Double Feature Kitties: 'Broccoli Kitten LOVES Broccoli!' and 'Who Needs a Treadmill?'

Morty -- we're so relieved! -- has lightened up on his choice of films.

Gone are the torture frights.

Say "Hello" to the yummy, feel-good summer comedies.


"Broccoli Kitten LOVES Broccoli!" via YouTube


"Who Needs a Treadmill?" via YouTube

Mikellaneous

My Recent Confessions and Observations on Twitter, Where Everything Must Be Said in 140 Characters or Less 

I'm thinking about putting an Adventure Island in our creek. We'd have bees and sell taffy. This is a VERY slow little town.

News Item: "Bank teller recognizes customer as man who exposed himself at Starbucks." ... Must've been the stir stick.

I'm considering changing my name. So far, the only one not taken is Photos of Food Durrett. ... I'll ask my wife, Dessert Durrett....

I've noticed my recent, unprecedented usage of the contraction: "shan't." What's next? A top hat and ascot?

Off with the garbage to the county dump, if they'll let me in. We always argue semantics. I say kitty poop IS recycling....

Drat. I just realized because I gave up dairy, my brownie points are worthless.

I'm cutting THE FINAL GLASS OF MILK 2 video together. How exciting! I'm starting to curdle. Catch up: http://is.gd/19lVm

Thinking I'll fire up the lawnmow-- What's on TV?

True Fact: The average person spends three years of life sitting on a toilet. I go for the accent pillows.

I don't know why I love westerns. I spend half the film analyzing how truly awful the people smell. Give Ernie Borgnine a towelette, please.

I've reached an age where I must acknowledge my shortfallings. Where's my moat with the troll?

To which, @WH2H_Radio asks:

"WHAT? You've lost your moat-con-troll??"

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I Don't Care to Laugh Today

Saturday Night

Donna informed me we would be washing the car. Okay, after almost 17 years of driving my trusty, beloved, paid-for Saturn, I can treat it to a buff, bubbles, and suck hose. We took off down the gravelly lane from our house in the forest to the paved street aimed towards town.

As we neared our mailbox, I pointed at a small embankment where two nights ago something tumbled out of the brush and rolled to the ground at the side of my car. I had looked to the right and over my shoulder to see a tiny fawn race for cover back into the grassy yard of the closest cabin.

Donna saw a newborn fawn in a patch of our woods above the pond, three or four Sunday mornings ago. He was with Mama, bouncing and playing in the early sunshine.

I began an intermittent vigil by the kitchen window, where the wildlife commonly appear outside our home. It took a week or two, but at the end of the long driveway, I saw the baby deer scurry left to right and out of sight. He was too distant for a snapshot and never reappeared that day or any other.

I have no proof, but I'm confident the fawn I saw Thursday evening was the very same cuddly critter, full of life and raring to go. As I approached the house, located, perhaps, one-tenth of a mile away in a straight line, I wished for the little guy or gal's safety. I wanted him to come onto our secluded acreage and keep clear of the two-lane blacktop.

So, late this afternoon, two streets from home, while cruising to the carwash, there appeared a common, ugly sight up the pavement ahead -- a lump, motionless on the yellow center lines. I slowed to discover fresh roadkill. A good-sized raccoon, a gorgeous animal, snuffed in sudden, unanticipated mayhem. His severed tail had been flung into the opposite lane, four yards south.

Donna and I shuddered in disgust. Nature is beyond brutal.

We ate sandwiches at our favorite deli, a choice hour for us to be vegetarians, then headed over to the carwash, paid the six bucks, soaped up the automobile, and I gallantly removed all of my rippled muscles from the driver's seat to apply the polish cloth to the exterior roof and bumpers and the in-betweens. Nature cooed.

My car, reborn showroom shiny, purred to the supermarket. We bought the weekly groceries and motored homeward.

The raccoon's carcass continued in the road, heat: 93 degrees. By now, most of his tail was elsewhere, probably inside birds. A bit of fur fluttered on the asphalt.

I love the country living, but the unceasing tumultuous death phenomenon which surrounds us is appalling.

Eventually, I reached the mailbox at the intersection to our street. I fetched the junk messages and put the car into gear. Twenty seconds later, I pinpointed the exact thatch where I had seen the fawn two nights before. I squinted into the trees, looking for the bitty brown buddy with the pretty white spots.

I navigated the meandering curves and, as the Saturn rolled over the exact place in the road where we first glimpsed and rescued our distraught kitten, Morty, late one rainy night eight joyful years ago, we saw the day's second motionless lump.

I couldn't quite identify what I was viewing, but Donna did.

"Oh, Mike! It's the deer!"

I surely blanched. I refocused and recognized the little face, beneath a swarming mess of particularly nasty dark blue flies and assorted moth-like predators.

I stopped the car. I was shocked, disoriented, and attacked by sudden grief. How horribly sad, this beautiful, once immaculate creature, most certainly a month or less old, is now gone.

Something else was amiss.

Donna scuffed over for a clearer assessment of the body. There was the sweet-featured head and only two legs. The deer's hind half was nowhere to be seen.

I left Donna to protect the fawn from vultures and other vehicles until I could return with a shovel. I proceeded forward, decelerating a moment to avoid a bulldog.

After retrieving what I needed from the tool shed, I raced back to my wife and parked. I grabbed the shovel, then handed Donna a black, heavy duty trash bag and asked her to hold it open for me. I swallowed and grasped the chore, without looking any closer than the minimal necessity. As I did, a crowd of neighbors appeared.

Weaving together everyone's observations of the previous hours, we determined that the bulldog had discovered and carried the front half of the fawn a block or two from the place of its grisly demise alongside the paved road.

One man assured us, having seen the deceased earlier at the previous location, that it was heaped in the grass -- and incomplete.

"It was no roadkill," he said. "That deer was cut in half."

Then, he said it again.

Not then, not now do I elect to consider the implications of his statement.

I held my breath, managed some resolve, and shoveled the poor animal into the bag. After tying off the deer and the stench inside the dark plastic confines, we made our cordial excuses to leave the group behind to commence a burial on our property.

But first, Donna and I returned to the main thoroughfare. From the car, we walked up the steep incline and circled down the opposite side, hoping and not hoping to find more remains. The areas were woodsy and overgrown. We saw nothing unusual and returned to the sedan.

"Let's drive further," I said. We reached the top of the big hill. Donna signaled for me to pull over.

"I can smell it," she shared, exiting, while I idled. She investigated across a 100-foot stretch of land. Peering deep into the overgrowth and the adjacent culvert, she let me know, pointing, "the scent is especially strong right here."

Alas, with dusk approaching, we abandoned our search to go dig a hole.

Back at the house, I raised the hood of the trunk to get the shovel. Donna contemplated the final resting place. We were talking when suddenly we both saw, not 20 feet away, a doe stroll through the clearing, slowly, gazing about and analyzing us. We stood still, as she walked haltingly into the woods.

This bizarre day had just gotten weirder. The deer in these parts are afraid of humans and bolt at first sight of friends and foes.

It had occurred to us that the fawn may have been separated from its mother, which might explain the baby's dangerous proximity to the busy road. Was this lone deer the mother? I have no irrefutable proof, but the timing of her appearance and odd, trusting manner was certainly eerie. Could she have been searching for a lost child?

Donna selected a shady plot over by the picnic table, around the general stomping paths of the local deer population. We took turns on the shovel. After half an hour or so, we agreed we were done digging. I went to the car, while Donna retrieved an armload of spare bricks we stored by a retaining wall.

I liked nothing about this morbid task. I don't recall ever personally burying anything before this evening. I hefted the few pounds of deer from the trunk and returned to the grave. I hoped the young one was heads up as I place the corpse into the ground. I was unable to force myself to feel the contents of the bag to be sure.

With one hand somewhere on my hip and the other grasping the shovel pole to keep me standing erect, I said a silent prayer for this unfortunate innocent, whose full, frisky torso could not have been much larger than a loaf of bread. I bawled in a gush for the nameless and precious creature I had met in death mere minutes before.

Donna returned to my side and kissed me on the cheek. We didn't speak. I pulled some loose dirt towards me and it plopped onto the body bag. The sound of earth smacking plastic is about as cold as it gets.

When the distasteful deed was completed, I stepped onto the grave and packed and leveled the soil under my sneakers. We set four bricks in place, acquired more and removed several large creek rocks from a flowerbed to protect the fawn's final resting place.

Again to the car where I filled both hands with groceries, bags of life. Donna followed. When I reached the foot of the steps to the porch, something caught my eye. Perched on wet leaves at my feet was a quiet brown bird the size of a fist, moving her head about in an erratic pattern.

"Donna, come here. You aren't going to believe this."

The cardinal didn't ruffle feathers and fly. She never tried or couldn't. Instead, she appeared to be clearing her mind, tilting the skull to the right and straight up, repeatedly. We figure she flew into the closed kitchen window with intense force, possibly, causing brain damage.

I phoned a friend who nurtures pet birds and requested advice. The trauma-filled patient with the askew tail feathers is presently resting in a paper carton away from ground predators. We included food, water, and our best thoughts.

"She'll either get better and fly away or die," intoned the voice over the phone.

Not many weeks ago, Donna nicknamed me "Father Goose," due to the manner in which I've doted on our various cats through illness and health.

I feel my domain expanding. I dream I take care of all the animals, preventing violence and cruelty upon them. And then I wake up.

Tomorrow, to a possible birdy funeral and, with melancholy, I'm positive, to the exhumation of the small deer. To correct my oversight, I'll cut open that plastic bag and rebury the fawn into the earth proper.

Dust to dust.

Just.

Meanwhile...

Late Light With Conan O'Brien.

More More High School Highs

Continued From: "High School Highs" and "More High School Highs"

Actual Adulation Out of the Annotated Pages of My Senior Class Yearbook

Davis flatters:

"Sometimes I'm not sure you have a brain, but outside of that you're a real cool guy."

A.K. lists the accomplishments:

"Well, there was the time he came running up and said, 'Listen to my first song. ... I-I-I was a teenage infant, baby...'

"And then there was the time he slapped me on the back and said, 'All hands on the rabbit!'

"And then there was the time he gave me a guided tour of Emory Cinema's toilet..."

I, uh, and, um, you see, I was the theatre's concierge / pointer.

Group rates. Bus drivers eat Necco Wafers free.

And, perhaps, the most touching and tender tribute to me would have to be the armpit faces Stanley S. drew on the wrestling team:

More High School Highs

Continued From: "High School Highs"

Actual Adulation Out of the Annotated Pages of My Senior Class Yearbook

John O. charms:

"This year was mucho (Spanish!!!) fun, cutting each other to shreds."

Susan, obviously in love:

"Despite your strange tendencies, you're not such a bad fellow. Maybe in a few years you'll be almost normal."

Another sunbeam:

"Durrett, it certainly has been an honor participating in the extra-curricular activities of the back corner of the room. Coach Rakestraw may have changed for the worse due to you, but I don't care. ... I also appreciate your respect for the office of Mayor and your sympathy for the problems of the office, especially concerning those rotten, gosh-awful CLOCK People.

"I thank you,

"H.R. Pufnstuf"

Tom gushes:

"You are a pretty good guy, but you wouldn't know it talking to you.

"...And I hope you will not miss me rubbing my stomach next year."

Dale R., benefactor:

"P.S. I just thought you might like a P.S."

High School Highs

You might not readily surmise I am quite the sentimentalist. I do have my soft, squishy, warm protoplasm. A recent revisit to the beloved Druid Hills High School senior year annual underscores the yearning I have to remain connected to the youthful inspirations and the gallant champions of my past.

I shan't elaborate more because I'll surely tear up, so allow me to transcribe the actual yearbook inscriptions from a few of the fine souls who opened their hearts to me and my legacy, not to toot my horn, but to share their proactive universal humanity, gratitude, and emotion for a life well engaged.

Jim G. writes:

"To the man ... who has displayed the talents of acting like a fly-eating moron [and] who created the first "Cockroach Villa," the all-new, awe-inspiring sensation..."

Keay completes me:

"Question: Do roaches possess the same Constitutional rights as you and me? Is stepping on maggots an immoral act? Is the A-bombing of an anthill 'overkill'? ... Maybe you'll just become some skid row beggar, getting pennies and wooden nickels for your starving wife and children by telling elephant jokes."

K. Cohen shouts praise:

"Mike, knowing you has been quite an experience. I have learned much from you, like I'm Jewish. I wasn't sure until you told me. You sure are a lucky guesser.

"Well, Mike, as I walk through the cobwebs of life and through the doors of my synagogue, and until my dying day, your brilliant words of wisdom, justice, mercy and love of octopusses will ring through my ears: 'Are you Jewish?'"

Frank K. hugs:

"Dear Mike, it's been great getting to know you, even though at times I wish I could put lit matches in your ___."

And:

Mike's Video: 'The Final Glass of Milk 2: The Inaugural Glass of Soymilk'

Eight days after swearing off cows' milk forever, I faced milk substitutes. In the grand tradition of "The Final Glass of Milk," I stomached my fear of the unknown and, for the first time ever, I drank the mysterious squeezin's of soy. A camera was on tripod -- can you believe the luck? -- to capture the historic event and epic epiglottal ecstasy. I'm milking it.

This long-awaited sequel (two entire weeks!) ends the tasteful dairy juice / strange man-made replacement beverages movie franchise, unless someone learns to knit milk.


"The Final Glass of Milk 2: The Inaugural Glass of Soymilk" via YouTube
The True Story That Started It All: "The Final Glass of Milk"

Special Features: The Original Theatrical Trailer

"Behind the Scenes: The Making of 'The Final Glass of Milk,' Chapter One" and "Chapter Two"

Big Weekend

We drove to a romantic, secluded parking lot and perused the vintage jottings of classmates in my sacred high school yearbook.

Craig W. writes:

"Mike, you are the weirdest guy in this whole place. You have a way with humans. Good luck."

'Barbarella,' Psychedelia, Oh, Yes, Yes, Yeah

From time to time, I share my favorite main title sequences from motion pictures. Just like movie posters, creative presentation of the credits can outshine the overall achievements of a film. Case in point: "Barbarella" (1968).

I rode a dismal city bus and transferred to a second to go downtown and across town to see "Barbarella," during its original release. I was bored watching the bulk of the science fiction spoof, but nothing, nothing could have topped these opening minutes with Jane Fonda.

She was airborne and weightless.

Curiously, little 16-year-old me was, too.


"Barbarella" Main Title Sequence via Blip.tv
Frank Thompson: "Now that is what every main title should look like. Except they should lose those pesky credits."

Double Feature Kitties: 'An Engineer's Guide to Cats' & 'An Engineer's Guide to Cat Yodeling (With Cat Polka)'

I dunno about Morty. He's been watching horror movies again. This pair was a double whammy for him: scary and educational.

His hairballs are spiked with fright!


"An Engineer's Guide to Cats" via YouTube


"An Engineer's Guide to Cat Yodeling (With Cat Polka)" via YouTube

'Stuff I'm Too Lazy to Go Type Up #1'

"Stuff I'm Too Lazy to Go Type Up #1" via YouTube

What the Heck Was I Thinking?

Actual Messages I Wrote, Forgot, Then Found While Cleaning Out My Email Folders

04/09/09

Mmmmmmffffmmff... Been thinking all night. I know this little girl who auditioned to become Little Miss Sunbeam Bread and I married her. I don't get to sit next to her much, but she butters my toast.

01/31/06

"Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo" snubbed. I told them not to cut the pup tent scene.

04/20/09

Saw the photos. One of the houses had some similarities to ours, but their kitties weren't smoking catnip meeces on the curb.

"Behind the Scenes: The Making of 'The Final Glass of Milk,' Chapter Two"

"Behind the Scenes: The Making of 'The Final Glass of Milk,' Chapter Two" via YouTube
Continued From: "Behind the Scenes: The Making of 'The Final Glass of Milk,' Chapter One"
Related: "The Final Glass of Milk"
Extra: The Original Theatrical Trailer

"Behind the Scenes: The Making of 'The Final Glass of Milk,' Chapter One"

"Behind the Scenes: The Making of 'The Final Glass of Milk,' Chapter One" via YouTube
The pulsating conclusion, "Chapter Two," features bloopers and outtakes.

Continued: "Behind the Scenes: The Making of 'The Final Glass of Milk,' Chapter Two"
Related: "The Final Glass of Milk"
Extra: The Original Theatrical Trailer

Big Weekend

I had an epiphany about my kitty and went into action.


One cat = nine lives = nine litter boxes.

Mikellaneous

My Recent Confessions and Observations on Twitter, Where Everything Must Be Said in 140 Characters or Less

I've been taking a bit of a Twitter vacation. My Inner Dialogue told me to get the hell out, so I'm back. How you doin'?

I'm off to a high school reunion. I didn't go to the school. I don't know those people. I CRAVE to talk Algebra. Since it's never come up.

Actually, I am going to my high school reunion today. Eight hours of people asking me if they can have my fish sticks.

2:59 a.m. I'm finally home, having survived my high school reunion. I had to stay after for Study Hall and to clap the chalk erasers.

I would've asked classmates to sign my yearbook at the school reunion, but we grew up in the '60s & aren't allowed to trust anyone over 30.

Due to unprecedented demand, my 1st video debuts tom'w. Tho, "unprecedented demand" could mean a cat w/hiccups. And it do.

Today, June 4, is Hug Your Cat Day. Consider that done. Morty loves a big Daddy hug. ... Anyone seen my wallet?...

Cost-cutting everywhere... The strings on this banana are twine.

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Thoughts During 'Jersey Boys'

We were very entertained with the national tour of "Jersey Boys," Broadway's biographical salute to iconic vocalists Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons.

Some thoughts during the performance:

• It's "Dreamgirls" with Dreamguys singing like Dreamgirls.
  
  
• I had forgotten The Four Seasons' falsetto harmonizing. That explains the puppies in the cheap seats.
  
  
• I'm thrilled! The music's really clearing my ear wax.
  
  
• All this pleasurable squealing brings back memories. I haven't thought of my twisted testicle since fifth grade.
  
  I'm better now and basso profundo.
  
  Even on my "eeks!"
  
  
• Am I the only one wondering why we haven't heard much from Frankie Valli since the invention of automatic garage doors?
  
  
• Oh, to have eavesdropped a summit with Mickey Mouse, The Four Seasons, and Julia Child, dishing Pluto, Sherry Baby, and chard.
  
  
• Where are the wigs? These boys had long hair in the '70s. I want my money back. Or, at least, an autographed Prell.
  
  
• If I had a boy band gimmick, it wouldn't be warbling like girls. I hanker a quartet of pufferfish sound-alikes with slow leaks.
  
  
• While spinning Frankie records on the radio, I've been known to back-announce, "'My Eyes Adored You,' which is... a funny place for a door."

I've been out of broadcasting for decades. Go figure.

Meanwhile...

Morty's got a new cat toy: my movie camera.

Today, he's releasing his first Web video, "Morty's Excellent Day."

Personally, I think it's a tad self-indulgent.


"Morty's Excellent Day" via YouTube

Mitchell & Petrillo as Martin & Lewis

As a fan of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, I am always amazed by, and delighted to share, a little-known cinematic curiosity, "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla," from 1952. It stars two obscure performers, Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, who had the gumption to flat-out copy the stage and screen personas of Martin and Lewis, the team which had far surpassed the level of superstardom.

Jerry sued Sammy for, essentially, theft of his act and there was, reportedly, a cease and desist order issued. Oddly enough, before this movie and the stooge in the big monkey suit evolved, Sammy played either Jerry's kid brother or Jerry as a kid in a sketch with the real Jerry on TV's popular "Colgate Comedy Hour."

"Brooklyn Gorilla" is fascinating to watch, though unbearably watchable. Sammy Petrillo is the entire show. He had Jerry down, plus the gifts of uncanny, lanky and gawky physical attributes.

For comparisons, here are the movie trailers of Martin and Lewis' great hit, "Sailor Beware," the previous year, followed by Mitchell and Petrillo's great bomb, their only team film.

Mr. Lugosi, by the way, was plummeting through his famously sad decline and is not much more than a marketing ploy in the picture.


Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in "Sailor Beware" (1951) via TCM


Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo in "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" (1952) via Internet Archive

I shared the Petrillo trailer with pals Ray and Frank, my go-to guys for Martin and Lewis mania. What follows is our enlightened postmortem discourse, including the actual email treatises.

"Gals, Gags, and Goofs"

This picture has everything!

Ray

I once goofed with a gal and made her gag.

[Frank]

Thanks for sharing.

[Mike]

No problem. That's what I'm here for. To give. And to goof and gag. And possibly to gal.

[Frank]

>>"Gals , Gags , and Goofs"
This picture has everything !<<

I concur, but they should not have been shy and said, "and Goons," too.

And, "and Movie Star Drug Addict Needing Fix Cash," but that's kinda hard to say in words starting with "G."

[Mike]

"Geezer Groping for Ganja."

[Frank]

I stand corrected.

[Mike]

"Sailor Beware"

My First Video Webisode: 'The Final Glass of Milk'

For nutrition, I'm giving up milk forever. I'm in the period of adjustment, yet the frothy farewell has arrived and gulped. My camera was there for "The Final Glass of Milk."

Roger Ebert says, "A funny movie, flat out, all the way through. Its setup is funny. Every situation is funny. Most of the dialogue is funny almost line by line. At some point we actually find ourselves caring a little about what happened...," mentioning some other picture.


"The Final Glass of Milk" via YouTube
Special Features: The Original Theatrical Trailer | "Behind the Scenes: The Making of 'The Final Glass of Milk,' Chapter One" | "Chapter Two"

The Epic Sequel: "The Final Glass of Milk 2: The Inaugural Glass of Soymilk"

Bob Bobblehead

Twenty-eight years of marriage. Actual correspondence.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Durrett
To: Donna Durrett
Subject: I have found your birthday present.

http://is.gd/NqgC
[A Robert Osborne Bobblehead Doll, from Turner Classic Movies]

OH, man! What I've always wanted!

[Donna]

Actually, I think I'll buy you the George Clooney bobblehead. It's much more realistic, but needs more bobbly.

[Mike]

Ah, would ja please ???

Don't you dare!

[Donna]

Aw, c'mon. There's a set with Kate Hepburn, Charlie Callas, and Barney Fife.

[Mike]

Oh, help me!

[Donna]

Big Weekend

Leafed through my school yearbooks' pictures.


2009                    1996


1962                    1952
I'm having trouble with the foreign language requirement, okay?

Si.

I Got Nuthin'

Whipper, the Mutant Parakeet via YouTube

Psssst... Hush Hush Sneak Peek Video

Shhh... It's a big secret. That's why I'm posting this on the Internet to tell you.

I'm making my first video especially for nothing. I mean, for computer viewing, coming soon, maybe sooner.

I've found my return to the front of the camera to be a touch bittersweet, following the gala Twinkies Film Festival I was a part of awhile back in, yes, that HOLLYWOOD!

You all know Twinkies. Thanks for remembering.

So, although dealing with the hot lights, lazy crew, and temperamental, prima donna cast is the sacrifice I must make for my art -- and, of course, you, and, yes, that HOLLYWOOD! -- I've truly missed the buffets.

I, however, have managed to obtain a copy of the production's coming attractions prevue, yet to hit theatres and Fake IMAXes nationwide. I share it with you here -- and, no, it is not my first video for the Web, regardless of the fact the first video isn't finished.

I need dabbing.


"The Final Glass of Milk: Original Theatrical Trailer" via YouTube
Now Playing: "My First Video Webisode: The Final Glass of Milk"

Meet the Neighbors

Early, over the weekend, Donna taunted me with the details of a baby she saw bounding playfully in the forest adjacent to our home. I was envious and grabbed her camera. That would teach her.


Several days elapsed, but around four o'clock in the afternoon, I opened the refrigerator for a snack and out of the corner of my eye, I espied a polka-dotted blur ambling my way, down the drive. The very same tot, our newest neighbor, came a-callin'!


Huh? What's this? Hey, it was twins!


Seems these young'uns had been giving us the classic twins' fake-out, taking turns pretending to be a total of one.


Yeah, play tricks on the old people in the woods, punks.

And their mother allows them, saying nothing.

Cryptic Notes to Self

"Morty: You'll Never Skulk Alone"

"human flesh whittlers"

"Here's to your elf."

"Otter Pop
Farce of the Penguins
Gas Caps"

"Yeah, I'm proud to be a coal miner's daughter. A bit befuddled, but proud."

Trailer Reel

Here are the big screen trailers of several movies recently referred to on these pages. For the full theatrical ambiance, be sure to watch them in a dark, dank, musty room with a sticky floor.

Oh, and turn off your cell phone.

From: "What a Way to Beau"


"What a Way to Go!" (1964) via YouTube
Dig the champagne glass.


From: "'A Hard Day's' Plight"


"A Hard Day's Night" (1964) Reissue Trailer via YouTube
Love the clanger, mate -- and get a haircut.


From: "'How the West Was' Run"


"How the West Was Won" (1962) via YouTube
An early edit without the famous "How the West Was Won" theme music or, curiously, any hyperbole devoted to the humongous CINERAMA deep-curve screen and 35 feet high Debbie Reynolds' gams.

Big Weekend

We celebrated the two-month anniversary of me terminating About.com, part of The New York Times Company.

Life is delightful. I'm skipping hither more and the frolics are robust.

"How do, Mr. Robin? Good day, Miss Speckled Doe."

People say to me, "Why didn't you tell us you were going to quit?"

Oh, but I did, my dear friends. I alerted the world!...