» On 1/01/2025 12:05:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
A boy named Sue & a wife named Fear. 

(Armchair Genealogist Dep't.) Several years ago, I signed up for a free subscription at MyHeritage, which has a powerful matching service. When I put in the birth/death dates of my close relatives, MH began providing suggestions, based upon other families' entries in their database. Eventually, I discovered my lineage could be traced back several hundred years!

So I started looking up my long-lost (think "unknown") relatives on FamilySearch and Find a Grave. After what seemed like an eternity of climbing around in the branches of the ol' family tree, I eventually ended up at the memorial page of Captain Benjamin Burgess (BB, portrait below), who was born in 1751, lived to the ripe old age of 101, was a Revolutionary War veteran, and had a wife named Fear. ("Æt" on his gravestone stands for the Latin word "aetātis," meaning "of or at the age of." And in his obit, #273 in the 1865 Burgess Genealogy, O.S. means Old Style, Julian calendar - England and its colonies didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752, when 11 days were dropped after September 2. [I'm planning to impress all my friends, during the next Trivia challenge. 😉])

So BB is my great-great-grandmother's grandfather! To see the generations, scroll down to Cap'n Ben's "Children" section and click these names, as they appear in the "Children" section of each subsequent page: Thomas, Henrietta, Frederick, Ella, and Chester, who's my Dad. Later, I went back even further and found Thomas Burgess Sr. (born in 1601), who is BB's great-great-grandfather... which means he's my direct ancestor, ten generations removed. FOUR centuries. Wow. But meticulously tracking down, verifying, and cross-checking each connection was driving me a little bit nuts. In fact, my new book will be coming out soon: "Zen and the Art of OCD Genealogy." 😉

When I was young, one of my aunts in Maine was researching family history, but she was supposedly stymied by a fire that destroyed all the vital records in a New Hampshire town office. This was back when all transactions went through snail mail, before the internet. After I heard that a grownup was unsuccessful, I figured a kid like me had no chance of doing any better. So I basically lost interest in Genealogy for the next 60 years. But websites like MyHeritage, FamilySearch and Find a Grave are suddenly making things easier. I've even considered starting a "Genialogy" service - "researching your bloodline with a smile." 😉

PS: My wife and I were recently FaceTiming with son Jenő in Hungary, and he had dug up some incredible documents about his grandfather's years in a Soviet gulag. They were for his daughter Lilla's homework assignment, a family tree. So I emailed a link to the first draft of this Genealogy essay, and he replied: "I showed the picture, only the picture [BB] to Lilla and asked her: Who do you think he looks like? And she immediately said: Alan."
So I wrote back: "Spank her. Now. 😉"

 
» On 1/01/2025 12:01:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Ball Drop. 

OK, let me set the stage for you: on December 31, 1978, I was working as a taxi driver in Manhattan, while still decompressing from my Year Of Failing Miserably on the Côte d'Azur with a buddy from Denmark. Our laughable attempts to sell t-shirts to the tourists had gone up in smoke, but our dreams of making an indelible mark on the world were not so easily crushed. In fact, we were oddly energized by our experiences in southern France. I had finished the first five-borough New York Marathon a couple of years earlier, and I was making vigorous attempts to get hired as an NBC Page, but that project would require a few more months. Most importantly, I was still naive enough to be in love with Sinatra's ephemeral promise of NYC success: "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere." And on this last day of the year, I had an insatiable hunger for the ultimate Big Apple christening: I wanted to spend New Year's Eve in Times Square.

So, at 5pm, I locked the door of my sh*tty little one-room apartment in a slumdog area of West 73rd, and walked the two miles down to 42nd. The streets had been blocked off to cars, and people were starting to gather. It was an odd feeling to be strolling in the middle of Broadway, rather than standing on the sidewalk, watching traffic whiz by. Around 8pm, revelers gradually started pressing closer and closer, as the massive hordes arrived and pushed us up against each other. Personal space became non-existent, but the mood was festive, right up until the gangs of teenage toughs arrived, swinging motorcycle chains and knocking people down. All you could do was avoid making eye contact and hope they didn't turn in your direction. Nobody was able to escape. In fact, some of the shorter folks were picked up by the crush of the crowd, and moved in whatever direction the rest of us decided was best. But the only people who could really move at all were the gangs. Their violence and mayhem cleared a path wherever they prowled. The rest of us exchanged worried looks, as we slowly realized that we were locked into this unholy h*ll for several more hours, at least. We couldn't go home until the people on the edges of the crowd chose to go home.

The next few hours passed in a haze, punctuated only by the "10, 9, 8..." chants at midnight. I finally arrived back at my sh*tty little room around 2am, thankful that I hadn't sustained any serious injuries and grateful that I could finally pee. 😉

 
» On 12/05/2024 03:00:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
"Saturday Night" screenplay download. 

Article (Deadline).
Free PDF download. [Script page numbers progress backwards, counting down from p123 to p1.]
Three facts about Josef Dicso (stage manager): [1] he was born in Kömörő Hungary, [2] he immigrated to the U.S. on the steamship Saturnia at the age of one, and [3] he has more than 30 lines in this script. R.I.P. 1929-2019. SNL 1975-1996.
DVD (Release date: 7 January 2025).

Labels: acbpage

 
» On 11/01/2024 04:05:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
New Mural In East Mesa. 

A massive mural [below, tap to enlarge] was recently installed in Walmart's entry hall on Southern near Power, created by Tucson-based artist Jennifer Smiley (JenniferSmileyArt.com). Her latest artwork is part of Walmart's Community Mural Program (WalmartMurals.info). When I contacted her, she told me the mural was entitled "Mesa's Wild Oasis."

Alan C. Baird: You live more than 100 miles away from the mural scene you created. How did you develop the idea?

Jennifer Smiley: Phoenix feels like a second home, with many friends and family there. So when given a list of what makes Mesa stand out, I was already familiar with it, which made creating the mural much easier.

ACB: You obviously possess a lot of natural talent. Did you have any formal training in art?

JS: I studied Animation and Illustration and have a lot of experience in the field, along with being largely self-taught.

ACB: How did you choose the landmarks you put into the mural: the Salt River, the Superstition Mountains, and Leisure World's iconic 40-foot globe?

JS: I received a list of things that make Mesa unique, and I was familiar with all of them! I’ve been tubing on the Salt River since childhood and hiking in the Superstition Mountains, so I felt confident capturing their essence. Leisure World is an incredible community with an impressive sculpture, and I was excited to portray that community spirit.

ACB: Your image was transferred to thin strips that were then rolled onto the wall in Walmart's entryway. What was the original artwork: watercolor, painting, pencil sketch?

JS: The mural combines hand-drawn elements, which were then finalized digitally.

***

The interview above appears in print and digitally, in the current issue of the Leisure World News. A truncated version appears in this week's edition of The Mesa Tribune.

Labels: mural

 
» On 10/06/2024 05:10:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Meet me at the cineplex! 

The "Saturday Night" movie will be released this coming Friday. Trailer below. Poster below that.

Favorite Actor (Finn Wolfhard as the NBC Page) ~ Book Chapter ~ Book ~ Aykroyd's review.

Labels: acbpage

 
» On 10/01/2024 12:05:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Validation from FEMA/Homeland Security. 

FEMA sez I'm certified to save yo' stinky butt in "times of crisis" by using "Social Media."
Uh-huh, uh-huh. 😉 [see image below]

The story behind this certificate is sorta interesting: during the later stages of the pandemic, just as the vaccines were being released, I was surfing the net with my usual energy and panache when I found some teenaged kid's LinkedIn account, which included a FEMA card. So I looked up Homeland Security's education site, and discovered all these weird-a** FEMA courses. There were dozens, if not hundreds.

I scrolled through the boring-as-sh*t Independent Study list, until I saw IS-42.a: Social Media in Emergency Management. It was just as snoozeworthy as the other courses, but it had a catchy title. My eyes lit up. That's when I enrolled, and studied my little heinie off. After a couple of days of cramming, I took the dry-as-dust exam and earned a perfect score! I was so proud of myself!!

So I downloaded the certificate, and posted it on my Facebook timeline. Everybody was impressed. Or at least they pretended, very convincingly. But it was only after doing all that work that I realized there were several "cheat" sites on the interwebs which contained every answer to every FEMA test. Sh*t. 😉

 
» On 9/01/2024 12:30:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Hurley's Saloon and The Beer Of Keys.🗝️ 

Hurley's Saloon, a 19th century townhouse-turned-bar at Sixth Avenue and 49th Street, was originally opened for business in 1892. It eventually became one of the oldest restaurants in New York City. When the area was being bought out to create Rockefeller Center in the 1920s and 30s, owner Adrien Barbey resisted, forcing real estate developers to build around Hurley's. As a result, the four-story structure carves out a much-lower profile on the southwest corner of the 66-story building known as "30 Rock." Hurley's was the hangout for TV stars like Jack Paar and Johnny Carson, mainly due to its proximity to the NBC studios.

[Recently, a group of celebrity investors including Saturday Night Live cast member Pete Davidson converted the old-timey Irish pub into a ritzy multi-level watering hole, with a "secret entrance" from 30 Rock on the fourth floor.]

During the late 1970s, Hurley's was the Sunday-morning destination of choice for SNL crew members and NBC Pages. After the show's goodnights at 1 am, we all headed over to decompress and suck down a beer or two. Cast members and guest performers were whisked away in limousines for their own fancy wrap party, but the rest of us peons had to settle for Hurley's. The drink prices were pretty steep, on a lowly Page's salary, but the bar offered free plates of chicken wings, so we supplemented our normal food intake by gobbling down the wings, while nursing our beers. A couple of us got into the habit of ordering Beck's Dark. It was a little more expensive, but it was much tastier. Over the months of our Pagedom, we eventually moved up the pecking order to become supervisory Key Pages🗝️. On the Sunday morning after our promotion, we finally noticed the key logo on the Beck's label and simultaneously blurted out, "The Beer Of Keys!"

Labels: acbpage