This article in the New York Times illustrates everything that is wrong with corporations and, dare I say, capitalism. According to the article, the processed food industry has initiated a Smart Choices Program where they label their own products, based on their own criteria, to help shoppers easily identify smarter food and beverage choices. Foods that have passed muster as a smart choice? Froot Loops, Fudgsicles, Real Mayonnaise and Skippy Peanut Butter - chock full o' sugar, sodium and fat.
Eileen T. Kennedy, president of the Smart Choices board, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and, in my opinion, corporate shill, defends these choices:
You’re rushing around, you’re trying to think about healthy eating for your kids and you have a choice between a doughnut and a cereal. So Froot Loops is a better choice.
Last time I went down the cereal aisle in a supermarket I had a choice between Froot Loops and Grape Nuts and oatmeal. Doughnuts are on the bread aisle.
Kennedy also said the program was influenced by research into consumer behavior which showed that, while shoppers wanted more information, they did not want to hear negative messages or feel their choices were being dictated to them.
So Kennedy and the Smart Choices board (cough, corporations) have decided that since consumers don't want to hear negative messages about their choices, they will just dictate consumer choices using a positive message - despite the outcome: more empty calories, more obesity, more heath care, more money spent.
The article mentions that Kennedy is not being paid for her work. But she is being paid by Tufts. Aren't they embarrassed to have her on their payroll? I'm a neophyte and I know more than her.
Suffice it to say, if you see the Smart Choice checkmark on a product in the supermarket, RUN DON'T WALK to the fruit and vegetable aisle.
Being one myself, I've always been enamored of Jewish comediennes. But while Sarah Silverman, Roseanne, Sandra Bernhard, Gilda Radner, Bette Midler, Joan Rivers, Belle Barth, and Pearl Williams all make me laugh none have made me laugh longer than the too soon, too gone Totie Fields. Historically, Totie was more than a comedienne. She was arguably the first women to attract a national following as a comic.
I went into a department store and tried on a girdle that was
decorated with tiny rosebuds. When I got it on,
the roses opened up in full bloom.
In the 60s when her career really began its trajectory, women were still considered eye candy and not expected, or even allowed, to offer up opinions and ideas. Totie broke that glass ceiling by assuming a comic persona built on her weight and, pride in her shape - polar opposites. She might have been a zaftig yenta but rather than espousing self-pity she was confident in her appeal and sweetly brimming with self love. She explained that bringing up the subject of weight herself deprives the wise alecks from mouthing loud asides all night but, she was also teaching women of the era how to act.
Totie on The Ed Sullivan Show in the early 60s
Totie Fields was born Sophie Feldman, daughter of a shopping center owner, on 7 May 1927 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. She started singing as a child, making appearances on local radio stations by the time she was 4. She toured the Borscht Belt at 14 and before she reached 20 years, worked as a tummler in Boston area strip clubs. Even then Sophie was breaking the glass ceiling: tummlers entertained guests as a master of ceremonies between acts and, at the time, were generally male. It was during this period that Sophie took her stage name - Totie being the way she pronounced her given name as a child.
I've been on a diet for two weeks,
and all I lost was two weeks.
Totie married George William Johnston, Jr. in 1950. Georgie (as he came to be known) was a fellow comic in Boston who, over time, worked solely with Totie as her musical director. The couple soon moved to Brooklyn, NY and became the parents of two daughters—Jody was born in 1952 and Debbie was born in 1955. The Admiral's Inn in Ogunquit, Maine, now a bed and breakfast, was the family's private summer vacation residence during this period into the early 1960's.
It was after her pregnancies that Totie began to gain weight. She tried dieting but nothing worked. The only way to lose weight, really, she concluded, is to have someone put you in a bed where you can't get to the refrigerator. Ever the optimist though, Totie decided to incorporate her size into her act. Her broad accent, self-deflating jokes and extroverted kvetching helped to endear her to audiences whom she treated like friends AND lovers. It was after making this decision that her celebrity and work increased twofold.
Shirley Temple had charisma as a child.
But it cleared up as an adult.
In the early 60s, Ed Sullivan gave Totie her first national break when he booked her on his show after seeing her perform at the Copacabana in New York. She made multiple additional appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, topping out at almost 20!
WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE: Totie released Totie Fields Live on Mainstream Records and
wrote I Think I'll Start on Monday: The Official 8 1/2 oz.
Mashed Potato Diet published by Hawthorn Books. See Experience Totie Fields Live to listen.
Totie also made a name for herself on the talk show circuit during the 60s and 70s. There were multiple appearances on The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and The Mike Douglas Show (on which she famously helped Mike introduce KISS to the American public when she co-hosted the 1974 episode that was their first television appearance.)
The Tarzan reunion show with Mike Douglas, Johnny Weissmuller,
Gordon Scott, Jock Mahoney, Buster Crabbe,
Denny Miller, and Jim Pierce.
Other notable appearances included Here's Lucy and a well-received dramatic turn on Medical Center. Totie played multiple roles in the 1972 television special Fol-de-Rol, a filmed version of Sid and Marty Krofft's live puppet show.
Totie visits with Jerry Lewis on his annual Muscular Dystrophy Telethon
In April 1976, Totie's left leg was amputated above the knee when surgery to remove a blood clot failed. Even with that traumatic experience, Totie fitted herself with an artificial leg and returned to work saying, "I don't want anyone feeling sorry for me." (Link to 1977 article from People Magazine)
Raquel Welch - a moron with less on.
In June 1977, Totie starred in the Home Box Office special series Standing Room Only, beginning her show seated. As the audience (filled to brimming with celebrity friends) welcomed her, she stood up, causing the cheering audience to stand with her. Said Fields: "I've waited all my life to say this... I weigh less than Elizabeth Taylor!" Totie was back and the audience was immediately at ease; if Totie could still laugh at herself, then it was all right to laugh with her.
While still recovering from the amputation, Totie suffered two heart attacks. In October 1977, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and her right breast was removed. Nevertheless, Totie continued to perform and in 1978, the last year of her life, she was voted Entertainer of the Year and Female Comedy Star of the Year by the American Guild of Variety Artists.
Totie was scheduled to appear at the Sahara Hotel when she suffered a fatal pulmonary embolism in her Las Vegas home on August 2, 1978; she was 51. She was buried in Las Vegas and later moved to the Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles to be buried next to Georgie, who died in 1995.
Totie Fields: Inspirational, Outrageous, and Still Funny.
Totie performing in the early 1960s
Totie and Merv 1966
Additional information:
Some sources speculate that Georgie had refused to release films, tapes, and other recordings of Fields after her death thus, explaining the dearth of material available. Can we then hypothesize that Georgie was crushed by her early death and felt it crass to capitalize on her body of work? They were so much in love - just look at the TattleTales clip - that it's a reasonable assumption.
Burial: Mount Sinai Memorial Park, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, USA - Plot: Gardens of Heritage, Main Level, Crypt 60C
Totie appeared on The Glen Campbell Show playing a night-club bunny, a cheerleader, a minskirted stewardess and a ballerina.
Adorable Me! The Totie Fields Story (1990)
A New Musical Based on the Life of Totie Fields
Conceived by Nancy Timpanaro-Hogan
Book by Bobby Pearce & Nancy Timpanaro-Hogan
Are You Happy?
Flat Tire, One Headlight Out
Someone To Notice
Weaver High School
He Likes...Me!
Holding On
The Taste
Look, But Don't Touch
Me, Myself And Cane
Don't Remind Me
I'm Not Ready
With Friends Like Mine
On Top Of The World/Years
Big
Papa Is A Nice Man
One Day At A Time
Heat Up The Pot
Workshopped at Long Beach Civic Light Opera (1991)
Produced by American Jewish Theatre, Inc., Stanley Brechner, Artistic Director (1993)
Four-month run at The Ballroom, New York (1994)
Four-month run at Tropworld, Atlantic City (1996)
Also played in regional theaters and performing arts centers across the country,
including Seven Angels Theatre, Northridge Performing Arts Center, Bailey Concert Hall
Sophie, Totie and Belle : Sophie, Totie & Belle is a play based on a fictional meeting of the late entertainers Sophie Tucker, Totie Fields and Belle Barth. It was written by Joanne Koch and Sarah Blacher Cohen, with original music by Mark Elliott and songs associated with these entertainers. It opened in New York City at the off-Broadway Theater Four on March 15, 2000 after sold-out runs in Queens, NY Theatre in the Park, Boca Raton, Florida, Miami, Philadelphia, New Hope, Albany, and the Forum Theater in New Jersey, the Drama Center in Deerfield Beach, the Wilton Theater in Ft. Lauderdale, Theatre Works in Sarasota.Another review.
A list from “I Think I’ll Start on Monday”
Five Practical Reasons For Not Going On A Diet
1. It’s very impolite to leave food on your plate.
2. America is supposed to be the best fed nation in the world. Why make us look bad?
3. Fish, meat and vegetables maybe chemically polluted. The U.S. Government has NEVER found mercury in a chocolate layer cake.
4. Food is synonymous with love. If you diet, you are depriving yourself of much needed affection.
5. Sara Lee, Laura Scudder, Betty Crocker and Mr. Hershey are sincere, hard working Americans. Check your conscience.
Do you really want to take a living away from these people?
From Fol-der-ol
You can now listen to the Totie Fields Live LP on YouTube. See the Experience Totie Fields Live blog entry for links.
You can still download the Totie Fields Live MP3 files but you need to email me for the link.
6/15/11 UPDATE: I received the following information in an email from a reader:
Just read your blog......interesting stuff! I only knew her because my dad, Harry Morton, was her booking agent. The stories I heard growing up as a kid, in Oceanside, NY, were all about what a pain in the butt she was to work with. She spent many evenings in the den, with other comics that my Dad either handled or knew. Harry was one of the top agents for the Catskills, as well as Miami, and Lakewood, NJ. His clients, just to name a few, consisted of: Henny Youngman, Phil Foster, Buddy Hackett, Alan King, Mac Robbins, Pat Henry, Norm Cosby, Harvey Stone, Jan Murray, and more. I have googled his name [Harry], only to find a sentence or two and nothing more. He was funnier than most of the guys he handled, He cut an album, "Look Out For Harry Morton" back in the 60's. I started to write a book with him, but we only wrote about 100 pages. He's gone now 8 years. He was married to Billie Lorraine, a nite club singer.
Before beginning first run episodes of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, season 2, Bravo graciously re-aired season 1 so those of us who skipped it last year could catch up. Of course, I accidently erased episode 6 in which Kim finds herself in the studio with Dallas Austin. So I paid $1.99 to Amazon so I could see this moment in television (and music) history. It was everything I could have hoped for so I whipped out my camera and ... Voila!
It would be hard to imagine that this woman with her special picture of Obama is not now sitting at home humiliated by this soon to be viral video. Excuse me, I didn't mean woman; I meant dining room table.
A less shocking thing about this episode is that I remained objective and did not write that he was an overweight Cau-cau-cau-caucasion man that shared his environment with his seemingly Eastern European wife and a ten year old girl.
A more shocking thing about this episode is that I always thought I was straight acting - you know, no one could tell unless I told them. Go know.
I have lived on the east end of a small one lane street in San Jose, CA for ten years. There is a house on the west end of the street in which a man, a woman and a child live with a dog. I've seen the man outside maybe 20 times in ten years and he nor I have ever attempted a meet and greet although I am friendly with his next-door neighbor (as he seems to be), a neighbor across the street and more households as you might walk closer to the east end of the street. Now I know why.
I took Max out for a walk (as I have done twice a day since I bought the house) and walked by this man's home. Max peed on his lawn. I continued walking and was at the corner (almost three houses away) waiting for Max to pee again when I heard someone yelling.
"You forgot something here."
I didn't know if the sentence was meant for me so I turned to see what was happening. The man in this house had (seemingly as I had not actually witnessed this) passed me driving home, and stopped his car in the middle of the street in front of his house after he saw me walk away with Max. When I turned he was getting out of the car and walking to his lawn.
"Huh?" I replied.
He crouched a little and looked around the lawn.
"I said you forgot..."
He seemingly realized that there was nothing there.
"Never mind."
When I realized what had just happened I yelled back (as I was almost three houses away).
"I am your neighbor why would you think I would not pick up after my dog on your lawn?"
I wanted to continue imploringly but all I could do was pull a bag out of my pocket. "I have bags."
"You know, fuck you." said the man.
"What?"
"I said I'm sorry but fuck you for getting excited."
"That's nice language to be yelling on this street."
"Faggot."
"Asshole."
I turned and walked.
I'd like to file this episode away with a quote from Anne Frank. Unfortunately, with the negative discourse that only grows deeper with each passing day, the intolerance of people towards people, the fear-mongering of those seemingly in charge, and the animosity of difference I'm not sure I still believe it.
I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
Yes. For exercise, I am dancing in my room. Put on 25-30 minutes of my favorite dance tunes and I'm on my way - incorporating fluid yoga poses, dolphin-like undulations, and full body muscle stretches into the same dance moves I busted 25 years ago in da clubs, baby.
Granted, now my mind focuses on keeping the core muscles tight and the posture straight while busting a move rather than the blonde at the end of the bar. On the plus side, I find that this focus is lurking into matters it previously eschewed - like standing in line at the bank or walking Max. Stomach in. Shoulders back. What can I say? Dancing in my room work's up a sweat and works out the heart. Like it did in da clubs, baby. (OK, that won't work a third time.)
Some people bicycle for exercise.
Another plus is that I get to choose my own music. Set it up first - all the CDs in a row. Today I start slow with Flashdance (Got a Feeling), the extended remix, to Unbelievable EMF, the dance remix. Swap the disc out to get Ram Jam Black Betty b/w Grace Jones's Pull Up to the Bumper. Past the point of no sweat I throw on Rosebud's pumping Have A Cigar - yes, the Pink Floyd tune - and follow it with the O'Jay's Love Train. Bring it to new heights with the Pointer Sisters Jump (For My Love), the extended version, and cap off the evening with the Captain and Tennille's Do That To Me One More Time, the latter strangely invoking a Kate Bush-esque ballet stretch and a nice cool down. Good times.
Dancing with myself
A few weeks after I started having this fun, I received a renewal in the mail for a membership to 24 Hour Fitness, a gym I had joined in Denver and used twice. They were asking me to pay $49 for one more year. Fuck yea! Can't not go to a gym cheaper than that. I joined and clicked through to the 24 Hour Fitness San Jose class schedule. I noticed a trademarked class. Zumba®. I had never heard of Zumba® so I looked it up. On Wikipedia of course.
A Zumba workout mixes body sculpting movements with dance steps derived from cumbia, merengue, salsa, reggaeton, hip hop, mambo, rumba, flamenco, and calypso and Salsaton. The routines feature aerobic interval training with a combination of fast and slow rhythms. It targets areas such as the glutes, legs, arms, abdominals, and the heart. A Zumba class is typically not formulaic in that instructors often add on their own music choices and choreographies to make their class presentation locally unique.
They're dancing in a room and they're calling it Zumba®.
I was watching an episode of Unsung on TV One when I was finally able to identify a song I hadn't heard in decades. Until this one hour biography, I was never able to figure out who was singing this Kate Bush-esque song. The biography was about Minnie Riperton and the song, Les Fleurs, was the first cut on her first solo album Come to My Garden, released in 1970.
Minnie is now most well-known for her 1975 hit Loving You and her daughter, Maya Rudolph. The songstress and mother died in 1979 at the age of 31. Check out this trippy, flower-ful video of this incredible tune - sung from the point of view of un fleur.
Will somebody wear me to the fair? Will a lady pin me in her hair? Will a child find me by a stream? Kiss my petals and weave me through a dream.
For all of these simple things and much more a flower was born It blooms to spread love and joy faith and hope to people forlorn
Inside every man lives the seed of a flower If he looks within he finds beauty and power
Ring all the bells sing and tell the people that be everywhere that the flower has come Light up the sky with your prayers of gladness and rejoice for the darkness is gone Throw off your fears let your heart beat freely at the sign that a new time is born
The redecoration of the inside of our home is complete.
That, of course, implies that I did not forget the linen closet which was always filled, and that I had thought about it in the six months prior when I had thought about every other wall and floor in the house, and that I had asked Francisco, the contractor, to use some of the leftover black and white kitchen linoleum on the closet floor and paint it's walls with the can of unused peach in the carriage house.
When I first got in my new car I turned on the stereo to find that I had Sirius satellite radio stations. I perused the manual and found that Sirius would be provided for the first year of the vehicle's operation. Since the car was actually used, I have four months of Sirius left. I'm serious.
I was listening to channel 81 Cinemagic Jazz Standards on my way home from Safeway. This station, strangely enough, played classic dance and disco before the Studio 54 channel. I was minding my own business when the familiar strains of the 1980 recording If You Could Read My Mind came wafting through the six (count 'em, six) speakers. Viola Wills. I opened the car windows and belted that tune out with the lady. It's a beautiful, uplifting production of a song whose subject matter is not quite beautiful and uplifting. In fact, a controversy surrounding the rearrangement of this Gordon Lightfoot paean to dance was brewing around the same time as the Disco Sucks movement hit a full head of steam. I didn't care then or now because Disco Don't Suck. I got home, opened my laptop, and searched Viola and If You Could Read My Mind.
The first link that came up was a news story reporting that Viola Wills had died on May 9, 2009, two months prior. I was surprised at the news and SHOCKED that I hadn't heard it before as I pride myself on my knowledge of the minutiae of pop culture. Many links later I accepted her death to be true.
I was surprisingly moved by Viola's death. Surprisingly because I didn't feel that way when Vicki Sue Robinson died. But Viola and I had a number of tunes, and a meet and greet, in common. I remember bopping to Stormy Weather, Up on the Roof, and Gonna Get Along With You Now as I came out of the closet and onto the dance floor. Viola Wills was the disco cover queen.
Viola was discovered in the late 1960s by Barry White but it wasn't until a decade later that she hit it big with her cover of Gonna Get Along Without You Now which reached the top 10 in 1979. (The 1959 original was sung by Patience & Prudence.) The hit started a string of dance covers including Both Sides Now, (There's) Always Something There to Remind Me, Stormy Weather, Up On The Roof, Secret Love, Love Pains, Climb Every Mountain, Midnight Blue, If You Leave Me Now and the aforementioned If You Could Read My Mind. Stormy Weather topped out at #4 on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart in 1982. She continued to release records into the late 1980s although there were not many hits among them. These were mostly released on the RVA record label which she formed with her husband Robert Ashmun in 1983.
Wills was extremely popular among the nation's gay community with her singles always spun in gay dance clubs. IN fact, that's where I met Viola. I hired her to perform at Torpedo, a gay dance club in South Beach, Florida in 1991. She was, as the nightclub business deemed her, a track act; she brought instrumental tracks with her to which she performed live vocals. Viola packed the floor on one of our biggest dance nights and was very sweet and unassuming. That's about all I remember. It was a night club, for Christ's sake.
In reading about Viola I found out that she was 53 when we met seventeen years ago. (She was born December 30, 1939.) I was 35. She looked great. So did I. And now I learn she recorded singles as early as 1966! I hadn't heard any of her non-dance oriented work so I decided to look for some of this stuff. Unfortunately, there was nothing but the aforementioned tunes in disparate disco compilations.
Since I found no audio files I searched YouTube for video and hit gold. But I wanted an audio collection - you know to blast in the car with the windows open. So I downloaded high-quality videos from YouTube, extracted the audio and converted it to 192 bkps using SWITCH. Not sure what that makes it technologically but it's still music. Below is a list of the songs I compressed into a ZIP file. Email me if you'd like the URL to download the ZIP.
Rest with peace, Viola.
I Got Love (1966) - excellent Lost Without the Love (1966) - nice You're Out of My Mind (1967) - excellent but not good quality I Believe in Miracles (1975) - beautiful Let's Love Now (Disco Version) (1977) - not a highlight Gonna Get Along Without You Now (1979) - reminds me of Bette Midler's You're Moving Out Today (There's) Always Something There to Remind Me from If You Could Read My Mind LP (1980) If You Could Read My Mind from If You Could Read My Mind LP (1980) Let Me Be Your Rock from If You Could Read My Mind LP (1980) Midnight Blue from If You Could Read My Mind LP (1980) Secret Love from If You Could Read My Mind LP (1980) Up On The Roof from If You Could Read My Mind LP (1980) If You Leave Me Now (1981) - very nice version of the treacly Chicago hit The More I See You (1982) - nice take on the classic Stormy Weather (1982) - ahhhhh Climb Every Mountain (1983) - another remix version is on YouTube Both Sides Now (1989) - surprisingly acceptable Dare to Dream (1989) - excellent and written by Vi Love Pains (1989) - was another version really necessary? Gonna Get Along Without You Now (Single Version) (1980) If You Could Read My Mind (extended) (1980)
Bonus Track - Gonna Get Along Without You Now (Patience & Prudence) (1959)
Haircuts are getting less expensive. Thirty years ago I was paying $40; today I just paid $7 with a generous $5 tip. For a while I was paying nothing.
I had never been to this particular lady barber but figured whatever she does will grow out within a month anyway. Tina is very friendly and we were chatting away as she cut. I told her about Locks of Love and how I had donated my hair when I cut the length ten years before. She told me where she lived and about her dog Mimi. As she finishes the cut, Tina says:
I wuv shie cuwu. Sash un papa.
Huh? You what?
I wuv shie cuwu. Sash un papa.
You wu..? love!
Yes, she cawa.
Oh, the color. Yes. Salt and pepper. It looks good. I guess it could have been more salt than pepper which would be too much.
Huh? Tina asked.
More salt than pepper. Which could be too much. I replied.
More...huh? and Tina scrunched her face into the universal WTF? signifier. Then I had an epiphany.
When I looked at the calendar this week I thought, how interesting that both Canada and the United States have birthdays together. Did Canada try to emulate the United States when deciding to make their day in the first week of July? Not that I have any idea what Canada Day is. So I decided to investigate to see if the fact that these two days occupy the same week in the calendar is interesting at all. I know that July 4th is the day a declaration of independence from the British government was signed in the United States. According to Wikipedia, July 1 is popularly referred to as Canada's Birthday.
The occasion marks the joining of the British North American colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada into a federation of four provinces (the Province of Canada being divided, in the process, into Ontario and Quebec) on 1 July 1867. Although Canada is regarded as having become a kingdom in its own right on that date, the British Parliament kept limited rights of political control over the new country that were shed by stages over the years until the last vestiges were surrendered in 1982 when the Constitution Act patriated the Canadian constitution.
So July 1 is a declaration of federation with a declaration of independence chaser and a 100 year mortgage. What I find interesting is the long arm of the British Parliament. Not that there's anything wrong with it.
To all who celebrate this weekend, enjoy your hot dogs (vegetarian in this household), cherry pie, nanaimo bars, and Henry Gibson (yes, that one) performing 200 Years from the Nashville soundtrack.
I listened to the single. The song is trite. Her voice is sometimes shrill and always weak. It's almost monotone. And it was on the Huffington Post as I casually read through the comment thread that someone brought to the front the late, great Marion Davies, another woman who had a powerful boyfriend with whom she had a baby.
Don't get me started, girlfriend! You got me started, girlfriend.
I have seen Marion Davies act and I have heard Oksana Grigorieva demonstrate her talent. And anonymous Huffington Post commenter - Oksana Grigorieva is no Marion Davies. Ms. Davies had a touching and joyful onscreen presence. She was becoming and alluring and ready for anything. Davies found her niche in comedies like Show People and The Patsy. According to most historians, Ms. Davies was truly in love with the media mogul. They were together from the moment they met but Hearst never divorced his wife.
It is an urban legend that Marion Davies had no talent. This legend began with the scuttlebutt concerning Hearst being the subject of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane and the titular character's corresponding mistress, Susan Alexander. As quoted from Davies' Wikipedia entry:
Davies was rumored to be the inspiration for the Susan Alexander character portrayed in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, which was based loosely on Hearst's life. This portrayal has led to various portrayals of Davies as a talentless opportunist. Welles himself, as stated in his foreword to Davies autobiography The Times We Had, said he deeply regretted that so many assumed Susan Alexander was a carbon copy of Davies, and that the real Davies was a great actress and a wonderful woman.
There's also this article, Was Citizen Kane Really About Hearst?. Or check out one of Marion Davies' classic performances in Show People or The Patsy.
When George and I decided to refinish the hardwood floors, I knew it was going to be big and I dreaded it. In the last six months, we have moved from a home in Denver to a home in San Jose. One month later we moved the bulk of our crap to the garage in San Jose to paint the house and then, room by room, back to the house. Now we had to move all the furniture, books, airplanes, DVDs, and pet beds out of the affected living, sitting, dining, and bedding rooms back into the garage. (OK, I had to jimmy a cable box into a bedroom window.) The kitchen and bathroom were usable although we had to jump over the hardwood hallway to get to the bathroom. I felt like Shelley Long at the end of Outrageous Fortune.
A few months back we had completed the renovation of the small basement into a guest room. This turned out a nice twist of fate as there was no other place in the house to sleep. I begged George to put the bed in the middle of the backyard so we could sleep under the stars but he was scared of spiders. Without the basement we'd have had to go to a hotel.
Day One Bob La Beau Hardwood Floors worked. At the end of eight horrid hours of industrial noise the men took away huge black tarp bags filled with deep, dark, dirty ashes from the sanding process. Day Two they applied the first coat of varnish. Coat two on Day Three. And one final coat on Day Four. Stir in 48 hours before putting big furniture down (read: bed) and George, Max, Lucy and me have been camping for a week.
It was well worth the time, effort, and inconvenience.
When I bought the first new car I owned in 1977, it was a Volkswagen Beetle, Champagne Edition with a sand colored convertible top. In 1977 and 1978, only one white Champagne convertible was distributed to each USA dealership in those two years. I got one and I filled that car religiously with regular gasoline (which at the time was leaded) until it was stolen 15 years later. (I paid 7000 and received 5500 insurance money. Not a bad investment.)
You should read the book and do what ever it says. Cars now aren't like all those old cars you've used before.
So, notwithstanding the fact that I write manuals for a living, I pulled out the book I got with the car and preceded to be chastised on many levels.
The use of premium gasoline is not recommended. Under normal conditions, the use of premium gasoline will not provide a benefit over high quality regular gasoline, and in some circumstances may result in poorer performance.
If I were red pepper flakes I'd be on a pizza.
By listening to Steven (who was also the person that told me never to take the first apartment you look at) and Michelle, I have now saved myself, over the years, thousands of dollars. The moral of the story comes in an acronym that is widely used in the field of technical writing: RTFM.
Three years ago, I leased a Toyota Tundra in Denver. When I went to the dealer I had a Costco card with which, as a valued member of the BNL store, I would be able to buy or lease whatever I wanted for $100 above dealer invoice. No haggling, no bargaining, no shady salesman. You buy a car at $100 over what the dealer paid. Costco? Such a deal.
Fast forward and I have to return the car I leased in Denver but I live in San Jose now so I am looking at a different dealer who has the option to NOT take the car (in which case I would need to drive it back to Denver). Because of this uncertainty I started a mechanical relationship with Stevens Creek Toyota thinking that, when the time came, they would know the car was in great condition (less than 25,000 miles in three years) and would take it without charging me for every little ding.
This month I brought the car in for its check-up and mentioned I was looking to buy a car. The mechanic introduced me to Tom Wilson, car salesman. I had decided it was best for me to buy a new car from Stevens Creek so they would have to take the Toyota back or lose a sale. When I met Tom, I casually mentioned that the car I liked best is the four door Jeep Wrangler although I had had such a wonderful experience with this truck that I was going to buy Toyota again.
I was looking at the Tacoma, a smaller truck that had grown in size over the past three years. Tom brought me back to his office to crunch the numbers. On the wall, I saw a picture of Frank Zappa and a man - the card read Frank Zappa and Tom Wilson. I asked him about it.
My dad. He was a music producer and worked with Zappa. He was one of the producer's of The Velvet Underground & Nico: Tom Wilson. I'm a Junior.
We talked for a while and I found Tom to be non-disposing with no salesman tics, and working this job in his retirement. Over the next few days I started to lean towards the Toyota FJ Cruiser. I checked Costco for a price and was contacted by Sawyer at Piercy Toyota who told me about a new FJ Cruiser they had cheap. I drove to Sawyer feeling as if I was breaking the Tenth commandment with Tom. (It is the tenth, right?)
I asked Sawyer to drive me around in the car because I wanted to feel it as a passenger although psychologically I wanted to keep the upper hand with this young-looking and skinny man with spectacles, and many salesman tics. When we returned to the showroom, I asked what the car would cost. Sawyer brought me back to his office to crunch the numbers.
I sat in a chair across from him as he did some calculations and took off my sunglasses. I looked at Sawyer as my eyes adjusted to the florescence. I began to formulate a question as I noticed something about Sawyer's eyeglasses. Should I ask him? Oh, why not.
Do you have lenses in those frames?
Er...ah...um...huh...
You don't have lenses in those frames.
Ah...um...um...er...
For noticing that you have no lenses in those frames you should give me $5000 off whatever price you write down. I bet no one ever notices that.
For noticing that I have no lenses in these frames I should charge you $5000 more, Sawyer replied as he grabbed the offending accessory through the frame hole and dropped it on the desk. I took his business card with the price (which included no glass - or lack thereof - discount) and left. Two days later I get a call from Tom.
You might want to come in and see this 2008 Jeep Wrangler we just got as a trade-in. 6000 miles. Four door. Brand new. You did mention a Jeep once, didn't you?
I threw George in the Tundra and we went to the dealer, test drove the car and within 12 hours, I owned it. Of course, throughout the buying process, I learned the dealer has nothing whatsoever to do with Toyota Financing, the lease company and legal owner of the Tundra which brought me to Stevens Creek Toyota in the first place. The dealer is just the go-between. But ultimately I got the car that I wanted.
One last thing I learned: Costco doesn't sell used cars.
I have been in a literal frenzy around the house these days because we have run out of bags in which to scoop up Max's poop. Safeway bags, The Home Depot, the occasional Ross, Streetlight Records. (Rasputin uses paper bags.) Barnes and Noble - all gone. I am living on the cusp so to speak of having to pick up the stuff with my fingers.
Although there is a history of those who've done worse including Divine famously eating the shit in Pink Flamingos. Although interestingly, I looked up keywords famous scat and got very few links to non-musical scat. Do people use that word anymore?
The pure and simple fact is that we no longer have a stash o' those grocery-type sacks. So, I trundle around searching through the pockets of an unused winter coat (snagged two), running out the front door to catch a sack I see blowing by the window, and using the special bag we got at the Feline Conservation Center in Rosemond, CA from the bottom of the stash box. (I had wanted to keep this bag for eternity just because it was a bag from the Feline Conservation Center in Rosemond, CA. That's my mother in me.)
Georjet and I even brought home a doggie bag of horrible food we ate at a Japanese diner. I asked our waitress if I could get my plate to go and when she left Georjet spoke.
Why would you ask for that? This food was horrible.
I know but we need the poop bags.
I've recently come across a stash of the plastic packing material from our recent move to California. I was going to throw it out but then I realized it came in sheets, like paper towels. I've been picking up poop for eleven years. I can do it with a paper towel; I've done it with a paper towel. These plastic sheets have pulled me out of a few poopie binds.
It's not that I don't know that one can buy poop bags. In fact, the aforementioned mother sent me a box of biodegradable poop bags a while back that is somewhere in the house - if I could only find it. But put out money for the purchase of bags to pick up shit when there are millions of these grocery-type sacks produced that blow around the neighborhood and kill seagulls in landfills? I refuse to buy into this theory of mass consumerism. And its not that I can't afford it. Believe you me, I can afford poop bags.
Soon there will be a few shopping trips in a row - for the right items - and we'll have enough poop bags to keep going for a bit. It's like a drug. But in the meantime I'll be searching for the temporary poop gloves unless I can remember where the biodegradable...OMG, they're in the car for emergencies. I believe this is one.
Being bozzed means simply that the wonders of the Boswell Sisters, a harmonic jazz vocal trio from the 20s and 30s, have been indelibly etched in my mind, body and soul. The Boswells were the Andrews Sisters ten years before the Andrews Sisters were the Andrews Sisters. Connie, Martha and Vet made music that still sounds fresh today. Check out Heebie Jeebies and try to stop shaking your fanny.
I realized I'd been bozzed when I saw Heebie Jeebies and my emotions started to swell. I have a couple of CD compilations that I had been listening to voraciously but when I watched the girls singing, the depth of what I had previously just heard bubbled to the top. There's a lot of love, a lot of family, and a lot of history behind the smiling faces in the video. For instance, lead vocalist Connee (who also played the cello) lost the use of her legs from a bout of polio when she was three years old but the sisters still went on to become performing legends.
Martha played the piano for the trio, so Connee would be carried out and placed on the piano bench...When the curtain rose the audience would see Martha and Connee seated, and their sister Vet [who played the violin] behind them with her hands on their shoulders. They even took their bows from this position.
The italicized words above the video of Sleepy Time Down South are just some of the history of the Boswell Sisters I found on the wonderfully informative web site, bozzies.com. Check out Rock and Roll below (it's very likely they invented the term despite the difference in it's use here) and then head over to bozzies.com to get yourself bozzed!
(Jean Sargent whom I had never heard of, opens the Rock and Roll video.)
Whatever the reason (my nerdiness or their snobbishness) I was never approached in a friendly manner by any cheerleader in any school that I have attended. They just paid me no mind. I find it fascinating that this dis continues through the Facebook years.
I found this picture of my 5th grade teacher and her team of cheerleaders on Facebook. It had been so long since I had seen her I commented on the photo - the first to write a comment for this particular photo - asking:
Is that Miss Kendall?
For a month I received notifications that cheerleaders in the picture were commenting on the picture but not one of them answered my question. Finally, in the seventh comment, a non-cheerleading male answered in the affirmative.
And life goes on.
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For an interesting story about Miss Kendall, see Miss Kendall.
Before he turned his back on the world of theatre for the world of physical therapy, Steven Sklar was an actor - acclaimed for his portrayal of scenery 3 in our 5th grade production in The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
When my older brother Andy saw this picture of the three siblings, two cousins and one aunt he said that even back then he stood cool...so I decided to prove (or disprove) the theory.
Standing bland on the first day at the 1964 World's Fair but we had to get the Unisphere in.
Standing cool on the second day at the 1964 World's Fair.
Standing cool at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
If the position of my leg precludes me from standing cool at the National Archives, the position of Andy's leg precludes him from standing cool in Puerto Rico.
But I'm standing cool in Puerto Rico! And Lisa is mesmerized.
