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Patrick Swayze
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born August 18, 1952 (1952-08-18) (age 55)
Houston, Texas

Patrick Wayne Swayze (born August 18, 1952) is an American dancer, actor, singer and songwriter. His breakthrough role was as the dance instructor in the 1987 film Dirty Dancing, and he also had a hit with the 1990 film Ghost.





Biography

Early life

Swayze was born in Houston, Texas to Jesse Wayne Swayze and choreographer and ballet school owner Patsy Swayze. According to his website, he is part Apache. His brother, Don Swayze, is also an actor. Swayze attended St Rose of Lima Catholic School, Oak Forest Elementary School, Black Middle School, and Waltrip High School in Houston. For most of his life, he lived in the Oak Forest area. His formal dance training was at the Harkness Ballet and Joffrey Ballet Schools in New York City.


Career

Swayze's first professional appearance was as a dancer for Disney on Parade, then in the Broadway production of Grease, before his debut film role as Ace in Skatetown, U.S.A. (1979). He also appeared in the M*A*S*H episode "Blood Brothers" (Episode 9.18, 6 April 1981).

Swayze's first roles were in films such as The Outsiders (1983) and Red Dawn (1984) but his first major success was in the 1985 television mini-series North and South, which was set during the Civil War. His real breakthrough to stardom came with his performance as the dance instructor in the 1987 film Dirty Dancing, where his earlier ballet experience came to good use. He starred with Jennifer Grey, who had also co-starred in Red Dawn. Dirty Dancing was originally a low-budget project that was intended to only show in theaters for one weekend and then go straight to video, but it became a surprise hit, and achieved massive international success. It was the first film to sell one million copies on video, and as of 2007 has earned over $US 300 million worldwide and spawned several alternate versions ranging from a television series to stage productions to a computer game. Swayze received a Golden Globe Award nomination for the role, and also sang one of the songs on the soundtrack, "She's Like the Wind", which he had originally co-written with Stacy Widelitz for the film Grandview, U.S.A.. The song became a top-10 hit, and has been covered by other artists such as David Hasselhoff, and in 2006 was converted into a hip-hop version by Lumidee, who brought it to the top of the charts in Germany.

After the success of Dirty Dancing, Swayze found himself heavily typecast and appeared in a series of flops. In 1989,he recovered with the fan favorite Road House. However, his biggest hit came after,in 1990 He starred in what some consider his most famous film, Ghost, working with Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg.[1] This role had considerable cultural impact, and modern hip-hop lyrics routinely use the phrase "Like a Swayze", referring to that film (for more info, see the "Cultural Impact" section below).In 1991 he starred alongside Keanu Reeves in another major action hit, Point Break. In 1996, Swayze was seriously injured while filming the HBO Letters from a Killer in the Ione area, when he fell from a horse and hit a tree. Both of his legs were broken, and he suffered four detached tendons in his shoulder. Filming was suspended for two months, but the film finally aired in 1999. Swayze recovered from his injuries, but had trouble finding work until 2000, when he co-starred in Waking Up in Reno with Billy Bob Thornton and Charlize Theron, and Forever Lulu with Melanie Griffith.

He made the news again on June 1, 2000 when flying with his dogs in his twin-engine Cessna from Van Nuys, California to Las Vegas, New Mexico. The plane developed a pressurization problem over northern Arizona, and Swayze made a precautionary landing on a dirt road in a housing complex in Prescott Valley, striking a light pole (with his right wing) which he hadn't seen from the air. Swayze was unhurt, locked up the cockpit and left it parked in the subdivision. He took his dogs and obtained a ride from a passing vehicle, allegedly to telephone authorities. According to the police report, witnesses said that Swayze appeared to be extremely intoxicated and asked for help in removing evidence (including an open bottle of wine and a 30 pack of beer) from the crash site.[1] It was later determined that the alcohol in question was not in cabin but stored in external storage compartments inaccessible in flight and the alleged 'intoxication' was due to the effects of hypoxia during descent.

In 2001 he appeared in Donnie Darko, and in 2004 played Allan Quatermain in King Solomon's Mines; he also had a cameo appearance in the Dirty Dancing sequel, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, where he played a dance instructor.

He made his London stage debut in the musical Guys and Dolls as Nathan Detroit on July 27, 2006 alongside Neil Jerzak, and remained in the role until November 25, 2006. He had appeared on the Broadway stage in productions of Goodtime Charley (1975), and Chicago (2003).


Awards

Golden Globe Award nominations
Dirty Dancing (1987)
Ghost (1990)
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)

Personal life

Swayze has been married to Lisa Niemi since 1975. The couple have been together since Lisa, at 15, began dance lessons with Swayze's mother.

His father died of a heart attack. Swayze attended a clinic to overcome alcoholism after his sister Vicky committed suicide in 1994 using painkillers.[2] After initial recovery, he retreated to his ranches in California and New Mexico to breed Arabian horses. His best-known horse was the late Tammen, a chestnut Arabian stallion. He also follows several "spiritual" traditions. Brought up a Roman Catholic, he has also studied Bahai, Buddhism, and Scientology. He has also purchased many crystals[citation needed] for their alleged healing power.


Cultural impact

Swayze's name has become a commonly-used term in hip hop songs. Lyrics will use the phrase "...and I'm Swayze," meaning that the singer has become "like a ghost", or gone. This is a reference to the title character of Swayze's 1990 film Ghost. The first time this is known to have occurred was in the early 1990s, in a song by EPMD.[3] More recent usage is by such artists as The Notorious B.I.G. in the song "Runnin' (Dying to Live)". The expression has become such a hip hop staple that it was even used in the Saturday Night Live hip hop parody, "Lazy Sunday".

Swayze has also been referred to in other elements of popular culture. For example, the Trailer Park Boys character Julian is sometimes called Patrick Swayze due to a slight resemblance, and a history of having dressed up like Swayze to dance to the music from "Dirty Dancing". The Seattle indie rock band Kane Hodder has a song titled "I Think Patrick Swayze is Sexy". The television show Mystery Science Theater 3000, in the episode "Santa Claus conquers the Martians", has one of the MST3K characters writing a Christmas carol entitled "Let's Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas" as a tribute to his favorite Swayze (bad) movie: Road House. Swayze has been parodied in several strips of the online gaming comic Penny Arcade, where one of the characters indicates an obsession with Swayze and Dirty Dancing. And in an episode of Clerks: The Animated Series, Swayze is featured as a pet store employee, voiced by comedian Gilbert Gottfried.

Denis Leary
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Birth name Denis Colin Leary
Born August 18, 1957 (1957-08-18) (age 49)
Worcester, Massachusetts USA
Medium Stand-up, Music, Television, Film
Years active 1980s-present
Genres Observational comedy, Black comedy, Satire, Rant
Subject(s) Libertarianism, American culture, Drugs, Alcohol
Influences Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor
Spouse Ann Lembeck (married in 1982, present) 2 children
Notable works and roles Gus in The Ref
Diego in Ice Age and Ice Age: The Meltdown
Tommy Gavin in Rescue Me

Emmy Awards
Nominated: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (2004) for Rescue Me
Nominated: Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series (2004) for Rescue Me
Golden Globe Awards
Nominated: Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama (2004) for Rescue Me

Denis Leary (born Denis Colin Leary on August 18, 1957) is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-nominated American actor, comedian, writer and director. He is known for his often angry comedic style and his frequent chain smoking. Leary displays an overt affinity for libertarianism.




Biography

Early life

Leary was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, to Irish Catholic immigrants John Leary (an auto mechanic) and Nora (a maid); Leary holds both Irish and American citizenship. He graduated from Saint Peter-Marian High School in Worcester. Through marriage, Leary is a distant cousin of talk show host Conan O'Brien,[1] and has jokingly said on Late Night with Conan O'Brien that "All Irish people are related." His name is often misspelled as "Dennis", instead of "Denis."


Emerson College

Leary is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston, where he was classmates with fellow comic Mario Cantone, who to this day remains his closest friend. Comedian Steven Wright and actress Gina Gershon also attended Emerson at the same time as Leary. At the school, he founded the Emerson Comedy Workshop, a troupe that continues to thrive on-campus to this day.[2] After graduating with the Emerson Class of 1979, he took up a job with the school teaching comedy writing classes and maintained the job for five years.[3] Leary was honored with an honorary doctorate and spoke briefly at his alma mater's undergraduate commencement ceremony on May 16, 2005.[4] During a December 2005 appearance at Emerson's Cutler Majestic Theatre he claimed that Emerson College "saved his life" by giving him direction and that throughout his career he's "never forgotten" the lessons he learned there. He also claimed that he was the reason Emerson students were no longer allowed on the roofs of the buildings at Emerson, referring to an incident following Game 6 of the 1975 World Series where he and some classmates allegedly poured a large bucket of ice water down onto a Cincinnati Reds fan on the sidewalk below.


Career

Leary started in career as a comedian in the notorious Boston comedy scene of the 1980s, where he hosted his own show at the underground club "Play It Again Sam". He also wrote and appeared on a local comedy series, Lenny Clarke's Late Show, hosted by his friend Lenny Clarke and written by Boston comedy writer Martin Olson. Leary and Clarke both spoke about their early affiliations and influences in the Boston comedy scene in the documentary film When Standup Stood Out (2006).

Leary first became famous through an MTV sketch in which he ranted about R.E.M. Several other commercials for MTV followed, in which Leary would rant at high speeds about a variety of topics. He has released two records of his stand-up comedy: No Cure For Cancer (1993) and Lock 'N Load (1997). In late 2004 he released the EP Merry F#%$in' Christmas, which included a mix of new music, previously unreleased recordings, and some tracks from Lock 'N Load.

In 1993, his sardonic song about the American lower-middle-class male, Asshole, achieved much notoriety. It was voted #1 in a major Australian youth radio poll (the Triple J Hottest 100) as well as reaching #2 in the singles chart in that country. The video also became a staple of MTV's late-night programming. Due to its explicit and controversial content, however, it received limited airplay on mainstream American radio stations. At the 2004 Comics Come Home in Boston, Massachusetts, Denis performed a new version of the song directed at the New York Yankees, and as the song concluded, Bronson Arroyo walked on stage with the World Series trophy. The song was also used as part of the Holsten Pils series of ads in the UK which Leary was participating in, with adapted lyrics criticizing a drunk driver.

Although he says he is most at home on stage doing stand-up, Leary has appeared as an actor in over 40 movies, including The Sandlot, Monument Ave., The Match Maker, The Ref, Suicide Kings, Dawg, Wag the Dog, Demolition Man, The Thomas Crown Affair and Operation Dumbo Drop. He has also starred in two television series, The Job and Rescue Me. In addition, Leary has provided voices for characters in animated films such as a saber-toothed tiger named 'Diego' in Ice Age and its sequel Ice Age 2 and 'Francis' in A Bug's Life. He has produced (and still produces) numerous movies, television shows, and specials through his production company Apostle; these include Comedy Central's Shorties Watchin' Shorties, the stand-up special Denis Leary's Merry F#$%in' Christmas, and the movie Blow. As a Boston Red Sox fan, he narrated the official 2004 World Series film. In 2006, Leary and Lenny Clarke appeared on television during a Red Sox telecast and, upon realizing that Red Sox 1st baseman Kevin Youkilis is Jewish, delivered a criticism of Mel Gibson's anti-semitic comments.[5][6] As a hockey fan, Leary also hosted the NHL video, NHL's Greatest Goals

In 2003, Comedy Central honored Denis Leary in the Comedy Central Roast of Denis Leary. Friend Jeff Garlin acted as roastmaster for Denis' roast. Roasters included Mario Cantone, Dane Cook, Lenny Clarke, Gina Gershon, Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart, Colin Quinn and Michael J. Fox.

Leary is now the star and co-creator of FX's Rescue Me. He plays Tommy Gavin, a New York City fire fighter dealing with alcoholism, family dysfunction, and other issues in post-9/11 New York City. Leary received Emmy nominations in 2006 and 2007 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his performance as Tommy Gavin.


Personal life

Denis Leary has been married to writer Ann Lembeck since 1982. They met when he was her instructor for an English class at Emerson College. They have two children, son John Joseph "Jack" (born 1990) and daughter Devin (born 1992). Lembeck published a memoir, An Innocent, a Broad, about the premature birth of their son on an overseas visit to England.

Leary is an ice hockey fan and has his own backyard hockey rink, with piping installed under the ice surface to help the ice stay frozen. His favorite National Hockey League team is the Boston Bruins.[7] He is also a die hard Boston Red Sox fan.


Leary Firefighters Foundation

On December 3, 1999, six firefighters from Leary's hometown of Worcester were killed in a massive warehouse fire. Among the dead were Leary's cousin, Jerry Lucey, and his close childhood friend, Lt. Tommy Spencer.[1] In response, the comedian founded the Leary Firefighters Foundation. Since its creation in the year 2000, the foundation has distributed over $2.5 million (USD) to fire departments in the Worcester, Boston, and New York City areas for equipment, training materials, new vehicles, and new facilities. Leary has close ties with 107.3 WAAF-FM, who in 2000 released the station album "Survive This!" Part of the proceeds from this album were donated to the Leary Firefighters Foundation.

A separate fund run by Leary's foundation, the Fund for New York's Bravest, has distributed over $2 million (USD) to the families of the 343 firemen killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks, as well as providing funding for necessities such as a new mobile command center, first responder training, and a high-rise simulator for the FDNY's training campus. This new fund was established because the families of the Worcester fire did not want to include New York families into the fund, as a result Leary created a separate fund for New York.

As the foundation's president, Leary has been active in all of the fundraising, usually presenting large checks and donated equipment personally. The close relationship he has developed with the FDNY, as well as individual firefighters across the New York/New England area, has resulted in Leary's most recent television show, Rescue Me, a Comedy-drama on FX. In the pilot episode of the show, he is seen wearing a Leary Firefighter Foundation 9-11 Memorial T-Shirt.





Accusations of Plagiarism

For many years, Leary had been friends with fellow comedian Bill Hicks. However, when Hicks heard Leary's 1992 album No Cure For Cancer, he felt Leary had stolen his act and material. The friendship ended abruptly as a result.[8] At least three stand-up comedians have gone on the record stating they believe Leary stole not just some of Hicks' material but his persona and attitude.[9][10][11][8] As a result of this, it is claimed that after Bill Hicks' death from pancreatic cancer, an industry joke began to circulate about Leary's transformation and subsequent success (roughly; "Question: Why is Denis Leary a star while Bill Hicks is unknown? Answer: Because there's no cure for cancer").[11]

During a 2003 roast of Denis Leary, comedian Lenny Clarke, a friend of Leary's, said there was a carton of cigarettes backstage from Bill Hicks with the message, "Wish I had gotten these to you sooner." This joke was cut from the final broadcast.[12]

The controversy surrounding plagiarism is also mentioned in American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story by Cynthia True:

Leary was in Montreal to host the Nasty Show at Club Soda and Colleen was coordinating the talent so she was standing backstage when she heard Leary doing material that sounded incredibly similar to old Hicks riffs, including his perennial Jim Fixx joke: ("Keith Richards outlived Jim Fixx, the runner and health nut dude. The plot thickens.") When Leary came offstage, Colleen said, more stunned than angry, "Hey, you know that's Bill Hicks' material! Do you know that's his material?" Leary stood there, stared at her without saying a word, and briskly left the dressing room.[13]
When asked about Leary, Hicks sarcastically told an interviewer: "I have a scoop for you. I stole his act. I camouflaged it with punchlines, and to really throw people off, I did it before he did."[14]

In the August 2006 Playboy, an interviewer told Leary "Much has been written about you and comedian Bill Hicks...People have accused you of appropriating his persona and material." Leary replied:

" That's a great story that people like to latch onto...Very quickly we got New York club owners saying, 'You guys are too alike,' while Bill and I were saying, 'What are they ******* talking about?' It's the same approach to the subject maybe, but it's not the same act...But as I've said many times, a fable is sometimes better than the truth."[15]

Only In America"

Only in America - can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.
Only in America - are there handicap-parking places in front of a skating rink.
Only in America - do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.
Only in America - do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.
Only in America - do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.
Only in America - do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.
Only in America - do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we will not miss a call from someone we did not want to talk to in the first place.
Only in America - do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.
Only in America - do we use the word 'politics' to describe the process so well: 'Poli' in Latin meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'
Only in America - do they have drive-up ATM's with Braille lettering.

Feeling a bit under the weather, Bob and edgar. Back later to acknowledge your contributions.

Good morning WA2K.

Oh Letty, I'm so sorry to hear that you're not feeling well. Please take care.

Robert Redford; Patrick Swayze; Denis Leary and Madeline Stowe

Hey, dys. That must be some song you're listening to. Carmen McRae segueing into Cannonball? Wow!

edgar, as usual, that was one interesting song. Sorta reminds us of "freedom's just another name for nothing else to lose."

Hey, hawk. Thanks for the great bio's. I think that we know most of them, and our Raggedy has provided the finishing touch. Also smiled at your "Only in America" observations. Made me feel a little better.

As usual, our pretty puppy always gives our memory a nudge and I re-read Bob's bio on Dennis Leary because I was certain that I had heard music by that guy and when I did a search, I had. My word Dennis.

Well, I guess I can get by with playing this one, and it is funny, folks.

Fat and docile, big and dumb
They look so stupid, they aren't much fun
Cows aren't fun

They eat to grow, grow to die
Die to be et at the hamburger fry
Cows well done

Nobody thunk it, nobody knew
No one imagined the great cow guru
Cows are one

He hid in the forest, read books with great zeal
He loved Che Guevera, a revolutionary veal
Cow Tse Tongue

He spoke about justice, but nobody stirred
He felt like an outcast, alone in the herd
Cow doldrums

He mooed we must fight, escape or we'll die
Cows gathered around, cause the steaks were so high
Bad cow pun

But then he was captured, stuffed into a crate
Loaded onto a truck, where he rode to his fate
Cows are bummed

He was a scrawny calf, who looked rather woozy
No one suspected he was packing an Uzi
Cows with guns

They came with a needle to stick in his thigh
He kicked for the groin, he pissed in their eye
Cow well hung

Knocked over a tractor and ran for the door
Six gallons of gas flowed out on the floor
Run cows run!

He picked up a bullhorn and jumped up on the hay
We are free roving bovines, we run free today

We will fight for bovine Cfreedom
And hold our large heads high
We will run free with the Buffalo, or die
Cows with guns

They crashed the gate in a great stampede
Tipped over a milk truck, torched all the feed
Cows have fun

Sixty police cars were piled in a heap
Covered in cow pies, covered up deep
Much cow dung

Black smoke rising, darkening the day
Twelve burning McDonalds, have it your way

We will fight for bovine freedom
And hold our large heads high
We will run free with the Buffalo, or die
Cows with guns

The President said "enough is enough

These uppity cattle, its time to get tough"
Cow dung flung

The newspapers gloated, folks sighed with relief
Tomorrow at noon, they would all be ground beef
Cows on buns

The cows were surrounded, they waited and prayed
They mooed their last moos,
they chewed their last hay
Cows out gunned

The order was given to turn cows to whoppers
Enforced by the might of ten thousand coppers
But on the horizon surrounding the shoppers

Came the deafening roar of chickens in choppers

We will fight for bovine freedom
And hold our large heads high
We will run free with the Buffalo, or die
Cows with guns

good evening , funseekers :wink: !

i really was not looking for this song - but here it is , by the wonderful MISS PEGGY LEE !

Hey, hbg. Funny, I was just commenting on cat scratch fever and having a bit of fun with Stray Cat.

Love Peggy Lee, Canada, and that is one of her trade mark songs.

Back later as I am once again having trouble with our studio equipment.

Here's the song that I like by Miss Lee.

(Pass me by, pass me by, if you don't happen to like it, pass me by)
I got me ten fine toes to wiggle in the sand,
Lots of idle fingers snap to my command,
A loverly pair of heels that kick to beat the band,
Contemplating nature can be fascinating,
Add to these a nose that I can thumb, and a mouth by gum have I
So tell the whole wide world, if you don't happen to like it,
Deal me out, thank you kindly, pass me by.

Pass me by
Pass me by

If you don't happen to like me pass me by

I thought that I would never find that song, folks.

peggy lee had a special way of saying the word "FEEEVER" - as if it would never end - and yet it was always very soft !

and for a change RAY CHARLES sings (? :wink: )" 'DEED I DO" :

You're right about Peggy, hbg. She had a special style and a way of ending her music in another key, but as you say, softly. And I love that song by Ray, Canada.

Well, Lettylee must say goodnight. so I'll let this wonderful song do it for me.


And when I hear you call so softly to me,
I don't hear a call at all, I hear a rhapsody.
And when your sparkling eyes are smiling at me,
Then soft through the starlit skies, I hear a rhapsody

My days are so blue when you're away,
My heart longs for you, so won't you stay?

My darling, hold me tight and whisper to me
Then soft through the starry night, I hear a rhapsody

I hear my bed whispering my name soooo.

Goodnight, all

From Letty with love

Ogden Nash
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born August 19, 1902(1902-08-19)
Rye, New York
Died May 19, 1971 (aged 68)

Occupation Poet

Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 - May 19, 1971) was an American poet best known for writing pithy and funny light verse.





Biography

Ogden Nash was born in Rye, New York. His father owned and operated an import-export company, and because of business obligations, the family relocated often.

In 1920, Nash entered Harvard University, only to drop out a year later. He worked his way through a series of jobs, eventually landing a position as an editor at Doubleday publishing house, where he first began to write poetry.

In 1931 he published his first collection of poems, Hard Lines, earning him national recognition. Some of his poems reflected an anti-establishment feeling. For example, one verse, entitled Common Sense, asks:

Why did the Lord give us agility,
If not to evade responsibility?
When Nash wasn't writing poems, he made guest appearances on comedy and radio shows and toured the United States and England, giving lectures at colleges and universities.

Nash was regarded respectfully by the literary establishment, and his poems were frequently anthologized even in serious collections such as Selden Rodman's 1946 A New Anthology of Modern Poetry.

Nash was the lyricist for the Broadway musical One Touch of Venus, collaborating with librettist S. J. Perelman and composer Kurt Weill. The show included the notable song "Speak Low (When You Speak Love)." He also wrote the lyrics for the 1952 revue Two's Company.

Nash and his love of the Baltimore Colts were featured in the December 13, 1968 issue of Life Magazine. Several poems about the Baltimore Colts are matched to full-page pictures. The cover of the magazine reads, "My Colts / Versus and Reverses by Ogden Nash" and has the following poem:

Look at Number 53,
Dennis Gaubatz,
that is he,
looming 10 feet tall
or taller
above the Steelers'
signal caller...
Since Gaubatz acts like
this on Sunday,
I'll do my
quarterbacking Monday.'
Nash died in 1971 of Crohn's disease and is interred in North Hampton, New Hampshire. His daughter, Isabel, was married to noted photographer Fred Eberstadt, and his granddaughter, Fernanda Eberstadt, is an acclaimed author.


Bed Riddance, 1970 collection


Poetry style

Nash was best known for surprising, pun-like rhymes, sometimes with words deliberately misspelled for comic effect, as in his retort to Dorothy Parker's dictum, Men seldom make passes/At girls who wear glasses:

A girl who is bespectacled
She may not get her nectacled
But safety pins and bassinets
Await the girl who fassinets.

He often wrote in an exaggerated verse form with pairs of lines that rhyme, but are of dissimilar length and irregular meter. Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man uses this device to good effect. He opens by noting

It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts,
That all sin is divided into two parts.
One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important,
And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant...
He develops this at some length, expounding on the superiority of sins of commission, because

You didn't get a wicked forbidden thrill
Every time you let a policy lapse or forget to pay a bill;
You didn't slap the lads in the tavern on the back and loudly cry Whee,
Let's all fail to write just one more letter before we go home, and this round of unwritten letters is on me.
No, you never get any fun
Out of things you haven't done...

Nash was very well-known for his limericks, such as this one:

There was a young lady called Harris,
that nothing could ever embarrass.
Til the bath salts one day
in the tub where she lay,
turned out to be plaster-of-paris!

The Carnival of the Animals

Ogden Nash has written humorous and probably the most popular poems for each movement of the Camille Saint-Saëns orchestral suite The Carnival of the Animals, which are often recited when the work is performed.


Other Poems

Nash was a baseball fan, and he wrote a poem titled "Lineup for Yesterday," an alphabetical poem listing baseball immortals. Two of the letters did not refer to players, however:

I is for Me,
Not a hard-hitting man,
But an outstanding all-time
Incurable fan.


and

Z is for Zenith
The summit of fame;
These men are up here,
These men are the game.



2002 USPS Ogden Nash Stamp

The US Postal Service released a stamp featuring Ogden Nash and six of his poems on the centennial of his birth on 19 August 2002. The six poems are "The Turtle," "The Cow," "Crossing The Border," "The Kitten," "The Camel" and "Limerick One." The stamp is also the first stamp in the history of the USPS to include the word "sex," though as a synonym for gender, not as the act. It can be found under the "O" and is part of "The Turtle". The stamp is the 18th in the Literary Arts series.


Quotations

Some of Nash's verses have almost become proverbial:

The Camel has a single hump,
The dromedary two,
Or else the other way around,
I'm never sure - are you?
The Lord in His wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why
The one-L lama, he's a priest
The two-L llama, he's a beast
And I would bet a silk pajama
There isn't any three-L lllama
(Nash appended as a footnote to this poem the comment "The author's attention has been called to a type of conflagration known as a three-alarmer. Pooh." [1])
You can have my jellyfish
I'm not sellyfish
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree;
Indeed, unless the billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all
(This a parody of the poem Trees by Joyce Kilmer)
The panther is like a leopard,
Except that it hasn't been peppered.
Should you behold a panther crouch,
Prepare to say ouch,
Better yet, if called by a panther,
Don't anther.
Philo Vance
Needs a kick in the pance

"On Ice-Breaking"

Candy is dandy;
But liquor is quicker
Once when interviewed on his arrival in San Francisco, he said:

May I boil in oil
And fry in Crisco
If I ever call
San Francisco 'Frisco'

Atypical of most Great Depression intellectuals, Nash, at times, espoused views critical of income redistribution:

Abracadabra, thus we learn
The more you create, the less you earn.
The less you earn, the more you're given,
The less you lead, the more you're driven,
The more you pay, the more they need,
The more you earn, the less you keep,
And now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to take
If the tax-collector hasn't got it before I wake.

Johnny Nash
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johnny Nash (born John Lester Nash Jr, 19 August 1940, Houston, Texas) is an African-American pop singer-songwriter, best known for his 1972 hit, "I Can See Clearly Now".

Nash began as a pop singer in the 1950s. He also enjoyed success as an actor early in his career appearing in the screen version of playwright Louis S. Peterson's Take a Giant Step. Nash won a Silver Sail Award for his performance from the Locarno International Film Festival. He became famous for singing the theme song for The Mighty Hercules cartoon in the early 1960s (a song he also wrote). His biggest hits were the early reggae tunes "Hold Me Tight", "I Can See Clearly Now", and "Stir It Up", the last written by Bob Marley prior to Marley's international success. In the UK, his biggest hit was with the song "Tears on My Pillow" which reached number one in the UK Singles Chart in July 1975 for one week.

Nash was last active as a composer in the Swedish romance Vill så gärna tro (1971) in which he portrayed Robert. For many years he seemed to have dropped out of sight; however, in May 2006 he was singing again at Sugar Hill recording studio in his native Houston. Working with chief engineer Andy Bradley, he began the work of transferring analog tapes of his songs from the 1970s and 1980s to Pro Tools digital format.[1]

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Jill St. John

Jill St. John (born August 19, 1940 in Los Angeles, California, United States) is a film and television actress. Born Jill Arlyn Oppenheim, she played her major film roles during the 1960s and early 1970s, including Barbara Tuttle in Jerry Lewis' Who's Minding the Store? and a turn as Bond Girl Tiffany Case opposite Sean Connery in the 1971 James Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever. In the 1980's, she starred with Dennis Weaver on the short-lived soap opera, Emerald Point N.A.S. She played Deanna Kinkaid, Thomas Mallory's conniving former sister in law.

St. John continues to act, although her roles in the 1990s and 2000s have primarily been for television sitcoms and made-for-TV movies. In 1997, St. John had a guest appearance on the Seinfeld episode "The Yada Yada." St. John is also known for her very high I.Q. of 162 and for being admitted to the University of California, Los Angeles at the age of 14.

St. John has been married a total of four times:

Robert Wagner - (May 26, 1990 - present)
Jack Jones - (October 14, 1967 - 1969) (divorced)
Lance Reventlow - (March 24, 1960 - October 30, 1963) (divorced)
Neil Durbin - (May 23, 1957 - June 3, 1958) (divorced)
She has also dated Henry Kissinger, Frank Sinatra, and Sean Connery. Jill and Nancy Sinatra were high school classmates.

RIDDLES

Why did the nurse go to art school?
Because she wanted to learn how to draw blood!

What birds spend all their time on their knees?
Birds of prey.

What happened when the owl lost his voice?
He didn't give a hoot.

At what time of day was Adam created?
A little before Eve.

PUNS

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

The short fortune teller who escaped from prison was a small medium
at large.

I still can't believe they're actually pressing assault charges
against me for biting and scratching. But I'm gonna fight those
charges tooth and nail. (J. Murphy from Ruminations)

Is it true that exits are on the way out?

Mr. Carrot crossing the road was hit by a car. The ambulance came
and
carried him to the veggie hospital. Mrs. Carrot arrived, and the
doctor said, "Yes, ma'am, he's going to live, but he'll always be
only a vegetable."

On her first day as a lifeguard she was still wet behind the ears.

Good morning WA2K listeners and contributors.

Well, folks, our hawkman is up early today. Thanks so much, Boston Bob, for the wonderful celeb background.

I believe we know most of them, but I had to go to our archives to recall Cozzens' book By Loved Possessed. I read that, but cannot recall the exact plot.

Ahhh, I really like Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now".

Funny funny puns and riddles, Bob, and I really could use that smile that touched my face.

Will await our phunny puppy before commenting further, however. Her photo's are always the key to memory.

Until that time, how about this sunrise song by Uriah Heep.

Sunrise, and the new day's breaking through.
The morning of another day without you.
And as the hours roll by
noone's there to see me cry
except the sunrise,
the sunrise and you.


Tired eyes drift across the shore.
Looking for love and nothing more.
But as the sea rolls by
noone's there to see me cry
except the sunrise,
the sunrise and you.

Sunrise, bless my eyes.
Catch my soul, make me whole again.
Sunrise, new day heed my song.
I'm tired of fighting and fooling around.
But from now until who knows when?
My sword will be my friend.
And I'll love you...love ya
for all of my time.

Sunrise, bless my eyes.
Catch my soul, make me whole again.

Bernie Shaw is the lead vocalist for that group, and he is from Vancouver, Canada. Isn't that amazing, listeners? A Canadian with an Irishman's name in a group patterned after a famous Brit's novel.