Let's go ahead and put these three together:

6/2576. Francis (1950)
11/2581. Francis Goes to the Races (1951)
18/2588. Francis Goes to West Point (1952)

Once upon a time, one of my grandmothers expressed surprise that I'd never seen the Francis the Talking Mule movies. (Honestly, I don't remember which grandmother, and they're both long gone now so I can't ask. If I had to guess, it was probably Granny; she was a lifelong devoted fan of the "picture shows," even if she thought they got too coarse from the 1970s onward. In hindsight, I think she had a point.)

Thanks to TCM, I finally made the effort to watch the first three. (There are seven in all, but Donald O'Connor and Chill Wills are only in the first six.) I'm happy to report that these three are indeed quite enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed the talking mule providing secret assistance to the West Point football coach. The highest complement I can pay is that they make me want to read the book that inspired them.

More to come.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dear diary family movies

My favorite barbeque joint is celebrating 100 years in business, so I painted them a birthday card:

That logo was designed by David Boyd and has been part of their street sign since at least 1992 when I worked my first ever summer job there as a curb hop, a position they have since eliminated, maybe because they had a hard time finding qualified curb hops. In my case, I just wrote whatever the customer said on my pad and handed it to the employee behind the register who re-wrote the order for the kitchen. Not that I didn't try; I think they just didn't trust me to take the orders correctly, and in all honesty, they were probably right. In addition to being my first job, it was the first job I was fired from.

(Don't feel bad for me. As lowest man on the totem pole, it was also my job to clean the barbeque pit every night. Being fired from shoveling grease out of an oven was an undisguised blessing. And I've since been fired from many jobs, so it would prove to be good training.)

Here's to one hundred more!

Comments (2) | Leave a Comment | Tags: art dear diary diy sprayberrys

Flower

I first heard of Phair in 1993 in the Mazda Miata with Mom during the afternoon rush hour commute between Emory University and Newnan when Phair's debut Exile in Guyville album was reviewed on NPR.

Thanks to the Internet, I can tell you that day must have been Tuesday, July 20,¹ when Ken Tucker reviewed Exile in Guyville, released in June 1993, for Terry Gross's Fresh Air. That was the summer before my freshman year at Emory, so what was I doing in the car? Was I working part-time in the Pediatric Infectious Diseases office with Mom before my work-study position started in August, or was I just killing time driving the convertible around downtown Atlanta while Mom was working? Could have been either.)

The Internet also makes it possible for me to transcribe Tucker's praise for this song in particular:

There's a thin quality to Exile in Guyville. It ends up making you think that Liz Phair is something of a dabbler, that If this rock thing doesn't work out, she'll take up painting or maybe just use her trust fund to live in Paris for a while. But there's a core of about four or five songs here that are really first rate, and one in particular, called "Flower," that I can't play on the radio but which is as fine and bold a song as I've heard about sexual obsession.

Obviously, I had to have any album with that kind of recommendation. I probably bought the cassette at the Tower Records behind Lennox Mall, and I recall playing it quite a bit during the long commutes between Atlanta and Newnan. Listening to Phair always made me feel rebellious and cool, as good rock music should. "I'll take you home and make you like it," indeed.

Thanks, Internet!

¹ The Internet tells me July 20, 1993², was the same day that the press box caught on fire at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium, which 90s Atlanta Braves fans will recall as the day that Fred "Crime Dog" McGriff made his debut for the team, in his third at-bat hitting a home run to drive in Ron Gant to tie the game at 5-5 in the 6th inning. The fire didn't start until 6, so I think we found out about the fire after we got home. The fire delayed the game start until after 9; I might have watched it, but I don't have any memory of that.

² You know what else happened on July 20, 1993? Some guy named Vince Foster committed suicide. And no one ever uttered his name again.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dear diary family internet liz fair mom music one word wonders youtube

Look, I love Benson Boone's "Mystical Magical" as much as the next guy, but after hearing it in every commercial break since ESPN's coverage of the U.S. Open used it for intro and outro bumpers in August through this week's NFL coverage, maybe there is such a thing as overexposure.

I'm not alone in thinking that. There is, Google assure me, a pretty sizable backlash to the rapid, overt commercialization of Mr. Boone's music. Selling out is fine in America; greed, not so much. The singer and his team are aware of this, and his music video for "Mr. Electric Blue" makes a good-natured joke of it by removing any hint of the hypocrisy that pollutes the modern zeitgeist. (Yes, despite being an old fogey who doesn't really care for music, I do watch music videos on YouTube as the Internet Gods intended. The old-school media's widely reported recent death of Music Television has been greatly exaggerated; music videos are not dead, linear television is.)

It's kind of a funny thing to say that you could hear any piece of music "too much." Despite the tendency of human beings (at least American human being) to resent the familiar, there are a bunch of songs I just never get tired of hearing. Back in the day when I was a waiter at Chili's, the chain played tapes of licensed music over and over until the entire wait staff would gather around the back office cassette player and argue over which tapes management was NOT allowed to play again that day. (No tapes were ever destroyed, but some were occasionally hidden. I hope they still haven't been found.) Despite the repetition, there was one song on those tapes that I could never get sick of. I bet you'd never guess that it was "Silly Love Songs" by Wings. Live and let die, indeed.

Several Paul McCartney songs, both with and without co-writer John Lennon, are high on my list of endless listening, which probably demonstrates that I have a high tolerance for what McCartney is interested in writing: the poppiest of pop music. Fizzy, friendly, sugary pop music. Overproduced sounds that have a good beat and you can dance to, lyrics that really shouldn't be thought about too hard. That's my jam. Music crafted to please the widest possible music-illiterate crowd, "Moonbeam ice cream" sort of stuff, like Dua Lipa, Katie Perry, Madonna, Michael Jackson, or, say, Olivia Newton John.

And please crowds they do. Why else would Madison Avenue adapt catchy tunes for advertising in Apple product ads or the memorable '90s Philips campaign that used the Beatles "Getting Better" (somehow always fading out just before the "it can't get no worse" refrain) or this year's sanitized-for-Christmas "Greased Lightnin'" (with zero creaming girls) or Target's 2025 commercials of their animated Get-Ready Yeti dancing to "Mystical Magical."

Okay, fine. I'm not sick of moonbeam ice cream just yet. 'Cause once you know, once you know...

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: advertising dear diary music

It's once again time for the annual Little League World Series, and as usual, ESPN loves to share the favorite foods, celebrities, and school subjects of participating 11 and 12-year-olds. One of them says he would spend lottery winnings buying the Boston Red Sox, which would have to be one hell of a jackpot. But it was another one that really got me thinking: when asked who he most wanted to meet, his answer was "my future self." Damn, kid, that's a monkey's paw wish if I ever heard one.

What tween is going to be satisfied with their adult form? Every pre-adolescent kid I ever knew thought they were pretty close to perfect, and why shouldn't they? Childhood is a responsibility-free zone, our parents live to tell us how great we are, and teen literature YouTube videos^[1] are full of stupid adults who crash every party, stamp out all the fun, and make stupid decisions that ruin the world. That last bit is far more accurate than most "adults" would care to admit.. Allow me to point out that the Hippies grew into Yuppies. Logan's Run may have a point.

So what happens when a kid looks at their future self and realizes that they "sold out"? In Back to the Future II, Doc Brown is careful to keep Marty away from his future self, who has become a corporate tool and a total loser. That's ironically funny to the audience, sure, because Marty spent the first movie being such a cool, confident teen that he made his dopey father cool by association; to see that Marty eventually becomes his father is obviously his worst nightmare^[2] and good dramatic structure. But if Cool Marty met Middle-Age Marty, as Doc Brown would say, that probably is going to result in the destruction of the entire universe. Or at least the local galaxy. In either case, Cool Marty's self-confidence is going to be badly shaken.

Obviously, I think I'd probably be a disappointment to my younger self. Sure, I have a better control on my temper, much stronger purchasing power, and I've read a whole bunch more books. However, I'm also bald, worried about my health,^[3] and live in a basement. I'm sure I didn't have exactly lofty expectations—I never wanted to be particularly rich or famous so much as I just wanted people to recognize how wonderful I am and then leave me alone—but how satisfying could it have been to learn that mentally I'll be largely the same anti-social, anxiety-riddled, selfish prick I was in the 7th grade (now with temperature-sensitive teeth and extra poodles)?

So do yourselves a favor, kids. When ESPN asks you who you want to meet, just say Shaquille O'Neal. Everyone loves Shaq.

^[1] According to the Associated Press, in Oct 2024 only 14% of school-age kids read books for fun anymore. I don't know what the percentage was back in my day; I've seen unqualified statistics that suggest it may have been closer to 50%, but I have doubts it was that high. Judging only by my own experience and how excited my coterie of friends always got for the Scholastic Book Fair, I'm inclined to say it was closer to 100%. But we didn't really hang around the baseball playing crowd.

^[2] Every kid's worst nightmare? Just me?

^[3] Seriously, the most memorable scene for me in Beverly Hills Cop is Billy telling Sarge about the concerning amount of undigested red meat in the bowels of a 50-year-old man. I'm trying, Billy. I'm trying.

^[4] Sorry about all these footnotes. I may have become a bit conditioned because the book I just finished seems to average one footnote per page... for over 400 pages. That book, by the way, was Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, which is nonfiction anthropology about exactly what it says on the cover. Twelve-year-old Walter would *definitely* be disappointed in what I choose to read for "fun" these days.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: baseball dear diary espn movies walter

While following a link to the recently announced song that will be the theme for Peacemaker Season 2 ("Oh Lord" by Foxy Shazam), I noticed that YouTube has helpfully created a Mix, which they describe as "a nonstop playlist tailored to you." I always say I'm not really a music guy, so it's very kind of YouTube to decide for me what music I like.

This is the first 50 songs (eliminating duplicate artists) in my current Mix. Let's see how the algorithm did.

1. "One Night in Bangkok," Murray Head (1984)
2. "Original Sin," Taylor Dayne (1994)
3. "Maps," Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2003)
4. "Chaise Lounge," Wet Leg (2022)
5. "Owner of a Lonely Heart," Yes (1983)
6. "Mr. Blue Sky," Electric Light Orchestra (1977)
7. "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)," R.E.M. (1987)
8. "Breakfast at Tiffany's," Deep Blue Something (1994)
9. "Only Happy When It Rains," Garbage (1996)
10. "Teenage Dirtbag," Wheatus (2000)
11. "All the Things She Said," t.A.T.u. (2002)
12. "That’s Not My Name," The Ting Tings (2008)
13. "Got My Mind Set On You," George Harrison (1987)
14. "Video Killed the Radio Star," The Buggles (1980)
15. "Dancing Queen," ABBA (1976)
16. "You're the Best Around," Joe Espisito (1984)
17. "Do Ya Wanna Taste It," Wig Wam (2005)
18. "Loser," Beck (1994)
19. "Buddy Holly," Weezer (1994)
20. "Here It Goes Again," OK Go (2005)
21. "I Love It," Icona Pop (2013)
22. "You should be sad," Halsey (2020)
23. "I Ran (So Far Away)," Flock of Seagulls (1982)
24. "Head Over Heals," Tears for Fears (1985)
25. "Burning Down the House," Talking Heads (1983)
26. "You Can Call Me Al," Paul Simon (1986)
27. "Message in a Bottle," The Police (1979)
28. "Love Will Tear Us Apart," Joy Division (1980)
29. "Steppin' Out," Joe Jackson (1982)
30. "Mr. Roboto," Styx (1983)
31. "Daydream Believer," The Monkees (1967)
32. "End of the Line," The Traveling Wilburys (1988)
33. "Miami Dolphins Number One," Lee Ofman (1972)
34. "Paint It, Black," The Rolling Stones (1966)
35. "The Passenger," Iggy Pop (1977)
36. "Coming Up," Paul McCartney (1980)
37. "Steal My Sunshine," Len (1999)
38. "Groove Is In The Heart," Deee-Light (1990)
39. "Don't You Want Me," The Human League (1981)
40. "Blue Monday," New Order (1983)
41. "Take On Me," a-ha (1985)
42. "Come On Eileen," Dexys Midnight Runners (1982)
43. "In a Big Country," Big Country (1983)
44. "Cars," Gary Numan (1979)
45. "C'mon, Let's Do It," Gerhard Heinz (1977)
46. "Turn It On Again," Genesis (2004)
47. "Life In a Northern Town," Dream Academy (1985)
48. "Flash's Theme," Queen (1980)
49. "Roam," B-52s (1985)
50. "Breakout," Swing Out Sister (1986)

Wow. If I was picking songs for myself, that's not the list I would have made. I mean, if I only get one Genesis song, I'd prefer it was "Land of Confusion" with its overt Superman reference and kick-ass electronic drums. But I cannot deny that yes, that is all Walter Music. I have a real emotional connection to some of those.

I see where your head is, YouTube programmers: audio honeypots! Nostalgia captures eyeballs, even mine.

The one song on that list that stands out to me is "Love Will Tear Us Apart," which is fine; it's just not a song I ever seek out. (I don't recall ever even Googling it. Is it there because of "Blue Monday," the Joy Division/New Order connection?) I also find it interesting that despite including Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and two Beatles, only three of the above performances are older than I am. Fun fact: As I type this in 2025, there are more surviving Stones (3) than Monkees (1).

In case you're curious, as I was: the average year is 1989, the median 1985, the mode 1983 (5). That sounds about right, as '83 was the year of Thriller. I still remember where I was when I watched the debut of the video on MTV (on a cabinet-sized, wood-paneled television with knobs!). We watched a lot of MTV in '83. We also watched a lot of Night Tracks on the TBS Superstation in the wee hours of Friday nights. That's what we had to do before YouTube, kids: stay up real late in the hopes that they would play our favorite songs.

And yes, I just listened to every song on that list again. Don't stop to ask. And now you've found a break to make at last. You've got to find a way. Say what you want to say. Breakout.

Comments (2) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dear diary music superman walter youtube

Dad, reading my t-shirt: "I don't get it."

I tried to explain.

Dad, confused: "They made a whole band of dogs?"

Honestly, I'm still not sure if he was just fucking with me.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dad dear diary family music

Immediately after I say I'm running to the store to buy milk, Mom asks, "What are you going to bring back for dinner tonight?"

"I've made dinner for the past two weeks," I say. "So the question should be what do *you* want to make us for dinner?"

Mom didn't even pause before replying, "I guess we're going out to eat tonight."

By which, it has now been revealed, she meant that I was to order take-out. So now, in addition to my trip to the grocery store, I'm also making a detour to the local barbecue joint.

Me and my big mouth.

Comments (1) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dear diary family food mom

Today, while researching how Ron Howard made the decision to quote the myth and not the facts of "Houston, we've had a problem," I realized that more time has passed since the release of the movie Apollo 13 than had passed between the actual events and the movie. By several years, actually.

I distinctly remember thinking about how long ago the JFK assassination was when Oliver Stone made his movie about it while I was in high school. That was just 28 years since the event. It's been 34 years since the movie came out.

And don't even get me started on how I thought the year 1955 was the ancient past when I watched a particular movie released three decades later in 1985, itself now four decades in the rear view mirror.

Obviously, both the past and the future are much closer than I thought.

There's nothing I can do now about my younger self's misimpressions, but obviously I am past due in reevaluating how I interpret the effects of the passage of time on living memory. Maybe the events in that galaxy far, far away didn't happen quite so long ago as I once imagined.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dear diary history movies

You might think I'm kidding, but I really did just take this off the refrigerator:

Yes, those are cowboy boots with little jets in the heels. And no, there never was a time in my life when I wasn't obsessed with comic book super heroes.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: art dear diary family mom