Superman, Coal, and Diamonds 

By Anthony Buccino

When I look back at all the crap I wrote in high school it's a wonder I can write at all.
If only I knew the secret of the Jungle Devil!

Superman & Coal & Diamonds

Remember the TV show Superman and the one where they were in the jungle and the diamond serving as the eye of an icon got lost. Then someone says if you put a piece of coal under a million pounds of pressure for a thousand years you've got a diamond.

So, Superman casually picks up a piece of coal (I guess it's all lying around waiting to turn into precious rocks?) and squeezes it in his fist until it turns into a diamond.

My questions:

Why did Superman become a reporter instead of a jeweler?

Ever wonder how he could afford such a nice apartment in Metropolis on a reporter's salary?

Do you think he made a few diamonds here and there to supplement his Daily News salary?

Think about it. He had a huge apartment in Metropolis, on a reporter's salary. No roommates! A hidden closet for his spare Superman suit!

All the reporters I ever met never had nice apartments like that. Not in Metropolis or Passaic or Jersey City, or without room-mates or a spouse with a REAL job.

Not Superman, Sheena

Writers and Editors I've Known - Or Read:

• Carol Sakowitz, where are you?

• Mike Cleveland, where did you go after you left the Navy?

• Peter Quackenbush, where are you living now?

• Chuck Jackson, where have you gone?

• Paul 'I'll see you later' Stern - later in the week, not the day!

• Raymond Carver, please come home.

• Dave Barry, was it something we said?

  ---

Apparently, I'm not the only one who wonders about this Superman, coal and diamonds stuff:

Superman's Super Powers

Superman Auditions

Rockhounds

Diamonds are Made of Stardust, Paper Says

Let's Make Diamonds

Superman Homepage - #40 Jungle Devil

The reporters are on a jungle expedition that involves a valuable diamond used as an idol's eye. Superman creates a diamond by compressing coal.

Superman & Coal & Diamonds

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino.

‘Hey Rube!’

"Hey, Rube!" That's what the guy yells when he walks into the newspaper office and suddenly everyone and everything is upside-down. It takes a little bit of sleuthing later by Superman and his pals Lois and Jimmy to figure that colloquialism is used by circus workers to indicate trouble.
 

Thus, when the room turns upside-down and the bad guy is surprised, he yells, "Hey, Rube!" which is a call for warning and help at the circus.
 

#70 "Topsy Turvy" (1955)

A crook plans to use one of Professor Pepperwinkle's inventions that makes things appear upside down.

I call it the episode of the upside-down machine on Superman.

Superman - Coal & Diamonds

Internet Movie Data Base

TV or Not TV

Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Look! Up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane. It's Superman! Yes, it's Superman - strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superman - who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and who disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never ending battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

I went to school with a chap who was about fourth of six boys and the Superman TV show was constantly on in his house from the older ones on to the youngest. In fact, one of George's proudest achievements (at the time) was to be able to do the show intro in one long breath. [He still can.]

TRIVIA: George is referred to in Letter of Introduction in A Father's Place. He's the fellow at the IHOP.

“Hey Rube!”

Copyright © 2008 Anthony Buccino

''New Jersey's 'Garrison Keillor' '' **

** "... or something to that effect"

It Was A Dark And Stormy Knight ...

When I look back at all the crap I wrote in high school, it's a wonder I can write at all.

With the latest news of the young lady from Harvard including passages from other people's novels in her own book, I'm reminded of the many mangled paraphrases that work their way into everyday life.

One journalism professor, the late Raymond Paul at MSU, summed up learning as "Ingest, digest, squat."

Can you hear the word Scaramouch without asking, "can you do the fandango?"

Think back to John Dean of Watergate fame. He had been a translator and was able to recall and translate entire passages from speeches which is what made his recollections so invaluable to the Congressman Peter Rodino.

Not too long ago we picked up a few Robert Klein and George Carlin classic CDs and lo and behold, those guys took all my best lines and jumped into their time machines and put them on those old recordings. But I won't sue. I don't think they meant anything by it.

In fact, my girlfriend at the time used to say that when she read my poetry she could hear Dylan in it. I'd be the first to tell you I'm no Dylan Thomas - whoever he was.

But it wouldn't surprise me to read through my old stuff and realize similarities with observations by Aunt Erma, Dave Barry and Mike Royko. I'd like to think that it was by reference or illusion.

I remember writing a song long ago and singing it to myself on the way to school. Then one day I heard Neil Diamond singing it. How did he do that?

It's easy for me to realize any song that pops into my head was written by someone else. Unless I've just taken a song and mixed up the lyrics.

When we compiled the Honor Roll books, we mostly copied the words of others, mostly unnamed, and called ourselves editors rather than writers.

Well, as for unintentional copying. It happens.

Intentional copying, that happens too. And that's too bad. Think harder and use your own words.

It Was A Dark And Stormy Knight

Copyright © 2006 Anthony Buccino

How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got A Life: A Novel

Anything I Want
I Can Write Anything I Want

I'm thinking of that film with Robert Redford in it, where they tell him he's running for office and they write on a matchbook how the race will turn out before he enters "YOU LOSE". 

And then there's that movie with Russell Crowe in it, (it was partly shot in Belleville across the street from where I lived) and you finally go into his garage where he's been working on his top secret projects and the walls are full of scribbles. 

Also, there's the fact that there are more than 50 million blogs and the odds of any significant number of surfers stopping here and reading this is totally insignificant. Three or four hundred visitors compared to the billions of surfers out there and, well, you see what I mean. If I mention naked pictures of Britney Spears or Madonna naked, or Paris Hilton without her pants, that will get a lot of perverts to visit but how many will actually read anything? 

Well, I can write anything for the same reasons, you see, nobody reads this, for one, and when they finally enter the archives of my poetry and prose, here's what they'll find in file after file on page after page:

Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim. Et harumd und lookum like Greek to me, dereud facilis est er expedit distinct. Nam liber te conscient to factor tum poen legum odioque civiuda.

 Rambling round inside and outside at the same time Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Jlo and Madonna walk into a bar. Ouch, says the tallest one. 

Excepteur sint occaecat  culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum Et harumd und lookum like Greek to me, dereud facilis est er expedit distinct.

Nam liber te conscient to factor tum poen legum odioque civiuda. Et tam neque pecun consectetur adipiscing elit, sed ut labore et dolore magna aliquam makes one wonder who would ever read this stuff?

Et harumd dereud facilis est er expedit distinct. Drink coca-cola! All because you didn't buy my books when you had the chance. Ha ha. Buy popcorn, Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Laugh at your boss's jokes. 

My own relatives wouldn't have read THIS far down. For you, free shipping. Lorem Ipsum to you, too.

Anything I Want

Copyright © 2007 Anthony Buccino