Planet Proctor 2003 Volume 28

 "If people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up." ~ Hillbilly heroin user, (What a) Rush Limbaugh

 A QUESTION OF TASTE

        Writer/director Jeff Mandel writes from before the grocery chain work stoppage:

        "I just got back from wandering the aisles at Ralphs which I've been doing lately in the wee small hours just to get out of the house and clear my head. While there I saw Apple Jacks cereal on sale for only 2 bucks. The box advertised 'the latest shape is...Blue Carrot Shape!'  

        Sure enough, mixed in with the tarted-up cheerios were these roughly carrot-shaped blue speckled things.  Anyway, in a breakout box on the front, it says: 'Same great Jacks' taste!  No carrot taste, no apple taste!'  

        "I found that weird." (Poor Jeff)


   "Teeth dissolve and rebuild themselves, but if they dissolve faster than they can be rebuilt, you got a cavity!" ~ Phil's Phunny Phacts


WHATEVER WORKS

        Patty Paul forwarded me this definitive resume from one of the many presently unemployed:

        My first job was working in an orange juice factory, but I got canned couldn't concentrate. Then I worked in the woods as a lumberjack, but I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the axe. After that I tried to be a tailor, but I just wasn't suited for it, mainly because it was a so-so job. Next I tried working in a muffler factory but that was exhausting. I wanted to be a barber, but I just couldn't cut it. Then I tried to be a chef figuring it would add a little spice to my life -- but I just didn't have the thyme. I attempted to be a deli worker, but any way I sliced it I couldn't cut the mustard.

        My best job was being a musician, but eventually I found I wasn't noteworthy. I studied a long time to become a doctor, but I didn't have any patients. Next was a job in a shoe factory; I tried but I just didn't fit in. I became a professional fisherman, but discovered that I couldn't live on my net income. Thought about becoming a witch, so I tried that for a spell. I managed to get a good job working for a pool maintenance company, but the work was just too draining.

        I got a job at a zoo feeding giraffes but I was fired because I wasn't up to it. So then I got a job in a work-out-center, but they said I wasn't fit for the job. I found being an electrician interesting, but the work was shocking.

        After many years of trying to find steady work I finally got a job as a historian, until I realized there was no future in it. My last job was working at Starbucks, but I had to quit because it was always the same old grind.


    "Are you using the technology or is it using you?" ~ Late author Neil Postman


IT'S NEWS TO ME

        Perusing recent editions of the much-maligned L.A. Times, I've learned that Keanu Reeves demands "no-oil, no whole-eggs" fare from on set caterers. Help me. What's a  "no whole-egg?"

        151-year-old gun barons Smith & Wesson are aiming to make a kill in the mail order catalog business by bulls eyeing in on the Wild West kitsch market. According to the article from Associated Press, weapons sales began to drop after the company agreed to add safety locks and revamp their marketing during the Clinton administration.

        Besides the obligatory handguns at $900 a pop, items offered will range from cowboy boot lamps to horse head soap dishes and faux elephant-suede skirts.  Horse head soap? Elephant suede skirts?  Just shoot me.

        China sent its first "taikonaut" (from "taikong", the word for space), into earth orbit and as the old Chinese expression goes, "We shot a rocket into the air, and where it fell we did not care."

        They were actually concerned that the capsule might come down in a "hostile environment", so  Sina.com reported that an ample stock of knives, handguns and different defensive weapons was on board to contend with "wild beasts, sharks and other dangerous animals or enemies."

        And finally, now that Schwartzie is officially Kalifornia's new fuehrer, it's time to lament the loss by Angelyne and equally fetching porn star "Mary Carey" Cook who had hoped to raise revenue by taxing plastic surgery and filming a reality TV series at the Sacramento mansion.

        Looks more like an 'unreality" show, these days. But as former U.S. representative Barry Goldwater, Jr. observed at a recent gathering of pundits in Manhattan's Grand Central Steakhouse, "California is crazy, but that's a good thing."


 "What's wrong with this world is that people have stopped playing." ~ Late doll expert, John D. Noble


A SLIGHT HITCH

        In a recent book review of Patrick McGilligan's new biography of director Alfred Hitchcock, "A Life in Darkness and Light", fellow director John Boorman throws some light of his own on an oft-quoted anecdote regarding Hitch's disdain for actors.

        "I met Hitchcock but once," writes Boorman, "at a dinner party [where] Jimmy Stewart...refuted the charge that Hitch was not an actor's director." (Sean Connery later told Boorman Hitch once gave him the direction "dog's feet" when he wanted him to take a pause.)

        After Stewart's speech, Hitchcock appeared genuinely moved and rose to say, "I have often been quoted as saying that actors are cattle. I never said that.

        "What I said was," and here he took a long beat, "What I said was, actors are 'like' cattle."

        This, from a man who's film "Vertigo" was once reviewed by Time magazine as "just another Hitchcock-and-bull story in which the mystery is not so much who done it as who cares."


    "A Jewish-owned business selling Roman Catholic theology to Protestant America." ~ Definition of the movies during Hollywood's "Golden Age


XMAS BILL'S A-COMIN'

        "Must-get" gift suggestions from the Proctor mailbox of countless catalogues!

Farting Slippers, Six-pack Beer Belts, Talking Toilet Paper Dispensers (record your own message), Personalized Military Display Cases, Bunco Babe Gambler's Tees, Dog Umbrellas with Leash Latches, Stuffable Santas and Illuminated Turkeys, Personalized Bible Tote Bags, "Your Psychic Pet" book, Sponge Bob Inflatable Sleep-over Beds, Wolf and Tropical Fish Mats and Hopping Bombs.

        Or, maybe you could stuff your stocking with Police Personnel, Poseable Wrestlers, Mummy Slime, Sticky Feet and Hands, Tattoo Chokers, Fun Dips and Belly Lights, Coin Erasers, Duck Glitter Pens, Religious Puzzle Watches, Candy Cross Bracelets, Pirate Bubbles, UFO and Toilet Putty, Flying Pigs, Pull Back Tanks and Smarty Cars.

        And for under the tree: Alien Stove Pie Hats, Neon Canteens, Walking Sushi, Jumbo Poppers, and Star Springs, Psychedelic Basketballs, Double Heart and Foam Missile Bubbles, Patriotic Inflatable Whammers, Baby Boppers, Fireman Squirts and Multi-directional Water Guns, Clackers, Knock Knocks and Hand Blasters, Finger Bikes, Mini Eye Pops and Staring Eyeball Straws.


            "He deserves paradise who makes his companions laugh." ~ The Koran


DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH

        "Off The Wall" funnyman Tom Tully asks,  "What's the difference between the Rolling Stones and a Scotsman?"

        "The Stones say, 'Hey, you, get offa muh cloud.'

        A Scotsman says, 'Hey, McLeod, get offa muh ewe.'"  


         "New Utopia? Horrifying Sham." ~ Anagram of "Information Superhighway"


LIKE MAMMA'S

        Photographer Rob Lewine and his wife, the Groundlings' Phyllis Katz, recently boiled us up a pot of pasta which supplied the following descriptions on the label:

        "Laporta Pasta is produced only with carefully durum wheat semolina, drawing rigorously in bronze and dried slowly to low temperatures. Thanks to these characteristics our pasta has a colour yellow amber, a wrinkledness to able to absorb every sauce...

        "Councils for one good baking: To carry to boiling salt water...therefore to pour and cook second the established time.  Like this Laporta's pasta exspresses the maximum of the taste, of the goodness leaving unchanged all of its characteristics." Let's Eat!


    Playwright Samuel Beckett once said that he wanted to reduce theatre to"' a pair of blubbering lips." ~ Phil's Phunny Phacts


NOTHING BUT A PACK OF CARDS

        Inspired by the Pentagon's Iraq's Most Wanted deck, many people have put their cards on the table in recent months including "The World's Most-Wanted Criminals", but among my favorites are, "Operation Hidden Agenda" from a high school teacher in San Francisco featuring figures in the present administration, quotes questioning the invasion and backs featuring a photo of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand.

        Then there is "The Deck of Hillary", ridiculing the former first lady's stances on everything and "The Deck of Weasels", deriding the war's outspoken celebrity critics.Not to be outdone, the Left produced "Republican Chicken Hawks of America" and "Shareholder's Most Wanted, featuring tycoon goons like Global Crossing CEO Gary Winnick (the Ace of Hearts) and stock analysts who should be in the stocks.

         And finally, as of this orbit, the Russians are free marketing the "United Cards of America" featuring a 36-card roundup of Bushies designed to inform citizens of our officials much as the Soviets did out of political necessity with their own leaders during the Kremlin days. Hit me!


      "Lord Keep Your Arm Around My Shoulder and Your Hand Over My Mouth" ~ Tee-shirt copy


CHONG AND BONG

        Cheech's partner, Tommy Chong star of "Up in Smoke" is now up the river serving a 9-month prison term under Attorney general John Ashcroft's "Operation Pipe Dreams", for selling smoking paraphernalia across state lines over the internet. Although clearly labeled "For Tobacco Use Only," bongs are specifically cited by a federal statute "to facilitate and enable the use of various illegal drugs."

        "On the eve of my jail term, he said in his standup act, "if you had told me Arnold Schwarzenegger would be the next governor of California, I would have said, 'what are you smoking?'"

        Although enjoined from commenting on his case, Tommy said, I had to. I talked about how I wasn't supposed to talk about it." He describes the bust in surreal terms.  The agents burst into his home wielding flashlights.  "What are you looking for? He asked, "the light switch?"

        "The DEA said, "do you have any marijuana in the house' I said. "Of course, I'm Tommy Chong.'"

        But they then told him they didn't have a search warrant for pot, prompting him to say, "Let me get this - you're the DEA and you aren't looking for pot? What are you looking for?"

        "Glass pipes."  

        It was a shattering experience.

        He's been learning the tango recently with his wife of 30 years, Shelby, and has been practicing in limited spaces so he can continue to dance in his cell. "It looks like I'll be out by spring...I just tell myself I'm going 'on location.'" And actually, a documentary is being made of his ordeal.

        He's taken a hit for all of us, and I'm not just blowing smoke when I say, God bless.


  "As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression." ~ Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas


          "Those who say, don't know; those who don't know, don't say." -Anon


PLANET PROCTOR
© 2003 by Phil Proctor
Published OCTOBER 16, 2003