On the Road Again

Road Trip!

I rarely mention mittens, or use names that start with 'X'. But having mentioned mittens, I must leave at once for other lands. (A large bowl of Haggis for those who catch the reference).

My youngest son and I will be leaving Friday to drive from Salt Lake to New York via I-80/90, with a dip down to Gettysburg for some Civil War tourism along the way. It's been four years since he and I have been able to do a road trip together, and I'm looking forward to this one immensely.

I'll drop Michael off in NYC where he has friends, and then continue up to Portland, Maine to see a beloved aunt, and finally down the Eastern seaboard towards Gap Mills, West Virginia, where a 180-acre sheep farm demands my attention until Mid-June. I hope to be able to visit with many friends and relatives along the way also - but my presence on the net may be curtailed as they don't even have cell service up in them thar hills... dialup connection is painful, and the nearest hotspot is like 20 miles down the road

I'll report when I can. Email to my Gmail account will still be checked regularly.

Cheerio!

Art imitating life, or vice versa?

I had to laugh out loud when I read this snippet from Larry King's autobiography, which was published by CNN:

Then came my big break. There was a morning deejay named Tom Baer. He was making sixty dollars a week and his alimony was sixty-five. He claimed to be living off the coconuts falling from trees. He quit on a Friday, and the general manager told me I could start on Monday.

I must have rehearsed the entire weekend. I don't even think I slept. On Monday morning I showed up at WAHR with the record that would play my theme song, "Swingin' Down the Lane."

The general manager called me into his office to wish me good luck. "By the way," he said, "what name are you going to use?"

"What do you mean?"

"You can't use Larry Zeiger," he said. "It's too ethnic. People won't be able to spell it or remember it. You need a better name."

There was no time to think about whether this was good or bad or what my mother would say. I was going on the air in five minutes. The Miami Herald was spread out on his desk. Face-up was a full-page ad for King's Wholesale Liquors. The general manager looked down and said, "King! How about Larry King?"

"OK," I said. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. I wasn't going to blow it.

"Fine. You'll host The Larry King Show."

So this was 1957. In 1973, Don Martin included the following dialog as part of 'Star Spangled Bananas' which appeared in "Don Martin Carries On":



Is it possible that Martin knew of Larry King's story? Or is it just a delightful coincidence of names, with the situation seeming so familiar because it happened so many times in showbiz?

Who knows. At any rate, it gave me a huge chuckle.

[Text ©2009 Larry King, Image ©1973 Don Martin]

Writer's Block: Dream On

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Whether it's normal or not, the only dreams I recall the most vividly, other than the really disturbing nightmares, are dreams of flight. Some of these have been so vivid and - seemingly - realistic that I can't help but wonder where they come from or what they mean.

If only I could unchain that type of creativity in my brain and get it set to paper... I could be a novelist.