Jan 27, 2016

Magic Man, part Duh

Saw a post from one of my old blog buddies the other day, lamenting the disappearance of our rather unique crowd. Not from the planet, just from the blogosphere. Got me to thinking about doing some blogging again. But nope...I had nothing.

Then yesterday, something truly odd happened. Harkens back to something I wrote last year about weird coincidences that seem to happen to me all the time.

I was at work with a friend shot me an email with the following link late in the afternoon:

http://www.abevigoda.com/

You all know by now that Abe Vigoda passed away yesterday. The running joke, at least on that site, is that is just seemed near impossible that Abe Vigoda was still alive. He was ancient back in the 1970's, or so it seemed. So someone created that website as a joke, and a pretty funny one. Until he died yesterday, that is.

Anyway, I have done a baseball radio show/podcast thing with that same friend and we have recently become interested in doing them again. We had a show two Sundays ago and it looks like we are doing another one this Sunday. Just Talking to the Cornfield, if you are interested.  So I've been listening to old shows on my rides to and from work lately. Just to get in the groove. So before I left work, I downloaded several episodes onto my phone so I could listen on my car's radio on the hour and a half ride home (yup).

When I turned on the car, there was a replay of that morning's Opie and Jim Norton show on XM Radio. They were talking about Mason Reese, the child actor that shilled for Underwood's Deviled Ham. You know, the smorgasbord commercials. If you remember the 1970's at all, then you will remember Mason Reese. Well, I turned it off and turned on one of the random episodes that I downloaded. It was from 2012 and it was titled "Smorgasbord". Already I'm weirded out.

We started the show talking about Mason Reese and those commercials, and that's really fucking strange. But about five minutes later it got even stranger. I threw out a random quote from Joe Versus the Volcano, something about a luggage situation. I said that it was an important film, if only to remind us that Abe Vigoda was still alive. I then proceeded to tell my friend about that website up there. The one that you could click to get Abe Vigoda's life status. He laughed for five minutes about that.

So...a half-hour earlier, my friend emails me that link after hearing the news that Abe Vigoda died. Then a half-hour later I'm listening back the exact moment 4 years ago that I told him about that site in the first place!!! Sandwiched in there is the odd coincidence of Opie and Jim talking about Mason Reese directly before I hear us talking about Mason Reese on that same show we recorded 4 years ago. That I randomly downloaded onto my phone yesterday.

Folks...this is getting fucking weird!