Saturday, May 28, 2016

6 Classic Movie Moments Made Possible By Dumb Mistakes

6 Classic Movie Moments Made Possible By Dumb Mistakes 

Song of the Day

"Oh Babe What Would You Say" by Hurricane Smith {lyrics} - YouTube:

Gator Update (Jogger Chasing Edition)

Massive 'jogger-chasing' alligator removed from Texas neighborhood 

America's Most Misspelled Words

America's Most Misspelled Words 

Today's Vintage Ad


The Most Popular Baby Names of 2015 By State

The Most Popular Baby Names of 2015 By State

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Albert L. Quandt, Zip Gun Angels, Original Novels, 1952

First It Was the Thin Mint Melee

Man assaulted woman with package of frozen brats

Nathaniel Philbrick: By the Book

Nathaniel Philbrick: By the Book   

A new Travis McGee fan.

No Duh

Why our brains get so tired in the afternoon: She adds the slump in the afternoon occurs because our bodies are effectively “programmed to nap” at that time.

Friday, May 27, 2016

The Digest Enthusiast #4 is here!

The Digest Enthusiast #4The Digest Enthusiast #4 is here! | Digest Magazines: The fourth edition of our book-length magazine celebrating yesterday’s and today’s digest magazine titles is now available in print and digital versions. 

In That Case, Sir, You Are Free to Go

Utah County police cite man spotted running nude with ‘bells hanging from his genitals’: The suspect, 64-year-old Kenneth Allen Beck of Riverton, "told Deputies he just likes doing what witnesses described to see their reaction."

You Can Bet this Will Show Up in a Sheriff Rhodes Book

Texas man calls police after smoking pot and getting bitten in buttocks by dog

Jane Fawcett, R. I. P.

Jane Fawcett, Bletchley decoder: Jane Fawcett, who has died aged 95, played a key role at Bletchley Park in the sinking in May 1941 of Bismarck, and went on after the war to save St Pancras and its Gothic Midland Hotel from the modernisers of British Rail.

Or Maybe You Do

15 Things You May Not Know About The Andy Griffith Show

Song of the Day

Tossin'and Turnin'-Bobby Lewis-original song-1961 - YouTube:

I Miss the Old Days

Watch This Nostalgic Footage From 1956 Of The First American Shopping Mall.: Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota, was America's first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping mall. Opened in 1956, this provided the original blueprint for all of the 1,100 or so similarly designed malls now standing across the United States.

Today's Vintage Ad


Heartless Financial Institutions Destroy Our Freedoms

South Carolina Man, 58, Applied For Loan So He Could Purchase Meth

O Brave New World . . . .

Daily Mail Online: Woman wins permission to remove her dead partner's testicles in the hope of using his sperm to get pregnant

PaperBack



Gail Jordan (Peggy Gaddis), Restless Wife, Croydon, 1954

I Found a Penny in the Walmart Parking Lot

Archaeologists discover Aristotle’s 2,400-year-old tomb in Macedonia

I Never Thought I, er, They Were

Science Proved Why Book-Sniffers Are Not, In Fact, Freaks

I'm Sure You'll All Agree

40 Best Science Fiction TV Shows of All Time

Texas and New York Lead the Way

Spellers from Texas and New York battle to tie in US Spelling Bee

FFB: The Carpetbaggers -- Harold Robbins


This is a slightly revised reprint from 2007.  Max Allan Collins mentioned this novel in a mailing comment a couple of months ago, and I was reminded of how much I'd enjoyed rereading it.  

The Carpetbaggers was originally published in 1961, which means that the paperback came out in 1962. So in the summer of 1962 I read the book for the first time. A week or so ago I visited my local personal bookseller (Wal-Mart) and saw a brand-new paperback edition from Tor. I went into a veritable frenzy of nostalgia (shocking, I'm sure, many Wal-Mart shoppers). This happened on the same day that I'd just read somewhere that it was Harold Robbins' birthday. The coincidence and the nostalgia, along with the fact that it had been just about exactly 45 years since I read the book, were too much for me, so I bought the book.

When I read it in 1962, The Carpetbaggers was considered very hot stuff. I believe one reviewer said that it should have been written on a restroom wall rather than published between covers. And it is indeed full of sex: straight sex, gay sex, rough sex, near-incestuous sex, solitary sex, group sex, kinky sex, and probably other kinds of sex that I'm forgetting at the moment. None of it, however, is graphically described. I'm sure that Nightstand Books and others of the time were going farther in that regard than Robbins did.

The book is divided into sections named for the characters. Jonas Cord is the major figure, and he narrates his sections in the first person. Cord was based on Howard Hughes, a fact that was obvious to me even 45 years ago. I'd seen The Outlaw and knew the story about Jane Russell and the bra, which is fictionalized in the book. 

The section I remembered best was devoted to Nevada Smith. I guess others liked it best, too, because it was made into a movie with Steve McQueen, and even into a TV movie with Cliff Potts. The section is under 100 pages long, but there's enough violence in it to fill a much longer book. No wonder I remembered it. It's the most vivid section in the novel. Smith seems to be about 90% fictional, but there are traces of Tom Mix and William Boyd in the character, for sure.

I enjoyed reading the book again. Since it was a historical novel, it's not nearly as dated as you might think. It's still pretty darned good popular entertainment if you like trashy books, which I do. Check it out.

Aside: The first book I read by Robbins was A Stone for Danny Fisher, which I checked out of the library after seeing King Creole and noticing that it was based on Robbins' novel, which it hardly resembles. After The Carpetbaggers, I never read another book by Robbins, and I didn't realize that he kept on cranking them out for so many years. In fact, the books have continued to appear right up to the present, even though Robbins died in 1997. Someone called Junius Podrugg is now sharing credit with Robbins on the covers. The same roman a clef formula seems to be working all these years later.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

I Want to Believe!

Tom Cruise secretly trained with NASA to become an astronaut on 2003 Columbia space shuttle

19 Authors and Their Typewriters

19 Authors and Their Typewriters

Song of the Day

Joey Powers - Midnight Mary ORIGINAL - YouTube:

I Miss the Old Days

Magazines #51: US (June 6, 1983) | Retrospace

Today's Vintage Ad


Neanderthal Update

Neanderthals built mystery underground circles 175,000 years ago

PaperBack



Perry Lindsay, Swamp Girl, Intimate Novels

7 Nominees for the Best Tree in Literature

7 Nominees for the Best Tree in Literature

Why Reading Makes You a Better Person

Why Reading Makes You a Better Person

I'm Sure You'll All Agree

The 100 Best American Movies in Film History

First It Was the Thin Mint Melee

Worcester woman charged with tossing toilet-water-soaked sandwich at court officer

Forgotten Music: Songs of protest, songs of war

Songs of protest, songs of war 

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Joe Fleishaker, R. I. P.

Tom Holland's Terror Time: Joe Fleishaker, the actor who Troma fans adore has passed away at the age of 62. He starred in 3 ‘Toxic Avenger’ movies and ‘Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.’ for the fan favorite film company.

Free for Kindle for a Limited Time

Simon Said (The Professor Simon Shaw Murder Mysteries Book 1) - Kindle edition by Sarah Shaber. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

I Miss the Old Days

Vibrant photos capture spirit of 1980s NYC

Song of the Day

Life Is A Rock - Reunion - 1974 - YouTube:

Former Yankee reinventing himself as a musician

Houston Chronicle: Williams won an American League batting title and four World Series in 16 seasons as an outfielder for the New York Yankees. He kept playing the guitar along the way and after leaving the game transitioned to becoming a professional jazz musician, releasing two albums and earning a Latin Grammy nomination.

Today's Vintage Ad


I'm Sure You'll All Agree

Worst As Seen On TV items ever  

Link via Neatorama.

Do Not Click on the Link

And if you do click on the link, do not look at the pictures.  You've been warned.
Toilet terror as python bites man's penis while he sits on the loo before bloody battle ensues 

PaperBack



Amos Hatter, Hired Girl, Venus Books, 1953

No

Can You Pass This Test Originally Given to 8th Graders Living in Kentucky in 1912?  

Link via mental_floss.

I Miss the Old Days

TV Guide #16: Aug 31-Sept 6, 1985 | Retrospace

Beth Howland, R. I. P.

Beth Howland, Accident-Prone Waitress From the Sitcom ‘Alice,’ Dies at 74: Beth Howland, who made high anxiety an art form as the ditsy, accident-prone waitress Vera Louise Gorman on the 1970s and ’80s sitcom “Alice,” died on Dec. 31, 2015, in Santa Monica, Calif., her husband said on Tuesday. He had refrained from announcing her death earlier in keeping with her wishes. She was 74.  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Alvin ISD Book Bus

Alvin ISD Book Bus - YouTube:

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Mell Lazarus, R.I.P.

Mell Lazarus, R.I.P.

Burt Kwouk, R. I. P.

BBC News: Burt Kwouk, who was best known for playing Inspector Clouseau's manservant Cato in the Pink Panther films, has died aged 85.

I'm Sure You'll All Agree

The Definitive Ranking of Bob Dylan Studio Albums, From Worst to Best: There’s no better way to celebrate the greatest American songwriter’s 75th birthday than to stoke reader outrage by attempting to rank his work, album by album.

Song of the Day

Happy birthday, Bob Dylan!
Bob Dylan The Times They Are A Changin' 1964 - YouTube:

Forgotten Hits: 45 Years Ago Today (5-24)

Forgotten Hits: 45 Years Ago Today (5-24)

Today's Vintage Ad


I Miss the Old Days

What American shopping malls looked like in 1989

PaperBack



Joan Tucker (Peggy Gaddis), Shanty Girl, Venus Books, 1953

Jeanne Parr, R. I. P.

NY Daily News: Parr was one of the first female news correspondents for CBS.  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

John D and Me: PJ Parrish

John D and Me: PJ Parrish

First It Was the Thin Mint Melee

FDNY, NYPD Get Into Bloody Brawl During Charity Football Game: A charity football game between New York's Finest and New York's Bravest ended with fists flying

The Trap of Solid Gold: Deadly Welcome

The Trap of Solid Gold: Deadly Welcome

First It Was the Thin Mint Melee

West Virginia mom arrested after beating son over wrong burrito

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Overlooked Movies: Charade

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, "How could a movie with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn be overlooked?"  I agree, but maybe there's somebody reading this who hasn't see the movie.  It's a lot of fun.

To begin with you have the leads, Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.  Hepburn is about to divorce her husband, and Grant is the suave, mysterious stranger.  Hepburn returns to Paris to find her husband murdered and herself mixed up in a plot to recover $250,000 in stolen Nazi gold.  Three men are after it, and they believe Hepburn has it.  They are bad guys, indeed (George Kennedy, James Coburn, Ned Glass).  Somehow Grant is mixed up in it, too, and he's clearly not to be trusted. He's very inventive, however, and every time Hepburn discovers that he's not who he says he is, he very plausibly claims to be someone else.  This happens often.  The CIA, represented by Walter Matthau, is also in on the game.

Hepburn doesn't have the stolen gold and has no idea where it is.  That doesn't matter to the bad guys.  They're going to keep after her.  And they they start getting killed.  Is someone else is in on the game, too?  And who the hell is Cary Grant, really?

There's plenty of scenery, witty banter, action, and mystery here.  Plus music by Henry Mancini.  If you're looking for topnotch light entertainment, this is it.

Peter Stone, who wrote the screenplay, also published the novel version.  It's a Gold Medal book, and I read it 50 years or so ago.  I'm pretty sure I liked it.

Charade

Charade Official Trailer #1 - (1963) HD - YouTube:

Monday, May 23, 2016

The Big Showdown -- Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins

The Big Showdown is a direct sequel to Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins' The Legend of Caleb York, which I wrote about here.  You might recall that the book was a novelization of a screenplay that Spillane wrote for John Wayne's Batjac productions.  Collins tells us in his introduction to the sequel that it's based on "various drafts of the screenplay and notes in Mickey's files."  The result is a thoroughly entertaining traditional western.

In the first book, Caleb York has cleaned up the little town of Trinidad, New Mexico, and now he's ready to move on to San Diego, California, where he's looking forward to testing his crime-solving skills in the big city.  He's set up his old friend Ben Wade as the sheriff, and the town is in good hands.  But wouldn't you know it?  Just as Caleb is saying his final goodbye to Willa Cullen, three men rob the local bank and kill Wade.  It's bad enough that the town is about to be bankrupt, but when you kill a man's friend, well, it's not the time to leave.

The bank problem seems to be solved almost immediately when Zachary Gauge shows up.  He's a slick Easterner, the relative of the previous book's villain, and he's inherited the property belonging to that unworthy soul.  Now he's deposited a big sum in the bank, enough to make up for what was stolen.  Not only that, but he's going to make things right with everyone that his cousin cheated.

If any of that makes you suspicious of him, well, it should.  Before long people are being murdered, Zachary is courting Willa, planning a big merger between his ranch and hers and her father's, and generally acting like he owns the town.  York investigates the murders, using some early CSI techniques, and he meets a lovely saloon owner who's obviously going to complicate his life.  

Without saying more about the plot, I can assure you that when the big showdown comes, it's a really good one, a cinematic gunfight that would make a terrific scene in a movie.

There's a lot of Caleb York's story yet to be told, of adventures both before and after his stay in Trinidad.  Here's hoping we get a chance to read them.

The 1930s Secret Cambridge Club of Rooftop Climbers

The 1930s Secret Cambridge Club of Rooftop Climbers

Song of the Day

The Angels - Wow Wow Wee (He's The Boy For Me) - YouTube:

10 People Who Were Wrongly Convicted Of Killing Their Spouses

10 People Who Were Wrongly Convicted Of Killing Their Spouses

Today's Vintage Ad


Irreplaceable Cultural Marvels Wrecked By Hilarious Idiocy

Irreplaceable Cultural Marvels Wrecked By Hilarious Idiocy 

PaperBack



Lewis Dixon, Wild Girl, Cameo, 1952

I Miss the Old Days

40 Mens Fashion Ads From the 70's 

I'm Sure You'll All Agree

My Mother the Car inexplicably not included.
The 100 Best TV Sitcoms of All Time

The Rise of the Toughest Texas Ranger

The Rise of the Toughest Texas Ranger: The Texas Hill Country Life that shaped Frank Hamer into the greatest American lawman of the 20th century.

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Will the Persecution Never End?

Paris Hilton Has a Wardrobe Malfunction While Wearing a Daring Dress  

Hat tip to George Kelley.

I'm Sure You'll All Agree

The Top Five Awful Cthulhu Cakes  

Hat tip to Steve Levine.

8 Plane Wrecks That Have Become Their Own Memorials

8 Plane Wrecks That Have Become Their Own Memorials 

Song of the Day

You'll Never Walk Alone Johnny Maestro & Brooklyn Bridge 2004 Collectables CD - YouTube:

"We"?

Why Do We Scream "Geronimo" When Jumping From Things?

Today's Vintage Ad


In Case You've Been Wondering

Why Do We Put Candles on a Birthday Cake?

PaperBack



Whit Harrison (Harry  Whittington), Rapture Alley, Carnival Books, 1953

Dustbin of History: $am Upham

Dustbin of History: $am Upham: During the U.S. Civil War, New York printer $am Upham crippled the Confederacy’s economy and hindered its ability to fight the war. Yet he was never officially honored, and is all but forgotten now.

Yet Another Sign of the Impending Apocalypse

Merriam-Webster said the hot dog is a sandwich

I Miss the Old Days

Strange, Upbeat Ads From a Different Era:  Vintage ads can give us a big dose of nostalgia, but they also remind us how much the advertising game has changed. In the 1950s and ’60s, ads were simpler and more direct, filled with upbeat jingles and beaming actors delivering their lines right into the camera. You can practically see the twinkle of the prepackaged American dream in their eyes.

Bill Herz, R. I. P.

The New York Times: Bill Herz, the last surviving crew member of Orson Welles’s mock “War of the Worlds” newscast, which terrified American radio listeners in 1938 with vivid bulletins warning Newark residents to evacuate as invading Martians incinerated central New Jersey, died on May 10 in Manhattan. He was 99.  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

My House Inexplicably Not Included

15 of the Most Unusual Places Alligators Have Been Found