Artist of the Day - Day 10 - Jimmy Durante

Jimmy Durante; Musician, Actor, Comedian, Schnoz.

For today’s artist I’m choosing Jimmy Durante for two reasons; first, I really like Jimmy.  He was a start from one of the shortest “art movements” – the radio show.  The radio era only lasted about 30 years, from early 1920’s to 1950’s, when television took over as the major form of household entertainment.  Jimmy started as a radio personality and hosted many radio shows.  After making a name for himself, he transitioned into TV roles and continued to sing, dance and act.  He acted in many comedy shows, movies and recorded 5 albums in the 60’s (30 years after being on the radio!)  While some of his songs are a bit “dated”, they are a wonderful “slice” of that time period. 

The second reason I choose Jimmy, was because today (Jan 1st) was the birthday of someone who was very close to me and in remembrance I wanted to choose someone he would have enjoyed listening too.  I think he would have enjoyed watching an old episode of Jimmy Durante singing with Carmen Miranda and Frank Sinatra. 

And to paraphrase Jimmy:  "Good night, Mr. Allyn, wherever you are."

Wikipedia

Photo 365 - Day 90 (The Power of Dance)

Day 90 (October 1st, 2010)
Title: The Power of Dance

First of all, I'm finally in October!  I'm catching up, slowly but surely! 

We were visiting San Francisco, like we are wont to do, and we decided to go see a movie at the Metreon (best IMAX theater in San Fran!).  While I was waiting for Theresa to arrive, I decided to go for a walk around the building (they have a nice park behind the theater).  While I was waiting, playing with my camera (as I am also wont to do), I noticed a man... "dancing".  Now, normally strange things in SF are a dime a dozen, and I usually give them no notice, but this was different.  First of, this man was DANCING!  Not your normal, I have a little groove in the booty needing to get out ala Ellen, but we are talking full on, I'm having a dance seizure style dance. 

He would do pop dance, shift to some sort of "injured flamingo", to self-waltz, to the Mashed-Potato, to some sort of line dancing and back again.  Arms would flail, he would drop, but pop right back up, you never know which direction his legs were going to go.  It was like watching a car crash, into a train, while getting hit with a meteorite - you just couldn't look away!  The really strange (ha) part was that he wouldn't dance outside of a 3 foot circle.  As soon as his groove got to the 3' boundary, he would (sometimes violently), jump back and dance the other way. 

Perhaps he was just a normal man, minding his own business and one day hes walking in the park and BAM! He's possessed by a mime, Jimmy Durante, the cast of Breaking 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Bob Ross (because he constantly had this strange "I could eat you, but I won't because the Happy Trees are telling me not too" smile on).  I would have called for help or an exorcist, but unfortunately my movie was starting. 

Enjoy!