» On 5/01/2025 12:05:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
La Légion Étrangère - un métier d'homme! 

"The Biz is failing miserably. It's time to join the Foreign Legion." I burped for emphasis.

The Dane shot me a sidelong glance with bloodshot eyes, and smiled ironically. "It's true, our business is not doing too well, but we're having the time of our lives on the Côte d'Azur!" He giggled.

I snorted in disgust. He was quoting that bubbly TV travel ad again. His droll Nordic sense of humor was beginning to try my patience. Here was a man who could pun in four languages, only two of which could I understand. By silently farting at a crucial point during our beerfest last night, he had even made an olfactory pun. That suave multilingual sophistication and wit was getting to be damned irritating.

When we started our teeshirts-to-the-tourists business, we had unwittingly chosen the worst year for vacationers in the last two decades, and hardly anyone was buying. We would roll out of bed at 5:00 a.m., load up our Citroën Deux Chevaux (nicknamed "Blueballs" because of the twin blue globular headlamps protruding from the fenders, which lit our way into the misty Mediterranean morning), and head off to one of the local outdoor markets. Monday found us in Nice, Tuesday in Vallauris, Wednesday in Beaulieu, Thursday in Antibes, Friday in Biot and Saturday in Valbonne - which added up to a solid six days of rejection per week. The French bureaucracy limited us to selling in the local open-air marchés, which were geared more toward the locals, rather than tourists. We invariably set up our portable clothing racks next to someone selling kitchen equipment or house plants, and hoped that a few adventurous vacationers would find us before the market broke up at noon or one o'clock.

We attempted to be sharp "commerçants," but for a couple of supposed businessmen, our French was severely impaired. The main difference between Jørgen and me was that he studied to improve his usage, while I just scrambled around enough to get myself into and out of scrapes. Three months of enduring haughty professeurs at the Université de Nice was as much book learning as I could stomach, thank you. I also entertained a hopelessly romantic dream of falling in love with a mademoiselle and improving my French organically. But the prospects were slim. My English accent in French was not nearly as charming to the local women as their French accents sounded to my American ears. Then there were the rumors from some of my male classmates: after taking French women to bed, these undercover men reported the incessant nagging about marriage, which began almost immediately.

So maybe this wasn't the best language study method after all.

In the jaundiced eyes of France's bureaucracy, I wasn't legally entitled to start the Biz. I had entered their country on a student visa, and the procedural gauntlet for obtaining a Carte de Commerçant, their highly-prized sales permit, was designed to discourage half-baked foreign entrepreneurs. After several weeks of being brushed off by the gendarmes in the Préfecture and the officious city bureaucrats in the Mairie, I struck upon the idea of forming a partnership with my new acquaintance from Århus. The last thing a Mayor's flunky had mentioned, before heaving me out of his office, sounded something like: "Only Common Market citizens can do business here." Those fateful words dredged up many alcohol-blurred memories of my recent introduction to eastern Jutland's nightlife, a Death Tour which featured endless shots of Jägermeister. The drinking spree had sparked a camaraderie of sorts, so, on a whim, I dialed Denmark. A Common Market country.

When Jørgen agreed to this harebrained scheme, it shocked the bejesus out of me.

My new partner acquired a new nickname this morning, during Blueballs' starting ritual. With his limited knowledge of cars, this guy inspects only the spark plugs; whenever anything goes wrong, out they come. So imagine my consternation when Blueballs developed what seemed to be a spark plug problem; I knew the crazy Dane had been keeping them clean as a whistle, because he doesn't know how to do anything else. I finally looked in the engine, and... guess what? He hadn't screwed 'em in tight.

Ol' Sparky will never live this one down.

The jaded, cynical side of our collective sense of humor was coming to the fore, as this poorly-funded and -planned business went down the tubes. When things looked the most futile, we kept up a brave front by talking about the Foreign Legion. Our perception of La Légion had been formed by a multitude of Hollywood movies, where it was portrayed as a last resort: a place to escape an unhappy love affair, or to run from one's sordid past. So we jokingly dared each other to join the Legion and escape our financial woes.

But finally, we decided that today was our date with destiny. Squaring back our shoulders, we marched into the local Foreign Legion garrison to ask for information. We were met by the Adjutant, a mysterious man in dark glasses. He was dressed in the typical Legionnaire costume: khaki fatigues and a kepi, the Corps' trademark sawed-off stovepipe hat, which sported a baseball brim. He spoke French with an exotic accent and lethargic cadence, much like an addict who's just shot up.

He wouldn't reveal his nationality.

The interview was a bizarre experience, marked by waves of panic which washed through every nerve. Our instincts were screaming, "Get the hell out!" But we were very thorough, looking dutifully through a scrapbook which told us in seven languages (with colorful pictures of high adventure) that "no identification papers will be required." The man in the shades described a "faux nom" system, which forces every recruit to accept a new name, corresponding to his registration name only in the same initial letters. The Adjutant gave us all sorts of posters to take home, and we admired the trophy case which offered Legion paraphernalia for sale: tie tacks, money clips, mugs, jugs and teeshirts.

The faux nom system was curious, to put it mildly; it's a dead giveaway about the type of people who would be attracted to the ranks. You aren't allowed to use your real name until three years have passed, and even then, it's not required. Despite the literature which claims Legionnaires are neither mercenaries nor outlaws, what can one think about people who don't want to disclose their identities? Who were these men, looking forward to the Legion's promise of French citizenship under a new name at the end of their five-year enlistment?

So a new method of learning French surfaces (you're not required to know the language, because you'll learn to speak it during the term of your "contract"). Sparky and I stumbled away from the barracks, and drove off in a daze; it was hard to shake those chills which we had received from the man behind the Foster Grants. During most of the ride home, we punctuated our long silences with exclamations of "No identification required!" and "Faux nom!" The clear implication was this: if you can get to the Legion before the pursuing authorities close in, you can literally disappear.

Since 1831, the Legion has been the only organization of its kind in the world: taking in misfits and criminals of any nationality, then putting them through a five-year meat grinder to make them into model French citizens.

The really disturbing part, though, was the milieu which was only half-suggested by that scrapbook. The Adjutant, in his dark glasses and drugged voice, neatly fit the description of what most medical literature calls Brain Death: the body keeps on living, but there's nothing going on upstairs.

I imagined that he appeared to us as the spider looks to the fly.

On our way back from the garrison, we stopped to pick up an older man, hitchhiking beside the road. He acted oddly when we pulled over: checking out the license plate, he then mentioned the trailing "06" upon entering the car. He obviously knew that it indicated a registration in the Riviera département of Alpes-Maritimes. After Blueballs started moving again, he quickly abandoned our halting version of French, in favor of Sparky's fluent German. I was mesmerized by the tone poetry of a language which made no sense to me: the throaty gutturals, and the words which sounded almost, but not quite, like English. Finally, one phrase pushed its way through the comprehension barrier: "Heil Hitler!" My head snapped around to look at this passenger in the back. He smiled broadly at Sparky in the mirror, and casually watched me from the corner of his eye. Sparky grinned nervously in the driver's seat next to me; this conversation obviously made him very uncomfortable. I noticed some sweat beading on his upper lip. Given the loaded connotation of the phrase which our passenger had just spit out, I deduced it would be unwise to question anyone, in any language. Also, Sparky was obviously looking for a place to pull over; I guessed that the man in the back had made a request to get out at the next intersection.

As we drove off after depositing the guy, I was eager to pump some information from Sparky, but he seemed to be in shock. After awhile, he asked me to drive, and haltingly told the story:

Our rider had been in the Foreign Legion for nineteen years, and was discharged in the early sixties. Sparky was naturally curious, and the man related some of his war stories. However, he also mentioned that the Corps hadn't really satisfied his "appetites," and made allusions to dark deeds done during the war. It slowly dawned on me that his appetites had nothing to do with eating, drinking, or sex. And his final defiant exclamation indicated that he wasn't even slightly remorseful about the things he'd done. The Legion meat grinder had cranked out another citoyen modèle.

To us, it seemed typical that the French, with their maze of red tape, tyrannical bureaucracy, and repressive laws, would provide a loophole like La Légion. We retreated from the awful specter of Brain Damage and War Crimes into the bright Riviera sunshine, although one nagging thought still plagued us. Remembering the famous case of that comatose, brain-dead woman, the poor lady who had been maintained on life support for several pointless years, we harbored a nasty sneaking suspicion that she would've made the perfect Legionnaire wife...

 
» On 4/03/2025 12:01:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Zoomiversary #5, 03April2020 - 03April2025. 

The first ZoomFest was among four members of our Westfield [MA] High School track team. We've kept in touch over the years, but the pandemic brought us a lot closer together, in a series of semimonthly Zoom meetings. The group quickly expanded to six, and then ten, regulars, and often included special guests, like our spouses, partners, kids, pets, classmates, and even our old coach. The next get-together is this coming Friday, with participants Zooming in from Lakewood Colorado, Mesa Arizona, Philomath Oregon, Suffield Connecticut, Niwot Colorado, Fougères France, San Diego California, Virginia Beach Virginia, and Swampscott Massachusetts. Special thanks to Jim Gusek, who sparked the whole idea, and to COVID-19, for creating this unexpectedly welcome side benefit.

Remember the old TV shows from the 50s and 60s, when a group of guys would get together for Poker Night? They smoked cigars, drank beer and told dirty jokes. Well, some of us see the ZoomFest as Poker Night, without the cigars. 😉

--1968-71, top 2 rows, L-R: Jim Gusek, moi, Patrick Kamins, Michael Rood, Bert Cashman, Robert Grace, Michael Kay, Stephen FitzGerald, Bruce LaPointe, and Bill Walthall.
--5 decades later, bottom 2 rows!

Founding members of Westfield High's Cross-Country team in the Fall of 1968, L-R:
Al Baird, Coach Reign Rix, Jim Gusek, (Bob Grace), Dan Fountain, Bert Cashman, Mike Rood.

WHS Track, Spring 1969, Row-Column, Front-Back: Bert Cashman 1-1, Bob Grace 1-2,
Mike Kay 2-2, Al Baird 2-9, Bill Walthall 2-10, Steve FitzGerald 2-12, Mike Rood 3-1,
Bruce LaPointe 3-2, Jim Gusek 3-9. (Pat Kamins graduated in 1968.)

Glory Days, Friday Night Lights, FB postings: 01Apr2024 + 03Apr2025, 05Apr2024 pix, 1969 track records

Labels: whs, z5, ZoomFest

 
» On 3/11/2025 11:40:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
R.I.P. Michael Francis Thompson (11 Feb 1951 - 10 Mar 2025; Age 74). 

We jokingly called him Sri Mikey. He was a seeker of spiritual wisdom, and lived in a yoga house for several years. While I stayed there, he taught me to say The Sufi Prayer at mealtimes. I can still recite it by heart: "All life is one / and everything that lives is holy: / plants, animals, and beings. / All must eat to live / and to nourish one another. / We bless the lives that have died / to give us food. / Let us eat consciously, / resolving by our work / to pay the debt of our existence. / -Amen." Earlier, he and I had been workout partners on the Chelmsford [MA] HS track team. We were fairly evenly matched, but he was always just a little faster. At one point, Mike amazed me by sailing across the Atlantic in a 30-foot ketch. His first fiancée died unexpectedly, and I attended the funeral to support him. His father was walking with me, as we went to our seats in the church. Mike was in front of us, and reached back to take my hand. Dr. Thompson misunderstood, and grabbed Mike's hand instead. It was a lovely moment. Mike had been estranged from his Dad for a long time, and this was the perfect way for them to reconnect. Mike pulled me aside later, saying, "That was weird." I replied, "Yeah. Weird, but wonderful!" Sri Mikey subsequently married a woman at Sedona's Cathedral Rock, which is reportedly located on one of the Arizona town's famous Vortexes. The marriage didn't last very long, and I lost track of him for a few years. When we found each other again, he was living with a powerhouse political activist. Julia O'Connell led the resistance against monochloramine implementation by the Kittery [ME} Water District, and was elected to the entity's board of trustees. Anikó and I went to visit them, during our first post-Covid vacation. They were very happy together, and I was relieved that Mike had finally found a lasting love. Last year, he and I commiserated through our respective Prostate Torture experiences. It looked like his surgery results were a bit better than mine, and I envied him. But he had a weak heart, which gave out last night, at home with Julia.

1969: Chelmsford HS yearbook [above, tap any pic to enlarge]

1960 (circa): The Thompson brood - Mike is holding Peggy
1979 (circa): Sailing Garret Almeida's Kittiwake on Buzzards Bay [MA]
1980: Mike & Ed Withycombe (1951-2017) in Marblehead [MA]
2013 (circa): Mike was a master cabinetmaker
2019 Jan: Old Orchard Beach [ME]
2021 Jul: Julia, me & Mike, Kittery Point [ME]
2023 Dec: Nice pants!

Obituary. Grave. Also: Chris Worth.

Labels: mt

 
» On 3/01/2025 12:05:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Heroes in the family. 

My late stepdad, John E. “Jack” Cauley (1930-2021), earned a Silver Star in Korea in August 1950, for conspicuous gallantry in exposing himself to enemy fire as he knocked out a tank with a rocket-launching bazooka. He also received multiple Purple Hearts for his service in Korea, 1950Sep12 & 1951Jan30, when he was seriously wounded in action by missiles.

My late uncle, Harley Stuart Baird (1921-1997), earned a Silver Star in World War II, for gallantry in action against the enemy while serving as a combat crew member of a B-17 bomber in the Battle of Midway between 3 and 7 June 1942.

Another late uncle, Harold Octave “Hal” Buzzell (1932-2007), hiked the 2,190-mile Appalachian Trail in 1993 (northbound), an impressive feat for a 61-year-old.

Labels: fam

 
» On 2/16/2025 05:34:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
2025 Oscar Nominated Screenplays w/Trailers. 

Original Screenplays:
Anora by Sean Baker -- WINNER
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25469615/anora-read-the-screenplay.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1HxTmV5i7c
The Brutalist by Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25479235/the-brutalist-read-the-screenplay.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdRXPAHIEW4
A Real Pain by Jesse Eisenberg
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25450252/a-real-pain-read-the-screenplay.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2et8Vpu7Ls
September 5 by Tim Fehlbaum, Moritz S. Binder, Alex David
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25453399/september-5-read-the-screenplay-3.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azud40CQ3IE
The Substance by Coralie Fargeat
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25444991/the-substance-read-the-screenplay.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNlrGhBpYjc

Adapted Screenplays:
A Complete Unknown by James Mangold, Jay Cocks
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25476291/a-complete-unknown-read-the-screenplay.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdV-Cs5o8mc
Conclave by Peter Straughan -- WINNER
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25444705/conclave-read-the-screenplay.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX9jasdi3ic
Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25448400/emilia-perez-read-the-screenplay-spanish.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h7j_EcZ5fU
Nickel Boys by RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25475201/nickel-boys-read-the-screenplay-2.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2qZ429rUZw
Sing Sing by Greg Kwedar, Clint Bentley
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25451485/sing-sing-read-the-screenplay.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3dXc6P3zH8

Streaming Emilia Pérez: https://www.netflix.com/title/81901696

 
» On 2/14/2025 09:45:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Student # ±22 (a Valentine's Day story). 

When I arrived at Michigan State University in 1969, the size of the campus was intimidating. Two miles or more, from corner to corner. Forty thousand students. Classes scheduled from eight in the morning to ten at night.

While leafing through the MSU phonebook, I noticed there were a lot of Bairds. This was a new experience for me. I had always been the only Baird, in the six school systems I attended. When I looked closer, one of the female Bairds had a student number that was only 22 away from mine. In a universe of six-digit student numbers, that was quite unusual.

So I called her up. I was real smooth: "You don't know me, but your student number is only 22 away from mine, and I think we should go for coffee." Apparently, K was as adventurous as I was, because she chuckled and accepted. We got along pretty well, and started a romance that lasted nearly four months. I couldn't afford to fly home to New England for Thanksgiving, so she invited me to drive with her to her family's home outside Chicago. I got along with her folks pretty well. Her dad loved to pun, and punning was one of my specialties. So we all chuckled. A lot.

When K and I arrived back at MSU, she said, "You know, if we got married, I wouldn't even have to change my name." We both chuckled, but that's when I suspected the end was coming soon.

K had a well-defined Relationship Roadmap implanted in her brain:
1) empinning - receiving the boyfriend's frat pin;
2) friendship ring - receiving a special ring from the boyfriend;
3) engagement - receiving a diamond ring from the boyfriend;
4) marriage - self-explanatory, involving a wedding ring.

While I was just floating heedlessly through my freshman year, happy as a clam, K was secretly hatching a plan for bending me to her will. Not long after we returned from Chicago, K sat me down for The Roadmap Talk. Since I hadn't pledged a fraternity, she graciously allowed me to skip over step #1, but she was intent on extracting my high-school graduation ring from my hot little grasp. It was too big, of course, so she spent several days winding yarn through it, to make it snug on her finger. She wore it proudly, and showed it to all her friends. After we broke up and she returned the ring, she saw it on my finger, and asked me how I removed the yarn. "Scissors," I replied. She smiled bitterly, and said, "Do you know how many hours I spent, winding that yarn onto your stupid ring?"

And that's when I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I had pulled the ripcord just in time. 😉

A few years went by, but I never forgot K. In fact, during one of my cross-country hitchhiking trips to California, I dreamed about her. At the time, I was nearly freezing to death in a blizzard, at an I-70 rest area outside Topeka. The next morning, I looked her up, and her family was now living less than two hundred miles north of the interstate, so I made a screeching right turn and spent several hours hitching up into Nebraska. When I got close, I wangled her work phone number from her mom, and rang her up. I said, "Your student number is only 22 away from mine, and I think we should go for coffee." She chuckled, then replied, "Well, I'd have to ask my bank manager for permission. He's my fiancé." AHA, I said to myself, there it is - payback for the yarn! So we both chuckled, and I made a screeching U-turn, back down to the I-70 in Kansas. 😉

PS: I proposed quickly to the next MSU woman I dated, but she put me off for 11 years. Then we were married in a hot-air balloon over Napa. A few months later, we got an amicable divorce. 😉

PPS: There was one further divorce, which wasn't quite as civilized. Luckily, nobody sustained any permanent injuries. 😉

PPPS: Anikó and I each have 3 weddings under our belts, and we celebrate our 25th anniversary in June. I've been told that true love is sorta like a fairy tale. Some folks find their happy ending in the first person they meet. Others have to fight dragons. And some need to kiss a lotta frogs. 😉

Labels: msu

 
» On 2/12/2025 12:05:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
My Lorne Michaels Story From Pagedom, 1978. 

Saturday Night Live was doing a cold open in the 8H entrance, the long hallway that goes from the elevators to the studio door. I saw my chance to get on TV, so when Lorne wandered into the hall a few minutes before air, I bravely accosted him: "Do you mind if I stand in that doorway over there?"

It was the first time I had ever said anything to The Great And Powerful Lorne. He didn't reply, but looked at me with a bemused smile and quietly walked away. A few minutes later, stage manager Joe Dicso was counting down from 10, and noticed me standing in the doorway. He pointed his finger at me and waggled it, indicating that I should get out of camera range. I whispered to him, "Lorne okayed it."

And that was how I got my precious three seconds of national exposure on SNL. 😉

UPDATE: With SNL50 nearly upon us, there are a lotta great Lorne stories in this article:

https://www.vulture.com/article/snl-future-after-lorne-michaels-leaves-retires.html

And here are 3 of my faves:

Michaels invited Dave Chappelle to host at a moment when Chappelle’s jokes about trans people had made him a lightning rod. A non-binary member of the writing staff told producers that they preferred to sit the week out. Michaels didn’t have a problem with it, but “Page Six” blew up the story when it reported incorrectly that multiple writers were boycotting. During dress rehearsal, Chappelle told a joke about the situation. “The papers got it wrong,” Chappelle said, according to SNL staffers who watched the performance. “Only one person has a problem, but the paper got confused because that person is a they.”

Michaels is so infamous for blithely dropping the first names of his famous friends into conversation that when he mentioned Cher during a lunch with Steve Martin and Kevin Nealon, Martin stepped in to quip, “Cher who?”

“With Lorne, you always feel like there’s an NBC page hanging upside down in the closet with his blood slowly draining into him,” a person who has known Michaels for years said.

Labels: acbpage