About two hours ago, the fourth of Molly the Owl's five eggs hatched. The new infant is named Wesley, though I don't know that anyone has any idea yet if it's a boy or a girl. You can see Wesley come into the world in the video I've embedded below.
It runs about an hour and 13 minutes and all that you'll see in the first hour is Molly sitting on her eggs with her first born, Max, struggling to sit up and maybe get some attention. You might want to fast forward through all that and start around 61 minutes in when Wesley finally puts in an appearance and Molly helps him get out by chewing away at the shell. Utterly amazing.
A slight correction on my Dick Giordano obit. I said that Dick was hired his first time at DC by Carmine Infantino. Dick always said he was the last editor hired by Irwin Donenfeld. There was a murky period there where Donenfeld was being forcibly retired as DC's editorial director and Infantino was stepping into the role and it was hard to tell who was in charge for a while. But Dick said he was hired by Irwin.
I didn't post an obit here recently for Fess Parker because...well, no disrespect to Mr. Parker but I'm not sure I ever saw an episode of either Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone. He was wildly popular in both but there are some things in this world that your radar just plain misses and mine missed his greatest triumphs. Obviously, he had enough fans that he didn't miss me.
To those who wrote wondering where my Fess Parker obit was, my apologies. I can though direct you to a couple of fine pieces by Disney expert Michael Barrier. He knew Parker and he posted this insightful piece about the man. Mike also has up a long interview with Mr. Parker done in 2003 and 2004, mostly about his working relationship with Mr. Disney. Well worth your attention.
So...how's Al Franken making out as a Senator? Bob Elisberg sent me this link to an article that says he's maintaining a (mostly) low profile while managing to move some (mostly) non-controversial bills forward in a (mostly) bipartisan way.
When I was around thirteen or fourteen, I had a crush on every woman ever photographed by a man named Peter Gowland. In the "men's magazines" of the day, he was a true artist...and you could almost spot his work without looking at the photo credit. The ladies were young, healthy, happy, not wearing a lot of clothing (if any) and usually surrounded by lots of water. I was a boy, not a man, but I occasionally snuck peeks at men's magazines, always fearing someone would swoop in and arrest me for doing so. Mr. Gowland's ladies were worth the risk...and if you go over to his site and prowl around, you'll understand.
I met Gowland around 1973 when I was briefly taking some courses at Santa Monica College, mostly to appease my father, who hadn't liked me dropping out of full-time status at UCLA to write Super Goof comic books. At one point, SMC had what to some of us seemed like a very important record. Its football team stunk, its academic achievements were undistinguished...but more Playboy Playmates had hailed from our school than any other in the country. This was mainly because Peter Gowland frequented the campus, working with its instructors occasionally.
There was at the time — and may still be, for all I know — a scam worked by sleazy guys on the make. They'd approach attractive women in public places and say, "Hi, I'm a photographer for Playboy and you're lovely and if you'd like to make beaucoup bucks by posing for me, here's my card." They would then whip out a business card of dubious connection to Mr. Hefner's enterprise...and guess what they actually had in mind. From what I heard, that happened a lot. I met women who got one of those come-ons every week.
Well, one day I actually saw Peter Gowland do that with a young lady and it was legit. That is, he really was shooting pix for Playboy. He did tell me though that when he found a great new subject, he usually didn't offer her to that magazine. She could make a lot more money posing for him if he could sell the pix to a wider range of markets than Playboy's exclusivity contracts would allow. And he could spare himself vast headaches if he didn't have to reshoot photos over and over and over again to comply with Hef's micro-management.
I didn't have a chance that day to tell him a story that I thought he'd appreciate...that is, if he even believed it. It was the tale of how I came to be familiar with his work and I swear, it's absolutely true. Many years later, I wrote it up for one of my columns and posted it to this site. If you'd like to read it, it's right here.
I took that column offline a few years ago because I included it in one of my books but I just put it back for this occasion. Before I removed it, Mr. Gowland happened across it and wrote me a nice e-mail inviting me to come up to his studio in Santa Monica for a visit. I accepted and asked if I could bring along a friend of mine, the brilliant glamour artist, Dave Stevens. Dave was a huge Gowland fan. In fact, I once gave Dave a crate full of old Gowland magazines (like the ones above) and Dave gave me a drawing he did of what could easily have been called a Gowland Girl. Anyway, Mr. Gowland knew of Dave Stevens, loved his work and said, "Bring him along!" Due to Dave's illness, that never happened...but hearing that Peter Gowland liked what he did sure made Dave happy.
As noted here, Peter Gowland has died at the age of 93. He is survived by his wife of 68 years, several daughters, granddaughters and even a great-granddaughter...and I'll bet he took gorgeous photos of every one of them. He leaves this planet with the gratitude of a lot of guys around my age for showing us, just when we needed it, how beautiful a beautiful woman can be.
If someone hasn't e-mailed you this one yet, don't worry. Someone will.
A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."
Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says "Dam!"
Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.
Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says "I've lost my electron," The other says, "Are you sure?" The first replies "Yes, I'm positive."
Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.
A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they asked, as they moved off. "Because", he said, "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."
A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."
These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.
Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate every little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him ..(Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good)..... A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
And finally, there was the person who sent ten different puns to his friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.
The other day, we favored you with a look at Al Kelly, master of double talk comedy. John Sinclair, who writes teevee shows in the U.K., tells me about Mr. Kelly's British equivalent — "Professor" Stanley Unwin, who seems to have gotten his title at whatever institute of higher learning also gave us "Professor" Irwin Corey. Here is Prof. Unwin in action. This clip will be meaningless to those of you who think that everyone with a British accent is utterly unintelligible. Oh, why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
March 27, 2010
