06/06/2010
05/22/2010
How to Speak TCM
Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne is the silver-haired, silver-tongued hero to millions of people whose idea of a new movie is one that came out during the second half of the Great Depression. I actually met him once at the Friars Club in Manhattan. The Friars used to be glittery showbiz hangout where Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra traded zingers at the bar and compared penis sizes in the men’s room. Now it has the feel of a classy rec-room at an upscale senior center, where grandparents and their cardio specialists hobble in for the kind of food that they used to serve at the second-best country club in the suburban Baltimore.
Dickie Moore, despite that name, is not a porn star. He was a child actor and member of Our Gang, aka The Little Rascals, and is most famous for not meeting a horrible, premature death like most of his co-stars. Jane Powell is a 1950s-era MGM musical star, now married to Moore. I made obeisance to Mr. Moore and Ms Powell, who were very sweet and even gave me a peppermint.
Robert is a smooth and sophisticated throwback to an era when no one ever said anything bad about anyone else on the television, unless you were a suspected commie. His employer, Turner Classic Movies, shows many great films but the most fun is when Robert has to intro a film he clearly clearly dislikes. Robert clearly can't say, “Skip this dud, because you’re better off catching a nap before going out to cash your Social Security check.” He is the master of dancing lightly around the fact that he wouldn’t watch a certain movie if you paid him. Here are some of the gilded phrases the great and mighty Osborne is likely to use when the Turner Classic Movie is just a movie, not a classic.
• “This comedy, starring Sonny Tufts and Olivia De Havilland was shot during one of rainiest seasons ever in Hollywood, and everyone had to bring an umbrella to work.”
• “The film was shot on location in Palm Springs, California, which at the time was one of the fastest growing cities in Southern California, despite its intense heat during the summer.”
• “The cameramen, Billy Bitzer, worked with many great directors during his career, and he was known for taking excellent care of his camera equipment.”
• “This epic historical drama about the Slovenian Civil War features a stellar cast, and none of the charges against any of them were ever proven.”
• “This colorful crime story was made while Cary Grant was getting a divorce, and Grant always said that his lawyer was one of the best in Hollywood.
• “The producer wanted Robert Redford to star in the title role and apparently Redford wanted to until he read the script.”
• “Many great spy films were made in the 1960s. The spy film we’re about to see tonight was made in 1972.”
• John Wayne always said that his favorite director was John Ford. The director of this film often drove a Ford.”
• “Sophia Loren is a very beautiful woman. I once asked her about this film, and when she answered, she looked very beautiful.”
• “Several writers worked on this movie, and all of them would go on to successful careers in other fields.”
• “Martin Scorsese is perhaps America’s greatest living film director, and he once owned a house near a theater where this was playing.”
• Director John Huston once called this a great film. His exact quote was, “This is a great film if you like boring crap.’”
• “Right now I understand that the QVC network is offering great prices on genuine his-and-hers Diamonique stud earrings.”
• “The film critic James Agee called this the best slapstick comedy that Eleanor Roosevelt ever made.”
05/09/2010
05/05/2010
04/29/2010
Gardening for Anti-Semites
I can't wait until they come up with a gardening book for my people called "Dagos."
04/25/2010
Eat it.
I’ve been spending a couple weeks hanging out in Western Massachusetts. which is known as the Berkshires. It’s a region famous for its beautiful mountains, outdoor music concerts and restaurants run by people who hate food.
The most reliable source of grub I’ve found up here so far is the frozen food aisle at the Stop N’ Shop. At this point I’m thinking of asking Mama Celeste to adopt me. (Or telling her that I’m open to exploring a relationship with a MILF).
Until Mama Celeste agrees to cut me a slice, I’ve come up with a list of signs that tell me what restaurants to avoid.
• Everyone is fatter than you. Sure, fat people like to eat but most of them go for quantity over quality. So if it looks like you stumbled into an open casting call for the “Biggest Loser,” get lost.
• Everyone is older than you. Geezers are more concerned about cost than about quality. Their taste buds went dead around the same time their sex drive did and now they’re just looking for an eatery that takes coupons and has wide enough aisles to park a rolling oxygen tank.
• They give toys to the kids. This is known as a bribe. If the food is any good, they wouldn’t have to bribe anyone to eat here. And that plastic rocketship or freaky-haired troll doll is usually the most edible thing on the menu.
• They still have a working cigarette machine. I think these are against the law, but if you see one you know that you’re not really in a restaurant, you’re in a bar that happens to sell food. The patrons are tantalizing their palates with delicious Kool Menthols and Red Bulls with a Jagermeister chaser. As a result, the cook can pretty much reach into the trash can, pull out any thing he wants and put it on a plate.
• There’s a bowling alley attached. If you have to ask why this is a bad thing, I’m not going to tell you.
• A row of motorcycles parked out front. If the owner caters to Harley riders, it probably means he uses the same grease on the grill that they use on their bike engines. Ask yourself this: Have you ever heard of a Harley Davidson gourmet club climbing on their choppers and hitting the open road intent on discovering which boite serves the best seared mushrooms and fresh white asparagus turned in a pan with spring garlic? Me neither.
• There’s an all-you-can-eat buffet. Especially if it’s a Chinese restaurant. When I was a kid, it seemed that every visit to my relatives ends up with a visit to Huki-Lau Imperial Polynesian Palace, featuring an all-you-can-eat-buffet with Chinese, Italian and “American” food. The sad part is, it was usually the best part of visit.
• They sell lottery tickets. You’ve got a better chance of winning the Powerball on a $2 scratcher than getting a decent meal. That’s because the owner has figured out that there’s more money to made selling colored pieces of paper with numbers than selling warmed-over tater tots. (Though they taste about the same.)
• The owner has a collection of vintage cars, motorcycles or railroad cars. I don’t know why, but this is an infallible sign that the food is bad. Maybe the Salisbury Steak was good back when the 1923 Stutz Bearcat out front was first built, but it’s been down-hill ever since.
• All the pickup trucks parked outside have gun racks. Nothing against hunters, but they spend a lot of time crouched in the cold, eating candy bars and drinking beer. They’re not know for their discriminating palate. After a morning crouching in the woods, they would happily eat deer poop, as long as it’s served with coffee.
• British owners. Yes, I know that Gordon Ramsay has done his loudest to show that British people can cook good food. But he’s a liar. There’s a British owned place a mile down the street from me and if Gordon Ramsay were to try to fix what’s wrong with it, he’d have to start by murdering the owners and serving them (Overcooked, of course)
• Good-looking waitresses. I admit that I haven’t run across many, but they’re a sign that the owner cares about something more than he does about the food. And it means that most of the customers are coming here trying to get something other than a hot meal. Unless I’m in New York City or Los Angeles, where everyone is beautiful or about to pay a surgeon to make them that way, I want to eat in restaurants where the waitresses are so ugly that not even Tiger Woods would sleep with them.
I don’t want to be entirely negative about the food up here in New England because I’ve found two small bistros that consistently serve tasty, well-prepared food. You should check them out if you’re ever up here. They’re called McDonalds and Subway.
04/15/2010
Getting Schooled on "Breaking Bad."
Thanks to Netflix and what economists are calling the jobless recovery, I’ve almost caught up with AMC’s “Breaking Bad.” If you haven’t seen this show, it’s got the same plot as Showtime’s Weeds, except that instead of Mary Louise Parker selling cheeba-cheeba, it’s the dad from “Malcolm in the Middle” cooking crystal meth in a beat-up Winnebago. Bryan Cranston plays a high school chemistry teacher who decides that making drugs is the best way to build a nest egg for his family. Since no one in town can figure out that he’s the mastermind, I thought I’d offer a list of ways to tell if your home room teacher is actually a drug lord.
• Takes the class on a field trip to Bogota
• Snoop Dogg uses his name as a rhyme in his latest single
• Stages a drive-by in the faculty break room.
• His favorite science experiments consist of swallowing a condom filled with cocaine
• Keeps a pet lion in the school bathroom.
• Tags his desk with gang markings
• When he passes out a test he says, “Say Hello to My Little Friend
• Replaces the school fight song with “The Chronic”
• Takes the class on a field trip to Bogota
• Snoop Dogg uses his name as a rhyme in his latest single
• Stages a drive-by in the faculty break room.
• His favorite science experiments consist of swallowing a condom filled with cocaine
• Keeps a pet lion in the school bathroom.
• Tags his desk with gang markings
• When he passes out a test he says, “Say Hello to My Little Friend
• Replaces the school fight song with “The Chronic”
04/11/2010
Digging the Weeds in Los Angeles
I used to have two good excuses for getting out of doing anything I didn’t want to do:
#1 “I’m working and can’t go.”
#2 “I worked all week and I need to rest (in front of the TV.)”
Now that I’ve been drafted into the army of the unemployed, #1 and #2 have lost their magical powers, which means I’ve actually had to leave my house and do things. Last weekend, my wife signed us up for a two-day self-guided tour of the Native Plant Gardens of Los Angeles.
If you’re like me, you think a native plant in Los Angeles is medical marijuana, and that its natural habitat is a storefront clinic in a strip mall next to a Foster’s Freeze and restaurant that sells Chinese food and fried donuts.
It turns out that in order to save water and otherwise encourage a Green lifestyle, many homeowners are planting only flowers and trees that are originally from Los Angeles. In other words, plants that do well in an atmosphere of ambition, bitterness, envy and car exhaust.
The first garden we stopped at was at a chateau in the hills that give Beverly its last name. We wound around twisty canyon streets that seemed to go nowhere, until we reached a house with row of Priuses parked along the curb. We walked through the house, which the owner had graciously opened for the tour, and I started wondering if there was an episode of “Law & Order” in which the burglar cases his victims’ houses by signing up for a native plant garden tour. (If not, look for my spec script next week.)
The crowd visiting the native plant garden apparently all shopped at a the same clothing store. You know the one where if you buy his-and-her clogs the salesman throws in a fleece windbreaker. The rest of their outfits ran the gamut from from cargo pants to cargo shorts.
The garden was in the backyard, but you have to remember that what’s called a backyard in Los Angeles is known in the rest of the country as a “cliff.” The plants didn’t grow, they clung to the side of the hillside waiting for a search-and-rescue team to lower a ladder from a chopper.
There were a lot of orange flowers labeled “California poppy.”
My Wife: “No, that’s a different kind.”
Me: “...poppyseed bagels?”
My Wife: “That’s not what you were going to ask.”
Me: “You thought I was going to ask about cinnamon-raisin bagels?”
An elderly gentleman wearing the kind of low black cowboy hat that Indians used to wear in westerns had come equipped with his best horticultural pickup line. He ask my wife, “What did the big rose say to the little rose?... Hi Bud.”
The old guy asked my wife the same question again at the next garden we visited, and he seemed shocked that my wife knew the punchline. I guess when you’re cruising the native plant garden tour, all the blossoms look the same.
The fourth or fifth garden we visited was down from the hills and into the heart of Los Angeles in a neighborhood called Mar Vista. This is a rough Spanish translation for Sea View. However, the neighborhood should have been called Cuatro Cero Cinco Vista, because the one thing you could see (and hear) in the neighborhood was the 405 freeway. There’s nothing like admiring a manzanita or a ceanthous while tractor-trailers zoom by at 80 miles an hour, hundreds of feet above your head.
“It’s okay,” my wife told me, “You’ll enjoy the second day of the native plant tour of Los Angeles better.”
I certainly did. I stayed home and watched the final round of the Masters Tournament. Or as I called it, the Native Plant Tour of Augusta, Georgia. And I have to say that the jacket that they gave Phil Mickelson was greener than anything I saw on the L.A. garden tour.
#1 “I’m working and can’t go.”
#2 “I worked all week and I need to rest (in front of the TV.)”
Now that I’ve been drafted into the army of the unemployed, #1 and #2 have lost their magical powers, which means I’ve actually had to leave my house and do things. Last weekend, my wife signed us up for a two-day self-guided tour of the Native Plant Gardens of Los Angeles.
If you’re like me, you think a native plant in Los Angeles is medical marijuana, and that its natural habitat is a storefront clinic in a strip mall next to a Foster’s Freeze and restaurant that sells Chinese food and fried donuts.
It turns out that in order to save water and otherwise encourage a Green lifestyle, many homeowners are planting only flowers and trees that are originally from Los Angeles. In other words, plants that do well in an atmosphere of ambition, bitterness, envy and car exhaust.
The first garden we stopped at was at a chateau in the hills that give Beverly its last name. We wound around twisty canyon streets that seemed to go nowhere, until we reached a house with row of Priuses parked along the curb. We walked through the house, which the owner had graciously opened for the tour, and I started wondering if there was an episode of “Law & Order” in which the burglar cases his victims’ houses by signing up for a native plant garden tour. (If not, look for my spec script next week.)
The crowd visiting the native plant garden apparently all shopped at a the same clothing store. You know the one where if you buy his-and-her clogs the salesman throws in a fleece windbreaker. The rest of their outfits ran the gamut from from cargo pants to cargo shorts.
The garden was in the backyard, but you have to remember that what’s called a backyard in Los Angeles is known in the rest of the country as a “cliff.” The plants didn’t grow, they clung to the side of the hillside waiting for a search-and-rescue team to lower a ladder from a chopper.
There were a lot of orange flowers labeled “California poppy.”
My Wife: “No, that’s a different kind.”
Me: “...poppyseed bagels?”
My Wife: “That’s not what you were going to ask.”
Me: “You thought I was going to ask about cinnamon-raisin bagels?”
An elderly gentleman wearing the kind of low black cowboy hat that Indians used to wear in westerns had come equipped with his best horticultural pickup line. He ask my wife, “What did the big rose say to the little rose?... Hi Bud.”
The old guy asked my wife the same question again at the next garden we visited, and he seemed shocked that my wife knew the punchline. I guess when you’re cruising the native plant garden tour, all the blossoms look the same.
The fourth or fifth garden we visited was down from the hills and into the heart of Los Angeles in a neighborhood called Mar Vista. This is a rough Spanish translation for Sea View. However, the neighborhood should have been called Cuatro Cero Cinco Vista, because the one thing you could see (and hear) in the neighborhood was the 405 freeway. There’s nothing like admiring a manzanita or a ceanthous while tractor-trailers zoom by at 80 miles an hour, hundreds of feet above your head.
“It’s okay,” my wife told me, “You’ll enjoy the second day of the native plant tour of Los Angeles better.”
I certainly did. I stayed home and watched the final round of the Masters Tournament. Or as I called it, the Native Plant Tour of Augusta, Georgia. And I have to say that the jacket that they gave Phil Mickelson was greener than anything I saw on the L.A. garden tour.
