Planet Proctor 2005 Volume 18

 PARDON ME!

        As reported by Jerry and Joe Long: The National Turkey, pardoned by President Bush in the traditional White House pre-Thanksgiving ceremony, will be held captive at the US military installation in Guantanamo. The turkey, said to weigh in the teens of pounds, will be interned at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney, who is concerned that it may have been raised on a farm in Prague.    

        A source close to the Vice President, speaking on condition of sycophantic proximity to power which journalists mistake for actual reporting, stated "it's been pretty well verified" the turkey may have had access to various biological and chemical substances, including what has been termed by a Pentagon informant as "a potential basting agent". Yet sources within the State Department disputed the claims of the informant, code-named "Butterball", citing his envy of natural juiciness.      Republican leaders, meanwhile, rushed back to Capitol Hill to pass a 'sense of the Congress' resolution that pardoning the turkey would "send the wrong message to our stomachs".

        While Democrats argued that the wording of an Amnesty International report, which found that the turkey had already been subjected to repeated "beatings, electric shock and water-boarding" had been changed by someone within the administration to simply read "tenderized."

"Love each other or die." ~ W. H. Auden

YOU BLOW ME AWAY

A Sun City couple died last week when an 84-year-old man shot himself in the head and the bullet transversing his skull, struck his 71-year-old wife in the forehead. "It's strange, " said Deputy Juan Zamora. "I have never seen something like this, and I've been a deputy for almost 10 years."

        On the other hand, Harriet, the tortoise, celebrated her 175th birthday at the Canberra Zoo down under, and is showing no real signs of slowing down, is eating well and wallowing in the mud.  For over a century, however, she was thought of as "Harry."  I guess her hot flashes gave her gender away…

        And speaking of landmarks, Academy-Award-winning actor Karl Malden was honored by the city of Brentwood, as noted this week in the Beverly Hills Courier, by having a Post Office christened in his name.  "They had to name a post office after me, " commented Karl, "because my nose was too big to go on a stamp."

   "Patwa : A threat of god's wrath issued by Pat Robertson. ~   The Daily Show

WE WAS ROBBED!

        The Ovation for Best Ensemble and Best Play in an Intimate Theatre didn't go to either "Pera Palas" or "Mother Courage" but to the Lost Angels' musical production of "Killer Joe"; although antic Antaean Marcelo Tubert won for Best Actor in the Andak production of "San Fran Scapin" and Tom Buderwitz won for best Intimate Theatre Set Design for "Pera Palas."

        You can still come and see the sore losers tear up the stage at a semi-staged reading of George M. Cohan's hysterical melodramatic farce, "7 Keys to Balpate" produced and directed by Melinda and me at our regular potluck on the Ann McNaughton Stage, 4916 Vineland in North Hollywood. The coals and the cast will be hot at 6:00, with a show at 7:00!  It's FREEEEE!  But bring food or drink…

Phil & Melinda celebrating their nominations

   "I should have also listened to my wife, who said to me: 'Don't do this.'" ~ Arnold post-election

DEVELOPMENT ARRESTED

                Hold those banana bombs, people, because Fox has officially terminated "Arrested Development." Although the cult-loved show has only been dropped for the November sweeps, and is scheduled to return on Dec. 5, everybody assumes that it's doomed as it's not included on the midseason schedule; and indeed, since my brief appearance as Rev. Bob Patterson under the inspired direction of Lev Spiro was rumored to become a recurring part, I can only conjecture that after my release from "Big Brother", and the steady decline of opportunities due to studio politics and the ravages of obvious ageism that -- "The times they are a-changing" - and I couldn't be happier that I'm presently receiving my full pensions!

" I'd like a fairly straight read with a wink of sly humor. Donald Sutherland comes to mind.  Also, a 'knowing' deeper voiced woman ala Peri Gilprin would be nice. Thanks for allowing me to confuse you."~ Voiceover audition notes

WRITER'S BLOCK SYRAH

         That's the name of a wine from Kelseyville, California; and here follows a transcription of the back label from Planeteer Tim Tuffield as penned by Zack Anderson:

                "Before me a bottle, a corkscrew, an empty glass. Do I dare? This is a magic vintage, and my spirit weakens from the remembering. The bottle-temptress is green, smoky-green -- green of lichens and cool thickets where lovers escape from parched Augusts and prying eyes. Green of layered petticoats hiding soft and voluptuous shapes, a liquid-like rustling that hints at meadows full of birdsong and fountains sweet to please. Green beaker of hope, you are the throb of cult mysteries. You are raw emeralds and the drum of approaching thunder. I tremble before your dark green depths, your swollen blood reds and delicious overripe blacks.

                "O beautiful red-breathed fairy in your green glass gown, nymph of golden-spurred drunkenness, handmaiden of couplets and charms, when I lift your mouth to make you mine you need no coaxing: inch by inch you reveal your naked scarlet self, a cloudburst of pinks and blushes, a torrent of flesh soft rubies crushed together in a midnight lake of shimmers and crimson licks. I put my lips to your yearning pools and drink.

                "Drink! Your peppered velvets soften my tongue, my grateful throat. When I taste you I taste springtime and rain, violets and eternity, your liquid soul a deep dim of colliding nights and secret harbors. When I taste and you make my mouth electric, and shock my words with lightening. I steady my pen, desperate to describe the heavenly lift of your burgundy wings. But first, another sip… "

      "Shouldn't the Anti-Christ be a Christian woman?" ~ Phil's Phood  for Thought

FIRST JOBS

        Warren Beatty -- Rat catcher

        Bruce Willis --Truck driver

        Steve McQueen --Towel boy in a house of ill repute

        Paul McCartney -- Electric coil winder

        Madonna --Waitress at a burger bar

        Sylvester Stallone --Beautician

        Rod Stewart -- Gravedigger

        Dean Martin  -- Bootleg whiskey runner

        Walt Disney -- Apple masher in jelly factory

        Princess Diana -- Children's nanny

        Mick Jagger -- Porter in a mental hospital

        Raquel Welch -- Secretary to a bishop

        Marilyn Monroe -- Aircraft factory worker

        Sean Connery -- Milkman

        Mussolini --Chocolate factory worker

        Abraham Lincoln -- Doorman

        Tchaikovsky -- Office clerk

        Charles Dickens --Shoe polish factory worker

        Socrates --Stone worker

        Hitler --Designer of advertising posters for deodorants

  "Write on, Macduff, and damned be him that cries, 'Remove, enough!'" ~ Frank Dwyer.

VAIN AND BORING, TAKE TWO

        Thanks to all of the Planeteers who took the time to personally affirm your allegiance to the Planet's peripatetic pronouncements!  I think our dear friend Pam "Miss Moneypenny" Salem expressed it most poetically:

"Keep me on your planet please.

Who said the moon is made of cheese?

Should taste the Proctor sherbet drop,

Sharp and fresh, so one can't stop,

A planet that's all tart and heart,

Is a good place for the day to start."

"66% of Americans think President Bush is doing a poor job of handling the war in Iraq, and the remaining 34% think Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church." ~ SNL's Tina Fey

ARE YOU MAD?

        During a visit to a mental asylum, a reporter asked the Director what the criteria was that determines whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.

        "Well," said the Director, "We fill up a bathtub with water. Then we offer the candidate a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket, and we ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

        "Oh, I understand," said the reporter. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."

        "No," said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a room with or without a view?"

  "It's time for reason to take center stage." ~ Comic and voice-over artist Chris Edgerly      

DEAR ME 

 These are letters Abby could not answer; could you?       

        Dear Abby, A couple of women moved in across the hall from me. One is a      middle-aged gym teacher and the other is a social worker in her mid twenties. These two women go everywhere together and I've never seen a man go into or leave their apartment. Do you think they could be Lebanese? Dear Abby, What can I do about all the Sex, Nudity, Fowl Language and Violence On My VCR?  Dear Abby, I have a man I can't trust. He cheats so much, I'm not even sure the baby I'm carrying is his.  

        Dear Abby, I am a twenty-three year old liberated woman who has been on the pill for two years. It's getting expensive and I think my boy friend should share half the cost, but I don't know him well enough to discuss money with him.  Dear Abby, I've suspected that my husband has been fooling around, and when confronted with the evidence, he denied everything and said it would never happen again. Dear Abby, Our son writes that he is taking Judo. Why would a boy who was raised in a good Christian home turn against his own? Dear Abby, I joined the Navy to see the world. I've seen it. Now how do I get out?

        Dear Abby, My forty year old son has been paying a psychiatrist $50.00 an hour every week for two and a half years. He must be crazy. Dear Abby, I was married to Bill for three months and I didn't know he drank until one night he came home sober.  Dear Abby, My mother is mean and short tempered. I think she is going through mental pause. Dear Abby, You told some woman whose husband had lost all interest in sex to send him to a doctor. Well, my husband lost all interest in sex and he is a doctor. Now what do I do?

   "To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason." ~ H.L. Mencken

SHAMEFUL UNSELFISH PROMOTION

        My daughter Kristin Proctor writes, "You can see me, on 'Numb3rs 'this Friday @ 10pm on CBS! So take a break from your turkey and board games and set your butt down in front of the tee vee. I play a Sheriff's deputy delivering news (no, I won't tell you what it is, Jeez!) to Rob Morrow and Charlie Krumholtz; and yes it's probably no more than 3 secs, but it's fun and I look real sexy in a uniform..."

        Prolific writer Joey Green has compiled "The Parallel Sayings of Marx & Lennon" for Hyperion Press, which is full of funny, often enlightening gems like, Marx: "Why I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse!" Lennon: "I never forget an elephant."  I was honored to offer a back cover quote in the name of Firesign Theatre.

        Also, our pal, un-politically correct super-patriotic troubadour Roy Zimmerman has a new CD out for the Holidaze entitled "Peacenick!" available @ www.royzimmerman.com He's presently working ion his next release, "Faulty Intelligence."

    "Few people are capable of expressing… opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." ~ Albert Einstein

THANX 2

        Glen Banks, Brian Wesley, Paul Apple, Robert Lloyd, Victor Kopcewich, Gary Margolis, Eddie Deezen, Vanna Bonta for our Thanksgiving Feast, and the Bush administration for just… being there.

       "We also have to work sort of with the dark side.  It's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically"~ Dick Cheney

IT'S A SCREAM

http://www.hallmark.com/ECardWeb/ECV.jsp?a=0375441541614M66180154Y

HIT THAT BUTTON: Orgasmic Simulator

HELMET HEADS: http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

FULL MOON: http://d21c.com/terri1/flash/smile.swf

AMISH LAPTOP: http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,97523,00.html

MOFA: http://www.hanttula.com/exhibits/freakyfood/

BLUB: http://www.mrbill.com/MBReed.wmv

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." ~Thomas Jefferson

PLANET PROCTOR
© 2005 by Phil Proctor
Published November 30, 2005