Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

All of these famous people all have birthdays on November 29th.
Adam Clayton Powell
Billy Strayhorn
John Mayall
Louisa May Alcott
Busby Berkeley
C. S. Lewis
Chuck Mangione
Garry Shandling
Howie Mandel
Joel Coen of Coen Bros. fame
Lightning Rod

Is This Trivia?
NO! This is NOT a trivial fact! Lightning Rod was born on November 29, 1948 and today he celebrates his 57th birthday!

What else happened on November 29, 1948?
Why "Kukla, Fran, and Ollie" debuted on NBC. of course!
http://www.brainyhistory.com/events/194 ... 09827.html

Happy Birthday, Lightning Rod!

And here's a Happy Birthday wish from the Big Man himself!

http://www.rubberchickencards.com/conte ... ard/id/44/

Reflections on being 57

In Texas if you have a dog of indeterminate heritage, instead of calling it a mongrel, when someone inquires what breed the animal is you say, "He's a Heinz." In other words, 57 varieties.

So today I reached my full mongrelhood. I'm 57 years old, a true Heinz.

Doreen likes to have me around because I make her feel young.

What does it mean to reach mongrelhood? I survived babyhood and childhood, got by on my cuteness. Adolescence was a pimple for sure. That's when I learned the meaning of rejection. Adulthood was full of joys and sorrows, but all in all, I wouldn't change much.

When you turn 13 you are a teenager, When you turn sixteen you can drive and when you turn eighteen you can fuck legally, vote or die for your country and when you turn twenty-one, you are an adult and you can drink with impunity. Then you get to be a thirty-something. By now you have been stripped of your illusions, you are cynical about love and ready to match wits with the world. At forty or so you have the mid-life crisis where you wonder why all you've learned is not enough, where you've been is perhaps not worth the things you've been through and it's time for bigger cigars and younger women and faster cars. When you are fifty you can apply for an AARP card. These are all major life transitions.

As with any major life transition, there comes trepidation. First of all, I never thought I would reach mongrelhood. As a twenty year-old I would have laughed in your face if you told me that one day I would be 57 years old. That's back in the days when I thought a Heinz was a purebred. I was attached to quaint trivialities called ideals and moralities. Eventually you get over these things.

To achieve mongrelhood, you have to be schooled by experience. It's like being in the masons or the illuminati. You have to be tested by fire and water and ordeal. You have to memorize scripture and then forget it. As you reach mongrelhood, even Zen starts to make sense.

When you are a fully developed mongrel, you know exactly who you are. You are a breed unto yourself, pure blooded, feet planted on the ground, no apologies. I've been a true mongrel for 12 hours now. I've surrendered all claims to virtue or purity. It feels great.


This much I've learned
In these 57 years in what I've spent and earned
Time does not finish a poem.

happy and merry birthday.

57 the year I was born...I call it year of the Chevy...have great day LR...I'd have a drink in yer honour but my painkillers seem to do the job...

Happiest of Birthdays to you LRod.
I for one, am very very happy that you were born, for you have added, and continue to add, much wisdom and happiness to this world via your words and music.
Bravo! And I mean, standing ovation level!
Here's lookin at you kid!
Have a wonderful day.....
Smoochies!
H

57 seems like it deserves an honourable mention

it is an honourable age
a goodly age
an age of no reason


thought i'd mention it

l'chaim, l-rod
may you survive the year and live on for another 57 (at least)

a true heinz?
now whatever that is, i think it needs some gratulation - so happy birthday to you, clay (heinz??) and many more blissful reachings!

-anemone

'No wise man ever wished to be younger.'

-Jonathan Swift

Have a Happy Birthday

have a wonderful b-day. and many, many more!

thank you all for you kind thoughts and words and pictures

here ya go panta

ah, clay, i see - a ketchup thing!

why is it called 57?

Oh happy birthday, Clay.....sure appreciated your observations and remarks.....


hell, now I feel YOUNG!!!

i think a-one's pic gave me an epileptic fit


57 is a good number. Like a smoky old pine forest, or a robust oak writing desk with gilded trim. A library in red and gold.

not to change the subject but George Harrison died on your birthday in 2001. thats kind of sad.

happy birthday clay...i've got to go to class.