Chicken batteries power pix of new VogMobiles

First off, a noble hat tip to Mighty Chickelit who, Colin Clive-like, has brought power back to my once dead camera. These are the first of a bunch of overdue snaps...

Camie has a new vehicle and she brought young Beanie to show it to me...and get my laundry (because the washer has yet to be replaced!)

Behold The Chevyness! As seen from My Back Porch

Beanie sez "Hey get over here!"

"Hi Uncle Ron!"

"Why, yes, I prefer the Mid Period Beatles to the Pepper Era...why do you ask?"

"S'up?"

"Time for Lunch!"

The Gingertennial

This year is the 100th anniversary of the birth of one Ginger Rogers....so, every month this year I'm going to try to put up an unusual pic of Ginger, and I'll try to find something special for her birthday itself.

Ginger and Francis Dee from "Finishing School"

....and we're done

The holidays are over and done with....Xmas day I spent seeing and talking to no one. (except delivery Chinese!). I did talk to Camie in the evening when I saw she had been in an accident.

New Years Day was pretty much the same way. New Years Eve was a little better, showing someone the Marx Brothers (when they had never seen them!) and having some good conversation.

So the less said about the holidays the better.

Yeah, I know I used this last year! Still good!

"It's Christmas Time In The City"

Surf Greensleeves!

It's that Most Festive Time of Year!

Yes...It is indeed the 205th anniversary of Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz! What could be more festive? Instead of merely stuffing yourself, or having to buy gifts for people, why not celebrate Victory! Find something in your life where you marshal your forces, outflank the slow-witted impediments to your greatness, and emerge Supreme.

Just remember --- you crowned yourself Emperor last year....and now...you deserve nothing less than Absolute Triumph!

And if you're a 'swords-into-plowshares' kind of person....they melted cannons taken at Austerlitz to put into this column in the Place Vendome:

Turkey With Hitch

I suppose we'll let him carve....who better? I might stay away from those cranberries though....

Evening Enchantment

A few years ago a friend bought me a giclee print of this Maxfield Parrish painting Enchantment.

I have hanging on a wall where it looks west out the window of the front of my house....thus giving me the illusion of the fading sunlight mingling with the painting itself....I find this very comforting somehow, as the figure becomes a personalization of the end of the day. If I could I would arrange any and all art in my home this way, even if it were not really possible.

Happy 102nd, Carole Lombard!

I love Carole Lombard a lot...gorgeous, funny, raunchy...an absolute hoot, who left us all, way too soon...

also classy in the formal way as well....


for a great site on Lombard check out Carole & Co.

The World Series of my youth...

1st pitch of Game 1 of the 1968 World Series, Oct 2, 1968, Bob Gibson to Dick McAuliffe, Tigers 2nd baseman. McAuliffe was a childhood favorite due to his unusual batting stance which we would call "foot in the bucket." Plus, the eyebrows from hell! note:


And, Rats, I forgot Groucho's birthday yesterday! A hat tip!

An Anti-Post

I know I haven't posted in a tic...partially because I like seeing the F&G picture I have at the top of the blog! I'm a simple sod; it just makes me happy.

But it's been a rough few weeks...things are not good, and my mood matches the reality of things. It's made worse by being alone way too much of the time, and so my crazy noodle runs around in atomic powered circles.

There are a few of you out there keeping me together (you know who you are!) , so I'm not a total mess, but still pretty close.

I don't like the idea of posting when I'm in a bad way, but I do realize that this a bit too long without something. I will post more when -- or if -- things get a bit rosier.

75 Years Ago Today

Probably the most famous of the 10 dance films made by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Top Hat opened in Radio City Music Hall on Aug 30 1935. Let's let the director Garson Kanin describe this:

I remember going to see Top Hat at the Radio City Music Hall on its opening day. Never before and never since have I seen an audience stand up and cheer at the end of a picture. A standing ovation for a movie? I sat through the picture twice and that evening insisted on going again and taking my brother with me. Twice for him too, which meant four times that day for me. The next evening I was back again. Only once through this time. Then I went back every single evening, each time taking a beloved friend and enjoying it anew through his or her eyes.

Top Hat was, unquestionably, a breakthrough, a milestone. The musical screen was growing up. This was a brand of sophistication new, not only to it, but to most of the musical shows on Broadway.

Top Hat was the first movie specifically written for Fred and Ginger, and it was a huge success for them, the most financially successful of their films. Many stories surround the production of Top Hat, a lot of them around Rogers' feather dress used in Cheek to Cheek:

Rogers' own design and sketch.

One of my favorite pictures of Ginger.


Long shot of the dancing of Cheek to Cheek.

Here I pass along a few of the more interesting photos from Top Hat.

The outlandish bed of Gingers in the "No Strings" section of the film.

This poster is for my friend Victoria! Enjoy, m'dear.

An RKO design sketch of the "Lovely Day" gazebo.


A set picture taken during the shooting of "The Piccolino" production number near the end of the film.

Ginger, donating the "Piccolino" dress to the Smithsonian in the '70's.

A reverse still from the last scene, showing off part of "The Big White Set" of a fantasy Venice.

Dreams point the way

So as it seems to happen all too often, I'm bedeviled by a ton of problems, some of which I can deal with...but a lot which are just too much. Naturally, I dream about this.

1.) All of these life problems swarm on me like bees....and I kind of succumb.

2.) My friends both online and IRL arrive and each of them know how to solve these problems. I have to father a child with this woman that each of them has brought for me, and this action will solve each problem in turn. In classic dream logic fashion, we both understand and know this to be true, and also that I will never see or raise these children. And as they would say in the Old Testament, thus the begatting began.

3.) After this is over, one of my friends - who will remain nameless - shows up to tell me that everyone has deceived me. It is not the production of these children that will solve these life problems; I have to write a book about each child, books that will determine the lives of these children, children I have never seen, and relate each book to each problem which will then be solved in turn. But I can't bring myself to write these books this way. I see it as unfair to my unknown progeny to burden them with solving my problems. I write each book as a biography of a person totally different than myself, wanting them to have a life without the angst and grief...

4.) After having done this...nothing happens for me, but I accept that. Then, slowly, each child, each fully grown at different stages of their lives comes back in time to solve each problem of mine, not knowing either the problem or myself, but knowing that they had to do this....

I haven't even mentioned the soundtrack and visual aspects to this dream...I dream DeMille-like spectacles...

Everybody Conga!

Go here for the moving show!

Trooper York, Capo di tutti Bloggi

Have I mentioned before that I think that Trooper York is probably the best blogger I read out there nowadays? (Well, except for those Project Rungay guys when they write about Mad Men)

He puts up what seems like 10 posts a day, on running a store, old movies, and making fun of commenters who stroll in like barflys who don't want to go home just yet. His recent posts on his cruise made me applaud someone trying to give hat tips to Alan Hale, jr. when the rest of the world could give a flying fig about him. Hell, I give cred to The Skippers dad, still fighting Errol Flynn on a log over a pond somewhere in Heaven. Not bad for a guy who built his fame capturing a thousand Germans with gas or something like that, almost 85 years ago. I give credit to his aging so well to Brooklyn.

He stared daggers at That Blogger Lady for awhile, but they seem to have made up, which gives me hope for the Middle East.

And I have not forgotten that I owe him a trip to The City just to go to Katz's; I lack funds, not will.

Oh, and for no other reason than I thought he'd like it: Angie Dickenson (w Howard Hawks)


When I finally met Joan someday...I'll talk you up!

99? Really?

Happy 99th Birthday, Ginger Rogers!

The Longing for Bad Go-Go Dancing

Is it a just world?

No, it is not! There is a cool charity auction over here to see Joan Holloway on a tour of the Mad Men set...and I should do it! Alas....

We still have the big Christina Love.


PostScript: Final Price $1800!

The '60s are...

...Somewhat trickier for me to pick a favorite car. But I do have fondness for the '63 Vette.