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Author Topic: MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES  (Read 37943 times)

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bk

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MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« on: April 06, 2004, 12:03:39 AM »

Well, you've read the notes, you've projected like I have, you've tasted each little morsel and now you are ready to post until the cows come home, so to it, I say.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2004, 12:05:39 AM by bk »
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Panni

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #1 on: April 06, 2004, 12:10:06 AM »

I have nothing profound (or prolost) to say - but it's nice to be the first post and as there seems to be no one here but bk and moi - it seems the thing to do. So here it is. My post.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2004, 12:11:06 AM by Panni »
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Ann

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #2 on: April 06, 2004, 12:20:38 AM »

second post...just for the heck of it...now off to bed :)
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S. Woody White

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #3 on: April 06, 2004, 12:25:17 AM »

This would be the third post, but I'm projecting, so it's really the seventh.
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bk

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2004, 12:29:34 AM »

I'm projecting myself into bed as I type this.  I'm almost asleep as I type this.  I'm having the most wonderful dream as I type this.
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Michael

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #5 on: April 06, 2004, 03:44:43 AM »

Movie:Arnold
Stage Musical: Starmites
Stage Play: Deathtrap
TV: Any of those home video programs.
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Emily

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #6 on: April 06, 2004, 05:29:17 AM »

Before I forget...

S. Woody asked yesterday about the cut of meat that makes Jewish brisket and Irish corned beef.  The same cut is also used to make smoked meat here too (and it's really the only way I eat it :) )

So... 1 cut of meat => 3 very different end products based on how you prepared it

if it's cooked as is, direct from the moo, you get brisket
if it's corned you get corned beef
if it's smoked you get smoked meat

how strange that each of those preparations is so identified with an ethnic group or specific location! :)
« Last Edit: April 06, 2004, 05:29:42 AM by Emily »
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Emily

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #7 on: April 06, 2004, 05:33:55 AM »

Guilty Pleasures:

Musical: Zanna Don't (it is rough but cute... definitely gp material)

TV: Trading Places, where Canadians switch lives with a complete
stranger for a day... very funny stuff if not exactly Masterpiece Theatre

Books: The Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters
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Jrand73

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #8 on: April 06, 2004, 05:36:27 AM »

Now of course, I am going to have to watch LA CONFIDENTIAL and look for the AD gaffe.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....  My guess would be a restaurant or studio sign.

Hmmmmmmm....I liked Titanic when it was about the ship - about the phony people, no.  I will take the Sturges family any day, thank you very much.  And the dialog was impossible for the most part.

Guilty pleasures....not hits...hmmmmmmmmm

Movie:  The Miracle wherein Miss Carroll Baker starts out as a nun....and drifts a LOT!

Musical:  AIDA - even though it is something of a hit, it is not something someone would RUSH to see.  I liked the music and the sets and the performances.

Book:  Either INSIDE PEYTON PLACE, the Grace Metalious biography or CALL ME ANNA Patty Duke's autobiography...OR Will There Really Be a Morning? the "autobiography" of (not by) Frances Farmer.

Play:  The Marriage of Bette & Boo by Christopher Durang
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Jrand73

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #9 on: April 06, 2004, 05:38:03 AM »

I forgot TV:  Green Acres, existing in its own reality.  Or Marcus Welby, MD.  The acting was on the same level as the medical treatments.
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elmore3003

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #10 on: April 06, 2004, 05:38:42 AM »

Good morning, all.  All this talk of matzoh balls, chopped liver, and brisket from yesterday has given me such a craving.  I may be living at my neighborhood deli today.  First I have a date with my goddaughter to see SCOOBY DOO 2 at 2.  As dear friend BK would say, isn't that too too?

So, TOD is guilty pleasures?  That's not easy when it comes to musicals and plays; is a show a guilty pleasure because it failed?  I can think of several flops I saw that deserved longer runs:  TEIBELE AND HER DEMON, FRANKENSTEIN (at the Palace), both with great incidental music by Richard Peaslee,  BIRDS OF PARADISE, RAGS, THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE, and the list could continue.

I'm going to define Guilty Pleasure as something your peer/intellectual group would put down but contains some personal resonance for you alone, so here are my choices for TOD:

Musical:  HELLO, DOLLY!  Carol Channing's last revival didn't run long, and there was a lot of "oh no, not again" from my acquaintances, but it's a show I only want to see in Gower Champion's production:  it moves, it dances, it had style and panache which is missing from a lot of revivals of other shows I've seen after seeing the original, and Michael Stewart's book is funny.  I first saw Ginger Rogers do it in 1966, then I saw Channing do it in 1978 (?), and while she was much more fragile in this last revival from the 1990s, she's a great comedienne and I had a wonderful time.

Play:  Well, that's harder; classic plays survive and get redone, but who's to know how many hit plays today will be around in 100 years and get revivals?
One of the funniest plays I've seen in the past 10 years was an off-off-Broadway comedy BACK SEATS AND BATHROOM STALLS, whose title alone would bend some noses out of joint and therefore qualify it as a guilty pleasure, but it was quite good with an excellent cast.  I doubt enough people saw it to get it published or transferred but it deserved some success.  I wish I could say that I saw and loved MOOSE MURDERS, since that would seem to be the epitome of a Guilty Pleasure, but I missed it.  I did see CARRIE, but there's no guilty pleasure there:  it was dreadful.

CD:  Al Carmines' PROMENADE; Lehman Engle hated this show and put it down in several of his books, possibly in his BMI workshop as well, and when I moved to New York in 1979, Mr Carmines and this show seemed to be regarded as a second-rate citizens.  The score and its vocal demands seem to be inspired in part by the world's greatest cult musical, CANDIDE, and it's libretto seems to be a variant on CANDIDE as redone by someone like Ionesco.  I missed the 1969 Promenade Theatre production which named the theatre, so this CD is my only souvenir of the show and I think it's great with an amazing cast for an off-Broadway musical.  I'm sorry that RCA waited too long to record it and that Madeline Kahn had already left the show, but Alice Playten's "Capricious and Fickle" is one of my favorite things on disc.

Movie:  MONSTER IN THE CLOSET:  funny movie with some good actors including a young Paul Walker and Henry Gibson and with some good points on homophobia and closets.

Did I cover all elements of TOD?   I hope.  



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elmore3003

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #11 on: April 06, 2004, 05:56:31 AM »

I meant to mention that I just acquired on eBay a playbill from the Boston tryout for CANDIDE in 1956, and it includes the following musical numbers I now want to hear:
 
  Introduction and duet:  I Love You (Candide, Cunegonde) Lyrics: Richard Wilbur
  Barcarolle:  Pass the Soap (Cunegonde, Old Lady) Lyrics: Richard Wilbur
  Gavotte:  Sweet to See Two Hearts So True (Candide, Pangloss, Cunegonde, Old Lady) Lyrics: Dorothy Parker

Supposedly the syphilis saga "Dear Boy" was cut in Boston, but I don't know if it was put in and removed before they left Boston, along with a character played by Carmen Matthews, or if it was cut before the Boston opening.

But I digress from the TOD.
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William E. Lurie

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #12 on: April 06, 2004, 06:17:26 AM »

Wow! Someone else loves PROMENADE as much as I do.  I am a big Carmines fan and love all his shows.  Years ago I directed productions of PEACE and THE FAGGOTT.  I wish more of his shows were out on CD, but at least I have several on LP which I will convert to CD when I get a phono I can hook up to my burner.

I saw three productions of PROMENADE in the 70s... the original off-Broadway (at the only theatre I know of named for its opening show --- The Promenade), one at the storefront theatre in Chicago where GREASE had originated, and one at Buffalo State directed by future tv writer/producer Tom Fontana.  In the later, some of the singers could not sing the complicated music so they recited the lyrics!  I missed the NY revival with HHW's own Jason Grae.

What is Al Carmines doing today?  Does his new church prevent him from writing music?  Am I the only one who think Carmines instead of Sharpton when I see a headline that says Reverand Al?

By the way, my favorite Carmines show (which I saw in both productions at the Judson) has never been recorded: THE JOURNEY OF SNOW WHITE.

As for guilty pleasures, the books I'm telling everyone to read are THE KRTIZER TRILOGY.  (I assume since this is three books that "are" is correct instead oof "is".)

Movies I'd say "Triplets of Bellville" although it has become somewhat popular.

TV - "Hope and Faith", the first funny sitcom in years.
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MBarnum

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #13 on: April 06, 2004, 07:14:09 AM »

Finished Kritzerland last night! What a wonderful book that was BK! I really, really enjoyed it and there was so much in it that I identified with (particularly the stuff about Junior High School). Today I will begin Kritzer Time!!
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Matt H.

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #14 on: April 06, 2004, 07:31:11 AM »

Guilty pleasures? I have to agree that some guilty pleasures WERE big hits but were trash nonetheless and friends often look at you funny when you admit a liking for them.

I'm thinking of something like VALLEY OF THE DOLLS in both book and film incarnations. Both were wildly popular with the public despite being laughably bad. But I can sit down and read that book with the greatest of pleasure, and the film never ceases to entertain. So, those would have to be my book and film choices.

TV: I guess one we were talking about yesterday, KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER. Looked at today, the special effects, makeup for the monsters, and production values are all pretty low compared to the accurate worlds that shows like ANGEL or THE X-FILES give us. But I still find those 20 episodes uniquely entertaining.

Musical: I think THE HAPPY TIME. I've never understood its lack of popularity: haunting score, wonderful performances, interesting characters. It was at the wrong theater (the huge Broadway) when it would have worked SO much better at something smaller, but I suppose Gower Champion wasn't in the mood to do something intimate with the material. Bad mistake. Not every show needs to be the size of HELLO, DOLLY!

Play: INSPECTING CAROL. One of the funniest plays I've ever seen and unfairly unknown.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2004, 07:31:55 AM by Matt H. »
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Jennifer

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #15 on: April 06, 2004, 08:22:48 AM »

DR Panni: I'd love to hear about everything they served at your sedar last night (I don't think you went into detail about the food after you came back, did you?).
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Matt H.

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #16 on: April 06, 2004, 08:24:04 AM »

I wanted to make some comments about NORTH BY NORTHWEST and Panni's daughter's reaction to it from a couple of days ago.

I've always liked it, but I think it's one of Hitchcock's pictures that grows in your mind the more you experience it. After watching it quite a few times, I find it grows in stature when you see how marvelously it's put together and how many truly suspenseful sequences have been crammed into it. The first time through, it might seem to lack something in pacing, but after you get accustomed to that, you understand that you need those respites between the suspenseful moments to "recover," so to speak.

My guess is that the next time she sees it, she's going to be more enthusiastic about it.
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Panni

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #17 on: April 06, 2004, 08:45:04 AM »

Seder Menu for Jennifer:

Gefilte fish, horseradish, hard boiled egg
Charoset
matzoh ball soup
potato kugel
tzimmis
brisket of beef
Asparagus
fruit compote
Fresh fruit salad
lemon/orange sponge cake
lots of mtzoh, natch
And all sorts of chocolates and other sweets to nosh on after the meal in case the above didn't fill you up.
(I've probably left out a few things)
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MBarnum

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #18 on: April 06, 2004, 08:47:46 AM »

Guilty pleasures:

Movie: A great, fun, weird, guilty pleasure that I would recommend is Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. This Russ Meyer film is so kooky and yet so entertaining you just can stop watching it! And if you ever wanted to see a film with several Playboy playmates as the stars, this is your movie!

TV show: Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. Spike TV has taken a Japanese reality show, dubbed in comic dialogue and the result is pure hilarity! It spoofs reality television and will give you a half-hour of belly laughs.

Book: I don’t have any one particular book, but just about any of the lurid 1950s paperback mystery books could be included.

Play: Making Porn was a very funny, funny play and if it is still playing anywhere I would recommend seeing it as well.
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Panni

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #19 on: April 06, 2004, 08:48:58 AM »

Haven't got much time this morning, but must post guilty movie pleasure: BUTTERFLY - Pia Zadora and Orson Welles. That alone should make you want to see it. Haven't seen it in years, but it is SO bad that it borders on genius.
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Lulu

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #20 on: April 06, 2004, 09:01:11 AM »

I wanted to make some comments about NORTH BY NORTHWEST and Panni's daughter's reaction to it from a couple of days ago.

My guess is that the next time she sees it, she's going to be more enthusiastic about it.

I'd say that's a good guess.  My reaction upon first viewing North by Northwest years ago was "Eh...it was all right, but not as good as the hype led me to believe."

I've seen it several times since then, and each time the things that bothered me upon initial viewing bother me less, and the things I liked I enjoy more and more.  It really is a film that improves upon re-viewing (and how many movies can you say that about?).
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DearReaderLaura

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #21 on: April 06, 2004, 09:03:43 AM »

If a guilty pleasure is something you love because it's so bad, I'd have to say Mrs. Miller and "Wing."
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Lulu

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #22 on: April 06, 2004, 09:09:48 AM »

I just listed a whole passel of guilty pleasures a few days ago, but I'll mention one that escaped my notice at the time:

TV:

The live action version of Sailor Moon    

Currently being produced and shown in Japan, this is a program we savor whenever we are able to see it.  The kids are delightful, the storylines silly but enjoyable, and somehow, even though the teens wear ridiculous costumes and battle otherworldly forces, they seem more true-to-life than teens on American shows - that is, their prime concerns are making friends, being liked (yet staying true to themselves), listening to music by the latest pop sensation, reaching out to other people even if they are afraid of rejection and/or eventual abandonment, parental expectations (and possibly failing them), and buying things that are "cute."  The teens on American shows seem to have lives that revolve entirely around getting laid - somehow, I find this notion both distasteful and insultingly reductive.



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Jennifer

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #23 on: April 06, 2004, 09:31:00 AM »

Seder Menu for Jennifer:

Gefilte fish, horseradish, hard boiled egg
Charoset
matzoh ball soup
potato kugel
tzimmis
brisket of beef
Asparagus
fruit compote
Fresh fruit salad
lemon/orange sponge cake
lots of mtzoh, natch
And all sorts of chocolates and other sweets to nosh on after the meal in case the above didn't fill you up.
(I've probably left out a few things)


Tzimmis (sp?) is the most delicious thing!  My aunt makes it with these little dumplings in it.  And it's very good.  

It's basically sweetened carrots in a great sauce, with meat or dumplings in it.

I was so disappointed with my roasted potatoes.  Sometimes the sedars take longer than one thinks. And they were way overcooked, which made me so sad. :(
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Ron Pulliam

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #24 on: April 06, 2004, 09:31:39 AM »

Guilty pleasures:

Movie/film score:  "The Yellow Rolls-Royce"  -- wonderfully entertaining.

Movie/musical movie LP: "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" -- a movie-movie.  Fellow fans revere this as a cult classic, quoting dialogue and lyrics at the drop  of a hat.

Books:  Anne Rice's vampire and witch sagas.  Mesmerizing reading.

Pop Music:  ELP's "Brain Salad Surgery"

Spoken Word: Richard Harris' recording of "Jonathan Livingston Seagull"

Musical Theater CD: "Dear World"
« Last Edit: April 06, 2004, 09:35:20 AM by RLP »
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Stuart

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #25 on: April 06, 2004, 09:33:19 AM »

I'm thinking of something like VALLEY OF THE DOLLS in both book and film incarnations.

You beat me to the punch, DR Matt H.:  VOTD is most assuredly my guiltiest pleasure, film-wise.

Musical:  STEEL PIER.  (Why not?  It was like "Touched by an Angel" with a score by Kander & Ebb!)

Play:  Truthfully?  Not that it is really a play, but more of an entertainment:  CATSKILLS ON BROADWAY.  If pressed on the issue, PARTY, even though I only saw it once.

Book:  Ethan Mordden's BUDDIES trilogy.

TV: Food Network (anything BUT Emeril.) Or HGTV.  Or Trading Spaces.  Or, if we are talking truly guilty pleasures, just kicking back and watching QVC, without the slightest intention of ever buying something.

A good yom tov to all who observe, but especially to you, DR Panni.  Sounds like the sort of feast my mother used to make.....  My own seder was much smaller.
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Jay

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #26 on: April 06, 2004, 09:37:58 AM »

Sounds like the sort of feast my mother used to make.

So where was I when there was tzimmes on the table?
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bk

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #27 on: April 06, 2004, 09:45:04 AM »

The problems with films like North by Northwest (or Psycho) is that by the time younger generations get to them they've been ripped off so many times they no longer seem fresh.  Or others have just pushed the envelopes of those genres to such ridiculous lengths that no one seeing them for the first time years after their release can understand what the deal is.  With subsequent viewings, yes, the appreciation begins.  I can't tell you how many young people say Psycho is nothing, a bore, what's the big deal.  Well, I was there for both initial releases (and wrote volumes about seeing both in the Kritzer books) and in context of the times they were perfectly perfect films, unique, exciting, funny, horrifying, everything they were intended to be.  
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Stuart

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #28 on: April 06, 2004, 09:50:56 AM »

So where was I when there was tzimmes on the table?

Ummmm, this one is too easy:

California.

We didn't start making tsimmes 'til after you moved.
(How's that for payback for all those "It happened before you were born" stories??)

Please remember, DR/DB Jay, HHW is not the place for us to air all our dirty family laundry!  There are large, crowded public spaces made for that.

 ::)
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Ron Pulliam

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Re:MEN WITH LOUD MACHINES
« Reply #29 on: April 06, 2004, 09:55:23 AM »

If this were a production of "Sunset Boulevard," would those be Norma's tzimmes?

 ;)   :-*
« Last Edit: April 06, 2004, 09:56:25 AM by RLP »
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