Fun with Keywords! (vol. 6) And so was September...

Well, nothing followed last night. It's twenty-four hours later, and yes, I finally slept. You cared, didn't you?

I ended up editing an old piece. Wandered to the kitchen for a snack. While eating, I heard the child coughing. Went to check on her; realized she was fine, but saw her tooth-shaped necklace hanging from the bedpost.

-- She lost the tooth at school, thanks to a little girl on the swing-set: my daughter was pushing her, and wham! The little girl kicked my daughter in the mouth. Out came the loose tooth, and the nurse in the school office put the tooth in a tooth-shaped necklace. Now you know everything.

It was a good thing she coughed, and I saw the necklace, otherwise I might have forgot to play tooth fairy.

Returned to the kitchen, and opened the junk drawer, where I usually stash a dollar bill, for such occasions, but there was no dollar bill. I've already played tooth fairy two times this month! And now, on the third tooth of February, I need not one, but two dollars (one for the tooth, and one for the necklace -- I convinced my child the tooth fairy would be smitten with the tooth shaped necklace, and pay her double; actually, I'm just grossed out by teeth, and this was my clever way of not having to open the tooth-shaped charm, and retrieve the bloody, kicked-out tooth...so now both of 'em are going in the trash).

In the cold of night, minutes before three AM and rain, I walked outside, through fog, and darkness; my eyes fixed on the edge of the forest, twenty feet from my car. Of course I had to leave my purse out there, on Tooth Fairy night! And in the passenger seat, I dug for two dollars worth of singles. It's exactly what I had.

Back in the house, I laid the two bills on the floor, and doused them with Lysol. Washed my hands, and donned rubber gloves. Once the bills were dry -- or reasonably dry -- I folded the money, returned to my daughter's room, and stuffed the money into her special white pillow. Swiped the necklace. Dropped it into the urn on the mantle in the living room.

Done.

Exhausted from motherly chores, and chilled from my trip outside in pajamas, I removed my rubber gloves, and went to bed. Worked on my new screenplay.

I fell asleep, and couldn't remember today, what I wrote last night.

Re-read the half dozen pages, while ago, and it's horrible! My novels -- as I vaguely recall them; now packed away, gathering dust -- were probably none the wiser. But good Lord, my instincts for 'it all', are getting worse with age. I remember when I was twenty-three and brilliant. Now I'm twenty-seven, and I wish a little girl on a swing-set would kick ME in the head.

And if I'm lucky, the blow would kill me, or at least knock enough sense into me, to realize, answering questions on a blog is all I'm cut out for in this life.

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Now where were we?

Ah yes, I remember: the last time I saw Paris...and if it still stars Elizabeth Taylor, then I still don't want to see it.

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"TCM who says damn good actress"

Ha. I've always wondered that, myself!

You know, in the opening promo for some spotlight series -- I can't think of the name of it -- on TCM, shown in-between movies; and the very last voice in the promo says, "Damn good actress." To me, it sounds akin to Bea Arthur; like a woman whose voice is manly, or a man whose voice is womanly. Just a strange, old voice. So if anyone out there knows, please let me know: lest I have to put some actual effort into this, right off the get-go, and go google it, myself.

-- I'm already the Tooth Fairy; isn't that enough?

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"15 key words about New York"

Hmm. How about:

New York State
The Big Apple
Empire State Building
The Empire Strikes Back
The Umpire Strikes Back!
Yankees
Giants
Jets
Mets
Seinfeld
Vaudeville
Woody Allen
Nathan's Hot Dogs
Broadway
The Great White Way

I would say, "42nd Street," also, but that would make the list sixteen, and I've been requested only to come up with fifteen. Besides, they're all pretty inadequate, as it is.

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"Was Cornell Wilde and Dana Andrews brothers?"

You mean, WERE Cornel Wilde, and Dana Andrews brothers...

No, they were not.

Dana was born in Mississippi.

Cornel was born in Hungary.

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"Whaddaya say whaddaya know"

What do I say, and what do I know? Well, I know that you've misquoted Cagney. And I say the actual line is, "Whaddaya hear, whaddaya say?"

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"Does Lucas Cruikshank play Fred and Derf in the Fred movie?"

Yes.

And you would not believe how many hundreds upon hundreds upon HUNDREDS of hit I've got, thanks to my review of FRED: THE MOVIE.

And why in the hell I chose to review FRED: THE MOVIE...well, I don't know. From what I remember, my daughter loved it, and after it was over, wanted to come to the office to look for pictures of Fred, and his co-stars. After little was found online, I said, "Well, it's too soon for any reviews to be out."

She asked, "Well, why don't you write one?"

Ha.

I did, and figured my regular readers thought I was nuts.

But that review is now officially my most read piece, and has garnered more hits than anything else on this silly blog.

And to think of all the times I wrote serious pieces. Artful prose! All I really had to do for attention was review a made-for-TV movie starring a YouTube superstar.

The most troubling thing, though, about all of this, is the number one search result I get, in reference to FRED: THE MOVIE, are requests for pictures of the underage Cruikshank in his underwear.

-- Do perverts have nothing better to do??

Regular readers: can you imagine how disappointed these kids are, when they come over here, expecting some modern blog, with a review of Justin Bieber's performance in MY LIFE STORY, EVEN THOUGH I'M ONLY SIXTEEN, AND HAVE YET TO DO ANYTHING IMPRESSIVE WHATSOEVER, COMPARED TO THE MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF TALENTED PEOPLE WHO HAVE COME BEFORE ME, AND WILL COME AFTER ME, BUT THEY NEVER GET THEIR OWN BIO-PIC, NOW DO THEY? (or whatever the title is; NEVER SAY NEVER, maybe? I have yet to pay attention. And refuse to pay attention, ever again, to a YouTube superstar, with the exception of the poetic and piano-playing genius, Bo Burnham) and instead find my yammering about the Marx Brothers?

-- I actually referenced the Marx Brothers in that FRED: THE MOVIE piece, but later deleted the reference, fearing young people wouldn't know who the hell I was talking about.

I did them a disservice -- for which I am now ashamed.

I mean, one good thing could have been borne from that FRED piece: some kid, thinking, "Who the hell are the Marx Brothers?" could have left my blog, googled it, thus finding one of the many Marx-movie clips over at YouTube, and voila! A young, art-hungry mind would have inherited the greatness and joy that IS the Marx Brothers, all thanks to me.

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Now wake up. You fell asleep during my diatribe.

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"Is the Bowery Boys a spin off from the Dead End Kids?"

Yes. And no.

The Bowery Boys is a later day version of the Dead End Kids, in the sense that four of the original DEKS went on to star in the Bowery Boys series.

Yet, the Bowery Boys, as a series, is not related to the actual stories, characters, or overall 'universe' of the Dead End Kids. For instance, Billy Halop is absent. Bobby Jordan is underused. And Huntz Hall is one of the leaders, instead of nosing around in the background. Same goes for Gabe Dell. Punsly is gone. And Leo Gorcey is pretty much a jerk any way you slice it.

-- For more on the DEKS, the East Side Kids, the Bowery Boys, and what-have-you, read my recently (as in, last night) edited piece on the non-related, non-Marxian Brothers, HERE.

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"Does Judy have an Australian accent in Fred the Movie?"

I don't know. It sounded Australian to me, but Pixie Lott, the gorgeous actress/singer who played her, is from London, England.

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"Danny of the Bowery Boys"

If asked, "Danny of the East Side Kids," I'd shout, "Bobby Jordan!" But this is the first Dead End Kid or Bowery Boy related question I can't answer from memory!

Hmm. I've been looking through Richard Roat's book, Hollywood's Made-to-Order Punks, but I can't find mention of a character named 'Danny' (outside of Jordan in the East Side Kids) anywhere.

Minutes Later

Okay, over at Wikipedia, I found listed an actor named Danny Welton, who played, uncredited, a character named Danny, in the 1956 Bowery Boy entry, FIGHTING TROUBLE.

He has no Wikipedia page of his own, nor is he mentioned in Roat's otherwise thorough book, but there are some films listed on Welton's very skimpy IMDB page, and some rather 'colorful' looking options came up, once googled.

So, Danny Welton. Now go have fun.

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"Does Autumnal Equinox make you tired?"

Sure. So does blogging.

So does reading my blog.

Now you have the two cures for insomnia.

A) Read a lousy blog.
B) Write one.
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