Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year!

To one and all here's wishing you health wealth, peace and bliss!

As 2008 closes I am grateful for so m any things. Number one being finally rid of a certain someone who made my life a living hell for far too long. Number two is the strength I found and kept though all the friends and family who gave me strength and support over the past few years of tribulation! Number three Bush will no longer be in office (bet you thought I was referring to him in number one!) Number four is Fabulon's still going strong! And, Number Five is all the fun I've had posting on and meeting people though the Blogosphere!
"Be they few, or be they far,
Would I were where my people are!"
* "The Lost Tribe" Ruth Pitter

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas!

In the spirit of the seaon, and at a time when we so need good will towards men. Happy Holidays one and all!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Tagged

Uneasy thanks to TJB.

I've been inducted into a gam of tag. The rules are as follows:

1. Link to the person who tagged you. 2. Post the rules on your blog. 3. Write six random things about yourself. 4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. 5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog. 6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

1. I never lie about my age and disapprove of those who do.
2. I will take an ice cold glass of gin and blissful solitude at a bar over ininteresting company ALWAYS
3. I am truly starting to believe that I need a man in my life, like a fish needs a bicycle.
4. Despite number 3, I might not say no.
5. But I probably will, I am my own worst enemy.
6. I am a bit of a loner and thus am not sure I know five other people on blogger who may not already been tagged

But I will try http://troublespots.wordpress.com/ & http://web.mac.com/kajcronin/iWeb/Site/401a/401a.html

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Somebody stop me!


So the Library has just exchanged Christmas presents this morning and my office mate has given me a bag of Nonpareils which I have already half consumed and we've barely reached eight -thirty in the morning. Add to this a school wide Christmas party this afternoon and then a bartending gig at some company's Christmas party this evening, I have a feeling that there is going to be an awful lot more of me to love come this Christmas!

And maybe YOU can star with him!!!!!!


That's right, if you're a girl between 10 and 14, then this rather built, but suprisingly flat in a certain area, spandex clad, singing, dancing grown man is looking for you to play his "special friend".
Now if it were Reb Brown casting the audition I might consider it........

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Merry "new-economy" Christmas


Akron -- A Sheriff's deputy frisks Santa Claus, John Kaufman, 30, after he was arrested Tuesday for allededly assaulting a jeweler who objected to his method of soliciting contributions. Kaufman, who was booked on assault charges, was in charge of a group of three Santas from the Cleveland Temple of Hare Krishna who were soliciting contributions in an aggressive manner, according to police reports. (1978)

I am pondering soliciting contributions to the ilduce fund in "an aggressive manner" but secretly hoping for better results.



Monday, December 15, 2008

Glenn Miller -- I've got a Gal in Kalamazoo

It was 64 years ago today, December 15th, when Major Glenn Miller disappeared on a flight over the English Channel. He was on his way to oversee accommodations for his Band of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Paris, where they would give a special concert for Allied troops on Christmas
Day. They followed him across the Channel a few days later.

Guy Williams - Orginal Screen Test

I soooo definitely would.....

Keeping up appearances



Original Caption:Newark -- Mrs. Laura Bell Devlin, 72, who murdered her 75-year-old husband, Thomas Devlin, then dismembered his body with a hacksaw and scattered the parts in the backyard, today professed her dislike for jail. She protested vehemently when officials tried to fingerprint her saying "that ink will make my hands dirty," and again when she was placed before the camera, "No," she asserted. She kept repeating "Can I go home now?', unmoved and in no way penitent for the alleged crime. (1947)



What I find the most spooky aspect of this photo is how much she reminds me of the countless sweet elderly neighbors who lived on our street growing up. They bought chocolate bars and Christmas wrap from me whenever a fund raiser appeal came about, handed out candy on Halloween and helped me earn money by letting em mow their lawns. Who knows what goes on behind closed doors???


T'is the season....

to be overworked and under paid! Three days straight of working double shifts, running from library to bartending has left me bereft of sleep, clean laundry and more irksome, tips. I spent Saturday evening schlepping martinis for a swarm of lawyers all boasting about travel and real estate plans, but none of them evidently cash viable enough to leave a tip.

It takes a special kind of confidence to spend an evening telling a bartender how glad you are he’s here and how wonderful he is and then to stiff him completely all the while continuing to drink any concoction that he’s mixed for you….

Next time I’m on this gig I am pocketing some sterling salad forks…..

Friday, December 12, 2008

Catwoman's Dressed To Kill

While I didn't know the full meaning of the word camp as wee child, I did realize that the Batman series, and this scene in particular brought whatever camp was to new levels. If only for the classic lament:

No! Not our hair! Anything but that!

Bettie Page dies at 85


Alas, yet another vanishing icon....

Christmas Shopping



I plan to do all my Christmas shopping from the "chap" book this year. Starting with:



Thursday, December 11, 2008

Yet another reason I won't shop at Urban Outfitters!

Besides MY personal dislike for all their clothing, I recently found out that shopping there supports Proposition 8 and other extreme religious right causes! See:

I Support Support Shirts at BradWalsh.com

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Is it just me?

There is a story in the Boston Globe today about the disturbing rise of nude photos being taken, or allowed to be taken, by high school student and sent by cell phone to cell phone eventually ending up on the internet. This past weekend on a catering job a fellow employee insisted on showing me nude photos of himself in various phases of “excitement” despite my protests that I really did not want to see such. A while back my interest/respect for someone I was just starting to date evaporated when he announced that he put on a live sex show every night via a webcam.

Now I know that I am MORE than just a bit of a prude, twelve years f Catholic school will do that to you but, what the hell is going on??? When did everyone decide that everyone else on the planet really wanted to see them I the nude??? Let me state clearly that I am SO not against porn, but at least the people who do that professionally have done a few sit ups before hand. It’s actually makes for enjoyable viewing!

What I am having trouble understanding is the belief by every average Joe that he is nude photo worthy. Nor can I wrap my mind around the naive, read: INSANELY STUPID, belief that these photos which include their face and all identifying birth marks, will remain safe and hidden rather then eventually end up on the net or somewhere in cyberspace, so they an be easily retrieved when it comes time to interview for a job, or security clearance or run for office.

Am I the only one who feels this way?????

Monday, December 8, 2008

caffeine withdrawn mind wanderings



The problem of working out of town, in the middle of suburbia, on a campus surrounded by wetlands, is that you are cut off from everything the entire eight hours you are on campus. Every errand becomes a chore involving getting your car and driving off campus.

This morning I wanted coffee and I wanted it BAD, in the way only a true addict can crave his or her caffeine fix. Now do we provide coffee on campus? Yes. Is it palatable or even drinkable, NO! Do I own a car? No. Is there a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts anywhere less than a mile and a half away? NO! You see how the universe is against me.

If I worked in Dick Van Dyke’s office, not only would I have the benefit of working all day with the likes of Buddy and Sally wisecracking it up, (not to mention being located in New York !!!!) But at any given moment I could simply call downstairs and have the coffee shop send up coffee and danish all delivered by an extra in need of a walk on role.

The only thing I could get by calling downstairs right now is one of the tutors from the skills center.

Isn't it always the way....





1909. "Mme. Diss-DeBarr," a.k.a. "the noted and notorious Ann O'Delia Dis Debar, of many aliases, a number of husbands and several prison terms," according to a 1909 article in the New York Times. The headline calls her an "ex-priestess of fake spiritualism." 8x10 glass negative, George Grantham Bain.

As if the money wasn't enough, Mme. Diss-DeBarr and her (then)husband Frank were also arrested in Birkenhead, England in September 1901, and charged with obtaining property by false pretences, rape and buggery. The later charges seem to have arisen from sexual practices at their temple in London. The couple defended themselves, but the Swami was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment, and her husband to 15 years


Friday, December 5, 2008

Room without a view

So they are currently tearing up the green around the library for construction of a new science building. Trailers have been delivered and fences are going up which will mean that we are going to be deprived of our grand view of the campus for the next year and a half. What the hell am I going to gaze at while I daydream at my desk?

Hopefully the construction workers will offer a bit of eye candy.

Condoleezza Rice Speech ala' MAD TV

Get some!

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Mine!!


While the dessert appeals to my diet sense I think the real reason I'll end up serving this recipe is that I actually own the tea set pictured here. Inherited from a favorite maiden Aunt many years ago, it's been sitting unused in my china closet like so many other pieces I've acquired/inherited and never use. I tell you, working in the catering field really saps your enthusiasm to entertain on your own time.

So quit your belly aching.........


Nothing hides the pain of P.M.S. like patriotism!

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Nell Carter sings "Get some cash for your trash"

There are days when this particular song will creep into my cranium and play itself endlessly. Fortunately it's always Miss Carter singing it!

Guess which size sold out

I wonder how they insure accuracy, cuz you know them bitches is lying......

Location. Location. Location.


When you lie down with dogs.......

Friday, November 28, 2008

Shades of highschool...


I feel Mandy's pain, it's hard running tea shop in a motorcycle gang dominated town.

And it's not like the other cliques in the clubs are any more welcoming either.....

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Happy Thanksgivng!





For each new morning with its light,

For rest and shelter of the night,

For health and food, For love and friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends.



- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)





Regardless of all the complaining I've done, and, yes I know I've done a lot, I do indeed realize I have a hell of a lot to be thankful for! I am alive, intelligent, capable and healthy. Currently free of drama and bitterness, I am fortunate to have numerous people in my life who care about me. For all this I give thanks.

A good man is hard to find!

After being kept out of the gym for over a week due to a plaguing cold I returned last night only to find out my workout partner had been called out of the country due to a family illness and probably won’t return until next year. It was disheartening news and I will miss him and wish his family well. It’s not that I can’t work out alone, but in order to lift heavy and spur hopefully aggressive growth it’s helpful to have someone to spot you and encourage you.

It also got my thinking, he and I have been training for a while and it’s probably the healthiest relationship with another man I’ve had in a long time. We stay in communication with each other, show up when we way we will, are committed to seeing each other, encourage each other, look out for each other and watch each others backs. Now why can’t I find someone to date who would treat me like that??????

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

cataloging dementia


So I've been cataloging since early morning and it's starting to steer me towards slap happy. Am I the one who finds this cover more "Village People" than Earth's people?????

The Look you want!




brought to you by Man International!



Beach Girls And The Monster (1965)



Featuring “The Watusi dancing girls from Hollywood’s famed Whiskey a go-go” and “music by Frank Sinatra Jr” What’s not to love about this film?

“Yeh-Yeh-Yeh!”

Monday, November 24, 2008

What the world needs now....





is more Janice!!

Goodby to all that!

P.S: for anyone following the saga, my living room rug was returned this weekend! Nicely dropped off on my back porch, thus avoiding any physical or verbal interaction(NICE!)

This last little detail being nailed down, I can finally instruct my lawyers to close all legal actions and now, never, ever, ever have to deal with my thankfully gone ex!-

Things I wouldn't mind getting for Christmas #1, Adam Vinatieri


















Maybe with the new economy owning a football team or at least a few player's may well become affordable....



Baby it's cold outside!


The cold saga appears to be over and I get to go back to the gym today! Or, more likely I am forcing myself back in early as per usual due to body issues. Four days off and I am sure that I am sure that my weight has ballooned up. My muscles have atrophied and now no one will ever love me.

Yes I know I am dancing on a landmine of issues here but as I am broke form all the housing renovations professional help is financially out of my grasp. I am hoping a kind psychologist will start reading the blog and commenting……

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Mary Wickes

Just because......

Friday, November 21, 2008

In tribute to Planet Fabulon


I have just hear the sad news that PlanetFabulon is seceding from existence. A happy day when I first stumbled upon it while tripping along the net, a dark day approaches when it will no longer exist.



Thombeau, you will be sorely missed. Your fabulosity helped me get though many a mind numbing day at work or my random nights sparring with insomnia. Best wishes for your music projects and job search.


Now who will get my April Ames references????

Further renovation wants.....


Add Reb Brown dressed in his best acting attire and I would gladly go further into debt to add an indoor pool onto the old manse.



Reb Brown, Just saying..........

















Even as a young teen in 1979 I recognized talent when I saw it. Although I found the Captain America Movies rather lacking, Mr Browns"acting abilities" whether semi shirtless, shirtless or poured into spandex aptly managed to carry most of the film thus keeping my attention over 30 years later....
A former USC football player, Reb Brown turned actor with a supporting role in "Sssssss" in 1973, playing opposite another stellar actor Dirk Benidict. After playing Capatain America Mr. brown also played "Yor, the hunter from the future", again where his acting ability shown brilliantly thanks to excellent costuming.


Thursday, November 20, 2008

MUST HAVE!


Seeing as I'm still in a funk due to my cold and any cold medication I take turns me both morbid and loopy, I think I found the perfect viewing for my planned couch and comforter marathon this weekend!
Groovy half-sisters "Cindy and Donna" (1970) bloom into babes, but tragedy soon strikes. Sue Allen, Nancy Ison star. "The Stepmother" (1971) lusts after her hubby's teen son. Alejandro Rey, Katherine Justice star. A would-be singer gets hot for her "Sister-In-Law" (1974) and caught up in drug smuggling. With John Savage, Anne Saxon. An affair between "The Teacher" (1974) and her student turns scary when a maniac stalks them. Angel Tompkins, Jay North star. Can "Best Friends" (1975) stay friends when one wants to get married and the other objects? Richard Hatch, Susanne Benton star. Two hippie chicks hitch a ride with a dude ready to show them a good time. "Pick-Up" (1975) stars Jill Senter, Alan Long. A "Trip with the Teacher" (1975) to see Native American ruins goes badly for a group of young girls when their bus breaks down and the bikers who help them turn out to be rapists. With Brenda Fogarty, Zalman King. AKA: "Deadly Field Trip." In "Malibu High" (1979), a student decides the best way to get good scores on her tests is to score with her teachers. Jill Lansing, Katie Johnson star. 11 1/2 hrs. total on two discs. Standard; Soundtrack: English.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

They may not be nutria........


Big excitement in the library office tonight. In the last two hours we've caught no less than four white mice. Okay one had already given up the ghost, making catching it's corpse an easy thing, but the other three are now penned in in under various Tupperware bowls weighted down with books until someone from facilities arrives tomorrow to actually cart them away. Until then we're keeping our fingers crossed as we've run out of Tupperware.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Green leather???

I know it's meant for farming, but really....

Actually I can't help but be reminded of Forbidden Planet when Is e this cover.

Satan Press!

City of Wantons?


Scranton? Ithaca? Cleveland?
Am I the only one who finds the black sock clad feet cropped in the front of the cover vaguely disturbing?

Rhetorical

Now what the hell are we supposed to assume happened when the lust-crazed convict ran wild????

Full fledged funk.

No rug appeared this weekend after all, although it looks like a cold has come to visit and settled in. As a result of the latter occurrence nothing was achieved around the house other than sleeping and moping. Still that pastime was made bearable by the lucky configuration of having three unwatched Netflix shipments, several bottles of red wine and a few bags of Smartfood all luckily on hand.

Today, so far suitably medicated I made it to the library and have a a bar tending gig to follow. Looks like I won't be sleeping again until after midnight. Oh look more whine........

Friday, November 14, 2008

Doldrums

Ye Gods! I’ve got a bad case of the Friday afternoon sleepies and the minutia of cataloging does not help in any way! Further I’ve nothing more to look forward to than a weekend of clothes sorting, switching over to autumn and winter wardrobe, pack up summer, etc. The one thrill will be the fact that I am finally moving all my clothes (with a shoe horn no doubt) into the closet and recently acquired wardrobe of my new bedroom. Yes kiddies the construction of the new bath and bedroom are finally done!

Least to look forward to, but a seminal point, my ex is stopping by tomorrow. He has to return the living room rug he stole from me or face more legal actions. While it will in no way be an enjoyable interaction I do have the pleasure of not allowing him to step one foot inside my (and the banks after remortgaging) home. I did not pay all that money to get rid of him to only allow him entry into my now peaceful inner sanctum!

Intoducing Janice Mars



This morning's walk to campus, though today's rainy weather and falling autumn elves made the perfect backdrop for listening to one of my all time favorite albums. How I wish Miss Mars would record more.....

Review by Michael Mascioli
Janice Mars is a mere footnote in the history of popular music. It's safe to say she's never been discussed at any length anywhere but in James Gavin's fascinating Intimate Nights: The Golden Age of New York Cabaret (a book which keeps alive the memory of many otherwise forgotten artists like Spivy, Nan Blakstone, Rae Bourbon, Dwight Fiske, and Claire Hogan). In it, Gavin touches on Mars' reign, at 33, as the proprietor of—and sole singer at—her own club, the tiny Baq Room on 6th Avenue in the late 1950s. There her following was comprised of the New York cognoscenti, including Judy Holliday, Lauren Bacall, Richard Burton, Comden & Green, Noel Coward—and Marlon Brando, in whose study the master tapes for Mars' only album—never released— were stored for safekeeping for the last 40 years. The recent, long-overdue release of the CD Introducing Janice Mars moves her at last out of the footnotes and onto the main page, alongside more famous— but no more talented—names, where she rightfully belongs.
On the CD cover Janice Mars looks mild, staid—even (dare I say it?) a little boring—and inside there's an old newspaper photo of her holding court at the Baq Room (Tennessee Williams sits ringside), looking for all the world like the quintessential boite chanteuse— sort of a white Mabel Mercer, only standing up. So imagine the shock of playing this recording for the first time and hearing an opening blast of trumpets and a huge orchestra building to a crescendo to herald Janice, who makes a bold entrance, blaring, "Damn the city!! I'm SICK of the whole city!" It's the beginning of Baldwin Bergersen & Phyllis McGinley's ultra-obscure and ultra-charming Commuter Song, from their 1948 revue Small Wonder. Mars quickly relaxes and begins to extol the joys of quasi-pastoral living:
Got a bee in my turbanThat I'd like to be suburbanAnd live among the vegetables and fruit...Let's be commuters and commute.
The scenery's pretty and life is swellIn Garden City and New RochelleAnd every morning, come rain or sun,We can hurry in a flurry to the 8:01....
And every night when work is doneI think we might have a lot of funFor the very best families get begunBetween the 5:08 and the 8:01.
(Bergersen, incidentally, also served as Mars' accompanist at the Baq Room.)
Janice Mars is essentially a dramatic singer, and she shares the fluttering, heartthrob vibrato of Judy Garland and Edith Piaf, as well as the latter's hearty, authoritative, clarion style. Indeed, Mars was considered by some to be America's young answer to Piaf. Both her singing and her interpretations are—there is no other word for it— charged. But she also owes much to Eartha Kitt and to other theatrical singers who trod the floorboards a block or two west of the Baq Room during Broadway's golden age—belters like Susan Johnson and, especially, Eileen Rodgers, whom, along with Kitt, I would name as the singer Mars most sounds like, though clearly only by coincidence, not by calculation or imitation. But Mars is, I think, more capable than either of examining all the layers and levels of emotion and color below, shall we say, "the belt." She can be sweet and tender, girlish and genuinely vulnerable when necessary— witness her readings of When the World Was Young (which must be the quintessential cabaret song), Nobody Told Me (also from Small Wonder) and especially the first half of Bye Bye Blackbird (before it begins to build, thrillingly).
That same Broadway sensibility invests her with a sparkling personality, a sense of fun and lightness missing from so many other self-consciously serious, even somber, singers, especially these days. After all, musicals used to be called musical comedies. On Yip Harburg & Harold Arlen's "mockalypso" I Don't Think I'll End It All Today (from Lena Horne's Broadway vehicle Jamaica) you can almost see Mars sashaying and swishing her skirts as she grinningly makes her way through a list of ways to end it all—only not today.
Throughout, she is supported by vibrant instrumental settings created by the triple-threat combination of orchestrator Ted Royal, arranger Don Evans and conductor Milt Rosenstock (who, significantly, was the Musical Director for classic shows like Funny Girl, Gypsy, Finian's Rainbow, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Bells are Ringing and Can-Can). Their combined talents add infinite excitement and color to the proceedings.
The CD contains a dozen songs—her entire recorded legacy—including a hidden bonus track, her commanding version of The Battle Hymn of the Republic (of all things) which, legend has it, a very young Janis Joplin would come to hear Janice sing. I also especially like her uber-dramatic version of Winter of My Discontent (a song I never enjoyed before) by Alec Wilder and Benedict Berenberg—who, it turns out, was Mars' first husband. If she performed this at the Baq Room with this kind of intensity, they're probably still scraping the audience off the walls.
Rounding out the esoteric yet accessible program are Duke Ellington & John LaTouche's Take Love Easy, Lilac Wine (earlier popularized by Eartha Kitt), The World is Your Balloon (from the famous '51 flop Flahooley, starring Barbara Cook—and Yma Sumac!), Take it Slow, Joe (also from Jamaica ), and Frank Loesser's Inchworm (strangely, a big favorite with jazz and cabaret singers.)
Introducing Janice Mars has fast become one of my desert island discs. Of course, my desert island is populated by singers like Frances Faye, Elaine Stritch, Susan Johnson and Kay Thompson—confident, assertive, big-voiced women considered a little sharp, a little edgy, a little too Broadway by some, especially, I would think, by today's growing coterie of jazz snobs.
It's said that Janice Mars (who is alive and well in New Mexico) mistrusted fame and sometimes even seemed to sabotage her own career—surprising considering her enormous, self-evident talent. We can only thank the gods that two members of her family decided to resurrect and release these important recordings as a "late-blooming gift" to Janice. And that Marlon Brando keeps his study so well organized.



Thursday, November 13, 2008

The Best of Everything


THE WAY IT WAS Hope Lange answered a “Help Wanted, Female” ad in a newspaper in the 1959 film “The Best of Everything.” (She got the job, but not with this suit.)