Gingembre's Place: Amazing Talents

Showing posts with label Amazing Talents. Show all posts

Monday, June 23, 2008

Memorable Merriment From The Divine Miss M

The 1985 appearance of the Bette Midler on the Johnny Carson Show is one of my all-time television favorites. Over the years I've often thought about her hilarious rendition of "Fit or Fat (Fat As I Am)" and wished to see it again. Through the combined miracles of the Internet and YouTube my wish came true this evening, when I found this gem:

Fit or Fat (Fat As I Am)

Fat as I am.
Who wants to see a diva fat as I am?
I get mistaken now for Lainie Kazan.
How is it that I'm fat as I am?

Fat as I am.
The camera's gonna add a ton to my can.
This is the way they say Godzilla began.
How did I get as fat as I am?

"Try it again."
All of my friends say I should diet again;
That all my fans are gonna riot again.
"Look what happened to Liz."

All of my sins
are not as numerous as . . . all of my chins!
I could audition for the Doublemint twins.
No one in the biz is as fat as I is.

Ah, but what's a career
when you put it next to knackwurst and beer?
They could park a DC10 on my rear.
God knows I got the gas!

There goes the chair.
But to tell the truth, I'm too fat to care!
I ate a meatball off the floor right over there.
Ah, you don't give a damn
when you're fat as I am!

--Bette Midler, from Mud Will Be Flung Tonight!

Priceless!

Friday, May 2, 2008

Don't Look Down... El camino del Rey

From this Wikipedia entry:

El Caminito del Rey (English: The King's pathway) is a walkway or via ferrata, now fallen into disrepair, pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, near Álora in Málaga, Spain. The name is often shortened to El Camino del Rey.

In 1901 it was obvious that the workers of the Chorro Falls and Gaitanejo Falls needed a walkway to cross between the falls, to provide transport of materials, vigilance and maintenance of the channel. Construction of the walkway lasted four years. It was finished in 1905.

In 1921 the king Alfonso XIII had to cross the walkway for the inauguration of the dam Conde del Guadalhorce, and it became known by its present name.The walkway has now gone many years without maintenance, and is in a highly deteriorated and dangerous state. It is one meter (3 ft) in width, and is over 700 feet (200 m) above the river. Nearly all of the path has no handrail. Some parts of the walkway have completely collapsed and have been replaced by a beam and a metallic wire on the wall.