A late great

Because most visitors to this site stop by Monday through Friday, I rarely write here on the weekend. (Ben Bass and Beyond: friend to bored cubicle dwellers everywhere.)

I make an exception today because my brother Justin has suggested that I write something acknowledging Milton Berle's 100th birthday. In gratitude for Justin's stalwart support of this site, not to mention his excellence in the brotherly arts, I do so.

I assume he knows Uncle Miltie's birthdate because the two of them hit it off when they met some years ago at a party in Los Angeles. He got a kick out of meeting a living legend. So did my brother.

And thus we wish a happy hundredth to the late Milton Berle, television pioneer, comedy icon, host of Texaco Star Theater, and a man renowned in the Friars Club locker room for his enormous, shall we say, career. Apparently he was a decent guy too. If my brother liked him, that's good enough for me.

Incidentally, his given name was Mendel Berlinger. Mr. Berle, that is. My brother's real name is Hyman Moskowitz.