In death, I leave my resume.

This came from a thread on cartoonist Scott Shaw!s excellent Oddball Comics forum. I'm turning it into an e-mailable post. If this comes back to your in-box a year later, I'm to blame.

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So, which writer was most concerned about his reputation after his death?

• Charles Dickens?

• Walt Whitman?

• Mark Twain?

• Ernest Hemingway?

• or Bob Kane?

Now, to be fair, some of the authors' simple markers are next to much bigger and showier monuments, or inside mausoleums. And we're not sure whether this was Kane's choice for a memorial. And sharing turf with Bob in Forest Lawn are more than a few celebrities whose markers resemble their resumes. Some people just want to make certain they're remembered after they're gone. Perhaps they've seen the example of friends who were forgotten.

Attention Radio DJs!

Today, over one thousand morning jocks will be playing drop-ins of dialogue from the movie Groundhog Day. Five hundred of them will play the same piece of dialog over and over after every song or commercial.

We get it. The movie was about a guy forced to live the same day over and over. It's already been thought of. So come up with something new.

And replaying your entire show the day after Groundhog Day has been done, too.

Headlines After Deadlines

Wednesday morning at work, all three newspapers sold in our dining room -- the  Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, and USAToday—had the story that the 13 miners trapped in the West Virginia coal mine had been rescued. I saw these after driving to work, hearing that there had in fact only been one survivor.

I thought at the time that these were, after all, the suburban editions, which had to be printed earlier for delivery, and by now the city editions would have the later tragic news. But they didn't. If there was ever an opportunity for an editor to yell "Stop the presses!" and get an Extra onto the streets, this was it. But most papers just left the error until they had to explain the physics of deadline pressures the next day.

There's a nifty site called the  Newseum which offers a view of the days front pages from around the world. If you go to their "Map View" you could have followed the progression of headlines west across time zones, from the Eastern papers with the erroneous report, to the California papers that "went to bed" later, and had time to run with the bad news.

You can also download that front page as a PDF to look at or print out. I found it very handy to get some nice decorations of front page stories of the White Sox World series victory, printed in color on fresh white paper.

But Mr. Pryor doesn't know YOU…

Richard Pryor is on an odd personal list of performers whom I like or admire, but I don't possess a single copy of their work. There are many reasons why I haven't bought a Pryor album. At first, it was because I just didn't enjoy hearing the kind of language he used on his routine (that's, there's little prude hidden beneath my Rabelaisian exterior). Then, when I was in college and playing novelty records on the radio, it's for sure I couldn't play any of his records on the air. By that point, Pryor had gone on to movies and concert films, and the last era for comedy albums had passed.

I liked Pryor in the movies I saw of him, realizing that, of course, he had just a poorly written character in "Superman III." But I knew that wasn't what he was famous for. Sometimes I'd catch one of his live standup movies on TV, but always on a basic cable channel where it'd be heavily censored.

Yet I was pretty well aware of his role in the history of comedy and to American culture.

Go figure.

(And here's a bit of trivia I learned from Mel Brooks' commentary on the "Blazing Saddles" DVD: It's well-known that Brooks wanted Pryor for the lead in the movie, but the studio balked because Pryor was a controversial figure. So Brooks had him co-write the script with him instead. According to Mel, Pryor wrote the funny bits for Mongo and other white chracters, while Brooks wrote most of the black characters, and the result is as you see on the screen.)

Another performer I admire but don't collect would be Willie Nelson. At first because I simply didn't like his chosen genre. Now it would be because I simply don't know how to jump in. Buy all the original albums or be satisfied with greatest-hits collections. And you'll notice nowadays that most veteran musical performers' greatest hits can be had in the form of one CD, 2 CDs, or a four CD box set. Then they come out with a new box set with a DVD included. It gives me a headache. Just when when I finally started buying Dylan on CD, and then they finally released remastered versions of the albums I'd just bought. Makes my widdle head spin.

Set Sail That Day for a Five Hour Tour… A Five Hour Tour!

Those reading this blog in the far distant future on Archive.org may remember Chicago's Rush Hour Blizzard of 2005. Planes sliding off the runway, snarl-ups all over the place. I found myself trying to get from Downers Grove to Park Forest during the worst of it.

I had already needed to stop off for an oil change along the way, so I finished that while still on Ogden Avenue in Downers (Click the title of this post for a map of my route). I was down to about two gallons of gas, but decided to just head out and get some miles under my belt before I stopped again, as it was still 3:30 pm and rush hour was just starting up. I tried to stay off the tollway because I'd heard it was already jammed up, and tried to make it along the older two-lane highways. Of course that was a bigger mistake, because any place where the major thoroughfares met, it would take up to 20 minutes to cross that last block to the intersection. Add to that any old diagonal highways meeting in a "six corner" (like Joliet Road, the old Rt. 66 in the southwest suburbs), and I was looking at half an hour just to traverse the width of a Jewel parking lot. Could have just stopped somewhere for dinner, but I would have been overstuffed or overserved, and traffic still wouldn't have cleared up.

I finally stopped for gas somewhere in Hickory Hills... I just managed to drive for three hours on only one gallon of gas. Another hour and five miles later, I had to park under a viaduct and get out to clear a snowdrift that had built up on my trunk just behind my rear window.

The end result was, I left work at 3 pm, and got home at 8 pm. Average speed: 8 miles per hour. Next moring, I got back to work only a little later than normal, and found that everyone else had the same horror stories.

In a time like that, best I can do is keep some favorite tunes in the car CD and console myself that every other driver on the road was having the same conniptions. And at least an errant 737 didn't hit me.

SOX WIN!!! SOX WIN!!!

Boy, the whole World Series came and went before I even had the time to write anything about it, mostly owing to a heavy, heavy deadline. Should I carp about Fox Sports dismissing the Astro's "homer" in Game 3 instead of replaying it five times a minute like they did for every bad call that went the Sox' way? And with failed president Bush in the crowd, too. Gues Fox Sports is every bit as "fair and Balanced" as Fox News.
Oh, wait, that was Neil Bush with Barbara Bush right behind home plate in Game 3. Jeb wanted to be there, but he had hurricane victims to ignore. GHW was there for Game 4, and got to take part in another big loss. Still, that has to rattle any pitcher looking to the batter and seeing a President behind him.

I cracked open a John's Generations White Ale to celebrate, because the White Sox, like this beer, had their origins in Iowa. Yes, 110 years ago, Charles Comiskey started managing the Sioux City Cornhuskers of the Western League.

Of course now I feel silly about claiming the Sox would win in six, but at least I haven't had money on it. I was sitting up waiting and holding my breath because now matter how well they are doing… THIS… IS… CHICAGO… BASEBALL… It would have been just like us to find a way to fail after getting just one out away from the World Championship. But no, the Sox put togehter a whole string of wacky plays: Pierzynski steals first! Uribe goes into the stands to snag a pop foul (no Bartman in this stadium)! And game 3 becomes the longest World Series game in history, Mark Buerhle, a starting pitcher, gets a save in relief, and Ozzie runs through everybody in the roster but for Pablo Ozuna (apparently, this utility infield was being saved to pitch in caseit went to 15 innings). I know "Ginderball" was just an advertising phrase made up by the Sox agency, but that describes exactly how they broke an eighty-seven year World Series drought!

Separated at the Inkpot

All right, I'm seriously behind on a paper about "Star Wars" that I had promised over a year ago, but having just re-watched "The Phantom menace," I must get this out of the way:

Sebulba

Dick Dastardly

Surely other people have commented on this. Sebulba did absolutely nothing in the movie that Dastrdly didn't do in "Wacky Races." And Sebulba was no Paul Winchell, either.

Keywords: New Orleans Katrina Hurricane Red Cross

The theory is that if I use the words New Orleans and Hurrican Katrina and Disaster enough, the ads above me will show links that you can click on to donate money... without my having to spend anything. Or maybe you'll be told that just clicking on an ad banner somewhere will bill the advertiser money that will be earmarked for hurricane relief in New Orleans and Mississippi (there, I've said it again!), and you can do it all without breaking into your checkbook.

And I'm not naming the supplier of the ad bar above, because then all the ads in it might be for "services" to make your business appear on the first page of any search results.

These are examples of "slacktivism," a term not coined by, but referenced in snopes.com, the site devoted to debunking urban legends. Other examples include displaying magnetic ribbons and rubber bands, signing on-line petitions, forwarding e-mails, especially those suggesting you not buy gasoline on a certain day to protest high gas prices (If you have to buy gas nearly every day, you're the reason prices are high in the first place!!!), or sending business cards to some sickly child who wants to set a World Record (that was years ago, he's all grown up and doesn't want 'em any more).

I'm guitly of this very same practice. I spend 50¢ more for fair trade coffee and feel good know that the extra pennies will make a difference in the lives of small coffee growers around the world. And I've sent along the form letters to my elected representatives to let them know my agreement on some issue I've been e-mailed about (yeah! Stickin' it to the man!).
Most of the time, though, when faced with the enormity of some problem like disaster relief or world poverty, it seems that even sending money or volunteering hours doesn't make the problem any nearer to going away. So you might as well make a symbolic gesture.

BTW, it appears that even though I don't use the b-word in my posts, its presence in the sidebars is enough to trigger ads for you to get your own, um, online diaries.

And since I have made a monetary contribution through the Faithful America site, I can, as a slacktivist, claim that gives me the right to make these tasteless jokes:

New shows for the fall season: Gilligan's Superdome and Survivor: French Quarter.

What's the difference between Iraq and Hurricane Katrina?
Bush admits that Katrina was a disaster.

(And it seems the Army Corps of Engineers was working to shore up those levees in New Orleans. The project ended too soon because its funding was diverted to pay for Bush's tax cut for the rich, and the war on Iraq. Bet'cher glad we got rid of all those WMD's now!)

Scotty

"He's dead, Jim!"

Sorry, but everybody else is saying that. Or "Aye canna get any more power to the warp drive, Cap'n! I'm completely dead!"

Radio Ga-Ga

As much as I enjoy oldies music, there's a very big flaw in the way it's been presented on the radio: there's nothing new!

Once a playlist for an oldies radio station has been set, there seems to be an Iron Curtain around it that prevents any songs from being added or removed. Each Memorial Day weekend, the Chicago oldies station, WJMK-FM, would present a "Memorial Day 500 Countdown." This consists of playing every song on their playlist based on some mythical ranking system, perhaps listener requests which they ignore anyway. I mean, how can any pop song be quantified lower on a list than "In the Year 2525?" Since it takes little more than a day to go through the entire list, they usually just repeat it on Monday. And you've just heard every song they will ever play on that station. Oldies stations in other markets do the same thing, just as their jingles all sound alike, too.

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About the only change WJMK made to their format in the past 21 years was to shift the time span they drew their oldies from: 60s and 70s instead of 50s and 60s. Goodbye "Hello, Mary Lou;" Hello "Lady Marmalade." The explanation given in the radio columns was that they were moving with their audience demographic from "Beaver" oldies to "Brady" oldies. But the result was still a very tight playlist. Better to make you sick of hearing "Respect" over and over and over than to take a chance on any of Aretha Franklin's "forgotten" #1 hits.

Still, the presentation of the music was bearable due partly to the many pioneering DJs that called WJMK home, especially Dick Biondi, one of the very first Top 40 "screamers." And as other station switched to other formats, WJMK remaind the only FM outpost in Chicago to hear oldies.

Well, as will happen in the radio industry, Infinity Broadcasting abruptly pulled the plug on the oldies and brought in the hot flava format of the minute, something called "Jack." Essentially, it's more oldies, just 80s and 90s stuff, expanded from a 500 song rotation to perhaps 1,200. Now, another station was already doing this in Chicago to much better effect -- but their website is still under construction. But Nine-FM has the saving grace of being owned by a small chain, instead of the second largest radio corporate in the country. Yes they present the "Jack" music with no DJ, just some drop-ins claiming that "All the other station managers are scared now that Jack is in town." Really? With their usual 30 minutes of commercials per hour? The kicker is that their tagline is "Playing What We Want." I'd like to know who this "we" is. Certainly nobody who listens to radio for personality and variety.

Jake & Elwood Do a Quarter

This week, the Chicago Sun-Times is running a special report on the 25th anniversary of the release of The Blues Brothers. Click the title of this post to go there now!
Read it now? Okay. In 1980 I was DJ'ing a novelty record show at Iowa State University called "The Mutant Patrol." John Candy got scheduled to do a comedy performance, "An Evening With Johnny LaRue." As the guy playing the comedy records, I got to interview him on the air. It appears that by that time, the full impact of "The Blues Brothers" was not yet felt; about the only comment I could get out on it was his famous line "Orange whip? Orange whip?"

Oh, and "Johnny LaRue" was, of course, his most famous and slimiest character from SCTV. He was leaving that show to star in a forgotten sketch show called "Big City Comedy," and had to leave the characters he had created for SCTV behind.

I've ironed your cape, Master Bruce

Wait a minute! Michael Caine is playing Alfred the Butler in "Batman Begins." And nowhere in the movie does anyone ask him "What's it all about?" Or whether it's "just for the moments we li-i-i-i-ve?" Where's Dionne Warwick when you need her?