A Mel Torme Christmas Story

Mark Evanier is a blogger I follow regularly.  He's worked as a writer on various TV shows and specials, and in that time he's amassed some great stories involving celebrities.   In 1999, he posted one of my very favorite celebrity stories, a great one involving Mel Torme.  It's a perfect Christmas story worth sharing, so that's what I'm going to do.   Please follow this link and read the Mark Evanier / Mel Torme Christmas Story...

http://www.newsfromme.com/pov/col245/

..and happy last minute shopping!

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Broken Toys

I hesitate posting this one, but in most respects it's so darn sweet that I can't resist.   Today I'm presenting Broken Toys, a Walt Disney Silly Symphony from 1935.  The film is one of my favorite Silly Symphonies, despite being a bit un-PC.  Among the caricatures of W.C. Fields, Ned Sparks and Zazu Pitts that you'll see, you'll see one of Stepin Fetchit.    All the caricatures in the film are true to the characters' screen personas in the 1930's, but unfortunatley the Fetchit character is now out of step with modern thinking, and rightly so.  There's also a few other stereotypes featured in the film.   For these reasons, this film is rarely ever shown, which is a shame.   It's a real charmer and shows the talent of the Disney artists at that time. 

Saturday Morning Cartoon - Gift Wrapped

Okay, I know I'm a bit behind in postings.   I haven't posted a cartoon in a while, so to celebrate the holidays, I'm posting a 1952 Christmas-themed cartoon:   Gift Wrapped, starring Sylvester and Tweety.   In keeping with the true spirit of the season, there are , explosions, gunplay, dynamite, and the chance to watch Sylvester swallow Tweety (and be swallowed, for that matter) at least three times.  Enjoy!

Alaskan Cruise, Part Sicks

Our cruise is now heading towards Ketchikan, Alaska's Number One city (It is deemed #1 because it is closest to the continental United States).
Ketchikan was my travel partner's favorite stop on the cruise.  It is a beautiful town with a lot to see.   Ketchikan is Alaska's fifth most populated city with over 14,000 people living in its boundaries.  It has National Parks, rainforests, a thriving harbor area and the world's largest collection of standing totum poles.   It also has more jewelry stores per capita than any city I've ever visited.   But let's start our tour, shall we?

Here's our boat slowly backing into our port.   Unfortunately that other cruise ship slipped in and stole the spot away from us, so we had to find another spot to park.   When we left, the two captains were exchanging driver's licenses.



Landing in Ketchikan.   As you can see, I am still wearing the same clothes.   Why didn't someone tell me there were no coin laundry on board?

This is the shopping area around the port.   We got some great bargains as it was the end of the tourist season.   The cans of salmon were only slightly past their expiration date.

Another shot of the waterfront.  In the back you can see the Tongass National Forest.

The buses are lined up, waiting to take us to our excursions!

I'm in Ketchikan!   I tried to sind an appropriate song, but what rhymes with Ketchikan?

This was REALLY GOOD. 

The entrance to the sanctuary.   If you look in the shadows
you can see me behind the tallest pole.   My travel partner
is to the left, posing with a smaller totum. 

Our booked excursion was at the Alaska Rainforest Sanctuary, where we were told we would hike through a rainforest and possibly encounter bears, bald eagles and other wildlife.   I am happy to report that we did both.   Here are the pictures I took while on the tour...

We're now in the rainforest.  I was trying to get a picture of a bear and two cubs but somehow they eluded me.   Stupid bears.

This bear was fishing for salmon.   If you look near the bottom of the picture you can see all the salmon on the other side of the river.   Stupid bear!

Our national bird, posing high above the zipline paths.  Those salmon don't have a chance.

Leaving the forest, we hiked onto this bridge that overlooks Herring Bay.   Even the seagulls were eating the salmon.   Nature's first law of survival:  Don't be a salmon.

If you look carefully, you can see a seal in the bay.  I'm sure he was attracted by the free meal that was available in the bay...  Yes, he was hunting for a bear.

Not everyone was eating salmon.   Here's a picture of my travel partner feeding lettuce to reindeer.   Neither one of these two eat salmon.

Being too cheap to buy lettuce, here I am faking out a reindeer by feeding him nothing.   Let me tell you something I learned on this trip:   Those antlers hurt.

 

In this part of the tour they showed us a bald eagle and an owl that were permanent residents of the sanctuary.  This owl kept rotating his head through the guide's speech, which freaked me out completely.   I didn't hear a word she said.

This guy is a professional totum pole carver.   The current pole he is working on is a giant bear with outstretched arms, probably reaching for a salmon.   Stupid bear!

We also got a chance to visit Creek Street, the former red light district that is now a shopping area and tourist attraction.  The area was "active" until the 1950's when the government finally clamped down on this practice for good.   There is a path in the back called "Married Man's Trail" that was used an escape route from the raids for many years.  The path goes up into the forest and now provides a beautiful view of the area.   For some reason, I'm not able to add captions to these photos, so you'll have to add your own witty commentary.

 

 

And with that, we leave Ketchikan and head for our last port-of-call, Victoria, BC.   Hope to see you there!

Alaskan Cruise, Part Fief

Hello again, fellow Alaskan Cruisers!   In this installment, we take a trip through Glacier Bay National Park, one of the few national parks that people tour via a cruise ship.
The Glacier Bay Basin was declared a national park in 1980, but has been a destination for scientists and sightseers long before then.   The main attraction is, of course, the glaciers.  The glaciers present in the park have existed through at least the last four ice ages, concluding with the Little Ice Age 4000 years ago.   The glaciers in the park are remnants of that ice age, and several of them continue to grow and move through the valleys.
The area around the glaciers is nature in its rawest state.   The glaciers are still carving out the environment.   This is how the world looked right after the ice age...  Rocky, with moss and small plants slowly developing the soil and landscape.   In several thousand years, this area will be a forest, but now, it's still being born.   I found this look into the past both interesting and wet.   Yes, it was raining the morning we toured.   Only a small percentage of the passengers on our ship ventured out onto the rain-soaked deck to view this spectacle.   I was one of them, and got the following pictures:

Entering the park, you see small icebergs floating by.   These chunks of ice have fallen off of the glaciers in the park.  It looked a little like TITANIC, except that there were no star-crossed lovers to spoil the ambiance.

This land had glaciers on it relatively recently.   Vegetation is starting to grow.   Eventually this will be a full-grown forest.

Our first glacier comes into view.  Fortunately the fog would lift for a while so we could get pictures.   Very accommodating.

I think this was the Margerie Glacier.   I should have taken better notes.   If there had been a test, I would've failed Glacierology.

We got relatively close to this glacier.  There was a bear swimming in the water that became a cause celebre.   Yeah, like I traveled this far to see a swimming bear.

At one point a large chunk fell off, splashing into the ocean.   Naturally, at that very moment, I was facing the other way, as someone was taking my picture.  Figures.

At this point the boat is turning around.  It has amazing parallel parking abilities.  I hope the captain stuck out his hand.

I should mention that there was NO LINE for the buffet at this time.   Joe Cruise Tip:   To avoid lines, try to eat breakfast during the most dramatic part of the cruise.

There was one guy in the hot tub that came out to see the glacier.   We were all bundled up in thick jackets and he was wearing a towel.  What a show off.

I think this is the John Hopkins Glacier.   Well, most of you won't know the difference, so let's just say it is.  If John Hopkins wants to complain, I'm open to comments.

There are so many glaciers it's hard to keep them straight.  Many of them look the same, and they are all blue.  I'm sure they have a hard time remembering who is who...

More snow-capped peaks.  The glacier is off to the left.

It seems like this story is moving somewhat glacier-like.   In our next exciting chapter, we will travel to Ketchikan, see a non-swimming bear, and come face-to-face with an owl...  Stay tuned!


Saturday Morning Cartoon: Cartoons Ain't Human

Here's a favorite Popeye cartoon from 1943:   Cartoons Ain't Human, released by Famous Studios.   In this outing, Popeye makes his own animated cartoon, which he screens for Olive and his four nephews.   For the trivia connoisseurs, the nephews are names Peep-eye, Pip-eye, Pup-eye and Poop-eye.  In later cartoons, the number of nephews could change randomly to three or two, depending on how many they wanted to animate.   This was also the last black-and white Popeye cartoon before the studio switched to all-color.Enjoy!

Alaska Cruise, Part Fore

And so, as our boat sailed silently away from Juneau, we said aloha to the natives, and we began our trip to Skagway.   Yes, here is part four of my recent cruise to Alaska.   If you need an update, you can check out the first three chapters here:
Part Won:  http://joefood.blogspot.com/2012/10/alaskan-trip-part-one.html
Part Too:  http://joefood.blogspot.com/2012/10/alaska-trip-part-too.html
Part Tree:  http://joefood.blogspot.com/2012/11/alaska-trip-part-tree.html

The Chilhoot Trail's infamous "Stairs of Gold."  

Skagway was, to me, the highlight of the trip.  Skagway is a small borough with a population of about 920 people that doubles to about 2,000 in the midst of the tourist season.  It began life as one of two main starting points for miners heading for the Yukon gold fields in the 1890's.  Miners had a choice of taking two routes:  The Chilhoot trail, which started at Dyea, or the White Pass trail, which started in Skagway.  Each route was extremely arduous.  Of the 100,000 people that started out for the Yukon, only about 35,000 made the entire trip.  Of that, only about 15,000 became miners and of that only a handful became rich.
The White Pass Trail eventually became the preferred route of the miners, due to a better port and an avalanche on the Chilhoot trail that killed 60 people.  Another benefit to Skagway was the building of the White Pass and Yukon Railway, which took miners to Lake Bennet (the start of the 500 mile trip down the Yukon river by boat) and eventually to Whitehorse. Skagway became a permanent city, Alaska's largest at the time, while Dyea slowly died and became a ghost town. 
The history of the Klondike Gold Rush is a fascinating one, full of colorful characters, determined prospectors, and lawless towns that were made famous in books by Jack London and others.  A lot of that history has been preserved into the Klondike Gold Rush International Historic park, of which Skagway is a part.   Many buildings in downtown Skagway has been preserved, including the headquarters of Jefferson"Soapy" Smith, who ran the town with a gang of thieves and con men until he was gunned down in 1898.  In Skagway, you can stroll the original saloons, hike the original trails, visit the "Boot Hill" graveyard" and even take a ride on the White Pass railway, still in operation as a tourist attraction.


Skagway, as seen by the miners of 1898 today.

We got off the boat and headed into town.  The town itself is about 5 blocks of original buildings plus some new ones built to match. 

The view as we got off the cruise ship.   As usual, we got the worst parking space, furthest from the town.

Downtown Skagway.   I was amazed that I couldn't find Starbucks.

A side street off the main drag.  I think the Radio Shack is a recent addition.

The Golden North Hotel was built in 1898 and was Alaska's oldest operating hotel until it closed in 2002.  It now houses shops.   It is reputed to be haunted.

Another view down Main Street. 

The original Railroad Building is now a Klondike Gold rush National Park visitor's center.   They have a exhibit with a scaled-down version of the White Pass Trail.   I tried to hike that trail...   they escorted me out.

This is The Artic Brotherhood hall, built in 1900 as a fraternal organization of miners.  Decorated with driftwood, it is Alaska's most photographed building. 

Another city view. 

Soapy Smith's original gambling hall and headquarters, soon to be preserved.  Even though it wasn't open I lost $50 here.

The Mascot is an original saloon from the 1890's.   It is now a museum that houses a replica of...  the Mascot Saloon.  It seems they could've saved some time here...

Our first stop was the White Pass and Klondike Railway, where we would follow in the footsteps of the 1898 miners and travel up to the top of White Pass, the highest spot on the trail and the entry point into Canada.

Here's the train station.  Train leaving on track five, for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamunga!

Me on the caboose.  No jokes, please.

One of the original trains was on display in the railyard outside of town.  Someone should give them a ticket for parking next to a fire hydrant.

We're now on the way to White Pass.   Gold fields await!

The scenery was really beautiful, although it would get very foggy at the top of the pass.

George Buchanan was a Detroit businessman who sponsored adventure trips to Alaska for young boys beginning in 1923.  The boys would have to earn 1/3 of the money themselves selling household implements ($81).  The parents would donate another 1/3 and George paid the rest.  The slogan was "On to Alaska with Buchanan."  For 15 years Buchanan brought groups of boys (and later, girls as well) to Alaska.   In commemoration, one group painted the slogan on the side of the mountain, where it remains today, a tribute to early juvenile delinquency.



This guy kept butting in my shots.   If you go to his blog, you'll see the back of MY head in his pictures.

"I tink someone has left de chower running..."

 

In 1901 when this bridge was built, it was the tallest of its kind in the world.   In 1969 it was bypassed by a tunnel, as the bridge could no longer support the weight of the new, heavier engines.

It si now a Ghost Bridge.   I hear it spends time in the Golden North Hotel.

This is the tunnel that replaced the bridge.  The old bridge is to the left.



At long last, we reached the top of the pass, and the border of Canada:  Whitepass.





This was the outpost of the RCMP.   I think Dudley was our rescuing Nell.

Here's how the scene would've looked without the fog. 

Back in town.   The train was designated a International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1994, a distinction it shares with 35 other great engineering feats, such as the Eiffel Tower, the Panama Canal and Donald Trump's hair.

The locals of Skagway keep themselves busy throughout the non-tourist season.   One of the things they do is engage in an exclusively Alaskan sport:  dog sledding.   They have a camp near the remnants of Dyea where they raise dogs for dogs sledding, and they invite the tourists to come out out (for a fee) and visit the camp.   Being a dog person, I decided that we'd pay the camp a visit. 
It was rainy and muddy when we arrived at the camp.  When you see the dogs, it's hard to believe they can pull a cart full of tourists who have engaged in all-you-can-eat midnight buffets for the last three days.   However, the dogs seem willing to pull us around (for a fee) and almost excited to get into the harness and run the route.  Away we go!

Here we are at the camp, where you could sit by the fireplace and enjoy some delicious hot chocolate (for a fee).

I like that the furniture looks like the kind you'd buy at Target if you were trying to turn your backyard into a Yukon outpost.

These are the carts that the dogs pulled.  At the front of the line of dogs is a cat.

I know the dogs are wondering "How much does that one in the Disney sweatshirt weigh???"



It was cold, it was rainy, and I was cranky.   Plus I had stepped in dog poop.

I SWEAR, I think the dogs enjoyed it.

Ah, the smell of the trees, the wind whipping your hair, and the smell of wet dog hitting you right in the face. 

Dog:   "Really, man, did you have to eat at EVERY buffet?"

Here, I was trying to blend in and be one of the team.  But no one would share their kibble with me.

After the ride, the tourists were allowed to hold the new pups, and get their picture taken with them (for a fee). 

My dog seemed interested in what I had to eat.   Whatever it was, there was a fee involved.

With that, it was time to head back to the boat to continue our cruise.   The next day we would begin our tour of Glacier Bay National Park, one of the most beautiful parks my travel partner has ever slept through.   See you there!

On the streets of Skagway.   We never saw the boat coming until it was too late.