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Weaz – these drawings are beautiful. Very professional!

But is this what you want to be famous for? The Catophone?

BTW: Not a day has gone by that I haven’t mentally heard the sound of Blue Danube blown over a whiskey jug. Whoo!

Sure, McGoo…famous is famous.

You’ll hear me in the sighing of the wind on a warm Summer evening. Wherever train whistles call plaintively in the night, I’ll be there. I’m in the Winter gale and barns full of owls and teakettles. Wherever whooing sounds are heard, you’ll think of Stoaty. Blowing air across a cat’s bottom.

Stop it! My stomach hurts from laughing!

“Stomach hurts from laughing” — That’s how I usually am here. And you’re right, the drawings are *wonderful.* The first one reminded me sooooo much of those old K-Tel Records compilations they used to hawk at K-Mart.

You guys made me think of the theme from Laura (which, as I mentioned on another thread, I watched last week). It’s a lovely song, by David Raksin & one of my fave lyricists, Johnny Mercer:

Laura (1945)
You know the feeling of something half remembered,
Of something that never happened, yet you recall it well.
You know the feeling of recognizing someone
That you’ve never met as far as you could tell, well:

Laura is the face in the misty light,
Footsteps that you hear down the hall,
The laugh that floats on a summer night
That you can never quite recall.

And you see Laura on the train that is passing through,
Those eyes, how familiar they seem;
She gave your very first kiss to you,
That was Laura but she’s only a dream.

If you know the tune, sing & replace all the “Laura(s)” with “Stoaty.” 🙂

Oh, dear. I have that record in 78, Felix. Sadly, it’s the Spike Jones version, so you can imagine.

Hendersonville, BTW, is a suburb of Nashville, where many country music stars lived.

I think you could put that cataphone in a gajillion different pictures and it would make me laugh out loud every time.

Ha — Do you have Spike’s version of Chloe? “Where are you, you old BAT?!” I love Spike. I also love Tommy Dorsey’s version of Chloe, which is entirely different. I once named a cat after that song.

I don’t have that one, no. I’ve got to inventory my 78s before I go. My taste is for the old, old novelty records…the pre-1925 ones. Our great-grandparents were nucking futz.

Heh™

It is a nice drawing. It looks like a dark-haired Jon Voight.
I feel a movie idea coming on…

Damn it, iamfelix, lyricists from that era were impossibly good, weren’t they?

Indeed, Uncle B … Mercer, Gershwin, Larry Hart, Gus Kahn, Mack Gordon, Al Dubin …. I could go on (don’t let me!).

If you poked a tube in the cat, could you play it like bagpipes?

What is the name of that bagpipe tune – the one EVERYONE has heard?

Does it go reee reee reee reee rereedle dee deedle dee-dee dee-dee? Because I think I know that one.

The only example of it I can think of is in The Great Escape the two Scottish guys start singing it in Svottish (Waa waa the blah blah blah blah, waa, waa the k-blah blah) just before the tunnel is discovered. Then the li’l Scot gets shot.

Maybe not…

Duh. Never mind.

But squeezing an intubated feline just has to sound interesting.

Amazing Grace is the American standard. My dad played that on the bagpipes at somebody’s wedding once. Being that the paternal Weasel is both musical and very deaf, he goes in for the loud instruments.

It wasn’t AG. It’s a perky little march I think. Someday I’ll find it on the net – then everyone will be sorry.

Dee, dee, da-deedle dee dee, dee, dee, da-deedle dee dee …

Oh, yes, I expected you to remember what Amazing Grace sounds like. I just wanted you to imagine it coming out of a reed jammed up a cat’s ass.

Well, there’s always The Cambells Are Coming, which was Custer’s theme song.

Poor pinky, she doesn’t even rate a face pic on the album cover any more.

Did you see Robinson Crusoe On Mars? He makes a set of primitive bagpipes that sound just like a “reeded” cat should sound.

Weaz – I think pajama mama was onto something: there are an awful lot of important photos that don’t have a cataphone in them. Historical photos. Sports photos. Hollywood photos.

Did Lee Harvey Oswald play? How ’bout Lincoln?

I imagine a reeded cat would sound something like a practice chanter. Thin and farty.

Say, I thought about the iconic Ruby/Oswald shot, but it looks like some sick bastard beat me to it.

How rude! That photo was yours to mess with – not someone else’s.

I’m sure you’re right about the chanter. Kind of a breathy squeee sound.

I don’t have that one, no. I’ve got to inventory my 78s before I go. My taste is for the old, old novelty records…the pre-1925 ones. Our great-grandparents were nucking futz.

Ah, you know what? When I lived in Arizona they had these estate sales all the time. I’m a huge collector of crap. I horde. I can’t help it.The one day I don’t have money on me and I go to this estate sale and there are all these records from around that time period. I didn’t even know who most of the artists were, but his/her collection were matching boxed sets. I’m talking hundreds of them and I just had to walk away. *sniff

Estate sales are kinda weird because all the dead person’s stuff is still there. Like if they washed their big grandma bra and hung it over the towel hanger in the bathroom, it was still there. Their toothbrush and toothpaste and denture cream and combs all still there.

Oh! I went to an estate sale once. Auction, actually. Those people had EVERY SINGLE Franklin Mint piece of crap ever manufactured, I swear. Also, I remember the auctioneer nearly cried when a silver flatware set sold for a whole bunch less than the value of the silver melted down.

I bought a plain pipe with an amber mouthpiece in a little box. The owner had apparently done a world tour in 1905/06 and had, one by one, scratched into the meerschaum the name of every city he visited. I think I paid $7 for it.

I loved that thing. I’ll have to dig it out and take a picture.

Weaz, Custer’s theme song was Garryowen, which everyone, as you say, has heard.

The Cambell’s Are Coming sounds very similar, tho.

Oh! It was TCaC in Little Big Man!

Surely, *Hollywood* wouldn’t lie to me!

But for that matter, on the bagpipes, “Amazing Grace” sounds very similar to “Garryowen.”

Best rendition of AG on bagpipes was near the end of the remake of “Invasion of the Body-Snatchers” (the one with Donald Sutherland). That music playing while the camera panned a shipyard full of lifeless cargo ships was about as creepy and sad as it gets.

Hollywood? Lie?! Ha!

For some reason, when you say Gary Owen, Barbara Allen plays in my head. That’s not right at all.

I read Little Big Man, btw. Good book. It’s a hell of a lot less pro-Injun, anti-Evil-White-Guys than the movie turned out to be.

Surprise, surprise.

Did you read the sequel to LBM, Weaz?

No. Didn’t know there was one.

But I’ve just put together Gary Owen with Gary Owens, and that mix doesn’t sleep happily in the skull.

Here:

http://www.amazon.com/Return-Little-Big-Man/dp/0316098442/ref=pd_sim_b_title_1

It’s as good as the first one IMAO.

Fun Custer Fact: George Armstrong managed to shoot and kill at least one of his own horses while hunting buffalo (and it’s rumored he managed to wack two more mounts during battles).

New and used from a penny, McGoo!

Grab it! BTW: if you go to the link I posted, Dustin Hoffman is the guy on the far upper right on the cover.

jw, wasn’t there something about his wife? Like she was fooling around with someone else? Or she wasn’t originally his wife, and he wooed her away?

Hmm. I remember that guy looking just like DH when I read it, but the photo doesn’t now.

I saw Dustin Hoffman once, walking down the streets of D.C. Not a face you would mistake. Funny little gnome of a man.

Yep. I’d read that he got an ego the size of five men.

Naw, Steam. Long Hair wooed her and won her, fair and square, and I’ve seen no report of dalliances, neither on her part or the General’s. Libby Custer, BTW, wrote three (count ’em! three) memoirs about her husband, and spent her widow years trying to clear his name.

I saw Ben Vereen while having dinner at one of the restaurants at the Golden Nugget in Vegas. He was dining with two very good-looking women. At breakfast the next morning, I saw him again, eating alone, dressed in the same clothes (a white suit with wide lapels, IIRC) he was wearing the night before.

I kinda figured it was my failing memory. I do recall reading that she tried to clear his name afterwards.

He split his forces, didn’t he? And turned one group over to a drunk, insubordinate officer? What a dickhead.

I shook hands once with C. Everett Coop (and exchanged pleasantries for extra credit) at the Waldorf. That same day, I saw Arlo Guthrie getting on the elevator there. Couple years later, I saw Tommy Lasorda eating breakfast at the table next to mine at a diner across the street from the Plaza. And I once got into a shouting match with one of the stars of Phantasm at a party.

Yes, I guess it is all about who you know.

I had a terrible crush on Arlo Guthrie in 1969 (I think it was). After Alice’s Restaurant. I was nine. I wangled an invite to a party he was going to attend, but his wife gave birth that night and he begged off. The cheek!

Yes, he did, Steam, and why he did is one of the great unanswered questions of American history. It’s possible (even likely) that Custer split his forces to provide surprise flanking prior to his main charge into the Indian village; he’d done it often before, and with great success.

Probably the best examination of the Custer’s Last Stand is Connell’s Son Of The Morning Star. Doesn’t answer the question, but it’s very well written and even-handed.

I thought Arlo was the coolest guy ever when Alice’s Restaurant came out (which I promptly bought and wore out the grooves). Had I known he stood you up at that party, I’d’ve smacked him in the mouth, right there in that elevator. He’s a little bitty guy, so I’m pretty sure I coulda whupped ‘im. And if not, I coulda screamed like a little girl and embarrassed him big-time.

Right this minute, he’s a little teeny bald fat guy with long white hair. I saw him on TV a couple of years ago. He looked like a LEGO yeti.

I’ve got a book around here – “To The last Man” or something like that (I can’t find it) – that goes over it. It’s the only book I’ve ever read on the subject, so I can’t judge how even it was. The later Hearings on the incident were not kind to some of the officers, if I recall correctly. I’ll look for yours. You’re batting a thousand so far on book recommendations.

Arlo Guthrie? A Leggo Yeti? Whoa…

I wangled an invite to a party he was going to attend

That’s cool. Did you still go to the party anyways? Were there other famous people there? Inquiring minds want to know.

I tripped at a restaurant/nightclub that Eric Stoltz and Bridget Fonda were at, does that count?

Well, I’m now a big bald fat guy, so I still think I could whup ‘im. Say the word, Your Stoutiness.

There are a couple that are good, Steam, but I like the Connell book best. I like my history well-written and factual, in that order. “Drier than a popcorn fart” is not a goal to reach for when writing history, IMO.

Dry gets old really fast.

Would that be Stoatiness, jw?

I think it all counts, PJM. I once spent two hours scowling at some star (of Dallas or Falcon’s Crest or one of those) and her consort while on a long cross-country flight because her publicist had come onboard and asked me not to smoke (we were in first class in a 747, and I was a good 30 feet from her–and smoking was allowed–except, as the publicist informed us, if a passenger requested no smoking).
I should note here that I am a professional scowler; don’t try this at home, kids.

In any case, finally, the consort came over and told us the publicist had been incorrect, that the star had not requested no smoking, and he invited me and my wife to light up at our leisure.

Way to screw up my shot at the world’s longest scowl, fucker.

Oops. Yes, that would be Stoatiness, Steam. My ‘umblest apologies, Your Stoatiness.

I prefer stoutiness.That’s Guiness, right?

I should note here that I am a professional scowler; don’t try this at home, kids.

Is this where, “be careful or your face might stay that way” comes in?

I wasn’t, and it did, PJM.

I always look like I’m judging whatever I happen to be looking at, and am not particularly pleased with the results.

May I just add that that is the most amazingly cool locomotive in The Weasel’s pic?

Even if that nice Mr Ahmadinejad is right and you are all going to hell in a hand basket for being the evil filth spawn of Santa, you guys will go down in history for creating steam locomotives that were works of art and engineering in equal measure.

These things matter…

Engineering marvels are always works of art.

Most of the stuff hanging in museums these days (I’m looking at you Guggie) is just, as RAH has already pointed out, linoleum patterns.

Not bald. My bad. I guess I was thinking of my brother, who got shockingly bald since the last I saw him.

Jeezus, he looks like me! I mean, the resemblance is freakin’ uncanny. Course, I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing an Aunt Ethel necklace like that.

And I don’t smell like patchouli oil.

…And I lost the long hair 10 years ago. I mean, who was I kidding?

Steamboat wrote: Did Lee Harvey Oswald play?

No, he was the lead singer.
http://muddville.homestead.com/files/Ozzy_Oswald.gif