Latter-Day Discovery

Every once-in-a-while, I run across the most incredible facts...today, for the first time, I researched the biographical information available for one of my all-time favorite directors of Star Trek-TOS (The Original Series, in common parlance.)

What I discovered about the late-fellow (he died in 1989) was, frankly astounding.

Marc Daniels was one of the most prolific television-directors in the 1960s and 70s...he directed some of my favorite Star Trek-TOS episodes...

But he also directed many of television's best-known detective-shows, mysteries, and science-fiction-shows of the era.

I pay special-notice to the work of such prolific-persons, usually...

That's why the first-time consideration of some of those folks seems so impressive to me...a closet know-it-all.

So in memory of the late American director, I say: "hats-off, dude!"

--mattergy

Doubtful Credentials

Every once-in-a-while, I DO get frustrated with my lack of publicly-recognizable skills.

Not that I'm untrained...but rather I'm genuinely proficient at many things for which I'll NEVER receive credit.

My method of one-handed typing, for example, is little more than a variant of the 45-word-per-minute two-handed method I acquired way back in Tenth Grade.

I was sort of planning on becoming a novelist in those days...and I recognized that learning to type was going to be a necessary prerequisite for such a career.

Little did I know it was going to be a nessesary prerequisite for comunicating with ANYONE in my M.S.-fraught middle-age.

So the risk I took years ago being misinterpreted as "effeminate" for taking a typing class instead of metal-shop has paid-off geometrically...literally.

I seriously doubt that any of my ostensibly "more masculine" rivals over-the-years could succeed in having lifetime neural-damage with such elan.

Yet, still, my credentials are seemingly in doubt, at least as far as I KNOW.

I don't know, but I suppose that my paltry contribution to humanity is unlikely to become renown...but that doesn't stop me from putting my words out there in cyberspace.

So maybe I'll be of benefit to some honorable souls, maybe not.

I can only hope.

--mattergy

The Fragility of "True-Facts"

I'm something of a stickler for ACCURATE information...UNFORTUNATELY, any bit of information that existed HISTORICALLY (or, often, only in the failing-minds of "nostalgiaphiles" like me), is incredibly difficult to either confirm or deny because tracking anything that has either been trademarked or copyrighted is fraught with problems...mostly because people who merely copy or record data for their (ostensibly) personal-use are much better and REDISTRIBUTING PLAGIARIZED or outright INVENTED knowledge than they are at spreading FACTS.

Bear with me here...I've lived in roughly the same neighborhood (minus the period in which I was hospitalized with Multiple Sclerosis) since the late 1960s.

So, odd as it may seem, my memory for sound is extraordinarily acute...the ice-cream trucks that drive by my current residence NOW have the same on-board music-boxes as the trucks from which I purchased ice-cream treats as a kid. The trucks may or may not be the same TRUCKS...but the music-boxes are undoubtedly the same.
So I keep hearing music that sparks old memories, but only recently did I want to know the name of the tune (or rather, the composer's name) I keep hearing.

The only recording of the tune that has made it to the internet as an MP3, is called "Pink_ Panther_Pops_Awesome.mp3"

But as to the accuracy of the citation for anything USEFUL...who knows?

I believe the trucks are run by the Wonder Ice Cream Co. of Santa Clara, CA...but that info is a mere extrapolation of the name of the MP3-file, (Pink Panther "pops" are a novelty ice-cream treat made by Blue Bunny) and a stark memory of my childhood ice-cream-vending-truck music-boxes, but not necessarily the same trucks (or maybe they ARE!)...THE POINT BEING: that I'm merely synthesizing what little information I have available into a conclusion.

By the way, I STILL DON'T KNOW the composer's name. But, you might remember that the song was retooled as a jingle to sell Murphy(s) Oil Soap in the mid-1980s.

--mattergy

ADDENDUM/REALIZATION 11-7-2010:
After some honest research, I discovered that pink_panther-pops_awesome.mp3 (the recording of an ice-cream truck which sounds identical to the one I've heard since childhood) is the early 19th century American folk song Turkey In The Straw, although the ice-cream trucks --I-- remember played an on-board Musical Box that was miked and amplified by an electric megaphone, so it sounded MUCH DIFFERENT than the publicly-available audio (the song is played on a fiddle in its traditional form...so it took a little mental sonic-translation for THIS California-Man to make the connection...I'm sure my colleagues in Kentucky and North Carolina could easily identify the jingle, but I had never heard Turkey In The Straw before (not even when I visited my friends in Texas).

ADDENDUM/REALIZATION #2 11-7-2010:
Being that Turkey In The Straw was probably more of a Northern-U.S. song prior to the Civil War (it was popular in New York and Maryland at THAT time), I doubt my colleagues in the former-Confederate states would have heard the song before the 21st Century...if at all.

ADDENDUM/REALIZATION #3 11-23-2010:
If is weren't for people who work so diligently to present FACTS on the Internet, there'd be absolutely NO use for it. I'm eternally grateful that the folks at Wikipedia.org for their continuing-efforts in this link-driven world.

8-31-35

In keeping with my policy of secure anonymity, I present the following string of numbers...I won't tell you what it represents, but I'm sure that someone will figure it out...eventually.

The string of numbers is as follows: 8-31-35.

I'm not trying to wax profound...I just know that people love a mystery...and will try every method under-the-sun to extrapolate hidden meaning...I'll only say that it represents a red-letter contribution to American culture...nothing too fancy...just a poignant reiteration of the American-dream-in-action...a true statement of the vast possibilities in our country...and ultimately, the whole world.

8-31-35...you'll have to do a bit of research...but I'm sure my audience can figure it out...

When you do, you'll remember this string of numbers as if by second-nature...and that fact will be even more tantalizing than the true representation...because these ARE powerful numbers...

So, whatever you find most illuminating in your search, so be it!

--mattergy