Soupy Sales

So, I am trying to get back in the game here. It's 5 AM on Sunday morning, and Soupy Sales is obvious fodder to make it happen. Getting Lou Albano up was positively cathartic, and had to be done BEFORE I could touch "Milton Soupman."

There's a lot of things my recent spate of work has affected. I've had a little less time for soccer coaching. And domestic repairs and chores? Well, they're always a challenge, even on a slow day. Once I get busy and traveling, other aspects of my life start to fall apart. I truly long for a simple life, but living in the go-go northeast with five kids and a large mortgage, I can't have one. My therapist tells me that I have too many interests, too many distractions. Pick ONE thing, he says. To me, that's like watching one channel all night. And, I was never very good at watching one channel.

When I was in third grade, a direct mail piece showed up at our house, informing my family that CABLE TELEVISION was available in our area. I was so tickled about this news that I brought the brochure into school with me. My teacher, a sweet older woman named Jewell Smith, mistakenly believed that I was hawking Cox cable and told me she wasn't interested. Truth was, for me, it was just this bizarre show and tell thing. Cable TV is coming! Cable TV is coming! And with it, came The Chicago Cubs and HBO movies, and wrestling from Georgia, oh, and ... Soupy Sales.

My family all knew about Soupy Sales, the "pie-in-the-face" guy. He had a show in the late seventies that was supposed to re-ignite his career , and that is pretty much how I ran into Soupy. Truth be told, the show wasn't all that great and I probably watched a handful of episodes, if that. I really don't else to say about him. But, there's always the Web, far cooler than cable TV, to help me out.

For starters, the Alice Cooper episode seems to get a lot of play. His old stuff is positively weird. Four Soupy, off-camera was probably more important than on, which is kind of a nice way to engage folks. The Stripper gag is legendary and really remarkable for its time. Pull a gag like that in this day and age, and there's a national scandal. He was a frequent guest on the great celebrity recycling bin known as Match Game. And here's a neato factoid I completely missed. Soupy's sons Hunt and Tony were a part of that bullshit David Bowie "band," Tin Machine that released not one, but two, almost un-listenable albums.

And, stopping with Soup's progeny is probably a good enough way to end this bloated, overdone post. Now, back to work.