Welcome to the New Years’ Edition of Remarkable Information, my friends! On this occasion, it’s helpful to remember the words of Dr. Bombay on Bewitched: “We are time’s bitch.” And I know exactly what he meant! The Past no longer exists, the Future hasn’t happened yet, and Pffffffft! There goes Now! What we are left with is a handful of memories, a digital clock that we got for our Bar Mitzvah, and a soupcon of regret that we never appeared on The Joe Franklin Show. But there’s always hope! And that’s why we make New Year’s Resolutions (a tradition started by British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in 1877, but that’s another story!). In any event, here is Mr. Remarkable Information’s New Year’s Resolutions for 2014 (Buddhist Calendar 2557). In the coming year, I would like to…
• Learn more about the exciting field of Endocriminology, in which specialists study hormones to determine patterns of criminal behavior.
• Finally watch seasons 3 – 8 of Bonar of the North, a Canadian detective show starring Bonar Bain, the identical twin brother of TV’s Conrad Bain.
• Continue my fight to get Sue Simmons back on the evening news, at all costs!
• Remember that “at all costs” doesn’t mean going to the extremes I went to during The Great Chauncey Howell Battle of 1992.
• Confuse my friends and loved ones by saying “Damn! I’m out of snuff! Do you know if the snuff store is open this time of night? I think it’s on Court Street, right next to Popeyes. Because, boy, I could sure use a soupcon of snuff.”
• Make time to demand to see more of those Elevator Inspection Certificates they have on file in The Management’s Office. You never know who you’re gonna meet!
• Take that class at the Learning Annex that teaches you how to distinguish David Denby from Tom Bosley.
• Confuse my friends and loved ones by saying “Come to think of it, there isn’t a snuff store next to Popeyes. Really, there’s just a guy who hangs out in front of Popeyes selling snuff.”
• Try out this phrase on friends and loved ones: “Say, as long as I am going to get some snuff, do you need anything from Popeyes?”
• Complete my doctoral thesis, “Mr. Coffee, The George Foreman Grill of its’ Day: The dawn of the sports veteran as elder-statesman pitchman and how this revitalized confidence in the Establishment in the post-Watergate Era.”
• Stop my annoying habit of loudly informing people in bars that they are pronouncing “Smithwicks” incorrectly.
• Make sure that every time I order a sandwich from a Subway Sandwich Technician, I say “May I have a soupcon of mustard with that?”
And now, THE THREE-DOT ROUNDUP! Meteorologists talk about golf-ball sized hail, but I’ve never heard a sports announcer talk about a hail-sized golf ball…If there’s a classier guy in the music industry than Michael Des Barres, I’ve never met him…I have a nice feeling about Ruben Tejada making a comeback with the Metropolitans in ’14, don’t you?…Do you know who was one of the sexiest funny ladies of 1970s television? Patti Deutsch, that’s who…Is there anything sadder than the sight of a closed Carvels?… Here’s a synonym for “heroic,” “classy,” and “courageous”: Robin Roberts…There IS such a thing as Too Mucho Deniro: Hey, Bob DeNiro – I just turned on WINS, and apparently this is STILL a free country. That’s good news! It means you ARE allowed to say “no” to movie roles. Geez, Bobby, I half expect to wake up and see that you’re appearing in a remake of “Inchon”…Ralph Kiner is 91 and Don Pardo is 95, and they’re still both showing up for work, so what’s your excuse?…Has there ever been a politician with a groovier name than the last governor of Mexican California, Pio Pico?… From the promenade, I’ve never seen the downtown skyline looking anything less than majestic, in any weather!…AND THAT’S WHY I LOVE LIVING IN BROOKLYN!
(Mr. Sommer’s opinions and grasp of reality are entirely his own)
Tim Sommer has been employed to varying degrees of gainfulness as a musician, record producer, DJ, VJ, and music industry executive. He is currently working on the interactive version of his acclaimed annotated studio log of the work of Gary Lewis and the Playboys, and continues his efforts to get Mets middle reliever Terry Leach into the Baseball Hall of Fame.