DJ Memory

Hearing this one puts me right back at the mic in the radio station broadcast studio. This video is funny, because Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks sang the backing vocals, and they aren’t in the video.

Here’s another one. Except by the time this single came out I was functioning as a one-man news department. The circumstances of my quitting that job are painful for me to recall.

The short explanation is that I was working 72+ hours/week for $110 net pay. The station owner needed me to do something that was one thing too many for the hours and the pay. Having made myself as valuable to the station as I could, I left just when it needed me most. I was as young as Randy VanWarmer was in this video.

Me back then.

Oh, Deery Me

Hey! Stop that! Don’t eat my expensive arborvitae! Get away from there you deer!

There! I’d like to see them try nibbling through that left-over aluminum screening I kept in the garage from a long-ago project.

They’re in the woods, waiting for me to drop my guard, I just know they are. But I won’t let them get the jump on me! Nosiree! Not me! I’ll hide under the deck and catch them in the act. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. Heh, heh. They picked the wrong guy to mess with! Laugh at me, will they? I’ll show them!

Where’s Stephen?

I was very doubtful when Colbert said he would be returning only one week following surgery for a burst appendix. This brief note on Threads, a service that’s unfamiliar to me, is from a week ago. There hasn’t been an announcement since then that he’ll be back on TV tonight.

Post by @colbertlateshow
View on Threads

Breaking News: And this time the news really is just breaking. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will be back tonight.

Late Breaking News

Not so much late breaking news as just late, as this item is from a few days ago.

Disney Vs. Ditko Ends

After more than two years, Disney and subsidiary Marvel have reached a settlement with the estate of acclaimed comic book artist Steve Ditko.

https://deadline.com/2023/12/marvel-court-termination-disney-spider-man-dr-strange-1234843941/

Steve Ditko’s original, unused cover for Amazing Fantasy #15.

Hitch and Marty

Martin Landau was a cartoonist at The New York Daily News before deciding on a career switch to acting.

Landau played James Mason’s assistant in Alfred Hitchcock’s infinitely re-watchable North by Northwest. Warners has generously made the first ten delightful minutes of the movie available. Look for Robert Shayne, who was Inspector Henderson in The Adventures of Superman.

Doreen Lang played Cary Grant’s secretary Maggie. She is also in Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man from a few years earlier.

Hitchcock and Landau during the filming of North by Northwest.

Hitch, being something of a cartoonist himself, drew the famous self-portrait he used in the opening of his TV anthology series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

The Sunday Funnies – Surprise

As mentioned here not too long ago, Gannett/USA Today has standardized the selection of comic strips its member papers can use. By chance, last Sunday’s local Gannett paper included a surprise. In addition to the regular comics, shown on the left, there was the comics section for the Burlington Free Press, on the right.

And lookee at that. Burlington has four pages of Sunday comics, with the first two pages being identical to my local edition.

The long, slow withdrawal from printed newspapers in general, and syndicated comic strips in particular, continues. It’s just a little bit less painful in Vermont.