All the World's a Cage. John Cage experiments with musical chairs.

NEW YORK (Special to TSD AfterDark) Leonard Phelps, 61, a renowned sculptor and architect, still enjoys a successful career, as well as spending time with his family, shuttling between his Manhattan penthouse apartment and Long Island weekend home.  However, Phelps continues to battle nightmares from an incident that occurred fifty years ago in a 6th grade music class visited by composer and “chance” musician, John Cage, who was invited to participate in Mrs. Thelma Prescott’s musical chairs experiment.

Though Cage, who died in 1992, wrote hundreds of compositions in his long career, it is his 1952 piece entitled 4’33” (four minutes, thirty-three seconds) which consists of environmental sounds, amounting mostly to silence, which left Phelps and several other friends and classmates confused and horrified. 

“It kinda freaked us out.” said Phelps. “There was a cellist, pianist, tympanist, oboist and bassoonist in the room. Everything seemed normal as the musicians readied themselves with their instruments.  Then it got weird when they never played one friggin’ note. Cage yelled “begin!” Then we all started walking around the chairs in utter confusion. I recall asking ‘when does the music start?’. He barked back, ‘Ahh, it has my boy, it has!’ Much to Cage’s delight, we meandered aimlessly around the chairs as he chortled and snorted in utter glee as his tour de force of silence raged on. That’s when Susie Hislop screamed ‘this isn’t music! I can’t dance to this. You got any Frankie Avalon or Beach Boys?’

After four minutes and thirty-three seconds, Cage instructed the musicians to pack up their instruments and leave.

“We were all in a daze afterward, uncertain of what to say, do or think.” added Phelps. “Milton Hack, a rather plump tuba player in our concert band, stayed after class insisting he was the winner of musical chairs, claiming the music is still playing. In fact, I’ve heard he’s still in that very same classroom today. I’m sure Cage would appreciate that in his own weird way.”

There is a Reason - Turn, Turn, Turn. Well, there used to be a reason.

TALLAHASSEE, FL (Special to TSD) The Florida Department of Motor Vehicles has announced that it will require all dealerships to remove factory installed turn signals by February of 2015.

“We’ve found that 97.3% of Floridians don’t used turn signals anymore, and of that 97.3%, 46% don’t know what one is.” DMV spokesperson Lamar Hennings said. “In the spirit of the devil may care, laid back lifestyle here, we decided to take a ‘what the fuck?’ attitude and eliminate the use of signals. The hope is that this will give drivers the unencumbered freedom to text while driving, swerve across four lanes of traffic to make a last second exit, and slow down to a crawl and hold up traffic for miles just to check the welfare of a guy on the side of the road on his cell phone or a rogue honeydew melon that’s fallen off the back of a pickup truck.”

Most drivers are thrilled.

“That’s one less thing to concern myself with.” said Jennifer Callison of Hallandale, near Miami. “People don’t need me to signal, they’re psychic like me. I just sense where everyone is going. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going speed through a parking lot, then later on back out of my parking spot without looking and expect the other guy to stop, because I’m important. Then I’ll go home and watch something really sophisticated on television to expand my mind like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.”

Harlan Thorpe of Sarasota however claims removing the turn signals is a bad idea.

“Its kicking courtesy and common sense to the curb.” the 52 year old sculptor and part time jazz trumpeter said while backing over a pedestrian who happened to be using his cellphone. “If I may be so bold, this prick had it coming to him. He was on his cellphone and crossed the street without looking when he should be paying attention and experiencing the beauty of the planet. But, as you can see, there’s no app for that.”

I recall the similarities I was supposed to share with Sir Duds.

1. We’re both short. (Check)
2. We’re both funny. (The jury’s still out on me)
3. We both play jazz piano. (True, though he’s better)
4. We both dated women taller than us. (True. Before I got married that is)

Moore was a fairly well kept secret stateside during the 1960’s, but a national treasure in Great Britain, either with the comedy quartet Beyond the Fringe, along with his comedy partner, Peter Cook, or heading up his jazz trio. It really wasn’t until he teamed with Bo Derek in 1978’s “10” that Moore became a household name in America. From there he went on to earn an Oscar nomination for his performance in “Arthur.”

Lovingly referred to as the Cuddly Dudley or The Sex Thimble, perhaps it was his musical skills that attracted the ladies. Here he is performing with his jazz trio.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sadly, Moore suffered four minor strokes and ultimately battled progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative brain disorder. His exit from this world was too soon – just 66 years old. But we prefer to remember the lovable Dudley and the truly gifted musician who had more laughs to illicit and more music to play.

Unger Pains. Randall's legendary performance in long lost Unger Games.

LOS ANGELES (Special to TSD AfterDark) Lost in a dank, dusty warehouse in Studio City, California, a 16mm film is being restored. It was found by a night watchman on March 8th and handed over to film historian, Alfred Keller. It is believed to be the only remaining copy of an episode of The Odd Couple that was never aired. Entitled, The Unger Games, the controversial episode depicted Felix Unger (played by the late Tony Randall) tormenting his roommate Oscar (played by veteran actor Jack Klugman) with a meatball hero sandwich after Oscar lost his wallet during a night of tomfoolery with his sports writer colleagues.

A hungry Oscar returns home to an empty refrigerator and unable to purchase food. Randall’s Felix character sees the opportunity to transform the sloppy, unkempt Oscar to a refined man of elegance and cleanliness. That’s where Randall’s epic performance kicks in, and a newly seen sinister side of Felix Unger is revealed to an unsuspecting audience.

“Oscar! You can have this delicious meatball hero if you change your sloppy ways forever, and…kill Mr. Moretti in apartment 12. The man made an insulting remark about my Veal Saltimbocca.” Felix proclaims from the shadows of his well appointed kitchen, holding a meat cleaver.

The show’s producer, Garry Marshall  was stunned upon seeing the footage for the first time in nearly forty years and claimed Randall’s performance ran the gamut of emotions.

“Tony’s unedited, spellbinding, nay, dizzying soliloquies had us all on our heels. What manic bliss he gave us that day. All of us, Jack included, could only sit and watch, as we were witness to acting history.” the 77 year old television veteran said.

The script, written by Randall himself, was filmed on November 20, 1972. It was set to air the following January, but the network deemed The Unger Games too intense for television. Even by today’s standard’s, the dark, offbeat episode remains profoundly disturbing.

“They say tragedy plus time equals comedy,” added Marshall. “But not enough time has passed to get a chuckle out of this episode. It’s distressing to say the least.”

The Unger Games needs the approval of the Randall estate to be included in a planned Odd Couple DVD box set due in October.

Load It Up! Taft liked his fried foods.

WASHINGTON DC (Special to TSD AfterDark) Republican William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States, was the heaviest president the nation has known. Weighing in at an estimated 350 pounds, the 6 foot tall Taft was a devotee of fried foods and is said to have loved hamburgers later in life. He temporarily abolished the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, using the money instead to purchase lard.

White House chef, Charles W. Latimer worked exclusively for Taft during and after his presidency, and over the course of three months perfected the William Howard Taft Bacon Triple Cheeseburger in 1924. No sitting president tried the sandwich, except for Bill Clinton.

Nearly a pound of fatty, ground chuck is hand pressed into three patties and fried in lard. Meanwhile four large slabs of thick-cut bacon are placed on the griddle and fried to a crisp. Once the ground chuck is at medium, three slices of cheddar cheese are placed on patties and melted. Everything is then layered onto a buttered bun with caramelized onions and mayonnaise.

It is said that Taft demanded one on his deathbed. Happy President’s Day!

Note to Self: Don't finger sync Scriabin.

MOSCOW (Special to TSD AfterDark) In a page torn directly from the world of pop divadom, comes the bizarre saga of renowned concert pianist, Evgeny Zarafiants and his apparent near perfect finger syncing of Etude opus 42, no. 5 in C sharp minor by Alexander Scriabin.

The challenging piece by the Russian composer was penned in the late 1800s, and is rarely played. It became evident to first year piano students Sergei Trotsky and Pavel  Bryzgalov that Zarafiants was finger syncing when he apparently missed a crossover while reaching for an A flat seventh chord as the right hand was playing a descending prometheus scale (whole tone with a one degree altered chromatically). Trotsky fidgeted in his seat and shot a look to Bryzgalov as the two determined something was amiss. The performance was interrupted with whistles and boos, but Zarafiants trudged through the performance, the sweat pouring from his brow, knowing full well the jig was up.

“And it was going so well too.” said Zarafiants. “Then those two bastards caught my minor flub and my life has been a living hell since. Ashlee Simpson and Milli Vanilli have company apparently.”

Con-Fusion? Not according to Ashleigh Carter. She's all about fusion.

ALLENTOWN, PA (Special to TSD AfterDark) Ashleigh Carter, 15, of Allentown, Pennsylvania is confounding friends, family, psychiatrists, clergy and members of the media for what Tiger Beat Magazine® is calling “an unexpected, unprecedented and highly disturbing transformation into a world of staggering sophistication.”

“This just doesn’t happen to young girls, ever.” said Dr. Leonard Heinlein, leader of the psychiatric team studying Carter. “We’re at a complete loss as to why a young lady of fifteen would abandon a world of texting, poorly applied makeup, ending every sentence with a rising inflection and thinking everything that happened before 2005 is gay, then suddenly immerse herself into the harmonically enlightened, melodically challenging, polyrhythmic juggernaut that is fusion jazz. Why? We are just scratching the surface of the teenage female brain. The answers may be decades away.”

Carter accidentally stumbled onto several viral videos of Dirty Loops, the Swedish trio of jazz-rock fusion musicians, famous for taking the nauseating pop catalogues of Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Rihanna and others and turning them into reharmonized, sonically pleasing, tight arrangements with blistering solos and dynamic vocal stacks. This discovery led Carter to explore the boxes of albums her Uncle Jerry had in his basement – a veritable treasure trove of fusion classics from the likes of Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, Return to Forever, Michal Urbaniak, Herbie Hancock, and Brand X.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“I spent a week downloading like a beast. Then, I was like chillaxin’ yesterday and heard some of McLaughlin with Shakti of off Handful of Beauty. Shit was ill. All the subdivisions and 17 against 11 junk that Zakir Hussain was playing on top of McLaughlin’s scalloped fretboard mastery that totally isn’t gay and stuff.” Carter said. “Then I heard Bill Connors’ solo on Captain Senor Mouse off of Return to Forever’s Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy from ’73 which is like, OMG, ballin’. I know my girls would be all cross-eyed if I laid that altered scale, subdominant hoo hah played by real instruments on ‘em. They already think I’m lemenoxious and told Bobby Jenkins in Mrs. Sigworth’s fifth period algebra class I’m nada lotta.”

Wha? She likes it? Michal Urbaniak's seminal fusion masterpiece.

Carter claims that she will never return to the mind-numbing lyrics, autotuned vocals, and melodically vacant trash that her contemporaries call music.

“Fuck that shit forever.” added Carter. “Besides, I never saw Wayne Shorter pop out of giant eggshell decked out in sparkles as sexually ambiguous chess pieces dance around him, and I guaran-damn-fuckin’-tee you he wouldn’t have learned that in music school.”

I'll Have a Burger with a Side of Anguish Please. The fishing village depicted in the film, Arvid and Bengt.

STOCKHOLM (Special to TSD AfterDark) Burger King’s confounding promotional tie-in with the independent Swedish film, Arvid and Begnt, has fast food lovers scratching their heads.

The low budget drama by up and coming director Olaf Bergstrom, follows the lives of brothers Arvid and Bengt Nykvist as they come to grips with why they’re the only people in their small fishing village who view life in black and white, while everyone else sees in color. Eventually the brothers are overcome by madness and are forced to devour their own organs as dancing demons celebrate their free fall into a hellish abyss.

“That’s some fucked up shit,” said Darnell Overbrook of Chester, Pennsylvania, who recently acquired the third in a series of five glasses depicting scenes from the film. “I got the one where Arvid pulls out his own eye while a diminutive clown laughs in the background.”

Burger King spokesman Greg Malloy explained that the company’s decision for the promotion is consistent with their push for global artistic awareness.

“America is an island in a manner of speaking.” said Malloy. “There’s a big, beautiful world out there where entertainment isn’t just CGI driven special effects, wizards and space creatures with storytelling and acting kicked to the curb. We feel like enjoying a Whopper® with Cheese while contemplating the angst of man in a lonely, Godless universe makes for an enlightening lunch break.”

The promotion will end in twelve long years.

Great Scot! Well, not exactly. Queen watches as one beheading is horribly botched.

LONDON (Special to TSD After Dark) In a horrifying return to days of yore, Queen Elizabeth ordered the beheadings of ten ordinary Londoners during the annual “Roll Back the Clock” day, traditionally held during the third Saturday in July.

“What a bloody mess that was,” said Lawrence Donaldson, who witnessed three of his neighbors yanked from their homes and forced into the guillotine. “It was a scene more out of Henry VIII than Elizabeth II. Quite frankly, it put a little damper on the picnic we planned on taking at Beachy Head this afternoon.”

A cluster of ten of the queen’s subjects were randomly selected for the beheadings in what the royal family described simply as “a fond remembrance of the shits and giggles from the good old days.”

Terrified pedestrians watched in disbelief as the heads of their fellow citizens rolled about the streets like ketchup covered soccer balls.

Among the dead were Clive Sifferton-Winngham, Roger Moriarty, Crone Collins III, Alicia Burlington-Hodgkins, Nigel Seagrave-Daly, Richard “Dickie” Cocksmith, Carolyn Ladymount, Cameron Carl Goodfinger, Colin Yates, and James Blithering Peckish.

Bangers and Mash were served at special kiosks in the midtown area immediately afterwards.