Columbo Roasts Frank Sinatra

For some reason, this really tickled me tonight.

Lieutenant Columbo -- high prole, and not ashamed of it, if you're familiar with Paul Fussell's "Class." A wonderful book, by the way.

Wizard of Speed and Time

Portrait of a guy who found his muse decades before YouTube would have given him a place for it to wallow in semi-obscurity. This is Mike Jittlov's (be warned, he developed this web page during the GeoCities era and hasn't updated it much since) "Wizard of Speed and Time," an odd little special-effects short he put together waaaay back in the 1970s. He turned the story into a feature film -- though it falls into the typical trap of being a film about making a film; I would rather have seen him pursue the Wizard storyline than he himself and him, but that's his film, not mine. (I've seen the full-length film. It's okay, but you're better off just watching the short. Trust me.)

N'Importe Qui

I don't typically go for performance art. But this guy, I like.

If you watch a bunch of his videos -- and he has lots of them -- watch out for when he's on the golf course or getting ready to talk smack to the people giving parking tickets. The cops almost always nail him, and he gets assaulted by golfers. Of course, he's not necessarily nice to them. Especially the golfers.

He is Remi Gaillaird, by the way, a Montpelier-born humorist.

Tonight's Nonsequitur: Bunny in A Bunny Suit

Today's YouTube Nonsequitur: La Femme D'Argent

Once and a while, somebody on YouTube really throws a wildcard at you. Take this video -- ordinary traffic on Market Street in San Francisco circa 1906 (according to researchers, this was likely taken four days before the massive earthquake and fire that destroyed a good portion of the city) combined with a bit of modern technojazz, and you've got something that's hypnotic to watch.

Things I noticed:

1. Boys (and boyish men) will ALWAYS mug for the camera.
2. The more muggish boys will, in fact, run to keep up with the camera so they can be featured more than once.
3. We ought to have more horses and carts on the roads nowadays.
4. Ladies still ought to wear hats like that.
5. I want a bowler hat of my very own.
6. We are slobs today. Everybody there is wearing a suit jacket or heavy dress. Yeah, some of the cuts aren't the finest, but they're all dressed up.

Here's a bit more on the historical background of the film, if you're interested. Bonus points: Introduced by the grumpiest of TV journalists, Morley Safer.

A Writing Bit: Ourscielfurr

NOTE: Yet another bit of random writing from many moons ago. Trying -- and failing -- to emulate a saga here. Though this poem is less sagaish, I sure like it a lot better.

Come ye prophets, mages wise
porters of peeping stones
Oracle bearers, come hear the tale
of Second Ourscielfurr's bones

On green hump near the Willow
deep in aspen black glade
In a hut made of thatch branch and twig
reeds (1) delivered blue-furred babe

To a brown-hued corn farmer
Tugarraf, pink-furred mate
Blue larks burst forth singing, bells ringing
Friend Sun shone bright at the gate

Hail, hail tiny wee blue-fur!
Bears' great battles lead on
Peasants, warbears, prophets paid homage
To savior, black burlap wrapped

Aspens d'or, flowers bedecked
Silvergrass weaved and twined
Crown on the blue brow-festival light!
Fire Feast sprung up on the Hump

Starfire bright, pinhole light
Silvery crescent moon
Smiled on the hump glade, Ourson (2) stood guard
Yet sparrows clouded the wood

Firetorch lighting! Mourn, cry!
Gold ones! Black hoods! Red eyes!
Spears marched like raindrops, surrounding glade
Hellclouds grew thick in the sky

Silver moon dimmed by lightning
Hellclouds veiled Ourson's eyes
Feasters ran panic, brave warbears stood
dark blood slaughter struck the glade

Crows and sparrows fought and squawked
warbears groaned bleak and fell
Confusion Master, cries in the night
Hump opened dark gates of Hell

Cry of anguish, Voice of Death
screeched out from thatched hut
Ourson! Ourson! Family forsaken!
wee blue-fur lay streaked with blood

Treason! Treason came the cry
Rally warbears, hie! Hie!
Blue-fur, pink fur, brown fur, all lay dead
Wee Ourscielfurr babe is gone!

Birdcall ceased, clouds shuddered still
Pale Eye shone down on the Hump
Tugarraf, Cornear, blue-fur lay still
Wrapped up in each others' claws

To avenge dark sin treason
Prophet called to the sky
Ourson, Fair Ladies (3) hear ye this cry!
Of these dead, form ye thy skies!

Fair Ladies wept, descended
took up blue and his kin
of their bones formed them Wee One, Big One
To the heavens made them kin

Watch and learn tiny young ones
O, remember ye old!
Wee One, Big One, with Cornear around
Heed tokens, shining stones

Heed ye prophets, mages wise
porters of peeping stones
Oracle bearers, remember the tale
of Second Ourscielfurr's bones

(1) Cattails
(2) Orion
(3) The Pleadies

Another Bit of Writing: Dropping Dreams

NOTE: Here's another bit of poetry from long ago. Need to keep up with it, but got other projects going right now . . .

You infuriate me, you
standing there on the lava rock
just staring at me and waiting for a handout.

You really ought to get a job and fend a bit more for yourself
after all, you’ve got a family to support
out there in the rocks and reeds.

Don’t stare at me, your
little beady eyes seem too complacent
for all the rotten things that happen

You seem to ignore it all, and let me tell you,
Mister,
you’d better watch out because it’ll catch up to you one of these days.

Don’t hiss, you swine
or cluck your beaky lips at me
you infuriate me, you
stand there so carefree.

The others don’t run when you come near despite your shortsightedness
but boy do they run when I come walking by.

Well, maybe I’m a bit jealous of you
you who despite your shortcomings are more in touch
with the reality humans once knew but have long forgotten

I yearn to join your club, yet I imagine with all my inconsistencies
I wouldn’t meet the social criteria let along the maximum height standard.

So waddle off, you
look like a toddler who’s due for a diaper change
Leave me here with my dreams scattered with your droppings on the asphalt.

I’ll go and join the warren of rabbits who live in the foothills.
You can keep your flighty ways and your waterbed
I’ll not have my dreams trampled on by
haughty geese.

Tonight's Nonsequitur: Evil House of Pancakes

A Peter Cushing Nonsequitur

Because, of course, it's hilarious to think of Grand Moff Tarkin cycling around a little seaside English town buying vegetables.

Peter Cushing is on the mind, by the way, because I bought my first Hammer Films DVD today at Smith&Edwards in Ogden -- "The Curse of Frankenstein." Now, I'm not really into horror films, and Hammer films tend to be, well, Hammer films, so we'll see how long I last. But it'll give me my first chance to see Cushing and Christopher Lee together in a film, so what the heck.

I'm a little concerned that, in this scene, Dr. Frankenstein appears to be studying a jelly doughnut rather too intently. Then there's the classic "reveal" of the monster which, inexplicably, leads to the monster trying to strangle the mad doctor. I'll be curious to see what the rest of the film is like.

Smith&Edwards, by the way, is well worth the stop if you're ever driving along I-15 in Utah. It out-Cabelas Cabelas, combining the best of an inexpensive outfitter with the best of the best of the traditional war surplus store. We spent about an hour there today, and that wasn't nearly long enough. I could wander through that store all day, looking at the interesting bric-a-brac from $30 Navy trenchcoats to Gilligan hats to bags filled with 25 boxed of "imported" matches. It's a place that takes all the snooty urbanity of the greater Salt Lake area and says, "Pfui, who needs it all?"

Dad used to stop there all the time just to wander the aisles. In fact, as we pulled up into the parking lot there today, I realized that it was with Dad the last time I was at Smith&Edwards, and Dad has been dead now for ten years. I miss him especially in places like that because in his eyes I could see the same kind of wonder and excitement I saw in my kids' eyes as they explored the aisles and picked up the random stuff that makes the store so interesting. So maybe I'm helping pass on a Davidson tradition here. Too bad it too me so long.

Today's Nonsequitur -- Bob and Doug

Tonight's Nonsequitur

I don't know why, exactly, I find this so amusing. But it is.

Another Nonsequitur

Today's Nonsequitur

Best line: "Damn. This is what I was wearing the last time he attacked." And may I just say that this skit kind of shows some of the differences between feminism of the day and feminism of today -- no way would this skit even fly today, it would be a lot meaner than this. They'd be Lieutenant Yar all over the place.

A Final April Nonsequitur

There's only one thing to say about that:

Raaaaamsseeeeeeees!
(The man in gauze, the man in gauze!)
Raaaaaamsseeeeessss!