I am very, very busy.
I’ve been finishing these TV commercials, and now the radio commercials (which I’m recording tomorrow), and I honestly have had no time to do an update.
After Monday or Tuesday though, I should be able to get you all caught up on everything, and I can even post the TV spots for your ridicule.
In the meantime, however, I just wanted to share a very brief interlude that happened this afternoon at Hansen’s Bakery on Fairfax.
I stopped in there today to order a cake I saw in the window last week. It looks like a big basket of flowers, all made out of frosting and chocolate. It’s very pretty, and I thought it would be a nice thing to bring to Thanksgiving dinner. There are 5 November birthdays in my family, and it seemed like a good way to get a cake for everyone.
Now let me preface this story by saying that Hansen’s Bakery, famous for their cakes, is staffed largely by sisters. Or more accurately, sistahs. There are some weaves happening in that bakery, as well as enormous gold earrings, 3 inch long airbrushed nails and more chicken-necking than a Zacky plant. It’s like the best episode of Judge Mathis ever, with cake.
And it is a mill in there. I have never seen such a busy bakery. There are 6 desks along the wall, each staffed with order takers, and every one of them is busy. There’s also foot traffic at the counter, and the woman stationed there is clearly in over her head.
I see her out of the corner of my eye, talking to a lady who apparently has questions that require a little more cake savvy to answer.
“Lanita”, she calls out. “Do you know Napoleon?”
Lanita looks up, puzzled.
“Napoleon?” she asks. “The dude?”
“No,” she continues, “some kinda dessert.”
“Is that the brown and pink and white stripes with the different flavors?”
“No,” I offer, “That’s Neopolitan.”
“Oh yeah,” says Lanita. “Then who be Napoleon?”
“It’s a pastry,” I say. “Lots of layers, with custard in between.”
“A pastry?” asks Lanita, looking like she just smelled a turd. “Nah,” she yells, “we ain’t got that.”
Lanita then resumes writing up my order.
After a brief moment she looks up at me, admiringly.
“You sure do know your pastry, girl.”
She finishes writing up the order and slides the paper for me to approve. I look at the inscription I requested, and see she’s made an error:
Happy November Birthday’s
I take the pen and scribble out the apostrophe.
“What you doing?” asks Lanita.
“Well,” I say, “you don’t need an apostrophe there. It’s a plural, so it’s just the letter S at the end.”
Lanita takes the paper and looks at it. She crosses everything out, and rewrites it correctly.
“I better do this all over again, ” she says. “They don’t speak no English back there.”
73 responses so far ↓
1 Titan // Nov 15, 2007 at 2:14 am
Okay, My turn…. FIRST!
2 Titan // Nov 15, 2007 at 2:17 am
Hey, My birthday’s in November… Nah, don’t even think about it…
“They don’t speak no english back there…” Sounds like MY job!
3 JohnnyBoy // Nov 15, 2007 at 5:06 am
According to Dave Barry’s Mister Language Person, an apostrophe is used as a warning that an “S” is coming up at the end of a word
4 JohnnyBoy // Nov 15, 2007 at 7:00 am
Excerpted from Ask Mister Language Person [9], published Jan. 30, 1994, in the Miami Herald.
Q. Please review the basic purpose of the apostrophe.
A. The apostrophe is used primarily as a punctuation mark in certain Lesley Gore songs, such as ”Judy’s Turn to Cry,” where the apostrophe and the ‘’s” indicate that ”Judy” is possessive, which is why she tried to steal Lesley Gore’s boyfriend, ”Johnny,” away.
Copyright © 1994 The Miami Herald
5 joshpincusiscrying // Nov 15, 2007 at 7:47 am
April,
I don’t even know what to comment on first.
Great observation!
“You sure do know your pastry, girl.”
That is priceless!
6 JohnnyBoy // Nov 15, 2007 at 8:24 am
I bought an Ice Cream Cake from Carvel for no particular occasion, and the guy asked me if I wanted anything written on it, and I said yes.
He asked what to write, and I said I didn’t care…..told him he could write anthing he wanted, then I said indulge yourself, and that’s what he wrote… “Indulge Yourself”
7 Doug // Nov 15, 2007 at 8:59 am
That’s actually pretty cute, JohnnyBoy.
But what I wanna know is, what the HELL is chicken-necking?
8 Stretch // Nov 15, 2007 at 9:33 am
All we are saying - is give peas a chance
—–The Jolly Green Giant
9 JohnnyBoy // Nov 15, 2007 at 9:44 am
Doug….have you actually SEEN black women? If yes, then you’ve seen it…you might not know it’s called that
10 JohnnyBoy // Nov 15, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Here’s Danny Napoleon, who played for the Mets in the mid 60s…always thought he was an odd looking dude
http://www.twinscards.com/viewtwinkiesdetail.php?cardnum=9127
11 steve // Nov 15, 2007 at 12:50 pm
The reason women (of any race) get fake nails like that is to show the world that they do no manual labor. you see men growing out their fingernails and getting manicures now too. it’s the same as those fucking bluetooth headsets, since you can’t bring your Escalade into the restaurant with you.
12 Stretch // Nov 15, 2007 at 1:09 pm
I hear a Napoleon is DYNAMITE!!
13 JohnnyBoy // Nov 15, 2007 at 1:09 pm
I thought Bluetooth was a character on The Soupy Sales Show
Then again, I get Blu Ray and Rachael Ray confused too
And Mary Ann Mobley and Moms Mabley
constant state of confusion here
14 JohnnyBoy // Nov 15, 2007 at 1:10 pm
I saw graffiti in the 60’s above the urinal that said:
“Here’s where Napoleon blew his Bonaparte”
15 naughty zoot // Nov 15, 2007 at 1:14 pm
LOL!
I love that. Just love it.
But I gotta say-those 3 inch fake nails creep me out in ANYONE who works with food or in the medical field. I don’t have anything against the shorter type in most situations, but those long ones are just NASTY!
16 JohnnyBoy // Nov 15, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Gives me the Willies AND the Nellies
17 jasmith31 // Nov 15, 2007 at 1:37 pm
April, you were in the hood and didn’t even come a holla at me??
Dag!
I love mah black peoples!
or is that people’s?
or…
nevamind!
18 pal Jacky // Nov 15, 2007 at 1:58 pm
sorry no comment. Criterion has put out fassbinder’s ‘Berlin Alexanderplatz’ on DVD. Between that and new ‘Super Mario Galaxy’ game have made it impossible for me to think of anything else. I’m so giddy, I could slash my wrists!!.
19 DavidinBerkeley // Nov 15, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Maybe “chicken-necking” is like “rolling your neck,” which is the where the skull travels in a horizontal circle about the center of the neck.
20 Andre // Nov 15, 2007 at 3:27 pm
First off, “chicken-necking” can best be explained as the head movement that accompanies the phrase, “Oh no you di’nt!”.
Also, I have a posting today (11/15) at the 365 Days Project and didn’t notice until I read my entry on the site that I had used “birthday’s” when I should have used “birthdays”. Talk about your strange coincidences. Check out my stupidity at:
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/365_days_project/index.html
21 pal Jacky // Nov 15, 2007 at 4:29 pm
I’m on episode 4 of BA. biberkauf has yet to lose his arm. He’s currently sitting in a dark room drinking heavily and likening himself to Job!! What a role model. This should be shown in all public schools. On SM I just defeated a giant bee by jumping on its back and butt stomping him three time. I’ve got 7 stars out of 120. how much unmitigated joy can a man have?
22 JohnnyBoy // Nov 15, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Andre, yes, WFMU, how I came to be here !
and there are no strange coincidences, I do not believe in coincidence
23 gary // Nov 15, 2007 at 10:02 pm
What,do they speak Ethiopian?
24 Shannon // Nov 15, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Now I want cake.
Let them eat cake.
Wrong french bitch.
25 Shannon // Nov 15, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Napoleon Bonaparte - “Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.”
Pasty Napoleon - “Eat me.”
26 godzthor1 // Nov 16, 2007 at 1:09 am
April, are you trying to get a job writing for “Curb Your Enthusiasm”?
27 Andre // Nov 16, 2007 at 1:11 am
Johnny Boy,
Interestingly enough it was the reverse for me. April first, then 365.
WHAT A COINCIDENCE!
28 bnaivar // Nov 16, 2007 at 5:19 am
Anuthr prokutkt uf tha guvermint edukashun sistim.
29 Farfel // Nov 16, 2007 at 6:39 am
Schvartzes on Fairfax? OY!
30 JohnnyBoy // Nov 16, 2007 at 7:14 am
Andre, I’m sure there are some coincidences, but they happen accidentally
“His glistening chiseled ebon form filled the doorway, and she knew that sleep would come much later”
The Schvanz of the Schvartze - Chapter 2
31 Stretch // Nov 16, 2007 at 8:46 am
“Thanks a lot Schvanz-alot”
——–April Winchell as an old Jewish woman whose husband just took an ED medication
32 JohnnyBoy // Nov 16, 2007 at 9:00 am
Emily Dickinson?
33 pal Jacky // Nov 16, 2007 at 12:00 pm
not emily dickinson, badly translated Brecht
34 pal Jacky // Nov 16, 2007 at 3:31 pm
now that John Ziegler is off the air perhaps KFI sghould try to get Phil Hendrie back. He left radio to become an A-list actor a while back and has never been heard from again.
35 pal Jacky // Nov 16, 2007 at 3:35 pm
guys the real coincidence around here is that, years I knew gloria at El Camino college. She recognized me twenty years later by just my writing style.
36 Stretch // Nov 16, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I liked the sitcom Phil was on - it made good use of his voice talent. Show lasted one season
37 Stretch // Nov 16, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Quires once puladas de verga sin corte
por favor
38 pal Jacky // Nov 16, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Wasn’t Hendries’s show on NBC thursday Night.? My second axiom of media is ‘nothing good has ever come out of must see T.V.’ the evidence is Ted Dansen, Micheal Richards and kelsey gramer.
39 xlistnerliz // Nov 16, 2007 at 9:04 pm
WHAT?? John Ziegler is off the air?? We had a thing, he and I. He made me heave and I hated him. Just out of curiousity , what happened? I hope it what I have been dreaming.
April, stunning cake. You DO know your pastrie’s.
40 pal Jacky // Nov 17, 2007 at 1:46 pm
He was on thin ice for a while. He told John Kobylt that he had his head up his ass for Kobylt’s raggin’ on Bush about the war. Ziegler claims the leave was mutual. He was often wrong but never in doubt, and if you didn’t agree he went crazy. He was also a pathological Clinton hater and they are the only thing worse than patholigical Bush haters. He’s going into documentary filmmaking. After all that ragging on Micheal Moore(who I also hate), It’s going to be fun to see what kind of ‘fair and balanced’ films this AssKlown puts out.
41 pal Jacky // Nov 17, 2007 at 3:29 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ziegler_(talk_show_host)
The on air excanges between the Johns is near the bottom of this page. God I wish I hadn’t stop listening to ‘John and Ken’ years ago so I couold have heard it live.
42 Brandex // Nov 17, 2007 at 3:42 pm
I miss Phil Hendrie, but his show wasn’t the same after the FCC crackdown. I still remember an old Easter episode where one of his characters was hysterical because he thought the chocolate bunnies in the fridge were going to rape him. Or better yet, another Easter episode where the Irish priest character decides to crucify himself on the air. He wasn’t able to get away with stuff like that once the censorship began. They even bleeped the word “meat” the Ted’s of Beverly Hills Steakhouse song because “We want to put our meat in your mouth” was too offensive. This is why I hardly listen to the radio anymore. I don’t blame him for leaving.
I always pictured John Ziegler as a cartoon duck because of his awful voice.
43 JohnnyBoy // Nov 17, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Get Sirius !
44 John Foley // Nov 17, 2007 at 7:33 pm
John Ziegler’s voice is not great, but he sounds like Don Pardo compared to the likes of Mark Levin.
45 Brandex // Nov 17, 2007 at 9:41 pm
I thought about buying Sirius, but I’m not enough of a Stern fan to pay just to listen to him. I don’t see anyone else on their station who looks all that interesting. At least I have a Sirius-ready radio in my car in case I change my mind.
46 Brandex // Nov 17, 2007 at 9:42 pm
I was going to buy Sirius once April got her own show, but unfortunately that didn’t turn out.
47 JohnnyBoy // Nov 17, 2007 at 10:32 pm
For me, it’s worth it for the music channels alone. Yes I do listen to Stern for about and hour and a half a day, and with it being totally uncensored, it’s way better than it’s ever been. But it’s music for the other 2-3 hours that I’m on the road.
And I listen at home too …..there are stations exclusively devoted to all genres, a 24-7 Grateful Dead channel, same for Sinatra, jazz, classical, opera, and so on
Ok, there IS the initial cost of the radio (unless you have it already like you do Brandex), but for the cost of one CD, I estimate 180 hours of monthly listening that I do….well worth it for me
48 coasterboy // Nov 17, 2007 at 10:50 pm
On Sirius, I love listening to Lynn Samuels on Sirius Left…She’s a hoot. Talk about a stream of consiousness.
49 clevelandphil // Nov 18, 2007 at 11:05 am
Phil Hendrie’s show wasn’t the same after 9-11. He stopped doing the voices and got pompous.
50 Voodoo cake // Nov 18, 2007 at 5:01 pm
I want some voodoo cake for this Thanksgiving, I hope my order will not offend!
51 pal Jacky // Nov 18, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Hendrie did start getting self rightous and moralized too much. But not all the time and better yet he did it in hour long blocks. A little after 8PM you knew that it was gonna be bad until 9. Even with that he was far better than anything else on the radio or TV. I really miss Bobby Dooley.
52 esmeralda // Nov 18, 2007 at 8:19 pm
I happened to catch Phil Hendrie on a San Diego radio station somewhere around 9 or 10 Pm, but it was too far away to get good reception.
I was sorry to see Ziegler go off the air, but we all have different political views don’t we?
I’ll have my Thanksgiving cake without the 3 inch nail and A 12 inch hair from a weave sticking out of it!! Yuk
53 JohnnyBoy // Nov 18, 2007 at 9:28 pm
I’ll have Entenmann’s Filled Blackout Cake, if it’s not sold out. I already ate one, so if I can’t get another, I’ll be thankful for the one I did get
54 pal Jacky // Nov 18, 2007 at 10:36 pm
happy news indeed, Matt Drudge is off the air as well. How many times did that bastard brag about getting things first. However, not once did he ever apoligize for getting things wrong. He scooped at least three clinton love babies.
55 pal Jacky // Nov 18, 2007 at 10:47 pm
also pissing me off is ‘america’s smartest model’. The have gotten rid of all the stupid people, like the girl who didn’t know napoleon’s last name. And the charm is gone. Laughing and dumb people is my favorite hobby.
56 Brandex // Nov 20, 2007 at 5:33 pm
I haven’t seen “America’s Smartest Model” or whatever it’s called, but that Russian guy looked like a real treat to watch. The next time I act like a douche to someone, I’ll just say, “I’m Russian.”
Do you think that the “dumb model” stereotype is true for the most part? The only model I know was an honor student, but she only modeled part-time.
57 Brandex // Nov 20, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Yeah, Phil Hendrie got really annoying just after 9/11. Most of my favorite shows were from the late 90’s to 2000, when I first started listening to talk radio (I was without a cd player in my car for awhile, so that’s how it happened).
58 JohnnyBoy // Nov 20, 2007 at 8:05 pm
The model situation reminds me of something Eddie Murphy said, the gist of which was, when he was a nobody, he got proper feedback as to whether he was funny or not, and nowadays people who hang around him laugh at any dumbass thing that falls out of his mouth, and he can’t tell anymore
Same with models, people treat them like they’re interesting when they’re not
59 corellia // Nov 21, 2007 at 5:04 am
Phil Hendrie is back on the radio in some markets. You can listen free by going to his website, clicking “affiliates” on the left hand column, choosing an affiliate from the list, and checking the affiliate’s website to see if they have free live streaming. The one time I listened, though, he was talking about the typical boring talk show issues.
60 pal Jacky // Nov 21, 2007 at 11:26 am
the sexiest person on the show is the hostess mary allen stephenson(sp?). Again tall smart blondes and I’m gaga. The russian is the best model. I think the black girl is the smartest one left, but she’s a real ‘know-it-all’ so they’ll probably dump mher soon. However, they had some real corkers at the beginning. . some real dumb people made the final cut. Did they purposely put on some jackballs just to make fun of them? The ‘overweight’ (by model standards) guy was my favorite. They kept calling him fat until they got rid of him. Like a guy can lose ten lbs and buff up in two weeks. They could only have cast him for our amusement.
61 JohnnyBoy // Nov 21, 2007 at 11:33 am
Someone gave corn to the dog
62 pal Jacky // Nov 21, 2007 at 11:33 am
as far as models are concerned. I think beauty and brains are not correlated.I think the The percentage of ‘pretty people’ over the total population is the same as the percentage of smart pretty people over smart people. ( This comes from my undergrad and a year of graduate study in Mathematics at Berkeley. and a master’s at CSULB. ) my biggest problem are the dumb nerds who think they have to be good at math because they are geeks. It just doesn’t go that way.
63 xlistnerliz // Nov 21, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Yes, emerelda we are all entitled to our opinions. But seriously, John (zeig-hail Bush) ? Ah, you can’t be all bad if you love our April!!
64 pal Jacky // Nov 21, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I remember Ziegler ranting on and on about how the terrible ‘liberal hollywood’ was for nuking magic mountain on ‘24′. Later he had on the ‘24′ executive producer when the guy was touting the conservative daily show ripoff that april was involved in for a while. Ziegler would make some of the dumbest assumptions and then run with them. I think he actually believes fox news is ‘fair and balanced’.
65 pal Jacky // Nov 21, 2007 at 6:16 pm
on a side note. I saw a ’scrubs’ re-run with zach Braff on a hoveround. It really ruined it for me. I think i’ll just use my grandma’s old wheelchair and pump up my arms.
66 Shannon // Nov 21, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Okay April we have gnawed this topic to the marrow. Give us another one even if we are to contimplate our own navels. MMmmmm white lint, odd smell.
67 JohnnyBoy // Nov 21, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Zach Braff? A name that sounds like someone gave beans to the dog
68 Shannon // Nov 21, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Did ya’ll know that not only was the custom to bind the feet of Chinese girls to keep them in the mincing gait that showed they were of higher breeding but also because some Chinese men found the aroma of the pungent bound foot, sort of infection smell a complete turn on?
69 Shannon // Nov 21, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Also, Dale Evans horse’s name was Buttermilk. Just in case you ever need to have a life line on Who Wants to be a Millionare?
70 Shannon // Nov 21, 2007 at 10:47 pm
And Tonto’s horse’s name was Scout.
71 Brandex // Nov 22, 2007 at 1:29 am
Cool. I received my Master’s at CSULB in May this year. It’s an English degree, though, so people still think I’m dumb because it’s liberal arts.
72 JohnnyBoy // Nov 22, 2007 at 2:21 am
wow….”it’s” used correctly twice in once sentence……MUST be a degree in Goodly English !
73 Andre // Nov 23, 2007 at 12:40 pm
And Joan Rivers’ horse’s name is Melissa.
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