I Take It Back

Well, old Joaquim Maria de Assis really taught me a lesson. He has become one of my favorite writers, through the lens of his translators Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson. So, you remember how I was passive-aggressively griping like a little sniveling coward about William Maxwell writing a jewel-like novella that is 20% (at least!) from a dog's point of view? So what do you think? Last night I'm reading de Assis's QUINCAS BORBA, and I hit page 43, and I say, wait! Is some of this from a dog's point of view? But! In the next paragraph, de Assis addresses his readers' concerns and says he knows what we're thinking, that, to paraphrase, nobody wants to read something from a dog's point of view. Then he makes his beautiful justification! "Yet the truth is that this eye" (the dog's eye, that is), "which from time to time opens and stares so expressively into space, seems to speak of something that shines deep within, hidden behind something else I cannot put a name to, something that, while it is intrinsically canine, is neither tail nor ears. Oh, the poverty of human language!" I love it. It almost made me ashamed. But 20% is a lot! I'll be surprised if de Assis spends over 1% of his efforts on the dog's point of view. Anyway, it reminded me that I was on a podcast a few weeks ago (it hasn't been released yet) and said a lot of indefinsible things that just kept spewing out of my mouth, including (and I think I'm quoting myself correctly) that "writing is one of the least dangerous professions." Now, what I meant, though I didn't express it clearly, is that you're most likely not going to hurt anybody with your writing, bearing in mind what I used to tell students, when I had them, which was, roughly, "Use all the adverbs you want! It's not going to kill anybody!" In other words, be bold, do wrong things on the page, who cares? Nobody! As for professional writers, I habitually listed crossing guards and short order cooks in a diner as people whose excellence at their jobs was of more immediate and pressing concern to the public. I considered this freeing and inspiring... though, as I now recall, when I was giving a guest lecture in a small classroom on that very point at SCAD, I noted that one student live-tweeted he had never been so filled with murderous rage in his life. Of course, I should have seen that my own advice would extend to a jewel-like novella 20% from a dog's point of view. In case you can't tell, jewel-like novellas make me throw up. Anyhow! The host of the podcast, I believe, understood me to be saying that the writer is never in danger, when I meant, conversely, that the victims of the writer (that is, the readers) were in no danger from the pitiful literary gestures of the writer, however dramatic. But to the host's point, we know that writers of various kinds have been endangered by their words throughout history and in current times, too! Most of us, however, stick to harmlessly exquisite novellas about dogs or... I don't know what other people write about. A thirty-year-old in New York City? Or some other godawful thing. And it's all fine! It's all fine!

The Arts

For our own personal and individual reasons, neither Dr. Theresa nor I eats sandwiches anymore. And I do believe that is correct subject/verb agreement if you think about it for two seconds. So anyway, we were watching a "limited series" (those are terrible!) via "streaming" and it was a mystery thriller suspense drama of action! At one point the guy stops in a diner and orders up three sandwiches to go. And they look amazing, and I believe I will categorize them as "cheesesteaks," though I don't pretend to be an expert. But the scene does take place in Philadelphia. Even so, Dr. Theresa and I were taken by a simultaneous Proustian pang for some Italian beef combo sandwiches we enjoyed in Chicago in 2002. So then the guy gets in his car and starts having action-packed adventures filled with mystery and suspense, not to mention thrills, but we just don't care. All we can think of, and we say it out loud, is that "He's driving around with those sandwiches in his car!" In our distracted state we can't be sure, but it seems like it takes him several hours to get home with those sandwiches, and we're just thinking about how they've been sitting in the car all day. In other arts news, THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT started to seem too grotesque and disturbing to read in bed at night in the hopes of a peaceful slumber, so I switched over to DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather... and it - unlike THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT - gave me nightmares! And death isn't even close to coming for this guy yet! Although... never mind. No spoilers! In a final arts thought, was it really a "Proustian pang" (above)? Didn't Proust actually get to bite into his memory cookie? If I may be allowed to stray off topic, the holidays are upon us, and I should mention a funny Christmas wish I received from McNeil, who asked, "Are you doing anything for Christmas? Besides take your blood pressure and hope Santa brings you one more day - JUST ONE MORE, SANTA!" An artful construction by McNeil, in fact, who goes on to recall imperfectly my alleged love, when we knew each other as children, of the snack cakes known as Sno Balls. To be fair, McNeil couched his assertion in the always reliable "if I remember correctly" context. He was, however, thinking of, or misremembering, Strawberry Zingers, a product I ate 5 days of the week for some matter of years without the knowledge of my parents, and it truly is a wonder I'm alive today. I don't know if they still make them. Anyway, my metabolism must have bordered on the miraculous at the time. I was like Matter Eater Lad from DC comics! McNeil, it must be said, was on the right track, as both items in question (Sno Balls and Strawberry Zingers) were sprinkled with poisonously dyed coconut. [The coconut slivers on the Strawberry Zingers may have been unpigmented, actually, but they were surrounded by a spongy cake-like substance soaked in a deep, alarming, and, indeed, unnatural shade of crimson. - ed.] If I, like McNeil, "recall correctly," Strawberry Zingers came three to a pack, which, to my way of thinking at the time, meant that I should eat all three at once. And I was a skinny kid! If I am doing the math correctly, and it is a very simple equation, I was ingesting 15 Strawberry Zingers a week. This brings us back to Proust, doesn't it? But that's not the point. The point is that McNeil says he's spending Christmas in "a neighborhood that boasts a three-legged alligator."

The Owl of Conceit

I called it! When the 2-person book club began reading this biography of Polly Adler by Debby Applegate, I said to myself, "Jack," I said, "If this book has an owl in it at all, it will be a so-called 'night owl.'" And what do you know? Applegate gives us "night owls lingered over a bowl of matzoh ball soup." Right again, Pendarvis! You're a genius. But that's not all. After I put down Polly Adler, I picked up my nightly tonic, an old comic book. Of course you recall how Tom Franklin brought me some old comic books in the hospital, and some more old comic books when I got home, and soon I was buying my own old comic books like a deranged fiend. But what you didn't know is that Tom brought me even more old comics books after that! He's like a golden goose that keeps laying old comic books and I promise never to open him up to see how it works, as in the old fairy tale. That story taught me a lesson! Anyhow, I was reading an old comic book from Tom's most recent delivery, a story about a character of whom, like El Diablo and The Shroud before him, I had never heard. And this lively fellow's name was The Viking Prince. So this here Viking Prince meets a princess, and this here princess says, "I WILL NEVER MARRY THIS -- THIS -- OWL OF CONCEIT!" So I shut my old comic book and lay there thinking my wise thoughts. And I thought and thought, and the thought came to me that the hilarious idea of an owl of conceit reminded me of a book I read at least a few times as a teenager, a book called THE PLATYPUS OF DOOM AND OTHER NIHILISTS, and I lay there trying to remember any of the contents, of which only a salacious detail or two came back to me. I still have my copy! As you can see in the photo above, it resides on the drugstore-style paperback spinner I have right here in my home office where I type these mesmerizing words that appear before your wondering eyes like magic. Okay, now I must move on to a spoiler for one of the stupid word puzzles in the New York Times. I know people are serious about their stupid New York Times word puzzles, so if you get up every morning and do a stupid New York Times word game puzzle (not the crossword) like some kind of glasses-wearing egghead, I advise you to stop reading now. All right! Here we go. Have you stopped reading? Ha ha! You don't exist! And if you did, you wouldn't have read this far anyway. So, one of the producers of a secret project I can't tell you about got me going on this particular stupid New York Times word game puzzle thing. So, you must recall that I spent the night tossing and turning and thinking about the platypus. Not something that comes to mind often! Not to my mind. This morning, I get up and do my stupid New York Times puzzle word game puzzle game puzzle thing. And one of the answers is... TRADEMARKS OF A PLATYPUS. In conclusion, I leafed through my old copy of PLATYPUS OF DOOM and there is a cigarette ad in the middle of it. That's how it used to be! I don't think my grandfather owned a book without a cigarette ad in the middle.

Of Mice and Dogs

Yesterday, when I was telling you the shameful story of how McNeil's grandfather stole a copy of PAL JOEY, I was looking for something to "link" via "hyperlink" to the words "PAL JOEY." You know how I love to "link" to things! Indeed, if you examine the "blog" with the eye of a scholar, you will soon realize that it is designed in a secret way to be nothing more than a never-ending loop of "hyperlinks" that an immortal person could enjoy forever. (And, as I have emphasized repeatedly, it works much better on your laptop than on your phone, due to the extra bells and whistles. But I'm not the boss of you! Also, you may not exist.) Anyhow, I could have sworn that I had mentioned PAL JOEY on the "blog" before. But as far as I could tell, I had not. So I went ahead and "posted" the damn thing. Pardon my salty language! Later on, I thought, wait a minute, I could swear I "posted" at least a photo of the time when Laraine Newman and I went to William Faulkner's house and one of us (I couldn't remember which) held up, whilst being photographed, Faulkner's own personal copy of PAL JOEY... presumably purchased legally. Turned out I had not "posted" that either... until now! (See above.) Meanwhile, McNeil has been emailing me his thoughts as he begins to read his grandfather's stolen copy of PAL JOEY: "On page 35 of Pal Joey and so far only a dog has shown up. Joey mentions 'mouse' a lot, but that's just when referring to a female human." To be clear, McNeil brings up the dog because he was hoping for an owl. He also learned, from the eponymous Joey, the term "one-arm joint," which he passed along, and I looked it up in my GREEN'S DICTIONARY OF SLANG, which cites, in clarifying the definition, PAL JOEY itself, as I was thrilled beyond measure to report back to McNeil. Just another endless loop.

I Figured Out Richard and Linda

Spoilers for the new TWIN PEAKS! Spoilers or the ravings of a madman? You be the judge! But I took some Benadryl for allergies and it put me to sleep. When I awoke, I was thinking of a clue the giant gives in that show, telling our protagonist to remember the names Richard and Linda. I woke up with an anagram almost completed. And it worked better when I spelled Linda the way Lynda Barry does it. But it wasn't just right until I used the Spanish word for "and," making an anagram for "RICHARD Y LINDA" instead. And do you know what that anagram is? A signature! If you remove David Lynch's surname from "RICHARD Y LINDA" all you have left are double letters. Isn't that curious? And this show was all about doubles. Without "LYNCH," the only remaining letters are AA II RR DD. The AA means "Twin Peaks." Just look! Those are two matching mountains, with "twin peaks." Snowcapped, even! The II is "two I's" (two selves) or just the Roman numeral II, as in Twin Peaks 2. The RR is for the Double R and for Rancho Rosa, the production company/fictional subdivision. And the DD is for Dougie/Dale or the two Dales or David/Dale, or dreamer/dream (dissociative disorder?) or Directed by David... So: RICHARD Y LINDA = AA II RR DD LYNCH. One translation: "Twin Peaks 2, a Rancho Rosa production directed by David Lynch." Possibly. I apologize to the hundreds of people who have already figured this out. I tried to google it a little bit, but it's not so easy to google. This interpretation is especially hard on Mark Frost. Anyway, I'd like to say thank you to the makers of Benadryl.

Disillusioned Artiste

I watched CAREER and McNeil was right, of course. I loved it! Thick, chewy melodrama. Just my speed. Here we see Anthony Franciosa caring more about his cucumber facial than Shirley MacLaine's serious problems. The day I learned to do "screen grabs" was a blot on the universe. So the night before last I flipped to TCM and they were showing a marathon of Les Blank's documentaries. I watched one about garlic. It made me really hungry! Although the part where they cook some blue-eyed baby pigs depressed me, which is good because I'm sort of on a diet because I need to fit into John T. Edge's plaid tuxedo jacket soon. Why? None of your beeswax, that's why. But I was like: "Bill Boyle is coming over tomorrow. I'll make something with lots of garlic!" And I did. I made puttanesca sauce and I was really nervous because Bill is Italian and what if he scoffed? But Bill didn't scoff. Bill's not a scoffer. I use lemon, which I'm not sure is a traditional ingredient, so I went crazy and kept adding other stuff to drown out the lemon so maybe Bill wouldn't notice the lemon, which maybe defeated the purpose, I don't know, it turned out fine, get off my case, man. The point is Bill came over to watch TOO LATE BLUES, one of the few Cassavetes movies he hadn't seen, and which I recorded off of TCM a while back. It made me think of CAREER. Well, they both had a certain post-beat feel, a "disillusioned artiste" vibe.

There were bits of CAREER that made me think of INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS and BARTON FINK but there's no way the Coen Brothers ever watched CAREER, is there? We know Scorsese watched TOO LATE BLUES. Bill and I could tell! And everybody wore black suits with skinny black ties and argued about paying the diner owner, so maybe Quentin Tarantino watched it too. Who cares? Seriously. You're not alone: I bore myself. I honestly have nothing interesting to say but I took so many screen grabs of CAREER, so here we are. There's Shirley MacLaine saying, "Sam? What a lovely name. I like that name. The first man I ever completely destroyed was named Sam." She drinks a lot in this movie! Just look how she sits at the bar:

The Krebs

Melissa Ginsburg and Chris Offutt dropped by last night. They gave us a bunch of neat old matchbooks (in case my cigarette lighter book becomes a big hit and I want to write a sequel, Chris claimed ironically). I showed Chris one of Bob Hope's ashtrays from the time I bought a couple of Bob Hope's ashtrays and he wisely suggested that I display some of the old matchbooks in the Bob Hope ashtray. I've been picking through them and so far the best match (ha ha, "match") seems to be this one from a place called "The Krebs" in (according to the narrow top of the matchbook) Skaneateles, NY. Sounds like a town Bob probably slogged through in his old vaudeville days. And as you can see from the founding date proudly displayed, The Krebs would have been around back then. Much nicer than the diner where his vaudeville partner allegedly died from eating tainted coconut cream pie. The Krebs served Lobster Newburg, according to the infinitesimal amount of research I've done on the subject. By the time Bob could have afforded it, I doubt he was passing through Skaneateles anymore, if he ever did. Who am I kidding? Bob went everywhere! You can also see from the matchbook cover that the phone number for the restaurant was "14." That's some phone number! I remember when I was a little kid in Bayou La Batre you could call anybody in town by dialing just four numbers, okay children, I'm going to crawl back into my hole now.

What Not to Read on International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day! It occurs to me that a Travis McGee novel is not quite the thing to read on International Women's Day. If you "click" on this "link" and scroll down to the part where I am reading Travis McGee in a bubble bath - ha ha! Gross! I know you won't - you will note Travis McGee's general attitude. Here, I'll quote myself and save you the trouble: "Travis McGee likes to explain life to the ladies. He likes to tell women what's what. 'Baby, nothing is easy... real people walk around in the foggy, foggy dew.' Okay, Travis McGee! That little speech runs about a page... By page 142 two women have literally purred at him - PURRED AT HIM, NOT METAPHORICALLY - because he's so awesome at giving them a squeeze if you know what I mean. Maybe one woman specifically purring in gratitude for his manliness every 71 pages isn't too many, I don't know, what do you think, don't tell me, I don't care." Okay! And in the book I'm reading now, Travis McGee is eating in a diner and a women's bowling team comes in and makes him feel dirty with their salacious gaze! "Brown-faced stranger, with shoulders big enough to interest them." Ha ha ha! That's Travis McGee, describing himself! Describing how irresistible he must be to the women's bowling team.

An Angry Jack Skirball

As I read this Bob Hope biography by Richard Zoglin I keep considering which of my friends would like different parts of it. Like, I know McNeil would love it when success goes to Bob's head and he has long meetings with his writers and never provides snacks. He'll send out a writer with some spare change to pick up a pineapple sundae and eat the whole sundae in front of them and the writers get nothing. Ha ha! And then when it's time to pay them he stands at the top of the stairs and folds their checks into paper airplanes and sails them down, and the writers scramble pathetically after their money. In fact, I just emailed McNeil about all this but why should he be the only one to enjoy it? And I know Megan Abbott would like Bob's swank penthouse in early-30s Manhattan and the time Bob was in a Broadway show with Fanny Brice and Eve Arden and the choreographer was Ballanchine and the sets were designed by Vincent Minnelli, yes! Those were the days. And I know that both McNeil and Megan Abbott would like that Bob first danced with Dolores at a place called the Ha Ha Club and then they split a sandwich. But as for me, I just like the random phrase "an angry Jack Skirball, head of Educational Pictures." There's really nothing else about him in the book, but can't you just picture him, "an angry Jack Skirball, head of Educational Pictures"? Skirball! And I suppose I should mention by way of a disappointing correction that most people seem to think it was undiagnosed tuberculosis that killed Bob's first vaudeville partner. But Bob always insisted it was the bad diner food and became very paranoid for the rest of his career and even in his early struggling days would seek out a nice tearoom on the road.

What's Wrong With Eggs and Toast

You recall how I hadn't read any Robert B. Parker books about his detective Spenser, so Ace Atkins loaned me a few... well, now I have read those AND one of Ace's books about Spenser. Today I read about Spenser eating eggs and rye toast in a diner. Then he says he should have ordered the hash instead. So! Today, also, I had lunch with John Brandon, who was in town to read from his new book. And we both ironically (?) had eggs and toast. Then, while I was waiting for John Brandon's reading, I sat in the City Grocery Bar, sipping on a Pacifico and reading the first two stories from his new collection. In the second of those, a young man rejects his mother's offer of eggs and rye toast! In other words, I read TWO DIFFERENT BOOKS BY TWO DIFFERENT AUTHORS TODAY IN WHICH THE CHARACTERS WERE UNSATISFIED BY EGGS AND RYE TOAST! I was sad because I got to the bar at 4:02 and 4:02 used to be the time when Megan and I would meet when she lived here, but I was all alone, reading a book in a bar like a real dope, even though the book was a good one. Before his reading I told John that his second story put me in mind of Salinger somehow, and John's response was an expression of benign puzzlement. I left John's reading early (it was a long one, a doubleheader) and went back to City Grocery Bar, where I ran into none other than the aforementioned Ace Atkins. We were talking about Chandler when who should walk up but Tim Youd, the artist who is typing THE SOUND AND THE FURY at Rowan Oak right now! So I introduced him to Ace and they had a good conversation about Chandler. I can't remember what else happened, I guess that was it, no, something else probably happened.

Lemon Air

Hey I went out of town again and jotted notes about everything I did, who cares? But the day before I went on my trip I was in the doctor's office - a new doctor. He had CIGAR AFICIONADO in the waiting room. I thought that was a weird magazine for a doctor to have in his waiting room (see also). And the first two letters to the editor in CIGAR AFICIONADO were about some readers' disappointment with CIGAR AFICIONADO's take on the Kennedy assassination! But mostly it was pictures of cigars. Ron Perlman, who does the voice of the Lich on ADVENTURE TIME, was on the cover of CIGAR AFICIONADO. I believe the cover said RON PERLMAN: DREAMING BIG. But he just looked disgruntled about something! After I had looked at all the pictures of cigars I picked up Martha Stewart's magazine, which contained this phrase: "Peanuts take a sinister turn when sprayed with diluted black food coloring." It was a Halloween snack tip which I found fascinating and disturbing. I kept muttering it aloud because I wanted to remember it and didn't have a pen. "Peanuts take a sinister turn when sprayed with diluted black food coloring." I said it a lot, out loud there at the doctor's office. "Peanuts take a sinister turn when sprayed with diluted black food coloring." I started to think (realize?) that "sprayed" and "diluted" are the most awful words in the sentence. It is awful to picture someone "spraying" peanuts with "diluted" black food coloring. Sure, I would have "blogged" about the doctor's office magazines that day, but I was late for an ADVENTURE TIME video conference. So I had to come straight home and jump right into that. Late! Late for a meeting the first time ever. No time for "blogging"! After the meeting I had to take care of a few things and go to bed. Up bright and early for a trip to California for more ADVENTURE TIME doings! Allow me to describe it for you in agonizing detail you won't ever read, as transcribed from my precious little notebook of precious observations. Okay! On the way to the Memphis airport I saw a motel sign advertising "CHITTERLINGS" in the space where they usually say "FREE HBO." Now the first thing I know you're dying to hear is what I read on the airplane. Well, Ace Atkins recently talked Megan Abbott into reading her first novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. Megan said the book had "wit and soulful women" in it. And so I recalled that McNeil had given me a Travis McGee paperback 20 years ago at least... maybe 30 years ago! And there it has sat, neglected, on various shelves, most recently the drugstore spinner in my home office. Like Megan, I never made the leap to Travis McGee. But now I am finally reading that book McNeil gave me so many decades ago. Ha ha, I am just going to keep typing, though we are only on page one of my notes and I am already bored with my own life. This may be my longest "post" ever! Because I am also going to tell you what I ALMOST read on the airplane but didn't: SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser. Dr. Theresa has raved about it for years. And once when we were visiting Laura Lippman, those two bonded over their love of the book. Later on I discovered that Megan loves it too. Now, this is the same trio who finally got me to crack open MILDRED PIERCE, a masterpiece. But Dr. Theresa's paperback of SISTER CARRIE is mutilated with affection and scholarship: folded, cracked, dog-eared, marked-up, annotated copiously by hand... altogether too physically complicated for casual airplane reading. Ha ha I love how boring I am being right now. I had to get up early - well before dawn - to make it to the plane, and fell into a deep slumber on the runway. When I awoke, I asked my seatmate, "Are we there?" I really thought we had landed at LAX. He had to tell me we still hadn't left the ground in Memphis. What shenanigans! Pen and Kent picked me up at the airport in a white 1951 Bentley! This was the only way for them to top their previous luxurious joke of picking me up in a stretch limo. "How are you going to top yourself now?" I asked Pen. "We're not doing this again," he said somberly in a way that made me believe him. Now here is an amazing coincidence you won't care about: Pen and Kent took me straight to a restaurant I had just read about in a magazine in my doctor's office the day before... in a beer lover's magazine called DRAFT. That's right, my doctor had magazines about cigars AND beer in his office. As we waited for our food there was some saucy music playing and Pen said, "I could teach you how to rhumba." And it turns out he wasn't kidding! (Although we didn't rhumba.) Pen used to be a dance instructor, I learned. Pen said, "Old ladies would occasionally proposition you." ("Click" here to read the interview I did with Megan Abbott when we talk about how Billy Wilder used to be a "taxi dancer," likewise popular with the ladies! Though Pen never went the Billy Wilder route and took any old ladies up on it.) For dinner, Leslie Wolfhard and her husband Steve and Kent took me to the soothingly dark Tam O'Shanter, where Walt Disney used to have lunch every day. I found out that Leslie's favorite movie is NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and that she lived in Atlanta during some of the same years Dr. Theresa and I did. So we got to be nostalgic about the Majestic Diner and stuff like that ("click" here for an interview where I get appallingly mawkish about Atlanta). They put horseradish in the deviled eggs at the Tam O'Shanter. Unless I am nuts, I have never before run across that welcome innovation. Everyone else had prime rib, but I went the more healthy route of corned beef and cabbage. Ha ha ha! But really, I ate all my vegetables and ordered some "mixed peas" on the side. And I even left a little corned beef on my plate, in honor of what I knew would have been Dr. Theresa's wishes (ha ha, she would have commanded me to "order fish" - WHAT! Oh well). For I knew that the next night I would be dining at the steakhouse where Bob Hope used to eat ("The Smokehouse") where I always go, I can't help myself. The Tam O'Shanter is where I drank the first of many negronis on this trip. It was all negronis all the time, brother! I am not sure why. I never had one before. But just before I left, I saw Dr. Theresa and Megan throwing them back at the City Grocery Bar and I guess I thought they looked pretty good. (Well, I did have half a beer at the restaurant from the doctor's office beer magazine, and a small glass of Amontillado [just for the Poe associations]- after a negroni - at a fancy dinner [see below - ha ha, you'll never make it!]) After the Tam O'Shanter I called Dr. Theresa and she said they had been filming a commercial next to our house. Here I am in Hollywood and they're filming a commercial at our house in Mississippi, ha ha ha, what a country. The following morning, in the Starbucks where I once saw the guy from Tenacious D who is not Jack Black, I was reading the New York Times and there was a quote from our friend and neighbor Richard Howorth on the front page of the Arts Section. A welcome and unexpected touch of home! Hey, it looks like I really am going to type up all my notes! I usually skip some of them. I went to my first comic book convention, Wondercon in Anaheim, to be on an ADVENTURE TIME panel. Jesse Moynihan explained that it's not really a "comic book convention." He explained what it was, but I can't remember. All I know is I saw Lou Ferrigno sitting in a booth next to the guy who played the "Soup Nazi" on SEINFELD. They were both selling their autographs for cash, which I guess is something I knew went on, way in the back of my mind. I wondered if it was demoralizing for the "Soup Nazi" to sit under a big banner with the word "Nazi" on it all day. I also spotted Sergio Aragones, which was thrilling! He was a big part of my childhood, drawing all those little comics in the margins of MAD magazine. A bunch of us from ADVENTURE TIME sat at a long table and signed hundreds and hundreds of posters for hundreds and hundreds of people (not for money). Some people wanted me to draw them a picture, not realizing I don't draw at all. So I tried a few pitiful Finns and a BMO ("He's just a rectangle!" I encouraged myself) and once, upon request, a Lady Rainicorn (see also!) who turned out looking like a snake who had been through some unimaginable tragedy. Speaking of posters, Cole Sanchez and Jesse bought me a thoughtful and awesome present at Wondercon... an original poster from the 1973 Clint Eastwood movie where a groovy free spirit teaches a craggy old square businessman all about love... BREEZY! They knew of my obsession with it. (You can see a video of the presentation by "clicking" here. And "click" here for a little more about BREEZY.) Then some super serious and professional and brisk and unsmiling security people hustled us through a bunch of SPINAL TAP-style back rooms and passages and freight elevators and corridors to get us to our panel, where there were - I have to believe - thousands of people in attendance! Above you can see the panel members... from left to right that's Kent, Pen, Andy Ristaino, Adam Muto, me, Steve (with Jessica Dicicco, who plays the Flame Princess on the show, standing in front of him), Jesse, and Kumail Nanjiani of TV's SILICON VALLEY, who plays Prismo on ADVENTURE TIME. We took a shuttle back to Burbank and Kent took me to my hotel and we sat in the lobby and I drank a negroni and Kent ordered some wings. "Yeah!" I exclaimed. "I want to see you eat some chicken while I'm here." Because Kent loves chicken, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! What a country. Then I went to the steakhouse where Bob Hope used to eat and ordered a negroni and my usual, the "Steak Sinatra." And one of my tablemates said, "I used to know one of Bob Hope's mistresses." So that was exciting! My fellow diners included Joey Lauren Adams and my friend "The Hollywood Producer" - I honestly can't recall why I originally thought I needed to cloak him in anonymity but I'm going to stick with it. It's a tradition! I will say he has lost 50 pounds and looks like a superstar! Next up, karaoke. Joey wanted me to sing "Stagger Lee" with her. She said I had introduced it to her, in the Lloyd Price version, on a 45 at my house, and she had loved it ever since, so how could I say no to a duet tinged with such tender associations from the good old days when Joey used to live in town? Rash decision! Management, it turns out, has a foam cannon standing by with which to express its displeasure. Joey and I were deluged in torrents of punitive foam for whatever desecration we were perpetrating on the venerable tale of Stagger Lee. And by we, I mean me. I nobly intercepted the majority of the foam, keeping Joey unscathed - except in her heart! It occurs to me that I was perhaps the sole intended recipient of the foam and not "protecting" Joey at all. Terrible revelation! Joey and the H.P. were just trying to recreate the incredible joy of a previous occasion, The Smokehouse followed by karaoke in the same spot... but YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN. We had fun anyway! And the karaoke place made pretty great negronis. But when I got back to my room, my iPod, set to shuffle, was playing "Wrong 'Em Boyo" by the Clash. Out of 20,000 songs. That's the one that quotes liberally from "Stagger Lee." Technology is sentient. And hurtful. The next day I saw my brother and most of my nephews... one of them was off somewhere petting ducklings. While I was hanging out with the others, a picture came (to my brother's phone) of my absent nephew holding a duckling and I had to admit it looked like he had made a solid choice.

That evening, sitting in my hotel lobby waiting for the cab that was to take me to Laraine Newman's house (!) I read my Travis McGee. One of the "soulful women" Megan was talking about said of an evening on the town that she had had "a lovely, lovely time up until I went owly." Went owly! That's one I never heard before. And so I was able to add to my big long list of books with owls in them. Laraine and her husband Chad took me out to an incredible dinner I can't describe and won't forget. Infinite tiny courses. Tapas is a weak word. Brussels sprouts came with "lemon air." I said lemon air! I guess it is an exhalation that someone gently coaxed from a lemon. Not only was I in great company but the service was down-to-earth and accessible amid the weird splendor of the surroundings and the potentially daunting array of dishes. I had sea urchin for the first time, which I think I am right in describing as "the peanut butter of the sea." Then I went back to their place and watched GAME OF THRONES with Laraine Newman! During the sexy parts I was like - silently - "Oh no I am watching sex stuff with Laraine Newman... and her husband... and their dog." The cabbie on the way back to the hotel wanted to compare the natural disasters of California and Mississippi. He said, and I wrote it down, "Compared to tornados, earthquakes are candy. So your window rattles. A tornado, your house gets up and goes to another state." My flight home was the next day! So I went to the bar and ordered a negroni to take up to my room to help me pack. The bartender said, "That's a man's drink! I could never drink that." I was surprised. I really thought it was "a woman's drink." I associated it with Dr. Theresa and Megan. But maybe he was just angling for a tip. Though I could imagine Bob Hope and Nixon knocking back a few negronis in the Oval Office. Dressed for bed and drinking my Final Negroni, I caught sight of myself in one of the full-length mirrors they put cruelly all over hotel rooms and could not help but note my disturbing psychological resemblance to Martin Sheen at the beginning of APOCALYPSE NOW but, you know, fat. Now we're back to the airport! Seated across from me as I waited to board was a guy dipping extremely "fragrant" chewing tobacco and spitting it into a large clear plastic cup. I'm sure it's perfectly legal and happens in airports every day as far as I know. On the plane they tried to give me a "molasses clove cookie." WHAT! First of all, cloves in a cookie? Maybe that is normal and legal too. But the worst offense was trying to substitute a "molasses clove cookie" for a Biscoff, America's greatest airplane cookie. You may be sure I put up a fuss (i.e., asked politely) and got my Biscoff. On the way back home from the airport, I called Mom to let her know I got back okay. She said how much she had loved the ADVENTURE TIME season premiere and I realized I hadn't seen it yet because of traveling. "It had my favorite character," Mom said. I asked her who that was. "I don't know," said Mom. "She's a peach or a potato." Mom meant Tree Trunks, who is an elephant.

Why Pie Cry

Now I will tell you about the rest of that Red Skelton sad clown movie. Are you excited? Like, remember when I told you that he had a job attacking people at an amusement park with a cattle prod? Okay, well, one guy got kind of mad about it. So Red Skelton's boss comes out and says to Red Skelton, "Hey, we run a family place here!" He's mad at Red Skelton! Even though HE'S the one who hired Red Skelton to attack the customers with a cattle prod. It's a strange business, being a threatening clown. So Red Skelton gets fired. For doing his job too well, I guess. Next he gets a job being a "receiver." That sounds bad! He says, "Don't let my kid see this." So he sits there while a guy gives him an exploding cigar and smashes butter on him and hits him in the face with a couple of pies. And his kid sees it! And silently weeps! Ha ha ha! Doesn't this kid - whose name is Dink (!) - know what a clown does for a living? He's been living with a clown his whole life. The weirdest part of that scene is that Red Skelton gives no reaction whatsoever as the guy assaults him with pies and so on. I mean, he doesn't move a muscle. Put some effort into it, clown! Half the fun of the old pie in the face is the hilarious reaction of the "receiver." I mean, even if you're going to be deadpan about it, you have to be deadpan in a funny way. Like, I don't know, stoically and with economical motions wipe the pie out of your eyes, one at a time. Oh well. And the kid is just crying while his dad gets hit in the face with pies. I forgot to mention he's not just a sad clown he's a drunk clown and a clown with a gambling problem. Charles Bronson (!!) wins all of Red Skelton's money in an all-night dice game and Red Skelton picks his sleeping kid's pocket for a gold watch that means the world to him. I also forgot to say he sent his kid to sleep in the backseat of a random stranger's car! (Remember, now, at the end of the movie, Jane Greer says, "You did a great job raising him, Dodo.") I'll tell you who I liked: Little Julie, a shady operator who does his business out of a diner booth. "Step into my office," he says with self-loathing and also regular loathing. He organizes what Megan Abbott would probably - probably? does! I've heard her! - call "smokers" - smokers with racy entertainment! This guy has a touch of authentic sleaze. The actor's name is Lou Lubin. Let's hear it for Lou Lubin (pictured)! He gets Red Skelton a shameful gig where he has to tell the 1953 version of dirty jokes while ladies take off their clothes. At the end Red Skelton dies from clowning too much. For real! And I skipped over some surprisingly brutal moments like when Red Skelton smashes a pane of glass with his fist and then starts hitting the wall and screaming. That is one sad clown. Okay, bye!

Well I'll Be Danged

Hey remember when Kent Osborne took my picture outside the diner from LARRY CROWNE? Why sure you do. It's probably all you and your buddies talk about around the water cooler! Well, dang if I didn't just see that diner on the TV show JUSTIFIED. You heard right! Now go tell everybody all about my inspiring true story of triumph over adversity.

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.

How I Met Your Sexy Nobility

Hey I was just flipping around on one of these movie channels and came across a movie scene in which the guy from HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER - the one who I believe met the eponymous mother (I'm using the word "eponymous" too much lately; what a jerk!) - was about to make a speech in a diner explaining the problems of the country, which I know because he solemnly announced his intention to enumerate the problems of the country and pinpoint their various sources, and then he opened his mouth but I changed the channel because I was afraid to find out! But I flipped back some minutes later, just in time to see a virginal young woman BEGGING the guy from HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER to initiate her into the mysterious secrets of womanhood, then she wept glycerine tears that sparkled and shone on her delicate face when he refused to sully her purity from being too noble and all. So in THE VERY NEXT SCENE he meets a foxy older lady who is also a brilliant genius and she finds his raw sexiness wildly irresistible. That's when I went to imdb and confirmed my suspicion that this movie was WRITTEN AND DIRECTED by the guy who single-handedly solved the problems of the nation in a diner booth then fended off ardent, quivering admirers from across the spectrum of human mortality. The movie poster shows the guy from HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER and the virginal young woman holding hands and WALKING ACROSS AN ENORMOUS OPEN SCHOOLBOOK REPRESENTING LEARNING. What do you want to bet he LEARNS A THING OR TWO ABOUT LIFE FROM HER BEFORE ALL IS SAID AND DONE? What a twist! He thought HE was the one with all the answers! Looking back, I see that this is my fourth negative "blog" "post" in a row. That's not my laid-back style! And I really shouldn't judge a movie from a few disjointed moments. BUT I DIDN'T INVENT THE REMOTE CONTROL SO IT'S NOT MY FAULT. Also, maybe it's only my third negative "post" in a row because that Jay Leno movie is starting to seem like an exquisite masterwork about now. (See also.)

In the Land of Richard Dix

Let me tell you about my Tuesday. First, I saw Cher. Then I walked into a room and immediately started acting in a scene with Anne Heche. Finally I sang a song with Joey Lauren Adams and Mr. Belding from SAVED BY THE BELL. Tuesday! Yes, I went on a little trip and believe or not I didn't jot anything at first. I was like, "I am going to be too busy to jot down anything for the folks back home!" Such was my hubris! I did not jot for more than 24 hours! Twenty-four jot-free hours! But then I was sitting in the Starbucks where I once saw the guy from Tenacious D who is not Jack Black, and I was reading the New York Times, and I came across this first sentence of an article: "Forty five minutes of monkey impersonations?" A rhetorical question, I suppose, but one requiring a single answer: a resounding, Joycean YES! And that made me recall something I read in my new book about kings before I left on my little trip: "every chariot had a fierce great mastiff on a leash standing in a cart or walking behind it, and every sumpter beast had a long-tailed monkey on its back..." That's about a procession in 1158, and when I first read it I thought it was about monkeys riding dogs, a subject we have contemplated at some length on the "blog," but rereading it just now, never mind. Then (back to the New York Times) I read an article containing Robert Mitchum's pick-up line to Edna O'Brien (which totally worked): "I bet you wish I was Robert Taylor, and I bet you never tasted white peaches." Mitchum! What a smoothie! And that's when I started feeling bad for not jotting anything. I remembered something from the day before which I had not jotted, for example: we were driving down the street and Kent yelled, "It's the diner where Larry Crowne worked in LARRY CROWNE!" And so it was. We drove by it again a day or two later and Kent suggested that we stop and get a picture of me in front of it and at first I resisted, and Kent said "WHAT!!!!!" and stopped the car and took the photo anyway (below) and right he was to do so. I saw Kent eat a lot of chicken, as usual. He loves chicken! But I also saw him eat a pork chop and a steak. We ate big steaks at a restaurant where Bob Hope used to eat! Taking a stroll after one chicken luncheon, Kent and I observed a young woman communing with two tame rats, which were sitting on top of a Los Angeles Times vending machine. "Don't freak out," she was saying calmly and sweetly to the rats. As this actually very charming person put forth to us the argument that rats are among the most misunderstood of God's creatures, she was engaged in some sort of handiwork - she seemed to be, possibly, knitting some clothes for the rats. Let's see what else I jotted. I ate at a restaurant where they give you a coconut with a straw in it to drink! I guess this is a pretty common thing, but somehow this was my first time. I had previously seen such a way of drinking a coconut only on GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. (Coincidence: upon my return home, I found an email from McNeil about the fact that Ida Lupino directed several episodes of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. McNeil seemed ashamed for not knowing this before!) One of the people at lunch was Ako Castuera, who used to sell coconuts for a living, and she regaled me with lots of amazing coconut lore, including something about coconut water and its use in blood transfusions during World War II, which led to a discussion somehow of the immortal jellyfish (or maybe that came up when we were debating the preferable place to visit: outer space or the bottom of the sea), and Ako - entirely different subject - told about a vacation she took on a cruise ship when she was a little kid and she spent all her time in the library. There was a library! Ako first discovered Edgar Allan Poe on that cruise ship, which put the endearing image in my mind of little Ako in the dark ship's library reading Poe while everybody else was up on the deck playing shuffleboard in the sun. Jottings! I saw my old friend Tom Bissell. He lives directly over the Hollywood Walk of Fame! In fact, he lives almost directly over Richard Dix's star. Oh, Richard Dix! Can I not get away from you? Your inexplicable stardom continues to haunt me. (Pictured, above, Richard Dix.) Tom and I talked about CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS and walked down the block to get a Mexican dinner and on the way back we witnessed a car crash! Everybody was okay, but the cars were smashed up. Okay! Now we are back to the fateful Tuesday. I was sitting in my hotel lobby when Cher walked through! I mostly saw the back of her head. Then my ride came and I went off to act with Anne Heche. FOR REAL! In what project, I am not at liberty to say. YOU'LL FIND OUT SOON ENOUGH. Anne Heche was more beautiful in person than you can possibly imagine! She was not "done up" in any fancy Hollywood makeup and finery. You got the feeling she just walks down the sidewalk being all radiant. After we acted in a couple of scenes together she gave me a big hug and discovered, I am certain, that I was covered in flop sweat like Albert Brooks in BROADCAST NEWS. Like Harrison Ford and Johnny Depp before me (a phrase I type with astonishing regularity) I played Anne Heche's love interest. Okay, and then a bunch of us went out to sing karaoke (including Natasha Allegri, the nicest person in the world!) and Mr. Belding showed up and everybody was like, "Oh my God! It's Mr. Belding!" and somehow the last thing I did was sing "Jolene" with Mr. Belding and Joey Lauren Adams. Before that, I saw Joey Lauren Adams and Pendleton Ward do Elvis's "American Trilogy" together, and I thought to myself, well, that is probably the most surreal thing I will see tonight, but I was wrong.

50 Ways to Love Your Lewis

Maybe you want to love Jerry but you don't know how! I have decided to help out the Encore movie channel by supplementing its day-long Jerry marathon and tonight's Jerry Lewis documentary with 50 "blog" "links" suited to various interests. Remember, these are JUST THE FIRST 50 WAYS TO LOVE JERRY OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD. They MAY NOT ALL BE RIGHT FOR YOU. Please feel free to browse among them, "clicking" away on your exciting search for YOUR OWN PERSONAL PATHWAY TO JERRY. 1. Read the great Jerry monograph by Chris Fujiwara. 2. Do you like Philip K. Dick? Well, Jerry Lewis appears in his EXEGESIS - which is ONLY HIS ECSTATIC VISION OF THE MEANING OF THE WHOLE UNIVERSE! THAT'S ALL! 3. Speaking of authors, do you like authors? Maybe one of your fave authors has included Jerry Lewis in a book: Tom Franklin has! So have Don DeLillo, Lynda Barry, Lorrie Moore, Frederick Barthelme and many others! Classy! 4. Let's keep going with this author thing. How is Edgar Allan Poe like Jerry Lewis? "Click" here to find out! 5. Yeah, and what would Kierkegaard say about Jerry Lewis? 6. Maybe you are from the "dance world." Did you know that many highbrow choreographers turn to Jerry Lewis for inspiration? 7. Jerry thought Dean Martin smelled great! That's a nice detail. 8. Similarities between Jerry and the great Italian giallo director Mario Bava, if that's your thing. 9. A trusted method of immersing yourself in Jerryness. 10. Don't believe me? Take it from bestselling novelist Laura Lippman! 11. Don't believe Laura Lippman? Perhaps famed method actor Edward Norton is more to your taste. 12. Consider Jerry Lewis as the forefather of David Lynch. 13. Jonathan Rosenbaum knows a lot about movies and he LOVES Jerry Lewis! 14. Tough-to-please James Wolcott likewise! 15. When I was listing authors who have included Jerry in their work I forgot John Hodgman. 16. And Michael Kupperman! 17. For that matter, Jerry is in my novella JUNGLE GERONIMO IN GAY PAREE. 18. Jerry a hero to Michael Palin of the Monty Python comedy troupe. 19. Jerry an inspiration for the British version of THE OFFICE that everyone loves so much. 20. Jerry makes me think of the French painter Henri Rosseau. 21. McNeil's Theory of Potential Energy. 22. Do you like Godard? Well, Godard based some of his scenes on Jerry Lewis scenes. Like this and that. 23. Some maintain that 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY would have been better with Jerry in it. 24. Jerry's spectacular use of color. 25. How about that prescient scene in THE BELLBOY that anticipates Scorsese's THE KING OF COMEDY? 26. The Cinderfella dance! 27. Jerry frequently appears in THE BELIEVER magazine. 28. I intuit a connection between Jerry and J.D. Salinger. 29. And supposedly Salinger considered Jerry to direct the movie version of CATCHER IN THE RYE, maybe! I said maybe! 30. Jerry's influence on GOODFELLAS. You like GOODFELLAS! 31. Jon Stewart of the popular DAILY SHOW often does Jerry Lewis impressions, but if he is too hep for your taste, crusty David Letterman also impersonates Jerry from time to time. 32. Speaking of which, maybe you should watch lots of Jerry Lewis so you can practice the fun habit of saying things like Jerry Lewis. It's fun! 33. Even nature itself aspires to sound like Jerry Lewis. 34. Do you like singing? Jerry Lewis is a good singer! I guess he can do it all. 35. Maybe you identify with Jerry's world-weary attitude. 36. He hung out in a diner with Marilyn Monroe, so that's cool! 37. Blair Hobbs detects an aesthetic kinship between Jerry and the photographer William Eggleston. 38. Jerry inspired Bruce Springsteen. That's right, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN! 39. Think of Jerry as a poet. 40. Need a dissertation topic? How about "Medical Ethics in the Films of Jerry Lewis"? You're welcome! 41. In a hilarious practical joke, Jerry ruined Dick van Dyke's meeting with the queen! 42. Jerry was instrumental in getting the great Stan Laurel his honorary Oscar. 43. Jerry is handsome! 44. Maybe you are a "conspiracy theory buff." Well, for real the CIA tampered with one of Jerry's movies. Brood on that for a while! 45. Maybe you're an animal lover. Well, Jerry bought a hearing aid for his dog! 46. Jerry is subversive! 47. Quentin Tarantino + Jerry Lewis = True Love 4ever. 48. When everybody was dumping on Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE, Jerry was one of the first to proclaim its greatness. 49. Does he irritate you and make you uncomfortable? MAYBE THAT'S JUST WHAT JERRY WANTS! 50. For example, he once stuck his nose in Frank Sinatra's eye.

Foodstuffs!

Welcome once again to "Foodstuffs!" - the only place on the "internet" that discusses food. So Kelly Hogan was recently in our old neighborhood, now my sister's current neighborhood, which was near Kelly Hogan's old neighborhood. Got that straight? Go back and study it until you understand it! Okay. So I asked Hogan whether she had been to the fancy hot dog place that my sister says has just opened up in the old neighborhood. Hogan said no, that the fancy hot dog place is "all slick and gun-metal grey and Logan's Run-looking and it's called HD for haute dog -- whoa. I only ate at Manuel's once (a life-saving perfect patty melt at midnight) and Majestic twice (found three hairs in my grits and I pulled 'em out and ate [the grits] anyway.)" My sister reports that she has not been to the fancy hot dog place either. She has heard you don't get much food for your money. More reports on the fancy hot dog place as they come in! FASCINATING SIDE NOTE: The "blog's" previous mention of LOGAN'S RUN, just like this one, was hot-dog related! (See also.)

Help Me

I didn't mean to think of yet another way in which the taciturn yet sensitive bartender on REVENGE is nothing but a copy of Luke from GILMORE GIRLS. Okay. But, see, both were raised predominantly by their fathers, worked for their fathers, and now work in spots that their fathers used to own. In the case of REVENGE it's the same bar, whereas, as I am sure you are aware, in GILMORE GIRLS, Luke converts his father's old hardware store into a diner. God help my troubled soul!

TV

The shoe factory show is back! But the shoe factory itself is completely gone. No one works at the shoe factory anymore. The guy who used to work at the shoe factory is starting a recording studio with his brother. That seems iffy. Why don't they open a bookstore while they're at it? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Because people hate books. Also, on last night's episode, Lauren Graham ordered coffee. And I was like, NO WAY! She used to order coffee on GILMORE GIRLS. I was filled with rage. "Where is Luke, the scruffy diner owner?" I screamed. [In a remarkable coincidence, the "blog's" most recent mention of Luke, the scruffy diner owner took place five years ago to this very day! - ed.] Stop tormenting me with memories of GILMORE GIRLS! In an exciting subplot, a kid got a rash. And I thought, "This show concerns exactly nothing I care about. Yet here I am watching it in the dark eating a peanut butter sandwich." Later, I saw by chance a few minutes of Jay Leno, a person I do not care to watch on television. At the end, apparently, of his opening monologue, he made some unseemly, leering comments about Lauren Graham, who was to be a forthcoming guest on his televised program of conversation. His comments included, "I like brunettes. My wife is a brunette." Then he said the words "little black dress" and his mouth twisted itself into a weird, untrammeled grimace that turned out to be one of the creepiest and most unsettling things ever presented on television. I switched over to David Letterman, who fought with Jack Hanna, the "animal expert." They are the two oldest and crabbiest men on television, and as such give me great, unending cheer. Mr. Hanna brought out some possums. He claimed that a possum had been caught in the revolving door of his New York City hotel that day. He told Mr. Letterman that there are more than 200 kinds of marsupials in Australia. Mr. Letterman asked Mr. Hanna why the marsupials of Australia are so numerous and varied. Mr. Hanna replied, "It's cold down there and they sit in the pouch! I DON'T KNOW!" He was very irritated. Then he tried desperately to get a colorful bird to eat out of his hand.