Randy Twizzle

The 911 call

The 911 call

Here's a not very healthy looking Puckett in 2005

The Placemark marks the house where I lost my virginity during the summer of 71. Thank You NL!

I used to ride a commuter train into NYC in the afternoon, and most days the only other person at the station was a talkative guy who told me he worked as a security guard in the city. Generally I don't like making small talk with strangers but this guy was so friendly and upbeat that most days I enjoyed bullshitting with him. After a while he stopped showing up and I figured he either moved, changed his hours or quit his job, etc. Then one day about 5 or 6 months after I had last seen him, he reappeared dressed as a woman complete with a pair of very noticeable female breasts. Apparently he had taken time off to get a sex change operation. He was not a good looking guy and as woman she was grotesque not unlike the woman pictured in the first post. The only thing I could say to "her" was "You look different" She just smiled. I quickly moved away because I couldn't stand to look at her or even talk to her. I only saw her a few more times after that and each time I snubbed her. Do I feel guilty for being such an uptight transexualphobic? Yeah a little.

I don't understand what the fuss is all about. I've had an online account at Citibank for years and my username Rtwizzle and password Twizzle1234 has always served me well.

In January 1958 Knotts got the flu in Havana and his hometown newspaper was on top of the story.

I should have consulted my "Encylopedia of Old Time Radio" which says that Knotts played "Windy Wales, ranch handyman and teller of tall tales" on the show. The show ran from June 1949 - June, 1955.

Here's a Don Knotts profile from 1961 with some questionable biographical details. Did he really do a Western radio show in NYC for 5 years?

He recorded at least one comedy album released in 1961. There were no messages or sick humor.

From the LA Times A red Ferrari Enzo — one of only 400 ever made and worth more than $1 million — broke apart Tuesday when it crested a hill on Pacific Coast Highway going 120 mph and slammed into a power pole. The driver jumped out of the wreckage and ran into the canyon above, evading a three-hour search by a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department helicopter and a mountain search-and-rescue team. The crash did not result in serious injuries. But it sent shockwaves through both the tabloid and exotic car worlds as one group wondered if the driver was a celebrity and the other mourned the loss of a hand-built car revered by many as a work of art. The car was certain to be owned by someone rich, if not famous. Actor Nicolas Cage owns one. And Malibu local Britney Spears has been chased in a Ferrari by the paparazzi. But by day's end the tabloids were disappointed to learn that the demolished car had been owned by a Swedish millionaire without a Screen Actors Guild card. Sheriff's investigators identified him as 44-year-old Stefan Eriksson, a Bel-Air resident. Officials are trying to determine whether he is the noted Swedish game designer whose firm, perhaps not surprisingly, was involved with car-racing themed video games. Authorities said Eriksson said he was a passenger in the Ferrari, which he said was being driven by a German acquaintance he knew only as Dietrich. One witness told deputies that the Ferrari appeared to be racing with a Mercedes-Benz SLR northbound along the coastal highway when the accident occurred about 6 a.m. west of Decker Road. "It took out the pole, and part of the car went another 600 feet," Sheriff's Sgt. Philip Brooks said. "There were 1,200 feet of debris out there." Eriksson told authorities that "Dietrich" ran up a hill toward the canyon road and disappeared. Brooks said detectives are far from convinced they have the whole story. Eriksson "had a .09 blood-alcohol level, but if he's a passenger, that's OK," Brooks said. "But he had a bloody lip, and only the air bag on the driver's side had blood on it. The passenger-side air bag did not. My Scooby-Doo detectives are looking closely into that. "Maybe the 'driver' had a friend who picked him up. Maybe he thumbed a ride," the sergeant added. "Maybe he was a ghost." The crash left Ferrari fans anguished. "I'm not surprised the driver ran away. He'd have been strangled by the owner," said Tex Otto, a Santa Monica graphic artist who edits two magazines for Ferrari owners. "This will have a big impact on the local Ferrari community. This was not a car. It was a rolling art form." Ferrari owner Chris Banning, a Beverly Hills writer who is finishing a book called the "Mulholland Experience" that will touch on the cult of sports car racing on that mountain roadway, characterized the Enzo's destruction as "a tremendous loss" to the automotive world. "He destroyed one of the finest cars on Earth, maybe the finest. It's like taking a Van Gogh painting and burning it," said Banning, who is a leader of the Ferrari Owners Club. Gil Lucero, a Mountain View telecommunications company executive who is president and Pacific region chairman of the Ferrari Club of America, said only 399 Enzos were at first scheduled to be assembled at the factory between 2002 and 2004, each priced at $670,000. But a final car was built and donated to Pope John Paul II and later sold to raise $1,275,000 million for charity, Lucero said. "It's a shame this one is gone forever. When one of these is lost, it reverberates through the whole exotic car world," Lucero said. Ferrari fan Wally Clark, a Villa Park insurance broker who owns two Ferraris — neither of which is an Enzo — said used Enzos fetch between $1 million and $1.5 million. "I think the price went up another $100,000 with today's crash," he said. The Enzo model "is a very serious car" whose 660-horsepower V-12 engine can accelerate from zero to 65 mph in about four seconds, Clark said. It can exceed 217 mph. "They'll burn rubber in every gear. You need to know what you're doing if you drive them on the street. You can't be blowing past people at 180 miles per hour on the freeway. You'll cause chain-reaction crashes behind you. I don't know who the yahoos were in it. It's a damn good thing they weren't killed." Die-hard Ferrari aficionados who viewed TV news footage of the crash said the Enzo's driver-safety system performed exactly as it was designed to. "The car has a carbon-fiber tub seating area. The driver's compartment is made of this very tough, lightweight carbon composite and has tremendous seats that really hold you in place," said Times automobile critic Dan Neil, who drove an Enzo at Ferrari's plant in Italy. "They're very unforgiving cars. High performance but merciless," Neil said. Websites devoted to exotic cars followed crash developments breathlessly through the day, even posting digital photos and eyewitness accounts sent in by people who passed by the wreck. Brooks said that no arrests had been made and that little was known about Eriksson. Detectives were also trying to determine whether he was the Stefan Eriksson who in the past has raced Ferraris on European tracks. The Sheriff's Department impounded the shredded remains of the Ferrari as evidence. But Brooks said he retrieved one souvenir from the side of the road. "I have the mirror from the car," he joked. "It's shattered, but I think it's worth $5,000. I'm going to hang onto it." Detectives are also trying to find the driver of the Mercedes that they think was dueling the Enzo. If their race theory is correct, it won't be the first time a Mercedes beat a Ferrari.

I loved watching Curt and superannuated show biz folks like Bing Crosby and Phil Harris tracking down and killing little animals on American Sportsman.

I have a feeling that if you stood up and screamed you would be heard just about everywhere.

I have a problem with the picture of me that they're using. I'm really not that creepy...really.

Predicted in 1923 after years ofl scientific research

I saw a young woman walking through the World Financial Center while holding her iPod Nano up at eye level. I assume she was doing this in order to show the world that she owned the hot new accessory for the young urban professional. I'm a caring, tolerant individual, but I wanted to grab the damn thing and smash it into little (or littler) pieces.

They ain't Bill Dixon glasses, that's for sure... They're Lew Wasserman glasses

Well the health police better hurry because it's already '06 and today this news appeared in the financial page of the NY Post

Every cable tv documentary in the last 80 years about Martin & Lewis and/or the Rat Pack, (individually or a as a group), used this guy as a talking head, and now he's dead.

She's a jerk. Everyone know Philip Morris is milder.

Here's an Al Lewis story from 1963BM (before Munsters)

It's part of the William Gottlieb Collection at the Library of Congress website http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wghtml/

Here's a variation on the Chet Baker/Romano story. It's from, believe it or not, Willam F. Buckley Jr.:

At approximately 2 pm EST this afternoon one of the two XM Real Jazz DJs actually gave the full personnel of a recording. Granted it was only a trio (Donald Harrison, Ron Carter and Billy Cobham)playing "Easy Living" but it's the first time in almost 2 years of listening that I've heard such a thing. I hope it's a new trend at XM's RJ, but I suspect it was a freak occurence, not to be repeated in my lifetime.

Arnett Cobb and Symphony Sid's head.