The News and Observer from Raleigh, North Carolina • 53

The News Observer Raleigh NX A zombie If you can afford this 4 you don't need it closet Ml I Look into the past of aCary chiropractor and you find a star of a cult classic -sr i "i f'' flesh eaters nowadays he's prey to Interviewers such as Joe Bob Brlggs By KEN RINCLE The Washington Post We all know civilization has come unmoored (some would say unhinged) and every now and then it would seem prudent for us adrift on such uncertain seas to take note of not to say heed the buoys of rectitude we pass en route to the abyss In which spirit we direct your attention to Page A47 of Sunday's New York Times and an advertisement not even a particularly large advertisement million This would seem the ultimate stocking stuffer or perhaps the stuffer for the ultimate stocking The watch in question is the Piagct Tanagra a not terribly prepossessing-looking timepiece which according to the accompanying text "demonstrates the Piaget genius for developing the remarkable" Evidently What does one get in the way of remarkable developments for $1 million? "Glitz mostly" says Walter Queren director of advertising for Tourneau which with three stores in Manhattan and additional outlets in Palm Beach and Bal Harbour may sell more expensive watches than anyone in the United States "It's all diamonds diamond face diamond bezel diamond bracelet You want to buy one?" While Queren says he can't remember Tourneau ever actually selling one of the million-dollar watches (and Piaget it turns out makes several million-dollar models besides the Tanagra) the chain does unload between 35000 and 40000 serious watches a year at an average price of $3000 "And since we sell a whole lot of $250 watches you can imagine how many of the really upper-end ones we have to sell for that average price to be where it is" They include such chicly obscure marques as the IWC Fliegerchronograph ($8995) the Ulysse Nardin Michelangelo ($4250 to $12000) the Jaeger-LeCoultre Geographique ($17900 to $28500) the Breitling Chronomat-UTC ($3050 to $22300) and the Audemars Pignet Royal Oak ($5500 to $64000) They look like the sort of watches you might find on Jazz Age astronomers or Ivy League balloonists or the pilot of the first Luftwaffe jet fighter But none of them Queren acknowledges is likely to keep any better time than a $25 imitation Rolex from a vendor on the street Which brings us to the point Thirty years ago before the advent of the battery-powered watch the more one spent for a timepiece in general the more accurate it was Once the most prized watches in this country were those of railroad conductors That was when trains ran on time But because quartz movement and microcircuitry has long since brought split-second accuracy within range of anyone with $5 why do people buy expensive watches? "It's the mystique" Queren says "For some people it's the status the sign they've arrived Why does a Buick driver buy a BMW?" Well cars at least drive differently Time is time In fact there is more than a little evidence that the more one pays for a watch these days the less interest the buyer has in time Military commanders football referees and others obsessed with the fleeting second favor the sort of fat digital readout timepiece with which missiles are most easily clocked watches usually to be had for $200 or less Watches priced more than $1000 on the other hand tend toward clock-face emaciation and analog clutter: faint Roman numerals or no numerals at all multiple dials and second hands tiny jewel-crusted faces all but unreadable by those squinty-eyed short-armed creatures over 40 Even when new however the watch is supposed to look old "It's this nostalgia thing" Queren says "The really expensive watches you have to wind" Beg pardon? "You have to wind them That's what they want Take the Patek Philippe: President Bush has one Queen Elizabeth has one Lot of cachet All handmade Cost anywhere from $17000 or $18000 to $65000 or $75000 without a lot of jewels Everybody wants one of those Very accurate But you have to wind them Just like the old days" So people today are paying thousands of dollars more to make time look and act like it used to? To avoid the convenience of treating time like everyone else does? "You could say that" John Cameron Swayze where are you when we need you? Keith Wayne once was prey to zombie Come on You're kid- din' right? One of the stars of "Night of the Living Dead" lives in Cary? Cary? And he's a chiropractor? Si Es verdad Who could make something like that up? Dr Keith Hartman who has been adjusting spinal columns at the corner of Chatham and Maynard for something like a decade used to be an actor named Keith Wayne He made a grand total of one movie And it became a cult classic that influenced the horror film like nothing this side of "Psycho" On Saturday night The Movie Channel shows both Hartman's 1968 version and the 1990 remake Back to back (For what it's worth Movie Channel viewers voted the original the best horror film of all time) The double-header starts at 11 and includes drive-in-movie wonk Joe Bob Briggs interviewing members of the original cast "As I go back over this stuff" Hartman says "I've been asked opinions of what I thought I didn't think a thing I was a 20-some-year-old guy who had his eye on the stars" In the original 1968 'Night' zombies roamed in search of the living On this day: In 1865 the 1 3th Amendment to the US Constitution abolishing slavery was declared in effect In 1 940 Adolf Hitler signed a secret directive ordering preparations for a Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa as it became known was launched the following June And no that was not the name of the Jane Fonda movie) In 1 972 the United States began its heaviest bombing of North Vietnam to date during the Vietnam War (The bombardment ended 1 2 days later) All grown up? Wonder who eats all those sugary products made to rot kids' teeth? Well yes kids do eat a lot of them but they're not the only ones According to a poll by Mediamark Research Inc adults with no children in the house eat their fair share How much? 20 percent of adults with no kiddies in the house eat sweetened cereal 1 4 percent eat ice cream 9 percent chew bubble gum And to prove that it's not just food the adults can't resist 8 percent play video games Nor does it end there We read in American Demographics magazine that during a typical year 45 percent of adults will buy a toy or game for themselves or an adult friend And one adult in six spends more than $50 on adult toys Which adult's doing the buying? College graduates Adults 45 or younger Parents and people with incomes of 550000 or more And to make it all so much easier to rationalize when we buy these toys we're not buying toys but stress relievers Which is exactly why we're going to throw 25 bucks down for The Stressball the minute we find one (it makes the sound of shattering glass whenever it hits something) We even know whom we want to throw it toward Getting it write We've heard a few complaints about our handwriting (That's why we're in a profession that requires computers to communicate) So we're happy to report that we're not alone Of the 250 executives polled by Modern Office Products only 1 0 percent said their employees' handwriting was consistently legible And 41 percent said the handwriting was getting worse Do they care? Yep Poor handwriting can cost a business S200 million a year How? Two examples: Eastman Kodak deals with 400000 rolls of film each year that it can't return because the address is illegible The US Postal Service routes 38 million pieces of illegible mail to its dead-letter office every year at a cost of $4 million It's enough to make John Hancock weep From staff and wire reports I Television 4D I Comics 6D Horoscope 7D Landers 7D A tradition feared by millions he was a musician The front man for Keith Wayne and Co He played keyboards and sang and "shook his butt" to gospel Top 40 show tunes "whatever made a buck" "I was a single man having a good time I got paid in cash and I had bucks in my pocket I lived the life that any single man would dream of I lived it" He also made a couple of commercials around his hometown of Pittsburgh with a cinematographer See LANCFORD page 3D breaky heart with Billy Ray Cyrus Jose-Luis Orozco who leads sing-alongs in schools in Los Angeles says the toughest crowds are seventh- and eighth-graders "Little ones are easy They'll do whatever I ask them" By junior high music segregation sets in That is why God created "La Bamba" "When I sing 'La Bamba' everyone gets into it regardless of age It's a catchy easy tune and you don't need to know Spanish to say 'La Bamba'" "Guantanamera" says Orozco is a bit more difficult but most people have learned to shut up through the verses and just join in the one word they know for the chorus This is a common coping style At labor rallies it's mumble mumble mumble and then a loud "Sol-i-darity for-ever" At folk concerts no one knows where Michael was coming from or where he's going but they all can exhort him to get that boat ashore And at Christmas sing-alongs people who could not care less about how hate is strong and mocks the song still will sing out for "Peace on Earth good will toward men" Until someone says "Wait a minute did you say men?" Keith Wayne wasn't just an earlier version of Keith Hartman He was a different person altogether from the one who has the words "Hartman Chiropractic Center" on the spare-tire cover of his maxi-van And all the hubbub of the past couple of weeks has been at the very least disconcerting "This" he says "has been a strange strange experience I am not that person any more" Keith Wayne he used the name "because it sounded good and I hated Ronald" wasn't an actor as much as Virgin are dimly associated with unsingable pain for some adult child who recalls Grundy pointing her baton like a lance and shouting "Hey you Carroll just hum" The malady is not limited to those who fear missing the high notes Consider all the American Muslims and Jews who recall school days when the teacher shouted "OK Goldstein you pick up the solo at 'Christ our savior is bo-orn Yet fear of sing-alongs is most often "a WASP thing" says Peter Blood song leader and author of "Rise Up Singing" Those white middle-class Protestants who have no hesitation about leading major corporations were often "given inhibiting messages about singing" The only cure says Blood is to fight fire with song "People become less timid in other areas if empowered to sing out" Today "The Messiah" tomorrow the rump shaker Part of the blame for the rise in sing-along-anoia lies in the segmented balkanized targeted music industry Young people today lack a shared musical memory While little Mooncloud was "Rockin in the Free World" with Neil Young little Latoya was shaking her booty with Sir Mix-A-Lot and little Stacy Melissa was twangin' her achy- Sing-alongs are not their cup of eggnog By ALICE KHAN San Francisco Chronicle AN FRANCISCO LudwigV (not his real name) is one American for whom those decked halls loom with folderols of folly He is among the guesstimated 50 million people who suffer from sing-along-ophobia a disorder characterized by paroxysms of nausea at the first "Hark the" or "Dashing through" They are the tormented ones who bolt as a roomful of people tanked up on eggnog gather to stumble through Tannenbaum Tannenbaumyutta yutta yutta Tannenbaum" For those fearful of being the ding-a-ling at the sing-along 'tis not the season to be jolly Consider the trauma of those tone-deaf souls who remember when Miss Grundy would raise her baton and come out swinging as she urged a squeaking third-grade chorus to meet the demands of "Joyful all ye nations rise" And even today Harold the Angel and Round John.