Can't Get Away From the King

Hey! Remember when I got burned out on reading about King James? Are you still talking about it around the old office water cooler? Well, I kind of knew he would pop up in this LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS anyway, because he had lots of thoughts and opinions about witches and demons. He was against them! But guess what! You know that book about King James that I finally kind of gave up on? It was the one about the scandalous murderous poisoning case during his reign. Well, even that scandalous murderous poisoning case appears in LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS! Can't get away from you, can I, King James? I was surprised - because LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS came out in 1834 - that Godwin mentions "a beautiful young man, twenty years of age" whom King James liked because "King James was singularly partial to young men who were distinguished for personal attractions" - but I should have learned not to be surprised by now. People were never as square as you think. They knew what was up! I think it's the Dickens novel MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT that directly mentions the Sally Hemings/Thomas Jefferson relationship. That surprised me too, as I recall. I haven't read or thought of MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT in fifteen years or more, so don't hold me to anything. I remember thinking (maybe) that MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT would be good if they took out all the Martin Chuzzlewit parts. Kind of like THE COTTON CLUB would have been better without Richard Gere and Diane Lane. No offense to either actor! But I believe MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT also featured a lovelorn organist named Tom Pinch who... I can't remember what his deal was, and anyway, forget it. I probably bore myself even more than I bore you. I am no longer as sure as I may have been back then that there should be a movie called TOM PINCH.

Tropical Piano Tuner

I am going to tell you the ending of a movie. Sometimes I have to! So if you do not enjoy spoilers, please stop reading here. (Ha ha, you never started. You don't exist! That remains my theory.) We watched a John Wayne movie last night. It also starred a man to whom Dr. Theresa referred throughout as "Mr. Sexy" (pictured). A poor man's Errol Flynn if you ask me! No, not even that: a poor man's Tyrone Power. (Later in this "post" I will realize he was Gig Young.) The movie was called WAKE OF THE RED WITCH and John Wayne fights a giant octopus, something you hardly ever see him do, as I remarked at the time. He gets away from the giant rubber octopus just fine, as we know he will, because it's a flashback. But later he gets tangled up in some more underwater shenanigans and he doesn't make it. He dies. AND THE MOVIE ENDS WITH JOHN WAYNE SAILING A BOAT TO HEAVEN. He's with the love of his life, who is also dead. Yes, this is a John Wayne movie with a pinch of WUTHERING HEIGHTS. I think that's how the old movie of WUTHERING HEIGHTS ended, "happily," with Heathcliff and Cathy sort of reunited as half-dissolved ghosts holding hands and all smiles unless I am making that up. Am I making that up? I don't know. When we turned off the dvd, a P!nk concert was starting on the television. I think it was starting. There was an air of prelude. You remember P!nk. That's how she spells her name! And here is one of the two INCREDIBLE COINCIDENCES of the night: as a pale clown (?) descended - a real Pierrot Lunaire type - (or was he a rascally, grimacing angel?) over a darkened stage, a piano tinkled: the VERY SAME MELODY (I think; Chopin, I think) that John Wayne's dead girlfriend played on the night they met in WAKE OF THE RED WITCH! (And here I include a parenthetical digression. One New Year's Eve I got lost in the woods. At first I found it amusing, but as it began to get dark and cold I started to think, oh, gee, this could be how I die, hmm, help, help. Later, after I was reunited with the rest of the gang, back at the cabin [police had been called!], we watched Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve. This was the year that P!nk had the big hit about getting "the party started," and she came out and sang it, and I danced, friends, oh how I danced, I danced because I had not frozen to death in the woods.) Oh yes, I forgot to tell you that there is a piano in the house on the tropical island where John Wayne and Mr. Sexy are stranded. There always is! Ha ha, "always." But two examples leap right to the top of my head: THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (Brando version) and THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. In movies with a tropical island, there is always a mysterious white man already living there, and he always has a piano, representing, I suppose, Western "culture"? As if to underscore the point, John Wayne retires to a balcony and the piano is drowned out by the distant drums of the islanders, get it? Think how hard it must be to keep your piano tuned on an uncharted tropical island, what with all the humidity and the scarcity (I assume) of professional piano-tuners. Maybe I'll write a movie about a Jerry Lewis type who travels from island to island, tuning the pianos of the various isolated madmen. But wait! There is another coincidence! Oh, about three hours later I happened to "channel surf" past TCM, where I saw a man engaged in a battle with a giant red rubber octopus! (It is occurring to me that in both cases the animal was probably a squid, as great billowing quantities of ink were expelled at each of our heroes, but the difference between an octopus and a squid is one of the many things I don't care about.) They dragged this guy to the surface and removed his cumbersome diving helmet and he was Ray Milland, not John Wayne. BUT WHEN I CHECKED THE CAPSULE DESCRIPTION OF THE MOVIE, IT TURNED OUT TO CO-STAR JOHN WAYNE. In other words, friends, after remarking upon the very unlikeliness of it EVER happening, I saw TWO man vs. octopus battles in two separate John Wayne movies last night. The "post" should end here. So, I detected a tang of desperation in the DHARMA & GREG reruns I watched at 3 AM when I couldn't sleep. First of all, they had comically stoic dogs. It felt like an executive decision, like, "People love Frasier, and Frasier has a dog! We'll get TWO dogs and people will love us twice as much as Frasier!" Only maybe the impulse was unconscious, like what they actually said aloud and forced themselves to believe was, "This will be a wry, knowing commentary on Frasier." I found "Greg's" performance in the opening credit sequence very upsetting. His expressions range from bemused to pained. Now, he is SUPPOSED to be bemused at first, when Dharma blows bubbles in his face, signaling the arrival of her free spirit into his uptight life. But even when he is picking her up and twirling her with what it surely meant to represent "a rhapsody of intoxicated glee," he displays an unfortunate look, as if asking his Creator, "WHY? WHY AM I HERE? AFTER ALL MY TRAINING IS THIS WHAT IS TO BECOME OF ME?" (See also.) Wait! Mr. Sexy was Gig Young. I didn't recognize him the whole time. ("I meant it ironically," claimed Dr. Theresa this morning.) Looking for illustrations for this "post," I was reminded of something else I meant to tell you about in WAKE OF THE RED WITCH: John Wayne literally gets crucified. "The Passion of the Duke," said Dr. Theresa, remarkably blasé at this surprising turn of events. So, yes, I just want to remind you before I go: John Wayne grappled with an octopus and got crucified in the same movie and nobody cared.

All Bets Are Off

Lee Durkee heard about McNeil's trouble with the misprinted book, and McNeil's feelings of being all alone in the matter, so Lee wrote me with a message of encouragement to pass along to McNeil, a little story of something that happened to Lee, which I quote for you now: "I once, on a flight to Sri Lanka, was reading a book by Tobias Wolff, IN THE PHARAOH'S ARMY, and midway through the memoir due to a publishing error the book switched into a novel by a different author and kinda blew my mind. I thought Wolff had gone all experimental on me. Later I noticed it was a slightly different typeset. I left the book at a hostel where perhaps it is still bewildering people. It was really odd. I kept reading and reading trying to figure out how Wolff was gonna wrap this all together." Last night I saw Lee at a party, and he told me that what further confounded him was how the change happened between the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. I forwarded the email on to McNeil, who responded: "Well, obviously, what happened to Lee isn't at all the fault of the publisher, but rather a result of longitudinal chicanery by that longitudinal laugh riot of the universe - the globe. You see, in order to get to Sri Lanka, you have to cross the 'International Date Line,' which of course means 'all bets are off!' I forget who said that. Once you cross that imaginary (not so imaginary in my book!) line, ships often sink, standardized language melts away, gold flies out of your teeth, and typeface often changes type. I wouldn't be surprised if my Jerry Lewis book had been shipped from Hong Kong. It's a nice touch the way Lee left the novel in a hostel. Now someone we know needs to accidentally buy it used online and the circle will be complete." Cutting-and-pasting these messages for "blog" "publication," I note that both Lee and McNeil adhere to the elegant and traditional practice of following each period they type with two spaces. Classy! I gave up on that years ago. Think of all the energy I've saved. BUT AT WHAT PRICE? (I removed their "extra" spaces so that the "post" would "adhere" to "blog" "standards." Think of all the work I did to reduce the quality here. Is that "ironic"?) Hey, I'm just going to keep typing. "All bets are off!" as McNeil once observed. Nobody reads these long "posts," or the short ones either, but perversely that's what keeps me typing. Like, yesterday I wrote a long "post" containing the words and phrases "Joycean technique" and "Faulkner" and "palimpsest" and "portent" and "unspoken emotion" but then I deleted it. WHY? For all practical purposes, a deleted "post" is the same as a "posted" "post." It was about this sentence in Adrienne Barbeau's autobiography: "We were married four months later, on New Years Day 1979, in Bowling Green, Kentucky, by a one-armed judge who years earlier had lost his hand in the mixer at the bakery where we'd gotten our wedding cake." I'm way past that now. The marriage is over. Adrienne Barbeau has just met a man who has "the ability to alter bacteria with his hands." She says of him, "I wonder who gave him the huge pearl ring he's wearing. I wonder why the nails on his pinkie fingers are so long." In other book news, I was lurching around Square Books yesterday and found myself strangely drawn to a paperback of JUNKY by William S. Burroughs. I found myself wondering why I've never read it. I read the first couple of pages and thought they were pretty good. So I bought it. It was only afterward, going through the introduction as I sat at the counter at Ajax, that I put it together: Old Bull Lee from ON THE ROAD is Burroughs, as I well knew. What I didn't know is that this edition of JUNKY has, as an appendix, a whole deleted chapter about William Reich, fave theorist of Adrienne Barbeau and Norman Mailer! Who cares? Randy, the owner of Ajax, saw me eating a hamburger and asked, "Why aren't you eating a Pendarvis sandwich? I can't remember the right name." I reminded him that he was thinking of "The Osborne Sandwich." Don't worry! I still think it's going to catch on. Books! As you know, I always like to have a little pocket-sized book to carry around in my little pocket-sized pocket as I promenade about the town like Blazes Boylan. And the other day when I was at Off Square Books I found just such an item, filled with poems using the great old spelling I love: "YEE dainty Nimphs that in this blessed Brooke/ Doo bath your brest;/ Forsake your watry Bowers, and hether looke/ At my request." There are a lot of "hey ho's," so that even the most dire subject matter takes on a jaunty hue: "But whether in painfull love I pine,/ hey hoe pinching pain:/ Or thrive in wealth, she shall be mine,/ but if thou can her obtaine./ And if for gracelesse greefe I dye/ hey hoe gracelesse greefe:/ Witnesse, she slew me with her eye,/ let thy folly be the preefe." He's talking to his sheep. All the narrators in this book are talking to sheep. Pretty early in that poem, the narrator sees "the bouncing Bellybone/ hey hoe Bonny-bell:/ Tripping over the Dale alone,/ shee can trip it very well." Bellybone! I have no idea. Bonnibel (sp?) is Princess Bubblegum's first name, FYI.

Game of Bob

Hey look Megan Abbott sent me this picture of Bob's head being taken somewhere in a truck. I was just thinking about Bob Hope the other night as I watched GAME OF THRONES. Like, "What this show needs is Bob Hope!" You know, how he used to be the only nervous, modern-seeming guy in a period setting. The example below isn't exactly what I was looking for, though his expression after he has a pinch of snuff does exemplify what I think he could bring to GAME OF THRONES, and the women in this scene are treated more or less like most of the women in GAME OF THRONES, and the boring dialogue about plans we don't understand is like GAME OF THRONES, and ha ha, sure, the part where the stalk of celery he's holding goes limp, they need lots more stuff like that in GAME OF THRONES, but what I really wanted here and couldn't find was the kind of quip Bob makes after running into a large, mean henchman or a guy with an executioner's axe, or while breaking the fourth wall after sneaking away from a battle, you know what I mean, no you don't.

The Man Who Fell Off the "Internet"

When I was a little kid, there used to be something called "The Big Show" on TV when I got home from school. Gee, isn't this so fascinating already? Don't worry, it gets duller! "The Big Show" was an old movie, hosted by a man named Mac or Max (turns out his name was Max Goodman, more on that in a postscript below - are you pinching yourself?). He was the biggest square you have ever seen, a guy in a dark suit and glasses, standing in front of a marquee. Once he made a mildly off-color remark about a Deanna Durbin movie. No offense to Max Goodman or his descendants, but he really did! That wasn't his usual style. I remember the remark exactly, though I won't trouble you with it. There is probably some important conversation I had with one of my grandparents which has been pushed out of my brain by Max Goodman's Deanna Durbin joke. I was so young I didn't even understand it at the time, but I could tell it was wrong! Perhaps Max Goodman cringed at himself or something, or maybe he even apologized, and that's how I knew I had witnessed something untoward. Wow! I'm really off-track here. This isn't what I meant to talk about at all. Good thing this is a "blog" and nobody cares! I don't even care if you stop reading right now. In fact, I recommend it. What I meant to tell you is that WHO'S MINDING THE MINT? came on TCM last night. I haven't watched it yet. I have it on the dvr. When I was a child, there were no dvrs! Gee this is interesting! So I had to wait for WHO'S MINDING THE MINT? to come on "The Big Show," which it did over and over and over, to my great pleasure, instilling in me my first precocious desires to pull off a big heist - an ambition which has to this date gone unfulfilled. It's probably terrible. I will watch it and let you know. Yet until I came across CAPRICORN ONE, I considered WHO'S MINDING THE MINT? the pinnacle of humankind's artistic longings. "The Big Show" seemed to have a limited number of available films. One was about a giant tarantula. I think they showed practically everything by Abbott and Costello, including a dispiriting little bagatelle titled ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE KEYSTONE KOPS. Even as a child I could tell that no one's heart had been in that one. Everybody looked worn-out and sad. On Fridays it was Tarzan, or so I recall. Are you asleep yet? Because listen! By the time I got to high school, "The Big Show" had a rival on channel 10. It was called "Movies 10." There was no square host! There was no host at all! Just an animated opening, kind of groovy, in which a movie camera assembled itself out of some geometric shapes over a red background, I think, and suddenly the cameraman was pointing the camera at YOU, the viewer! Freaky! Then straight to the movie, which was usually groovier fare than ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE KEYSTONE KOPS, such as POPI starring Alan Arkin or THE HOT ROCK or CALIFORNIA SPLIT or THE PINK PANTHER. So is it possible that I am misremembering such a vital event of my childhood, and that I first saw 1967's WHO'S MINDING THE MINT? on "Movies 10," not on "The Big Show"? I refuse to believe it! Now for the promised postscript: how did I find Max Goodman's name? It wasn't easy! There is only ONE mention of "The Big Show" hosted by Max Goodman on the whole "internet" as far as I can tell. It is buried deep inside the "web" site of some guy who summarized every episode of a local AM talk-radio show in Mobile, Alabama. Unless you are some weirdo stickler for corroboration, I strongly advise that you do not "click" here. Let me sum it up for you. Here is some of the talk-radio show, as presented by the "blogger" in question: "Third half-hour begins with audio of Reagan during his re-election campaign at his political party's national convention. Caller George has childhood memories of a ferryboat service long ago, including a memory of being told to 'turn around' after his mother dresses up in a bathing suit, which bothered George throughout the years." Much later, the relevant portion: "Former WKRG personality Max Goodman spoke with John Nodar this morning about his career at the station from 1963 to 1985. Goodman held positions such as morning weather forecaster, newscaster, announcer, and host of TV5 programs such as the movie showcase 'The Big Show'(aired daily from 3:30 PM-5:00 PM) and 'Channel 5 Bingo', in which viewers with bingo cards from Greer's Food Market can play along from home. One of Max's most cherished memories is when general manger C.P. Persons asked if he would go to Washington, D.C. for an interview with Attorney General Katzenbach." And that's it for "The Big Show" on the "internet." Not even a photo of Max Goodman that I can find. So we will have to settle for Deanna Durbin. The "blogger" in question stopped "blogging" in 2009 because he got depressed about the tone of talk radio.

Flying Saucers Everywhere

You thought I was kidding about the UFOs, didn't you? First check this previous incontrovertible evidence. Now dig this! They even pop up in my book club book. For some reason that I can't quite wrap my head around, Joe E. Lewis writes his biographer a long letter that is entirely composed of one-liners. "The newspapers are still making a fuss about Communists and flying saucers," he writes. Then he makes some wisecracks about Communists and flying saucers. You know, stuff like, "If you want to see flying saucers, just pinch a waitress." That's his letter to his biographer! Here, by way of contrast, is how his biographer writes: "The biographer is a hunter, and the spoor led me to Las Vegas." And: "The gardens were peaceful and sweet-scented in the moonlight." Also: "Within him the coil of fear unwound." Anyway, I finished the book. So, did I go back to CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS and pick up where I left off at page 623? Ha ha ha! You're hilarious. No, before retiring, I read the first chapter of I OWE RUSSIA $1200 by Bob Hope. Then, when I turned the page to Chapter Two, there was an illustration of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in SPACESUITS! Coincidence? Well, yes. In today's New York Times, there is a sad and touching article about the son of crooner Billy Eckstine. He (the son) has become a street person whose "life's calling," he says, is "photographing alien spacecraft above Manhattan." I don't mean to make light of his predicament in any way. But I was already writing this "post," so I thought I ought to mention it. (The illustration is what popped up when I did a "Google Image Search" for "bing crosby bob hope astronauts." Who am I to argue?)

Chocolate-Covered Pendarvi

I want to reiterate that I meant no disrespect to the Ellenbogen name with my fanciful speculation that Jerry Lewis would have fun saying it. In the pinched little world of this "blog," it is a compliment of the highest order! As the Dr. Ellenbogen who wrote me pointed out (through the use of vivid if startling medical imagery, renaming a particularly painful and embarrassing affliction after me in jest!) Pendarvis itself is an unusual surname. But oh what I wouldn't give to hear Jerry Lewis say it. That is where Dr. Ellenbogen and I differ, apparently! As I have boasted, I spoke with Mr. Lewis on the telephone once, but I do not recall him saying my name, and certainly I would recall that, wouldn't I? Which reminds me of a story lending credence to Dr. Ellenbogen's point. Once the spouse of Mr. Ward was doing a "shoot" (as we used to call it in the TV business) with the comedian Martin Short, who improvised some asides to an imaginary butler named "Pendarvis." This occurred before she and I met, up until which time she had assumed "Pendarvis" to be a crazy word that Martin Short made up. (Interestingly - ha! - Mr. Short is known for his impersonation of Mr. Lewis.) In addition, someone - I believe it was the man who hates "blogs" - told me that there were some items called "chocolate-covered Pendarvi" on an episode of the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon show, though I have never found a clip confirming his recollection. (NOTE: I believe the "blog" needs a picture of Bullwinkle, so no random illustration today.) And in conclusion, my own meticulous research bears out the fact that Pendarvis is a funnier name than Ellenbogen: there are 980,000 matches for Ellenbogen in a google search and only 206,000 for Pendarvis, making the latter nearly five times more unusual than the former. In conclusion, I apologize to Ellenbogens everywhere. It is an honorable name, and fun to say, and worthy, and I meant no harm.

It's Funny Because I'm Ignorant

One of the classes I teach is held in the chemistry building. The flyers they stick on the bulletin board over there are kind of different. Like, today I saw one that said, "Using Collision-Induced-Dissociation Mass Spectrometry to Predict Solution-Phase Relative Affinities of Unidentate Ligands for a 19F-Labeled Pd(II) Pincer Cation - Refreshments served." Ha ha ha! It's funny because I'm ignorant. But then I swear I was in the history building and saw this flyer: "A Bleeding Llama at the Mouth of the Mine: Becoming a Historian - Free Pizza" and I was like, hey, that flyer would seem pretty crazy if you were from the chemistry department... because it IS crazy. Still, nothing says free pizza like a bleeding llama. It sure is an interesting world we live in and all! Goodbye.

The Aqua-Bats

NPR people, "click" here. All others, I would like to tell you about a cartoon that Theresa and I saw on the TV last night. It was an episode of a late '60s series called MOBY-DICK. In this version, Moby-Dick swims around with two kids on his back. In the episode we witnessed, some underwater bats began attacking the children for absolutely no reason. "It's the Aqua-Bats," one of the children said, sounding relatively calm, as if Aqua-Bats were a normal everyday concern in his world. Long story short, Moby-Dick defeated the Aqua-Bats. But I was surprised to learn that Moby-Dick was capable of elongating himself like Plastic Man. Also, the children tended to hide inside Moby-Dick when trouble arose - a tactic which, as we know from the Bible and Pinocchio, is problematic. To conclude, I would like to note that at one point Moby-Dick battled a giant Portuguese Man-O-War, and we were given to understand that when head-butted, this sea creature would merely split in two and become two angry, hepped-up sea creatures, then four, and so on. No explanation was given, though from my limited experience in marine biology, I am fairly certain it was unusual behavior. The name of the episode was "The Aqua-Bats." It was all over in seven glorious, hallucinogenic minutes. We took turns pinching one another long into the night. I thank you for your time and attention. The Aqua-Bats thank you. A coda: I have learned through "googling" that there is a band called the Aqua-Bats. For all I know, they took their name from this very cartoon. And finally, would it surprise you to know that the "Min-Aquabats" (pictured) are the oldest amateur water ski team in the United States of America? I thought you would like to know!

The Good News

Here is some good news I have been working up my nerve to spill. I got a surprising phone call a week ago. I was invited, out of the blue, to be the 2007-8 John and Renee Grisham Writer-In-Residence at Ole Miss. We have had so many nice times and met so many good people in Oxford. Every time Theresa and I visit, we get wistful and speculate about what it would be like to live there. Now we will have a chance to find out, and not too long from now, either (I start at the beginning of the academic year). We've been told that the window of my "study" where I am expected to write (not "blog"!) looks out onto Faulkner's yard. Well, we're still taking turns pinching one another over here. Of course, that has nothing to do with the news. But this is a great honor and a rare opportunity.

Awesome No More

Just got off the teletype with Jim Whorton, who informs me that a "highly respectable organization" has decided to "expunge the word awesome from the English language in 2007." They dabble in a little expunging every year, it seems, our "highly respectable" friends, and this year "awesome" is number five or so on the list, according to Whorton. I'm sure they have a lot of fun, smoking cigars and drinking port and deciding which words to expunge and giggling and pinching one another long into the night! Good for them! But this couldn't come at a worse time for me! Indeed my whole livelihood is threatened. Can't we all chip in and do something about this? A petition, perhaps? Now a hot water bottle and a touch of brandy and I'm off to a fitful slumber.

Television Achieves Greatness

Here in the Pendarvis Building we're all getting ready for Tuesday night, when THE GILMORE GIRLS and VERONICA MARS on "The CW" will be followed (on NBC) by Jerry Lewis' guest-starring role on LAW & ORDER: SVU! This is all too good to be true. But it is! It is true! We're pinching ourselves, and each other, over and over in a sad and lethargic way. Okay, I can no longer explain to a living soul about THE GILMORE GIRLS, it's too late, you'll never catch up now. If you start, you won't care. And why should you? You have important things on your mind! Never mind that a famed crank like Phil Oppenheim has a soft spot for the Gilmore Girls and has even defended the logy season-in-progress. Look, please don't watch THE GILMORE GIRLS! I'm tired of your mockery and grief, world! I give up! You win! You've taken away my innocent happiness! Good for you! But you MUST LOVE JERRY LEWIS! I really love him, not in a cute or ironic way. I notice that when a comedian like Dennis Miller or Conan O'Brien or the South Park people want to say something really witty about France, they mention that country's famous love of Jerry Lewis. Nothing against Mr. Miller or O'Brien or those other folks, who I suppose have striven with all their little hearts to bring joy and laughter into the world for working stiffs like you and me, but I contend that Jerry Lewis lives somewhere above any such smart, stale reference. Anyway, why are they picking on Jerry Lewis? It's like, Ha ha ha, French people like you - zing! I know he's done some weird stuff that seems bad, but even that aspect of his work can be fascinating and entertaining. And his funny stuff is truly funny. Give him a chance, people. Friend-of-the-blog Jeff McNeil and I have often commiserated over the painful experience of forcing a squirming friend or loved one to watch a Jerry Lewis movie. Mr. McNeil and I, you see, have trained ourselves to appreciate the uncomfortable parts so we can get to the incredible parts. Try it at home! It's easy and fun! Mr. McNeil draws your attention to the furniture and carpeting in THE PATSY, and the scene in which Stanley Belt (Lewis) tries to tell a joke, a scene which Mr. McNeil wishes would last for 90 minutes. Mr. McNeil has reported driving to work and bursting into laughter at the mere memory of that scene. Okay, that's all I have to say about Jerry Lewis... for today. And I hope that I have successfully courted the youthful demographic by typing the name Jerry Lewis one million times. Between Jerry and the Gilmore Girls, I guess everyone is against me. But I'm sure we can all agree on Veronica Mars, so let's focus on that.