Randy Twizzle

As the Limo Driver in the immortal "This is Spinal Tap" Limo driver: Excuse me...are you reading "Yes I Can"? Limo groupie: Yeah, have you read it? Limo driver: Yeah, by Sammy Davis Jr.? Limo groupie: Yeah. Limo driver : You know what the title of that book should be? "Yes I Can if Frank Sinatra Says it's Okay". Cause Frank calls the shots for all of those guys . Did you get to the part yet where uh...Sammy is coming out of the Copa... it's about 3:00 in the morning and uh...he sees Frank? Frank's walking down Broadway by himself.... (Limo window raised by Nigel) Limo driver: Fuckin' limeys. Marty: Well you know, ah...they're not uh,...used to that world. Limo driver: Yeah yeah. Marty: You know Frank Sinatra it's a different world that they're in. Limo driver: You know, it's just that people like this...you know... they get all they want so they don't really understand, you know...about a life like Frank's, I mean, you know when you've loved and lost the way Frank has, then you uh ...you know what life's about.

Here am I with my crew stiffly posing for the camera before consuming some stale cake. I'm the smirking bastard on the far left.

New Jersey: WE DON'T GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT US

I've been collecting letters to the editor from California newspapers of the late 1940s that reference progressive big bands of the day. Here's my entire collection:

Actually, didn't that originate in Marxist circles? The term, I mean. A search of the NY Times shows that the phrase was used in Krushchev's 1956 secret speech denouncing Stalin, but strangely enough the only other time before 1956, that the phrase appeared in the Times, was in this curious display add from Oct 15, 1926. I'm not quite sure what it meant in this context

Do liberals really want to make common cause with evil conservatives? My god, wouldn't any contact with the forces of darkness irreperably soil them?

Another way of looking at it is that anything Huffington, MoveOn, The NY Times and a wacko gun group are against may actually have some merit. But that would be a political judgement and this is a non-political forum, and one must not support the "bad guys"

I thought it sounded like an urban legend and sure enough http://www.snopes.com/crime/safety/response.htm

Back in the 80s, I ocasionally frequented a working class bar in Hoboken NJ, where the elderly bartender would tune the TV to Wall Street Week every Friday night and carefully watch the show, often ignoring the customers. Once during a very early visit before I knew about his devotion to the show, I asked him if he could change the channel to a Mets game, "After Rukeyser" he spat out, looking none to happy that this punk briefly interupted his weekly ritual. I have to admit he gave me the creeps. (Rukeyser, not the bartender).

When I was younger it took mega-doses of alcohol get me even close to the dance floor but now that I'm older, much more mature and less self-conscious nothing has changed.

From Today's NY Post, more evidence that Artie is hurting He plays a chef on "The Sopranos," but John Ventimiglia cooked himself a recipe for disaster when he was busted for drunken driving and cocaine possession yesterday about a block away from his Brooklyn home. The actor, who stars as New Jersey restaurant owner Artie Bucco on the hit HBO series, admitted to cops he drank four glasses of wine at a Manhattan eatery before getting behind the wheel of his 2004 Volkswagen Jetta and driving home. Cops spotted him with his headlights off and weaving in and out of the oncoming traffic lane on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope at around 1 a.m., authorities said. When officers pulled him over, Ventimiglia was unsteady on his feet, his eyes were bloodshot and he reeked of alcohol, according to the criminal complaint. Prosecutors said the star had a blood-alcohol content of .12. The legal limit is .08. The boozed-up actor also had a zip-lock bag with cocaine residue in his back pocket, cops said. Ventimiglia, 42, was arraigned at Brooklyn Criminal Court yesterday on charges of DWI, reckless driving, operating outside the lane, operating without headlights and criminal possession of a controlled substance. He was released on his own recognizance. Sources said Ventimiglia later maintained he had a couple of glasses of wine at a Long Island City art gallery opening. The actor claimed he had found a parking spot near his Park Slope apartment and had turned off his lights as he tried to pull in. He said he couldn't park the car properly, so he drove around the block to look for another spot with his headlights turned off. That's when, he claimed, police picked him up. Ventimiglia's character has been on a downward spiral from mild-mannered restaurateur who is best buddies with mob boss Tony Soprano to resentful loser. After his restaurant was blown up at the end of the first season, Bucco appeared to be stuck in an ongoing mid-life crisis, prompted by a crush on the sexy Adriana La Cerva, one-time fiancée of mob captain Christopher Moltisanti, before she was rubbed out last season. But last week, Ventimiglia really got a chance to flex his acting muscles in a critically acclaimed episode where Bucco beats up the Soprano wiseguy responsible for a credit-card scam at his flagging restaurant. The episode ended with Bucco returning to his kitchen to cook up a rabbit he had shot in a rage in his back yard. Yesterday, the "Sopranos" co-star arrived at his Park Slope home after a night in the slammer, looking unshaven and with two unidentified acquaintances. The actor, wearing blue jeans and a black jacket, declined to comment to The Post as he quickly rushed to get inside his apartment. His lawyer, Benjamin Petrofsky, did not return a phone call seeking comment. Ventimiglia, who has appeared on Broadway, as well on numerous television shows during his nearly 20-year career, became the face of a range of cookbooks, pasta sauces and other Italian food delights aggressively marketed by HBO after "The Sopranos" launch. Ventimiglia is the latest of a slew of the mobster serial's stars to find himself on the wrong side of the law. Lillo Brancato Jr., who played Matt Bevilaqua, was charged with murder after he and an accomplice gunned down a cop after he interrupted them robbing a home for drugs. Tony Sirico, who plays Paulie Walnuts, was arrested 28 times before becoming an actor. Robert Iler, who plays Anthony Soprano Jr., pleaded guilty to misdemeanor larceny in April 2002 after cops arrested him and three other teens for stealing $40 from two victims on a Manhattan street. Vincent Pastore, who played Sal "Big Pussy" Bompensiero in the show, pleaded guilty to punching his former girlfriend last April and was sentenced to 70 hours of community service.

The Demarco Sisters were regulars on The Fred Allen radio show in the 40s. A few weeks I saw them on TCM in a bizarre Vitaphone short with Babe Ruth and Zev Confrey among others.

Here's a Peggy and Dave scandal from 1950.

Is he one of these guys?

It's from 10/11/69

Hollywood Palace in 1969 My parents were probably watching.

My FDR "The Man of the Hour" clock. It stopped running years ago, but it's a reminder of the days when I was a Yellow Dog Democrat

We now know that inbred Jersey mob guys don't know much about filmmaking and aren't up on their cinema history. What a stunning revelation.

Lauren Bacall has always had a large Gay following, so maybe Vito should be whacking Chris.

She was the anti-Robert Moses and played a big part in saving parts of Greenwich Village from being destroyed by his highway projects. Here's a 1961 article about Jacobs.

There's a better obituary in today's Washington Post which includes this interesting Gottlieb quote

Maybe if they knew what egress meant they would have been more alert.

Sounds like a drug deal gone bad.

I still think you should have gone to the hospital, that swelling in the right hand my be serious