James Coburn Mr. Coburn passed away the other day. Sad. Sad because I am not the kind of person that ever actually buys a movie on VHS or DVD, but I own one of his movies: The President's Analyst. If you get a chance to watch it, do. It's amazingly wacky, and Coburn's character's increasing paranoia yields these wacky facial expressions - primarily his big ass toothy smile.
Then there were the 'Flint" series of movies. I have a copy of Our Man Flint that I taped off of TV once. Flint was a parody (primarily) of the James Bond films, and I think Austin Powers stole some ideas from it (although I need to watch it again to figure out exactly which ones).
RIP Coburn.
Synchronized My roommate Kristy once said, "I'm going to get you from behind when you are putting up the pots and pans". What a great line, I thought. So, because it was after dinner and we had been, um, imbibing different materials, we thought it would be a perfect time to call everyone we knew, say that line, and then hang up. This was in the days when *69 and caller-id were still luxury items, and not many of our college-age friends had it - meaning that we could almost safely harass our friends.
Let's call Tom!
*ring* Tom: "Hello?" Me: "I'm gonna get you from behind when you are putting up the pots and pans" *click*
We called everybody. We even called our downstairs neighbor, Hammer. I forget what his real name was, but he nicknamed himself, "Hammer". He was a classic stoner, which was handy to have nearby. He was also in my History of Architecture class, and we would sometimes have study sessions before exams with our pal Nicky (or is it Nikky). Hammer. He was a nice fellow. Very generous, but the whole stoner element made him a bit paranoid.
That night, Hammer is finishing his dinner and cleaning up. He finishes washing and drying the dishes, and proceeds to put up the dishes and pots and pans. As he puts away a pot, the phone rings...
*ring* Hammer: "Hello?" Me: "I'm gonna get you from behind when you are putting up the pots and pans" *click*
Hammer immediately freaks out. Turns the lights out, grabs a baseball bat, and goes around looking out the windows scared to death that some stalker is outside.
The only reason I know this is that months later he tells this story at a party where we were all telling "weird" stories. There really isn't anything else to tell. I don't think he found it especially funny. I still do, though.
