Friday, April 30, 2021
That Creepy Guy in the Garden
And furthermore, (add additional finger-pointing here)
Below, band rehearses for Dougie's glorious return to Queen's Park
Tough cow
Udder Tuggers logo
I stumble across a site selling merch for the Wisconsin Udder Tuggers baseball team.
“Everybody who heard it thought, I love that name," sez Jason Klein. "It sounds like
there’s something wrong with it, but no one could really land on what
was offensive about it, because everything you think is offensive about
it is not.”
The team plays in Wisconsin's minor league system.
Thursday, April 29, 2021
Who dunnit?
LCBO JUNKS AIRMILES
The LCBO no longer uses the Airmiles rewards card: the deal was junked last month.
The two had been partners since 1997.
Nearly a quarter century.
Is booze now its own reward?
Or does the fact nobody's flown in a year and there's already a zillion UN-used Airmiles points out there, just waiting for the all clear ... have something to do with that?
Terrifying Teletubbies
Some demon spirit has edited The Teletubbies into the opening of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.
It's more terrifying than anything in Kong vs Godzilla....
Cute move
Have you noticed that the burst of required legal warnings on SiriusXm ads now often occurs BEFORE the ad plays?
The pitfalls and side-effects notice precedes many financial and drug ads. So it's warnings-ad rather than ad-warnings.
Would this be to fake listeners into thinking the warning went with the previous ad?
The one you really didn't pay attention to?
Cute. And wrong.
LOST SONGS: Believe it or not
The Dog of Wisdom introduces today's tune.
Mike Post wrote the theme for the Greatest American Hero TV show.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Toronto's S.O.S.
Confessed failure is rare in government, but what else would you call this?
"Best effort"
I've read about 20 of John McPhee's 30 books.
He's one of a kind.
Responsible for endless star turns as a New Yorker staff writer.
"His beard was darker than a diplomat's shoe," a line in his current batch of memories, has floated in my head for days.
But I'm gob-smacked by a single paragraph on how McPhee got his job at the magazine, the climax of years of failed attempts. It's in the April 19 issue.
* * *
"He walked me to the office of (legendary New Yorker boss) William Shawn.
Some weeks later, around my 34th birthday, I was added to the list of New Yorker staff writers, actually a freelance arrangement with a 'best efforts' contract, spectacularly brief.
In those days, you just agreed to give your best efforts to the New Yorker."
* * *
Somewhere downstairs, is a cream-colored memo slip From the Desk of Douglas Creighton, the best and first of many.
"You serve at the pleasure of the publisher," it says. That's it.
It is the only "contract" I had at the Sun for my first decade.
What can any of us promise or extract beyond a best effort?
It inspires imagination, not fear.
It's not even a handshake.
McPhee finds it memorable.
Me too.
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
Covid follies 4/27/2021
“They’re giving out vaccines like candy down there”: Torontonians travel to the States to get their shots"
LINK: Toronto Life
"I got my shot in the U.S. because I didn't have any faith I'd be able to get my shot in Ontario soon. I'm 36 ... "
TV for Dogs!
Once DirecTV had a pay channel for dogs.
It was short-lived.
Turns out not enough dogs had $19.95 a month to buy it. They squandered their allowance on kibble.
But look! Click above! TV for Dogs! Free!
All the channel's material, 24/7 on YouTube.
Your dog will thank you.
The movie in your head
There is a crisp, handsome print of
Cinema Paradiso on amazon.prime
It's been restored to its original three hours.
I watched it over the weekend.
Like Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, On the Beach, there are images in it that light up your memory banks and linger.
In a year when every film absent a giant reptile or gorilla seemed invisible, Cinema Paradiso shines.
It's a movie about movies and its countless incidental clips span decades.
It has the late Ennio Morricone's best score.
It cleaned up in Cannes and Hollywood.
It was best foreign film 20 years ago.
It made me feel better.
And I wasn't feeling bad in the first place.
Movies can do that.
I'm not sure video games do.
Monday, April 26, 2021
Turtles
--FoxTV/DailyBeast
Mitch McConnell,
one of the puppet characters on
Robert Smigel's new Fox show,
Let's Be Real.
Premieres Thursday at 9.30 EDT
Smigel gave the world (and Conan O'Brien)
Triumph, The Comic Insult Dog
--AdAge
There is no Twitter kindling
"In an era of digital, why do people still buy newspapers?" asks Nieman Lab, the scholarly journal. Their answer: "to start up the grill."
People buy papers to burn burgers.
The study finds even people who read papers don't buy them: they find them in coffee shops or at some older relative's home.
A core group of ritual addicts--we doctors call them habit hobbits--need a paper to shape their day. Is this a sad comment on their lives?
A pack of fire-starters costs $6.
The same price as a weekend paper.
But you'd have to buy a bird cage liner.
Papers. An arsonist's best friend
South Park's favorite memo ever
When South Park, The Movie was submitted to U.S. production code censors, creator Matt Stone sent along a helpful memo to guide them.
Read here by Brit comic Matt Berry.
(Berry's the hilarious suburban vampire on What We Do In the Shadows.)
Sunday, April 25, 2021
LOST SONGS: Woody Woodpecker Song, Kay Kyser
"And it's nothing to him, on the tiniest whim
To peck a few holes in your head."
I was at a 2006 wedding where this was played.
The wedding was the groom's fourth.
Woody Woodpecker's hoo-hoo-ha-ha tune is from 1948, endlessly repeated thru decades of TV cartoons.
Look who else sang it:
"Yes, I said it! All right?"
The host-less, Covid-Again Oscars are on TV tonight. Ratings and reactions are iffy.
There will be no monologue like this one.
So until we can actually see a movie, this will have to do....
Saturday, April 24, 2021
Thanks, Zuck
Facebook's Oversight Board--a contradiction in terms if I ever saw one--is huddled over a bubbling pot, considering whether one Donald J. Trump can ever post a message again.
A decision is expected momentarily.
The world's biggest social media platform has 2.7 billion monthly users.
Most of The Donald's fans already get instant screeds from his multiple mailing lists. He replays his greatest hits--the same wretched excesses that zapped his Facebook account.
But Big Tech seems a little leery about crossing anybody who might Call Them By Their Name.
A wide variety of bozos, conspirators and dubious biz enterprises happily flourish on Facebook.
Twitter permanently banned Trump, which allowed him daily, instant machine-gun-like delivery prompting media hysteria. It was one-way wildings, Trump to nation.
On Facebook, nation will have to find Trump. So they'll restore Trump's access to his account.
The real question: what attention will Big Media pay to it? If they seek out and redistribute his views, who exactly is the villain here?
* * *
I have no fear Google (which runs this blog platform) or Facebook, to which I re-post, will ever find this item. The algorithm is looking for "pee pee".... whoops!
Ryan Reynolds paints the town
_
Ridiculously charming Ryan Reynolds made a dozen tiny videos for Snapchat.
Here, he learns to paint bomb walls, something I admire any time I see alley art.
All 12 Reynolds vids--how to throw an ax, how to paint nails--have made their way to YouTube.
And all 12 are shot vertically, a la Snapchat.
For all we know, they were intended for the failed money hole called Quibi.
My tag name is Rufus.
I'm in an underpass right now.
Friday, April 23, 2021
Cuter Captain?
"Sounds weird to say out loud, but, did Captain High Liner just get drop dead Sexy?"
One of Connors' Winnipeg radio listeners notes:
"Looks like the Trivago guy got a new gig."
I welcome Captain Highliner's transformation from geezer to nouveau DILF.
I am eating more fish.
Nearer my god to thee
Trump cuddle-buddy Sean Hannity
has bought a $5.3 million Florida house
near Mar-a-loco, The Donald's rez-in-exile.
Tucker Carlson could just spit bullets.
But wait a minute: Hannity paid $5.3 million this month, for the same mansion the previous owner bought for $4.2 million in March?
A 20% profit in 30 days?
Them's Toronto-level flips.
Thursday, April 22, 2021
Tears are not enough
TORONTO (AP) — Ontario Premier Doug Ford apologized Thursday for a
failed attempt to ban playgrounds and allow police to stop and question
people who were not in their homes — measures that created a backlash
from police forces, health officials and the public.
*
At one point during Thursday's news conference, Ford appeared to
cry while talking about the pandemic and how hard it has been for
businesses, health-care workers and families.
--CBCNews
Sign of the Apocalypse
Floor is Lava gets a second season on Netflix.
Hey, every show on the streamer can't be murder porn.
John Mulaney's Lobster sketch
Remember diners?
Think back, lockdown losers.
They were a place where you ate.
You know: a counter? Tables?
This diner had Lobster Les Miz on the menu.
P.S. John Mulaney's out of rehab...
Behind the Sketch: Diner Lobster
It took years to get the lobster sketch on SNL.
Mulaney and Jost try to figure out why.
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Is this guy being paid to stay home?
"D'oh!"
Ford government voted down a proposal for paid sick days Monday
--CTV
Stink test
Ontario's covid strategy:
Try to stop dog poop, after it comes out of the dog.
Multiple choice:
Ten houses on a block, two have covid.
Do you
1. Rush vaccine to the two with covid quickly
2. Give vaccine to all ten and run out
3. Only vaccinate the eight healthy houses
4. Pay the two covid houses to stay home
5. Lock down all the houses until you can't hear yelling any more
6. Do nothing and see what happens
7. Spin in circles and place more "Your Turn is Coming" ads in local papers
8. Disappear "in quarantine" because "a staffer" has covid
If you chose any answer 1-8, and don't change it for 24 hours ... you want to run the show?
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
LOST SONGS: Haven't We Met, Kenny Rankin
_
"I know that it's just how it happened
When Romeo met Juliet
Somewhere I read that old Romeo said
Pardon me, haven't we meet?"
Ruth Batchelor wrote the lyric.
Queen's Park songbook
"No more questions, please
No more tests
Comes the day you say, 'What for?'
Please… no more
No more tests
Comes the day you say, 'What for?'
Please… no more
They disappoint, they disappear,
they die but they don't
No more riddles
No more jests
No more curses you can't undo,
No more riddles
No more jests
No more curses you can't undo,
left by fathers you never knew
No more quests
No more quests
No more feelings.
Time to shut the door
Just
No more."
--Steven Sondheim,
No More from Into the Woods
Monday, April 19, 2021
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