Recently in Whimsy Category

I didn't care much for his politics, but there was a lot to like about Paul Newman's character and personality. I was tickled by this anecdote, told by Ned Lamont, the left-winger who beat Joe Lieberman in the 2006 Connecticut Democratic Senate primary, about Newman's willingness not only to voice a recorded endorsement call, but to write it and field-test it, too.

Newman was one of Lamont's early supporters and made phone calls and commercials for the upstart candidate.

"At first he just wanted to voice his private support," Lamont said. "He had been public on behalf of a number of candidates . . . and he remembered that a Wall Street Journal columnist had been so outraged they suggested boycotting Newman's salad dressing."

Lamont said a week later Newman changed his mind.

"He called back and said, 'What the hell, let's do it,' " Lamont said, recalling how Newman wrote his own robo-call script.

"It was the funniest thing," Lamont said. "He then called around the state just to test it out and pretended he was a 'robo call.' He called me back up a day or so later and said, 'Ned, two people hung up, I got two answering machines, and the fifth person yelled to his wife - 'It's some quack pretending to be Paul Newman.' "

That anecdote is one of a number of tributes to Newman from his neighbors in Westport, Ct., his adopted hometown of half a century.

If you've ever wondered what goes into a sportswriter's vote in the weekly AP Top 25 college football rankings -- particularly in September when only a few games have been played and the relative strengths of teams aren't as clear as they will be in November -- head over to the blog of Tulsa World sports editor Mike Strain. Each week my sister's husband asks and answers a few questions about his vote that week, such as the easiest and toughest parts of the vote and why he ranked local teams as he did (or why he didn't rank them at all).

This week Mike explains why he moved the Oklahoma Sooners to number 2 and why he ranked Oklahoma State and Tulsa for the first time this season. (OSU barely missed the top 25. TU isn't as close, but Mike wasn't the only voter to think the Hurricane was worthy of a top 25 ranking.)

Back in May, I wrote about a store soon to open on Brookside called Ida Red:

Just across from the Coffee House pushcart, Jim and Alice Rodgers of Cain's Ballroom had a booth to promote their new Brookside venture, Ida Red, named in honor of the famous Bob Wills tune (which in turn inspired the Chuck Berry hit "Maybelline").

Ida Red, at 3346 S. Peoria, will be an outlet for Cain's concert tickets and merchandise, gifts, and CDs by local musicians. At the booth they had on display some of the 28 flavors (at least) of premium brands of soda pop they plan to offer at Ida Red, along with cupcakes and free wi-fi. (Hooray for free wi-fi!)

The Rodgers family has already achieved great things with the House that Bob Built on N. Main St. Cain's Ballroom has been beautifully restored, with its facilities modernized in a way that respects its rich history. It consistently ranks in the top 50 in ticket sales for club-sized venues worldwide.

Ida Red has its grand opening celebration tonight and tomorrow night with live "red" music both nights at 8 p.m. Tonight it's Red Alert. Saturday night it's the Red Dirt Rangers. Kids are welcome. As the song says,

Hurry up boys and don't fool around.
Grab your partner and truck on down.

For something to do after the party, get on your bike and ride to Circle Cinema. The midnight movie this week is Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, a classic 1985 cult comedy directed by Tim Burton.

MORE: Local artist Amby has custom totes and artwork for sale at Ida Red.

I can't let this entry go by without a performance of the song "Ida Red." Here's Elana James and the Continental Two -- that's Tulsa's own Whit Smith on guitar and Jake Erwin on upright bass.

I very nearly turned my column this week into a sociological study of the denizens of Tulsa's Money Belt and how their behavior is shaped by peer pressure and fear of ostracism. In connection with the Great Plains Airlines bailout, I was thinking about a friend who asked me if my life insurance was paid up and another friend who told me a qui tam taxpayers' demand would never succeed in a Tulsa County courtroom, because no judge would dare cross the powerful entities who were pushing for the City's taxpayers to pay $7.1 million that it did not owe.

I was also thinking of the many times someone would tell me how they opposed this or that initiative or would confirm some speculation of mine about skulduggery in local government. He would be happy to tell me all this privately, but wouldn't dare go on the record: "I have to make a living in this town."

It brought to mind a story by cartoonist Walt Kelly. In 1955, Kelly published the seventh collection of his strip Pogo and the third book which consisted of entirely new material. The Pogo Peek-A-Book included a story called "The Man from Suffern on the Steppes or 1984 and All That: A Russian Tale of Madisonav." In one comic story, Kelly managed to spoof suburban commuters, Madison Avenue, and the Soviet Union.

In the run-up to the Vision 2025 vote, I emailed a series of panels from the story to a fellow TulsaNow board member. I was frustrated by the reluctance of some TulsaNow board members to say publicly what they were saying privately about the flaws in the package that the County Commissioners were putting before the voters. About a draft statement from the board, I wrote, in a July 12, 2003, email:

I have a lengthy comment, in a separate message, about the second draft, but for now, I will let Pogo and Howland Owl speak on my behalf. This is from the Pogo Peek-a-Book (1955), from a story called "The Man from Suffern on the Steppes", about ad men in the USSR. The ad exec (Howland) is having a subversive conversation with the train stationmaster.

Translator's note -- "gummint" == "government"

Lately, a lot of things remind me of one Pogo comic strip or another.

Here is the excerpt:

The next day I sent the following email to the TulsaNow board:

NOTE: I wrote this last night, but network problems prevented sending it until now. Please forgive the length. Indirectly, it addresses some of what Jamie said in his recent message. This morning I had breakfast with someone I was meeting for the first time -- young, energetic, deeply engaged in the community, although a fairly recent arrival -- who, unprompted by me, made very similar observations.

I continue to prefer L___'s original draft, enhanced by specific enumeration of our principles. R___ and W___'s version reads too much like a "vote yes" pamphlet, even if that wasn't intended. Below (far below) is my attempt at a rewrite, which attempts to express the concerns that were voiced without taking sides. I think we ought to explicitly say that we are choosing not to endorse or oppose, rather than allowing people to read in what they like. I also think we should be explicit and honest about the problems we have with the process and its product.

To use the terms of the Pogo cartoon I sent earlier, let's speak our criticisms openly and plainly, not into a bag and disguised as praise. We don't live in the old USSR. We shouldn't be afraid to utter mild criticisms of Tulsa's politburo and nomenklatura. And yet fear is precisely what I detect beneath the surface: Fear of ostracism, fear of exclusion, fear of economic consequences.

This may be a bit impolite to say, but it's there beneath the surface and ought to be dealt with openly. Some of our group work for organizations which are funded by supporters of this package. Others aren't personally dependent, but are involved with organizations that need the funds that the package supporters can offer. Others need the goodwill of city government to conduct business and make a living. Some of us have even been paid to facilitate and promote the vision process and to work for the "vote yes" campaign. Beyond the financial considerations, many members of our group move within a narrow circle of social and organizational connections -- a virtual "small town" within the city, focused on the arts and other non-profit organizations, centered around Utica Square and chronicled by Tulsa People and Danna Sue Walker. As in any small town, some opinions are acceptable and some are not, and speaking your mind risks ostracism.

To those of you who fall in one of these categories (which is very nearly all of us): You have made a valuable contribution to TulsaNow and to the dialog thus far. I don't wish to discount your input regarding this statement, I don't doubt your sincerity, and I appreciate the desire to "make lemonade out of lemons," as J___ put it. But I know how this town works, and you may be feeling the pressure right now to make certain people happy. I ask you to consider that your situation may be leading you to swallow your disappointment and smile for the cameras, rather than speaking openly about both the pros and cons of this package.

The people pushing this package, particularly the sports arena, are bullies. They want what they want, and because they have money and power, they think they have a right to bulldoze anyone who stands in the way. (Why they don't use all that money to build an arena themselves, rather than taxing the food, medicine, and electricity of the working class for it, is an interesting question.) After the 1997 election, an opposition leader was fired from his job with a downtown company, solely because of his opposition. In 2000, the bullies used implicit and explicit threats to silence opposition to "Tulsa Time" and to shut off public debate. Although I am (I thank God) not dependent on local moguls for my income, as an opposition spokesman, I felt the effects as well -- They tried to sway me with a board appointment, there was an attempt to undermine the Midtown Coalition, and they got their revenge on Election Day 2002. (That wasn't just about "Tulsa Time"; it was also because of my support for a meaningful neighborhood role in planning and zoning, something else the bullies don't want. )

The bullying has already begun for 2003. The bullies threatened the Mayor that they would withhold "vote yes" campaign funds if the arena was excluded or made to stand alone on the ballot. They have sent subtly threatening letters to both the Democratic and Republican Party chairmen. Elected officials who opposed the package were afraid to vote their conscience, afraid to speak, afraid to stand alone. Elected officials, holding the power we have granted them, talked of their decision as if they were helpless victims. A university president told me he would have liked to split his project off from the arena, but he wasn't in a position to speak out. Citizens expressing legitimate concerns are labelled "grumps" and "whiners" by the monopoly daily newspaper. The bullies are sending signals that anyone who fails to endorse the package can have no role in deciding how the money will be spent, should it pass (even though it's public money). The image they wish to project is that no respectable person would say a word against this package, much less vote against it. It appears that they will again try to cut off debate -- the Mayor has already backed out of a scheduled joint appearance on OETA with me.

As important as walkable neighborhoods and lively urban centers are -- and I do believe they matter -- I don't believe our city can flourish until we are capable of having a mature public conversation about such an important issue, without threats and arm-twisting. As long as the bullies run the show, we will not have grassroots-based planning; we will not have land use policies that encourage walkable neighborhoods and enlightened development; we will not have a workable historic preservation system; we will not progress in any way, if it means that the bullies must yield control. As long as the bullies are in charge, every vision process will end the same way -- whatever the structure, whatever the process, they control the final decision.

How can we advance the dialog about our city's future, if we are afraid to speak freely?

How many visionary civic and business leaders, with bold ideas for Tulsa's future, have been beaten down and have given up? How many have been co-opted? How many have decided to take their energy and vision to a city where it will be nurtured and appreciated? Perhaps this is why Tulsa is in the doldrums and doesn't seem to be moving forward. These bullies won't lead, don't have any visionary ideas and don't want any, but they refuse to yield the levers of power. Perhaps the most important thing we can do for our city is to throw off this oppressive pall.

Giving a bully what he wants only encourages him. The only way to stop a bully is to stand up to him. Not violent confrontation, but a refusal to back down, to give in. It can be as simple as saying no: "No, I will not be mean to Susie just so I can be your friend." "No, I will not give you my lunch money." "No, I will not move to the back of the bus." "No, the emperor is not wearing a beautiful new suit of clothes." "No" is a powerful word, and it becomes more powerful as more people speak it together. It can stop a bully in his tracks.

Some of us have observed that Tulsa's power structure is teetering on the edge of collapse. The Chamber is falling apart. Once dominant companies have fallen on hard times. Perhaps a little resistance will be enough to demolish the whole rotten structure. I don't know that I care so much whether this tax wins or loses, but I want to see Tulsans stand up to the bullies and break their stranglehold on progress.

I'm not asking you to come out and oppose this package, unless you want to. I'm simply asking you to say publicly what you think about it, pro and con. If you think the process stunk to high heaven, but you still plan to vote for the package -- fine, but be willing to say both things. Don't spin it to appease the bullies. The city body politic isn't a draft horse, to be fitted with blinders and a bit, and steered to a destination. Tulsans should be treated like free men and women, grown-up enough to weigh pros and cons and come to a decision.

I'm also asking us, collectively, as TulsaNow, to call the bullies' bluff. Say what you think people need to hear. Insist on public, frequent, and fair debates. Expose underhanded pressure tactics. If you're told to shun people who take a different viewpoint, refuse. If you're threatened with ostracism, or worse, go public. Insist on treating everyone involved in the debate with respect. If we stick together and do this, it would represent a real step toward maturity as a region.

Michael Bates

107-year-old C. Yardley Chittick is the oldest living alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Class of 1922) and of his fraternity, Beta Theta Pi. Earlier this month, the Boston Globe covered Chittick's return to Phillips Andover Academy for his 90-year reunion, the first alumnus in the school's history to reach that milestone.

After Andover, Chittick went to MIT, where he majored in mechanical engineering, was a low-hurdle track champion, and a proud member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. (The oldest living brother in the fraternity, he donated his membership pin to the Beta Theta Pi archives last year.)

After graduating in 1922, Thomas Edison offered him a job, but he turned it down, thinking it would be more fun to work for a company that manufactured golf clubs. When the Depression hit, he went to law school, passing the bar in 1934. He practiced until he was 85.

A great-grandfather of six, Chittick said yesterday that he does not really have any secrets to longevity. He sailed for much of his life, exercised regularly, and played golf well past his 100th birthday, the Concord Monitor noted in 2005.

He never smoked and drank in moderation - a screwdriver every night with dinner was reportedly his libation of choice.

Now residing in an assisted-living facility in Concord, N.H., Chittick makes his breakfast and lunch each day and dresses for formal tea each afternoon. He still plays the mandolin, and is known to break into the song "Take me back to Tech" when speaking in front of large groups, said his son, 80-year-old Charles Y. Chittick Jr., who was among the four generations of family present for the event yesterday.

At ΒΘΠ's 2006 national convention in Toronto, Chittick was called to the podium, where he spoke briefly then sang the MIT Fight Song, aka Take Me Back to Tech." Click here to listen to an MP3 of Chittick speaking and singing the MIT Fight Song. According to an e-mail from Bob Ferrara of MIT's alumni office, Chittick repeated the feat at last July's convention in Boston, and plans to do it again this summer in Dallas.

Here's another version of the MIT Fight Song, all but the first verse, sung by a half-century worth of alumni of MIT's a capella male choral group, the Logarhythms:

Hulu.com, NBC Universal and Fox's webcasting site, now offers 18 classic Three Stooges short subjects from 1933 to 1936 featuring Larry, Moe, and Curly.

Even if you're not a fan of slapstick comedy, "False Alarms" is worth watching if you're fond of 1930s city streetscapes. It appears that some of the scenes were filmed on location (Wikipedia says on the streets of Hollywood), and you'll see some wonderful old commercial buildings (many of them Art Deco), and streetcars play a key role in the plot.

Ocean City, Maryland, seems to mock climate change alarmism in its bid to draw tourists to its famous boardwalk this summer. In a funny ad which uses retro elements like test patterns, animated space graphics like something out of a Harvey cartoon, and the shimmy and chatter of a scratchy 8 mm instructional film threading through a school projector, Mayor Rick Meehan advises tourists to book their Ocean City vacations now, in light of a recent study predicting that our oceans will evaporate in a billion years as the earth moves inexorably toward the sun.

Found via Todd Seavey (suffering in New York through near-hundred-degree heat, evidently in a building that doesn't have air conditioning), who initially identified the beach resort as the Ocean City in New Jersey, America's Greatest Family Resort. I have happy memories of the OC in NJ. I spent the summer of 1982 there on a summer project on a leadership training / beach evangelism project with Campus Crusade for Christ. It's worthy of a retro-journal entry of my own some day.

I was listening to the news on KRMG and was inappropriately amused to learn that the lawyer for District Judge Jesse Harris, who has been charged with indecent exposure, is named Allen Smallwood. Which fact inappropriately reminded me of a certain Latin legal phrase and a rather fitting limerick which ends in that phrase (after the jump to avoid scandalizing the easily offended).

In a bit of online video oneupsmanship, CBS has posted all 79 episodes of Star Trek (the Original Series) as streaming video on the web -- free. These are the original Original Series episodes, not the remastered versions with new CGI special effects.

The sound and video quality is amazing and the buffering was utterly smooth. There are only a handful of very brief commercial breaks. CBS is also offering the first seasons of MacGyver, Hawaii Five-O, and Melrose Place, and the first and second seasons of The Twilight Zone.

They've still got a ways to catch up in the classic TV department with Hulu, NBC Universal and Fox's joint venture which features plenty of classic and current TV, including the first two seasons each of The Bob Newhart Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Dragnet (1967), and the first seasons of I Spy and The DIck Van Dyke Show.

Remind me again why I'm paying for cable?

Not really. But there's a parody news story about Randi Miller sending the big guy packing on a new blog called Irritated Tulsan. Here's how it starts:

The Tulsa County Fair Board continued their un-expansion Tuesday with the eviction of the Golden Driller.

"The Golden Driller was unable to provide us with a solid business plan," said Randi Miller, Tulsa County Fair Board Chairman, "He has to be let go."

With Bell's eviction, the upcoming Driller's move and the renaming of the EXPO center to the Quiktrip Center, the TCFB continues to disappoint taxpayers of Tulsa County....

The bill for the eviction will cost taxpayers $5 million.

"I know that seems like a lot of money," [Expo Square CEO Rick] Bjorkland said, " but a least it's not mine. Seriously, $5 million is nothing compared to what I've wasted."

The construction of the parking lot in the former Bell's location cost $25 million. The glowing lights on top the Quiktrip center cost $600,000, and only worked for one year.

$25 million doesn't seem right to me, but the overall cost to the taxpayers of evicting Bell's Amusement Park was quite high.

Irritated Tulsan also has a couple of funny shopping rants (just be warned that Irritated Tulsan drops the occasional foul word -- not for kids): his own about the horror that is the Admiral and Memorial Wal-Mart and one from a reader about the scooter people.

He has some opinions about our streets, too:

If you don't live in Tulsa, you may not be familiar with our roads. There are six potholes for every square foot. A group of dedicated city employees fills the same holes over and over again. Each time it rains, there's a small breeze, the sun shines, a cat meows or an angel farts, the pothole reappears. I think it's because a mixture of pudding and oatmeal is used for road repair.

How to complete our streets? Borrow a tactic from cash-strapped schools:

The whole "Complete Our Streets Task Force" could bake. They claim more than 150 committee members.

If not a bake sale, how about the "World's Finest Chocolate?"

We sold those candy bars to raise money for our elementary school, why can't the city sell them too. The committee could go door-to-door, stand outside Reasor's and sell candy-bars at work.

We've been pimping out our kids with the "World's Finest Chocolate" for decades, and now it's time to pimp out our city leaders.

If for no other reason, Irritated Tulsan deserves a link here for calling attention to the B-52s' new album Funplex -- you can listen to the whole thing at MuchMusic.

There's a total lunar eclipse over North America tonight. The moon enters the earth's shadow at 7:43 p.m. CST. Totality begins at 9:01 CST and ends at 9:52. The moon will be completely free of earth's shadow by 11:09 p.m. CST.

Tulsans seem set to miss the selenian show. As I type this, the sky is completely overcast.

(Via WynnBlog.)

UPDATE: Missed the whole thing. It stayed cloudy here. But I got to read this cool story about how Columbus used a predicted lunar eclipse to awe the natives and save himself and his crew. (Via Crunchy Con.)

The cast of Monty Python's Flying Circus came to America in April 1975 to promote their new movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Here they are, co-hosting on ABC's AM America, the predecessor to Good Morning America. Even if you don't care for Python, this is worth watching just to bask in the sheer seventies-ness of the set and the theme sequence -- strings, muted horns, and oboes over sunrise scenes from coast to coast. There are also a couple of news cut-ins with Peter Jennings, reporting the imminent fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese Army.

Via Mark Evanier.

A bit of 1970s British comedy to start the day: Marty Feldman brings his unusual pet to the veterinarian; Tim Brooke-Taylor plays the straight man.

"I looked him up in the Cattle Breeders Guide. He wasn't in there. I looked him up in the Standard British Book of Birds. He wasn't in there either. I finally found him in the Book of Revelation."

(Via Mark Evanier.)

From the recent Australian general election. The Aussies have learned well from us:

(Via Hot Air).

Madalyn Murray O'Hair has been dead since 1995, but according to a forwarded e-mail I received tonight, her mortal remains are still busy petitioning the FCC to ban all religious broadcasting from the American airwaves.

This is the latest go-round of a 30-year-old rumor that Focus on the Family's CitizenLink calls "The Christian Broadcasting Hoax That Just Won't Die."

Experts are still trying to dispel the irrepressible O'Hair-FCC rumor.

Chances are, at some point, you will likely receive an e-mail, typically forwarded from "a friend of a friend of a friend," which discusses supposed efforts by the infamous atheist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, to get the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to kick Christian broadcasting off the air. Sometimes the e-mail even lists Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson -- linking him to a supposed effort to fight this "threat."

Be advised: This is a false report! Do not pay attention! Do not forward this hoax!

There's a teeny-tiny grain of truth to the story:

The FCC did receive a petition in 1974, designated RM-2493, asking the agency to look into the operating practices of religious organizations licensed to broadcast on TV.

The FCC rejected the petition in 1975.

"We denied it outright," said David Fiske, deputy communications director for the FCC. "There was never any proceeding; there was not a comment period; there were never any hearings, there was absolutely nothing."

Interestingly, O'Hair had absolutely nothing to do with that short-lived petition -- and she certainly couldn't be involved in any action today, even if there was one, which there isn't.

The FCC does not have before it any proposal to deny licenses to religious broadcasters.

"This rumor is totally false on about three or four different counts," Fiske said. "It has popped up from time to time, in various forms, since 1975."

Here's the official FCC statement on the rumors.

Folks, anytime you get a forward of a forwarded e-mail describing some outrage and a need to take action immediately -- "Contact your congressman!!!! And forward this to everyone you know!!!1!!" -- there's a very good chance it's yet another hoax. Do some research before you forward it to others.

When such a message lands in my inbox, I go to snopes.com -- a site dedicated to researching "urban legends," forwarded e-mails, and other dubious rumors -- and I do a search on some of the key words and phrases in the message. Almost always, snopes.com has the definitive answer, including links to authoritative information.

snopes.com has a special section called "Inboxer Rebellion" devoted to forwarded e-mails. Here's the intro to the section:

Every day we're bombarded with e-mail of dubious origin and even more dubious veracity: messages that plead with us to find a missing kid or help a sick child, sign a petition to right some terrible injustice, take a stand on an important piece of pending legislation, forward a message to claim free merchandise, or take heed of the latest computer virus. The messages that aren't outright hoaxes are often full of misinformation, and even the ones that have some truth to them are usually out-of-date by the time we receive them.

A browse through "Inboxer Rebellion" will immunize you to most of the hoaxes and outdated or distorted stories that land in your own inbox, and you'll be able to educate the friends and loved ones who, from the very best of intentions, forward inaccurate information.

In my latest column for Urban Tulsa Weekly, I make reference to a James Thurber short story which defines the phrase you see above, an apt description for the situation the Tulsa Drillers find themselves in.

You can read Thurber's "The Catbird Seat" by following this link. It has little to do with baseball, but it is a clever turning-the-tables story with a surprise ending that will make you smile. Here's how it starts:

Mr. Martin bought the pack of Camels on Monday night in the most crowded cigar store on Broadway. It was theatre time and seven or eight men were buying cigarettes. The clerk didn’t even glance at Mr. Martin, who put the pack in his overcoat pocket and went out. If any of the staff at F & S had seen him buy the cigarettes, they would have been astonished, for it was generally known that Mr. Martin did not smoke, and never had. No one saw him.

It was just a week to the day since Mr. Martin had decided to rub out Mrs. Ulgine Barrows. The term “rub out” pleased him because it suggested nothing more than the correction of an error – in this case an error of Mr. Fitweiler. Mr. Martin had spent each night of the past week working out his plan and examining it. As he walked home now he went over it again....

Dear Lowe's Customer Service:

The submersible pump for our goldfish pond broke late yesterday, too late to make it to Cornerstone Waterscapes or Hardscape to buy a replacement.

Both of those specialty stores are closed Sunday, and our goldfish seemed to be gasping for air this morning. My wife declared an emergency, previous after-church plans were canceled, and I came to your store at 15th and Yale to buy something with which to aerate the pond.

I purchased your 1300 gallon/hour pump and your pressurized filter with UV light, along with 20 feet of corrugated 3/4" PVC tubing, as was recommended on the box.

When I got it home, it was clear that the outlet for the pump wouldn't fit inside the tubing. So back to the store I went, traipsing back and forth between the plumbing aisle and the pond aisle, trying to find an adapter that would allow me to connect the two.

When I got back home, I discovered that the filter kit contained three nozzles, one of which was for the pump.

When I finally got it all put together and switched it on, I was underwhelmed. The flow was a mere trickle, even though this pump had a higher rating (1300 gph) then my previous pump (1200 gph), an American-made Little Giant submersible pump (5-MSPR-WG). It is not a strong enough stream to aerate the pond. I tried it with the pump only and without the "pressurized" filter, and there was only a slight improvement.

Here's the best way to describe it: The old Little Giant pump was like a 21-year-old after a 6-pack of beer. The new Lowe's pump is like an 80-year-old with prostate problems.

I hope in the future Lowe's will stock high-quality American made pumps instead of shoddy but expensive Chinese products. But I won't hold my breath.

Unfortunately, my fish may have to.

Yours in algae,

Michael Bates

Is it wrong that when I see a picture of a certain stubble-headed celebrity on the supermarket tabloids, I hear "bwoop-woop-woop-woop," "nyuck, nyuck, nyuck," and "soitanly!"

Click the banner for details.

I've suspected this for a long time:

(Received via e-mail from Kirk Jordan's Mighty Works Project. Kirk was staff photographer in Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's administration. You can see a few of his more artistic work here.)

Feel free to submit your own unintentionally funny cancellation notices, real or imaginary, in the comments.

Another blog meme.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: His Grace Lord Michael the Wholesome of Withering Glance Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

(Via His Most Noble Lord Shane the Sonorous of Leper St George. Leper St. George must be a chapel-of-ease somewhere in the Oklahoma panhandle.)

How I scored on the Nerd, Geek, or Dork test:

(Via Charles' MySpace blog.)

As a fan of the comic strip Pogo, I've read many biographical sketches of cartoonist Walt Kelly, but I never remember having read that he wrote and illustrated a comic book series based on the Our Gang shorts. (You might know them better as "The Little Rascals" -- Spanky, Buckwheat, Alfalfa, etc.)

Earlier this year, Fantagraphics published a reissue of Walt Kelly's Our Gang comic books from 1942 and 1943, volume 1 of a planned series. The ALA Booklist blurb has this to say:

Although the Our Gang film series was on its last legs in 1942, Dell Comics launched a comic-book version of it that is more than a footnote to the films because it was written and drawn by Walt Kelly, seven years before he brought Pogo to the newspapers. Ironically, while the films were by then slick and mannered, having lost their low-budget modesty after MGM took over producing them, in Kelly's comics they regained much of their earlier, unaffected charm, thanks to his winsome story lines, homey characterizations, and engaging cartooning.

(*After Disney, Before Pogo. Kelly was one of the animators on Fantasia (1940); the Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony segment, featuring centaurs, putti, Zeus, Bacchus, and other characters from Greek mythology, bears his unmistakable touch. As a two- and three-year-old, my now-10-year-old son watched this segment over and over again, and Iris, who brought forth the rainbow after the storm, was his first imaginary friend. He called her "the rainbow princess.")

The 365 Days Project was offline for a time, but it's back, for good, evidently. For every day of 2003, a new piece of rare and usually strange audio was posted, in MP3 format -- covers of famous songs by unknown singers, promotional discs, kiddie records. Some music, some spoken word.

The June 27 entry is from a three-disc set of speeches from the 1968 Amway convention. It's Paul Harvey in his prime. Here's the link with all the entries for the last half of June; you'll have to scroll down to find it. (If you keep going, you'll find some early Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and a song by Thurl Ravenscroft.)

As an aside: Many thanks to MeeCiteeWurkor! Not only did he tip me to problems with the way the main BatesLine page was displaying on certain browsers, he came up with a fix for the problems. If this page is displaying strangely or you have a suggestion for improvement, don't hesitate to e-mail me at blog at batesline dot com.

Here's a funny little film by Matt Leach and Earnest Pettie, filmed right here in Tulsa, about the prejudice suffered by "A Man with a Moustache". (Note: This would probably be rated PG for a couple of mild vulgarities.)

(UPDATE: I moved the video after the jump. That close-up of the mustache was CREEPING ME OUT.)

I think the result would have been different if they'd asked how to pronounce Hahvahd, Cuber, Dwochestah, Wistah, and Cahtawk.

Via Don (or is that Dawn?) Danz.

My intro to Bostonian speech was this little article in HoToGAMIT (How to Get Around MIT) -- there have been a few additions in the succeeding quarter-century since I matriculated.

Lark News, a satirical evangelical news website, has posted its December issue. A couple of the articles awaiting you:

• "Pastor tries inauthenticity": "'I don't see much benefit in everybody knowing everything about me,' says Bradley. 'Jesus' example is to be guarded and realistic about human nature. I feel good about reserving some of myself for me.'"
• "C&E Christians gear up for holiday season": "But many C&E families who attend church on special days dread the inevitable wooing that follows. Last year Glen and Belinda McMurty of Bakersfield, Calif., 'did everything wrong' during an Easter visit to church. 'Normally we prepare, but this time we got lazy,' Glen says. 'We asked for directions to the nursery, borrowed a Bible and stood around looking confused. We should have just hung a sign around our necks that said "fresh meat."'"

You've heard of a Proverbs 31 woman? Last month Lark News introduced us to the Proverbs 31 man:

MINOT, N.D. — Jack Crocker, a beer-loving machinist and "part-time Christian," finally agreed to read Proverbs with wife Reanna. He's glad he did.

"I'm a Proverbs 31 husband all right," says Jack, then quotes Proverbs 31:6-7: "Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more."

"That's my permission to crack open a cold one," Jack says, having a Coors after dinner.

[Read the rest.]

MEANWHILE across the pond, there's a new movement in the Anglican church: Affirming Laudianism. Named in honor of the 17th century Archbishop of Canterbury who attempted to impose a high-church uniformity on both England and Scotland, the movement is not focused on doctrine "but is solely concerned with the externals of religion and including the ambitious." It is affiliated with the "Old Wine Skins" initiative, which believes "that vitality in Church life can co-exist with decadence and hypocrisy." (Found via Tom Gray, who must have been struck by parallels with the old wine skin from which Kirk of the Hills recently burst forth.)

Since Charles Schulz's death, United Feature Syndicate has been running Peanuts strips from many years ago. If I recall correctly, some of the first reruns were from the '70s.

Right now, they're running strips from 1959, and if you hurry, you'll find, in the 30-day online archive:

• The last few strips of Linus' first "Great Pumpkin" disappointment: "I was a victim of false doctrine."
• Linus' ambition to be a "world-famous humble little country doctor": "I love mankind... it's people I can't stand!"
• The introduction of Pig-Pen: "He may be carrying soil that was trod upon by Solomon or Nebuchadnezzar or Genghis Khan."

I first encountered these strips in the Peanuts paperbacks my grandmother gave me. (She also infected me with a love of Pogo.) These strips are from the golden era of Peanuts, and it's nice to know that a new generation of comics-readers are seeing them for the first time.

Sometime last year, Sacha Baron Cohen, as Borat Sagdiyev, his Kazakh news reporter persona, visited the offices of the Oklahoma Republican Party and spoke to then Oklahoma Republican Party chairman Gary Jones about the art of speechmaking:

I think Gary handled himself with a lot of grace, particularly with the awkward situation that Borat put him in at the end of the clip.

Funny, but the music is all wrong. It should start with ominous minor-key strings and change to something bouncy and upbeat when the good guy comes on screen.

A little breather while we wait for the results to come in. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine:

TV veteran Mark Evanier writes of the effect of a Gene, Gene appearance at another Gong Show taping:

The minute they started playing his music — "Jumpin' at the Woodside," I think the tune's called — the studio positively erupted. Barris started dancing and the panelists jumped up and started dancing...and you could feel how much Gene Gene enjoyed what he was doing. Okay, fine, they're performers. It's part of the act. But the crew also started dancing — people not on screen. The guy operating Camera 1 was operating Camera 1 and dancing at the same time. Grips were dancing, lighting guys were dancing, the members of the band were dancing as much as they could and still play their instruments. And of course, the audience — an odd mix of younger Gong Show fans intermingled with old ladies who couldn't get in to the Hollywood Squares taping down the hall — simply had to leap up and boogie. Some of the show's performers and staffers were a little (shall we say) under the influence of something...but the crew wasn't and the audience wasn't. It was just an honest "high" of excitement.

I've been on many TV stages in my life. I've seen big stars, huge stars — Johnny, Frank, Sammy, Dino, Bob, you name 'em. I've seen great acts and great joy, and if you asked me to name the most thrilling moment I've witnessed in person, I might just opt for the Gong Show electrifying Stage 3 for all of 120 seconds. Maybe it was because it came so totally out of nowhere that it stunned me but everyone, including the stone-cold sober people, was suddenly just so...happy. There was something very, very invigorating and enjoyable about being in the midst of all that sudden happiness, however frivolous it may have been.

C'mon, dance! You know you want to.

Tiny Tim sings his signature tune on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In in 1968, as Dick Martin looks on in awe, or something like it:

By the way, that was Judy Carnes taking away Tiny Tim's cape at the beginning of the clip, and Goldie Hawn walking off with him at the end.

Laugh-In was my favorite prime-time show back then. Although much of the humor sailed over my five-year-old head, it was my introduction to both topical satire and zany madcap humor, which developed into an appreciation for Mad magazine, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Saturday Night Live, and the comic strip Pogo.

(Via Dawn Eden, who says she is "determined to make the most of YouTube's vintage treasures before the inevitable copyright crackdown." If you ever want to save a video from YouTube or another video-sharing service for posterity, KeepVid takes the video's URL and turns it into a link for downloading the Flash video (.flv). [There are ways to do this manually if you have the patience to wade through HTML source code.] The very versatile open-source viewer VideoLAN has built-in Flash video playback capability and is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and various flavors of Linux.)

RELATED: tvhistory.tv has scans of the prime-time schedule grids for the 1960s (back when all the networks premiered shows in the fall and mid-season changes were unusual).

Tonight and Saturday night at 10 p.m., the Circle Cinema in Whittier Square, Admiral & Lewis, will show the classic zombie thriller, "Night of the Living Dead," followed by a mystery zombie film. Zombie Tom would be pleased, I'm sure.

Also coming up on the Circle Cinema calendar, they'll be showing what may be the worst movie of all time, Ed Wood's "Plan 9 from Outer Space" as the midnight movie on Friday, November 17th and Saturday, November 18th. It truly is so bad that it's good.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to see films that are more uplifting and positive (but more spooky than usual this month) and which feature little to no brain-eating, check out this Saturday night's monthly screening of the Altarnet Film Society at Agora Coffeehouse, 7:30 p.m. in the Fontana Shopping Center, 51st & Memorial.