Archive for July, 2007

The government of Israel says they are “correcting a 60-year-old blight”…

Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II. Hundreds of thousands who survived concentration camps came to Israel after the war. Many suffered physical or psychological damage from the torture and deprivation they suffered at the hands of the Nazis.

Six decades after the war ended, the remaining survivors are elderly, and many have been unable to provide for themselves in their final years, suffering chronic shortages of money for medical and psychological treatment and in some cases even food.

…

“We are correcting a 60-year-old blight,” he said. “Holocaust survivors living in Israel are entitled to live respectably without reaching a situation in which it is beyond their means to enjoy a hot meal.”

Beginning next year, the amount allocated for 120,000 needy survivors, about half the total number still living in Israel, will be $28 million annually, according to Olmert’s statement.

But that works out to an average of just $20 a month for each survivor.

Apparently, the cost of living respectably in Israel is just $19.44 per month, that’s the amount their generous stipend works out to be.

The number 1944 is ironic enough if you ask me.

What is it with Hollywood, addictions and drug rehab? You’d think, watching the news that celebrities are the only ones with addiction issues, and the only ones that needed to enter drug treatment centers.

Earlier today I posted about the time I used to hang out at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. There were a few people I knew back then that had addiction problems. One of my best friends was addicted to alcohol, a singer in the lounge was addicted to drugs, and one of the dancers at the “Solid Gold” show suffered from an eating disorder.

All three of them were great people, but their addictions took over their lives and choked the happiness from their lives. My friend ended up in alcohol rehab, and the singer sought help from drug treatment centers. I lost contact with the dancer, but I heard she is doing fine too.

For those of you suffering from an addiction, there is hope. Project Know can help you overcome your addiction, whether it’s alcohol, illegal drugs, prescription drugs, nicotine, gambling, or the internet. They can even help you with eating disorders.

Many, many, years ago, I used to hang out at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. I met some of the most awesome people at the Riviera. One of those people was a comedian named Lois Bromfield.

If I remember correctly, the year was 1984, and she was there to do stand up for the “Solid Gold” show, or something like that. I was introduced to her by the Riviera entertainment director, Barbara Hayes (another awesome person). Lois was (and still is) one of the most hilarious comedians I have ever seen. I can’t believe it’s been over 20 years since I met all of those people at the Riviera.

Anyway, back to the memory…

I was going to be taking a road trip to Southern California and she invited me and a friend of mine to stop by her place while we were down there. We almost didn’t call her, because we were nervous about seeing her again. Heck, she was a “big celebrity” in our eyes, and we were just a couple of punks from Vegas. But, we worked up the nerve and stopped by for a bit. She was a gracious hostess and was one of the most down to earth people I have ever met in my life. I wish now that I had kept in touch with her. Oh sure, she’s a famous writer and producer now, and she probably doesn’t even remember the scrawny kid from Las Vegas who had stars in his eyes and wanted to become a manager just so he could work in the entertainment industry (yes, that was a dream from long ago).

Here is Lois in a clip I found on YouTube.

As I typed this post, my mind wandered back and remembered those nights, sitting in the Riviera Lounge with people like Annie Lawrence, Kenny Sakamano, The Smother’s Brothers (well, Tommy anyway), and Lois. Wow. I feel old now.

Happy Monday!

[Crossposted at TinselTown Trash]

Earlier today my wife discovered talkr.com.

Talkr.com is a free service which takes your text based blog and creates an audio podcast feed so visitors can listen to your posts rather than read them.

Each post on this site will have a link to listen to the post, and I will be adding a subscribe button in the sidebar as I get time.

For now, you can subscribe to the audio feed with this link (subscribe)

Pretty cool stuff if you ask me.

I was going through some old photographs last night, scanning them into the computer. I didn’t realize how many photographs I have that I haven’t seen in months, or years. I am giving serious thought into purchasing a digital frame. After posting about them last week, I think I finally found the one I want.

Soon after we moved to Georgia, my wife and I bought matching office desks. They were huge. Assembled they weighed over 300 pounds each and once we put them where we wanted them, we didn’t move them. We still have one of those desks, but it sure would be nice to have a smaller one.

Who could forget this show?

Poor Sigmund didn’t want to be a scary sea monster and ran away. How sad is that? Lucky for him he met up ith Johnny and Scott, who decided to hide him in their clubhouse.

Johnny Whitaker played Johnny, Scott Kolden played Scott, and Mary Wickes played the housekeeper Zelda.

If you missed this one, you really don’t know what life is. Check out 70’s Live Action Kid Vid for more classics from the 1970’s.

There was a time when Hollywood stars thought it was better to hide the fact they needed drug rehab. These days, people seem to thrive on the attention that a stay in rehab creates.

Can you imagine what would have happened if the media had worked themselves into a frenzy when a famous star of the past came strutting out of the rehab clinic?

Things are definitely different today than they were back then.

I can’t remember if I blogged about it here on RetroMental, but we had some serious power issues during the last month. In fact, it was just about a week ago that the power company finally fixed the problem.

I lost two computer power supplies during that month, due to the power surges. One is toast, but I think I can send the other one to a power supply repair place, if not, I’ll be purchasing two brand new ones in the next couple weeks.

It’s nice to have steady electricity at night again.