Snow Place Like Home

Today: the first 80-degrees weather of the year. The unusual, multiple snows of recent months are surely ceased for seasons. Life is grand, here on our cabin's creek, even in winter.

Surprise visitors drop in.

And the fishing is always good.

I Got Nuthin'

Consolation Video: "James Galea: Card Trick: Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala 2009" via YouTube
Thanks to Randy Stewart.

Big Weekend

Big weekend, our driveway was visited by The Loch Ness Monster!

Needless to say, we haven't ventured out of the house since. Nessie must have slithered up from the creek. She's much longer than I had imagined, submerged in water. Has anyone heard from the paperboy?

Off the Wall

Saving Facebook: My Confessions: 

On Girl Scout Cookies:

I don't want to name names, but one of my extreme shortage of wives has taken it upon herself to hide the cookies. It's beginning to feel like "The Shining" time....

Later:
No cookies since yesterday. Things are getting bleak. My urologist says I'm down a sleeve of Thin Mints.

On Having Cabin Fever:

Tomorrow's my quiet time for ramming my head through the wall boards and, maybe, baking mincemeat pies!

First, I gotta build me a mince blind and shoot me some mince.

On Creepy "Alice in Wonderland":

Friend Peter:
They used computers to make Johnny Depp's eyes 15% bigger. That is why he looks a little off.

Mike:
Interesting, Pete, thanks. Makes me 15% less likely to see it.

On Wardrobe Needs:

Apparently, there is no such thing as a man's Hoodie-Footie Snuggle Suit. ... I can't settle for a homemade one. I do have my pride, not to mention being followed by the fashion Al-Qaeda.

Furthermore:
I've managed to not have children without the Hoodie-Footie Snuggle Suit. It is my signature talent or bad sense of direction. I dunno.

Further Furthermore:
Deep freeze coming. And me without a Hoodie-Footie Snuggle Suit for the Manly Man. (I want one with a camouflage trap door.)

What the Heck Was I Thinking?

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

10/29/08

I thought he got a sex change and lives with one of the Darryls...

08/26/06

I don't want to rub it in, but it smells like chicken houses here this morning. Mmmmmmm....

04/01/09

Oh oh. I am doomed. Do not tell people about my drooling.

09/13/08

May you be whacked with a two-ply paddle for extra hardness -- and that springtime fresh feeling.

09/14/09

Don would have to be in his '80s. I suspect he's had a Gooey lift.

11/04/09

Someone may be hinky for Robert Ryan.

11/05/09

Did you watch "The Fleet's In" afterwards? I've been trying to see it for decades. "Sailor Beware" is a remake, which, of course, gave us Don Wilson as Mr. Chubby.

11/04/09

Yes. And no dressing up like Holly Golightly.

09/17/09

Worst Atlanta flood in 100 years, they're saying. Or is that media hype to get people to tune in to hear "Coming up, large rotund woman burps at Food Giant while her brat gargles Sugar Smacks."

...Is it too late to become Long John Silver's eye socket fob?

Just wonderin'.

I Got Nuthin'

Consolation Video: "Duck in a Truck" a k a "Ducks Who Truck" via YouTube
Thanks to Randy Stewart

Weirder Wonderland

Reading through the stacks of email inside the multiple computers I have in piles on my desk, someone wrote to inform me that I am not "normal."

What?

But, but whatever shall I tell the creek beavers on Whittle Night?

Big Weekend

Big weekend, celebrating my birthday and adolescent glow.

It is so embarrassing when they feed me off the kiddie menu.

Off the Wall

Saving Facebook: My Confessions 

On Chile's Tsunami Knocking Earth Off Its Axis

I don't have time to worry about it. I'm too busy, going through the house, moving everything a skosh back to the right.

---

On the Oscars

Friend Cathy
I fell asleep before all the major announcements.... Did anybody win??

Mike
Nobody won. They decided to go back to the drawing board and reboot Shrek. I'm sorry, reboot Streisand.

---

On Daylight Saving Time

Mike
Limbering the fingers for the time change tonite. I've long been taught "all things in moderation," so I'll be forwarding my clocks 30 mins.

Friend William Colquitt
Take it slow Mike - maybe jump 10 minutes at a time, once and hour from 1:00 to 6:00.

Mike
Yes. Slow. That resetting due to the tsunami knocking the Earth off its axis, shortening the day, is touchy.

I may need a green visor. I'm going to have to have a green visor....

Later

$%@#! Is it the blue wire? Or the red wire?...

Even Later, 3:35 p.m.

Hour Eleven: Turning clocks forward to Daylight Saving Time. So far, so good. Well, the Kit-Cat Clock sprayed me, but the goggles worked....

3:43 p.m.

This just handed to me: "It is Hour Twelve."

$%#@!!

3:47 p.m.

This just handed to me: "No, it is not. It is Hour Thirteen."

Mommy!...

4:00 p.m.

Freakin' sundials...

10:20 p.m.

Friend Cathy
Dear Mikey..hang in there...tomorrow's Monday...it"ll be OKAY by then....

11:00 p.m.

Somehow, I have managed to sideways the clocks one hour.

Meanwhile...

Morty's in the wings during "The Sound of Music" rehearsals, my personal conductor and Assistant Dance Captain.

The Sound of Mikey

100 Things About Me #178

I've dabbled in acting, but mostly I've been holding out for the really good roles.

The other day, I read a press release. A summer stock tour of "The Sound of Music" is coming through the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, as well as Tampa and Washington, D.C. Rehearsals are scheduled in New York.

Theater of the Stars will hold auditions for children and teens between the ages of 7-17 for The Sound of Music on Saturday, April 10 at 10:00 a.m. These auditions are for Actors’ Equity and non-Equity actors. ... We are looking for girls and boys who dance and sing well to be cast in the roles of the von Trapp Family Children.

This is it! My big chance and, most importantly, my dream come true! For many years, I've been telling ev'rybody I meet and bleat that one of my favorite things would be to play Gretl in "The Sound of Music."

Obviously, I was born to perform it, yet people usually respond along these lines, "You want to play Gretl? That's a six-year-old girl!"

"I believe she's more like four," I correct them. I'm the one up for the part.

"Mike! You are 10 times older than her!"

"I'd say 14 times, adjusting for me lying in my favor about my age."

"You are insane!"

"No, I'm not. I am an actor! It's what I do, act. And ingénue. I ingénue and pre-ingénue. It's the gift."

"You are too big!"

"Pish posh. Slap some Nazi Keds under my knees and I'm dancing and tugging hearts."

"Why? Tell me why do you want to do this."

"She gets all the 'ahhhs.' Say it with me, 'Ahhh.' Pretend you're the audience, 'Ahhhhh--'"

"You'll never pull it off!"

"You forget dimply. I'm luxuriously dimpled and I do adorable. If I need shave, I'll shave."

And that's where the gift usually has to find alternate transportation home.

Here I am rehearsing "Do-Re-Mi." I give good "Mi."

Lederhosen out of storage this weekend, I'm set to go on the road.

I'm already thinking billing.

Mike Durrett

is

Gretl

in

"The Sound of Music"

(Larger, von Cuddlier Tour)

Just need a pet sitter at the house for my lonely goatherd.

100 Things: #1 | Previous | Next

I Got Nuthin'

Consolation Video: Academy Award-Winning Movie Trailer via Cracked.com

Thanks to Randy Stewart

Jerry Lewis: Triple "Typewriter"

Happy birthday, Jerry, March 16, 1926.

Leroy Anderson composed his famous orchestral piece with sound effects, "The Typewriter," in 1950. Lewis incorporated the music into his live repertoire of record pantomimes long before the skit was utilized in the film "Who's Minding the Store?" (1963). Here are three of his performances, each with variations.


Jerry Lewis: "The Typewriter" from "Who's Minding the Store?" (1963) via YouTube


Jerry Lewis: "The Typewriter" from German Television (1973) via YouTube


Jerry Lewis: "The Typewriter" via YouTube, source unknown

Big Weekend

Big weekend, adjusting to Daylight Saving Time.

Okay, all of the nutty clocks have been set forward. I managed to complete the task, mostly unscathed. A torn sweater and a mild limp.

Another one for the record books: 13 hours, six minutes, five sandwiches. Pretty good.

Now, on to the thermometers...

Mikellaneous

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

Looking forward to my high school reunion. Every 10 years, we like to get together and sit alphabetically.

Science Shocker! Chile's earthquake knocked the Earth off its axis, shortened our days, and made Ozzy Osbourne coherent.

Snowing again. ... Sitting here, hoarding toilet paper. ... May have to go milk the cat....

He's not going to like that.

Instrumental Break

Instead of the Academy Awards, I'm watching CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, which, now that I think about it, sounds like the Oscars.

I'm told Jerry Mouse has not appeared on the Oscars. It is NOT the Oscars without Jerry Mouse. I saw him and some cat at the Hollywood Bowl.

It's over between me and The Talking Pothole. The speed bump fronting her maw gave me some lip.

Looking forward to turning the clocks forward an hour. I need the exercise. ... Where are my sweats?

This is my 2000th tweet. ... I haven't said that since the Brussels sprouts....

Follow Me on Twitter
^{Twitter Birds by SpoonGraphics}

Cattoon Carnival

Morty and I love to watch cartoons together, each with a bowl of caramel-covered popcorn and/or caramel-covered cod.

Mostly or.

We've noticed our favorite cartoon human, Tex Avery, made a lot of pictures about cats. Curl up for these funny felines paw-picked by Mort.


"Ventriloquist Cat" (Tex Avery, 1950) via YouTube


"Slapphappy Lion" (Tex Avery, 1947) via YouTube



"The Haunted Mouse" (Tex Avery, 1941) via YouTube

The Hurt Looker

I have been watching the news coverage concerning the winner of this year's best picture Oscar, "The Hurt Locker." It seems the soldier, who was the inspiration for the project, received no compensation or credit for his real-life story.

I know the feeling....

100 Things About Me #177

Fresh Sell

A warm glow of nostalgia and friendship washes over me whenever I happen upon the single greatest celebrity endorsement of them all, my pal Popeye the Sailor for spinach!

100 Things: #1 | Previous | Next

Favorite Movie Lines

Favorite movie lines were the topics of conversation recently on Facebook. Here are a few yammering frequently in the screening room inside my head.

"I've got more fuzz on my tail than a cocker spaniel."

--Bob Hope, being chased by a string of police cars / "Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!" (1966)

"You'd like to have a nose like that full of nickels, wouldn't you?"

--A mother teaches her young son some respect for W.C. Fields / "The Bank Dick" (1940)

"Well, nobody's perfect."

--Joe E. Brown with the greatest closing movie line in history / "Some Like It Hot" (1959)

"You bastard!"

"In my case, an accident of birth. But you, sir, you're a self-made man."

--Ralph Bellamy and Lee Marvin with the second greatest closing movie line in history / "The Professionals" (1966)

"What are you, the hostess?"

--Desperate Buddy Hackett tries to land a pilotless airplane as Mickey Rooney barks orders / "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" (1963)

"And I want three children."

"Yes. Yes. One of each."

--Diane Keaton and Woody Allen / "Love and Death" (1975)

"Ejaculation!"

--Rube Joe E. Brown greets strangers in a hotel lobby with an enthusiastic malaprop / "The Tenderfoot" (1932)

"The 'C' is for 'Killer.'"

"I was a little afraid it could've been that."

--Gangster Buddy Lester introduces himself to frightened Jerry Lewis / "The Ladies' Man" (1961)

"Uh-uh, Mother-m-mother, uh, what is the phrase? She isn't quite herself today."

--Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, polite young man / "Psycho" (1960)

"I'd say you've had enough!"

--Slim Pickens to campfire cowboys requesting more beans / "Blazing Saddles" (1974)

"Nice beaver!"

--Leslie Nielsen admires Priscilla Presley's hobby / "The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!" (1988)

"The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!" clip via YouTube

"Oh, this is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. Well, you buy a hat like this, I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh?... Oh, it looks good on you, though."

--Rodney Dangerfield, shopping, when he notices snooty Ted Knight, wearing an identical hat / "Caddyshack" (1980)

"Oh! Somebody step on a duck?"

--Dinner party guest Rodney Dangerfield skillfully covers his noisy flatulence / "Caddyshack" (1980)