Dad jokingly referred to accordions as ...“Stomach Steinways.” (And he called bassoons “burping bedposts.”)”

You Can Stomach This: The annual PT accordion fest, Deep Squeeze, will be held at the Pourhouse Aug. 30 and 31st, sponsored by KPTZ. My old man, aside from being a fine pianist (he formed a jazz band after his Army retirement) was also an accomplished accordionist. Dad jokingly referred to accordions as ...“Stomach Steinways.” (And he called bassoons “burping bedposts.” ).

An old joke about the definition of an optimist: An accordionist who carries a pager. (Pager?? I told you it was an old joke).

One of the oldest accordion fests is held down in Cotati, California, an hour north of San Francisco. I remember seeing a guy hold up a funny sign there. It read “No ‘Lady of Spain!’” (An inside accordion joke.  If you get that, you probably know who Myron Floren was).

For the ultimate accordion humor, though, go to YouTube and watch the hilarious “Happy Wanderers” polka-show parody from “SCTV.” Eugene Levy and John Candy as polkameisters Stan and Yosh Schmenge never gets old.

—Cutting the cable: We have all, of course, seen discarded couches and desks out on the street with signs reading “FREE.” Here’s a twist: The other day, out on Hastings, someone had roadsided this oddity: A big-screen TV. It went fast.

—Hawaii calls: And now, bruddah, for something da kine completely different: It’s also the 50th anniversary of something (almost) as important as the Apollo landing. Namely, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” Here’s an odd fact: I got “Python” broadcast in...Hawaii.

In  Honolulu in 1976, I was TV columnist at the morning daily, and I was surprised that the brilliant Brit show wasn’t yet on the PBS affiliate there. I pestered KHET-TV general manager Mary Bitterman so often about this omission that she finally put “Python,” my favorite all-time TV show, on the air. I ran into Bitterman when she later ran the San Francisco PBS affiliate, KQED-TV. And I told her “Mahalo” every time I saw her.

I’d first seen “Python” in Canada, on the CBC, in 1970, a year before it started running in the U.S. And I had the extreme fortune of hanging out with the Pythons for a couple of days before they embarked on their Canadian tour. (They appeared in the U.S. at the Hollywood Bowl, but didn’t tour here). I have never met any entertainers who were anywhere as bright and as talented as these guys. They all graduated from Oxford and Cambridge, and the late Graham Chapman was also an M.D. The show has aged well, the writing still luminous.

—Leader editor Dean Miller’s recent paean to two of this paper’s hard-working and talented student interns brings to mind another intern with a bright future, one we had at the New York Times-owned Santa Rosa Press-Democrat down in the Bay Area: A senior at Brown named A.G. Sulzberger III. I had lunch with A.G. once, and afterwards I felt that the Grey Lady would be in good hands some day with him at the helm. He is the current NY Times  publisher.

—It’s a good thing capable PT pool director Seth Leighton has a good sense of humor. He even managed a weak smile when this regular swimmer called his well-maintained aquatic domain “The Seth Pool.” Comedy: Just. That. Easy!

—I was discussing L.A. with a PT friend who also had lived down there and was also as repelled by the place. It’s a company town — show business. Two lines you hear about The Biz: “I’ve got friends in this town I haven’t even used yet.” And, “If you can fake sincerity, the rest is a piece of cake.”

(PT former TV critic Bill Mann doesn’t so much watch TV now as keep an eye on it.)