Monday Morning Video Laugh - August 31, 2020

And here's something that never existed before 2020...the Zoom blooper.

Dinner last night:  Baby back ribs and potato salad.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - Weather Or Not

I'm a bit of a weather geek.   Whenever there's a hurricane or a blizzard happening somewhere in this country, I immediately tune into the Weather Channel and make myself a bowl of popcorn.  As dire as the situation might be for some folks, it is...sadly...entertainment for me.

And so it was this when Hurricane Laura hit Louisiana.   Reporters were being blown from hither to yon and I was mesmerized.  

As much as I like this stuff, I live in Los Angeles where weather is virtually non-existent.  Oh sure, we have recently had a bout of usually hot and New York-humid weather that actually propelled me to put on the central air.   And, yes, that prompts fires.   And, yes, that kind of sultry weather is frequently a harbinger for earthquakes.  

There can be weather calamities in Southern California.   But it's not the same for this kid who grew up in the rainy, windy, and snowy New York metropolitan area.

In fact, my very first day in kindergarten at Grimes Schools was upended by a monster of a hurricane.   I think the name was Donna.  This was back in the day when hurricane names were easy to remember unlike that unpronounceable storm that hit New York a few weeks back.  

Despite the impending doom of Donna, school started for us all.   And, within an hour, our folks were told to come and get us.  My grandfather was charged somehow with this rescue.  

He made the five block drive to my school and fetched me off the street corner. As we made the harrowing trip home, there were all sorts of things being caught up in the gale force winds.  Was that Dorothy and Toto in their bedroom?   We probably were in a lot more danger than we knew at the time.

I remember my grandfather peering out the windshield.

"This sure is a hurricane."

For usually stoic Grandpa, that was an amazing amount of words for him to say.

The power of the storm later that day would hit home...almost literally.   A huge tree in the back of our yard toppled over.   It took some power lines with it, but narrowly missed our roof.

For me, this was just like a movie.

I don't remember many hurricanes for a while after that.  When I was older, there was one in the middle of the summer called Belle.   Her big challenge was that she was going to scoot through New York City right when I had tickets for a Neil Simon play.  

I called the theater box office and got the very curt response.   

"We are having a performance and there are no refunds or exchanges."

And, unbelievably, there wasn't.  Nowadays, theaters shut down at the drop of a coronavirus.   

I recall some other hurricanes that flirted with New York while I was there.  Once I had my own apartment, it was my responsibility to tape up the windows and get the provisions needed to ride out the storm.   But, generally, I never really was impacted greatly.

When Sandy hit in 2012, I was safely living in Los Angeles but I felt the pain of many of my friends who bore the brunt of that.  For one time, I wasn't watching a hurricane from afar and longing to be there.  

I chose to be in a state like California because of the weather.   Well, really the lack of it.   But, in my heart, I am still a New Yorker.   Eager to meet the challenge and share the uneasiness with my fellow citizens.   

Let's see how I feel when the expected 7.5 finally hits Los Angeles.

Dinner last night:  Tangerine beef from Chin Chin.

Classic Musical Comedy Production Number of the Month - August 2020

Woo hoo.  A five Saturday month which means we get to sample this classic musical comedy production number.   Back when we could go to live performances.   I stumbled upon this clip.  A wonderful version of "Brotherhood of Man" from "How to Succeed."   As staged by Summit High School in New Jersey!  This is Broadway quality, gang.

Dinner last night:  Fried chicken sandwich from Holy Cow.

Deliver Us From COVID

Dinner last night:  Salad.

Hollywood Then and Now - August 2020

For me, the quintessential summer action movie is "Die Hard" released in 1988.   Smart, funny, and amazingly believable given all the comic book nonsense we have been subjected to virtually ever since.

When I saw "Die Hard" back in Yonkers upon its original release, little did I know that I would ultimately be living on the very back lot of the film.   Indeed, the entire Century City neighborhood used to be part of the 20th Century Fox campus.   Parts of it had to be sold off to developers in the early 60s when the studio lost its asp on "Cleopatra."  

But, for "Die Hard," the studio used many parts of the area that they had originally sold off.   Including the infamous Nakatome Plaza, which is the real building for some of the Fox bigwigs.

Folks, I could walk there if I wanted to.   

A few years back, a British friend of mine had family visiting from England.   I was booked to give them one of my famous "LA" tours.    I asked them if there was anything they specifically wanted to see.

You guessed it.   The building above.   They even got out of the car to pose with the edifice in the background.

It must have been a hoot to live here when they were filming because, as you look at the movie today, there is very little CGI.   The stunts were filmed just like they were really happening.

Like the explosion in the elevator bank in the lobby?  Here is then and now.

Or the section just below the building when Sgt. Al Powell first sees something sinister going on at Nakatome.

Here is then and now.   The building at the far left is my neighborhood Ralph's super market, also within walking distance.

And I actually have seen a helicopter land on top of the building.

Oh, to be a local in the neighborhood having my sleep disrupted at the time.

Yippie-kay-yay-mother fucker.

Dinner last night:  Leftover Chinese food.

This Date in History - August 26

Happy birthday to Macaulay Culkin...who doesn't look anything like this today.

1278:  LADISLAUS IV OF HUNGARY AND RUDOLF I OF GERMANY DEFEAT OTTOKAR II OF BOHEMIA IN THE BATTLE OF THE MARCHFELD.

Ottokar?  Isn't that a ride at Disneyland?

1346:  THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR - THE MILITARY SUPREMACY OF THE ENGLISH LONGBOW OVER THE FRENCH COMBINATION OF CROSSBOW AND ARMOURED KNIGHTS IS ESTABLISHED BY THE BATTLE OF CRECY.

So far, this is shaping up as a boring day in history.

1466:  A CONSPIRACY AGAINST PIERO DI COSIMO DE MEDICI IN FLORENCE, LED BY LUCA PITTI, IS DISCOVERED.

Such a pitti.

1498:  MICHELANGELO IS COMMISSIONED TO CARVE THE PIETA.

And later the turkey on Thanksgiving.

1748:  THE FIRST LUTHERAN DENOMINATION IN NORTH AMERICA IS FOUNDED IN PHILADELPHIA.

Good.  I have some place to go on Sundays.

1768:  CAPTAIN JAMES COOK SETS SAIL FROM ENGLAND ON BOARD HMS ENDEAVOUR.  

Later they sent this boat up to space?

1789:  THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND OF THE CITIZEN IS APPROVED BY THE NATIONAL CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY OF FRANCE.

This day in history?  Still boring.

1791:  JOHN FITCH IS GRANTED A UNITED STATE PATENT FOR THE STEAMBOAT.

I thought this was Robert Fulton and not the guy who later partnered on clothing with Abercrombie.

1821:  THE UNIVERSITY OF BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA, IS OFFICIALLY OPENED.  

What time does the book store open?

1883:  THE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA BEGINS ITS FINAL, PAROXYSMAL, STAGE.

Doesn't that sound dirty?

1909:  ACTOR JIM DAVIS IS BORN.

Jock Ewing!

1910:  MOTHER TERESA IS BORN.

She died in 1997 and they carted her body around for a couple of weeks or so.

1914:  WORLD WAR I - THE GERMAN COLONY OF TOGOLAND SURRENDERS TO FRENCH AND BRITISH FORCES AFTER A 20 DAY CAMPAIGN.

Out in LA, Togoland is a sandwich shop.

1920:  THE 19TH AMENDMENT TO THE US CONSTITUTION TAKES EFFECT, GIVING WOMEN THE RIGHT TO VOTE.

As long as the ironing is done.  Okay, that's a joke and not my real belief.

1930:  ACTOR LON CHANEY DIES.

The man of a thousand faces.  

1935:  POLITICIAN GERALDINE FERRARO IS BORN.

I sat behind her on a flight to NY the day Elliott Spitzer got in trouble.   Her Black Berry at Baggage Claim was buzzing like a bee hive.

1944:  WORLD WAR II - CHARLES DE GAULLE ENTERS PARIS.

This is news?

1970:  THE NEW FEMINIST MOVEMENT, LED BY BETTY FRIEDAN, LEADS A NATIONWIDE WOMEN'S STRIKE FOR EQUALITY.

Jeez, you can vote now.   What else do you want?  Okay, again, that's a joke and not my real belief.

1974:  PILOT CHARLES LINDBERGH DIES.

Dirtbag.

1977:  THE CHARTER OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE IS ADOPTED BY THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF QUEBEC.

Still bored by this date.

1978:  ALBINO LUCIANI IS ELECTED AS POPE JOHN PAUL I.

Don't get too attached, folks.

1978:  ACTOR CHARLES BOYER DIES.

Killed himself two days after his wife died.

1980:  ACTOR MACAULAY CULKIN IS BORN.

He's still with us.  His career, however, is not.

1986:  ACTOR TED KNIGHT DIES.

Sad.   He appeared on an episode of my college radio sitcom.

2009:  AUTHOR DOMINICK DUNNE DIES.

He never got over that OJ Simpson verdict.

2011:  THE BOEING 787 DREAMLINER RECEIVES CERTIFICATION FROM THE FAA.

Upgrade please.

2018:  PLAYWRIGHT NEIL SIMON DIES.

No joke on this one.   Guy was a friggin' genius.

Dinner last night:  Chopped salad.

Len's Recipe of the Month - August 2020

Summer weather finally showed up in Southern California, where it's been unusually hot and humid.   Of course, this would be the week I am providing the meals for a friend's outdoor patio party.

With my goal being not to turn on the oven at all, here's the first thing off my chilly assembly line.   A spin on Tiramisu from Valerie Bertinelli.  Instead of a cocoa and mocha base, this dessert has at its heart....LEMON!   Perfectly refreshing for a hot August day.

Here's how.

Take 16 ounces of softened mascarpone cheese into a bowl.   To that, add the entire contents of an 11 ounce jar of lemon curd.   And now toss in a 1/2 cup of sugar.   Add a teaspoon of lemon zest.  With an electric mixer, blend it all together for about two minutes.

In another bowl, take 3/4 cup of heavy cream and whip it up to stiff peaks.   No need to add sugar.   The other mixture is plenty sweet as it is.

Fold the whipped cream incrementally and slowly into the lemon mixture.  Put it aside.

In another bowl, blend the following:  1/4 cup of limoncello; 1/2 cup of water, 2 to three tablespoons of lemon juice.  Use the limoncello sparingly.   I used 3/4 cup and the spike was a little too much.

Now, hopefully, you bought a seven ounce package of lady fingers.   Amazon has them.   Dip half of the lady fingers quickly into the liquid and lay them across a rectangular glass dish.   Cover them with half the lemon mixture.  Now lay the rest of the lady fingers on top of the lemon layer and use a different pattern than what you used for the first layer.   Now spread the rest of the mixture on top.   Sprinkle another teaspoon of lemon zest over the top.

Refrigerate for at least six hours for it all to set.   Ideally, chilling it for 24 hours is the best.

And you barely broke a sweat.

Dinner last night  Mongolian beef and rice.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - August 24, 2020

"Puncture resistant?"  Um, not so much.

Dinner last night: Spaghetti with shrimp and slow cooked tomatoes.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - Ding-A-Ling-A-Ling-A-Ling

Since the summer of 2020 is so freakin' miserable, let's go back to our childhood.

On any given summer night on 15th Avenue in Mount Vernon, you longed for 8:45PM. You'd hear the bells first on 13th Avenue and then 14th Avenue.

The Good Humor truck was coming.

It was like our nightly version of the River City folks in "The Music Man" waiting for the Wells Fargo wagon. You had the buck or so in your pocket since dinner. You were checking it every once in a while throughout the night. 

Between innings of your softball game. During a break in the action of Monopoly. In the middle of an insult assault being thrown at someone. You didn't want to come up empty at 8:44PM when the truck turned down our block

Our Good Humor man was an African-American guy by the name of Coot. Lest you think that the name signified some old crony with tons of stories about the South, Coot was about 30 and nobody really knew how he got that name. Or was it a nickname? A mystery for the ages.

Coot pretty much always had a smile on his face, but I heard him utter only two phrases ever: "Whacha have?" and "Here ya go." This wasn't exactly Masterpiece Theater, but who cared as long as you got your designated nightly treat. 

My daily regimen of sugar/poison was the Chocolate Chip Candy stick. It was a regular chocolate-covered ice cream bar, but deep down in the center was a frozen chocolate bar. A challenge for the incisors, but so good.

At one point, Coot got a little competition. Some interloper driving a rival Bungalow Bar truck tried to undercut him by showing up an hour earlier. It was probably the first organized protest I was ever involved in. We boycotted this rat bastard, and gave major stinkeye to anybody who even dared run up to that truck with fifty cents in their hand. We even had a song dedicated to this inferior product.

Bungalow Bar. Tastes like tar. The more you eat it, the sicker you are.

Message delivered. We kicked his ass over the city line and let him work the gremlins in the north Bronx.

There was another ill-fated attempt by somebody to claim our neighborhood as their own ice cream domain. That wretched Mister Softee. With that maniacal logo of some guy with an ice cream cone for a head. And that awful droning jingle that played over and over and over. 

But, of course, Mister Softee completely misread our marketplace. They would show up at 2:30 in the afternoon. Puh-leze. Not ice cream time at all. The deranged conehead did not survive for long. But, it wasn't due to any moratorium conducted by the kids in the neighborhood. One day, this fat kid named Georgie fell in front of the truck and almost had a Phil Leotardo experience as the truck inched forward. He was pulled back at the very last minute, saving him from a truly ironic spin on the Mister Softee concept. After that, Mister Softee's tasty treat made a hasty retreat.

The winner and still champion. Coot! We'd even forgive his annual faux pas. 

We always went back to school the first week of September. That meant earlier bedtimes, a little homework, etc.. Nevertheless, Coot continued to show up at 845PM every night for at least two more weeks. We always sat in our respective homes, listening to the bells that went unanswered. Was he that out-of-tune with our lives? Oh, what the hell...

One Chocolate Chip Candy please.

Dinner last night:  Barbecue ribs and pasta salad alla Norma.

Classic Movie Trailer of the Month - August 2020

Sixty years ago this month, the Rat Pack was cavorting in this...

Dinner last night:  Taylor ham and egg sandwich.

Len's Jukebox of the Month - August 2020

Rounding out the summer of 2-zero-2-zero with arguably the quintessential summer hit.   With "summer" in the title.   It's also the theme of arguably the quintessential summer movie.

I can listen to this over and over and over and over....

Dinner last night:   Salad.

Return To Sender

With the ongoing debate of voting-by-mail occupying our news of late, I laugh on a daily basis.   The sleazeball Democrats and the do-nothing Republicans argue over the consequences with this year's Presidential election.   The shit on the left says Trump is going to control the ballots.   The morons on the right are convinced that the other side will do all sorts of fraudulent things with the results.

What everybody forgets is something that I have known for years now.

The United States Postal Service is a disaster.   

Oh, I'm not here to denigrate conscientious mail carriers who are dutifully on schedule every day in the middle of the country regardless of rain, snow, or whatever.   Yep, there are places in this once great nation where the mail gets handled properly.

But in big cities like Los Angeles and Chicago and New York where staffing is controlled by diversity quotas, the most "qualified" folks are not necessarily behind the counter or toting a mail bag.

I offer my own experiences over the past ten years as exhibits for the court, your Honor.

Like the time I saw my female mail carrier sitting in the truck outside my building eating her lunch in the truck and flipping through a magazine.  An hour later, I found mustard stains on my newly delivered edition of "Entertainment Weekly."   

No, I am not making that up.

Our building mail is delivered now after five PM.  I've discovered that this now happens on a schedule of every other day.

Uh-huh.

I've written before about mail I regularly get for one Thadeus J. Phillips.   This has been going on for a year.   And, from what I can see by the front of the envelopes, Thadeus is in a bit of a pickle.    Numerous tax citations from the government.    

I checked with folks in my building who have been here long term.   No one knows a Thadeus J. Phillips.   But that's my address and apartment number on his record.

I tried to explain this to my mail carrier who might be autistic.   I get nowhere. They keep delivering the mail here.

So I go to the general post office to talk to the division manager.   His response?

"Talk to your mail carrier."

Vicious cycle continues.

There are dozens of other stories about mis-delivered mail all over my building of nine units.    I get perfectly addressed and legible Christmas cards returned in March and April because the carrier in New York obviously can't read.

And now the dumbbell Democrats want to entrust a Presidential election to the mail.    

One more exhibit, your Honor?

Over the past month, I've gotten four different mail-in ballots addressed to four different people who used to live in this unit.   Yeah, that system works.   

Well, at least, one of the ballots wasn't addressed to Thadeus J. Phillips.  Hopefully he will be in prison by November.

Which I think means he gets to vote anyway.

Grrrrrr......

Dinner last night:  Sausage and salad.

This Date in History - August 19

Happy birthday to Jill St. John and why the hell not?

295 BC:  THE FIRST TEMPLE TO VENUS IS DEDICATED BY QUINTUS FABIUS MAXIMUS GURGES.

His son was Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges Junior.

43 BC:  GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR OCTAVIANUS COMPELS THE ROMAN SENATE TO ELECT CONSUL.

No wonder the Roman Empire fell.  Who can remember all the names?

561:  MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, WHO WAS 18, RETURNS TO SCOTLAND AFTER SPENDING 13 YEARS IN FRANCE.

What was that?  An extended sleepaway camp?

1692:  IN SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS, FIVE PEOPLE ARE EXECUTED AFTER BEING CONVICTED OF WITCHCRAFT.

They think that's a crime.  Wait till everybody meets the new Darren.

1759:  BATTLE OF LAGOS DURING THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND FRANCE.  

Oh, Lagos.  There goes my snap together toy joke.

1812:  WAR OF 1812 - AMERICAN FRIGATE USS CONSTITUTION DEFEATS BRITISH FRIGATE GUERRIERE OFF THE COAST OF CANADA EARNING THE NICKNAME "OLD IRONSIDES."

Oh, frigate.

1839:  THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCES THAT LOUIS DAGUERRE'S PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESS IS A GIFT FREE TO THE WORLD.

Yeah, that eventually led to movies and they are definitely not free.

1848:  THE NEW YORK HERALD BREAKS THE NEWS OF THE GOLD RUSH IN CALIFORNIA.

I got here almost 150 years later.  Too late.

1854:  THE FIRST SIOUX WAR BEGINS WHEN US SOLDIERS KILL LAKOTA CHIEF CONQUERING BEAR AND IN RETURN ARE MASSACRED.

Where's Randolph Scott when you need him?

1871:  INVENTOR ORVILLE WRIGHT IS BORN.

Fun fact for Wednesday:  Wilbur was four years older.

1883:  DESIGNER COCO CHANEL IS BORN.

Inventor of the last minute Christmas present.

1909:  THE FIRST AUTOMOBILE RACE AT THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEEDWAY.

Varoom.

1921:  PRODUCER GENE RODDENBERRY IS BORN.

Going where no one named Gene Roddenberry has gone before.

1931:  JOCKEY WILLIE SHOEMAKER IS BORN.

And he's off.

1934:  THE FIRST ALL-AMERICAN SOAP BOX DERBY IS HELD IN DAYTON, OHIO.

Varoom.  Well, sort of.

1934:  THE CREATOR OF THE POSITION FUHRER IS APPROVED BY THE GERMAN ELECTORATE WITH 89.9% OF THE POPULAR VOTE.

You vill be sorry.

1940:  ACTRESS JILL ST. JOHN IS BORN.

So do you think hubby Robert Wagner has told her what happened that night on Catalina?

1944:  DURING WORLD WAR II, PARIS, FRANCE RISES AGAINST GERMAN OCCUPATION WITH THE HELP OF ALLIED TROOPS.

As if you thought they could do it by themselves.

1945:  VIET MINH LED BY HO CHI MINH TAKES POWER IN HANOI, VIETNAM.

Already it starts.

1946:  PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON IS BORN.

The man Hillary slept with once.

1948:  TIPPER GORE IS BORN.

The ex-wife of the man who was the vice president to the man that Hillary slept with once.

1953;  POLITICAL CONSULTANT MARY MATALIN IS BORN.

Her marriage to James Carville is a microcosm of the political situation in this nation.

1955:  IN THE NORTHEAST US, SEVERE FLOODING IS CAUSED BY HURRICANE DIANE, CLAIMING 200 LIVES.

Flooding will do that to a person.

1960:  IN MOSCOW, RUSSIA, DOWNED AMERICAN U-2 PILOT FRANCIS GARY POWERS IS SENTENCED TO TEN YEARS IMPRISONMENT BY THE SOVIET UNION FOR ESPIONAGE.

Comrade, da plane, da plane.

1960:  BASEBALL STAR AND BROADCASTER RON DARLING IS BORN.

Now that Tim McCarver has retired, he is the best color announcer working today.

1969:  ACTOR MATTHEW PERRY IS BORN.

The weakest Friend...acting-wise.

1977:  COMIC GROUCHO MARX DIES.

Tough week for legends.  Elvis died three days before.

1989:  RADIO CAROLINE, THE OFFSHORE PIRATE STATION IN THE NORTH SEA, IS RAIDED BY BRITISH AND DUTCH GOVERNMENTS.

So we'll just track this Allman Brothers album for now.

1989:  SEVERAL HUNDRED EAST GERMANS CROSS THE FRONTIER BETWEEN HUNGARY AND AUSTRIA, PART OF THE EVENTS THAT BEGAN THE PROCESS OF THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL.

Mr. Gorbachev...tear down...yeah, yeah, I know.

1991:  SOVIET PRESIDENT MIKHAIL GORBACHEV IS PLACED UNDER HOUSE ARREST WHILE ON HOLIDAY IN THE UKRAINE.

You should never have torn down...yeah, yeah, I know.

1991:  BLACK GROUPS TARGET HASIDIC JEWS ON THE STREETS OF CROWN HEIGHTS IN NY FOR THREE DAYS AFTER TWO BLACK KIDS WERE HIT BY A CAR DRIVEN BY A HASIDIC MAN.

It could have been worse.  He could have been a Hasidic cop.

2009:  TV NEWS PRODUCER DON HEWITT DIES.

Hey, my watch has stopped.

2010:  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM ENDS, WITH THE LAST OF THE US COMBAT TEAMS CROSSING THE BORDER TO KUWAIT.

Well, gee, I'm glad that's over.  Oh, wait...

2016:  ACTOR JACK RILEY DIES.

Mr Carlin from the Bob Newhart Show.

Dinner last night:  Smoked sausage.

From The Disney Vault

Yes, I went there.   And I live to discuss it.

A bunch of years ago, Walt Disney's very first live action movie, "Song of the South" was removed from...well...everywhere.   No theatrical releases.   No DVDs.   No cable or streaming.   It was tucked away as if it was small pox or the illegitimate offspring of Adolf Hitler.

It was creative poison.

Of course, with the latest Black Lives Matter initiative, I am sure the folks at Disney pushed the movie even further back in their vault.  They probably kneel every day on Buena Vista Street in Burbank that no one remembers what a racist and discriminatory film they made way back in 1946.

I was always curious, having never gotten the chance to see it.   I mean, the clips I have seen looked very inoffensive.   Sure, the setting of the film was back in the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War when slavery was still in the early stages of being abolished.  Like it or not, this all did happen and was part of our American history, which can be both good and bad.   It cannot be erased.

But Disney, shivering in its boots and always fearing the dreaded #racist, sure did want it to be gone.

An enterprising friend of mine, however, provided me with an internet link.   Yep, there is an archive site where some older films exist.   And "Song of the South" was one of them.

What I ultimately watched was a thoroughly charming and sweet film that should be once of those movies that transcends generations.   But, no...

"Song of the South" is based on the tales of Uncle Remus, an older slave living on a Southern plantation.   He forms a friendship with Johnny the young White boy visiting his grandmother who owns the land.   Their connection is through some stories Uncle Remus tells about B'rer Fox and B'rer Rabbit.   This is done through the inventive use of animation as the cartoon characters are intermixed with the live action plot.

Johnny has his problems during the visit from some local bullies and he comes to rely more and more on the stories and wisdom of Uncle Remus.   There are some bumps in the road along with some nifty musical numbers (Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah) before the inevitable happy ending.

It is lovely and sweet and also very modern day when it comes to race relations.   But, because Uncle Remus and some of the other characters (Hattie McDaniel!) come off a bit as stereotypes, the film is condemned.

Forget the fact that this was America at the time.   Ignore the fact that we have come a long way since then.   Disregard the fact that James Baskett as Uncle Remus earned an honorary Oscar for his performance.

No, no, no, it is bad.   You must not watch.

Well, I did.   And so should you.  I'd happily share the link with you but that might mean a visit from the blogging police.   

Maybe I can whisper it to you in a back alley.

Dinner last night:  Leftover barbecued ribs.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - August 17, 2020

Hair today, gone minutes later.

Dinner last night:  Barbecued ribs and cole slaw.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - My Cousin Brucie

Radio is the memory of summers past.   Whether on the beach or at the pool or in the un-air-conditioned car or the front stoop.   The hits of whatever warm weather month and year it was are often etched into your brain matter for years.

And, of course, there were the record spinners.   In New York, you had Dan Ingram and Gary Stevens and Harry Harrison.   But, sitting on top of that hill of platter players was the guy in the photo above.

New Yorkers will remember this chatterbox well. I grew up on his constantly cracking voice, spinning the hits on 77WABC. When they shitcanned the music on that radio station, Cousin Bruce Morrow went off to the oldies-laden WCBS-FM, where his Saturday night dance party thrived for decades. The problem always was that it's tough to dance when the DJ doesn't shut up and spin the platters.

About fifteen years ago, I rediscovered Cousin Brucie one more time now that I had Sirius Radio in the car. His Saturday night soiree is on the Sixties Channel and it was weird to drive around LA and listen to this quintessential New Yorker. Still, whenever I tuned in, I was taken back to days of my youth.

A few weeks back, Brucie announced he was leaving Sirius, but "not retiring any time soon."   Hmmm.   That sounded like the words "contract dispute" to me.

Well, whatever it was, the news came out this week.   Cousin Brucie is taking his Saturday night back to where he started.   On 77WABC in New York, which is interesting because the rest of the station's schedule is nothing but talk shows.

So, I smile again and am happy that everything old is new again after it was deemed old again.

Of course, now is the time to relate my own "Brucie" story. An infamous day in my young adulthood. When I got into an argument with Cousin Brucie.

It was early in my own radio career and back in New York. In those days, local radio stations actually had money to promote themselves. And, once a year, there was a big event where they each participated in a carnival at some hotel ballroom. They'd set up booths and you're join in on the spinning wheels, games of chance, dunk tanks, etc.. It was a lot of fun.

One year, Brucie was promoting this group of NY suburban stations that he owned. Naturally, it was ideal for him to set up a booth which he himself manned. With a simple enough game. On the wall was a big map of New York State with big red dots on those towns where Brucie owned a station. You had to take a dart and throw. If you landed on one of the red dots, Brucie would present you with a new Sony Walkman.

As I ambled by, Brucie beckoned me over like a gypsy in a rundown storefront.

"Come on, Cousin, let's see what you can do."

Given I'm not either Irish or English and given that I rarely frequent pubs in the countryside, I'm not a dart thrower. But, back then, a new Sony Walkman was a beautiful thing. I walked to the counter and grabbed a dart.

It landed not directly on the red dot, but the dart was certainly touching the little decal. Even the folks I was with acknowledged that I was a winner. Brucie, however, begged to differ.

"Sorry, Cousin, thanks for trying."

I suggested that I could do little to improve what I had achieved. A dart touching the red dot.

"Not close enough, Cousin. Maybe later."

I realized that Brucie had brought along ten Walkman devices for the day and was intending to go home with just as many. Cheap bastard. I asked him how much closer I needed to be to get that Walkman.

"Cousin, you've got to be better than that."

Huh? The dart was resting on the red dot in a better fit than that toupee had on his head. We went back and forth and it got a little louder. He kept calling me 
"Cousin." I had to wound him. 

"Brucie, I've got six cousins and you're not one of them."

The man looked destroyed. He could not respond. I walked away, Walkman-less. With a smile on my face. I had finally achieved the impossible.

Cousin Brucie was speechless.

Mike drop.   

Despite it all, I am glad you're still with us, Cousin.   I hope you dust off a brand spanking new toupee for the occasion.

Dinner last night:  Pepperoni pizza from Maria's.