The actor who played Cousin Itt on the Addams Family television show has died. Cousin Itt was not part of the original Charles Addams cartoons.
Category: other stuff
Flushing ashes down the toilet in Captain Fantastic
Captain Fantastic is an excellent 2016 film that includes a scene where cremated ashes are flushed down a toilet in an airport bathroom. The ashes of a woman are flushed by her husband and their sons and daughters.
I am the executor of a will for a friend who lives near Philadelphia and I have teased him that I will flush his ashes at the 30th Street train station. I told him he could pick out the stall.
When we have discussed this, we couldn’t figure out if it was done in a men’s or women’s bathroom. The script is available online but it only says:
143 INT. BATHROOM. SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. DAY. 143
The entire family – Ben, Bo, Rellian, Vespyr and Kielyr,
Zaja, and Nai – are crowded into a small toilet stall.
Ben pulls a paper bag out of his backpack. He opens it wide
enough for the ashes inside to be visible.
Then he pours.
They all stare at Leslie’s ashes in the toilet bowl.
(It’s on page 123 but you can also search for “bathroom”). It doesn’t answer the question of which type of bathroom was used!
Here’s the scene – it’s around the three minute point
The Tamagotchi Cemetery (article from Burials and Beyond)
John Tyler had a grandchild who lived until 2025
Update 5/28/25:
This is amazing. John Tyler was president from 1841-1845. He had eight children with his first wife and seven children with his second wife. His first child was born in 1815. His last child was born in 1860.
Zpac
About 10 years ago, I was in a class on working in a multi-generational workforce. Each table of students had people from different age groups. One assignment was to write down several events that you considered important and someone else at your table would read it. A young black woman wrote down the assassination of Biggie and 2Pac. An older white guy read it as the assassination of Biggie and ZPac.
I’m an old white guy and I can’t tell you the name of any of 2Pac’s songs. However, he was a prominent artist and I think everyone should know who he was. I would certainly recognize pictures of him. He even had a Baltimore connection. He lived here for four years.
Aftermath of the bachelor party
See the previous post about the bachelor party:
I had a bachelor party at my apartment – Sad! (sad209898016.com)
The weddings
I attended both weddings. I was even in the wedding party for one of them and wore a tux. That wedding was held at Westminster Hall. It used to be a church but is now a non-denominational hall. Edgar Allen Poe is buried in the graveyard next to the building. It was a great place for a wedding. There was no fixed seating so we had folding chairs on the main floor for ceremony and tables on the balcony for the reception. The bride wanted recorded music for parts of the ceremony. We hooked up my cassette deck to the hall’s sound system.
This was the bride’s choice for the music that was played after the ceremony and we were walking back down the aisle. She made a great choice.
The other wedding was at the same time the Orioles played the White Sox in the 1983 American League Championship series. Some of us kept leaving the reception to go to the building lobby to get a score from the man who greeted people. The bride was not happy with us.
Death by VCR
One of the two guys who had watched the movies intently asked us to hook up a VCR for him which we did. He was married and was very overweight. Then he got heavily into porno movies. We were shocked.
He had a heart attack or stroke and died. He wasn’t old. I am guessing early 40s. I attributed it to his weight but one of our coworkers treated us like we were murderers.
I had a bachelor party at my apartment
I held a bachelor party in my apartment in 1983. We had two guys at work who were getting married. I lived in a loft apartment which was ideal for a party. I even temporarily had a beer kegorator that belonged to people who were renovating their building.
A friend and I planned the party. First, we went to see an old guy who had connections to the Block, where the strip clubs are located in Baltimore. There we were in the lobby of an apartment building (on St. Paul St. for anyone who knows Baltimore) looking at an album of photos of women with their legs spread apart so you could see their crotch.
We settled on a service that would write a poem about the groom and send a lady over to deliver it. She would come in a coat and down to a bikini.
We had about 20 guys at the party.
We ran two porno movies on my new Beta hifi VCR before she arrived. One of my coworkers was knowledgeable about porn and he selected I Like to Watch and 800 Fantasy Lane. He liked women in uniform and was married to a nurse. Two of the guys actually watched the movies like they had plots! They must have been very sheltered.
When the lady showed up, we took her aside to figure out how she was going to do her routine. She had a boombox with a cassette with “Flashdance” and similar songs. The first thing she said was “I don’t drink on the job.” The second thing she said was “Where’s the vodka?’ I got a glass and filled it for her. With hindsight, I don’t blame her if she was concerned about being alone with 20 guys she didn’t know and used a drink to help her.
She was dressed up, recited the poems, danced to the music and got down to the bikini. Later in the evening, she asked for more to drink. I assumed she still had the glass so I brought her the bottle. She drank right from the bottle! She got so drunk, one of the guys had to drive her home in her car.
It was very adolescent. It was like being 12 and having money. It reminded me of the time when I was 12 or 12 and three of us chipped in to buy a copy of Playboy. Each kid only had to pay a quarter.
The next day at work, our female coworkers wanted to know about the party. I just said “Can’t tell you.”
I will write another post with the aftermath.
Grover Cleveland’s jaw
While we’re on the subject of the Mutter Museum….
The Mutter Museum has part of Grover Cleveland’s jaw. There’s a picture of it here – scroll down to #2. This article discusses his secret dental surgery.
The rest of Grover Cleveland is at the Princeton Cemetery.
Death cast of the famous Siamese twins
Chang and Eng Bunker were conjoined twins who became known as the Siamese twins. Did you know that their fused livers plus a death cast are in the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia? The Mutter was a cool place to go when I was a teenager. It was like a real life horror movie with all kinds of oddities on display
Your mom is your mom until the end
My mother spent the last three months of her life shuttling between a hospital and a rehab center. When she was finally released to go home from the hospital, I went to help her out. She was being wheeled down on a stretcher for her final x-ray and I walked behind her. She turned her head around to me and said “Your shirt could have been ironed.” That wasn’t nice but that was my mother who was always concerned about appearances. At least she still was mentally sound. I wasn’t amused then but I am now. My mother died six days later. I learned that your mom is your mom right up to the end.
Sad! 