Planet Proctor 2004 Volume 18

 FLY AWAY

        After a triumphant, sold-out evening with the Firesign Theatre (mentioned in last week's LA Weekly cover feature on the wacky Phil Hendrie ) at the final "L.A. Live!" performance at the Museum of Unnatural Histrionics with the loquacious Sandra Tsing Lo and the loco "Culture Clash", Melinda and I will step off the boards and on board an flight to Glascow for lunch and Dublin for dinner, where we will essay several roles in one of Roger Gregg's Crazy Dog Irish radio series, "Bus 13-B" before embarking on a 3-day nature walk in Britain's Cotswolds.

        Those of you left behind, however, will have the opportunity to support the Antaeus Company in a special Benefit gala performance and party at the classy Theatre @ Boston Court.  We will be presenting our exciting "Dickens Project" and all are invited...to contribute! Go to www.antaeus.org for details.

   "James Joyce so revered the works of Henrick Ibsen, he learned Norwegian." ~ Phil's Phunny Phacts

LET US REMEMBER...

        Garry Goodrow sent me the following eulogy, passed on to him on the day of the day of The Reagan funeral:

        "We surely must praise this wonderful man on his passing. He brought joy to all. He was much loved all around the world. His spirit and his style uplifted all who encountered it. He was welcomed by all, every time he invaded another foreign country... It is truly appropriate for our flags to be at half-mast, and our work be halted, to mourn and praise the passing of this great man, this beautiful spirit -- Ray Charles."          

         "Sancho's is not responsible for lost or stolen items... or wives." ~ Menu disclaimer

LEST WE FORGET...

        One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Billy was staring up at the large plaque that hung in the foyer of the church. It was covered with names, and small U.S. flags were mounted on either side of it.

        The seven year old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the pastor walked up, stood beside the little boy and said quietly, "Good morning, Billy."

        "Good morning, Pastor," replied the young man, still focused on the plaque. "Pastor, what is this?"

        "Well, son, it's a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service. Soberly, they stood together, staring at the large plaque.

        Little Billy's voice was barely audible, trembling with fear, when he asked, "Which service, the 8:15 or the 10:30?"

             "There may be no 'I' in 'team' but there's a 'me'..." ~ Melinda Peterson

NARKS!

        "Never whip out an opium cooker and your pipe on a crowded bus. Firstly, someone is liable to jostle your cooker and put the flame out. And secondly, no matter how many times you explain to the other people on the bus that it's not an opium pipe - it's a flute and the cooker is a flute warmer, and you're on your way to play a concert at Carnegie Hall with a full explanation by Leonard Bernstein - it would be much better if Leonard Bernstein were with you on the bus, where an explanation might really be needed.

                So wrote Jack Douglas in "Never Trust a Naked Bus Driver"  

   "They say you haven't really lived unless you have a lot to regret." ~ >From "Something the Lord Made" on HBO  

BIG IS... BIGGER?

        According to the "Hightower Lowdown", the Bushy's tax cuts include a $100k deduction for the purchase of any SUV over 6,000 pounds, inspiring me and Melinda to think up new names for the 2005s:

        The Big Break, The Ultimate Spending Machine, The Blockade, The Road Buster, Yeti, The Wastrel, The Global Warmer, Road Rage, The Ego Booster, Leadfoot, The Guzzler, The Showoff, Behemouth, The Spendthrift, The Triple EEE, The Budget Bleeder, The Excessive, Lane Hogg , and in keeping with Ford's recent Accident $ettlement -- The Big Tipper!

   "The Reagans changed their Bel-Air address from the Satanic 666 to 668." ~ Phil's Phunny Phacts from Pat Morrison

FREEDOM LABEL

        From the ever talented and always activist Hamilton Camp comes this translation of the label from a nylon laptop travel bag  made by a small company here in the US to be sold in France:

        "Wash with warm water. Use mild soap. Dry flat. Do not use bleach. Do not dry in the dryer. Do not iron. We are sorry that our President is an idiot. We did not vote for him."

           "Bush/Orwell in 2005" ~ Bumper Sticker from "The Nation"

SHEIK, RUBBLE AND ROIL

        "I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein."

        Thus spake President Bush as he grasped the new hand of Qasim Ghida Kadhim at the Oval Office and although the remark seems humorous, it was uttered at a moving event, as seven Iraqi men whose hands were summarily amputated by Saddam Hussein met with the President accompanied by a Houston doctor who helped fit their prosthetics.

        "They are examples of the brutality of the tyrant," said the present President. We all can agree with that...  

            "After Death, a tiger leaves his skin.  A man leaves his name." ~ Kim Ssang Su

BIG IS... BIGGER?

        According to the "Hightower Lowdown", the Bushy's tax cuts include a $100k deduction for the purchase of any SUV over 6,000 pounds, inspiring me and Melinda to think up new names for the 2005s:

        The Big Break, The Ultimate Spending Machine, The Blockade, The Road Buster, Yeti, The Wastrel, The Global Warmer, Road Rage, The Ego Booster, Leadfoot, The Guzzler, The Showoff, Behemouth, The Spendthrift, The Triple EEE, The Budget Bleeder, The Excessive, Lane Hogg , and in keeping with Ford's recent Accident $ettlement -- The Big Tipper!

     "The Reagans changed their Bel-Air address from the Satanic 666 to 668." ~ Phil's Phunny Phacts from Pat Morrison

TELL IT LIKE IT IS?

        My pick of a few new words from that annual contest by that magazine or paper or something that should be credited here and can be sought out in past editions of the Planet online for proper acknowledgement since I have to get this thing out before I leave tomorrow morning...

        ASSMOSIS - The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss.

        BLAMESTORMING - Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

        SEAGULL MANAGER - A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything, and then leaves.

        SALMON DAY - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

        Irritainment - Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials are a prime example.

        GENERICA - Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, subdivisions.

        Ohno-Second - That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize

that you've just made a BIG mistake.

        UMFRIEND - A sexual relation of dubious standing or a concealed intimate relationship, as in "This is Dylan, my...um...friend."

        BODY NAZI - Hard-core exercise and weightlifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn't work out obsessively.

        Mouse Potato - The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

  "Bob Bobb is a city administrator for Washington, D.C. and Michael Michael is credited in the latest'Harry Potter' adventure." " ~ Phil's Phunny Phacts

COSTOFWAR.COM

        The Associated Press reports that Congress and this administration have so far provided $119.4 billion for the war in Iraq, about equal to the total incomes earned in 2003 by all the residents of Vermont ($19 billion), North Dakota ($18.5 ), Wyoming ($16.4), Alaska ($21.8 ), South Dakota ($22.3), and Montana ($22.6)  And what else could you buy with cash like that?

        You could buy a median-priced house for 685,813 people or a 4-bedroom penthouse apartment at the Trump World Tower for 7,024 people, or purchase a $4,699 suite on the Queen Mary 2 for a six-day cruise from Southampton, England, to New York for 25,409,661 people.

        You could send 748,495 people to Harvard University for four years; or 2,806,506 people (almost all the residents of Chicago) to an average-priced public university. If the $119.4 billion were divided among Iraq's estimated 25 million, each would get $4,776 which is 8 times the country's $600 per capita income.

        And 119.4 billion one-dollar bills end to end, would stretch around the equator 465 times; and stacked up, would be 8,234 miles high. It would take 3,785 years to spend that much at a dollar a second, every day.  

        $o?  What are you waiting for?

   "3 companies control 25% of all the daily news in the world." ~ Phil's Not So Phunny Phacts

PISSED OFF...

        We will soon be in the ancient British city of Bath to start our Cotswold walk and that, it turns out, is the very town where Jonathan Lynn, writer/director of "The Collaborators," was born and raised and where he and classmate Tim Currey became the first from their local school to go into acting, Tim following in Jonathan's mighty wake!

        During our intense, thorough, and thoroughly enlightening rehearsal experience, Mr. Lynn told us once of a director he worked under in classical stock whose directions for the entire season consisted of variations of the following:

        "Piss on left, piss off right."

        If the play was a period piece, he'd add, "Bow and piss off right;" if it was a comedy, "Pull a funny face and piss off right."

        Now, that's entertainment!

     "Show business offers more solid promises than Catholicism." ~ John Guare

YOU DON'T SAY...  

        According to the London Times, the 100-year-old English National Opera has banned its employees from addressing each other as "darling", ending a long-running tradition and enforcing government guidelines on sexual discrimination in the workplace, banning "suggestive remarks or lewd conduct that denigrates or ridicules or is intimidatory or physically abusive of an employee because of their sex".    

        A spokesperson said it would however apply primarily to the newly hired and not to the existing staff who call each other "Darling" and can continue to do so. Thanks, sweetie...

        "Politicians & Diapers Need To Be Changed For The Same Reason" ~ Bumper Sticker

WE SAY 'THANKYA' TO:

        Jack Angel (for the above), Billy Bowles, KCRW's Claude Brodlesser, Jim Dean, Ken Danziger, Tom Healy, Patti Paul, Jack Poet, Lenny Weinrib, and Brian Westley.

AND PLEASE - HOLD THE MAIL (BUT NOT THE SPAM) TIL OUR RETURN ON JULY 4TH!

     "War is horrible but peace is exasperating!" ~ J. Lynn's 'The Collaborators'

PLANET PROCTOR
© 2004 by Phil Proctor
Published June 21, 2004