The Beatles "Love" Larry King

Last night’s Larry King interview with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison was amazing. They were at the Mirage in Las Vegas celebrating the one-year anniversary of Cirque du Soleil's Beatles show, Love. The interview was great.

Larry has that annoying “Stop interrupting my questions with your answers” attitude. He asks things like, “Do you ever just want to pinch yourself when you wake up in the morning thinking, I’m a Beatle?” and as a follow up, “Tell me about John’s death.”

Larry King asks Ringo, how is life? To which Ringo answers, "Life is great."
How's the wife? "Great!"
And gorgeous. "She’s gorgeous and she's great."

Then Larry immediately turns to Sir Paul: And Paul, how are you adjusting to what was tumultuous times? (Referring to Paul’s divorce.)
"I'm okay, thank you Larry, thank you for asking," with just a touch of irony that cracks Ringo up. "I'm doing surprisingly well."
Larry: I mean that had to be rough. "It is currently rough, it is very rough, but I don't talk about it and that helps."
Larry, who’s been through a few tumultuous times himself, takes the hint: But life's good aside from that? "Life is good, life's good, life is wonderful. And with friends like these, who needs life?"

They remained cheerfully cocky and occasionally cynical toward Larry, just like they always have treated the press. Especially when Larry called Ringo, George. Paul mocked Larry like crazy, until Ringo told Paul, "Tell the man what he wants to know."

Then there was this odd moment:

Larry, bringing Yoko and Olivia back on: We're going to bring out the widows.
Ringo: The Widow Cranky.

Which I believe is some totally obscure reference to an old old old British pantomime. Regardless of where the remark came from, it could have been seen as completely inappropriate. Yoko had commented earlier that one of the things that first impressed her with the Beatles was their humor, and that other composers had always struck her as so serious, but the Beatles were constantly clowning. Putting your foot in your mouth probably just goes with the job.

But some of the interview they took quite sincerely:

Larry asks about whether or not George’s death had been a surprise (which was a typically lame question since he suffered with cancer for a while). Paul begins to talk about his last visit with George. As he tells the story, he takes Ringo’s hand quite tenderly and says how he held George’s hand, just like this, how this was a guy he’d known since childhood and you don’t hold hands, and it is really a tremendously candid moment. To which Larry touchingly responds: “Let’s go to a commercial. And tomorrow night, Paris Hilton’s first interview since her release from jail!” He says to the lads, “You’ve heard of her.” And Paul and Ringo just stare dumbfounded.

Mother's Opinion

Mother (again, for those who are new, this is my hilarious nickname for my wife) had this to say about the blog:

"Your blog is a bit of a joke."

She is so hard to impress! So why did she marry me?

Restaurant Review 2: Hershey's Restaurant

Restaurant: Hershey's Restaurant
Location: 17030 Oakmont Ave, Gaithersburg, Maryland
Rating: Two Hobbits out of Five

We've been eating out a lot lately since our dishwasher broke. The repair has taken a long time... but that's another story.

Thanks to our handy GPS system, we can find lots of new restaurants, and the kids were thrilled to find "Hershey's Restaurant" listed near our home. The road wound through the nearby woods along the railroad. As we drove, the kids speculated about what Hershey's Restaurant would be like. Number One imagined a chocolate buffet. Number Two was certain it would be made of chocolate.

Mother said, "I think this place may have trouble living up to expectations."

However, when we arrived, Mother and I were nicely surprised. The place literally was a whistle stop cafe -- the only other building in sight was the small passenger shelter for the train stop across the road. We entered through the back and made our way through a fairly charming atmosphere: yellow and teal painted decor with lots of nicknacks and a Peter Rabbit mural in the front room.

The food was passable, but the servings were very generous. We all ended up with more than we could eat. The servers were a little slow and frequently bumbled our orders, which proved beneficial to One. The kids all wanted a second soda, but I said they could have water. The server, however brought water for Numbers Two and Three; Number One got a second Sprite much to her glee.

Now came the test. The Ice Cream. When we entered, we'd all noticed a cute Dutch door in the corner with a Hershey's Ice Cream sign hanging over it. The top of the door was open and it looked like there was a little dessert kitchen back there. However, the waitress never suggested dessert, so I asked if they had ice cream. She said, "Just Vanilla." What!? That lost them a Hobbit right there. So we came home for ice cream and saved ourselves at least ten dollars.

Still, Mother and I might go back. Maybe. We still have a lot of other untried restaurants to explore on the GPS.

A little local history: The building for Hershey's Restaurant was built in the 1890's and for about 90 years housed the local post office. It also served as a general store that evolved into a restaurant starting in 1952. It was run by a family named Hershey and (much to the kids' disappointment) has nothing to do with the Hershey Chocolate Company.

It Looks Purple to Me

Mother and I painted Number Three’s bedroom on Friday night. Three had gone off to her first sleep over at a friend’s home (where, incidentally, the friend’s brother had returned home from Scout camp early when 175 Boy Scouts contracted a norovirus that spread like wildfire through the camp. The next day, Three’s friend came down with the norovirus, so we’ve just been counting down for the 48 hour incubation period to pass and keeping our fingers crossed).

Mother told Three that when she came back in the morning from her sleep over, her room would be painted, to which Three replied, “You mean it won’t be blank any more?” Number three is seven years old and her description of her room as blank was very apt. Her room has remained the beat up flat white it was when we moved in seven years ago. Blank was the perfect description of the wall color. With a little coaching from Mother, Three picked out a beautiful lavender paint. Real men call it purple.

Mother spent the day readying the room and painting the trim. After all that prep, there was no way I would get the satisfaction of being the one to roll on the paint. Besides, Mother has come to distrust my skills with a brush to some extent. I was the brush cleaner, the electrical outlet handler, the scraper and sander. I was not the painter. Still, after an hour I was covered in paint!

After a few hours, though, there came a point where I wasn’t feeling useful. I thought to myself, “Mother’s parents (my in-laws), always did these kinds of projects together, and neither of them needed to be told by the other what to do. If I was one of them right now, what would I see that needs to be done?” Then I knew Mother would hate to paint the paneled closet and bedroom doors. The way things usually go is that we finish the room except the doors, and then the doors are a big pain in the neck and never get done. So I did those, and Mother adored my self-direction and determination. By the time the room was all painted (at 3 a.m.!), the doors were already done. Sometimes I just need to put myself in someone else’s shoes in order to know what to do… my shoes are rarely that smart.

Speaking of shoes, I’m not the only one who gets covered in paint, as this photo attests. Mother stepped off a chair right into the bucket.

By the way, if you want to know why you don’t want a norovirus, read this. But trust me, you really don't want to know.

Restaurant Review 1: Tara Thai

Restaurant: Tara Thai
Location: 9811 Washingtonian Blvd, Gaithersburg, Maryland
Rating: Three Hobbits out of Five

The Wanders Review: First, why Hobbits? They're cute and they have hairy feet. So what did I think of Tara Thai? I really would only give it two Hobbits, but it is such a busy place and I'm so insecure about my own convictions that popular opinion has influenced my score upward. If you like eating seafood inside a fish tank with all the fish and whales staring at you with a look in their eyes like, "Don't eat that little shrimp, he's my brother," then this is the place for you. Mother (that's my really hilarious old-fashioned nickname for my wife... well, I think it's hilarious) and I were seated at a table with drawings of sharks swimming over an undersea photo of a starfish. Little halogen lights were dressed up as jelly fish. The walls were covered with aqua green and blue murals of sea creatures converging on a sunken vessel like my bowling league at a buffet. I'm sure there were many dead bodies inside the ship that the fish were going to feed upon. Oh, the irony.

Mother said, "Look up. There is a scuba diver on the ceiling." I turned and hanging above me was a real scuba diver dangling from the rafters by fishing line (again, ironic. Perhaps the fish in the mural strung him up there). What gave me the chills, though, was that his dead eyes were wide open and staring through his scuba mask directly down at me! Creepy.

I really don't believe you need to eat the food at a restaurant before you review it, so I didn't bother to try an entree. Mother and I had wandered in for dessert. We ordered the mango sticky rice which was pretty good. I looked around at other people's plates and the food looked pretty good. The entrees looked pretty big. At the table across the way, a couple of French women were talking French while their two daughters ran all over the restaurant making noise. They seemed to like the food. They ate a lot of it. How do the French do that? They eat and eat and stay so skinny. So, I say, based on the way people seemed to be enjoying their meals, give Tara Thai a "trai" - Hee hee.

Man, I'm funny. Just ask Mother.

Plus WHAT??

Yesterday I had to drive to Southern Maryland on business. I got a little sleepy so I stopped at a gas station to pick up a Diet Pepsi. All they had was Coke, which is usually an acceptable alternative to the much superior Pepsi.

I noticed through the glass door of the cooler something I’d never seen before. It was a soda bottle with a pale blue cap and label that said, “Diet Coke Plus – with Vitamins and Minerals.”

“Gosh,” I thought, taking the bait hook, line and sinker, “it’s healthy!”

Well, given the fact that the bottle looks like a bottle of medicine, I shouldn't have been surprised to find out it tasted like someone had dissolved chalk in my cola.

So I looked at the label to see what I was drinking. After caffeine, there were a few vitamins listed: zinc gluconate, niacinamide (vitamin B3), pyridoxine hydrochloride (B6), cyanocobalamin (B12). I’m sorry but this is sounding more like something I’d bleach my hair with, rather than drink.

Then I saw that it has aspartame in it as a sweetener, and I did a little Google Search – which is different from Research I admit – and found out that all this low carb stuff I've been eating has been setting me up for a nasty case of lymphoma and brain tumors in a few years. Suddenly, I'm thinking that sugar is a heck of a lot healthier than Diet Coke - or even Diet Pepsi - no matter how many vitamins they add!

Low Bridge, Everybody Down

Lock 1 of the C&O Canal is two blocks from my office. It has been beautifully preserved - in fact the National Park Service still operates a tourist barge along a short stretch of it near the shopping district of Georgetown.

One of my favorite lunchtime walks is to follow the tow path for about 20 minutes and then turn around and come back. I can get pretty far along the path, well past the touristy areas. Yesterday, I'd walked past Georgetown and was on a broad stretch without anyone in sight except the cars up above on Canal St. So I felt wonderfully alone.

I was watching the baby mosquitoes that have come out by the millions skipping across the surface of the muddy water, when I noticed some bubbles simmering about ten feet off the bank. I wondered if there was some sort of vent at the bottom of the canal. The bubbles began to slowly intensify, and I started to worry, "What if somebody's down there?" What if someone had fallen in and these were their lasts gasps of life. The water really started to stir, and then suddenly this very decayed, green hand shot up out of the water!

Well... that's what I thought it was anyway, and I jumped nearly out of my shoes. Till the dead hand looked at me like I was some sort of idjit. Turns out it was a huge turtle. It treaded water, staring at me. I stared back amazed at the size of this thing. We communed for a moment and I wished someone had been there to see it. I also wished I had a camera phone so I could show you how huge it was. Trust me, it was huge.

The C&O in the C&O Canal stands for Chesapeake and Ohio. It was originally designed to carry barges from Washington DC to Pittsburgh (in the Ohio Valley) and back. Construction started in the 1820's along the banks of the Potomac River. They got as far as Cumberland in Western Maryland - about 184 miles. After a controversial history, President Nixon designated it a National Park for me and thousands of others to walk, bike and jog along. (I just do the walking since I'm usually wearing a tie.)

Want more info on the Canal? Click here.

Flag Day: Burn Your Flag

Yesterday was Flag Day, one of my favorite holidays. Come on, it's the FLAG!

I have a couple of pet peeves, though, about idjits who think they're patriotic and then totally disrespect the flag.

First, thank heaven our post-9/11 patriotism is starting to wane. After 9/11, it was like how the whole country became Red Sox fans when the Sox won the World Series. People who had never displayed a flag in their lives suddenly started hooking them to their car windows (which is not how you display a flag on a car, by the way), and then they'd drive down the freeway at 70 miles an hour submitting Old Glory to gale force winds. After a week of that kind of beating, the flags were thrashed, shredded and tattered. I want to know what happened to these flags? Were they disposed of properly? Not likely. I suspect millions of flags ended up in the garbage. How patriotic.

Which leads to my second pet peeve:
Who are these yahoos who think a Constitutional Amendment preventing the burning of flags is a good idea? First, it violates our already established rights of free expression. Second, any Boy Scout can tell you that the proper way to dispose of the flag (that you just beat the crud out of on your car) is to burn it. That's right, BURN IT.

Have a flag that needs to be retired? You might try contacting your local Boy Scout council. Many councils have a Scout troop specially designated to dispose of flags properly. If your local Council doesn't have such a troop, then visit Flagkeepers.org and they can give you more options. In fact, you can even send your flag to them, and they'll take care of it for you.

Can I be funny without anybody getting hurt?

Did you watch last night's episode of "Last Comic Standing?" I'd never seen it before but the season premiere was on while I was folding laundry. I got some good laughs out of it, but when the funniest comic is a guy in a gorilla suit, I just don't think it bodes well for the show. What the show didn't do is demonstrate how really hard stand up comedy is. I haven't done it for almost six years now - the reason being that on September 5, 2001, I made my triumphant return to the stand up microphone and then the following Tuesday it was 9/11 and I totally lost my sense of humor for a few years.

I find that as a grown up, events just seem to constantly transpire against my attempts to entertain. Having our first baby really killed my desire to make people laugh - I was just too scared and freaked out. Then, when I finally got the drive back, Boom (no pun intended), 9/11.

So, I'm thinking I'll try blogging. It strikes me as a healthy lunchtime activity. I can't promise to be funny, or even mildly interesting. We'll just have to wait and see. Gadz, I hope trying to be creative again doesn't bring about some sort of horrific natural disaster!