Just Another Dead-Sandsculpting-Beatles Column
It's that time of year when I clean out the eaves and downspouts of my mind to make room for important stuff like my Christmas wish list, which I plan to explain in excruciating detail to anyone who asks what I want.
To free up cranial capacity for this year's lengthy list (hey, I've been reeaaallly good), let's tie up some loose ends from past columns, so I don't have to keep remembering which details were almost true and which were, uh, not so much.
Firstly, you've probably been losing sleep over the past week wondering what Halloween costume my No. 4 son (age 8) finally chose. Well, he decided to be a pumpkin-shaped plastic trick-or-treat bucket. He figured people would just put the candy directly into his mouth. Didn't happen.
Secondly, a September column about the Grateful Dead mentioned that "Sugar Magnolia," the band's tour bus, is available for purchase (at only $200,000, it's a great Christmas gift idea for that weekly columnist in your life who's been reeaaallly good!).
A reader who identified her-or-him self as "Deadhead" wrote me (thanks, Deadhead) to explain that this bus was one of several in the band's touring caravans (or should that be "busavans"?). Sugar Magnolia was the party bus — the place where the Dead would, ahem, "unwind" after concerts. Deadhead speculated that every interior surface of the vehicle could probably still deliver a "contact high."
I called the Volo (Illinois) Auto Museum, where the bus currently resides, to learn if this could be true, but no one ever answered the phone. It was the same thing every day for two weeks: "Leave a message, man — we're, like, in an all-day meeting. . .in the Sugar Magnolia conference room (giddy laughter)!"
Thanks also to Matt Small, who wrote to explain that, when all was said and done, the Dead had six different official keyboardists, due to an annoying tendency on the part of their pianists to unexpectedly die. He also mentioned that, while he loves the Grateful Dead dearly, he would decline any invitation to play keyboard for them.
Thirdly, another September piece previewed the World Championships of Sand Sculpture, held every year in Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia. This year's winners were the usual collection of oddball types who've learned how to make big money with an offbeat skill. Kind of like me, expect for the "make big money" part.
For example, take the winners of the "Doubles Sand Sculpting" category, two Chinese persons named Feng Guangxing and Liu Jin Jun. They took home $2,000 Canadian (which in U.S. dollars could buy nearly 17 gallons of gas) for a statue called "Immortals Get Together," an amazingly detailed sculpture depicting a heavenly gathering of every deceased Grateful Dead keyboardist.
Fourthly, a mere couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the 100th anniversary of the show business publication Variety, and its plan to name an entertainment industry figure as "Showbiz Icon of the Century," or SIC.
The entire entertainment world was abuzz with rumors, unfortunately none mentioning me, in spite of the " hot tips" that I repeatedly phoned and e-mailed to Mary Hart of "Entertainment Tonight." When the winner was finally revealed, I gotta tell ya, every person I talked to thought Variety got it exactly right: SpongeBob SquarePants.
(Okay, not really, but I told my kids SpongeBob won — it was the only way to distract them from telling my wife that they'd found my secret stash of racy Mary Hart photos.)
Variety's actual SIC, the one entertainment figure who towers above all others izzzzz — The Beatles! Some people protested this choice, saying The Beatles weren't one figure, they were four (or seven, according to those who insist on counting Pete Best, Stu Sutcliffe and Sgt. Pepper).
As soon as I heard the news, I called my mom and dad, and suggested they re-evaluate a key event from my sixth year of high school: my Senior English term paper about The Beatles.
Now that The Beatles are verifiably SIC, I asked them if they'd revise their belief that my term paper was the dopiest thing I'd ever done. They brightened up immediately and said "Oh, son, we stopped thinking that a long time ago! When you started writing those weekly columns!"
Sixthly, let me know what sort of things I should put on my Christmas list this year. TakefiveT5@yahoo.com
To free up cranial capacity for this year's lengthy list (hey, I've been reeaaallly good), let's tie up some loose ends from past columns, so I don't have to keep remembering which details were almost true and which were, uh, not so much.
Firstly, you've probably been losing sleep over the past week wondering what Halloween costume my No. 4 son (age 8) finally chose. Well, he decided to be a pumpkin-shaped plastic trick-or-treat bucket. He figured people would just put the candy directly into his mouth. Didn't happen.
Secondly, a September column about the Grateful Dead mentioned that "Sugar Magnolia," the band's tour bus, is available for purchase (at only $200,000, it's a great Christmas gift idea for that weekly columnist in your life who's been reeaaallly good!).
A reader who identified her-or-him self as "Deadhead" wrote me (thanks, Deadhead) to explain that this bus was one of several in the band's touring caravans (or should that be "busavans"?). Sugar Magnolia was the party bus — the place where the Dead would, ahem, "unwind" after concerts. Deadhead speculated that every interior surface of the vehicle could probably still deliver a "contact high."
I called the Volo (Illinois) Auto Museum, where the bus currently resides, to learn if this could be true, but no one ever answered the phone. It was the same thing every day for two weeks: "Leave a message, man — we're, like, in an all-day meeting. . .in the Sugar Magnolia conference room (giddy laughter)!"
Thanks also to Matt Small, who wrote to explain that, when all was said and done, the Dead had six different official keyboardists, due to an annoying tendency on the part of their pianists to unexpectedly die. He also mentioned that, while he loves the Grateful Dead dearly, he would decline any invitation to play keyboard for them.
Thirdly, another September piece previewed the World Championships of Sand Sculpture, held every year in Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia. This year's winners were the usual collection of oddball types who've learned how to make big money with an offbeat skill. Kind of like me, expect for the "make big money" part.
For example, take the winners of the "Doubles Sand Sculpting" category, two Chinese persons named Feng Guangxing and Liu Jin Jun. They took home $2,000 Canadian (which in U.S. dollars could buy nearly 17 gallons of gas) for a statue called "Immortals Get Together," an amazingly detailed sculpture depicting a heavenly gathering of every deceased Grateful Dead keyboardist.
Fourthly, a mere couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the 100th anniversary of the show business publication Variety, and its plan to name an entertainment industry figure as "Showbiz Icon of the Century," or SIC.
The entire entertainment world was abuzz with rumors, unfortunately none mentioning me, in spite of the " hot tips" that I repeatedly phoned and e-mailed to Mary Hart of "Entertainment Tonight." When the winner was finally revealed, I gotta tell ya, every person I talked to thought Variety got it exactly right: SpongeBob SquarePants.
(Okay, not really, but I told my kids SpongeBob won — it was the only way to distract them from telling my wife that they'd found my secret stash of racy Mary Hart photos.)
Variety's actual SIC, the one entertainment figure who towers above all others izzzzz — The Beatles! Some people protested this choice, saying The Beatles weren't one figure, they were four (or seven, according to those who insist on counting Pete Best, Stu Sutcliffe and Sgt. Pepper).
As soon as I heard the news, I called my mom and dad, and suggested they re-evaluate a key event from my sixth year of high school: my Senior English term paper about The Beatles.
Now that The Beatles are verifiably SIC, I asked them if they'd revise their belief that my term paper was the dopiest thing I'd ever done. They brightened up immediately and said "Oh, son, we stopped thinking that a long time ago! When you started writing those weekly columns!"
# # #
Sixthly, let me know what sort of things I should put on my Christmas list this year. TakefiveT5@yahoo.com
posted by Don Stuart at 10:27 AM
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