Liberace, The Legend and the Legacy....

Before we begin our Odyssey into the Mysteries and Mythologies of Liberace's Legend and Legacy, firstly, we need to display my credentials on the field of Liberacian Sciences.

My Credentials:

1. I have TWO accredited degrees from TWO DIFFERENT respected Las Vegas Universities regarding the Field of Libercian Science.

2. I have BEEN INSIDE the Liberace Museum!

3. My Grandma (with my "Oma" ) saw Liberace preform live and endlessly regaled me with stories of the concerto when I was a child. Part of me feels like I've seen him preform Live even though I have not....

4. When I close my eyes ... I can sometimes SENSE the Legacy, and the Legend of the Luminaire himself ... like a gentle wind whispering through the leafs of the trees.

Okay, so with the formalities now out of the way let's get started shall we?


Part One: Conceptualizing His Place in Human History and What Mark He Left on It

Before we can even begin to understand the Legacy of Liberace and the Legend of this Luminary in any tangible terms that today's society can grasp, we must, describe the generation which proceeded The Man, The Myth, The Icon ... Liberace. We must dive into a world slightly before Liberace was born and witness, nay FEEL, how sucky and boring it was.

Liberace was born 100 years ago on May the 16th of 1919 ... and the world changed forever that day but what was the era right before he was born like? Was it great or did it suck? Let's take a look...


-The Pre-Liberace Era (1,000,000,000,000,000,000 BC to 1919 AD)

The World started a couple billion or trillion or whatever years ago ... it was a rock hurling throughout space. The first life on it was microscopic worms that lived under the Ocean. These worms mutated one day into bigger weirder looking things. Some whacky off-shoot of the base proto worm things got bored eating moss and muck so it started eating the worms instead of the water gunk and it grew bigger. The cycle then kept going for a few million years with worms mutating and becoming bigger weirder worms until many species of worms were crawling around the bottom of the Sea...

Then, it got really really hot. A star blew up or our space-rock hurtled through some hot-zone where the Sun's radiation hit us better with less obstruction. The rock got super hot and in turn the Ocean got super hot... and the myriad of Worm Monsters at the bottom of the sea got super hot.

When Worm Monsters get Hot they do what anyone does ... they do sex and mate with one another. So with all the heat, radiation from the sun, and dirty worm sex going on at the bottom of the sea... WEIRDER-ASS MONSTERS started to off-shoot out of Nature's Gene Pool and cooler variations of Worm Monsters started cruising along the bottom as the aeons progressed.

Sadly, some of the Worm Monsters got really big and some of them ... the bigger ones ... couldn't eat the small ones anymore so a big famine hit. They simply mutated into genres of worms that were just too big to stay fed with the food supply available at the time. Some of these big hungry wormies noticed there were these green leafy Tree-like things on the other side of the top of the ocean ... so they tried to get on Land but couldn't because their fishy-worm-gills couldn't breathe oxygen.

Some mutant worm monsters eventually were born with lungs that could handle living off oxygen and these Amphibious Worm Monsters ventured unto Land... thus becoming Earth's first land-dwelling sea monsters.

Another big heat-wave hit ... and some Land Monsters died ... some lived ... some got heat-mad and sex-mad and went on a mating spree ... and after the heat wave ended EVEN WEIRDER MONSTERS WERE RUNNING AROUND. Some looked like Dinosaurs now! Big marauding beasts with little rhyme or reason.

Alright so we've gone through a few trillion years of Earth's history so far and nothing cool has happened yet. Keep this in mind, friends, the world was gross, boring, and covered with Worm Monsters for most of its existence. People think Dinosaurs were cool ... but they weren't. They were just murderous, mindless, over-sized, Monsters. Who cares? Let's fast forward through the Lizard-Led era of Earth and get to the Monkey part. HUMANS!

Humans came about at some point and started making tools and villages and castles. Which is cooler than anything any dinosaur ever did. So to all you Dinosaur coo-coos out there who are all the time "dinosaurs this" and "dinosaurs that"... how come not ONE dinosaur in millions of years couldn't invent one thing? Not even a hammer ... or a telephone ... or a boat .. or an 8-bit video game entertainment system? Why? Because they were not all that great. They really weren't.

Humans weren't all about inventing and being fun though .... this era of humanity was SUPER VIOLENT! A caveman couldn't walk a mile in cave town without some other whacked-out caveman, who was probably whacked-out on rotten naturally-fermented lizard's-blood, kicking his damned head in. Cave men might have invented sticks and stuff but they mainly used them to hurt other people ... which is DUMB and NOT NICE.... at all.

Early humans were smelly and bad. Eventually they invented newer stuff like bath tubs, guns, and ice cream makers along the way but right up to 1919 ... right up until before Liberace was born ... they were still pretty lame.

World War One started in 1914 ... and the Entire WORLD of pre-Liberace humans began to murder each other in record numbers. You know how many people died in World War One? This many:

From Violence: 40 million
From Disease Pandemics: 50 million
From Displacement, Famine, and general Degradation: Unknown Figure

So it's 90 million confirmed deaths in 1918 post-war totals and I'd tack on another 20 million from other things that I don't think were totaled back then.  I'd say in 1918 when the War ended about 110 million people just died terrible terrible deaths...

...So the World in 1918? It was not very good at all. It was a place of terrible violence and horrendous degradation.

But then in 1919 .... Liberace was born and that all finally changed forever.

Liberace is Born.

-The Beginning of a Legacy ... A Legend is Born! (1919 to 1936)

(Note: this portion is historically dealing with the era of 1919 to 1936, okay? Great piano players like Mozart aren't going to be compared to Liberace because Mozart's era was the 1700s. Yes, Mozart was maybe a slightly better piano player than Liberace but he doesn't qualify for the Era being dealt with in the following portion.)

Liberace's hometown was West Allis, Wisconsin. His father was an Italian and his mother was a Polish lady. With such average origins who would have imagined he would become not only the Hautest Culture of the Midwest but of the World? 

He was a prodigy at a young age ... and even at age five was already probably the best piano player in society. His teachers at music school were so jealous of him it wasn't even funny, really. They were extra mean to Liberace because they knew at his age he was already better than they were ... and they were Music Teachers! They scorned him and slapped him with rulers. They forbade Liberace from playing experimental and fun music on the piano ... he was limited to the "classics" and not allowed to even deviate from them an inch!

Liberace's parents, were supportive of the prodigy, and told him ... "Liberace you should defy the teachers and play whatever you want on the piano!" .... and he did!

At music school, at age 11, under the supportive bulwark of positive-re-enforcement by his parents, Liberace played a classic but with a MODERN twist, with an unfamiliar sound signature, and a creative finishing tempo!

.... and guess what? You'll never guess. Did the teacher hit him? Did the teacher faint? No! The teacher openly wept at how great it was! It was at that very moment that Liberace knew he had a gift that could not be contained! He had a Heavenly-Adorned ability that the World needed to See!

Liberace left Wisconsin.....



-Becoming the Era's Most Greatest Pianist! (1936 to 1955)

(As stated above, when we refer to the Greatest Pianist of the Era, we are only including living and active ones from the years 1919 to 1955 ... Mozart and Beethoven can't be considered ... and I know many of you are saying that they are better than Liberace, guys like Mozart and them ... but that's not fair. Those guys just played piano all day. I think one of them was BLIND too and couldn't go outside even so he just played piano non-stop in the 1700s. When annointing the Greatest Pianist of the Era we are only including living/active ones of said era ... keep that in mind before saying things like "Ya, but what about Beethoven??")


Liberace after bringing his stuck-up teacher to joyful tears through sheer brilliance was ready to bring his pianistmanship to the World ... but was the World ready for his pianistmanship? No, it wasn't.

Critics ripped his interesting new pieces to shreds in the papers and it really took its toll on Liberace .. but it didn't deter the Legend at all. He kept playing sold out shows with his New Interesting Music and everyone loved it because it was really amazing ... especially the ladies!

Young Liberace, under his stage name "Walter" !

He rose the ranks of the Piano world like a surging bolt of incredible lightning! He was whippin' it loose on every big venue in the USA, slappin' the keys like an out of control wild fire, and meeting all the finest ladies!

Biggs (left), MacMillan (right)

He cared not that 1% of the USA's most stuck-up piano critics didn't like him ... he reveled in the fact that 99% of the USA's people loved him! He kept playing and playing like a man possessed.... until he was probably the third best piano player of his era.

At the time, his contemporaries who were considered "Great" and possibly in the poll position of the piano world were E. Power Biggs and Ernest "The Canadian Pianist Knight" MacMillan. E. Power Biggs was probably number One at that point and Ernest MacMillan was number two. They were good at it, no doubt ... but with a soaring Liberace getting better and better at piano by the second ... how long could either E. Power Biggs or Ernest MacMillan lay claim to being the greatest pianist of the era? Not long. Their time as being considered the greatest at playing the piano was fleeting and was soon to come to an abrupt end.

E. Power Biggs? Ernest MacMillan? Sorry fellas but there's a new kid in town and his name is Liberace! By 1950 he was hands-down better than either E. Power or Ernest ... here he is playing as fast as anyone else had ever played:

The Era's Most Greatest!!

By 1955 it was sewed up, sealed, and delivered ... it was official and undeniable .... Liberace was the greatest pianist on earth, yet, that was only the beginning of the Legend's journey into Legacy. The road to the top was now without obstacles... just smooth sailing into outright Fame.

For Liberace would become the Most Famous Person in the Entire World....


-Becoming the Most Famous Human in all of the World (1955 to 1980)

One day, Liberace was asked to perform at the grand opening of one of the USA's most expensive Hotel and Banquet Halls and a reporter asked Liberace, who was famous for both his black and white stunning tuxedos, what he'd be wearing for his upcoming performance.

Liberace froze in fright. He didn't know what to say.

Standing near him was his sister who ported a Golden Jacket ... under duress and pressure by the reporter Liberace said...

"Something like she's wearing ... but more extravagant and ostentatious!"

...and from that off-hand, under-pressure comment to local media prior to the opening of a banquet hall ... Liberace began wearing the most incredibly beautiful garments ever to grace the frame of a person.

The banquet hall was the embarkation point of Liberace's quest to become the most Famous Person in the World. His clothes kept getting better and better and then more better and more better! It was truly amazing. He very quickly became more famous than the Queen of England and everyone!

The Queen of England looked like an actual poor person compared to Liberace.... for he had acquired the world's most rarest of gems, expensive of jewels, and ancientest of artifacts in a short time. Much of the fare was piano-themed too ... which was cool. By 1965 he had Six Homes, Seventeen Dining Rooms, and a Pool with Piano Keys on the sides so he could play piano in his pool. Rich people like the Queen, or Oil Tycoons, or Railroad Barons probably had NONE of these incredibly cool things.

Here we can see Liberace fly into a show on his personal Hot-Air Balloon to witness his Majesty!

He is Truly Amazing.

By 1965 he was the first ever.... Super Star!

All of society was finally good. There was no more Worm Monsters terrorizing the oceans, or World Wars taking away our young sons lives well before their times ... everything was finally the way it should be... and to this day we are still living in the Liberace Era! The era of Complete Show-Biz, Complete Entertainment, and Complete Larger-Than-Life-a-tude!

Some people will say the ShowBiz obsessed society of today is wrong and bad... but when compared to the pre-Liberace world of war, famine, pestilence, and decay ... they are nuts to think that.



-The End of an Era and the Start of an UnEnding Legacy (1980 to 1987)

"I suppose I wanna feel that my presence on earth is going to be felt for a long time after I'm gone so in order to make this presence felt for posterity I have done certain things for example: I would like to feel that all the antiques I have collected will be enjoyed by people long after I have become but a mere memory. All the things I have acquired have been placed in my care to look after ... they don't really belong to me. They belong to the World."

-Liberace

Liberace was Liberace for one reason... because he dared to dream. What set him apart from the other extravagant characters of humanity's history was that it, all along, the entire time, it was all just a big lark. He enjoyed life, had fun with it, and because of that people had fun and enjoyed life as well.

He didn't take himself seriously. He knew life was just a big stage to have fun on. What a lot of people don't get about Liberace is that for the most part it was a comedic character he was performing.

There's no other entity in the vast inter-twining paths of History that instills the great basic notion in the human mind of total joie-de-vivre and also of total absolute ridiculousness. The entity which encapsulates this is Liberace.

When it comes to his vast collection of chachkies and gaudy gimickery, he never felt as though he really owned any of it, because he knew he couldn't take it with him. He believed he was the curator of a Living Museum ... the overseer of a life-like Mythology happening right before society's eyes. Today's trinkets are tomorrow's artifacts and Liberace's gaudy scarves and diamond encrusted piano-shaped watches are now artifacts of a bygone century called the 1900s on display for posterity.

Some ancient Egyptian Pharaohs wanted to be buried with their trinkets so they could take them to heaven with them ... no such luck King Tote-En-Whatever ... they're just gathering dust in some pyramid, my friend. Some Kings and Queens want their wealth sealed in an old tower so no one else can get what was theirs. Some pirates pillage and steal a fortune only to die with it buried in some stinky cave somewhere ... where no one will find it. You can't take your Wealth "With You" where you're going, friends. You can't take anything where you're going but you can leave something ...

You can only leave a Legend's Legacy.

Liberace's Legend's Legacy wasn't the gaudy, almost-ridiculous possessions he accumulated in his life time to be viewed at his personal Museum in Las Vegas ... Liberace's gift to the world was a Stardom that couldn't possibly be forgotten ... not even seven thousand years from now .... for he is still The World's Most Famous Man of All Time!




Part Two: A Post Liberace World? It's Great! But When Imagining a World without Liberace Would the Following Things Exist?

"......and Wavy Hair like Lib Ah Racheee!" -The Andrews Sisters (and the Chordettes) 


In a hypothetical scenario where Liberace didn't leave Wisconsin and become the World's First Super Star and the Most Famous Person in History ... would a lot of great things we take for granted today even exist? Let's rapid fire out some Frequently Asked Questions on this matter.....

Would Sports Exist?
Yeah, they would without Liberace, yeah.

Would Wrestling Exist?

Wrestle Mania 1

Yes, but like old wrestling where two hairy, averaged-sized guys would just do a grip challenge for ten minutes, an arm bar for like fifteen minutes, and then the match would stop due to the time limit exceeding or something. That form of wrestling would exist but without Liberace the current form of it would NOT. I believe that 110%.

Liberace was even the Special Guest Time Keeper at Wrestle Mania 1, the event which catapulted Wrestling into the lime-light and spot-light of the magical eighties. I personally even believe that if Liberace didn't personally appear at Wrestle Mania 1 that the WWF/WWE wouldn't have soared like a lightning bolt the way it did.
 
Would Godzilla and other Kaiju exist without Liberace?
That's a fascinating one. I'm not sure about that. It's a great question. I think Liberace's larger than life persona inspired the likes of King Kong and other things of that nature but to flat out say that Godzilla and Kaiju wouldn't exist in a post-Liberace World yet one in which Liberace didn't previously actually exist? It's a stretch, I'd say. Good question though.

Did he once play a Piano on a Piano?
Yes, but this question isn't really on topic with this section. Please keep following questions on topic. But, yes, he certainly once played a smaller piano on top of a bigger piano. Which is probably a feat reserved to only him.

Playing a Piano on another Piano....

Some scholars say he was "meta" before "meta" existed ... but that's wrong. The genre of meta-this and meta-that is a tired one as old as time. Liberace was not "meta" ... he was above that childish schoolyard philosophical drivel.

Why would he do that?
Why would he play a piano on top of another piano? I don't know ... because it's cool? Obviously. I mean, why does anyone do anything, really? 


Would Cartoons Exist in a Universe where He Never Was?
Yeah.


Would Reality Shows exist?
Probably not but who cares?


What do you think about Disney Land? Would that still be here?
Lee once described himself as a "One-Man walking Disney Land" or some-such-like equivalent. Honestly, I don't think there'd be a Disney Land or Disney World in a sans-Liberace situation.

Would World Wars III, IV, and V have occurred in a World Without Lee?
That's not a straight forward question, do I believe these three Wars were totally outright averted due to Liberace having been alive in the World during the time-frame in which they theoretically would have taken place? I wouldn't go and say that these three disasters were averted totally thanks to him but I do believe he played a part, I'm not sure how big or small, in keeping these Wars at bay, Yes.


Youtube Stars? What about them?
Without the encroaching over-taking of Show-Biz on Society in a non-Lee Universe ... they'd all be working at the photo copy store or selling matches in the street like the commonest of street urchins. 

Would Cosplay and fastidious ad-hoc Not-Even-On-Hallowen-Even costume Dressing-Up people exist without Liberace?
Maybe ... yeah, probably.


Why would he live his entire life in a gaudy, extra sensational, tour-de-force, fashion?
I dunno, maybe because he wanted to? 

Was he a good cook? I heard he was really good at it...
Yes, he was an exceptional chef ... maybe one of the greatest ever. He has a good cookbook where he teaches people how to make "Liberace Lasagna" and other culinary wonders. Here he is on the first incarnation of the fantastic David Letterman program cooking up a storm whilst in regal dress....

Yes, he was an excellent cook.

Would the over-the-toppingly extravagent bosses accompanied by symphonies at the end of the Final Fantasy games exist without Liberace being in the World in a prior Era?
Great question! Hmmmm....I'll go with No on that one. They wouldn't exist without Lee.


Dragon Ball Z?
Yeah ... it would still be able to creatively exist in a non-Liberace scenario-Universe in and of its-own. Yes.


The Muppet Show?
Maybe ... he was on it though.... and its a GOOD episode of the Muppet Show that I highly recommend to readers.


Stand Up Comedy?
Vaudeville pre-dates Lee ... but Liberace's crowd work is emulated by comics in modern times, I find. It was NOT common for performers of any sort to talk to the audience and make them part of the show prior to Lee. Liberace spent a good portion of his concerts walking through the audience, meeting them, asking them about themselves, showing them his diamond piano-shaped rings, etc, etc.


Forest Fires?
That's a dumb question that does not dignify an answer because it makes no sense.


What about Elton John?
No. I heard he's getting a bio-pic now which I'm sure will present him well. I can't say the same thing for the Liberace bio-pic ... which warrants its own section so let's move out of this section now.






Part Three: The Underwhelming Liberace "Movie" and my Proposed Better One.....


Many people openly wonder why the Liberace-based film starring M. Douglas* and M. Damon was so awful and why nobody at all liked it even a little bit.

To explain why the Liberace Movie wasn't very good would take weeks or even months to properly deconstruct. I, off the top of my head, could list almost 5,000 reasons why this film didn't work ... and at some point you have to wonder if anyone involved with the film had any understanding of who Liberace even was.

Yet, we must always look for silver linings in art though, even very poorly made art. For me personally, the Liberace Movie helped me identify with religious folks a lot more than I previously did as a discorned teenager. I get why people so immensely hated Martin Scrosese's "The Last Temptation of Christ", for instance now, where a great Larger-Than-Life Mythos-Man was portrayed as just being this regular guy who does bad things. They are removing the Mythos around this character and making him this regular run-of-the-mill figure. Last Temptation sparked not only controversy but even riots and led to people burning down movie theaters. 

When your working with figures who's Myths proceed them ... it is sort of cheap and underhanded to de-mystify them ... and for me the Liberace Movie really made me understand that and really made me understand why people would be so incensed over that Scrosese film. Scrosese is good at crime-lore, and making gangsters into mythological anti-heroes ... that's his talent ... he's good at that ... so why he would even tackle a topic like Jesus of Nazareth is beyond me. It's fun to branch out and try a new style and that's probably what Martin had in mind, I'm guessing.

The people behind the Liberace Movie (I think it's called "Behind the Candelabra" or something) de-mystified Lee to the point of ludicrousness. He was not only de-mystified but VILIFIED! Absolutely vilified into being a Lecherous Howler or a Lascivious Prima-Donna .... not the Legendary and Legacious person he truly was.

The mythos genre isn't for amateurs, it really isn't. To work in the art of the mythos genre takes a different approach. You can't apply your well-honed skills at crime-glorification to make a Jesus movie ... and you FOR SURE can't apply your skills at absolutely nothing to make a Liberace movie.

A good Liberace film would be 70% exaggerated over-the-top almost-ludicrous gallavantary and total gallantry. The other 30% for "drama" and note that word is under heavy-duty quotations.

You know what was a good movie? You know what it was the Freddie Mercury movie? That was good that movie. I was worried going to the theater what is was going to be at first that Freddie Mercury Movie. I was thinking they can only go down two roads with it ... one road where it's 20% fun concerts (music centric) and 80% drama where he's like Tom Hanks in Philadelphia trying to crowbar an Oscar loose from the Academy by suffering and dying of illness. The other road as 80% fun music scenes ... and only 20% or less drama scenes of him trying to wiggle out an Oscar.

I was happy that it was the latter, that film, that it was 80% about fun, music, rock, roll, and HUGE CGI CONCERTOS, a true Bohemian Rhapsody in the purest of sense. It really was a good movie. The actor from the Freddie Mercury movie still made it to the Oscars, I think, even though the movie was 80% fun instead of 80% drama. Can you imagine? The Oscar going to a fun movie that people actually like? What a concept.

In a good Liberace movie, the 30% of drama that should be assigned to the mythos is a sibling-related drama with his respect for George and Angie. I think it is really interesting that it seems the Liberace Musuem was constructed not only to house Liberace's assortment of famed memorabilia and exquisite relics ... but also to keep George Liberace, his far less living-legend of a brother, in the Liberace Universe in some manner as the Liberace Train was really starting to leave the station and Liberace Mania was taking foot. I find that to be a very interesting portion of Liberace History.

I would even go as far as to name the good version of a Liberace Movie something like "Wladziu-Valentino and George" where the lead actor playing Lee can be all over-the-wall and off-the-top and the George character can be a more serious actor who plays it very serious-like. That way, the actor playing Lee can win the Best Actor Oscar and the actor playing George can win Best Supporing Actor Oscar come awards-season. Plus, since it would be a music-based film ... it'd probably rack up all the music-related Oscars ... and since it is a mythological film with Godzilla-like special effects ... it'd rake in all the Special Effect Oscars too. My prognosticated "Good Liberace Movie" would probably be the first film in history to rack up and clean sweep the entirety of the Oscar trophies.

Liberace ... and George.

Here is a sample of dialogue from a key scene in this movie that's playing in my head right now, it's a scene where Liberace and George Liberace discuss how well Liberace Mania is going, George feels like a he's becoming excess baggage in the whole scheme of things, yet Lee convinces George what a great and trusting person he has been in the Road to Liberace Mania and how he would never have got to where he is without him and Angie....

Alright here's a sample dialogue between Wladziu-Valentino "Liberace" Liberace and George "Plain Old" Liberace from my movie (that only exists in my head):



Scene 24.1(A): Brother, I Wouldn't be Liberace if it wasn't for you and Angie!

George Liberace: Val, the show's making so much money, you have Six Homes and almost Seventeen Dining Rooms as the Seventeenth is almost completed at your Las Vegas Villa ... I think it's time you shed off some dead weight, Val....


Vaelntino Liberace: What do mean, dear brother?

George Liberace: Hmmm, you don't need me. You're Liberace now ... and I am ... I'm just George. I'm not one for the Lime Light. When I go to renew my driver's license ... do you think there's thousands of people screaming "Libber-Rach-EEh!" at me and clamoring for autographs? No, they don't even recognize me for the most part. In fact, to avoid being called an imposter, I don't even pronounce it in that way ... when I renew my driver's license, I tell them my name is George "Libber Ace" like the playing card. It's not for me anymore this world of glam and glory ... Val. You can soar to greater heights if you only had less of a kind heart and were able to send me to road side....


Vaelntino Liberace: George.......

George Liberace: You have achieved dreams greater than any reality before... and you can still soar to ever-more greater skies and climb higher and higher above. You don't need this old chunk of dead weight, this hunk of charcoal, holding you down any longer .... you must fly! You must fly to your peak! You must soar like a multi-colored rainbow up, up, and away to bigger dreams! You are the Golden guy, Valentino, you are truly the Golden Guy!


Vaelntino Liberace: Golden? Oh golden schmolden, George. Do you know why I wore that Golden Jacket the night before the opening of the Hotel Banquet Hall all those years ago? All those years back when I still just wore a plain black tuxedo with you on our show? Do you want to know why I wore that amazing Golden Jacket that night at the Hall opening, do you George? Golden.... gold schmold. Gold .... schmold.

George Liberace: Why?


Vaelntino Liberace: A reporter asked me a question, something along the lines of "what manner of extravagent wear shall you adorn for the concerto celebrating the opening of the new Banquet Hall, Liberace?" .... and I pannicked, George, I didn't know what to say to this High Society newspaper man ... I didn't want to let the Hotel folks down ... you know? I wanted to promote the concert, that's all ... and ...

George Liberace: And...?


Vaelntino Liberace: I was with Angie, she was wearing a Golden Jacket ... and it was spur of the moment. I told the High Society newspaper man something like "That! That, but only 100 times more dazzling!" ... and they printed it in the paper that I would wear something more bedazzling than even a gilded jacket!

George Liberace: What of it? You're still the Golden Guy, Val ... just because you became Him by accident doesn't change the reality of it all! You're Him, the Golden Guy, you not need ask why. You need not try to under-sell it or justify it down... You're Him, Val. You are Liberace!


Vaelntino Liberace: Even before the opening, even before the Golden Jacket ... before it all. Do you know why I even left Milwaukee, George? Do you know why I left Wisconsin and came to Vegas?


George Liberace: Why, Val? Why?


Vaelntino Liberace: Do you wanna know why? Do you really wanna know why? Dooooo you wannnnnaaaa knooooooooooow why-high-high-high-high!?

(an Extended Music Interlude breaks out here:

1. Liberace plays a short Piano Solo that is cool and good.

2. A group of sexy female dancers storm in and sing a powerful number where the chorus is "Do You Wanna Know Why-High-High-Eye-Eye-High-Hiiiiiigh!"

3. The Musical interlude ends and the dialogue continues as if nothing extra-ordinary or incredibly cool just happened)

George Liberace: Tell Me, Valentino! Tell me Why! WHY!?


Vaelntino Liberace: You were doing the club scene there George, and I was lonely in Milwaukee, I wanted to come see you.... because ... I missed you, George.

George Liberace: ....


Vaelntino Liberace: If you never ventured out here before me, George, I would still be in Milwaukee calling myself Wlad Libber Ace ... instead of LIBERACE!

George Liberace: (George is visibly over come by powerfully positive emotions)


Vaelntino Liberace: I just wanted to be like you, and now you are telling me I am too big for you. Do you remember when I was on Batman, George? I made them write in that I had a brother named Harry ... a simple name ... my name was Chandell on the show ... Chandell and Harry. I personally asked Lorenzo Semple Junior to work you in ... in some way ... I made them mention you in some way, George ... without you there is no Liberace. Do you think me standing on a stage in a tuxedo was a big deal? It was a big deal because your drabness made me look spectacular even if I was anything but .... without you George don't you see .... there is no Me ... there is no "Libber Ach Ee" there is only Libber Ace ... like the playing card as you say.

George Liberace: I understand that. Still, you can't take your foil to top with you. You can't take an Earthbound fellow like me to the Promised Land you are boldly headed to ... and deep down, even if you don't like it, you know it is true....


Vaelntino Liberace: No, George I need you to do something. I am opening the Liberace Museum next month. It will feauture many of my most treasured artifacts and historically-significant relics that I have accumulated on my vast travels ... I need someone dependable to curate the Liberace Museum, George. I know you're the only one I can trust to watch over my most prized possessions and show them to the adoring public. You're the only one I can trust to over see the Liberace Museum!


George Liberace: I'll do it. You can trust me to preserve the honor of the Legend and Legacy of Liberace for thousands of years to come!


Vaelntino Liberace: With all of the fibers of my human heart .... I thank you from the bottom of it, George!

George was the First Curator of the Famed Liberace Museum in Las Vegas...

(End of Section Notes:

*Though they share the same namesake (both firstmost and last) this M. Douglas is not Lee's close personal friend Mike Douglas the interviewer ... this M.Douglas here refers to the one that's married to C. Zeta-Jones.)



Conclusion 

A dirt-poor son of immigrants who became the Most Famous Person to Ever Live. If that doesn't inspire you then you are uninspirable. So many of you are at home, reading this, feeling sorry for yourselves that life isn't giving you what you want out of it... but it's there ... it's really there... what you want.

The Legend and Legacy exists within all of us ... deep down inside of us. We are all Legends .... each and every one of us. There's a super star inside of each of us just waiting to become More, just waiting to become Great ... to step up to the plate and hit a big Homerun right out of the park!

Whether you want to believe it or not... you can be Somebody.

When you close your eyes I know you can feel it burning inside of you ... every one has it! Everyone has potential in this life. Whether you work at the Bowling Alley or the Store or Whatever it is... even if you don't know it ... IT'S THERE!

IT is THERE. If you DREAM IT then you can BELIEVE IT! It's really THERE!


The Legend of Liberace ... is always there.

May 16th marks One Hundred Years of Liberace. It is a Centennial Fair!

.........Ha!

Let's Write a George Ade Thing

Been reading a lot, of late. Two things have interested me of late in the world of words. I've been reading a lot of Haikus lately for one thing.

I never got Haiku previously, I always, honestly, thought they were dumb. Not really "dumb" really but I'm sure something is being lost in translation and there is some sort of disconnect when these Haikus are translated.

You know, you read a Haiku, and you know it is supposed to be 5-7-5 in the syllables sequence ... and that's mostly what Westernized people know about it ... it's all I knew about it. So when a Westerner tries to write one it is usually bad like something I can cook up now ... something like:

Walking Down Old Road
Saw Nice Candelabra There
Thought Liberace

-A Haiku by Me, D.
  
That is a Haiku but it is not a good one. That's the Western World's understanding of the genre. I only very recently started to get why they are a big deal over in Japan. I used to think it was like an aristocratic or high society thing but it is actually the opposite. The original Haiku Masters (Basho, Shiki, etc.) were pretty beat and just common people.

Matsuo Basho is the writer that really made me finally "get" Haikus. Basho was a guy who's house burned down so he just started walking around for the rest of his life. He was a wondering soul ... a real rambling man ... an aimless wanderer. You might even call him a hobo. The Haikus he wrote were small fleeting moments of his wandering life.

A good Haiku is a small fleeting moment in the life of the wandering soul ... and in the end ... aren't we all just that? Just wanderers enjoying fleeting and finite moments in our life's journeys? Check out this Haiku by Master Basho right here:

Winter solitude...
In a scenery of one Color
...The sound of the Wind.

-A Haiku by Matsuo Basho

Wow, that's nice. All of his moments from his aimless wanderings are personal to him but also personal to history. He was alive, in the world, and he left Writings on things he experienced whilst being on this world. Time, a topic I wrote about last year, is the main theme of Haikus. The opening line is usually a subtly nuanced opening statement to let the reader know what Season it was when he saw something on his wanderings. 

I finally get the ending to Mega Man 2 now. I always found it sort of humorous that this robot man would walk through all the seasons at the end of the game and finally make it home. Mega Man in the second Mega Man game on NES just became a Wanderer after beating all the robot bosses ... just like Matsuo Basho before him. It is actually a very noble ending.

True Beauty. Beauty has no Truer Form. Does it not?

Once you "get" Haikus and understand why they are good ... this ending takes on a whole new level of Artistic Greatness. I'm glad I have beaten this game like a hundred times and have seen this Ending one hundred times. Let's finish this Haiku section off with a Mega Man 2 Haiku:

The Changing Seasons...

Journey Home flashes quickly

Rest now Robot Man...

-A Haiku by Me, D.

 Alright, so if anyone is scoring at home, I "get" Haikus now. So.... let's move on.



George Ade

The other thing I've been into lately in the Wide World of Words has been the works of George Ade. I started reading a Goerge Ade book and like Haikus ... I didn't get it at all at first. I thought it was so stuck in its Time Period that a person reading it in 2019 would just see 1914 as like a Foreign World that made no sense. I didn't give up though ... I tried to place myself into the Flow and the Pacing of the Time so I cranked up some Knuckles O'Toole on the youtube and then re-attempted to read the works of George Ade...

Light-Hearted Turn-of-the-Century Piano-Stylings

... and they started to make a ton of sense. The choppy pacing and silly clunking of the George Ade style started to flow a little better with some Knuckles slappin' the piana as accompaniment. Similar to Haikus ... the "George Ade" style is pretty unique. The paragraphs range from one line to five lines and then some broken half-line stanzas sneak their way in at times. It's like the Rag-Time of Writing I'd call it. The other key component of the George Ade style is Capitalization is assigned to just about every slang noun or portmanteau word he writes ... and he writes about two or three of those per sentence so the Caps are Flying. The Capitals are Flying all Over the Place.

Similar to the Haiku section above ... I want to do a "George Ade" fable right now. I need to cleanse my brain of Haikus and catch a little Ades right now ... gotta give my brain some George Aids for the next half hour or so....

....Okay, I think I made the switch. Let's outline what I believe is the crux of the style first off ... in case maybe you want to catch some George Aids yourself and write an Ade Fable of your own.

I think he writes the "Moral" first ... then the three or four somewhat poetic broken-line stanzas ... then he envelopes the stanzas with nonchalant rag-time silliness ... then gives it a Title. So what I think his (and I can't prove this by the way) process was is:

1. Moral

2. Three Stanzas to Set Up main Story

3. Asinine Small Talk inserted between the Stanzas

4. Title

Okay so I can handle that. This following story is written by me ... it is only my suspected Process of how he constructed the fables that is being emulated here.

Two more elements of the Ade style must be included to make it a real homage short story though. The Capitalization Assignment will be Adian in nature and the theme of the story will be a George Ade theme. Thus, it should be noted that about 85% of George Ade's fables are about some pseudo-wannabe-rich-idiot who wants to get rich and be part of high society but always finds some way to fail or make a fool of his or herself. 

Alright so let's begin our emulated Fable. First we need a Moral ... this is gonna be pretty arbitrarily chosen ... the song currently playing right now on my computer for me is "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" by the powerful rock and roll group The Ramones. So, our Moral shall be...

MORAL: Don't Sniff Glue!

If you think that's a dumb moral ... believe me ... there's dumber George Ade morals than that. This is a quote of a George Ade moral for instance:

"MORAL: Don't get acquainted too soon."

Yeah, don't get acquainted too soon. That's a George Ade Moral. He's right though. My Moral of "Don't Sniff Glue" is perfectly acceptable along the lines of a George Ade Moral. 

Next let's write three broken lined stanzas about our poor sap who at some point in the story will fall from Social Grace and become a Glue Sniffing Bozo... and probably die too. 

Tommy came from a Good Family, he had three brothers

who enjoyed his Company and who engaged in Good

Hearted pursuits of Artistry together.

Their Social Standing was Great.

Walking out of the Hardware Store he noticed his brother Joey

had purchased a Model Aero Plane set to Construct 

as it was his Hobby he was Pretty Enthusiastic

about. The Box contained two Squeezable

Doo-Hickeys of Glue to bond the pieces.

Tommy was Chilling at the local Chautauqua Center

just sniffing some Good Glue like a Big Idiot.

His Brothers took the Smell-Wagon upstreet

to the Speak-Easy on 53rd and 3rd but 

Tom had more important matters to

heed. Namely the Sniffing of Glue. 

Okie dokie. There's the story fleshing out now thanks to those three broken lined stanzas. Now ... all we got to do is write a few dozen paragraphs around them ... some paragraphs as short as one line ... and they don't even really have to be that tied to the story. I've read George Ade fables where he'll just start talking negatively about salad or just jam out some nonchalant fourth wall breakery. 

Alright soooo. Here is a New Writings on Subjects II Stronger Fable:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the Suburban Region of Up State New York once lived a man of Acute Social Learning who was for the most part The Talk of the Town. He was Cool and Everybody Liked Him Very Much. He always wore a sharp Leather Jacket and usually could be found in the CBGB and seen with Sun Glasses.

His Parents were Well-To-Do and Pretty-Darned-Smart. They owned a stake in the Coney Island and were never short of Dough or searching for Scratch-ee-oh-Lee. 

His name was Tommy. Many women found him Fanciful and Dandy.

Tommy came from a Good Family, he had three brothers

who enjoyed his Company and who engaged in Good

Hearted pursuits of Artistry together.

Their Social Standing was Great.

His Tallest Co-Frere went by the Monicker of Joey and was Sickly-Looking and Spindly like a Shivery Worm. Joey was very High on the Ladder of The Punk Rock Scene and was very Able to Lean on Walls and wait for the Fairer Sex to Stroll on by on any Given Sunday. A simple wink and shimmy was all that was Needed To Seize the Opportunity.

Brother Dee Dee was a Man for All Seasons. A True Bulwark of the Era. Dee Dee could best be Tallied Up in Description by letting the Reader onto the information that he was Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Funky ... a Real Funky Man.

Dee Dee was A Reputable Fellow on All Accounts I mere-do say.

The Final-Most of his Respectable Brothers in Arms was that of Johnny. Scared of Basements he Never Entered Them. Not even A Once. Calling loose and out to Daddy-oh he Feverishly would say Hey Romeo in a clamor and outright Refuse to Go Down There!

What Farce you may think of him but Not Wanting to Go Into Basements is Short of No Crime or a Breach of Any State Laws.

One mustn't be Short on Smarts to divine that Tommy's Parents, being of a High Sort and who Dined Weekly on Chicken Vin-Da-Loo would Oft Pest their eldest Leather-Bound Progeny to Wed a Nice Lady and have some Young Children with.

Our Hero (Tommy) was not Jumping-Over-Boxcars to find a Crumpet to Stuff. He found many of the Maidens at the CBGB to be Somewhat-Ugly and didn't really want to Walk Around with Them.

Such Greatness on All Fronts and Kings of the Scene were these Brothers. Johnny at Fast-Glance at a board of Street-Signage provoking the advertising of some such concoction be it Gummy Bears or Wheat-Germ or What-Not-Have-You wanted to take a Fast-Five and/or a Hot-Second to duck into the local Bodega to purchase himself some Tasty Snacks to satisfy his growing Hunger.

He then swung into the Shop Next Door. Tommy et al. Followed Suit and All the Brothers entered the Hardware Store! It was a Splendid Sight to see all the Wares and Chachkies on Display in the Cases!

Walking out of the Hardware Store he noticed his brother Joey

had purchased a Model Aero Plane set to Construct 

as it was his Hobby he was Pretty Enthusiastic

about. The Box contained two Squeezable

Doo-Hickeys of Glue to bond the pieces.

The Second-Of-The-Squeezable-Glue-Doo-Hickeys in the Package seemed to be Excessive and Joey did not need It even a Small Bit. He asked Tommy to throw it away into the Garbage's Can. Tommy swifted back and was about to heed Word of Refuse and Appoint the Doo-Hickey of Glue to an Early-Grave ... yet a Fantastic Aroma caught the undertappings of his Nose.

Our Protagonist (Tom or Thomas to his Folks at Times) was Caught-Short and Hog-Wiled by the Aroma of the Doo-Hickey's containments. He further-removed the Cap and took a Stalwart's Whiff of the Hickey's Interior. 

Holy Smokes! All of the Sudden the World Began to Spin in front of He. Life ceased being Reality and Switch-Turned into being a Big Crazy Movie like those shown on the Orpheum Circuit! What manner of Merries-Go-Round had he accidently Got On? None! He was Not on a Ferris's Wheel in the Least for this was not Coney Island it was only the Exterior of the Hardware Store. 

Poor Tom. With the Blink of Fate's Bad Eye and a Menacing Wink from Lady Luck's evil sister Lady Bad-Luck ... He had developed the Drug Habit.

Folly is that of the Mortal Man was a quote by Marshall P. Wilder (or at least this writer believes it so). Oh how it applies!

Tommy at Month's End was such a Dope Fiend to the Throws of the Glue that he would stop by the Hardware Store almost Nightly to acquire the Demon's Milk. He would consume the Illicit Make in the Alley Way and then be prone to bouts of fury and delirium like a Huge Moron.

His Three Brothers, of whom which were Getting on Great with the Ladies as of Still, began to grow Penchant with Worry for their dearest of Brothers.

"O Brother, Where Art Thou" is what they Said to One-Another.

Tommy was Chilling at the local Chautauqua Center

just sniffing some Good Glue like a Big Idiot.

His Brothers took the Smell-Wagon upstreet

to the Speak-Easy on 53rd and 3rd but 

Tom had more important matters to

heed. Namely the Sniffing of Glue.

In a Delirium's Bout caused by the Devil's Make, Tommy accused his brothers of being Garden-Variety-Gnomes out to steal his Brain and give him a Teenager's Lobotomy. But his Sure-Minded and Ever-In-Reality's-Realm brothers assured him his Menageries were nothing but Fairy-Stories.

Tommy on the other hand was Glue-Sick and Un-agreeable. His Insides were taking the turn for worser days. He could see the Light at the End of the Trail's Tracks. It was almost the End for our Favorite Guy. 

His Demise was a Pauper's Demise. He died like a Dirty Bum and No One Even Cared. His family was so Sick of his Ways that they did not even afford the laggard with a Proper Man's Burial instead opting to bury our Hero in a Pet Cemetery with the Likes of Canaries and Rats and Beagles. 

Oh what A Shame, Tom, but at least you didn't get buried next to a Gnat or something old friend. 

MORAL: Don't Sniff Glue!

Conclusion 

I like that. I think that's not bad. It's better than my Haikus at the Very's Least. I mean very least. Kids, listen, that Moral is funny and everything and goofy but it's not a joke ... you really really shouldn't sniff model air plane glue, okay guys. 

Okay? Cool.

Oh wait, I forgot to give it a title. A needlessly long title a la Ade. My fable is titled ... "The New Fable of the Brother Who Took A Sniff of The Air Plane Glue."

Alright, so with the Basho training and the Ade training ... I think I am almost ready to tackle the topic which has hung over this Blog's head for almost 10 years now like an Albatross. The topic of .... Liberace.

He's been mentioned in probably dozens of these "essays" but never had even a section of one even devoted to him. As we all know, May 16th of 2019 will mark 100 Years of Liberace  .. yes it's Liberace's Centennial Fair ... and there's no better time to gather all my rusty writing ability and see if it's actually worth a lick.

In May will be..... Liberace.

Podcasts that I Like.....

Last one was about Twitter, it's a fun medium, you know, but there's other mediums too. Today let's talk about Podcasts that I like.

I briefly had an amateurish podcast a long time ago before they really took off. It was on a site called U-Stream or something and myself and my wonderful compadre Ol' Kurtis would phone up people that we knew. This is probably like 2008 or 2009 or something like that. It was fun. I liked it. Podcasts are pretty cool.

The genre has really gotten big. Some podcasts have almost like 10+ million listeners. I don't listen to the main big ones though. There's endless podcasts now and there's something for everyone out there and I've found my Somethings for Me out there in this vast wasteland we call the Internet.

Honestly, even though there's like 10 million podcasts going these days I only regularly listen to Three right now ... so it makes for a nice article template because I usually break loose into triple-truncated segmentation anyways in these essays.

So let me tell you the Three Podcasts that I listen to and then we will write about them... okay?

1. The Harland Highway with Harland Williams
2. Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast
3. The Purple Stuff Podcast

Those are the three I listen to. I like them. So let's write about them!


The Harland Highway
To listen: https://www.harlandwilliams.com/podcast

I've always been a big fan of Harland. As a Canadian we always kind of extra-dig our brethren/sistren because it makes us feel like we can make it too. I'd see like Harland or Norm MacDonald or the Kids in the Hall ... and as a teenager ... I'd always be like ... Wow, they're famous and they come from where I come from!

I had a VHS tape of Harland Williams doing Stand Up and I used to try and emulate it. He would say whacky stuff like "Everybody sing to Billeeeeee!" and then do a bunch of crazy things on stage. He gets all weird and dark too. I'd go to high school the next day and act like him.

His podcast is a One-Man show, basically. It's him interviewing a cast of whacky characters, all of which are portrayed by him. Yes, he talks to himself.

There's a social taboo about talking to yourself, I've noticed, but I don't think it's all that important or needs to be heeded. All creative and imaginative people do that. They do. Do they, really? Yes, they really do talk to themselves. I do it in this blog pretty much all the time. Half of the content on this blog is just some bum talking to himself if you haven't noticed.

I threw out the taboo of talking to oneself early on in life, I didn't feel any need to heed that social construct. I first realized creative people do it with Beavis and Butthead. I remember as a kid when I first learned that both characters are voiced by the same person (Mike Judge) .. I recall thinking something along the lines of "Wow, when you look behind the curtain... Beavis and Butthead are just like this guy talking to himself in some booth!"

I talk to myself in this blog almost all the time. I'll ask a question out loud to lead off a paragraph and then think about it out loud (in writing) ... and then finally answer my own question. Another Talking-To-Yourself thing that I think influenced it too was Final Fantasy VII, in which the lead character will talk to himself in a bizarre way. Although the Japanese writers probably thought those scenes were highly intellectual stuff ... I saw those as more humorous than anything.

Hey, sometimes you just can't Stop Talkin' ... you know?

So, if talking to yourself is weird ... it surely 'aint gonna be me to cast the first stone on somebody because I talk to myself like a wild bat.

With Harland's cast of characters he invents to converse with when mixed with his comedic prowess ... there's some interesting exchanges that happen along the Highway. He has his foul mouthed Aunt Ruthy from Up State New York who calls in to tell her nephew what filthy situation his uncle has gotten himself into of late. He has hyper active youthful characters like Cinnamon Boy (a kid who really likes cinnamon), heavily drunken British pop stars, the over-zealous corporal major Tom Dowdy, the intellectually-refined yet morbid Dr. Ascot, his antagonizing boss who is convinced without a shadow-of-doubt that Harland frequents gay bars, all the way down to a poor soul just lookin' for a good ol' barbaque who calls strangers on the phone to ask if he can swing-on by to slap some ribs around.

I think these characters are highly entertaining and fun. There's a lot more too... that's just like half of them. There's almost One Thousand episodes of the Highway so there's been a lot of insane callers his producer Roger has let on the air waves over the years.

He says when he hits the good round number of 1,000 the show will end. I think it was an under-rated podcast. I mean compared to the millions of others ones out there, which let's call them what they are, they are cookie-cutter garble... I think this one really stood out. I think the format was interesting.

I can see that it's not for everyone this podcast... especially in a podcast world where the common-most gimmicks are Vocal Fry, Young People Talking about Young People Stuff, and Pseudo-Intellectual Clap-Trap ... I can understand that this podcast didn't soar to millions of listeners.

The Highway is right up my alley though. I can listen to a guy like Harland interview himself as a crazy person, get annoyed with said crazy person after they fly off the handle and say absurd filthy things, and then kick them out of the studio. It's something I can listen to multiple episodes in a row, even.

The vocal-fry, young people, pseudo-intellectual clap trap ones, on the other hand, I can't handle those. I've wrote before that I'm not on the Ira Glass bandwagon and never have been. Those "This American Lifes" and the thousands of podcast wannabe versions of it are difficult to sit through. I mean those clap-trap spewing vocal fryers don't even talk half the time ... they just breathe into the microphone like sweaty weirdoes.

You guys ever read that article in the Post that said Ira Glass lives in a bug-infested cesspool?  I believe it. I really do. I can picture that guy doing his podcasts in a rat-ridden sheisshole. I can see it. I can picture it. Him breathing into the microphone, with his sweaty lips like one millimeter away from it, with no spit-guard, rats chewing on his wires, and bugs crawling all over him.

I'm just joking. I don't really think Ira does his podcast whilst covered in rats and bugs. I'm just joking. He's a good guy. I always just found that Post article to be funny. He seems like a nice guy who doesn't live in a rat-infested apartment. It's a good show.

There's hundreds of these now. Hundreds of the fry/young/pseudo-intelectual-clap-trap ones. They really think this is groundbreaking fresh stuff and that they are re-inventing the wheel with these. They say it all the time that they are re-inventing radio. How is breathing weird and saying "um" all the time re-inventing anything?

Do they think they are legendary broadcasters or something? Sorry Fryers but there's no Howard Sterns in your bunch ... there's no Jean Shepherds in your pool ... maybe there's a coupla Cousin Brucies and maybe a Barry Farber or two at best.

Some of the big mainstream podcasts have a couple million listeners and think they are the biggest thing in radio history. Howard Stern hit 20 million at his peak! Twenty million! Yeah he was on legitimate radio, not in the podcast category I guess ... but even in podcasts (i.e. loose-knit amateur broadcasting) ... a few million isn't even that many listeners.

You know who was the biggest podcaster of all time? The biggest amateur broadcaster? You'll never guess. You'll never guess who had the most listeners for an amateur radio broadcast. It was way back in the 1930s. Yes, it was. Back in the 1930s, (this is a wildy off topic story comin up here...),  in some small town in the deep US south, the town opened a big shopping-mall or grocery chain, and this one guy in that town was so mad about this grocery chain opening down there .... that he pooled up all his money and bought radio equipment to broadcast to the town to let 'em all know that he HATED this grocery store chain and didn't want them in the town! He didn't know anything about radio and rented a little shack, and bought all the equipment some guy at a radio store told him he needed .... and he bought things that he really didn't need ... really didn't need, this guy ... this guy had a signal so large it not only covered that little town he wanted to broadcast to but the entire continental United States of America received it loud and clear! Now, wait, that's not why he was the most listened to amateur of all time ... the reason was moreso that his way of expressing his hatred for this grocery store chain involved endless obscenities! ENDLESS OBSCENITIES! He didn't know you couldn't do that, he didn't even know anyone outside the small town could even hear the broadcast. Every radio in the United States when this guy would come on would tune in to listen to him endlessly swear in a southern accent about some dopey grocery store...

...and that my friends is STILL the most listened to podcast of all time.

Wow, we're getting way off track here in this section..... am I ramblin'? Sorry. This wasn't supposed to be about the mainstream podcasts of the age.

Anyways though, man, I'll take a funny dude talking to himself any day of the week over the mainstream podcasts is what I'm trying to say. If given the choice between the cookie-cutter mainstream ones or to take a ride with Big-H down the Harland Highway ... I'll always go with the Highway....



Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast 
To Listen: https://www.gilbertpodcast.com/

This is the greatest podcast, it is very funny and it is educational. The famous types who have been on this podcast are numerous and Colossally Amazing. I find it to be a wealth of information about the past in regards to the entertainment world. I've probably heard 95% of the interviews over the last few years and they just passed 250 episodes so that's quite a lot of history there. This show is Talmudic is what it is. It's a Talmud of datum in regards to entertainment history.

I love this show, it's the best. I actually think I learn stuff when I listen to this show. It's got it all! I laugh, I cry, I learn, it's a buffet of all kinds of things is what it is! I feel like I am at a buffet when I listen to this show! With the laughing! Oh and the crying! Oh and with the learning! It has everything you want in a show! What even else can you ask for!? You can't ask for anything else ... what more could you want? It has it all! What with the history? What with the laughing? What with the crying? It's all there. It's all there. You want impressions? You want dueling impressions? You want singing? Oh with the singing! All the time singing! Singing! Singing! Singing! Always with the singing! You want the singing!? You want all the singing!? Well, you got it! YOU GOT IT!!!! It's great. It really is.

I was saying above in the previous section that young people really think they invented everything and they are groundbreaking this and groundbreaking that. I don't know though, the old generation had a lot of talented people and just because this current generation doesn't know they exist doesn't mean they can pretend that they didn't. This show has people who were famous in the 40's on it, even. They had Orson Bean on this show! What more could you ask for? You can't ask for anything more, you really can't. You can't. I think young people should listen to this show ... I think it is good to remember old entertainers and their contributions.

This show has had every actor almost from the 1968 Batman on it ... and Gilbert told all of them his beautiful and touching Cesar Romero anecdote. The story is so sweet and wonderful ... hearing the Batman cast individually fondly remember their sweet friend, Latin Lover Cesar Romero, is deeply moving. I was moved each time.

Another fun reoccurring anecdote is the Joe E. Ross anecdote which is always a guest pleaser. It is another deeply, powerfully, moving, and sentimental anecdote.

This is a podcast's podcast. It truly is.


The Purple Stuff Podcast
To Listen: https://purplestuff.podbean.com/

This show is for a niche market, but, I'm really in that niche. If you were born between the following years: (1978 to 1988) then this show is for you. It is a Secret Clubhouse for eighties kids.

It's these two guys from New Jersey who talk about stuff eighties kids used to faint over. It's nostalgia city! I used to not really get nostalgia so much until I saw how powerful nostalgia aimed at my specific demographic hit me. It hit me hard!

I used to watch those shows, nostalgia shows, like Antiques Roadshow or Canadian Antiques Roadshow and not get it because those objects were not nostolgic to me. Like, some guy would bring in some rock from the War From 1812 or some fork from the Civil War Armory Barracks ... and I wouldn't get it because I don't have any mental connections to gimmicks, chachkies, or macguffins from the 1800s.

They have shows like American Pickers or Canadian Garbage Hunters on TV too, where these hobos or what-have-you will search for "antiques" from like the 60s ... and that's when I realized ... as the chachkies started to hit closer to home ... closer to my wheel house ... that nostalgia can hit home big time. I just need a Antiques Road Show or a Canadian Garbage Chasers show that is aimed at chachkies and culture from the 80s! AND PURPLE STUFF IS THAT SHOW!

Everything they talk about on this show brings back a FLOOD of brain voodoo in my brain. Like, they could be talking about some commercial that aired back in 1992 and I will remember what I was eating, what my mom was wearing, and what we were doing at school the next day just from THINKING about this silly commercial or whatever it is. That's nostalgia, dude. It's a gateway into the past for your brain. It is great.

The reason I know about this podcast which is more obscure than the Gilbert and Harland ones above, is that I used to read one of these guys websites back in the Olden Days Internet. In the old internet times, many many years ago, back when the internet was a really goofy place, way before anyone did their taxes on the internet, there was a site called X Entertainment and it was great. Back before Youtube existed (where you can see anything from any time) ... this was the only place you could read articles about the 1989 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and then look at really choppy VHS-transferred clips of the cool parts. This site was really good. Not just the grainy clips but the writing was good.

There was an article on that site about how he wanted to find Hi-C Ecto Cooler that had been out of circulation for many years... and it was such a great article. If you can take a topic like Hi-C Ecto Cooler and turn it into a edge-of-your-seat thrill ride ... you know you're a good writer.

I remember when they made the Ghostbuster Reboot in 2016 that on Twitter "Hi-C Ecto Cooler" was trending for a few days ... and I remember the first thing that came to my head was ... "Finally, that guy from X Entertainment is gonna find his Ecto Cooler ... Thank Goodness!" ... and I googled to see if that site still existed and found that it was now called Dinosaur Dracula and that he had a podcast.

I hear Hollywood is making another Ghostbusters Reboot (again) ... they are trying to re-find that 80s magic again. Ghostbusters is Ghostbusters ... okay? It exists and always will (as will Ghostbusters II) ... but you can't re-create 80s magic. Believe me, I'm a eighties kid, and I am telling you the Magic is in a Magical place that you can no longer re-create. The 1980s was a differenter and more magicaler time that will always be with us but can never truly be 100% re-enacted. That, in essence, is the magic of 80s Magic!

If I was the studios, what I would do, instead of trying to recreate the unrecreatable magic of Ghostbusters ... is to make a movie about how the Search for 80s Nostalgia is a wonderful and bittersweet journey in its own right. Instead of making a New Ghostbusters II ... I'd make a movie called "Searching for Ecto Cooler."

It would be a film based off of Dinosaur Dracula's honorable life-long search for Ecto Cooler ... and it would not be played goofy ... it would be done 100% seriously with someone like Sean Penn playing the role of the Man in Search of Ecto Cooler. A very Human Comedy about the bittersweet emotions related to nostalgia. THAT'S how you re-capture 80s Magic ... you make a movie about trying to re-capture 80s Magic ... not by rebooting classics and hoping they come out 1/3 as good as the original.

If done correctly I think Searching For Ecto Cooler could win an Oscar. I do.


Conclusion

Let's give out an Award now. Just for fun. What's a good broadcast-related award? An effigagy? An effigy? A F-Emmy? No.

I know, let's give a Brass Figlagee (with bronze oak-leaf cluster (or palm)) to one of these three worthy broadcasts.

All three are deserving of the Figlageeeeee, geeeee whiz n' willackers, this is a hard one.

Let's give it to Harland Williams ... 1,000 shows is a lot of shows ... and if 1,000 is going to be his final show ... after 10 years of taking us down the Harland Highway ... then he deserves it.

So congratulations to Harland Williams on 10+ years of broadcasting podcasts and let us adorn him with this figurative Brass Figlagee!



If you listen to any of these shows from reading this, you can support them all in some manner, they all have premium content versions of the show. I think they are all great shows and you should listen to them!


(Edit: I don't think "Vocal Fry" is the right term I was going for. I think the broader term of "NPR Voice" is more applicable to what I was refering to. )

The 2019 Twitter Awards!

Alright, so that story went okay. I might come back and fill in parts 3 through 88 one day but I think you can use your imagination and slot in what happened from Manitoba to Vancouver ... with the hints in the last chapter the middle portion seems self-evident enough.

Let's do the Twitter Awards again!

Past Awards on this blog saw the medals doled out as so:

2017

Bronze: George Wallace
Silver: Iron Sheik
Gold: Mr. T

Runner Up (4th place): Jose Canseco


2018

Bronze: Mr. T
Silver: Norm MacDonald
Gold: George Wallace

Runner Up (4th place): Jose Canseco
Life Time Achievement Award: Iron Sheik


I'm instituting a rule this year that if you've already won the Gold then you cannot be eligible for another New Writings on Subjects II Stronger twitter awards tournament (though you are automatically entered into the 2020 Twitter Awards Tournament of Champions). The reasoning behind this is that if I just do Mr. T and George Wallace in the medals again this year ... I might as well just copy and paste the 2017 or 2018 article instead of writing a new one ... and I wanna write a new one today ... so this no repeat Gold Medals law has been written into the books forever and for always.

Since they are still great at twittering, this years co-winners of the Lifetime Achievement Award are George Wallace and Mr. T for their lifetime of entertaining contributions to the 140 and now 280 character world.

Alright so who are this years finalists!? Drum roll please....

Nice drum roll. thank you.

This year's esteemed finalists are (some are grouped up):

Jose Canseco!

The Women of Wrestling!

Dennis Rodman!

Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington!

Alright before we get to the awards lets give a warm applause for this year's runner up ... for the THIRD YEAR STRAIGHT YEAR....

... JOSE CANSECO!

Jose Canseco announced that he is very likely to run for President in 2020 and according to tweets by the former baseball slugger, these are some of his campaign promises:

 1.  Construct a Bullet Train that runs on Solar Energy that will connect the states of California, Nevada, and Arizona to form a bullet-train connected tri-state area where inhabitants can go to Vegas whenever they want ... for FREE.

2. Legalize Time Travel and begin heavily investing in it.

3. Invest heavily in space travel.

4. Officially make aliens and Bigfoot citizens of the United States of America!

5. Put the kibosh on the "wall" and instead invest in lazer-android-robots to walk along the southern boarder to keep it safe from intruders.

 6. Abolish taxes.

There's some good stuff here, I must say. For far too long, we as a society, have cast scorn upon Bigfoot. To offer an official state ammends to him and make him a citizen is far over due. We should even pay reparations to Bigfoot. He's been in hiding for far too long and this revolutionary new approach to him shall finally reconcile our differences with the fabled Man Beast creature of the wilds.

Abolish taxes? Yes, yes, and yes! Oh, and did I mention ... Yes!

The bullet train is a really good idea. I mean say you live in L.A. but you really wanna go gamblin' ... wouldn't a free solar powered bullet train to Vegas really hit your fancy and wiggle your dandy? It would mine.

As for Time Travel, time travel legislation is controversial and has been since Vermin Supreme made it part of his platform in the early 2000s. The quandary that came from Vermin's time travel proposition of going back in time involved the proposed killing of Hitler ... and a debate began of if he would kill baby Hitler. Obviously, logically, the easiest time to stop Hitler in a time travel scenario would be in his infancy. Qualms began to appear if killing a baby who hadn't yet done anything at that point would be moral ... and many suggested he do the honorable thing and fight adult Hitler and his entire army like a man to kill him. I remember even taking part in some of these silly debates online. The topic even somehow managed to be on Jeb Bush's agenda at one point in 2016 ... which was odd. (For the record, I think any excursion into the past to kill Hitler is a great idea but I do prefer the scenario of the killing of adult Hitler as opposed to baby Hitler).

Anyways, Jose Canseco is biting off a can of worms with Time Travel but his other promises make up a pretty great platform in total.

So, I am officially supporting Jose Canseco's 2020 run and hope that he wins the Presidential Title.

Now on to the Medals!

Bronze Medal: Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington!

Entertainment Genre: Comedy and Genuine First-Rate Movie Expertise
Favorite "Feud": w/ each other

I'm really starting to think that these two don't like each other or something. While many think these modern day Siskel and Eberts are like two-peas-in-the-same pod and are close as brothers ... part of me sees behind the facade whilst they review movies at times. Their twitter feeds lead me to believe that tension truly is brewing behind the scenes in the hearts of these two esteemed film buffs.

There's something in Gregg's eyes sometimes that really makes me think he's hiding something ... it's almost as if he doesn't like Tim ... at all ... but maybe I'm just reading into the show too much.

The shoe may have turned to the other foot in recent days as Gregg with the blessing of the mysterious Bruce Delgado (the new owner of the show) ... will be the HOST, not guest, not co-host, but HOST the On Cinema Oscar Special on Adult Swim Live Stream on February 24th of this year. From tweets of Tim lately ... it looks as if he's not the biggest fan of Gregg either. Part of me really thinks these two are not on good terms.

I don't know ... in the end I'm sure the Special will go off without a hitch ... but another part of me thinks that this tension that may or may not exist behind the scenes could just boil over on February 24th. Who am I kidding? There's no way these two don't get along ... they are great friends who both have love for movies in common. When you have movies what else do you need? I'm sure Tim deep down is very very happy that Gregg is the new host of the Oscar Special and wishes his friend luck.

Hmmmm, then again, maybe it's just me, I don't know, but, it's a possibility these two have some sort of issue with one another. Does anyone else suspect this or is it just me?

I guess we'll just have to wait until the Oscar Special to see how this all unfolds.

Silver Medal: The Women of Wrestling
 

Entertainment Genre: Wrestling
Favorite "Feud": w/ each other

I haven't really dug it or watched Wrestling in ... wow ... we're talking well over a decade I'd say ... but it's getting good, and fresh, and new. It's centering more on the women now and it really is something new and interesting. 

I probably couldn't name one male wrestler on today's roster but I could name probably most of the lady wrestlers. A lot of them are second generation too ... like Nattie is Jim Niedhart's daughter and Charlotte is Ric Flair's daughter. They have the wrestling in their blood and their bones.

The twitter feeds of the lady wrestlers are a show in itself these days ... they go at each other ... HARD ... like vicious vicious animals on a daily basis. If you follow the women wrestlers your twitter feed is always being filled with hot feuds and sexy trash talk.

They got funny stuff though too, like I think I remember one dude tweeted at "The Man" (who's a woman) that her nickname wasn't suiting her ... and she replied that she met "Stone Cold" Steve once and his hand, when she shook it, if memory served her right, was only luke warm, not even cold at all ... in which she came to the conclusion that ... sometimes nicknames aren't to be taken like super literally ... as to which I am certain the fellow was downright aghast to learn this.

Unlike esteemed film buffs Gregg Turkington and Tim Heidecker who I think may possibly dislike each other behind the scenes ... I think these ladies have a lot of fun with their angles and probably are pretty close in real life. They play off each other really well and seem to be having a lot of fun with their art form. The feuds in wrestling now are the ones I remember as a kid more so than how crazy they got at one point. I prefer these catty yet fun-natured trash talk feuds to the things they used to do that made me stop watching.

I mean, they did bits on Wrestling with the Big Boss Man (who was like in my top 5 faves in my youthful days) in the 2000s where he ... 1) Ate a guy's dog and 2) Tied a guy's dad's casket to his car and drove away with it at a funeral. I mean, these bits are just dumb. You know? They are stupid, dumb, and bad. It's not Wrestling ... it's another genre of art, things that are more suited for like horror movies or something ... not Wrestling. 

Plus, as we learned from the smash hit TV show Seinfeld in the 90s ... Women fights are always hot n' cool. As Jerry so elegantly put it....

"Men think when women are clawing and grabbing at each other ... there's a chance that they might somehow ... kiss," -Seinfeld, J.

Yes, it's true. Another esteemed quote that comes to mind about Ladies Wrestling comes from the venerable Mojo Nixon who once said...

"I'm in looooooove with a Lady Wresler! (Why?) ... because stinky women ... DO IT BETTER!" -Nixon, M.

Good point, Moj. All kidding aside though, I think Lady Wrestlers of this era are really good role models for young ladies to be honest. The young ladies need like bad-ass role models in their lives too, you know? Growing up in the 80s we boys could look up to a wrestler and learn that we need to say our prayers, and eat our vitamins, and do other stuff like that. Now women have those positive role models in their lives. Which is great. Girls are getting action figures and T shirts for their birthdays of female wrestlers now a days. Which is cool.

On top of it all it seems that all rumors, ruminations, and whatnotery are pointing to the first ever female main event at Wrestle Mania which will be History in the making (or Herstory in this case).

History in the Making. History in the Making .... It will be .... A HAPPENING! IT IS GOING TO BE A HAPPENING!

(on a side note concerning female wrestling and twitter ... there is a twitter campaign headed by artisanal comedian Potylo, R. to post-humously enshrine Chyna into the WWE Hall of Fame ... which is a campaign worth taking note of if you are a fan of female wrestling).



Gold Medal: Dennis Rodman

Entertainment Genre: Basketball
Favorite "Feud": w/ ????

Wow, Dennis Rodman has had some kind of year. Let's look back at the Worm's 2018...

He brokered a meeting between the President of the United States of America and the Rogue Asian State of North Korea ... and followed it up by giving one of the most emotional and insipiring interviews CNN has ever aired in its history of broadcasting ... even more emotional than back in the 90s when they interviewed that little girl's parents after that little girl got trapped in that well. I mean this interview was emotional, man. Like the GOATest emotional interview ever.

On top of all that, he re-awoke like a phoenix on social media in 2018 ... making his first big splash announcing that he wants to run for President in 2020 while riding a donkey. This reminded me of a bit on SNL (that I might have dreamt because I might have been half awake at the time) ... of like Will Ferrell hosting a political talk show while they all rode donkeys? Was that a thing? Riding my Donkey Political Talk Show? It was, eh?
 
Then he proceeded to basically spam every NBA related post with empty messages which inclined many users to ask how Dennis can tweet absolutely Nothing so often. To tweet nothing you need an Internet Gold Card, guys, and to acquire one is a long process that starts with deleting sys32 in your registry and eating things you're really not supposed to eat, etc, etc.

In between debating if Bron or MJ is the greatest of all time and constantly almost ad-nauseum announcing that he's leaving instagram ... Dennis had time to cook this number up ...

https://twitter.com/dennisrodman/status/1089736134236741634?lang=en

With Dennis, an emotional guy by nature, you thought he was really going to say something like "omg" but lo, it turned out just to be a good ol' fashioned Rick Roll.

The thing about Dennis too is, his potential is sky high, I mean, this guy is totally out-of-synch with everything and is marching to his own marching band.

Will he be the next Secretary of State, will he be the greatest tweeter of all time? Will he be Jose Canseco's running mate in 2020? So many questions, so little answers. The future is bright, gang!


Congratulations to Mr. Rodman for winning this Golden Effigagy. Effigy? What is an effigy? A statuette I think ... like a statue but smaller, is that it? Yeah. Congratulations on winning this years Golden Effigy!