Monday, August 27, 2012

If You Know Me At All

You know I have been spending all of my spare time looking up Walter Tetley and the guy who did the voice of the Lucky Charms leprechaun on the "internet." And why wouldn't I? That's how I found "The Walter Tetley Web Page." "Click" here for "Chamber of My Mind," the section that details, in part, a camping trip the author of "The Walter Tetley Web Page" enjoyed. "Click" here for details of a six-page letter the author of "The Walter Tetley Web Page" received from Chris Allen, the woman who did the voice of the cartoon character Hoppity Hooper. "I started writing when I was about nine years old," she says, adding this charming detail: "I wrote cowboy stories and mad love stories which I knew nothing about..........I kept writing away.........just for my own fulfillment..........until much later I started receiving payment for some of these things. I did comedy material........" (These startlingly extended ellipses may be Allen's, though the author of "The Walter Tetley Web Page" deploys them elsewhere, so I kind of think they're his.) She goes on to tell about writing for Bob Hope. "This first job was.........with four other MEN COMEDY WRITERS who were tops in the field, who looked at me like I had rocks in my head........I mean.........how dare this girl.......still in school..........try to compete with four top MALE writers?" The "internet" has everything! I checked the Behemoth Who Will Never Be Named Here for its usual fascinatingly inane customer comments, this time on the biography of Walter Tetley. I liked this one for some reason: "I purchased this book to find out more about Walter who is my 2nd cousin, once removed, ie we share the same great great grandfather." The "internet" has lots of ideas about why Walter Tetley was an adult who never achieved puberty, some more horrific than others. Check out his wikipedia page and see how quickly you can spot the most horrible rumor, or don't. Don't. To take your mind off it, here's an ecstatic review of the autobiography of the guy who did the voice of the Lucky Charms leprechaun. Headline? "A MAGICALLY DELICIOUS AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ACTOR." And wait! Here is a news story about him conceived and written in an incredibly annoying way. Sample: "The Lucky Charms leprechaun is not Irish. Someone get my shillelagh!" Ugh. The leprechaun is quoted as saying, "I never got free cereal. But they gave me lots of green money." Also: "I had the luck of the Irish to get that part." I'm confused. Speaking of things that are on the "internet," a student in my scary story class was looking for a particular work of H.P. Lovecraft and came across the homepage of a guy who bills himself as "vampire, poet, fire breather." I mentioned as much in class. "And sword swallower," the student reminded me. Megan Abbott (who is reading at Off Square Books tomorrow!) sent me the imdb bio page for a model named Jinx Falkenberg (pictured), which, according to Megan, "somehow seems to encompass the change in the culture in the last 75 years," up to and including HOARDERS! McNeil wrote to tell me that there's a lunch box museum in Columbus, Georgia, the "web" site of which - as I discovered - is crushingly disappointing. "Click" on the history of The Lunch Box Museum and you will see that there is no history of The Lunch Box Museum. Okay, I think that's everything on the "internet."