Great Tie Alert

Well played, Lee Hazlewood!

R.I.P. Harry "Bill Gannon" Morgan

Now he's busting hippies in Heaven.  

Harry Morgan was quite funny on Dragnet, and one of the things that makes it watchable.  The characterization is actually more subtle than his turn as Col. Potter in M*A*SH.  There's a running joke about his character's obsession with wallpaper that's particularly rewarding...

"Konga! Put me down, you fool!"

One of my favorite actors, Michael Gough, died this week.  He lived to be 94, so he'd gotten to that age where you're surprised someone's still around. (but glad!)

My favorite Gough movie is Konga, a terrible and great early 60s British King Kong rip-off.  M.G. chews up the scenery with gusto, as he does in many of his films.  He plays an evil and lecherous zoologist who has come up with a formula for making living things grow at an astounding and speedy rate.  His main test subject is the titular chimp, though he also has a sideline in carnivorous plants.  At the same time, he's macking on one of his students, a busty blonde who wouldn't seem to have any interest in science, but since this is a bad movie, she does. In the end, Konga becomes huge and carries Gough around the streets of London, and the blonde gets eaten by a plant.

It's a Richard Deacon kind of day!

Celebrate it...in all your words and actions!

Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge

Just in case you missed it, Alan Partridge is back!  As the kids would say, 'Foulard likes this [insert thumbs-up thingy].  He's currently only online, sponsored by Foster's Lager, but you can watch it on your TV if you have a Roku or other TV-watching device.

Just to get you started, here's the first episode. AP is now a morning talk DJ on North Norfolk Digital radio, and the series is set up as a webcam on the show:

MC, SC, RB

I totally got this off of Best Week Ever, but have to post it, since I love Michael Caine, Steve Coogan, and Rob Brydon...and these impersonations are great.

Do you want to know what the time is?

Foulard's Ideal Evening of TV

Why can't we have shows about middle-aged guys in suits on TV anymore?

Well played, Pete!

A-seasonally, Mad Men has started at Thanksgiving 1964 this year, and last night's episode was set at Christmas. I'm not going into any spoiler-ish stuff here, but just wanted to point out Pete Campbell's snazzy red narrow-lapel double-breasted blazer, which he's sporting at the office Xmas party. Pete normally wears a blue suit to work, but this is the kid of thing a stylish guy of that time period would pull out of the closet to attend a social function or go out on the town.

Now, of course, no one would wear anything like that in public. I actually have one like this in gold, with big, shiny flat gold buttons and a colorfully patterned lining. But even for me, it's hard to pull this one out for everyday wear!

Creepy Puppets

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons--I love this show, and it would have driven me nuts with excitement when I was five.  It would be like watching my G.I. Joes (12" tall version) in the future, with an inappropriate level of puppet violence for small children.

Finally! The Catholic Church gets something right

"I see the light!"

Vatican endorses "The Blues Brothers"

By Eric J. Lyman Eric J. Lyman Thu Jun 17, 2:57 am ET

TAORMINA, Sicily (Hollywood Reporter) – When Jake and Elwood Blues, the protagonists in John Landis' cult classic "The Blues Brothers," claimed they were on a mission from God, the Catholic Church apparently took them at their word.

On the 30th anniversary of the film's release, "L'Osservatore Romano," the Vatican's official newspaper, called the film a "Catholic classic" and said it should be recommended viewing for Catholics everywhere.

The film is based on a skit from "Saturday Night Live." In the story, Jake and Elwood -- played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, respectively -- embark on an unlikely road trip featuring concerts, car chases, clashes with the police and neo-Nazi groups, and attempts at revenge from a spurned lover, all, ostensibly, to raise money for the church-run orphanage where they grew up.

But aside from a brief appearance from Kathleen Freeman as a wrist-slapping nun referred to as "The Penguin" and the brothers' periodic claim that they were on a mission from God, spirituality does not play a significant role in the film. [I beg to differ! See the still at the top of the post]

In addition to Belushi and Aykroyd, the film featured an all-star cast including musicians James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, and Chaka Khan, in addition to noted actors John Candy, Carrie Fisher, Charles Napier, and Henry Gibson, and cameo roles for Frank Oz, Steven Spielberg, Landis, Mr. T, and Paul Reubens.

With the recommendation, "The Blues Brothers" joins the list of dozens of films recommended by Catholic authorities that includes Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments," "Jesus of Nazareth" from Franco Zeffirelli," Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ," Victor Fleming's "Joan of Arc," and "It's a Wonderful Life" from Frank Capra.

It's a Leonard Rossiter kind of day!

It's a Mission: Impossible kind of day

Photos lifted from the DVD Beaver website.

Today I dressed for work in all black & gray, since I wasn't really in the mood to come in, but also because I was thinking about on of my favorite TV shows, the original Mission: Impossible. The third scene of the show (after the taped message and the picking of photos from the IMF dossier) was a gathering of all the agents in Jim Phelps' (Peter Graves) apartment. His place had a near-total black & white color scheme, and the Impossible Mission Force folks always dressed in black, white, and gray for this scene, which gives it a sort of pre-color Wizard of Oz feel, to indicate that the real action isn't happening yet.

When Beebo and I got married, we both wore black and white to the judges' chambers. I'm sure I was semi-consciously thinking of the M:I color scheme when we coordinated, though I'm not sure I told Beebo, since she hadn't seen the show yet.

It's a Mannix kind of day!

Celebrate it...in all your words and actions!

Song for the end of the day

We have a winner!

Mr. Heston thanks you for the honor:

Don't forget to vote for the greatest actor of all time!

As a reminder, here are the nominees:







Please vote in the poll on the right sidebar!

Shopportunity

While on vacation in Alabama, we stopped a couple of times at Target ™ stores. For most people, this is a pretty mundane experience, but since we live in the heart of the city and don't have a car, it was a treat for us. I got a pretty major clothing score from Target's new line, Liberty of London. They've licensed some pretty far-out patterns from this famous British store and produced tham at Target prices (i.e. cheap!).
At first, I was fairly amazed to see such bold, flowery designs at such a major discount chain, but apparently, the clothes have been selling out in the first day in places like Manhattan and San Francisco. Fortunately for us, we were shopping in Alabama (Mobile and Foley, to be precise)! So I had the pick of the line. I bought three ties ($17.99 each), three pairs of boxers ($5.99 each), and a really suave fitted dress shirt ($19.99). At the kind of stores I usually have access to in the city, these items will usually cost about three times that amount. (Or even more at the real Liberty of London). Everything I got had a sort of sixties-hipster British psychedelic look, which makes me think of the Beatles' PR man, Derek Taylor, one of my role models of coolness.

My enthusiasm for the patterns may have also been influenced by seeing Elvis' sartorial splendor at Graceland a couple of days earlier.



The prices and the quality of the stuff really points out the big lie that clothes have to be expensive to be good. Hurray for style democracy!

Fist City

Here's a great Loretta Lynn song we listened to on the way from Memphis to Mobile yesterday...

Mem-Phis

We are now in Memphis, staying in and avoiding the St Paddy's day celebration on Beale Street. We had a fun day, though!

First, we drove out of Nashville and ate at the Loveless Cafe,

and then spent a few hours in the car listening to trucking music
and trucking to Memphis. Our hotel is swanky (but we got a good rate), and we've gone out and had barbecue at the Rendezvous restaurant.

We also stopped at the Lansky Bros store in the Peabody Hotel, and Beebo got me a version of this super-cool Elvis jacket from Speedway--a jacket I had long admired in photos. Thanks, Beebo!