Lost Souls of the "Internet"

Well, Season 2 of ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA AND CAKE started today, and I do not believe you will consider it a spoiler if I mention that Fionna's clock radio awakens her in an early scene. You know how people's clock radios are always awakening them in early scenes. Whom should we hear on the airwaves in this particular case but DJ Slime, spinning the hits? Now! In some misguided areas of the "internet" I have run across speculation that this character is a version of DJ Plop Drops, who was played by John Hodgman in the original series. There are several reasons why this cannot be true! Personally, I immediately came up with four such reasons without even trying, because my brain is lightning fast despite recent "difficulties." But think about it for a second. I could list the reasons, but then I ponder how many times I would have to type the phrase "DJ Plop Drops" and I lose the will to live. For you see, simply put, DJ Slime is FionnaWorld's answer to Slime Princess - a sentence that will make sense to some people. I am happy to clarify for those people, and kindly invite all other people to go to hell. And I am happy to tell you that DJ Slime, the Slime Princess of Fionna's world, will be portrayed, vocally, by my brother, my actual brother, who is actually a radio DJ in real actual life. Here is a video ("click" here) he made about his childhood hero (and current, though dead, hero) Mel Blanc, who led him to... well, just "click" on the "link." Do I have to do everything for you people?

My Interesting Life

I was watching the Robert Altman adaptation - much maligned! - of the Sam Shepard play FOOL FOR LOVE. Noticing some purely cinematic gestures, I couldn't help but wonder whether there were analogous effects in the stage version... this is just one example of the interesting ideas that enter my large head as I sit around doing nothing for days on end. So I dug out a copy of the play and, examining the scene in question, came upon the line "And these white owls kept swooping down out of nowhere, hunting for jackrabbits." Needless to say, I had perked up when hearing that line in the movie, and the way it was situated in the scene that had captured my curiosity was just a bonus, considering my sick compulsion to catalog literary works with owls in them. Speaking of which! I grabbed out of the big pile of books on the floor of my home office a history of magical beliefs and practices - I don't know why. It's just what I grabbed to read. Look, I've got a lot of problems, okay? And I was reading along about this and that, including ancient Mesopotamian civilization, where you might run into a guy on the street called an "owlman"... a shadowy figure, the author calls him! "It is not always clear what these people did... The snake-charmer and the owlman were regularly accused of witchcraft," writes the (rather credulous, by the way!) author. Thank you for joining me in my pursuit of whatever it is.

Not Cool, Medea!

I was giving 3 to 2 odds that there would be an owl in this book of Seneca's plays. You should've taken me up on it! So Medea is whipping up a poisonous stew and she adds, in the words of Emily Wilson's translation, "the heart of a melancholy eagle-owl." Then she does something with a screech owl I can't even tell you about. It's just too awful. That's no way to act! This reminded me of something, which turned out to be John Aubrey's paraphrase of Ovid, in which Medea tosses "the screech owl's flesh and its ill-boding wings" into her bubbling (one assumes) pot. And THAT made me want to look up the passage in my own edition of Ovid, translated by Rolfe Humphries, who gives us "a hoot-owl's wings and flesh." Then he adds "a werewolf's entrails," so that's really something. But that's not the point! As much as we all love the entrails of werewolves, the point, as any longtime "blog" reader - there are none - will know, is that hooting and screeching are two different things. So which is it? Are we to believe John Aubrey or Rolfe Humphries? I'd have to learn Latin to find out. And, as established here previously, by implication, that's not going to happen. Even though Dr. Theresa took four semesters of it as an undergraduate! None of it rubbed off. Well, I had my chance to learn things when I was young. But I was too busy watching GRAPE APE.

Animal Friends

I know what you're asking. Did we spend part of our 30th anniversary celebration as you might expect, revisiting the grim site of the miserable death of Meriwether Lewis, which we accidentally discovered on a prior anniversary trip? Yes and no. We paid tribute to it as we drove by, sending good wishes aloud to Meriwether Lewis's ghost, but we were too busy thinking about how we hadn't eaten all day, and we were eager to reach our destination. Sorry, Meriwether Lewis! Now I'll fill you in on the rest of our trip in a massive, unreadable, unbroken chunk of text, such as has been a "blog" tradition for more than 19 years, God help us all. We saw lots of cool animals, including a donkey and a goat who seemed to be good friends. At one point we were stopped at a traffic light behind a huge tanker truck, and printed on the rear of the tank were the words - and only these words - THE WORLD'S BEST COFFEE. "Is that full of coffee?" I blurted idiotically, causing Dr. Theresa to laugh for the next 10 miles. In the instant, I meant it! You may recall that my brain was famously stunned into a stupor at a not entirely distant point in the past. You'd think it would have fixed itself by now! The truck was full of fuel, of course, which it was carrying, no doubt, to a convenience store/gas station purporting to serve THE WORLD'S BEST COFFEE. There is no conceivable reason to fill a tanker truck with coffee. One night we had a great dinner and walked back to the hotel, where, on the previous evening, we had sat in the lobby bar and gazed across at an elegant recess filled with a different kind of furniture, and upon that furniture there sat a man who Dr. Theresa swore was the late Truman Capote. Anyway, we vowed at the time that we would go sit in that elegant recess with the nice furniture on a future evening. Well! I thought it was time. Dr. Theresa wasn't so sure. I kept saying how much fun it would be to sit in the elegant recess and "people watch." Finally, I talked her into it. She sat there grudgingly sipping a ranch water as I tried out a towering wingback chair such as Mr. Burns might use on THE SIMPSONS. Anyway, we were sitting there like that when a woman in leather pants walked by and did a double take. Then she came back and - Dr. Theresa reenacted this gesture often in the aftermath - sort of displayed her palms and circled them in the air as if trying to encompass her wondrous vision (me). "You look regal!" she informed me from across the lobby. So I looked at Dr. Theresa like, "Huh? Huh? I guess 'people watching' was the greatest idea ever!" She laughed and we realized we were feeling pretty great, so we went up to the room and ordered an after-dinner pizza. That's right! We decided we were even because recently the guy who was restocking the greeting cards at Walmart tried to pick up Dr. Theresa. I don't think he was wearing leather pants. In the morning, Dr. Theresa had a few things to take care of, so I went downstairs before her to get some coffee and wait for her to join me for breakfast. As I would be alone for a short time, I brought along my anniversary reading material, Seneca's version of OEDIPUS, translated by Emily Wilson, because I know how to have a good time. A guy got on the elevator with me and said, "You a stoic fan?" I didn't know what the hell he was talking about until I looked down and recollected the Seneca book in my hand. I said, "Sure." He said something about admiring Seneca's letters and I replied, and I think this is an exact quotation, "Yeah, well, the plays are nasty." Thus ended our discussion of stoicism. Sitting there with my coffee, I started thinking about that book I read about ancient Greece not too long ago, from which I learned that the hyper-masculine bros of the "manosphere" are really into the Stoics these days. I wondered, was that guy a "manosphere" guy? Did he think I was part of his special "manosphere"? Well, it's my own fault for carrying around a collection of Seneca tragedies like some kind of secret handshake. As Oedipus says in Emily Wilson's translation, "The guilt of my times is mine." On the way back home, Jon Langford called, and I answered Dr. Theresa's cellphone because she was driving. See, Dr. Theresa is bringing Jon here (to Oxford, Mississippi) for some events soon, including a concert on Saturday the 25th, which you should really attend, though I know you don't exist. But anyway, please "click" on this "link" and get informed! I know you won't. So I kept getting disconnected and finally had to give up because we were tooling down the Natchez Trace, and for the first time in my life, I felt I was in that contrived horror-movie situation... as you know, in a contemporary setting, there must always be a reason for the protagonist's phone not to work. That seemed interesting when I started typing it. As we continued our journey home, the satellite radio with which our rental car came equipped began to play a song I could have sworn was called "Everybody Dance Now," but, as I learned from the accompanying dashboard display, is actually called "Gonna Make You Sweat," which I guess everyone knew but me. Dr. Theresa was very concerned when she believed she heard the narrator of the song declaring that he would make us, the listeners, "sweat until [we] bleed." Sweating until He bled is what the Savior did in the Garden of Gethsemane, as you probably know from Luke 22:44. Well, I looked it up when we got home and yes, the guy in that song wants people to sweat until they bleed. Is this a good way to end this "post"?

McNeil Month by Month

This is the day we come together as a nation to celebrate McNeil. Please note that during periods of low "blogging," McNeil's activities were monitored by lesser means, resulting in a lack of available "hyperlinks." Such entries are marked with an asterisk, though it hardly seems necessary. But those are the rules! September 2006: McNeil contends that he does not enjoy the "Little Dot" comic book. October 2006: McNeil furnishes a memorable quotation. November 2006: McNeil recalls playing Aerosmith on a jukebox. December 2006: First appearance of "McNeil's Movie Korner." January 2007: McNeil's system for winning at craps. February 2007: McNeil doesn't see what's so hard about reading a newspaper and eating a sandwich at the same time. March 2007: McNeil and I are talking about Bob Denver when HE SUDDENLY APPEARS ON TELEVISION! April 2007: Wild turkeys roam McNeil's neighborhood. May 2007: McNeil gets in touch with an Australian reporter regarding a historical chimp. June 2007: First McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival announced. July 2007: Medicine changes McNeil's taste buds. August 2007: McNeil's trees not producing apples. September 2007: McNeil pinpoints a problem with the "blog." October 2007: McNeil presents a video entitled "Jerry's pre-defecation chills." November 2007: McNeil's Theory of Potential Energy. December 2007: What is McNeil's favorite movie? January 2008: McNeil explains why the wind blows. February 2008: McNeil admires the paintings of Gerhard Richter. March 2008: McNeil comes up with an idea for a Lifetime TV movie. April 2008: McNeil's shirt. May 2008: McNeil's apple tree doing better (see August 2007). June 2008: McNeil is troubled by a man who wants to make clouds in the shape of logos. July 2008: McNeil's apples are doing great. August 2008: McNeil refuses to acknowledge that Goofy wears a hat no matter what I say. September 2008: McNeil's grocery store is permanently out of his favorite margarine. October 2008: McNeil on the space elevator. November 2008: McNeil comes across an incomplete episode guide to HELLO, LARRY. December 2008: McNeil thinks the human hand should have more fingers. January 2009: McNeil discovers that gin and raisins cure arthritis. February 2009: McNeil gets a big bruise on his arm. March 2009: McNeil wants a job on a cruise ship. April 2009: McNeil attempts to rescue a wayward balloon. May 2009: McNeil visits the Frogtown Fair. June 2009: McNeil dreams he is watching an endless production number from LI'L ABNER. July 2009: McNeil sends text messages from his cell phone while watching a Frank Sinatra movie. August 2009: McNeil disagrees philosophically with a comic book cover that shows a mad scientist putting a gorilla's brain in a superhero's body. September 2009: McNeil resembles famed boxing trainer Freddie Roach. October 2009: McNeil wears a surgical mask. November 2009: McNeil reports that a bird broke the large hadron collider by dropping a bread crumb on it. December 2009: McNeil advises me to like the universe or lump it. January 2010: McNeil eats soup. February 2010: McNeil tells of the hidden civilizations living deep beneath the surface of the earth. March 2010: McNeil recalls a carpet of his youth. April 2010: McNeil starts wearing a necktie. May 2010: McNeil's DNA sample fails to yield results. June 2010: McNeil thinks up some improvements for the movie 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. July 2010: McNeil reads to me from I, THE JURY. August 2010: McNeil finds a hair in his crab cake. September 2010: McNeil has a cold. October 2010: McNeil sends a nine-minute clip of a nice old man speaking at a UFO banquet. November 2010: McNeil sits in his car and looks at pictures of Jennifer Jones. December 2010: McNeil fears a ball of fire in the sky. January 2011: McNeil watches DYNASTY. February 2011: McNeil sees clouds that look like guys on horseback. March 2011: McNeil composes a "still life" photograph. April 2011: McNeil is upset when I interrupt his viewing of MATCH GAME. May 2011: McNeil pines for some old curtains. June 2011: McNeil eats Lucky Charms brand breakfast cereal. July 2011: McNeil investigates the history of the Phar-Mor drugstore chain. August 2011: McNeil compares Dean Moriarty to Dean Martin. September 2011: McNeil learns a lesson about pork and beans. October 2011: McNeil finds an article describing Robert Mitchum as "Bing Crosby supersaturated with barbiturates." November 2011: McNeil did nothing in November. December 2011: McNeil discovers scientists creating rainbows in a laboratory. January 2012: McNeil impersonates Paul Lynde. February 2012: McNeil dreams of matches. March 2012: McNeil's Theory of Potential Energy (see November 2007, above) used to chart the influence of Jerry Lewis on Carson McCullers. April 2012: McNeil disturbed by the art in his hotel room. May 2012: McNeil considers grave robbing. June 2012: McNeil's idea for "music television." July 2012: McNeil holds his negative feelings in check out of respect when the man who invented electric football dies. August 2012: McNeil reads me an old obituary of Charlie Callas over the phone. September 2012: McNeil concerned about T.J. Hooker's big meaty hands. October 2012: McNeil eats lunch at Target. November 2012: McNeil loves it when Bob Hope slips on a banana peel. December 2012: McNeil sees rocks that look like squirrels. January 2013: McNeil looks at an old, faded photo of a dog gazing into a Bath and Tile Emporium. February 2013: McNeil watches a video in which a hooded figure talks about "our criminal overlords." March 2013: McNeil wakes up at 6:40 in the evening, momentarily thinks it is 6:40 in the morning. April 2013: McNeil sees a singer who looks just like Bill Clinton. May 2013: McNeil is ashamed of himself for not realizing that Ida Lupino directed some episodes of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. June 2013: McNeil mails a cashew tree. July 2013: McNeil watches GIDGET GOES HAWAIIAN. August 2013: McNeil recalls being rosy-cheeked. September 2013: A fairyland goes on in McNeil's head. October 2013: McNeil recalls tucking in his t-shirt. November 2013: The cover of a book McNeil buys says it is about Jerry Lewis, but on the inside the book is about Willie Stargell! December 2013: McNeil wants to visit an orgone box factory. January 2014: McNeil did nothing in January. February 2014: McNeil wonders whether Tom Franklin puts his hair in curlers. March 2014: McNeil takes a nap in the car. April 2014: The subject of McNeil pops up in an interview. May 2014: McNeil's emails on the "hollow earth" recalled (see February 2010, above). June 2014: McNeil looks forward to getting drunk and making insensitive remarks as I lie on my deathbed. July 2014: McNeil watches Jim and Henny Backus play themselves in DON'T MAKE WAVES. August 2014: McNeil tells about Robert Mitchum's hangover cure. September 2014: McNeil exaggerates the fate of some owls. October 2014: McNeil is incensed that a candy apple costs eight dollars at the airport. November 2014: McNeil's heart overflows with joy. December 2014: McNeil continues his 7-year chimp investigation (see May 2007, above). January 2015: McNeil listens to a conspiracy theorist who says Jimmy Carter was replaced by a series of robots. February 2015: McNeil recalls doing a report about matches in the eighth grade. March 2015: McNeil takes to bed with the flu! April 2015: McNeil and I establish an amazing psychic link. May 2015: McNeil bitterly recalls the time he brought a John Wayne movie to my apartment and we never watched it. June 2015: McNeil dreams about a bearded Dean Martin. July 2015: McNeil has a disappointing encounter with the Grand Canyon. August 2015: McNeil sees a squirrel holding a stick. September 2015: McNeil is saddened by the news of Dean Jones's death. October 2015: McNeil watches STARFLIGHT: THE PLANE THAT COULDN'T LAND. November 2015: McNeil sends video of Joe Namath making and eating a sandwich. December 2015: A coincidence of the type McNeil especially loves. January 2016: McNeil is in a grocery store and they start playing "I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea" over the speakers! February 2016: McNeil watches Don Rickles eat in a bathroom. March 2016: McNeil is duly thrilled when Megan Abbott goes to see CRACKING UP on the big screen. April 2016: McNeil swallows a gnat. May 2016: McNeil recalls the details of a screenplay we wrote in our twenties. June 2016: Destruction comes to McNeil's apple tree! July 2016: McNeil spots Dabney Coleman in an I DREAM OF JEANNIE rerun. August 2016: McNeil points out that Dean Martin had granddaughters named Pepper, Montana, and Rio. September 2016: McNeil is called a "filthy troglodyte." October 2016: McNeil advises me on what to do now that ADVENTURE TIME has been canceled. "I say take it easy for a while... just pretend to write when Theresa's around and then sleep or watch movies when she leaves. Oh hell, you know how to work it," writes McNeil.* November 2016: McNeil sees an owl while walking his dog at midnight. December 2016: McNeil finds an Airbnb listing by "eccentric millionaires" for a treehouse featuring "whimsical taxidermy."* January 2017: McNeil notices that there are lots of ants in his writing.* February 2017: McNeil roots for the guy who stole a bucket full of gold flakes.* March 2017: McNeil reads an article suggesting that all the gold on Earth came from the collision of dead stars and says, "Let's go get us some of this!" seemingly suggesting a trip to outer space.* April 2017: McNeil recalls that he was washing dishes in 2015 when the thought of Gene Gene the Dancing Machine came into his head. Then he discovered that Gene Gene the Dancing Machine had just died!* May 2017: McNeil watches ISLAND IN THE SKY with his dog.* June 2017: McNeil is happy to see a movie with rotary phones and "people looking up stuff in a filing cabinet for a change."* July 2017: McNeil begins alerting me to weather situations in my area like he's my mother.* August 2017: McNeil connects heavenly signs and portents with the death of Jerry Lewis. September 2017: A critique by McNeil inspires a choice of airplane reading material. October 2017: McNeil cruelly but fairly shuts down my scheme of crossbreeding an apple with a lemon. November 2017: "Death knows my weak spot!" McNeil exclaims.* December 2017: McNeil leafs through CARIBOU TRAVELER. January 2018: McNeil catches a cold and stays in bed watching old game shows, writing from his sickbed: "Bobby Van looks so healthy...but would be dead only 5 years later... GATHER YE ROSEBUDS!"* February 2018: McNeil gives me a good idea about how to win a coupla sawbucks from likely suckers. March 2018: McNeil's complaint about sleeping: "I dream way too much."* April 2018: McNeil watches a movie in which Dean Martin claims to "make a hell of an owl stew."* May 2018: I ask McNeil what lightning is for (see January 2008) and he explains it to me.* June 2018: McNeil's mom stumbles on an old book about the comical dog Marmaduke from McNeil's younger days and is excited to deliver it to him.* July 2018: While walking his dog, McNeil sees a bone fall out of the sky. August 2018: Having made it to season five, McNeil, though a stalwart fan, watches what he considers to be the worst episode of BEWITCHED so far.* September 2018: McNeil finds one page of a history skit we did in ninth grade. October 2018: McNeil emails a still from the silent movie BILLY WHISKERS, the subject of an innocuous, decades-long inside joke. Using me as an intermediary, he also consults Ace Atkins about the little-known film version of DARKER THAN AMBER... set in Florida but filmed, as Ace explains, mostly in Germany!* November 2018: McNeil asks me whether Jack Lemmon was left handed. I don't know.* December 2018: McNeil tells me about deluxe reissues of two Paul McCartney albums I've never heard of.* January 2019: McNeil says he only ever bought one cassette tape in his life. (It was Bruce Springsteen's "The River.")* February 2019: McNeil watches IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD and finds it difficult to believe a hardware store would close that long for lunch.* March 2019: McNeil tells me about a used car dealer in his town who secretly dealt drugs and would use his commercials to let people know a shipment had come in. If this guy's dog was on the hood of his car in the commercial, he was ready to deal some drugs!* April 2019: McNeil is thinking about the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract.* May 2019: McNeil follows up on an email from 2015.* June 2019: Working on a secret project with McNeil. It never comes to fruition. July 2019: McNeil sees a guy in a parking lot trying unsuccessfully to fit a rolled-up rug in his car.* August 2019: McNeil cuts down his apple tree. September 2019: McNeil remarks that Brendan Gleeson should play Donald Trump... a prophecy that came true!* October 2019: McNeil is at the dentist's office, where the muted cartoon on the television provides the caption "frightened quacking."* November 2019: McNeil is shirt shopping when he realizes that the age of some of his old shirts makes it likely that any new shirt he buys might be the last shirt he will ever need.* December 2019: McNeil watches the old Frosty the Snowman cartoon and is disappointed that Frosty lets himself get trapped in the hothouse again.* January 2020: There's a new vending machine at McNeil's workplace. It dispenses "gloves, knee pads, safety vests - even socks."* February 2020: A comic book cover McNeil likes. March 2020: McNeil ponders inventing "powdered meat." April 2020: McNeil misremembers an idea we discussed in 2005. May 2020: Something McNeil and I noticed in 2014 comes up. June 2020: McNeil gets seven shots of novacaine.* July 2020: McNeil begins noticing obelisks. August 2020: McNeil goes fishing with Dean Martin in the realm of dreams. September 2020: McNeil finds an article that his grandmother clipped from a newspaper... on the back is an intriguing but incomplete item about murder among circus performers.* October 2020: McNeil tells me about a fusion reactor in France.* November 2020: McNeil has a dream about "the best chocolate milkshakes in the world."* December 2020: McNeil reminisces about fence posts. January 2021: McNeil's fascination with obelisks continues to inspire. February 2021: McNeil's decade-old observation about gin and raisins confirmed by the New York Times. March 2021: McNeil has an idea for a toilet that plays commercials.* April 2021: There's a photo of Jerry Lewis hanging in the breakroom where McNeil works, and he had nothing to do with it!* May 2021: McNeil watches a live feed of a stork's nest. He's pretty sure they're storks.* June 2021: Ernest Borgnine's personality is assessed at "a million watts." McNeil rates him 11 watts at most. July 2021: McNeil watches half of CHANGE OF HABIT and it's not as bad as he remembered.* August 2021: McNeil is envious that the fictional character Travis McGee gets to live on a boat.* September 2021: A guy at work asks McNeil if he has change for a quarter, because he's going to "drop a dime" on McNeil.* October 2021: McNeil and I coincidentally have doctor's appointments ON THE SAME DAY!!!!!!* November 2021: McNeil asks if I remember a song our high school band played at pep ralleys. It goes like this, according to McNeil (direct quotation to follow): "bom, bom, bom, bom-bom....bom, bom, bom, bom-bom....bom, bom, bom, bom-bom.....bom-bom-bom."* December 2021: McNeil dreams about Carol Channing... and within the dream, CAROL CHANNING HERSELF HAS A DREAM!* January 2022: McNeil and I correspond about a place where Eleanor Roosevelt used to live. February 2022: McNeil and I discuss a possible plot for something in which some crooks ask for a $250,000 payoff in quarters.* March 2022: McNeil is concerned about the sexual activities of some birds.* April 2022: Someone in McNeil's breakroom at work is listening to a recording of Jerry Clower, which upsets McNeil.* May 2022: McNeil covets a glowing orb. June 2022: McNeil and I debate whether the Falcon or Thin Man movies qualify as "serials."* July 2022: McNeil visits Albany, NY!* August 2022: I am given reason to recall the time McNeil swallowed a gnat (see the entry for April 2016, above). September 2022: McNeil finds a half-smoked pack of cigarettes that belonged to his grandfather. October 2022: McNeil is thinking about Leo Gorcey and abandoned motels.* November 2022: McNeil worries about 10 billion years that are unaccounted for. December 2022: I email McNeil about Frasier. January 2023: McNeil emails me about Dean Martin. February 2023: McNeil's irresistible influence. March 2023: McNeil's word is as good as gold. April 2023: McNeil's interest in the ubiquity of the Globe Illustrated Shakespeare. May 2023: McNeil has an idea about how a dog could win at blackjack.* (Why I didn't "blog" about this is a complete mystery.) June 2023: I recall that McNeil may or may not have once told me that glass is nothing but a slow-moving liquid. Anyway, it sounds like McNeil. July 2023: McNeil reports on a silver alien ball and a guy rubbing his feet on the silver alien ball. August 2023: McNeil sees some curtains he likes in an obituary. September 2023: McNeil finally remembers the title of a book upon which he presented a book report in middle school. October 2023: 40th anniversary of McNeil recording a Bob Hope double feature. November 2023: McNeil and I get into a disagreement about plums (not to be confused with the soup dispute of October 2023).* December 2023: A misunderstanding about Phyllis Diller, later happily resolved (see March 2024 below). January 2024: McNeil drives his family crazy by repeatedly singing "Eleanor Rigby" with customized lyrics featuring himself as the hero.* February 2024: McNeil finds the actual, tangible, physical volume of science-fiction upon which he precociously composed a book report some several decades earlier (for further details, see September 2023 above). March 2024: Misunderstanding about Phyllis Diller (see December 2023 above) resolved and put to rest. April 2024: McNeil reveals the details of his grandfather's shocking criminal activities. May 2024: McNeil's miraculous Canadian belt. June 2024: McNeil is worried about a giant catapult. July 2024: I am chastened by the stinging memory of McNeil's justified scorn (see October 2017, above). August 2024: McNeil boldly declares that Lena Horne should have played Dooley Wilson's role in CASABLANCA. September 2024: McNeil watches some Charles Bronson movies. October 2024: A McNeil discovery continues to reverberate, with life-altering consequences for the "blog." November 2024: I tell McNeil about my dream where a guy we knew in high school dressed a duck in human clothes and the duck didn't like it. December 2024: McNeil accuses me of eating pink Sno-Balls five days a week in eighth grade when, in fact, they were strawberry Zingers. January 2025: McNeil wonders whether Hank Williams went "to too many luaus." February 2025: McNeil explains the sleeping habits of dogs. March 2025: McNeil reads the Bible. April 2025: McNeil sees a commercial where a guy sprays deodorant down the back of his pants. May 2025: Photo unearthed of a young McNeil sporting white socks. June 2025: McNeil recalls buying a book by Albert Einstein because he thought it would make him look smart. July 2025: McNeil reads THE BRASS CUPCAKE. August 2025: McNeil can't bear to listen to Jack Palance read from his novel [actually a love story in blank verse? - ed.]. September 2025: McNeil relates the tale of William Faulkner's magical piano. October 2025: McNeil recalls reenacting a wine commercial starring Orson Welles for his cousins, who had never seen it.* That's it for now! Be sure to come back next year!

People Eating Grapes

"Every movie I watch lately, people are eating grapes." That's what I would be blasting out on social media right now, had I not quit social media like the biggest hero you've ever known. These aren't new movies. Just any movie. Any decade, any nation. In at least four movies I watched recently, people were eating grapes right off the stem. Never once did I see someone bother to wash the grapes. Robert Redford buys some grapes, takes them home and eats them out of the paper bag like an animal. Lots of grapes wrapped in paper, for that matter. Why? Why so many grapes? Where are the grapes coming from? What are the grapes trying to tell me?