For a brief shining moment in 2005 or so, Kate and I had a shared TV ritual — “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy,” 7 to 8 p.m. in my market and probably yours, too. It was fun, and it was educational. Then she discovered “America’s Funniest Home Videos” was on opposite, and that was the end of winning $400 on Civil War trivia. Although I’ve tried to make the best of it.
“You know whenever you see a kid, a father and a baseball bat, something’s going to happen, and it’s going to be a shot to the junk,” I say, figuring it’s best to introduce film-analysis skills early. (You can say the same about trampolines positioned near basketball hoops.) Some parents teach their children what Chekhov said about guns and first acts. We work with the material we have.
It’s amusing, isn’t it, how AFV, as it’s called, predicted YouTube? (And how YouTube predicted “Ow! My Balls!”) Did you know there are more than 19,000 YouTube videos tagged “treadmill?” The treadmill, any fan of viral video can tell you, is even more predictive of wacky hijinks than baseball bats and fathers. Sometimes video makers don’t play fair. This one, for instance. There’s no reason for that treadmill to be on. This is like Chekhov writing a character who says, “May I leave my loaded gun here on this table? Make sure no one touches it. It’s loaded. And it’s a gun.”
Lately, it’s babies. Babies and Beyoncé.
I blame YouTube for ruining my attention span. It boggles my mind when I see people posting webcam videos of themselves talking about one thing or another, specimens that regularly clock in at eight or nine minutes. If I know one thing in this world, it’s that no one wants to watch you yak for eight minutes. Even “leave Britney alone” came in at under three.
Of course, when it comes to viral video, this is the only one you need to watch today:
HT: Sweet Juniper.
Not much for you today. Fortunately, Roger Ebert’s on the job, presenting his long-awaited recollection of O’Rourke’s, his old Chicago watering hole:
O’Rourke’s was our stage, and we displayed our personas there nightly. It was a shabby street-corner tavern on a dicey stretch of North Avenue, a block after Chicago’s Old Town stopped being a tourist haven. In its early days it was heated by a wood-burning pot-bellied stove, and ice formed on the insides of the windows. One night a kid from the street barged in, whacked a customer in the front booth with a baseball bat, and ran out again. When a roomer who lived upstairs died, his body was discovered when maggots started to drop through the ceiling. A man nobody knew was shot dead one night out in back. From the day it opened on Dec, 30, 1966 until the day I stopped drinking in 1979, I drank there more or less every night when I was in town. So did a lot of people.
Our place in Columbus wasn’t so colorful, but it was pretty fun — the Galleria. It was on the ground floor of an office building, and you entered through an indoor, well, galleria. I won’t try to match Ebert, but when I sift through my misty watercolored memories of the place, I remember Tim May, one of the sportswriters, looking through the window to see a homeless man shuffling by to use the bathroom. This was in the very early ’80s, when the public mental hospitals all closed justlikethat, and suddenly we were seeing homeless people everywhere.
“Someday I’m gonna write a book about those guys,” he said in his Texas drawl. “I’m gonna call it ‘Wrong Turn,’ ’cause somewhere along the line, those guys took a wrong turn.” He never wrote the book, but I still think that’s a tremendous title, and if I ever have occasion to use it myself, I’m going to credit Tim.
Off to the gym. I did Pilates yesterday, and am still waiting for the ab soreness to settle in. Sit-ups aren’t called sit-ups in Pilates, they’re called roll-ups. That’s because you do them very slowly, one vertebra at a time, and if you think that’s easy, try it sometime. Ouch.
coozledad said on September 24, 2009 at 10:49 am
We weren’t allowed to drink behind the bar in North Carolina. Just as well. Ebert’s piece made me remember having to throw a guy out because he was bothering one of the waitresses. He was so drunk and frail I could have carried him down the stairs, and I only weighed about 130 lbs then. I decided to eject him primarily because the waitress was preparing to kill him on the spot.
It would have been unremarkable, except for the fact when I got him to the sidewalk and he started to walk away, he turned around and said “This ain’t shit. I can always go home and fuck grandma.”
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Dorothy said on September 24, 2009 at 10:52 am
Cooz why the HELL don’t you write a book? You should be under contract to several publishers by now, all the great stuff you put out in the comments here!
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LAMary said on September 24, 2009 at 11:11 am
We went through a brief AFHV stage. Luckily, Mythbusters took over. Unfortunately, Dirty Jobs, Survivor Man and that show about eating insects, Andrew whatisname and Bizarre Foods, have joined the list. All these shows make me very queasy.
A couple of years ago my older son discovered How It’s Made. I think that show is on only at weird times here. It’s a Canadian program and it has this nice soothing quality. A few weeks ago we watched how garage doors are made. Video valium.
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basset said on September 24, 2009 at 11:24 am
We’ve taken to watching the “Big Joe Polka Show” on Saturday nights and the old Porter Wagoner shows on Sunday mornings, both on RFD-TV. Try ’em. Really. Without irony.
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Jeff Borden said on September 24, 2009 at 11:36 am
Hoosier Hurrahs:
New figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show three of the 10 U.S. counties with the highest divorce rates are in Indiana: Floyd, Madison and Wayne counties.
All the digital sub-channels are delivering a steady stream of great old favorites. I’ve rediscovered the charm of the old “Dick Van Dyke Show,” though the child actor who played Richie Petrie is perhaps the worst ever to appear on TV. Must’ve been the producer’s son? I’m also digging “The Untouchables,” which I was not allowed to watch as a kid on the grounds it was too violent. Compared with the programs today, of course, it doesn’t seem all that bad. I can understand why Italian-American groups hated it, though.
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LAMary said on September 24, 2009 at 11:41 am
We used to watch Mule Training on RFD-TV, but I haven’t seen it on the schedule lately.
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Sue said on September 24, 2009 at 12:11 pm
My first reaction to the following was: wow, Rep. Cantor is behaving suspiciously like a death panel of one, in a country that doesn’t recognize that its health care is already rationed by ability to pay.
There is no existing government program or charity hospital available to someone whose assets on paper will disqualify her for care. She will probably not be able to sell her house in this ridiculous market in time (and live where?) to finance her medical treatment. She will not be able to get insurance even if everyone she knows chips in to finance it, now that she has a preexisting condition.
Rep. Cantor’s reply, as polite as it was, was nothing more than a version of “sucks to be her, doesn’t it”.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/09/break_glass_in_case_of_human_b.html
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brian stouder said on September 24, 2009 at 12:14 pm
IFC is one of my favorite flip-to* channels; although it can be a little dodgey. You never know what’s going to be happening over there. The other night they had a movie wherein a group of college-aged men and women rent a cabin in the deep woods, and a flesh-eating bacteria begins to attack them.
I invested a total of maybe 5 minutes into this (there’s always a chance for gratuitous nudity in such flicks, y’know), over the course of an hour (I was mainly watching MSNBC), and quickly concluded that Nancy’s short-film making crew could have run circles around the makers of this show.
In one long pan, they showed a dead, fleshless body laying in a pond, and then our attention is drawn to a pipe in the pond that runs back to the cabin, and up the wall…and then we go into the cabin, where one of the hot young men is filling a glass with water (OH NO!!) which he ultimately gives to the hot young woman he’s putting the moves on (love is in the air, despite recent carnage), and which she gulps down entirely!
And I’m thinking – they want us to accept that the drinking water is sucked up a pipe from a stagnant pond? Forget the flesh-eating bacteria, I’d be concerned about salmonella or cholera!
*flip-to channel: filler during commercials while you’re watching something else
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Jeff Borden said on September 24, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Brian,
I am embarrassed to admit that I believe I know the name of that film. It sounds a lot like “Cabin Fever,” which was written and directed by Eli Roth. This low-budget exercise made enough money to move him on to the next level of excretion, which were the horrible “Hostel” movies, often described correctly as “torture porn” because the audience takes the viewpoint of the torturer, not the victim. Now he’s acting in “Inglorious Basterds,” mostly because he’s pals with Quentin Tarantino.
I generally love horror films, though I prefer your standard monster, vampire, werewolf, robot, zombie, ghost, demonic possession, ancient curse, etc. style feature rather than the slasher movies.
I’ve circled Oct. 2 for “Zombieland,” which looks like a great and gory hoot. Stellar cast including Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg and the little girl from “Little Miss Sunshine,” Abigail Breslin. I hope it is half as cool as the trailer.
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Sue said on September 24, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Think I’ll watch “Shawn of the Dead” this weekend, now that you mention it, Jeff Borden. Or maybe “Young Frankenstein”. That’s how I roll, horror-movie-wise.
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LAMary said on September 24, 2009 at 12:34 pm
We watched some crappy movie on ScyFy a couple of weeks ago. Seems a black hole had traveled to St. Louis and was schlumping around town sucking things up. I think they killed it with electricity or something or sent it back to outer space.
Judd Nelson was in it.
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4dbirds said on September 24, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Yes Cabin Fever, which was hailed because it brought back naked boobies to the horror genre.
I generally love horror pictures, except for torture porn. I don’t believe in zombies, vampires, giant blobs but I do believe in people who will torture you for fun. Those folks are all too real.
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Lex said on September 24, 2009 at 12:43 pm
The treadmill theme dates at least as far back as “The Jetsons,” and probably farther.
IIRC, parts of “Cabin Fever” were shot around here.
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Jeff Borden said on September 24, 2009 at 12:45 pm
4dbirds,
That’s exactly my reasoning. I love getting the holy bejesus scared out of me, but I like to be able to remind myself that there are no such things as vampires, zombies, etc. You can’t do that with a slasher flick.
For my horror movie peeps, I highly, highly, highly recommend a creeply little Swedish film, “Let the Right One In.” It’s based on a Swedish horror novel of the same name and it absolutely rocks the genre.
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Sue said on September 24, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I love those ScyFy “original” movies. I believe I’ve mentioned here before the classic “Pteradactyl” with the group of people who get picked off one by one and yet still can’t figure out that they should keep to the treeline of the field instead of walking across the open middle.
Favorite stereotype of course is the touch smart chick who can handle serious weaponry while exposing the most amount of skin. She is in every ScyFy movie.
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beb said on September 24, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I still love “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy,” AFV not so much, perhaps because, as a man, groin injury isn’t funny. Sadly my daughter has become addicted to police videos. Also to “Horders” a reality show about peopkle who can’t throw anything away. The show is disturbing because at times it seems to cut a little too close to home.
c’dad certainly has a lot of stories but I’m not sure how well they’d work as a book since most of them run from a paragraph to no more than a page. I think they work best as blog-bits.
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Peter said on September 24, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Jeff – I’m with you on the Dick van Dyke – I didn’t see it much when I was a kid, but to watch it now, whoa, that Mary Tyler Moore is HOT.
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Julie Robinson said on September 24, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Wheel of Fortune has always been a guilty secret and perfect for winding down after the day and reading our piddly afternoon paper.
But my new guilty secret is Glee, and I think it’s the first Fox show I’ve ever liked. It’s ridiculous and fun with lots of singing and dancing. Last night they had the football team doing that same Beyonce song as the baby above was bouncing too. Hilarious, mindless, and perfect for musical geeks.
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Dorothy said on September 24, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Am I the only one who observed that the dancing baby in the Beyonce YouTube thing had a string or something around it’s neck? That baby is waaaay to young to have something like a necklace on it. I could not see the front of it but it was enough to make me wince.
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Jeff Borden said on September 24, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Amen, Peter, amen. She was smokin’ hot. True trivia fact: Her first appearance on TV was simply as a pair of legs. As Sam, a telephone operator whose voice was heard but whose face was never seen, she interacted with Richard Diamond, a private eye played by Davind Janssen the 1957 syndicated TV of the same name.
MTM began her career as a dancer and always had those fabulous dancer’s legs.
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LAMary said on September 24, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Wheel of Fortune has some remarkably stupid contestants. A memorable one had this much of a name puzzle showing:
CAR_ GRANT
The idiot guessed Carl Grant.
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Connie said on September 24, 2009 at 1:28 pm
I am loving Glee. Except I hate the wife. My brother the award winning barber shop guy told me he loves the show but has to fast forward every time the wife is on screen.
Worst movie of late: I watched some cable channel’s 4 hour mini series called The Storm. I admit a weakness for disaster and post disaster movies, but this one was bad. I predicted all the story lines, none of which had any connection to the other except the storm that was going on. Of course the pregnant woman went into labor as her house was blowing apart around her. Of course her father was trapped by a flying water heater just as the basement began to fill up with water. Of course the ambulance driver husband made it home in time to rescue them both and deliver his daughter. And I thought the lead scientist was pretty cute and then suddenly realized he was James Vanden Beek (sp?) from Dawsons Creek.
Movie rant over.
In May of 87 I rode an ambulance to Methodist hospital in Indianapolis where I was kept a prisoner in the high risk pregnancy center until my daughter was born at the end of July. (total time in hospital, 77 days) We had not had cable, and the extensive cable available in my medically ordered private room kept me sane. And it was all new to me. I watched Dick Van Dyke on Nick every day at 1 p.m. I watched lots of VH1 and MTV and can still remember most of the top videos of that year. Including two by Paula Abdul. And You can call me Al! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULjCSK0oOlI
And I too love the cop and accident videos now being shown all day and all night by TruTv, formerly Court Tv. Those and the news are pretty much the only things I watch live, everything else is TIVO’d.
I would also note that Methodist Hosp had what they referred to as “our paper boy” (he was at least 70) and every morning by 8 a.m. he cruised through the hall and sold me an Indianapolis Star for 50 cents every day. If I got pulled out for test (constant fetal stress tests which after the first week I had figured out and was allowed to run by myself!) I left the change on my table, and he left me a paper. Day in and day out I read every word in the Star, including the classifieds and the Billy Graham column.
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Rana said on September 24, 2009 at 1:29 pm
LAMary – I also find How It’s Made weirdly soothing. I think something about the juxtapositions (this episode – easy chairs, plastic waste baskets) is amusing.
I like Dirty Jobs too, though sometimes it is indeed quite disgusting. I enjoy learning how things like bricks or made, or how windmills are serviced, and I love how the host/guinea pig is so cheerful about playing the clueless newbie to the old hands (the old hands seem to enjoy it too).
Another odd little show that’s a blast to watch is Cash Cab. Partly it’s the host, who is quite charismatic and vaguely reminds me of my brother, but it’s also the combination of trivia game plus watching the interactions of the random folks who end up in the cab.
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Sue said on September 24, 2009 at 1:31 pm
I remember the Wheel of Fortune contestant who had the whole phrase up on the board – The Importance of Being Earnest – and couldn’t get it; he obviously had never heard of it. He eventually read it very slowly, pronouncing earnest as ear nest, and won. It was bizarre and I felt sorrier for him than I do for the ones you can excuse as being nervous or overexcited or something.
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Dorothy said on September 24, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) is incredibly sexy, despite the goo and muck he’s surrounded by all the time. That smile – those eyes!!! Hubba hubba!
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Catherine said on September 24, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Thank you Connie and Julie for being the first to admit that you love Glee. I am addicted to that show! I kept the recording of the first one just so I can watch that Kanye number over and over… and over. The downsides are 1) the wife is horrible and difficult to watch; 2) it’s not appropriate to watch with my kids (the celibacy club, just for starters).
Anyone else going to see Fame this weekend? I will be reliving 10th grade. I’m going for the trifecta: the Hannah Montana movie, Bandslam and now Fame.
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LAMary said on September 24, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Cash Cab is great. Again, a tough show to find at times if you work away from home, but sometimes on the weekend I see it.
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John said on September 24, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Rob and Laura Petrie had single beds, wore pajamas (presumably with underwear), had dressing gowns, and full length robes. It’s a miracle that Ritchie was ever born.
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Connie said on September 24, 2009 at 1:47 pm
John all married TV couples had single beds in those days, including Lucy and Ricky.
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4dbirds said on September 24, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Jeff, I have heard so much about “Let the Right One In.” and can’t find it. I’m hoping it makes it onto cable soon!
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4dbirds said on September 24, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Sue there are so many stereotypes to choose from in a ScyFy movie.
Aging scientist (Judd Nelson or C. Thomas Howell) who made an error in judgement several years ago and can fix the current calamity if only his peers and the President trusted him.
Hot babe scientist who must have started her undergraduate work when she was 5.
Evil military guy who wants to set off a nuke.
Old Rich guy who funding the project.
Aging Scientist’s kid, who has to be saved.
Aging Scientist’s ex-wife who is remarried to a complete ass.
Local hick who carries a shotgun and either saves the day or has to be killed.
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Sue said on September 24, 2009 at 2:53 pm
4db – you got it! Pass the popcorn.
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adrianne said on September 24, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Son Jack and I bonded over Cash Cab at our vacation place on Cape Cod. The host is hilarious!
Nance, best newspaper bar was Henry’s in Fort Wayne, where everyone knew your name and customary drink order.
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Joe Kobiela said on September 24, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Guilty Pleasure,
Family Guy!!!
The dog Brian cracks me up every time.
Pilot Joe
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LAMary said on September 24, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Joe, don’t take this personally, but I just don’t get Family Guy. My son likes it. I can’t watch it.
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4dbirds said on September 24, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I don’t want to like Family Guy but I do.
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paddyo' said on September 24, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Pilot Joe,
Me, too, on “Family Guy.” The mind of creator Seth McFarlane is brilliant, profane and just plain funny most of the time. The bit they did during the Emmys, which no doubt horrified half the audience (or more) with its bloody-but-slapstick violence between erudite toddler Stewie and cool-cat Brian the Dog, was typical/vintage/classic.
And, really, Brian and Stewie are total crack-ups . . .
My only quibble is that the little sight-gag/slapstick asides — sometimes the funniest stuff in each episode — on occasion go on about 10-15 seconds too long, to the point of beat-it-into-the-ground . . . but on balance, terrific. It’s an R-rated “The Simpsons” for the 21st century . . .
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Dexter said on September 24, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Dorothy: Last month I walked into my neighborhood convenience store and the middle aged attractive lady clerk and the store owner lady talked over me as I paid for my soda, “…oh wow! Have you seen him with his SHIRT OFF? !!! Oh, MAN !”
“[giggles}”
As I left the owner asked what his name is, you know, the Dirty Jobs guy.
“Mike Rowe”.
Ebert loved his old bar, as we read. I can’t top those incidents he related either, even though I loved to visit seedy bars all over the country.
Other that the bar-long urinal trough that angled from the door end of the bar to a drain in The Phoenix Bar in Cincinnati twenty years ago, which I told about here last year, the weirdest incident happened in Grand Central Station ,NYC.
I had Amtrak’d it there to do a few things I never had in my previous trips, mainly seeing a game in Yankee Stadium. As our trip ended, we had a couple hours to kill at the bar in the station. A man came in from the street to a warm welcome; I remember the bartenders called him Bobby.
Bobby started shaking hands with the bartenders and customers he knew, and handing each one of them a $100 bill!
A new bartender was introduced, and Bobby slipped him $50. Bobby was severely alcohol poisoned, I believe he gave about one of every three people at the bar a C-note.
I asked my bartender what the HELL?
Bobby was an oil exec, stationed for six months at a time in Saudi Arabia.
He didn’t drink at all in S.A., of course, but when he got to London he started and did not stop, so by the time he got to NYC, he was really plastered.
Well, he gave all his cash away, and wanted a drink, and tried to get the bartender to take some English pound notes. The bartender sent him across the street to a bank. Our train was called. I never saw Bobby again.
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del said on September 24, 2009 at 3:34 pm
I find some of the shows mentioned above soothing too; Dirty Jobs, How It’s Made, Mythbusters, everything on the Food Network. My kids Love Cash Cab. Everytime a couple gets in the car they get all excited – “Don’t you know you’re getting in the CASH CAB?!” They want to go to New York to see it.
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LAMary said on September 24, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Dorothy, do you know that Mike Rowe used to be one of the pitchmen on QVC?
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 24, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Mike Rowe was also an . . . Eagle Scout!
Connie, i remember the paper “boy” at Methodist — fortunately for you, we would not have met: i spent May-August 1987 in CPE at Methodist, working the Hospice floor and ER. But that was a vivid memory, the fellow with the Stars and the rolls of quarters.
It was the most remarkable maze of interconnected buildings i hope to ever work in.
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brian stouder said on September 24, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Dorothy, do you know that Mike Rowe used to be one of the pitchmen on QVC?
Now THERE’s a ‘dirty job’!
Think of all the lonely people who call up and blow their Social Security money on that crap!
Maybe this can be the new TLC series – Dirty White (and pink)-Collar Jobs.
See insurance company lawyers screw the hell out of people and their puny claims; watch bankers foreclose on hapless homeowners, and then flip on their shades and whizz away in their SLK.
Any big city would have a thousand different well-paid people who do crappy things every single day
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LAMary said on September 24, 2009 at 5:23 pm
JTMMO, I feel slightly smug about knowing what CPE is. I sit next to the recruiter who handles spiritual care.
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Jean S said on September 24, 2009 at 5:35 pm
but wait….am I the only one here who ever went to O’Rourke’s? I read Ebert’s piece and had a complete flashback to a Saturday night in 1979 or so. The place was jammed; Sinatra on the jukebox. And yeah, those really were crappy booths. But, Sinatra!!
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Jeff Borden said on September 24, 2009 at 5:39 pm
By the time I got to Chicago, O’Rourke’s had relocated to Halsted Street, just north of North and Clybourn. Same jukebox. An ancient broken TV in the corner. Huge portraits of famous Irish writers along the wall. It was popular with the folks from Steppenwolf Theater, which was almost across the street.
When the owner decided to quit the business, he had an auction. One of my pals bought the enormous photo portrait of Oscar Wilde. Can’t remember the price.
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Laurie said on September 24, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Nancy, I appreciate your directing me to Roger’s blog some months ago, which I have really enjoyed.
I have been on a TV fast since June 12 (a date that shall go down in infamy–in my more paranoid moments I wonder whether it was a conspiracy by the cable and electronics companies). I haven’t been able to get my cheapo converter box to work, I don’t have cable or an electronically inclined person around the house, so I sort of gave up for a few weeks…and got to doing things like reading more books, taking more walks, writing more letters, and listening to the radio.
Life in the 1930s is pleasant, although I do miss out on the watercooler chat. The DVD player still works so it is a nice event to take out a movie and watch that.
I may be “in recovery.” I rented an apartment several years ago that came semi-furmished, including with a TV whose screen was as big as a Hummer, HD, with top-of-the-line Direct TV. Between being a film and comedy buff and reliving the shows of my childhood, I gradually regressed to almost no sleep, prosthetic remote at the end of my arm, chin on my chest, drooling á la Homer Simpson, and virtually no attention span from surfing 800 TV channels plus XM Radio. I voluntarily entered rehab by my 6-month lease ending, and, speaking of watering holes, was glad to get away as well from the two elderly alcoholics overhead who would get plastered and entertain nightly into the wee hours. When I met them (the owners), I thought, “These are nice old people. I bet this place is a tomb after 9 p.m.”
Treadmills are a distressing existential symbol to me.
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Danny said on September 24, 2009 at 6:14 pm
I don’t want to like Family Guy but I do.
That probably sums up a lot of peoples’ feelings around here regarding me. Come to think of it, my wife may have uttered something similar once or twice…
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Rana said on September 24, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Maybe this can be the new TLC series — Dirty White (and pink)-Collar Jobs.
Heh. That sounds a lot like temp work. Filing for abusive bosses at a phone book company who forced their workers to come back even though the air quality was dangerous due to wildfires, the life insurance company that had all kinds of riders in their forms, the poorly run technical school that treated disasters like a party…. I was always glad I wasn’t at any of these places for very long.
I don’t know how entertaining it would be as a show, however.
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MarkH said on September 24, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Danny, my wife has said exactly that, about me, multiple times.
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Connie said on September 24, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Jttmo, we were both at Methodist for the same period in 87. Too weird. I was sitting in a wheelchair outside on the “deck” outside the public cafeteria in a wheelchair and got to experience that strange but true Indianapolis earthquake.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 24, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Yep, i was on the 5th floor of Wile Hall, where the chaplaincy offices were, looking at my coffee and thinking “they must be pile driving in the parking garage across the street,” then wondering if the end building that the heliport sat atop was already getting work done.
Mary, thanks for the reminder to play nice in the acronym sandbox — Clinical Pastoral Education is the full name of CPE, a training program some clergy choose to go through to get intensive, supervised training in pastoral care. Fascinating to hear there’s a recruiter for it; we were screened and all, but there wasn’t much structure for it. They’d take anyone willing to do the work (who passed the basic psych screening, that is).
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beb said on September 24, 2009 at 9:53 pm
I used to like Family Guy but over the last year or so it’s become unwatchable. I find it obscene, perverted and unfunny. And I usually like the first two.
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Dexter said on September 24, 2009 at 11:28 pm
My radio “buddies” came to the aid of a broke former co-worker …a small loan was given…this is “Black Earl Douglas”, so named because he only, always, wears black. I love the eyeballs…just like Geico!
http://rfeastsidedave.posterous.com/earls-geico-money
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 24, 2009 at 11:33 pm
No, the psych screening wasn’t that thorough, Dexter.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 25, 2009 at 12:02 am
My last comment now makes no sense, but i think it was wise to remove that particular link.
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Dexter said on September 25, 2009 at 12:21 am
yeah, Jeff…see, I was pulling a guy’s leg who had just Facebooked that “I am no longer a sushi virgin!”
I then posted that link , which featured the opened skull of a person with a brain that was infested with “brain worms”.
That was not supposed to have appeared here…my bad…
Now , in case I have aroused more curiosity…just Google Image “sushi brain worms”.
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crazycatlady said on September 25, 2009 at 12:37 am
Mike Rowe is so Sexy!!! I wish he’d come to the Nursing Home I work at. I have a very dirty job he can do for us… Or maybe as a former Opera singer, he could just entertain my patients.
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moe99 said on September 25, 2009 at 2:17 am
fyi, my friends:
http://moesmisadventures.blogspot.com/2009/09/at-top-of-roller-coaster.html
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Dexter said on September 25, 2009 at 2:30 am
crazycatlady! You are so awful! ha ha! Well…Bruce Springsteen says it takes a redheaded woman to get a dirty job done…c’est la guerre.
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Deborah said on September 25, 2009 at 6:23 am
Moe, I’ve been thinking about you ever since I read your post a couple of days ago on your blog. I’m glad you linked to your site here. I wanted to comment at NNC about what you’ve been going through but didn’t think it was appropriate for ME to do that. It’s weird how one can be connected through this virtual world. If there is anything we can do please let us know.
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brian stouder said on September 25, 2009 at 8:11 am
Moe – I especially never liked the ride up the first hill on a roller coaster (although things get fun and exciting once the ride got going in earnest!)
If you’re ahead of any of us on The Big Ride (and who knows!), our eyes will be on you, and our hopes and prayers will be with you
Here’s wishing you and yours strength.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 25, 2009 at 8:26 am
Moe, may every blessing on the shelf and out of the storeroom be yours. It’s been true for some time that one of the most important pieces of pastoral care that clergy need to do and get -zippo- training for is helping shyer, quieter, more deferential folk (especially those less educated or more deferential to authority) to get their due out of the medical system. I was both inspired and infuriated to read your description of how you got your Friday appointment made, and i hope you don’t mind if i forward that along to a batch of clergy training/education folk i work with. But bless you for pushing through the indifference or mechanicalness or weariness or whatever of that scheduling staffer and getting your procedure done NOW and not another two weeks later.
My prayers are with you, and i will be very interested to hear/read what it takes to make a medical co-op work for you, hopefully with a minimum of bludgeoning (but you bludgeon, lady, when you need to!).
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Julie Robinson said on September 25, 2009 at 8:59 am
Moe, I am so sorry to hear about your diagnosis. Your voice is still strong even though the phsyical part is weak. I join others in prayer for you.
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LAMary said on September 25, 2009 at 10:48 am
Moe,the company I work for has a lot of hospitals in Washington. Which hospital are you going to? I might know some folks there who can get you the nice room with the view or something.
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Rana said on September 25, 2009 at 12:22 pm
moe, you’re in – and will continue to be in – my thoughts. *hugs* if you want them.
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