Jan

She's the oldest of us four, a fact I'm sure she'll love me pointing out. Jan has an artistic streak a mile wide, and can draw or paint anything. A framed drawing that she gave me many years ago was a pastel, a downtown night scene with traffic and lights overhead. It was excellent, and I'd be willing to bet it didn't take her long to do. I can just see her, seeing the scene and knowing exactly how to do it.
Going way back to when we were kids, for a long time I was very jealous of her and Kathy. They were both girls only a year apart and at times it felt like I had nothing in common with them. Which I probably didn't at that point.
Jan loves music and she and I love a lot of the same stuff. I somehow inherited/acquired/stole Jan and Kathy's early record collection after they'd both left home. The one that always made me laugh was the album 'Yellow Submarine' with terms of endearment for various Beatles written in marksalot by Jan and Kathy.
I also remember sneaking into her bedroom when she wasn't there and playing all those records. One night when she was gone, and the folks were off in another part of the house, I must have listened to 'I Feel Fine' twenty times.
Jan has a temper and she's got a big heart. She's crazy but then we all are. Actually, I think Joe's the craziest.
Your birthday's coming up in six months so I wanted to be first on my block to say, happy birthday Janny!

Football

It's been an exciting last couple of weeks if you're a football fan. The showdown between Texas and USC in the Rose Bowl may have been the most exciting college championship game ever. It was definitely the most exciting I've ever seen. I have finally figured out that college football is drastically different from the pros. All season there are mismatches galore; teams run up scores in a way that would at the very least be considered poor sportsmanship in the NFL, but of course it's because of the way the college teams are ranked.
The difference in a game like the Rose Bowl is that the teams are evenly matched and neither has an ounce of quit in them. If this were a regular season game, and USC's opponent was a 40-point underdog and further, if that same underdog had made the mistakes Texas made in the first quarter, it's very likely they would have folded their tents and all but conceded. But you could tell that thought never entered the Texas players' minds. Hell yes, we're going to go for it on fourth down in the first half (more than once), this is the championship!
The NFL playoff games have been very good as well so far. The big one of course was Pittsburgh at Indianapolis. A wild and crazy game. The worst mistake Indianapolis made was before the game, in my opinion. And that was to 'rest' key players the last two weeks of the regular season, after they had the division title wrapped up. 'Rest' being a euphemism for 'so they don't get injured.' Bad idea. They were undefeated, they were on a roll. You don't want to throw away that momentum, in effect forfeit and lose those two games and then back into the playoffs. I really think other teams around the league are going to look at what happened to Indy and re-think that whole 'strategy.'
And finally, the kicker for the Colts- Vanderjagt (? spelling). I suppose half the people watching when he missed that last field goal were screaming 'you idiot!' and the other half, 'that poor guy.' Even though my upset pick was for the Steelers to win, I'd put myself in the latter category. He makes the kick, he's the hero... he doesn't, and there isn't a hole dark enough to crawl into. Such is the life of a kicker.

commercials and bloopers

Ron and I have been friends a long time, and back when we both worked for Dad, one of the things we did was make commercials for the various dealerships. Most of the advertising was done in the newspaper, but we decided to try cable which was in its infancy really and so the cost was really low.
And that's what we did, produce TV spots as cheaply as possible and sometimes on ridiculous deadlines. I would write the copy, Ron was our on-air personality, and a friend of mine from high school just happened to be a producer at the cable company, so he shot the commercials, all on an extremely low budget.
It was really interesting, in fact Ron and I often comment it was the most fun either of us has had in the car business. We went to the ABC affiliate in Dallas one night to see the production guys putting together the opening logo, a silhouette of the Fort Worth skyline with the 'Bailey' name under it.
Anyway, Ron was very good at doing the commercials. He was very quick and could memorize copy fast. He loved being on camera and had a good presence and voice.
I would be on hand when we shot these spots for any last minute problems or script changes or anything that needed to be done, since it was really just the three of us. Things inevitably went wrong on occasion.
We bought this machine called a 'Cash Blaster,' which you would put dollar bills in and a fan would blow them around, while a person reached in and tried to grab as much as they could. It figured prominently in a commercial, but the top kept blowing off and the dollar bills would go flying everywhere. Ron was no help, he just backed away and said in a small voice, "Help."
There were the expected verbal fluffs, and this is not caught on the blooper tape, but one line I wrote was, "Don't buy a Ford Taurus until you drive the new Mercury Sable."
Every take, Ron said, "Don't buy a Fart Taurus..." It happened about six times. He wasn't trying to be funny. So we changed it to "Don't buy a Taurus" and he was fine.
I had a great idea one time when we opened the new dealership on the west side, to have the showroom doors magically open and Ron to step forward, hand extended, and say, "This is Ron Rougeux for Bailey. Visit our spacious showroom..." etc.
So the cable producer turned the camera on, then rushed over to where he and I would use ropes with hooks to 'magically' open the doors, hopefully out of camera range. Well, not only are we visible in the glass door's reflection, but again Ron muffed his line, saying, "Visit our specious showroom." I think we gave up on the idea after that.
Ron always had a good reason for missing a line. A sample from the blooper reel-

I'm sorry, my eyes just freaked out.

Hey, look at that kid on that bicycle.

At Bailey, you can buy an F-14 fighter jet... (As one screams overhead from nearby Carswell AFB)

Am I sweating?

At Bailey Pontiac, we want to be number one in the nation, so we have this great paging system... (Again, as background noise ruins the take)

It was a lot of fun doing those.

Happy New Year

It is a new year and this is my new blog. I hope to be around a bit more than I have lately. Missed everybody, meaning of course Jan, Kathy, and Joe, and that one guy in Canada who really liked one of my posts.
Hope to get caught up on everyone and start writing funny stuff again. That is my goal. Orson Welles continues to be an inspiration-

Orson- Impossible! Meaningless!
Director- Orson...
O- He isn't thinking...
D- It was my fault, I said 'in July,' and I meant 'every July'...
O- You didn't say it. He said it. Your 'friend.' Every July? No, you don't mean 'every July'...
D- Yes, that's the copy...
O- But it's bad copy! It's in July, of course it's every July. There's too much directing around here.