12/30/15

Smoking and Drinking

I leave this year with as many thoughts as I have left every year.

I have two exceptions and one (or both) will kill me.

As I grew from pod to man I loved two comics above all. The first was Groucho Marx and his incisive wit and sarcasm fueled the pod-boy to become the man-boy. "Duck Soup" is one of my favorite movies and I can still watch it today with the exhuberance I displayed as a youth. A lot of Groucho's humor was lost upon me, but I loved his mannerisms and his foils. My love for him was cemented when he appeared on Dick Cavett's show. I finally, truly got him.






The second was W.C. Fields (Bill) and my fondness for him was established from his relationship with Edgar Bergen (I love dummies). He had a grace that I appreciated and a wit that was razor like. I love most of his movies, but I especially love the biographies about him (he died eleven years before I was born). He was part of the Hollywood crowd at its heyday and I have a fondness for this because during vacations my dad used to take me to work and he would show me the old Hollywood/Culver City lots and I would dream. While he worked (he was a meat vendor) he thought I was asleep in his work truck. I instead would walk down Hollywood Blvd./Sunset Blvd. In the early hours of a summer morning I would think of all the old stars and it made me happy.




I honor these two men...

I honor dreams.

The past is a reflection.

Happy New Year!


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