Entirely too much thought devoted to 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' (the movie)

I was watching "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" the other day (an early Christmas gift), and I was struck by a few things. I always notice something new with each viewing.

1. One of the background dancers in the "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" number featuring Steve Martin is the tough guy from the Scorpions who Danny Zuko outdrove at the end of Grease.

2. The guy who plays Billy Shears' dad was also Sam's Grandpa Fred ("Helen, we've got an owl out here in the hall!") from Sixteen Candles.

3. Now this puzzled me. The movie begins with a flashback to World War I, where the first Sgt. Pepper and his Lonely Hearts Club Band managed to stop the fighting by playing music.

No, that's really how it starts.

Shortly after, there's a montage narrated by George Burns (Mr. Kite, the mayor of Heartland) that shows the band over the course of the years. The Roaring Twenties, The depression, economic recovery and "yet another great war."

Admittedly, I'm a poor student of history, but I guess I missed the economic recovery between the Great Depression and World War II. I could probably ask my brother or my dad about this (they're big history buffs), but I'm too lazy, and I don't want to have to explain why I want to know this.

---

After the movie, I got to thinking. They've made plenty of bad video games based on good movies (and lots of bad movies based on good video games). Why don't they make more good video games based on bad ones?

It's been done before (MegaForce, anyone?), but it might be cool to deliberately use bad movies as a video game source. Here are some ideas that I pulled out of my thought of.

Blood Freak

You are Herschell, a normal guy who is just looking for happiness. Alas, your neighborhood has been overrun by assorted riff-raff (druggies, prostitutes, politicians). You have a choice of teammate, which changes the path of the game. You can side with Angel and fight the riff-raff with healthy living, positive thinking and spiritual guidance, or you can team up with Ann, who has a more, uh, direct approach. When faced by large pockets of riff-raff, you can procure a "power pill" from Ann, which changes you into giant, hulking turkey monster that dispatches its foes by drinking their blood. The downside is that you're stuck in that form until the pill wears off. Then your choice is whether to keep up the onslaught and feeding on the blood (which replenishes your hit points) or risk dying and let the effects of the pill go away. Whether you turn to the dark side or go (wait for it...) cold turkey affects gameplay.

Batman and Robin

Uh, never mind.

Plan 9 From Outer Space

This, much to my surprise and joy, actually has been made into a video game. But instead of being set in the realm of the movie, it deals more with recovery of the film itself. I've never played it, but hey, bonus points for those cats just for doing it.

The Plan 9 game I had in mind casts the player as brave pilot Jeff Trent, who discovers that grave robbers from outer space are trying to take over Earth with newly reanimated dead people -- both zombies and vampires. Your job, of course, is to stop them from conquering the capitals of the world. You go from major city to major city avoiding or destroying the undead. Among all the carnage, you're also looking for pieces to the one contraption that could destroy the spaceborne menace once and for all: the Solaranite Bomb! But as you discover, the Solaranite Bomb is untested. It may work, or it may ignite all the solar particles in existence, thus creating a chain reaction that could destroy the universe. The choice is yours.

and of course...

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: The Movie: The Game

In this quest-style adventure, you can play as one of the four members of the band. Your goal is to recover all of the magical musical instruments and return them (as well as happiness) to Heartland, but you also have to keep Strawberry Fields, our damsel in distress, out of the hands of Mean Mr. Mustard and the Future Villain Band. On top of all that, you also have to avoid the Roving Vortex of Suck, which can appear at random through the game and suck away hit points.

A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

The wind is in the buffalo...

Another day, another movie for Bad Movies A to Z. Today's film is not bad at all in my estimation. In fact, it's one of my favorites. But I also put orange Tang on my vanilla ice cream, which I've been told, is super-mega-gross, so what do I know?

A little bit of background: I loved watching "The Monkees" when I was a kid and was aggravated that kindergarten kept me at school until the show was over.

I imagine my parents picked this up at our local video store, Asparagus Video (I think I still have the shirt somewhere), probably because they knew I loved The Monkees. Its star: Michael Nesmith (who wisely avoided being dubbed "Wool Hat" on the show). Its name: Elephant Parts.

Today's movie in a nutshell: It's billed as a video record. It's a collection of comedy skits wrapped around a handful of videos for Nesmith's songs.

The story: Like I said, it doesn't really have a story. I hesitate to say that it's like an episode of Saturday Night Live, but I guess that's the best comparison.

It begins with what looks like a straight performance of "Joanne" from Nez, until you hear that "her name was Rodan, and she lived beneath the oceans of Japan." Then he stomps over a cityscape a la Godzilla.

After this brief gag, Nez explains the premise of "Elephant Parts" before jumping into another skit, this one a pre-"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" audition for a Marines recruiting commercial.

For the most part, if you don't like a skit, just wait a few seconds, because another one is coming up.

Among my favorites: Neighborhood Nuclear Superiority ("This tactical nuclear warhead just attached to my garden hose with ordinary hand tools..."), Clandestine Typing Service (from whence came the title for this entry) and the trailer for the slasher flick "Have a Nice Day."

Interspersed among the skits are five videos: "Magic," "Cruisin'" (better known as "Lucy and Ramona and Sunset Sam"), "Light," "Rio" and "Tonite."

"Cruisin'" and "Rio" are probably the best known, with the latter getting a lot of airplay back in the day.

It looks dated, but it is almost 25 years old. I like to think of it as MTV's older brother, and not in a VH-1 kind of way. If I recall correctly, "Rio" was part of the "Popclips" show Nesmith created for Nickelodeon in the channel's earliest days. That idea was sold and eventually became MTV.

Afterthoughts: This is a bit shorter than the previous entries in Bad Movies A to Z because if I explain the skits, I'll ruin the jokes.

My brother and I grew up watching this, and we could probably perform the entire thing from memory. And considering that I rented this roughly a bajillion times before procuring a tape of my own, the extra stuff on the DVD was a welcome treat.

What was particularly interesting for me is that there are a few scenes that I hadn't seen before, including a clip about the perils of the "tragically hip," which, according to Nez's commentary, is where the band got its name.

It's also fun to discover things about something you're so familiar with. For example, this was co-written by Bill Martin, who also appears in many of the skits. What I didn't know until a few years ago was that he'd written a couple of my favorite Monkees songs ("All of Your Toys" and "The Door Into Summer") as well as a few for Harry Nilsson.

And, according to the IMDB, his voice acting credits include numerous voices for video games and cartoons, including, apparently, "The Monchichis."

Awesome.

One of my favorite things here is the commentary track that Nesmith provides. He explains that the project was made on a shoestring budget, and helpfully points out how certain effects were achieved.

It's a pretty laid-back commentary and is easy to listen to. It also helps that I'm a fan of Nesmith's work, so this is a fun way to kill an hour.

There was also a TV show spin-off of sorts in the mid-80s called "Television Parts," which I barely remember. As I recall, it got shifted around the schedule, so I think I ended up missing it more than I saw it. But I remember a sketch that was called something like "Five-Second Theater," featuring a presentation of "Old Yeller."

We see an old guy.

Yelling.

The End.

You gotta love that.

You can get both "Elephant Parts" and "Television Parts Home Companion" online from Michael Nesmith's Videoranch.

I've also seen "Doctor Duck's Super Secret All-Purpose Sauce," but I'm not sure if that's another Television Parts compilation or what. I actually checked it out of the library a few years back.

So far -- and we're only up to E -- this is my favorite movie on my alphabetical list. I've got a tentative list already drawn up, but if you've got some ideas for the rest of the alphabet, let me know. Who knows -- I may use your suggestion instead of what I've got. How's that for interactive?

But be warned -- if you have a movie that starts with M, it had better be pretty good/bad to change my mind.

The highlight of my morning

You know that companies catering to my generation will have gone too far when Mitsubishi releases a companion model to the Galant called the Goofus.

My prediction for this movie: Pain!

Here it is, the 100th post here at Siftin'! W00t! I think I had more posts than readers about a week into blogging, but that's no reason not to celebrate, right?

A few days ago, Dec. 10, was the 27th anniversary of the passing of writer-director-actor Edward D. Wood Jr. Ed Wood, of course, brought the world such films as "Glen or Glenda" and "Plan 9 From Outer Space."

So what better time to add another installment of Bad Movies A to Z? Well, we're up to D. None of the classic Ed Wood films start with D, unless you amend the title to "D'oh! It's Plan 9 Nine From Outer Space," which, I strongly believe, is cheating.

But in the spirit of Ed Wood, I wanted to review a movie written and directed by someone who clearly has a love for movies but maybe hasn't been blessed with the mad writing skillz.

And since Ed's more popular work dealt with the horror themes, I also wanted a scary movie.

Much to my surprise, a movie fitting those criteria showed up in my mailbox, thanks to Netflix.

I speak of Joel Schumacher's immortal "D.C. Cab."

Okay, it's billed as a comedy, but parts of it are so not funny that it scares me. A lot of people give Joel Schumacher grief for the two Batman movies he did. I know. I was one of them. You even mention "Batman and Robin" to me and my wife heads for the hills so she doesn't have to hear me whine about it.

But Schumacher clearly likes movies. And his were more commercially successful than Ed Wood's.

Today's movie in a nutshell: A young man, Albert Hockenberry, heads to Washington, D.C., to visit his uncle, Harold, who runs a cab company. His goal is to eventually have his own cab company.

The story: You know, that's pretty much it. Not very much actually happens in this movie. There's a little bit of romantic comedy wedged in, and there's a kidnapping, but the main thrust of the story is to showcase a motley crew of misfits who work at a cab company.

You'd think it would come off a lot like "Taxi," but nothing in this movie made me think of that show, even when I saw a taxi.

This, along with the Schumacher-helmed Lily Tomlin comedy "THe Incredible Shrinking Woman," was in heavy rotation back in the early days of HBO and Showtime, and it was hard not to see it.

I love watching movies that I saw when I was younger and realizing that I missed about half of the jokes. There's a bunch of stuff, including nudity early on, that I really don't remember, and that's the kind of thing I'd remember.

Only a few minutes into the movie, we see Mr. T, who essays the role of cab driver Samson. This is kinda funny considering Samson's strength was diminished when his hair was cut off, and Mr. T has that cool Mandinkan haircut.

Anyway, he's driving some guy and his lady friend, who as we find out, isn't really his friend. T stops the cab.

Why? That's the kind of guy T is. He ain't got time for no jibba jabba. He boots the lady out, and we get this awesome exchange:

Samson: Why don't you get off the street and get a decent job?

Hooker: 'Cause I need the bread!

Samson: Then get a job at the bakery.

Oh, snap.

There are lots of familiar faces in this flick, including some stand-up comics in their early days. You've got Marsha Warfield, Paul Rodriguez and Bill Maher, who looks eerily like Breckin Meyer here. In a rare departure, Gary Busey shows up as a psycho nut-bar.

Plus, as I mentioned, you've got Mr. T.

But the guy who really sells this movie for me is Max Gail, who plays Harold. He is one of the few who actually comes off as an actual person, though, like almost everyone else, he has no last name.

While checking a few things at the IMDB, I discovered that Joel Schumacher also wrote "Car Wash," which is funny, because "D.C. Cab" seemed like kind of a rip-off of that.

Anyway, things aren't going too well at D.C. Cab. The cabs are in disrepair, and other cab companies are getting most of the business.

We get to meet most of the cabbies on an individual basis because Albert gets to ride with a different one each day, which is clever from a practical standpoint, I guess. It makes it seem a little more like an extended sitcom (still not 'Taxi'), but it serves its purpose.

When Albert is with Tyrone, we see two kids who egg the cab when they drop off their passengers. It doesn't seem important, but you know what they say, if you're going to show a gun in the first act, it better go off in the third.

Things start to actually happen when a concert violinist leaves his prized (and valuable) instrument in the back of a cab. When it's discovered to have been in a D.c. Cab vehicle, they get the $10,000 reward.

Harold decides to split the money with everyone, much to his wife's dismay. But he asks them to invest in D.C. Cab so they can make a boatload of improvements.

This was made in 1983, but even still, it seems like their $10,000 is expected to go really, really far.

Things are going great until Harold's wife, Myrna, keeps the money for herself. Everyone is ready to quit until Albert says that he has some money that his dad left him when he died. He's willing to put it into the company if everyone stays.

They're so happy that they perform a montage of vehicular improvement scenes to a snappy little ditty.

Albert's money is a bit less than the $10,000, but it appears to cover massive body repair (if not new cars outright), paint, a sound system, new sign and, most importantly, yellow satin jackets.

Things seem to be going pretty well. But when Albert, who has gotten his hack license, goes to the house where the kids threw eggs at him and Tyrone to drop off his passengers, he and the kids get kidnapped.

More familiar faces here. The kids are Scott Nemes, who was in "Meatballs Part II" and "It's Garry Shandling's Show," and Senta Moses, who was in "My So-Called Life" and a commercial for Big Lots a few months ago that my son Brody was fascinated by. He's got a thing for brunettes with glasses, remember?

Anyhow, the cabbies decide that they have to do something to rescue Albert, which makes sense since D.C. Cab is shut down pending investigation. The authorities think Albert is in on the kidnapping. After all, where did the money for all the improvements come from? Albert.

Now admittedly, I wasn't paying rapt attention by this point, but how does having large sums of money implicate Albert in a scheme to extort money from an ostensibly rich ambassador?

I'm sure I missed something. I'd like to say I'm a dedicated reviewer, but darn it, sometimes I get hungry. Plus, the remote is acting up, and ...

But I digress.

Needless to say, Albert and the kids are rescued, and the cabbies are hailed as heroes. All is well. Cue up the 80 jillionth Georgio Moroder song and roll those credits.

Afterthoughts: I don't know that I'd deliberately watch this again; it's more of one of those "Ah, it's already on and I'm too lazy to change the channel" kind of movies. I mean, it has Mr. T!

The forced "romance" portion involving Albert and the cute waitress at the diner seemed a bit extraneous, but not as shameless as Tyrone's obsession with Irene Cara.

Lo and behold, later in the movie, who does he get a chance to drive around? Irene Cara.

Who sings one of the Georgio Moroder songs on the soundtrack? Irene Cara.

Who broke my window?

Telling the truth isn't gonna be easy...

Glass everywhere you look!

Oops. Got a little carried away.

Two hints for the next movie on the list:

1. It's not a bad movie (to me, anyway)

2. The wind is in the buffalo.

Waiting is the hardest part

I'm impatient.

Like "microwave-popcorn-takes-too-long-too-cook" impatient.

So now I have to wait until January before I get to see another episode of "The Office." On the up side, January also marks the return of "Scrubs" to the NBC schedule.

They are the only two shows that I make a point to see every week. Not that I don't like other shows; I work odd hours and am not so good at remembering to set the Tivo.

I love seeing something that makes me laugh out loud, and "The Office" and "Scrubs" fall into that category.

Oh well. I can wait a few weeks, I guess.

Waiting...

This may take a while.

Christmas perils

I love mondegreens -- those misheard lyrics to songs. When I was a lad, I thought the Doobie Brothers were singing about some guy called Mr. Music, as in "Whooooooaaa, Mr. Music." It wasn't until much later when I happened upon the song that I realized it was "Whooooooaaa, listen to the music."

I caught this link to Christmas-themed mondegreens via Pop Culture Junk Mail.

And wouldn't you know it, the very first one caught my eye. It's from "The Christmas Song." I'll let you look for yourself. It's right under "Chipmunks roasting on an open fire."

Ouchity ouch ouch ouch!

I'd have been much more offended had my friends and I not been singing it that way intentionally for 20 years or so.

I heard the news 25 years ago today

I imagine a bunch of people will be sharing their memories of where they were 25 years ago today when they found out John Lennon had been shot.

I was just barely 6 years old, and I was with my parents shopping in San Ramon. The store we were at was deadly boring to a kid, but luckily, they had a candy dish with that weird holiday mix of different shaped nubbins of candy-cane like candy.

I missed the whole point of why they were playing so many Beatles and John Lennon songs until my parents explained what had happened. I even watched the 6 o'clock news the next day, something I never did.

Being so young, I don't think I could really make the connection. I just knew that someone I'd been listening to my whole life was gone, and that made me sad enough.

Now I'm off to go play some of John's music for my son, Brody.

Parental prognostication

One of the goofy things I've noticed about being a parent is the tendency we have to gauge our kid's potential occupation by something he seems interested in.

Brody colors dutifully in his coloring book: Oh, he's going to be an artist.

Brody spends an hour plonking on my keyboard, which he calls a xylophone: Oh, he's going to be a musician.

Brody builds cars and skyscrapers with his Duplo blocks: Oh, he's going to be an architect.

But you never do that for the less than admirable things.

Brody repeats the same words over and over until you say it, too: Oh, he's going to be a politician.

Brody refuses to eat his lunch again: Oh, he's going to be a model.

Brody refuses to acknowledge anyone else because he's busy flirting with girls: Oh, he's going to be a politician.

Cast thy pod upon the Internet

Because I'm on the cutting edge of everything cool, I'm just now starting to get into the whole podcast thing. I still only listen to a few, but it's kind of a neat idea.

My favorite thus far is Robert Berry's Retrocrush podcast, available here. I've been an avid Retrocrush reader for quite a while, and I love listening to the podcasts. It's like having a conversation with someone else who's interested in the same obscure pop culturey junk that I am.

Well, except I don't talk back.

Usually.

I get a good couple of out-loud laughs (rare for me) with each episode, so you should check it out. And while you're there, look around. There's a veritable plethora of non-audio coolness, too.

Another one that I'm digging so far is Wil Wheaton's Radio Free Burrito, the latest of which is here.

Wil is one of my favorite writers these days. His work has an emotional quality that I really wish I could muster in my own writing. Plus, he's a hoot to read. If you haven't read his books or his blog, you really ought to. Like now. I'll wait.

Robert and Wil are on my list of "Cool cats who, should they ever find themselves stuck in Modesto, are eligible for a beer/Slurpee from me."

---

I don't know if I'll try a podcast of my own. The major obstacle (aside from sheer laziness) is that I really, really hate the sound of my own voice. And not so much in that "Does my voice really sound like that?" way like when you were 11 and screwing around with a tape recorder.

When I was a kid, I really wanted to go into animation voice work. Very early on, I wanted to do the voice for Donald Duck, but I figured I'd settle for just doing voices for a cartoon in general. Once my voice changed, I reckoned, I'd be well on my way. I practiced different voices, doing really crappy impressions of Rich Little's or Fred Travelena's impressions before moving to just whatever voices came into my head.

Puberty came and went, and while my voice got a little deeper, it still isn't what I hoped it would sound like. It's very flat, and to me, it doesn't have the range I thought it would.

Add to that the difficulty of even breaking into the field and my considerable distance from L.A., and that pretty much killed that idea.

But who knows? If there's enough demand from my large audience (sound of crickets), maybe I'll try a podcast.

But until then, make sure you check out the ones I mentioned above.

Happy birthday to the big cheese

Walt Disney was born on this day back in 1901. From what little information I've been able to cobble together, he was involved somehow in the animation industry.

When I was but a lad of 14 or 15, I put a joke in a story I was writing. It had nothing to do with the story itself but served to illustrate the kind of wiseacre the character was. In truth, I figured I'd never get to use it in real life, and like I did with most of the jokes that I never expected to use, I stuck them in stories.

A month or so later in my biology class, my teacher was talking about cryonics, and how when he was young, there was a rumor that Walt Disney was frozen after death and was chilling out under the Pirates of Caribbean ride.

It was a weird sense of deja vu; at first I thought it had happened before, but then I realized that it was the set-up I'd written in my story. So before I missed the opportunity, I piped up with the punchline from the back of the room:

"Disney on ice!"

I thought it was clever and original when I was 14 -- cut me a break, okay?

---

My brother and I preferred the Looney Tunes shorts from Warner Brothers, but we were still excited when word came there was going to be a whole channel of Disney stuff. No longer would it be only the Sunday night Wonderful World of Disney.

Sure enough, in April of 1983 (I was 8 and my brother almost 4), The Disney Channel premiered, and our TV schedules quickly expanded to include "Good Morning, Mickey," "Donald Duck Presents" and reruns of "The Mickey Mouse Club."

Like Batman, the channel has a tenuous relationship with the word "The," and is currently the-free.

It is also devoid of classic Disney cartoons, even though it has a spin-off channel called Toon Disney. It sounds like dumb programming to me, but I'm the moron who buys the DVDs, so you decide who's smarter.

For me, The Disney Channel = Disney cartoons, movies and of course, "Mousercise."

For my son, Disney Channel = "The Wiggles," "Jo-Jo's Circus" and (alas) "The Doodlebops." The 'Bops, by the way, have been challenged by the new mini-show "Johnny and the Sprites" for most annoying thing I have to endure on the Disney Channel.

Over at Jim Hill Media, there's a cool article that outlines some of the shows in the original lineup, including "Contraption," which some of my friends said I made up because I was the only one who watched it, I guess.

---

The Modesto Bee, where I work diligently every day, has a mascot named Scoopy. What does that have to do with anything? Well, good old Scoopy is here via today's birthday boy, Walt Disney.

Just goes to show you -- it's a small world after all.

Pregnancy really changes you

I've read about the physical changes women go through after having a baby, but Britney just doesn't look the same in this story I saw online this morning.

Great Marketing Moment (11 in an unnumbered series)

Sweet Mother Hubbard!

I saw this at Strange New Products, which regularly spotlights things that make even people like me go "Whahuh?"

Remember how funny it was when they had that hair-removal goo called Nad's? I almost soiled myself laughing the first time I stumbled upon the infomercial, especially when the there was the random cut to the "hostess," who smiled broadly and said "Nad's!"

Well, it's like they always say, no matter how hard you try, you can't get rid of Nad's.

Oh, wait. That sounds kinda, uh, never mind.

Now the new product is called Naughty Nad's, which either proves that they really didn't get it the first time, or they really did.

Naughty Nad's is specially designed for the bikini area and provides the consumer with templates, and, boy, you know what? My mom might read this, so I'm just going to stop. I think you can figure it out yourselves. Just click the link for more information.

I just wonder if you can make your own templates, like a smiley face or, oh, sorry. Gotta stop again. Sorry, Mom.

Way to market, yo.

I caught a promo for "Fear Factor" on TV last night. I kinda blocked most of it out until I heard "Less gross! More stunts!"

Apparently, even the people who make the show are tired of making people eat cross-eyed mealworms and fermented horse rectums.

Who says there's no progress on TV?

Please, sir or madam, will you read my book?

Well, there's good news and bad news.

The bad news: I haven't quite reached the National Novel Writing Month goal of writing a 50,000-word novel in November.

The good news: If I write about 14,833 words for the next three days, I'll make it no problem.

I knew I was going to have trouble reaching the goal to start with, but once my son decided that November was the month he was going to stop napping on a regular basis, I didn't have much luck.

I'm still going to work on it, though. There are parts of it that I like quite a bit, which is saying something, since I usually am not fond of much that I write.

Maybe I'll make it a project to tackle in earnest in the new year. That way I won't have to make exercising and losing weight my new year resolution.

Pretty sneaky, eh?

The longest story I've done was just about 50,000 words, and I wrote it when I was in high school. Those were the days when I could go home and knock out 10 or 12 pages in an afternoon.

Not having a social life will do that for you.

But then, what's my excuse now? I'm still not a social butterfly.

I think there are two problems:

1. I edit way too much while I'm writing. I've read in book after book on writing that you should really just let the editing go. Wait until it's actually done before you start worrying about it. I have a hard time doing that. Spending 5 years as a copy editor didn't help that much, either.

2. I tend to get more interesting in the process of writing than the actual writing itself. I spend so much time preparing (because I don't want to have to stop to look something up) that I seldom actually do any of the writing I want so much to do.

3. I'm lazy; it's a lot easier to play a videogame or watch a crappy movie.

4. I can't count very well.

I'd give it up and save myself the aggravation if I could, but I can't not write. It's always in my head; it's just a matter of taking the time to get it out on the page. It got to the point where I'd get headaches if I didn't write for an extended period of time.

I love the feeling I get after I have one of those long writing sessions -- it's like I'm not even doing anything, just reading the story that's appearing on my screen.

And yes, I know that this entry could've been 400 or so words on my story instead.

Beezus and Ramona, cruisin' through the jungles of Klickitat Street...

Unpacking all the books we have could get to be a full-time job. I'm just about done, but I keep finding cool stuff. It's like being in a bookstore where all the books are about stuff I'm interested in.

Yes, it's been that long since I've had all the books out and accessible.

When I was about 8, I guess, I pestered my parents to take me to a bookstore about a half-hour away because Beverly Cleary was going to be there in person. I had all the Ramona books, as well as the Ralph S. Mouse books. I had "Otis Spofford," too, but I couldn't tell you much about it if you threatened me with bodily harm.

When we got to the store (I think it was called Toad Hall Books, but 8-year-old me didn't keep exact records, you know?), I noticed that there was a line of people that spanned roughly to Zimbabwe.

But so strong was my love for Beverly Cleary's books that I waited in that line. When I finally got to the front of the line, I didn't know what to say -- I'm horribly shy -- so I probably mumbled hello and said that I liked her books a lot.


She thanked me for coming and signed the well-worn copy of "The Mouse and the Motorcycle" I brought with me, and I just thought that was the coolest thing ever. She was the first famous person I'd ever met, and she was really nice.

If my wife and I ever end up having a daughter, the name Ramona is definitely at the top of my list.

And not just because Beezus already got vetoed.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone has a happy day today. I'm getting ready for my yearly intake of dinner rolls and olives.

I don't like turkey, which makes turkey-centric holidays, uh, interesting.

But we have lots to be thankful for, even with the hard year we've had. I'm thankful for my wife, my son, family and friends, and this year, I'm especially thankful for the time we had -- brief though it was -- with our son Harry.

While I would much rather have been able to bring him home with us, at least we all got to be together for a little while.

So if you are partaking of some holiday beverage today, raise a glass for Harry, won't you? I know I will.

Why bits of my childhood seem like a drug-induced haze

I've been organizing all the millions of books in the old Sparkman household, and I came across some old superhero coloring books. I thought, "Hey, this would be cool to write about."

Alas, I've been beaten to the punch by Dave's Long Box, who not only has the same cool DC Super Heroes coloring book, but he got his for a quarter.

Some guys get all the luck.

I've also got a fairly hefty Marvel Super Heroes coloring book. It's no 500-page fun-for-all, but it's got a few adventures of the Incredible Hulk and the Fantastic Four.

I took a look at this book for the first time in a long time, and I'm noticing just how weird it is. First, the cover.


Nothing too odd, but the Hulk's abs are so big that it looks like he has six breasts.

Oh, and he looks like he's in a giant spit bubble or something. What's going on inside?

The planet Big Zero (lots of self-esteem there, I bet) is attacked and destroyed by The Greenies. But there's a survivor who escapes in his 8-track craft, which looks like a giant 8, not an outdated music storage device.

The survivor, 00-6, goes to Earth for help and lands at Indianapolis Speedway.

Meanwhile, Bruce Banner is having a picnic by himself. 00-6 zaps his picnic basket into nothingness (presumably, since he has the 00 prefix, it means he has a license to kill...). Bruce Hulks out, and 00-6 thinks he's another Greenie and attacks him.


Uh, yeah. That's something that you don't hear very often.

They eventually join forces against The Greenies, who look just like Hulk. The Greenies are preparing to suck all the green from the Earth. Don't ask, man, I didn't write it. Oh, here's 00-6 in action:


They eventually win, but at the cost of 00-6's life. Hulk is so distraught that he takes a nap under a tree. The End.

The last two stories feature the Fantastic Four, but the first includes the Human Torch replacement from the 1978 cartoon, Herbie the Robot.


I named my parents' cat Herbie because he, too, is white and annoying.

While the Fantastic Four plans to go on vacation, a villain is planning to defeat them. Which FF villain, you ask? Doctor Doom? Galactus? No.

The Pink Fink.

Nope, not making it up. Check it out.


Even in black and white, that looks bad. Not to spoil the story or anything, but he's beaten in short order and everyone lives happily ever efter, blah, blah, blah...

The third story is the lamest of the bunch and doesn't even have any pictures I feel like scanning in and mocking, so we'll just pretend it didn't happen.

Of course, now every time I'm planning a vacation, I'm going to see this image in my head:



Curse you, Herbie...

I saw him standing there

Meant to post about this earlier, but I'm trying to get over a cold (with little success thus far).

I went with my friend Ken to a concert. I don't get out to concerts that much, especially now that I have a 2-year-old. As it is, I haven't been to that many. I've seen They Might Be Giants, Ben Folds Five, Ben Folds by himself and, uh, Hall and Oates at the Big Fresno Fair a few years ago.

So, imagine my surprise when I ended up seeing Paul McCartney in Sacramento last week.

For those of you who are younger than me, Mr. McCartney was once in a popular band.

Wings.

Sorry; old joke. I've been listening to the Beatles since I was in utero, and that music has been in my life constantly. My dad used to have me sing the harmonies when we'd sing along to Beatles songs, as well as McCartney's solo stuff.

I complained that doing so was what made my voice so high, but apparently, it was just because I was 6. My voice now, alas, isn't the deep James Earl Jones I wanted, but more of a Jiminy Cricket. It does wonders for your self-esteem when you answer the phone and the caller thinks it's my mom and not me. That's why my wife thinks it's funny that when I answer the phone at home, my voice drops noticeably.

For the first couple of songs, it was just striking me that "I'm seeing Paul McCartney. He's right down there, close enough for me to see without having to look at the big TV screens."

It was a very Beatles-centric setlist, which was kinda cool, as I never thought I'd hear those songs in concert. I loved that a metric buttload of people paid lots of money to fill Arco Arena and, via a giant sound system, listen to a song from "The Music Man."

Here's the setlist:

1. Magical Mystery Tour
2. Flaming Pie
3. Jet
4. I'll Get You
5. Drive My Car
6. Till There Was You
7. Let Me Roll It
8. Got to Get You Into My Life
9. Fine Line
10. Maybe I'm Amazed
11. Long and Winding Road
12. In Spite of All the Danger
13. I Will
14. Jenny Wren
15. For No One
16. Fixing a Hole
17. English Tea
18. I'll Follow the Sun
19. Follow Me
20. Blackbird
21. Eleanor Rigby
22. Too Many People
23. She Came in Through the Bathroom Window
24. Good Day Sunshine
25. Band on the Run
26. Penny Lane
27. I've Got a Feeling
28. Back in the USSR
29. Hey Jude
30. Live and Let Die (complete with fireworks and flames; every time the flames shot out, we could feel the heat)

1st Encore
31. Yesterday
32. Get Back
33. Helter Skelter

2nd Encore
34. Please Please Me
35. Let It Be
36. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)
37. The End

That's a lot of songs. The concert ended at about 11:30 p.m. Now keep in mind, that in general, because when I work, I'm in bed by 8 p.m. and up by about 2 a.m.

After the concert, Ken and I waited in line to buy a T-shirt. Ordinarily, I wouldn't wait in line or pay too much money for a short, but since I doubt I'll have the opportunity to do this again, I figured, why not?

It took us a while to find where we'd parked, partly because we're just like that and partly because they put up barriers after we'd parked and it threw us off. So after midnight, we were on our way to grab some food.

By the time I got back home, it was almost 4 in the morning. Brody woke up crying at 6, but Jen told me to go back to bed. I ended up getting about 3 or 4 hours of sleep, which I think depressed my immune system enough that I got Brody's cold.

But I think it was worth it. Now I just need to catch up on some sleep...

Cat. I'm a kitty cat.

I don't know how I found it before, but I just saw a link to it at No Fancy Name, so I figured I'd share it with you.

It, of course, is the very cool dancing cat video. My son loves cats, so when he saw this, he went nuts.

He started laughing so hard he almost threw up. This is actually something he does fairly often. It's this weird hiccup-burp thing, the sound of which makes him laugh even harder.

I'm warning you -- this will get stuck in your head forever.

An outcast once again

Well, it appears that yet again, People has overlooked me for Sexiest Man Alive.

Bummer.