Bitter Thoughts

Well, the Million Dollar Book Club has been debating whether to read about J Dilla or Schubert next. In the midst of discussions, it occurred to me that both subjects died very young, and at about the same age. So I emailed Megan sardonically, if that is the right word, "We know how to have fun!" The more of these books we read (125 so far), the clearer it becomes that all biographies end the same way, if you know what I mean.

McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits

It's Dr. Theresa's birthday! And you know what that means, of course: it's time for "McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits," the regular "blog" feature where McNeil reads a 700-page biography of Humphrey Bogart and gives us the scoop straight from his brain into our eager eye holes. Those who enjoyed the story of how Bogart gave a bellhop a nickel tip will be excited to learn that he tips a masseur in this one. But I've already said too much! Here, I'm just going to cut and paste the email I got from McNeil and my job is done. "THE BIG SLEEP was completed in January 1945. In late January 1945, Bacall was scheduled to be in NY for a publicity tour for the opening of TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT. Because the divorce between Bogie and Mayo had not quite been finalized, the studio didn’t want Bogie anywhere near Bacall. That didn’t happen. Bogie took the Super Chief to NY before her and waited on Bacall to get there (as soon as I typed Super Chief a train flew by the window of the doctor’s office I happen to be sitting in). He checked into the Gotham Hotel. The studio found out and sent a man named Stevens from their NY office to be with him 24/7 – to watch him and 'give him whatever he wants.' One night Bogie was particularly stressed and he and Stevens went to '21', where Bogie had a sandwich and a couple of drinks. Back at the hotel Bogie had a few more drinks. He still felt tense and told Stevens he wanted a massage. Warners had a masseur on the payroll so Stevens rang him up. Twenty minutes later Bogart was getting his massage – along with a couple more drinks he had ordered from room service. When the massage was over, Bogie took, as Stevens recounts, 'The fastest shower I have ever seen a man take. Less than forty-five seconds. No soap, nothing.' Bogie grabbed a towel and finished another drink and wondered where the hell that guy was with his massage. When Stevens told him he had just had the massage, Bogie became irate and demanded he come back and give him a real massage. The masseur lived in Brooklyn, but got on the subway with his table and came back and gave Bogie an hour-long massage. In the meantime, he and Stevens had ordered a steak dinner, which Bogie did not touch, choosing instead to drink more. After the massage Bogie demanded Stevens make a reservation at El Morocco, then Bogie demanded he change the reservation to the Stork Club, then he changed his mind and had Stevens make a reservation at Toots Shor’s. Five minutes later, Bogie took a nap. Sometime around ten pm (it’s only 10!!!) Bogie wakes up and needs another massage…Stevens called the masseur again, in Brooklyn, and told him to take a cab this time and Warners would pay for it. The guy came from Brooklyn for a third time and gave Bogie a brutal massage, which Bogie cursed and drank through. When it was done, Bogie was finally happy, and gave the masseur a $60 tip." You know what? That's the end of McNeil's email, but I decided to come back after all. I wanted to say that I thought I would certainly have a "blog" "hyperlink" to provide about the Super Chief, as I recalled with 88% guaranteed mental accuracy that Vic, the hero of the Doomed Book Club classic THE HUCKSTERS, had a romantic encounter or two on the very same Super Chief. But after combing the "blog" to the fullest extent of my superhuman abilities, I uncovered no evidence that I am not just living in a beautiful dream.

Neither Nor

Believe it or not, this Polly Adler bio mentions GREEN ACRES. Why wouldn't you believe it? You've never heard of Polly Adler and you've never heard of GREEN ACRES. And yet, for that very reason, it is true that you are capable of neither believing the above revelation nor disbelieving it, any more than you could believe or disbelieve a phrase like "Ikdflakdhfadkfjahdkfjh? Hlkjdkfh 'oifjskfj' sjhdfkjh!" The allusion to which I refer does perfectly illustrate what I have come to call (just now) "the GREEN ACRES problem," for the biographer can think of no better way to describe the show than as a "lowbrow classic," making sure, as part of an ongoing, if possibly unconscious, conspiracy among our nation's higher institutions to never, never let GREEN ACRES receive praise without some sort of distancing qualification, even though I have proven (for example, with my famous "GREEN ACRES or Ionesco?" quiz, which, though rejected for publication by McSweeney's, remains a legitimate brain puzzler, a fact that should be highly instructive) that there is no shame, no "guilty pleasure" aspect to GREEN ACRES that need give the conscientious egghead reason to hide appreciation of it under a bushel of equivocation, to paraphrase Matthew 5:15. If viewing this on your laptop, Laura Lippman, please "click" on the label "GREEN ACRES" below for more reflections along the same line. The mobile version of the "blog" is sadly lacking in such illuminating extras.

Twisted Dharma Stories

Stopped by Square Books yesterday and picked up a Penguin paperback called BUDDHIST MEDITATION: CLASSIC TEACHINGS FROM TIBET. If it's any of your business! This collection starts with a few old poems, and the second poem in the whole book introduces an image that readers of the "blog" are sure to go into a tizzy over, for reasons of which I need not remind my initiates: "Old Owl sits on the rock and hoots." Next comes a question to which I could only answer yes: "Do you sit upon your rock,/Spouting twisted dharma stories to others?" Speaking of which, I had lots of thoughts about those WORLD'S FINEST COMICS starring Batman and Superman that Tom Franklin brought me in the hospital. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to express them anywhere, except in texts to Tom, but the combination of being sickly and quitting social media is a potent one! Plus, discovering the owl in yet another book opened the door to a legitimate "blog" "post" and now my fingers may type as much as they like and no one can stop them! These comic books are from back when I used to read comic books, and Batman isn't cool and edgy, as I suppose he is now. Like, Superman will say (I paraphrase), "All right, Batman, I'm going to go to outer space and do some important stuff. All you have to do is watch this one guy, and he's literally asleep, can you handle it?" And Batman goes, "Sure thing, Superman!" (Again, I paraphrase.) And in the VERY NEXT PANEL, someone is bashing Batman in the back of the head with a big stick. Down he goes, out for the count! He had one job, as the hilarious meme from years gone by would have it. I have always pictured Batman as being very alert. On the anecdotal evidence of the two issues of WORLD'S FINEST that Tom brought me, I can also say that Batman and Superman are surprisingly testy with one another, bickering and petty, like some old couples. Often, they keep their bitter feelings deep down inside, and express them only in thought bubbles. Here I will cease paraphrasing and give you a couple of direct quotations. "WHERE IN BLAZES IS SUPERMAN? WE WERE SUPPOSED TO MEET HERE BY THIS OLD SUGAR MILL BY NOON!" Batman sulks with a petulant look on his face. From a separate story: "BLAST! IT'S ALL BATMAN'S FAULT... IT WAS HIS TIP I ACTED ON. SOME DETECTIVE!" Superman silently rages. "AND WHERE IS HE?" he adds, exposing the odd Beckett-adjacent sub-theme of these comics, which is that Batman and Superman wait around for each other a lot, demi-gods paralyzed to helplessness by a perceived dependency that perhaps does not exist. In the same story, Superman is so over Batman's crap that he demolishes an office desk with his fist in frustration, although it is not adequately explained why Superman is sitting behind an office desk like a chump. In conclusion, Dr. Theresa reports that there is a rabbit in the backyard RIGHT NOW. And it's Easter!

Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis

Welcome once again to "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis," helping YOU match the right bookmark with the right book for more than eight years. But that all ends today. So! Kent Osborne recommended that Stephen King novel and I ripped right through it in two days, though it was a big, fat novel. Nine hundred pages, maybe? And just big in every dimension. Large and bulky. So! Remember when I went to that auction of Bob Hope's personal effects? Well, that auction house keeps sending me stuff in the mail. Like, they sent me a little portfolio of promotional cards, much bigger than postcards, notifying me about their upcoming auctions. I was going to measure one for you. I was rooting around in the kitchen drawer where I thought the tape measure might be. "Where's the tape measure?" I said. To which Dr. Theresa replied, "It's probably in there somewhere." And it probably is. But I never found it. So I can't tell you the exact size of this giant card I used as a bookmark in this giant Stephen King book. But I can tell you this! This promotional card had a picture of the Beatles on it. And at some point in the book, Stephen King's narrator goes by the pseudonym "John Lennon." So that was a coincidence! And there are a lot coincidences in this Stephen King book, coincidentally! Or, as Stephen King's narrator insists on calling them, "harmonics." Huh. I even read the afterword! Stephen King talks about a Norman Mailer book on Lee Harvey Oswald that was one of his primary resources for historical research. And that reminded me that I have a giant Norman Mailer novel about the CIA around here. Chris Offutt gave it to me a long time ago (years?) because he had two copies (!). I seem to recall [somewhat inaccurately - ed.] that the book was roundly mocked when it appeared, which, as you know, makes me want to read it more. I even recall that Norman Mailer's biographer says (I think) that there is a long part somewhere in the middle that is so boring no one should ever read that part, but I can't remember what that part is about [Uruguay - ed.], so I will probably end up reading it. So, I took this giant Norman Mailer CIA novel off the shelf, and it is spattered with old coffee stains, at least I hope those are coffee stains. And I opened it and recalled that I had already read two pages of it years (?) ago, and there was my stubby little Square Books bookmark of coarse paper stock ("Square Books classic" I call it... I just decided!), the kind they used before they switched over to the long, glossy bookmarks. Now I have reread those two pages, and five more pages besides, and there have already been two ghosts, and why am I surprised? "Ghost" is in the title. One wonderful advantage of taking this fat Norman Mailer novel off the shelf is that I now have a place to put the fat Stephen King novel. So they are roughly the same size. Yet I used a huge bookmark in one of them and a tiny bookmark in the other. What a revelation! About my own divided soul. Also: any kind of bookmark works just fine. This discovery means there is no use for "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis." This has been the final "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis." PS Just read one more page, on which were some sentences about "the ice monarch," a fanciful creature of the narrator's imagination, as in, "The ice monarch had installed his agents in my heart." Did Norman Mailer invent the Ice King? Just 1,118 pages to go before the "Author's Note"!

I Think About Plastic Man a Lot

I am going to write some boring stuff about old comic books. Is that okay with you? It's better than rambling about CYMBELINE in "post" after "post," isn't it? You be the judge! I sincerely believed that my midlife crisis had culminated in June of 2013, when I stopped caring about old comic books after a brief revival of that interest. So a couple of weeks ago I went to Memphis with Ace Atkins and Bill Boyle. We stopped by the comic book store so Ace could pick up some Scrooge McDuck for his kids (classic Carl Barks reprints, I'm only too happy to add). I was idly browsing the new releases when I saw new issues of Captain Marvel (the real one, who says, "Shazam!") and Plastic Man, two of my old favorites. "Well!" I thought. "I wonder what these guys are up to!" So I bought one of each. Captain Marvel seems to be plugging along in the old spirit of Captain Marvel. But I am sad to say that in Plastic Man, the Nazis have taken over the United States! Plastic Man is meeting in seedy motel rooms to buy guns, like Travis Bickle! Who did this to you, Plas? Soon enough I was crawling around in the attic, opening up sealed boxes of my dumb old comic books, looking for what? Lost innocence, probably!

My Cloak of Blue

Hey! This is real boring. But you know how I can't settle on anything to read right now. When I was cleaning my office recently - ha ha! I told you this was boring, and we're just getting started! - I found where I had hidden (and forgotten) the galley of a Frank Sinatra bio that came out a couple years ago, I guess. I hid it because my sister was visiting and I was giving her the hardcover for Christmas (I think)... hmm... and for some reason that doesn't make total sense, I guess I thought I needed to hide the galley from her... Well, I started reading it, and I'm not enjoying it very much... seems to me the author is trying to be Nick Tosches, but he comes off more like "a little boy lost in a big man's shirt," to quote Elvis Costello... lots of phony hepcat lingo and street talk in a loosey-goosey "novelistic" style, peppered with the occasional "classical allusion"... ugh. I mean, ugh unless you're Nick Tosches. (Hey, remember when I made that guy read a Nick Tosches book and he hated it? So I guess it serves me right.) BUT! Megan Abbott really liked this Frank Sinatra book, the one I can't get into, and she has never steered me wrong about anything, ever, and let's remember I am just in a bad mood all the time, for which I blame Errol Flynn and his depressing autobiography. I haven't recovered! Megan put her finger on the problem in an email this morning: "I think you've been reading too much chest-thumping male stuff in a row! You need to mix in something feminine, and sly!" So now that I have made excuses for the Frank bio, and introduced a reliable source who very much enjoyed it, I think it is okay to say it is bumming me out, and by bringing it out into the open I have allowed myself to tell you that it has an owl in it, well, young Frank is said to have a "night-owl disposition" and that's really all it takes for me, it totally counts, so this book can go on my obsessive list of books I happen to read that have owls in them and I don't feel bad about my mental health at all, thanks for asking. An owl is not a chicken, but they are both birds, so here is a Sinatra-based chicken from an old Warner Bros. cartoon. (Between typing that sentence and this one, I read some more of the Frank Sinatra bio. The author says that Tommy Dorsey had "a deliciously corny nickname, the Sentimental Gentleman of Swing." But I recalled that earlier in the book he refers to "a soupy, utterly forgettable Frank Loesser ballad," which he then quotes with snotty intent: "Here comes the night, my cloak of blue." I mean, what's wrong with that? What makes one of those things "deliciously corny" and the other "soupy" and "utterly forgettable" [you'll note I didn't forget it]? But of course I know that being a writer means making such blithely arbitrary distinctions hundreds of times per page. So you can see what kind of rotten mood I'm in.)

Big Baby

Hi! I was in Alabama. A lot of family was there, including four of my innumerable nephews. Sometimes when I am driving I end up taking crazy exits. Like, remember when the grifter tried to grift me that time? And the time I ate some items that may or may not have been chicken livers? Once Dr. Theresa and I got in the middle of police action - guns and everything! - during what was supposed to be a quick bathroom stop in Baltimore, but that's a long time before I knew you, "internet." This time I stopped at a gas station with homemade posters everywhere, just plain white posterboard scrawled with black Sharpie, and they all said, "BUY YOUR STUFF AND GO" - not like a boast of convenience, more like a terrifying threat. That gas station had a surprising number of flies in it. Next door to the station I could see the tall, faded sign for something called the SAFE HOUSE LOUNGE sticking up over the trees. It made me feel nervous! Why would you have to insist that your lounge is safe in its very name? FAST FORWARD. On the way back from Alabama, I stopped at a dumpy little gas station in a town called Wiggins, but the bathroom was so nice! The tiled wall was the color of pistachio ice cream. And it smelled good! The bathroom did. Fresh and clean! The only thing marring it was the name BIG BABY. Big Baby had printed his name fairly neatly on the toilet paper dispenser. That was it! What a clean and pleasant bathroom. I watched the most recent episode of ADVENTURE TIME with the whole family, there in Alabama. Which means I watched the death of Root Beer Guy with my traumatized nephews. Ha ha! They were not traumatized. They got a huge kick out of Jesse Moynihan's action-packed, beautiful and brilliant episode. But you can't blame (congratulate?) Jesse for killing Root Beer Guy. He squeezed that in at my insistence! Did you know I did the voice of Root Beer Guy? So I guess I am sensitive about the character. He became the Captain of the Banana Guards but he never did much to improve them. I felt really bad about his failure on the job. I thought if he were dead I'd feel more comfortable with the Banana Guards staying so dumb. Nobody wants to see a smart Banana Guard. Hey! I know I shouldn't ever talk about "internet" "commenters" because who cares? But I saw this one dude (I guess) on the "internet" who said the episode was "absolutely incoherent." He or she was also just waiting with itchy fingers - maybe! - to be the first commenter on the review, which is fine! What would Freud say? WHO CARES? I just want to say that my four-year-old nephew totally got what was going on in the episode! So did my 17-year-old-nephew and all the nephews in between. Dr. Theresa wanted to "watch it again." She doesn't say that about much of anything. She laughed really hard when Maja the Sky Witch banged her head on that tree and the little x's went over her eyes. Classic! But anyway, it's none of my beeswax and commenters can make any comments they want just as quickly as their fingers can type. It's a free country! Ha ha, it's the Fourth of July! But man, I just loved the episode. It makes sense that someone might see bounty and spiritual generosity as incoherence. Maybe bounty and spiritual generosity ARE incoherent the first time we approach them with our struggling minds. It's kind of like what William James said about St. Paul, oh, forget it, I don't want to get into it. But yes, I am comparing Jesse Moynihan to St. Paul. But Jesse has none of St. Paul's hang-ups. Just a few of his own, probably, like all of us. Jesse's art is full to bursting! Whereas St. Paul preferred to bottle stuff up. Maybe. I got Jesse's book FORMING (I think the sequel is out now) at Square Books, and it's just fantastic. Sorry I started talking about an "internet" comment. I had something else I was going to say, probably about a gas station, but I forgot.

Please Never Do This

So we went over to Ace's and watched CITY STREETS and Sylvia Sidney reminded Ace of old photos of his grandmother, so Ace got out his grandmother's pearl-handled revolver and we passed it around. Megan Abbott wanted me to take her picture holding the gun and so I did and imagine my surprise when she pointed it at me, violating one of the primary rules of gun safety, perhaps THE primary rule. I want to remind you to NEVER POINT A GUN AT SOMEBODY, EVEN IF THE GUN IS SUPPOSEDLY NOT LOADED. That is practically the first thing you should know about guns. Guns are not toys. Remember William S. Burroughs. That being said, here is the photo and it is pretty neat considering that I happened not to get killed this time and anyway here I am glorifying it and after all it is "classic Megan Abbott." Note Bill Boyle texting blithely in the background.

Fatal Fusion

Hey Dr. Theresa and I were driving past a church just now and you know how churches have those little billboards outside with inspirational messages on them? This one said "FATAL FUSION" and that's all it said! On both sides! What is that? Something I'm supposed to know about? I am pretty sure it is not an inspirational message. Sounds like the title of an action movie. I was intrigued! Though not intrigued enough to attend church. I'm probably dumb and everybody knows what fatal fusion is. Speaking of which, I saw Bill and Jimmy at Good Idea Club last night, where we drank wine that tasted like barbecue sauce. And I told them about a description I like in ABSALOM, ABSALOM!: "his eyes looked like pieces of a broken plate" but I didn't tell them the rest of the description ("his beard was strong as a curry-comb") because I didn't want them to know I was too dumb to know what a curry-comb is. The man who is telling that part of the story in ABSALOM,ABSALOM! even appeared to think "curry-comb" was a weird thing to say, because he recalled of his father, who had originally made the description, as if musing on the strangeness of his father's utterance, "That was how he put it: strong as a curry-comb." So a curry-comb seemed like something I should look up in my WEBSTER'S NEW TWENTIETH CENTURY DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, UNABRIDGED, SECOND EDITION from 1974. And it's "a comb with metal teeth, for grooming and cleaning a horse's coat." So now I do feel dumb because everybody with a horse certainly knows what a curry-comb is but guess what. I don't have a horse. Bill and Jimmy told me last night that during the taping of my Lent Magazine interview I had pontificated at some length about iceberg lettuce wedges so naturally I urged them to send me the transcript of that portion. They've sent just a little of it, which I cut-and-paste here, though I must warn you I repeat some stuff that I've already told you on the "blog." The good news is that nobody reads the "blog." Maybe most of what I talk to anyone about comes from the "blog," because the "blog" now functions as a substitute for my memory, which no longer exists where it used to, in my brain. So I guess the "blog" is "canon," as ADVENTURE TIME fans like to say. But here's the wedge stuff: "JIMMY: How’s your wedge? JACK: This wedge is fantastic. The true wedge connoisseur of the family is Theresa. She loves a good, classic wedge. She introduced me to the pleasures of the wedge. One of many things Theresa has taught me over the years. Pendleton Ward took me to Musso and Frank’s, the oldest restaurant in Hollywood. He told me all about how he used to sit there when he was first getting Adventure Time together and work on it. We both ordered a Romaine Salad, which was how it was listed on the menu. But when it came it was like they just sliced a head of romaine lettuce in half and gave me half and Pen half. And that was it! That was your salad! I was like, they are old school here! Grind a little pepper on top, dressing on the side, you kind of spoon some dressing over it and it tastes good! Now, because of that, this wedge seems whorish to me! Tarted up! That sounds like a Harry Potter story. Harry Potter and the Whorish Wedge." Jimmy assures me that plenty more wedge transcript is on the way. Thank God! In conclusion, some dude finally decided to get with the program and send me an "oatmeal selfie." His name is Randal Cooper and here he is. And thank God too for brave souls like him.

Frasier, Briefly

Welcome once again to "Frasier, Briefly," your only place on the "internet" for all the latest Frasier news! On tonight's ADVENTURE TIME episode, Jake says to Finn (I may be paraphrasing slightly) "I need to talk to you in the kitchen." Classic Frasier! Frasier used to say that all the time. I happen to know that series creator Pen Ward, like Dr. Theresa and Kelly Hogan (and me!) is an inveterate Frasier watcher, though I am not exactly sure what "inveterate" means. In conclusion, I do not think it is a spoiler by any means to say that we tried to get Frasier to do a voice on the show, but today we learned that he is "too busy." I wrote a song for Frasier to sing on ADVENTURE TIME, and they sent him the demo, but I guess he didn't like it enough. TOO BUSY! This is the worst day of my life.

True Lettuce Story

Want to hear about my most recent trip to Los Angeles? No? Great! Let's get right to it. Pen took me to lunch at Musso & Frank's, the oldest dining spot in Hollywood, I guess. He said he used to go there and work on the very beginnings of ADVENTURE TIME. We both ordered the "romaine salad" to start with and received a head of lettuce that someone had chopped in two to split between us. Nothing on it or anything. A saucer of dressing on the side. And a pepper grinder on the table. And that's all you need, man, although it looked kind of funny just lying there by itself on the plate. I know what a classic wedge is, but this was stark. Starkly delicious! Then we went to a writer's meeting and Tom Herpich, one of the great storyboard artists and writers on ADVENTURE TIME, doodled a picture of my head and gave it to me. I looked at it and thought, "Wow, I'm fat!" Hey if you are a skinny, scrawny person like I used to be for the first half of my life, it will be a constant astonishment to yourself when you get fat. Every time you suddenly remember you are fat, you will be surprised! At the meeting, Kent and I had a big argument about the original meaning of the phrase "A rolling stone gathers no moss." I just couldn't believe some wise man in ancient times was going around telling people, "You should get some moss growing on you! It's fantastic!" But Kent's argument was forceful and compelling, filled with verbal footnotes. He cited Philip K. Dick, for example. And later it dawned on me that the Bob Dylan song "Like a Rolling Stone" is on Kent's side, too. So I admitted I was wrong. The writers ordered pizza. Somebody wanted a pizza with just basil and nothing else. Somebody wanted a pizza with just garlic and nothing else. Inside, I was like, What other kinds of pizzas will they order with a single herb or spice on it and nothing else? Somvilay seemed to think it was funny, too. He tried to get Pen to order a pizza with just mint on it and nothing else. Kent and I ate at that same restaurant I told you about some months ago, the one where Bob Hope used to eat. This time we were utterly forgotten by the staff for an incredible length of time. Kent drily pretended it was part of the historic ambience. "You know," he said, "Dean Martin used to be ignored in this very booth." He said, "Bob Hope used to put his elbows on this table and find out it hadn't been wiped down." The next morning I had breakfast at a diner with Verdell. That was the best, because I hadn't seen Verdell for five years then there she was, same as ever. We laughed constantly. The diner was called The Tallyrand. It was also called The Tally Rand and the The TallyRand. If you walk around the restaurant you can see the name spelled at least three different ways. Above please enjoy the photo Verdell took of "Sid and Sandy Sausage," who adorn the window. They are a couple of sausage links who are deeply in love. Verdell and I agreed that The Tallyrand reminded us in some ways of Mary Mac's Tea Room in Atlanta, the city where we met. There was a lime tree in the parking lot of The Tally Rand, bursting with healthful limes. Verdell parked right next to it and I was stabbed and scratched by vicious lime branches as I struggled out of the car through the sliver of door I was able to open. After breakfast, Verdell dropped me off at the auction of Bob Hope's personal items. I can't tell you about that because I'm writing an article about it for a magazine. I called Dr. Theresa and told her I was on my way to Beverly Hills and she said "Be careful," and I said "Oh no, what do you think is going to happen to me in Beverly Hills?" and she said "You could be torn apart by a pack of coyotes in front of the closed gates of a mansion," and I said, "All right sweetie." But Dr. Theresa was onto something because Verdell almost killed me twice - once swooping around Mulholland Drive and again when a tour bus nearly backed into us. As I say, we were laughing the whole time, an okay way to get killed.

All-Star Entertainment Wrap-Up: Dunkel Edition!

Hello, friends, and welcome once again to All-Star Entertainment Wrap-Up, the only place on the "internet" that combines entertainment with the entertainment all-stars! Let's get things started with our first juicy tidbit! Okay! Halfway through that newish movie of ON THE ROAD, up pops Peggy from MAD MEN in the thankless role (in the movie, the book, and life itself perhaps) of Galetea Dunkel. When we first see her she's on the phone to Sal Paradise, complaining, "These people are mad! They're mad!" And I wanted Sal to reply, "Would you describe them as... MAD MEN?" But he didn't. (See also.) Bewilderingly, the movie did not include the scene from the novel in which Sal looks through the window of a Buick dealership and sees Jerry Colonna (pictured). Buddy Ebsen is in THE LOVE OF THE LAST TYCOON, by the way. I wonder if he ever sat around on the set of THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES bragging about how he was in Fitzgerald's final, unfinished masterpiece. Probably not. He seemed too nice to brag. But hey let's talk about something else. That movie I don't like (though it's rude to say as much) keeps coming on TV all the time. Now I have seen the part where the younger woman gives the older man (who wrote and directed the movie) a "mix tape" of "classical music" and he walks around listening to it and looking at buildings and then writes her letters about it which are quoted from at length in his voice-over narration while she sprawls out dreamily in a moony daze, grinning in a helpless rictus of joy as her shining eyes caress his profound and touching words, such as, "When I listened to the overture you sent, I suddenly realized I had hands... AND LEGS!" And in defiance of Billy Wilder's famous rule, we see exactly what he is narrating as he narrates it: the man who wrote and directed the movie staring at his own hands in childlike wonder as he listens to his "classical music." He also says, "I echo your sentiment about the Beethoven: Whoa." I know what he's doing there. With false modesty he is undercutting his sense of grandeur to seem real cool or something. I do it on this "blog" ALL THE TIME. Wait, this movie I claim to hate just made me realize it's myself I hate most of all. So let's talk about something else! McNeil sent me a 25-minute youtube clip (see also) because Johnny Carson's name appears on a marquee at 5:08, and I understand that! And McNeil understands that I understand that. The marquee is for one of Carson's early hosting gigs, a game show called "Do You Trust Your Wife?" That may bring us back to the oppression under which women like Galetea Dunkel labored, I don't know, sure, let's say it does. It's a MIKE HAMMER TV show, and I was surprised at the opening when Mike Hammer turned toward the camera to reveal that he is played by Darren McGavin, who is far too zany and lovable to play Mike Hammer. In an email, McNeil agreed. "They try to play the whole thing like a comedy it seems to me," he said, making a few more observations on various subjects before concluding, "what a fairy land goes on in my head." Mike Hammer drops his napkin on the floor of a restaurant to get a surreptitious look at a suspect, which is just about broad and cornball enough for the real Mike Hammer to do, but not in the vaudeville style McGavin does it. The suspect closely resembles Wimpy from the Popeye comic strip. He fiddles with his derby and makes funny faces. In conclusion, I guess nothing is good enough for me. That's it for today's All-Star Entertainment Wrap-Up! Until next time, keep "reaching" for the "stars"! And go to hell.

Ducks On Parade

Friday is request day on the classical music station and you know what that means! All the creakiest old worn-out chestnuts in the repertoire. A bombastic little number was playing while Dr. Theresa and I were on the way to the optometrist. It sounded like it might need some lyrics, which I supplied: "Here they come! Over the hill! Ducks on parade! Ducks on parade!" "Do you have to do that?" Dr. Theresa inquired. "Yes," I explained. While I waited for the eye doctor I thumbed through some issues of BEE CULTURE - a magazine for beekeepers! I'll tell you who is a major advertiser in BEE CULTURE: Blue Sky Bee Supply of Hiram, Ohio. I don't know, it sounded like such a nice place to work and I daydreamed about it. One issue of BEE CULTURE contained a mini-catalog for Blue Sky Bee Supply, and I was happy to see models employed in showing off various beekeeper outfits. That seemed like a job I could handle, too - not beekeeping, just modeling the outfits.

Classic Hogan

The Chicago Tribune has an article about "Blog" Buddy Kelly Hogan AND a review of her new record (pictured), which they call a "classic... works as both a career summing up and a fascinating introduction to one of the most accomplished, underappreciated vocalists of the last two decades." Yep! I was in John Brandon's car playing it for him on the old iPod and he kept yelling, "This is gonna be big! This is gonna be big!" I think that's what he was yelling. I had had a bunch of gin because I was on the way to the airport, so who knows? He had to yell because I kept turning it all the way up. Anyway I feel like we were having a swell time.

Anybody Home?

Still waiting to hear whether I am allowed to show poet Ann Fisher-Wirth printing the contents of SKIN MAG in lipstick directly onto the medium. It may violate SKIN MAG's strict rule about reproduction! Reportedly, when SKIN MAG was read at Faulkner's grave (the culmination of its "publication"), latecomers asked if the poem could be repeated, and SKIN MAG replied, "No. It will never be uttered again." (To that end, Ann's husband Peter was not allowed to view the printing. Known for his prodigious memory, he once performed the entirety of KRAPP'S LAST TAPE for one of Barry Hannah's classes. The utter obliteration required by SKIN MAG could not be complete had the poem been allowed to live on in the amazing brain of Peter Wirth.) In the meantime, here is SKIN MAG discovering that Faulkner's house was closed to visitors by the time SKIN MAG arrived. So the planned shirtless tour did not happen! The next part of the plan did, though: SKIN MAG perpetrated a classic "ding-dong ditch" prank at the home of famed novelist Richard Ford. As the house did not appear to have a doorbell, SKIN MAG was required to bang frantically with a knocker before running away. Witnesses stated that a tall figure could be seen moving behind a window, and suddenly the front porch blazed with light. What happened next, nobody knows. SKIN MAG had vanished mysteriously into the gathering gloom.

Andy Hopkins's New Can

You know how happy I get whenever Andy Hopkins adds a new can of food to his "blog." He praises this can of peaches for its honesty: "Right on the front of the package we learn that these are 'IRREGULAR PIECES' of 'Yellow Cling.' Telling it like it is." Andy also notes that "for less than a dollar you get an ample amount of a classic side dish," reminding me of the time John Aubrey got sick from a surfeit of peaches. PLEASE NOTE BEFORE "CLICKING": Andy uses some "racy" humor to express his admiration for the can of peaches!

These Gleaming Vessels: A Brief History of the Casserole

I was having a conversation about casserole - never mind with whom! Why must you pry into every aspect of my fascinating life? My friend and I were wondering about the origins and exact definition of a casserole. I promised to go home and look up "casserole" in my OXFORD COMPANION TO FOOD, but I never did... UNTIL NOW. Hold onto your hats! A casserole is "a covered heat proof vessel in which food is cooked and served or, by extension, the food cooked in such a vessel. The word has a complicated history, starting with a classical Greek term for a cup (kuathos), progressing to a Latin word (cattia), which could mean both ladle and pan, then becoming an old French word." The author of THE OXFORD COMPANION TO FOOD goes on to note "the remarkable fact [if you say so - ed.] that there has been a sudden and complete change in the meaning of casserole in English in the last 100 years." Have you stopped reading yet? If so you will not find out that "some time around the 1870s" a casserole stopped being "a dish of cooked rice moulded into the shape of a casserole cooking pot and then filled with a savoury mixture, say of chicken or sweetbreads" and for no apparent reason, out of the blue, became "a dish of meat, vegetable, and stock or other liquid, cooked slowly in the oven in a closed pot, its current sense. On the French side, it is of interest [sure it is - ed.] that when Favre wrote his huge culinary encyclopedia (1883-92) a casserole was defined as a tinned copper cooking pot, well suited to being displayed on the wall in order to impress visitors with the wealth and highly civilized lifestyle of the owners 'who live on food prepared in these gleaming vessels.'"

Bill Blackbeard!

I was sorry to read that the great, pioneering - and visionary, I would say! - comic strip archivist and expert Bill Blackbeard passed away. Here is an excerpt from his obituary in THE COMICS REPORTER: "In 1977, with Martin Williams, Blackbeard co-authored The Smithsonian Collection Of Newspaper Comics. In doing so, Blackbeard changed the direction of comics and the direction of many lives of those that choose to read them. It is one of the ten most influential and important publications in comics history." I'll say! That book (along with Reader's Digest's STRANGE STORIES, AMAZING FACTS, of course) was one of the most formative of my young (at the time) life. Throw in the mid-70s LP box set THE SMITHSONIAN COLLECTION OF CLASSIC JAZZ (my first encounter with jazz - a sweeping experience "selected and annotated by" the VERY SAME Martin Williams [it must be, right?], who wrote a big, amazing booklet of educational liner notes) and you have the portrait of a young nerd, now an old nerd. Thanks for everything, Martin Williams and Bill Blackbeard! (Pictured, a panel (found at COMICS REPORTER) from Crockett Johnson's BARNABY AND MR. O'MALLEY, one of the many great pieces of American art I first learned about from Mr. Blackbeard's collection.) Now I need to look up Martin Williams, who it turns out is responsible for 2/3 of my personality.

Ghost Story

Up before dawn again! Watching GHOST STORY on one of the movie channels! GHOST STORY, I am almost certain, was the first R-rated movie I ever saw in a theater. And how happy I must have been to discover that it fulfilled all my boyish expectations of R-ratedness: the ghost (pictured) really likes to take off her clothes A LOT! If I am recalling something I read a million years ago correctly, Paul Schrader (whom Dr. Theresa and Megan Abbott discuss in their recent interview) had a strict religious upbringing that disallowed movie watching. And one day he slipped away to go to the movies and see what all the fuss was about. (Please note, I am telling this story from what I laughingly call "memory" and may have several details wrong. Maybe I will double check the facts for you later. Or maybe I won't! This is the "internet"!) I want to say that Schrader ended up going to see the Disney film THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR and found himself sad - maybe even angry? - about its pervasive inoffensiveness. So I am sorry he did not have my GHOST STORY experience. But also: he is crazy! Fred MacMurray has a FLYING CAR in that movie! And he puts this stuff (flubber) on the soles of people's shoes and they can JUMP REALLY HIGH! And Keenan Wynn plays the classic Disney villain Alonzo P. Hawk. Learn to relax and enjoy yourself, Paul Schrader! Treat yourself to some popcorn and Milk Duds! And now let us return our attention to GHOST STORY. Like all movies I have been watching lately, it has a gooey skeleton in it. I also want to say that GHOST STORY was filmed in Kent Osborne's hometown in Vermont. I seem to recall that he told me a funny story from his childhood about that. I'll let you know if he reminds me! Finally, GHOST STORY stars Fred Astaire, which makes me so old that I went to see a Fred Astaire movie when it opened at the theater.