Category: Good news

Happy 100th birthday, Mel Brooks

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
1974 was a very good year.

A very happy 100th birthday to Mel Brooks, who was making me laugh my ass off decades before I knew who the hell he was.

I think I first laid eyes on him when Mel and his old buddy Carl Reiner introduced “The 2000 Year Old Man” to the world (they’d been doing bits at parties, George Burns threatened to steal the material if they didn’t do something with it, and finally Steve Allen persuaded them to record the act for an album).

But he wasn’t a rookie. Mel had been doing standup in the Borscht Belt; went on to write for Sid Caesar with the likes of Woody Allen and Neil Simon; and created “Get Smart!” with Buck Henry.

And then, the movies. Holy underwear! In 1974 Mel released “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein.” In the same year. I was pretending to study journalism at the University of Northern Colorado that year, and my bros and I lost what remained of our minds watching those flicks.

Mine never returned. But Mel’s just keeps hopping along like some furshlugginer Energizer Bunny. I’m retired, but he’s still working.

And The New York Times has 100 reasons why this should excite you. There are more, I’m certain. Give us yours in comments.

36 and counting

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments
“Is there a bus ticket and some fake I.D. in here somewhere? Goddamnit!”

On this date in 1990 Herself and I embarked on the perilous journey of discovery that puts divorce lawyers in next year’s Maseratis.

They said it would never last, and after she got the LASIK surgery I was certain they’d be proven right.

Nevertheless, here we are, 36 years down that rocky ol’ road of marital blisters and with hardly any scars at all. Visible to the casual observer, that is.

Only half of the happy couple is showing the years and mileage, which is odd, because he’s the one who spent all that time palling around with the Devil. But the dumb sonofabitch was never worth a damn at wealth management — the kind of chump who thought a CD was something by Tom Waits that you slipped into the player of an ’83 Toyota longbed between bumps off the back of one hand and stealthy nips from the bottle in the other while steering with the knees and one bloodshot eye on the rear-view mirror — so whatever he got for that beat-to-shit 1954 soul has long since been pissed away.

And knowing him, chances are it wasn’t eternal youth and beauty anyway. More like another 8-ball and a case of Pacifico. Talk about your cheap dates.

Ol’ Nick probably doesn’t even want to take possession at this point.

“Holy hell, clock the state of Himself, would ye? Looks like the south end of a northbound ghoul. Make a freight train take a dirt road, that would. Shit, he even scares me. Maybe I’ll delay collection on this one, take Stephen Miller for practice.”

So, sorry, Toots. Looks like you’re stuck with me for a while yet. Next time you’re playing blackjack with the gang down at the animal shelter, maybe check your cards before yelping, “Aw, what the hell! Hit me!”

And a Merry Sale it is, too

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments
Soma Fabrications (a.k.a. the Merry Sales Co.) is at it again.

I meant to add this over the weekend but got distracted by feline maintenance, grocery shopping, cooking, bicycle riding, and what appears to be a remake of “Lawrence of Arabia” taking place on the property.

Still, better late than never, as the fella says. You can save big on Soma and New Albion frames and forks, but you gotta move fast — the sale ends today.

Aqua fina

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Not a lot … but we’ll take it.

I just searched my 2025 training log for “rain” and came up empty. Just like our rain gauge.

Until this morning.

As we began puttering around the Compound, getting our Sunday started, Herself said she thought she heard sprinkles tippy-tapping the skylights. But I said naw, warn’t nothin’ in the forecast.

But suddenly there it was, on the walkway. Not much, but it’s all good, amirite?

As news goes it certainly beats a hummer I saw in The New York Times this morning about some bloated sack of shit whose claim to fame — beyond boinking Madge Toilet Grout, that is — was asking President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine why he wasn’t wearing a suit to his ambush by — pardon, “meeting with” — that other, better-known, bloated sack of shit, who also gets too much press.

I got asked a similar question once, by a supervisor, during a performance review. It was majorly annoying, as I had been busting my hump for that two-bit cage-liner, which couldn’t keep its city and copy desks staffed, and they should’ve been delighted that I showed up for work at all, much less wearing a button-down shirt and tie.

Shit, they were lucky I didn’t show up butt-nekkid, knee-walking, commode-hugging drunk. But I was, after all, a professional. I was always fully clothed.

I fled that rag as soon as I could find another job. Any old asshole can wear a tie, and plenty of them do. Especially on TV.