For those of you whose cable blacked out during the last minute of The Sopranos right after we learned that Meadow Soprano has the same parallel parking issues that I do… what you missed was Dr. Bob Hartley/Bob Newhart woke up in bed with a half read book about "Psychotherapy for Sociopaths", rolled over in bed, and said…”Wow honey.. Did I have the weirdest dream”… and there from under the covers wearing nothing but a leather teddy with S&M spikes emerged Dr. Melfi. Odd, don’t you think?
Well today is New music Tuesday and to coincide with that… we are releasing our recorded version of “The Ballad of Melanie McGuire” c2007. Check out the
Original April column for more background. You will see a link to a website that explains the song “Creeque Alley” by The Mamas and the Papas. The Ballad of Melanie McGuire c 2007 is the story of Melanie to the tune of that Mamas and Papas classic!
If you didn't click back to the April column... here is some background of the Melanie McGuire story excerpted from the archives.
She was convicted in April on charges that she barbarically murdered her husband by hacking him to bits and dumping him in a suitcase off the Chesapeake River. What really bugs me about this woman is her sheer narcissism that she thought she could just kill this poor guy and get away with it. She even had the audacity to cover her tracks by challenging EZ Pass charges that put her near the Chesapeake, and bizarre taxicab adventures explaining how she went to Atlantic City to move her husband's car as "a prank to annoy him". Does she really think she is so smart and the cops are so stupid? Constitutionally speaking she had the right to a strong defense, but does she really think her bigshot lawyer Joe Tacopina really believed she was innocent and didn't take on the case so he could get a ton of free publicity with Court TV face time?
I find it hard to believe that she acted alone, and after watching a ton of Law and Order reruns, it amazes me that her narcissism never allowed her accept the inevitable plea deal to give up an accomplice who must have helped her with the heavy chopping and the suitcase packing. Its incredibly arrogant that she wouldn’t take a plea and instead went with the Little Miss Innocent Defense - that the husband was mean to poor sweet Melanie.
For those of you who haven’t been following this sordid storyline.. Melanie McGuire has her own website soliciting money for what turned out to be her losing defense fund. According to the Melanie McGuire website, she started out life as Melanie Slate, growing up in Ridgewood, New Jersey. She graduated Middletown High School South in 1990, graduated Rutgers in 1994 and a Nursing School in 1997. Murder wasn’t the first of The Ten Commandments she opted to violate.. She started having an affair with her murdered husband while he was married to his first wife… and then started her little affair with her colleague Dr. Bradley Miller while she was 9 months pregnant.
In case you missed the trial… Melanie was accused of chopping up her husband,.. putting him in 3 suitcases and then hightailing it down the Turnpike where she dumped the suitcases off a bridge into the Chesapeake River. At the time, she was a nurse at a fertility clinic and having an affair with Fertility Doc Dr. Miller. Her trial was on Court TV and her lawyer was high profile defense att'y Joe Tacopina. She had originally reported the husband missing, shortly after they bought a new house in Warren County…. claiming he had a gambling problem and she told cops she thought he was at Trump's Taj Mahal casino. However she did admit she went down to AC.. found his car… (even though most people can't find a car in a mall parking lot; yet she found it in AC!) and moved it just to mess with his head. The cops also had a couple of ex boyfriends call her, and while secretly recording the conversations, tried to get the fellas to get Melanie to fess up. She also denied being on the highway when the suitcases were dumped… disputing EZ Pass records showing tolls paid by her. Is that the height of arrogance? Kill somebody and then order EZ Pass to remove the charges? I wonder if she haggled with the salesman when she bought those suitcases?
Thanks to the power of Google.. A lot of people meandered here for that April column.. Including the folks at the Melanie McGuire Bulletin Board at CourtTV.com who got a kick of the song when we released the lyrics... How ironic that Google was the same website Melanie used to find ways to murder her husband! That just did not look good for her when her husband ended up dead. She also poisoned him with a forged prescription she picked up at Walgreens near my old condo, and stayed at a hotel right near the Walgreens! Employees for both those establishments testified during the trial.
And now before the grand premiere of "The Ballad of Melanie McGuire" c2007, its important to appreciate the sheer genius of the original Creeque Alley so in true Don Kirshner style - here it is!
And now without further ado… The Premiere of “The Ballad of Melanie McGuire”! sung by myself and Neil Fein… Neil’s the guy with the good voice…
Here is some background info: First of all Neil Fein is a musical genius… It was Neil’s brilliance that brought this song to life. He put a lot of work into creating its sound.. from learning the song all the way to figuring out a pitch that I could handle. If you read the background info about the song, you will note that Mama Cass had some problems hitting certain notes and it might seem that the others might have been jealous of her superior talent by creating a song that is actually very difficult to sing. We also invited one of my German relatives whose voice sounds uncannily like Dr. Ruth Westheimer to sing some background vocals…
For now we are just embedding it.. a video will be released soon along with an mp3. In order to get the timing just right I listened to my Mamas and Papas record (!) over and over again on my $250 Sharp SG-164 New Decorator Series stereo system. The song was written in the early days of the trial - but the lyrics weren't released until the jury came back with the verdict.. I had thought about changing the line that rhymes with "Mama Cass" to "She fought with EZ Pass", but decided it would take away from the songs edginess, and basically it would have sounded like a Puff The Magic Dragon-esque folk song. If Neil and I do the summer concert scene and do day camp shows at the Garden State Arts Center, obviously we will clean it up a bit! And I really don't intend to hurt anyone's feelings with this song... as I mentioned back on April 24th the damage was done when Melanie killed this poor guy... this song is the story of her incredibly cruelty.
And yes, Neil wore his fur hat during the recording… maybe not such a great idea since this is the week animal rights activist Bob Barker is stepping down after 35 years on The Price is Right!
Now time for The Clip of the Week: Since we started today with a Bob - (Newhart), we will conclude with a Bob - Bob Barker! This Friday is Bob Barker’s final day on The Price is Right. Since today we wrote about a column from April…. here is a clip with a woman named April who bears a bit of a resemblance to...Melanie McGuire… And take a wild guess what she tries to win!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Friday, June 08, 2007
Baseball Quarterly Report
Ooops... it seems like we are past the ¼ mark of the season and we’re late with the baseball quarterly report… .Sorry folks.. moving has a tendency to delay blogging, and these columns don't write themseslves! We will soon have Part II of the TV Quarterly Report… plus we’re behind on the Movie Club reviews… a new one is coming soon, and next week on this very blog we will have the world premiere of “The Ballad of Melanie McGuire” c 2007.
Before we get to today's topic.. I see that there is word that Isiah Washington has been canned from "Grey's Anatomy" because of gay slurs he tossed at a castmate. Washington can thank Al Sharpton for ABC's decision, after Sharpton demanded that Imus be fired for his nappy headed ho comment during the Imus fundraiser for kids with cancer. Imagine that.. taking money from Cancer Kids.. yet another example of the evilness of Al Sharpton. How could ABC keep Washington after Imus lost his job? Actually, most normal thinking people wouldn't have an issue if both men had kept their jobs. Also, keep in mind that many gay actors stay in the closet because it adversely affects their ability to get future acting roles, so Washington's "outing" could end up costing his now former co star millions of dollars.
Its been a great week in sports.. Jets coach Eric Mangini was on "The Sopranos" when Tony Soprano ran into him at a local eatery. (Can you imagine if Tony S. was a Met fan and the bullpen was at that restaurant?) Anaheim won the Stanley Cup… although ratings show that nobody was watching it… Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea for the NHL to move their playoff games from ESPN to the hard to find Versus network. Nothing is more exciting than a playoff OT hockey game! Also, the NBA Finals are underway and in Tennis… The French Open Final features Justine Henin Hardin who has paid tribute to the late 3 named Charles Nelson Reilly, by reverting to the more traditional two names of Justine Henin.. Although rumor has it she did so because she and her husband recently split.
As for baseball,. First we’ll take a look at the local teams.. And then we’ll take a look at the national baseball picture…
I must admit I am an odd baseball fan… I have a fantasy team so I root for odd situations to occur.. Yet my team sucks so I don’t pay too much attention to it… I’m a big Met fan.. And I don’t really like the Yankees.. But I don’t hate them as much as I did after the 2000 World Series. Of all the Yankees, the one I dislike the least is probably Alex Rodriguez.. As I have said before he is one Albert Pujols Sr, broken condom away from being the best player in baseball.
I don’t particularly like Barry Bonds. He used steroids before they were banned,… but that gray area is very hard to accept as he approaches the immortal Hank Aaron record of 755 homeruns. Watching A Rod and Bonds has led me to root for an odd combination of events. Imagine if Bonds somehow loses his ability to hit.. Kind of like the washed up player who made the comeback in the movie Mr. 3000, or George Foster when he came to the Mets…… I won’t root for the guy to get injured… but what happens if his 755th homerun comes the same day that A Rod breaks Bonds’ single season record? Wouldn’t it be the perfect punishment to his years of chemical enhancements that he breaks the Aaron record the same day his own record is broken? And which record would get more media attention? A Rod is on the Yankees.. And if Bonds record comes on one of those late night West Coast games in September.. Will anybody actually be awake in the eastern time zone to witness it? And who gets the headlines the next morning if the Bonds home run happens after the newspaper publishing deadlines?
As for the Mets… the hitters are getting bitten by the injury bug.. just as Carlos Delgado starts to wake up from his lengthy slumber.. But thankfully the pitching is really coming together. Even though they lost the 2006 pennant to St. Louis, Games 6 and 7 gave us a hint of the future since the outstanding performances of starters John Maine and Oliver Perez have continued into the 2007 season. The Mets made a couple of steals in the trades to acquire those pitchers.. Perez came over for Xavier Nady after Duaner Sanchez was injured in a taxicab crash in FL. Meanwhile, it was actually the decision to trade Ty Wigginton to Pittsburgh that got the ball rolling for Maine.. The Mets got Kris Benson and his nutty wife who they then sent to Baltimore before the 2006 season for the awful Jorge Julio who has since gone to Arizona to FL and to Colorado in a year and 2 months! Maine was a throw in in the Benson deal with Baltimore, and to top it all off,. Julio started his cross country legacy by being traded to Arizona for…. Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez… And there you have 3 of the Mets five starters!
Has any other first place team ever acquired 3/5 of their rotation with such one sided heists??
Looking back at my preseason predictions, I can see that I was as wrong as usual… Of the 6 contending NL teams I picked for the ‘07 season,… 4 look pretty solid.. I had picked the Phillies to win the division, but now it looks like they might take the wild card while the Mets win the division… a flip flop of my original pick. Then again.. The Phillies really had the Mets number this past week…. The Phillies have been shaky but much improved since their awful start and the Astros have been pretty bad in a very mediocre NL Central Division… The Brewers have been doing quite well with young Prince Fielder anchoring the infield.. Luckily all the other teams in the division have just been so awful that they may have a nice little run. However, I don’t think the Brewers are going to stay on top for much longer and if any other team in the mediocre division can rise to the top.. It really should be Houston since they have the most talent..,… even though the Astros fan may want to brace themselves for Carlos Lee’s annual 2nd half swoon.
Over in the West, my predictions of a 2 team race between LA and Arizona has been somewhat accurate even though San Diego is hanging in there, despite their old rotation. However Jake Peavy has been fantastic and the ageless Greg Maddux rolls on. . They have a great young superstar in Adrian Gonzales, and Trevor Hoffman is solid in the pen as usual.. taking the spotlight from Mariano Rivera after he became the first pitcher in baseball history to nail his 500th save.. But I don’t know long they can play with the big boys in the division. LA just got Jason Schmidt back; he twirled a 6 inning 1 hit masterpiece and that is a solid boost to the rotation.
Looking back at my original playoff predictions.. I probably have 2 of the 4 playoff teams right. NY and LA… although the Phillies and Astros both have a shot. And I seem to be on the money with the St. Louis Cardinals being the disappointment of the season. Not only did they lose most of last years rotation, but their ace Chris Carpenter has been injured and having a pitcher die in a drunk driving accident just a month after their manager was arrested in a very embarrassing DWI has made life very difficult for the defending World Champs.
Over in the AL.. the Red Sox fans are watching me eat my words.. as The Yankees are starting to think about catching Detroit for the Wild Card.. you gotta wonder how far this team will go with that pitching staff. Mike Mussina is a shadow of his former self.. Roger Clemens can’t possibly anchor a staff at his advanced age… and the revolving door of AAA pitchers who have been injured or knocked out early have just worn out an already weak bullpen.. And whatever happened to Mariano Rivera? The other surprise is how the Blue Jays have been such a disappointment… Closer BJ Ryan is out for the year and Gustavo Chacin is injured yet again…. He’s out indefinitely after 5 starts.. He only made 17 last year. The D’Rays and Orioles have been their usual losing selves… although not as bad as seasons past. The March Baseball Preview pegged the O’s bandwagon jumpers as the biggest AL disappointment of ’07.
The Central is as expected the best division in baseball. I picked the Chisox to win it with Cleveland as the Wild Card. As the Twins proved last year, you can’t count any of these teams out the way they tend to run off long winning streaks and I am far from ready to concede Chicago’s chances of making the playoffs. Cleveland has been kicking butt at home.. CC Sabathia has been amazing, and even though Cliff Lee has fallen off a bit as he recovers from injury. Fausto Carmona and Paul Byrd have picked up the slack. The Twins are getting by with young Boof Bonser joining perennial Cy Young winner Johan Santana in the rotation, and the team will only get better once catcher Joe Mauer gets back from the DL where he has been for the last month suffering from bleeding quadriceps. Ooooo.. Sounds icky.
The Angels are the team to beat in the West, as we predicted… The fans in Anaheim are hoping the Angels can be champs now that The Mighty Ducks have won the Stanley Cup! And notice how the Mariners are much improved so far this season?.. They were my pick for AL Surprise Team of 2007.
My 4 AL playoff teams were NY, Chicago, Cleveland and The Angels... It looks like 2 of those are pretty solid and I wouldn't be surprised if either the Chisox or Yankees made it as Wild Cards.. so I may have 3 out of 4 right. My pre-season pick of an Indians - Mets World Series? It still looks quite realistic.. But the Mets better root for the National League to win the All Star Game so Cleveland doesn’t get home field advantage… they have been virtually unbeatable at Jacobs Field… I’d rather see Game 1 of Pedro against CC Sabathia at Shea!
Next week: The World Premiere of "The Ballad of Melanie McGuire"... Wait till you hear how it came out!
Now time for the Clip of the Week,… next Friday is the grand finale of Bob Barker’s 50 year reign on daily TV… Here is a clip from The Price is Right in the early days.. It's incredible how expensive electronics were back then in the pre Best Buy days! In this clip from Dec. 1983, this woman hadn’t grasped the concept of a vcr! And listen out for Bob's sly little 60 Minutes wisecrack.
Before we get to today's topic.. I see that there is word that Isiah Washington has been canned from "Grey's Anatomy" because of gay slurs he tossed at a castmate. Washington can thank Al Sharpton for ABC's decision, after Sharpton demanded that Imus be fired for his nappy headed ho comment during the Imus fundraiser for kids with cancer. Imagine that.. taking money from Cancer Kids.. yet another example of the evilness of Al Sharpton. How could ABC keep Washington after Imus lost his job? Actually, most normal thinking people wouldn't have an issue if both men had kept their jobs. Also, keep in mind that many gay actors stay in the closet because it adversely affects their ability to get future acting roles, so Washington's "outing" could end up costing his now former co star millions of dollars.
Its been a great week in sports.. Jets coach Eric Mangini was on "The Sopranos" when Tony Soprano ran into him at a local eatery. (Can you imagine if Tony S. was a Met fan and the bullpen was at that restaurant?) Anaheim won the Stanley Cup… although ratings show that nobody was watching it… Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea for the NHL to move their playoff games from ESPN to the hard to find Versus network. Nothing is more exciting than a playoff OT hockey game! Also, the NBA Finals are underway and in Tennis… The French Open Final features Justine Henin Hardin who has paid tribute to the late 3 named Charles Nelson Reilly, by reverting to the more traditional two names of Justine Henin.. Although rumor has it she did so because she and her husband recently split.
As for baseball,. First we’ll take a look at the local teams.. And then we’ll take a look at the national baseball picture…
I must admit I am an odd baseball fan… I have a fantasy team so I root for odd situations to occur.. Yet my team sucks so I don’t pay too much attention to it… I’m a big Met fan.. And I don’t really like the Yankees.. But I don’t hate them as much as I did after the 2000 World Series. Of all the Yankees, the one I dislike the least is probably Alex Rodriguez.. As I have said before he is one Albert Pujols Sr, broken condom away from being the best player in baseball.
I don’t particularly like Barry Bonds. He used steroids before they were banned,… but that gray area is very hard to accept as he approaches the immortal Hank Aaron record of 755 homeruns. Watching A Rod and Bonds has led me to root for an odd combination of events. Imagine if Bonds somehow loses his ability to hit.. Kind of like the washed up player who made the comeback in the movie Mr. 3000, or George Foster when he came to the Mets…… I won’t root for the guy to get injured… but what happens if his 755th homerun comes the same day that A Rod breaks Bonds’ single season record? Wouldn’t it be the perfect punishment to his years of chemical enhancements that he breaks the Aaron record the same day his own record is broken? And which record would get more media attention? A Rod is on the Yankees.. And if Bonds record comes on one of those late night West Coast games in September.. Will anybody actually be awake in the eastern time zone to witness it? And who gets the headlines the next morning if the Bonds home run happens after the newspaper publishing deadlines?
As for the Mets… the hitters are getting bitten by the injury bug.. just as Carlos Delgado starts to wake up from his lengthy slumber.. But thankfully the pitching is really coming together. Even though they lost the 2006 pennant to St. Louis, Games 6 and 7 gave us a hint of the future since the outstanding performances of starters John Maine and Oliver Perez have continued into the 2007 season. The Mets made a couple of steals in the trades to acquire those pitchers.. Perez came over for Xavier Nady after Duaner Sanchez was injured in a taxicab crash in FL. Meanwhile, it was actually the decision to trade Ty Wigginton to Pittsburgh that got the ball rolling for Maine.. The Mets got Kris Benson and his nutty wife who they then sent to Baltimore before the 2006 season for the awful Jorge Julio who has since gone to Arizona to FL and to Colorado in a year and 2 months! Maine was a throw in in the Benson deal with Baltimore, and to top it all off,. Julio started his cross country legacy by being traded to Arizona for…. Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez… And there you have 3 of the Mets five starters!
Has any other first place team ever acquired 3/5 of their rotation with such one sided heists??
Looking back at my preseason predictions, I can see that I was as wrong as usual… Of the 6 contending NL teams I picked for the ‘07 season,… 4 look pretty solid.. I had picked the Phillies to win the division, but now it looks like they might take the wild card while the Mets win the division… a flip flop of my original pick. Then again.. The Phillies really had the Mets number this past week…. The Phillies have been shaky but much improved since their awful start and the Astros have been pretty bad in a very mediocre NL Central Division… The Brewers have been doing quite well with young Prince Fielder anchoring the infield.. Luckily all the other teams in the division have just been so awful that they may have a nice little run. However, I don’t think the Brewers are going to stay on top for much longer and if any other team in the mediocre division can rise to the top.. It really should be Houston since they have the most talent..,… even though the Astros fan may want to brace themselves for Carlos Lee’s annual 2nd half swoon.
Over in the West, my predictions of a 2 team race between LA and Arizona has been somewhat accurate even though San Diego is hanging in there, despite their old rotation. However Jake Peavy has been fantastic and the ageless Greg Maddux rolls on. . They have a great young superstar in Adrian Gonzales, and Trevor Hoffman is solid in the pen as usual.. taking the spotlight from Mariano Rivera after he became the first pitcher in baseball history to nail his 500th save.. But I don’t know long they can play with the big boys in the division. LA just got Jason Schmidt back; he twirled a 6 inning 1 hit masterpiece and that is a solid boost to the rotation.
Looking back at my original playoff predictions.. I probably have 2 of the 4 playoff teams right. NY and LA… although the Phillies and Astros both have a shot. And I seem to be on the money with the St. Louis Cardinals being the disappointment of the season. Not only did they lose most of last years rotation, but their ace Chris Carpenter has been injured and having a pitcher die in a drunk driving accident just a month after their manager was arrested in a very embarrassing DWI has made life very difficult for the defending World Champs.
Over in the AL.. the Red Sox fans are watching me eat my words.. as The Yankees are starting to think about catching Detroit for the Wild Card.. you gotta wonder how far this team will go with that pitching staff. Mike Mussina is a shadow of his former self.. Roger Clemens can’t possibly anchor a staff at his advanced age… and the revolving door of AAA pitchers who have been injured or knocked out early have just worn out an already weak bullpen.. And whatever happened to Mariano Rivera? The other surprise is how the Blue Jays have been such a disappointment… Closer BJ Ryan is out for the year and Gustavo Chacin is injured yet again…. He’s out indefinitely after 5 starts.. He only made 17 last year. The D’Rays and Orioles have been their usual losing selves… although not as bad as seasons past. The March Baseball Preview pegged the O’s bandwagon jumpers as the biggest AL disappointment of ’07.
The Central is as expected the best division in baseball. I picked the Chisox to win it with Cleveland as the Wild Card. As the Twins proved last year, you can’t count any of these teams out the way they tend to run off long winning streaks and I am far from ready to concede Chicago’s chances of making the playoffs. Cleveland has been kicking butt at home.. CC Sabathia has been amazing, and even though Cliff Lee has fallen off a bit as he recovers from injury. Fausto Carmona and Paul Byrd have picked up the slack. The Twins are getting by with young Boof Bonser joining perennial Cy Young winner Johan Santana in the rotation, and the team will only get better once catcher Joe Mauer gets back from the DL where he has been for the last month suffering from bleeding quadriceps. Ooooo.. Sounds icky.
The Angels are the team to beat in the West, as we predicted… The fans in Anaheim are hoping the Angels can be champs now that The Mighty Ducks have won the Stanley Cup! And notice how the Mariners are much improved so far this season?.. They were my pick for AL Surprise Team of 2007.
My 4 AL playoff teams were NY, Chicago, Cleveland and The Angels... It looks like 2 of those are pretty solid and I wouldn't be surprised if either the Chisox or Yankees made it as Wild Cards.. so I may have 3 out of 4 right. My pre-season pick of an Indians - Mets World Series? It still looks quite realistic.. But the Mets better root for the National League to win the All Star Game so Cleveland doesn’t get home field advantage… they have been virtually unbeatable at Jacobs Field… I’d rather see Game 1 of Pedro against CC Sabathia at Shea!
Next week: The World Premiere of "The Ballad of Melanie McGuire"... Wait till you hear how it came out!
Now time for the Clip of the Week,… next Friday is the grand finale of Bob Barker’s 50 year reign on daily TV… Here is a clip from The Price is Right in the early days.. It's incredible how expensive electronics were back then in the pre Best Buy days! In this clip from Dec. 1983, this woman hadn’t grasped the concept of a vcr! And listen out for Bob's sly little 60 Minutes wisecrack.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Life of Reilly: Who Do You Have to Blank? - A Multimedia Extravaganza
As we celebrated the beginning of spring last March 21, 2006 I wrote a column called “Where Do You Get Your News?”. It told of a Sunday night in March when I was watching Grey’s Anatomy in its old timeslot and a teaser came on for the 11 o’clock news announcing the death of local news legend Bill Beutel.. This past Sunday night, I was getting ready to watch the Sunday night Eyewitness News when just moments before airtime, the studio caught fire (off the air) knocking the station off and canceling the evening newscast. Oh well, I thought, what could possibly be going on on a Sunday Night of a holiday weekend?
Little did I know…
As I meandered around the house unpacking yet another box, Trophy Wife plopped down on our computer and started chatting on MSN Messenger using my id. While chatting with my buddy Craig, he got word of a news bulletin, and I was able to find out last weekends big news story in a rather unusual fashion,…. Through an online chat.. Here is the transcript….
Craig says:
OH NO!!!!!!
Craig says:
NATE!!!
Nate says:
what?
Craig says:
NATE!!!
Craig says:
GET NATE!!!!
Craig says:
Charles Nelson Reilly, Tony-Winning Comic Actor, Dies at 76
Craig says:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/28/theater/28reilly.html
Nate says:
get the heck outta here!
Craig says:
he died friday!
And that is how I got my news that fateful Sunday night. Today we present a multimedia extravaganza… a salute to Charles Nelson Reilly!
Chuck had been mentioned in several prior columns, including this past January 11th when a Charles Nelson Reilly t-shirt was the punch line to an otherwise true story of a man leaving a gay bar near my old Roselle house who showed an interest in getting to know ol’ Nate a little better.
Since I have been a Match Game fan from the days I was a little pisher, I thought today’s column would be a multimedia salute to Chuck. I used to love watching him bicker with Brett Somers, they were like a wacky aunt and uncle. As a kid I was totally oblivious to his gayness... heck I was decoyed when he would appear on Tattletales with one of his female acting friends.
We begin the salute with a radio interview I did with Gene Rayburn back in 1990 where he spoke very highly of the contributions Chuck made to that legendary game show. This originally appeared on the blog on January 19, 2006...
Here is a clip of Chuck on Match Game when Charles helped a woman set a new record as the show’s biggest winner.
Here is a clip where Chuck misbehaved and was sent down to the lower tier!
Here is Chuck on a 1972 episode of Ive Got a Secret in the pre-Match Game era.. Check out the other game show legends on this episode…not to mention a very very young and very very hot Price is Right model Janice Pennington!
Special thanks to Mr. Match Game for providing those 3 clips to You Tube!
And finally in his later years, Chuck did a one man show called The Life of Reilly. It was made into a movie last year that has been shown periodically around the country and will be released on dvd later this year. Like Tony Randall, Chuck was the kind of guy who didn’t want to be known for just his TV work… Chuck was an acting teacher and also was involved in many successful theatrical productions. In this trailer for his movie, he has a very interesting way of talking about breaking out of that TV persona…. We have a no obscenity rule on this blog.. But due to the context of this clip I will make a rare exception. This is not safe for work, and watch out for the salty language!
In conclusion - here is the quote posted by Pumpstradamus, a take on the traditional Jewish exchange with a mourner...
z"l C.N.R., ha'makom yenachem et'chem b'toch sha'ar avalay broadway v'matchgame.
Little did I know…
As I meandered around the house unpacking yet another box, Trophy Wife plopped down on our computer and started chatting on MSN Messenger using my id. While chatting with my buddy Craig, he got word of a news bulletin, and I was able to find out last weekends big news story in a rather unusual fashion,…. Through an online chat.. Here is the transcript….
Craig says:
OH NO!!!!!!
Craig says:
NATE!!!
Nate says:
what?
Craig says:
NATE!!!
Craig says:
GET NATE!!!!
Craig says:
Charles Nelson Reilly, Tony-Winning Comic Actor, Dies at 76
Craig says:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/28/theater/28reilly.html
Nate says:
get the heck outta here!
Craig says:
he died friday!
And that is how I got my news that fateful Sunday night. Today we present a multimedia extravaganza… a salute to Charles Nelson Reilly!
Chuck had been mentioned in several prior columns, including this past January 11th when a Charles Nelson Reilly t-shirt was the punch line to an otherwise true story of a man leaving a gay bar near my old Roselle house who showed an interest in getting to know ol’ Nate a little better.
Since I have been a Match Game fan from the days I was a little pisher, I thought today’s column would be a multimedia salute to Chuck. I used to love watching him bicker with Brett Somers, they were like a wacky aunt and uncle. As a kid I was totally oblivious to his gayness... heck I was decoyed when he would appear on Tattletales with one of his female acting friends.
We begin the salute with a radio interview I did with Gene Rayburn back in 1990 where he spoke very highly of the contributions Chuck made to that legendary game show. This originally appeared on the blog on January 19, 2006...
Here is a clip of Chuck on Match Game when Charles helped a woman set a new record as the show’s biggest winner.
Here is a clip where Chuck misbehaved and was sent down to the lower tier!
Here is Chuck on a 1972 episode of Ive Got a Secret in the pre-Match Game era.. Check out the other game show legends on this episode…not to mention a very very young and very very hot Price is Right model Janice Pennington!
Special thanks to Mr. Match Game for providing those 3 clips to You Tube!
And finally in his later years, Chuck did a one man show called The Life of Reilly. It was made into a movie last year that has been shown periodically around the country and will be released on dvd later this year. Like Tony Randall, Chuck was the kind of guy who didn’t want to be known for just his TV work… Chuck was an acting teacher and also was involved in many successful theatrical productions. In this trailer for his movie, he has a very interesting way of talking about breaking out of that TV persona…. We have a no obscenity rule on this blog.. But due to the context of this clip I will make a rare exception. This is not safe for work, and watch out for the salty language!
In conclusion - here is the quote posted by Pumpstradamus, a take on the traditional Jewish exchange with a mourner...
z"l C.N.R., ha'makom yenachem et'chem b'toch sha'ar avalay broadway v'matchgame.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
TV Quarterly Report Part I - Jacks and Noahs
Well folks it seems like we missed our last TV 1st quarter report with all the hullaballoo involving my big move… However now that the TV season has officially concluded with the crowning of the new American Idol and the stunning conclusion to Lost.. Its time to look back. By the way we will have the Baseball quarterly report within a wk or so for those of you who have been waiting for that.. But this past week’s TV season finales were so stunning.. I had to rearrange the columns a little bit.
TV really has changed.. mostly due to the original shows being cranked out by the cable networks combined with the popularity of the reality shows and serialized programs. The old days of network seasons running from September to May are as out of date as the small TV Guide Fall Preview magazine. Now, networks realize that they have to shoe - horn the shorter seasons of the popular shows so in reality the season really seems to start in January when American Idol and 24 get underway. Why start in September…. You have the baseball playoffs and The World Series.. Then you have a few sweeps wks in November before the holiday season starts… it seems that TV really is a vast wasteland till January! HBO schedules its popular shows like The Sopranos whenever they damn well please, and now based on the fact that AI, the most popular show runs on its own schedule.. the networks have followed suit. Jack Shepherd’s bizarre airport reunion with Kate that served as the finale to the 3rd season of Lost will not continue until next January.
Today I am going to float yet another one of my bizarre Lost theories. . Just remember.. I have had some on the money predictions in this column… especially the recent one that the family of the late St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock would sue the bar where he got drunk prior to his fatal crash. What I didn’t predict is that they would sue the driver of the disabled car whose life was saved when the intoxicated Hancock smashed into a tow truck that was helping the driver. I sympathize with the Hancock family over their loss, but grief has overtaken the brain cells and common sense cells. The Hancocks are suing Justin Tolar saying that he didn’t properly maintain his car which caused him to stall out on the side of the road! Of course if Hancock’s car had not been blocked by the tow truck he would have smacked right into Tolar. Had Hancock survived and went on trial for Tolar’s death, would his lawyers defense be that it’s Tolar’s fault because he didn’t maintain his car?? Hancock’s blood alcohol level was double the legal amount.. he was on a cell phone.. and wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and now Tolar has to dig into his pockets to pay a lawyer to defend himself against Hancock’s high powered lawyer! And if he doesn’t have the money to fight the lawsuit.. they could win a judgment against him and put a lien on his house! Unbelievable!
LOST/ DÉJÀ VU TIE IN Lets address the Lost finale first… and toss in my own rogue theory. I am a really big fan of Jerry Bruckheimer… This is the man who has brought us The Amazing Race, the CSIs and every other one hour non serialized show on CBS.. One of these days on CSI Miami David Caruso will prepare to say an over acted dramatic line and will reach in his pocket for his sunglasses… only to find out that they aren’t there. I can just see him fumbling around for them while not being able to spit out his brilliant line that tosses the show to the opening theme song. “Mr. Wolfe, my glasses appear to be….. Missing….”
Anyway, last summer Bruckheimer produced the movie Déjà Vu which brings up some interesting questions about what really went down on Lost. While all the internet bulletin boards say that the flashbacks were flash forwards… I have another idea.. In Déjà Vu, the main character Doug Karlin hooks up with the FBI to go back in time to prevent terrorists from blowing up a boat. However, at the end of the movie it occurs to the viewer that Karlin kept going back in time until he got it right,… so what we saw in the movie Déjà Vu was not really the first time he was on this mission… (He kept leaving clues for himself for the next time around.. Go see the movie if this is confusing!)
Well.. What happens if Lost is the same idea? Karlin was on a mission and had to keep going back till he got it right… maybe Jack was on a mission to go to the island until he “got it right”. Do you really think ABC would allow the show to become a tale of the Losties post island after a similar concept flopped so badly on “The Nine”? My theory is the flashback was not a flash forward…. and Jack is on a mission on that island until he gets it right. Therefore he crashed on the island knowing all along that he had something he had to do.. And Kate knew him and is in on it.. I know there is an issue with the very modern cell phone he was using in the flash back/forward… . Just remember that cell phones produced in Asia and Europe are much more advanced than the ones sold here, and a lot of people here like to import their cell phones.. I read the Washington Post Tech column - some of these phones of the future are so advanced they can core a apple! Another thing to keep in mind that all of the plane crash survivors on the island are basically unhappy people. Hurley feels cursed after he won the lottery.. The pregnant Korean woman cheated on her husband.. Rose has cancer.. Locke can’t walk.. Etc. There could be something to the theory that they are happier in their little island society. Maybe they were all on a field trip for Tsuris Anonymous.
There are 3 characters who make me wonder about this scenario… Jack, Kate, and Juliet… Lets say he would have gotten off with Juliet as was the original deal, before Locke blew up the boat. Would he have wanted to come back for the rest of them? Yet here he is back in the real world with Kate and he feels that he has some unfinished business. And Kate is always eager to go back and rescue people… now she’s happy to be back home? Unless of course they were rescued and USA time doesn’t correspond with Island time and they are at a point where Jack’s dad is alive and Kate has not been arrested for murder!
The question in my mind is who is to say that the first 3 seasons are not his “return mission”? And if there is an agenda…. maybe it behooves Kate and Jack to act like they don’t know each other… Of course, the whole agenda wouldn't involve rescuing the Losties.. They weren’t stranded there before their own plane crash. . (And Jack actually makes a comment about surviving another plane crash and not caring about the other passengers.. Hmmm) Maybe something else is on the island that he came back for.. And now is the time for him to leave with “it“….. Its unlikely it’s the others… since Jack kicked some major Ben ass… Or.. Maybe there was someone else somewhere in that crazy island? Or Survivors of Dharma? Or maybe it’s a time travel thing where he can save the people that Ben murdered. Hey, it worked on Heroes where Hiro went to the future to figure out how to change the past.. Why can’t Lost use it too?
To paraphrase eBay…. What is “it” that Jack needs to bring back? And it looks like he found “it” since he is very eager to get the heck outta there. Could “it” be Juliet? They’re both brilliant doctors…plus Elizabeth Mitchell is hotter than a pistol!! (While youre renting Deja vu.. Pick up the movie Gia)… He had a little smoochie kiss w/ her but moments later did tell Kate that he loves her. Maybe his mission is to bring her back because she holds the key to some amazing medical breakthrough in the real world that the others recruited her to do for them? She did pull off some incredible scientific feats prior to her departure to Lost Island.
SPEAKING OF JACK.. It looks like Jack Bauer and his compatriots at 24 are getting the shark jumping gear ready. They haven’t jumped it just yet.. But they are on the beach getting their flippers ready.. That is of course unless they can turn things around with a “new concept” we are being promised for 2008. Maybe they will have hot babes holding 24 suitcase bombs and each week Jack Bauer asks another one to “open the case”. One highlight was Powers Boothe rendition of Noah Daniels.. The craziest vice president since Dick Cheney. His overacting was actually getting enjoyable and the way his lovely blonde assistant totally cheated on him with a spy when he thought they were in love actually led to the creation of a fascinating new character. This after they wasted the talents of the Logans and Aaron Pierce from last season in one exciting episode that had zero follow up. I’m giving 24 a free pass for this season.. But things better pick up next year. After all, how long can I go on watching 24 live and Heroes on NBC.com on Tuesday might? And those of us who do that, have to be social outcasts every Tuesday to avoid any watercooler Heroes chat.
SPEAKING OF NOAH - So the horned rim glasses guy in Heroes is named Noah, eh… Wow.. I Just loved that finale.. Although I did get a bit distracted when I saw that both the cheerleader and Ali Larter were finally in a scene together. Va va voom!! “Save The Cheerleader Save the World” became quite relevant at the end of the season when it became obvious that the earlier episode that kept her away from the power hungry brain eating Sylar prevented him from acquiring her talent of being un-killable. You gotta give the producers credit.. They took an incredibly preposterous idea and turned it into a wildly entertaining television show.. I mean this episode featured home nurse Peter Petrelli finding out that his patient from the first episode knew all along about Petrelli’s role in the upcoming explosion? And he has the ability to communicate with time traveling Peter Petrelli and regular time Peter Petrelli at the same time. And at the end, ol Nate turns out to be a good man… Brilliant! Now we gotta find out if Sylar survives… I think Zachary Quinto already clinched his Emmy. And who is the boogie man that the little cutie pie/human lojack was speaking of? And what is the true identity of the character who can change her/his appearance at will? My only complaint is they didn’t do too much with that nice Jewish Girl Hannah Gitelman aka Wireless who was in and out in one episode. Heroes is currently the best show on TV.. Even better than 24... The Heroes finale has less watercooler talk than Lost.. But definitely a fantastic season!
Coming Soon: In Part II, we will talk about other new shows that caught my fancy this season, and a look ahead at the new TV season.
Now time for the clip of the week.... and our salute to the retiring game show legend Bob Barker. Today we present the first segment of the episode that started it all... keep an eye out for the first item up for bids, and what the legal rights holders did to the episode to make Bob happy!
Speaking of game show legends.. I just heard as I was posting this that my old pal Charles Nelson Reilly has passed away. Here's a pic of Chuck to look at before you watch Bob!
TV really has changed.. mostly due to the original shows being cranked out by the cable networks combined with the popularity of the reality shows and serialized programs. The old days of network seasons running from September to May are as out of date as the small TV Guide Fall Preview magazine. Now, networks realize that they have to shoe - horn the shorter seasons of the popular shows so in reality the season really seems to start in January when American Idol and 24 get underway. Why start in September…. You have the baseball playoffs and The World Series.. Then you have a few sweeps wks in November before the holiday season starts… it seems that TV really is a vast wasteland till January! HBO schedules its popular shows like The Sopranos whenever they damn well please, and now based on the fact that AI, the most popular show runs on its own schedule.. the networks have followed suit. Jack Shepherd’s bizarre airport reunion with Kate that served as the finale to the 3rd season of Lost will not continue until next January.
Today I am going to float yet another one of my bizarre Lost theories. . Just remember.. I have had some on the money predictions in this column… especially the recent one that the family of the late St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock would sue the bar where he got drunk prior to his fatal crash. What I didn’t predict is that they would sue the driver of the disabled car whose life was saved when the intoxicated Hancock smashed into a tow truck that was helping the driver. I sympathize with the Hancock family over their loss, but grief has overtaken the brain cells and common sense cells. The Hancocks are suing Justin Tolar saying that he didn’t properly maintain his car which caused him to stall out on the side of the road! Of course if Hancock’s car had not been blocked by the tow truck he would have smacked right into Tolar. Had Hancock survived and went on trial for Tolar’s death, would his lawyers defense be that it’s Tolar’s fault because he didn’t maintain his car?? Hancock’s blood alcohol level was double the legal amount.. he was on a cell phone.. and wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and now Tolar has to dig into his pockets to pay a lawyer to defend himself against Hancock’s high powered lawyer! And if he doesn’t have the money to fight the lawsuit.. they could win a judgment against him and put a lien on his house! Unbelievable!
LOST/ DÉJÀ VU TIE IN Lets address the Lost finale first… and toss in my own rogue theory. I am a really big fan of Jerry Bruckheimer… This is the man who has brought us The Amazing Race, the CSIs and every other one hour non serialized show on CBS.. One of these days on CSI Miami David Caruso will prepare to say an over acted dramatic line and will reach in his pocket for his sunglasses… only to find out that they aren’t there. I can just see him fumbling around for them while not being able to spit out his brilliant line that tosses the show to the opening theme song. “Mr. Wolfe, my glasses appear to be….. Missing….”
Anyway, last summer Bruckheimer produced the movie Déjà Vu which brings up some interesting questions about what really went down on Lost. While all the internet bulletin boards say that the flashbacks were flash forwards… I have another idea.. In Déjà Vu, the main character Doug Karlin hooks up with the FBI to go back in time to prevent terrorists from blowing up a boat. However, at the end of the movie it occurs to the viewer that Karlin kept going back in time until he got it right,… so what we saw in the movie Déjà Vu was not really the first time he was on this mission… (He kept leaving clues for himself for the next time around.. Go see the movie if this is confusing!)
Well.. What happens if Lost is the same idea? Karlin was on a mission and had to keep going back till he got it right… maybe Jack was on a mission to go to the island until he “got it right”. Do you really think ABC would allow the show to become a tale of the Losties post island after a similar concept flopped so badly on “The Nine”? My theory is the flashback was not a flash forward…. and Jack is on a mission on that island until he gets it right. Therefore he crashed on the island knowing all along that he had something he had to do.. And Kate knew him and is in on it.. I know there is an issue with the very modern cell phone he was using in the flash back/forward… . Just remember that cell phones produced in Asia and Europe are much more advanced than the ones sold here, and a lot of people here like to import their cell phones.. I read the Washington Post Tech column - some of these phones of the future are so advanced they can core a apple! Another thing to keep in mind that all of the plane crash survivors on the island are basically unhappy people. Hurley feels cursed after he won the lottery.. The pregnant Korean woman cheated on her husband.. Rose has cancer.. Locke can’t walk.. Etc. There could be something to the theory that they are happier in their little island society. Maybe they were all on a field trip for Tsuris Anonymous.
There are 3 characters who make me wonder about this scenario… Jack, Kate, and Juliet… Lets say he would have gotten off with Juliet as was the original deal, before Locke blew up the boat. Would he have wanted to come back for the rest of them? Yet here he is back in the real world with Kate and he feels that he has some unfinished business. And Kate is always eager to go back and rescue people… now she’s happy to be back home? Unless of course they were rescued and USA time doesn’t correspond with Island time and they are at a point where Jack’s dad is alive and Kate has not been arrested for murder!
The question in my mind is who is to say that the first 3 seasons are not his “return mission”? And if there is an agenda…. maybe it behooves Kate and Jack to act like they don’t know each other… Of course, the whole agenda wouldn't involve rescuing the Losties.. They weren’t stranded there before their own plane crash. . (And Jack actually makes a comment about surviving another plane crash and not caring about the other passengers.. Hmmm) Maybe something else is on the island that he came back for.. And now is the time for him to leave with “it“….. Its unlikely it’s the others… since Jack kicked some major Ben ass… Or.. Maybe there was someone else somewhere in that crazy island? Or Survivors of Dharma? Or maybe it’s a time travel thing where he can save the people that Ben murdered. Hey, it worked on Heroes where Hiro went to the future to figure out how to change the past.. Why can’t Lost use it too?
To paraphrase eBay…. What is “it” that Jack needs to bring back? And it looks like he found “it” since he is very eager to get the heck outta there. Could “it” be Juliet? They’re both brilliant doctors…plus Elizabeth Mitchell is hotter than a pistol!! (While youre renting Deja vu.. Pick up the movie Gia)… He had a little smoochie kiss w/ her but moments later did tell Kate that he loves her. Maybe his mission is to bring her back because she holds the key to some amazing medical breakthrough in the real world that the others recruited her to do for them? She did pull off some incredible scientific feats prior to her departure to Lost Island.
SPEAKING OF JACK.. It looks like Jack Bauer and his compatriots at 24 are getting the shark jumping gear ready. They haven’t jumped it just yet.. But they are on the beach getting their flippers ready.. That is of course unless they can turn things around with a “new concept” we are being promised for 2008. Maybe they will have hot babes holding 24 suitcase bombs and each week Jack Bauer asks another one to “open the case”. One highlight was Powers Boothe rendition of Noah Daniels.. The craziest vice president since Dick Cheney. His overacting was actually getting enjoyable and the way his lovely blonde assistant totally cheated on him with a spy when he thought they were in love actually led to the creation of a fascinating new character. This after they wasted the talents of the Logans and Aaron Pierce from last season in one exciting episode that had zero follow up. I’m giving 24 a free pass for this season.. But things better pick up next year. After all, how long can I go on watching 24 live and Heroes on NBC.com on Tuesday might? And those of us who do that, have to be social outcasts every Tuesday to avoid any watercooler Heroes chat.
SPEAKING OF NOAH - So the horned rim glasses guy in Heroes is named Noah, eh… Wow.. I Just loved that finale.. Although I did get a bit distracted when I saw that both the cheerleader and Ali Larter were finally in a scene together. Va va voom!! “Save The Cheerleader Save the World” became quite relevant at the end of the season when it became obvious that the earlier episode that kept her away from the power hungry brain eating Sylar prevented him from acquiring her talent of being un-killable. You gotta give the producers credit.. They took an incredibly preposterous idea and turned it into a wildly entertaining television show.. I mean this episode featured home nurse Peter Petrelli finding out that his patient from the first episode knew all along about Petrelli’s role in the upcoming explosion? And he has the ability to communicate with time traveling Peter Petrelli and regular time Peter Petrelli at the same time. And at the end, ol Nate turns out to be a good man… Brilliant! Now we gotta find out if Sylar survives… I think Zachary Quinto already clinched his Emmy. And who is the boogie man that the little cutie pie/human lojack was speaking of? And what is the true identity of the character who can change her/his appearance at will? My only complaint is they didn’t do too much with that nice Jewish Girl Hannah Gitelman aka Wireless who was in and out in one episode. Heroes is currently the best show on TV.. Even better than 24... The Heroes finale has less watercooler talk than Lost.. But definitely a fantastic season!
Coming Soon: In Part II, we will talk about other new shows that caught my fancy this season, and a look ahead at the new TV season.
Now time for the clip of the week.... and our salute to the retiring game show legend Bob Barker. Today we present the first segment of the episode that started it all... keep an eye out for the first item up for bids, and what the legal rights holders did to the episode to make Bob happy!
Speaking of game show legends.. I just heard as I was posting this that my old pal Charles Nelson Reilly has passed away. Here's a pic of Chuck to look at before you watch Bob!
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The Misadventures of Getting a Hotel Room for 20 Dollars Less
Greetings folks from Sharon Massachusetts where today’s column is originating from….… Trophy Wife and I arrived here very late the other night to attend a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday Morning. If you ever go to Sharon be careful about the deceptively cheap Econo Lodge. We left Edison Friday night and hit the highway at Old Post Road and Route 1.… and even though the web said it would take 4:20, 5 hours later we arrived at the Econo Lodge in Sharon, MA which is at the intersection of Old Post Road… and Route 1! We arrived at 2am.. and I had told them we would be arriving late in the evening. .. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by the man behind the desk who was wearing an eye patch that reminded me of a cross between Moshe Dayan and Mikahel from Lost.
By the way check out the archives from May 2006 about my Lost theories, and you will see how I nailed it on how the whole Dharma/Others relationship parallels the Settlers/American Indians.. although with with a very different ending. It was cool to see how Ben was born - I fully expected his dad to take the newborn and toss him across the highway like a football just like the actor’s other persona - Napoleon Dynamite’s Uncle Rico… “They shoulda put me in… we would have been state champs!” And speaking of dynamite.. Danielle who seems to be a regular pro with TNT,…. Is she also little Annie in the Ben flashbacks? Or maybe the little girl who can track things on Heroes? And is Linderman (Malcolm McDowell) who cured Mrs. Peterelli’s paralysis responsible for Locke’s ability to walk?
And the hour before Lost last Wednesday, while the rest of the universe was watching American Idol… I, along with probably only Mandy Patinkin’s family watched Criminal Minds on CBS. What a disturbing story.. An obsessive cop from Kansas City contacts the FBI when he notices prostitutes and vagrants seemingly disappearing off the streets. It turns out nobody cares about these poor nebbishy people who as it turns out have all been abducted by a wacko. That same day Opie and Anthony had a homeless guy on who talked about wanting to have sex with Condoleeza Rice and now in this post Imus PC era... everybody is blasting O and A for that show, and now they are suspended from their satellite broadcast for a month! The truth is the streets of America are filled with mentally ill homeless people whose crazy utterances are a sign that they have a lot of problems. Why exactly is this O and A’s fault that this one guy’s comment is quite representative of the mental illness that permeates people living on the street… and that we have turned our backs on these people?
So back to Patch at The Econo Lodge.. At first he couldn’t find our reservation.. As the clock ticked closer to 2;30 in the morning…after about several minutes of fumbling around he found my name and gave us a computerized key. Usually motor lodges have parking spots right in front of the room.. But this one didn’t;.. We parked in front of a different building and proceeded to shlep out stuff up a flight of stairs knowing that services at the synagogue were going to start approximately 6 and a half hours later and all we wanted to do was hit the sack and sleep.
At the door, Trophy Wife scanned the key and the little green light went on allowing us to open the door.. Which we did.. Only to realize that the chain was up! Being it was so late and we were so tired I thought I was seeing things.. We looked at the room number and saw it matched the number 420 on the key envelope. Too stunned to believe what I had just seen, I grabbed the key card and swiped it a second time. Again... the chain was blocking us.. “Uh Nate.. “ said Trophy Wife.. “I believe somebody is already in our room”… “How can that be?” I proclaimed loud enough to wake a person up and noticed the room was filled with somebody’s stuff.. Yet that somebody who was in the room very silent.. Asleep… dead… or possibly crouched behind the door with a gun.
As we walked back to the hotel desk Trophy Wife asked if we could just spring an extra few bucks and go to the Holiday Inn across the road… However since this hotel was sold out.. I was sure the much nicer and very tempting Holiday Inn was sold out too and I just didn’t have the energy to shlep stuff back to the car and across the street. We decided to give Patch one more chance hoping he just made a late night boo boo.
Back to Patch we went.. And I could swear he winked at my wife. I explained the dilemma and he was quite stunned.. OK he said.. We have 2 no shows.. So I’ll give you the key to one of those rooms.. As he was getting the key cards ready I asked him the 64,000 dollar question of how this possibly could have happened.. never realizing his answer sealed his fate. “Oh you see” Patch replied…”sometimes after we clean the room we THINK the people check out of the room.. But then they come back later in the day to spend another night here”.
Huh? Obviously I wasn’t thinking clearly because that should have set off the warning sirens.. And hopefully it will for anyone who wanders here after they google Econolodge in Sharon MA… Too tired to even think straight we trudged back up the stairs to room number 2. Trophy was begging me to just forget it and go to the Holiday Inn and if I had thought about the ludicrous logic of a motel not knowing who is staying in which room I would have bolted momentarily.. Especially since anyone could come into our room if we didn’t leave the chain up. We arrived at room no, 2 with our stuff… swiped the key card and…. Nothing,…. Did it again.. Nothing. It was almost like a buzzer went off like when 4 people overbid on The Price is Right. Again we checked to see that the room and key card matched.. And it did..
So it was off to the Holiday Inn… where we had a very short sleep after we finally got into our room after 3 oclock in the morning… and after all this craziness I didn’t fall asleep until 4:20. I did go back to the EconoLodge at around 245, and in the nicest possibly way told Norman Bates Jr. that he failed his test and I would not be staying at his establishment, He was nice about it and apologized profusely but all I wanted was a reassurance that my credit card wouldn’t be billed.. I stupidly billed it on a credit/debit card and so far no charges are there! If they try to charge me.. I’m posting links to today’s column on every hotel review/Massachusetts tourism website!
Hours later we attended the bar mitzvah. The kid did a nice job, and the neat thing about going to services across the country is its like a Broadway Musical.. They always sing the same songs except for services for Reform and the ultra ultra Orthodox who don’t sing the same tunes. At this service, it was the same comforting familiar songs… including the usual tune for the last song of the service.. Adon Olam. As they got to the last line of the song… I bolted out of my chair with joyful enthusiasm that services had concluded at the manageable hour of 11:15... But before I could do my traditional end of service Porky Pig Ibbidy Ibbidy Ibbidy…. Th Th That’s All Folks!…. there was silence… everybody but me was still seated… and then I realized that the Rabbi was about to make his speech… Oops…
Interestingly enough, at the buffet line I introduced myself to a woman in line in front of me who I had heard lives in Edison. The woman mentioned something about belonging to the same national women’s organization that Trophy Wife is very involved in. As I mentioned to this woman that my wife belongs to that group, she saw out of the corner of my eye that Trophy Wife had just gotten on line. With sheer jubilation she yelled out to a familiar face.. my wife..… “Trophy Trophy! How are you?” A hearing impaired gentleman in line looked at me, as I sneakily cut in front of the Edison woman's reunion, and asked me “Kosher?”… “No” I replied.. “She said Trophy…. Not traify!”
I really liked the synagogue and one of the highlights of the Rabbi’s speech was when he started talking about Marshall McLuhan! As soon as he mentioned M Mc.. (not to be confused with Malcolm McDowell or Melanie McGuire) I looked to my left and looked to my right in sheer terror and noticed with amazement how gutsy this Rabbi was to quote and analyze the writings of Marshall McLuhan… without any concern of who might rise from the woodwork to rebut his views on Marshall McLuhan. If you saw the movie Annie Hall. (it aired this Wed on TMC opposite Criminal Minds and The Price is Right Prime Time Adios Bob Barker Special) Woody Allen is in line at a movie theater and a know it all in line tries to impress his movie date by analyzing something Marshall McLuhan had said. Just then from out of the woodwork, stepped out - Marshall McLuhan right into the movie line… and he goes right up to the know it all and starts to berate the poor shlub in front of his chickie by telling him he knows nothing about Marshall McLuhan! (A hearing impaired gentleman in line asked.. "Mr. Jew Fan?" "No" replied a moviegoer "He said McLuhan!"
The Rabbi bravely continued with his Marshall McLuhan comments despite the historical potential repercussions.. But thankfully…. nobody said anything.. You could hear crickets the room was so silent….. And as I scanned the room it occurred to me that if Marshall McLuhan happened to be in Sharon, MA at that very moment… he was not at that synagogue!!
Perhaps he was still sleeping at a room at the Econo Lodge?
Now time for the Clip of the Week.. This week we begin our salute to game show legend Bob Barker who is retiring next month after a 50 year career. Here is a goofball who has an obsession with …..the number 420! Reread the column and yours truly may have peppered a few here too!
And PS - Mr. McLuhan died on Dec, 31, 1980.
By the way check out the archives from May 2006 about my Lost theories, and you will see how I nailed it on how the whole Dharma/Others relationship parallels the Settlers/American Indians.. although with with a very different ending. It was cool to see how Ben was born - I fully expected his dad to take the newborn and toss him across the highway like a football just like the actor’s other persona - Napoleon Dynamite’s Uncle Rico… “They shoulda put me in… we would have been state champs!” And speaking of dynamite.. Danielle who seems to be a regular pro with TNT,…. Is she also little Annie in the Ben flashbacks? Or maybe the little girl who can track things on Heroes? And is Linderman (Malcolm McDowell) who cured Mrs. Peterelli’s paralysis responsible for Locke’s ability to walk?
And the hour before Lost last Wednesday, while the rest of the universe was watching American Idol… I, along with probably only Mandy Patinkin’s family watched Criminal Minds on CBS. What a disturbing story.. An obsessive cop from Kansas City contacts the FBI when he notices prostitutes and vagrants seemingly disappearing off the streets. It turns out nobody cares about these poor nebbishy people who as it turns out have all been abducted by a wacko. That same day Opie and Anthony had a homeless guy on who talked about wanting to have sex with Condoleeza Rice and now in this post Imus PC era... everybody is blasting O and A for that show, and now they are suspended from their satellite broadcast for a month! The truth is the streets of America are filled with mentally ill homeless people whose crazy utterances are a sign that they have a lot of problems. Why exactly is this O and A’s fault that this one guy’s comment is quite representative of the mental illness that permeates people living on the street… and that we have turned our backs on these people?
So back to Patch at The Econo Lodge.. At first he couldn’t find our reservation.. As the clock ticked closer to 2;30 in the morning…after about several minutes of fumbling around he found my name and gave us a computerized key. Usually motor lodges have parking spots right in front of the room.. But this one didn’t;.. We parked in front of a different building and proceeded to shlep out stuff up a flight of stairs knowing that services at the synagogue were going to start approximately 6 and a half hours later and all we wanted to do was hit the sack and sleep.
At the door, Trophy Wife scanned the key and the little green light went on allowing us to open the door.. Which we did.. Only to realize that the chain was up! Being it was so late and we were so tired I thought I was seeing things.. We looked at the room number and saw it matched the number 420 on the key envelope. Too stunned to believe what I had just seen, I grabbed the key card and swiped it a second time. Again... the chain was blocking us.. “Uh Nate.. “ said Trophy Wife.. “I believe somebody is already in our room”… “How can that be?” I proclaimed loud enough to wake a person up and noticed the room was filled with somebody’s stuff.. Yet that somebody who was in the room very silent.. Asleep… dead… or possibly crouched behind the door with a gun.
As we walked back to the hotel desk Trophy Wife asked if we could just spring an extra few bucks and go to the Holiday Inn across the road… However since this hotel was sold out.. I was sure the much nicer and very tempting Holiday Inn was sold out too and I just didn’t have the energy to shlep stuff back to the car and across the street. We decided to give Patch one more chance hoping he just made a late night boo boo.
Back to Patch we went.. And I could swear he winked at my wife. I explained the dilemma and he was quite stunned.. OK he said.. We have 2 no shows.. So I’ll give you the key to one of those rooms.. As he was getting the key cards ready I asked him the 64,000 dollar question of how this possibly could have happened.. never realizing his answer sealed his fate. “Oh you see” Patch replied…”sometimes after we clean the room we THINK the people check out of the room.. But then they come back later in the day to spend another night here”.
Huh? Obviously I wasn’t thinking clearly because that should have set off the warning sirens.. And hopefully it will for anyone who wanders here after they google Econolodge in Sharon MA… Too tired to even think straight we trudged back up the stairs to room number 2. Trophy was begging me to just forget it and go to the Holiday Inn and if I had thought about the ludicrous logic of a motel not knowing who is staying in which room I would have bolted momentarily.. Especially since anyone could come into our room if we didn’t leave the chain up. We arrived at room no, 2 with our stuff… swiped the key card and…. Nothing,…. Did it again.. Nothing. It was almost like a buzzer went off like when 4 people overbid on The Price is Right. Again we checked to see that the room and key card matched.. And it did..
So it was off to the Holiday Inn… where we had a very short sleep after we finally got into our room after 3 oclock in the morning… and after all this craziness I didn’t fall asleep until 4:20. I did go back to the EconoLodge at around 245, and in the nicest possibly way told Norman Bates Jr. that he failed his test and I would not be staying at his establishment, He was nice about it and apologized profusely but all I wanted was a reassurance that my credit card wouldn’t be billed.. I stupidly billed it on a credit/debit card and so far no charges are there! If they try to charge me.. I’m posting links to today’s column on every hotel review/Massachusetts tourism website!
Hours later we attended the bar mitzvah. The kid did a nice job, and the neat thing about going to services across the country is its like a Broadway Musical.. They always sing the same songs except for services for Reform and the ultra ultra Orthodox who don’t sing the same tunes. At this service, it was the same comforting familiar songs… including the usual tune for the last song of the service.. Adon Olam. As they got to the last line of the song… I bolted out of my chair with joyful enthusiasm that services had concluded at the manageable hour of 11:15... But before I could do my traditional end of service Porky Pig Ibbidy Ibbidy Ibbidy…. Th Th That’s All Folks!…. there was silence… everybody but me was still seated… and then I realized that the Rabbi was about to make his speech… Oops…
Interestingly enough, at the buffet line I introduced myself to a woman in line in front of me who I had heard lives in Edison. The woman mentioned something about belonging to the same national women’s organization that Trophy Wife is very involved in. As I mentioned to this woman that my wife belongs to that group, she saw out of the corner of my eye that Trophy Wife had just gotten on line. With sheer jubilation she yelled out to a familiar face.. my wife..… “Trophy Trophy! How are you?” A hearing impaired gentleman in line looked at me, as I sneakily cut in front of the Edison woman's reunion, and asked me “Kosher?”… “No” I replied.. “She said Trophy…. Not traify!”
I really liked the synagogue and one of the highlights of the Rabbi’s speech was when he started talking about Marshall McLuhan! As soon as he mentioned M Mc.. (not to be confused with Malcolm McDowell or Melanie McGuire) I looked to my left and looked to my right in sheer terror and noticed with amazement how gutsy this Rabbi was to quote and analyze the writings of Marshall McLuhan… without any concern of who might rise from the woodwork to rebut his views on Marshall McLuhan. If you saw the movie Annie Hall. (it aired this Wed on TMC opposite Criminal Minds and The Price is Right Prime Time Adios Bob Barker Special) Woody Allen is in line at a movie theater and a know it all in line tries to impress his movie date by analyzing something Marshall McLuhan had said. Just then from out of the woodwork, stepped out - Marshall McLuhan right into the movie line… and he goes right up to the know it all and starts to berate the poor shlub in front of his chickie by telling him he knows nothing about Marshall McLuhan! (A hearing impaired gentleman in line asked.. "Mr. Jew Fan?" "No" replied a moviegoer "He said McLuhan!"
The Rabbi bravely continued with his Marshall McLuhan comments despite the historical potential repercussions.. But thankfully…. nobody said anything.. You could hear crickets the room was so silent….. And as I scanned the room it occurred to me that if Marshall McLuhan happened to be in Sharon, MA at that very moment… he was not at that synagogue!!
Perhaps he was still sleeping at a room at the Econo Lodge?
Now time for the Clip of the Week.. This week we begin our salute to game show legend Bob Barker who is retiring next month after a 50 year career. Here is a goofball who has an obsession with …..the number 420! Reread the column and yours truly may have peppered a few here too!
And PS - Mr. McLuhan died on Dec, 31, 1980.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Accountability - Our 100th Column!
Welcome to our 100th column… and the first one written entirely at our new house.. The prior 2 columns… The Home Sweet Home… and the Ballad of Melanie McGuire which were posted after we moved had actually been written in advance..
This past month we learned thanks to sacrificial lamb Don Imus that the word “ho” is unacceptable. As a result, both Santa Claus and The Jolly Green Giant are now forbidden to say “ho ho ho”, and as part of the ban, Don Ho promptly dropped dead.
I learned a lot about accountability some years back during a period where I was unemployed. During that time, I had more time on my hands to take care of stuff and it amazed me how often people screwed things up, yet were able to keep their jobs. I guess I still see that nowadays, but I just brush it off. But in today’s column, I would like to explore the theme of being held accountable for one’s actions.
HIRO BEING A HERO ON HEROES - We’ll start with a light topic - Weren’t the producers of Heroes irresponsible last week with the episode where time traveler Hiro is told to go back and change history to prevent a massive bomb from exploding in New York City. Hiro traveled to the future and ran into himself there …aka Future Hiro…. Future Hiro reminded Past Hiro that he must go back to “Save the Cheerleader Save The World”. Apparently keeping the cheerleader away from the power sucking Sylar will prevent the apocalypse. By the way the actor who plays Sylar and Josh Holloway who plays Sawyer on Lost are going to have an interesting battle for this year’s Best Actor Emmy.
But... isn’t Future Hiro giving advice that breaks the cardinal rule of Time Travel? The so called butterfly effect means that time travelers who go back in time cannot even alter a teeny butterfly because the net result could change “the future“, and since the future has already happened it would drastically change stuff that already happened. It's very interesting how the writers created this New York City 5 years after a horrific explosion... the show premiered 5 years after 9/11. And the President's speech where the explosion went off, made the viewer note the resemblance to Ground Zero at The World Trade Center. Of course moments into the speech, The President utilized his power of flying and zipped right out of there, leaving the press gasping in shock. Can you imagne if George W. just flew right out of an appearance?
Even though Past Hiro may be able to change history… doesn’t that blatantly break the rules? And isn’t NBC setting a bad example for the young ‘uns by advocating an action that breaks a major rule of Time Travel?
THE DEATH OF JOSH HANCOCK - The Cardinals pitcher was killed in a car crash last week when his car slammed into a tow truck that had parked behind a disabled vehicle that need a tow. Now we hear that Mr. Hancock was drunk and talking on his cell phone at the time of the crash. If the tow truck had not parked there, Hancock would have slammed into the disabled vehicle (a small car from what I hear) and had he survived would possibly be facing murder charges. It has also been revealed that he had been drinking that evening at a bar owned by a Cardinal broadcaster, yet it now appears in this crazy world we live in that the bar could be sued by Hancock's survivors.
THE GUIDING LIGHT - I see that former Party of 5 Actress Neve Campbell married British actor John Light this weekend. Speaking of 5 and Light, that is how many years in prison disgraced former NJ Rabbi Peter Light will get in Prison for looting his synagogue's discretionary fund. So instead of performing a wedding this weekend (Where Trophy Wife was a bridesmaid), Mr. Light was dodging Bubba while using his soap on a rope.
The discretionary fund is set up for the less fortunate and is paid for by the generous donations made be temple members. The people at that temple had donated a lot of money...Light took most of the money and used it to pay for his little slut that he had on the side. And some interesting info surfaced at Friday's sentencing. Light had been confronted by Temple members that they were concerned with accounting irregularities.. so what did the shmuck do? He promptly drained all the remaining money and wired it to his own account. At his sentencing he gave the old sob story that he wishes he could return the money but his money is tied up because his wife is divorcing him. What a guy - he cheats on his wife with some whore, and then blames the wife that he can't repay the 86,000 that he stole. And, up to sentencing Mr. Light (I will not call him Rabbi - he like the imprisoned sex molester Mr. Lanner have lost the respect accorded with that title) had been working as a car salesman, thus lowering even further the reputation of that industry!
AL SHARPTON/DON IMUS REVISITED - Right before the recent announcement of a potential CBS lawsuit by Don Imus, I was watching… brace yourselves… The Fox News Channel, when Hannity and Colmes were interviewing former Imus producer Bernard McGuirk. He had a few choice words to say about Al Sharpton.. Which raises the interesting question… why isn’t Al Sharpton ever held accountable for his actions? And why are fellow Democrats who are running for office embracing a man who McGuirk calls “a terrorist’? He spends slow news periods conducting witch hunts for people he perceives as racists. I don’t know if between now and Election Day that I can get that image out of my mind of Barrack Obama participating in some kind of Sharpton sponsored forum… even taking note of Sharpton’s blackberry which rang during Obama's speech….. This lifelong Democrat will also have a hard time forgetting the image of my other fellow Democrats who have embraced the man McGuirk calls “a terrorist”.
First of all the blackberry call was not from anyone donating money to a Sharpton fundraiser for sick kids. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Sharpton is not known for his charitable donations. Don Imus was in the middle of a fundraiser for kids with cancer when Sharpton terrorized CBS Radio into firing him. And Imus who lowered himself to Sharpton’s level and appeared on some pathetic radio show that he hosts, clearly pointed out in his defense against racist accusations (as I mentioned in the comments section a few weeks ago) that he attempted to raise money for sick black children after he noticed an unusually large number of them had been stricken with sickle cell anemia. And when he attempted to raise money for the cause, and reached out to the Black Journalists Association, they did absolutely nothing to cooperate with his attempts to raise funds. A representative from that group claimed on that Sharpton show that they had been raising “awareness” of this disease for many years.. But the bottom line is Dollars raised.. And nothing they have done for fundraising compares to Imus.. A good analogy would be to compare ad revenue for Imus’s show vs. ad revenue for The Sharpton show that thankfully doesn’t pollute our local airwaves.
Lets get it straight.. I don’t believe that hating a person for his race makes any sense. Its kind of silly.. If youre going to dislike a person… hate them for their actions. The other idea to get straight.. Just like there is white racism against blacks.. there is black racism against whites. And black racists like Al Sharpton are no better than white racists.
Sharpton is a white hating anti semite….Just to review his sordid past which he responds to with his patented blank stare when responsible TV interviewers bring it up… He falsely accused a man of raping Tawana Brawley and ruined his career, even though it was later discovered that Brawley was a liar. Sharpton is not a real man.. Because a real man admits when he is wrong. If CBS loses an Imus suit, they will pay him. Sharpton was sued for libel by this poor man whose career was ruined by the Sharpton mid 80s witch hunt. Sharpton now owes him a ton of money and y’know what.. He hasn’t paid a penny. He started a riot in Crown Heights after a car accident killed a young black child… and as a result a young innocent man named Yankel Rosenbaum was brutally murdered by a mob that was started by Sharpton. And he complained about businessmen who were “white interlopers” who were working in Harlem. That “white interlopers protest” led to a fire at that store that killed seven people.
Sharpton wants to go after people who hurt the black community by attacking an old man radio host who the Rutgers women had never heard of. Why doesn’t Sharpton go after the drug dealers who hang outside the playgrounds of inner city school systems targeting young black children to use and/or resell the brain destroying products that make them rich and get them nice sports cars that young children drool over? Isnt that a bigger problem than people using words? I see he is protesting against rappers who use racist terms such as the “n” word.. Yet interestingly enough, white people don’t use that term in public… except for the extreme white supremacists… and nobody takes them seriously anyway. Where in the mainstream world do you hear those offensive words such as the “n” word? In rap songs…. And yet its been ok for those musicians to use a set of terms.. but forbidden to be used by anyone else.
Isn’t it time for Sharpton to be held accountable for his past and his hypocrisies?. Isiah Washington called his Greys Anatomy co star a faggot. His punishment is he must do public service announcements for a gay organization. Why does Washington keep his job and not Imus? And why doesn’t Sharpton protest ABC and terrorize them into firing Washington? If the shoe was on the other foot and the gay actor had called Washington by a black slur, Sharpton would have been shooting off his big mouth, Maybe we should hold them accountable by boycotting Grey’s Anatomy’s advertisers until Washington is fired, and boycotting Sharpton’s few advertisers until he starts protesting against Mr. Washington.
I wonder if Imus could turn back time and do it again… would he do the show and leave out that nappy headed ho comment? Of course it would break the cardinal rule of time travel… although I’m sure Governor Corzine would appreciate it, since he was en route to The Imus Rutgers Summit when he was critically injured in that car crash…
Now time for the Clip of the Week…
In honor of our 100th column… here is a clip from the old Radio archives. This comes from The Sussex County Fair in the early 90s when I went to Polish Night and heard the popular song.. 100 years, 100 years. Maybe they could change the word to 100 Columns??
Bonus Clip of The Week… Tom Poston died the other day at 85. Here is a clip from the short lived 2005 NBC show Committed where he played a clown who lived in Marnie’s closet. In this scene.. The series finale... Marnie realizes that thanks to the Clown’s wisdom that her boyfriend Nate is THE ONE! Who comes up with these characters names? Clown??
This past month we learned thanks to sacrificial lamb Don Imus that the word “ho” is unacceptable. As a result, both Santa Claus and The Jolly Green Giant are now forbidden to say “ho ho ho”, and as part of the ban, Don Ho promptly dropped dead.
I learned a lot about accountability some years back during a period where I was unemployed. During that time, I had more time on my hands to take care of stuff and it amazed me how often people screwed things up, yet were able to keep their jobs. I guess I still see that nowadays, but I just brush it off. But in today’s column, I would like to explore the theme of being held accountable for one’s actions.
HIRO BEING A HERO ON HEROES - We’ll start with a light topic - Weren’t the producers of Heroes irresponsible last week with the episode where time traveler Hiro is told to go back and change history to prevent a massive bomb from exploding in New York City. Hiro traveled to the future and ran into himself there …aka Future Hiro…. Future Hiro reminded Past Hiro that he must go back to “Save the Cheerleader Save The World”. Apparently keeping the cheerleader away from the power sucking Sylar will prevent the apocalypse. By the way the actor who plays Sylar and Josh Holloway who plays Sawyer on Lost are going to have an interesting battle for this year’s Best Actor Emmy.
But... isn’t Future Hiro giving advice that breaks the cardinal rule of Time Travel? The so called butterfly effect means that time travelers who go back in time cannot even alter a teeny butterfly because the net result could change “the future“, and since the future has already happened it would drastically change stuff that already happened. It's very interesting how the writers created this New York City 5 years after a horrific explosion... the show premiered 5 years after 9/11. And the President's speech where the explosion went off, made the viewer note the resemblance to Ground Zero at The World Trade Center. Of course moments into the speech, The President utilized his power of flying and zipped right out of there, leaving the press gasping in shock. Can you imagne if George W. just flew right out of an appearance?
Even though Past Hiro may be able to change history… doesn’t that blatantly break the rules? And isn’t NBC setting a bad example for the young ‘uns by advocating an action that breaks a major rule of Time Travel?
THE DEATH OF JOSH HANCOCK - The Cardinals pitcher was killed in a car crash last week when his car slammed into a tow truck that had parked behind a disabled vehicle that need a tow. Now we hear that Mr. Hancock was drunk and talking on his cell phone at the time of the crash. If the tow truck had not parked there, Hancock would have slammed into the disabled vehicle (a small car from what I hear) and had he survived would possibly be facing murder charges. It has also been revealed that he had been drinking that evening at a bar owned by a Cardinal broadcaster, yet it now appears in this crazy world we live in that the bar could be sued by Hancock's survivors.
THE GUIDING LIGHT - I see that former Party of 5 Actress Neve Campbell married British actor John Light this weekend. Speaking of 5 and Light, that is how many years in prison disgraced former NJ Rabbi Peter Light will get in Prison for looting his synagogue's discretionary fund. So instead of performing a wedding this weekend (Where Trophy Wife was a bridesmaid), Mr. Light was dodging Bubba while using his soap on a rope.
The discretionary fund is set up for the less fortunate and is paid for by the generous donations made be temple members. The people at that temple had donated a lot of money...Light took most of the money and used it to pay for his little slut that he had on the side. And some interesting info surfaced at Friday's sentencing. Light had been confronted by Temple members that they were concerned with accounting irregularities.. so what did the shmuck do? He promptly drained all the remaining money and wired it to his own account. At his sentencing he gave the old sob story that he wishes he could return the money but his money is tied up because his wife is divorcing him. What a guy - he cheats on his wife with some whore, and then blames the wife that he can't repay the 86,000 that he stole. And, up to sentencing Mr. Light (I will not call him Rabbi - he like the imprisoned sex molester Mr. Lanner have lost the respect accorded with that title) had been working as a car salesman, thus lowering even further the reputation of that industry!
AL SHARPTON/DON IMUS REVISITED - Right before the recent announcement of a potential CBS lawsuit by Don Imus, I was watching… brace yourselves… The Fox News Channel, when Hannity and Colmes were interviewing former Imus producer Bernard McGuirk. He had a few choice words to say about Al Sharpton.. Which raises the interesting question… why isn’t Al Sharpton ever held accountable for his actions? And why are fellow Democrats who are running for office embracing a man who McGuirk calls “a terrorist’? He spends slow news periods conducting witch hunts for people he perceives as racists. I don’t know if between now and Election Day that I can get that image out of my mind of Barrack Obama participating in some kind of Sharpton sponsored forum… even taking note of Sharpton’s blackberry which rang during Obama's speech….. This lifelong Democrat will also have a hard time forgetting the image of my other fellow Democrats who have embraced the man McGuirk calls “a terrorist”.
First of all the blackberry call was not from anyone donating money to a Sharpton fundraiser for sick kids. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Sharpton is not known for his charitable donations. Don Imus was in the middle of a fundraiser for kids with cancer when Sharpton terrorized CBS Radio into firing him. And Imus who lowered himself to Sharpton’s level and appeared on some pathetic radio show that he hosts, clearly pointed out in his defense against racist accusations (as I mentioned in the comments section a few weeks ago) that he attempted to raise money for sick black children after he noticed an unusually large number of them had been stricken with sickle cell anemia. And when he attempted to raise money for the cause, and reached out to the Black Journalists Association, they did absolutely nothing to cooperate with his attempts to raise funds. A representative from that group claimed on that Sharpton show that they had been raising “awareness” of this disease for many years.. But the bottom line is Dollars raised.. And nothing they have done for fundraising compares to Imus.. A good analogy would be to compare ad revenue for Imus’s show vs. ad revenue for The Sharpton show that thankfully doesn’t pollute our local airwaves.
Lets get it straight.. I don’t believe that hating a person for his race makes any sense. Its kind of silly.. If youre going to dislike a person… hate them for their actions. The other idea to get straight.. Just like there is white racism against blacks.. there is black racism against whites. And black racists like Al Sharpton are no better than white racists.
Sharpton is a white hating anti semite….Just to review his sordid past which he responds to with his patented blank stare when responsible TV interviewers bring it up… He falsely accused a man of raping Tawana Brawley and ruined his career, even though it was later discovered that Brawley was a liar. Sharpton is not a real man.. Because a real man admits when he is wrong. If CBS loses an Imus suit, they will pay him. Sharpton was sued for libel by this poor man whose career was ruined by the Sharpton mid 80s witch hunt. Sharpton now owes him a ton of money and y’know what.. He hasn’t paid a penny. He started a riot in Crown Heights after a car accident killed a young black child… and as a result a young innocent man named Yankel Rosenbaum was brutally murdered by a mob that was started by Sharpton. And he complained about businessmen who were “white interlopers” who were working in Harlem. That “white interlopers protest” led to a fire at that store that killed seven people.
Sharpton wants to go after people who hurt the black community by attacking an old man radio host who the Rutgers women had never heard of. Why doesn’t Sharpton go after the drug dealers who hang outside the playgrounds of inner city school systems targeting young black children to use and/or resell the brain destroying products that make them rich and get them nice sports cars that young children drool over? Isnt that a bigger problem than people using words? I see he is protesting against rappers who use racist terms such as the “n” word.. Yet interestingly enough, white people don’t use that term in public… except for the extreme white supremacists… and nobody takes them seriously anyway. Where in the mainstream world do you hear those offensive words such as the “n” word? In rap songs…. And yet its been ok for those musicians to use a set of terms.. but forbidden to be used by anyone else.
Isn’t it time for Sharpton to be held accountable for his past and his hypocrisies?. Isiah Washington called his Greys Anatomy co star a faggot. His punishment is he must do public service announcements for a gay organization. Why does Washington keep his job and not Imus? And why doesn’t Sharpton protest ABC and terrorize them into firing Washington? If the shoe was on the other foot and the gay actor had called Washington by a black slur, Sharpton would have been shooting off his big mouth, Maybe we should hold them accountable by boycotting Grey’s Anatomy’s advertisers until Washington is fired, and boycotting Sharpton’s few advertisers until he starts protesting against Mr. Washington.
I wonder if Imus could turn back time and do it again… would he do the show and leave out that nappy headed ho comment? Of course it would break the cardinal rule of time travel… although I’m sure Governor Corzine would appreciate it, since he was en route to The Imus Rutgers Summit when he was critically injured in that car crash…
Now time for the Clip of the Week…
In honor of our 100th column… here is a clip from the old Radio archives. This comes from The Sussex County Fair in the early 90s when I went to Polish Night and heard the popular song.. 100 years, 100 years. Maybe they could change the word to 100 Columns??
Bonus Clip of The Week… Tom Poston died the other day at 85. Here is a clip from the short lived 2005 NBC show Committed where he played a clown who lived in Marnie’s closet. In this scene.. The series finale... Marnie realizes that thanks to the Clown’s wisdom that her boyfriend Nate is THE ONE! Who comes up with these characters names? Clown??
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The Ballad of Melanie McGuire
I have always been a big fan of The Mamas and The Papas. I was watching a recent Channel 13 documentary about them during a begathon featuring the still fabulous Michelle Phillips and it occurred to me that the only person who had a good singing voice among the foursome was Mama Cass.
Before we get to the ballad of Melanie McGuire.. let’s first look at another McGuire… the very talented Barry McGuire…who sang the very powerful song “Eve of Destruction”. He and Roger aka Jim McGuinn were becoming big time rockers with The Byrds when John Phillips was looking to form The Mamas and The Papas. That piece of rock and roll history along with the story of how The Mamas and The Papas got together is told in the legendary M and P song Creeque Alley...and knowing the song will greatly enhance your enjoyment of today’s column. I recommend you click here to see an incredibly informative website that explains what the song is about. One of my buddies was a big fan of The Mamas and The Papas and named his body parts - One day he had a terrible case of Jock Itch and announced that "John and Mitchy were getting kind of itchy".
Today’s column is "The Ballad of Melanie McGuire" who was convicted Monday on charges that she barbarically murdered her husband by hacking him to bits and dumping him in a suitcase off the Chesapeake River. What really bugs me about this woman is her sheer narcissism that she thought she could just kill this poor guy and get away with it. She even had the audacity to cover her tracks by challenging EZ Pass charges that put her near the Chesapeake, and bizarre taxicab adventures explaning how she went to Atlantic City to move her husband's car as "a prank to annoy him". Does she really think she is so smart and the cops are so stupid? Constitutionally speaking she had the right to a strong defense, but does she really think her bigshot lawyer Joe Tacopina really believed she was innoncent and didn't take on the case so he could get a ton of free publicity with Court TV face time?
I find it hard to believe that she acted alone, and after watching a ton of Law and Order reruns, it amazes me that her narcissism never allowed her accept the inevitable plea deal to give up an accomplice who must have helped her with the heavy chopping and the suitcase packing. Its incredibly arrogant that she wouldn’t take a plea and instead went with the Little Miss Innocent Defense, led by bigshot lawyer Joe Tacopina. Both of ‘em had egg on their face on Monday.
For those of you who haven’t been following this sordid storyline.. Melanie McGuire has her own website soliciting money for what turned out to be her losing defense fund. According to the Melanie McGuire website, she started out life as Melanie Slate, growing up in Ridgewood, New Jersey. She graduated Middletown High School South in 1990, graduated Rutgers in 1994 and a Nursing School in 1997. Murder wasn’t the first of The Ten Commandments she opted to violate.. She started having an affair with her murdered husband while he was married to his first wife… and then started her little affair with her colleague Dr. Bradley Miller while she was 9 months pregnant.
In case you missed the trial… Melanie was accused of chopping up her husband,.. putting him in 3 suitcases and then hightailing it down the Turnpike where she dumped the suitcases off a bridge into the Chesapeake River. At the time, she was a nurse at a fertility clinic and having an affair with Fertility Doc Dr. Miller. Her trial was on Court TV and her lawyer is high profile defense att'y Joe Tacopina. She had originally reported the husband missing, shortly after they bought a new house in Warren County…. claiming he had a gambling problem and she told cops she thought he was at Trump's Taj Mahal casino. However she did admit she went down to AC.. found his car… (even though most people can't find a car in a mall parking lot; yet she found it in AC!) and moved it just to mess with his head. The cops also had a couple of ex boyfriends call her, and while secretly recording the conversations, tried to get the fellas to get Melanie to fess up. She also denied being on the highway when the suitcases were dumped… disputing EZ Pass records showing tolls paid by her. Is that the height of arrogance? Kill somebody and then order EZ Pass to remove the charges? I wonder if she haggled with the salesman when she bought those suitcases?
By the way, if anyone is offended by the song, I apologize, the song is not intended to cause pain.. the real pain came when this horrible woman hacked this poor guy to death. I watched her cry Monday afternoon as the jury rightfully threw the book at her.. she cried because she's not as smart as she thought and she got caught. How much pain was he in as he got chopped to bits? But inevitably, through the power of Google.. somebody will meander over here... how ironic that was the same website Melanie used to find ways to murder her husband! That just did not look good for her when her husband ended up dead. She also poisoned him with a forged prescription she picked up at Walgreens near my old condo, and stayed at a hotel right near the Walgreens! Employees for both those establishments testified during the just completed trial. I was also fascinated by the unconfirmed rumors that they never found this poor guy's tuchis.
The Ballad of Melanie McGuire is to the tune of the classic “Creeque Alley“.. a rather complex song, yet it matches up perfectly like the poetry of Shakespeare’s Iambic Pentameter.
Here is the original song off You Tube.. Now as it plays on your screen read along with the words.. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if you watch the real version also, since it really is a pretty awesome song…
And now…. The Ballad of Melanie McGuire!
CUE THE TAPE
Melanie was bitchy and getting kind of itchy
Just to leave her ol’ hubby behind…
Her boss Dr. Miller who was dating a killer
Thought his nurse was just fine
In the court Joe Tacopina sat
He told the jury, hubby was a rat
Melanie McGuire was a suitcase buyer,
In NJ…. y’know where that’s at?
She chopped her hubby up
But where‘s his ass?…
Doc Miller said “Melanie… you know that aren’t many
Who can make those moves the way that you do.. Lets go south“..
Melanie said “Boss.. golly don’t you think that I wish
I could spend more time with you…”
She wondered if she could kill with a gun, knife or bat? …
So she pulled the choice right out of a hat.
Melanie McGuire was a suitcase buyer,
In NJ…. y’know where that’s at?
She chopped her hubby up
But where‘s his ass?…
When Melanie was a wife,… she wanted a new life
And figured it all out one day
She drove down the turnpike - with a deadman she didn’t like
Not to New York - the other way
She told cops her hubby was losing at Trumps
But she really had a bag filled with stumps
Melanie McGuire was a suitcase buyer,
In NJ…. y’know where that’s at?
She chopped her hubby up
But where‘s his ass?…
Hubby Dumps, Don Trumps, Body Stumps, Bridge Jumps,
Melanie would work as hard shed play
Drink up, broke up.. her life was shook up
She decided it had be that way
Once a nurse for a doc of fertility
Now she’s a Court tv celebrity…
Melanie McGuire was a suitcase buyer,
In NJ…. y’know where that’s at?
She chopped her hubby up
But where‘s his ass?…
Broke, busted, disgusted…
Old boyfriends cant be trusted
On tape, they asked if hubby was tossed in the sea
Melanie couldn’t take it,
She knew she had to fake it
The jury would know eventually
Tacopina maxed her American express Card
Finding hubbys car in AC was so hard
The defense machinations, was her imagination
The lies went on indefinitely
But Melanie in Prison is becoming a reality…
Becoming a reality
Hey maybe I'll get my fur hat and borrow Neil’s guitar and record this and post it on You Tube.
Now for the Clip of The Week… Here is the original Barry McGuire classic.. Eve of Destruction… Can you imagine if they had MTV back in the 60's? It's kind of an odd video don't you think? And let's not even discuss those pants!
Before we get to the ballad of Melanie McGuire.. let’s first look at another McGuire… the very talented Barry McGuire…who sang the very powerful song “Eve of Destruction”. He and Roger aka Jim McGuinn were becoming big time rockers with The Byrds when John Phillips was looking to form The Mamas and The Papas. That piece of rock and roll history along with the story of how The Mamas and The Papas got together is told in the legendary M and P song Creeque Alley...and knowing the song will greatly enhance your enjoyment of today’s column. I recommend you click here to see an incredibly informative website that explains what the song is about. One of my buddies was a big fan of The Mamas and The Papas and named his body parts - One day he had a terrible case of Jock Itch and announced that "John and Mitchy were getting kind of itchy".
Today’s column is "The Ballad of Melanie McGuire" who was convicted Monday on charges that she barbarically murdered her husband by hacking him to bits and dumping him in a suitcase off the Chesapeake River. What really bugs me about this woman is her sheer narcissism that she thought she could just kill this poor guy and get away with it. She even had the audacity to cover her tracks by challenging EZ Pass charges that put her near the Chesapeake, and bizarre taxicab adventures explaning how she went to Atlantic City to move her husband's car as "a prank to annoy him". Does she really think she is so smart and the cops are so stupid? Constitutionally speaking she had the right to a strong defense, but does she really think her bigshot lawyer Joe Tacopina really believed she was innoncent and didn't take on the case so he could get a ton of free publicity with Court TV face time?
I find it hard to believe that she acted alone, and after watching a ton of Law and Order reruns, it amazes me that her narcissism never allowed her accept the inevitable plea deal to give up an accomplice who must have helped her with the heavy chopping and the suitcase packing. Its incredibly arrogant that she wouldn’t take a plea and instead went with the Little Miss Innocent Defense, led by bigshot lawyer Joe Tacopina. Both of ‘em had egg on their face on Monday.
For those of you who haven’t been following this sordid storyline.. Melanie McGuire has her own website soliciting money for what turned out to be her losing defense fund. According to the Melanie McGuire website, she started out life as Melanie Slate, growing up in Ridgewood, New Jersey. She graduated Middletown High School South in 1990, graduated Rutgers in 1994 and a Nursing School in 1997. Murder wasn’t the first of The Ten Commandments she opted to violate.. She started having an affair with her murdered husband while he was married to his first wife… and then started her little affair with her colleague Dr. Bradley Miller while she was 9 months pregnant.
In case you missed the trial… Melanie was accused of chopping up her husband,.. putting him in 3 suitcases and then hightailing it down the Turnpike where she dumped the suitcases off a bridge into the Chesapeake River. At the time, she was a nurse at a fertility clinic and having an affair with Fertility Doc Dr. Miller. Her trial was on Court TV and her lawyer is high profile defense att'y Joe Tacopina. She had originally reported the husband missing, shortly after they bought a new house in Warren County…. claiming he had a gambling problem and she told cops she thought he was at Trump's Taj Mahal casino. However she did admit she went down to AC.. found his car… (even though most people can't find a car in a mall parking lot; yet she found it in AC!) and moved it just to mess with his head. The cops also had a couple of ex boyfriends call her, and while secretly recording the conversations, tried to get the fellas to get Melanie to fess up. She also denied being on the highway when the suitcases were dumped… disputing EZ Pass records showing tolls paid by her. Is that the height of arrogance? Kill somebody and then order EZ Pass to remove the charges? I wonder if she haggled with the salesman when she bought those suitcases?
By the way, if anyone is offended by the song, I apologize, the song is not intended to cause pain.. the real pain came when this horrible woman hacked this poor guy to death. I watched her cry Monday afternoon as the jury rightfully threw the book at her.. she cried because she's not as smart as she thought and she got caught. How much pain was he in as he got chopped to bits? But inevitably, through the power of Google.. somebody will meander over here... how ironic that was the same website Melanie used to find ways to murder her husband! That just did not look good for her when her husband ended up dead. She also poisoned him with a forged prescription she picked up at Walgreens near my old condo, and stayed at a hotel right near the Walgreens! Employees for both those establishments testified during the just completed trial. I was also fascinated by the unconfirmed rumors that they never found this poor guy's tuchis.
The Ballad of Melanie McGuire is to the tune of the classic “Creeque Alley“.. a rather complex song, yet it matches up perfectly like the poetry of Shakespeare’s Iambic Pentameter.
Here is the original song off You Tube.. Now as it plays on your screen read along with the words.. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if you watch the real version also, since it really is a pretty awesome song…
And now…. The Ballad of Melanie McGuire!
CUE THE TAPE
Melanie was bitchy and getting kind of itchy
Just to leave her ol’ hubby behind…
Her boss Dr. Miller who was dating a killer
Thought his nurse was just fine
In the court Joe Tacopina sat
He told the jury, hubby was a rat
Melanie McGuire was a suitcase buyer,
In NJ…. y’know where that’s at?
She chopped her hubby up
But where‘s his ass?…
Doc Miller said “Melanie… you know that aren’t many
Who can make those moves the way that you do.. Lets go south“..
Melanie said “Boss.. golly don’t you think that I wish
I could spend more time with you…”
She wondered if she could kill with a gun, knife or bat? …
So she pulled the choice right out of a hat.
Melanie McGuire was a suitcase buyer,
In NJ…. y’know where that’s at?
She chopped her hubby up
But where‘s his ass?…
When Melanie was a wife,… she wanted a new life
And figured it all out one day
She drove down the turnpike - with a deadman she didn’t like
Not to New York - the other way
She told cops her hubby was losing at Trumps
But she really had a bag filled with stumps
Melanie McGuire was a suitcase buyer,
In NJ…. y’know where that’s at?
She chopped her hubby up
But where‘s his ass?…
Hubby Dumps, Don Trumps, Body Stumps, Bridge Jumps,
Melanie would work as hard shed play
Drink up, broke up.. her life was shook up
She decided it had be that way
Once a nurse for a doc of fertility
Now she’s a Court tv celebrity…
Melanie McGuire was a suitcase buyer,
In NJ…. y’know where that’s at?
She chopped her hubby up
But where‘s his ass?…
Broke, busted, disgusted…
Old boyfriends cant be trusted
On tape, they asked if hubby was tossed in the sea
Melanie couldn’t take it,
She knew she had to fake it
The jury would know eventually
Tacopina maxed her American express Card
Finding hubbys car in AC was so hard
The defense machinations, was her imagination
The lies went on indefinitely
But Melanie in Prison is becoming a reality…
Becoming a reality
Hey maybe I'll get my fur hat and borrow Neil’s guitar and record this and post it on You Tube.
Now for the Clip of The Week… Here is the original Barry McGuire classic.. Eve of Destruction… Can you imagine if they had MTV back in the 60's? It's kind of an odd video don't you think? And let's not even discuss those pants!
Friday, April 20, 2007
Home Sweet Home - Tales From The Bunkey Room
A few months ago, I was reading the Star Ledger, probably in one of my condo’s 2 bathrooms, and I saw an article about a guy who grew up in Roselle. And I said Wow.. So did I! Our family had a house there for 30 years!
Then, it said he took classes at Kean College.. And I said Wow.. So did I! …before I transferred to Montclair State…
And after that he lived in the Avenel section of Woodbridge.. And I said Wow.. So did I!.. I rented an apartment there for 4 years after we sold our Roselle house in March of 1997...
And the article said he was filming a movie in Highland Park… And I said… Wow… I like movies.. And I’ve been to Highland Park… and I hear they are going to build a movie theater in Highland Park. But, that’s as far as the similarities go.. Trophy Wife has made some pretty nifty home movies that I have posted here. And my buddy Mike made some fantastic home movies in the 1990s.. portions of which are embedded at the end of the column as today’s Clip of the Week.
Anyway, one night late last year shortly after that article appeared… Trophy Wife and I were house hunting and saw a closed off street with a lot of big trucks parked nearby. We moseyed on over to check out the hullaballoo and as it turned out the aforementioned movie was filming right then and there!
Wait a second.. Did Nate just say he was house hunting?
Yep… and today I can finally say that after a decade of apartment and condo living….. Trophy Wife and I have bought a house… And we just moved in… almost exactly 10 years to the day that my mom sold our original Roselle house! So, to celebrate this momentous occasion, today’s column is about… My Old House!!
Most of these last 97 columns were put together in the 2nd bedroom of our condo where I kept the computer. We called it the Monkey Room because the prior owner had put in this absurd Monkey wallpaper. The prior owners of our new house left a bunk bed behind in the computer room… so we have renamed the Monkey Room…. The Bunk-ey Room! .
When I was born 30-something years ago, we lived in an apartment in Washington Heights till I was a year old when we moved to NJ. It was my idea. Our first year in NJ, we lived in an apartment, and then we moved into our Roselle house which I wrote about in January when I told of my first experience with a sub sandwich. plus a bizarre run-in with a love sick guy who was leaving a gay bar in the nearby shopping center!.
For 30 years that house was home.. until my mom sold it ten years ago and bought a condo in Edison. .. Now ladies and gentlemen after a decade of living in an apartment, my old condo and then another condo.. Nate has returned to living in a house! (With special thanks to the amazing Mortgage Jedis John and Mike.) And that means I get a new place to write this blog! Incredibly the house is actually near where that movie was filmed by the Roselle/Kean/Avenel guy! And I apologize… but after an exhaustive search, I cant seem to recall his name!
Lots of people have different memories of where they grew up.. Some happy …. Some not so happy. Even though we had a couple of shivas there… my memories are generally quite happy. I think houses should have landmark status. Shortly after we moved away, the people that bought our house called me to get some mail that had been delivered there… and when I went to pick it up, they nicely invited me in to show me what they had done with the place. I was shocked, stunned and mortified to discover that they had changed it!! To me that house.. the place I grew up…. always looked a certain way, and I couldn’t believe that it hadn’t achieved landmark status of some kind.
My earliest memories of the house are from the early 70s.. My parents bought it from a lady named Mrs. Ebert.. No relation to Roger who I hope is feeling better… The house was a 3 bedroom 1 and a half bathroom split level and my dad had an office in the downstairs area. It was the first one on the street …no neighbors to stage left, just like our new house. We also had a golf course behind our back yard. I used to watch the golfers but as a kid, I don’t recall ever seeing those popular 70s Stars of David chains or afro haircuts among those participating in the hoity toity golf games.
In the early 1990s a tornado ripped through Roselle, going through the golf course at an angle headed towards the shopping center. The sub shop was spared.. But not our house. Because we were the first house on the block, we were the only house that was damaged. Structurally, the house was fine.. just damage to awnings and a fence plus a lot of downed trees. The only way I even knew something was awry was when my friend Harmon called me to tell me the tornado story was on the 11 o’clock news with footage of the shopping center. Within moments of seeing this, my mother called to say she was ok….Luckily, she was out of the house when the tornado hit… and when she came home, this was the sight that greeted her!
And this believe it or not was our back yard!!
The reason for the fence… the kids 2 houses down were a bit older and turned out to be hillbillies or as they say in Yiddish vilde-chayas.. and my parents had to do their best to keep me from away from them and their anti-Semitism. Maybe they were white supremacists? I learned about that with their constant chanting of “Jew“ not to mention they lit a fire in our front yard etc.. Nice parenting there!. Years later when I was 16 or 17 and taking driving lessons, the now “young adult” saw my rather hefty driving teacher and asked her if she was the fat chick I was dating.. You would think they would have grown up by that point. Thankfully, that family sold their house and as their moving van drove off, and we all joyously bid them adieu, the real estate prices promptly increased! They are probably all on welfare or dead by now.. Incidentally, scandal may be back in town. Last year a primary election victory was overturned due to some hokey pokey with the absentee ballots - I wonder if that candidate was living in the town when I was there..
Over the years I redid my room every once in awhile.. In the 80s I had to studify it just a bit for my late teens and early 20s and eventually got a TV and a rickety old barca lounger and made it into a real he man palace. Me and my buddies watched Super Bowls, Buster Douglas knocking out Tyson, the 1984 Nebraska Miami Orange Bowl and of course Game 6 and 7 of the 1986 World Series. (I was cutting class at Montclair State the day the Mets won the game in Houston) My buddies would come over to hang out… One day my mom poked her head in offering us grapes to which one buddy replied.. “Yeah.. And can you peel them?” After that recent 24 unresolved confrontation between Martha Logan, and her ex husband,, I don’t think I would ever ask a woman to do anything involving a knife and fruit! Can you believe Martha Logan stabbed that rat of an ex husband of hers with a fruit knife? Now Jack Bauer gets a call from Audrey Raines.. Where was she.. In the bank on the now defunct ABC show “The Nine”?
We had a lot of fun shindigs at that house…and holiday dinners and Passover seders. One memorable year, my dad who was not born in the USA was reading from his snazzy new Haggadah (Passover book) and didn’t realize that the word “victual” is not pronounced the way it’s spelled. And when our neighbor Mr. Seftel corrected him to the proper pronunciation.. he looked at Mr. Seftel and corrected him….. “Well my book says “vict-shoooals”. The retelling of that story is an annual tradition at our seder.. And, Mr. Seftel’s grandson is now a big shot movie producer, although I don’t think he has filmed any movies near our new house..
My parents always had parties at the Roselle house, including a retirement party for a colleague who Clemens-ily used the party as a time to announce that she was going to un-retire! Therefore it was part of my genetic blueprint that forced me to throw a huge shindig when my mom went down to FL to see my uncle. The house became party central that fateful Saturday Night Feb. 20, 1988.. And a couple that hooked up at that party actually got married... Every single person I knew in 1988 was at that freaking party… including many people I didn’t know!. And somebody bought a movie cam and shot some footage including a shot of me carrying a big chair down the stairs that my buddies Chris and Harmon find incredibly hysterical… and always request to see it when they come over. Now they can always see it because I am going to post it as part of The Clip of the Week
Since I commuted to college, the house was home till 1990 when I moved to Sparta. But even then it was still “home” and also a good place to do laundry. I moved back from ‘94 until ‘97 after I left the radio station where I had been working. . Over those 30 years, it was a place for blizzards, a very young Nate’s asthma attack and graduation parties… and I wasn’t too thrilled about the idea when the house was put on the market in late 1996.. But in reality,. I was moving to an apartment , and my mom didn’t see any reason to live in a big house all by herself.. On Labor Day Sunday. September 1,1996, (8 years before my wedding on Labor Day Sunday 2004) my mom decided to have a yard sale and allowed a friend to have her own table in the driveway to sell stuff from her house that she was also planning to sell. My grape peeling buddy came by to visit and quietly approached my mom and asked her if she realized what her friend was selling. My mom looked at her table while her friend strolled off, and was stunned to realize that there was an unused but open boxed… combination enema - douching apparatus! My mom tried to cover it up with some other crap, but every time she did so, the friend returned to her table and promptly uncovered it, proudly displaying it like they were the Crown Jewels! After the sale was over, the friend said she was happy she made a few bucks to which my mom loudly retorted… “Yeah.. But nobody bought your douche-bag”.
Ten years ago as the moving truck backed out of the driveway, and took our neighbor’s telephone wiring with it.. It was Goodbye to “House Life”.
Now its back to mowing the lawn or hiring someone to do so, shoveling the snow, dealing with flooded basements which will be discussed in an upcoming column. No more condo maintenance fees.. No more condo meetings where women complain that their old neighbor walked around his house with the shades open and they saw his shmeckle... unless they were looking at the life size painting that former Governor McGreevey allegedly has in his bedroom. And all the other fun stuff.. I get a driveway.. a basement and 3 count ‘em 3 bathrooms to read The Star Ledger comics.. The only page in the Today section that doesn’t include TV Critic Alan Sepinwall to wall Sopranos coverage. . And hopefully… lotsa happy memories too. I am definitely gonna miss that condo.. This was the first home Trophy Wife and I bought together.. And we came home the night of our wedding.. which was in Linden at my old synagogue… and I carried her over the threshold! We then went to a hotel that night, and it was fun watching her check in using her brand new last name. I told the clerk it was the first time she was using that name.. And then with a straight face told him it was our first night in the Witness Protection Program.
With the big move, you may have noticed that the posting schedule has been erratic over the last month. This column’s posting date has been changed a few times when our closing got delayed, and with the news events concerning Imus . . And believe me, after being away for close to a month… I have had a lot to say! So stay tuned for comments about topics such as the Melanie McGuire murder trial, The Highland Park mayor accusing fellow blogger Lauren Kornfeld of stealing her (not nappy) hairstyle, and all of the other craziness.
So now if you will excuse me, I am in the mood for some victuals, so I am going to go peel some grapes. And I gotta prepare for my garage sale.. If I could only find where I left that douche bag!
Time for the clip of the week… Today its Kean-a-scope Theater…
In addition to the famous chair carrying scene, today’s column features clips from home movies at the house. There’s that popular chair carrying clip but most of this comes from a tour of the house that we shot on March 15, 1997... The footage was shot by my friend Mike Roth, and you get to see some bizarre stuff at that house.. Including my mother who subtly implied that she didn’t like me going near her antique lamp!. I still have that focokta lamp.. That lamp goes so far back.. Here is a pic from the late 60s of a cute little baby looking in awe at that lamp.. and notice how my grandfathers both wore jackets and ties when Little Nate came for a visit. The shot was taken at my grandparents house in Far Rockaway, before my Mom ended up with the lovely lamp, and now we have it. During the move, it was boxed like all Italian Lamps… In a box stamped “Fragile”…. When I heard the director of "A Christmas Story" died last month it made realize that Life is Fragile. Anyway, the movie is underneath the pic.. Click play to start the festivities!
Now time for the Movie...
Then, it said he took classes at Kean College.. And I said Wow.. So did I! …before I transferred to Montclair State…
And after that he lived in the Avenel section of Woodbridge.. And I said Wow.. So did I!.. I rented an apartment there for 4 years after we sold our Roselle house in March of 1997...
And the article said he was filming a movie in Highland Park… And I said… Wow… I like movies.. And I’ve been to Highland Park… and I hear they are going to build a movie theater in Highland Park. But, that’s as far as the similarities go.. Trophy Wife has made some pretty nifty home movies that I have posted here. And my buddy Mike made some fantastic home movies in the 1990s.. portions of which are embedded at the end of the column as today’s Clip of the Week.
Anyway, one night late last year shortly after that article appeared… Trophy Wife and I were house hunting and saw a closed off street with a lot of big trucks parked nearby. We moseyed on over to check out the hullaballoo and as it turned out the aforementioned movie was filming right then and there!
Wait a second.. Did Nate just say he was house hunting?
Yep… and today I can finally say that after a decade of apartment and condo living….. Trophy Wife and I have bought a house… And we just moved in… almost exactly 10 years to the day that my mom sold our original Roselle house! So, to celebrate this momentous occasion, today’s column is about… My Old House!!
Most of these last 97 columns were put together in the 2nd bedroom of our condo where I kept the computer. We called it the Monkey Room because the prior owner had put in this absurd Monkey wallpaper. The prior owners of our new house left a bunk bed behind in the computer room… so we have renamed the Monkey Room…. The Bunk-ey Room! .
When I was born 30-something years ago, we lived in an apartment in Washington Heights till I was a year old when we moved to NJ. It was my idea. Our first year in NJ, we lived in an apartment, and then we moved into our Roselle house which I wrote about in January when I told of my first experience with a sub sandwich. plus a bizarre run-in with a love sick guy who was leaving a gay bar in the nearby shopping center!.
For 30 years that house was home.. until my mom sold it ten years ago and bought a condo in Edison. .. Now ladies and gentlemen after a decade of living in an apartment, my old condo and then another condo.. Nate has returned to living in a house! (With special thanks to the amazing Mortgage Jedis John and Mike.) And that means I get a new place to write this blog! Incredibly the house is actually near where that movie was filmed by the Roselle/Kean/Avenel guy! And I apologize… but after an exhaustive search, I cant seem to recall his name!
Lots of people have different memories of where they grew up.. Some happy …. Some not so happy. Even though we had a couple of shivas there… my memories are generally quite happy. I think houses should have landmark status. Shortly after we moved away, the people that bought our house called me to get some mail that had been delivered there… and when I went to pick it up, they nicely invited me in to show me what they had done with the place. I was shocked, stunned and mortified to discover that they had changed it!! To me that house.. the place I grew up…. always looked a certain way, and I couldn’t believe that it hadn’t achieved landmark status of some kind.
My earliest memories of the house are from the early 70s.. My parents bought it from a lady named Mrs. Ebert.. No relation to Roger who I hope is feeling better… The house was a 3 bedroom 1 and a half bathroom split level and my dad had an office in the downstairs area. It was the first one on the street …no neighbors to stage left, just like our new house. We also had a golf course behind our back yard. I used to watch the golfers but as a kid, I don’t recall ever seeing those popular 70s Stars of David chains or afro haircuts among those participating in the hoity toity golf games.
In the early 1990s a tornado ripped through Roselle, going through the golf course at an angle headed towards the shopping center. The sub shop was spared.. But not our house. Because we were the first house on the block, we were the only house that was damaged. Structurally, the house was fine.. just damage to awnings and a fence plus a lot of downed trees. The only way I even knew something was awry was when my friend Harmon called me to tell me the tornado story was on the 11 o’clock news with footage of the shopping center. Within moments of seeing this, my mother called to say she was ok….Luckily, she was out of the house when the tornado hit… and when she came home, this was the sight that greeted her!
And this believe it or not was our back yard!!
The reason for the fence… the kids 2 houses down were a bit older and turned out to be hillbillies or as they say in Yiddish vilde-chayas.. and my parents had to do their best to keep me from away from them and their anti-Semitism. Maybe they were white supremacists? I learned about that with their constant chanting of “Jew“ not to mention they lit a fire in our front yard etc.. Nice parenting there!. Years later when I was 16 or 17 and taking driving lessons, the now “young adult” saw my rather hefty driving teacher and asked her if she was the fat chick I was dating.. You would think they would have grown up by that point. Thankfully, that family sold their house and as their moving van drove off, and we all joyously bid them adieu, the real estate prices promptly increased! They are probably all on welfare or dead by now.. Incidentally, scandal may be back in town. Last year a primary election victory was overturned due to some hokey pokey with the absentee ballots - I wonder if that candidate was living in the town when I was there..
Over the years I redid my room every once in awhile.. In the 80s I had to studify it just a bit for my late teens and early 20s and eventually got a TV and a rickety old barca lounger and made it into a real he man palace. Me and my buddies watched Super Bowls, Buster Douglas knocking out Tyson, the 1984 Nebraska Miami Orange Bowl and of course Game 6 and 7 of the 1986 World Series. (I was cutting class at Montclair State the day the Mets won the game in Houston) My buddies would come over to hang out… One day my mom poked her head in offering us grapes to which one buddy replied.. “Yeah.. And can you peel them?” After that recent 24 unresolved confrontation between Martha Logan, and her ex husband,, I don’t think I would ever ask a woman to do anything involving a knife and fruit! Can you believe Martha Logan stabbed that rat of an ex husband of hers with a fruit knife? Now Jack Bauer gets a call from Audrey Raines.. Where was she.. In the bank on the now defunct ABC show “The Nine”?
We had a lot of fun shindigs at that house…and holiday dinners and Passover seders. One memorable year, my dad who was not born in the USA was reading from his snazzy new Haggadah (Passover book) and didn’t realize that the word “victual” is not pronounced the way it’s spelled. And when our neighbor Mr. Seftel corrected him to the proper pronunciation.. he looked at Mr. Seftel and corrected him….. “Well my book says “vict-shoooals”. The retelling of that story is an annual tradition at our seder.. And, Mr. Seftel’s grandson is now a big shot movie producer, although I don’t think he has filmed any movies near our new house..
My parents always had parties at the Roselle house, including a retirement party for a colleague who Clemens-ily used the party as a time to announce that she was going to un-retire! Therefore it was part of my genetic blueprint that forced me to throw a huge shindig when my mom went down to FL to see my uncle. The house became party central that fateful Saturday Night Feb. 20, 1988.. And a couple that hooked up at that party actually got married... Every single person I knew in 1988 was at that freaking party… including many people I didn’t know!. And somebody bought a movie cam and shot some footage including a shot of me carrying a big chair down the stairs that my buddies Chris and Harmon find incredibly hysterical… and always request to see it when they come over. Now they can always see it because I am going to post it as part of The Clip of the Week
Since I commuted to college, the house was home till 1990 when I moved to Sparta. But even then it was still “home” and also a good place to do laundry. I moved back from ‘94 until ‘97 after I left the radio station where I had been working. . Over those 30 years, it was a place for blizzards, a very young Nate’s asthma attack and graduation parties… and I wasn’t too thrilled about the idea when the house was put on the market in late 1996.. But in reality,. I was moving to an apartment , and my mom didn’t see any reason to live in a big house all by herself.. On Labor Day Sunday. September 1,1996, (8 years before my wedding on Labor Day Sunday 2004) my mom decided to have a yard sale and allowed a friend to have her own table in the driveway to sell stuff from her house that she was also planning to sell. My grape peeling buddy came by to visit and quietly approached my mom and asked her if she realized what her friend was selling. My mom looked at her table while her friend strolled off, and was stunned to realize that there was an unused but open boxed… combination enema - douching apparatus! My mom tried to cover it up with some other crap, but every time she did so, the friend returned to her table and promptly uncovered it, proudly displaying it like they were the Crown Jewels! After the sale was over, the friend said she was happy she made a few bucks to which my mom loudly retorted… “Yeah.. But nobody bought your douche-bag”.
Ten years ago as the moving truck backed out of the driveway, and took our neighbor’s telephone wiring with it.. It was Goodbye to “House Life”.
Now its back to mowing the lawn or hiring someone to do so, shoveling the snow, dealing with flooded basements which will be discussed in an upcoming column. No more condo maintenance fees.. No more condo meetings where women complain that their old neighbor walked around his house with the shades open and they saw his shmeckle... unless they were looking at the life size painting that former Governor McGreevey allegedly has in his bedroom. And all the other fun stuff.. I get a driveway.. a basement and 3 count ‘em 3 bathrooms to read The Star Ledger comics.. The only page in the Today section that doesn’t include TV Critic Alan Sepinwall to wall Sopranos coverage. . And hopefully… lotsa happy memories too. I am definitely gonna miss that condo.. This was the first home Trophy Wife and I bought together.. And we came home the night of our wedding.. which was in Linden at my old synagogue… and I carried her over the threshold! We then went to a hotel that night, and it was fun watching her check in using her brand new last name. I told the clerk it was the first time she was using that name.. And then with a straight face told him it was our first night in the Witness Protection Program.
With the big move, you may have noticed that the posting schedule has been erratic over the last month. This column’s posting date has been changed a few times when our closing got delayed, and with the news events concerning Imus . . And believe me, after being away for close to a month… I have had a lot to say! So stay tuned for comments about topics such as the Melanie McGuire murder trial, The Highland Park mayor accusing fellow blogger Lauren Kornfeld of stealing her (not nappy) hairstyle, and all of the other craziness.
So now if you will excuse me, I am in the mood for some victuals, so I am going to go peel some grapes. And I gotta prepare for my garage sale.. If I could only find where I left that douche bag!
Time for the clip of the week… Today its Kean-a-scope Theater…
In addition to the famous chair carrying scene, today’s column features clips from home movies at the house. There’s that popular chair carrying clip but most of this comes from a tour of the house that we shot on March 15, 1997... The footage was shot by my friend Mike Roth, and you get to see some bizarre stuff at that house.. Including my mother who subtly implied that she didn’t like me going near her antique lamp!. I still have that focokta lamp.. That lamp goes so far back.. Here is a pic from the late 60s of a cute little baby looking in awe at that lamp.. and notice how my grandfathers both wore jackets and ties when Little Nate came for a visit. The shot was taken at my grandparents house in Far Rockaway, before my Mom ended up with the lovely lamp, and now we have it. During the move, it was boxed like all Italian Lamps… In a box stamped “Fragile”…. When I heard the director of "A Christmas Story" died last month it made realize that Life is Fragile. Anyway, the movie is underneath the pic.. Click play to start the festivities!
Now time for the Movie...
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Return of the Witch Trials
There are 2 things that seem to passionately tug at America’s Heartstrings… innocent little children with catastrophic diseases, and the daily happenings on American Idol.
First the kids with cancer.. Its horrible.. Its tragic and may we never know of such hardships… and kudos to those who take the time out of their lives to help these kids and their families. They are true angels.
Here we are deep into the season on American Idol and we have this Indian kid… he’s 17 so he’s not an adult in the legal sense… people pick on his hair and his voice has drawn the ire of many and the delight of wiseguys such as Howard Stern and Vote for the Worst.com. I think I heard that some bigshot with Fox (maybe it was Simon Cowell?) has already said there is no way this guy will be allowed to win. Basically….. for those of you who follow these things.. It is perfectly ok to make fun of this guy and his hair…
And then you have Imus…
This is a story involving a very evil man who is filled with hate and should keep his big mouth shut.. And that‘s Al Sharpton I am talking about.. Imus’s nappy haired comment which was intended as a joke fell very flat and like a lot of other stuff he says.. just wasn’t funny. Let’s get it straight.. I’m not a big Imus fan… However, he is right on the money when he went to the Today show and told Al Sharpton that the term originated in the Black community…. Imus also had a freudian slip and called him Hargis, as in the fake minister he used to do bits about in his WNBC heyday…..I must admit I also noticed during the NCAA tournament that the women there were not quite the same as the Lady Techsters of the early 80s led by current Baylor coach Kim Mulkey and her little pony tail.
But Al Sharpton.. He should just crawl into a hole somewhere and shut his trap instead of his absurd demands that the man lose his livelihood. What does Al do for a living? He leads protests about “white interlopers” in Harlem that led to a riot that caused seven deaths at Freddy‘s Store. He led protests in Brooklyn after a car accident killed a black child that led to a pogrom and the death of innocent Yankel Rosenbaum. And he stood beside Tawana Brawley…. the 1980s version of the Duke lacrosse rape hoax, and turned her phony rape accusations into a racial incident.
His big mouth may have influenced MSNBC, a network with no viewers after 10 am, and now CBS Radio to drop the show effective immediately. This week has been the Imus million dollar fundraiser for sick kids at Hackensack Hospital and The Imus Ranch for kids with cancer. Despite the fact that this was the week of the big fundraiser did that stop Sharpton and his attention getting protests? And how much money has Sharpton’s self serving publicity cost this charity? How about we hear from cancer kids what a bad person Imus is?
Amazingly Al actually picketed outside CBS during the Imus Radiothon… (Imus smartly changed his broadcast venue) Did Al implore parents who heartbreakingly lost a former Imus ranch kid to cancer to not appear on the show, even though Imus’s organization provided some much needed help during such a terrible time in their lives? I would like to meet Al about a year from now and stand with him at the bedside of a dying child so he can explain how his yearning for publicity cost that child a chance to spend a summer playing with animals and petting goats and milking cows. Let Al explain it to that child how he timed the protests during the Radiothon as he spends his last evening on this Earth in a hospital bed while his parents heartbreakingly watch their child slip away in gut wrenching pain . What has Al Sharpton ever done for kids with cancer? Actions speak louder than words.. And in Imus’s case his actions for these kids.. many of them black and female…. speaks volumes… moreso than a bad attempt at humor.
Here is another reason why Sharpton is a hypocrite… When a black actor on Greys Anatomy in a fit of anger called a gay actor a “faggot”…. where was Al Sharpton? I didn’t hear a word out of Sharpton about the actor’s anti gay comment… But of course…. if the gay actor would have had the audacity to call the actor by a black racial slur…. Sharpton would have been all over the place with that big fat mouth of his, picketing outside ABC, and demanding that the actor be fired for his comments.
Check out wfan.com for more info about making a donation to a fantastic charity whose big fundraiser is losing a lot of money due to this latest Al Sharpton publicity tour. And listen closely to what Bo Dietl says on the news channels about this topic…… he has been a great spokesman during this Imus witch hunt. I also betcha Imus will be back…. syndicated from another network or on satellite before Al jumps on his next shoot now ask questions later crusade.
On the other hand however, I must admit I was very interested in what Coach Stringer had to say.. She is what Sharpton is not… smart, well informed,…. a role model to young women,. a teacher, a leader and a person who I have always admired. So when she says her players' feelings are hurt, it makes you realize that people in public may be fair game for Imus rants.. but maybe young 18 and 19 year old women should not be. Another Don - Mr. Trump made insults to overweight women with his Rosie O’Donnel comments.. I didn’t see Richard Simmons leading protests outside Trump Plaza.. And Thank God for that. But remember folks….. in our world we are allowed to pick on a 17 year old Indian kid on American Idol…as many have.. Where do we draw the line? And who the hell is Al Sharpton to decide where that line is drawn?
First the kids with cancer.. Its horrible.. Its tragic and may we never know of such hardships… and kudos to those who take the time out of their lives to help these kids and their families. They are true angels.
Here we are deep into the season on American Idol and we have this Indian kid… he’s 17 so he’s not an adult in the legal sense… people pick on his hair and his voice has drawn the ire of many and the delight of wiseguys such as Howard Stern and Vote for the Worst.com. I think I heard that some bigshot with Fox (maybe it was Simon Cowell?) has already said there is no way this guy will be allowed to win. Basically….. for those of you who follow these things.. It is perfectly ok to make fun of this guy and his hair…
And then you have Imus…
This is a story involving a very evil man who is filled with hate and should keep his big mouth shut.. And that‘s Al Sharpton I am talking about.. Imus’s nappy haired comment which was intended as a joke fell very flat and like a lot of other stuff he says.. just wasn’t funny. Let’s get it straight.. I’m not a big Imus fan… However, he is right on the money when he went to the Today show and told Al Sharpton that the term originated in the Black community…. Imus also had a freudian slip and called him Hargis, as in the fake minister he used to do bits about in his WNBC heyday…..I must admit I also noticed during the NCAA tournament that the women there were not quite the same as the Lady Techsters of the early 80s led by current Baylor coach Kim Mulkey and her little pony tail.
But Al Sharpton.. He should just crawl into a hole somewhere and shut his trap instead of his absurd demands that the man lose his livelihood. What does Al do for a living? He leads protests about “white interlopers” in Harlem that led to a riot that caused seven deaths at Freddy‘s Store. He led protests in Brooklyn after a car accident killed a black child that led to a pogrom and the death of innocent Yankel Rosenbaum. And he stood beside Tawana Brawley…. the 1980s version of the Duke lacrosse rape hoax, and turned her phony rape accusations into a racial incident.
His big mouth may have influenced MSNBC, a network with no viewers after 10 am, and now CBS Radio to drop the show effective immediately. This week has been the Imus million dollar fundraiser for sick kids at Hackensack Hospital and The Imus Ranch for kids with cancer. Despite the fact that this was the week of the big fundraiser did that stop Sharpton and his attention getting protests? And how much money has Sharpton’s self serving publicity cost this charity? How about we hear from cancer kids what a bad person Imus is?
Amazingly Al actually picketed outside CBS during the Imus Radiothon… (Imus smartly changed his broadcast venue) Did Al implore parents who heartbreakingly lost a former Imus ranch kid to cancer to not appear on the show, even though Imus’s organization provided some much needed help during such a terrible time in their lives? I would like to meet Al about a year from now and stand with him at the bedside of a dying child so he can explain how his yearning for publicity cost that child a chance to spend a summer playing with animals and petting goats and milking cows. Let Al explain it to that child how he timed the protests during the Radiothon as he spends his last evening on this Earth in a hospital bed while his parents heartbreakingly watch their child slip away in gut wrenching pain . What has Al Sharpton ever done for kids with cancer? Actions speak louder than words.. And in Imus’s case his actions for these kids.. many of them black and female…. speaks volumes… moreso than a bad attempt at humor.
Here is another reason why Sharpton is a hypocrite… When a black actor on Greys Anatomy in a fit of anger called a gay actor a “faggot”…. where was Al Sharpton? I didn’t hear a word out of Sharpton about the actor’s anti gay comment… But of course…. if the gay actor would have had the audacity to call the actor by a black racial slur…. Sharpton would have been all over the place with that big fat mouth of his, picketing outside ABC, and demanding that the actor be fired for his comments.
Check out wfan.com for more info about making a donation to a fantastic charity whose big fundraiser is losing a lot of money due to this latest Al Sharpton publicity tour. And listen closely to what Bo Dietl says on the news channels about this topic…… he has been a great spokesman during this Imus witch hunt. I also betcha Imus will be back…. syndicated from another network or on satellite before Al jumps on his next shoot now ask questions later crusade.
On the other hand however, I must admit I was very interested in what Coach Stringer had to say.. She is what Sharpton is not… smart, well informed,…. a role model to young women,. a teacher, a leader and a person who I have always admired. So when she says her players' feelings are hurt, it makes you realize that people in public may be fair game for Imus rants.. but maybe young 18 and 19 year old women should not be. Another Don - Mr. Trump made insults to overweight women with his Rosie O’Donnel comments.. I didn’t see Richard Simmons leading protests outside Trump Plaza.. And Thank God for that. But remember folks….. in our world we are allowed to pick on a 17 year old Indian kid on American Idol…as many have.. Where do we draw the line? And who the hell is Al Sharpton to decide where that line is drawn?
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Nate's World of Birds
Passion?
What does it mean? I remember a recent Bill Gates interview where he spoke of his childhood.. While other kids dreamed of being cowboys and firemen… Gates obsessed over computer software. You can see that his passion turned into something that became an incredibly lucrative career. Hey… I’m working on my second million…. I gave up on the first!
I think about what I’m passionate about.. Even though the blog is about game shows, TV and Movies.. I think its time that we change the format of this blog to a topic that means a lot to me.
Birds…. I love them. Aside from women, they are the most majestic of God’s creatures and with wings that enable them to fly, they are the envy of all of us landlocked humans who must subscribe to the laws of gravity.
And what kind of a horrible anti-bird society do I live in? I belong to an otherwise fantastic religion, but it just irks me that chickens and chicken soup are a crucial part of each Sabbath and holiday dinner… I’m proud to be an American, but it shames me when we make horrible jokes about poor terrified turkeys whose deaths will lead to a bunch of overfilled tummies on Thanksgiving Night. This is absolutely horrible.. And worst of all.. If you want to be efficient… the saying is… “kill 2 birds with one stone!” Can’t we use a better statement folks? This just breaks my heart. I mean we have a saying “Don’t throw stones if you live in a glass house“.. Of course not.. you don’t want to break the glass! But why is it ok to kill 2 sweet innocent birds with a stone? How shameful!
Today, in honor of Sunday’s Mets - Cardinals 2007 Baseball Season Opener… the first Nate’s World of Birds column is about The Cardinal. . Even though the baseball team named for that bird that beat my beloved Mets in the playoffs last year.
According to the folks at Wikipedia… The Cardinals or Cardinalidae are a family of passerine birds living in North and South America. These are robust, seed-eating birds, with strong bills. They are typically associated with open woodland. The sexes usually have distinctive appearances; the family is named for the red plumage (like that of a Catholic cardinal's vestments) of males of the type species, the Northern Cardinal.
Cardinals mate in early spring. Their nests are loosely woven in tall bushes such as honeysuckle and rose. Their diet includes seeds and small berries. In fact, the berry of the holly bush, which is rich in beta carotene and lycopenes, is responsible for the brilliant coloring of the male specimen.
OK enough of this silliness.. Happy April Fool’s Day!!
What does it mean? I remember a recent Bill Gates interview where he spoke of his childhood.. While other kids dreamed of being cowboys and firemen… Gates obsessed over computer software. You can see that his passion turned into something that became an incredibly lucrative career. Hey… I’m working on my second million…. I gave up on the first!
I think about what I’m passionate about.. Even though the blog is about game shows, TV and Movies.. I think its time that we change the format of this blog to a topic that means a lot to me.
Birds…. I love them. Aside from women, they are the most majestic of God’s creatures and with wings that enable them to fly, they are the envy of all of us landlocked humans who must subscribe to the laws of gravity.
And what kind of a horrible anti-bird society do I live in? I belong to an otherwise fantastic religion, but it just irks me that chickens and chicken soup are a crucial part of each Sabbath and holiday dinner… I’m proud to be an American, but it shames me when we make horrible jokes about poor terrified turkeys whose deaths will lead to a bunch of overfilled tummies on Thanksgiving Night. This is absolutely horrible.. And worst of all.. If you want to be efficient… the saying is… “kill 2 birds with one stone!” Can’t we use a better statement folks? This just breaks my heart. I mean we have a saying “Don’t throw stones if you live in a glass house“.. Of course not.. you don’t want to break the glass! But why is it ok to kill 2 sweet innocent birds with a stone? How shameful!
Today, in honor of Sunday’s Mets - Cardinals 2007 Baseball Season Opener… the first Nate’s World of Birds column is about The Cardinal. . Even though the baseball team named for that bird that beat my beloved Mets in the playoffs last year.
According to the folks at Wikipedia… The Cardinals or Cardinalidae are a family of passerine birds living in North and South America. These are robust, seed-eating birds, with strong bills. They are typically associated with open woodland. The sexes usually have distinctive appearances; the family is named for the red plumage (like that of a Catholic cardinal's vestments) of males of the type species, the Northern Cardinal.
Cardinals mate in early spring. Their nests are loosely woven in tall bushes such as honeysuckle and rose. Their diet includes seeds and small berries. In fact, the berry of the holly bush, which is rich in beta carotene and lycopenes, is responsible for the brilliant coloring of the male specimen.
OK enough of this silliness.. Happy April Fool’s Day!!
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