Monday, February 14, 2011

Valentines birthday salutes!

One of my all time favorite entertainers, Benjamin Kubelsky, was born right here in Chicago on this day in 1894. You may remember him as Jack Benny, the Pride of Waukegan.

So do I.

I was reading Fred Allen's Treadmill to Oblivion again recently. Toward the end of the book he pays a wonderful tribute to his supposed enemy: "He is my favorite comedian and I hope to be his friend until he's forty. That will be forever."

And speaking of people who don't yet admit to 40, here's a birthday shoutout to Skeezix Wallet. He looks pretty good for 90, don't you think?

(Only in the comics.)

Also celebrating a birthday today is Ken Levine, one of my all-time favorite bloggers, even if I am insanely jealous of the career he's had: Comedy writer (M*A*S*H, Cheers, and many others), director, and baseball broadcaster. (He'll be doing some work for the Seattle Mariners this year.) Levine's blog posts are consistently funny, except when he writes eulogies. In contrast, I may be at my funniest when I try to do a serious political post. Dag nab it. (Levine once passed up the chance to see the Beatles in concert and saw Jack Benny in Vegas instead. "I made the right choice," Levine wrote. "That night at Sahara's [Benny] was sensational. No one who went to the Beatles concert could hear a note.")

And there is yet one more birthday shoutout to make this morning, this one to my Older Daughter. She doesn't read, or even know about, this blog. If she saw this, she'd be upset by my continued association of her birthday with Jack Benny's. I'm upset by the fact that she's 27 today.

Twenty seven? How is anyone supposed to believe I'm still 23? Even when I explain how it works according to the New Math I learned in the 60s? I may have to move my admitted age up to 39 as well.

2 comments:

Empress Bee (of the high sea) said...

shut up curmy. my youngest is 40 this past november. sigh... time goes so fast and the older you get the faster it goes. like a bullet train.

smiles, bee
tyvc

Anonymous said...

I'm having trouble with an Older Daughter too. She is now the age that I have claimed to be for about 20 years. Every year I claimed I had her at a younger age, but that math isn't working anymore.