Here’s a winter’s blast from my childhood. This original clip comes from a retrospective (done some years ago now) about the old “Lunch with Casey” kids’ show, which ran on Channel 11 here in the Twin Cities. The late Roger Awsumb (the name’s right; not sure of the spelling) played Casey Jones the railroad engineer. But for this spot, he donned a union suit and lip-synched a song from one of our indigenous Scandinavian-dialect parodists. I’m pretty sure it was either Yogi Yorgeson or Stan Boreson.

You may be surprised (or not) to learn that there was some controversy about this very popular bit. A number of older people complained that underwear humor was unsuited to children’s entertainment.

It was a more innocent time…

Wish YouTube had a clip of the fractured “A Night Before Christmas” from the “Axel and His Dog” show. I may post the text here this week, anyway.

Apparently the Norwegians haven’t been bowled over by Pres. Obama’s charm in Oslo, as he stopped off for a half an hour to pick up his award and buy some postcards in the VIP lounge in Gardermoen Airport. He stood up King Haakon, who’d invited him to dinner, skipped the Viking Ships Museum tour, and—and this really stung—failed to pose for the traditional “Edvard Munch’s ‘Scream’” photo.

I don’t suppose today’s speech, in which he stunned the civilized world by suggesting that sometimes it’s actually necessary to wage war, helped him much. The Norwegians are still trying to live down the eternal shame of having carried on a resistance to the German invaders in World War II. Lives lost, infrastructure ruined, the economy smashed, ski holidays missed, and for what? Freedom. Independence. What an embarrassment. If the Nazis were still in charge, think how efficiently they’d be implementing Green policies today!

But in fact, insult has been the Democratic Party’s stance toward Norway for years now. I remember my last visit to family over there, when my relatives were discussing a presidential visit by Bill Clinton. The big thing they remembered was that Clinton had sipped from a water glass while somebody was giving a speech. That’s not done in Norway, apparently. (This bothered me a little, as I’d done the very same thing during a wedding reception I’d attended in Haugesund a few days earlier. But then I don’t have a protocol office to advise me. On the other hand, Pres. Obama doesn’t seem to have one either.)

I recalled an article I’d read some time before in a Norwegian paper, about how (the divine) Sissel Kyrkjebø had sung for a gathering in Washington, and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore had talked loudly all through her song.

Despite all this, Norway loves the Clintons.

Because that’s the way to a Norwegian’s heart. Kick him in the sardines.

The Germans should have tried that.

Lars refers to highbrow art in the last post. Obviously, he was thinking of this holiday classic:

There’s no need to thank me for bringing this up. It’s my pleasure.

MEMORANDUM

TO: The Universal Calendar Company

FROM: Lars Walker

RE: November

Having recently exhausted the November page in my 2009 calendar, I feel compelled to make you aware of my extreme disappointment with the quality of your product in recent years.

I make no comment on the art you selected to illustrate the month, although “Naked Maples in Dubuque” might be considered, by certain sensitive souls, a less than transcendent theme. I understand that you can only work with the material actually available.

I note that the November 2009 page contains the requisite number of days, i.e., thirty (30). This is technically up to code.

However, I can tell you, on the basis of a lifetime of experience with months, that your customers have not received full value for their temporal dollar. I am aware that months are packed by weight, not volume, and that a certain amount of settling may have occurred during transport. However, my memory is clear in the matter of the length of Novembers back in the 1950s when I was a boy, and I am convinced that this past November does not come close to meeting that standard. Clearly someone (I make no personal accusations) has been adulterating the product. Continue reading Settling accounts →

And now for something completely different.

This just in: President Obama has also been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, in recognition of his intense personal magnetism.

I have generated a novel with the help of The Electro-Plasmic Hydrocephalic Genre-fiction Generator 2000.

“In a dystopian Victorian Britain, a young student of metaphysics stumbles across a talking fish which spurs him into conflict with humanity’s selfish nature with the help of a shape-shifting female assassin and her condescending tone, culminating in convulted nonsense that squanders the readers’ goodwill.” My book is entitled, “The Metamechs.”

Wow. I wonder if I can get a celebrity endorsement already. (Thanks to SB)

Evolutionists Flock To Darwin-Shaped Wall Stain

Originally it was called Walden, but had Thoreau written it today, he may have had to call it Camping with Myself: Two Years in American Tuscany. Matthew’s gospel might have been called 40 Days and a Mule: How One Man Quit His Job and Became the Boss. Hamlet? “Grieving: A 5 part study of Danish family dynamics.” Read other silly titles from today and feel free to make up some of your own. (via Frank Wilson)