While I yammer on and on the radio today, amuse yourself with these links. It’s called “blogging,” I understand. If you're curious whether I will show up in your market, there's a good chance I will - take a look at this larynx-shredding schedule.
Now, it's potpourri.
They say the voice of the Jolly Green Giant died last week. Well, he was one of the voices. The original, for many of us, will always be Herschel Bernardi:
That’s from Peter Gunn, a private-eye show created by – of all people! – Blake Edwards. (Didn’t know that until the credits rolled.) Herschel had a regular role as Lt. Jacoby. One other up & coming guy had a job banging out the incidental piano music; too bad that whole concert pianist thing didn’t work for him.
Also in this episode: one of my favorite characters from a show I loved as a kid. "Wild Wild West." Robert Conrad, the poor man’s William Shatner, is okay – but everything else is fun, and it had one of the better theme shows of the 60s. Western in that great Magnificent Seven / Marlboro , but fractured and modern; it assembles itself like a posse that forms up as the members come out of saloons and join in the middle of the street.
Anyway, it's Artemus Gordon. Here he admits that he's the one who cc'd the zoo pr0n spam to everyone in the office:
I also watched “The Blue Gardenia,” a chick-flick noir from 1953. A blind flower lady comes around to sell the flower to Raymond “Bunny” Burr; tell me if she looks familiar.
How about if I add some dialogue? Yes, it is her. T'pau. Like so many others, a crapload of mediocre movies (culminating in “Soylent Green,” poor woman) but she will ever be immortalized as Spock’s imperious bubbe. A detail you may not have known: T’Pau was married to Peter Lorre. (Which may be why she’s in “Gardenia” – Fritz Lang directed, with the usual lack of pizzazz. He was the John Woo of his time – going Hollywood just took the tonic out of the fellow, it seems.)
I always check IMDB to learn about the guys who get 14 seconds of screen time. Ladies and Gentlemen, Edward Clark:
He came to America from Russia at the age of 14. Put it this way: when this man came to America, the Tsar had more than 2 decades of rule ahead of him. Edward was a vaudeville comedian, a Broadway show librettist, and an extra in over 100 movies. He wrote many songs, including "Heart of My Heart." Not my favorite song, but you may like it. In any case, it's rather cool to think that this old bit player who popped up on my computer screen wrote a song so many years ago- and that I have it. Three versions, in fact. (Link goes to the best one, "best" being a relative term.)
Then there's the heroine of the movie, Anne Baxter:
She's Frank Lloyd Wright's granddaughter. Who knew?
I bet I can make you get up and walk several feet away from your monitor. Bet? You’re on.
I love Kraftwerk. I was listening to “Europe Endless” the other night while writing, and it just made me happy. Just about the only sober people in the 70s who were optimistic were the lads in Kraftwerk, I think. Even thought the “endless” Europe of their lyrics stopped at the Iron Curtain; even though their lyrical summation of the continent’s glories were “parks hotels and palaces; elegance and decadence; real life and postcard views.” And it takes them six minutes to say that. But I still love the tune. And the band. I should have known their website would be fun.(Flash with sound.) Click the triangles until you get to Die Roboter, then click the little triangle to get to the Twitchy Robot page.
Telling you that "Yoda Raps" doesn’t quite say enough. Could be a hand-puppet lip-syncing to some mad beatz, filmed in grainy Webcam-o-rama? Or it could be something created by the finest computer animators in the business?
You’re in luck.
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