Today is the birthday of Sterling Hayden

from "The Asphalt Jungle"

You probably know Hayden from Dr. Strangelove, where he was worried about fluoride in the water and what it had done to his virility, or The Godfather, where Michael put a bullet in him from a gun he took from a toilet.  Hayden is also the featured player in a couple of my favorite movies, The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing, two great heist movies with a noir core.

Born this day in 1916, Hayden was never overly excited by his Hollywood career, and he was a bit of an odd guy.  When War II broke out, he joined the military and served under an assumed name (in the OSS, no less).  After the war he had communist ties, later named names, and generally seemed to never recover from the overall experience.

He also once ran off with his kids against court order and sailed them to Tahiti.  Literally, he captained the boat.  That was his thing.

Nobody puts Sterling Hayden in a corner.

We salute you, Mr. Hayden.  You always look how I feel.

Jamie's B-Day. I made a cake.

This is the Duncan Hines cake I made for Jamie for her birthday.  It was basic yellow cake with frosting out of a can.  I'm not a baker and I don't play one on TV.  This was what I could do with the know-how I've got.  Also, I didn't destroy the kitchen, which I think Jamie appreciated, as I'm also bad at cleaning up the kitchen.

Your Daily Dose of Good Cheer (Jamie's Birthday Edition): Kaitlin Olson

In honor Jamie's birthday, today we post the lovely Kaitlin Olson, who plays Deandra "Sweet Dee" Reynolds on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Jamie knows why.

Spy Shows, Melodrama, Planet of the Apes

The only TV I had time to watch this weekend was an episode of Archer and a week-and-a-half-old episode of The Americans.  I'm still liking the show well enough, but I kind of think they need to slow it the hell down.  I'm no master spy, but having a new mission every week while you're supposed to be undercover and a sort of sleeper agent feels like a lot of missions.  Perhaps it makes sense in the context of Archer, but I'm cool with long-game sorts of scenarios and letting the domestic issues the show writers seem to want to focus on (and I welcome) broil from episode to episode is fine.

But, really, I have no complaints.

Well, one.  Every episode now seems to end with our leads in their bedroom having a whispery and angry conversation, and it's a bad pattern to get stuck in.  Yes, we need to see these two together, but somehow it reminds me of how Smallville started going downhill when every episode started ending the A Plot with 10-15 minutes left, and spent 10 minutes with Lana and Clark in Clark's barn-loft with Lana making cow eyes at each other and being weepy teens.

If the killer Russian spies turn into Clana, I shall be disappointed.

I also picked up and read the second volume of  a trade of a Planet of the Apes comics series that has to be two or three years old now.  It's well written and fantastically drawn, and, like all POTA stuff, it's also headed somewhere incredibly nihilistic and depressing.  Just showing a world where humans still talk is the start of the end of a world where humans cease talking and become primitive and beast-like by their first appearance in the Cheston films.  And, of course, when you blow up the Earth in the second movie (spoiler?), there's just not really a "and things get better" to be had.*

All of this makes it hard to go seek out the third volume as... I kind of know how all this wraps up.  Hmmm...

Mostly, I worked on Saturday, and today I made a cake for Jamie's birthday.  And then we made dinner.  And now I'm sort of done.  And the weekend is over, and we're starting all over again.





*yes, there are three more films after they blow up Earth.  What of it?

Your Daily Dose of Good Cheer: Peggy Cummins

Happy Birthday to Jamie

Monday (the 25th) is Jamie's birthday.

To celebrate, Saturday we went out to Lucy's Friend Chicken on South Congress and then to Midnight Cowboy Modeling, a former 6th street, uh... modeling location, now a speakeasy bar.

Y'all, I ate so much chicken...  It comes in aluminum buckets.  It's not even fair.

oh, the carnage

A lovely evening out, and kudos to Nicole for driving and organizing.

Jamie isn't getting a present to open on her b-day as we've got tickets to a show later this spring and she's flying out to see Rebecca in a few weeks for some fun in TN.

So, here's some things she likes, all here in a blog post:

Your Daily Dose of Good Cheer: Jane Greer

Your Daily Dose of Good Cheer: Sophia Loren

Your Daily Dose of Good Cheer: Norma Shearer

Lo Content Mode for a Few Days

Today I go to the airport and pick up a candidate for the open position of: my boss.

From Thursday afternoon until Saturday evening, I'm kind of responsible for this person.  Tomorrow I pick them up and take them to the hotel.  Then it's dinner with the Search Committee.  All day on Friday it's interviews.  Saturday, I'm "showing them Austin" with the intention of selling them on Austin.  Hoo-boy.  

I hope they like comic shops and record stores, 'cause that's what they're gonna see.

It's a weird task to be given, but we do things old skool and with the prissy formality of a Dowager Countess in Higher Ed, and especially in libraries.  Thus, I establish who I am to this person by acting as their footman for three days.  

Really, I kind of consider it to be a test of the person's street smarts to make it to the hotel on day 1, but that's just me.

The proximity to the boss and this much time with a person who doesn't know me is, I would think, a whole lotta me.  And I can barely stand being with me for more than a couple of hours, so I can only imagine how this is gonna go for this poor person.  Also, I use a lot of swears when I drive, so the idea of driving this person around all Saturday is sort of chilling.

Anyway, I kind of have to go to ground for a bit.  Y'all take care.  I'll be around as I'm able.