“Welles was quite the enfant terrible, wasn’t he? Although I do think he was most likely suprised at the extent to which people believed the show, he probably was not all that displeased.”

Welles’ last commercially released film, F For Fake explored how easily people are manipulated–I wonder what he’d think about today’s brand of tricksters: Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock, Al Sharpton, Ward Churchill, et al.

So, hopefully Blogger will return to business as usual shortly, and I can publish it. Till then, all I can do is comment.

According, to my mother, source of all important cultural information for that era, Bergen was a great ventriloquist for the radio because he was actually a pretty lousy ventriloquist, technically speaking. But he was funny.

Wikipedia backs her up.

Fields: Your mother was a gate leg table.

McCarthy: If so, your father was under it.

Fields: Quiet, or I’ll put a Japanese Beetle on you.

We have one now. He’s called Phil Hendrie. Okay, maybe not exactly a ventriloquist (I’m not sure) but close enough.

It’s no coincidence that Welles’ first line of dialogue in Citizen Kane’s “News on the March” mockumentary was, “Don’t believe everything you hear on the radio!”

My wife and I took care of her parents (and, God rest their souls, they took care of us) from the time we were married until their passing some 7-8 years ago.

My Mother-in-law treated me like her own son from the first day I came for dinner (and came back the next day for breakfast, etc., … long story). But she had a pretty devilish streak in her when it came to April Fool’s.

Early on, she used to wrap up a lunch of leftovers for me almost every day. We’re not talking PB&J here, but lasagne, turkey dinner and that sort of thing, complete with dessert.

One April 1 her joke was to include several frisbee-shaped doggie treats in my lunch instead of cookies. I forget what they were called. She hadn’t thought I’d seen them, but I recognized them at lunch and got a chuckle… then a big shit-eating grin - kind of like a doggie-treat-eating grin, but without all that nagging humiliation.

So I wait until about 3pm and then I call my wife to tell her that I felt just awful - that I’d had an almost incapacitating bout of heartburn and then spent the rest of the afternoon in the bathroom “screaming at both ends”. I asked her if she thought I should go to the hospital, or what. She was in on the joke so she told me to wait, then immediately called Mom.

Mom proceeded to call the doctor, then the vet and then finally the 1-800 number on the back of the doggie treat box to find out if they should pump my stomach, or worse.

I made myself “unavailable” until about 5pm to let them all stew for a bit. When I walked in the door after work, feeling chipper and fine, none the worse for wear, the return volley prank hit her like a cinder block. The transition on her face when I walked through the door was about the most priceless I can recall - from fear, to shock, to a kind of angry confusion, to outright rage (the fake “I’m gonna kill you” kind - few of us know what REAL mother-in-law “I’m gonna kill you” rage is like, and are the better for it).

Eventually, we both laughed so hard we could hardly stand.

I sure do miss that little prankster.

So, why I woke up to a “real-time for me” 6AM instead of a fake 9AM remains a mystery! But it’s the easiest transition I can recall!

Usually some time in February I become oppressed by the Northern winter and start counting the days and the temperature. Usually by Spring (3/21) things are getting OK, in terms of temp and darkness. But the first weekend in April — the time for the time change — is always a watershed.

Incidentally, starting next year, the clocks will be turning back a week or two earlier, in March, and ending a week or two into November (instead of the last weekend in October.) That will take a bit of the edge off the end of winter.

Bottom line: I’d rather wake up in the dark than come home in the dark.

We found out that Latvia, Portugal, and another EU country have stopped DST, or summer time. Bad for the kids, going to bed too late, or such things; and really not much energy saving.

I like it; but the kids ARE staying up late.

neo-neocon » Blog Archive » Weaving the tangled web of deception…