Classic Rant #461 (March 11, 2011): Ode to My Mom

Today is my mother's birthday, but it's not just any birthday, it's her 80th celebration.

My mother was born in 1931, and she is the oldest of two children. Her brother lives on the West Coast and is nine years younger than my mother.

My mother was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but she grew up in the Kensington part of the borough, on Ocean Parkway. My grandparents lived on Ocean Parkway for decades, and into my 30s, I visited my grandmother often until she passed away in the 1990s. My grandfather died in the early 1970s.

Anyway, my parents got married in 1956, I came into the world a little more than a year later, my sister was born in 1959, and the rest is history.

With my and my sister's kids, my mom and my dad are grandparents five times over, with four boys and one girl.

My mother has been my Rock of Gibraltar for my entire life. She was there when I was little, and she is still there today. Through all the ups and downs, she has always been a source of strength for me.

I wasn't a perfect kid, and my mother let me know it on more than one occasion. But through it all, her upbringing made me a better person, and helped shape me as both a person and as a parent myself.

Actually, you wouldn't believe that my mother is 80 years old, or should I say young. She certainly doesn't look her age, and she has more get up and go than most people half her age.

One of the photos I included here is of my mother in about 1964 or 1965. Yes, look at that hair! The other is from this year. Sure, the hair has changed, but she is still the same person today at 80 that she was when she was in her early 30s.

She has always been a person that is always seemingly in constant motion. I remember growing up to the whirring of the vacuum cleaner at 4 or 5 in the morning during my youth. Although she doesn't get up that early to clean anymore, she, like me, isn't the greatest sleeper, and doesn't need that many hours of sleep per night, so she continues to wake up early.

She is the type of person you can count on to do a multitude of tasks and favors, if she can possibly do them.

Sure, at 80 she has various aches and pains and things she has to take care of, but all in all, my mother is in great health, and I believe she has many, many years left on this earth.

So here's to my mom. She deserves it on her special day.

Rant #1,807: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree (and the Menorah, Too)

So on Saturday, December 24, we will have the first recent confluence of the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays, where the first night of Hanukkah is at the very same time as Christmas Eve, making Sunday, December 25 not only Christmas Day, but the first full day of Hanukkah (and in the evening, the second night of this Jewish celebration).

It doesn't happen very often, but this is not the first time the two holidays have collided into each other, and it won't be the last time either.

But yes, it is quite unusual, and gives some even more reason to blend the holidays, even though the two celebrations have nothing at all to do with each other.

Christmas Day always comes on December 25, but Hanukkah can occur anywhere from late November to late December, based on the Hebrew calendar, which is much different than the calendar we normally use.

But this year, the two holidays are literally on top of each other.

I think that that has its good and bad points.

The good is that we, as a culture, as Americans, can basically celebrate the two holidays at the same time, together, which is good for the department stores as well as for our souls.

The bad is that Christmas, being what it is, is like the Super Bowl of holidays, and it consumes everything in its path, so Hanukkah might get short shrift this year.

But that being said, both are spectacular holidays, and whichever one you follow, the spirit of the holiday is there for all to enjoy.

Sure, the meaning of each holiday often gets lost in these holidays' overt commerciality--or what they have become in 2016--but each has an important religious aspect, which we all know and I am not going to get into here.

It is kind of sad that that often gets lost in all the hoopla, but I am sure many of us do our best to remember that angle of the holiday, and try to pass it on to the next generation.

But whatever the case and however these holidays are celebrated, they are truly wonderful events, wonderful occasions, and prime family time.

So whatever holiday you celebrate, you and your family have a good one.

I have the day off on Monday, December 26, so I will speak to you again on Tuesday, December 27.

(And by the way, my sister's birthday is on Monday, Boxing Day is on that day, and the first day of Kwanzaa is too, so what a day to have off! I can't wait to just do nothing and just relax!)

Classic Rant #460 (March 10, 2011): Billionaires ... I'm Not One of Them

Did you know that there are 1,210 people who have enough wealth to be classified as billionaires?

According to Forbes Magazine, not only are there more than 1,200 people with this type of wealth, but the list actually includes 214 new members.

The world's richest person is Mexican telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim Helu, worth $74 billion, and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, worth $56 billion.

No, I am not on the list, not even close. Unless something dramatic drops in my lap, I'm lucky if I can even rate myself a thousandaire, or even a hundredaire.

I am just a working stiff, just like most people are. The people that achieve this amazing wealth worked hard to get it, were at the right place at the right time, and well, they had a lot of luck doing it.

That isn't sour grapes. You have to have some luck to acquire such a fortune.

Me, I have had absolutely no luck during my career. I wanted to become a teacher, went into a market that was as bad as today's market is, had to switch careers in a millisecond and market myself in a different direction, was hit by divorce, long-time child support payments, loss of my job, taking another job that paid less but kept me employed, etc. I could go on and on.

I haven't had much luck with money matters, but what can I do?

At age 53, I realize that my earning potential is waning by the minute. Although I have a love/hate relationship with my job, I am better off with it than without it.

I haven't had a raise in years--YES, YEARS--although I did ask for one last year, and, of course, got turned down. I plan on asking for another one this year, and hopefully, things will be better for me.

But, like many people, I am constantly watching my wallet.

So congratulations go out to these billionaires.

But me, I'm a working stiff, nothing more, and I know that these guys live in a different world than most of us do.

But they put their pants on the same way I do, so they really aren't that different from me .. are they?

Rant #1,806: TV OD II

Earlier this week, I posted my five favorite TV shows of all time.

I go for situation comedies, as four of my five choices were of that genre, but the next five choices are going to be a mixed bag.

You won't find any hour-long dramas or Westerns; most of these I simply never got into as a child, or as an adult.

I guess my attention span won't allow for it, although there are hour-long choices on this second list.

So here goes ...

6) The Ed Sullivan Show: "The Toast of the Town" really was just that during its 23-year run. This was TV's circus, featuring everything from opera singers to plate twirlers to acrobats to the latest and hottest singers. Sullivan was bland, and he was perfect for the show because as a showman, he knew that the acts always came first. The one, the only, and the greatest variety show of all time, in my opinion, and the only reason it did not rank higher was because I missed the early days of the show, being born in 1957. But when all is said and done. this show was a milestone program, and as Sullivan later said, CBS should have allowed the show to go 25 years, but politics got in the way, as did Fred Silverman, who canceled some of TV's greatest shows in one fell swoop ... including our next entry.

7) The Andy Griffith Show: Well, no, Silverman didn't cancel this show, per se, but he canceled its successor, "Mayberry RFD," and the show was so similar to this one that it was like he had put the clamps on Andy Taylor and Co. Anyway, this show, like "My Three Sons," cast an eye on our neighbors in fictional Mayberry, N.C., and its rural humor--almost entirely based on the personalities of the characters--enthralled audiences for years. Andy was a small-town sheriff that touched our hearts and our funny bones, and the Don Knotts years, as Deputy Barney Fife, were the best years of the show. In the later, color episodes, the Andy Taylor character kind of moved aside, allowing the show to develop other characters like the Pyles--Goober and Gomer--Emmett the fix-it man, and many others. A subtle comedy that is still funny to this day.

8) Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In: The variety genre was getting stale by 1967, so a talented group of writers and performers got together and turned the entire genre upside down, inside out, and pretty much killed it. The original show was an amalgam of shorts skits, blackouts, and mayhem, with little stringing it all together less the hosts, veteran Las Vegas performers who became household names from this hour-long show. And the performers--Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, Arte Johnson, Ruth Buzzi, Joanne Worley, Henry Gibson, Judy Carne, Larry Hovis (twice!), Pigmeat Markham ... well, what a talented cast this was! Everyone wanted to be on this show, but if you blinked, you missed three or four bits. A true TV classic, its topicality has aged it while watching today, but most of it is still a hoot!

9) The Munsters: From the clever people who gave us "Leave It To Beaver," this sendup of the modern American family was actually a goof on "Beaver." Like what happened in the Abbott and Costello and monster mashups in the movies, the producers took two common elements of our entertainment world--monsters and sitcoms--and mashed them together. As a kid, I simply loved this show for what it was, but as an adult, I see nuances of the extremely clever writing that I didn't know existed. This show is satire at its best, and Fred Gwynne, Al Lewis, Yvonne DeCarlo, Butch Patrick and the two Marilyns--Beverly Owen and Pat Priest--play it for all it is worth. Yes, some people prefer the "Addams Family," but to me, there really is no comparison.

10) The Honeymooners: Honestly, this could have been my first choice, my fifth choice, my seventh choice, or my ninth choice, but it does belong on this list. Jackie Gleason created a small group of characters in a very spare environment, allowing for the peccadillos of these characters to stand out above anything and everything else. The show, all these years later, touches both our hearts and our funny bones, and even though we have seen each episode 1,000 times, it still resonates as real and pure. The one season of the show, the 39 episodes, are glorious, but search out the so-called "Lost Episodes," and you will see really how good this cast of characters and their show actually was, not just as a comedy but as a mirror of life in the 1950s, and even today.

Well, there it is. Yes, I could have easily listed my top 20 TV shows, what with "I Love Lucy," "Star Trek," "The Wonder Years," "F Troop," "Batman," "The Twilight Zone," "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "All In the Family," "Star Trek," "Hogan's Heroes," and others left off the list, but if I have to pick 10, these are it.

What are your favorites? What did I miss on my list? Please let me know.

Speak to you again tomorrow.

Classic Rant #459 (March 9, 2011): Bits and Pieces

I really don't have anything major to rant or rave about today, but I do have some smaller bits and pieces I can talk about sparingly.

Charlie Sheen Fired From TV Show: So, this fool gets fired from his TV show and becomes an Internet sensation on Twitter, where he is accumulating millions of followers each day. Numerous corporations want him to sell their products there, and he is probably making millions from doing this. He also has offers to do other shows.

Again, this is the guy who beat his wife, slept with porn stars, is an admitted drug user, and may have made anti-Semitic slurs to his former producer.

I think his popularity shows a lot about this country, more than a lot of people want to admit to.

Lindsay Lohan Video Sold To Highest Bidder: For once, I am going to take Lindsay's side on this. If you tell me that she stole jewelry and you have the evidence of such a theft, why do you sell the evidence before you go to trial?

This is absolutely bizarre. If I were the judge, even if Lohan is guilty as sin, I would throw this case right out the door. Where is the store's credibility here? Did they do what they did to bank on (literally) Lohan's notoriety?

In my mind, Lohan is a free woman.

Monkees Tickets: I may be boring people to death with this, but I am a super fan of the Monkees, always have been (since 1966) and always will be. And yes, I will be seeing them in June, as I copped a few tickets yesterday.

I don't know if this is going to be the biggest tour since the beginning of time, but for me, it is ultra-important. This is music I really care about, performed by artists who I think are really talented.

No, I won't be purchasing Partridge Family tickets when they reunite for a tour (although I did see David Cassidy at a free concert two years ago).

Credit Card Account Stolen: I have had my American Express card for years, but evidently, my account numbers were stolen the other day, and people used the account to purchase computer equipment.

Luckily, American Express contacted me because they felt the purchases were a red flag that the card was not being used by me, since I never have made any computer or related purchases with the card.

I won't have to pay for these purchases, but I don't think they will ever catch these thieves. Heck, I hope whatever they bought blows up in their faces and they end up looking like the Elephant Man, who didn't deserve his fate--these idiots do.

Facebook To Rent Films: Well, it's not the end of the world as we know it, but movie rentals are coming to your favorite social networking site. Warner Brothers said it will test a service that will offer select movies for rental (or eventually purchase) through Facebook's public pages of these films.

Films will be streamed through a Facebook application, and will cost 30 credits, or about $3. Renters will have access to the movie for 48 hours and can replay it as many times as they want.

Personally, this is not for me, but I can see where kids might go for this. Me, I would much rather either rent or purchase a movie I want to see, actually have something in my hand when I spend my hard-earned cash. But today's kids don't know from this, all they know is files, so they might go for it.

Rant #1,805: Talk Talk

The Ranting and Raving Blog has been around for a number of years now, and I hope that you have made it part of your daily viewing while you are on the Internet.

I have written about many things, things dear to my heart, things not so dear to my heart, and yes, I do wear my heart on my sleeves at times, but that is just who I am.

What you see is what you get, and I don't try to hide it.

As we move closer to the end of this year and into the new year of 2017, there are still so many, many topics that I can talk about, things I need to get off my chest or simply want to talk about as they happen.

The world is changing, and the Ranting and Raving Blog is changing too, but very little.

It will still be a place that ideas and topics can be thrown around, bandied about, and talked about, very freely.

And if you disagree with me--or agree with me--that is fine, you can reply and we can go at it if that is necessary.

But in order to make this site completely interactive, I was thinking about doing something radical, dramatic, far-fetched, and perhaps even silly as we enter the new year.

I am going to throw out this column to guest contributors.

Yes, that means you guys.

If you have something that you want to get off your chest--even if it disagrees with me in any way, shape or form--I am throwing open the blog so that you can voice what you want to talk about.

All that you have to do is send me your own Rant, and give me a few days to post it.

It is as simple as that.

Rants need be no more than 500 words, but if you really want to pontificate, you can write a longer Rant, up to maybe about 1,000 words.

And yes, I have the final say whether the thing gets printed or not, and as a good editor, I reserve the right to edit your Rant, too.

And just one Rant per person, please, every three months or so. I don't want one person to go on and on and on. Four times a year would be fine.

And yes, you will be credited with the Rant, your name will be put right on the Rant.

And again yes, people from all over the world read this column, so you will get that type of glory, of having your opinion piece read by people in the U.S., in Europe, and elsewhere.

And no, don't be a wise guy, being a guest contributor only gets you my gratitude, and there is no pay involved.

So what do you think about this?

Please let me know.

I am trying to make this the most interactive blog that is possible, and I think that this is the way to do that.

Simply send me your blog entry at l_lapka@yahoo.com, and I will review it, see if it fits, edit it, and away we go!

Give it a thought. It might actually be fun!

P.S.: Almost forgot. The piece that you write must be original, meaning not stolen from somewhere else or plagiarized. I use original thoughts here; you should too.

I also forgot to mention that I want to use your actual names on this, not blog names or names you make up. But I can bend on this point a bit.

Let's see what happens.

Classic Rant #458 (March 8, 2011): You Bet Your Sweet Bippy

On my local PBS station the other night was a special during Pledge Week that I had been looking forward to for some time after hearing about it a few months ago.

PBS's look at "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" was only slightly more than an hour long (due to pledge breaks), but I think it got the essence of this classic show--and you can look that up in your Funk and Wagnals!

I used to laugh, laugh, and laugh some more when "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" came on the air for its six year run on NBC, every Saturday night in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The show was groundbreaking. Usually, variety shows went at the pace of a turtle, but "Laugh-In" was different--very different.

Jokes were rapid-fire, and just when you got done laughing at one joke, another came on, and another, and another. There were regular bits: The Party, the Farkle Family, Laugh-In Looks at the News, and, of course, the Joke Wall, but most bits lasted little more than a few seconds.

The show was tied together by its hosts, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. Rowan and Martin were veteran Las Vegas entertainers who dabbled in both the movies and TV with varying degrees of success. They had made an OK movie, "Once Upon a Horse," which featured an un-named and then very unknown Mary Tyler Moore as one of the dancers in the film. Dick Martin had appeared semi-regularly as the next door neighbor of Lucy on "The Lucy Show." But generally, they weren't that well known outside of Las Vegas.

With producer George Schlatter at the helm, NBC ordered a special from Schlatter starring the duo. The show also featured a pretty much non-descript cast of players who also had had some minor successes in the entertainment field, including Arte Johnson, Joanne Worley, Judy Carne, Ruth Buzzi (she had been seen from time to time as Marlo Thomas's friend on "That Girl") and Alan Seus. All had been around for years, but had never broken through. They probably took this show as a lark.

But little did anyone know that this lark would turn to gold.

The special clicked with audiences, and a series was ordered.

Running during its first season after the equally groundbreaking "The Monkees," "Laugh-In" became the No. 1 show in the country, and stayed there for two or three years.

The cast, which also included Goldie Hawn and Henry Gibson, became megastars overnight.

And who can forget the debut of Tiny Tim?

Everyone wanted to be on this show, and such mega-stars as Sammy Davis Jr., John Wayne, and yes, even Richard Nixon made cameo appearances on the show.

The program ran afoul of the censors during its period on the air, but clever writing often was over the heads of those on the panic button. Alan Seus' wonderful performance as the slightly queer sports reporter was certainly a regular spot which went over their heads, as was the word "bippy," a word planted by the writers (including Coslough Johnson and Jeremy Lloyd) to throw off the censors. The censors thought bippy was something dirty (it wasn't), but they couldn't pull it because they couldn't find any evidence that it was something obscene.

They spent so much time looking for "bippy" dirt that a lot of stuff was left in that they missed.

What they did leave in included girls dressed in bikinis with sayings painted all over their bodies. You couldn't quite read some of those sayings with all the dancing about, but let me tell you, they missed plenty!

And you had oldtime black comedian Pigmeat Markham reaching new heights of popularity with white audiences with the "Hear Come the Judge" blackouts, which I don't think the censors really got as much as the public did.

But what you did get was a "Potpourri" of impressive talents. You literally saw the creation of several enduring stars taking their first babysteps, including Hawn and Lily Tomlin.

And you also had the foundation of "Saturday Night Live," as Lorne Michaels was one of the later writers on the show. He has said that "Saturday Night Live" is a combination of "Laugh-In" and "The Monkees," and I think he is correct.

Anyway, the show had its run, had a few spinoffs ("Letters to Laugh-In" and the later "Rowan and Martin Report"), several records (beyond Tiny Tim's "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," there was Shorty Long's "Here Comes the Judge" and many others by cast members and other acts), and several imitators ("Turn On," one of the all-time TV bombs).

In the mid 1970s, the show resurfaced, without Rowan and Martin or such a talented cast, but it did launch the career of Robin Williams.

So it was fun seeing "Laugh-In" again this weekend. Sure, as an 11 year old, I am sure some of the jokes on the show went way over my head, but looking back, I think I got more than I missed.

What a great show! There will never be another like it.