Friday, September 30, 2005

Wilhelm Invitational 2005

Woot! It looks like the 2005 Wilhelm Invitational Disc Golf Tournament might actually take place tomorrow. What the hell does that mean, you ask? Attentive readers will recall that I have been blogging about various disc golfing excursions all summer. Since tomorrow is the last day for the lifts at Solitude, the housemates and I decided to put together a disc golfing outing with anyone who desires to attend. Since our mansion is called "The Wilhelm" we have deigned to call it "The Wilhelm Invitational." I believe it is still 2005, althought I wrote 2006 not long ago out of a secret desire to get the hell out of this year.

So, if you are in the SLC area, come join us tomorrow. I don't know exactly when we'll be up there, but since it is a Saturday, I assume it will be 1 or 2 pm. You can get used discs at Play It Again Sports. I'll be sure to post an updated time if one ever materializes. Otherwise if you have my phone number, try that, although since my phone is somewhat broken and prone not to notify me of calls, I can't give assurance that I will answer.

If you are outside of SLC you should fast and pray that some day you can travel to Utah, ride a chair lift, swill beer, and spend hours searching for lost discs in one of the most beautiful spots on Earth.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Corrections

Hey lis, I stand totally corrected.

Ok not totally because I know I saw a woman playing Captain Scotty at some point in Channel 20's history.

Anyway folks... the one and only RAYMOND responded to my post about the afore-mentioned Hotel Balderdash. He starred on the show with Cannonball and Harvey for several years. I was just a little kid, but I remember the show quite fondly. Ironically enough, however, I recall hating Raymond even more than I liked the show, but that was pretty much what made the show so appealing, after all. How's that for the Internet for you?

(And don't make fun of him or I'll give you such a smack.)

( Stop that, or I am so going to turn this god damned car around!)

(I told you to stop it. I'm not going to say it again.)

Shit I feel like I just got a call from Bernie Calderwood (RIP).

Man, they don't even mention Bernie's stint on Big Money Movie. My sister remebers Captain Scotty.

Where the hell are local kid shows these days?

Big Money Movie Rules!

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made On

The other day Mid-B was over and he told me about a bowling blog that Sleep E has joined in on or has set up or something. This explains this picture which is in E's Flickr account. Mid-B also menitoned that E was thinking of inviting me to join said blog. Now being the impatient person that I am, I decided to damn the torpedos and just make my own bowling blog: Bowlarama. Current karmaking and I are co-authoring this blog, but if you want to join in, let me know. Only bowling-related posts, however, will be allowed.

Monday, September 26, 2005

I received this email this morning:

Hi all,
The baby was born last nigt at 9:30. His name is Carter Phillip. Baby and Mother are doing fine.
A.

The baby referred to is my good friends Tif & Chris child. I really need to get my phone fixed.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Sunday Night Movie of the Week

only there are no family issues or problems to be resolved by wrecking the house in this one.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Gut busting

During my latest trip to Sam Weller's a harpsichord concerto was being played over the loud speakers. It was an intense harpsichord piece--not Bach but definitely Baroqu--maybe Boccherini or Scarlati. The piece was intense with jabbing keystrokes and staccato violins and continuo. One of the clerks, a stylish woman in a wool skirt and a hot pink top with a cheek piercing called across the bookstore to a colleague sitting at the information desk in a matter-of-fact kind of tone, "This music is going to make me kill someone."

I cracked up then like I haven't cracked up in a long time--one of those gut busting laughs that you just can't keep in.

"Crazy isn't it?"she said, keeping up her flat tone.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Bwooop!

The trio vs. the pirate-ladyman

Recently lis opined that no native Utard remembers Lighthouse 20, the kid show that was broadcast on UHF channel 20. Now I have a slight dispute with lis, in that I remember the pirate on the show was played by a woman, and she recalls someone very different (a man, I presume). Now Lighthouse 20 was not by any means my favorite show (hell I think it replaced Gillagan's Island!), but I do remember it--not really fondly but I remember it.

The real purpose of my writing is that I made the comparison of Lighthouse 20 to Hotel Balderdash--a show that apparently ran for 10 years on channel four here in SLC. Now this show was the bomb; not only did it start at 6:00 am 6:45 am and show nothing but 30's-late 40's Warner Brothers cartoons (you know, Bugs and Daffy, but not Porky Pig and certainly not that crap WB churned out from the 50s onward.) These cartoons, of course, were made for adults and the humor was mostly sophisticated in a slapstick kind of way and not juvenile at all (more on excellent WB work during that time later) Hotel Balderdash also originally featured a trio of characters who "ran" said hotel. I saw this show long before Fawlty Towers, but it seemed that Balderdash was much like Fawlty Towers but with a studio audience of kids in tow. (And you think Felini is surreal?) The trio were Cannonball, Harvey, and the greasy, Nelly-Olsen-like Raymond. Raymond wore a red brat costume (you know like Buster Brown) with a blond wig and stupid sailor hat. Cannonball was rotund and wore a bowler. Harvey was tall and lanky and wore a top hat and a scarf. The trio were triangulated against each other with Raymond always being a brat and trying to get the best of Harvey but never succeeding, and Cannonball acted as the straight an to them both. Harvey was the goofy ne'er-do-well with a good heart. Cannonball was the officious, overbearing "boss" who also had a good heart in the long run. Raymond was a whiney brat who never did well at all. He had a column in our Feliniesque local mini-paper where he answered letters in his bratty way. Pure local comedy gold, I say.

The show ran far longer than my childhood, so I lost track of it somewhere in the 70s, and then one day it was gone, replaced by that tripe Good Morning America. So much for a local show with a modicum of talent fondly remembered from childhood. Are there anything like these shows any more? Where are the Lighthouse 20s? Can a Hotel Balderdash exist in our pre-fab world?

Cast update

Raymond survived a few season on the show, but must have grown tired of being the guy in the brat, and moved on to other projects. Apparently he has struck gold in Mormon comedico-dramulettes. Wrong on this one, Raymond was played by Charlie LeSueur who has given a all-out corection to my childhood misperceptions:

Hello everybody! This is the one, the only, RAYMOND, and my name is Charlie LeSueur, not Lance Williams!
Lance, I believe was one of those local actors who used to pop in and out from time to time on the show, but he was never a regular.
Concerning the history of "Hotel Balderdash." The show was indeed taken from "Wallace and Ladmo,in Arizona where Larry "Cannonball" John and I grew up. Wallace gave us the name Balderdash and said he had always wanted to place his show in a hotel with the guests as rotating characters. We ran with that and named the show "Hotel Balderdash." Wallace and Ladmo weren't very happy when the show was a success.
Just before the show started we brought Randy Lovoi in as Harvey after other actors dropped out.
The show went on the air on September 11, 1972 and lasted until 1982.
I left the show in 1976, but returned briefly in 1977 when Cannonball left the show. When he returned I left again, but returned to the show in 1979 as a regular until it's demise. By the time it left the air I was the only regular left on the show. Randy Lovoi left during the last couple of years and we brought in Steve Farnworth as a new Harvey. Cannonball left in 1982 and soon the show ended with a hiss rather then a bang!
Also, you had the time slot wrong for the show. During the first couple of years we ran from 6:45am until 8:40am at which time they ran a 20 minute newscast. When "AM America," the orginal name for "Good Morning America," started we were so popular that they ended up running the first hour of "AM America" from 6:00am to 7:00am. We ran from 7:00am to 8am and then they ran the last hour of "AM America." During that time the station changed it's CALL letters from KCPX to KTVX.
Larry and I moved back to our home state of Arizona where I continued in television, film, radio,and stage. I am now concentrating on stage and have written two books on film and travel the country doing lectures and radio programs as a film historian. For more info you can visit my website: www.silverscreencowboys.com.
In answer to you comments on "Light House 20," the show was created by Craig Clyde and Scott Curran. Scott played the host, Captain Scotty. I do not ever remember a girl on there.
I hope I've cleared the air about things

I think Cannonball survived all 10 seasons of Hotel Balderdash. He had his radio morning show in SLC during the same time period. (which he must have run too since HB was filmed live) [HB was not filmed live after all.] He apparently moved on to small-town Arizona, had a large family and enjoys motorcycles.

The top-hatted Harvey whose trademark was pulling his hand in front of his mouth and making a "bwooooooooop" sound whenever the show went to a cartoon, has disappeared off the face of the Earth with nary an Internet mention. I'm sure he is alive and well in some radio station in the heartland.

Gumbo!

I've had a couple months of rather stressful professional commitments, but it doesn't mean I can't offer you up a new cooking movie.

Comedy. Some people don't get it, do they? Not that this is very funny. I've come to the conclusion that it is not. Anyway.

Anyway the larger file is actually a file with streaming enabled. I don't know, however, if it will actually stream properly. My apologies to those on dial-up connections.

I'd write about the complex professional issues that are really getting me down, but this is not the place for it, if any place is. Enjoy the gumbo.

Friday, September 16, 2005

Snappy

1) Best Grouch Marx sequence ever:
Somewhat rotund older socialite lady he is dating to get her money: "Hold me closer! Closer!"
Groucho: "If I were any closer I'd be behind you."

2) Ron of Counterintuitive writes of a spate of crank calls and his self-defined not-so-snappy comeback:
I was just about to leave to pick up my two older kids from art class; I was already five minutes late and the prank caller had called earlier when I was simultaneously trying to grill peppers, cook corn, cut up a tomatoe, and instruct my daughter in proper table setting. So at this point I was getting a bit irritated with prankster joe. Once I realized it was yet again the prankster, making me even later, I really wanted to scare them off so they wouldn’t call again. And, might you wonder, what did I come up with? Was it something like Moe would say to Bart:

"Listen, you lousy bum, if I ever get a hold of you, I swear I'll cut your belly open!"

Or "It's you isn't it ya cowardly little runt? When I get a hold of you, I'm gonna gut you like a fish and drink your blood!"

No, not exactly. Instead I somehow came up with this: "Listen, stop calling or I'm going to really be here."

What in THE hell does that mean? They/re probably still shaking in their boots. I can’t believe I had nothing better than that. What happened?!? Performance anxiety? Fear of offending their parents if they turned out to be the Mormon Relief Society President’s kids? Inability to summon vigorous manly anger? If only they will call back so I can really stick it to them. I think I will use Moe’s "cowardly little runt" phrase and then go into a tirade about how I'm a working father with kids and dinner in the oven. Surely they will then shake in their boots and feel terribly sorry for adding stress to my already stressful evening (permalink).
Aside from the fact that I think that the response was rather creative and probably scared them into incoherence, I have to say that I have always wanted to have the snappy comeback line myself. I admire people like Groucho Marx, his pale imitation (second time I've used that phrase today!) Hawkeye Pierce from M*A*S*H*, Mae West, Noel Coward, William Powell (of the Thin Man series, or the great W.C. Fields for their ability to respond with the snappy comeback that completely disarms their interlocutor, or at least makes you laugh. Now I think I've had a slight amount of success doing this in the past, but every occasion escapes me now, and the only thing I can think of is this: one time I was at the Avenues liquor store buying a particularly tasty bottle of wine for, as I recall, what turned out to be a particularly tasty dinner date. I was infatuated by the woman I had just started dating and wanted to impress her with my culinary talents. While climbing the stairs to go into Smiths and buy the rest of the meal, this tottering old guy standing on the landing started chanting "Somebody's got a bottle! Somebody's got a bottle!" over and over until I reached him. I then stopped, turned and said "Somebody's got to shut the fuck up," turned, and climbed the rest of the stairs to the store.

Now that's snappy, eh? Ron puts me to absolute shame.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

More adventures in Google poetry

Over at lis's, lisa b. was commenting on the odd blogger commenting graphic password thing ("uckyovo") that lis had pop up on a recent comment she was making:
Also, if you go all Latin-roots, you've got ovo, which is egg or close to it, so you have, even in the nonsense scrambly word, misogyny. On bitter days, I've been saying of late that misogyny is hard-wired into human culture. But in the alphabet? Oh. My. God.
I tend to agree with Lisa on her bitter days (and usually on her sweet days--is that the oposite of bitter?), in that I think misogyny is engrained in our culture and our language, and it takes a great deal of effort to over come it. I think, as well, there is a link to the roles that men and women play in society as well as our roles in family. Ron of Counterinutive has recently dealt with that issue in a post entitled "Can I speak with your wife?"

With the above biases in mind, I give you my lastest Googlerific poem creating gabob. (I've modified this one, as it says to make it more poetic, whatever the hell that means). I think the poem reflects the mysoginistic biases that are out there. Basically Google poetry pulls out the most popular phrases that relate to your search terms from the web and dumps them on your doorstep. It is using the Google search engine to accomplish this and you could pretty much do the same thing (but in less poetic form) with a bare Google search.

The following phrases, therefore, are what is there and what are most popular when you type in "can I speak to your wife." I've moved them and deleted them and added the word "heart" as I have seen poetically fit, but most of the basic text is as it was returned to me. The modifications are in placement and removal of non-sensical material. Also, I chose the filler-word "heart" for various reasons--mostly because the phrases that Google produced seemed so heartless. "Heart," by the way, replaced elipses that Google poetry placed in the poem.

"Can I speak to your wife?"

Compiled 9/14/2005 5:01:28 AM GMT and poetically modified at 9:49 PM MDT

1. Simply your wife

Your wife still hasn't taken off all her pregnancy weight, and you can't remember
the last time the two of you had sex on a weekday. You're working your heart.

(If you can't stop using it no matter what, you may want to
speak
to a psychologist.)
Or, third, you can
try to
make your wife more comfortable with your heart.

You can
certainly approach it with your wife if you think you can
have the
discussion in a way that will not harm your relationship.

Is it because she can
hardly speak
English, or does she have trouble using a fork?

Your wife should be exactly that. She should simply be your wife.

2. Guy humor

TOPIC: Can
I borrow your wife...I
can't speak
for everyone but I
find myself
drawn to
bisexual women (of course).
We get online. We have fun but when
It can
be used in a sense of surprise, "Whoa! Get a load of that!

A lot of guy humor involves insulting your buddies to
prove your heart.

3. God's plan

To prevent your wife's gloating, Miss Mannerly recommends flowers. This way
you can
leave your antacid back at the office, instead of your best engineer's heart.

Love your wife sacrificially so she blooms as God planned. The purpose
of speaking the truth in love in Eph 4:15 is maturity in the one spoken to.

"Do you sodomize your wife?"
Was that asked recently of the Supreme Court Justice?
I can't speak
for Drudge, but I
turned to
the blogosphere because it's my heart.

Monday, September 12, 2005

Fond Memories: Wookie Road trip

I forgot about this one:


Karmaking
took it back in July on a previously mentioned road trip.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Born Slippy

It is 2 am and I am bursting with energy, as the cliche goes. The soundtrack to Trainspotting is going its assertive way as I sit here and think of the stuff that I could be doing besides stringing words together into coherency.

There's a lot going through my mind and I know I'm in a manic mode right now. It happens every fall. It happens when I have many tasks to complete and I complete them all in record time.

It makes me think of Theodore Roethke for some odd reason.

You know he died while swimming in a suburban swimming pool.

Perhaps that will be my next anthologized Gooflerific poem:

Theodore Roethke, dead
He who wrote of the subtle
Growth and the heater knock
Achtung!

He who had the snow slowly
Ticking

And the headlights
Fading

He, admiring life but loving
Death
Who wrote the simple words
Of a whiskey's waltz.

Dead in a pool
A swimming pool
At 58 55.



Something like that, anyway.

Boy, I think I know how Franz Schubert felt.

Friday, September 09, 2005

Jimmy Hoffa Jimmy Hoffa

Mid-B made a cool poem using Google Poetry, so I just had to cobble something together. My search terms were Jimmy Hoffa, Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran, and I heard you paint houses and I told it to give me rhymed couplets. All these phrases are relevant to the murder of Hoffa. Google Poetry then gave out a spew of couplets from which I chose those represented below, arranging them in what I think is a coherent order. I've manipulated the text of the couplets a bit, but not much. I kind of like how it turned out.


Jimmy Hoffa

Jimmy Hoffa Jimmy Hoffa, in his short
Terms, that he'd better start
He expected to get whacked right
More bravely than anyone thought
Sheeran and the inside, it was told
Did match Hoffa's DNA it would,
Shot Jimmy Hoffa with a pellet gun,
Unfound Jimmy Hoffa, Sr., guy to run,
And then shot him twice in the head
And the final book report--bad
History through the eyes:
Frank, I heard you paint houses
You paint houses: new & used
In 2003, and his claim was detailed
Every reason to believe that Frank
Is coming "I believe Frank is coming"
The last words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke
The last words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke


Update (6:00 pm):

I couldn't let it stand as a random Google word spew, so I reworked it some more:

"Jimmy Hoffa"

Jimmy Hoffa Jimmy Hoffa, in the short
Terms that he'd always demanded,
Expected to get whacked right,
More bravely than anyone thought.

Sheeran and the insider, it was shown
Had a matching DNA in the car,
Shot Jimmy Hoffa with a pellet gun,
Unfound Jimmy Hoffa, the made man,
And then shot him twice in the head.
And the final book report? Bad:
They shot history through the eye.
"Frank, I heard you paint houses
You paint houses: new & used,"
In 2003, the claim was detailed.

Jimmy Hoffa had every reason
To believe that Frank was coming:
"I believe Frank is coming."
The last words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke.
The last words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke.

Update 2 (the next day) A funny thing happened on the way to the forum:

I just received an email this morning from Google Poetry's creator:

Hello!

I hope this will reach Clint Gardner...

I was delighted to note the interest in my Google poem
engine in Salt Lake City, and decided to pick both
John Pickavance's and your pieces to the Anthology, see

http://www.leevilehto.net/google/anthology.asp

I hope this is okay with you (I see your work is copyright
under Creative Commons licence - I guess this represents
the kind of non-commercial reuse that is allowed under
it's terms ;-)).

I couldn't locate John Pickavance's email at his blog;
if you have it, I'd appreciate your noticing him on the
publication of his piece in the Anthology.

Thanking you for your interest, with best wishes,

Leevi


Ah, anthologized at last! Now I really need to get a styling hat and wear my tweedy jacket around. I've forwarded the message to Mid-B and corrected Leevi about my non-tropical location.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Disc Golf The Wilhelm Way

Along with random bits of laundry and bathroom sanitizing, I spent my labor day editing a movie about disc golf, of all things. Like most throwing sports, I have precious-little skill at it, but I rather enjoy tramping around places like Solitude (where the majority of the footage was filmed) which has a spiffy course laid out. I am particularly happy if my shoulder does not become disjointed or when I actually make par a few times.

Next week at Solitude they have a tournament. I am not entering it since I suck so mightily, but a friend is considering it. There were a few folks up on the mountain practicing for next week. You can identify them by their unique ability to actually throw the disc uphill, and their complete lack of swearing or oath-taking.

It would appear, however, that the week after that is open for our very own Wilhelm Invitational (which means if you are reading this and near enough to SLC, you are invited to participate.) Lift tickets are 6 bucks, but if you are really poor you can climb the mountain and it is all free. Be prepared to lose discs, however. And no, you cannot use paper plates.

I'll post the movie if I get around to converting it to some format that will not take you hours to download.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Belabored Day 2005: The poor get poorer

Salt Lake Tribune:
"Sarah Wilhelm, the organization's director of fiscal analysis, says stereotypes that poor people don't want to work or don't do anything to improve their lives are not true. Roughly 75 percent of poor Utah families have at least one working person in the home, she says.
'It's frustrating that people are working very hard, playing by the rules and still not being able to make ends meet,' says Wilhelm.
In 1999-2000, the poverty rate in Utah was 7 percent. It increased to 10 percent in 2003-2004, according to the report. The federal poverty guideline for a family of four people is $18,850 a year. "

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Do horses really play? Do monkeys really have business?

I still don't know what I think of Flickr.

UPDATE: I added a bunch of pictures to it some live from my cell phone. I'm thinking of abandoning The Eye of Orris, but then again I don't want to pay Flickr.