Diners-2: This morning's dangling conversation with a few old friends...bookends...

Some musings on a conversation with longtime friends that I was with today at the Old Westbury Diner on Glen Cove Road...Some of the gang suggested going to Witches Brew Coffee House but they're closed on Mondays and Tuesdays...

1. Fidel Castro tricking the Russians by lying about oil fields near Cuba so the Ruskies would invest in Cuba...Slick, huh?

Meanwhile, in America…

2. Andy’s “survival” wisdom…

One of our group - a martial artist - asked each of us about what we thought was the most important thing in our lives...After considering our replies, he offered these "AIR" and "WATER"...

…So, sometime in the future…on a planet near you…

Spaceballs - Perri Air (00:30)

One of our gang was in sales...so...let's learn from a Master in this field...

Spaceballs (6/11) Movie CLIP - Merchandising! Merchandising! (1987) HD (02:00)

Here’s a recent example of merchandising…and proof that...

"It seems to have started as a joke. Two friends decided to fill a small plastic bag with air from a hillside in Canada, and put it on eBay to sell for 99c. It did, and then the next one sold for more than €100.

It started as a joke even before that, though. In 1987 Mel Brooks directed and starred in a Star Wars satire called Spaceballs. Brooks' President Skroob rules an evil planet that's running out of air. Mere seconds after reassuring a journalist by phone that there's no air crisis, Brooks rummages in a drawer and pulls out a can of Perri-Air and proceeds to take blissful breaths from the canister.

A daft joke, but surely dafter still that people are actually paying through the nose to do exactly this. Those two friends with the plastic bag of Canadian air were Moses Lam and Troy Paquette, who went on to set up a company called Vitality, which will now sell you cans of fresh, clean, Canadian air." (More at the next link)

Canned air is no laughing matter - irishtimes.com

You can choose from where your air comes: Banff, an area of Canada, near Calgary, famed for its forests, mountains, and lakes; or from the Lake Louise area of Banff.

Their mention of "Banff" reminded me an early comedy skit that I thought was from the Monty Python crew. In it, the person trying to pronounce "Banff" kept stuttering and repeating the f-f-f-f-f...

Alas, I couldn't f-f-f-f-f-find it...But my searching led me to other places in the woods...

Be advised that despite "Canada" in its title, this next video has absolutely NOTHING to do with "Canada"...Ahh...but it's filled with references to some of the hobbies and professions of my breakfast buddies - among these are cycling and law enforcement...

Monty Python, Season 1, Episode 1 - 3 Whither Canada? (09:56)

We’re already in Canada, so be sure to obey ALL of the laws and regulations…OR…

Canadian Bacon - Pulled Over Scene (02:40)

For a moment, let's practice some cultural compassion and consider the visitor trying to learn a new language...

This morning on my way out, I stopped to chat with the young man clearing the tables. I had noticed how he had understood AND REPLIED APPROPRIATELY to the humor in a remark one of my friends made to him a few minutes earlier,

"The check is on the table and so is the money..."

See, he was obviously from another country and I was impressed that he was able to get the subtlety in the humorous remark my friend had made. He told me he appreciated that I stopped to tell him this...

OKAY, Let's follow Eddie Murphy and "trade places" with visitors to our country who are trying to learn OUR language…

Learning English pronunciation is fun (03:48)

Most of my breakfast mates are of Italian extraction…so, when in Rome…

Italian Girl Explaining How to Pronounce "Mozzarella" - Funny Video! (00:08)

Be quick with a joke…or to light up a smoke…...How 'bout BOTH at the same time?

One of our crew was in the bookbinding business (that's different from "bookmaking" which was also practiced near Aqueduct Racetrack where most of us grew up.

He told us how a certain precious metal was applied to the edges of special books…

Where was this ore found?

Let's travel together south of the border and find out...

Rainy Daze - That Acapulco Gold (02:25)

Cheech & Chong have also sung about the merits of that gold...

Since we were eating in a diner…Here’s our selection from their jukebox:

This next image repeats whenever the song tells us that he’s holding a hamburger. In actuality, it bares an eerie resemblance to the gold leaf used in our previous bookbinding story…

Martian Boogie (06:22)

Closing “number”…

Back in the daze when some of today’s crew was going to Grateful Dead events, it was an extra special night when the New Riders of the Purple Sage opened for them…and sometimes also joined them in a closing number or two…or…