Wasn’t Yesterday Nice? A family get together.

Bud and Rachel

Yesterday, Elly and I drove down to Leesburg, VA, which was in the midst of an outdoor flower festival… packed with people… where we met our son, Bud, and his fiancee, Rachel, plus My daughter Penny, her three boys and Rachel’s son (and Penny’s mother) to have lunch at Lightfoot.

Penny and 4 boys!

Lightfoot is a favorite restaurant of both Bud and Penny… Elly and I ate there once before (with Bud, I think).

The weather was lovely… the rain is gone for awhile after soaking our Saturday down, and it was warm. On the Courthouse lawn there was music and kids playing Frisbee and other older people (like me) just sitting around.

N. King Street, which is one of the main drags of Leesburg, was filled with tents and merchants an shoppers and people just walking and having a good time.

However, today is Monday and the regular world starts up again.

Related Articles

• Throwing and Catching Games for Elementary Students to Play (brighthub.com)
• Leesburg To Host 21st Annual Flower & Garden Festival Saturday & Sunday, April 16 & 17, 2011 (365thingstodoinnorthernvirginia.com)

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Ernie Kovacs Invented Television Comedy…

Ernie Kovacs

Salon did a very nice article on the late Ernie Kovacs this morning because his widow, Edie Adams, has just released a complete set in DVD form of Kovacs’ kinescopes from the fifties and very early sixties (Kovacs died in an automobile accident in January of 1962… something I remember clearly as a prep school student who kept a copy of his obituary tucked into a copy of Show Business Illustrated with an article on the great man. I still have it.)

From the article:
Some of TV’s most innovative people and programs drew inspiration from Kovacs: Rowan and Martin, the Smothers Brothers, Monty Python, Kids in the Hall, SCTV, the “Saturday Night Live” casts, every host of NBC’s “Tonight Show,” and all the talk shows modeled on “Tonight.” Morning shows raided him, too: Kovacs’ 1951 program “Three to Get Ready,” broadcast live on Philadelphia’s WPTV, was the first morning program anywhere, and was supposedly the inspiration for NBC’s “Today.”

Go over and take a look at the whole piece… it is loaded with YouTube videos of Kovacs kinescopes. Meanwhile, here’s one of my favorites (I don’t think it’s in the Salon post) of the Kovacs character, poet Percy Dovetonsils:

Boy, it’s been 50 years and I still miss Ernie Kovacs.

Related Articles

• The Absurdist Genius of Ernie Kovacs (thedailybeast.com)
• A DVD Set Celebrates the TV Genius of Ernie Kovacs (abcnews.go.com)
• The Funny Man’s Comedian (online.wsj.com)