McGyver Lives…Behind Bars

We heard it through the grapevine that it's time to run

There is no limit to the mental resources and chutzpah found in the hearts and minds of Americans. Never let it be said that we give up easily.

Take the case of James Frederick, a 49 year-old inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Southern Wisconsin. One day Frederick had had enough. Instead of performing the duties of his prison job, which was to retreive food carts, he made a run for it — “it” being one of the fences that surround the prison.

Turns out, this act was not as spontaneous as it sounds. Before attempting his Mid-West “Escape From Alcatraz,” Frederick had stuffed his clothes with newspaper to keep them (and himself) from being shredded by the fence’s razor wires.

But it was all for naught. One of his unprotected hands was lacerated by the fence before he had gotten very far.

This guy has to be some kind of failed McGyver. Clearly, it’s the prison environment that’s holding him back. If he had access to chewing gum, pipe cleaners, duct tape, an extension cord, and empty paper tower tubes, there’s no telling what heights he could rise to. Yeah, and we’re supposed to be rehabilitating the prison population.

What makes this story interesting is that, not only did Mr. Frederick have a body protected by old newspapers (hopefully, The Washington Times and pages torn from Sarah Palin’s book), but he was also carrying a large bag of raisins. Don’t we all know about the protective powers of raisins?

A recent study of successful prison escapes concluded that prisoners who moistened raisins (to activate their adhesive properties) and covered their bodies with the dried fruit (for camouflage when hiding in wooded areas) were 68% less likely to be recaptured.

Okay, that’s not true. It’s a nice thought though — or a scary one, depending which side of the prison bars you live on.

Chances are, Mr. Frederick was thinking of sustenance and took the smallest, lightest food he could get his hands on. After all, raisins are nature’s candy and the prison escapee’s nourishment on the run. Let’s hope he took toilet paper, too, because raisins are also nature’s laxative and the prune’s less-maligned first cousin.

This isn’t the first time Mr. Frederick has attempted a daring escape. In 1981, he tried to escape from the Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution in Plymouth, Wisconsin.

Hopefully, the Columbia Correctional Institution has a copy of “The Shawshank Redemption” in its video library — for cinematically transcendant purposes only, of course. Here’s spoiler for Mr. Frederick: you’re going to need a very, very small pick axe.

Drop Your Pants for a Song

Do these birds go with these shoes?

Anyone who travels knows the ever-increasing list of items that cannot be taken onto an airplane: nail clippers, pocket knives, box-cutters, razor blades, scissors, axes, meat cleavers, saws, cattle prods, ice picks, and pieces of glass, metal and wood carved into fine points. Speaking of sharp, Chelsea Handler should be added to the “prohibited” list any day now.

But today, we must now add songbirds to that list. Yes, those little flying chanteuses are not allowed to travel. Who’da thunk it?

Apparently, Sony Dong didn’t think it. Or maybe he did because he strapped more than a dozen songbirds to his body to conceal them as he boarded a flight from Viet Nam-to-Los Angeles. According to one story, what gave Dong away was the, “bird feathers and droppings on his socks, and [the] tail feathers…peeking out from under his pants.”

What’s strange is that these were songbirds — birds that sing. Why wouldn’t the sound of singing coming from a man’s pants tip off authorities before the droppings on his socks and the feathers on his behind? Were the birds on strike during the international flight? Were they too engrossed by the in-flight movie to give up a note or two?

Then again, people ask the same questions about Barbra Streisand when she travels?

And if the birds did warble a tune between Viet Nam and L.A., who was Dong sitting next to on the plane? Marlee Matlin?

Dong was arrested by customs agents and charged with illegally importing wildlife. If smuggling wildlife becomes a trend, this blogger recommends pigmy hippos. They can fit into a duffle bag and the overhead compartments of most airplanes. They are the Verne Troyers of the animal kingdom.

As an added bonus, none of them have made a sex tape…yet.

Crime Glass Ceiling Given 6 Tiny Cracks

Don't look at my face. I need to use it later.

It’s finally happened. The glass ceiling of bank robbery has been shattered. Well, if not shattered, certainly cracked in several places: a woman has made the news for bank robbery, allegedly.

According to a story on the CNN website, on September 21, a Connecticut woman walked into the Citizens Bank in Montville, Connecticut, handed the teller a note claiming she had a bomb, and escaped with the cash, leaving the “bomb” on the counter.

This story is not noteworthy just because a woman robbed a bank. That is a remarkable feat in itself, but not unprecedented: according to FBI statistics, women commit 6.2 percent of bank robberies nationwide. But for some reason, they don’t make national news.

So why are we hearing about the robbery of an obscure Connecticut bank where probably only a small amount of cash was stolen? Because of this pioneer’s sheer productivity. Not only did she rob one bank, she is suspected in the robberies of six banks within one week. That’s better work than Bonnie and Clyde — and they had the rest of The Barrow Gang to fall back on.

Ms. Solo Bank Bandit only had herself. And it’s not like she high-tailed it from the bank with a lot of cash. In one robbery, her note only asked for $1,000. But the fact that she was so efficient in her criminal enterprise and succeeded in robbing not one, but six banks before being caught is a testament to the power of a determined woman. Ladies, we can do anything the guys can do. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

And the bomb — whether real or faked — was a nice touch. No nasty gun, the requisite paperwork and accoutrements like bullets to contend with. Just grab a duffle bag, put in something heavy like two or three computer external hard drives held together with duct tape, and you’re on your way to notoriety.

To be clear, the above is meant as a tutorial on bank robbery and this blog is not meant to advocate criminal behavior of any kind. Crime does not pay. Just ask Rob Blagojevich or anyone who’s ever had a top ten hit on the rap charts. Talent and good management are rare; everyone else goes to prison.

However, Ms. Solo Bank Bandit’s fortitude and consistent (criminal) work ethic must be admired. She needed money, presumably, a certain amount of money. She doesn’t seem like the kind of woman prone to excess. She seems like the type who would take only as much as she needed and leave the rest alone. In each robbery, she seems singularly goal-oriented.

Her goals can be easily envisioned. Bank #1: Little Mikey needed school supplies and a new pair of Chuck’s. Bank #2: groceries; Bank #3: a new suit for that promising job interview. Bank #4: an Iphone; Banks 5 and 6: apps for the Iphone and technical support for the apps. A girl’s gotta play Rolando, right?

But Robbing six banks and taking only $1,000 is like picking the pockets of six people and taking only their quarters. The risk/return ratio is not in your favor.

Ms. Solo Bank Bandit may have been able to elude the authorities a little longer if she’d had a gang, a gang that consisted of Queen Latifah, Viveca A. Fox, and Jada Pinkett (before Mr. Smith). The benefits of Kimberly Elise are arguable.

And Ms. Fox would have definitely advised her to wear a disguise.

Flashback Friday – Kill Your (Commercial) Television

No sale!

This Friday, the flashback is not so much a movie or TV show, but television itself. As I was sitting in my living room trying to find some entertainment on the TV machine, I was surprised to find a show called “Flash Forward,” which wasn’t too awful. That is, the content of the show wasn’t too awful.

Unfortunately, every twelve minutes or so, when I was really into it and on the edge of my couch waiting for that next little tidbit that would tell me why everyone on the planet blacked out for 2 minutes and seventeen seconds, something extremely disturbing and annoying would happen – a commercial, those irritating little reminders that tell us that the time slot we’re currently watching has been rented by Tylenol or Lexus or Welch’s Grape Juice or – biggest insult of all – the network we’re currently watching.

Anyone who knows me knows that I watch very little commercial television. It takes a might exceptional show to keep me coming back after a five-minute commercial break. Some of those exception shows are “Desperate Housewives,” “30 Rock,” “The Office.” They are worth waiting for the end of the string of “Pizza Hut,” and “Garnier Fructise” commercials. But I don’t listen to them. I mute them. They sound much better that way. I would rather not be jarred out of my semi-conscious couch potato state by a commercial that is at least 5 decibels louder than the program I’m watching in order to view the trailer for the latest film about hippy undercover cops chasing the mastermind of a pot-growing syndicate through a nudist colony…on skateboards.

But contemporary television marketing has gotten completely out of hand. Everything is, “Want to see what happens next? Go to our website?” “Want to talk to the start of your favorite show? Go to our website?” “Want to know a great way to remove vomit from bed sheets? Visit our website.” Everything is conceived to drive traffic to each network’s website.

And what do we find when we get there? Other things that networks want to sell us. If you miss an episode of “Desperate Housewives,” don’t worry? You can catch up on the website. But don’t think you’ve escaped the scourge of commercial television just because you’re not, technically, watching television. Oh, no! The website episodes have commercials embedded into the content, so don’t bother trying to fast forward through them. Just do what I do in real time – Say hello my little computer mute button!

What happened to the days when there was, maybe, one commercial during each commercial break?

I remember being in college and watching television in the TV room of my dorm with some American dorm-mates and some British exchange students. The show opening for a popular series came on, then the show went immediately to a commercial. The British students looked at each other and laughed, baffled. The Americans, used to such immediate and intrusive interruptions, asked the Brits what was so funny. We were told that British TV shows never started that way, that there was always entertainment content before the first commercial. I sighed and dreamed of the day American television would work that way.

Of course, today it does work that way, except now we have twice as many commercials within each program to make up for the fact that the programs start immediately after the opening. Is there really that much more crap worth buying? If so, I guess you can call that progress.

But with the advent of TiVo and the DVR, most people end up fast-forwarding through commercials, so advertisers have, necessarily, become more innovative and clever in their efforts to expose viewers to their products. They’ve returned to that age-old TV advertising strategy of sponsoring programs. My local news happens to be sponsored by Chase Bank, so guess which bank robbery will get the top slot on the news should such an awful event occur?

TNT promotes its upcoming programming in the lower eighth of the television screen during its current programming. Sometimes these promotions can be quite jarring. You might be watching a particularly dramatic scene on “Law and Order” when a tiny formula one race car skids across the screen trailing smoke followed by a tiny pit crew, which proceeds to change the car’s tire, all in an effort to promote the network’s NASCAR programming. What’s even more jarring is the notion that “Law and Order” viewers can also be NASCAR fans. Talk about strange bedfellows.

No matter where I tune my old-fashioned television dial, there is always someone trying to sell me something. But it’s more than just selling. It’s an interruption, an intrusion. I can only go to the bathroom so many times in a one-hour period, so I am inevitably forced to watch these sales pitches once in a while. And guess what? They’re still annoying, even with the sound muted.

Sure, the commercial directors/advertisers work hard to make these sales pitches look like entertainment, but they are still sales pitches. I don’t care if there’s a woman floating in an inner-tube to sell me Pine Sol, or an eight month-old baby talking about stocks to sell me on the Etrade service. I still know it’s a commercial.

Like that naïve college student baffled by the British reaction to the American commercial-before-content version of television, I still have a dream. Now I dream of a day when there are no more TV commercials within television programming. I dream of the day when commercials will come in 6 minute blocks before and after the programs I watch like they do on cable because that’s the American way.

Perhaps this isn’t so much a flashback as much as it’s a flash forward.

This Friday, the flashback is not so much a movie or TV, but television itself. As I was sitting in my living room trying to find something to entertainment on the TV machine, I was surprised to find a show called “Flash Forward,” which was too awful. That is, the content of the show wasn’t too awful.

Unfortunately, every twelve minutes or so, when I was really into it and on the edge of my couch waiting for that next little tidbit that would tell me why everyone on the planet blacked out for 2 minutes and seventeen seconds, something extremely disturbing and annoying would happen – a commercial, those irritating little reminders that tell us that the time slot we’re currently watching has been rented by Tylenol or Lexus or Welch’s Grape Juice or – biggest insult of all – the network we’re currently watching.

Anyone who knows me knows that I watch very little commercial television. It takes a might exceptional show to keep me coming back after a five-minute commercial break. Some of those exception shows are “Desperate Housewives,” “30 Rock, “The Office.” They are worth waiting for the end of the string of “Pizza Hut,” and “Garnier Fructise” commercials. But I don’t listen to them. I mute them. They sound much better that way. I would rather not be jarred out of my semi-conscious couch potato state by a commercial that is at least 5 decibels louder than the program I’m watching in order to view the trailer for the latest film about hippy undercover cops chasing the mastermind of a pot-growing syndicate through a nudist colony…on skateboards.

But contemporary television marketing has gotten completely out of hand. Everything is, “Want to see what happens next? Go to our website?” “Want to talk to the start of your favorite show? Go to our website?” “Want to know a great way to remove vomit from bed sheets? Visit our website.” Everything is conceived to drive traffic to each network’s website.

And what do we find when we get there? Other things that networks want to sell us. If you miss an episode of “Desperate Housewives,” don’t worry? You can catch up on the website. But don’t think you’ve escaped the scourge of commercial television just because you’re not, technically, watching television. Oh, no! The web episodes have commercials embedded into the content, so don’t bother trying to fast forward through them. Just do what I do in real time – “Hello my little computer mute button!”

What happened to the days when there was, maybe, one commercial during each commercial break. I remember being in college and watching television in the TV room of my dorm with some British exchange students. The show opening for a popular series came on then the show immediately went to commercial. The British students looked at each other and laughed. The Americans, used to such immediate and intrusive interruptions, asked them what was so funny. We were told that British TV shows never start that way. There’s always entertainment content before the commercial. I sighed and dreamed of the day American television would work that way.

Of course, today it does work that way, except now we have twice as many commercials within each program to make up for the fact that the programs start immediately after the opening. I guess you can call that progress.

But with the advent of TiVo and the DVR, most people end up fast-forwarding through commercials, so advertisers have, necessarily, become more innovative and clever in their efforts to expose viewers to their products. They’ve returned to that age-old TV advertising strategy of sponsoring programs. My local news happens to be sponsored by Chase Bank, so guess which bank robbery will get the top slot on the news should such an awful event happen to occur?

TNT promotes its upcoming programming in the lower eighth of the screen during its current programming. Sometimes these promotions can be quite jarring. You might be watching a particularly dramatic scene from “Law and Order” when a tiny formula one race car skids across the screen trailing smoke followed by a tiny pit crew, which proceeds to change the car’s tire, all in an effort to promote the network’s NASCAR programming. What’s even more jarring is the notion that “Law and Order” viewers could also be NASCAR fans.

No matter where I tune on my non-existent television dial, there is always someone trying to sell me something. But it’s more than just selling. It’s an interruption, an intrusion, a way to keep me from doing something I want to do. I can only go to the bathroom so many times in a one-hour period, so I am inevitably forced to watch these sales pitches once in a while.

Sure, the commercial directors/advertisers work hard to make these sales pitches look like entertainment, but there are still sales pitches. I don’t care if there’s a guy in his kitchen dancing in his underwear to sell me a pizza, or an eight month-old baby talking about stocks to sell me on the Etrade service. I still know it’s a commercial.

Like that naïve college student baffled by the British reaction to the American commercial before content version of television, I still have a dream. Now I dream of a day when there are no more TV commercials within television programming. I dream of the day when commercials will come in 6 minute blocks before and after the programs I watch like they do on cable because that’s the American way.

Perhaps this isn’t so much a flashback as much as it’s a flash forward.

Mannequin, Woman-a-Can’t

Hair today, sin tomorrow

In a recent story from the news agency Reuters, it was reported that Iran’s moral security police have outlawed the use of curvy mannequins or mannequins without headscarves in that country’s shops and businesses.

This is not new. All religions have some form of restriction or instructions for hiding or covering hair, be it women and headscarves, or men with yarmulkes. But it seems that with women, these regulations are taken way, way overboard. What is it about a woman’s hair that, in religious dogma, can drive an otherwise pious and faithful man to distraction? Is it the curls? Is it the coloring? Is it the smell of coconut and misspent effort? Is it the sense that we spend dozens upon dozens of hours per week trying to make our hair look good?

And what about bad hair days? Are these rules really needed on bad hair days? Is there a woman anywhere on the planet who wouldn’t gladly cover her unruly locks on the days they fail to cooperate?

Let’s not be too facetious. This is a serious problem affecting the quality of  life of hundreds of thousands of Iranian mannequins. But this is one law of attire that affects the men, too. For this law of mannequin displays also states that, “Both showing necktie and bowtie behind the windows … and (the) selling (of) women’s underwear by men are prohibited.”

This story brings to mind an I Love Lucy episode. After taunting Ricky with an unfinished letter to an old beau whom she describes as “a gorgeous hunk o’ man,” Lucy goes to visit the beau, who is now a furrier, to explain the letter, which she believes Ricky has mailed. When Lucy gets to the fur shop, she finds a short, bald man who causes her to exclaim, “…my hunk has shrunk.”

Lucy starts to leave, but before she can do so, she sees Ricky and Fred heading toward the fur shop. Lucy knows can’t let Ricky see her shrunken, balding ex-beau. She’ll never hear the end of it. She must hide. But where? In her desperation, Lucy climbs into the display window and makes like a mannequin.

Before this draconian mannequin edict was handed down by Iran’s moral security police, Muslim women wishing to escape the strict religious dress code of their nation could have made a similar escape. But no more. The escape by mannequin impersonation has been permanently barred to them.

And what about those flamboyant male mannequins for whom a jellabiya and a kufi are just too conforming, mannequins for whom a bowtie is just the right flourish needed for those hours sitting stark-still in a shop window? How will they ever reach the mountaintop?

Let’s hope the moral security police don’t outlaw laundry shutes, vitamin supplement shills, big noses made of putty, or Superman impersonations on ledges anytime soon.

Knight to King…zzzzzzzzzzz

King me, then tuck me in

A recent news story by Reuters reports that a champion chess player fell asleep during one of his matches.

These are two words seldom used in the same sentence:  “news” and “chess. A chess player hasn’t made news since the decline of Bobby Fischer, but hold on to your pawns…

Chess Grandmaster Vladislav Tkachiev made news when he fell asleep during a match in Kolkata, India against Indian chess player Praveen Kumar.

It seems that Tkachiev is a fan of the spirits. He was, reportedly, so drunk that he could barely sit up in his chair. So 11 moves into the match, Tkachiev could no longer pretend that his desire to checkmate was stronger than his desire to catch some sleep it off. What’s surprising is the fact that he didn’t hurl all over the chessboard.

The question is how did Tkachiev complete his moves up to the point he when he fell asleep? Did the strong scent of Vodka propel his pieces to where he wanted them on the board? Or perhaps the motto where he learned the game isn’t “Sometimes you gotta play hurt,” but rather, “Sometimes you gotta play drunk.” But an intoxicated person rarely does anything remotely intelligent, and playing chess while drunk is like flying a 747 while blind.

It can be difficult to stay awake during normal chess-playing circumstances, but add alcohol to the equation and it becomes impossible, as Mr. Tkachiev has probably learned.

Anyone who has ever played chess knows that waiting for a strategy-conscious opponent to make his/her move can sometimes be interminable. This is why chess timers are used in chess tournaments and by those who are serious about playing the game. It’s hard to fall asleep in 2 minutes…unless you’re wasted.

Tkachiev’s situation surely gives new meaning to the trash-talking brag line, “I can take you in my sleep!”

Nevertheless, Kumar won the match in the chess equivalent of a TKO on the grounds that Tkachiev was unable to finish his moves. Considering the fact that chess is, ostensibly, a war board game, the consequence of a TKO loss is tame.

Had Tkachiev fallen asleep on the battlefield, there would be no question about living to drink another day.

Now that he’s played Sleepy, Praveen Kumar’s next match will be against Dopey.

A…B…See the Baby on the Pole

Shake what mommy gave you

There are places in the world where some wildly inappropriate products are being manufactured and marketed for children. The Huffington Post recently ran a slide show that included the 7 most inappropriate products for children and this “Pole Dancer” doll was one of them.

Comedian Chris Rock once said that his primary responsibility as a parent was to, “keep [his] baby off the pole.”

That resolution is probably not shared by any parent who would buy a child any of the products listed in the HuffPo slide show.

If we can agree with the premise that toys should teach children something useful about the world around them, we can also agree that a pole-dancing doll has no place in little Jenny’s toy chest. That is, unless little Jenny is being groomed for a profession where clear stiletto heels and patent-leather thong undies are the norm.

What could this doll teach a little girl? That glitter is your friend? That “mad” pole skills deserve big bills?

Manufactured in Asia and complete with a silver pole topped with a disco ball, the “Pole Dancer” packaging text contains phrases like, “Up and down” and “Go round and round.” Nothing too suggestive there.

In the product’s defense — possibly the only defensible feature of the product — the doll is wearing more clothing than most strippers wear when they’re working. In fact, the doll’s dress is down-right dowdy. It’s as if she left her bat mitzvah or first communion to go to her job at Henry Handcock’s House of Muff.

In addition to the stripper doll — and along the same lines — the HuffPo list also contains a nipple-tassle T-shirt made for little girls ages 0-12 months. Again…why? What does a twelve month-old have to put under tassles and who would want to see it displayed this way? Perhaps someone who sees “To Catch a Predator” as instructional rather than informational television?

Another head-shaking product on the list is the collection of STD plushies, the perfect gift for those stuffed animal-loving children who have a venereal disease in their future. The collection includes plush replicas of the chlamydia, clap and herpes bacterium for hours of skanky, pus-inducing fun.

If our penchant for watching strangers marry for money and has-been singers fondle gold-digging skeezers in hot tubs doesn’t redeem us, the fact that most of these products are not sold in the U.S. should.

You Make Me Feel So Young…And Rich

I am NOT John McCain!

A disturbing trend is surfacing. It seems that those who think crime pays are coming to that conclusion later and later in life.

First, there was the story commented on in this blog about the elderly Japanese citizens behind a rash of shoplifting crimes in that country.

Now, it seems that these “elder crimes” have hit U.S. shores. According to the Associated Press, an elderly man recently robbed a La Jolla, CA bank, escaping with an undisclosed about of cash.

The suspect, described as, “a tall man in his 70s with white hair, a gray mustache and glasses,” slipped a teller a note demanding money. The kicker to the story is that the man was carrying an oxygen tank complete with plastic tubing around his nose. The AP story says the man fled with the money.

Is there a group of super-fast septuagenarians living in Southern California that has escaped the notice of Ripley’s?

If he was truly elderly, how could he, carrying an oxygen tank, flee anywhere? Did he take Grandpa-style baby-steps into the bank and sprint out of it? And exactly how lazy and/or old were the security guards at the San Diego National Bank anyway?

Interestingly, La Jolla, California does have a large elderly population, so it stands to reason that this senior citizen stick-up artist was really the age he appeared to be.

But since La Jolla is just a hop, skip and a two-hour drive from Los Angeles, the filmmaking capital of the world this side of Bollywood, could Mr. Oxygen Tank’s appearance have been the work of a skillful make-up artist? It stretches credulity that a senior citizen would commit this kind of crime when there’s still snorting to be done and kids walking on grass needing to be yelled at. If the elderly appearance was a disguise, the oxygen tank was genius!

If it wasn’t, this blogger suggests police look out for any elderly man spending an inordinate amount of money on Denny’s Grand Slam breakfasts. And if he’s lavishing his hard candy on all the blue-haired ladies in the neighborhood, he’s probably the culprit.

Flashback Friday – Getting “Carrie”-D Away

Who's the pretty prom queen now?

Of late, there have been a number of airings of the 1976 movie, “Carrie.”  I was either too young to see the movie when it originally came out or don’t remember very much of it other than that iconic prom scene. Although I systematically shun all entertainment centered on the high school experience, when “Carrie” appeared in my cable listings, I decided to watch.

And, boy, am I glad I did! This film is awesome and timeless! Its title was even recently used as a verb in the “Reunion” episode of “30 Rock” to refer to the prank a group of high school reunion attendees planned to pull on Tina Fey’s character, Liz Lemon.

Since the “Carrie” source material was a Stephen King novel, I have to assume it was meant to be a horror flick. But it’s really too funny to be taken for anything outside of the “Scream-esque” sub-genre of horror-as-comedy.

First of all, the film starts with what can only be described as a paean to adolescent male sexuality. There are girls in gym shorts jiggling around playing volleyball. Then there is the post-gym class  scene filled with naked and half-naked young girl flicking towels at each other in the steam-filled locker-room. Of course, all of this is filmed in soft focus, as scenes like this always are in an adolescent boy’s fantasies. And, of course, none of the scantily-clad and towel-flicking girls are overweight. It’s as if the entire film has a “No Fat Chicks” banner across its cinematic chest.

There is a gym detention scene that could pass for adolescent soft porn. Again, young girls in impossibly short shorts jumping up and down doing calisthenics. Then there is the extended dolly shot of Betty Buckley from the waist down as she walks through the ranks of her detainees wearing a pair of Daisy Dukes of her own. When, in the history of public education, did gym teachers dress this way other than in the sweaty daydreams of teenage boys?

Was Brian DePalma fourteen when he directed this?

Sissy Spacek’s Carrie is a likable enough character — for a teenager. Has telekinetic powers, which she only uses against people and objects who really deserve it. This is quite remarkable considering the religious-off-her-trolly mother she’s saddled with. It’s a wonder Carrie didn’t turn out the way Sybil did.

Although she is the definition of the shy, unassuming wallflower,  Carrie inspires such contempt in her peers that even while performing a sex act on her boyfriend, one classmate can’t help but look up from the car seat and utter, “I really hate Carrie White.” Considering the context, these words could easily be taken to mean exactly the opposite.

I knew Sissy Spacek starred in “Carrie; this movie put her on the map. What surprised me was the supporting cast, which consisted of actors whom I had no idea appeared in this movie. Aside from the aforementioned Betty Buckley of “Eight is Enough” fame, there is John Travolta pre-Vinnie Barbarino, but with the same sweathog I.Q. and dumb jock swagger. There’s also –“believe it or not” — William Katt before he’d achieved geeky superhero status on “The Greatest American Hero,” one of the best shows to grace the TV machine in the 80s. Katt (and his hair) shine as the hot, sensitive poet roped into standing next to Carrie on that fateful prom stage.

In the world of teenage angst on film, this one ranks right up there with all of the John Hughes movies, “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off” and “Stand By Me,” with a ghoulish touch of “Firestarter” and “Rosemary’s Baby.”

The treatment of Carrie by her classmates is probably the best argument I’ve seen for having telekinetic powers. In addition to Carrie’s uses, I would have also used them for less violent and vengeful acts like, for example, passing myself a third piece of sweet potato pie at Thanksgiving dinner when no one was looking, or knocking the 40-ounce bottle of beer out of drunk relative’s hand.

The apocalyptic, fire-and-brimstone ending was a bit over the top, as was the cross-less faux-crucifixion of the psychotic Mrs. White. But she surely deserved it.

The most frightening moments in the movie have more to do with what is heard rather what is seen. During certain moments, there is a musical sting in the score that  sounds like it’s straight out of the shower scene in “Psycho.” This sting is heard when Carrie detaches her mother from the kitchen doorframe, among other places. This music is so inextricably associated with “Pschyo” that I had to look behind me to make sure there was no knife-weilding cross-dresser anywhere in my the vacinity.

And there is nothing that can prepare you for the final “reveal” of Carrie’s ultimate powers, that is, unless you’ve seen it featured in numerous horror clip shows and award montages. It’s the scene that gave birth to the horror genre’s “dead-but-maybe-not” conceit, which is still used today to allow for the possibility of a sequel.

Yes, I’m referring to the scene featuring the plot on which Carrie’s house used to stand. It’s now covered by a shallow layer of charcoal. Sue Snell (played by Amy Irving) approaches to lay flowers at the site if Carrie’s unfortunate demise — that’s when it happens. The hand reaching up from the undug grave. Sue’s, chilling, unbridled scream.

I wish I could have been in the theaters back in ’76 to see the horrified audience members jump clean out of their seats as one scared sh*tless unit.

Good times.

Where’s Waldo Getting High?

Waldoooo, are you out there?

Boaters in Sarasota, Florida (yes, Florida again!) have been asked to be on the lookout for a missing robot belonging to the Mote Marine Laboratory.

This robot was built to find things like red tide (more on this in a minute) in the Gulf Coast region, and what makes this story remarkable — and more than a little amusing — is the fact that the robot’s name is Waldo. Yes, Waldo, like the perpetually lost, bespectacled character from the Martin Handford children’s books.

Waldo has a detector to help him locate red tide. What he, apparently, needs now is a detector to find the detector, maybe a black box  — or a red one.  Or maybe a She-Waldo can be built to find the missing He-Waldo, preferably a divorcee, because anyone who knows a sex-starved woman knows she can find a man at a “Vagina Monologues” after-party in held Ellen DeGeneres’ basement. That’s laser technology that NASA should be trying to harness.

Red tide is also known as toxic algae, and considering the fact that finding the stuff was Waldo’s primary function, would it be totally out of the question if Waldo simply went A.W.O.L.? Surely, there are a fair number of royal food-tasters who have gone missing over the centuries, too. It’s not that they died, they just got “fed up” — pun intended.

And is “toxic” algae toxic in a “Liquid Plumr” kind of way or “toxic” in a hold-your-nose-over-a-bottle-of-rubbing-alcohol-and-forget-about-your-lacerated-finger kind of way? Does anyone know how good a buzz a robot can get from toxic algae? Maybe Waldo’s hiding in the bushes outside his ex’s house a la Lindsey Lohan.

The Waldo robot is valued at about $130,000 which is a lot of cheese to sink into a water-bound object that isn’t designed to resurrect the Titanic. Scientists familiar with its construction speculate that it may have had a leak, causing it to sink to the bottom of the ocean. Since Waldo was built to do its work underwater, this seems like a very strange malfunction for him to have. That’s like a bad kid whose butt is allergic to belt leather, or a David Beckham who can’t kick.

Mote Marine scientists were hoping Labor Day boaters would have spotted Waldo in the Gulf waters over the weekend but, so far, no one has come forward with news on the illusive, possibly-high robot.

This blogger suggests searching out places where other robots party.  Chances are, Waldo will be found somewhere in a crowd, perhaps at a carnival or in the District 9 sequel.

But if Robot Waldo can’t do this, why bother?