Classic Rant #551 (July 22, 2011): Finally, It Is Time To Relax

Starting at 5:30 p.m. EST, my family and I are on vacation.

That is when I get out of work, and that is when I don't have to worry about the drudgery of work for a week.

My wife and I deserve a break, as does my son. This has been something of a difficult year, so far, but also a year that has been filled with new experiences.

My son got his first job. It isn't a paying job--he is a volunteer at a day camp run by the school district--but he is receiving valuable experience for the time when he goes for a paying job.

My wife and I soldier on in our jobs, and it has been difficult. We've been in these jobs for years--me, this particular position I have had for more than 15 years--but it gets harder and harder to adjust yourself for the workday.

So off we go to warmer climates, although this year, it really isn't that much warmer than we are feeling here in the Northeast, where we have been scalded by ridiculously high temperatures.

But off we go into the wide blue yonder--in our car, which to we use to get to our vacation destination.

I really don't mind the drive. You get to see things that you don't normally see, and we have found that people are generally pretty nice wherever we go.

And yes, that is beautiful Annette Funicello in the photo. She looks like she will be joining us on our vacation. If only she could. But I always post a photo of the curvy Annette when I go on vacation, because it makes my vacation official, at least in my mind.

So I won't we checking in with you for several days, but I will be back, hopefully rejuvenated from the break.

Speak to you then.

Rant #1,896: Freeze Frame

I love pictures, in particular, I love pictures that show a different time and place.

And if I am part of the picture, then it makes it even better, because it brings me back to an earlier time in my life.

Now that I have reached the 60-year mark, these types of photos are even more important to me.

The other day, my old friend David P. from my old neighborhood--Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, New York--sent me over a photo that is a true relic from the past.

I have posted various versions of this photo to this blog site in the past, but never with the clarity of the photo that he sent me.

It is such a good, clear photo that it looks like it was taken just yesterday.

But, of course, it wasn't. It was taken some time in 1965, and we were both eight years old when this old class photo was shot.

It was the 1964-1965 school year, my first school year spent at P.S. 30, a new school in the then new development that we lived in.

Everything was new, and heck, we were kind of new, too.

When my family and I moved into Rochdale Village in July 1964, the place was so new that David's building wasn't even up yet.

The frame was up, but nothing else, but within seemingly days, his building--Building 12 to my Building 9--had gone from the frame to a full building, a place that hundreds of families could call home.

We all played ball in the park, and that is how I met David, and probably, how I met all my friends in this brand new place that we lived in.

This particular photo really shows us in a different time and place, when we were truly kids--and kids were truly kids, too.

We did everything that kids do, and some of those things were good, some of those things were stupid, and some of those things were bad.

But we were learning as we were doing, and the fruit of that learning has been shown as we matured into responsible adults.

David is a doctor, I am a writer, and although we have both had our ups and downs, I think that in 2017--52 years after this photo was taken--we are satisfied at where we are in life.

Looking at the photo, I tried to figure out who exactly was in the picture, and some of the people I remember, some I don't.

First off, that is Miss Marlowe, our teacher.

I don't remember that much about her. She was young, tall, willowy and eager to teach us.

The class--and the new school, P.S. 30--was in a bit of flux at the time, and it must have been difficult for her to keep everything on an even keel.

P.S. 30 was a new building, and we had just moved into it from portable classrooms that dotted our new landscape.

I remember that we had kids coming into the class and kids going out of the class at a rapid rate. Heck, we even had two twins--Larry and Eric--in the class at the same time for a spell, but they were both dispatched to other classes as the different classes took shape.

But what you see in the photo is the basic class that we had, those that stayed in the class probably for the bulk of the year.

And as for Miss Marlowe, I don't think she lasted very long in the school, as I don't remember her teaching there after she had us. I am probably wrong, but today, if she is still with us, she is probably in her late 70s or early 80s, and I hope she is doing well.

In the back row, from left after Miss Marlowe, I remember a few of the kids--there is Lori, I forget the next kid, then Hedy, then David P., and then the next four kids I simply don't remember.

The kid on the far right, though, made an impression on me, because he had a knot in the back of his head where you could fit a dime. And yes, he showed us this trait on a regular basis, and that is the only reason anyone knew about it.

Then you had in the next row down, Andrea, and then Rhonda, and the next six girls look familiar, but I cannot place them at this time.

The next row down consisted of, well again, the first two on the left I can't remember, but after that, it was Vicki, Stephen, I don't remember, Eric, I don't remember, and Howie, my good friend who I still see from time to time.

And finally, the bottom row, is me, Yale--who died very early in life from an intestinal malady, I do believe--and then I think the last kid was another David that we had in the class.

If anyone can fill me in on the other kids, I would appreciate it.

But that is what I remember right now.

How the years have gone. They have truly gone by so quickly that while much of it is a blur, I remember enough so that I can use those years as reference points for my life after Rochdale Village leading up to today.

Those were truly fun years, and I will never forget them.

Let me thank David P. for sending me the photo.

It truly made my day.

Classic Rant #550 (July 21, 2011): Finally, We Can Pay Penance to Dennis

On the day that the space shuttle program is over, we harken back to a different time, when the U.S. space program was in its earliest beginnings.

That was back in 1959, when the space race between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. was at its hottest.

However, there was a boy on TV who actually harkened back to an even earlier time--he was sort of a then-modern version of Huckleberry Finn.

I am talking about Dennis Mitchell, better known as "Dennis the Menace," and this TV series--like "Car 54, Where Are You"--is finally out on DVD.

This was a very different time than today, when kids actually went outside and had adventures that did not include computers, video games and Facebook.

Little Dennis was a whirlwind, getting into crazy adventure after adventure with his sidekick Tommy (early on, a young actor played the ever-silent Joey from the comics, but his character wasn't strong enough for the TV show) and his nemesis, Margaret. Later, Seymour joined the fray, but early on, a string of young actors also played Dennis' buddies, including a very young Ronny Howard, just before he left for Mayberry.

The show is perfectly cast, with actors who looked just like their comic counterparts. Herbert Anderson is Dennis' father, Gloria Henry his mom, and an incredible character actor of the time, Joseph Kearns, plays Mr. Wilson, later replaced by another incredible character actor, Gale Gordon, when Kearns died.

And the writing is top notch. Again, today's sitcom writers should take a page of notes from this type of writing, which builds to a laugh rather than have punchline after punchline like they do today.

As an adult, I see how complex Dennis's character really is, and the nuances the writers gave the character to make him more believeable than the single-panel pain in the butt he is in the comics.

And that leads me to the young actor who played Dennis, Jay North. I left him to last because his story is not a good one. Evidently, while we were laughing at his on-screen antics, behind the screen, he was experiencing a living hell. He was abused by his relatives, who he was left in the care of when he was on the series.

We don't know the full extent of this abuse, but Jay North came out about this about 20 years ago. It even shook him as an adult. He survived, but pretty much completely shuns the spotlight today, although in recent years, he has been appearing at a few nostalgia shows here and there.

We have no reason to think that this is a charade or sour grapes. North appears to have been treated almost as a slave by his handlers, and he opened up about it when child abuse first started to be talked about openly in the 1980s.

And the cast has said that while they thought North was somewhat troubled, they never knew the extent of it. And you have to believe them too.

Anyway, if you can get around that, the show is the perfect antitode for the summer blahs. Season One is out now, with Season Two to follow.

Create your own hurricane and get this series into your DVD collection.

Rant #1,895: Listen To the Band

I want to alert you to a book and an accompanying recording that I think is worth your while to give a look and give a listen to, even if you aren't an ardent fan of the subject at hand.

"Infinite Tuesday, An Autobiographical Riff" by Michael Nesmith, and the accompanying "Infinite Tuesday, Autobiographical Riffs: The Music" were recently released, and yes, I bought them because I am a big fan of Nesmith and the Monkees.

But Nesmith is so much more than that.

The autobiography deals with Nesmith's time as a Monkee in basically one chapter, although he does weave his experience as a member of that act and a TV star throughout many of the passages in the book.

Those years of about 1965-1969 really are a footnote in the telling of his tale, but yes, a very strong footnote, because without the stardom he achieved during those years, much of what he experienced would not have happened, or not happened in the way it did.

But again, Nesmith is so much more than a Monkee; he is an intellectual, a world traveler, a renaissance man, a musician, a writer, and yes, a storyteller, and while this book is an autobiography, it is really a collection of stories woven together by Papa Nez, who is sort of a "Zelig"-type character of sorts, seemingly being in right place at the right time and witnessing the world's happenings from his own unique vantage point.

He started out as a somewhat unruly kid from a relatively poor, broken home, but like his mother--who created Liquid Paper, sold it for millions, and bequeathed everything to her son--he lifted himself up, took on all preconceptions of what he could be, and threw them on their ear.

Nesmith admits that the reality he will be talking about in the book is his reality, because he oftentimes cannot remember what actually happened. But whatever the case, even if his memory is a little dampened by years and age, he remembers enough to satisfy our curiosity about his early life, how he became a musician, how he handled the entire Monkees situation, his relationship with his mother, and his emergence as something of an intellectual.

He talks of meeting up with John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix, but he also talks about learning to play guitar in 10 days so he could perform and make some money to get by.

His writing style is kind of Kurt Vonnegut without the drawings; he paints vivid pictures of what he is allowing us to see, and the reading style is nice and easy. Sure, he sometimes uses big words, but because of the style he uses, one doesn't have to know what those words exactly mean in order to understand what he, and the words, are trying to convey.

No, this is not "Dune," so his use of wordplay doesn't need a dictionary or an index, just an open mind.

My one major knock on the book is that he often name drops and expects the reader to know exactly who he is talking about. Some of the names I knew, some I didn't, but perhaps that was his direction for the book: not only to learn a bit about his own life, but put the book down, and look up the names you don't know and find out about them.

Nesmith humbleness throughout the book is praiseworthy; this guy who only managed a GED because he was completely bored with school found his way in the world in a big way, and sometimes his self-chiding doesn't ring 100-percent true, but you go with it, because that is what Papa Nez asks you to do.

Whatever the case, this is fine reading, even if you are not a tried-and-true Monkees fan like myself. Again, the book is about Nesmith, not about the Monkees, so if you are looking for just the opposite, please stay away.

If you are looking for a book that really paints a fine picture of someone who never took "No" for an answer, this is the book for you.

The CD which was also released is a fine thumbnail sketch of Nesmith as a tunesmith and singer, and I wish that it could be much longer than 14 songs. I could easily have added 50 more that define Papa Nez as a musician, but these 14 will have to suffice as the legit CD released as a companion to the book.

We have Nesmith going from folkie to Monkee to country artist to video music artist to New Age artist right before our ears, and he definitely rolled with the flow during his more than 50 years of recordings.

The collection is short, and it is short on tracks. One glaring omission would have rounded out the set nicely, and that is "I Am What I Am" from last year's "Good Times!" album, a song that would bring the collection pretty much full circle, as well as provide another push for last year's excellent album, which managed to make the upper reaches of Billboard's Top Album chart solely on social media push, perhaps the first album to do that.

Why it is not on this collection is kind of odd, but I guess you take what you can get and you can make your own CD-R of stuff that should have been included (something I plan on doing sometime in the future).

Honestly, I don't like all his recorded output, but the thing with Nesmith is that he never fit in the round hole well; he was always maybe not a square peg, but perhaps an oval peg, and when you listen to this sample of his work, I think you will get the point.

Classic Rant #549 (July 20, 2011): Car 54, We've Found You

One of the absolutely funniest TV shows ever is finally out on DVD.

"Car 54, Where Are You?" finally came out a few months back.

Starring Fred Gwynne as Officer Francis Muldoon and Joe E. Ross as Officer Gunther Toody, the show was probably the first of its kind, showing the comical exploits of police officers.

In an era when shows like "Dragnet" got down to the nitty and gritty of police work, "Car 54" was a revelation, poking fun at our men in blue.

Gwynne and Ross are terrific as the bumbling police sidekicks, and look at all the other faces you see in this show: Nipsey Russell, Shari Lewis, the future "Grandpa," Al Lewis (who would go on with Gwynne to star in "The Munsters"), and lots more.

What is also interesting is that the show was filmed in 1961-era New York City, so you see sites from that time.

In fact. legend has it that filming around the city, people took the fake patrol cars as real, and would hail them down for help. They changed the colors of the cars to make them less mix-upable.

And the theme song sets the tone for the show. It is one of the most memorable theme songs in TV history. Once you hear it, you start laughing.

So if you want to laugh, this is the set for you. I think current TV comedy writers should be required to watch this show, and see what actually is funny compared to the tripe they write today that they have the nerve to call "funny."

The second season comes out later this summer, and it is a can't miss!

And please, please, do not mix up this show with the wretched movie with the same title that came out some years ago. That piece of garbage didn't understand what the show was about, and was probably the worst classic TV show to feature film transfer of all time.

If you purchase this set, and the one I told you some time ago, "The Mothers In Law," you will be laughing for months to come.

Get both, and have a hoot!

Rant #1,894: I'm a Happy Guy

I had a nice birthday and birthday weekend.

So far, it's good being 60, it really is.

On my actual birthday, as you know, I stayed home from work.

Any day I don't have work is a good one, to be honest with you.

But I also took my wife out to lunch. We went to Joe's Crab Shack, and I had fish and shrimp for lunch. It was quite good, and it filled me up for the rest of the day.

And then I went home, started to watch a movie, and promptly fell asleep, which, of course, is something I cannot do at work.

Later, I watched the Yankees come back from ridiculous deficits to win a game against the Orioles, and followed that up the next day with another big Yankees win.

Then, on Sunday, I had my party.

Courtesy of my wife and son, we had it at a local Italian restaurant, and my family and friends all attended.

It was a small gathering, which is just what I wanted.

The company was terrific, the food was, too, and it was a day to remember.

I got some nice gifts--a hot dog maker (you know how I am about hot dogs), a Yankees shirt, dirt that Derek Jeter actually played on in Yankee Stadium, a few gift cards, books, cash, and tickets to an upcoming Yankees game.

But the best gift that I had was that my family--my wife and son, and yes, my daughter--were all in the same place at the same time, which is kind of a rare and unusual pleasure for me.

And then, my daughter told me that she got a new job, one where she will be teaching at-risk kids, and I was ecstatic.

She begins her new job on her birthday--May 15--and I could not have been more pleased.

Now, if she can do it, I can too (of course, she is 28, I am now 60, so I do have some challenges in finding a job that she doesn't have, but at least it has given me some renewed hope).

And after about three and a half hours, the party was over, I learned the Yankees had lost (a majority of the people at the party are Mets fans, and boy, did they lose yesterday too--check out the score), and we went home, with bags of goodies.

We wound down from the big day, and yes, at about 8:30 p.m, while watching a WWE pay per view event with my son, I completely conked out. My eyes were actually closing at 7 p.m., but I forced myself to stay up to at least get to the pay per view.

And that I did.

The next thing I knew, it was near 10 p.m., and it was time to go to sleep to prepare for today, my return to "normalcy" at work.

So, all told, it was a great weekend.

I really do have a great family and nice friends, and heck, if the first 60 years were as good as they were, I do look forward to the next 60 years, I really do!

Classic Rant #548 (July 19, 2011): Movies On a Plane

Yes, it is the middle of summer. Not much is going on that I want to talk about here.

But I came up with an odd anniversary for today, so I thought I would share it with you.

On July 19, 1961, TWA became the first airline to begin showing regularly scheduled in-flight movies. It presented "By Love Possessed," starring Lana Turner, to its first-class passengers.

So for the past 50 years, airline passengers--and not just first-class passengers--have been treated to movies on flights to various destinations.

This must have been interesting 50 years ago. With no videotapes or disks, I wonder how they showed movies on planes. Did they use projectors?

Of course, in today's world, all that is taken care of. I still don't know how they show movies now, but I would assume that they use the disk format.

I do know that they charge for the headphones, and that they show television network versions of the films, so you won't see any nudity or hear any cuss words when you view a movie on a plane.

When I am on a plane, probably the last thing I want to see is a movie. I read a newspaper, read one of the magazines that are provided, or just relax. I can't get into a movie, especially one that is cut to shreds.

But to others, I guess it relaxes them. They can make believe that they are in a movie theater on the ground, and just get caught up in the film.

But in today's world, there can be so much more to do on a plane.

On some planes, you can watch television, and on others, you can hook up to the Internet. You can also watch something on your portable DVD player or on you phone. You can listen to music with your MP3 device.

Or you can just sleep.

All this for what they put you through to actually get on the plane.

What did people do before all of this stuff was available on planes? Did they just look at their feet, look out the window or fall asleep?

I remember one time I bought my mini-TV onto a plane, and watched David Cone pitch a perfect game for the Yankees. That anniversary was yesterday. That was fun, because I went on a plane that offered nothing special, so my little TV was literally the only game in town.

Today, I couldn't even get any reception on that TV.

What would I do today?

I will find out later this year, when my wife, son and I have to take a plane to Florida as we go on our first cruise.

Let me ponder just what I will do.

Until then, maybe I will watch a movie to get in the swing of things.

Let me figure out what movie could stand some cuts ... maybe the latest edition of "Transformers"?