A dish fit for Kreskin.
By all rights, I should be taking tonight off from blogging. I've got an Aid or Invade to write, several magazine articles to get cracking on, as well as a chapter I'm contributing to a book to edit, and a ton of email to answer. But the picture of Kreskin that I incorporated into last night's post reminded me of a funny Dave Blood story; the telling of which is arguably more important than anything else on my To Do list.
Back in the eighties, there used to be a free weekly paper in Philly called The South Street Star which counted among its writers one Stanley Greene. Stanley was The Star's resident food critic. All you really need to know about Stanley is that at the end of each of his restaurant reviews he would include a contest: a photo of an unnamed celebrity as a child was printed at the bottom of each review and readers would then mail in the name of the celebrity whom they thought appeared in the picture. Winners got some shitty prize or another. You should also know that, like most columnist (your humble friend and narrator being the exception), Stanley's picture was featured at the top of his column. It was one day while staring at that picture that Dave Blood decided he would make Stanley Greene's life more "interesting".
Dave was always making total strangers' lives more interesting. Once, for example, at one of those huge chain hardware stores, Dave found one of the salesman's business card. When he got home that evening, Dave wrote the guy's boss a letter saying that Dave (well, actually Fred Lettuce, Dave's pseudonym) had come to the store hoping to purchase insulation for his attic (this was followed by several astoundingly overly earnest paragraphs about the importance of insulation). The letter then shifted gears as it went on to explain how when Dave/Fred stopped the salesman whose name appeared on the card and asked him which type of insulation he recommended the rolled up his sleeve, displayed a swastika tattoo, and asked Dave/Fred if he wanted to swing by his house and "pop some 'cold ones' and watch some all 'boy films'".
Then there was the time that Pat Robertson made the mistake of mailing Dave an envelope with the words "Return postage guaranteed" on it. Dave taped the envelope to car battery and sent to back to Pat: costing the 700 Club roughly fifty bucks. But I digress.
Back to Dave versus Stanley Greene:
Along with Stanley's column, The Star, in conjunction with a local animal shelter, used to also run an adopt-a-pet feature. The first step that Dave took towards making Stanley's life more interesting was to clip out Stanley's headshot and paste it over the head of the dog in that week's adopt-a-pet feature. Dave then scrawled "This bitch answers to the name of 'Stanley'" over the picture. A quick trip to Kinko's later and Dave had thirty copies of "a bitch called Stanley." Dave then put the pictures in envelopes and sent them to Stanley's "Guess the celebrity" contest.
A few weeks later, walking through West Philly, I was delighted to see that nearly every telephone pole sported "a bitch called Stanley": now brilliantly re-worked as a lost dog poster.
And then Dave turned his attention towards Stanley's radio show.
As well as appearing in print, twice a month, on Saturday, Stanley would host a food show on the local NPR affiliate WHYY (back when it kinda sucked). When Stanley's next turn on the microphone came around, Dave Blood would ready for him. You see, Stanley's radio show was also a call-in show. Dave then enlisted the help of both his girlfriend and me to pull off what would be the climax of his assault on Stanley. Dave carefully explained to us what we needed to do and I'd like to think that we performed admirably.
That Saturday, just before "a bitch called Stanley" went on the air, Dave put this bizarre Kreskin record, which pretty much consisted of Kreskin "teaching" the art of hypnosis by counting backwards from 500, on his turntable and cranked up the volume so that, when it was "needed", it would be heard in background by the listeners of WHYY.
Kreskin: 500...499...Your eyelids are getting heavy...498...
Stanley: Let's go to the phones. First off we have Ann in University City with a question about Vegetarian food.
Kreskin: 497...496...You are beginning to feel sleepy...495...
Dave's girlfriend: I was just wondering if a lot of celebrities are vegetarians...
Kreskin: 494...493...So very sleepy...492...
Stanley: Well I...
Kreskin: 491...490...So very, very sleepy...489...
Dave's girlfriend: 'Cuz you know who I think is a vegetarian? That's psychic guy. What's his name? Oh yeah, KRESKIN!!!
*click*
Stanley: OK. I'm not really sure what that was about. Let's take some more calls.
Stanley then took one or two serious calls and then:
Kreskin: 354...353...You feel yourself getting lighter...352...
Me: Hello Stanley? Fist I just wanna say how much I love your column.
Kreskin: 351...350...Lighter and lighter...349...
Stanley: Why thank you.
Me: Where do you get those pictures of celebrities as children that you use for your contest?
Kreskin: 348...347...Lighter, and lighter, and lighter...346...
Stanley: Oh, from all over the place. Sometimes people send them in and...
Kreskin: 345...344...Like a feather...343...
Me: People send 'em in? Great! Because I've got a picture of BABY KRESKIN!!!
Stanley (clearly caught off balance): I'm not sure what's going on with these Kreskin calls.
Reluctantly, Stanley went back to the phones. After three or four Kreskin-free callers, his voice became more relaxed. He had dropped his guard. The trap was about to be sprung.
Kreskin: 221...220...Feel your cares melting away...219...
Dave Blood: Hello Stanley. I'm calling about Magnolia [a now defunct local restaurant], which I think is one of the best eateries in all of Philly. It should really get more attention.
Kreskin: 218...217...Melting, melting away...216...
Stanley (unaware that he is, at that very moment, speaking to the man responsible for the "a bitch called Stanley" campaign): I agree with you 100%.
Kreskin: 215...214...You're entering a new world, now...213...
Dave Blood: One thing that bothers me, though. I heard a rumor that Magnolia is going to start naming dishes after local celebrities and I think that's just a little tacky for such a classy place.
Kreskin: 212...211...A dark and silent new world...210...
Stanley: Once again, I agree with you 100%. I just can't stand it when restaurants do that sort of thing.
Kreskin: 209...208...Leave your old life behind...207...
Dave Blood: I hear that they're even going to have a dish called...
maeror -oris - sadness
apeth - excellence