I’ll begin with some good news from our Beat the Internet department, because I’m pleased to report that I finally found out how to sneak past the irritating year-old paywall on the Dallas Morning News’ website! The secret? Just Google an article’s headline and click through from the search results.
Glorioski! I don’t have to invest $9.95 per month to read Leslie Brenner’s restaurant reviews or screwy local news stories, including ongoing city council wars, the Dallas Arboretum’s proposal to mow a field of wildflowers in order to add extra parking and who killed the buffalo calf in Hunt County.
It’s time once again to wish y’all a happy Cinco de Mayo, the popular but mysterious annual Mexican festival that coincidentally shares the same date this year with the Kentucky Derby and the 20th anniversary of the Los Angeles riots. According to
Wikipedia, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Day of the Battle of Puebla, which was the Mexican army’s victory over French forces on May 5, 1862. I don’t know about
you, but until I read this article about 15 minutes ago I had no idea the French ever set foot in Mexico before Puerto Vallarta started building resorts in the 1980s. And can somebody please explain how
mayonnaise got involved. Thank you.
For the gourmets among you, please note that Amazon offers excellent discount prices on
gefilte fish. I ordered six jars of Manischewitz yesterday for the Howdygram’s pantry and will send Sam to Tom Thumb sometime this weekend to load up on the requisite stockpile of accompanying horseradish. (God bless horseradish.)
Show of hands. Is anybody besides me getting bombarded by AARP? During the past couple of days I’ve received email on the following frightening topics:
- “Our Favorite Recipes for Modern Meatballs.” As opposed to prehistoric meatballs.
- “Eight Places to Find Extra Cash.” Not including Sam’s wallet, right?
- “Songs You Need in Your Music Collection.” They actually recommend “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio. Who the hell is Coolio?
- “How to Choose the Right Nursing Home.” Swell.
- “What Your Fingernails Are Trying to Tell You.” I’m not listening. Tell them to send me an email.
And finally, I’d like to recommend an amazing old movie I saw yesterday ...
Dynamite (1929) starring Charles Bickford, Kay Johnson and Conrad Nagel and directed by Cecil B. DeMille (his first talking picture). Here’s a quick peek at the plot. A shallow flapper socialite (Kay Johnson) is set to inherit millions from her grandfather but only if she’s married on her 23rd birthday. Since Johnson’s boyfriend (Nagel) is an already-married man with an estranged wife who refuses to divorce him, she gets a brainstorm — this is the good part! — to marry a
condemned convict (Bickford) who’s scheduled to die 24 hours later. He thinks she’s crazy but agrees to go through with it after she hands him $10,000 to help support his kid sister, who would end up in an orphanage after his execution. (Note: THIS IS NOT A COMEDY.) After a tear-jerker wedding scene on death row with background noise from workmen pounding on the gallows, Bickford is pardoned at the last minute after the real killer confesses, and then he surprises his new wife by showing up on her doorstep to honor their marriage vows. Holy crap, right? Others in the cast include Julia Faye and Joel McCrea, who’s very young and very adorable.
A strange-but-true fact: Kay Johnson is the mother of actor James Cromwell, who played the farmer in
Babe and the corrupt police captain in
L.A. Confidential.
Ah, bedtime at last. Thank you for reading this.
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