EUGENE POLLEY, 96

The man who made us lazy is dead.

Eugene Polley invented a little thing called the remote control back in 1955 for Zenith. Before his gadget became the norm, people actually had to get their asses out of the chair or off the couch to change the channel (back in L.A. in the pre-cable days, we had five, count 'em, five channels to enjoy).

As a result, asses weren't so gargantuan, and channel-flipping wasn't so fun.

TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND EAT FROM IT

Addie brought cupcakes from the Cake Pop Company, so all is good with the world. First day back at the Paragraph Factory and people have been nice. Terra brought roses and clematis from her garden. Even got a hug from Joel, the Man Known As Gridiron. What have I done to deserve this?

AS SEEN FROM SPACE

Not many people get to hang out on Bouganville Island in Papau, New Guinea. Bagana, the volcano, is active.

And apparently spewing, according to NASA. This new satellite photo shows it happening.

HOW TIME FLIES

Stumbled across this post from June 2007 about the 15th anniversary of the Three Missing Women. "The next time we hear about (them) ... will be June 2012," we wrote back then.

And here we are.

ROBIN GIBB, 62

Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees, dead at 62. There goes that Bee Gees reunion.

INCESTUOUS BLOGGING

Act Your Old Age disses CHATTER. I love me. We hate us. Huh?

PAGING BONNIE TYLER

The partial solar eclipse is Sunday. We lucky few in the Ozarks get clouds and a peak that happens after sunset, so ... meh.

Console yourself with some Bonnie Tyler and those weird kids with glowing eyes. Further proof that the 1980s spawned some fucked-up ideas. Turn around, bright eyes.

WRINKLE ON THIS

Another cross-post from Act Your Old Age. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And against the ravages of time.

CROSS PIMPING

Keeping the CHATTER audience informed of the place where the boy does more than typing: the latest post on the Act Your Old Age blog. Have you ever wished to meet your destiny, only to realize later that you really should be careful what you wish for? We have.

HOLA, DORITO

The TV news producer known as Dori is in Springfield this day, and having been lucky enough to work with her once, we welcome her too-seldom visit with open arms. Plus, it's a chance to eat tacos and pimp the KSPR St. Jude Dream Home. How lucky can a girl get?

BURYING THE LEDE

The Associated Press reports Loretta Lynn was 15 — not 13 — when she got married, "an age change that undermines the story she told" in "Coal Miner's Daughter."

Egads.

We're more upset The AP waited nine grafs before including this scary factoid:

The Grammy-award winning singer recently announced that ("Coal Miner's Daughter") will become a Broadway musical starring actress and singer Zooey Deschanel.

Lynn's spokesperson told The AP the singer said it's "none of their business" how old she is. By most accounts, she's 77. The new documents show she's 80.

The AP also helpfully notes that Lynn is not "the first celebrity of a certain age to be less than forthcoming about a birthday." Imagine that.

STARSKY BUSTED FOR WEED

Actor Paul Michael Glasser — who played cop David Starsky in the bad '70s show "Starsky & Hutch" — has been busted for weed in Kentucky.

From the Bowling Green (heh) Daily News:

Glaser was in Bowling Green on May 10 promoting his young adult fantasy novel, “Chrystallia and the Source of Light,” which was released last fall. He read to children at Moss Middle School and Bowling Green Junior High School. He also spoke at the Warren County Public Library. The book is about a girl and her brother who are about to lose their mother and their house. It’s their last Christmas together, and the children discover an underground world of crystals and minerals. Glaser told students at both schools that he based the story on his own life experiences and interests. He lost his first wife and a daughter to AIDS.

Glaser said it was medical marijuana from California, where he's got a 'script. He faces 45 days in jail.

WHO FIRED THE HOUSEKEEPER?

Man, the dust in this place really built up over the past (nearly) three years. That's the last time we hire legal citizens to do the cleaning. From now on it's all undocumented workers and sketchy homeless people.

Hiya. We've decided to kickstart this old house after a lengthy 'net coma because some events in our recent past (as documented here in the Act Your Old Age blog) suggest we need to get back to living, and fast. The spiffy AYOA condo is meant more for writing; CHATTER will resume its normal programming of this, that and the other thing — a sort of Seinfeld hodge-podge of everything about nothing, which it's been since its start back in 1991 (yes, this blog was born as a daily column in something called a newspaper, an arcane and nearly extinct form of media that was printed on actual paper by tree-hugging liberal types who didn't see the delicious hypocrisy of killing trees to make their bones).

Since that time in the black-and-white days, CHATTER has gone on to dress up and be part of a magazine, and then went all downscale to guest-host an alt-monthly tabloid called THE PULP, before segueing onto the net in 2006 and becoming a go-to place for stalkers and gawkers to try to discern what the hell the Chatterboy was trying to say. We have a hint for you: It's like Gertrude Stein said — there is no there, there. Anyone seeking deeper meaning from a blog called CHATTER needs to locate a life. This place is the equivalent of Springfield-style cashew chicken: it won't kill you, but if you're looking for fine dining, might we suggest Flame?

There's your background. Thanks for stopping by. We'll be renovating the blogroll and updating the curtains in the next few days, so if you have any suggestions, drop us a comment. We'll do our level best to post the bizarre shit that's always been our sweet tooth. Be safe.

SARAH THE SCOUNDREL

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is about to become an author. Her memoir is “Going Rogue: An American Life.”

According to Politico:

Publication is being moved up from spring to Nov. 17 in order to catch the holiday book-buying season. The former Alaska governor has been in huge demand as a speaker, and continues to harvest a bounty of media attention.

A mammoth first printing of 1.5 million copies has been ordered — the same first run as “True Compass,” the memoir of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Palin had a deadline of Sept. 15 for her manuscript and turned it in a bit early. Copy-editing and fact-checking are now underway in a race to meet the crash publishing schedule, which has been accelerated four or five months because of the huge anticipated demand.

Going rogue, is she? Do you think she understands the definition of the word "rogue"?

–noun
1. a dishonest, knavish person; scoundrel.
2. a playfully mischievous person; scamp: The youngest boys are little rogues.
3. a tramp or vagabond.
4. a rogue elephant or other animal of similar disposition.
5. Biology. a usually inferior organism, esp. a plant, varying markedly from the normal.
–verb (used without object)
6. to live or act as a rogue.
–verb (used with object)
7. to cheat.
8. to uproot or destroy (plants, etc., that do not conform to a desired standard).
9. to perform this operation upon: to rogue a field.
–adjective
10. (of an animal) having an abnormally savage or unpredictable disposition, as a rogue elephant.
11. no longer obedient, belonging, or accepted and hence not controllable or answerable; deviating, renegade: a rogue cop; a rogue union local.

Ever the maverick, you betcha.

RETURN OF PEE-WEE

The mid- to late-80s: We remember it well, especially Saturday mornings, when we'd stumble downstairs, plop onto the purple leather couch and fire up the tube to watch the best kids show to ever hit TV.

The creator of that show now plots a comeback. One question: Will Cowboy Curtis return with that magnificent hair?

COME SEE THE SQUID

Wake the kids, pack the car and go west, young man. Squid on the beach.

The Oregonian has the story:

"I haven't confirmed it, but we are hearing reports that dozens are washing up," said Chris Havel, spokesman for the Oregon State Parks & Recreation Department. "They are probably Humboldt squid, which are much more common in warmer waters around Santa Cruz."

The squid are about two feet long, and have a life cycle of only a year or two, Havel said. They may be dying because they are at the end of their life cycle or it could be food related or a disease, he said.

"If you get a chance, go look at them," said Havel, who suggested Washburne State Park would be a good starting point. "Bring your camera, take some pictures. This may be your only chance to see a Humboldt squid lying on the beach."

Or you can check out this pic of said squid and freak out.

DESTRUCTION AS ART

Who knew fire could be so cool? Click here to watch the vid in HD.

ELVIS PRESLEY, PART II

Michael Jackson's death has the cable pundits speculating on parallels between the King of Pop and the Queen of Pulp, Anna Nicole Smith. Both so sad, the talking heads say. Both so alike.

Gah. Let the heads blather with their short-term memory. Jackson's death is simply Elvis Presley, Part Two. We have a Memphis newspaper from Aug. 17, 1977, the morning after Presley literally left the building. The early word then was that Presley died of a heart attack. Heart just stopped. Nothing to see here, so take care of your own business and move along.

Hindsight gives us the real story -- Presley keeling off the toilet, colon clogged from too many years relying on a bad diet of fatty foods and tasty prescription pills. "Cardiac arrest" was only the technical cause of death, and there was nothing natural about why Presley's heart stopped after a brief 42 years.

Michael Jackson died Thursday of cardiac arrest at 50. Another ticker technicality. In recent years, Jackson admitted under oath that he'd replaced Bubbles the Chimp with a new monkey, this one biting into the back of his neck thanks to doctors willing to write 'scripts to a musical genius. No useless filler, like those pesky street bags of smack. Only the best legal high for pop-culture royalty.

Friends say Jackson was clean and working hard, preparing for his ironically named "This Is It" concert tour. The tox reports may show nothing acute. The damage was chronic.

The thirty and fortysomethings are freaked out tonight, just like our older siblings and parents were when Elvis died. And like Godfather II, EP2 is better than the original. Elvis could sing and swivel, but he couldn't write a decent song. MJ walked around with "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" percolating in his head. He was the most magnificent entertainer in the last half of the last century, and maybe that's why he was such a freak. Great genius, great madness. A thinner line than the one separating love and hate.

Elvis Part II is a story so massive, MTV broke format on Thursday and started playing Michael Jackson videos. Imagine -- videos on MTV. If that's what it takes, get Madonna on an experimental plane, stat.

FRANCISCO FRANCO'S TESTICLE IS STILL DEAD, TOO

Spanish dictator Francisco Franco had one testicle.

Australia's News.com reports:

It is believed his loss stemmed from a war injury in 1916 when Franco was wounded during battle at El Biutz, near Ceuta, which today is a Spanish enclave on the Moroccan Mediterranean coast.

On June 28-29, 1916, Franco, then a captain, led an attack in the region which was then a Spanish protectorate and was hit in his lower abdomen and seriously wounded.

The paper, citing several authors of Franco biographies, added that such an injury would have affected Franco's reproductive organs and made him sterile.

Some of us are not too young to get the joke.

DON'T LOOK BACK IN ANGER

Time to dance.

UNIQUE, JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE

Work e-mail includes unintentionally hilarious line:

Brian Wismer is a multi-faceted unique entertainer formally trained by Ringling Bros., making him an event personality who's one of a kind and often compared to Robin Williams or Jim Carrey.

Unlike Jim Carrey, Brian Wismer is getting work.

CROSS PLATFORM DRESSING

This is a test of the Touch to Blogger tiny keyboarding system. For now, this is only a test.

Man, this little keyboard bites.

-- Via Touch

AKIKO HIRATA, 81

The matriarch of the CHATTER typing clan died Monday, March 30. She was diagnosed with lung cancer last summer.

A service will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday at Pershing Memorial Hospital in Brookfield, Mo., where Mom worked for many years.

Many people in Brookfield knew her by her American name, Jo Ann Davis. Everyone knew her as a big heart inside a tiny body.

It'll be OK. She said so herself.

NATASHA RICHARDSON, 45

The actress died Wednesday, according to WCBS:

"Liam Neeson, his sons, and the entire family are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved Natasha. They are profoundly grateful for the support, love and prayers of everyone, and ask for privacy during this very difficult time."

Richardson died of an apparent head injury from a skiing accident.

SNIFFING DRANO, MAKING METH

Police in Buford, Ark., bust an 18-year-old who'd allegedly been sniffing Drano and guzzling booze. Too bad he forgot about the handwritten meth recipe -- and crystal-making ingredients -- also in the house.

From the KSPR story:

A sheriff's deputy says Ball was "huffing Drano and consuming a large amount of alcohol."

"While at the residence, which belongs to the man’s parents who assisted with the investigation, the deputy observed several substances commonly used in the manufacturing of methamphetamine, as well as a handwritten 'recipe' for cooking methamphetamine," the Baxter County Sheriff's Office said in a news release.

Huffing Drano?