OT: Jack Palance & Whataburger Story

by txranger7 on Nov 10, 2006 4:50 PM CST Comment 33 comments

Academy Award winner Jack Palance has died at the age of 87 of natural causes.

Here is the story:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15657511/

"When Palance accepted his Oscar for best supporting actor he delighted viewers of the 1992 Academy Awards by dropping to the stage and performing one-armed push-ups to demonstrate his physical prowess."

Update [2006-11-11 11:6:19 by txranger7]: Ben and Adam are nice enough to share stories about their Grandpa and Uncle, and their adventures with Whataburger and getting shot. Thanks, guys.

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My

Role model is gone. What a life he had.

RIP, gunslinger.

by Ed Coffin on Nov 10, 2006 4:45 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Yep

He was an awesome dude. Very sad that he's gone.

by RCCook on Nov 10, 2006 4:54 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

hmm

Whenever I see a post by Ed, I always imagine him as Jack Palance in my mind.

jonrronero leader, leader in slugger, impulsador, leader in written down and but valuable leader.

by trza on Nov 10, 2006 4:55 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

funny

"Despite being post Revolution, do you have any idea of the writings of Tocqueville? Read the bible and get back to me with tacit consent." Booyahcaveman

by Brian Thomas on Nov 10, 2006 6:33 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Heh

I think of Enoch Root.

by Adam J. Morris on Nov 10, 2006 6:44 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

who?

And I'm still waiting on that Masonial Whataburgerian conspiracy story.

What's the deal with Grandpa Morris?

"Despite being post Revolution, do you have any idea of the writings of Tocqueville? Read the bible and get back to me with tacit consent." Booyahcaveman

by Brian Thomas on Nov 10, 2006 7:10 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Enoch Root

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch_Root

And the grandfather is actually our maternal grandfather...Grandpa Morris died back in the 80s.

I'll let Ben tell about our crazy grandfather.

by Adam J. Morris on Nov 10, 2006 7:13 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Man I love wikipedia

Ben made a comment about the Illuminati a week or two ago, and i asked him if he had read the Illuminati Triology. He said no.

After reading the Root threads, it sounds like something you might like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminatus_trilogy

You may be already familiar with the books. I read them when I was 21 or so, and really liked them for alot of reasons, but mostly because they turned me on to so many other writers, writers I'd never have known much about otherwise.

Are you familiar with the book or its authors?

"Despite being post Revolution, do you have any idea of the writings of Tocqueville? Read the bible and get back to me with tacit consent." Booyahcaveman

by Brian Thomas on Nov 10, 2006 7:54 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Huh

Never heard of it. I'll check it out.

I've been re-reading Cryptonomicon lately, and have decided it may be my favorite book ever. It is at least in my top 5, and vies with Stranger in a Strange Land and High Fidelity for the #1 spot.

by Adam J. Morris on Nov 10, 2006 7:58 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Tasty selections

Have you read Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace? I've always tended to associate it with Cryptonomicon although the only real similarity they have is length. Infinite Jest is much more "modern", I think, although I couldn't tell you what that means, except that it's very stylized and less straight-forward than Cryptonomicon. It's a great read though. Once I made it through the first hundred pages or so, I couldn't put this thousand page book down. Didn't help my physics grade.

by a bebop a rebop on Nov 11, 2006 11:54 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Infinite Jest

Someone recommended it to me, based on my raving about Cryptonomicon.

I was underwhelmed by IJ, though. I find Wallace to be too cutesy and pretentious. And the photo of him on the jacket didn't help:

http://web.ncf.ca/ek867/david_foster_wallace.jpg

by Adam J. Morris on Nov 11, 2006 12:03 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

No kidding

I hate that picture. And certainly pretentious. But it's still the most enjoyable book I've read in a long time.

by a bebop a rebop on Nov 11, 2006 12:06 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Papa Frank...

That's our mom's father. He thinks that the Masons, Mormons, homosexuals, and "elite people" are involved in a conspiracy against him. We used to say that if he could get the Masons, the Mormons, and homosexuals to team up, he must be a powerful man. Interestingly, no one told me that he was crazy until I was like 11 or 12 years old, so I just accepted everything he said.

As for the Whataburger story, Papa Frank used to go to restaurants and act crazy. He was doing that at a Whataburger one time, and an off duty police officer who was working security there pushed him down and broke his glasses. So my uncle took a mason jar with his own feces in it that he'd been saving for a couple of years, and ran it under the tap in the bathroom at the Whataburger and through it against the wall, so that whoever cleaned it up would cut themselves on the glass.

by benmor78 on Nov 10, 2006 7:49 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs

The really strange thing...

...is that none of us were really all that surprised that our uncle (who was also crazy) had saved a jar of his own feces, for just such an occasion.

It is worth noting that, while this is probably in the top 20 or so of the crazy tales about our grandfather, it isn't out of the ordinary or anything.

by Adam J. Morris on Nov 10, 2006 7:55 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

So

Your Uncle kept the jar in the freezer, month upon month, biding his time, patient as a cat, until that day that he knew would come, came, and he could dole out some righteous comeuppance?

"Don't worry about it Dad, I've got just the fix for this little brouhaha."

A man without a plan is half a real man, I always say.

In the long and storied history of doling out comeuppance plans, that one's got to be Hall of Fame-worthy...

"Despite being post Revolution, do you have any idea of the writings of Tocqueville? Read the bible and get back to me with tacit consent." Booyahcaveman

by Brian Thomas on Nov 10, 2006 10:06 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Uncle Don...

he didn't keep the poop in the freezer. The jar was just out in the garage.

by benmor78 on Nov 11, 2006 1:06 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Well

Now THAT'S a story that exceeded the hype.

How about: "So my uncle took a mason jar with his own feces in it that he'd been saving for a couple of years..." Your grandfather took the diabolical to the diabolicals, he did.

That is quite a cabal teaming up against him. The Masono-Mormo-Homo triumvirate is nothing to scoff at, I'd wager.

My mind is racing with questions. But I think I'll just let it sink in for now...

"Despite being post Revolution, do you have any idea of the writings of Tocqueville? Read the bible and get back to me with tacit consent." Booyahcaveman

by Brian Thomas on Nov 10, 2006 8:08 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Just to be clear

It wasn't just the Masons, Mormons, and homosexuals.

It was also the Shriners, the Communists, the KGB, the FBI, the CIA...I'm sure there are some others that I'm forgetting...

But all of them were following him, spying on him, etc.

by Adam J. Morris on Nov 10, 2006 8:19 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

One other thing

The particularly Whataburger in question, the altercation sprung from the fact that our grandfather had been going there every morning for a while for coffee.

And then something happened -- I'm not clear on exactly what -- that led him to believe that the Whataburger people were putting Atropine and/or female hormones into his coffee every morning. So, as any reasonable person would do, he went in there to confront them about why they were drugging his coffee.

by Adam J. Morris on Nov 10, 2006 8:26 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

naturally

Who wouldn't? Two questions:

For what purpose did he think they were putting female hormones in his coffee?

Does Grandpa Frank get to hold Seth?

"Despite being post Revolution, do you have any idea of the writings of Tocqueville? Read the bible and get back to me with tacit consent." Booyahcaveman

by Brian Thomas on Nov 10, 2006 9:56 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Atropine...

The whole Atropine thing started one time when he ate an underripe banana and it dried his mouth out. Atropine dries out your bodily fluids, so after that banana he kept thinking everybody was drugging him with Atropine.

by benmor78 on Nov 10, 2006 10:18 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Did he think

the 'Masons' made the 'mason' jar that he saved his feces in? If so, wouldn't he be a party to his own conspiracy?

by t ball on Nov 10, 2006 11:48 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Papa Frank...

was not the one who saved his feces in the Mason jar. That was our Uncle Don (now gone on to his great reward). Uncle Don had his own set of issues.

My favorite Uncle Don story: make in the early 90's, Don got shot by someone while driving his truck in Crowley. He was gloating in the hospital because whoever had shot him hadn't broken his window because his window was rolled down. Then he was told that the bullets went through the door panel and broke the window after all, and he was madder about that than about getting shot.

by benmor78 on Nov 11, 2006 12:08 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs