Captain of the 10K

Today I was placed in charge of coaching 10K runners as SGV TNT held its annual half-marathon and 10K. Teams from all over LA, including the San Fernando Valley and South Bay, turned up as well as alumni. It was also a race against autism as that particular affliction was holding a huge rally/walk-around-the-Rose Bowl. The goal was to have our runners off the course before the walk began. This was done successfully, despite rising temperatures, thanks to good planning by staff members other than me.

I am really excited about my marathon. This time next week I hope to have my feet up on the bed as I sip water and watch bad movies in the hotel while outside the temperature hovers around 50 degrees — and stays that way for the next day.

I still have to move, but right now I'm thinking Eugene.

Sam Plenty: Episode Six

"March of Doom" is now up as Sam Plenty ponders the undergarments of the underworld.

Boston Marathon Tidbits

Very successful indeed, as Coach Kate, bib #15941, broke the three-hour and twenty-minute mark at Boston - twenty minutes faster than her previous best marathon time. Beau Jimmy ran alongside in the 50 degree weather. As the bulk of marathons are completed between 3:30 and 5:00 hours, Kate has stepped into the upper ranks of those who dare 26.2.

Speaking of which, the U.S. Womens' Olympic Trials were held yesterday in Boston. Congratulations to top three finishers Deena Kastor, Magdalena Lewy Boulet, and Blake Russell who will represent America this summer in Beijing.


Who Dares, Wins!

Who Gets Up Last From A Restaurant Table, Pays!

Lately

Double escrow as our bid is accepted on a roomy condo in Glendale. At Knott's Berry Farm last week, I ran a 10K with Team in Training - 53:07. I was fourth in my age group behind three guys who all finished within 42 seconds of each other. (They may well have been the famous Gallipto running triplets who haven't been heard from in years.) In any case, they edged me out of an age group medal and I will have my vengence one day. Oh, yes. The Eugene Marathon is in TWO WEEKS! I ran my final 20 miler ten days ago and feel confident that I can break 4 hours. Also running this year in Eugene are Amy and April from Tennessee. Follow their training exploits, plus marathon fashion updates, as they taper down for the big day. Furthermore that same Sunday, May 4, my friend Tom's wife, Annie, will be running Avenue of the Giants Marathon in Humboldt County, CA on the Oregon border. If you like big trees, this is the race for you. I think my wife and Tom will probably call each other that morning and discuss how absolutely bored they are by marathons. Coach Kate will run in tomorrow's Boston Marathon. Her goal is to finish in 3:19. How fast is that? Pretty darn fast on a hilly course. (7:38 per mile.) More on the move soon.

Sam Plenty: "Purification of Doom"

Was Marzipan the horse really exploded? Find out in the latest installment of Sam Plenty.

Eugene Bound

That's what it's felt like the last three weeks. What with realtor caravans, open houses, and showings, my wife and I have been absent from our dwelling more often than not. Coach Katie from TNT said that someone we both knew attended an open house and discovered that she was in my home. (A combination of framed animation cells and a Team in Training tee-shirt gave it away.)

But today marks our second day in escrow. We're off this afternoon to scout out new places to live. I'll miss the quiet up here. Too bad you can't bottle it. Meanwhile, the Eugene Marathon draws closer. I'm worn out from all this moving business and look forward to Oregon. I believe I'll break four hours. My one fear is that we'll be forced to leave our hotel room in order for prospective buyers to mill around.

What I Learned While Running

Busy with selling the house. We have become guests in our own home, leaving when prospective buyers arrive. We like to set out little treats such as bowls of steaming corn beef hash in every room. Our realtor has asked us to stop doing that.

My assistant coaching continues. Yesterday I ran with different pace groups. You pick up a lot about people on long runs. For example, at least three of my teammates were college athletes: two swimmers and a tennis player. Another teammate works for an elevator company. (Apparantly, you're in more danger from an elevator falling "up" because of counterweight problems then you are of crashing down to the basement.) Another runner owns a Ph.D and moonlights as director of a Civil War brass band.

Big open house today. I must go and prepare the hash.

Orgins of Paul Rugg's Sam Plenty

Sam Plenty roots. Paul Rugg saw this serial in 2004 and was inspired.

h/t: Tom Ruegger.

In Tuesday's NY Times

Critic’s Choice
New DVDs
By DAVE KEHR
THE PHANTOM EMPIRE

For indigenous American surrealism, it’s hard to beat the Saturday
matinee serials of the 1930s, and I’m not sure that “The Phantom
Empire,” a 1935 release from the Poverty Row studio Mascot, can be beat
at all. Very likely the world’s first singing-cowboy science-fiction
adventure, this 12-episode chapterplay, directed by Otto Brower and
Breezy Easton, features Gene Autry in his first starring role — as
“Gene Autry,” the proprietor of Radio Ranch. This curious institution
seems to be at once a working cattle concern and a full-scale
broadcasting business from which Gene and his pals (including his
longtime sidekick Smiley Burnett) send out a daily program of
country-western songs.

Life is sweet at Radio Ranch until a band of “renegade scientists”
arrives, looking for the massive radium deposits of the secret
underground nation Murania, the gateway to which happens to be located
in a canyon behind Gene’s ranch. Before too long, Gene and his two l’il
pardners (the child actors Frankie Darro and Betsy King Ross) find
themselves caught between the rampaging savants and the legions of
Wagnerian Thunder Riders (accompanied by appropriate sound effects) and
lumbering mechanical men (whimsical robots built for a production
number in MGM’s “Dancing Lady” but cut from the final film) sent forth
by Murania’s “She”-like Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy) to prevent her
land of peace and plenty from being invaded by rapacious “surface men.”
It’s a lot for Gene to handle, particularly since he has to get back to
Radio Ranch by 2 p.m. every day for his broadcast, which he carries on
as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

It is said that Wallace MacDonald, one of the serial’s five credited
writers, came up with the concept while under the influence of nitrous
oxide at his dentist’s office. That seems quite possible, given the
screenplay’s furious imaginings, which include an interesting kind of
television that requires no cameras (but has an inconvenient,
floor-level circular screen) and “radium bombs” posed to destroy the
entire planet.

What gives “Phantom Empire” its enduring charm is the refusal of the
filmmakers to play any of its outrageousness for laughs. As extravagant
as the action becomes, the picture never loses its sense of complete
conviction.

Long a victim of third-rate, public-domain releases on home video,
“Phantom Empire” has been nicely restored by VCI Entertainment for a
new two-disc edition that also finds room for a complete Autry feature
from 1937, Joe Kane’s “Boots and Saddles.” The VCI catalog, which
includes an extensive collection of serials and B westerns, is online
at vcient.com. ($19.99, not rated.)

Happy Easter!

Jack Odin: Viking Detective

What happens when a pacifist professor in a crime-ridden town magically acquires the berserker fury of the Vikings? As crooks quickly learn, justice can be swift and messy with big chunks of brain scattered everywhere. Watch for the first installment of "My Ax is Quick," a Jack Odin mystery. Coming soon. Here. And nowhere else.

Paul Rugg and the "Explosion of Doom"

Episode Four is up as Sam Plenty battles Queen Verbosa's invisible hordes.