11.22.2006

MAYBE MEET WANDA HICKEY? FLICK LIVES!

Photo courtesy of A Christmas Story House

Where else but Cleveland would you find that great old house used in the filming of Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story.




The Grand Opening of A Christmas Story House, now restored to its movie glory, will take place on Saturday, Nov. 25. Also opening directly across the street from the house is the official A Christmas Story House Museum, which will feature original props and memorabilia from the film, as well as rare behind-the-scenes photos. Actors from “A Christmas Story” who played Randy, Flick, Scut Farkus, Grover Dill and Miss Shields will officiate the opening ceremonies.


Copyright © 2006 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

Associated Press story on Yahoo!

A Christmas Story House

Shepherd Remembered
Sitting for Santa

It's A Wonderful Life - going once

It's A Wonderful Life - going twice

JEAN SHEPHERD BOOKS & TAPES
A Christmas Story : The Book That Inspired the Hilarious ClassicFilm

In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash

Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories : And OtherDisasters

The Ferrari in the Bedroom

Excelsior, You Fathead!: The Art and Enigma of JeanShepherd

The Phantom of the Open Hearth: A film for television co-ordinated byLeigh Brown

Will Failure Spoil Jean Shepherd? [LIVE]

Jean Shepherd and Other Foibles

Jean Shepherd: The X Random Factor [ABRIDGED] (Audio CD)

Jean Shepherd: Don't Be a Leaf [ABRIDGED] (Audio CD)

County Fair! (Shepherd's Pie Slice Six) (Audio Cassette)

11.20.2006

NALB - No Athlete Left Behind

This snuck into my life like the fat guy sitting next to me on the bus!

No Child Left Behind: The Football Version!

Here's the football version of what is going on in education right now. (If you're not an educator, this may not make a lot of sense to you. But send it to your friends who are in education. They will love it!)

For all the educators . . . in or out of the system.


NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND---THE FOOTBALL VERSION

1. All teams must make the state playoffs and all MUST win the
championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable. If, after two years, they have not won the championship their footballs and equipment will be taken away UNTIL they do win the championship.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to practice on their own. NO exceptions will be made for lack of interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities of themselves or their parents.

ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL!


3. Talented players will be asked to workout on their own, without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren't interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don't like football.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th game. It will create a New Age of Sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimum goals. If no child gets ahead, then no child gets left behind. If parents do not like this new law, they are encouraged to vote for vouchers and support private schools that can screen out the non-athletes and prevent their children from having to go to school with bad football players.

11.08.2006

NARRATIVE OF LIFE


I used to see my life unfolding before me like it was being typed out on my Smith-Corona.


Now you might think of it as closed-caption – although it included the narrative, too. (As if the story was being written and I was doing what the written words said, or vice versa.)

I used to think of it as my life being dubbed.

I often wondered how and when the movie would end.

Perhaps I was spending too much time at a typewriter?

This reminds me of the film clips I've seen on TV for the new Will Ferrell movie, Stranger Than Fiction. But I've only seen the commercial, not the movie.

Lately, as I read notes on Allen Ginsberg's famous poem Howl, and the notes published of earlier versions of the poems, I'm reminded that my later works leave NO PAPER TRAIL.

Anything that was printed of the earlier versions, if not already on the back of once-used paper became the used side of once-used paper.

When I last tried to find remembered manuscripts from earlier pieces, I found only OTHER stuff that I wasn't looking for and that distracted me from the failing search at hand.

I just re-read my review of Al Sullivan’s book Everyday People – and a thought came to me.

Sometimes I read something from long, long ago that I wrote in some distant past and when I read it now I say why don’t I write like THAT now.

That was really good.

It’s just a thought.


Everyday People: Profiles from the Garden State

If you ever met Al Sullivan, the last thing you'd do is picture him as a dashing young soldier long ago at the height of the Vietnam war - much less baby sitting a bunch of freaky rockers outside his helicopter at a place called Woodstock. Yet, that's one of the duties he 'volunteered' for.

In his essay "By The Time I Got To Woodstock" Sullivan briefly notes his 1st visit to the upstate refuge - and his overwhelming fear of helicopters. It is one of the rare times in Everyday People that he uses "I". It's to be forgiven him because he immediately uses his modern day visit to Woodstock as a newspeg to compare that town with Secaucus - his current tour of duty.

Sullivan worked for me for a few months in 96-97, and though the months were few, the impact has been long-lasting. He covered the mundane meetings, sure, but there was always something else lurking behind the tousled hair and the distant stare. He had the ragtag Tandy laptop blinking on one desk, the company terminal blinking there, a notepad in front of him - all while he was on the phone talking to another source. Sullivan was always on the go, always three steps ahead of the sunshine, so to speak. It is a pleasure to read him again.

It was there, in those other stories that Al set himself apart. If he worked for me now, he'd be a 'special writer' - that's someone who does his beat, and also turns in outstanding stories from left field, Clark's Pond, the emergency room and just about anywhere else fate takes him.

"Down and Out in Hoboken" relays the chance meeting with a panhandler at St. Mary's Hospital. The panhandler - whose name Sullivan never learns - says "People give me money to make me go away..." And in just a couple hundred words, you learn an awful lot about the panhandler - and the skill of Sullivan's perception of people. That's what makes Everyday People in its gritty realism a pure reading pleasure.

Perhaps the editors of Everyday People could have selected a few longer profiles, but as Sullivan notes in his Preface, "the word count has always been my curse," and I'll vouch for his observation here, "as it is for all prolific journalists," and again I agree. While we await the next volume, dig in here, and meet some interesting everyday people.



Copyright © 2006 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

11.07.2006

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11.04.2006

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