more random thoughts

I just read that John McCain was filmed mouthing/mumbling “horseshit” to himself twice during the first presidential candidate’s ‘debate”. I don’t really consider these encounters to be a real debate, just a couple of really smart people who are extremely adept at NOT answering any question directly.

I am amazed that there are so many people in our country that are falling for this Sarah Palin farce and find acceptable her selection by McCain to be his Vice Presidential running mate. It’s embarrassing. What are her qualifications? COLDEST STATE, HOTTEST GOVERNOR? Is that it? Well, maybe it is. After all, Ronald Reagan was elected President, and many Europeans are still snickering.

I was trying to figure out when breakdancing started, and the earliest reference I could come up with was Curly of the Three Stooges. Remember when he was on the floor spinning in circles and doing the seal flop thing? He was doing his thing in the early 30s.

And then there’s the high-five ‘handshake”. Louis Armstrong and Dean Martin were singing a medley on one of the Dean Martin shows, and at the end did some awkward hand movements that resembled a primitive high-five. I remembered the music, but not the high-five until I saw one of those half hour infomercials on TV selling CDs of the Dean Martin show. Not Available In Stores!

Earliest rap singer? I’m going to do some research on Jack Benny and Groucho Marx.

random thoughts

This might seem trite to some, but I have to write this stuff down because there aren’t many people I can talk to about this. Well, maybe none who would stick around and listen until I am finished talking. . .

In order of importance to my taste buds, my favorite nuts are pistachios, hazelnuts (filberts), almonds, and pecans. Following a bit back of those top three are peanuts and cashews, then walnuts, then Brazil nuts, which I’ll only eat if none of the others are available and I’ve had a few beers. Pine nuts are good if roasted before adding them to a salad. When eating any nuts in mass quantities, it’s always a downer when I get a bad nut. I can eat 300 in a row that are good, then one bad one and I’m done and I need to rinse out my mouth, brush my teeth and get out the Listerine and bleach.

Way back when, the first website I looked at on the web was a site having something to do with  “Men who eat over the sink.” At the time, I thought the web was both hilarious and potentially really, really dumb. Not much has changed since that day many years ago.

Today I found out that George Jones died on September 27th. George Jones wrote the song “Rama Lama Ding Dong” in the late 50s. I must have been 7 or 8 years old when I first heard it, and I remember laughing for a long time. My parents thought it was incredibly bad. I think I liked it because I was born listening to Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, and all things jazz. Jazz was on 24 hours a day in our house. I still love it. But looking back, I must have enjoyed it because my parents hated it. Kind of like my daughter playing rap and hip-hop, which I now hate. Generational musical rebellion.

Do you remember Joe Izusu? David Leisure was the actor/comedian who did the Izusu commercials in the 1980s. I believe this was about the same time that Jon Lovitz introduced Tommy Flanagan, the pathological liar character on Saturday Night Live. I think the Joe Izusu ad campaign took its inspiration from the Lovitz character. What I’m getting at here is that I think the pharmaceutical ads should take a step back and quit being so serious. I really want to see Joe Izusu doing commercials for erectile dysfunction drugs, or Tommy Flanagan pitching anti-depression drugs. Imagine the ensuing conversations between patients and physicians.

Yeah, that’s the ticket!