Planet Proctor

Planet Proctor 2002 Volume 16

"I may not always like the way I look, but I like the way I feel." - Proctor

"We are what we feel." - Peterson

"If you drink a martini, don't drive. Don't even putt." - Dean Martin

PARTY ANIMALS

Before we left on our East Coast adventure, we received an elaborate multi-paged sticker-art invitation to an Animal Party, to be held, rain or shine, at the home of Art Peterson and Linda Pountney in West Hartford.

It was the brainstorm of Melinda’s nephew, Master Luke Peterson, aged five, and upon our arrival on the afternoon of the event, he planned to meet us on the front lawn with Mickey Mouse trays of hors d’ouevres which he’d prepared at six a.m. that morning.

BE "IN" FASHION

The Antaeus Company presents a semi-staged reading of Anna Cora Mowatt's 1840 Broadway hit "FASHION (an American Comedy)", Directed by Emily Chase, featuring songs by Stephen Foster under the Musical Direction by Jan Powell with piano by Matt Goldsby, and featuring Gigi Bermingham, Emily Chase, John Combs, Marty Ferraro, Adam LeBow, Bill Mendieta, Richard Miro, Phil Proctor, JJ Rodgers, Amy Tolsky, Marcelo Tubert and Katy Tyszkiewicz.

And it's FREE!!! On Monday, June 17th @ 7:30 pm in the Providence High School Multi-Purpose Room, 511 South Buena Vista Street, Burbank, across from Disney Studios.

"'Insomnia' deserves to be the summer's biggest sleeper." - Review in People

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

(Hey Hector, This was forwarded to me by Cassandra; it looks legit. Please distribute to Priam, Hecuba, and your 99 siblings. Thanks, Laocoon)

**WARNING! IF YOU RECEIVE A GIFT IN THE SHAPE OF A LARGE WOODEN HORSE DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT!!!! IT IS EXTREMELY DESTRUCTIVE AND WILL OVERWRITE YOUR ENTIRE CITY!**
The "gift" is disguised as a large wooden horse about two stories tall. It tends to show up outside the city gates and appears to be abandoned. DO NOT let it through the gates! It contains hardware that is incompatible with Trojan programming, including a crowd of heavily armed Greek warriors that will destroy your army, sack your town, and kill your women and children. If you have already received such a gift, DO NOT OPEN IT! Take it out of the city unopened and set fire to it by the beach.

++FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!++ Poseidon
FROM: hector@studmuffin.com
TO: laocoon@doomgloom.edu

Laocoon, I hate to break to you, but this is one of the oldest hoaxes around. I've seen variants on this warning come through on other listservs, one involving some kind of fruit that was supposed to kill the people who ate it and one having to do with something called the "Midas Touch." Here are a few tipoffs:

This "Forward this message to everyone you know" crap. If it were really meant as a warning about the Greek army, why tell anyone to post it to the Phoenicians, Sumerians, and Cretans?
Use of exclamation points. Always a giveaway.
It's signed "from Poseidon." Granted he's had his problems with Odysseus but he's one of their guys, isn't he? Besides, the lack of a real header with a detailed address makes me suspicious.
Technically speaking, there is no way for a horse to overwrite your entire city. A horse is just an animal, after all.

Next time you get a message like this, just delete it. I appreciate your concern, but once you've been around the block a couple times you'll realize how annoying this kind of stuff is. Bye now, Hector

"Billy Bob Thorton is afraid of antique furniture." - Phil's Phunny Phacts

THE GREAT LIGHT WAY

"Proctor, Proctor, Who's Got the Proctor?" -- began an item in Harry Haun's "On the Aisle" column in Playbill. He 's referring to the role of John Proctor currently being portrayed by Liam Neeson in the revival of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible", who was joined at a recent promotional party by other famous actors who had played the part.

I wasn't invited; and I didn't see the play, but among the ones we did catch, and indeed, the major reason for the timing of our East Coast trip, was Elaine Stritch in her now Tony-winning performance of "Elaine Stritch: At Liberty" --"Constructed" by my classmate John Lahr who now bides his time between London and New York, and "Reconstructed" by Ms. Stritch. A young woman came up to her after her Tony triumph and announced she wanted to follow in her footsteps -- "I told her to wear comfortable shoes."

We also saw Noel Coward's "Private Lives" with amazing turns by Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, "Fortune's Fool" by Turgenev with show-stopping moments by both Alan Bates and Frank Langella, and the thoroughly satisfying (and soon to close) Tony-winning musical "Sweet Smell of Success" starring John Lithgow with lyrics by Craig Carnelia, Melinda's college classmate.

While my wife saw a delightful staging of "Mornings At Seven", I took my daughter and her beau, Geoff (Proctor & Campbell) to see Miller's "The Man Who Had All The Luck" at the Roundabout on garish 42nd Street in a disappointing staging compared to our Dramalogue-winning production at the Ivy Substation.

Whereas director Dan Fields created a fanciful set with panels of horoscopic stars floating overhead and a house for the second act that actually looked lived in, director Scott Ellis isolated his actors in a stark bleached wooden box with bare and abstract furnishings and no real reference to the world outside. It caused the actors to declame and most of them, with a few exceptions, seemed to be going through their paces instead of relishing, unfolding and embracing the colorfulness of their characters in what Miller describes as "a fable taking place a few feet above Ohio."

"A guy asks his waiter how the restaurant prepares its chickens.'Nothing special,' says the waiter, 'We just flat out tell 'em they're gonna die.'"- Ivan's Jokes

FOWL PLAY

Ivan Berger also tells us that his uncle John was in the fertilized egg business and had several hundred young layers, called pullets, and 8 roosters, whose job was to fertilize the eggs. Any rooster or pullet that didn't perform well went into the pot, but this accounting took an awful lot of time so he devised a set of tiny bells attached to his roosters and kept track of their activities by listening to the tinkling of the bells.

His favorite rooster was old Brewster. A very fine specimen he was, but his bell had not rung all morning so Uncle John went to investigate. Several roosters were chasing pullets, bells a-ringing; but Brewster had put his bell in his beak so it wouldn't. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

Uncle John was so proud, he entered him in the county fair where the judges not only awarded Brewster the "No Bell" Prize -- but the "Pullet Surprise" as well!

"It's easy to say, 'We should never brand animals, it's inhumane,' when you're sipping wine in Los Angeles and your 18-year-old has tattoos all up and down his arm, and a nose ring, too." - Curator Don Reeves, National Cowboy Museum

JUNK FOOD

More poetry from the "Nature's Medicine Chest" catalogue where you can get Green Magma, Ghee, Bio Salt, Carbon Steel, Rhino Chewie Bites, Garlic Ear Drops, Goodbye Bugs Sun Block, Lady "V" Pleasure Pills and Dream Cream, Unscented Aural Glow Oil, Wild Yam Balancing Ointment, Masad Dead Sea Foot Scrub, Royal Jelly Boosters, Kitchen Sprouters, Vegetable Crisper Bags and Roto Juicers, and Cat's Claw Intestinal Cleanser (ouch!). All available now at www.NaturesMedicineChest.com

"Our bodies, our appearance, our sense of time, everything about us changes. We might as well accept it as part of life." - Donald Margulies in The Plain Dealer

STUPID PET NAMES

Kevin Kutchaver wrote, "Those nicknames are god-awful." But then, he admits to having had two cats named Dribbles and Snothead.

David Hall, (he's not a coroner but he plays one on TV) and his wife refer to their cats collectively as The Fenneks, The Stupid Patrol, The Kids and The Shit Meisters.

FRED is Sir Frederick, Freddy Boy, Eff oh red (from "The Name Game"), Foe Red (like Foghorn Leghorn) and Ready Freddy. RICK is Ricky, Rick A Bono, Rick A Roo, The Rickster and Wahhhhh Ricky (a la Lucy). SPUNKY is Little Miss, Missy, Eh-spanky (from a Spanish neighbor), The Princess, La Principeza, and La Spunk-a-rina.

And "Banjer" Dan Mazer offers names for Sophronie (a uniquely-colored collie mix with polka dot paws) such as Sophronie Macaroni, 'Phronie Boo, 'Phro', , Hoagie, Boo, Waterlog Dog, My Little Wolf and Best Little Dog in the World; and Diana (formerly "Penguin", a black and white Border Collie mix) is Pengie Pie, Houdini, Goddess of the Hunt, The Lover of the World, Lighbulb-Head and Second-Best Dog in the World

I admit, it's all my fault...arf there's meow-re to come!

In Germany, speed bumps are called "Dead Policemen." - Phil's Phunny Phacts

FALSE ADVERTISING?

As you pass strategically placed tubs of Parkay in stores this week, a motion-sensor chip triggers a digital device that yells, "Butter!" while another makes the tub wiggle slightly.
More:

Bill Vallely says "This is just wrong." http://www.Yonkis.com (adult content)

And blame the Austins for "Kitty Sex" @ http://www.matazone.co.uk/kitty1.html

TUNE IN to the Firesign Theatre's "FOOLS IN SPACE"

Live from Warren Dewey's Santa Monica Studios, Saturday eve, June 22 on XM Satellite Radio!