Corporate Meetings

Remember the Seinfeld  episode that Kramer somehow found himself  aimlessly in a big corporation.  I forgot why Roscoe Kramer was at the big corporation, that is not important anyway.  While there,  he was mistakenly included in a meeting of young executives.   While the young men were sharing their ideas Kramer threw in his profound thoughts.  They liked what he said.  He like the warm feeling of belonging so much he returned the next day to find more meetings to go to.

Remember that episode? 

It reminded me a true story  of a real large organization , as I remember it.  A young man in a department of a large organization was a pain in the ass   He was not productive, all he did was socialize and talked..  Once the organization was having some kind of meeting and they required a person from each department to attend.  They sent the young guy  that wasn't very productive at his job.

He liked it and asked to represent their department at future meetings.   They thought it was a great way to get him out of their hair for one or two hours at any future meetings.

He did not bring back any new information from the meetings he attended.  But he did go and socialized a lot.  I think I heard one time he even called a meeting for no apparent reason. 

I figure that each department had at least one person not very productive and might even be counter -productive, so send them to meetings.

OK - are you with me so far?  First Kramer did the fictitious meetings with a company he didn't even work for.  Then, a real person found happiness at meetings, sitting around talking  in an authoritarian  manner.

About once a month I take my mother-in-law to her eye doctor to the 9th floor in a building in the Cumberland area of  Smyrna.  The first seven floors are filled with the RaceTrak Corporation.    Once or twice a year RaceTrak offer free coffee  for about a week.  I suppose it draws more customers in to buy gas and eats.  I know it has drawn me in a bunch of times.  Nothing tastes better than free coffee, or it seems to at the moment, anyway.

One time in the elevator riding  up in the RaceTrak building a few young executives got in and rode a floor or two and got out.  Before they exited I asked when were they going to give out free coffee again.  One of the young man looked in space and said, "Maybe in about two months!"

Maybe that gave them something to talk about at the meeting they were going to. 

The Whites, Gallengers, and the Neighbors

Speaking of the White Family of Boone County, West Virginia. (what?  you don't read my Facebook posts?), brings up the Jerry Springer types, which bring up my neighbors across the street.  

They use their front yard as a stage and I think they know they have us as an audience.   They speak in loud booming voices as if they are on a stage; as the daughter said to us once, "We are loud people."  Every time they do put on a show, which might be a knock-down-drag out which more than a few times has involved 911, the cops, fire trucks, and  ambulances.   Each time a "show" starts happening we take our places:  I get at one window, Anna gets at another window, the 92 year old lady that lives next to us gets in her window, and the neighbor that lives on the other side of them gets on the other side of the hedge and we all get on the phone and describes the action from different angles.

It is almost as good as the cable TV serial SHAMLESS.    I much rather see SHAMELESS because it is fiction - it did not really happen.  Or did it?  The things that happens on that show are too bizarre that a mere mortal could make up.

For instance on the past Sunday night show  the so-called head of the Gallenger family is dying with a bad liver.  He is sinking fast and already looks dead.  He needs a liver transplant but they  are not high on the list to get one and besides they do not have the money they need.  Through a friend of a friend they find a doctor with an Arabic accent.  He refuses to give his real name because his medical license is not  recognized in the U.S. to he has to perform operations illegally.  Normally, he is a taxi driver.  He demands 30 grand and the family can only come up with  $26,000 - he thinks for a minute and accepts the money.  He advises them that after he finished the job and leaves they should call 911 and then he will be rushed to the hospital to be taken care of, post op- care.  He operates, they call 911 and he is rushed to the hospital  The family went to the hospital and the examining doctor said he did not have a liver transplant, but they did take one of his kidneys, so now, that put him head of the list.   On the same show a thug that lives close by has a Russian Whore for a wife and he is her pimp; he was reminisces  the times in school he was a total terror to kids with lunch money and how he would nearly beat them to death and put them in the hospital, and he almost got a tear in his eyes and said, "God!  I miss my school days!" 

Jack Davis and TV GUIDE

  Jack Davis is fellow Georgian.  He was one of the four original artists of MAD Comicbook and other EC comic books (TALES OF THE CRYPT, etc)  .He also has illustrated a lot for TV GUIDE;  Which is what the below link is all about.  Not only do you get to see great art, but a travel through time via you own memory of TV Shows.    Enjoy:


http://drewfriedman.blogspot.com/2011/06/jack-davis-covering-tv-guide.html

Tennis Balls

On the soap DAYS OF OUR LIVES Wednesday Stephano having learned that a police detective  had an affair with his ex-wife.   I suppose they were already legally divorced when the ex-wife and detective had their romance but Stephano still did not like it.

Stephano is the villian of the soap.  Other evil people come and go and some good characters turn evil and some evil characters come good.  It keeps the ball rolling and the  interest up.  They would lose rating like a rock falling if the just sat round talking about how nice everybody is all the time.  

Not only  is Stephano evil but he runs a big evil empire.  He even has an evil laugh, like Oil-Can Harry.  The only thing he doesn't have a  mustache for him to feel as he bellows out his evil laugh.

So, back to Wednesday's episode:  Stepano is highly perturbed when he learns his ex-wife was having an affair with a cop.  By the way, Rafe,  the detective cop in a coma at the moment in the hospital.  You have a lot of comas on soaps too. 

Stepano told the crooked cop to, "cut them off!" (meaning to castrate).  The crooked cop said that  Rafe was his friend and he couldn't do that to a friend.  But with one of Stephano's evil looks at the crooked cop he changed his mind.

Wednesday's episode ended with the crooked cop standing outside Raife's hospital room holding a pair of meat cutter shears.

Of course all the true DAYS OF OUR LIVES fans would want to have their TVs on to catch the action on Thursday's episode. 

Thursday's and Friday's episodes were preempted for a tennis tournament.   They will not know what will happen until Monday.

I bet until then, every time they see a tennis game they will think of another kind ball, two of them.

What About Oscar the Grouch?

I haven't paid that much attention to the Muppets on SESEME STREET since my kids grew into adulthood.  Is Oscar the Grouch still around?  I see other Seseme Street characters keep popping up but not Oscar.  Did he die with Jim Henson?


Well, if he is still around or not, Big Bird has everybody's attention now - from NEWSY.COM:

August 21, This Date in History

1873.  Jesse James robbed his first train.  I was told that one of the families they hid out with from time to time were Trammells.  Relatives no doubt.

Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899.  He was a great writer.  He wrote about rugged types of adventures and just about lived the same kind of drink-straight-from-the-bottle kind of life.  I have read only one of his books, THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA.  But I did see the FOR WHOM THE BELLS TOLLED movie.  He made Key West a tourist spot. 

When I think of Earnest Hemingway I think of big game hunting, charging elephants, tigers, bears, and maybe even sharks with knives.  Earnest Hemingway also reminds me of the movie HAPPY BIRTHDAY WANDA JUNE by Kurt Vonnugut, Jr.  It was first a play then it was made into a movie starring Rod Steiger - of course it had other people in it, but Rod Steiger's character is who I want to point out.  Steiger's character is very much like Earnest Hemingway.  His Manhattan apartment was decorated with mounted heads and stuffed animals that he had killed big game hunting.  Just like Hemingway, he was a man's man.  They went out and bought a birthday cake from a local bakery at the last minute.  The only birthday decorated cake the bakery had was one that had HAPPY BIRTHDAY WANDA JUNE on it.  It was a cake that was not picked up.  It was to be Wanda June's 13th birthday.  She was ran over and killed.  Which had another story-line, Jesus and Wanda June watched the interaction of the birthday party her cake was from above making witty comments about it all.  It was sort of like a Greek play.  The grabber of the play/movie, was that the Hemingway-like character, the man's man, so to speak, was impotent.  Never trust a book by its cover.

Don Knotts was born in 1824.  I think he is best known for his character Barnie Fife and his one bullet on the Andy Griffin's MAYBERRY, RFD.  The first I noticed him was on the STEVE ALLEN SHOW and the first TONIGHT SHOW, MC: Steve Allen.  He had the nervous high strung type of character down-pat.  I don't think he had to research his character-type much at all.

Dave and J. Fred Muggs

Dave Garroway died in 1982.  Dave was the first TODAY SHOW host.  Dave was a very casual dignified type of guy.  It seems to me THE TODAY SHOW has been falling in dignity ever since.  After Hugh Downs I feel it took a sharper degree falling downward.  Boy, Dave Garroway and his partner J. Fred Muggs knew how to show some dignity - especially that time J. Fred threw a birthday cake in Dave's face.

July 13th Birthdays

1821 Nathan Bedford Forrest -Tennessee, brilliant cavalry leader, Lt Gen

Everybody agrees that CSA General Nathan Bedford Forrest was a brilliant strategist and a brave man. Whether he was a hateful racist or not is debatable.

 

1913 Dave Garroway - Schnectady NY, TV host (Today Show)

Dave Garroway was the first TODAY SHOW host. He co-anchored it with chimpanzee J. Fred Muggs. I think Garroway fitted the spot perfectly and J. Fred didn’t do bad either. Dave Garroway took his own life. I don’t know why he committed suicide but being upstaged by a primate probably didn’t help.



 

1942 Harrison Ford actor (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Frantic).

Man! Harrison Ford has starred in some great movies. If I was 65 years younger I would imagine myself in whatever role Harrison Ford played in just after I saw the movie. I’m one year older than he is, where did the time go?

 

1946 Richard "Cheech" Marin comedian (Cheech & Chong).

Cheech and Chong have made some hilarious movies about not giving a hoot about authoritarian figures, the same as the Marx Brothers did – anarchism at its funniest. Richard Marin metamorphosed himself out of Cheech and is now an established fine-art collector and dealer.

On This Date in History, June 15:

1864 Robert E Lee's home area (Arlington, VA) became a military cemetery.

1969 "Hee Haw" with Roy Clark & Buck Owens premiered on CBS TV

SUNDAY FUNNIES!!! HUMBUG's TV Commercials

This came from the pages of HUMBUG Magazine, issue #9, 1958. It was probably written by Harvey Kurtzman and was illustrated by Will Elder. It is a spoof on the TV industry patting itself on the back and also a spoof on commercials. Incidentally, on yesterday's blog, the Saint Patty's Parade, illustrated by Arnold Roth was pulled from the same magazine.

Homer Got His Gun

On the SIMPSONS last Sunday was Treehouse of Horror XXII which was one surrealistic plot after another, , each linked somehow to the next one, all starring the Simpson characters. Almost all the tales were a poke at a similar recognizable tale. I think most all would instantly recognized what is being lampooned except one of the first ones. I am talking (or writing) about Homer lying in a hospital bed, blind, limbs shot off and tongue missing. In his present state he thought he could not communicate until his daughter Lisa learned the only thing he had control over was his farts. He could fart at will. At first they learned he could communicate by one fart meant yes and two farts meant no. Before long the farts communication method got more complex and Homer was coming out with some very deep and profound thoughts.

That almost came straight out of the book JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN by Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976). In the book in WWI a bomb blew up right in front of Joe Bonham. Joe face was blown away, his ear drums, tongue, all four limbs, and whatever else. He could not see, hear, smell, taste, eat, or utilize any other senses. After a while he figured out he was in a hospital and had tubes running in him to keep in alive and tubes running out of him to get rid of the waste: In goes the good and out goes the bad.

He lived within his mind. He was a young man. He remembered his formative past’s detailed and dwelled over them. He thought about God, he thought about the human race’s irrational ways of interacting which caused wars. He thought about his previous lovers, he thought in detail about everything.

In time, he discovered one nurse treated him gentler than the others. I forgot how, but he found a way to communicate to her. Maybe he started out contracting his body once for yes and twice for no, just like Homer did with his farting.

I would tell you the rest but it may ruin it for you, if you had plan on reading it.

I read the book in the 1960s when I was in the Navy. It was written in 1938, When I read it I was aware that the author, Dalton Trumbo, was blacklisted because he refused to cooperate with the House of Un-American Activities with their communist behind every bush hunt.

I think they thought since his books had an anti-war message he must have been a communists.

That is what THE SIMPSONS did during the Academy Awards.

The Hanging on Television

I know of an elderly man who farmed all his life and his bone were tired. About the same time he was too old to work was about the same time, in the 1950s, watching TV was becoming a way of life. Then he watched some TV, which wa new and a novelty to him. Often he would dose off while watching.

One day, at almost lunch time he said, “Turn on the television, they are going to hang that fellow at noon.”

Me, Myself, and I

I watched part of a soap opera yesterday. It seemed to me that all the characters were mostly concerned with themselves and their own feelings. For instance:

“If Maggie dies I don’t know what I will do."

"I love you Maggie, do you love me?"

“I am so happy you are my brother.”

“I will kill him!”

“I am very mad because Maggie got shot! I can't live without her!"

"I can protect you!"

"How did I ever let this happen?"



Each character’s favorite subject was “I”.


The only person not saying “I” was Maggie. She was unconscious. Then Maggie woke up from being in a coma for over a week and her first words were, “I love you.”

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! Ghost Sitcom

This story is from CRACKED COLLECTOR’S EDTION. I think this probably was recycled in about 1981. It is illustrated by one of MAD Comic’s original four artists, John Severin. The story is a lampoon of the TV sitcom of the GHOST AND MRS. MUIR staring Hope Lange. The story line was that Hope Lang bought or rented a cottage near the ocean that is haunted by a dignified bearded ex-ship captain.

I remember in the early 1970s an old Navy friend Dick and his wife Nancy dropped by for a an overnight visit coming back from Florida. He is a professional announce and has a refined dignified voice. He also had a beard then. One of us said Dick reminded us an actor on THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR and Dick, as witty as he was in the Navy, said, “Who? Hope Lange?”

If you keep up with Chicken-fat.com daily you will might remember not long ago I mentioned that Johnny McCracken’s Restaurant in Marietta might be haunted. I went on to say that maybe Casper the Friendly Ghost might be the one haunting it. I gave him the name of Casper McCracken.

Strangely, for weeks Chicken-fat was visited hundreds of times more than usual for the next few weeks because of the mere mention of CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST.

Just because I mentioned CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST – can you believe that?

The reason I mention CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST here is because CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST is also in this illustrated story.

a Burping Smoked Meat Thursday

Yesterday in the Marietta Daily Journal was an article about Big Shanty Smokehouse in Kennesaw. We went there a few years ago, right after they opened in 2008 but just about forgot the taste – we went back. The sampler platter in the article looked so good! That is what I ordered. It was piled with smoked ribs, a few slabs of briskets, and some pulled pork. I thought it was very good - and stuffing. It all had the rare smoked meat taste. Big Shanty Smokehouse is on Cherokee Street in Kennesaw in what used to be a small dwelling (compared to today’s dwellings).

Later we were in a store and I burped what tasted like smoked meat. I think if I practiced I could have blown smoke rings.

That evening on GPBTV channel 8 there was a special on Margaret Mitchell. It was very well done, telling a lot about Margaret Mitchell I didn’t know. Parts of it was filmed in Marietta. One of the places was the Trammell House, owned by Rachel Frey and her husband Doug.* Rachel portrayed Margaret in several scenes when she was writing or typing. It was a good show! I believe it will be on again tonight and several repeating times on GPTV.


*We are currently reading the book MARIETTA THE GEM CITY OF GEORGIA by Doug Frey which is about the grand old houses of Marietta and the history of the owners.

On This Date In History, June the 24th

On this date in history:

1813 Battle of Beaver Dam-British & Indian forces defeat US forces.

1861 Tennessee becomes 11th (& last) state to secede from US.

1947 Flying saucers sighted over Mount Rainier by pilot Ken Arnold.

1948 Soviet Union begins Berlin Blockade, so Berlin Airlift begins.

1949 "Hopalong Cassidy" becomes 1st network western (NBC). You could have fooled me. Until I read this I would have bet the 1st western on TV was The Long Ranger.

1987 Jackie Gleason actor (Honeymooners), died at 71 in Fort Lauderdale. I heard the inscription on his tombstone is: AND AWAY WE GO!




________________________________________

This Day In History, June the 17th

1775 Battle of Bunker Hill (actually it was Breed's Hill)

1885 Statue of Liberty arrived in NYC aboard French ship `Isere'

1954 Televised Senate Army McCarthy hearings ends. Senator Joe McCarthy unintentional proved, along with the help of Edward R. Murrow, that you don't have to agree with the senator (McCarthy) to be a good American.

Wow! Who Do I Think I am? Part 29

Niles Trammell

Colonel Leander Newton Trammell’s grandson, Niles Trammell, born in Marietta, became president of one of the most popular companies, and maybe one of the most powerful and influential, NBC. He was the president when National Broadcasting Corp extended their airwaves for television. But many would say he made his mark when, before he was president, when he signed up the radio program Amos & Andy's creators and writers Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll (notice that the cast members mentioned Marietta, Georgia, often – I don’t know for certain but I think it was in the originator contract, probably written by Niles Trammell, Marietta native.

Amos & Andy was on the radio from 1928 to 1955 and on TV from 1951 to 1953. Ironically CBS carried the TV show, not NBC.

Yellow Fellow Shoot'em Ups

I love the Yella Fella cliff hanger commercials! I guess they remind me of the old movies I watched as a kid at the Strand Theater on Saturday mornings. It has a simple plot with simple solutions but somehow the quality of the yellow wood of Southern Wood is always worked in.

The hero, the big FELLA in a YELLOW cowboy outfit is Jimmy Rane, founder of Southern Wood Preserving Corporation. It appears he is playing out a childhood fantasy.

The acting is terrible and the cliffhanging is tongue-in-cheek. It is so corny it is good. Heck, I think I'm going to cry again.

CHRISTMAS STORY reruns

Each year on TV we watch bits and pieces of THE CHRISTMAS STORY that is a segment of Jean Shepards’s life as an adolescent.

Every year one station or another runs the movie over and over. This year it on one of the Turner channels. We watch part of it in HD (High Definition). I think some movies should be shown in their original format. Watching an old movie in HD is like watching the Fatty Arbuckle and the Keystone Cops in HD, or STEAMBOAT WILLIE… such clear clarity takes something out of the movie; it takes the is’s out of "It Is What It is."

THE CHRISTMAS STORY movie is an excellent study of human traits and their interaction of other humans. Last year I remember focusing in on Ralphie’s mother and of wit which she kept mostly to herself, but the beheading of the Christmas goose caught her by surprise and it gave her away. I think she also had a bit of rebel in her, in an introverted way.

This year I noticed a kid in the Santa Claus line at the department store, with a big dumb smile on his face, turn around to Ralphie and his little brother and say, “I like Santa.”

That was it. He liked Santa. He turned back around.

Then the WIZARD OF OZ foursome walked by with the witch cackling. And the smiling boy, again turned around and contributed, “I like WIZARD OF OZ”. And that was it.

A few minutes later the smiling boy looked horrified as the department store Stanta was giving him a hateful glare.

I haven’t noticed him before. Who wil l see next year I haven’t noticed before?

September 21st's Days in History

1863 - Union forces retreat to Chattanooga after defeat at Chickamauga, which is just west of Dalton, Georgia. Chickamauga was the 2nd most killing field in the Civil War.

1947 - Stephen King was born. Stephen King, I think, is the most prolific of substance writer I have evern read...and he just keeps on banging them out. I became a Stephen King burned-out many years ago.

1948 - "Texaco Star Theater" with Milton Berle premieres on NBC-TV. Remember Uncle Miltie and how he loved to parade around dressed in drag and we just howled. A man dressed up in a dress! How funny! we thought.