I hope all those who visited Dispatches from Aldeburgh have enjoyed their time here—it's been fun for me, too. Of the 400-plus items I posted to this blog from 2020 to 2024, I'm leaving up the most popular.
Update: January 2025. With the return of the Tangerine Palpatine to the White House, it seems appropriate to mourn the end of the good old USA as I knew it—in addition to my late blog.
© 2024 SummitCityScribe
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| Joe Flaherty as Guy Caballero, Count Floyd, and Floyd Robertson |
Seems like just the other day I posted an obituary here for Barbara Rush. Sadly, today's dispatch features another one, this time for Joe Flaherty.
My life-long love for absurdist humor can be traced back to a few sources: Mad Magazine, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Saturday Night Live, and Second City Television, or SCTV.
In 1981, NBC—looking for a replacement for their late-night Friday concert show, The Midnight Special—slipped a Candian comedy import, Second City Television, into the timeslot.
At the time, I was already on the lookout for something to tickle my funny bone. Saturday Night Live had just said goodbye to its original cast and creator/producer Lorne Michaels after five seasons, and the early episodes I'd seen from season six weren't very promising.
ABC's Fridays had shown initial promise as an alternative to SNL, but its quality varied so much from week to week that I'd already given up on it by 1981.
SCTV, on the other hand, was hilarious right from the start and only seemed to get better each week. Much like SNL's original Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time-Players, SCTV boasted a superb line of comic actors: Eugene Levy, John Candy, Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis, Catherine O'Hara, Andrea Martin, and Joe Flaherty.
SCTV stalwarts: Levy, Candy, Thomas, Moranis, O'Hara, Flaherty, and Martin.
Flaherty created a bevy of original characters for SCTV: station owner Guy Caballero, horror-host vampire Count Floyd, talk show host Sammy Maudlin, and news anchor Floyd Robertson—not to mention his hilarious celebrity impersonations like Bing Crosby.
I suppose it was Flaherty's performance as Count Floyd that most endeared me to him. Having grown up with a local horror-host of my own, I just loved it when the Count exited his coffin to introduce a schlocky fright film like "Dr. Tongue's House of Cats."
It takes a lot to stand out among a cast of comedy pros, but Joe Flaherty's SCTV performances—much like those of Phil Hartman on SNL— were always pitch-perfect and hilarious. Fellow cast-member Martin Short referred to Flaherty as the show's anchor.
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| Mr. and Mrs. Weir |
Fifteen years later, when he was cast as Mr. Weir on NBC's Freaks and Geeks, Flaherty got to riff on his Count Floyd character during their Halloween episode. For this SCTV fan, those appearances as the grumpy but loveable Mr. Weir were usually the highlight of any episode.
Life has its share of ups and downs—sometimes more of the latter—so it's important to laugh when we can. Whenever I needed a chuckle most, Joe Flaherty always delivered the goods.
You can read his New York Times obituary here.
There's more to come in the next dispatch.
©2024 SummitCityScribe
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| Barbara Rush (1927-2024) |
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| When Worlds Collide & It Came from Outer Space |
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| Rush with Yvonne Craig (left) and Lindsay Wagner (right) |
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| The Forms of Things Unknown (1964) and Cool Air (1971) |
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| Rush in Moon of the Wolf (1972) |
©2024 SummitCityScribe
Recently, an online controversy erupted when right-wingers angrily rejected the notion that Black folks can't be racist. As I see it, their problem stems from a continued refusal to acknowledge systemic racism.
Look, Black folks can exhibit racial prejudice against white folks, but while such behavior is bigotry, it isn't racism, for the simple fact that racism = prejudice + power.
For Black folks to be considered racist, they would have to systemically benefit from that bigotry, and in the history of the USA, only one group has ever benefitted from such a system: white folks.
Of course, right-wingers also like to whine about "racism against white people"— which is not only something that doesn't exist (see the helpful formula two paragraphs above) but on Jeopardy would probably be known as "Things White Supremacists Say".
To summarize: black folks can be bigoted, but not racist. White folks, on the other hand, can be both (re: Elon Musk and Bill Ackman)
As an eternal optimist, I continue to believe that someday all of us will live together free from the blight of racial strife—but when one side fails to even acknowledge the existence of systemic racism, that struggle remains an uphill battle.
Update: Just read this interesting article from the UK's Guardian which contains a very pertinent quote:
©2024 SummitCityScribe
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| Zatanna as she appeared in the 1960s. |
The popular DC Comics character Zatanna was created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Murphy Anderson. Zatanna, a magician, was a Silver Age legacy character tied to a Golden Age hero, Zatara (who also happened to be her father).
In her 1964 debut, Zatanna wore a version of her father's top hat and tails—but substituting fishnet stockings for trousers. Over the years, I've often wondered if Zatanna's Silver Age appearance might have also been inspired by the attire worn by the wife of a popular stage magician.
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| Mark Wilson and Nani Darnell in the 1960s |
Zatanna made her debut in the pages of Hawkman #4, which went on sale in August of 1964—during the final season of The Magic Land of Allakazam on ABC. Murphy and Helen Anderson were raising three children in their New Jersey home at this same time—making it likely they were familiar with Mark Wilson's TV magic show.
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| Zatanna's 1964 debut in Hawkman #4 by Murphy Anderson (left), Nani Darnell drawn by Bob Jenney in a 1962 coloring book (right). |
It's not unheard of for comic book artists to be inspired by TV or films. For instance, many believe Jack Kirby's design for the villainous Mole Man in Fantastic Four #1 was inspired by actor Anthony Quinn's look in the 1961 film, The Savage Innocents.
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| Anthony Quinn and Jack Kirby's Mole Man, both 1961. |
So, was artist Murphy Anderson inspired by Nani Darnell's stage costume when he designed Zatanna's look back in 1964? In my opinion, you don't need to believe in magic to reach that conclusion.
There's more to come in the next dispatch.
©2024 SummitCityScribe
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| Ice Age Earth footprint, Apollo 11 lunar footprint |
It's hard not to be discouraged living in a modern world still plagued by war, superstition, sexism, and bigotry.
That's why it helpful to step back occasionally and look at the big picture—to remember where humankind began and just how far we've come. The photo at the top of today's dispatch illustrates that concept quite literally.
On the left is a fossilized human footprint—said to be around 23,000 years old—found near a dry lakebed in New Mexico. Meanwhile, over on the right we have a boot print on the lunar surface, left by an Apollo astronaut in 1969.
Those Ice Age humans—who doubtlessly gazed up at the Moon each night—couldn't possibly conceive that their descendants would one day walk the lunar surface. In that same way, we modern humans have no idea what our forebears might accomplish in the future.
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| Lascaux cave painting, Van Gogh's Starry Night |
That's why it's good to remember that humans aren't always bent on finding new ways of hurting or killing each other. We're not always hateful, petty, or stupid. Sometimes we can do great things—inspiring things.
Here's to that next great thing.
©2024 SummitCityScribe
When I was a kid, there was a huge scrapyard on Clinton Street directly across from Fort Wayne's Lawton Park. Despite a tall, corrugated metal fence bordering the property—which was originally known as Superior Iron and Metal—stacks of junk cars and scrap metal eventually grew so tall they were easily visible to passing motorists on Clinton.
There's more to come in the next dispatch.
©2023 SummitCityScribe
©2023 SummitCityScribe
This summer moviegoers will see the fifth (and reportedly final) Indiana Jones film starring Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. All the press surrounding this latest big screen adventure got me thinking about the time I got to see an advance screening of the very first Indy film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, in the summer of 1981.
Back in the pre-internet era, information on upcoming films was pretty scarce. I didn't have access to industry trades like Variety or The Hollywood Reporter when I was younger, so often the first time I found out about a new film was when I saw the coming attractions trailer for it at my local movie theater.
This all changed with my discovery of Starlog Magazine in 1977. After its debut, I finally had a place to learn about the latest science-fiction/horror/fantasy films & TV shows in development.
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| An early mention of Raiders in Starlog #32 (1980) |
A few years later, in early 1980, I began to read brief news items in Starlog about the thrilling possibility that two genre film titans—George Lucas & Steven Spielberg—were about to embark on a new film project together.
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| A Raiders update from Starlog #33 (1980) |
As with most properties involving either filmmaker, secrecy was extremely tight around the Raiders project, so for many months all I saw were notices in Starlog about casting, filming locations, and one about John Williams' hiring as the film's composer (welcome news but not a huge surprise). By the time the movie was "in the can" as they say, I still knew nothing at all about the plot.
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| The Nazi Flying Wing, from Starlog #48 |
In fact, secrecy was so tight, it was less than two weeks prior to Raiders' release before I saw any still photographs from the film—in the pages of Starlog #48. The issue has a cover date of July 1981, but I remember buying it the first week of June at my local comic book store (the Broadway Comic Book and Baseball Card Shop at the corner of Broadway and Scott Avenue in Fort Wayne—which, sadly, is now the parking lot for the Philmore theater).
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| Indiana Jones at the Well of Souls, from Starlog #48 |
The three pics in the magazine—which accompanied an interview with star Harrison Ford—included the first one I ever saw of him as Indy in his battered fedora, a shot of a Nazi flying wing in the desert, and a third still of Indy lowering himself into a snake filled Well of Souls. A brief plot synopsis was included before the interview moved on to other subjects, namely Ford's work on future projects Blade Runner and Return of the Jedi.
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| The Raiders plot synopsis from Starlog #48 |
The synopsis really wasn't very much to go on, and I remember being slightly disappointed—because of the presence of Nazis, it sounded more like a straight-ahead WWII adventure to me (I was thinking Guns of Navarone) than the rollicking special-effects epic I expected from Lucas and Spielberg. Little did I know!
Then, one Friday afternoon in early June 1981, a local radio station announced that in just a few minutes, a few lucky callers would have a chance to win tickets to an advance screening of the latest Steven Spielberg movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Boy, talk about a Dial of Destiny (or maybe I should say a Dial-In of Destiny)!
I already had the station's request line memorized, so I grabbed the phone, called in, and was thrilled when the DJ picked up and informed me that I'd just won two tickets to the Raiders screening at the Georgetown Theaters on East State Boulevard in Fort Wayne. He also told me the special screening would take place that very evening—in about two hours. Now all I needed was someone to accompany me.
Of the first two people I immediately thought of asking, one wasn't at home when I called (this was the pre-cell phone era) and the other had to work that night. What followed was a mad telephone scramble to connect with any of my other friends who I thought might want to go.
Frustratingly, almost none of them were home (to be fair, it was a late Friday afternoon in June)—that is until I finally got through to my old elementary school friend, Danny (who's currently an elementary school teacher and now prefers to be called Daniel).
Danny seemed vaguely interested but wanted to know more about the film. I told him that all I really knew was that it involved Harrison Ford (in my excitement, I might have actually said Han Solo) fighting Nazis.
My friend sounded uncertain, "I don't know...that theater is all the way across town...", so I reminded him that it was a free movie and that I would drive him to and then home from the screening—all he had to do was buy his own soda and popcorn.
That did the trick, and seconds after I hung up the phone, I sprinted out the door to my '72 Chevy Impala in the driveway. Fortunately, I didn't get a speeding ticket during the whirlwind trip to pick up my friend and make it across town to the theater on time.
Danny still seemed a bit wary as we sat down inside the Mallers/Spirou-operated theater less than an hour later, "I sure hope this doesn't suck," he said before taking a sip of his Pepsi as the house lights went down.
Personally, I was hooked from the moment the Paramount logo dissolved into a South American mountain peak, but I could tell Danny wasn't on board until the tense sequence inside the Peruvian temple with Indy and his traitorous sidekick, Satipo (Alfred Molina).
By the time that gigantic boulder rolled down toward Indy, everyone in that theater knew they were in for one heckuva ride. Indeed, most of the film was a straight-ahead action-adventure flick, but the supernatural fireworks in the finale did deliver the state-of-the-art special effects I'd expected in a joint project from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
As we walked out of the theater into the warm June night afterward, Danny gushed that it was one of the best movies he'd ever seen—and in that moment, who was I to argue?
There were many elements that made Raiders a success, but for me a big part of why I enjoyed the film was how little I knew about it beforehand—leaving me constantly surprised and amazed by the rollercoaster ride of action and thrills onscreen. These days it's hard to experience a big-budget summer blockbuster the way I saw Raiders—not with the plethora of spoilers, leaked script pages, and early footage available online.
For that reason alone, I can't remember when I've had a better time at the movies since that free screening back in 1981. It was a blast.
©2023 SummitCityScribe
My mother was a good person: kind and loving. When I was a child, she encouraged me to be kind to others and to consider their feelings and not just my own. I can still remember the time she sat me down and played Joe South's 1970 song Walk a Mile in My Shoes to teach me about empathy. She also couldn't abide bigotry and racism and made sure I felt the same way. These were the most important lessons I ever learned from her.
My mother loved to read. She loved nothing more than to curl up with a good book. I saw her reading novels for pleasure regularly while I was growing up, and that influenced my own love of reading. Like a lot of moms, she also read People magazine and the occasional drugstore tabloid, but I remember her having a subscription to Rolling Stone and the Village Voice, too, which I thought was pretty cool.
My mother loved movies. When I was younger, we would watch them together on the living room couch. She especially loved a good thriller. Later, when I was a little older, we would visit one of our local cinemas nearly every Saturday afternoon to see a new movie. More often than not, it would be something that she wanted to see, so I ended up watching a lot more R-rated fare than any of my classmates at school. The first time I ever saw The Deerhunter, Midnight Express, Apocalypse Now, or Alien was in a movie theater with my mom.
My mother loved music. She had a special affection for Rhythm and Blues. When I was younger, I remember her playing records by B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, and Al Green around the house, and she practically wore out her 45 of Booker T. and the MGs Green Onions. I still remember visiting her one weekend and finding the Isley Brothers blistering hit, Fight the Power, part 1 & 2, on her turntable. I was impressed, thinking it was a pretty hip tune for a (then) 42-year-old white lady.
My mother was a proud union member. For many years she worked in a hot, noisy factory, testing motors for General Electric (a company that once employed 10,000 people in Fort Wayne).
My mother was all of these things I've listed here and much more. Besides being a great Mom, she was a good, decent human being who cared about the people she shared this planet with. I can trace all of the good qualities that (I hope) I possess straight back to her.
Thanks, Mom, for everything. I love you.
There's more to come in the next dispatch.
©2021 SummitCityScribe
