I said I would blog less last week, and I didn’t do that well. I’ll try harder this week. The work hasn’t lessened – in fact, the script I’m writing turns out to be more work than expected, since it’s really, really hard to make fun of a dull movie with lots of dialogue. You have to shoot your quips in-between the slabs of lead that drop from the author’s pen, and when there’s a big action sequence you’re reduced to saying “it strains credulity, it does, even given the parameters of the medium.” Besides, I posted a Bleatage of old photos on buzz.mn Monday, so it’s not like I’m slacking in the ceasless job of throwing fresh material into the rapacious maw of the internet. Om-nom-mom. I have something special waiting for later in the week, too – I’m going to post a big chunk of a 1995 CD-ROM, as they called it, that came with “Net Power” magazine. So that should be fun. Today? Flotsam.

First things first: (G)Nat took me to task for lying about the Easter Bunny after all. She was in a tired cranky mood, one of those states every parent recognizes: nothing you do is acceptable, and everything seems to ungird some perfectly sensible affront to their finely-tuned sense of morality and fair play. She gets this way late, and also exactly at 4 PM on Fridays when we’re at piano: that’s pancake time for her.  So she was irritated that I LIED about the Easter Bunny. I said I had done no such thing. I had merely asked, every year, who had come, and she had said the Easter Bunny. Well it’s the same as a lie if you didn’t tell me. I said it was close, and I admitted that there was intent.

“And you lied about the Mickey Mouse Pez dispensers.” How? “You were all excited about them like you’d never seen them before.” Well, I was excited. They’re pretty neat.

This didn’t mollify her, but the moment passed.

Second things second: how did I forget about this?

As many have reminded me, this was the first version of “I Am Omega Legnd Man.” I have a grainy copy, but I’ve never watched it.

His post-plague digs were considerably less well-appointed.

I’ll have to watch it now. (Thanks to all for the reminder.)

Going through deep stacks of unused stuff,I found a few cookbook items clpped by a long-gone lady (the term seems apt, somehow) and taped into a notebook. She didn’t just cut out the recipes, but included the picture as well. For some reason she lopped off the head:

American bounty. And so tall, our women! Taller than the fridge.

Then there’s this:

Maybe the lady had an apron fetish, and this one really hit the spot.

To my surprise I found a photo I thought I’d lost a long time ago. It’s an old sign on the back of the Lincoln Del, which was one of the great delis in the Twin Cities, even if it had oil paintings of sad clowns on the wall.

That’s just six different flavors of great, right there. It was removed a few years ago, I think. Pried off and trashed. Reminds me of the effort to save a Seattle Denny’s – it’s not my favorite style of 60s building, but it certain sums up the look and dreams of a particular era. It’s been landmarked, and some people wonder why: it’s not old enough and it doesn’t have bricks and columns, so what’s the deal? Look: I’ll gladly hand over six Carnegie libraries for three 60s coffee shops. We have plenty of the former and few of the latter. The recent past has few advocates.

Speaking of the past, and wrapping up this aimless potpourri: name this intersection.

No? Really? Can’t blame you. It’s the corner of 42nd where the Chanin building meets the Commodore hotel, and the hotel was long ago wrapped up in ugly shiny glass. The Chanin is one of the most magnificent NY skyscraper, and the lower floors are covered with Art Deco details.

Here it is, shortly after completion, before it opened – a dark slab against the skyline. The owner had a suite on the top floor with a private movie theater.

Click on the picture for a larger view.

And up on top? A comical upper-class drunk.

Ben Dova. Hah! New comics; see you at buzz.mn!