Solid Monkey Performance

I turned on TCM just as the last scene from THE SEA HAWK was playing. There was a monkey in it. I assume he was the mascot of the pirates. I haven't seen THE SEA HAWK in many decades. But Queen Elizabeth was down on the docks making a speech. When the queen appears, the monkey tips his hat, rearranges his chin strap for attractiveness and comfort in a Brando-like bit of authentic "business" with roots in the reality of the moment, then begins applauding wildly. Very natural! This monkey went to acting school! I understood the monkey: his hopes, his dreams. It was the elegant adjustment of the chin strap.

River Rowdies

I don't suppose any of us will forget where we were on July 27, 2012, the day I lost dozens of "twitter followers" by live-tweeting KING RALPH. It was a massacre! Looking back, I can't blame them. How many times since then have I my own self become heavy-hearted at the excessive tweeting rate of some well-meaning wag or another? And that is why I have decided to help everybody out by putting my live-tweeting of STRIKING DISTANCE into the following handy virtual live-tweeting format, rather than clogging up everyone's "timeline" with it. I promise you all the excruciating boredom of the live-tweet experience with half the mess. Before we begin, it occurs to me that not only did Donald Barthelme invent the TV recap, he simultaneously invented the live-tweet. With preliminaries concluded, come with me as I list the things I see in STRIKING DISTANCE. A police car races toward the camera. Lightning strikes! Words say STRIKING DISTANCE!... Boots sloshing in the rain. Dr. Theresa just walked in and saw me furrowing my brow watching STRIKING DISTANCE and said, "Your seriousness is humorous."... Bruce Willis is disgraced... Bruce's dad is Frasier's dad from FRASIER! He's a cop, JUST LIKE IN FRASIER! Frasier's dad says a very Frasier's dad-like thing about Bruce's "mother's side of the family."... All his former cop friends think Bruce Willis is a "rat."... Bruce drives all crazy, like he's in a cop movie!... Frasier's dad is blasé about all the near collisions, making idle chit chat during the near-death experiences. This really IS like a FRASIER episode! Eight minutes in and we have our first action-movie fireball!... I have a feeling Frasier's dad is about to bite it. ... Ten minutes in: SECOND FIREBALL. ... Dr. Theresa says I should comment on the bad guy's driving gloves, which I totally meant to do... Cars hopping in the air like rabbits! Frasier's dad is still alive for the moment... Uh-oh. I take it back. Here's the reliable Dennis Farina as Uncle Nick? Uncle Rick? He's a cop too. ... They "caught the killer" and Bruce deduces in literally half a second they got the wrong man, just by looking at him... but the other cops don't want Bruce to rock the boat. Not even Uncle Nick or Rick! Uncle Rick/Nick's kid is jumping off a bridge! It's Bruce Willis's own cousin he ratted on! Well, there goes Cousin Jimmy. And here comes the rain. Like God himself is crying for Cousin Jimmy!... TWO YEARS LATER... It sure feels like it ha ha! ... Bruce Willis has a cat. A rat with a cat! Get it? ... Alka Seltzer... microwaving a hot towel... that's Bruce's version of breakfast! ... Now he's a boat cop. All the boat cops are standing around in their short pants. Short pants cops! ... I think Bruce Willis just dumped his crabby boss in the river as a prank. He'll never get anywhere with an attitude like that!... Bruce's name is Tom Hardy! Like the depressing novelist!... Everywhere Bruce Willis goes, other cops try to beat him up... Bruce: sensitive, weepy. The thinking man's cop!... Tom Sizemore, another cop cousin... Bruce Willis lives on a houseboat. Hey! Tom Sizemore talks about THE SIMPSONS! Tom Sizemore's brother AND mother jumped in the river. Stay away from the river, everybody. Do they want to make me suspect that Tom Sizemore is the killer? Because it's working. But it's too easy. He says ominous things like "I... I gotta meet a girl." And just when he comes back to town the killings start again. Too easy... Bruce Willis's new boat cop partner is SARAH JESSICA PARKER! She's introduced to him as a "qualified diver." I wonder if that will come into play! [It doesn't. Chekhov would be ashamed. - ed.]... Rowdies in a speedboat!... Oh, I see. Bruce Willis bends the rules and SJP is "by the book." ME: "What's that guy wearing, a neckerchief?" DR. THERESA (sounding sad about my decline): "It's a tattoo, sweetie."... Bruce Willis knocked somebody down a hole. "Down the hole!" shouted Dr. Theresa... Bruce Willis just shot three or four guys, I lost count. SJP helped him by yelling. Now he has grudging respect for her! You can see it in his eyes... I think I'll have some rye. I might miss something... Thinking, those guys Bruce shot were probably pirates, technically!... "There's an old Italian saying: 'Don't scald your tongue on another man's soup.'" Wise words, Dennis Farina. "Hey, Hardy, we're out of our patrol zone," warns by-the-book Sarah Jessica Parker. You really think Bruce Willis cares?... SJP and Bruce are dramatically acting at each other!... Aw, suddenly SJP spies Bruce behaving tenderly when he doesn't know she's looking! Maybe there's something to this gruff boat cop after all... They're really piling on the Tom Sizemore circumstantial evidence. I ain't buying it! No matter how unnervingly he giggles. Dennis Farina just had this line of dialogue: "Go up there. Go up there. GO UP THERE! Go up there."... This movie has a lot of blue language!... Andre Braugher! He's as young as a baby!... Tom Sizemore sure talks about the river a lot... SJP invites Bruce to the Policeman's Ball, which seems like a great place for him to be beaten to a pulp, which he is. Angry cops conveniently tear off his shirt, exposing him sexily. Tom Sizemore drinks heavily while a fireworks display goes off over his head. This one cop who hates Bruce the most is the guy who played the studio head in THE PLAYER.

Can't think of his name. But boy does he hate Bruce Willis. ... SJP pours Bruce's booze down the sink. She doesn't even know him! That's presumptuous. She hasn't even seen him drunk. I don't even think he's BEEN drunk in this movie (?), though the angriest cop calls him a "lush" once. ... Bruce Willis's cat watches as Bruce and SJP express themselves with an intimacy that is usually reserved for the conjugal bower. The cat seems bored. But POV suggests a creepy killer is probably watching too! ... Ha ha, now SJP and Bruce are chasing a car, but they're in a boat! This doesn't seem practical. THIRD FIREBALL. One hour, seven minutes in. ... It is suddenly revealed that Sarah Jessica Parker's character has a daughter... NAMED SARAH. ... Bruce just had the hoary old line, "I don't know how high up this goes." Dennis Farina: "He's been under surveillance for three weeks." Guy from The Player: "CLOSE surveillance?" Ha ha ha, I don't know why that exchange made me laugh so hard. I guess it was the way the guy said "CLOSE surveillance?" But it's clear that SJP has been spying on Bruce! NOW who's the rat? "Thank you very much, detective, you may step down," says Andre Braugher in that super sarcastic way that only Andre Braugher can deliver! He's not thanking the detective at all! Bruce Willis's cat is hungry. "Go catch a rat," says Bruce Willis to his cat. Ironic!... Somebody's "dead in the water." Literally! I can't tell who it is, even though Bruce is saying "NOOOOOOO!!!!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!" But then again I thought that pirate's tattoo was a neckerchief. ... Bruce Willis thinks Tom Sizemore is the killer. I guess he's not so smart after all. Well! The killer is Cousin Jimmy! He ain't dead! I think Cousin Jimmy is the guy who was in MURPHY BROWN. The killer is the dude from MURPHY BROWN! I think. A guy from MURPHY BROWN killed a guy from FRASIER! What's the world coming to? "Are you too proud to drink with a dead man?" - Cousin Jimmy. I'm going to start saying that at bars. That guy's hair! The guy from MURPHY BROWN. He seriously looks worse than Donald Trump. Plus he's a psychotic murderer. Oh, wait! Dennis Farina killed Frasier's dad. So never mind. Ha ha, SJP just stuck out her foot and tripped the guy from MURPHY BROWN. Boat chase! Foot chase! We're back on the bridge. "You'll never beat me!" screams the guy from MURPHY BROWN at Bruce Willis. So I wonder who's going to win! Underwater fight! Lots of bubbles when you're fighting underwater. ... The angriest cop admits he was wrong. Bruce Willis punches him. SJP runs up. They smooch. Flowers on a grave. We see SJP's alleged daughter for the first time. They're all at the cemetery together like a regular family. THE END.

His Pirate Get-Up

"Johnny down there in his pirate get-up, shooting off cannons all hours of the night. David strolling the beach in his top hat and cane, growing more and more agitated, until one day he tries to make Johnny's island disappear. Johnny walks to the other side of his island and discovers a whole bunch of magician's props washed up (or dumped!) on his beach...I kind of wish I didn't know about those two now." That's McNeil, ruminating further on his discovery that Johnny Depp and David Copperfield own neighboring islands.

More Owls For Lee

So when Ben Greenman was in town Lisa Howorth was bragging on me, telling Ben how "well-read" I am for some reason, and then Jimmy started saying something about the treasure in TREASURE ISLAND and I asked him not to spoil it because I'm not done yet, and Ben said, "Yeah, but you know there's treasure, right?" Ha ha! Well-read. I just got to this part: "'Clumsy fellows,' said I; 'they must still be drunk as owls.'" So TREASURE ISLAND is a book with an owl in it, and more than that, a book with a drunken owl in it, though I am no closer to understanding why owls are the supposedly drunken birds in the whole world of birds. This reminds me! Lee Durkee is sick of me "blogging" about owls all the time. He claims I only "blog" about owls and Jerry Lewis, whereas the subhead of my "blog" vainly promises "JERRY LEWIS - MONKEYS - UFOS - OATMEAL - OWLS." Where are the monkeys, UFOs, and oatmeal? That is Lee's reasonable question. In answer, I tried to suggest that the subhead of the "blog," is, I don't know, Platonic or something...? Lee wasn't buying it. Then I mentioned that I had gone the ENTIRE MONTH OF MARCH 2013 WITHOUT "BLOGGING" ABOUT JERRY LEWIS but Lee wasn't buying that either. He's a tough customer! I just "blogged" about monkeys the other day, but Lee is right, it had been too long between monkeys. And this much is true: I never "blog" about UFOs, really. But Dr. Theresa just listened to a phone message from my mom, and Mom's phone was breaking up, and Dr. Theresa said it sounded like Mom was saying, "I'm just calling my children about the aliens." But she wasn't. But we could easily believe that she was! (See also.) That's a true story, and it just happened! Also true: We just got back from lunch at Ajax to find in the mail a copy of Lauren Graham's new novel personally signed to me! I detect the handiwork of Ace Atkins, who shares an agent with Ms. Graham. I may also advance with some modesty that I have very nearly talked the entire Doomed Book Club into reading Ms. Graham's novel next. I trust and hope her book has an owl in it! You'll hear it here first.

My Life in the Arts

The satellite receiver fizzled out and died so I watched some of EIGHT ON THE LAM on the "streaming video" last night. You remember when Phyllis Diller squirted mustard on some cops, don't you? Well, this time she fed an unsuspecting cop some dog food! Wow! I didn't know Phyllis Diller hated cops so much. Somebody should write an academic paper about it. (Cops were referred to as "fuzz" here, just as in the previous [?] Hope/Diller vehicle BOY, DID I GET A WRONG NUMBER. There was a distasteful and protracted joke in EIGHT ON THE LAM - I sort of couldn't believe what I was seeing - when a baby tries rather forcefully to nurse on Phyllis Diller [!], causing her to exclaim, "Boy, did YOU get a wrong number!" An almost Cronenberg-like, uh, I don't know what I'm talking about.) The dog-food-eating cop, her love interest, was played by Jonathan Winters. EIGHT ON THE LAM is not a fitting tribute to Winters, who died the other day. He never appeared in a film role worthy of his genius. EIGHT ON THE LAM is a "family picture," I guess. There's this one tyke who looks so proud of himself for remembering his lines. He's kind of cute about it so it's hard to begrudge him. He'll say, for example, "Ooh, you said a dirty word!" And then the camera lingers while he kind of smirks because he knows he really delivered the goods. I couldn't help but notice that one of the kids listed in the opening credits was played by "Robert Hope," who must be Bob Hope's son, right? I tried to figure out which one he was. I looked for telltale signs of the famous "Hope nose" to no avail. I suppose this is something I could "google" if I weren't so weary of life all the time. What else? I saw Joe York yesterday. He mentioned reading TREASURE ISLAND on an airplane. SUDDENLY MY PROBLEMS WERE SOLVED BY JOE YORK! Somehow I have never read TREASURE ISLAND and I have been trying to think of something to read on the airplane. I was thinking of picking up VILLETTE again, but I was also resisting that idea. I had such a good time reading JANE EYRE on an airplane, but I feel that VILLETTE might be setting me up for airplane disappointment reminiscent of the second lobster scene in ANNIE HALL. I believe Jimmy once called TREASURE ISLAND his favorite book... did he say Stevenson should have cut the last page? Last paragraph? Or did he love the last paragraph? I can't remember. Gosh, this is boring. I am boring myself typing it. I would like to excuse myself from my own company. So let's liven things up. Remember when Blair Hobbs made Dr. Theresa a Lizzie Borden-themed cheese ball to celebrate her doctorate? Just feast your eyes on this Cheese Jake she made to celebrate the recent visit of the ADVENTURE TIME boys! "I know he doesn't have hair, but I thought he needed some," she said. "Plus, I like chow mein noodles." Late in the evening, she took what was left of Jake and remolded him into a snarling, demonic unicorn. At least that's the way I remember it. Exciting! (Photo by Pendleton Ward.)

Unknown Land Pirate and the Feathered Mimes

"No government inquiry, official or otherwise, was made into Lewis's death. Incredibly, no official even so much as visited the scene." Yeah guess what I checked out of the library today, yes, that's right, a biography of Meriwether Lewis. In it I found another account of how Lewis's friend Alexander Wilson did a little investigation at the site of Lewis's death. "Once out of sight of the cabins," writes the author (Richard Dillon), "he broke down and wept for his dead friend." Wilson also wrote a poem about it: "The dark despair that round him blew,/ No eye, save that of Heaven, beheld,/ None but unfeeling strangers knew." And "Pale Pity consecrate the spot/ Where poor lost Lewis now lies low!" And so on. "On his ride, Wilson encountered a mockingbird which was singing its own sweet song, not the borrowed melodies of other birds which the feathered mimes adopted so easily. He wondered if perhaps the bird had sung for Lewis." That line, plus some hints that Wilson began to suspect foul play, made me check out another book - THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF ALEXANDER WILSON - because I wanted to see the source materials for myself. I found Wilson's account of the trip, and he does tell a mockingbird story, but it's nothing like the one Dillon reports. On the plus side there's this from the same letter: "I then sought out a place to encamp, kindled a large fire, stript the canes from my horse, eat a bit of supper, and lay down to sleep, listening to the owls... but for the gnats, would have slept tolerably well." So that makes THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF ALEXANDER WILSON a book with an owl in it, so I've got that going for me, you know how I feel about that, I feel like I'm not wasting my life, that's how I feel. Dillon writes near the end of the bio, "Was Meriwether Lewis murdered? Yes. Is there proof of his murder? No." And: "His assassin, I am convinced, was either an unknown land pirate of the ilk of the Harpe brothers of bloody Natchez notoriety, or the mysterious Runnion... because his moccasin tracks and the impression of the butt of his unusual rifle were found in the dirt near Lewis's cabin." But you know, I lost interest at some point because while I was googling around I saw that somebody wrote a "historical mystery novel" about the whole thing and ugh I don't know, I found that dispiriting for some reason, don't try to figure me out! YOU CAN'T! PS I was going to illustrate this "post" with a picture of the Harpe brothers of bloody Natchez notoriety but I just read about them and THEY'RE AWFUL! I don't want to tell you what they used to do to people but it has something to do with the way Henry Fonda sang, I can say no more. So here is Alexander Wilson instead, he seems nice, let's think of nice things from now on, promise?

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.

Oatmeal Tips

Welcome once again to our hit feature "Oatmeal Tips." You know how I like a good obituary headline. It would be nice to have the phrase "rowed across oceans" in your obituary headline, the way this guy does in the New York Times today. Select lines from the obit (written by Margalit Fox) include "A professional astrologer, she is his only immediate survivor" and "At 9, he settled a dispute with a pistol... At 20, he attempted suicide-by-jaguar. Afterward he was apprenticed to a pirate" and "Desperate for female company, he talked ardently to the planet Venus." Jerry Lewis is back in the New York Times too - finally! - as Dave Kehr reviews three new video releases. He makes some of those big Jerry-based pronouncements I always love, calling the break-up with Dean, for example, "a national trauma in the 1950s, as well as a personal one." Elsewhere in the paper, A.O. Scott calls Bob Hope "hip" (!) and "paradigmatic" (!!) and Manohla Dargis mocks him for it. Oh, I suppose you are waiting for the oatmeal tip. Well, when that guy rowed across the ocean, his provisions included "Spam, oatmeal, brandy." Oatmeal! It will help you row across an ocean.

A.B.!

An article about Anthony Braxton in the New York Times, including tidbits about his opera series on the subject of "robots, pirates, the Wild West."

Never Mind

On second thought, I don't see how "The Campden Wonder" is "one of the most remarkable occurrences that hath happened in the memory of man." Obviously (as the "victim" reappeared), the confession of the terrified John Perry was false, and concocted to make him seem the least murderous of his family members. He sold out his mother and brother, a terrible thing, and it didn't even save his neck. That means either Mr. Harrison's crazy adventure (with a pirate ship and everything) really happened, or Mr. Harrison just ran away with the rent money he was carrying (leaving behind his slashed hat and other "evidence" of his murder), had a good time for a couple of years, and came back.

Ixnay on the Dragoncloud

Well, I don't yet have a title for my sprawling fantasy epic. So what do you guys think? It has to sound "real" so I can trick people into buying it. Once I have their sweet, sweet money it will be too late! I thought of one that sounded really truly real: DRAGONCLOUD. So I checked around and there is already something called DRAGON CLOUD on "kindle." Of course there is. It has four authors! My title is better, all run together like that for extra dramatics: DRAGONCLOUD! But still. The product description calls DRAGON CLOUD "a middle-grade fantasy of 28,353 words." Ha ha! My stuff is middle-grade too but I don't go around bragging about it. I have been soliciting alternate titles on the twitter. So far the frontrunner is SWORD ISLAND. But that might have too much pirate in it. Have a better idea? Why not send along? That's "Sprawling Fantasy Epic" c/o "Writer" Oxford, MS 38655. There's nothing in it for you.

A Red Diaper and Pirate Boots

"The most underrated Sean Connery movie ever?" my old buddy Stephen asks rhetorically about ZARDOZ over on the twitter. "He plays the entire role in a red diaper and pirate boots," Stephen elaborates. Twitter's "limitations" have allowed him to zero in on the essence! If I recall correctly, this is the same movie Dr. Theresa kept telling me I needed to see because "Sean Connery flies around in a giant head." Yep:

The Case of the Violent Pierogi

John Currence was over here today, telling a story about some mascots dressed as pierogi who chase one another around the ballpark and beat each other up! There was some discussion about whether this is a real thing from real life or something John Currence dreamed, but I don't believe we ever settled the matter. I'll look into it and let you know. It'll give me something to do tomorrow! Hooray, a reason to get out of bed! WELL DANG IT! I went to "google" pieorgi for you, in case you don't know what a pierogi is. I was going to "link" to a recipe or something. Because I care about you! AND THE FIRST THING THAT POPPED UP was a picture of these little pierogi running around. That's because one of them was recently fired for criticizing the Pittsburgh Pirates management on his facebook page, or something. I'd try harder to get the facts straight but I'm too upset because now there's no reason to get out of bed tomorrow. Thanks for nothing, "internet"!

What Happened to Pirates

My friend Michael, who is one of the editors of Kitty Snacks, has put up an eloquent memory of Barry. It is grouped with some others. Michael quotes from Barry's syllabus, of which here is a part: "Why does lack of action, red-blooded emotion, plague graduate school fiction? This old flag has waved too long. What happened to pirates, storms, fiends, horror, temptresses with cleavage, lies, theft, greed, lust, random acts of meaningless (or meaningFUL) violence?"

The New Concept of Zap Action

Remember when I wasn't going to add any new pictures to the "blog"? Well now I am again because who cares. Besides, Kent sent me some pictures of a mascot that Mr. Ward and I had a hand in creating. So how could I NOT put it on the "blog," what with all the talk of mascots that has been going on day and night and causing such a ruckus among people in the know? That's Ushy. He's an usher, which is why his name is Ushy. Also seen: Jimmy, a puppet who was voiced and puppetized by Mike Mitchell. The human among them is Kent. (Mr. Ward is wearing the Ushy suit.) In other picture news, McNeil sent me an ad from a Superman comic book of his youth, and I was going to put that on the "blog" too, but the file was unsuitable or something, and I couldn't make it work. In other words, I was going to fall all the way off the wagon and give you all the new pictures you could possibly stand! The ad was for some pirate skeleton toys exemplifying what the copywriters referred to as "the new concept of zap action." Okay, I am going back to putting nothing but random old pictures on the "blog" because now my computer has 1,001 pictures in it, counting Ushy, and from my understanding of computers, that's all a computer can handle before it explodes, and this time I really mean it for real. My other problems include the search feature on this "blog," which hasn't worked properly in months and the fact that last night when I was removing the zest from a lemon, I accidentally grated part of my finger. My problems are HUGE and IMPORTANT!

Patchy Entertainment Exclusive!

Remember when Mark Osborne (nominated for an Oscar yesterday) sent us a picture of Harrison Ford's back? Well, here's another shot from his camera phone. You won't find this exclusive "show biz" photo anywhere else on the "internet," folks, NOR this exclusive commentary from Oscar-nominated director Mark Osborne himself: "Here's Patchy the Pirate on green screen from the shoot for the 10th anniversary Spongebob special episode to air in November. He'll be going over a waterfall in that boat. And to my disappointment that other man forgot his skintight green outfit."

An Intriguing Photo Caption

I was reading about Nedra Harrison today. Okay, it was a photo caption. What I read was a photo caption, and yes, I consider that reading. It was a photo caption in THE COMPLETE TERRY AND THE PIRATES, vol. 3, from the same good people who brought you THE COMPLETE DICK TRACY, vol. 1. Who is Nedra Harrison, you ask? She modeled for comic strip artist Milton Caniff, and... Well, here. Here's part of the photo caption: "Nedra Harrison... also posed for Salvador Dali's 'Madonna of the Sea' and portrayed Lady Godiva at the 1939 New York World's Fair. During World War II, she earned her pilot's license and was a member of the prestigious Women's Air Force Service Pilots. She later became a respected pathologist and supervised the cytology laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco and San Francisco General Hospital." Wow! I find Nedra Harrison even more interesting than "the Broadway Gun Girl." She is some kind of real life Wonder Woman! I mean, can you imagine the credits for a TV show about Nedra Harrison? It would probably start with Ms. Harrison in her supermodel mode on a fashion runway during a photo shoot that is interrupted so she can jump in her plane and fly herself to the hospital, where she would run upstairs and save somebody's life. And you would be like, "No way!" Too outlandish, yes, that would be your conclusion. This couldn't be a real person. And oh how very wrong you would be. For there was such a person, according to the photo caption I just read. And her name was Nedra Harrison. Nedra Harrison! (Ironically - is that the word? - there won't be a picture accompanying this "post" because there aren't any photos of Nedra Harrison on the "internet," though I did find a practicing surgeon - a relative, perhaps, following her forebear's footsteps into the medical profession? - by that name in Scottsdale, Arizona. You know, there's precious little information about Nedra Harrison on the "internet" at all, really... there's more, in fact, in that photo caption! Well, there IS one "internet" photo of the "original" Nedra Harrison in a publicity shot for a San Francisco department store, but she is hard to see in it and you need the permission of the San Francisco public library to show it and frankly I'm just way too lazy to get permission for anything, ever.)

Two More Chances

We have a good report on the success of the Christmas panto, from no less an authority than Sally Timms - no pushover, she. Also most forthright. And though she directed the show herself, she can be counted on for unvarnished truth always, in all things. "We had two days of rehearsal," Sally writes, "and frankly they were pretty ropey, but on the night all went right. The little sets looked beautiful, the pirates were fantastic, Kelly and Jon were perfect. It was all pitched so right, low-brow and high-brow combined in a primitive little show." Does this sound good to you, "blog" friends? It sounds perfect to me! So get down to The Hideout, two more nights only. Here we see some of the cast. That's Jon Langford as Mrs. Hammerhead and Kelly Hogan as Cap'n Skate. Tim Tuten, one of the owners of The Hideout, pictured in red kerchief, also plays a key role. I can only assume that the sweet and forlorn maiden with blue hair is the titular "Catfish Girl." I realize that there is a hint of "raciness," which we usually eschew here at the "blog," in the photo, but it's all in the ribald yet family-friendly panto spirit.

Panto

Oh, before I go I just want to remind everyone to hurry and get your tickets for the more or less traditional Christmas pantomime they're putting on at The Hideout in Chicago. What's a Christmas pantomime? It's something British people do! I helped a little with the script, and I'm still not sure. The occasional double entendre is called for, apparently. And they call it "panto" for short! So that's something I learned. By the time rehearsals are done, it may well be that none of my poor, baffled contribution will remain - but Jon Langford and Sally Timms (pictured) are putting on the show, and it's chock full of pirates and mermaids, so you know it's going to rock in any case. Why not try something different for a change for God's sake? Now wait right here at the "blog" and I'll be back in a few days. PS to Jon: I forgot to use the word "blowhole" in my scene. Please squeeze it in somewhere, thanks!

Gilbert & Sullivan

So, when my wife, my sister and I traveled down to Alabama for Thanksgiving we listened to a lot of Gilbert & Sullivan in the car. We listened to THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE (my sister's favorite) once and THE MIKADO (my wife's favorite) three times. I would explain how we ended up with such a lopsided (in THE MIKADO's favor) listening experience but it would be even duller than the dullest thing ever "blogged" on a "blog." I will say that I was reminded of the pleasing jauntiness of Gilbert & Sullivan and how much fun they are, and it put me in mind of the time I may have seemed harsh toward them in a "humor" piece. My actual target was a certain kind of music journalism, which also led me to call Bob Dylan (in the same piece) "the greatest dead songwriter." And I love Mr. Dylan, too! You had to be there. The joke was, mainly, that there's an unwritten rock journalism rule that Bob Dylan has to be number one on every single list of every kind. In any case, something interesting happened (I am now far off the Gilbert & Sullivan track). Someone from USA Today was interviewing Bob Dylan and asked if he knew that Paste magazine had called him the "greatest dead songwriter." Then, according to the article, Bob Dylan laughed! What I'm saying is, I made Bob Dylan laugh - in an extremely roundabout, indirect, meaningless way (my joke taken completely out of context and paraphrased by a third party who seemingly didn't even "get" it) that would never stand up in a court of law, and yet it's the coolest thing I've ever done. Put it on my tombstone, boys! And oh yes, try to find a copy of the Mike Leigh film TOPSY-TURVY. Jim Broadbent should have received an Oscar or something for his portrayal of W.S. Gilbert.