December 2008 Archives

I didn't stumble on this 2006 (yes, THIS side of the millennium) Twisted Sister video without help. Mediabistro's FishbowlLA led me there.

The fact that a bona fide '80s band actually pulled it together enough to both record a new song (OK, it's an old song, "Oh Come O Ye Faithful") and make a totally kick-ass video is ... words fail me.

I was telling Tom Gapen about the ice on my car windows that kept me from driving until I could defrost it from within, and he said I needed an ice-scraper.

This is L.A. There are no ice-scrapers.

So I MacGyvered it. And yes, I do carry sunscreen year-round.

I was just talking with Daily News education reporter Connie Llanos about how we fell in with the parents of a few of our daughter's LAUSD kindergarten classmates.

We met due to walking the same way to school and by virtue of our kids being in the same grade. It's unusual, for me and Ilene anyway, because prior to this, we didn't really have any like-minded parents with whom we formed any kind of connection.

It's pretty casual. We talk on the way to and from school. We did Halloween together, and we wait in line with the kids before class to make sure the little angels don't murder each other. We listen to droning assemblies (Mondays only, thankfully), ferry class projects, bags of recyclables (fund-raiser), bags of spent paper-towel rolls (learning about "silly cylinders") and snack- and homework-filled backpacks.

Yep, there's homework in kindergarten.

I have a way of creeping up on the point, so I'll just get to it. One of these parents, Richard Horvitz, we both discovered a couple of weeks or so into this school year, actually went to Grant High School with me in the '80s. (Cut me in half and count the rings, people; I'm old.) He was an actor then — and still is today. Back in high school, he was always in the annual shows. I generally played the guitar in the pit orchestra.

Now that we've got all that track laid, Richard has a lot of interesting gigs, which encompass everything from voices for animation to stage work and movie roles. He also manages to get booked on the late-night talk shows occasionally.

This long introduction is just here to provide a little context for the clip above from "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno." It's a very funny skit with Jim Carrey. That's Richard, second from right, in the choir.