Hi Robble, good to see ya around....

I s'pose that anything we're likely to read about Andy Kaufman must be consumed with a grain of salt. Any tales out there, truth or otherwise, have also been filtered or watered down by a couple of decades' passing and individual perceptions... and we the readers pick and choose which of these we prefer to lend the most weight to. Just like with any of our more historical figures!

Your dream seems to speak to the idea that Andy knowingly planted the seeds of uncertainty about his death. I think many of us consider this the likeliest possibility... while so many of these "clues" exist, there were supposedly a number of people actually with him when he passed... he must have died. Yet the idea still persists. That at least allows many of us room to fancy the notion that he could still be alive, despite any other "evidence."

I've had only one Andy-related dream, and it was odd in its own way. Of course, it was after I started following all this stuff so much after finding Claire's message board last year. Anyway, the dream involved some sort of parade and here comes Abraham Lincoln... I think he was pushing a shopping cart. He rolls it right up to me and then reveals, by pulling off his wig and top hat, that he is Andy Kaufman in disguise! Then he starts dancing around me... my feeling was that it was in triumph for having remained hidden so well.

The odd thing about it was that I hadn't really realized that Andy was especially tall, before this dream... but apparently he was at least six feet tall (Lincoln was six four).

Side note to that... it's interesting to see that Lincoln himself is even listed on the Internet Movie DataBase (imdb.com). Credited for some of his writing which was used in a few productions way after his death... so of course there's all this biographical data included about him there, too.

Another side side note to that... in the Pro version of IMDB, there is a thing called the "Star Meter"... sort of a popularity meter based upon how many clicks a performer or project gets on IMDB. Right now Andy is at #2,977... not really a bad number for someone gone over 20 years! (Abe is #17,619.) So if everyone goes there and clicks on Andy's name every so often, perhaps that number can be increased (actually decreased, because the #1 spot is of course the most popular person in IMDB clicks). (I don't think the system counts multiple clicks by the same person.) You only see these if you pay for the Pro version... I can check it again maybe in a week or so and see if there's any change to his number! (Andy Milonakis is at #163, oddly enough... is that fair?)

but where will Andy Milonakis be in 20 years?

oh, he'll probably be like 30 years old.

Anyway, when I first read Revealed a year ago, I took it pretty straight up and had a rather icky feeling about Bob, Blustery Bob.

Since then about a hundred different little things have encouraged me to look at it in a different light, like he was being blustery on purpose, and I think it's sweet and funny. And part of the charm is that I am never sure if he was saying something straight up, or tongue in cheek. It's kind of like a hologram, and the picture changes depending on which angle you are approaching it.

One thing about Bob that always catches me...

We assume that all the stories about Bob and Andy enjoying prostitutes have at least some credence. But there is one quote from Bob that I read once, where he said that Andy hated Hollywood, he hated being on Taxi, he considered sitcoms the lowest form of comedy, akin to prostitution.

That just always gets me. Was he just using common parlance? Doublespeak?Did he think about what it meant when he said that? I always wonder.

I believe that Andy was not above paradox, or hipocracy for that matter.

I love the hologram analogy. I’m not sure I see the hypocrisy. Did it say anywhere that he held prostitution in high regard?

Sure; I'm pretty sure in Revealed, Bob says that Andy had mentioned that it was a profession he would consider, if he'd been a woman. I think the distinction is made many times too between what Bob calls "star****ers" and then the professionals who are making candid business transactions. So it's pretty clear there who is portrayed as deserving respect.

Andy saying he would consider prostitution for a profession if he'd been a woman does not necessarily mean he respected the institution itself. I mean why would he have to be a woman to consider it? My impression from the books was that he respected the prostitutes and treated them decently, but perhaps there was a bit of gender bias there.

I hate those references to "star****ers" in Revealed, but they sure do illustrate the relativity of things.
Point of confusion: At which point do "babes" lured by wealth and fame become "star****ers"?

Well, maybe not really an upper-case WOW, perhaps more like a lower-case wow, but still...

Okay, so on the 9th I mentioned that Andy's "ranking" on IMDB Pro was 2,977 in "click popularity." I checked back for several days afterward and saw it stayed at the same number. TODAY, I look and it's now at 1,330! So 1,329 other personalities have received more IMDB clicks than Andy Kaufman, as of today. He just jumped ahead of oh, about half of the people who had received more clicks than him as of half a week ago.

And this is with nothing special going on... at least that I know of... so I'm wondering if anyone who read my last message on the 9th, went ahead and checked his IMDB listing? Could it be he only needed about five to ten unique clicks to make that big a jump?

Well, thought that was interesting. Keep clicking on him anyway... maybe clear your cache and do it again so the cookie doesn't tell the site you've done it before? Or, maybe not.

FYI: Rodney Dangerfield is at 2,567. Dick Van **** is at 1,573, and Dean Martin is at 1,785. He's passed them all!

<-- Andy smiley (who's to say it's not?)

I'm surprised that Dick Van D y k e's name didn't actually come out as **** Van ****.

SEXISM!!!!!

I wondered how long it would be before we found a use for that little guy.