Merry Christmas 2018!

Animaniacs Episode 49

 I remember when we previewed the above episode for Steven Spielberg. He liked it, and joked we'd have to animate a Jewish holiday. I suggested Simchat Torah, but didn't get a laugh. That might sum up my relation with the great director. People often ask if I knew Steven Spielberg. My answer is generally, 'Yes, the way you know a car-parker at a favorite restaurant.'

None the less, a Merry Christmas to all. Presents are nice, but loved ones are your greatest gift. Be a gift to them.

Important Sales Note

This is the one.

 For the next several days, you might consider an ebook of Fifty Shades of Zane Grey for less than a dollar. (That's market-speak for .99.) Lampooning one of the most popular novels in history, my book thrills you with gunfights, romance, one-armed doctors and all PG rated.

What Do Important Notable People Say About This Book?

Andrea Romano enjoyed Fifty Shades of Zane Grey, but I haven't got an official quote from her just yet. Nevertheless, this book is guaranteed funnier than my Simchat Torah quip of 25 years ago. Not a high bar, yes, you have me there, but don't you owe yourself a chuckle for under a dollar? Act now! I would, but I wrote the book and thus am prevented from acting now.

eStocking Stuffers That Will CHANGE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE PERHAPS!!

Your JP Mac stocking stuffers may be found at Amazon. (Most people want the Merry Christmas mug.)

Fun Fast Holiday Reads!

Pardon the click-baity head. I've been spending too much time online. But not all ethings are wasteful and vain. Note the above ebooks. One tells the tale of a man's battle with cancer and a confusing medical system, while the other chronicles a man's struggle to decide justice in an annoying criminal case.  Both are written in a humorous vein, making sport of the darker elements of our existence. 

Pleasing eBooks!

These non-fiction stories are low-cost, high quality and just right for a last minute present. Purchase them together. (A $4.00 value.) There is no discount for doing so, but don't be bullied by the loss leader of others. Do it because you have purchasing power! Whatever you decide, happy holidays to you, and to you, a Merry Christmas as well. 

Paul Rugg and I are Hired at Warner Bros. v.2

And I Have the Memories to Prove It

Today, December 16, marked 27 years since Paul Rugg and I were offered jobs at Warner Brothers TV Animation. We were over at Paul's house watching Zontar: Thing From Venus, drinking coffee, eating chocolate donuts, and smoking. We'd just turned in scripts for some new show called Animaniacs. (Mine was "Draculee, Draculaa.") Paul's wife was off earning money as a social worker, while my future wife was still employed at the magazine I'd quit two months earlier. Rugg and I were performing improv and sketch comedy at the Acme Comedy Theatre. (Along with cast member Adam Carolla.) Money was very tight. The payment for one script would really help out my Christmas. 

Then Kathy Page, Tom Ruegger's assistant, called to offer us staff jobs and the trajectory of our lives veered sharply into an unexplored cosmos.

We were amazed, stunned, numb. Walking outside, we smoked more and talked it over. Should we take the jobs or would they pollute our comedy pureness by turning it commercial? We would accept the work immediately. 

Now it all seems opaque. If it weren't for the Web and talking to Paul Rugg yesterday, I'd swear the whole experience never happened. But I'm glad it did. (Paul, too.)  So thanks to Tom and Sherri Stoner. (And her husband, M.D. Sweeney, our Acme director, who recommended us.)

Note: After thirteen years of blogging, I'm running out of life events to chronicle.

Famous People Born on My Birthday v.5

What is different today from last year? I'm much fatter, that's for sure. Also, I published the prostate book and deem it worthy of reading for just about anyone with a firm grasp on the English language, but especially men facing prostate cancer.

I may spend the rest of the day "Liking" bday greetings on Facebook. But it's better to be Happy Birthdayed on Facebook than not.

Thank you very much to all who have, so far, wished me Happy Birthday. In thinking of this day, I am reminded of several famous Americans who share my date of birth. I will list three and examine their accomplishments as compared to mine.

1. Martin Van Buren - b. Dec. 5, 1782

2. George Armstrong Custer - b. Dec. 5, 1839

3. Walt Disney - b. Dec. 5, 1901

4. John P. McCann - b. Dec. 5, 1952

1. Martin Van Buren succeeded greatly in becoming the 8th President of the United States but was hardly remembered even in his own day. He had a large bull frog stuffed and used as an ink well in the White House. However President Taft later sat on it by accident and they had to throw the thing out. That's about it.

2. George Armstrong Custer succeeded greatly as a soldier in the Civil War but had a mixed record fighting Indians. (1-1-2, I think.) He is best remembered for his  spectacular fail at the Battle of the  Little Big Horn. At first, everything was going well; then it all fell apart under an Indian tsunami. In later years, Custer had a park named after him as well as a monument and a movie where his part was played by Errol Flynn. That's a whole lot more than Van Buren ever got.

3. Walt Disney succeeded greatly in animation, a pioneer in the field, creator of iconic characters—but not the word 'iconic' which has been seized upon by junior execs.—established Disney studios and Disneyland and is fondly remembered to this day. Nonetheless his body is frozen in a vault beneath Disney's Burbank lot and should Walt be reanimated and start making decisions again it could effect his legacy.

4. John P. McCann was greatly successful as a Hollywood atmosphere player. McCann was the ship-board stand-in for a Canadian actor portraying Errol Flynn in My Wicked, Wicked Ways. In addition, he is visible catching Dennis Quaid's jacket at around 1:19 in a clip from  Great Balls of Fire.
More successful in animation, McCann created the non-iconic character of The Huntsman. For the next fifteen years, he piggy-backed onto as many successful shows as his friends would allow. While the record is still being written, outsiders agree that McCann will be remembered by Bank of America and several other creditors who might reasonably feel aggrieved should he pass from the scene within the next several months.

Images: whitehouse.gov, Parcbench, fold3

T-Day Wishes and Football Again

Happy Thanksgiving!

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." — G.K. Chesterton

Lo! An article written for a website five years ago. Publication was cancelled, a kill-fee paid, and the light of day for said article shone on my very own blog.

motarcitytimes.com

My Midwestern family had two Thanksgiving traditions. One involved placing a pot of boiled cranberries outside to chill. The second tradition revolved around watching football . . . or at least having the game on in the background while cards were played, the Almighty invoked, drumsticks munched, and arguments rekindled. As the 2013 holiday season arrives, let’s quickly examine how a day of feasting and gratitude hooked up with a robust game of inches.

Professional football on Thanksgiving started in the 1890s. From then into the first half of the 20^th Century, teams such as the Canton Bulldogs and Massillon Tigers clashed with their leather helmets, no facemasks and few rules.  And while various teams in various cities continued Thanksgiving play, it wasn’t until 1934 that T-Day football as currently recognized formed thanks to G.A. Richards.

Mr. Richards had recently purchased an NFL team, the Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans. He moved them to Detroit and rechristened his team the Lions. But the baseball Tigers were the Motor City darlings. Wanting to start a buzz, Richards scheduled a Thanksgiving Day contest with the undefeated Chicago Bears. As it turned out, the Lions had an excellent 10 – 1 squad primed to meet the 11 – 0 Monsters of the Midway. Tickets sold out two weeks prior to the clash. The Lions lost 19 – 16 but a tradition was born. Except for six years from 1939 – 1944, the Lions have played on every Thanksgiving.

But it would take another 22 years for Detroit’s T-Day tussle to go national. In 1956, the first Thanksgiving Day game was televised as the Lions dropped a close one at the wire to the Green Bay Packers, 24 – 20. What we now assume normal was born: televised pro football on Turkey Day.

Our last contemporary puzzle piece took another decade to drop into place. In 1966, the Dallas Cowboys commenced their run as the second T-Day game. For the last 47 years, with only two exceptions, the Cowboys and Lions have played on Thanksgiving Day. Starting in 2006, the NFL added a night contest featuring two at-large teams. Now tryptophan-filled football junkies can have their fill in several ways.

But let’s close with the American tradition of do-it-yourself. On Thanksgiving, in backyards and parks all across the country, ad hoc Turkey Bowl games will be underway. Touch or tackle, these contests pit family and friends against one another for bragging rights or just a way to let off holiday steam. And while such games are legion, let me single out one such Turkey Bowl from my old hometown. Now in its 14^th year, the Indo-Jew Bowl takes place every Thanksgiving at a different park in Skokie, Illinois. Old high school classmates of Jewish descent line up for nine-man tackle against their sub-continent rivals. Last year saw the Jews roll to a 41 to 27 victory. But the Indos are hot for payback come November 28.

So whether you put your cranberries outside to cool or not; play, watch, or listen to football, have a most Happy Thanksgiving.

Great War Notes

Mr. Wiggin's History Class

World War I was ghastly. The casualties were said to run at "[s]even thousand two hundred deaths a day, 300 an hour, five a minute; for more than four and a half years.” 

In other words, American dead in the Afghan/Iraq Wars over the course of the last 17 years equaled the slain of a single day in World War I.

In the years following the armistice of November 11, 1918, the event was known as The Great War or The War to End All Wars. These titles survived until an even greater conflict broke out 21 years later. (At least in Europe. World War II in the Pacific had been raging since the Japanese attacked the Chinese in 1937.)

The League of Nations was established in 1919 to provide a forum for international cooperation in the hopes of heading off any more Great Wars. Not only did it fail to stop World War II, but the league continued to exist, like any good bureaucracy, long after its purpose expired. The League of Nations dissolved in 1946.

Was the war fought to protect democracy?

Not according to George, a World War One veteran I worked with in my teenage years. George took part in raids across No Man's Land armed with a shotgun and a trench shovel. He claimed to be fighting for Luger pistols and highly-prized German wrist watches. George was built like a bull gnome with powerful arms and shoulders, even at his advanced age. Nothing in George's robust personality led me to doubt his stories.

Was the war fought to obtain a military discharge?

This idiosyncratic view was held by Jesse, a small wiry Great War veteran who shared the same Hollywood apartment building as I back during the first Reagan administration. A member of the 4th Infantry Division, Jesse would  head off to reunions with his fellow dough boys, most in their 80s. Such memories of the war as he shared revolved around the indescribable joy of receiving his army discharge. A group of us were drinking heavily in my apartment one night. We decided to go upstairs,  visit Jesse, and serenade him with all the World War One songs we knew. Our catalog consisted of the first two verses of "Over There." Jesse took it well.

1090VIE

Billings the Robot . . . from California!!

Pulp-O-Mizer

Coming this spring 2019! A tale at the intersection of science and politics!

Does Artificial Intelligence mean war, or something far more different?

Who are the Sea Homeless?

What becomes of the Golden State after CalExit?

Is it possible for a new nation to be run by drug cartels and the California Pension Fund?

Learn the answers to these questions and more. Soon available in ebook and thrilling softcover!

BILLINGS THE ROBOT . . . FROM CALIFORNIA!!

Alone with my Girth

Attending a story conference with myself.

Not really alone. My wife comes home from work in the evenings. But mostly I'm alone with a draft of another novel and a short story I will finish up and send out in the next two weeks.

And food.

There lies the trouble.

My weight has ballooned. The State of California insists I apply for a separate Zip Code. Nothing I own fits me anymore. I wear a lot of canvas tarps.

But I have challenged me to run a 5k in January.

And so, once again, I begin training for a race. This will be my first 5k since 2016, when I thought I was very overweight.

I knew zip back then.

But I'm making progress.

9/11 Recalled 2018

K called from Florida, "Planes crashed into the World Trade Center and one of the towers just fell." Unemployed in Los Angeles and half asleep at 7:30 AM, I shuffled downstairs to the TV, past Joy as she prepared for work. At first, all I saw was a dirty cloud obscuring southern Manhattan. Then a stunned announcer said the second tower had just collapsed. Joy joined me, work forgotten as we learned of the attack.

Other friends phoned throughout the day. Paul Rugg speculated about the pilots of the doomed aircraft, certain they weren't Americans forced to crash. TJ, a Vietnam vet, was incensed at the footage of jubilant Palestinians with their candy and AK-47s. He wished he could gift them with a nice buttering of napalm. In a grim mood, I agreed.

Watching TV and power-chewing Nicorette, I mostly felt numb — except when the subject was jumpers. Then I felt horror. Go to work, sip coffee, joke with your pals, then decide whether you'll suffocate, burn alive, or leap a quarter mile to certain death. Questions of etiquette arise: jump solo or hold hands with a co-worker? Perhaps several of you link arms and form a chain, finding courage in numbers. Or do you clutch a table cloth and step into the air, desperately hoping it slows your fall?



The journey takes ten seconds.


Air velocity rips away your shoes.


You explode on impact.


I will always be haunted by the jumpers of 9/11.


Oceans of paper were blasted from the towers, filling the New York sky like the Devil's ticker tape. Invoices and wedding invitations floated down to gray sidewalks.

My friend Cathy, who worked in D.C., reported chaos as the government sent everyone home at once following the Pentagon attack. One jammed intersection turned scary as a man leaped out of an SUV brandishing a pistol and attempting to direct traffic.

Being murdered is not a heroic act, though it can be. Flight 93 passengers fought back and died, saving many more in their sacrifice. North Tower Port Authority employees rescued over 70 people before perishing.


There were many heroes that day.

My sister Mary Pat and I had dinner at a coffee shop. She was passing through town, leaving a job in Mountain View, CA to return to Phoenix. Depressed by the day's events, our meal was not jolly.

Later, Joy tried to give blood, but the hospital was overwhelmed with donations and refused.

Vulnerability, grief, dismay, anger.

Such a beautiful morning with a sky so blue.

(Photos from: Little Green Footballs.)

Repost: Sept. 11, 2008

Update: Strange to reread this. TJ died in 2009 and K passed away just over a year ago. My wife, Joy, and I are doing well, as is Paul Rugg who now rides the train. 

Repost: Sept. 11, 2013

Update: I had cancer surgery last year, but recovered. My wife is doing well and my sister battles her own health woes. I have not heard from my friend Cathy in a few years.  Paul Rugg continues riding the train in addition to being a voice over machine.

Repost: Sept. 11, 2015

Update: Paul Rugg's daughter was not quite two years old on 9/11/01. Now she is a freshmen in college. I have retired from TV animation writing, though, as stated elsewhere, I find retirement to be indistinguishable from unemployment. (Save for a small annuity.) And very soon, I shall ride the train to see my sister. (Explanatory post t/k.)

Repost: Sept. 11, 2017

Update: Ten years have passed since I composed this post, 17 years since the incident. Alas, the greatest hit to our nation continues to be a colossal security apparatus that can't seem to function without monitoring everyone's communications, then lying about it. I'd rather not comment on airport theater. Still, my wife remains gainfully employed and I'm racing to complete a dystopian thriller by Christmas. Amidst the great events, the little things carry us forward.

Repost: Sept. 11, 2018

Twin Peaks Diner Still Serves Cherry Pie

Red Sky in Morning, Vegans Take Warning

gold coast bulletin

Back from the Pacific Northwest where much of the smoke from distant fires blew down from British Columbia. They're having their own hot time this year, as Seattle and the surrounding region very much resembles Los Angeles in the 1980s: haze-soaked with air you can taste.

latimes

In those days, I worked as a guard for a downtown jewelry company. We had a small electronic box that sounded an alarm whenever smog reached a certain polluted level. Then you were supposed to send everybody home. That never made sense. We were inside with air-conditioning. But policy dictated we dispatch the work force outside, into the  scratchy smog—a portmanteau of "smoke" and "fog"—where the employees would drive off, increasing smog. (Since I worked the midnight shift where our biggest problem was two-pound rats, I never witnessed a work-place evacuation.)

Gab-gab-gab, meander-meander, Twin Peaks. Much of the exterior location shooting was around Snoqualmie and North Bend, Washington. North Bend is a rather quaint town, sitting in a very scenic location, between four-thousand foot Mount Si and the Cascade foothills.

Mt. Si

And, of course, while in North Bend, we dined at Twede's Cafe.  For lovers of the show, I did have the cherry pie. Wednesday was open mike night and a man with a guitar entered as we left, reminding us that it was open mike night. Below is a photo of my young cousin, holding my sister's dog, outside Twede's, where the tattooed waitresses wear black Twin Peaks tee-shirts. But the service is good and the pie delicious. Alas, I cannot vouch for the coffee, but I understand it's "damn fine."

Proud they are of their association with the fabled TV show. 

A Fine Nation, I'm Thinking

fabulous savers

A pleasant Fourth of July with moderate heat and the very same clear blue sky I'll be seeing for the next several months. But that's Independence Day in Southern California.

Two of my aunts left Ireland for America in the 1930s. They were required to have a sponsor who would be responsible for them and ensure they stayed off public assistance. They found work, married immigrant Irish men and conceived American children.

Their younger sister, my mother, didn't make the trip over until after the Second World War. Mom had been a nurse in the British Army. Her training included treating casualties of the Nazi bombing of London in 1940, known as The Blitz, battle casualties from North Africa and Europe, and casualties of the German V-1 and V-2 rocket attacks. Mom was under more enemy fire than most of the guys at the bar of the VFW.

So, in windy Chicago, she found work and married an American of Irish descent, a fellow I called "Dad." They also sired American children. My mother worked like a dog raising my brother, sister and I, then returned to nursing.

But she didn't officially become an American citizen for many years. Sixteen, I think. At last, she took the formal plunge  and we were all yanks.

And so, to my countrymen, Happy 4th of July! Barbecue, enjoy the fireworks, and be the best American you can this day.