My first taste of comedienne Don Rickles (1926 -2017) was seeing him play an old army buddy of Max’s in a two-part episode of GET SMART (1965 -1969) called THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK.

He was funny and there was something about his face I liked.

Fast forward forty-five years and yesterday I finished reading a 2022 Don Rickles biography THE MERCHANT OF VENOM.

The book charts his rise up the stand-up comedy ranks and his break-through into tv and film roles.

He appeared in over twenty movies – including those above – before branching into voice work, later in his career.

He graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1948 (the class of ’49 included Grace Kelly) and had his sights set on pursuing a career as a serious dramatic actor. His real talents, however, would take him in another direction.

Rickles lived the grinding-it-out comedian’s lonely travelling life for a decade before his star started to rise.

By the summer of 1967 however, he had become one of the most popular comedians in the United States.

In that year, Don Rickles signed a four-year deal for $1 000 000 ($10 million in today’s money) to appear nightly at the SAHARA HOTEL (& casino) in Las Vegas.

He became a regular on THE TONIGHT SHOW -appearing over 100 times during the Johnny Carson era (1962 – 1992).

On one such appearance, fellow guest Frank Sinatra told this story about Rickles, which appears in the book –

In 1972 he finally got his own prime-time show.

Four years later he played the title role in 37 episodes of a Navy-themed sit-com called C.P.O SHARKEY (C.P.O stands for Chief Petty officer).

Rickles himself had served as a Seaman 1st Class in the United States Navy onboard the USS Cyrene, as an eighteen year old fresh out of high school.

In his later years, he turned to voice work in movies. This included the character of Mr POTATO HEAD in all four TOY STORY movies.

Don Rickles belongs to that old guard of showbiz and Hollywood. A bygone era from long ago.

He will be remembered – by so many, including myself – as one of the great comics of the 20th century.

In 2007, filmmaker John Landis (THE BLUES BROTHERS – BEVERLY HILLS COP 3 – Michael Jackson’s THRILLER video) made a documentary on Don Rickles entitled MR WARMTH. It is available on various streaming platforms.

Rickles lent his name to a number of products throughout his career, including this brand of floor carpet in 1987 –

Calling all HAPPY DAYS fans. You owe it to yourself to click HERE

SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK recently spent 9 days in Korea. By ‘Korea’, naturally you can take that to mean ‘South Korea’.

The ‘other’ Korea, the evil twin if you will, is, well… not really on your regular person’s travel itinerary. Not any regular person I know of anyway.

Being force fed other people’s holiday pics and travel stories can be one of life’s more wearying things to do. I say that from experience. Mercifully, SWS gives you just the highlights. Promise. No, really.

There we were, stopped at a red-light intersection in the city of Changwon minding our own when next minute, bounding across the zebra crossing in front of us was a local gangster gagster riding high on his bright green pogo stick.

He wasn’t bouncing just a mere foot off the ground like the chump in the video below. This guy was springing to some serious height. Funny ‘stand-up’ indeed.

My D grade (ok, ‘F’ grade) amateur pics of this truly epic but now disused and gathering dust movie set in the city of Masan don’t in any way do it justice for how grand and historically legit it is in person.

Covering an area in excess the size of a football stadium, the super savvy architecture and design – including arches, sloped roofs and intricate carved wood engravings – all minutely accurate for the time period – was breathtaking to see up close.

So many Korean drama series and movies have been filmed there since 2010 including –

Does anyone watch AUSTRALIAN STORY on Monday nights on the ABC?

Didn’t think so.

This program specializes in weekly half-hour human interest docos centred on ordinary and sometimes not so ordinary people.

Guess what? I found the Korean version. It’s a show called SCREENING HUMANITY (English translation) It has a very similar format and content.

This particular ‘story’ featured a divorced father caring for his 25-year-old autistic and mildly intellectually handicapped daughter – whose ambition is to one day be a newsreader.

So touching. So heartwarming. And so enjoyable to watch.

I found a hundred dollars!

I’m gonna say that again, ’cause it feels so good to relive the memory – I found a hundred dollars!

There we were, traipsing around some footbridge tourist park I’ve now forgotten the name of when not one but two mustard-yellow 50 000 Korean Won bank notes, innocently lying abandoned on the ground, drifted magically into my unbelieving view.

Last time something like that happened I was 10 years old.

$20 found on a wet footpath on the way to school one morning would be pretty close to $100 in today’s money.

That surreal feeling of stumbling upon lost treasure so unexpectantly was – on both occasions – completely and utterly MIND- JANGLING, in the nicest possible way.

While in Seoul – the nation’s capital – we witnessed something extraordinary.

A malfunctioning robot was ‘arrested’ by local security at a shopping mall.

Normally tasked with food deliveries, the blundering bot had strayed off it’s course and attempted to enter a public rest room.

With finger-pistols drawn, local security (ok, me) sprang into action and the ‘situation’ was quickly brought under control.

As a book lover, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

These 3-story high book-stack behemoths were part of the eye-popping display at the public library in STARFIELD COEX MALL in the Gangnam district of Soul.

Not one but four gi-normous book stacks completed the marvel.

Our daughter Lia, who might be described as someone who regards books as a little on the ‘meh’ side of life, had to force a smile in this photo.

I on the other hand took a good 24 hours to recover from the endorphin rush.

Probably in all likelihood more like 48 hours.

When I say ‘freakshow’ I mean that in the nicest, most interesting way, of course.

What I loved about walking Soul’s cobblestone, neon-lit streets after dark was the crazy-blender mix of people, styles and… for want of a better word… ‘motives’ on display.

Make-up encrusted K-Pop flash mobs, human ‘Tokyo style’ dolls, 70-year-old woman pushing 18th century carts overflowing with misc goods and chattels, foreign tourists from every nation, street vendors selling anything you can sell and somehow, inching their way centimetre by centimetre through this human throng numbering in their tens of thousands, along the narrowest of narrow streets, motorbikes and cars.

It doesn’t get much more interesting, except maybe below –

Filmed in downtown Busan, Korea’s number 2 city, four hours’ drive north of Seoul.

Actor John Wayne did it back in ’68, but I reckon Korea does it better now.

I refer of course to the ultra- spruce dark-olive green beret.

Korea has two years (18 – 21 months, actually) national military service for all males once they turn 18.

The uniform’s pretty cool.

Once you hit Seoul (the majority of our visit was spent in rural Korea) the train stations are literally peppered with these upright, robust and lean looking 18-year-olds decked out in their snaz fatigues, all checking their mobile phones en-route to… well, wherever they’re going.

With their look and swagger plus sheer numbers, they OWN those trains. And in a good way too.

Reminds me of back in the day when me and my suit ‘n tie private school mates used to think we OWNED the 3:18pm Ipswich line train from Brunswick Street station in the afternoons.

Now those WERE the days.

See this billboard?

Looks tiny here but it took up space the size of a truck. I spied this thing of beauty on the subway one day, then had to ask my wife what it was about.

HYUNDAI (sponsor of the Brisbane Broncos via their affiliate KIA) is not just the world’s third largest car manufacturer. No sireee.

For the touching story behind this stray HYUNDAI dog, click HERE.

They’re also into shipbuilding, bullet train production, escalators and lot’s of other hard-hat style thingys to do with steel.

Now I know. And, putting the irritation factor of a boring info dump aside, now so do you.

Funny, amazeballs Korea, I love you and will visit you again in another two years.

For happy days of another kind, travel HERE.