Classic Musical Comedy Number of the Month - August 2013

Hoo-rah!  A month with five Saturdays and we get to see a classic musical comedy moment.  From the Tonys a few year back when Daniel Radcliffe was shining on Broadway in "How to Succeed."


Dinner last night:  The wonderful pre-game buffet at the Dodger Stadium Club, where our table was treated to a cameo appearance from Tommy Lasorda.  

If I Tweeted - August 2013

I don't, you know.  But if I did, here are my tweets this past month.

#LenSpeaks  I'm now dividing friends into two groups.  Those who are part of my problem and those who are part of my solution.

#LenSpeaks  People who show up late to Hollywood Bowl performances should stand elsewhere until intermission.  With their pants down.

#LenSpeaks  Surveying the crowd arriving at LAX's international terminal, I want to scream out "Remember, you all have round trip tickets!"

#LenSpeaks  I just realized that the government might be now reading this blog.  In which case....

#LenSpeaks  I love everybody.

#LenSpeaks  I spent 45 minutes at a Dodger game watching Larry King wander around, not being able to find his wife or his seat.

#LenSpeaks  RIP Karen Black.  The stewardess is no longer flying the plane.

#LenSpeaks  If I never ever see another movie with an explosion, that would be just fine.

#LenSpeaks  The Dodgers are staging one terrific comeback after another.  That says to me that they're not being managed by Mitt Romney.

#LenSpeaks  He was probably 48 hours away from being fired in May, but now Dodgers skipper Don Mattingly will likely be named "Manager of the Year."

#LenSpeaks  Oprah was going to buy a $38,000 handbag.  Meanwhile, she's a bag worth several billion.

#LenSpeaks  Need a big laugh?  Watch Oprah's performance in "The Butler." 

#LenSpeaks  In this movie, she literally chews up the scenery.  Why not?  She eats everything else.

#LenSpeaks  So this Anthony Weiner guy is really running for NYC mayor?  Only the liberals in that town could be so stupid.

#LenSpeaks  Oh, good, I hear Weiner is dropping in the polls.  So to speak.

#LenSpeaks  Previously, he was running ahead.  Not by percentage points, but inches.  So to speak.

#LenSpeaks  RIP Eydie Gorme.  Blame that on the bossa nova.

#LenSpeaks  Or maybe she took husband Steve Lawrence's singing advice and "went away, little girl."

#LenSpeaks  She and Steve are remembered every Christmas with that wonderful sleigh ride song.  Sung, of course, by two Sephardic Jews.

#LenSpeaks  A young Australian is killed by three Black kids who were bored.  But all Huffington Post can talk about is George Zimmerman at a gun shop.

#LenSpeaks  By the way, on the aforementioned crime, the President's comment is......???

#LenSpeaks  ......crickets.

#LenSpeaks  It's the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech.  And still we never hear about all the church ladies he had affairs with.

#LenSpeaks  But then again you'd sleep around if your wife looked like Coretta.

#LenSpeaks  I laugh when I heard Obama talking about all the government spying on MLK.  And who ordered that stuff?

#LenSpeaks  The sainted Kennedys.  Waiter, check please.
   
#LenSpeaks  Vin Scully is coming back for another season in the broadcast booth.  And all is right with the world.

#LenSpeaks  Welcome to the Dodgers, Brian Wilson.  Los Angeles is a city where CVS stores all feature razor blades on sale.

#LenSpeaks  Watching Wilson pitch to the Red Sox bears, Mike Napoli and Jonny Gomes, it'd look like an exhibition game being played at Gettysburg.

#LenSpeaks  As I watch the Red Sox play the Dodgers, I see way too many fist pumps on routine ground balls.  Sorry, folks, I am no longer "Boston Strong."

#LenSpeaks  Maybe it should be "Boston Obnoxious."

#LenSpeaks  RIP Julie Harris.  Forget all the Broadway roles.  I'll always remember you as Lilimae Clements on "Knots Landing."

#LenSpeaks  Ran across a 1964 Bonanza episode and Marlo Thomas is playing a Chinese mail order bride!!!

#LenSpeaks  I'm waiting for Dan Blocker to walk in and say "I want to marry THAT Asian."

Dinner last night:  Manhattan steak at Musso and Frank's.             

                   

This Date in History - Whoops

I hope you enjoyed our regular Wednesday feature yesterday.  I get many notes on how much you like "This Date in History."  You find it funny and....gasp....educational.

But yesterday's date was a challenge to get to you.  To explain this will also provide you with a glimpse behind the scenes of this blog.

Truth be told, I write a lot of these Wednesday pieces in advance.  The good thing about history is that you don't have to be current.  And since the research behind these historical capsules requires about a half-hour of work, I try to double up by outlining more than one Wednesday piece a week.  That creates a backlog.  So, by early August of this year, "This Date in History" had about two months in the can.  I was done up to about the third week in October.

Except....

As I was looking at this week's postings, I noticed something about the piece I had done for this Wednesday.  

The August date was wrong.  

And, since I work so far in advance, my weekly calculation of seven days later also gave me the wrong date. 

As a result, I had seven future editions of "This Date in History" for Wednesday dates that didn't actually exist in 2013.  

Could I have simply decided to run the feature on another date of that week so I could use the pieces?  Probably.  

But a compulsive person focused on details and routine and accuracy can't do that.  And that would be me.  

So into the virtual trash can went seven wonderfully comedic looks at past history.  

But, you're saying.  Why didn't you save them for another year?  Well, my date calculations were so off that I won't hit the right Wednesday for another three years.  Am I thinking this blog will exist that far in the future?  Who knows?

I threw out the pieces anywhere.  Trust me.  There was some good stuff that you would have found hysterical.  But only I will ever know just how much.

And you thought it was easy to keep you entertained here for 365 days every year?

Dinner last night:  Roast beef French dip sandwich at BJ's.

This Date in History - August 28

Happy birthday, Lou Piniella.  Finally a year where you're not celebrating with a baseball team.

475:  THE ROMAN GENERAL ORESTES FORCES WESTERN ROMAN EMPEROR JULIUS NEPOS TO FLEE.  

Every single Wednesday, there's at least one reference to those crazy nuts in the Roman Empire.

489:  THEODORIC, KING OF THE OSTROGOTHS, DEFEATS ODOACER, FORCING HIS WAY INTO ITALY.

And sometimes there are two.

1189:  THE CRUSADERS BEGIN THE SIEGE OF ACRE UNDER GUY OF LUSIGNAN.

Years before the Crusaders played the Apollo Theater.

1521:  THE OTTOMAN TURKS OCCUPY BELGRADE.

These goofy Ottomans turn up a lot on Wednesdays, too.

1609:  HENRY HUDSON DISCOVERS DELAWARE BAY.

What did Delaware?  A size 12.

1619:  FERDINAND II IS ELECTED EMPEROR OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE.

Okay, three in one week is my limit.

1709:  MEIDINGNU PAMHEIBA IS CROWNED KING OF MANIPUR.

Who?  What?  Where?

1830:  THE BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD'S NEW TOM THUMB STEAM LOCOMOTIVE RACES A HORSE-DRAWN CAR.

In its first years on the air, this is the kind of event that ESPN would have covered.

1845:  THE FIRST ISSUE OF SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN IS PUBLISHED.

Circulation: 1.

1898:  CALEB BRADHAM INVENTS PEPSI-COLA.

Little did Caleb know but, years later, there would be about two dozen versions of the same soda.

1913:  QUEEN WILHELMINA OPENS THE PEACE PALACE IN THE HAGUE.

And, luckily, they had Pepsi available to drink at this conference.

1916:  DURING WORLD WAR I, GERMANY DECLARES WAR ON ROMANIA.

Sure, pick on the small kids.

1916:  DURING WORLD WAR I, ITALY DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY.

Obviously close friends with the folks in Romania.

1917:  TEN SUFFRAGETTES ARE ARRESTED WHILE PICKETING THE WHITE HOUSE.

And that's how women's prison movies got started.

1921:  ACTRESS NANCY KULP IS BORN.

Chief!

1925:  ACTOR DONALD O'CONNOR IS BORN.

Make 'em laugh.

1930:  ACTOR BEN GAZZARA IS BORN.

Officially running for his life.

1937:  TOYOTA MOTORS BECOMES AN INDEPENDENT COMPANY.

I had no idea they existed way back then.

1943:  BASEBALL STAR LOU PINIELLA IS BORN.

In his honor, argue with an umpire today.

1943:  ACTOR DAVID SOUL IS BORN.

Starsky is waiting for you.

1944:  DURING WORLD WAR II, MARSEILLE AND TOULON ARE LIBERATED.

Viva les assholes.

1953:  NIPPON TELEVISION BROADCASTS JAPAN'S FIRST TV SHOW, INCLUDING THE FIRST TV ADVERTISEMENT.

For Ginsu knives, no doubt.

1955:  BLACK TEENAGER EMMETT TILL IS BRUTALLY MURDERED IN MISSISSIPPI, GALVANIZING THE AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT.

Screw that whole Trayvon Martin incident.  This was really a racial incident.

1957:  US SENATOR STROM THURMOND BEGINS A DAY-LONG FILIBUSTER TO PREVENT THE SENATE FROM VOTING ON A CIVIL RIGHTS ACT.  

Note to all:  he was a liberal Democrat at the time.

1963:  REVEREND MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. GIVES HIS "I HAVE A DREAM" SPEECH DURING THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON.

I'm sure we're being inundated with fifty year remembrances today on MSNBC and CNN.

1963:  EMILY HOFFERT AND JANICE WYLIE ARE MURDERED IN THEIR MANHATTAN APARTMENT, PROMPTING EVENTS THAT LEAD TO THE PASSING OF THE MIRANDA RIGHTS.

"You have the right to remain silent..."

1964:  THE PHILADELPHIA RACE RIOTS BEGINS.

So much for that dream.

1968:  RIOTS IN CHICAGO DURING THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.

Dan Rather got punched.  How bad could this be?

1976:  ACTRESS ANISSA JONES DIES.

And Mrs. Beasley is devastated.

1978:  ACTOR ROBERT SHAW DIES.

Three years after he sort of died in "Jaws."

1985:  ACTRESS RUTH GORDON DIES.

Rosemary's Coffin.

1987:  DIRECTOR JOHN HUSTON DIES.

Caskets?  I don't need no stinkin' caskets.

1991:  MIKHAIL GORBACHEV RESIGNS AS GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE SOVIET COMMUNIST PARTY.

And he went through all that trouble of tearing down a wall.

1996:  CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES AND DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES DIVORCE.

As it will turn out, the end of August is not a good time for her.

2007:  ACTRESS MIYOSHI UMEKI DIES.

The easiest gag still works.   Sayonara.

2011:  HURRICANE IRENE STRIKES THE EAST COAST OF THE US.

And they think it's a killer storm.  Just wait...

Dinner last night:  Ham and swiss on pretzel bread at the Dodger game.

Show Him to the Door Please

There are movies I go to see because I want to.   There are movies I go to see because I think I should.  

And then there are those movies I go to see because I know I will get a really funny blog piece out of it.

"Lee Daniels' The Butler" falls into one of those categories.   And I bet you can easily guess which one.

Here comes the comedy, folks.

Yes, indeed-y, this movie is as laughable as the trailer made it look to be.  It is Hollywood being as overblown and pretentious as only it could be in the hyper- socially-conscious world of 2013.  Another sterling example of development and production people taking themselves so seriously about the state of our nation's affairs.  Just as long as it doesn't prevent them from buying their next big mansion or gas-guzzling limousine.  

But they all feel better about themselves when they make a film like this one.  There are almost four dozen producers attached to this monstrosity.  Harvey Weinstein, of course, is the biggest one, both literally and figuratively.  Meanwhile, after watching this two-hour-plus class of American history dumbed down to a second grade level, I expect that the Motion Picture Academy is already primed to fawn over this swill come Oscar night.  If "Lee Daniels' The Butler" does indeed win this year's Best Picture prize as I expect, we finally will have arrived at the day when "The Greatest Show on Earth" is no longer the most overrated movie to win the coveted award.

Of course, the ridiculousness begins before you even enter the theater.  Look at that stupid title.  The film is officially called "Lee Daniels' The Butler."  What other movie includes the director's name in the title?  Did you see that with "Steven Spielberg's Jaws" or "Billy Wilder's The Apartment" or "Vincente Minnelli's Gigi?"  Of course, you didn't, although all three of those guys would deserve such an honor.   The studio tries to explain this away by blaming it on the legal department.  There was apparently a movie in 1916 called "The Butler" and there are copyright ramifications.  Really?  Is there really somebody alive from that 1916 crew that will sue??  Nope, I'm not buying it.  This is pure vanity on the hack director's part and Hollywood, too scared to ruffle any feathers with the Black and Gay Lee Daniels, doesn't put up a fight.  

Meanwhile, at the screening I attend, there's one of those perky ushers who makes the requisite pre-show announcement about running time, parking validation, etc..  And she adds...

"Please turn off your cell phones and refrain from texting.  This is a very serious movie and you need to honor that."

Huh?????

By her using the word "serious," I am now ready to laugh my fucking head off.

And it doesn't take me long.  Five minutes in, we're in the South of 1926.  As soon as we meet Mariah Carey (????!!!!) as a cotton-pickin' slave and Vanessa Redgrave (????!!!!) as a plantation owner, we're off to the races in Sillytown, USA.

We're told almost immediately that this is all based on a true story and I'd like to administer lie detector tests to all 48 producers who told me that.  I don't doubt that the original character of a Black butler who served eight Presidential administrations really existed.  But, as this movie plays out, you have to suspend any thoughts of logic and believability.  The lead character, Cecil Gaines, and his son, Lewis Gaines, happen to conveniently turn up at or have a hand in every important American history event since 1957.  Does Robert Zemeckis know how much of his "Forrest Gump" movie has been ripped off by Lee Daniels and the rest of his stooges?

Let's see.  Butler Cecil serves coffee to Dwight Eisenhower, helps John F. Kennedy off the floor when his back fails, reads a bedtime story to Caroline Kennedy, advises Jackie Kennedy to get out of her blood-stained dress, talks to Lyndon Johnson while the President is constipated on the toilet (sad to admit that LBJ really did this a lot), and discusses South African policies with Ronald Reagan.  All this without dropping a single cookie crumb in the Oval Office.  I'm impressed.

By the way, a point of digression please.  First Lady Jackie is played by Minka Kelly, which means that, along with the aforementioned dope Mariah Carey, "Lee Daniels' The Butler" is the first movie in Hollywood history to feature two women who have slept with the Yankees' Derek Jeter.  I'm just sayin'.

Meanwhile, the butler's son Lewis is no slouch either.  He just happens to be at the famed Woolworth's lunch counter sit-in, on the Freedom Rider bus that is torched by the Klan, with Malcolm X on tour, in the Memphis hotel with Martin Luther King Jr., and presiding over the birth of the Black Panther party.   And you thought a day's worth of Jack Bauer's exploits on "24" were implausible?

If the major historical moments aren't coming at you fast enough, well, there's always the onslaught of cameo appearances to keep you dizzy.  Every Hollywood actor that donated more than a dime to Barack Obama's election campaign winds up in this film and, after a while, it all starts to play out like "The Love Boat Goes to the White House."  Oh, look, there's Robin Williams!  Oh, hey, it's John Cusack!  Why, there's Jane Fonda!  Wow, she must still be exercising!  Clarence Williams III?  Son of a gun.  Where's Peggy Lipton?  You wait for Charo's appearance.  After all, she must have shown up at the White House at least once during the Reagan administration.

The constant barrage of nonsensical Presidential history and the "Love American Style" casting leaves the viewer numb as if you've been hit in the head repeatedly with a meat tenderizer.  At the same time, you longingly hope that some professional fact checker takes the time to go over this disaster with a fine-toothed comb.  Here, Mr. or Ms. Fact Checker, I can start you off.  In the scene where Cecil meets with Jackie Kennedy in the White House after the assassination, it is daylight.  Um, when the First Lady arrived home after the shooting, it was 3AM.  Oh, and, by the way, John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas, not the next block.  Perhaps I'm just picking nits here.

Of course, Daniels is pretty even-handed when it comes to his portrayal of past American Presidents.  Regardless of whether they are Democrats or Republicans, they all come off as either vapid or complete boobs.  The filmmakers totally gloss over Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.  Their appearances are reduced to film clips.  I suppose Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd were busy.  Or maybe they have smart agents.  Naturally, the only President who is depicted in a positive light is Obama,  Anyone shocked by that?  The film's ending sets up a cameo appearance that the current President wisely and surprisingly refused.   That's probably good news for the production crew who would have had to endure Michelle's constant complaints about the unhealthy food choices offered up by Craft Services.

If any of the above isn't bad enough for you, here's the piece de resistance.

Oprah has a starring role.

Yep, here we go again.  With or without a $38,000 handbag, Oprah's looking for another Oscar nomination.  And, to do that, she will gladly chew up and spit out any acceptable amount of scenery.  Meanwhile, the woman still can't act.  The only problem is nobody in Hollywood has the nerve to tell her so.  They're all afraid they won't be invited onto her network and its fourteen viewers to promote their next movie.  So, instead, we get her performance here as Cecil's wife.  And it's so over-the-top that I can't stifle my laughter whenever she's on the screen. I can visualize the movie ads now. Watch Oprah smoke!  See Oprah get drunk!  Hear Oprah use the N-word over and over!  Marvel at how well she slaps somebody in the face!   Meanwhile, her appearance in this film gives some of us the scene we've been waiting to see all these years.

Oprah dies.

And she doesn't even do that well.  Her head lands with a thud on the kitchen wall and all the audience wants to see is if it made a dent.  But trying for that Oscar nomination with a vengeance.  She strains to perform so badly it's as if somebody gave her an acting enema.

Almost mystically, though, there is something to admire in this trash can full of American History Cliff Notes.  That's the performance of Forest Whitaker as the butler.  Somehow and some way, he does manage to elevate the terrible script and hammy direction to almost mediocre proportions.  If there's a bunch of Oscar nominations for this junk, one for Whitaker won't get a complete argument from me.  If there's one reason to see this movie (and there is only one), it's his performance.

Putting the comedy aside, this film is just another in a now long line of cinematic concoctions that refuse to let us move forward with our storied history.  Yes, there was slavery in our past.  Yes, there was oppression and Jim Crow laws.  Yes, there was discrimination and bigotry.

But look at the last fifty years.  Have we not grown as a nation?  Can't anybody see the strides we have in this area?  Must we keep continuing to live through our past sins?

When it comes to the likes of Lee Daniels, we can never let go.  Forget about the future.  The only way some folks can thrive is by repeatedly hammering home yesterday.  In a bizarre way, this movie is very much akin to the Nazi propaganda films that Hitler used to have shot in some Berlin warehouse.  Driving home the same message over and over until you believe it is true. 

And, as comically bad as "Lee Daniels' The Butler" is, the message conveyed just might be the biggest thing wrong with this movie.  If Daniels really wanted to do something about the state of race relations in this country, how about a movie that shows us what happened last week when a young Australian baseball player was ruthlessly murdered by three Black kids who admitted to being "bored?"

Yeah, that's not going to happen. 

LEN'S RATING:  One star and that would be Forest Whitaker.

Dinner last night:  BLT Sandwich from Clementine's.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - August 26, 2013

The worst undertaking staff ever.

Dinner last night:  Hot dog with Boston baked beans at the Dodger game.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Very Last Family Vacation

Ah, the Boardwalk at Atlantic City.   How often did my family go there for a summer vacation?  Lots.  I am looking at this photo above and I see Paul Anka is appearing at the famous Steel Pier.  My God, I think we saw him there as well.  And I remember another visit there when I was bored out of my mind listening to the Lennon Sisters.

Yep, a pre-casino Atlantic City was the destination for us quite a few summers.  

And it would be the very last place I would vacation with my parents.

The bloom had fallen off the summer trip rose two years prior.  Whereas we used to always travel with another family or two, our penultimate family vacation was to Cooperstown, New York.  Just me and my parents.  A quasi-miserable time was had by all.  

After that disaster in Central New York, I highly doubted the three of us would ever attempt this again.  And the very next summer, we did not.  We did what people call now a "staycation."  Everybody stayed away from each other.  And it worked.

By the next summer, I was embedded in baseball, the Mets, and my friends "up the block."  We all had a wonderful nightly routine.  After dinner, we'd play a baseball game at our local vacant lot.  When darkness set in, we'd head home in time to get dessert from Coot the Good Humor Man.  Then, we'd sit around on somebody's front steps to discuss yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

It was glorious.  

And, then my mother presented me with a bombshell straight out of Pearl Harbor.

"We're all going to Atlantic City next week."

We who?  And you can't be fucking serious???  Or whatever my profane version of that question was back in the day.

Yep, we were trying it again.  Dad was off. Mom was off.  And, whether I liked it or not, I was going to be off from my hard days playing/watching baseball and goofing off.

This time around, though, it wouldn't just be us.  My parents, at least, would have some diversions.  My mom's longtime friend, Rose, and her second husband Adam, who was old enough to be the same guy from the Bible.  Rose worked as the cashier at the Quick Way Meat Market on 241st Street in the Bronx, so I saw her every time we did shopping there.  The four of them liked each other, but I wouldn't necessarily equate them to the Ricardos and the Mertzes.  

But we were going to travel with them.  And, since Rose and Adam didn't have a car, we would be making that four hour drive together.

I tried to put up an argument to stay home with my grandmother.  She could easily feed me as I maintained my daily and exciting schedule of nothingness.  But, as usual, I lost.  

So, on the fateful day of our departure, in the back seat was me, poor and old Adam sitting on the hump, and Rose.

The latter had to be at least 250 pounds.

I spent the entire ride wedged into the car ashtray on the side.  I think you can still see the mark on my right thigh.

Somewhere around Newark, New Jersey, my mother called out from the roomy front seat.

"Who wants fruit?"

There was no room for it in the back seat.  Nevertheless, Rose grabbed about seven or eight plums.  Adam grabbed a peach.  I rubbed my leg to restore some circulation.

Kill me now.

Once we arrived in Atlantic City, things got no better.  In fact, the torture chamber that was the back seat of a Buick was suddenly more inviting.

We had made reservations at a stately old hotel that my parents had stayed at on an Atlantic City trip before I was born.  In the years that passed, I had grown but the hotel had gone in the opposite direction.  It was run down and shabby.

And, to my mom's absolute disgust, there was no air conditioning.  I asked if it had AC when they had been previously.

"We didn't notice."

Oh, never mind.  And that's already way too much information.

But, amidst the humid air blowing in from the ocean, we hunkered down for what was supposed to be the next week.  I actually buried myself into my required summer reading for school.  Homework in July was certainly better than what I was facing now.

Quickly, it became apparent that, on a seaside vacation, the four adults had little in common.  My folks were no longer beach people.  In fact, my dad never was.  But, Rose and Adam loved to swim in the ocean.  And, decked out in bathing attire, I couldn't wait for them to go into the water and stay there.  Adam was one of those old timers who wore trunks that had perhaps no more than two or three stitches of actual fabric. Zero was left to the imagination or my horror.  Meanwhile, Rose was no Esther Williams either.  She needed plenty of material to cover up and barely did so at that.  I wanted to run and hide.

We did the usual Atlantic City business.  While Shamu and her nudist husband cavorted in the water, we paced up and down the Boardwalk.  It was all the same, but something seemed different.  My folks and I didn't see to have any energy for fun.  

At nights, after Rose had washed the sand out of her and Adam's navels, we would dine out.  Again, it was all very familiar.  But incredibly unfamiliar at the same time.

Evcntually, my mother succumbed to the heat of our two-bedroom oven and wound up with a migraine.  So, to let her sleep it off, my father took me to the very movie theater you see in the photo above where "Bye Bye Birdie" is playing and, almost inexplicably, Bobby Rydell's name is on the marquee instead of Ann Margret's.  Huh?

Anyway, on our visit there, it was "The Odd Couple."  Playing to a packed house of laughing hyenas who likely had air conditioning in their hotel rooms.  My dad roared at Felix and Oscar.  It would be the next-to-last time I would ever go to the movies with my father.  And certainly the last time I would hear him laugh out loud in a theater.

When we got back to the hotel, Mom was better and asked how the movie was.  Dad said he loved it but alluded to some "raw" jokes that might have gone over my head.

Um, I'm right here and I got all the gags just fine.  But, it was an interesting moment for me.  My father still considering me a child, even though I felt I wasn't.

The next morning, my mother was done.  The lack of air conditioning was too much to bear.  

"Let's move up to Asbury Park."

Huh?

Rose and Adam didn't care as long as there was salt water nearby.  My father simply didn't want to argue the point with my mother.  And, as for me, could it be any more boring than this?

Have you ever been to Asbury Park?  It was!

I couldn't wait to get back into that pressure cooker of a back seat for a ride back to my friends, my Mets, and my dog.  I decided right then and there that I was officially too old and independent to go on vacation with my parents ever again.

Well, I never verbalized the words, but they must have transmitted upward to the parental units.

Because my family never went on a summer vacation after that.

Dinner last night:  Bratwurst at the Hollywood Bowl.