Years ago, during the Shedd's Spread portion of his career, I saw an interview with Jack Riley. He noted that his career arc had gone in reverse compared to other actors his age. "I started in films, then I went to TV. Now I'm doing a lot of radio work. Soon, I'll be looking to break into Yiddish Theater."

Despite the fact that it was filmed near me and locals talked about it all the time, for a couple of years up to its release, I was fascinated by the idea that there was going to be big-budget silver screen portrayal depicting the life of American composer Aaron Copland.

Walter Huston was father of the famous director and grandfather of Anjelica. love nearly every version of it. Even the instrumental, which is used to bookend Woody Allen's sentimental memoir, Radio Days, tugs at your heart.

He pronounces his surname "luh-VIN" rather than "LEV-in," which is the way everyone else I've ever encountered says it, including Michigan senator Carl Levin. I'm not sure if that's a change he made for radio or if his family always pronounced it like that.

I think Tucker is a movie that actually benefits from less context. After his American Zoetrope studio failed, most critics dismissed it as a Coppola's tantrum about how the system crushes brilliant outsiders.

Even the advertising reflected the slapdash addition of Murphy to the film, hawking him as a "Strategic Guest Star."

The third disc of Tracks features songs that didn't make Born in the USA and Tunnel of Love. Maybe because I was a kid then, I can live with the '80s goopiness, especially on songs like "Janey, Don't You Lose Heart" and "Lion's Den."

His deadpan humor delivery was strong too. "Sorry, Vern. Maybe a smarter shopper could have gotten more for your seven cents."

I think he's three for four. In the post-script, adult Vern is described as a regular Joe with four kids working as a forklift operator in a lumber yard. There's no indication that he underwent any physical or intellectual transformation that led to the type of success of adult Gordie and Chris.

In the original Vacation movie, after spending the night suffering through the impoverished wackiness of Cousin Eddie and his family, Clark is rightly suspicious of even the condiments on his Hamburger Helper minus the hamburger: "Eddie, is this real tomato ketchup?"

I have not eaten a corn-cob since without asking if it's hand-shucked.

In the book, while in her mother's body, the daughter invited her father out to an X-rated movie, which for some reason I remember was called something like "Brucey Loves Betsey."

I've probably recommended it here before, but Maureen O'Hara's autobiography 'Tis Herself, is a lot more harshly honest than almost any other book in that genre. It's a cliche to say someone had a "Forrest Gump" type career, but her stories about Natalie Wood, John Wayne, John Ford, Charles Laughton, etc. are like…

To his credit, he did call that Santoro thing a year ago.

It was almost an annual event. There was also one about an all-boys version of Eastland. The only one that ever stuck with me was the one with Jo's cousin living with her widowed father (Donelley Rhodes) and her brothers.

Though both feature otherwise-good characters driven to commit crimes against those who mistreated them, I think the tone of each film is very different.

Also a Car Talk mock end-credits staple, "Our driver, Pikup Andropov."

And me by an hour!

"So subtext we know, but what do you call the message or meaning that's right on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. What do you call what's above the subtext?"

You've been on that tape recorder for "18 and a half minutes!"