WEDNESDAY, June 23, 2010

The president recalled his top military chief in Afghanistan after Gen. Stanley McChrystal told Rolling Stone Magazine he was “disappointed” with Obama and several of his top advisers.  No telling what Obama will do but there are hints -- he sent Mac a book to read on the plane home -- “I Forgot He Was Commander-in-Chief” by Douglas MacArthur.

Art restorers in Rome have discovered what they believe are the oldest paintings of  Jesus’ apostles including Andrew, John, Peter and Paul.  Their authenticity was confirmed by the presence of a signed Diners Club receipt for the Last Supper sticking out of Peter’s pocket.

While in South Africa for the World Cup, Prince William was embarrassed when he was unable to extract any sound from a vuvuzela he borrowed from a young spectator.  But his aunt, Sarah Ferguson, immediately offered to give him lessons -- for $477,000.

A Florida lawyer was recently refused entrance to a courthouse when her wire-reinforced bra set off the metal-detector.  Only Madonna is allowed to pass through a metal detector wearing steel cones because they’re officially recognized by Homeland Security as a bullet-proof vest.

Auditions have begun for the tenth season of “American  Idol” and the minimum age for contestants has been lowered to 15.  Producers figured if that’s old enough to be married in Mississippi, Alabama and Saudi Arabia, why not? 
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Excerpted From THE LAUGH MAKERS  

We had written a sketch that cast Hope and Emmanuel Lewis, dressed in reindeer pelts and horned helmets, as a pair of Vikings on their annual spring plunder. As Gene Perret and I stood offstage, puzzled why our pillage jokes were drawing gasps, one of the Swedish technicians pointed out that we had named Hope’s character, Olaf. In the confusion, no one had caught what now appeared to be an insensitive joke. During a break, we told Hope what had happened and he immediately called a halt to the proceedings and apologized to the audience.

When our Swedish fiasco finally concluded and we were winging home to a much warmer Los Angeles, I remember thinking back — I should have known from the start that the trip would turn out to be jinxed. Excited over my first junket to a Scandinavian country, I arrived at LAX sans passport!  A messenger from the Hope office was dispatched to deliver it, but to avoid a delayed departure, a representative from the airline soon arrived and announced that my California drivers license would do the trick! My passport would follow on the next flight — without me. I learned later that Sweden had waived their usual customs requirements because I was on a special assignment for the king!  Proving once again that it pays to work for someone who’s close to kings.

But even with our problems in Stockholm, I do have one a great memory of the trip.  One night, after a long day of rehearsing, we returned to the hotel around nine o’clock. It was about 40 degrees below outside, and there was a nice fire going in the lounge, so Glen Campbell asked Gene and me if we’d like to join him for a nightcap. There was a fairly good jazz quartet — drums, two guitars, bass — that played there every night. We had noticed them before but were always too busy to stop. We sat at the bar for a few minutes and were recalling our day in Birdseye-ville when one of the guitar players asked Glen if he’d like to sit in for a number.

Usually, professional musicians hesitate to take anyone up on an offer like that since it’s what they do for a living and is a little like asking Picasso to sketch something on a bar napkin. But Glen isn’t your usual pro. He loves to practice chords with his own guitar and often does — in airport lounges, television studio dressing rooms, and maybe even while showering.  Glen just loves the guitar. I suspect the guy in the quartet was a big fan, knew this, and also knew that Glen would have a hard time turning him down. He was right. “Okay, just one number.” Glen took the instrument, fine-tuned a couple of strings and began picking the melody of “A Foggy Day” — the house musicians were British.

Now the bartender is on the phone — “You’re not gonna believe this... “ in Swedish, of course, but you could tell what he was saying by the excitement in his voice. Several couples who had been sitting in the lobby drifted in and took a table near the bandstand. As other guests arrived, they could see and hear that something special was occurring in the bar.  Nobody headed upstairs and nobody left. Glen, as usual, was doing some astounding riffs.

I asked him once how he got so damn good, and he said that as a kid, he would dream guitar chords and play them as soon as he woke up. That, my friends, is genetic. Even the owner of the guitar Glen was playing couldn’t believe the sounds he was getting out of it.  Glen’s “one number” was soon three and then five. The crowd had grown to thirty or forty people — some sitting, some standing, all mesmerized.  When he finally handed the Gibson back to its owner, the applause was enough to wake up guests in their rooms who had missed Glen’s impromptu concert.  It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments you just never forget.

Tomorrow:  Hope’s Christmas Show Formula
    
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