"A berry green, [most] beautiful beetle I’ve ever seen. And I just picked him up and I said, ‘Whoa, you’re so pretty.’ And within seconds, I felt burning through my body."

From "Maine woman picks up ‘beautiful’ bug that caught her eye — it almost killed her" (NY Post).

Notable sentence: "With her kids in tow, the desperate mother bolted straight up a grassy hill — ignoring the park’s windy, paved path — to the park’s gift shop, where she collapsed in front of Dean Martin...."

Can't understand the haircut? It's Maude Frickert!

I'm seeing Scott Adams assert "I can't get past the haircut."

He's looking at this:

🔥BREAKING: Media Matters is on the brink of collapse.

After two decades of smearing conservatives, the Soros-funded attack dog is under siege—from lawsuits by @elonmusk, FTC probes, & state AG investigations. Why? Donor fraud, defamation, & LYING to destroy Twitter.

Thread🧵 pic.twitter.com/LfYzbt7Rsb

— Rod D. Martin (@RodDMartin) July 30, 2025

I'm seeing Maude Frickert:

Sorry about the sexism! I just wanted you to see the wig Jonathan Winters wore back in the 1960s.

"'The Mod Squad' was one of the first prime-time series to acknowledge the hippie counterculture and an early example of multiracial casting."

"It centered on three hippies in trouble with the law, who avoid jail time by joining the police department and working undercover. Mr. Cole was cast as Pete Cochran, a wealthy kid who was kicked out of his parents’ house for stealing a car. [Clarence Williams III] played Linc Hayes, and [Peggy] Lipton played Julie Barnes.... In his 2018 memoir, 'I Played the White Guy,' Mr. Cole described turning down the role, because he did not want to play a character who ratted on troubled teenagers. 'It sounds stupid, and I hope it never gets on air,' Mr. Cole recalled yelling the show’s producer, Aaron Spelling, during the audition. But his attitude was exactly what Mr. Spelling was looking for in Pete Cochran, he said. Ms. Lipton died in 2019, and Mr. Williams died in 2021...."

From "Michael Cole, ‘Mod Squad’ Actor, Dies at 84/Mr. Cole, who played the wealthy Pete Cochran, had been the last of the show’s three stars still living" (NYT).

I remember the opening — where "Julie Barnes" gets out of breath trying to keep up with "Pete" and "Linc" who seem to need to lug her along on their hippie-busting venture — but I don't remember watching the show...

"Dino sings deceptively. You can’t hear any effort, you can barely hear any breathing."

"There’re little slurs and modulations that are as hard to sing as they are easy on the ear. In the bridge, he hits a blue note and then a line or two later ('I heard somebody whisper, please adore me') there is a little waver in his voice that brings to mind Nick Lucas, Tiny Tim’s mentor, who sang the original 'Tip-Toe Thru the Tulips.'"

Writes Bob Dylan about Dean Martin's version of "Blue Moon, in "The Philosophy of Modern Song."

Let's listen to Nick Lucas:

"This year, women around the country have staked out each other’s homes in the name of a quest that gained popularity during the pandemic: raising spirits by giving spirits, anonymously."

"Booze fairies, as they’re called, bring together the childhood thrill of ding-dong ditch with a side of Secret Santa and a dash of adult beverages. Sometimes, they wear wings and a tutu.... Booze fairies operate on a 'pay it forward' philosophy. Participants share their addresses (and alcohol preferences) with volunteer group leaders, who then assign them to various other fairies. Each gift basket comes with a new address to deliver to, and thus a fairy is born.... 'It’s hard to make friends. I’m usually shy... This makes me feel useful. It’s amazing how a little surprise can make you feel excited about what’s next.'"

Another NYT article celebrating women drinking — "Booze Fairies Flit Across America/Neighbors have been donning wings and tutus to deliver adult beverages and other goodies." 

1. No comments section over there, so nobody to naysay about alcohol. 

2. What's the NYT revenue from alcohol ads?

3. That "'pay it forward' philosophy" is the "philosophy" of chain letters and pyramid schemes.

4. I don't remember seeing the phrase "ding-dong ditch" before. It's explained in the Wikipedia article "Knock, Knock, Ginger":

Knock, knock, ginger (also known as knock down ginger, ding dong ditch, chap door run, chappies, knock knock, zoom zoom and numerous variants) is a prank or game dating back to 19th-century England.... It involves knocking on the front door (or ringing the doorbell) of a victim, then running away before the door can be answered.... 

Victims of this prank are not likely to call the police, but if they decide to, the prankster can face charges of trespassing and disturbing the peace.... In Scotland, although the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 establishes universal access rights, the so-called "right to roam" is only permitted where the privacy of others is respected....

5. I found the NYT article via Metafilter, where somebody says, "Nothing sets my teeth on edge like the faux-cutesy phrase 'adult beverage.'" I hear it more as faux-sophistication. But there are plenty of grossly cute locutions for alcohol. I think! For some reason the only one I can think of right now is something that seems to come from the 1950s: "drinky-poo" (or "drinky-winky").

Female privilege.

Happy birthday, @KatyPerry! It’s time to bring out the big balloons! pic.twitter.com/w84DMphK3V

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) October 25, 2017

ADDED: You might think: Katy Perry is not objecting, but what can she do but keep smiling and show herself to be a good sport? She can't improvise, and she can't step on Ellen's effort at comic performance. Ellen is the comedian. She's the comedian with a show, a media outlet to the fans. You can shut that door if you choose, but what's the motivation?

Katy Perry clearly wants her breasts to be noticed and admired — or at least she's decided to use them as devices to further her career. So why would she complain (as long as Ellen doesn't become a target of #MeTooism)?

Ellen is clowning in a style that reminds me of Jerry Lewis, so I went looking for a photo of Jerry Lewis staring at a woman's breasts. I couldn't find one, but I did find this example of Jerry doing the complete opposite of staring at a woman's breasts:

Palate cleanser.

"Last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live exposed the harsh truth of Halloween as an adult..."

"... and it was frankly a little too real."

ADDED: In case you don't have the patience to watch the clip: It shows 3 young women being cutesy about getting ready for Halloween, intercut with scenes from much later in the night where they are falling-down drunk.

I've observed the transition of Halloween into an adult holiday, including some really high-quality manifestations of the trend — most notably the parades in Greenwich Village in the 1970s. And I'm fine with the street parties like Madison's Freakfest. But the adult enthusiasm for Halloween strikes me as just dumb. Why isn't the popular culture more interesting?

As for drinking too much: Don't do that. Actually, I'm surprised that SNL is getting away with doing humor that is basically just showing women getting very drunk. That used to be a staple of TV comedy... Foster Brooks, Dean Martin...



... but I'd thought that had fallen out of favor — what with alcoholism being a disease.

"'The word Messiah is a title and it's a title that has only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ,' Judge Ballew said."

"The word Judge is a title that should not apply to anyone who would ever say that in a ruling."

Yes, and also "Judge" could be a name — Judge Reinhold — and other "titles" are used as names. I think of Prince Rogers Nelson and Sargent Shriver. And Earl Butz.

It is confusing and invites jokes. A bad idea. I don't recommend it. But not everything inadvisable is a legal issue, and the Jesus-is-the-one argument is blatantly wrong.

Interestingly, the Judge in the Messiah incident changed the baby's name to Martin. I was going to add "Dean" as another title that is used as a name and is therefore confusing. But isn't it more confusing to name the kid Martin, since if he ever acquires the title Dean, he'll be Dean Martin, which was the joke of a name used for the Dean in Rodney Dangerfield's "Back to School"?

What are the 200 best #1 songs — going all the way back to 1955?

List-a-Beefy has figured it out and has been posting one song per day, with fascinating/trivial details, since the middle of last week. The person compiling this list has a mind-boggling fixation on the details of the Billboard charts, and this is not just thrown together, believe me. Understand the task: You have a huge group of songs when you look at 52 weeks from 55 years, but you are limited to the songs that made #1. You have to compare songs from vastly different eras. He's got Dean Martin, "Memories Are Made of This" at #199, and "TiK ToK" by Ke$ha at #198.

I mean, if I tried to do this, at least half of it would come from the 60s and there'd be whole years where I feel no emotional attachment to anything. List-a-Beefy is not like that. List-a-Beefy knows what he's doing. And he puts things into a historical framework. For example, when "It's My Party" — #196 — was #1 for 2 weeks in June 1963, replacing Jimmy Soul's "If You Wanna Be Happy," later to be shunted out, in turn by "Sukiyaki," by Kyu Sakamoto, Israel executed Adolf Eichmann. Think about it. I'm inclined to practice my skill at mnemonics with those sets of facts: There's Jimmy Soul, happily scarfing down sukiyaki at a party, while Lesley Gore is crying... over the death of — sorry, Lesley, this is mnemonics — Adolf Eichmann, whose soul drifts by...

Back in 1950, Sammy Petrillo got a haircut, and then everyone started laughing at him and telling him he looked like Jerry Lewis.

From his obituary:

[A]fter several appearances on television variety shows, Mr. Petrillo moved to Los Angeles, where he teamed up with Duke Mitchell, a singer who sang in the smooth-baritone style of Frankie Laine, Vaughn Monroe — and Dean Martin. They put together a nightclub act based primarily on their impersonations of the comedy team Martin and Lewis.

Based on that, the movie producer Jack Broder cast them in a low-budget comedy, “Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla,” opposite Mr. Lugosi. In the movie they played nightclub performers, stranded on a tropical island, who act very much like Martin and Lewis....

... Mr. Lewis’s eldest son, Gary, said: "When Sammy and the other guy played in that gorilla movie, I remember my dad and Dean saying, 'We got to sue these guys — this is no good.'"

See for yourself:



Bonus: Gary Lewis plays drums and sings.

More Beatles on Ed Sullivan. The last of the four Beatles-on-Ed-Sullivan shows is a year and a half after the first three, which occurred on three consecutive weeks. (First show described here.) You'd think the fourth show would look quite different, that the culture would have radically changed, in this year and a half. In fact, The Beatles music was very different. The first three shows featured "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You," and this September 1965 show had "I Feel Fine," "I'm Down," "Act Naturally," "Ticket to Ride," "Yesterday," and "Help," clearly a later Beatle period.

My favorite Beatle moment: After Paul sings "Yesterday," John says, "Ah, thank you Paul. That was just like him."

Perhaps the other performers have advanced a bit, but not much. There's no vaudeville throwback like Tessie O'Shea now, but there's Cilla Black in a gigantic wig, singing "Out of My Head," to a tame big band arrangement. Here's Soupy Sales singing "Hey! Do the Mouse! Do it all through the house." He leaps into the audience doing his new mouse dance: make mouse ears with open hands and stick out your upper teeth and gnaw. He gets all up in people's faces, and mostly they pull back and make an effort to conceal their horror. Barely one in a hundred responds with the appropriate mouse gestures. There's another magician: Fantasio, a serene man in a tuxedo, pulls doves out of scarves while mellow music plays. There's another lame comedy duo (Allen & Rossi).

Ed's still the same. After The Beatles' first set he shushes the audience and says "Now be quiet. Now whom do you listen to when you're buying a carpet?" He introduces Steve Rossi saying "I've asked Steve to sing a very charming song: 'Try to Remember.'" He says to The Beatles, "I'd just like to congratulate the four of you on the way you've handled yourselves."

I must say the commercials have picked up since the earlier Beatles shows. Now we have lots of actors enjoying the products, and even a comic attempt (new All detergent introduced like a movie Coming Attraction). We see the ridiculous George Fenneman (who reminds me of Ryan Seacrest!) riding a strange water-land vehicle to rescue folks at a picnic who are simply unwilling to eat hamburgers in the absence of iced tea. And here's that great classic headache commercial. A woman is happily cooking dinner, when her husband, a man in a suit, comes in the door. She says to him, "Hi, darling, hurry and get ready for dinner. PTA meeting tonight." He completely snaps into a scary, mean guy: "Ellen, please. Don't rush me. I just got home!" The voiceover intones: "Control yourself. Sure you have a headache. You're tense, irritable. But don't take it out on her." Anacin solves the whole problem; apparently, it's a powerfully psychoactive drug. The voiceover assures us: "You're in control again." (Older readers will remember another ad of this type, where the woman cooking is the one who snaps; she says "Mother, please, I'd rather do it myself!")

In the end, Ed tells us about next week: it will be the first color show, with Milton Berle, Eddie Fisher, and Polly Bergen. "And for you youngsters, we'll have the youthful singing trio of Dino, Desi, and Billy." How well I remember when those three ruled the teen magazines (16 and Tiger Beat). Poor Dino--Dean Martin's adorable son--died flying a jet for the National Guard in 1987. One always reads that Dean Martin never recovered. Desi, of course, was the offspring of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Billy was just the other guy. The performance by Dino, Desi, and Billy on that first color Ed Sullivan Show is available on this great DVD.