This was in the early ’80’s and I was still at the Academy. There was some type of event at school which necessitated me dressing like Jake Blues, one of the Blues Brothers (black suit, tie, shoes, pork pie hat, white shirt, sunglasses). As you do. My friend Jim was of course dressed like Elwood. There was much jocularity and imbibing, probably at Bev & Bob’s, a grimy little hole in the wall we’d always congregate at to munch on the stale popcorn, eat the pickles on a dare and ignore the very real probability of cockroaches in the immediate vicinity. We loved that place. In any case, after much revelry, I grabbed a train home. Actually, it was a long ride, and the goal was to sleep off the revelry by the time I got back to my car at the train station, and then on to home.
I was in a dead sleep when the conductor rousted me for my ticket, and I started the long, tortuous process of checking my pockets for the errant card. The conductor waited patiently for the best dressed drunk in the car to come up with the fare. At one point, I leaned toward the stranger next to me and whispered “I hope you’ve got money”. I have no idea what reaction this produced, as I have absolutely no idea the age, sex, or anything about my seat mate. I’m sure everyone loved and appreciated my wonderful humor though, as far as I know.
When next I awoke, the train had stopped. End of the line. That was not good. Because I was supposed to get off several stops earlier. The train was empty and I thought I’d best exit. If this were the Twilight Zone, the stop might be the old-timey, tranquil town of Willhoughby. If this were Oz, I’d be getting off in the colorful, sing-song land of the Munchkins. But no, this was Illinois and I ended up in Joliet. Tired, hungover, it was getting dark, and I was dressed like one of the Blues Brothers. In Joliet.
I was hesitant to call the folks for a lift, so I tried to figure how long it would take to walk home, as I also had no money on me. In my head, I figured it was maybe five miles (just now, almost 40 years later, Googled it, it’s 9.5 miles), so, I figured I’d hoof it. It must have been sometime around May, as it was pleasant weather, maybe 75 degrees. First thing was first, I figured I’d follow the tracks that pointed in the right direction. Had to get over a trestle bridge by climbing on the raised metal side wall on all fours as a freight slowly passed me on one side, a precipitous drop on the other.
I then hopped down the slope and started walking next to the tracks on my right, that were parallel to route 53 somewhere on my left but maybe a block over. I tried a couple times to get over by the street but by sticking with the tracks, they were taking me into various construction properties with a lot of vehicles in storage sites. But to enter any of them to get to the street was no good as I found myself fenced inside the properties, so I had to retreat back to the tracks.
At some point, the tracks veered off on the right, to be replaced by very high fencing with razor wire rolled at the top, and nothing but forest on the left. It was dark but I could make out the institution behind the fence on the right, especially with the various spotlights placed at strategic points. Any doubt about where I was at dissipated as soon as the klaxon alarms went off and the lights started roaming about like in the movies. I was right outside Joliet State Penitentiary, former home to one Joliet Jake Blues. Who I was dressed as. The irony was actually lost on me at the time because the alarms were loud and I heard dogs barking. Now that I think about it, I was probably not supposed to be strolling in the vicinity. But the point was moot as a minute later, a clearing appeared on my left.
Here’s where it gets odd. And no, I’m really not making any of this up. In the clearing, amidst all these trees, was a lone street light. Directly beneath it was a large white Cadillac, red interior, empty, with all four doors wide open. Outside a prison. So I could stay by the prison fence, or I could make my way through the clearing, going past the car and then eventually toward the street beyond. Although I was dressed like a Blues Brother, which may or may not have worked in my favor with whoever may or may not have been watching me from the brush, it just so happens that I also looked like a Fed, right outside a prison. So, not really tired as much as weirded out by this point, I buttoned my jacket and strolled through the clearing. And yes, at one point, I did mumble something quietly into my wrist, as if I was in communication with someone official. Visual storytelling. If you’re dressed like a Fed, it usually can’t hurt to try and sell it in a situation like that.
Once through the clearing, I was finally out on route 53 and could see I was still a long, long way away from home. Miles to go. I decided, especially after the prison and the clearing, that what the hell, I’d call the folks for a ride. Came upon a police station, asked if I could use their phone. They refused, directing me to a pay phone outside. Really? Walking over to it, only *then* did I step in a 6 inch deep puddle. Called the folks. They were busy eating. I got home eventually.
The moral of the story? Be aware of your surroundings, otherwise, you’ll get your foot soaked.
Fool me once with a Special Edition, shame on me. Rereleasing stories for dodgy and incompetent reasons, shame on YOU.
Back when the BBC was releasing all the various Doctor Who stories on DVD, they would sometimes RErelease a story with the justification that the material was “remastered” or perhaps better special effects had been added.
Now, it would seem to me that when the *restoration* team initially prepared a story for release on DVD, they would do their due diligence to restore the product to the best quality possible, then sell it to the fans. But in certain situations, after a couple years, they would then tout how they were “remastering” the story digitally and releasing a Special Edition. They did this with the William Hartnell story, the Aztecs.
It’s been awhile but I did buy the Special Edition back then and they even had an extra feature about the quality difference between the original release and the SE. This is all well and good but the difference, while detectable, begged the question: why did you do a half assed job in the first place? But you know what? I gave them a pass because this was some 15 to 20 years ago maybe there *were* significant strides in digital remastering between the two releases. Maybe.
The 20th anniversary story, The Five Doctors DVD was released somewhere around the same time and then released *again* later with updated special effects. Special effects which could easily have been added in the original release. But I had not yet learned my lesson and bought the SE as well. They may have also had some extra features added to it as well.
Fast forward to 2013 and the DVD release of Patrick Troughton’s Enemy of the World. A complete story which, 5 of 6 eps missing for *45 years*, was brought back to the BBC, remastered, and released to fans. And then a couple years later, “remastered” again and REreleased as a SE. Here’s where I started to adapt a “screw you” attitude. I bought the original Enemy release and it was a fantastic story, with excellent video quality. So when they tried to take more of my money with a SE that made the excellent video quality better (?), added a whole disc of special features and charged up the yin yang for it, I gladly passed. I hadn’t heard too much about the behind the scenes factors as to why the original was so inferior to the SE, or why they just didn’t give us the best quality possible the first time around.
Well of course the answer is money like always but there had also been many other DW stories that were released just *one* time, properly remastered *and* with brand new special effects the first time out. *They* certainly didn’t need a “redo” later.
But maybe I can even give a pass on that as maybe there were extenuating technical circumstances that I’m not aware of, aside from a big company being greedy like so many are.
But then we come to The Power of The Daleks, the long missing, first ever adventure of second Doctor Patrick Troughton. This six part adventure was fully animated, matched with the existing sound track of the story and released in 2016, the 50th anniversary of the story’s transmission. They just REreleased it again this year as a SE, with “improved” animation and more special features.
Why?
Did animation in general take a quantum leap in the last couple years? Some animation miracle I missed?
No. It turns out, the BBC simply pushed out the first DVD with rushed, inferior animation *solely* to get it out on the 50th anniversary. So in essence, the animators were not happy with the product. The BBC obviously didn’t care. Now, having bought the original DVD, I must admit that the bxw animation was a bit lacking. The color version seemed a bit more polished.
Side note: these recent fully animated adventures come in both bxw and color versions so you can view your preference.
But yes, the bxw was lacking–I actually thought they might have just taken the color version and desaturated it until it was black and white, thus accounting for the lack of contrast. But in any event, I just figured it was the best animation they could do with their set up, since the BBC has a rep for being “frugal”. The *last* thing I would have thought was that it was a lesser hack job simply because the BBC was being irresponsible, but that’s exactly what it was.
The really stupid thing here is that the new era fans of DW probably wouldn’t care about them hitting the 50th anniversary time slot, while the classic fans like myself hadn’t even thought about that anniversary. I would rather they just gave us the best version possible the first time out.
But hey, how can the BBC charge us twice for the same thing without a little creative corporate deception and incompetence?
Mind you, I think the *only* reason these details came out is because one of the animation team did an interview during the lockdown, regarding the SE, and I get the feeling that because everyone’s working remotely, perhaps no one at the Beeb was able to remind the animator to not mention them being irresponsible in the first place and greedy the rest of the time. Oooops. Perhaps the details would have come out anyway eventually, who knows?
The “improved” animation is said to be *much* improved, with the entirety of the first episode redone from scratch, most of ep 5 overhauled, and a lot of tweaks to the rest of the story as well. But if I want to experience it, I’ll have to buy the DVD. Again.
But this is troubling. The Beeb expect us fans to buy everything, thus showing there’s a market as an incentive for more missing episodes TO be animated. Yes, it’s fair that we should show our support if we want them to continue until ALL the missing eps are animated. But when they rush out a crap product, expect us to buy it, then do the proper job they should have in the first place, release it and expect us buy it again, IF we want them to keep animating episodes… that’s BS.
That’s another element of all this. There are some out there who say “well, you don’t have to buy it!” Well no, we don’t, but if we don’t buy the SE’s along with the originals, and sales dip, some bean counter might say “yeah, they’re not buying everything–let’s cut back on the animated projects.”, corporate doesn’t really give a crap about us. Never did. So in a way, yeah, we DO have to buy it all.
And then of course the question is what about the next animated release? And the one after that? Is one of them going be third rate as well because somebody had a timer on them, and they’re just going to release a better version down the line?
It’s unfortunate because I really would like to see the superior version of POTD. But I already bought it. And frankly, they usually don’t release the DVD’s in the US until about eight months after the U.K. release for some reason, which is very strange, considering it’s primarily BBC America and/or BBC international that’s funding the animation. So I’m not even sure when the SE will be available here, if I do decide to be a sap and buy it.
Oh, and the Beeb are releasing entire collected seasons of Classic Who on Blu-Ray. By the time they get to the Troughton stuff, I wonder if they’ll have even *more* “improved” animation, in time to buy it a third time…..
It had been 30 years since I was in Hawaii. I’d hoped it was still there…so I took the family…
Where as it was just Lin and myself that went to Italy and Greece, this was a full family venture like DisneyWorld was. This seemed like a fairly laid back trip where everything pretty much went smoothly. We stayed the southwest side of Maui and got a hotel on the beach for I think six days, five nights. Long flight as usual and a five hour time difference, so that first night was whackadoo. Should we stay up late to reorient or hit the sack now? I think the kids started watching “Tangled” in the hotel room at 1am, so we were a bit zombieish.
Each night, we explored the beach, and ventured along it to some of the other hotel restaurants. Several times, I partook of fish tacos with Mahi mahi tuna and oh man, that was delicious. The weather is more consistently perfect in Maui than most places, averaging ’70’s to low ’90’s year ’round. At night, they had some fascinating skies, where you could spot an occasional lightning storm, which felt like it was a hundred miles away.
We were out and about in our rented convertible each day (Hawaii!), enjoying the sun and warmth, exploring the different parts of the island. And it was pretty easy to explore the whole island, as it’s not really that huge. In no particular order of days:
*We took in the marketplace, saw a lot of nice stuff and I spent a nutty amount of money on a sculpture, but it was very cool. Sometimes, I get dangerous when I’m in “vacation mode”. The statue is still on display in our hutch cabinet, along with various other pieces we acquired on trips.
*We took the long and psychotic drive to the east end of the island. It’s like a 45 minute trip at fairly slow speed because you have to negotiate close to 25 blind, narrow curves maneuvering around the mountains. Some beautiful sights such as waterfalls and a lot of lush greenery. However. You never know who or what was going to be coming from the other way. One curve had a *truck* coming the other way and we had to squeeze the car up onto whatever tiny shoulder there was, so the truck could slip by and it was very close.
At one point, a pick up truck came up behind us and got right on our ass. Obviously, a local who didn’t care about the blind curves, so I pulled over and waved him to pass us, which he did, thus ensuring he’d take whatever the blind curves had waiting if anything, so I followed him and it made things a bit easier–and faster. On the way back, we just took the continuing highway to complete the circle of the island.
*We went zip-lining for the first time ever. That took a little getting used to. The expanse below us wasn’t a thousand feet but even over a hundred foot drop in the jungle was plenty far. Even though we were strapped in with a harness, etc. it still took quite a leap of faith for me to jump off into nothingness. This was an episode of “Man Of Infrequent Action” that actually turned out well!
As for the rest of our party, keeping in mind the kids were about 16 and 13 respectively, Matthew was very nervous at the start but was swinging with the best of them by the end. Theresa handled it well and Lin could do that all day. She’s the Captain America of the group.
*Then there was the time we attempted to drive up to the top of the volcano. Up and up we went, on an ever curving path up to the top, about 3,000, 5,000 feet? I honestly can’t remember. All I know is that it was quite a ways up. Evidently, there’s a bike tour that starts at the top of the volcano at like 4am, and you ride your bikes down from the volcano as the sun rises. It sounds kinda cool. Make sure to check your brakes beforehand, though.
But there we were driving up and even though my wife is a daredevil, there comes a certain height where she’s no longer having fun. At a certain point, we reached that height. Thing is, we had *no* idea how close we were to the top. No signs at all, just curving road, volcano on the right, and a VERY steep drop off to infinity on the left. We’d been driving so long, I thought for sure that the top was right around the corner but again, no clue. Linda had had enough, and at that point, while I looked for somewhere to try and turn around, I spared a quick glance away from the road– only then did I notice that there were clouds out there lower than we were. And then I had enough. Screw finding a conventional turnaround, I did a very dicey five point turn right there on the street, praying no one else was coming either way and back down we went. I’m sure the mouth of the volcano was fantastic and all lava-like.
*We also had a nice lunch at a restaurant at the center of the island which was a great lookout covering probably half the island. Also probably a good place to live in Maui in case of a Tsunami.
That was, I believe, the last full blown vacation with just the four of us. We’re going to try and get maybe one more adventure in the bag before the nuclear unit is separated by life in general.
When Stan Lee left the day to day management of Marvel Comics in the early ’70’s to focus on integrating Marvel into TV and movies (to questionable success), it was indicative of several changes that I feel heralded the end of the Marvel Age of comics. Jack Kirby leaving in ’70 to go to DC, Stan going to LA and maybe the final good bye was the death of Gwen Stacy.
To be clear, I’m not talking about the end in a gloomy end of all there is, but simply the end of an era. Arguably the best era Marvel ever had, starting in 1961 with issue #1 of the Fantastic Four and possibly ending with Spider-man #121 & 122, 1973.
It started out as a seemingly regular issue of Spider-man, chock full of the regular melodrama involving Peter Parker and the every day hassles of his life. Just returning from an international trip and a battle with the Hulk (as you do). Peter’s catching a cold and checking in on his buddy Harry Osborne, who’s done himself further damage by overdoing it with the LSD. Being a rich kid who’d never worked a day in his life, the pampered young Osborne was a mess.
But not as much of a mess as his father. Norman Osborne was a wealthy industrialist, inventor, businessman and psychotic, also known as The Green Goblin. As the Goblin, Osborne was incredibly dangerous, with enhanced strength, keen intelligence and a load of weapons, ranging from pumpkin bombs to a jet glider, all to attain power and as a bonus, make life miserable for Parker.
Because to make everything worse, Osborne knew Peter’s secret identity. But due to his own personal psychosis, he would sometimes lapse into an amnesiac state, remembering absolutely nothing about his ID as the Goblin or Pete’s alias.
You can imagine how stressful this would be to a young Parker, with the weight of the world on his shoulders. His 950 year old aunt May constantly on the verge of dying, trying to pay the bills by taking photos of himself in action as Spidey and selling them to skinflint publisher J. Jonah Jameson, and maintaining his crime fighting career all at the same time. All while trying to make a life for himself and his soulmate, the one, true, single love of his life, the wonderful Gwen Stacy.
It’s enough stress to give a guy an spider-ulcer.
But as the events in the early part of #121 play out, Peter’s worried about Harry, while Norman — currently in his amnesiac state, is getting more and more paranoid and angry, as he finds out his company is losing more and more money, his son is a drug addict and he’s starting to hallucinate visions of Spider-man coming to attack him. He’s cracking under the strain and that’s not good for anyone.
He’s already kicked the visiting Peter, Gwen and Mary Jane Watson out of the Osborne house, saying they’re the cause of Harry’s “illness” and they’re no longer welcome.
So they go about their business and while Pete stops by the Daily Bugle to get some cash for freelance photos he took abroad of Hulk and Spidey, across town, Norman has a psychotic break and all his memories come flooding back.
Peter decides to websling home as it’s faster and because his cold or flu is getting worse. He just wants to go to bed and sleep it off but decides to check in on Gwen.
When all he finds are signs of a struggle and a lone pumpkin bomb, he realizes that Osborne is once again the Goblin and he’s got Gwen.
In searching for the emerald egotist, his spider-sense somehow leads him right to the top of the George Washington bridge* where the Goblin is threatening to kill the unconscious Gwen unless Spidey kills *himself*, or just stands still while Gobby does it for him.
Spidey does not go willingly. The battle begins. Spider-man is not at 100% but still manages to give Osborne a couple good shots. Instead of prolonging the fight, Peter attempts to just grab Gwen and get her to safety.
Here’s where a rather good issue becomes one that gets referred back to in blogs almost 50 years later. Here’s where everything really DOES change in the life of the lead character in a comic.
The Goblin swoops in before Spidey can get to unconscious Gwen and knocks her off the top of the bridge, sending her plummeting to the water some 100 feet below. Spider-man, reacting quickly, shoots a webline down, catching her boot, which stops her fall abruptly. Too abruptly. We see a “snap” sound effect by her head.
Peter, relieved to have saved her, pulls her up, only to find she died during the fall. He, and the readers, are stunned.
The Green Goblin flies by, gleefully informing us all that of *course* she’s dead, the shock of such a fall would kill anyone! Yet we know, and Peter knows deep down, that she was never conscious, so there was no shock.
But the readers know that when he stopped her, he mistakenly killed her.
Issue #121 ends with the Goblin happily flying off into the distance, while Spider-man swears to make Osborne pay.
This was a shock to the reading audience, especially to ten year olds like myself at the time. Back then, deaths like this really didn’t happen that often at all. Usually because back then, deaths were permanent, especially among civilians and heroes. Villains would always have some nebulous apparent death that they would survive and come back to fight another day.
But this was Gwen. This was the woman Peter was going to spend his life with. But writer Gerry Conway and editor Roy Thomas had decided that there was no where else to go with Gwen, other than marrying her off to Peter, and they felt they couldn’t go that route. That Peter “wasn’t ready” (?). Depending on who you believe, Stan was either in on the decision or was unhappy they did it and demanded they bring her back immediately. Thomas said that would be a huge mistake and make them all look silly. Meanwhile, the fans were SO upset about Gwen dying, Marvel actually received death threats. Imagine if there was an internet back then. Some people might’ve gotten critical!
Keep in mind that both Thomas and Conway were young guys– Conway might even have been only 19, I’m not sure. In my book, this was a case of both the editor and the writer lacking the proper skill and imagination to do something with Gwen beyond what they’d done with her to this point. This was on them and was only the beginning of the long reaching effects of these dominoes toppling.
Now, in issue #122, Peter is a man possessed.
The love of his life is dead and he’s out for blood.
He’s angry. Angry at Osborne and he knows deep down exactly how she died and he’s inconsolably angry at himself.
Right at that moment, he’s very dangerous to anyone who might get in his way.
He brushes aside police, and barges into the Bugle for information for a lead on Norman. Robbie Robertson makes some calls and gets him answers.
What follows is a final battle at a warehouse, where the Goblin dies, impaled on his own glider.
All in all, a grand two parter. Arguably, maybe that should have been it for the book. Sure, it’s a down ending, but considering the bonkers storylines that flowed in and out of the book over the next 30, 40 years…. well, maybe it would have been kinder to end things shortly after this two parter.
Re-Reading the two parter and the issues that followed in one of the Essential Spider-man collections, it was here that MJ quickly became the default girlfriend very soon after Gwen died. It might not have seemed like it if you were reading the book month to month but in a collected form, it played very much like Peter grabbed MJ on the rebound to fill the void left by Gwen. Decades later, whenever there’s an alternate reality, and Gwen didn’t die, Peter was married to her and it was always established again and again that Gwen was The One.
MJ, right from the very first time she appeared in the book, was the party girl, the carefree, flaky chick who was only on the look out for a good time, all the time. She was the exact opposite of Gwen. So when Peter just automatically clung on to her, it seemed a bit weird but stretched out slowly over the months, probably a bit more subtle.
But in the following years, we got Peter being cloned, him killing the clone, Gwen being cloned, lotta clones that kept dying and coming back. Then, eventually Peter and MJ got married and now, since it’s years later, so much time had passed since Gwen, many new readers were unaware of her and what she meant to Peter. Most came into the book thinking MJ was The One. Stan, who at some point just figured it was okay to move things along (Stan rarely thought long term), okayed Peter getting married, although that’s just one of those moves that automatically ages a character and puts them in a very different place in their life.
Then, another few years and more clones, the Clone Saga, which was one of the worst put together storylines ever created, a true clusterf**k.
Then years later, (highly overrated, yeah, I’m saying it**) writer J Michael Stryzinski comes up with a hidden flashback that purportedly stated that Norman Osborne had a torrid affair with Gwen back in the day and she had two kids*** — possibly a story that was even more disliked than her dying. An even bigger clusterf**k.
Then the powers that be at Marvel, such as Joe Quesada (another brain child) decided to make like Peter and MJ’s marriage never happened by “Magic-ing” it away by MJ making a deal with the devil himself (Mephisto).
The astonishing amount of bad decisions, compounded by other bad decisions, decade after decade are amazing. Yet Spider-man is still very popular.
Mind you, there have been some good and interesting storylines as well. In the ’80’s, Kraven’s Last Hunt was brilliant–where the Hunter buries Peter alive and takes over in the black suit— but that was Kravenof’s story. The Superior Spider-man was an excellent run a few years ago, where a dying Doc Ock takes over Peter’s body and actually becomes a better, more efficient Spidey. Highly recommended, but that was really Otto’s story.
But regular ol Spidey has had *more* than his share of crap stories, yet still, he perseveres.
Just goes to show, if you have a good character, it can whether even horrible stories–and terrible eras.
*Evidently, it was the Brooklyn bridge where this happened but the mistake was probably only recognized by New Yorkers.
**Although I’ve liked some bits of his Spider-man run, I find JMS to be highly overrated as a writer and honestly, I’ve tried to get into Babylon 5 but it really is a lame, dated, piece of cheap fan fic that could barely hold my attention or keep me awake. As a show, I feel it’s not worthy of even docking at the upper pylon of DS9.
***I don’t know if the horrific idea of Norman sleeping with Gwen was Quesada’s or JMS, but they really should be ashamed of themselves. In the history of bad story ideas for a major comic book over the last 80 years, this one tops them all. Not only was it completely out of character for Gwen, it really wasn’t in character for Norman either, he of the red cornrows.
Seriously, what was Ditko thinking when he originally came up with that hairstyle? And he used it on a couple characters!
And I’m not sure when Gwen would have even had time to be pregnant since we saw her every month back in the day, and she not only never showed interest in Norman but she also never showed a baby bump. Much less gave any indication she gave birth to twins. Unbelievable, sheer lunacy and it showed the creative team had no clue about the characters. Impractical, illogical, impossible.
Seriously, back then, if there was any character that was a free enough spirit to party with an older industrialist like Norman after he had a few cocktails, let’s be honest, it would be MJ.
‘Twas the morning, (a couple years ago), and all good men (me) thought of having a tuna salad and cheese on toast sammich (sandwich). Ah, but the application, the application, my boy!
I had the container of tuna salad out, the paper plate, the knife, and the bread was being toasted. I went into the fridge, specifically the lunch meats and cheeses drawer to secure two slices of cheddar from one of the many packages we have.
Side note: At the moment, we probably have nine, possibly ten different flavors of cheese in there, and perhaps multiple packages of some of them. Anyway…
So I procure the slices, and the toast pops up, ready for the next leg of my sammich odyssey. Matthew was at the table eating cereal, no idea where the girls were, probably at work.
What I like to do when building an edible delight like this, is to lay out the two slices of toast on a paper plate, put a slice of cheddar on each, then microwave them for 30 seconds. Afterward, the cold tuna salad gets spread on the hot cheese and crunchy toast.
Upon the ding of the microwave, I punched open the door and reached up and in for the plate, dragging out the bubbling prize. Unfortunately, while lowering the plate, and swinging the microwave door closed, I must have inadvertently shifted the plate, allowing both pieces of toast, covering in bubbling, melting, molten cheese, to slide off the frictionless surface, FLIP OVER, and fall, flaming hot cheese first, onto my forearm.
Now….I don’t often lose it. Oh, I yell, I get mad, my voice carries just when I talk normally, so when I get really mad about something, or faced with some level of idiocy, condescension, incompetence or the like, I can ramp it up like nobody’s business. But there have been a handful of times when I’ve gotten so furious, I lose the capacity for speech. This put me on the brink.
What followed was a performance reminiscent of the Tasmanian Devil, as I spun around growling, screaming, flailing, with my arm on fire. Toast, cheese, plate, for some reason, a Kleenex box, all went flying through the air.
This is why I say I was on the brink — even this mad, I didn’t want to break or smash anything. Usually, there’s a civilized switch that prevents me from punching walls (because that’s stupid), so the biggest loser in this fracas was the Kleenex box.
I was also still capable of speech too, as I also threw F-bombs around the kitchen. You might have heard them. I’d like to think this would be as close as I’d ever come to getting nailed with napalm. Oh, that was painful.
Meanwhile, 15 feet away, Matthew silently hunched over his cereal, slowly chewing.
It was maybe a minute or two later, as I wiped cheese off various surfaces that I realized what an absurd outburst that was, coming off an uncoordinated screw up. And I started laughing. So did Matthew, when he saw the kitchen looked a bit like it got hit with spin art, ala cheese.
Whenever I’ve attempted the same recipe, I’m more careful.
But that brings up a very good point. The elevated microwave in the kitchen. Just a few weeks ago, Theresa was making Mac & cheese in her apartment, in her elevated microwave, and she had an incident where she burned her hand when taking the bowl out and down. I think there’s a greater potential for accidents when you’ve got to reach up and in, then out and down with some of these items. Hot, sloshing liquids and the like.
If you have a microwave, I think a countertop model is the preferred placement. Less chance of some mishap. Just my take.
Oh, and did I mention jalapeño slices? Oh, add those on the tuna salad/cheese/toast sammich…. perhaps on a bagel, even?
Cremo is many things, many products, and unlike Kamiaru, Cremo actually exists and has a whole line of products I’d never even heard of a month ago.
Linda bought some Cremo body wash that I spotted in the bathroom. This elegant bottle of golden syrup called to me, with its majestic logo and the ingredients… bourbon and oak?
Be this sorcery?
The aroma says no, simply a helluva good smelling body wash.
Cremo.
Evidently they have a vast assortment of scented body washes, shaving creams (shaving…..Cremo?), beard oils, hair care products…
Gadzooks!
… and I don’t throw out a Gadzooks! at the drop of a hat. It must be earned.
My wonderful wife bought me some Cremo and I’m happy as a clam in whatever scenario that would actually be.
But when I have the good fortune to find out about something cool, I pass the knowledge onto you.
If you were going to have a party, but can only invite *famous* dead people from history, because social distancing wouldn’t be in effect for them, who would you invite? And each one would show up as you remember them from your favorite era.
Groucho Marx is the first one that comes to mind. From the You Bet Your Life era. Talk about the perfect guest to mingle and mix it up at a party! Maybe Groucho, Chico and Harpo are all there– they can even be the casual musical guests. Ah…sorry Zeppo.
Oh– Nikola Tesla. Ironically, I learned more about him from a recent Doctor Who ep than I ever knew before. What the hell, come on down, Nik!
Bob Einstein, also known as Super Dave Osborne and Marty Funkhouser on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Brother to Albert Brooks. Did a blog on him earlier this year. Just a rambunctious, funny, funny man, who will just give you shit and you’ll laugh while he does it. I think the older, more seasoned Bob would be the way to go.
Ernie Kovacs. Inspired comedic genius and pioneer from the late ’50’s, early ’60’s.
Dan Blocker, who played Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza. Beloved in the industry.
During the ’80’s, I put on some goofy shows. Sadly, or maybe not so sadly, most of them no longer exist.
I think it all began back in 1980 when I got my first car, a 1970, .302 V8 Mustang. Bucket seats. Sigh. Such a cool car, we built video adventures around it.
Through a bizarre string of events, myself, and friends of the time, Angelo and his brother Nick, were producing “The Adventures of Spade & Bottlecap”. If memory serves, Nick was Spade, with a jean jacket, knit cap and a sock puppet, whose name I can’t recall. I was Bottlecap, with a Stetson, a jean jacket and a very cool Mustang.
Most of our adventures have faded with time, but I do remember two instances. One was when the plot called for Spade to break Bottlecap out of an insane asylum (I believe my character was supposedly insane). So, of course, we went to the actual Tinley Park mental institution. As you do. With Spade in the getaway car (Angelo filming) down by the entrance, I went onto the grounds, right near the main building. The scene was supposed to be me making an escape, just sprinting away from the building like a bat out of hell, straight toward the car, being filmed all the way. On their signal, I would run. I was probably a quarter mile away from the car.
On “action”, I ran like a bat out of hell…..then ….I was running less quickly….then …down to a jog…. got to the halfway point now… At this point, I could not only no longer breathe but it occurred to me that if security was alerted, it would be really easy for the white coats to throw a net over the idiot in a cowboy hat who’s trying to run away. Thankfully, security was nonexistent at the facility. We then cut to let me rest up and pick up the action as I ran freshly to the car.
The other memory is when we filmed the chase scene through some area of town. The boys were in the car “chasing” me and filming. The reason it wasn’t that successful of a chase scene, was that even though I got some good speed going, some dynamic action– unfortunately, by habit…I kept turning on my turn signal before each turn.
Yeah, if your life is on the line, you’re not going to signal your turns. Very hard to suspend disbelief.
In the late ’80’s, I did a fair amount of video work with my friend Don. Perhaps inspired by David Letterman at the time, we’d go to businesses and just interview people working there. We’d take turns filming and interviewing. It was fun and something to do–we could get into anywhere with the camera saying we were college students working on a project. Most people were very happy to chat about whatever. I think we got a free meal at a Chinese place.
The one thing I really took away from the interviews, was that the guy behind the camera always felt like he was separate from the whole environment, since he was watching through the viewfinder. Case in point, we were at a Dunkin Donuts and there was this homeless guy who was very agitated, almost violent. I think he actually had a knife. Don was interviewing people and was getting a bit worried that the guy might stab him but six feet away, I simply thought it made for great entertainment!
Don and I produced a fair amount of mini episodes, usually while drunk. But in addition to our famous “Batman and Riddler” piece or the infamous “Marshall Brodine card trick with Billy”, the greatest was maybe “Son of Mannix”. The story was visiting Joe Mannix jr., who, unlike his famous private investigator dad, was a bug exterminator. Me in a white jumpsuit. This was just my excuse to do a bunch of stunts to the tune of the old Mannix theme. One of my favorites.
Yes, during the course of filming, I was actually running along and jumping off roofs, hanging onto the hood of a swerving car, while Don filmed and drive, hanging from the ledge of a second floor window, being scooped up in an earth mover at an abandoned site, cracking eggs (very Mannix), running, chasing, being chased, diving, shooting, you name it. The last thing I did was sniff a dandelion and throw it over my shoulder.
The goal was to now edit it down to match it up to the length of the theme song perfectly. And believe it or not, the song ended exactly at the moment I threw the flower over my shoulder. Don and I cheered the cheer of adults with nothing better to do on a weekend but make a KICK ASS MOVIE!
Aaaaaand then I foolishly sent it to America’s Funniest Home Videos and it got lost in the mail. I was a dumb person to do that. But maybe it was for the best, as the glory of the video that’s built up in our memories might have grown beyond reality at this point.
Finally, 1990 had myself, Don, Jim, Steve and Lou travel to an Elvis impersonator’s convention. This one still exists. I think we each still have a copy. An entire hotel devoted to Elvis impersonators. A lot of them. Unfortunately there were more impersonators than guests coming to see them. And then you had certain guys like us who were coming to mock them. Well, some of them. Some were horribly bad and didn’t know it, some were quite good and under appreciated.
And then you had me, who, perfectly primed with enough alcohol, actually shaved off most of my beard– on film– leaving giant Elvis mutton chops, and hit the floor to mingle. I could have used some sequins and a cape, but had to get by with my accent.
And… there is footage of me, Lou, Steve and Jim acting as background dancers to a couple Elvi. It….goes on longer than I would like. Long after Lou and Steve and Jim left me alone to dance behind the poor Elvi.
Well anyway, we edited down the 2 hours of footage into a very nice, tight, quality 30 minutes.
My wife was not pleased when I came home with Elvis mutton chops, roughly a month before our wedding, but fear not, I grew the beard back in time.
There was also an evening where myself, Lou and Jim dressed up as Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Alcohol was also involved.
Believe it or not, none of these ever won awards.
Thank goodness I calmed down and never did anything silly ever again!
I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here by saying the Beeb is now focused on animating all the missing episodes. If it is a limb, it feels very sturdy. The purse strings that used to be tied up in Gordian knots seem to have been sliced open and it’s raining animation money out there.
How do we know they’re starting to spend money hand over fist? In the past, once in a blue egg, they’d animate and finish off two parts of a story like Ice Warriors or Moonbase.
Now, they’re not only animating whole missing stories like Fury from the Deep and Macra Terror but *just* for the sake of visual consistency, they’re animating the entirety of The Faceless Ones, including the parts that already exist. *That* is a significant step that says there’s a growing appreciation of getting a better quality product out there.
To go one step further, they even spent more time and money on “improving” the animation in Power of the Daleks— a story that was just released a few years ago. While that’s great that they upgraded the animation, is it worth re-releasing the thing now? I guess, if people buy it. How extreme is the improved artwork? I don’t know, I *don’t* plan on buying it. Maybe it would have been a better idea to wait and release the updated version when they collect all of Season 4 on Blu-Ray? Perhaps, but maybe it’s just an indicator that that Blu-Ray season collection is many years away yet. Maybe the time/money spent on improving POTD might have been better off spent on animating the remaining two eps of the Crusades? I don’t know. But I guess the money there.
Currently, the Season 4 to-do list includes animating all four parts of The Highlanders, probably all of The Underwater Menace (including the two existing eps) and Evil of the Daleks (including the one existing ep).
Looking at the challenges for each– for the Highlanders and TUM, they’ve already got stock animated heads of the Doctor, Jamie, Ben and Polly. They usually grab photos of existing static backgrounds from scenes and run them through filters which saves time. So in both those cases, they mostly just have to focus on the extra characters and costumes for each, which would be the biggest time commitment. With “Evil”, they’ve got loads of Daleks from POTD, plus Jamie and the Doctor, so again, backgrounds, extra characters.
Season 5 seems to be just as far away, if not a bit farther. They have yet to touch the 6 part Abominable Snowman, or the 6 part Wheel in space. Web of Fear is a sticky situation (sorry) when it comes to visual consistency. One ep missing, existing only in telesnaps. Do you go to the trouble of animating the whole thing? Or raid the house of the private collector and start shaking him and force him to let go of episode 3 already! (Or whoever has it) That’s a tricky one. Probably best just to animate that one alone. I’ve been carping about it for a while but I think it finally dawned on them that spending the money on animating all the eps will more than pay off when they release the entire seasons on Blu-Ray.
You CANNOT have even one episode represented in telesnaps on a Blu-Ray disc.
Season 6, they’re only missing most of the Space Pirates. I can’t even tell if we’re dealing with a win-win or lose-lose there.
With Hartnell, it’s all a bit more clear cut. Season 1, Marco Polo, Season 2, finish off the Crusades. Season 3… well, they’ve got their work cut out for them. Myth Makers, the DMP, Savages, add the Smugglers to the list since I’m sure they’ll tack that and The Tenth Planet on to Hartnell’s final season. I’m also pretty sure that will end up being the last season collection that comes out.
My main point here is that the Beeb is finally spending significant cash to complete all of Doctor Who and to get stuff ready for future Blu-Ray collections.
Beyond the black and white era, there is one thing they have to do.
A personal plea.
Hey, Beeb…I usually don’t re-buy the individual releases once they’re already out, but if you go in to Invasion of the Dinosaurs and replace the bad rubber puppets with convincing CGI dino’s, I’ll buy it again.
And…and if you then go back in and upgrade them again to Jurassic Park quality and release it again? I’ll buy it. Again.
And then I’ll buy it again when the whole season’s out on Blu-Ray. Because the story is *that* good.
But if you *don’t* fix the dinosaurs, I might not even get Season 11 on Blu-Ray, because the entire season hinges on that. There, I’ve said it.
I’m sorry, but I’ll forgive just about any bad effect in DW. The Scaracen, the giant rat, the Foamasi, even the Myrka, because it wasn’t even a great ep, and the karate move is priceless.
But when it comes to those inexcusable dino hand puppets, to quote Picard, “The line must be drawn HERE!”
We really don’t do fast food *that* often but Matt and I were on our own for dinner the other night and had Wendy’s delivered. I ordered a Double cheese everything and that’s a sizable burger… but when he took it out of the bag, he looked at it. I looked at it.
From the size of that wrapped shape, at first we thought they got the order wrong and gave me single, or maybe a White Castle Slider had somehow mysteriously teleported into the bag, deftly switching places with the Double. Point being, it looked rather small.
Opening up the wrapper, I had to study it for a second but on close inspection, yes, there were two, square, thin, small patties in there. And I wasn’t imagining it, as Matthew recognized the size disparity as well.
Admittedly, it’s probably been several years since I had a Wendy’s burger. I’d say only a couple years but these days, every time I estimate that something happened “a couple years ago”, it turns out it actually happened 8 or 10 years ago.
If I think something happened 8 or 10 years ago. It was really about 30 or 40.
And if it seems like longer than that, it was really dinosaur times.
You know, they have Medieval Times, where you eat turkey legs and watch jousting and knights battling — maybe there should be some kind of Dino Times, where you can watch guys in dinosaur costumes battle. They have some pretty convincing costumes at some theme parks… maybe it’s Universal, can’t remember. But I’m really drifting here…
It’s been a while since I had a Wendy’s burger but when the hell did they downsize the product? I’ll bet the *price* didn’t go down, am I right? Anyone? Bueller?
Thankfully, the vanilla frosty and sugar cookie that accompanied the burger compensated for any miniaturization of the main course.
I guess I should still be happy over the fact that after decades of shortsightedness, of them having *only* chocolate frosties, someone finally wised up and said, “You know, Dave was a closet vanilla hater or something but let’s stop ignoring a huge chunk of the market and offer vanilla frosties too.
And in the distance, a cheer….
For the record, the Double — although small — was still every bit as good as I remember it. Kudos. I remember back when I was a regular patron of Wendy’s downtown. I think it was maybe…. ten years ago…? Yes, it was 1983 at the Academy and quite often, I would indulge in having a Triple. It was magnificent just about every time.
Around the same time, I remember a class mate saying he had worked at McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy’s at different times back in high school. Of them all, Wendy’s was the only one that shipped in fresh food every day. Impressive.
Hmmm…. “Welcome to Dinosaur Times!”
C’mon, who wouldn’t love that?
IT WAS HALF THE SIZE PICTURED…
Um…epilog…. Turns out, when ordering on his phone, Matthew simply ordered the wrong item. Nevermind.
Alright, nothing to see here, go about your business!
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