There is now an "Autistic Barbie" doll. So that got me thinking...

This week toy maker Mattel has introduced the world to "Autistic Barbie".  The latest in a line of the classic doll's attempts to aim for more inclusion and representation which have already produced Barbie with Type 1 diabetes and Barbie with Down syndrome.

According to the link above going to the Fox News story about it, Autistic Barbie "includes articulated elbows and wrists to allow for movements such as hand flapping and other gestures used for sensory regulation or expression."  Barbie's eyes are "positioned with a slightly averted gaze, reflecting how some people on the autism spectrum may avoid eye contact."  Autistic Barbie includes a fidget spinner (that really spins), noise cancelling headphones, and a pink tablet displaying symbol-based apps to help with communication.

Okay, I have no problem with Barbie depicting autism.  It's a condition that millions of people, including not a few children, have to live with.  If little girls might benefit from a doll that is "just like them" then I'm all for it.

But I'm also thinking that maybe we need even more diversity in Barbie.  And hey, there are a lot of grown-ups who also collect the dolls.  I think some of them could appreciate a bit more variety also, reflecting on who they are.

So here's my idea... and Mattel is free to run with it, I hereby revoke my claims to it if they want to use this... for Bipolar Barbie.  Yes, I think that Barbie as a manic depressive should be next.  She could have a wild crazed look in her eyes, disheveled hair, legs that won't stop moving, four or five bottles of medication, pale skin from not getting outside in the sun...

Maybe having bipolar disorder could explain all the accessories that Barbie has.  I mean, reckless spending is a common characteristic of those with manic depression.  It also leads to delusional thinking (didn't Barbie claim to be an astronaut once?).

I'm only suggesting that of which I know firsthand as a real-life manic depressive.  Awww c'mon, I have to laugh a little 😛 

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Calvin and Hobbes ended thirty years ago today

On Sunday, December 31st 1995, the last Calvin and Hobbes comic strip was published.  For ten years readers had laughed and thrilled at the antics of Calvin and his wild imagination.  It has gone on to be regarded as among the greatest comic series of all time.

Here is that last cartoon, which ran thirty years ago today.  The very greatest finale of anything, ever...

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Why the Star Wars Holiday Special was so bad, in the words of the man who made it

It's become something of a tragic holiday tradition for me.  Every year about this time, I watch The Star Wars Holiday Special - considered by many to be the very worst two hours of television ever produced - and do a running commentary about it for my friends on Facebook.  Why do I torment myself like this?  I have no idea apart from the comedy (?) value.  I'll do most anything within reason (emphasis on "reason"!) to make my friends laugh.  And if it takes subjecting myself to this... thing... then it's a minor sacrifice to make each holiday season.

Pic I took of my TV screen while watching The Star Wars Holiday Special,
here depicting the lowest moment of Harvey Korman's career

For whatever reason, I didn't watch the Star Wars Holiday Special when I usually do between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I wound up setting it to play last night, after I came home from helping some friends catalog and inventory a bunch of Cabbage Patch Kids, Pound Puppies, and Care Bears (do kids still go for things like that?).  I think maybe I did it because I was reminded about lunch time yesterday that I still hadn't seen the special this year.  What jogged that thought was this interview that SlashFilm did with Steve Binder, the director of the special.  This interview was originally published in 2015 but it's so authoritative and enlightening that it should be required reading for anyone who during the holidays is curious enough about the Star Wars thingy to want to watch it.

Long story short: Star Wars, the epic space opera that had thus far only had one entry to establish itself and call its own, something that had already won millions of fans across the globe, was treated like a Seventies-era variety show.  It was two successful genres that enough people thought were compatible with each other as a combined product.  Instead it produced one of the biggest FUBARs in the modern history of all pop culture.  And that's how we got the Jefferson Starship, Harvey Korman (in three different roles!), Art Carney, Bea Arthur, and Diahann Carroll (what was that she was doing?) mushed together with ten minutes (?!?) of Wookiees growling at each other, an overly made-up Mark Hamill (I call him "Mannequin Skywalker"), Leia looking a little tipsy, and a cartoon short featuring Boba Fett (his first ever appearance).

So the holiday special is a collision of Star Wars and variety show.  I can see that.  I can even appreciate that.  It does make sense, in a perverse sort of way.  And now that we've got artificial intelligence wheedling its way into everything, maybe by next year some enterprising youngster will fix the Star Wars Holiday Special by inserting Jim Nabors or Sonny and Cher into it.

Jim Nabors as an Imperial officer?  Well gaw-aaahhh-lee!!

(I almost forgot to note that I did NOT finish watching the special last night.  I got as far as the animated short before deciding my heart just wasn't into this this time.  Maybe it's something better appreciated between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So I guess there's always next year!)

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Fallout presents: The Ghoul Log

The second season of Fallout premiered a few days ago on Amazon Prime.  I haven't seen it yet but I'll probably watch it later this evening.  Have had a few things on my plate lately.  Although at the recommendation of a friend last night I did watch Wake 

Up Dead Man, the latest of Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" series starring Daniel Craig.  I really liked it.

Anyhoo, the new season of Fallout is unfolding this holiday season.  And as part of the festivities Amazon has posted on YouTube a special lil' treat.  In the tradition of broadcast Yule logs that goes back many decades across the history of television, here is... the Ghoul Log!

Nothing says Christmas cheer quite like ninety minutes of Wayne Newton music and the fattened arm of some poor sap roasting over an open fire.

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Hair-raising true story of Yours Truly and manic depression

So, TWO people have asked me the same question in private message on Facebook.  Having seen my new photo, they're wondering if I've colored my hair.

Okay, sure, why not?  It might be a little fun to answer this...

NO!  I am not currently coloring my hair.  What you see is all natural brown, honest.

HOWEVER, for awhile I did color my hair.

I was afraid that I was going gray prematurely.  So I turned to Just For Men...  with tragicomic results.  One more thing that I did while deep in the throes of mania.

The complete story - which really is pretty hilarious - is in chapter 56 of my book Keeping the Tryst.  Along with what I did when I thought my hair was falling out.  Not one of my prouder moments, but the tale is there if anyone wants to be a little entertained 😮

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It's five days until Thanksgiving 2025

 Remember...

A bit of classic humor from good friend of this blog Lee Shelton who first created this pic in 2009 :-) 

(In case anyone's wondering, I will sadly not be deep frying a Thanksgiving turkey this year.  Maybe for Christmas though...)

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Random fun with AI

 Here is a Chiss playing chess while chomping on cheddar cheese:

EDIT: A friend came up with a good one...

Chiss chess champion chewing cheddar cheese.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Someone suggested that he could also be "cheating".  But that's something that Grand Admiral Thrawn is above doing.  He certainly wouldn't do that with chess.  It would be too dishonorable.  Still a fun idea though :-)

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I know why CBS is canceling Stephen Colbert

 

Colbert and Trump in happier times (2015)

Stephen Colbert can stamp his feet all he wants about CBS ending his late-night show.  He can scream and tantrum to his heart's content.  But in the end the loss of The Late Show is squarely on him.  And the rest of the "talent" on late at night would do well to learn from his example.

Here's the secret to success at television after the eleven o'clock news.  Most people do not want the last thing that they allow into their minds before going to bed be unrelenting bitterness.  Late-night hosts like Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno after him, knew that people at that hour wanted one last shot of laughter to end their day on.  And those hosts provided that.  Viewers tuned in, got a good chuckle, and wound up going to sleep feeling that however rotten the day had been, it ended on a somewhat happy note after all.  It's a formula that kept television audiences tuned in for decades to those hosts of times past.

Colbert and the rest of his kind never understood that or ever really cared to.  That kind of "comedy" isn't their forté.  They believe that "humor" is vile and mean-spirited and they went to great lengths to proclaim that they represented "new comedy".

But in the end, their "comedy" for the past decade had only one setting: "Trump Bad And Republicans Evil"(tm).  People got tired of that.  Bitterness can only go so far in a business that is allegedly about entertaining people instead of preaching down to them.  If nothing else, Colbert was doing his best to insult half of his potential audience... and that's never a good practice, either.

No, it wasn't politics that led CBS to can The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.  It was solid numbers that Colbert and his staff weren't justifying having a presence with.  I'm seeing that it cost the network $40 million a year to keep the show running.  What kind of an audience does that kind of money supposed to achieve?  Carson had higher numbers than that during his long tenure on The Tonight Show, with far less a budget.

It wasn't politics.  It certainly wasn't President Donald Trump waving a cloaked sleeve like he's a Dark Lord of the Sith telling his minions to "do it!" to anyone who merits his wrath.  It was nothing but raw hatred and anger, perpetuated long past their expiration dates.  It's kind of ironic: Stephen Colbert liked cancel culture.  Until cancel culture came to cancel him.

Maybe the pendulum will begin to swing the other way now.  I've believed for awhile that the ground is fertile for a late-night host in the tradition of Carson and Leno.  Hosts who devoted at most three jokes a night about the president.  They were men who understood laughter and people's need for it.  Something that Colbert and his sort never did and probably never will.

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In memory of Malcolm-Jamal Warner

The very sad news broke today that Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the extremely talented actor and director and producer whose greatest role Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show kept us uproariously laughing, has passed away at age 54.

It was hard to name a favorite character from that series, but Theo was definitely up there on my list.  Maybe because he was the only son of Cliff and Claire.  A lot of the comedy was his to bear because of that and he did it magnificently!

When I think of all the Theo-centric episodes of The Cosby Show, there is one stands out above the rest, and I believe that a lot of other people are going to say that this is funniest the character had.  Here in Warner's memory is a clip from the first season episode where Theo buys a "Gordon Gartrayal" shirt.  The interaction between Theo and his parents is hilarious!

Thoughts and prayers going out for his family.

EDIT: Wow, there's a part 2 from that episode that's been uploaded!  Here it is, Theo in the shirt that Denise made for him:

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Found on a Peanuts page on Facebook today...

This definitely made me crack up.

It is said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.  If that's true then Lucy Van Pelt's grasp of astronomy is downright lethal.

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Forcery turns twenty!

Things like this usually doesn't go past my notice.  Guess I've been so occupied with other stuff lately.  But yesterday was the anniversary of something very special and I need to make a note of it...

May 25th, 2025 is the twentieth anniversary of my... or rather I should say our... first motion picture, Forcery.  An almost hour-long parody of Rob Reiner's film adaption of the Stephen King novel Misery.  Forcery depicts Star Wars creator George Lucas, hot off of finishing the script for Episode III, being rescued from certain death by his "number one fan" Frannie Filks.  It's not long before Lucas, who used to create Star Wars for a living, is now making it to stay alive.

This was an idea that hit me about a week and a half before 9/11.  Indeed, I started writing the screenplay (though I had no idea HOW to really go about doing that) on the night before the attacks.  I knew nothing about filmmaking at all.  But I began learning everything that I could about it.  I read, studied, watched how-to videos, got really good at scriptwriting and lighting and editing and whatnot.  Most of all I learned anew how to work with people and collaborate with them on a project.  It's amazing how so many good people came together to work on this.  Forcery is a monument to them and their sacrifices toward making this dream into a reality, and I'll forever be thankful to them.

In the end, our movie was finished, just in time for Revenge of the Sith being out in theaters.  And it's gotten some appreciation over the years.  "Weird Al" Yankovic saw it and told us "Nice job!"  Then it wounded up being featured a lot in the award-winning documentary The People vs. George Lucas.  But I'm especially fond of all the good word that has come from Star Wars fans who've watched and enjoyed it.  I think Melody Daniel - who plays Frannie in Forcery - is quite fond of all the guys who have said they  like her especially.  I'm going to be forever indebted to Melody.  She brought a LOT of knowledge and wisdom (and patience) to the set and it would have been a far lesser film without her being there.  Ed Woody, my college roomie from Elon, came up with the portable greenscreen and the "nine dollar dolly" and a lot of other inventions used in production.  And of course there is Chad Austin, my best friend since third grade, who absolutely rocked it as George Lucas.  I told him he could do this and he delivered magnificently.  And there were many others also, who believed in this project and helped it come into being.

Well, you can read more about it on the Forcery page that's on this site.  If you've never watched it before you can click on that link and then watch the original on Google Drive.  Or you can watch it here courtesy of YouTube.

Thank you to everyone who in the past two decades has watched Forcery and took the time to tell us that they enjoyed it.  We had fun making it for you :-)

(And to George Lucas, Stephen King, Rob Reiner, and the estate of Slim Whitman: thank you for not suing us!!)

Note: The top image was made by feeding the original poster for Forcery - which did not depict anyone - into ChatGPT and instructing the artificial intelligence to simply produce a cartoon rendering.  And that is what it came up with.  I am STUNNED.  That looks exactly like cartoon versions of Chad and Melody in costume.  I've no idea how the AI knew to do that... but ChatGPT did it!

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The night I tried to call John Paul II

This may or may not be a fun time to share this.  But there's been a lot of good humor about the papacy in the past couple of days (I think the best joke I've heard is that Chicago's NBA team is changing its name to the Papal Bulls) so why not?

Inspired by Steve Jobs (who had tried impersonating Henry Kissinger), in the spring of 1996 I attempted to telephone Pope John Paul the Second.  I had managed to find the number to the Vatican switchboard and so I called it.  I disguised my voice to sound like that of President Bill Clinton.  I told the operator who "I" was and that I had to speak with His Holiness.

Several minutes after being put on hold a gruff-sounding man picked up the line.  He said something in a thick accent and then demanded "Who is this??"

"Sir, I am President Bill Clinton of the United States, and I need to speak with the pope."

"You do not sound like President Clinton.  You should be much ashamed young man!"

The line went dead.

I'll never know how close I was to talking with John Paul II but I like to think that I wasn't too far off 😛

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Blast from my past: A Star Wars song parody of "Cat's In The Cradle"

There is a lot on my plate right now.  I'm having to figure some things out.  Time is not on my side.  But sometimes things percolate to the surface of my mind that I haven't thought about in years, or even decades.  And that's what happened today.

Waaaay back in 2001 and thereabouts  I was on the staff of TheForce.net, which at the time was the biggest website devoted to Star Wars on the whole heapin' web.  It wasn't long after I came onboard that I volunteered to take the vacant position of humor editor.  That was my main job for the next two and a half years, and it was a lot of fun!  I got to see quite a bit of reader-generated funny stuff that almost always left me smiling.

One of the things that I got to curate as humor editor was song parodies.  And they were out the wazoo.  There were tons of spoofs of well-known tunes that got the Star Wars treatment.  They were quite clever.  Here they are, still archived away on TheForce.net after all these years.

It was so much fun reading the song parodies, that I found myself wanting to write one of my own.  I wracked my gray matter trying to come up with something that would be on the level of the material that our readers were submitting.  Finally, one day an idea hit like a bolt of lightning.  I had the lyrics written in less than twenty minutes.  Then I shared my creation with the rest of the staff: it needed to pass muster with them before I could post it alongside the works of our readers.  The staff approved.  And so I shared my parody with the world.

It's a bit of a product of its time.  We had plenty of insider knowledge of Star Wars Episode II, but as you can see, especially with the reference to clones, I was a little off.  But it don't matter.  That makes it even more an artifact of its era.

So without further ado, here is my saga-fied parody.

Boy's In The Boonta 

Parody of "Cat's In The Cradle" by Harry Chapin
New Lyrics by Chris Knight

Found a child just the other day
Came to the world in an unusual way
He's got no dad, and his mom is a slave
He races pods in the desert haze
And he was flying 'fore we knew it, and as he grew
He'd say, "gonna use the Force like you, yeah
I'm gonna use the Force like you"

And the boy's in the Boonta racing on the dune
Against a Dug and a Tusken or two
"Weesa going home soon?"
"We don't know when, but he'll be a Jedi then,
You know he'll be a Jedi then"

Got to Coruscant just the other day
He was strong in the Force, Yoda had to say
"Can you teach me the Force?" They said "Not today,
You're too old to learn," he said "That's okay"
He walked away, but he smiled at Qui-Gon Jinn
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him"

And the boy's in the Boonta racing on the dune
Little punk makin' the bad guys go boom
Is he a Padawan now?
He don't know when, but he'll be a Jedi then,
You know he'll be a Jedi then

Well, he met Lord Sidious just the other day
Became a Sith, Kenobi had to say
"I'm ashamed of you, you're now evil and vile"
He shook his head, and he said with a smile
"You're being a pest Ben, like stinkin' Bantha fur fleas
What you doing? Not that lava please!"

And the boy's in the Boonta racing on the dune
Fought the Federation, clones and Dooku
When'd the bad breathing come?
We don't know when, but he turned to the Dark Side then,
You know he had the Dark Side then

He's long been a Darth. His kids hid away.
He fought his son just the other day.
"Come to the Dark Side if you don't mind."
Luke said "I'm a Jedi, Dad, of the Lighter Side
You see my friends are my strength and the Emperor's through,
But it's sure nice fightin' with you Dad.
It's been sure nice fightin' with you."
And as he cut off the hand Luke could plainly see
"He grew up just like me,
MY DAD IS JUST LIKE ME!"

And the boy's in the Boonta racing on the dune
Palpatine's screaming down a mile or two
Will Vader be a ghost now?
He don't know when
But he'll be a Jedi then,
You know he'll be a Jedi then

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Happy Birthday Barney Miller!

Barney Miller premiered fifty years ago today, January 23rd, 1975.  This is definitely high up on my list of most favorite television series ever.

Here's one of my favorite episode, "Hash".  This is the one when most of the detectives get stoned from eating cannabis-laced brownies...

Happy fiftieth Captain Miller and the staff of the 12th Precinct!

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"The Dukes of MAGA" (and who I am supporting in this election... for now)

I spotted this clip yesterday and it is definitely one of the better pro-candidate videos that I've ever come across.  This is the kind of thing that the more creative types of candidates' supporters should aspire toward.  For a lot of reasons I really like this one.

Behold "The Dukes of MAGA":

So, about who I'm supporting in this election.  Something I've very rarely tipped my hand about throughout the history of this blog...

As many readers know, I have a rule.  It's one that I initiated after my own run for public office years ago, and the TV ads I made for that campaign.  Here it is: I do not vote for a candidate if he or she runs a negative campaign commercial targeting an opponent.  I made three commercials and each of them was positive, upbeat, humorous at times and serious when need be.  There was another candidate in that race who went negative and I did NOT want to be like that.  I went full-throttle the opposite direction.  And I discovered something: when you're positive, you find creativity that you never knew existed.  If I'm going to vote for someone, that person has to demonstrate that not only is he or she not in the race for the power, but also that he or she has vision and imagination.

That being said, at the moment I plan to be casting my vote, for the very first time, for Donald Trump.

If Trump runs a negative television commercial, he's lost my vote.  So far though, he hasn't done that.

For now I intend to vote for Trump, and his running mate J.D. Vance.  In my sincerely held belief, Trump was the most effective and proactive president that the United States has had since Ronald Reagan.  His first term was an astounding success and I believe his second will be even better.  He made some mistakes, especially with the people he chose to be on his staff and appointments.  I like to believe that Trump has learned better.  You won't find me wearing a red "MAGA" hat, but my heart is definitely inclined toward that direction.  "Make America Great Again": what is wrong with that?  Trump in 2017 began doing just that and I believe he stands to be an even better statesman in 2025.

As for the opposition: Joe Biden has been the worst president in any living memory.  For all intents and purposes there has been no competent leadership in the White House for the past three and a half years.  Kamala Harris however would be even WORSE.

In case anyone's curious, I'm independent.  Have been for a very long time now.  I don't fit in the political parties' scheme of things.  That kind of thing never really had any appeal for me.  It means that I'm an outsider more often than not but I get to live with my conscience that much more.  I'm unaffiliated with any party.  And right now, even if I don't vote for Donald Trump, he certainly has my support.

Who knows.  Maybe I'll end up making a pro-Trump video too.

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"Weird Al" Yankovic releases his first single in ten years!

Right when the world needs laughter the most, Weird Al comes through for us.

The last time that "Weird Al" Yankovic released a new song, other than "The Hamilton Polka" or the end credits tune from his movie, was ten years ago this week when his Mandatory Fun album dropped.  That was the final album he was contracted to produce and he said at the time that he'd probably release singles via digital platforms from now on.  But that hasn't happened yet...

Until today.

This morning Yankovic unleashed "Polkamania" upon the world.  It's one of his polka medleys of other artists' songs.  It shows how out of the loop I am though in that I can't recognize any of these tunes that Al incorporated.  And I was kind of hoping his new song would be something like a straight-up parody or a style parody... but maybe it's true, that modern music has become too homogenized to be able to readily pick out any outstanding work.  And so far as style parodies go, well... is there any unique style that Al hasn't done?  I think the guy has spoofed every form of western music except for contemporary Christian, and the guy is too respectful than to do that.

But even so, it's a new song by my all time favorite recording artist.  Just at a time when we all could use something to make us laugh and smile.  For a few brief minutes, all is right with the world.

Well, anyhoo, here is "Polkamania", which despite my unfamiliarity with its components is really a quite catchy song!

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"Weird Al" Yankovic and me!

Earlier today I was going through a bunch of photos and came upon one showing me with "Weird Al" Yankovic: arguably the most successful recording artist in the history of pop culture.  I say that because not only has Al earned multiple gold albums and several Grammy awards for his work, he has also been part of many other endeavors throughout a career now going back more than forty years.  And awhile back  he said that he might still give us a song parody or two every year from now on (but I'm hoping he produces at least one more full album :-)

I could have met Weird Al in October of 1996.  My best friends in college were driving four hours each way between Elon College and Asheville to see a concert on the Bad Hair Tour.  Ed and Gary tried their best to get me to come with them.  But I stupidly stayed home because it was going to be very late when they came back from the concert and I just HAD to be up early the next day for history class.  That following morning I went by their dorm room.  And they told me that they had met Weird Al!  Ed's dad had called up a radio station doing promos for the concert and told them the hard-luck story about how his son was driving so far to see the show.  The station guys asked Ed's father how many backstage passes did he want.  And that's how they got to meet Al after the show.

I literally kicked myself in the @$$.  I've been a fan of "Weird Al" Yankovic since 1984, when I was nine years old.  And because of my pride I had missed the opportunity of meeting my musical hero.

I made a vow that someday I would make up for that, and meet Al in person.

Five years later, a week and a half before 9/11, I got to interview Weird Al via e-mail for TheForce.net.  That's how I already had his address.  In 2003 Al and the band were on the Touring With Scissors tour.  There was a performance scheduled for Charlotte, two and a half hours away.  I wrote to Al and told him about how I missed meeting him seven years earlier, and I humbly asked if there was a way I could make good on the promise I'd made to myself.

He wrote back a few hours later and asked how many passes did I need for after the show.

And that led to the very first time that I got to meet "Weird Al" Yankovic.  But it would not be the last!  So far I have gotten to meet he and his band five times.  I think it could be easily said that I've fulfilled my vow :-)

So I went looking for pics from the other times Al and I have met.  Unfortunately the photo of that first time is somewhere on another hard drive that I don't have convenient access to.  But I've got photo of the four other occasions.  I thought that it might be fun to put them together on one post.

This first pic is from 2010 when Al was in Knoxville,Tennessee.  And Al remembered me from seven years earlier!  Here we are together, with me wearing the shirt from our local theatre guild's production of The King and I.

The third time we met, it was 2011 in Charlotte during the Alpocalypse Tour  Here's Al and I and my girlfriend at the time:

A year after that Al and his troupe were in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Here is Al and my lifelong best friend Chad (the guy who introduced me to Al's music when we were in fourth grade) and me.  It has meant so much that Chad and I got our pic together with our favorite musical artist :-)

And finally, here's a pic from 2013, also in Raleigh.  Al had come to a bookstore there to promote his children's book.  Quite a few people came out to see him and have him sign their copies.  I had something for Weird Al to sign also: the vinyl Yoda puppet that I'd had since 1981.  Al always finishes his concerts with "Yoda", his parody of "Lola" by The Kinks, so I thought this would be a pretty neat thing to get his John Handcock on.  Al's eyes lit up when he saw the puppet!  He had one of these in his first special on MTV.  He was more than happy to sign it and he even put it on his hand to see if it would still fit (it did indeed):

Unfortunately I missed meeting him during the tour stemming from his Mandatory Fun album.  But Ed and me have seen Al perform twice since that last photo: during the Strings Attached Tour (which Al performed while backed up by a full orchestra) and then the second vanity tour in 2022.

You'll have to ask Ed how many times he's seen Weird Al in concert.  It's gotta be close to ten.

Who knows, maybe someday I'll get to meet Al again.  He has always been a super nice guy.  There needs to be more people like him in this world.

EDIT 5/17/2024: I finally found the very first pic of Al and me together!  From August 2003:

I'm wearing a "What Would Al Do?" shirt that I made myself.  He thought it was pretty funny :-)

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Happy 50th Birthday to Blazing Saddles!

It was on this date in 1974 that filmmaker Mel Brooks released his western spoof upon an unsuspecting world.  And comedy was never the same again...

It's probably the number-one movie that has been said "it could never be made today."  Which makes it all the more special.  Blazing Saddles is unadulterated political incorrectness as only Brooks and his crew could have made it.

How much does this movie mean to me?  I have owned a copy of it on every home media format going back to VHS.  It was the very first DVD that I bought.  Later on I bought it on Blu-ray and today I keep it loaded on my iPad Pro (along with the complete Star Wars saga, The Thing, and Airplane! among others).

There are two movies that I distinctly remember from early childhood and each of them was run on CBS (the network our family's television was almost always tuned to) every year: The Wizard of Oz and Blazing Saddles.  Try finding a broadcast network that would show it today though!  Even HBO Max is now carrying a "trigger warning" when you watch Blazing Saddles on it.

Well, so much that could be said about this film.  I think I'll celebrate today by watching it again for the hunnerd zillionth time.

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The Berenstain Bears learn about sound economic policy

I knew it!  I just knew that I hadn't imagined this.  A cartoon from 37 years that I saw only once ago and I still remember it!

Around the mid-Eighties there was an animated series based on the beloved Berenstain Bears children's books.  The show ran on Saturday mornings on CBS.  It was pretty good as I seem to recall.  And often quite humorous.

Well, the other day one of the episodes sprang to mind as I was reading the news about the latest attempt to avoid a government shutdown.  It involved the Bear kiddies learning all about money.  How those little green pieces of paper don't have value on their own.  Instead they must be backed up by something with real tangible worth.  In the bears' world this happens to be the purest honey in existence.  Without that backing, as the kids' father puts it there would be total chaos.

In other words: fiat currency is a very terrible thing for a society to have.

This is wise economics from a nearly forty year old animated cartoon made for youngsters.  Even a child can understand the enormity of it.

If only more people had grasped the concept.  This country would not be headed toward the disaster it is hellbent on achieving.  It is indeed chaos and there is not going to be any avoiding it.

Here is the episode: "Raid On Fort Grizzly".  Well worth watching.

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Tammy's decoy

Last night Tammy, my miniature dachshund, got on the sofa.  And she brought along one of her Christmas toys: a plush dachshund toy, which came courtesy of my cousin Lauryn and her husband.

So she got up under her blanket, on my lap, and I noticed that she and her toy each had their tale protruding out:

Which one is Tammy??  In real life it really does look like there are two dogs in my lap.

It doesn't help resolve matters that the toy is almost precisely the same size as Tammy.  She could make serious trouble if she wants to :-D

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