"What I Missed in Vietnam"

The professor was holding court last night, like he always does. At one point he decided he wanted to watch videos of television performances of some of the songs that were popular in the year 1967, when he was serving our country in the Vietnam war. I was all for it, because that was the year I came to be. The under-30's in the bunch quickly moved the party outside, but the rest of us old-timers had lots of fun seeing what the Professor missed during the year he spent in the jungle.





This was the Professor's favorite:


#1 song the week I was born:


My favorite non-Beatles song of '67:

Family Meals for a Week

The old Kansas City Journal used to offer its readers menu suggestions for the upcoming week in every Sunday issue. Below is the recommended bill of fare for the week beginning May 2, 1909. Notice the clever use of leftovers, and the amount of caffeine that seemed to be a part of the daily diet:

SUNDAY

BREAKFAST.
Grapefruit, Indian meal mush and cream,
fried scallops, drop cakes, toast, tea and coffee.

LUNCHEON.
Jellied tongue, sardine sandwiches,
French rolls, radishes, hermits and tea.

DINNER.
Cream of lettuce soup, stuffed breast of veal,
stewed tomatoes, broccoli, pineapple
jelly and cake, black coffee.

---

MONDAY

BREAKFAST.
Oranges, cereal and cream, bacon and
fried polenta mush, toast, tea and coffee.

LUNCHEON.
Souffle of calf's brains, tomato toast (a left-over),
cress salad, crackers and cheese, blanc mange, chocolate.

DINNER.
Broccoli soup (a left-over), mutton chops,
green peas, Bermuda potatoes, gooseberry tart, black coffee.

---

TUESDAY

BREAKFAST.
Bananas and cream, Beauregard eggs,
crumpets, toast, tea and coffee.

LUNCHEON.
Jellied tongue (a left-over), garnished with cress,
stuffed potatoes, pulled bread, endive salad,
crackers and cheese, cream pie, tea.

DINNER.
Browned potato soup, vol-au-vent of veal (a
left-over), souffle of green peas (a left-over),
rice with tomato and cheese sauce,
queen of puddings, black coffee.

---

WEDNESDAY

BREAKFAST.
Stewed prunes, cereal and cream, bacon,
poached eggs on toast, muffins, tea and coffee.

LUNCHEON.
Barbecued ham, hot corn bread, French fried
potatoes, marmalade and cake, tea.

DINNER.
Clear soup with croutons, rolled beafsteak,
young onions, sweet potatoes, farina pudding
(hot) with wine sauce, black coffee.

---

THURSDAY

BREAKFAST.
Oranges, wheaten grits and cream, deviled eggs
(hot) with graham gems, toast, tea and coffee.

LUNCHEON.
Beef stew with onions (a left-over), sweet potatoes saute
(a left-over), baked toast, canned peaches and
ginger snaps, tea.

DINNER.
Split-pea soup, kidney pie, Brussels sprouts,
stewed beets, berry turnovers (hot)
with American cheese, black coffee.

---

FRIDAY

BREAKFAST.
Oranges, cereal and cream, clam fritters,
quick biscuits, toast, tea and coffee.

LUNCHEON.
Shad roes, stewed potatoes, beet and lettuce salad
(a left-over), crackers and cheese, cream puffs, tea.

DINNER.
Yesterday's soup, baked shad, mashed potatoes,
fried celery, custard pie, black coffee.

---

SATURDAY

BREAKFAST.
Oranges, cereal and cream, bacon, boiled eggs,
hot rolls, toast, tea and coffee.

LUNCHEON.
Kidney pie warmed up, potato cakes (a left-over),
biscuits, split, toasted and buttered (a left-over);
junket and cake, cocoa.

DINNER.
Corn chowder, stew of lamb and dumplings,
creamed carrots, young turnips, "heavenly hash"
and lady fingers, black coffee.

All this in the days before the electric stove and refrigerator, back in the time when a big, strong man lugged a huge block of ice into your kitchen every so often and put it in the "ice box" to keep a family's food from spoiling.

Facing Reality

For a long time I denounced reality TV shows as being wholly unrealistic.

^ ^ ^ Like that would ever happen in real life ^ ^ ^

And then came

A sexy 40-ish gal on an island (or whatever), surrounded by a bevy of hot young studs vying for her to make him "The One."

All of a sudden I'm all for it. Here's the video sneak peak from TV Land.

By sheer coincidence, another Reality Show, premiering the same night at the same time (April 15, 10 pm Eastern), has also captured my imagination:

On the Discovery Channel.

"Pitchmen follows the adventures of Billy Mays and Anthony 'Sully' Sullivan, two of the most famous and successful pitchmen in history, as they search the world for inventions they believe they can take all the way to the big time.

I can't swear by the products Billy Mays hawks, but I've long considered him a stout 21st Century pop-culture icon, and many times I've wished for a look behind the scenes. I can't wait to see if he's as excitable and enthusiastic in regular conversation (I'll bet he is).

Learn more here.

You're probably wondering, "How can you watch both of those reality shows if they're showing at the same time???"

AT&T U-verse, my friends. The only real dilemma is which one to watch first.

Now Showing at the Little House

I watch this movie every Passover



Moses is voiced in this by the excellent Val Kilmer, with a voice cast featuring Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Patrick Stewart, Danny Glover, Jeff Goldblum, Steve Martin, Martin Short, and many more.

Along this same line is another Dreamworks animated feature set a couple of hundred years earlier, that shows how the Hebrews came to be in Egypt in the first place, with Ben Affleck voicing Joseph, the King of Dreams:



Though I'm not real big on musicals, I love these two movies. At the turn of the Century I was very excited about what Dreamworks would do next, looking forward to the animated stories of King David, King Solomon, et. al, but these never materialized. Dreamworks seems to have caught on to the fact that exciting old Bible sagas don't play as big at the box office as classics like Chicken Run and the Shrek series.

Turned 200 Today

One good thing about posting old news stories is finding obscure reminiscenses of people who were eye-witness to historical events. If you're an Abe Lincoln buff, you might be interested in some of the memories of one of Lincoln's personal friends, Vintage Kansas Cityan Col. L. H. Waters. 100 years ago last night Col. Waters shared some anecdotes about the martyred president at a Lincoln Centennial memorial held at KC's Manual Training School. A few months earlier, the Colonel gave more insight about Abraham Lincoln, the laywer.

In May of '08 (1908) a Kansas doctor, Dr. T. D. Bancroft, wowed audiences at the Grand Avenue Methodist Church with his first-hand account of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He was there at the Ford Theatre, holding back the crowds, and even managed to garner a piece of paper with the slain president's blood on it which, 100 years ago, resided at the State Historical Society in Topeka. I wonder if they still have it. I didn't see anything about it on their website. I'll make a pilgrimage out there this Spring and find out. They might not even know they have it there.

Happy Birthday, Honest Abe!!!

(Martin Luther) King Dream Chorus & Holiday Crew

Celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with this 1986 music video called "King Holiday", starring Whitney Houston, El DeBarge, Run-D.M.C., Fat Boys, Lisa Lisa, Kurtis Blow, Teena Marie, Full Force, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Stacy Lattisaw, Menudo, Stephanie Mills, New Edition, James "J.T." Taylor, Whodini, and more :

"Turn Them Off Right Now"

The Mad Prophet of the Airwaves warning TV viewers back in 1976 about the effect of corporate control of the media in the movie Network:



"This is mass madness, you maniacs!"

But the Internets may have saved the world from The Tube.

Poor Peter Finch died before he could accept the Academy Award he won for carrying on like that.

News Boy

This was called a famous picture in 1899


but I can't find any reference to it online now. Called, "Newsboy's Picture: Photo From Life, By Curtiss," the photo was taken for "Kings and Queens of the Range," a monthly publication that came out of the Kansas City Stock Yards.

The photo was being used to publicize an event called the "First Band of Mercy Mass Meeting" held at Convention Hall on the 28th of April, 1899, "under the auspices of the Humane Society of Kansas City", back in the days when the Humane Society concerned itself with the humane treatment of human beings as well as animals, before the government relieved it of that responsibility.

You'll notice the newspaper that the poor, exhausted newsboy was hawking was none other than the Kansas City Star


It's only a guess, but I wonder if the fame and publicity the Newsboy's Picture received in its time didn't help encourage the Kansas City Star to be the top sponsor of the Band of Mercy mass meeting.

Chimpanzees: Not Good Pets

I'm adopting this as a cause now:

I came across this site when I was toying with the idea of adding a chimpanzee to the menagerie, and quickly decided it was a bad idea after reading this page.

Chimp babies soon grow out of their adorable stage and become dangerous and destructive.

They have minds of their own, and if they want to tip over the fridge and eat all of its contents, or just run around tearing down curtains, they will. As the chimp who was once a helpless baby grows into adulthood, they will become seven times stronger than you are, able to cause serious injury. As a result, your chimp will end up spending their life alone in a cage, a life that can last fifty years, probably beyond your own death. ...

...If you can imagine how you would feel being taken from your mother, raised by another species, and then suddenly shut away in a cage, then you can imagine how a chimp feels.

So now instead of dreaming of owning a chimpanzee, I dream of owning a chimpanzee refuge where unwanted chimps can roam and play freely. It will be like a "Save the Children" thing where people can sponsor a chimp and get monthly photos, "monkey art", etc. I'll have a live chimp cam and all that, and give abandoned chimps a happy life.

That being said, one of the best days of my life involved interacting with a domesticated chimpanzee. I was waiting tables in a diner that was adjacent to a drinking establishment, and my cook looked out the window and said, "Does that guy have a monkey in his truck?" and sure enough, just like B. J. & the Bear (except in a pick-up), there was a monkey climbing out of a truck, grabbing the owner's hand and heading into the bar.

The chimp's name was Sukey, not a baby but not full-grown, and she wore a tank-top and pink spandex shorts. She sat at the bar and drank Coke from a beer can, and would occasionally use a pool cue to vault herself from her bar stool to the pool table and start shooting pool, to the delight of the bar patrons. She had the whole place in hysterics. She caught on right away that I was a big fan, and every time I brought food into the bar it was all I could do to get the food to the table. She'd run up and grab my hand, wanting to play. I played and played with that monkey, holding her hands while she'd do a flip, spinning her like you would a little kid, with her legs tucked up under her. She was heavy! She hugged me and kissed my cheek and let me hold her while I walked around taking orders, showing her the sights, etc. Most people were afraid of her, and it was kind of scary at first because she was very strong. I was saddened to find she was wearing a shock collar. Every once in a while she'd start spazzing out and her owner would give her a jolt and she'd go back and sit at the bar with her soda for a while. I was saddened to know that the shock collar was not just a training device, that she would be wearing the shock collar for the duration of her lifetime.

It seemed like everybody in town came to see the monkey, and Ottie's did a smashing business that night. Literally. Everybody wanted to buy the monkey's owner a drink, and unfortunately the man became quite inebriated, and basically forgot about the chimpanzee that was running amok around Ottie's nightclub. She started jumping on the backs and shoulders of horrified bar patrons, throwing full cans of beer across the room (upon picking them up and finding they did not contain Coca-Cola), throwing pool balls at the mirrors, brandishing the pool cue like a weapon, etc. Poor Ottie, a German woman in her 70s, was beside herself as the place descended into chaos. The police had to be called, and the only thing that saved the monkey's owner from arrest was the promise he made never to return to Sugar Creek. He drove away drunk with his monkey.

That was the first and last I ever saw of Sukey. And that night I went home and put a big, happy check-mark next to "Frolic with a Chimpanzee" on my Fantasy List.

They're Not Kidding

When freebizmag.com says "Remember, all the titles we offer are FREE of charge to you" they are not joking

Above are most of the "biz mags" I currently receive, free of charge. I don't know how I first got tied in with this outfit, but over the past several months hardly a week goes by that there's not a new free subscription offer in my Inbox, and I've never gotten any kind of a bill or given anyone a credit card number. At first I accepted whatever free subscription they came off with, because I like to black out my personal information with a Sharpie and scatter these mags around various waiting rooms at the VA Hospital, etc. Lately, though, I've been a little bit more selective, trying to make things easier on Mr. Postman, who has a bad enough time lugging my ebay purchases up and down the cul-de-sac on a regular basis.

From the drop-down menu for "Type of Business" I selected "Computer/IT..." and then "Internet", then for "Job Function" I chose "Publishing/Printing", and then "Publishing Management", and then "Webmaster". If they don't have anything in your profession right off the bat, just watch your email. Unless you opt-out of their email notifications, it won't be long before the offers roll in.

Possession

Here's an obscure old poem titled "Possession", penned by 19th Century poet Owen Meredith. Read the whole thing, 'cause it's pretty funny:

A poet loved a star,
And whispered to it nightly,
"Being so fair, why art thou love so far,
Or why so coldly shine who shinest so brightly?
Oh beauty woo'd and unpossessed,
Oh might I to this beating breast
But clasp thee once and then die blessed?"

That star, her poet's love,
So wildly warm, made human,
And leaving for his sake her heaven above,
His star stoop'd earthward and became a woman.
"Thou who hast woo'd and hast possessed,
My lover, answer, which is best.
The star's beam or the woman's breast?"

"I miss from heaven," the man replied,
"A light that drew my spirit to it."
And to the man the woman sigh'd,
"I miss from Earth a poet."

Yay! The Eastside Kids!

Yay! It's the Eastside Kids in "'Neath the Brooklyn Bridge"
Some good Old NY stuff here, compliments of the Internet Archive. Give it a minute to load (like you've got that kind of time to spare)

Happy Thanksgiving

From the description: "Here's an amazing scene taken from 'The Gold Rush', in which Chaplin, hungry Little Fellow for the Thanksgiving evening, cooks his own shoe and shares it with another man. They eat it as their meal, beyond poverty ! :D "