"Dear Lord, So far today, I am
doing all right. I have not gossiped, lost my temper, been
greedy,
grumpy, nasty, selfish or
over-indulgent. However, in a few minutes I am going to
get out of bed, and will need a lot more help after that.
Amen."
(Forwarded by Steve Susskind)
ONE PROUD POPPA
As you know, my lovely (and tall) 19-year-old daughter, Kristin, came over recently from Oslo for dramatic conservatory auditions, and I'm happy to announce that she was accepted almost immediately after only her second audition (ever), into the American Repertory Theatre School in Cambridge. I'm proud to note that she was one of only 14 chosen for the two-year acting course out of hundreds seen.
Furthermore, and even more amazing to me, The school has been developing an alliance with the Moscow Art Theatre Academy (MXAT) and thus, she'll be learning the true Stanislavsky technique (rehearsing twice a week for 8 months, smoking turkish cigarettes and drinking lots of vodka) and be coached in rudimentary Russian by teachers-in-residence; and then -- in March of 1999, going to Russia for three months to study and perform at MXAT a few blocks from Red Square. She'll turn 21 in MockBa and it looks like I might finally have an excuse to return there and celebrate with her... (The school is presently headed by Robert Brustein and Rob Orchard from Yale, so I don't feel too bad about it.)
FIRE 'EM UP!
Meanwhile, the Firesign Theatre is back in Sunburst studio working towards an April Fool's Rhino delivery. We've already laid down ten and a half amazing minutes of the new "RadioNow" album, produced in about three six-hour days. Not bad for 4 old hippies.
Personally, I was back in Disney Studio B again to dub additional scenes as the alcoholic French monkey for director Betty Thomas in Eddie Murphy's "Doctor Dolittle," "doo" for a July release; also had a great time on MR. KABC's show last Thursday night. He's a gracious, intelligent, generous and witty guy and we really tore into a lot of hot topics; and remember, I'll be on General Hospital this coming Friday, top of the show with three scenes to follow.
Finally, this headline in the L.A. Times of 2/11/98: "Human Cloning Ban Runs Into The Wall of Science," and Firesign is also alluded to as a "comic sensation of yore" in a front page article on the "South Park" phenom in March's SPIN magazine... and did anybody else catch Art "South of the Rockies" Bell's recent show on the "big hole" up Seattle way? (We were right about the comet!!!)
HOW SWEET IT AIN'T
According to Comic activist Bob "Mr. Jeopardy" Harris in the Latest issue of The Scoop: "It turns out that in 1972, tobacco giant Brown & Williamson... planned to manipulate the taste of their cigarettes to attract new customers. One idea they actually considered was an attempt to lure young people by adding artificial flavorings to create a cigarette scientifically designed to simulate the taste of... [cola.]
It's true. The documents flatly state: "it's a well-known fact that teenagers like sweet products," and then go on to list a number of different ideas for inventing a sweetened, Pepsi-tasting cigarette. What were they planning to call it? 'Smoka-Cola?' (To subscribe send "subscribe" to TheScoop@earthlink.net or visit http://www.goodthink.com)
CHARLIE BROWN NOSE
A few years ago, Charlie Brown and the "Peanuts" gang made a new friend who developed leukemia in an animated special entitled, "Why, Charlie Brown, Why?" Recently, MetLife has put out a series of instructional pamphlets which featured the gang dealing with such issues as the loss of a loved one, writing a will, and dealing with a permanent disability. So, how about some "Peanuts" specials for the kids of the '90s?
We could learn about V.D. in "It Burns When I Pee, Charlie Brown" while Chuck and the Little Red-Headed Girl find out about unwanted pregnancy in "It's Blue, Charlie Brown!" Or, see how the "Peanuts" gang deals with date rape in "No Means No, Charlie Brown!"
Is Linus gay? Find out in "It's A Different Kind Of Love, Charlie Brown"; discover a father's forbidden love in "It's Our Little Secret, Charlie Brown" and explore the real problems of child abuse in America in "You Made Me Do That, Charlie Brown!"
What goes on in the mind of a serial killer? Discover the inner workings of Pig Pen's twisted psyche and meet his murderous alter ego, "Mr. Clean" in "God Told Me To Do It, Charlie Brown" while Charlie Brown peddles his body for crack money while stealing Social Security checks and boosting automobiles in "Go Blame Society, Charlie Brown" and the "Peanuts" gang gets a lesson in Ebonics in "Imo Busta Cap Inyo Ass, Charlie Brown."
YOUR BRAIN IS NOT THE BOSS
Read this sentence: "Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years." Now, count aloud the F's in that sentence. Count them ONLY ONCE; do not go back and count them again. (Answer at end)
LETTERS, WE GET LETTERS...
Mr. Voices quotes a local politico who says "Abraham was called-upon to sacrifice Isaac at age 12 because, at age 13 ---it wouldn't've been a sacrifice!"
From the daily Stupid Quotations Calendar (Workman Publishing Company), thanks to Susie and Jarret: Singer Cyndi Lauper: "If you have intercourse, you run the risk of dying, and the ramifications of death are final." Denver Nuggets' David Thompson: "Ball handling and dribbling are my strongest weaknesses." From a newspaper report about President Woodrow Wilson, on entertaining a Mrs. Galt..." Wilson spent most of his time entering Mrs. Galt."
George Amer sends this: "A Washington think tank has announced a breakthrough in the search for a pattern in the seemingly random US military aggression since World War II. 'We think they are spelling out a message,' explains an unnamed spokesperson. 'If we take the first letters of Korea, Vietnam, Libya, Iraq, Iran, El Salvador, Grenada, Nicaragua and Somalia, it spells ELVIS _S KING. We just need to find another country beginning with I to complete the message.'" (Wonder what that might be...?)
WHAT THE HELL
The classically-minded among us may have noted a new TV ad for Microsoft's Internet Explorer e-mail program which features the cheery line "Where do we want to go today?" while the chorus sings "Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis " from Mozart's Requiem. It means: "The damned and the accursed are convicted to flames of hell." (Thomas Fenske, Duke University Press)
And for the hell of it, from Brad Shreiber, "A Brazilian court has ruled that factory worker Valdir Pozza (Close to the Italian word for "crazy" if I'm not mistaken) is not entitled to compensation after losing the use of his finger, because 'pinkie fingers would disappear with evolution anyway.' An appeals court this week reversed the decision..."
KEEPING ME, HONEST
The hardest man I know, Penn Jillette, won't let me get away with anything! Here are his latest observations on useless information naively reprinted here as true by your nimble savant: "I think Chevy played keyboards with that awful band and he wasn't a member, he just sat in when they were all stupid college students, as opposed to the stupid adults they were later."
He rants on, "Man, it's a full time job keeping you honest: words at least as long as 'skepticism' that are typed on alternating hands: neurotoxicity - dismantlement - authenticity - autoantibody - panduriform - proficiency - enchantment - entitlement - isoantibody - Shahaptians - aneurysmal - antisocial - dickensian - producible - neurotoxic - proficient - Shahaptian - shantytown - skepticism - suspensory - uricosuric. 10 are longer. Neurotoxicity is 3 letters longer."
IT'S A GERMAN MIX-UP CODE
Dormitory = Dirty Room
Evangelist = Evil's Agent
Desperation = A Rope Ends It
The Morse Code = Here Come Dots
Slot Machines = Cash Lost in 'em
Animosity = Is No Amity
Mother-in-law = Woman Hitler
Snooze Alarms = Alas! No More Z's
Alec Guinness = Genuine Class
Semolina = Is No Meal
The Public Art Galleries = Large Picture Halls, I Bet
A Decimal Point = I'm a Dot in Place
The Earthquakes = That Queer Shake
Eleven plus two = Twelve plus one
Contradiction = Accord not in it
TAKE ME TO YOUR DEALERS
George Herbert Walker Bush = Huge Berserk Rebel Warthog
George Bush = He bugs Gore
Ronald Wilson Reagan = A long-insane Warlord
Ronald Reagan = A darn long era
Leroy Newton Gingrich = Yon Right-winger Clone
Margaret Thatcher = That great charmer
The Conservative Party = Teacher in vast poverty
From "Hamlet" by William ("we all make his praise") Shakespeare: "To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." = "In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten."
Neil A. Armstrong: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." = "A thin man ran; makes a large stride; left planet, pins flag on moon! On to Mars!" (From Margolis)
SING ALONG OR WE'LL PUT YOU IN JAIL
When you dish upon a Starr
Makes no difference who you are
Anything his staff conspires
Will come to you.
If your file is in his dream
No request is too extreme
When you dish upon a Starr
As schemers do.
The Press is blind
She brings to those who shove
The sleazy fulfillment of
Their secret longing.
Like a bolt out of the blue
Starr steps in and runs you through
When you dish upon a Starr
His dreams come true.
(Craig Braun via Ned "DC" Washington)
MODEM TIMES
(Wayne Newitt et al)
IS YOUR BRAIN THE BOSS?
Published 2/22/98
PLANET PROCTOR
© 1996/2002 by Phil Proctor
