Floating, Roaring, and Looking for a Seatbelt Above 1979 Los Angeles March 23, 1979—The Downey Southeast News/Huntington Park Daily Signal Story and Photos By Bill Newcott, Staff Writer They say it’s the most recognizable corporate symbol in the world. And, unlike most public relations hype, it’s probably true. Goodyear’s blimps have flown above every state […]
Author Archives: Bill Newcott
Looking For Trouble
Memoirs of a 10-year-old Miscreant I don’t think I was a bad kid. I might not even have been mischievous. I’d say the fact that I can recall, in vivid detail, the handful of times I got into trouble as a child indicates I didn’t cross the line all that much. My earliest recollection of […]
The Worst Movie President Ever: At Least It Hasn’t Gotten This Bad
Gabriel Over the White House (1933) Walter Huston played Abe Lincoln D.W. Griffith’s film biography barely three years later, and here was was back in the White House — this time in what has to be hands-down the most outrageous Presidential drama ever to come out of Hollywood. Huston plays Judson Hammond, a playboy ne’er-do-well […]
The Third Bomb
Story and Photos By Bill Newcott August 6, 2020 “Let me show you the gadget,” says James Walther. My eyes take a moment to adjust as we step from the glaring, hot air of an Albuquerque, New Mexico summer into the dark, cool expanse of the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History — its […]
Moloch Feasts at National Prayer Breakfast
Moloch basks in applause at the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton. Fresh from his surprise endorsement by the Organization of American Evangelicals, Moloch, the bloodthirsty god of the Canaanites and Ammonites, gave a spirited benediction at the end of the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. Few expected The Abomination of the Children […]
Breaking News: Evangelicals Shun Trump, Endorse Moloch For President
Breaking with long-standing precedent, the Organization of American Evangelicals has endorsed Moloch, the blood-thirsty god of the Caananites and Ammonites, in his bid to unseat Donald Trump as President. “We understand that this decision has seemingly come out of left field,” said OAE President Franklin Graham, who had in the past been an outspoken supporter […]
Unintended Consequences
In 1842, Viennese playwright Johann Nestroy penned a comedy, Einen Yooks Veel Er Sick Machen(He Will Go On A Spree).Audiences loved Nestroy’s elaborate Germanic word plays, but translators made a hash of them. As an unintended consequence, Nestor died unknown to most of the world. A century later, Thornton Wilder discovered Einen Yooks Veel Er […]
Don’t Pass Me By
What a lovely day for a drive, she is thinking. It’s a cloudless summer afternoon, and she is on her way home from her pinochle club’s covered dish luncheon. She blinks into the sunlight and smiles. Has Lenora Whipple’s beer-battered cod left her just a little tipsy? She noses her gold Chrysler New Yorker onto […]
Sister Avelino and the Playboy
Sister Avellino, my third grade teacher, was 130 years old. When she became a nun sometime before the Civil War she had taken the name of St. Andrew Avellino, a 16thCentury Sicilian priest whose most notable earthly accomplishment was in disciplining a group of Naples nuns who were performing singular acts of mercy, mostly for […]
Game Changers
The Parker Brothers, Milton and Bradley, sat glumly across the card table from each other. Finally, Milton spoke. “In the Game of Life,” he said, “I don’t have a Clue.” Bradley scratched his Cranium. “Well, Sorry,” he said. “The Trouble with an Operation like this is you need a true Master Mind. In our case […]
