I wish this wasn’t so short-lived. A weekly Dr. Seuss comic strip. There isn’t much known about it so I’ll quote from wikipedia, which can’t be that far off:

Hejji was a short-lived 1935 comic strip, an early work and the only comic strip by prominent children’s author Dr. Seuss (pseudonym of Theodor Geisel). Hejji was produced by Geisel during the Great Depression, two years before the publication of his first book.

Distributed by William Randolph Hearst’s King Features Syndicate, Hejji began publication on April 7, 1935, as a Sunday strip. A comic strip with an unusually brief publication period, it was cancelled before the year’s end

The title character was a traveler who, in the first strip, entered the strange land of Baako, which had whales swimming in water-filled volcano craters, a flower broadcasting music and twin goats sharing a single beard. Hejji inadvertently plucks the sacred Trumpet Flower and is promptly arrested. He is taken to the palace of the Mighty One, who has Hejji thrown to the Seven Deadly Wombats. After Hejji escapes, the Mighty One apologizes and gives him a guided tour of Baako. They encounter various creatures and eventually arrive at the mysterious castle of the Evil One.

Characters and situations from Hejji reappeared in later Dr. Seuss work. For example, the two goats with the single beard reappeared in the musical fantasy film The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, scripted by Geisel.

This Imponderable comes from where so many other Imponderables do, Japan.

It actually makes sense to me. You cannot drive without sitting down so embedding a scanner in a seat seems totally non-intrusive to me.

Of course, as technology often does, it opens up a whole new set of troubles. The groper who grabs a woman’s ass on the subway? “Sorry Officer, I was just scanning her ass. It was all a misunderstanding, I thought she stole my car.”

I suspect that the technology was a sneaky way for Japanese scientists to conduct research on rear ends. Can you imagine the R+D that went into his? This may be the only legitimate reason for a nerd to have porn on his laptop. Caught with nudie pics by his wife? Research.

How many models and porn stars were hired by Japan’s Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology?

The question is Imponderable.

To a new world of gods and monsters! – Bride of Frankenstein

Home? I have no home. Hunted, despised, Living like an animal! The jungle is my home. But I will show the world that I can be its master! I will perfect my own race of people. A race of atomic supermen which will conquer the world! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! – Bride of the Monster

OK, one puts it a little more eloquently than the other but they make the same point.

Humanity has a long history of tampering with nature and playing God in the name of science, and it never ends well. Even my favorite novel, Flowers for Algernon, ends heartbreakingly sadly.

Beware, because life imitates art.

That’s real. That fathead ant is real. And that’s what science is working on RIGHT NOW!

Have we learned nothing from Star Trek II? Remember the Genesis device?

McCoy: Dear Lord. You think we’re intelligent enough to… suppose… what if this thing were used where life already exists
Spock: It would destroy such life in favor of its new matrix.
McCoy: Its “new matrix”? Do you have any idea what you’re saying?
Spock: I was not attempting to evaluate its moral implications, Doctor. As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create.
McCoy: Not anymore; now we can do both at the same time! According to myth, the Earth was created in six days. Now, watch out! Here comes Genesis! We’ll do it for you in six minutes!
Spock: Really, Dr. McCoy. You must learn to govern your passions; they will be your undoing. Logic suggests…
McCoy: Logic? My God, the man’s talking about logic; we’re talking about universal Armageddon! You green-blooded, inhuman…

And now supersoldier ants. The big-headed Captain Americas of the ant world!

How long until someone starts splicing these genes into people?

What kind of life do you think this guy has? He’ll never end up with that girl.

There is more than a fine line between “we can do something” and “we should do something.” Seriously, we can make huge-headed ants. OK, what for? Other than research there is no reason to do it. And I am not anti-research, far from it, but you know that while the scientists may start out with noble intentions like curing cancer, this will soon turn into “what if we inject super-ant hormone into army recruits when they get inoculated for TB?” Don’t laugh; America has done crap like that before.

Caribbean crazy ants  are bad enough. Now imagine them the size of Michael Vick and capable of driving cross-country to your town.

OK, time to eat just a little crow. I have always blasted this show for scrapping the bottom of the celebrity barrel. However, this time they have a few real, legit celebrities. Sure, there are still some models on the show only for their boobs but there are some real deal celebs on the list this time around. In fact, a couple of them are still big enough to not need this show. Seriously, what is Penn Jillette doing here?

GEORGE TAKEI

Sulu today.

It is too easy to dismiss him as Sulu. In fact, were this a few years ago I’d have run a 40 year-old shot him on the Enterprise and called it a day. But not now. He’s reinvented himself as, of all things, George Takei. He’s all over the internet and he’s become something of a voice for the gay community. And of course he is the face of SocialSecurity.gov

TIA CARRERE

Relic Hunter! Remember that show? I LOVED THAT SHOW! Seriously, I did. I’m rooting for her. And that picture has nothing to do with it. Doesn’t hurt though.

CLAY AIKEN

Insert your own funny caption here.

Oh my, as George Takei would say (and on the show I guarantee he will.) Where to start? I should say where to start that won’t get me in trouble? Clay Aiken isn’t a has-been, he’s a never-was. After he won American Idol everyone expected big things from him and- what? He didn’t win American Idol? Ruben Studdard won? OK, Ruben Studdard may have done as little as Clay Aiken but at least he hasn’t embarrassed himself. I think you can take it from here.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI

I’m sure he’ll bring a lot to the show, like the ability to drive fast and, um, drive fast. Somebody tell him this isn’t Top Gear. Oh well, if Celebrity Apprentice doesn’t work out he can always become the wheel-man for a gang of jewel thieves. Really, who better to drive a getaway car?

LISA LAMPANELLI

I'm pretty sure that's her on the right.

You might have seen her on the Comedy Central celebrity roasts and probably nowhere else. She is usually the target of some of the dirtiest and foulest jokes I’ve ever heard but to be fair she is kind of funny herself. Here are some of her jokes:

Betty White is so old that on her first game show ever, the grand prize was fire

… he was a very nice guy, very supportive, like Oprah’s husband … Gayle

OK, I only managed to find two funny ones.

DAYANA MENDOZA
PATRICIA VELASQUEZ

Nuff said.

ADAM CAROLLA

My usual line whenever one of these “celebrity” shows has an untalented radio guy is “Baba Booey was unavailable” but not this time. Adam Carolla is unfunny and annoying. His voice is grating and he is uncomfortable to look at. I hope he is the first one fired.

ARSENIO HALL

Arsenio hasn’t worked much lately, has he?

TERESA GUIDICE

One or another of those Real Housewives who were never real housewives. Don’t know her but I expect her to be a total bitch. Why else have her on the show?

LOU FERRIGNO

Ok, let’s get it out of our systems; he’s the Hulk! HULK SMASH CELEBRITY APPRENTICE! RIP WIG OFF PUNY TRUMP’S HEAD! Ah, feels good. But seriously, he overcame partial deafness and became a champion weight-lifter and a successful actor. OK, playing The Hulk may not be a stretch but he also played himself on The King of Queens which, well yeah, OK, may not have been much of a stretch either. But he’s a good guy and I’m rooting for him. Don’t expect him to win though.

VICTORIA GOTTI

You’d think it would be enough being John Gotti’s daughter. Not for her. Not only is she the lowlife loudmouth daughter of a Mafia don, she has her own lowlife loudmouth reality show. Along with Snookie, she makes me ashamed to be Italian, which is a truly major accomplishment because I am not Italian.

CHERL TIEGS

From wikipedia: She is best known for her long-running affiliation with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, which featured her on the cover in 1970, 1975, and 1983. The 1978 poster of her in a pink bikini became an iconic 1970s pop culture image.

That tells me she should have been on this show thirty years ago.

AUBREY O’DAY

If you can tear your eyes away, look at the goof on the right.

She’s one of those people I know only because there are a lot of pictures of her looking hot on the internet. She was a member of the reality-show pop-group Dannity Kane which I know primarily as something I laugh at. She’s done some reality shows and is as far off my radar as a hot blonde can be.

DEBBIE GIBSON

Remember when she sang “I Think We’re Alone Now”? It was all downhill from there, unless you count her roles in SyFy Channel epics like Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid. (I was rooting for the Gatoroid.)

DEE SNYDER

He does not need this show. Twisted Sister does well enough without this show. Why is he here? He must have liked it when he guested last season. I only hope he wears his makeup to the boardroom.

PENN JILLETTEThis man is smart. Too smart to be on this show but you know what? He says he has wanted to be on this show for years. I expect he’s using this show just for material. HE is much more than a magician but you can read about when I attended his Vegas show right here.

PAUL TEUTUL SR.

He’s loud. He screams. He abuses his son. He takes credit for other people’s work. He lets Monkey Boy kiss his ass. I LOVE THIS MAN! This is why I will watch every episode of this show and if he gets fired early I will NOT be happy. Paul Teutul Sr. is the reason I will recap this show every single week. Period.

Not long ago I had the great pleasure of being interviewed by Jimbo of the fantastic website OTRr Buffet. We talked about one of our mutual interests, the Superman radio show. The site is full of great information about Old Time Radio and you can find links to Jimbo’s other OTR sites there too. Check it out.

Below is an excerpt of the interview. You can find the full interview and more right here.

—————————————-

OTR BUFFET: Tell me a little about yourself and how you got into OTR.

It’s all my parent’s fault. My Dad listened to OTR when he was young and sometimes just fooling around he’d snicker this evil kind of laugh and he’d say things like “The Shadow Knows!” Of course when I was a kid I had no idea what he was talking about but it sounded cool and it stuck with me. I had a lot of trouble falling asleep when I was young and Mom would put on the radio to bore me to sleep, usually the all-news station. This was the 1970’s and one night just flipping around the dial I found the CBS Radio Mystery Theater and I was hooked. I told Dad about this great show I found where they told stories on the radio and he told me all about the shows he grew up with. This was long before the internet and somewhere along the line I found a catalogue where I could order cassettes of old shows and that was it. I was hooked.

I remember waking up early one Saturday morning and Dad was fixing an old transistor radio in the kitchen. It was playing NPR’s Star Wars, every episode back to back. I helped him fix the radio and then I took it wherever I went the rest of the day. I didn’t want to miss a second. That showed me that radio drama was still relevant even if it wasn’t popular anymore.

I was a teacher for ten years, high school English in Brooklyn New York. One thing that was clear was that my students had no real conception of what the world was like outside of their interests. I know that describes almost everyone you know but these were kids who couldn’t imagine a world where their grandparents didn’t grow up with cell phones. I took it upon myself to work things into the curriculum that might never have been exposed to or given a second thought. If I was connecting a movie to a book and I had a choice of something modern or old and black and white, I picked the old and black and white. When we did a unit on drama or playwriting we’d not only read Lucille Fletcher’s Sorry, Wrong Number, we’d listen to Suspense’s version with Agnes Moorehead. I firmly believe that audio shows and OTR involve the mind in ways that the constant images and sounds of today do not.

OTR BUFFET: Tell me how you got into The Adventures of Superman (TAoS) radio series.

That was a straight leap from the comics. Superman has been published non-stop since 1938 and with all the movies, TV shows, cartoons, and serials I devoured it wasn’t long before my interest in OTR and my interest in Superman collided. In fact, one of my favorite comics came out in 1981, World’s Finest #271. Besides having a great George Perez cover, it claimed to present the secret origin of the Superman-Batman team. The interesting thing about that issue is that it attempts to tie in the old radio stories to the comic book canon. It even features Atom Man. I’ve still got that issue, all beat up and worn.

Probably around that time I had found some obscure college station playing OTR and one night they were going to play the first episode of The Adventures of Superman, which I never heard but I just had to listen to. The problem was my family was going out to dinner with some friends. I had this great watch that had a radio built in (hey, it was the eighties) and I spent the evening listening to the show through a pair of clunky headphones plugged into my tiny watch. I looked pretty silly, and my parents weren’t too happy with me, but I heard the show.

I guess in retrospect that was my version of Jimmy Olsen’s signal watch!

OTR BUFFET: Why are we as adults hooked on TAoS?

It is more than just nostalgia; I believe it is because the show is well-written and fun, pure and simple. I know that you can say that about shows from Jack Benny to The Great Gildersleeve to Archie Andrews, but there is a reason that the character of Superman has endured. The story of Superman is a classic American immigrant tale, and who doesn’t dream of being the hero who saves the day, gets the girl, and is humble enough to fly off before his picture can be taken?

The Adventures of Superman hits all the right notes. Nostalgia, escapism, patriotism, fantasy, and fun, and all appropriate for the whole family. The show comes from a time when Superman wasn’t afraid to stand for the American Way. In today’s comics and films Superman is sometimes a conflicted character, but the radio show’s Superman knew right from wrong and wasn’t afraid to say so. It’s a shame that so many of the episodes are lost.

OTR BUFFET: The first 2 years of Superman are much different than the remaining years. The first 2 years are dark, serious and not as jovial. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

It is not only good, but necessary. Of course this is all in retrospect, but those adventures set up who Superman is, what he can do, and sets him in “reality.” To swipe a line from the movies, if you listen to those shows “you will believe a man can fly.” Once you believe Superman and buy into that world, you can go along with anything, including sillier and lighthearted stories. I am a big fan of that era of the show and I love the serial format the series had for most of the run.

The Adventures of Superman always had a variety of menaces, from crooked politicians to aliens. It was a great feat that the program could do a series of shows about space men, then gangsters, then Kryptonite, and then Nazi’s and still be the same show week in and week out. The early years built that believability and you bought into it and went for the ride with whatever came along into the next arc. There was never a point when you’d say “this is just silly.” You’ve already suspended your disbelief for a man from space who flies around in a cape, was a dinosaur too far-fetched?

OTR BUFFET: What’s your opinion of Bud Collyer as Superman/Clark Kent?

With no disrespect to anyone else’s favorite actor, Bud Collyer was the definitive Superman. Period. In any visual medium, the joke was always why can’t Lois see that Superman is just Clark without his glasses? No matter how much Christopher Reeve slouched or looked nerdy (and I think Christopher Reeve did an amazing job in that role) you could still look at him and see Superman’s face.

The magic of radio is that you decide in your imagination what people look like. Bud Collyer did such an amazing job of not only changing the tone of his voice but his entire vocal range and intonations that you visualize Superman completely differently than you do Clark Kent. It would not have worked if they had different actors for Clark and Superman. Despite the differences, it was still recognizably the same voice and you believed that it was the same man, which of course it was, but you saw each character very differently in your mind. No other actor ever got the separation between the two as perfectly as Bud Collyer. And of course he just had that powerful, deep, heroic Superman voice.

OTR BUFFET: What’s your opinion of announcer and bit part player Jackson Beck?

He is very much responsible for the show’s popularity and the fact that it endures today. Like theme songs, announcers set the tone and feel of a show. They were usually the only ones to directly talk to the listeners, during the commercials, so they had a chance to bond with the audience. Jackson Beck was just great. Not only did he have a great voice, he knew how to use it. Who doesn’t love the way he growls “The Adventures of Superman!”? While he may not have written that intro, that whole opening narration is still the way Superman is known to millions of people. And thanks to him, I want a collection of Kellogg’s Pep buttons.

OTR BUFFET: Do you like Batman and Robin in the radio series or are they “in the way?”

It was a lot of fun when Batman and Robin were on the show. Even in the comics back then it was a big deal when characters crossed over, not like it is today with huge events every other month. I can only imagine the thrill it must have been when a young boy unconscious in a rowboat turned out to be Robin. The problem was that while the writers had taken great pains to create their version of Superman over the years it seemed like they had no idea how to write Batman. They didn’t have the luxury of developing him. So while they had gone to great lengths to make Superman and Clark Kent distinct, it was never clear who did or didn’t know that Batman was Bruce Wayne. At one time Batman said that the police had his fingerprints on file. Goodbye secret identity! And of course there is the little fact that Batman wore gloves. And while Batman and Superman knew each other’s identities, and Superman knew Robin’s, it was never clear if Robin knew Superman’s.

Then there was the time Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson changed into Batman and Robin in the back of a police car while an officer in the front seat was driving them home. Some master detective! Batman and Robin didn’t fare nearly as well as Superman did in the transition to radio.OTR BUFFET: Do you have a “favorite enemy” in the radio series?

Probably Der Teuful, the cliché mad Nazi scientist. He was a part of many of the best stories and he was the force behind Atom Man, likely the most famous Superman radio villain. Der Teuful was an over the top evil genius. He created atomic ray guns, stole Kryptonite from other villains, and planned to take over the world. He’d give Lex Luthor a run for his money. And his voice?  He just sounded evil.

Apart from Der Teuful, the show managed to make even normal gangsters or smugglers a challenge. The smugglers of Lighthouse Point or The Wolf were as much of a challenge to Superman as Atom Man in their own way.

OTR BUFFET: What are a few of your favorite story arcs in the series?

I love the early era where Superman still tried to hide his existence. He somehow managed to save Lois from fires and other assorted perils yet no one had a clue that there was a superhero around. Clark would usually make up an excuse- totally unbelievable- about how he accidentally knocked over a convenient bucket of water and put out the fire, or a passing motorist rescued Lois while she was unconscious and no one ever quite bought it.

Superman wasn’t yet as powerful as he’d later become and things he’d normally do without effort, like stopping a train, wore him out and caused him to exert himself. He was still super but not the Superman we’d come to know later.

And I have to credit the show’s writers. It is impossible to simply say that the Atom Man vs. Superman arc is my favorite without recognizing all the stories that came before and directly influenced it. You have to go back to the Black Widow arc where she was auctioning off pieces of Kryptonite and Der Teuful stole them for his plan to create an Atom Man, and then back a few more stories before that to see all the plot lines that culminated in the Atom Man arc. In how many shows, especially ones that get mislabeled as juvenile shows, can you see that level of writing?

A lot of people confuse all-ages or family friendly for juvenile or kid’s programing. Superman is not simply kid’s programming, even though some arcs were unabashedly aimed at children.

OTR BUFFET: If you could change one thing about the show, what would it be?

I would change the final years of the show. They dropped the serial format and became a standard ½ hour show. It was too formulaic. Clark would investigate a mystery, he or Lois would get into a jam, and Superman would show up and save the day. You could more or less tell when Clark would change into Superman just by looking at the clock. When the show was a serial it was less predictable. Stories went as many parts as needed, and Superman might not even appear at all in a particular episode. The ½ hour format took away some of the magic.

This is your New York Minute. Number 12 in a series, collect them all.

We’re going to continue our river tour of New York City by going up the East River, which separates Manhattan and Brooklyn, and anchor right under the Brooklyn Bridge. Today I’ll give you a few of the lesser known but more interesting facts about what may be America’s most famous bridge.

The opening of the bridge was officiated by not one but two incumbent New York Mayors. Brooklyn was an independent city when the bridge, which was originally called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, opened in 1883 and wouldn’t consolidate with New York until 1898. The Mayors of both Brooklyn and New York, as well as President Chester A. Arthur, met in the center of the span.

The bridge took 13 years to build but it took only one week to inspire a panic. The bridge was designed with a long pedestrian path above the roadway and one day, as hundreds of people were walking across, a rumor, totally unfounded, spread that the bridge was about to collapse. People panicked, a stampede started, and when all was said and done, at least a dozen people were crushed and killed. Compare that to the great blackout of 2003 and the terror attacks of September 11th 2001. On both occasions, thousands upon thousands of people flooded across the bridge jammed almost shoulder to shoulder. There were no panics and no deaths on the bridge. I was lucky enough to be close to home, but my brother made that journey both times.

But back in 1883 people were afraid to cross the bridge. PT Barnum, showman, circus owner, and utterly shameless self-promoter, paraded 21 of his elephants across the bridge. The bridge was shown to be safe, and Barnum got a ton of free publicity. Leading the parade was Jumbo, and when he died his skeleton went back to New York as property of the American Museum of Natural History. And yes, that elephant’s name, which was a variation of a Swahili word, is where our word jumbo began.

The expression “taking a Brodie,” meaning a suicide jump, began on the Brooklyn Bridge. Steve Brodie, in 1886, may or may not have jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge. He wasn’t trying to kill himself; he just wanted to be famous and bragged about his upcoming jump. He even practiced by jumping from some smaller bridges. It is open to doubt if he ever actually jumped. The New York Times, which covered the event, claimed that he did, but other sources say that, even in 1886, it was a pretty open secret that an accomplice tossed a dummy off the bridge and Brodie simply hopped into the water off a boat so the captain could claim to rescue him. True or not, it didn’t stop him from opening a couple of successful saloons and starting a fairly successful vaudeville and movie career.

Selling the Brooklyn Bridge has also come into popular culture, as in the saying “if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.” In the early part of the 20th Century, George C. Parker did just that. In fact he did it twice a week, every week for years. He’d convince a gullible tourist of the value of controlling the major link between the boroughs and managed to make a nice living. Of course, he didn’t stop at just the bridge. The Statue of Liberty and pretty much every other major landmark was sold at one point or another. He had a large office and impressive looking- but fake- documents and was so successful that from time to time the police had to kick the “new owners” off the bridge and take down the toll booths they had built.

The Brooklyn Bridge undoubtedly still has some secrets left in her. In 2006, city workers discovered a forgotten Cold War era bunker built into the base of one of the Manhattan side supports. It contained supplies to survive a Soviet nuclear attack, including 352,000 cookies still sealed in their original tin cans.

If you want to know more about Steve Brody and his jump, go to one of my favorite, and most reliable sources, Bugs Bunny. Surf over YouTube and search for the 1949 cartoon Bowery Bugs. It’s all about Steve Brody’s jump and the part Bugs Bunny’s played in it. Or just stick around to the end of this post.

Next week we’ll be crossing over the bridge and heading into Manhattan.

This has been your New York Minute.

An audio version of this legend recently appeared in the amazing FlashPulp website. Check them out for awesomeness and goodies!

COMING SOON!

MR. BLOG’S TEPID RIDE!

Starring

PT Barnum!
Bugs Bunny!
Superman!
Frankenstein!
Dr. Seuss!
Donald Trump!
Paul Teutul Sr.!
And more!
More!
MORE!!!

And featuring

Mr. BLOG as HIMSELF

Filmed entirely on location in Tohoscope!

Written by Mr. Blog, with additional dialogue by Sam Taylor.

Next week on Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride.

Marmaduke needs no introduction. No, scratch that, Marmaduke doesn’t deserve one. Marmaduke ranks high in the pantheon of the Great Unfunny Comic Strips. Top of that list? The Family Circus. But while Family Circus can at least claim to be a look at the human condition through the eyes of children, Marmaduke is simply an unfunny strip about a gangly dog.

Let’s take a look at some Marmaduke “comics” and see if we can find a shred of humor in them.

Ha! HA HA HA! Because dogs eat garbage! HA HA HA!

Here’s that wacky mother again! She’s running, get it? Because dogs bark when they are hungry! HA HA HA HA HA!

Now the kids are bringing the funny! They hung a bone around Marmaduke’s neck and called it bling! Yeah! Those white kids are so ghetto! Oh yeah!

Oh, that’s cute and funny! Marmaduke sees a woman carrying little dog and he wants to be carried too BUT HE’S TOO BIG! HAHAHAHAHA!

OK, now THAT’S funny! Marmaduke is screwing the guy on the sidewalk while the perverted little kid looks on- see the nasty grin on his face? He knows the score!

See? That’s all it takes for Marmaduke to be funny: hardcore bestiality and corruption of a minor. Now if only there were more panels like this. Then maybe Marmaduke would be pulled from the paper.

Quick story: Frequent contributor and friend of the blog Mr. Allan Keyes manages a large staff in a large company. His staff took part in a larger meeting which dealt with certain issues about the office environment. At the end of the session the floor was opened to suggestions about improvements and, in a moment that he has yet to live down, one of his key staff members stood up and with great seriousness asked the chief executives for a soft ice cream machine for the break room. Worse, she proceeded to explain her reasons. (“Makes people happy, and happy people work harder” topped the list.)

And now, The Imponderable:

“The machine could be useful at the scene of a large fire.”
“The machine was capable of making ice packs.”

SHUT UP! IT IS A SNOW CONE MACHINE!

“I don’t like the term snow cone machine, because it sounds horrible. When you look at it as an ice shaving machine and its purpose it makes a little more sense.”

No it doesn’t. Its purpose is to make snow cones! You know why it sounds horrible? BECAUSE IT IS HORRIBLE!

Is this thing going to save our country from terrorism?

The question is Imponderable.

Some of you may not have known this. In fact, I’d bet that none of you had an inkling of this. Being the mostly-unknown and lightly-read blogger that I am today was never my career goal. I didn’t set out to turn Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride into the underwhelming sensation it currently is. No, my secret ambition was to be an actor. Yes, to tread upon the stage.

And some time ago I did just that.

The Time: 1980
The Place: The auditorium of PS 247.
The Production: The Fifth Grade Performance of Peter Pan and Wendy Go Around the World. (One Night Only!)

Yep, I was not even 10 years old when I made my stage debut. Of course, this was not my first job in acting. Two years earlier I had been cast as a jaybird in my third grade play, but that was just staged in the classroom, we didn’t get to stand behind the footlights. It doesn’t really count. Plus some of the other kids teased my by saying “the jaybird is a gaybird” and even though I had no idea what that meant back then, I hated the teasing and told the teacher that I didn’t want to be in the play. Looking back, I may have been the victim of gay bashing. I have a very limited personal experience with homosexuality. I was once hit on by a construction worker when I was 19 but that’s a (true) story for a different time.

Anyway, the fifth grade class of PS 247 was putting on the play Peter Pan and Wendy Go Around the World. It was written by one of the teachers in the school and only much later on did I realize that the title sounds like a 1970′s porno movie.

It was very topical. The premise was that Peter and Wendy went on a tour of the world and saw all the world’s troubles. It was a downer of a play. After flying around the globe and seeing all the wars and poverty and injustice, Peter and Wendy appealed to Tinkerbelle to use her magic to make the world a better place but she turned them down. The end of the play was an appeal to the world, via the audience of around 200 parents, for peace and love and understanding. Turn on the news and see how well that turned out.

This was back during the Carter administration and the Iranian Hostage Crisis. In one scene, Peter and Wendy flew overIranand dropped in on the American hostages. For whatever reason, not only were Peter and Wendy invisible to the hostages, they were also unable to free them. I am not sure that gaping plot hole was ever explained. Anyway, after the hostages on stage moaned about how awful it was to be held hostage, and Wendy and Peter told the audience how terrible it was to have hostages in the world, it was time for me to hit the stage. My big part, my big line.

I marched on from stage left, strode to center stage, looked out at the audience, and announced “The Ayatollah Khomeini wishes to see the American spies.” Then I marched offstage. Yes, I was an Iranian soldier.

Now today it is cool to embrace the bad guys. Everyone goes to comic cons and dresses up like Darth Vader but at no time were Iranian soldiers ever embraced by society at large. I wasn’t crazy about the part. Plus I only had one stinking line!

But I made the most of it. While I was scripted to say my line and march offstage, I,  like any problem actor, pestered the director, who was my teacher, to make some changes. I argued that being a mean soldier I would never just walk offstage. If the Ayatollah Khomeini wanted to see the hostages I wouldn’t count on the hostages just walking over, I’d march them over at gunpoint. Finally my teacher agreed, or just got tired of me, and that’s how I got to bring my BB rifle and cap pistol to school. (How times have changed.)

We were in charge of making our own costumes. I wore slacks and a blue dress shirt. I took the shoulder braid from my Cub Scout uniform to make it look more military and stuck my silver metal (and very real looking) cap pistol into my belt and slung my (very real) BB rifle across my back. I also wore a blue or black baseball cap.

So I strode onstage, walked to up front and center, paused, looked around to find Mom and Dad, and said my line. I took the rifle off my back and stuck it (hard, I took the role very seriously) into the back of one of the hostages and waved my gun at the other and marched them offstage.

And that was it.

But that wasn’t my last time upon the auditorium stage. I think the acting bug had bitten me. Later, my friend and I tried out for the talent show. We reenacted the Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader battle from The Empire Strikes Back using homemade lightsabers. We took (OK, my Dad took) translucent blue plastic and rolled it into tubes which he then taped atop normal flashlights. In the dark they looked pretty good but the plastic was very chemical-smelling and sniffing it too long made me sick. My friend and I had so much fun fighting with the lightsabers that we never came up with a script. When we auditioned we had the lights lowered and the crowd ohh’d and ahh’d over the cool lightsabers and then laughed as be banged them together while saying, over and over and over, VADER: Luke, I am your father. LUKE: No you’re not! VADER: Yes I am!

We did not make it to the talent show but a few years later my buddy Marc and I proudly joined our junior high school talent show with a production of The Partially Paid For Nightly Network News, which was the two of us sitting behind a desk acting like news anchors and telling bad jokes. We were heckled.

Other acting highlights included the night I got sick and missed my Cub Scout production of an Indian war dance and the time I was at summer camp and I played the father in Bye Bye Birdie. That was my singing debut. (“Kids! I don’t know what’s wrong with these kids today!”) Not that I recommend watching it, but if you come across Bye Bye Birdie on cable, I had the Paul Lynde part.

Birdie was played by our 50 year old female director who stepped in at the last moment when the kid playing Birdie threw a tantrum and refused to go on.

Looking back on my acting career, I have no regrets, just a question. Why didn’t those hostages jump off the stage and run out the fire exit when the guard wasn’t around? It was only about 30 feet away.