The 49^th annual ratings: [Continued]

Chocolate Ice Creams: (1) Bertillon, Ile de St. Louis, Paris; (2)

Douglas & James, Port Washington, NY; (3) Haagen Dazs: (4)

Dr. Mike’s, Bethel, Conn.(5) Basssett’s. Reading Terminal

Market, Philadelphia: (6) Godiva; (7) Olympia, Mountain,  

Washington State; (8) Merci’s, Vienna, Austria; (9) tie, Edy,

east coast, Dreyer, west coast.

Henry VIII Wives: (1) Catherine of Aragon; (2) Anne Boleyn; (3)

Jane Seymour; (4) Anne of Cleves; (5) Catherine Howard; (6)

Catherine Parr.

Robinsons: (1) Jackie; (2) Sugar Ray; (3) Edward G.; (4) Frank;

(5) Brooks; (6) Rachel; (7) Bojangles; (8) Crusoe; (9) Eddie

(Grambling); 10) Smokey; (11) Edgar Arlington.

Paul (Dr. Z  ) Zimmerman’s Guest Ratings of the Tenses: (1) Past; (2) Future.

(only entries considered).

Catchers: (1) Mickey Cochrane; (2) Johnny Bench; (3) Bill

Dickey; (4) tie, Roy Campanella, Yogi Berra; (6) Ernie

Lombardi; (7) Josh Gibson; (7) Gabby Hartnett; (8) Carlton

Fiske; (9) Ray Schalk; (10) Gary Carter;

People Who Now Own the War In Afghanistan So They Better Hope It Is Not a  

Quagmire: (1) President Barack Obama; (2) Gen. Stanley  

McChrystal; (3) Gen. David Petreus; (4) Secretary of Defense

Robert Gates; (5) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: (6) Sen. J

oseph Lieberman.

Scandinavians: (1) Swedes; (2) Norwegians; (3) Danes; (4)

Icelanders; (5) Finns;

Overrateds: (1) Mark Rothko; (2) Martin Scorcese; (3) Jordan

River; (4) David Beckham; (5) Nike; (6) tie, William Faulkner,

John Updike: (8) Dodger Stadium; (9) tie, Johann Santana,

Cole Hamels; (11) tie, Oaklawn and Del Mar racetracks.

Perks Given Jack Welch as GE President: (1) free postage stamps; (2) '

millions of dollars; (3) free lifetime use of company Boeing

737: (4) free use of helicopter; (5) Manhattan apartment; (6)

box seats for Red Sox, Yankee games, (7) doorman tips; (8)

golf club memberships; (9) internet service: (10) security

systems for four homes he owned; (11) dry cleaning.

1920s Americans in Paris: (1) A.J. Liebling; (2) Ernest Hemingway;

(3) Gertrude Stein; (4) Isadora Duncan; (5) Alexander Calder;

 (6) F. Scott Fitzgerald; (7) William L. Shirer; (8) tie, Cole

Porter, George Gershwin; (10) Josephine Baker.

Players Who Should Be in the Baseball Hall of Fame: (1) Roger Maris; (2)

Keith Hernandez; (3) Pete Rose

.

Sodom and Gomorrah: (1) Gomorrah; (2) Sodom.

Characters in Dickens’ “Bleak House:” (1) Sir Leicester Dedlock; (2) Peepy Jellyby; (3) Prince Turveydrop; (4) Bartholomew  

Smallweed: (5) Harold Skimpole; (6) Josiah Tulkinghorn; (7)

Quebec Bagnett; (8) Mrs. Pardiggle; (9) Phil Squod; (10) tie,

Lady Honoria Dedlock and Volumnia Dedlock.

 Triple Crown Winners: (1) Secretariat; (2) Citation; (3) Seattle Slew;

(4) War Admiral; (5) Whirlaway; (6) Count Fleet; (7) Affirmed; (8)

Gallant Fox; (9) Assault; (10) Omaha; (11) Sir Barton.

Baltimoreans: (1) tie, Babe Ruth, H.L. Mencken; (3) Blaze Starr;

(4) Edgar Allen Poe; (5) Brooks Robinson; (6) Eubie Blake; (7)

Upton Sinclair; (8) Cal Ripton; (9) Johnny Unitas; (10) Francis

Scott Key; (11) Nancy Pelosi; (12) Burt D’Lugoff; (13) Barry

Levinson..

People Offered Up as the Real Shakespeare: (1) Shakespeare; (2) Francis

Bacon; (3) Christopher Marlowe; (4) Ben Jonson; (5) Edward

de Vere (Earl of Oxford); (6) Sir Walter Raleigh; (7) William

Stanley (Earl of Darby); (8) Ann Hathaway; (9) Henry  

Wriothesley (Earl of Southampton).

My All Time Favorite Dishes: (1) Mrs. Spier’s chocolate graham pies;

(2) Cookery hamburgers; (3) Dubrow’s meat loaf; (4) Harry

Stevens’ clam chowder; (5) Syd & Al’s BBQ spare ribs; (6) San

Marino’s cannelloni; (7) Wah Kee’s lemon chicken; (8) Il  

Sapore’s chicken parmesan (9) Peter Luger’s tomatoes: (10)

tie, Bobbie Isaacs’ latkes, matzoh brei.  (Full disclosure: many

of these no longer extant).

Memorable Sports Photos: (1) Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston; (1A) Tommy Smith and John Carlos protest at 1968

Olympics; (2) The Four Horsemen; (3) Flight of Bobby

Thomson’s epic home run; (4) Chuck Bednarik standing over

fallen Frank Gifford; (5) Ben Hogan at Merion golf

tournament; (6) Battered YA Tittle; (7) Bill Mazeroski’s home r

un; (8) Bob Beamon’s Olympic broad jump; (9) Ty Cobb’s

slide into third base: (10) Babe Ruth’s final good-bye.

Red Barberisms: (1) sitting in the catbird seat; (2) tearing up the

pea patch; (3) rhubarb; (4) FOB (full of Brooklyns); (5) ducks

on the pond; (6) oh doctor; (7) back, back, back.

Slightly Revised Proverbs: (1) No husband has ever been shot while

doing the dishes; (2) Artificial intelligence is no match for

natural stupidity; (3) A conscience is what hurts when all your

other parts feel good. (4) Going to church doesn’t make you a

Christian any more than going to a garage makes you a

mechanic; (5) A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.

Presidential Appelations, Real and Imagined: (1) FDR: That man in the

White House; (2) Richard Nixon: Tricky Dick: (3) tie, Gerald

Ford and Millard Fillmore: The Accidental Presidents: (5)

Rutherford B. Hayes: Rutherfraud; (6) Thomas Jefferson: The sage of Monticello; (7) Abraham Lincoln: The Great

Emancipator; (8) Lyndon Johnson: Landslide Lyndon; (9)

Warren Harding: President Hardly; (10) William Henry

Harrison: Old Tippecanoe.

Towns on Martha’s Vineyard: (1) Chilmark; (2) Gay Head; (3) Oak

Bluffs; (4)Vineyard Haven; (5) Edgartown; (6) West Tisbury; (

7) Menemsha; (8) tie, East Chop, West Chop; (10)  

Chappaquidick

Bogeyman: (1) Dick Cheney.

The Darwins are out!

By Henry Grinberg 

(Continued from “blog”)   

2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and after a little shopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company, expecting negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and he also lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved. 

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.  

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wishing to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there, a collection of strangers, a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days. 

5. A teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.  

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving his $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer was $15. [If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, has a crime been committed?]  

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape. 

8. As a female shopper exited a South Carolina convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the thief. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. He was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from." 

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 A.M., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The thief, frustrated, walked away. 

10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on an Atlanta street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline, but he plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

 Of course, the existence of George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, and the Republican Party in general, provides a useful and sobering context for material such as the above items.  In the interest of bettering mankind, please share these with friends and family—unless of course one of these individuals by chance is a distant relative or long-lost friend. In that case, be glad they are distant and hope they remain lost.  They walk among us, they vote, and they breed!  

Zero Mostel

By Albert Lasher

(continued)

On one level, the show is a history of show business from the 1930’s through the terrible time of the House Un-American Affairs Committee and in the years after. Zero was out of work for ten years until his friend Burgess “Buzz” Meredith, produced and directed Ulysses in Nighttown off Broadway, casting Zero as Bloom. The show was a smash hit and Zero was back in business.

Last night’s audience cheered and cried, laughed and applauded and fell into deep silence as Zero spoke of his friend Philip Loeb (Molly Goldberg’s radio and TV husband), who  committed suicide following a long period of purgatory after he refused to name names  before the McCarran Committee.

Zero married a Catholic girl and his Orthodox Jewish family sat Shiva for him. But he was deeply committed to Judaism and the Jewish people and made a persuasive case that the McCarran Committee focused its witch hunt on Jews in the world of entertainment. His outrage was almost suffocating.

The play is scheduled to close Jan. 31. Go!

It’s at the Theatre at St. Clement’s, 423 West 46^th Street.

You can buy tickets at the box office, 212-239-6200, or telecharge.com.

Albert