Working out the kings.

I don't think that I'm really worthy to make any comments on English royalty, being an American. There were reasons beyond the crimes of George III that we wanted out of the empire, but man, did we give George the business in the Declaration of Independence. 

Still, I am glad that the royal family remains a rallying point for many Brits who love their country. Genuine patriotism is a genuine good, and is being steadily killed by the people who run countries, and to hell with that. I also don't care if the royals stole stuff from other cultures, diamonds and whatever. All top dogs tend to be very grabby, and if they were better at it than the heads of other nations, too bad. If the tables were reversed and the Great Emeralds of Yorkshire (can you imagine such a thing?) were held by the Chinese, say, hell would freeze over before Yorkshire got them back.  

But today I'm writing as an American a little annoyed by Americans' interest in the whole Royals saga and spectacle. Yeah, it's history, but when you get down to it, it's really institutionalized celebrity and worship of wealth, all tied up with a cord made of Disney/Hallmark culture and a cord made of soap operatic mishmash. Something for everyone, I guess. It's happy fun royalty, with all the dough and pomp but without the teeth. Charles III may be able to have someone bumped off if he really needs it done, but it won't be legal and it won't be public. No hanging of his enemies and leaving the bodies to rot on display at Execution Dock.

Many Americans may think they would like to be a king or queen, but these people really would not want to live under the rule of one. If they think they would, ask if they'd like a King Joe or King Donald. One or the other would make them throw up. There's only one way peasants can get rid of a tyrannical family, and it's not an outpatient procedure.

Well, the job's done, Charles is installed, and I didn't watch a bit of the Coronation, although I was up early enough. 

Speaking of the kingship not having any teeth: People who did watch the show tell me that Chuck 3 doesn't look too healthy, a much older 74 than his mum was at that age in 2000. I trust the gang at the Crown Jewel room in the Tower of London has Wills's hat size on file. Might need to resize some crowns soon, is all I'm saying. 

Memeing of life.

To get your Saturday going in fine fettle -- and if you don't have a fettle, run out and buy one -- here are some fresh memes for your enjoyment. Tally ho!

The gossip truth.

Forgive me if I've told this story in this space before, but I think it's interesting.

In my checkered career in publishing, I've done a number of different jobs, including proofreading, writing, copyediting, and fact-checking. I was a fact-checker before the term became a synonym for confirmation bias. I've had at least one shouting match with an editor who wanted to run bad information because the truth ruined the story. Try that at the Washington Post these days and see how long you have a job.

Probably the strangest week in my career, though, was spent as a fill-in fact-checker at a popular weekly celebrity gossip magazine. I disdain celebrity and I eschew gossip, but I was desperate for work at the time. 

Why was it so strange? Because absolutely everything I expected about the job was the opposite of what it was. Here's what I mean:

1) It was dull.

I thought the work would be frantic, and maybe impossible. "I just got word that Alexis Bigbutt is pregnant! The father is Jimmy Cueball! We need to confirm that!" But no. When those kind of pieces would come in, the writers -- the life's blood of the business -- would just say "That's from one of my confidential sources," and that would be it. We'd just shrug and make sure all the names were spelled right and the ages were correct. Maybe it would have been more interesting for me if I knew who anyone was. But I could not get shocked at news about Gunnah Rimez's drug arrest or the hysterics on Real Housewives of Scranton. 

2) It was quiet.

Consequently, there was none of the running around one might expect of a weekly gossip sheet. The photo editors probably worked harder than anyone, but they kept to their own corner of the floor. Everything else was as quiet as a bank vault. I barely got to know the two women in my department. We took care of whatever crossed our desks, then it was back to Internet surfing.

3) The place was dark.

Everyone thinks Manhattan magazine offices are bright and sunny, because they believe everything they see on TV. This was an old building and the managers had all the windows. Those of us in the pit in cubicle city got no sun at all. Not that I was jealous -- we were on a low floor of the building, sandwiched in the middle of the block, so on two sides there were no windows and on the other sides you just looked at the buildings across the street.

4) Everyone was really nice.

Really, not a soul was mean or brash or snarky or creepy or crude. I don't even think anyone stole lunch from the fridge. The celebs may have hated the rag (although in fact they love gossip media -- it's all publicity), but it wasn't because the editors were cruel. It was a friendly office. 

I'd like to say they also paid way above the going rate, but they didn't; it was good, as I recall, but not generous.

After my week, they thanked me and said they'd let me know if they needed me again. In fact, I did get a call not long after, but in the meantime I had gotten a temp job that meant more hours for a longer stretch, so I had to turn them down. 

A few months later I was back in the book end of the business, working for an academic press in an office that was even darker and quieter, but less friendly. Everyone had a resentment. It also had the slowest elevators of any building I've ever worked in, and we were near the top floor, so it took forever to yabba-dabba-doo and get out of the place at quittin' time. (The actual top floor was a 17th floor penthouse, believe it or not, where a mysterious personage dwelled. On a dare I rode up to that floor, but I could see was a dark foyer and a front door with frosted glass.) 

All that is another story, however. 

Juke box money.

A friend of mine sent this the other day, which made me laugh.

It's impressive that a reference to a 33-year-old song can be so funny and for so many people. I don't know if in 1989 a joke centered on a song from 1956 would have worked as well, but "Love Shack" was a monster hit. It was the B-52's first top-40 hit in the United States, where it reached number 3, and was in the top 5 throughout the Anglosphere. 

"Heartbreak Hotel" was the top song of 1956, by the way, and was certainly well known in 1989, but it doesn't lend itself to this kind of gag. However, one thing it did in 1990 was provide half of "Heartbreaker (At the End of Lonely Street)" for Dread Zeppelin, a reggae band fronted by an Elvis impersonator that did Led Zeppelin covers -- or, in this case, a mashup of "Heartbreaker" and "Heartbreak Hotel." 

So there's that.

Thinking of the B-52's following that Twitter gag and my experience with the Cosmic Crisp apple a couple of weeks ago, I was reminded of one of my brushes with greatness in the city. I was in Manhattan with one of my old pals; we met for lunch at a little Mexican place downtown. My friend has the uncanny ability to spot celebrities, which I seldom do -- just in my presence he has seen Jack Klugman and Marshall Crenshaw, and a few others that I can't recall at the moment. On this day as we set to lunch, he gave me one of those "don't-look-now-but" whispers, and sure enough Fred Schneider was in a corner, lunching alone. I only caught a glance, but that hangdog face, like the worst salesman in an Oldsmobile dealership, is instantly recognizable. Also, he looked shorter than I expected, as most celebrities are in real life. 

As much as I like to greet other Freds, especially those with money, we let him alone. The urge was very strong to go over and say something like, "Space junk--laser bombs--ozone holes! Better eat up that quesadilla!" in my best Schneider impersonation. But I respect others' privacy, as does my pal; if Fred had wanted company he wouldn't be eating alone, I figure. 

Anyway, I have nothing much to add except that I have been informed there is a cover band in the UK called Fred Zeppelin. No relation. 

Farewell to the Queen.

We seem to have had quite the rash of celebrity deaths lately, and I'm not talking about people who were on reality TV or TikTok dingdongs who fall off bridges for clicks. I mean real celebs like Betty White, Bob Saget, Ronnie Spector,. and the great Sidney Poitier. But some people have careers that bring them just to the edge of celebrity, where certain people know them well but the bulk of humanity not at all, and yet they have some fame and distinction that makes their passing more notable than that of a miscellaneous schlub like me. I am thinking today of Queen Kong, alias Matilda the Hun, tremendous heel from the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW), who left this world on January 7 at the age of 73. 

I know very little about Dee Booher, who made a career out of being big and looking mean. She was 6' 3" and said to be more than 300 pounds of fighting fury. When I was a yout, I sometimes saw the GLOW syndicated show on Saturdays; it ran on channel 9 in New York, the same station that ran the syndicated show for the World Wrestling Federation (now the WWE, of course). That was before the WWF became a cable sensation, when wrestling was followed by a handful of cheap magazines on newsstands, and even then WWF made GLOW look like a trailer park next to its tract housing. (Believe it or not, the WWF Championship Wrestling program came on after Dr. Who on WOR-TV channel 9 at the time.)

Like all pro wrestling circuits, the GLOW wrestlers were divided between faces (yay!) and heels (boo!), and Matilda the Hun was one of the most memorable of the latter. For the first two seasons she walloped her way through the cute little faces, losing the championship in the end, as a proper heel should. 

Booher left the GLOW show after the second season, but turned up in other places. She appears in a cameo, dancing with a well-dressed little person, in Aerosmith's 1989 video for "Love in an Elevator."  

It's hard to explain the 80's.

She also played a small part in a movie that perhaps suited her talents better than any other you could name: Andrew "Dice" Clay's 1993 thespian turn, Brainsmasher... A Love Story. She played Bertha, and was billed by her other wrestling appellation, Queen Kong. She also played a bearded lady in Mel Brooks's Spaceballs. 

In later life she suffered from lupus, peripheral neuropathy, and wrestling-related spinal degeneration. The matches may not be real, but the pain is. She did have her own Web site, which at this writing has not been updated with the news of her parting.

I devoted the space to Booher's passing today not because I was a fan, nor because I was impressed by her saintliness (I suspect that was not an adjective any ever used for her, or anyone else in wrestling), but because celebrity is fickle and mean, often doesn't translate to money, and despite no hope of ever getting rich doing what she did, she was one pro wrestler who always gave it her all. That's worthy of mention. R.I.P.

The obits.

This week in the Obituaries....

BO STICKELY
(April 22, 1946 - December 1, 2020)

Action movie fans mourn the passing of Bo Stickely today, born in 1946 in Cornflower, Iowa. Stickely is best remembered for a string of martial arts films from the early 1970s, including Face Punch Master and its sequel, Kick Nuts Champion.

Stickely came to California to work the potato fields following the dragon fruit blight of 1969. While in the southern part of the state he took martial arts lessons with part-time stuntman Jay Femur. Femur recommended Stickely to his studio contacts based on his student's tough but handsome demeanor and iron-hard skull. Joel Woot of Woot Films saw in Stickely "a chance to make some of that karate money with a white dude." In Stickely's first film, 1971's Drunken Monk Punk, he played the world's greatest martial artist, a peace-loving man who will not fight unless he is so drunk he loses all coordination and manual dexterity. When his pet hamster is stolen, however, he goes on a sober rampage.

"I love making movies," he once told the Hollywood Reporter. "They just point me at someone, tell me what to say, and when to hit him. And I get paid!" He added, "I never took a single acting lesson, you believe that?" Fans did. He went on to star in a series of cheap but satisfying films, including Silent But Deadly, Bloody Spleen, and You Killed My Master III: Running Out of Masters. 

In the 1980s, the end of the grindhouse era and an enormous beer gut brought Stickely's film career to a halt. Small parts in television also came to an end when he was guest-starring on an episode of Golden Girls and thought he was supposed to beat up Bea Arthur. 

For years afterward he made a small living signing autographs at film conventions, before retiring to the Punch Drunk Home for Stuntmen and Others, where he died on December 1 from cancer of the islets of Langerhans. 

HIBISCUS FLOWER
(February 7, 1935 - December 2, 2020)

Folk music pioneer Hibiscus Flower, née Henrietta Lipschitz, was born in Levittown, New York, twelve years before the town was founded. In her adult life she discovered the joys of the folk-music movement, changed her name, and tried to get in on the action.

"I love writing songs for the common working man," she told a Village Voice interviewer in 1962. "All the college kids say the common working man would love my songs if he ever heard them."

Flower was not a singer -- she confessed to having "a voice like a broken hairdryer" -- but between 1958 and 1966 she wrote 451 folk songs. Many of these were recorded by groups such as the O'Hara Experience, the Pantless Four, and Pickle 'n Sickle. One of her biggest hits, "The Ol' Red Rooster," was a #30 hit for Nearsighted Mickey Meara in 1963. 

Following the "Electric Dylan" shock of 1965, Flower retreated to her Upstate New York home in Coxsackie with a sick headache, where she continued to write in seclusion. That is, until 1970, when a reporter from the New York Post visited her in her arbor, where she wrote all of her songs. Hanging in the arbor was a wind chime that emitted five notes -- A, C sharp, D, F sharp, and G -- which he realized were the only notes she ever used in any of her songs. "Every melody she ever wrote came from those chimes," the reporter concluded, and Flower's songwriting career effectively came to a close. 

Still, her best-known songs, like "Pick Up Yo' Shovel, Eb," "Ain't Seen No Sunshine in Waukegan," and "The Ol' Combine," continued to be recorded by bands including Hilljack Shine and Wickëd Blüd. For the next fifty years Hibiscus Flower was able to live on her royalties while collecting dead butterflies, live cats, and resentments, until her passing on Wednesday from cardiac arrest -- or, as she wrote in "Broken Hearted Billie," "a heart that just done stopt." 

 

HOWARD ZINKLE
(November 18, 1951 - November 30, 2020)

Pioneering food scientist Howard Zinkle, known to friends as Zinkmeister, passed away suddenly on December 3, 2020. Zinkle was best known for his work on established lines like Reddi-Wip, Cool Whip, Dream Whip, and Miracle Whip. But he also made great strides in the field of dehydrating and freeze-drying foods, and was known in some circles as the King of Waterless Comestibles. 

"I was so crushed when NASA said that our freeze-dried ice cream would crumble in space and ruin the gears or whatever," Zinkle told The Smithsonian. "We worked really hard to suck the moisture out of ice cream. It's not easy. Not to mention the chocolate syrup."

Zinkle, who earned a Ph.D. in Food Science from the Grenada School of Eats, was employed as a Food Consultant for Heinz and Campbell's, among other food giants. His plan to make condensed condensed soups, which would fit a serving for eight in a two-ounce can, never came to fruition, and he often found himself tinkering in his own laboratory. Zinkle is distinguished by holding the third-most patents of any U.S. individual for inventions that don't work.

Zinkle was experimenting with a revolutionary new appliance, a self-cleaning microwave oven, when he was fatally injured in the explosion. In accordance with his instructions, Zinkle's freeze-dried remains will be interred in a shoebox this Friday in the Hallowed Halls and Greenish Grounds Memorial Plaza in Garden City, New York.

Shiny.

Imagine if the famously strange Stanley Kubrick had decided he wanted to do a different movie and in 1980 suddenly gave up the rights to The Shining. Perhaps the film rights to the Stephen King novel would have fallen to the studio. Imagine further that, after a few years of kicking it around, a couple of producers in an office with a mountain of cocaine finally decide to make this project happen.

Gerry: All right, so who's available to direct this turkey? There was a rumor Kubrick would want it back but he's still sulking that his Napoleon musical was a flop. And after Maximum Overdrive, King stuff is dead. No one wants to touch it.

Sam: Good news, Ger! You'll dig this. I got Ken Finkleman. He's very excited!

Gerry: Finkelman? I loved Airplane II: The Sequel!

Sam: Who didn't? But dude, he's, you know, more of a comedy guy.

Gerry: Great, great. Look, you read this book? Creepy hotel stuff? Grody to the max. Who wants that? Couldn't get past page fifty. It needs some lightening up. You know, a little funny juice.

Sam: That's perfect! And hey, that reminds me. Guess what super-hot actor wants to play Jack Torrance?

Gerry: You don't mean...

Sam: Yes, baby! Only Mr. Steve Guttenberg himself! Can you see it?

Gerry: Oh, sweetheart, you're the best! Get his agent to sign before he gets away! He's the busiest guy in the industry. How'd you do it?

Sam: I met his stylist at an E.S.T. session and passed along the word.

Gerry: Always thinking, Sammy, always thinking. What about the wife character?

Sam: Covered. We got Shelley!

Gerry: Duvall? Are you crazy?

Sam: No, of course not! Shelley Long!

Gerry: Phew! You scared me there for a second, buddy. I need a drink.

Sam: Get me one too, will ya? Double rye with a splash. Any thoughts on the kid?

Gerry: Nah, anyone will do. No one else is in the movie, right?

Sam: Mostly bit parts. There's a black guy, talks to the kid, shows up again later. Got some weird power.

Gerry: Black guy? Wait a second.... yeah, yeah! That's it!

Sam: You got an inspiration?

Gerry: And how! This will be the best reunion since Road to Hong Kong. I mean the guy Guttenberg worked with from Police Academy.

Sam: Bubba Smith?

Gerry: No, no, the one with the funny noises.

Sam: Mike Winslow! Sensational! His agent and I use the same chiropractor. It's a done deal.

Gerry: Here's your drink. This is gonna be great. The one thing, though, is the title. Too... I don't know, doesn't say anything about the movie. Should be something more... attractive.

Sam: Way ahead of you, Gerry!

🎥🎥🎥🎥🎥🎥🎥

Trailer Narrator: Jack Torrance has a little problem.

Interviewer: So why are you willing to look after the hotel all alone for months?

Jack: Um... I lost my last job. Delivering home heating oil.

Interviewer: Oh?

Jack: I delivered it into a clothes dryer.

<image of house in flames>

Narrator: But things are going to change now.

Dick: Hey, kid. That thing you do? We call it Shining.

Danny: You do it too?

Dick: Yeah, check this out.

<imitates garbage truck backing into a fire hydrant>

Danny: Whoa!

Narrator: The Torrance family is going to a nice hotel... or is it?

<family in rusty station wagon>

Jack: It's gonna be awesome, you'll see, totally rad.

Wendy: I don't know...

Narrator: Some things at the hotel are... different.

Jack: What's this writing? R-E-B-M...

Wendy: What?!

Jack: U...C...U...C.... Cucumber backward?

Wendy: That's funny.

Jack: And look! E...M...I...T? "Time"? I don't get it.

Danny: NO YOU DON'T, DAD!

<parents stare>

Danny: You get Newsweek!

Narrator: Can a crazy family in a crazy hotel alone for the winter find true happiness?

Wendy: We have to get out, Jack! There's something weird about this place!

Jack: So, a little blood on the floor and Danny seeing some twins that aren't there. So what? I used to see things all the time when I was in school.

Wendy: You were in college and high as Skylab on mescaline!

Narrator: Sometimes life brings you to a pretty dark place. And then you have to reach for... The Shiny Thing.

Blogger's Note: This entry would not have been possible without the assistance of the lovely and talented Mrs. Key, who provided the title and some of the best gags.

Yek.

Every kid finds out at some point what his name spelled backward is. Although it was sad to find out my last name becomes Yek -- as in Yecch! -- it was certainly not the worst, and had the benefit of being easy to say.

Some such names are pretty useless. Smith becomes Htims; Jones becomes Senoj. Hard to pronounce, not much fun anyway. My grammar school had a lot of Irish, Italian, and Jewish kids, so most of them were completely messed up, like an Oihccevled or Ydducilligcm or Zitwokfel. You can't do anything with those kinds of names. You can't even pretend they are magic words -- you couldn't possibly say them fluidly, and they look like what they are -- backward last names. Only Zatanna or her dad could make them work.

First names were a little better. We had Retep, which sounds like it might be Indian or Pakistani; Kram was funny; and we had a lot of Nhojs. I didn't mind Derf, although it sounds like an insult. Yek! Derf! seems to go together all too well. Kcirederf, the full version, sounds like a Hungarian insult. Yek! Kcirederf!

The girls didn't fare much better. Annod wasn't too bad, but Yhtak is just a mess; we had one Eveiveneg among the group, as I recall.

Celebrities and other well-known persons make interesting mangles when backward. Naihsadrak Mik, Sboj Evets, Sknah Mot, Pmurt J. Dlanod -- they all look like something a mad Serbian scribbled on a cocktail napkin after the PCP kicked in.

You want to know: What about the dogs? Well, Tralfaz would become Zaflart, which is even worse than his actual name; Nipper is Reppin, which could be Japanese, I'm thinking.

I remember thinking that names spelled backward would be good to use for passwords or secret messages, but I have never managed to do so. When the time comes even now, in an era where passwords are much more important than when I was a kid, it's not popped into my head to use Derf or any of the other variations.

As I think about this silly topic, I remember we had one Bobby in my class, who for the sake of the pastime insisted on being Bob. That way instead of being Ybbob (pronounced Eebubob), he would just stay Bob. That was probably a smart play, but it felt like he was being boring on purpose. At least he could have been Trebor.

The public.

"It's just amazing to meet you! I've been admiring your work for years!"

He's still got it.

Pac-Man . . . dead!

They said it was an accident. 

But when I saw Pac-Man lying in the street, I knew it was suicide.

The police asked me for a statement, but what could I say? I knew him, sure, but we weren't close. You needed money to hang out with Paccy back in the day, and I was always broke. Too many quarters on comic books, not enough on games. He'd shake his head at me -- well, his whole body, really.

I knew what he'd been through, of course. The ghosts that haunted him. They tell me he would mumble things in his sleep about them. "Inky... Inky! No!" "Pinky! Tell Blinky to stop!" "NOOO, CLYDE!" They never let him be.

And of course there was the eating disorder. Never seen anyone so driven to feed his face. Sure, a lot of it was healthy food, cherries and oranges and apples and melons and so on, but he never stopped. He'd try to joke about it, how it helped him keep in shape -- that being round -- but as he got older it slowed him down.

Then the ghosts would catch up.

It's hard to be a celebrity on the wane. Once upon a time he was everywhere. There were books written about him.

As if anyone truly could.

There was even a hit song, for Pete's sake. But before he knew it, he was fit for nothing but the old fad's home.

The years weren't kind, although he denied that it hurt him. "I AM big!" he would say. "It's the CONSOLES that got small!"

There was the usual family drama. Ms. Pac-Man got her own place and left. Junior Pac-Man struck out on his own, and fell in with rough customers like Yum-Yum and Tim. Then his precious Baby got hooked on pinball. Paccy took all that on the chin, or would have if he'd had one.

The biggest blow was when his father died in 2017. The old man was 91, but somehow Paccy wasn't prepared. Paccy was shocked when he got the news. Something went out of the big guy that day. No more rolling with the punches.

Two years later, he was gone.

We might all think that Paccy left us some good lessons -- never stop moving, never let the ghosts catch up, always be nimble and slip out the side, a good two-step can fool your enemies. But I think that what I learned is that no matter how good we are, there's a 256 out there for all of us. No matter how many lives we get, we still only have one life, and when it's over, it's time to pay the piper.

Twenty-five cents. One credit. No returns.

---------------

[NB: I have no idea what the yellow thing on the ground was in the top photo that inspired this entry. When the dog and I returned that way it was gone. Maybe Pac-Man went to that big High Score list in the sky.]

Stranger than fiction.

Well, following the conclusion of the novella Bob the Mage last week, I'd hoped to keep Fiction Friday! going by offering you a new short story today. Sadly, paying work has interfered with all the fun again. Damn you, mortgage, you slave driver!

In any event, listening to the news yesterday reminded me that truth is stranger than fiction, for the obvious reason that we expect our fiction to be realistic, and sometimes reality is not. Reality doesn't play by your rules! It's unreal!

Just yesterday there were several things in the news that seemed to defy reasonable expectations, such as:

Madonna turned 60.

Now, you can take this as proof that Billy Joel was right, but let's face it, thirty-odd years ago people would have expected some awful disease or overdose to take out Madonna, if not the director of one of her movies, but here she is. Heck, people who thought she might still be having birthdays at this point would have just assumed that it wouldn't make the news at this point. (I don't want to sound mean, but Toni Basil turned 70 on September 22, 2013, and it didn't make headlines.)

Speaking of headlines, we have: Newspapers versus Trump.

As libertarian mag Reason put it,  "Newspapers team up to tell Trump they aren't colluding against him." Apparently the president not likely newspapers is akin to him sending storm troopers to burn them down. Wait until they find out that Trump HATES "Garfield"!

Roundup in Cheerios.

Traces of glyphosate, the weed killing chemical found in popular weed killer Roundup, were found in some popular General Mills cereals, including Cheerios. Which is not a popular additive in cereal. However, isn't it fitting somehow that a product like Roundup could turn up in a famously round cereal?

You know, for kids!

In other food news, thieves in Georgia made off with $100,000 worth of ramen noodles, which by my back-of-the-envelope calculation is enough for 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 meals, give or take a few.

Of course the sad news of the day was the passing of Aretha Franklin. I had a lot of admiration for her voice and her style, although I can't say I'm a fan of soul music the way many white people were pretending to be yesterday. I don't mean that no white person can be a fan of soul, not at all, but I'm just way too square. I'm so white that the most interesting part of the phrase "sriracha mayonnaise" to me is "mayonnaise." I'm just hopeless.

Anyway, I loved her in The Blues Brothers but not in Blues Brothers 2000, because you couldn't love anyone in Blues Brothers 2000. Her hardscrabble character from the first movie is inexplicably selling luxury cars in the second because -- why? Because it's obvious that Dan Ackroyd and John Landis were the only guys in America who didn't get the first movie, even less so than ol' snowmen like me. Anyway, it's certainly not Franklin's fault, and I'm sorry to see her go.

Finally, and this is not news from yesterday but I only heard it so it was news to me: A woman in Inverness, Scotland, rescued an injured bumble bee and nursed it back to health, and now they are inseparable. And if that does not have you singing "Eric the Half a Bee," I'm not sure if we can be friends anymore.

So, with facts like these, who needs fiction?

Meme Sunday!

By long tradition, Friday was Meme Friday (okay, we did it twice) but now Friday is Fiction Friday! so it's Meme Sunday. Except for tomorrow's Very Important Meme (V.I.M.).

"Sun-dried" has a hyphen.

That's most of a busted-up play set.
P.S.: They apparently took it, because the next time I went by it was gone.

I

Whee!

Lucky hamster.

Okay, this one's not mine, but I love it:

Finally, life's eternal mysteries...

Health food?

Sometimes if I'm running around and I know I will miss, or more likely, delay a meal, I might grab a protein bar to sustain me. I have no illusions; I know these are essentially candy bars with added protein. But they keep me going and keep hunger pangs at bay, so I don't feel quite so bad about it. I do, however, think that the proprietors of these candy bars ought to be more honest. 

Such as chef Robert Irvine. 

I got one of his Fit Crunch bars at Walmart. Right off the bat, we can say that nothing that tastes like birthday cake can really be good for you. And while it does have a lot of hunger-quashing protein -- 30 grams, or 60% of an adult's daily value -- it also has 16 grams of fat (21% DV), 8 grams of saturated fat (40% DV), 21% of your daily sodium, 6 grams of sugars...

"My goal is simple," says Chef Irvine on the package, "I want to empower people, through food and fitness, to thrive every day."

Okay, well.

Look, I know a lot of these kinds of things, like gorp, start off as healthy survival food and turn into calorie bombs for the indolent. You can eat these protein bars for a quick boost, but don't be convinced it's healthy eating. I sincerely doubt Irvine, famously fit himself, would eat these regularly. He might say he would, but then, he has a distant relationship with the truth. After abusing loser restaurant owners who reached out for help on Restaurant: Impossible, he wound up closing one of his own restaurants. And dumping a spouse after hitting it big, a la Alton Brown (or serial dumper Bobby Flay), doesn't speak of his willingness to put others' needs high on his list.

I'm not saying he's a real bad guy or anything; he has done some fine events for the military, and is the principal for the Robert Irvine Foundation to support military personnel and their families (although the financials don't seem impressive). Abusive or not, I'm sure his show saved some family businesses. Some folks need his variety of pants-kicking. I've enjoyed some of his TV appearances. But I will say that he's not someone who can be trusted. Expecting Fit Crunch to be a good food for fitness is an example.

As for the Fit Crunch bar itself, meh, it was okay. I did feel a little sick later that day after eating it, but I think that may have been caused by the hunger that prompted me to eat it in the first place. And I won't blame the bar for the old filling that popped out of my tooth the next day.

Anyway, never take my advice on fitness, unless it's "This doesn't work because I tried it" or "Do the opposite of what I normally do." I'm untrustworthy because I fail, not because I lie.

Meme Friday!

Presley, Dean, Brando, Eastwood, McQueen, Newman... one of these 

things is not like the others...

"My name is Snozymandias, King of Kings;
Look upon my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Editors on fire.

One of the reasons I got burned out on life for a while was that I took on a new client at the end of last year. Unlike the book and Internet publishers I've been editing for, this was a magazine.

Despite the fact that the magazine industry has been basically getting screwed by the Internet for the last 18-odd years, magazines still pay better than book publishers. Of course, the Internet by and large hasn't done book publishers a lot of good either. Well, I think I'll read this weighty tome about the Slavic independence movement and--- Oooh, puppy videos!

While book publishers tend to have pretty normal office hours, magazine publishers periodically go berserk. Closing an issue means late nights and grumpy editors and tense production people and Why isn't this ready didn't we already fix this dammit! 

I'm still a freelancer and I'm still working from home. So I'm not seeing all this. What I'm getting, around ten p.m., sitting around in my Bat Pants watching TV, is a call or an e-mail saying WOuld you look at thIs REALLLLLLLY fast PLEASE?

But that's only part of the problem with this gig.

Being a product of a media giant, the pages of this magazine drip with political correctness, "wokeness," and other bravado, sounding like a screaming mob of children playing Protest March. It has decided to make itself political although it is historically a fashion magazine, and in fact is no less vapid for its pretense of gravitas.

Of course I find this stuff difficult to endure, because I am a white straight male Catholic and as such am pretty much the target of everybody's hate these days. I probably own lots of assault rifles! As Megan McArdle wrote in the Washington Post, "Many places that voted for Trump never had many factories to lose to China or Mexico; many factory towns turned to Trump only after decades of decline. What most consistently motivates the Trump supporters I’ve met is not jobs or racism but anger at a culturally powerful elite that veers between ignoring them and disrespecting every facet of their lives." Some of the projects I've been given for this media giant make me complicit in the actions of this culturally powerful elite.

But that's not even the whole story. Just as I wrote about the site Cracked last year, this stuff is all so depressing. In trying to celebrate the plight of victims and bring out the readers' inner badass, such cultural projects set bars that are just as out of reach as the old ones, and just as oppressive to anyone who really isn't on board with their philosophy. To enjoy this magazine you had better hate Trump, hate conservatives, enjoy no more than a fluffy and non-demanding faith, and love every bonehead that manages to break the surface to achieve the rank of celebrity. Furthermore, you had better be young, successful, fit, love to travel, love to shop (and I mean really love to shop, although it's okay to say you don't), and have extremely sexy partner(s). Otherwise you might as well be a fat lump of trailer trash.

I can't help but think that, just as social media can isolate while giving the appearance of connection, so too do these things seem aspirational while actually being depressing. I know I'm not the target audience. But I am a human being.

Nothing but love songs.

With Valentine's Day approaching, the topic of love songs is close to everyone's heart. Now, what constitutes a great love song differs from person to person. For one person, it might be "As Time Goes By." For another, "Melancholy Baby." For another, "Yakkity Sax." There's no accounting for taste.

I seem to recall Mark Steyn, in discussing the womanizing career of brilliant Broadway composer Richard Rodgers, pondering how a man like that could write such stirring and beloved love songs as "Some Enchanted Evening" and "If I Loved You." And it's a good question. Many of our favorite romantic songs have been written by people who, in their personal lives, barely seem able to muster the affection to stay with one other human for more than eighteen minutes. And yet they can write the words, music, or both pledging love eternal.

Here's a chart I whipped up of twenty favorite songs, often heard at wedding receptions, and how the songwriters themselves scored in the game of love:

There are a number of things we can learn from this chart. The first is, if tempted to marry Pattie Boyd, maybe give it further consideration. For another, divorce can break up a great songwriting team. For a third, Lionel Ritchie has a lot to answer for. Fourth, just because a guy is named Love doesn't mean he's good at keeping it going. And finally, Bruno Mars may have been less than serious in his request to join in wedded bliss.

Now, you may object. You may note that I have my facts wrong here. It's possible; I don't know music trivia at this microscopic a level and may have screwed up the details. You may note that this skirts over the details, like the sad cases behind many of the divorces, sometimes happening against the will of the songwriter. I'll grant you that, too. You may wonder why I didn't include the thrice-divorced Billy Joel. I just forgot him, but yeah; ditto for others I didn't think of. You may be a big fan of Pattie Boyd and think I'm giving her the Yoko Ono treatment here. We can take that up another time.

But mainly, you may point out that I'm cherry-picking. After all, other songsters have had very long-lasting marriages. Irving Berlin had two marriages and outlived both wives; his first wife died less than a year into the marriage in 1912, and his second marriage began in 1926 and ended with her passing in 1988. And Neil Sedaka is still married to the same woman, Leba, that he married in 1962 -- unlike the Captain and Tennille, who had a big hit with his "Love Will Keep Us Together," but it did not for them beyond 39 years.

So sure, there are examples of love-song writers who stayed in love. But the question is, why don't they ALL stay in love? Aren't they the love experts?

Well, maybe not. We know some people are addicted to drama; it doesn't mean that they aren't really feeling those dramatic moments when someone hurts them or they fall in love (or lust). They are 100% sincere... while it lasts. And while it lasts they may compose something great. Further, these hit songwriters have a knack for putting tunes and/or words together in an expressive way that the rest of us can't, which also means that they can use these talents to pump up the volume on what may for them be a passing mood. Were they not music writers they might have been salesmen.

I guess in the end we must always remember that musicians, like actors, are excellent at appearing to be something they are not, and it may be safe to assume they're worse than they look, especially regarding matters de l'amour.

Unlike novel writers. We always mean it.

2017 Dead Celebrities Complain.

(AP) The Great Beyond, December 29 -- Celebrities who have passed away in 2017 issued a formal complaint this morning against the world's news media, complaining about "a lack of proper coverage" and "dearth of wailing and gnashing of teeth" compared to the coverage of celebrity deaths at the end of 2016.

"While we are touched by the outpouring of sympathy at our deaths," said the late actor John Hurt in a prepared statement, "we are saddened that no one is making a bloody big deal out of our passing the way they did for those who died in 2016. What's up with that?"

In a concurrent statement, Judge Joseph Wapner of The People's Court television show added, "It is clear that the confluence of a number of unfortunate deaths and an election half the citizens disliked caused an outbreak of self-indulgent distress that elevated said deaths to an illusion of apocalyptic status. But at least people cared about celebrities at my rank, or lower, last year. They would have heard about Clyde Stubblefield, certainly."

Ex-Patridge Family singer and ex-living person David Cassidy made no official statement but just said, "Remember that faux Sergeant Pepper album cover? Jeez."

Yes, we do.

Other celebrities who had shuffled off the mortal coil these past twelve months were less concerned about the lack of public concern. "Oh, it's no big deal," said the late Mary Tyler Moore. "Rose Marie just got here and we were chatting about this and that. We're just happy people remembered us at all."

The sentiment was echoed in a way by Haruo Nakajima (deceased), who had played Godzilla in twelve movies. He added, "No one knew I was alive until I died, and soon they'll forget that I was. Sic transit gloria mundi, Tokyo."

Said the late Abe Vigoda with a shrug, "Everyone kept expecting me to die, so I finally complied. What more do you want?"

Others are not so philosophical, however. Necron P. Morguise, president of the Degenerate Dead Pool Gamblers of Cincinnati, told reporters at a press conference, "This year has been a complete disaster. You know how many of us had Peter Marshall, Dick Van Dyke, Marty Allen, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, or Jerry Stiller? And Betty White? Holy crap, I don't even want to talk about Betty White. Fortunes were wiped out. Yeah, we finally got Abe and fate threw us a bone with Rose Marie, but come on. Olivia de Havilland is 101; isn't that a bit excessive?"

While disgruntled about their collective lack of attention, the celebrity complainants in general agree that being famous in death is not so bad, "even if our death is not taken asa sign of some national disaster," said the late Bill Paxton.

The non-living Jerry Lewis concurred, saying, "Eh, it's a living."

The Hare and the Tortoise: The Motion Picture.

THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE

A Hare was one day making fun of a Tortoise for being so slow upon his feet. "Wait a bit," said the Tortoise; "I'll run a race with you, and I'll wager that I win." "Oh, well," replied the Hare, who was much amused at the idea, "let's try and see"; and it was soon agreed that the fox should set a course for them, and be the judge. When the time came both started off together, but the Hare was soon so far ahead that he thought he might as well have a rest: so down he lay and fell fast asleep. Meanwhile the Tortoise kept plodding on, and in time reached the goal. At last the Hare woke up with a start, and dashed on at his fastest, but only to find that the Tortoise had already won the race.

Moral: Slow and steady wins the race.

***

To: Aesop, Aesop-Spades Productions

From: Dolly Schott, Jupiter Pictures

Re: Hare/Tort

Aes—

Love the latest version. Notes from brass. Jerry's looking at Ferrell for the Tortoise. Any chance of punching up dialogue to reel him in? Don’t forget lunch Thurs!

***

THE HARE AND THE WACKY TORTOISE

A Hare was one day making fun of a Tortoise for being so slow upon his feet. "You big meeeeaaanie," said the Tortoise; "I'm gonna run a race with you, and I betcha I’m gonna win!" "Oh, well," replied the Hare, who was much amused at the idea, "let's try and see"; and it was soon agreed that the fox should set a course for them, and be the judge. When the time came both started off together, but the Hare was soon so far ahead that he thought he might as well have a rest: so down he lay and fell fast asleep. Meanwhile the Tortoise kept plodding on; when he passed the rabbit he yelled, “Hey, fluffbutt, watch me go! Wooo!” and in time reached the goal. At last the Hare woke up with a start, and dashed on at his fastest, but only to find that the Tortoise had already won the race.

Moral: Slow, steady, and wacky wins the race.

***

To: Aesop, Aesop-Spades Productions

From: Dolly Schott, Jupiter Pictures

Re: Hare/Tort

Aes—

Ferrell’s people on it, but now Gosling’s people threatening to walk because Hare’s a “weenie” (their words not mine). Can you make Hare a little more simpatico? Capiche? See you Ths.

***

HANDSOME HARE, WACKY TORTOISE

A Hare was one day teasing a Tortoise for being so slow upon his feet. "You big meeeeaaanie," said the Tortoise; "I'm gonna run a race with you, and I betcha I’m gonna win!" "Well, I’m just sayin’ you’re not exactly turbo-charged," replied the Hare, who was much amused at the idea, "let's try and see"; and it was soon agreed that the fox should set a course for them, and be the judge. When the time came both started off together, but the Hare was soon so far ahead and, being that he really wasn’t a meanie and didn’t want to run up the score, something his bully of a father used to do, he thought he might as well have a rest: so down he lay and fell fast asleep. Meanwhile the Tortoise kept plodding on; when he passed the rabbit he yelled, “Hey, fluffbutt, watch me go! Wooo!” and in time reached the goal. At last the Hare woke up with a start, and dashed on at his fastest, but only to find that the Tortoise had already won the race. They traded fist bumps and went out for beer, wisecracking as they went.

Moral: Slow, steady, and wacky is about as good as being real fast.

***

To: Aesop, Aesop-Spades Productions

From: Dolly Schott, Jupiter Pictures

Re: Hare/Tort

Aes—

Getting there! Marketing weighed in, says big race finish will move the videogames. Need more zip to ending. Possible title change. Said you were all over it, as always. Whatcha got for me, big guy? Lunch mañana.

***

CHOO-CHOO AND THE PHILLY FLASH

A Hare named Flash was one day teasing a Tortoise for being so slow upon his feet; his chugging motion led to his being called Choo-Choo. "You big meeeeaaanie," said the Tortoise; "I'm gonna run a race with you, and I betcha I’m gonna win!" "Well, I’m just sayin’ you’re not exactly turbo-charged," replied the Hare, who was much amused at the idea, "let's try and see"; and it was soon agreed that the fox should set a course for them, and be the judge. When the time came both started off together, but the Hare was soon so far ahead and, being that he really wasn’t a meanie and didn’t want to run up the score, something his bully of a father used to do, he thought he might as well have a rest: so down he lay and fell fast asleep. Meanwhile the Tortoise kept plodding on; when he passed the rabbit he yelled, “Hey, fluffbutt, watch me go! Wooo!” and in time reached the goal. At last the Hare woke up with a start, and dashed on at his fastest, but only to find that the Tortoise was close to the finish line. As they barreled toward the end Choo-Choo hit an oil slick and skidded out, but Flash stopped to right him. Then Flash fell into a well, but Choo-Choo pulled him out. They crossed the finish line together. They traded fist bumps and went out for beer, wisecracking as they went.

Moral: Friends are better than winning.

***

To: Aesop, Aesop-Spades Productions

From: Dolly Schott, Jupiter Pictures

Re: Hare/Tort

Aes—

Sorry had to cancel. NY office insisted on meeting in person. Ed says script is coming along nicely, just need love interest who believes in hero when all is lost (you know), another big twist, maybe a funny sidekick (the fox? possibilities). I said: Trust Aes. Don’t let me down!

***

CHOO-CHOO AND THE PHILLY FLASH

A Hare named Flash was one day teasing a Tortoise for being so slow upon his feet; his chugging motion led to his being called Choo-Choo, and his overprotective mother had always held him back. "You big meeeeaaanie," said the Tortoise; "I'm gonna run a race with you, and I betcha I’m gonna win!" "Well, I’m just sayin’ you’re not exactly turbo-charged," replied the Hare, who was much amused at the idea, "let's try and see." Isolde the Iguana defended the Tortoise, picking a fight with Hare, but she was a hoochie momma and Flash just traded smart remarks with her. Despite being cold-blooded, Islode was hot. Choo-Choo secretly loved her but knew he was too slow and shelly for her. Choo-Choo’s wacky pal, Gumball the fat fox, was told to set a course for them, and be the judge. Gumball, a natural conniver, kept trying to set out the course to favor his friend, but Choo-Choo told him not to. Flash’s friend, Louie the Stork, went to Croc, the local bookie, and put everything he had on Flash. When the time came both started off together, but the Hare was soon so far ahead and, being that he really wasn’t a meanie and didn’t want to run up the score, something his bully of a father used to do, he thought he might as well have a rest: so down he lay and fell fast asleep. Meanwhile the Tortoise kept plodding on; when he passed the rabbit he yelled, “Hey, fluffbutt, watch me go! Wooo!” and in time reached the goal. At last the Hare woke up with a start, and dashed on at his fastest, but only to find that the Tortoise was close to the finish line. As they barreled toward the end Choo-Choo hit an oil slick and skidded out, but Flash stopped to right him. Then Flash fell into a well, but Choo-Choo pulled him out. It turned out that Flash was trying to throw the race to teach Louie to stop gambling! Choo-Choo taught him he could not cheat to lose, even in a good cause. They crossed the finish line together. They traded fist bumps and went out for beer, wisecracking as they went.

Moral: Friends are better than winning.

***

To: Aesop, Aesop-Spades Productions

From: Dolly Schott, Jupiter Pictures

Re: Hare/Tort

Aes—

Bay wants explosions.

***

FLASH AND BURN

A Hare named Flash was one day teasing a Tortoise for being so slow upon his feet; his chugging motion led to his being called Choo-Choo, and his overprotective mother had always held him back. "You big meeeeaaanie," said the Tortoise; "I'm gonna run a race with you, and I betcha I’m gonna win!" "Well, I’m just sayin’ you’re not exactly turbo-charged," replied the Hare, who was much amused at the idea, "let's try and see." Isolde the Iguana defended the Tortoise, picking a fight with Hare, but she was a hoochie momma and Flash just traded smart remarks with her. Despite being cold-blooded, Islode was hot. Choo-Choo secretly loved her but knew he was too slow and shelly for her. Choo-Choo’s wacky pal, Gumball the fat fox, was told to set a course for them, and be the judge. Gumball, a natural conniver, kept trying to set out the course to favor his friend, but Choo-Choo told him not to. Flash’s friend, Louie the Stork, went to Croc, the local bookie, and put everything he had on Flash. Isolde, meanwhile, helped Choo-Choo train via a comical montage. When the time came both started off together, but the Hare was soon so far ahead and, being that he really wasn’t a meanie and didn’t want to run up the score, something his bully of a father used to do, he figured he’d coast the rest of the way—but he tripped a booby trap and set off a bomb! The bomb blew him against a tree, where he was knocked out. Meanwhile the Tortoise kept plodding on; when he passed the rabbit he yelled, “Hey, fluffbutt, watch me go! Wooo!” and in time reached the goal. At last the Hare woke up with a start, and dashed on at his fastest, but only to find that the Tortoise was close to the finish line. As they barreled toward the end Choo-Choo hit an oil slick and skidded out into a thicket, and was ready to give up, but Isolde told him he just had to believe in himself. Flash actually appeared and pulled Choo-Choo out. Then Flash fell into a well, but Choo-Choo pulled him out. It turned out that Flash was trying to throw the race to teach Louie to stop gambling! Choo-Choo taught him he could not cheat to lose, even in a good cause. But Croc took a hand to throw the race, and Flash almost was killed in a big explosion! Choo-Choo saved him by covering them both with his shell. Croc, who had been setting the bomb, was not so lucky, and was turned into a pair of expensive shoes. Flash and Choo-Choo crossed the finish line together. Isolde kissed Choo-Choo, even though Flash was much better looking. They traded fist bumps and went out for beer, wisecracking as they went.

Moral: Don’t cheat or you’ll wind up as a pair of shoes.

***

To: Aesop, Aesop-Spades Productions

From: Dolly Schott, Jupiter Pictures

Re: Hare/Tort

Aes—

What’s that in the air? Jasmine? Ammonia? Nope--that is Oscar I’m smelling, my friend. Call me tomorrow to discuss changes from Publicity, second-unit guys, Casting, some more from Ed, Music, and Makeup, the focus group thinks maybe the girl should go for the bunny, there’s some suggestions from the video guys, Gosling’s people are thinking maybe cars instead of running, Ferrell has some ideas for silly voices he wants to use, but Bay says we’re one explosion away from nailing it. We’re getting close. Shooting now slated to start July 12; reshooting to start December 1. Hang in there! You’re a genius!

🐢🐇🎬