roberto clemente ... or barack obama?

barack obama bobblehead ... or maybe clemente?, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Amina and I went to Pittsburgh to see a Pirates game in early September, 2001. We stayed at (and I mean this literally) the gayest bed and breakfast in all of Pennsylvania, somewhere in the Mexican War Streets neighborhood. The Bucs game on Saturday night was Roberto Clemente bobblehead night, and I managed to get three bobbleheads. I never opened them, thinking that I'd someday be able to retire after selling them on eBay -- which, incidentally, I'm just about to do. 

The selling on eBay part, not the retiring part. Though the auction hasn't started yet, so who knows?

Anyway ... as I opened one up today for the eBay/craigslist photo shoot, the face really amazed me -- it looks an awful lot like Barack H. Obama. Doesn't it? If you can look past the bad white point (I shot them all in jpg, which I don't usually do), you get the idea of what Obama would look like if he had been a baseball player from the 1960s.

Si, se puede indeed.

roberto clemente ... or barack obama?, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Pantheon™ ... Springfield, KY edition

So let's open the "Simpsons" wing of the Pantheon™ and take a look at those guest stars who deserve Pantheon™ status for their outstanding work on the show.

We must start with Albert Brooks, who was the original guest star and the only guest whose dialog is improvised. He wins for Cowboy Bob, manager of Cowboy Bob's RV Roundup, and for Hank Scorpio, CEO of the Globex Corporation.

Hank: Uh, hi, Homer. What can I do for you?
Homer: Sir, I need to know where I can get some business hammocks.
Hank: Hammocks? My goodness, what an idea. Why didn't I think of that? Hammocks! Homer, there's four places. There's the Hammock Hut, that's on third.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Hank: There's Hammocks-R-Us, that's on third too. You got Put-Your-Butt-There?
Homer: Mm-Hmm.
Hank: That's on third. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot... Matter of fact, they're all in the same complex; it's the hammock complex on third.
Homer: Oh, the hammock district.
Hank: That's right.

Danny DeVito, as Homer's brother Herb

Barry White ... "I love the sexy slither of a lady snake."

Leonard Nimoy, for saving the day in "Marge vs. The Monorail"

George Harrison ...

George: Hello, Homer! I'm George Harrison.
Homer: [incredulous] Oh my God. Oh my God! Where did you get that brownie?
George: Over there. There's a big pile of them.
Homer: [Laughs crazily, then devours a whole bunch]Oh, ma-an...
George: Well, what a nice fellow.

Robert Goulet, for singing the Batman verison of "Jingle Bells" in Bart's casino

more to come later ...

goodbye

originally uploaded by pr9000.

I had to say goodbye to my beloved little red convertible yesterday. I know it sounds horribly snooty to bemoan the loss of a BMW -- like I need to pahk the cahr on haaahvahd yaaahd snooty -- but that car was very special to me.

I took it on a long road trip last fall, going from Minneapolis to my parents' house in Ohio, then across to Dayton, up to Chicago and back to Minneapolis. I think I knew that was my last, best chance to open it up on the winding roads of Appalachian eastern Ohio, so I took advantage of a lax employment situation, an understanding wife and gas prices below $3 a gallon.

We bought it in St. Louis, not long after Amina had a harrowing experience on an airplane that convinced her that life was too short not to enjoy it in the present. It was our "wedding car," and I still have the "Just Married!" sign in our garage ... my best man, John D. Carroll, and I "laminated" it with dry cleaner plastic the day before the wedding. We drove it to the Ritz in Clayton after the wedding (we = me and Amina, not me and John) and later went all over Missouri's wine country in it, with the top down and the heated seats turned on.

It was a good car, but more importantly, it represents a great part of my life. I'm sad to see it go, but its departure marks the beginning of a new chapter, and I'm terribly excited about that.

grass, and worse

originally uploaded by pr9000.

This story about a drug bust at San Diego State University reminds me of the time I was inadvertently caught up in a drug issue at Denison ...

I was stage managing "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," and my light board guy was a senior Kappa Sig who was known for behaving very erratically. In fact, he had a small but important part in the mainstage production before "Liaisons," and his role called for him to strangle an actress while the lights were down -- it's the central hook behind "The Mousetrap," the venerable Agatha Christie play.

So this actor (I'll call him "Escobar") was to come on stage when the lights were down, "strangle" the actress -- a very well known, famous TV/movie/more famous husband actress -- and then leave before the lights came back up.

Except that Escobar didn't "strangle" her ... he actually came damn close to strangling her.

Why? He was coked out of his gourd.

So a few months later, after he was almost kicked out of the theatre department, Escobar was given a last chance, by earning some technical credits by being my light board guy.

I didn't do a great job stage managing that production, and it was beset with all sorts of insane bad luck -- the guest director, who was a Jeopardy champion, was called out of town until tech week, during which he decided to change the sets and the blocking of my crew ... well, anyway, my light board guy was a massive cokehead and I had no way to control his more-erratic-by-the-day behavior. I had to do the lights a few shows myself, and by the final performance, I was ready to leave technical theatre behind.

I also was editing the daily newsletter on campus, and in that role I'd get all sorts of juicy tips that I couldn't really do anything with ... so I wasn't shocked when, a few weeks later, several Kappa Sigs -- but not Escobar -- were busted for dealing drugs. Apparently the house was the center of a massive on-campus drug ring, not unlike the one described in the story above.

And it just sounds like the college environment I knew and loved:

Danielle Patterson, a sophomore sorority member, said she was awake cramming for finals when agents raided an apartment behind her building, pounding on doors and marching boys down the block to the college arena, where they were questioned.

"I never thought something like that would happen here," she said. "To think they think drugs are such a big issue here, it's ridiculous."

Parents joined students at a campus rally Wednesday calling for more drug-abuse treatment instead of tougher enforcement.

"This heavy hand coming down is not going to change drug use on campus," said Gretchen Burns-Bergman, whose son is a month away from graduating. "There's not going to be a shortage of drugs on campus."

Stupidity apparently is hereditary -- for the frat guys too, apparently:

They apparently made little effort to launder their spoils. One fraternity brother arrested Tuesday drove his Lexus directly from a $400 cocaine sale on campus to a nearby bank, where he deposited the cash, according to court papers.

Ah, good times, good times ...