Marx Brothers Take It All Off

Oh for the days when stories out of Hollywood had nothing to do with getting arrested or being in rehab.

Take the Marx Brothers, for instance. There was a group of guys who knew how to Make Merry...on screen and off.

My thanks to Stephen Schochet's book, Hollywood Stories, for this tasty tidbit:

In 1934, the Marx Brothers felt insulted by MGM bigwig Irving Thalberg (1899-1936). How dare he say that their movies needed fewer laughs and more romance? And why did this young man keep them waiting when they scheduled meetings? The Marxes were from vaudeville where promptness was demanded. The comics plotted their revenge. One day they barricaded Irving's office door with filing cabinets, and then escaped through the window. Another time, the once again tardy producer entered his workplace to find the comics completely naked and roasting potatoes in his fireplace. The good-humored Thalberg told the brothers to wait; he then called the MGM commissary and asked them to send up some butter.

Hey, Kardashians...I spit in your general direction.

S'not Hard to Swallow

All a person has to do to get a guaranteed "Eww! Gross!" from an adult audience is mention the practice of eating boogers.

Well folks...I am here today to defend the practice, and I've even got some expert testimony from Mitchell Moffit and Greg Brown and their book, ASAP Science:

Not to be confused with phlegm, which is produced in other parts of the respiratory system, snot is a liquid secre­tion produced in the nose. This nasal mucus is made mostly of water, along with proteins, carbohydrates, salt, and cells. Snot's sticky texture enables it to trap particles of dust, dirt. and bacteria to prevent infection in your airways. Once caught, these particles are expelled by sneezing, blowing your nose, or, more likely ... being eaten! Yup, millions of tiny hairs in your nasal passage push the snot to the back of your throat, where you swallow it, leaving it to your stomach acid to destroy the unwanted visitors.

I know what you're thinking. "Those godless scientists and their unnatural ways! It's all about bodily functions with them. If only they loved Jesus!"

Well folks...it seems that maybe God designed snot with the discriminating gourmet in mind.

Fancy a taste? You may have noticed a lot of kids picking their noses and chowing down, but surely it's bad for them, right? Not quite! Researchers have theorized that nasal mucus may contain a sugary taste to entice young people to eat it. In a society devoid of dirt and germs, and increasing allergies and disease, eating boogers may actually be a way for children to expose themselves to pathogens, which may ultimately help build up their immune system.

See? It's good for you to add greens to your diet! And here's one more appetizing fact for those who need to drink more liquids: A healthy nose pumps out around half a liter of snot a day.

Who's ready for lunch?

What If the Beatles Grew Up on a Farm?

Apparently, John, Paul, George, and Ringo were all city boys. Liverpool is an industrial/harbor town, and the Fab Four didn't know a lot about life on the farm being kinda laid back.

But what if they COULD thank God they were country boys? What kind of songs would they have recorded?

• A Harvest Day's Night
• All My Shoveling
• All You Need Is Manure
• Back 40 In The USSR
• The Ballad Of John Deere and Allis Chalmers
• Can't Buy Me A Combine
• Drive My Tractor
• Eight Days Of Weeds
• The Fennel On The Hill
• Good Day Sunshine
• Happiness Is A Warm Hounddog
• I Saw Her Planting There
• I Want To Hold Your Hoe
• Lucy In The Sty With Piglets
• She's A Heifer
• Strawberry Fields For The Farmer's Market
• While My Plowhorse Gently Creeps

The 498th Greatest Song of All Time: Dump Trucks and the Weather

Pretty sure when Brook Benton recorded "Rainy Night in Georgia" he wasn't thinking about being on any list of "greatest songs" put together by a bunch of rock-n-roll journalists 34 years later. 

Come to think of it, I'm not exactly sure what Tony Joe White was thinking about when he wrote the song. He's quoted as saying, "I knew about rainy nights in Georgia because I drove a dump truck for the highway department."

Okayyyy...

Did he drive the truck at night? Were Georgian dump truck drivers required to moonlight as meteorologists?

And my biggest question is...is he happy or sad?

I mean, there's no doubt that, musically, the song feels all melancholy and depressed, but then there are lyrics like "Seems I hear your voice callin' it's all right" and "Late at night when it's hard to rest I hold your picture to my chest and I feel fine."

Maybe Tony Joe was confused about it all himself and that's why he just tossed away all thoughts of a narrative flow and turned the end of the song into a global weather report:

But it's a rainy night in Georgia

Baby, it's a rainy night in Georgia

I feel it's rainin' all over the world

Kind of lonely now

And it's rainin' all over the world

Oh, have you ever been lonely, people?

And you feel that it was rainin' all over this man's world

You're talking 'bout

A-rainin', rainin', rainin', rainin', rainin', rainin'

Rainin', rainin', rainin', rainin', rainin'

A-rainin', a-rainin', rainin' over the world

I said now, rainin', rainin', rainin', rainin', rainin', rainin'

Observed Absurdities™ 40 - Control Yourselves, Men

Had a perfectly-lovely dinner with some usually-out-of-state visitors at a relatively-upscale dining establishment.

Had a slightly-exuberant laugh when I went to utilize the restroom and saw this on the door:

Why Are We Teaching Kids These Songs???

Whenever I visit my home church while vacationing in the summer, I always get to thinking about my growing up years. I can see that front row, filled with deacons and their huge ears. I can practically smell the hymnals. I can CERTAINLY smell the deacons.

This time around, I was reminded of the songs we used to sing in Sunday School: Jesus Loves Me, He's Got the Whole World in His Hands...

I was fairly shocked, though, when I recalled two particular songs that we used to sing all the time...and that seem to have no significance whatsoever.

Useless song number one: Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man

While it has a modicum of redeeming social value because it recounts a biblical story found in Luke 19, there is no moral to the story...no practical application for the young lives who are learning to call attention to a person's lack of height.

And it's not enough to say that Zacchaeus was little. No, no, no. He was a WEE little man! Like, hold up your thumb and forefinger about three inches apart. Teeny, tiny, dude. And that's all the song says about him, except that he climbed a sycamore tree that Jesus told him to get out of so they could all go to Zach's house.

No words of praise. No teaching from Jesus. Nothing but the beginning of a story. Well alrighty then.

Useless song number two: Deep and Wide

This was a big hit when I was little because it had fun motions and not a whole lot of words. But now that I'm a fairly mature adult, I positively don't understand why we ever sang it.

The whole thing is a metaphor...something preschoolers and elementary students aren't particularly well-known for understanding. Great googily-moogily, I know a truckload of adults that can't handle figurative language.

Deep and wide, deep and wide

There's a fountain flowing deep and wide

[And just in case you missed it the first time]

Deep and wide, deep and wide

There's a fountain flowing deep and wide

And then, we increase the uselessness by substituting words with hums!

Hmm and hmm, hmm and hmm

There's a hmm-hmm flowing hmm and hmm...

We were never told what the fountain represents or why it was a good thing that it was deep and wide...or really, now that I think about it, there was no reason for us to assume that this fountain flowing was a good thing at all. Maybe the whole song is meant as a lament.

Deep and wide (Nooooo!), deep and wide (Aaargh!)

Maybe Deep and Wide is what they sang on the ark to pass the time. All I know is, it kept us busy while the teenaged helpers were pouring out little piles of Cheerios® for us.

Cary Grant Is My New Hero

It's just a little thing.

One small quote. A trivial remembrance.

But it has opened my eyes to the true greatness of Cary Grant.

Apparently, Encyclopaedia Brittanica telegraphed the movie star to ask for a bit of information.

I'll let Mr. Grant himself finish the story:

The telegram read, 'How old Cary Grant?' And I telegraphed back, "Old Cary Grant fine. How you?"

I bow in the presence of greatness.