack bar in the back were as real as they were over 40 years ago. It all came to me in a flash, and left as quickly as they washed over me.

I don't particularly miss the drive-ins. They were far from the best way to see a movie, and by the time I was old enough to have any use for a makeout location, they were mostly gone. They were uncomfortable, the picture was lousy, the sound tinny, the food atrocious, the noise from other cars and people distracting. But it wasn't about the movie experience. It was about the sense of family, of being together, a sense that at the time seemed destined to last forever. That it wouldn't last forever wasn't something on my radar at that age.

Mom and Dad are gone. Joan's on the other coast- we're still close and we see each other as much as we can, but we're adults with different lives about 2,500 miles apart. For a moment, though- maybe a split second at most- the breeze brought us all back together in my mind. I might be clinically insane, but there it was, the grey Rambler parked on the gravel, waiting for the sun to finally go down all the way so something in Technicolor could fire up on the screen, debating whether I'd want popcorn or one of those metal-roller hot dogs left over from the Eisenhower administration. There are worse things to recall when the weather brings out what's deep in your memory.

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Heard my old friend Jeff on the radio today explaining why he wouldn't be on the air this week. Last Friday, his stomach started to hurt during his show, and by the time he got home he was puking in mass quantities. But with the pain still there, he did what I'd like to think we all do: he tried to sleep through it until the pain got so intense that he... looked up his symptoms and realized that he might possibly have appendicitis. Which he did. And only then did he haul himself to the hospital.

That's what guys do, of course. We hurt, and we wait, and we tough it out. I think that's because for most of us, we get away with it for the first 40 years. And then we hit the part where the hurt may mean something more, and we don't go to the doctor because parts of our brains are telling us it's nothing, and the other parts are afraid that's not necessarily the case.

I'd like to think I'm getting better about that. The medical incidents of the last 15 years or so have sufficiently scared me into getting things checked out. Every blemish and mole sends me to the dermatologist. Every minor ache and pain gives me an initial scare: gas could be a kidney stone or, worse, some unpronounceable malady, a pulled muscle could be debilitating. The "C" word is, unfortunately, part of our daily discussion now. But I still stall before going to the doctor. I still hesitate, hoping that "it's nothing." And, usually, it is. But the older we get, the more we're tempting fate that way.

I feel okay tonight, though. Maybe I should get that checked out.

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It's late and it was a long day with a lot of driving and much cell-phone-related aggravation. Maybe I need a pick-me-up. From 1973:

That's right, what the liberated woman of 1973 needed was a jolt of caffeine. In today's more enlightened era, we know that what everyone needs is a case of Red Bull. Or some crystal meth.

None of which would keep me awake right now. So I'm not gonna fight the feeling. More tomorrow.

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In my continuing quest to post stuff on pop culture ephemera that nobody else seems to have posted, one question has been a real headscratcher:

Whatever happened to Hank McCune?

The only reason anyone knows the name Hank McCune at all is that he was the star of an eponymous 1950 TV sitcom that was the first TV show to use canned laughter. Do a search on him and that's all that comes up- canned laughter. These people were shown as the studio audience, but they weren't who you heard:

But who the hell was Hank McCune and why did he rate his own TV show?

Beats me. I did some research and found only dribs and drabs: he was the host of a radio show at the time of the TV show. He was Air Force buddies with Sam Arkoff, who helped Hank get his show and who later went on to much B-movie fame as the man behind American International Pictures, producer of the Roger Corman and Frankie-and-Annette flicks. His cast included old reliables Frank Nelson, Larry Keating, and Arthur Q. Bryan- Elmer Fudd!- and the show was a sort of show-within-a-show conceit, with Hank playing himself as the star of a variety show, but with (very unfunny) sketches. He later did a syndicated version of the show in 1953, then some very cheap movies (more on that later), and by the end of the 1950s he'd disappeared. There' seemed to be no trace of Hank McCune after that. Is he still alive (he'd be 90 now)? Apparently not- I found a blog entry that has him dying in the 90's in Oregon.

But he had a TV show. In 1950, he was successful enough to be on NBC.

Not much of the TV show exists today- just some poor public domain video. The opening of the show had a cartoon version of Hank pulling a curtain across the stage:

Keating addressed the audience to set up the show, referring to McCune as "our boy with the king-sized ears." Apparently, that was the comic hook into the world of Hank McCune:

And then came sketches, full of the most obvious and unfunny lines. This sketch with Arthur Q. (in full Fudd mode) featured McCune as "McCunebus" (Columbus) on the way to discovering America and inexplicably chained to Arthur Q. for some terrible slapstick...

...including the piece de resistance: Hank's on the top bunk, Arthur Q. has to puke, Arthur Q. runs to the loo...

...and hilarious consequences ensue.

I did want to post this, though...

...because there is no other picture of Hank McCune on the Internet. EVERYBODY'S on the Internet, but even Hank McCune's IMDB page has very little about the guy.

And there's a little more. Those movies he made? One's called "Wetbacks"- no, really- starring Lloyd Bridges (!) and Harold "The Great Gildersleeve" Peary as "Juan Ortega"(!) in a tale, directed by McCune, of illegal immigrant smuggling. The guy was prescient! He also made a movie you can see online, "A Life At Stake," a "Double Indemnity"-style thriller with Angela Lansbury (!) and Keith Andes for which McCune wrote the story. And he took one last shot at acting stardom, playing "himself" in a 1956 movie "The Go-Getter," with Arthur Q., Ellen Corby (Grandma Walton!), and still-active character actress Beverly Garland in the cast. That's when the trail runs cold.

But not really. Remember that blog entry? That was the key, because it was about a boat that he'd owned that someone ended up buying: turns out he went into boat making. He designed and built boats. And there's a Wikipedia page- as yet uncategorized- headlined "Hank McCune Built Yachts." And so he did.

And there ya go, more about Hank McCune in one place than ever before. It's your One-Stop Shop for Hank McCune information- a celebrity of yesteryear immortalized on the World Wide Web. Someone had to do it.

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This week's All Access newsletter takes radio to task for the lameness of the average station web site, as if this one's much better (it hasn't gone out yet as of early this evening, so this is a sneak preview for some):

Would you have all of the shows on your station talk about stuff that's months or even years old?

There were other things that came up last weekend, but I'll save 'em for next week. I've done enough kvetching for now.

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It's late and I got nothin'. The Villanova game is not on here- USC-Arkansas gets the nod for L.A.- and I'm not in much of a mood to write anything amusing right now.

So go here and enjoy the World's Worst Children's Songs Ever, as performed by Grandma Lipstick. The segment is from the late lamented Regular Guys show on the late, less lamented 96 Rock in Atlanta, and in the clip you'll hear such musical genius as the Paper Bag Trilogy, including the unforgettable "Paper Bag Lunch," which will haunt you to your grave. Will someone just hire Larry Wachs already? The world needs radio like this.

Tomorrow: I enrich myself with the arts. Don't ask.

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Ladies and gentlemen, as promised, a little culture for your weekend.

Welcome to the La Quinta Arts Festival in La Quinta, California...

...where the temperature was a cool, comfortable 104 this afternoon. The temptation was to jump in here...

...but the water was probably bacteria-laden. Besides, there was much art to be experienced. Art, for instance, like this guy:

He had stilts AND wings and flounced around as if we were supposed to recognize him as art or something. Er, yeah. And he had an accomplice:

No, I didn't really get her, either.

But here's me with art:

Kinda looks like the Esquire guy. The art, that is, not me. Here's me with more art:

I'd been there for all of 10 minutes and the sweat was beginning to gush. Dry heat, my ass. 104 is freakin' hot. I tried to reason with this guy, but he showed no sympathy:

Okay, I was hallucinating. But there was so much more to see, and I was determined to see it all.

Couldn't see anything there, though. Just looked like random squiggles.

All right, I'm being stupid. There was a lot of culture there. I was especially impressed with this display:

People were walking in and out of there, doing their business. Won't they be surprised to discover that it was all an art installation! It WAS an art installation, wasn't it? It wasn't? Then what was that where I went to the... oh, geez. Sorry.

But it wasn't all paintings and pottery and stuff. There was also music.

This guy's booth claimed he's "Bend, Oregon's Favorite Musician." I have no reason to doubt it. But how hard can it be to achieve that? What's the competition? He wasn't at his booth, and there weren't even samples, so I didn't get to hear what's cutting edge in Bend, Oregon these days. Pity.

I have no idea what this guy's act is:

A flimsy orange robe, dreads and beard... er, okay. Whatever, dude. You're an "artist," so you get to wear whatever you want. Good for you.

Here's a piece of art that caught my eye:

Number 2. I guess it belongs on the wall of someone with an inferiority complex. A display of license plate twos, for the discerning art collector who'll settle for second best.

This year's festival, measured against past festivals, was somewhat disappointing: it was smaller, had fewer artists, and had a much, much smaller crowd than we've seen in past years. But it was special to us nonetheless, because a year ago at this time, we were neck deep in medical drama. We missed last year's because we were dealing with far more pressing problems. That we were able to show up this year is an achievement for which we're beyond grateful. 104 degrees? No problem. Beats what things were like this time last year.

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