In between hearty bouts of celebrating the Black Mass, mystic groupie-groping orgies, and the occasional refreshing snack break, the boys found time to sandwich in the recording of a jingle for Kellogg’s Rice Krispies in October of 1963. Imagine the segue: “Okay boys, that’s a wrap on Little Red Rooster, but now we’ve got something else for you…”
I was at a writing conference a couple of years ago and the keynote speaker said something that absolutely rocked me to the very core of my being…and I hope it will rock you, too.
It was Susan Musgrave, at the Surrey International Writer’s Conference. She was talking about when she was a teenager, and she was thinking about giving up on school. Well, you just know how that went over with the Principal. He called her into his office and he went up one side of her and down the other with the whole raging authority figure trip (because at that point nobody had heard of Susan Musgrave and, indeed, she had not yet becomeSusan Musgrave, per se) and among the many and varied things he had to say, he said this:
If you don’t finish school, young lady, the only job you’ll be fit for is a prostitute!
And, telling the story, she said, Well I knew that wasn’t an option for me, because I hate working with other people.
and who among us cannot feel that deep in the core of our being, eh?
She went on to say, “Have you ever met someone who worked with other people? They all hate it; the only things they complain about are all the other people in the office!”
and suddenly, writing alone by the glow of a midnight monitor doesn’t seem so bad.
In memory of that moment of realization, and in memorium of many an Orwellian moment in my own office experience, we present Mister Montgomery Burns of The Simpsons, performing what’s sure to become the office worker’s anthem: Look at All These Idiots! Lyrics over the jump…
God grant me the grace to pump out something decent in memory of the 70th anniversary of the death of HP Lovecraft, the power to force the audio player to work, and the wisdom to come back later and edit this into something that makes a helluva lot more sense than it does at 4:18am.
Yog-sothoth be praised! If you’ve been looking for H.P. Lovecraft audio look no farther! We’ve compiled a list of all the story readings and audio dramas that we know about! Most of these “old ones” are out of print but once you know it exists you’re half way to finding it – though perhaps that’s not the wisest move. If you own one of these audiobooks and can provide more details or a scan of the cover art please send us an email. But no copies of the Necronomicon please …. we’re crazy enough!
Forget Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, and the other mixed nuts clattering around inside your radio. Forget the Sopranos. It’s time to get real. It’s time to tune in to WMOB: Wiretap Radio!
You’re about to meet Fritzy and Frankie, two of the cuddliest, criminalest, crotchetiest capos ever crapped out by the big O.C.
Thrill to their breathless confessions on covert FBI wiretaps:
Wife troubles.
Mistress troubles.
Weight troubles.
Bowel troubles.
and, in possibly-related news: Where can you find a good cannoli these days?
Oogatz!
All these episodes (with full transcripts) and more await you at WMOB: Wiretap Radio, the partner site of the well-known and well-loved The Smoking Gun.
In the course of a federal racketeering investigation, FBI agents and prosecutors received court authorization to wiretap the home telephone of Federico “Fritzy” Giovanelli, a Genovese crime family soldier. The feds hoped to hear Fritzy discussing mob business with fellow New York wiseguys, conversations that would then form the basis for a RICO prosecution against Giovanelli and Co. As it turned out, during the six months the FBI was listening, Fritzy was fairly careful — there was little talk of mayhem and only occasionally did he slip and refer to his criminal enterprises (and then it was often just about his gambling operation).
But while the tapes do not contain the sort of reckless chatter that sent John Gotti away for life, they’re remarkable for the funny, profane, and whimsical conversations Fritzy had with his Mafia cohorts, namely Frank “Frankie California” Condo, a fellow Genovese soldier. Like two old hens, Frank and Fritzy would gab daily about life’s rich pageant, their conversations a stream-of-consciousness potpourri. While most men their age were out working, the duo would convene on the telephone in the early afternoon — both speaking from their homes — and launch into wildly veering conversations. A typical 15-minute chat could touch on sex, work, girlfriends, vitamins, movies, enlarged hearts, cholesterol counts, and marital strife. Peppered with malaprops and featuring Frank and Fritzy’s Central Casting voices, the tapes are a raucous, slice-of-life look at two hoodlums.
on the back of a Rice Krispies box…and thanks to the blog Phil Spector at WordPress.
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raincoaster 