No one will be seated while serious introspection is in progress.

Alien Invasions

Those Amazing Humans, #424, Deborah Kerr

Deborah Kerr, CBE (30 September 1921 – 16 October 2007) was a highly successful British, television and film actress from Glasgow. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture The King and I, and was a three-time winner of the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She was also the recipient of honorary Academy, BAFTA and Cannes Film Festival awards.

She was nominated six times for an Academy Award as Best Actress but never won competitively. In 1994, however, she was awarded the Academy Honorary Award, cited by the Academy as “an artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance”.

Her films include The King and I, An Affair to Remember, From Here to Eternity, Quo Vadis, The Innocents, Black Narcissus, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and Separate Tables.

Although the Scottish pronunciation of her surname, /ˈkɛr/, is closer to a phonetic reading of the name, when she was being promoted as a Hollywood actress it was made clear that her surname should be pronounced the same as “car”. To avoid confusion over pronunciation, Louis B. Mayer of MGM billed her as “Kerr rhymes with Star!”

Exclusive Video of the Mighty Muddy Mojo Invocation

For true believers and adepts only.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mofdRbqoy4k

Happy Birthday, “Killer”

Jerry Lee Lewis

Break Glass To Invoke Mojo

Desperate Measures.

Time Machine

Jest A Note

Got my first dollar in the mail today from a real patroness of the arts. It came with a sweet card. I am going to frame it and hang it with pride in the mobile mansion. I would tell who it is but you know how the true benefactors are about their anonymity.

By the way:

Send $2.50 to cover the cost of an envelope and postage and printer ink and I would be happy to send you a copy (signed by the artist) of your favorite “Amazing Person” or comic story.

If you don’t want it folded, send $5.00 for a bigger envelope and more postage.

The address again: Michael Fisher, 20030 El Rancho Way, Monte Rio, CA, 95462

PS- Throw in another dollar and I’ll send you a mongrel original slogan badge randomly chosen from the Duck and Cover catalog.

PPS- If you don’t know what any of this is about please go back a couple of blog entries to “Wrote A song About My Existence…”

Those Amazing Humans, #423, William Conrad

The voice

William Conrad was an important voice in my media experiences from early on. And I’m talkin’ really early on. When I was just a wee tyke listening to “Gangbusters”, “Suspense”, “Gunsmoke” and other radio dramas, his voice always stood out, low, firm and full of authority. Later when Rocky and Bullwinkle were among my favorite cartoon shows, his serious voice somehow made the comedy funnier. I’m not a big fan of TV cop shows so I missed out on “Cannon”, but he’ll always be a voice to remember for me.

Wikipedia:William Conrad (born John William Cann, Jr.^[1]; September 27, 1920 – February 11, 1994) was an American actor, producer and director whose career spanned five decades in radio, film and television.A radio writer and actor, he moved to Hollywood after his World War II service and played a series of character roles in films beginning with the quintessential film noir, The Killers (1946). He created the role of Marshall Matt Dillon for the popular radio series, Gunsmoke (1952–1961), and narrated the television adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (1959–1964) and The Fugitive(1963–1967).Finding fewer on-screen roles in the 1950s, he transitioned from actor to producer-director with television work and a series of Warner Bros. films in the 1960s. Conrad found stardom as a detective in the TV series Cannon (1971–1976) and Nero Wolfe (1981), and in the crime drama Jake and the Fatman(1987–1992).

Listen once again to that ruminating mellifluous instrument of William Conrad as he recites “High Flight”, the wonderful poem which brought an end to broadcasting days on many of our nation’s stations for decades. Look in awe at a soaring B-36, rising above the clouds, an angel with lovely vapor trail wings and a nuke or two in it’s belly. Here’s a youtube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV0Iez05Nc8

Wrote A Song about My Existence, Wanna Hear It? I’ll Play It For You.(AKA, “Cry For Help, #11)

I Am An Old Hippie

I am an old hippie that lives in a trailer

Down by the river, and I like to draw.

I draw picures of Indians honkies and heroes,

Good things and bad things that stick in my craw.

I live with my honey, here in the trailer

You might think I’m a failure, but I’m havin’ fun.

Here’s my dog, Aldo, he lives in the trailer,

Just barkin and scratchin’, and he likes to run.

I’m no longer workin’, just a retired teacher

On Social Security, just scrapin’ by.

I’m hopin’ somebody will hear this here ditty

And give me some money, so I can get high (on life that is)

Just look at my pictures, and if’n you like ’em

Send me a dollar at the followin’ address.

“Cause Social Security ain’t gonna get it

Ain’t gonna help me get outta this mess.

You know I ain’t greedy, I don’t want a million

Just a couple of thousand to get some new teeth.

All I’m askin’ from you is one lousy dollar

Sent to the mailbox described underneath.

So what I am tryin’ is to give you some pleasure

With my pictures and stories and humor and stuff.

All that I’m askin’ is one measly dollar

To help us get through when the times they get rough.

I’ll tell you for certain, if this thing goes viral

And money starts pilin’ right up to the sky,

I’ll help folks that’s hurtin’ and hungry and needy.

I’m that kind of hippie, I’m that kind of guy.

Michael Fisher:  20030 El Rancho Way, Monte Rio, CA 95462

Send $2.50 to cover the cost of an envelope and postage and printer ink and I would be happy to send you a copy (signed by the artist) of your favorite “Amazing Person” or comic story.  

Those Amazing Humans, #422, Wangari Maathai

NAIROBI, Kenya — Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist who began a movement to reforest her country by paying poor women a few shillings to plant trees and who went on to become the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize, died here on Sunday. She was 71.

The cause was cancer, her organization, the Green Belt Movement, said. Kenyan news organizations said she had been treated for ovarian cancer in the past year and had been in a hospital for at least a week when she died.

Dr. Maathai, one of the most widely respected women on the continent, wore many hats — environmentalist, feminist, politician, professor, rabble-rouser, human rights advocate and head of the Green Belt Movement, which she founded in 1977. Its mission was to plant trees across Kenya to fight erosion and to create firewood for fuel and jobs for women.

Dr. Maathai was as comfortable in the gritty streets of Nairobi’s slums or the muddy hillsides of central Kenya as she was hobnobbing with heads of state. She won the Peace Prize in 2004 for what the Nobel committee called “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.” It was a moment of immense pride in Kenya and across Africa.

Her Green Belt Movement has planted more than 30 million trees in Africa and has helped nearly 900,000 women, according to the United Nations, while inspiring similar efforts in other African countries.

-excerpted from a New York Times aricle by Jeffrey Gettleman