Category Archives: Random Neuron Firings

How far along are you?

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With your holiday shopping, I mean.

I still have some more to do — some of it online, so I’d better get to it.

I recently had a conversation with a friend, and we both agreed that giving the gifts is way more fun than getting them (although getting them ranks a reeeally close second). It’s great fun for me to try to come up with something that might delight and surprise someone else, or conversely, try to buy exactly what I know the person wants. Although surprises are super-nice, sometimes there’s great satisfaction in getting precisely what you asked for. I like both.

Some random thoughts for your Sunday morning:

  1. I got up at 6:30 (geez, another instance of sleeping the day away — I have no self-control), and had a sudden desire to get out all the veggies that were likely going to die a slow death in my freezer, throw them in a pot, chop up a few potatoes, add some broth & seasoning, and make a savory soup. Which I did. I’m now having it for breakfast. Of course, I only used the veggies I like (green beans, peas, corn, carrots). I think I’ll eat it for lunch and dinner, too; good day for it.
  2. We’re going to decorate the Christmas tree this afternoon. I think I’m going to go all gold this year for the color scheme. Should be pretty; I’ll post a photo and let you decide.
  3. ShopNBC still hasn’t shipped the dreaded new TV. The Thriller is getting impatient. (Maybe he’ll end up telling them to go take a hike, and we’ll go to Detroit instead. Hmmm. Maybe not.)
  4. The next 9 days are going to be ridiculous. Going to the band concert on the 8th, daytime performance (obligatory nursing home tour) on the 9th, concert on the 10th, $12,000 worth of candles delivered on the 12th, concert on the 15th, Dinner Theatre auditions on the 16th, and all the garbage that happens in between. I know, it’s all stuff I’ve brought on myself and I shouldn’t complain. But I will anyway, k?

There are days, truly, when I wish I were a librarian. Meh, not really.

Happy Sunday, and Go Browns. [Shyeah right.]

PS – BoomR, good to see you back, my friend!

Frankie was good…and bad

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I cut my singing teeth on Frank Sinatra’s music. I’d say the majority of my “standards” style (for what it’s worth) was formed from listening to and trying to emulate his amazing ability to phrase a line. He was indeed the “Chairman of the Board” in that sense. Listen to “Only the Lonely” or “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry” and you’ll know what I mean.

While listening to one of the CDs in the Capitol Years collection on my way home from school yesterday, I thought about some of the interesting stories I’d read in Kitty Kelley’s tabloidish biography, His Way. It’s been years since I read it, but I recall it being, shall we say, not especially complimentary towards Mr. Sinatra. I think the lady downright hated him, and he must have sensed it. He sued to prevent her from publishing the book, but enter the First Amendment, stage left.

Ms. Kelley’s penchant for “unauthorized” biographies (and I use the term “biographies” loosely) reaches far beyond Frank. She’s done the favor for Nancy Reagan, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the Bush family and others as well, so…

Anyway, back to Blue Eyes.

I decided to do a little research on him last night, after my work was done. I ended up spending an hour and a half reading Sinatra’s FBI file, and here’s what I found:

Francis was a bad boy.

It’s long been said that Sinatra hung out with mob thugs. Pictures have captured it, and phone calls have recorded it. But he denied any serious liaison with them to his dying day, and strangely, no charges ever really stuck. (Isn’t that the MO of most gangsters? Do enough to get noticed, but not enough to get caught.) His most important and dangerous link with organized crime was Sam Giancana, the Chicago mob boss.

~

According to FBI wiretap transcripts, Frank entered into several business deals as a front for Giancana, including the famous Cal-Neva resort on the California-Nevada border. Sam constantly wore a friendship ring Sinatra had given him. They vacationed together in Miami. Frank regularly performed gratis at two of Giancana’s “supper clubs,” which doubled as backroom gambling halls. To say they weren’t friends is to ignore the nose on your face.

So, why didn’t they fry Frankie for his ties to the mob? Turns out, he had friends in high places as well. Somehow, he was always able to slide out the back door. People who made him angry, however, weren’t so lucky.

Jackie Mason, a decidedly unfunny (in my opinion) borscht-belt comedian who worked the casinos in the sixties, got a face full of Sinatra acrimony, on three separate occasions. According to crimemagazine.com’s lengthy summary of the 1200-page FBI report:

…Mason angered Sinatra by making jokes about his marriage to Mia Farrow. Mason received phone calls threatening his life, but refused to change his routine. Six days later, three bullets were fired through the glass door of Mason’s hotel room in Las Vegas.”

I suppose it could have been the fault of a crazed fan. Or not. Mason joked the very next week that he didn’t know who shot at him, but he’d heard someone outside afterwards “singing doobie-doobie-doo.” That week: four more death threats. (Is this guy dumb or what?)

~

The coup de grâce came in February of the following year:

“[W]hile Mason was sitting in a car in front of an apartment building in Miami, a man wearing brass knuckles yanked open the door and smashed Mason in the face, breaking his nose and crushing his cheekbone. ‘We warned you to stop using the Sinatra material in your act,’ the attacker said before leaving. Mason finally got the message and stopped using jokes about Sinatra.”

Well, ya THINK?

The stories go on and on and on, fiends. Over a thousand pages of stuff, and me with no time left. But regardless of Frankie Boy’s questionable friendships, shady business deals, and under-the-table gimmes involving gangsters, actors and politicians, he was still The Man With the Voice. The Kookiest of the Koo-Koo Hep Cats. That’ll never change.

Fink out.

Evil (but funny) Toys

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Sometimes, you wonder what toy designers and manufacturers were thinking of when they invented this stuff. It’s actually quite amusing now, since they’ve been pulled off the market, but when you stop to think about it…

As usual, I don’t know where I picked up the link, but I ended up at radaronline.com last night. Hilarious. From their article about “Very Bad Toys” that were eventually yanked from the market, here are a few examples — some of which you may remember:

Jarts. We had a set when when Lars and #1 Son were kids. From radaronline:

Lawn darts were massive weighted spears. You threw them. They stuck where they landed. If they happened to land in your skull, well, then you should have moved. During their brief (and generally awesome) reign in 1980s suburbia, Jarts racked up 6,700 injuries and four deaths.

Yikes.

Atomic Energy Lab Kit. Who was the mental giant who dreamed this one up, I wonder? From 1951, this dandy do-it-yourself nuclear experiment came with its own “very low level” radioactive materials. According to radaronline:

The toy was only sold for one year. It’s unclear what effects the uranium-bearing ores might have had on those few lucky children who received the set, but exposure to the same isotope—U-238—has been linked to Gulf War syndrome, cancer, leukemia, and lymphoma, among other serious ailments. Even more uncertain is the long-term impact of being raised by the kind of nerds who would give their kid an Atomic Energy Lab.

Lawd.

Power Wheels Motorcycle. Yeah, it was fast. And fun — what kid wouldn’t want one? Answer: the kid who wanted to actually be able to stop the thing. Turns out the mini Hogs had a nasty little habit of getting stuck in the “throttle-wide-open” position. Oy.

Riders were apparently “stuck in a petrifying state of perma-acceleration. Presumably, the child on the motorcycle was then taken on a hellish, intestine-twisting scream ride. At one point, he or she would face choices unthinkable except in an Evel Knievel-meets-Knight Rider crossover episode: “Do I jump? Or do I ride it out and see if I can clear the gully? Is it sentient? Can it be reasoned with?”

It’s difficult to be horrified while trying not to laugh. I’m being honest here. Don’t hate me — I’m somebody’s Grammie, fuh cripesake. But the thought of…anyway. That’s enough for one morning.

Fink out.

My own Christmas story

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Thanks to Mave for reminding me of this.

The year was, oh, I’m going to say around 1964. Mother, Mavis and I were Christmas shopping at a big plaza-style shopping center in Waukegan, Illinois (before the days of malls, all shopping centers were plazas, where you had to go outside to go from store to store). We went into a big department store (Goldblatt’s?), and came upon an aisle full of dolls.

As we slow-walked down the aisle, Mother gave us some time to sit on the floor and look at the dolls. I was entranced. I found a bunch of beautiful specimens and faded into my fantasy world.

When I came to my senses and looked around, Mother and Mavis were gone.

I walked to the end of the aisle. No Mommy. I ran to the other end. Nothing. I was all alone. I started to panic — quietly at first…you know, like whimpering and softly calling out for my mom. Then, as I took off running down aisle after aisle, the quiet panic morphed into uncontrollable weeping. I was certain that they had just forgotten all about me and gone home. (Years later, Mother told me she was actually nearby, frantically scanning the aisles with Mavis in tow, trying to find me and apparently missing me by inches.)

Anyway, I don’t recall exactly how or when I got outside in the cold, but I remember crouching down against a brick wall on the walkway, bawling my eyes out with my hands over my face. Then, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up —

It was Santa Claus.

Wow.

I remember him saying something like, “What’s the matter, sweetheart?” I told him, in that jagged little hiccuppy crying voice that kids do, that I couldn’t find my mommy and my sister and I thought they went home without me. I wailed. (Poor Santa.)

He scooped me up into his arms, and I remember people stopping by, talking to me, consoling me, telling me don’t worry, Santa would find my mommy. He reached into his coat pocket and produced a big red and white candy cane, which probably made me feel better. After what seemed like an eternity (although it was likely just a few minutes), I saw them: Mother and Mavis, almost running towards us.

Mother took me from Santa, thanked him profusely (I’m sure she was embarrassed), and hugged me. I remember her scolding me when I told her I thought she and Mavis had gone home (“I would never, ever leave without you!”). Mavis was no worse for the wear, because she got a big candy cane out of the bargain, too. :-D

Happy Wednesday — only 21 shopping days left!

Much love…