No One Is Talking

Well, it was back in December when my enormously popular yet mysteriously obscure feature ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, on the "web" site Flaming Hydra, came to its gently burbling conclusion. I can't say that I was inundated with cards and letters asking me what might come next. In fact, the query was raised by no one, nor was the finale itself a source of rueful celebration. The subject of the column in question, of course, was my friend and neighbor Ace Atkins, in particular his work on the Pauly Shore film JURY DUTY. And something did come next! That something was, and is, KENT GOES TO CHELMSFORD, the thrilling story of how Kent Osborne got cast in the starmaking Brendan Fraser vehicle SCHOOL TIES, which I believe came out within a year of Pauly Shore's JURY DUTY. We're already on Episode 3 of KENT GOES TO CHELMSFORD! Which I only mention because Kent talks about eating chicken in Episode 3 and, as you know, I have kept a careful tally here on the "blog" of Kent's chicken-eating activities, insofar as they relate to me personally... it would not be within the scope of even our mightiest computer systems to maintain a record of every time Kent eats chicken, which he does with neither remorse nor surcease. He's probably eating a chicken right now! If one were to "click" on the proper "hyperlink" shortly to come, one would find that the chicken in Episode 3 of KENT GOES TO CHELMSFORD is Chicken Française... a spoiler in which I do not mind indulging as I thought you might like to know that Chicken Française is the same thing as Chicken French, to which I was introduced by James Whorton in Brockport, NY, a stone's throw from Chicken French's place of origin, Rochester. If I recall correctly, Jim told me that he had originally (and wrongly) assumed the name "Chicken French" had something to do with French's brand mustard, the French's Mustard company, it may shock and delight you to learn, having historical ties to Rochester! What a world. On that same trip, Jim fed me something called a "garbage plate," an incident fictionalized in a story of which I could not remember the title as I tossed and turned last night, contemplating "blogging" about it upon awakening, which, as you can see, I have done. Anyhow, the story about the garbage plate appeared in the Hingston & Olsen SHORT STORY ADVENT CALENDAR for 2019 and it was titled, as I just confirmed, "The Wild Man of Mississippi." Who cares? Nobody! Which was my original point. For example, I have also heard literally nothing about Frowny 'n' Smiley, my big hit characters who made their debut on Adult Swim around the same time that ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD came to its sputtering halt. I was told recently - without asking! - that Frowny 'n' Smiley are "in rotation," but the only true evidence I have for their existence is in the commercial breaks for the BEHIND THE ELEPHANT special that I recorded off the TV one morning some hours before sunrise. I have had no verification of a Frowny 'n' Smiley sighting from any independent source, and the chances are good everything is a delusion. Yes, everything.