The funny thing is that in the ‘burbs, nobody walks to Walmart or McDonald’s. As that rarest of creatures in the Tampa ‘burbs — someone who rides a bike for more than just exercise, but to run errands — I practically own the sidewalks on all the major “stroads”.
Thanks to Duarte da Silva for the photo!
Yesterday, this image was posted to Facebook:
Click the photo to see it at full size.
That’s Berke Breathed, the artist and writer behind famed 1980s comic strip Bloom County, working on new Bloom County comics on a Wacom tablet-equipped iMac. He captioned the photo with the line: “A return after 25 years. Feels like going home.”
A day later — a couple of hours ago at the time of this writing — this comic appeared on his Facebook feed:
Click the comic strip to see it at full size.
Welcome back, Berke, Opus, Milo, and hopefully the rest of the Bloom County crew. I missed you guys.
First, take the 80s group Culture Club, the folks behind Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?, Time (Clock of the Heart), and Church of the Poison Mind, and whose members have aged remarkably well:
then add the “we thought they were Brits, but they’re American” alt-rock band Book of Love, who had a hit with Boy (I own the 12″ maxi-single) and seemed to always open for Depeche Mode in the early to mid-80s:
Now jump forward a few years and bring in the dance floor crowd-pleasers C + C Music Factory. At this point, this oddball collection of bands is probably making you go hmmm…
…then stay in the same area but take a sharp left turn and bring in My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult (if you saw the film Cool World, you might remember their single, Sex on Wheels):
Next, introduce Marc Almond. Perhaps you haven’t heard of him on his own, but you’ve most certainly heard the synthpop group of which he made one-half: Soft Cell, as in Tainted Love:
And finally, to make sure that the lineup can only get better, add the one and only Howard Jones:
Then gather them together somewhere on Madeira Beach, one of the barrier island cities just off the coast in St. Petersburg, which isn’t all too far away from where I live now…
…and declare it a concert and “unity festival to promote racial, religious and sexual-orientation tolerance.” It happening on Saturday, August 15th at Madeira Beach Park at 3:00 p.m., and tickets run the range of $30 to $179.
This lineup’s just a little too delightfully oddball to resist. Who wants to catch this with me in the cheap seats?
Let other people remember Michel Demitri Chaloub — better known as Omar Sharif — for his roles in Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and Funny Girl, or for being a top-ranked bridge player:
That’s right, he even had bridge-playing software named after him!
I’ll remember him for him as Agent Cedric, the hapless secret agent in the Elvis movies-meets-spy films parody Top Secret!
For more about how Omar Sharif ended up in a comedy made by the same people who made Airplane!, check out this Entertainment Weekly article, where he’s fondly remembered by David Zucker.
Requiescat in pace, Mr. Sharif.
Pictured below: evidence of two fashion crimes and one real one:
Found via @RedditCFB. Click the photo to see the source.
Yesterday, while fetching the dead trees from our snail-mailbox, I noticed that the little label inside had been updated:
What a lovely gift for our fourth monthaversary! Thank you, US Postal Service or our homeowner’s association (I figure it had to be one of them)!
The happy couple, on their honeymoon at Walt Disney World.
Thanks to Alex Downie and Jill Nurse for the find!