Not enough time! Eleven minutes to squeeze in a post! What shall we do? Start speed-typing:
Got a call from my pal Dr. Frank yesterday. We’re old friends, further joined by the fact both of us queered on our jobs at the same time and left Fort Wayne for new horizons within a few months of one another. He is something of a camera hog, a habit that would be intolerable in anyone else but is made charming by the fact he is, well, charming. His name is Dr. Frank Byrne, and you longtime M*A*S*H fans (TV show only) might remember Dr. Frank Burns, Larry Linville’s character, is a resident of Fort Wayne. (Fort Wayne will always be shorthand for Podunk for a certain sort of screenwriter, and I can’t really say they’re wrong.) Anyway, Dr. Byrne’s cornerstone photo on his glory wall is a grip-and-grin of him and Larry Linville. Also up there: Grip-and-grins with the ZZ Top guys and Felix Somebody, lead singer of the Young Rascals. (If I had time, I’d look it up. Something Italian.)
Anyway, he calls yesterday to say he’d heard from an old pal, who saw “CSNY: Deja Vu,” at the Traverse City Film Festival. “And Frank,” the pal said, “you’re in it.”
He is, apparently, interviewed at a CSNY concert at Milwaukee summerfest in 2006. Now I have to see it. And I couldn’t even tolerate the trailer. I haven’t been a fan of that band since “Four-Way Street,” a record so bad my sister gave it to me a week after buying it, and that’s when double albums cost real money.
But loyalty to friends trumps all. The frosting to this story is, the clip featuring Dr. Frank and his family was used on the Ebert & Roeper TV-review show, whatever it’s called, so there’s always a chance it’ll turn up somewhere else and I won’t have to watch the fat, bald remains of Stephen Stills for two hours, but you never know.
OK, off to the gym with three minutes to spare. New On the Nightstand for those of you who follow these things. I have a busy day, so nothing more until late this afternoon or, more likely, tomorrow. I have the feeling three-quarters of you are on vacation anyway.
Kirk said on August 7, 2008 at 9:53 am
Felix Cavaliere.
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Jason T. said on August 7, 2008 at 9:59 am
I thought it was Felix Rohatyn.
You remember his theme song? “Whenever New York gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks!”
What? Oh. Sorry, I’ll go quietly.
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Connie said on August 7, 2008 at 10:19 am
Unfortunately I’m not on vacation, but barely returned. I am trying to finalize a 2009 budget under the new terms of the property tax relief bill. We haven’t figured it all out, the county auditor hasn’t figured it out, and the state guys who are supposed to advise us haven’t figured it out either.
I loved the Rascals. And CSNY, at least back in the day.
And I find it very amusing that your google ads point back to the film to which you refer. On the comments page anyway. Front page ads seem to be focussed on colonic related stuff.
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LAMary said on August 7, 2008 at 10:44 am
I haven’t had a vacation since 2001 and it shows.
CSNY has produced some music that is ok and a lot that sucks. I find Graham Nash and David Crosby particularly annoying. They were on Colbert Report a few days ago and they were really bad. Even someone who had liked them thirty five years ago probably would agree they sucked the other night.
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nancy said on August 7, 2008 at 10:56 am
That’s it. Cavaliere.
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brian stouder said on August 7, 2008 at 11:04 am
But, Mary – a workday in sunny Southern California is better than a day off in Fort Wayne, yes?
If I was on vacation, and had travelled to LA, and was there right now – I’d be stuck in the hot sunny traffic on the freeway, trying to get to some ridiculous attraction or another, and I’d be thinking wow – this is GREAT!; while at the same moment, you would be toiling at your desk in a climate controlled office, with a Mona Lisa smile slowly spreading upon your face…
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Dorothy said on August 7, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I just bought a Rascal’s Greatest Hits at the Half Price Bookstore about a month ago.
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Peter said on August 7, 2008 at 12:09 pm
AP is just reporting that Mayor Kilpatrick is cooling his heels in jail for traveling to Canada recently…
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LAMary said on August 7, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Oh no, Brian. Not today especially. I started my day with someone requesting a bonus they were eligible for three years ago but never got. This person didn’t inquire for three years about the 2k they were owed but today they wanted it THIS MINUTE.
Then I had to bring an applicant to the ER and on my way out someone clearly off her meds jumped off her gurney and hissed at me and made some comment about my jacket.
There’s more but I’ll leave it at that. It’s sunny and is supposed to 89 and humid today. I’m covering for two people who are on vacation and I’m alpha testing new software. It’s a day at the beach.
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nancy said on August 7, 2008 at 1:10 pm
She made a comment about your jacket? Well, maybe it was justified. I mean, what does the jacket look like? And what did she say?
I’m thinking, “That’s so not the right color for you.”
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LAMary said on August 7, 2008 at 1:37 pm
It was unintelliglible other than the word, “jacket.” It’s a perfectly nice dark denim jacket with brass buttons and mandarin collar. I’ve been told by people who are either sane or on their meds that it’s very nice.
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brian stouder said on August 7, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Well, I prefer the Mona Lisa image, but it sounds more like a Valkyrie-type day for you!
So, although we won’t get a pic of the bikini-clad (and under-aged!) Proprietress, maybe we can get an LAMary pic with the offending jacket – and then the NN.cer’s can objectively say whether the ER-gurney lady had a point or not!
edit: Mary said “It was unintelliglible other than the word, “jacket.”
And there’s almost certainly a joke here! An old guy comedian (whose name escapes me) was telling a joke in his NYC-Jewish accent, about the time a large black man began beating him in the street. The guy accused the old man of calling him a ‘black bastard’ – and the old man says “No!! – no!! You asked where the nearest drycleaner was, and I said “You are a block past it”
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coozledad said on August 7, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Once again OT, but I just remembered something related to Alex’s clawhammer story. A friend of mine who was an X-ray technician used to describe all the pictures he shot of people’s colons and the stuff they’d force up there. Usually it’s run of the mill stuff, like golfballs, candles, or tubes of toothpaste. But the radiologist called him in to look at a shot one day and asked him “Well, what do you think?” My friend just said ” Looks like he’s got a Mag Lite up his ass.” The radiologist shook his head and said, “Anybody could walk in off the street and tell me that, asshole. What I want to know is, is it on or off?”
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Dexter said on August 7, 2008 at 3:43 pm
CSN…We aw them numerous times at the old Pine Knob venue in Clarkston, thirty years ago…I saw them a few other times over the years, the most memorable in a smoke-filled Anderson Arena in Bowling Green, and we contributed our share to the haze. Before that, they provided a good percentage of my personal soundtrack to my Vietnam tour in 1970-1971—CSNY and Abbey Road Beatles stuff were on everyone’s cassette player and back at the camp on the Sony reel-to reel tape decks.
I was huge fan of Crosby from his days with McGuinn et al , in The Byrds days.
I saw CSN (&C) on The Colbert Report…sounded great to me.
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Marlys said on August 7, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Brian: That was Myron Cohen (1902-1986).
My favorite joke of his: old guy hitting on a hot young thing. She says, “I’m a lesbian.” He replies, “So, nu, how are things in Beirut?”
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LAMary said on August 7, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Sorry, I thought they were phoning it in on the Colbert Report. Kind of “we’re so old and beloved we don’t have to try.” And Graham Nash is still lame. Neil Young was wise to stay away.
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alex said on August 7, 2008 at 4:47 pm
The Myron Cohen joke I vaguely remember was something about a half-deaf old guy being told by his cardiologist about an infarct and a heart murmur and the guy thinking he’s being told he’s in such great shape he’s gonna get fucked by a hot mama.
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LAMary said on August 7, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Izzy, a nice Jewish boy fresh off the boat from Russia, signed up for English lessons. The teacher called upon him and asked, “Izzy spell cultivate and use it in a sentence.” Izzy spelled it, c-u-l-t-i-v-a-t-e and said, ” I vas vaiting for the bus, but I vent inside because it was too cultivate.”
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MichaelG said on August 7, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Reminds me of the time in Chicago when some lady asked my father for directions to the cicerobookstore. It took him a sec before he directed her to — Sears. An that’s what he called Sears for the rest of his life.
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Dexter said on August 7, 2008 at 5:55 pm
MichaelG…that’s a keeper! My dad always called it Sears and Roebuck, even when it had been years since they used Roebuck. So ya think da Sears Tower is the lasting legacy of Sears and Roebuck? Nope! It is those catalogues…living in infamy as the toilet paper of the world from the outhouse era.
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moe99 said on August 7, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Ok, now you’ve got me going.
Lena’s feeling a mite puny, so her husband, Sven, takes her to the doctor. The doctor, concluding his examination, comes out in the waiting room and says to Sven, “You know, Lena has acute angina.”
Sven, looks up at the physician and says, “Yah, doc, I know dat already. I peeked!”
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brian stouder said on August 8, 2008 at 10:37 am
in my experience, they’re all cute!
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