#even babyproofed it for me beforehand. still cut myself on it [i broke a tiny piece off on accident and made it sharp again]

[hballegro]

alan alda storytime

the full story from one of the screenshots of my previous post.

story begins with my archaeology professor showing a slide of alan alda in the early 2000s holding some mammoth bones and asks the class if anyone recognizes him. i had watched some MASH with my mother when i was little and had also seen the movie The Object of My Affection, so i raised my hand and said it was alan alda. he lit up and said yes, it was, and told the rest of the class he used to be on this old show, and that when we got more into the bioanthro side of things, remind him to 'tell his alan alda story'.

about 2 months later, we are in bioanthro, and i remind him. he gets excited and says he included slides to talk about it.

[rest under cut]

he tells us how he had just moved to a new city, and he had taken a university job in order to get insurance for his new family [which he didnt get but thats neither here or there]. he gets news that his job is going to be working with Scientific American Frontiers, hosted by the one and only Alan Alda. my prof was thrilled, he loves MASH, and while he specifically wouldnt be involved in the process [being a presenter, working with alan, etc] he was allowed to be around incase they needed help.

i dont know the specific episode, or if it can be found anywhere, but the topic was early man and tools, and how there were mammoth bones that specifically had cuts that could only be made with tools, not by teeth from an animal. they had finished filming for the day and just needed B-roll of some lions at the local zoo chewing some bones [part of the experiment], and alan got a call. he asked if he could head out now, because he needed to get back to his hotel now, and the call had been important. the producers said sure, go ahead, and alan asked if someone could give him a ride.

my professor, having the chance to actually spend time with someone he idolized, and being a stupid late 20s-something, volunteered immediately. stupid why? well, i said he'd just moved there. he didnt know where the hell anything was, and he didnt have GPS available to him, he was just really excited. so they get in the car and start driving.

as i said in my previous post, alan alda had about 20 minutes with this random guy, and found out pretty quickly that he was an archaeologist, and the amazing topic of conversation that he picked was the [then new] theory that we developed agriculture specifically to make booze, and that the rest of the stuff was more or less a biproduct. which is pretty on-brand honestly.

after a while, alan catches on to the fact that this guy clearly has no idea where the hell hes going, and that they've been driving in circles around the city for a while now. he [reportedly very politely] said that actually, this here was his stop, and thanked him for the ride. he then most likely called a taxi that actually knew where it was going, and got to his hotel.

turns out the call was about The Aviator! the call was important because he learned it was confirmed he in it and they needed him to get over there.

its not a glamourous story, but its the only story i got. my prof reported he was a funny guy, and despite slightly kidnapping the poor man for a while, he was the picture of kindness and personability. and clearly he likes telling the story and it left an impression, because he took time out of our already-short lecture to tell a class of 20-somethings that had no idea who Alan Alda was about it.

sorry this is so verbose i dont know how to be short lmao