"Munsters without their Makeup"

Munsters without Their Makeup

      As today is Halloween and I am one of the myriad keepers of the keys to useless trivia, I want to remind everyone that you can see the actors who starred in the classic TV series The Munsters on rerun TV or in feature films of that era. For example, Butch Patrick appears without Eddie makeup as -- can you believe it? -- a little boy, on an episode of My Favorite Martian(Season 1, Episode 13, “How to be a Hero without Really Trying”) from about 1963. The episode number may be Hulu’s idea of a joke. I’m not too confident of the season and episode numbers on Hulu.

      Fred Gwynne(Herman) and Al Lewis(Grampa) were already well-known from a Sixties’ sitcom Car 54, Where are You?. By the way, I vaguely remember Fred Gwynne as an unaccredited number three stooge(“Slim” -- what casting acumen here!) working for gangster Johnny Friendly(Lee J. Cobb) in Best Picture On the Waterfront from 1954(also starring lesser known actors Marlon Brando(Academy Award for Best Actor) and Karl Malden.)

      Yvonne de Carlo(Lily) you can see in one of those $5 collections of John Wayne Westerns if it includes a good one, McClintock. In McClintock, Miss de Carlo plays a widow with a child who briefly makes Maureen O’Hara jealous for the attention of the Duke.

      I know nothing about Marilyn(Pat Priest), but she had a spiritual name.

      As for Eddie’s dog Spot, I think I saw him do a walk on in Godzilla with Raymond Burr looking out the window. I think it competed with Waterfront, but did not win anything that year. However, Spot reprised the roll ten years later on Munsters. He had had a little work done on the face and a tummy tuck, but looked really marvelous coming out from under the stairs. You couldn’t tell.

mm

"Zane Grey and 'The Thundering Herd'"

 

Zane Grey and The Thundering Herd

      Did You know:  According to the main character, John Doe, from the TV Show by the same name(about the year 2000, I think) these are facts: (a) the nation’s only active diamond mine is in Arkansas; (b) it is illegal to walk down Main Street alone after 1:00 p.m. on Sunday in Little Rock, Arkansas; (c) fish sleep with their eyes open.

      Here's another fun fact:  Did you know the most popular western novel of all time is Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey?  I'm still reading Zane Grey, the famous American western author from a hundred years ago. Still think he’s definitely about love stories and western action. I liked Riders of the Purple Sage, about Mormons and rustlers and gunmen and a couple of love stories; I liked a little less To the Last Man, a love story about cattle men versus sheep men based on the infamous Pleasant Valley War in Arizona, a little known “terrible and bloody feud“.

      I also finished Grey's The Thundering Herd and liked it more than either one. It’s a love story set against the background of the great Buffalo slaughter of the western plains. Wonderful descriptions of American Buffalo, of their herds and fights and killing, of the way people felt about it(mixed feelings), of the history of it, mentioning Sherman and Sheridan -- Civil War Generals who were tasked with fighting Indians and who used the killing of Bison to destroy the food source of the Indians -- practicing total war as they did versus the South in the Civil War, and of the politics of it: some states outlawing the killing(Oklahoma and Colorado) and other states debating it(Texas).

      One scene has a wolf teasing a huge herd of buffalo into a stampede and the view of the chase between hills and through valleys and across rivers as hundreds of thousands of Bison chase a lone wolf.  The heart of the story is a lone young woman, seventeen or eighteen, and her singlehanded fight to survive evil parents, Indians, the herds of Bison, and the western judgment of women as weak, to get back to the man she loved and had promised herself to in marriage.   

      Tonight I watched an episode of the TV show “Longmire”(A&E) in which a lone Bison faced off with Sheriff Longmire’s truck on a Montana highway, until a baby white Buffalo could cross in front. Synchronicity. mm

Sniggerlings: "Vibius Restitutus slept alone."

Sniggerlings:  An Eternal Love?  1934 Years Old and Counting

      For my wife, Sandy(I love you):

      I’m reading Readers’ Digest “Jesus and His Times”. On page 194, it discusses first century graffiti in Roman lands. Yes, there was graffiti in Jesus‘ time. One fellow left this on a wall in Pompeii, a city near Rome that was covered by ash and dust from a volcano out of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. This romantic inscription from that time still exists on the wall of an inn in that historic site: ‘Vibius Restitutus slept alone here and yearned for his Urbana’. Pompeii was preserved for seventeen hundred years until rediscovered in 1748. Maybe love won’t last forever, but in this case it’s nearing the end of its second millennium. I miss you, Sandy. Mm

      p.s., Jesus had been crucified and resurrected fifty years before the volcano covered Pompeii; apostles James(44 B.C.) and Peter and Paul(both 68 A.D.) had had been martyred; and Titus -- the conqueror of Jerusalem, destroyer of Herod’s great temple, and scatterer of the Jewish people -- was Caesar in Rome. Also, the Apostle Paul might have even stayed in the inn mentioned above on his way to Rome to stand trial twenty years before the eruption. Could this volcano have been a warning for Titus in 79 A.D. of who is really in charge? (Zondervan Study Bible, inset timeline).

"Rookie Report on Big Bear Retreat(August 9, 2013)"

Rookie Report on Big Bear Retreat(August 9, 2013)
 

      My first time at a retreat in Big Bear. I thought I’d report about it on the Church Website, especially because nobody asked me to. Surprise! To protect the innocent, no names will be revealed except where absolutely necessary. Al drove Dave and me up and back. The first night the table was loaded with snacks. I think I took my heart medication with Snapple, chocolate chip cookies, wavy potato chips, guacamole, ranch dip(more later on the ranch dip) and watermelon(all four food groups.) I survived.

      I’d like to report to the ladies that the men are well trained and that the toilet seat was in the proper position at all times, but I forgot if it’s supposed to be up or down, so I don’t know myself and need to be better trained. The first night I had a roommate, a giant moth. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and then it disappeared. It didn’t bother me at all, but it did leave its backpack on the top bunk.

      Later, I played cards with Joshua and Alfonso and learned that I could be President or scum depending on how the cards fell. Late that night the moth reappeared and promptly dived into the ranch dip among the snacks. Only two of us noticed it, and the moth was quickly fished out of the dip. He probably survived his cool dip at the Ranch. On Sunday, Al and Dave took the scenic route back and we retraced the path of the cop killer Christopher Dorner, who retreated from attempts to capture him down local mountain roads as he tried unsuccessfully to evade police near where we also retreated.

      There was much evidence of spiritual maturity at the retreat as one attendee had his car backed into by a local resident, but no bad language was reported to have echoed in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Marcus Mauldin, reporting

"What is Spanish for 'Yippee-eye-yo-kayay'?"

"What is Spanish for 'Yippee-eye-yo-kayay'?"

       My dear wife and I were driving to a Carl’s Hamburger joint today when we passed an open field on Van Buren in Riverside, California.  Thereon stood a couple of large vans.  One was inscribed with the label “Circo Caballero”.  My wife said, “That’s strange.  I think there is going to be a carnival here.  It looks like fun.”

      I said, “No carnival, but a circus.”  I know a little Spanish, at least enough to be chastised by a native speaker recently when I wished him “Buenos Dias” at 4:30 en la tarde.  We were listening to George Strait in her SUV, at the time.  George is a famous American country singer(with tight pants, which I missed the first time I saw him, but my wife confidently assured me of.) 

    I added, “A cowboy circus.  Caballero means ‘cowboy’, so it’s probably like a rodeo.  It‘s out of “Guadalajara Jalisco“ in Mexico, which either means the city of Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco, or vice versa.”  I wondered how many unofficial tourists might travel in those vans.

    ‘Oh, boy!” she exclaimed.  “It might have horses and cows and bull riders and bull poker.”  My wife once won twenty dollars in bull poker by ignoring a bull slobbering on her shoulders while she played cards with three other snot-drenched opponents at the Perris Fairgrounds Rodeo not far from here.  My wife is Queen of the World in ignoring large animals, especially husbands. 

      I didn’t get to see that contest, though; She did not tell me she was on the card that night.  It was a spontaneous urge.  Where was I?  I was losing forty dollars at Perris Offtrack Betting Center, wagering on Quarter Horses at Los Alamitos Race Track by video, safely fifty miles from the ponies but only a furlong from the Gemini meets Taurus affair.   I’m kind of glad I missed her there.  I would have been a nervous wreck.  Also, I might have felt sorry for the bull.  Undefeated at the two-ton bull level, she is now ready for some more "easy money".

    “That might be fun“, she said.  “Let’s keep an eye out for when it opens.”

    “Okay.”  My wife is amazing. Mm

"Sniggerlings: My Perverted Values"

 

My Perverted Values

      My wife bought me a wedding band for my birthday next November. I lost my other one thirty years ago and never had the money or inclination to replace it. She bought herself a matching set of two rings:  diamonds in swirly, girly patterns. When she asked me why I liked the one I chose, I said that it was big enough to give some wise guy a rap in the mouth. Since it's on my left hand, it would have to be delivered with a left hook. My arms are too short to jab with it.  I would wear it like one-fifth of a set of brass(or silver) knuckles. I grew up in the Projects in North Houston, a tough neighborhood.

      By her reaction, I got the sense that women don't have the same reasons to appreciate rings as men. My wife's set has a big diamond in the middle. Her left hook would leave more than a bruise.  Her repertoir also includes a short, violent groin kick.  We've been married thirty-six years.  She grew up near Compton and Watts, in North Long Beach, a tough neighborhood.  She's my best friend.

 

      The other night I told my wife I had bought a carton of salsa and asked her what classic TV show she would like to watch while we made it disappear.  She said CHiPs.   

      Hello, 1976:  Erik Estrada and Disco.  I doubt that the Pearly Gates of Heaven will shine any brighter than Ponch's toothy smile on a CHiP(California Highway Patrol) motorcycle. 

      My grandfather Clyde, who ran with Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in South Dallas in the Roaring Twenties, used to have a country way of describing things.  When I looked at Estrada's smile, I thought of Granddaddy's contemptuous simile.  He would have said the actor looked like he had a "'shit-eating' grin".  I had to go to college to learn that the polite way of saying 'shit-eating' was in Greek -- coprophagous.  For example flies are coprophagous.  My granddaddy would have compared them to Estrada's smile.  I don't think that's fair, but the actor did look a little too ... something.  mm

 

 

"Big Brother's Roast Beef Sandwich"

"Big Brother’s Roast Beef Sandwich"

      I recently texted my friend in Calcutta(Kolkata), India, -- Muhammad Lowenstein -- about a trip I took here in Southern California, and was interested to know if the NSA(National Security Agency) had recalled any of my texts from storage to investigate me. Of course, we know the NSA collects communication records from hundreds of millions of Americans and stores them in Washington until that huge warehouse in Utah is ready. When they decide to look at a text, for example, they simply request a surveillance order from an FISA(Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act) court judge(telling him or her whatever story is convenient), get her or his Joanna Henry, call it up, grab a roast beef sandwich, and read.

This is what we texted:

MM: Hey, ML, how’s it hanging?

ML: Sure, and just fine. Been busy helping people in the USA fix internet snafus. Snafus, that is a funny word, what does it mean?

MM: It’s an old Marine term that ends with 'FU'. "Situation Normal:  All F---ed Up".

ML: Yes, very good. I am not an old Marine, but I will add that to my vocabulary. What are you been doing?

MM: Hey, I just got back from Morongo Indian tribe casino, where I was bubble boy in a Texas Hold’em poker tournament.

ML: Bubble boy?

MM: Yeah, I was the last person not to make the final table. The final table sat nine players. With ten guys left, I was the Big Blind for 2000 chips, and the guy to my right was the Small blind. He limped in to the bidding by calling me, and I tapped on the option. The board came down with a King and a six and a rag. He went all in and I just couldn’t believe he was serious. Besides, I had a pair of sixes. So I went all in, too. He had another King. That was it for me.

ML: You always have trouble making the final table.

MM: You know it. Woops, got to go. There’s a show on TV about Bradley Manning, Ciao.

      Since my text to ML was international, I decided to contact another friend in Moscow, in the Kremlin(Cha Cha Hidalgova), who knows Edward Snowden personally(isn’t it the quintessence of irony that a guy named ‘Snowed-in’ would wind up in Moscow?  Wait 'til November -- Russian winters 'snowed in' both Napoleon and Hitler) and is responsible for collecting and storing classified communication records in the Kremlin belonging to the NSA. He moonlights as a Stolichnaya Vodka vendor in Red Square. He assured me that, yes, the NSA had read my personal texts and were quite concerned. He sent me a copy of the NSA top secret investigation findings and the requested paperwork that was submitted to the FISA judge.   With Cha Cha, I didn't need a Freedom of Information Act request.

This is what I read:

      Your honor, the National Security Agency hereby requests a surveillance order due to the following suspicious activity:

      1. Overseas individual with a known terrorist name was contacted by a suspicious individual in area code 951 in California. We happened onto this when we were surveiling suspicious calls by authority of a warrant that limited searches to Area Code 815, just outside of Chicago. The agent in charge has fat fingers and it was an honest mistake. He has been directed to take dexterity management classes and attend a two week Rehab to get control of his PBJ compulsion.

      2. Individuals used numerous aliases and code words to describe the likelihood of a major terrorist event, to wit (a) a hanging in Calcutta, India(area code +91-33), at which time the internet would be shut down and (b) the poisoning of the Ganges River.

      3. Probable participants include a group of retired Kashmiri Indian Marines from a place called Morongo, probably not its real name. Maybe Meghalaya state or Maharashtra state in India. CIA thinks they might be Indians from Mongolia.

      4. An agent will be disguised as a bubble on the Ganges River, where certain Texans are being held for ransom. The Texans are both large and small and have been blinded and maimed through torture. The complete plot may include a force of as many as 2000 California Highway Patrol officers, too(CHiPs).

      5. The ultimate financing for this attack may come from two kings, location unknown, possibly in the Mideast, who have invested their entire fortunes in this plot.

      Respectfully request your signature below. Your friendly neighborhood NSA.


      It’s pretty clear that the only ones being kept from classified information is the American people. The good news is, if you want to know what the NSA is doing, I’d give you my Russian Buddy’s number, but you might be better off calling Kremlin, Oklahoma,(Area code 580) or Kremlin, Montana,(Area code 406.) Kremlin, Russia is Area code +7 495. Either way, say hello to the NSA. mm