REAGAN PRESIDENTIAL FOUNDATION & LIBRARY (PART 1)

The first thing you see when you walk into the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Library are the Purell dispensers. Much like Reagan, it's inexplicable. Sanitize your hands all you want; you are prohibited from touching anything in the place anyway.

Is it any accident that the grounds are a natural habitat for rattlesnakes? (Is Lee Atwater buried here too?)

Most of the docents looked about 16-years-old (likely nearby Simi Valley High School students) and weren't particularly knowledgeable. I was convinced I could stump them with "Where are President Reagan's wooden teeth displayed?"

The docent working the Oval Office facsimile was an exception. He was full of good information. He was, at it happens, British.

Visitors are not allowed to walk through the fake Oval Office, nor are they allowed to sit on the furniture or touch anything. This was also confounding — nothing in the set is an actual antique, nothing has any real or historical value. Yet visitors are not allowed to be hands-on with all the replicas.

Are we supposed to eat all that Purell?

Anyway, the British docent recounted one of my favorite pieces of White House trivia: the story of the Resolute Desk.

The desk was a gift from Queen Victoria and has been used by many Presidents since. Perhaps the most famous photo of the desk is this one below:

You can read about the story of the Resolute Desk here (and you can purchase one from a Canadian company for $7,000-14,000 here), but the broad strokes go like this.

In 1845 Sir John Franklin set sail from Britain to find the Northwest Passage to Asia. He disappeared, and a rescue mission was launched in 1852 on the HMS Resolute. The Resolute got stuck in the ice and was abandoned. It later turned up, and the Queen decreed that timber from the ship be used to build the desk which was presented as a gift to President Rutherford B. Hayes.

In other words, it is traditional for our President to sit behind a desk made out of a shipwreck.

UNFORTUNATE NEW PRODUCTS

I'm no marketing genius, but I think Johnson & Johnson's foray into adult hair care products was ill-advised.

HOT DOG!

Naturally I told my high school reunion committee that I'd become a champion in the field of professional eating.

Thanks to Angie for the ribbon and the photo; thanks to Adobe Photoshop for the fake gold lettering on the ribbon.

PEACE ON EARTH

12 WOOKIES WOOKING

Christmastime is here, and the folks at Etsy — the website where ordinary people sell their handmade arts & crafts — have got plenty of gifts for the Star Wars fan in your life.

You'll always have a good hair day with this Princess Leia Hair Hat.

The Stormtrooper Pin Cushion.  Finally — a gift for all those Gungan-loving seamstresses!

Just because you've crossed over to the Dark Side doesn't mean you literally have to have blood on your hands. Clean up with Darth Vader Soap.

Are you an art lover? Well, are you?

Then you'll enjoy this painting of a Boston Terrier as a Jedi in training.

Two words: Stormtrooper Mouse.

And this one's called Lightsaber Toy For Your Cat, but I suspect everything about that description is euphemistic.

 

RING FINGERED

Etsy is a website where people sell homemade crafts. Usually it's toaster cozies and handmade soap. It's also where I got my beard.




But here's a more unusual item for sale: the vagina ring.

THE SADDEST TOYS IN THE WORLD

Here is compendium of photos I have taken of depressed, anxious or angry stuffed animals.

Found at a Hallmark Store, here's a Christmas turtle that seems to be suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder.

This puppy looks very distressed.

It could be because the box instructs you to throw the dog in the water and watch him swim to you.

Or it could be just because he's a "Rescue Pet."

(If you don't adopt these Rescue Pets, are they put down with My First Intravenous Euthanasia Kit?)

This is the least carefree-looking unicorn I have ever seen.

And I have seen many a unicorn.

If you're looking for a murderously angry polar bear, FAO Schwartz is the place for you.

The Mr. Bump doll has the distinction of being the only children’s toy that suffers from a traumatic head injury.

This is a puppy dog doll.

A puppy dog doll that was born with a disease whereby his skeleton is on the outside of his body.

Perhaps we should keep an eye on children who like playing with Skelanimals, the only stuffed animals with exoskeletons.
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KEN OBER

Ken Ober died this weekend. Ken was a former stand-up comic who was probably best known for hosting MTV's Remote Control.

News of his death broke the way many stories do these days — from a Facebook status update. I first read about it on Lou DiMaggio's Facebook page. Lou, a TV writer and actor (he played one of Larry David's restaurant co-owners on Curb Your Enthusiasm), was a longtime friend of Ken's (and a friend of mine since the late '90s).

About nine years ago Ken and Lou had a radio show on Comedyworld, and they would invite me to appear as a guest occasionally. They gave me the honorific of "The Smartest Man In Television." In truth, they were just trying to find a way to billboard a mediocre guest in a more exciting way than "TV writer friend of ours."

I would tell stories about working in reality TV, a genre which at the time was a novelty. It was a thrill for me, and I envied Ken and Lou — they got to hang out and make jokes for several hours a day without a TV executive giving them notes in advance of airing their comedy bits. Plus they were so damned funny.

Ken was always incredibly nice to me and had a wicked sense of humor. The long list of great people who were friends of Ken Ober's is a testament to what a outstanding guy he was.

99 CENT STORE TREASURES

Found at the 99¢ Store... food for your hair.

For that... um... ethnic look.
 

STILL BEATING

Huey Lewis and The News at Club Nokia as shot from the Worst Cellphone Camera Ever.