Well, dear readers, I am pretty much back to my normal healthy self, save for the coughing. I no longer feel all groggy and tired and logey and for that I say both hoo and ray. Even though I had to get up early yesterday, I still managed to get a really good night’s sleep. Of course, she of the Evil Eye arrived, and I had to toddle off to the ASCAP event, where I did my bit of mentoring. There were quite a few no-shows with us mentors – people who had booked us, booked specific times, then just didn’t bother to show up. The folks I had were fun, and I think I imparted some good information and, of course, with me they get someone who has passion and is extremely positive, so I think they went away happy. As soon as I was finished, I had to hie myself to the Ray Courts show, where I met up with our very own Mr. Nick Redman and his beautiful daughter, Rebecca Redman. Just what up was doing with the Redmans is anyone’s guess. We did a tour of the room, which is always fun. We spent a bit of time visiting Nick’s friend Bo Hopkins, and then we had fun with our very own Miss Cindy Williams. I said hey to Candy Clark and Cindy and my school chum, Lynne Stewart, and I said hello and had a lovely chat with Allyce Beasley, who wishes that the Disney people would have me back because she loved working with me. There’s always one person at these shows who looks completely shocking – this time it was Tonya Harding. Miss Harding now weighs in the neighborhood of over two hundred pounds, and if you didn’t see the nametag you would never ever have a clew it was her. Nick and I just couldn’t believe it. I met Carla Laemmle, which was fun. And I got asked for my autograph by a nice gent who professed to love this here site. Isn’t that funny? Others we took note of were Lesley Anne Warren, Kathryn Crosby, Paul Le Mat, Dick Christie, Marla Pennington, Gary Busey, Pogue’s pal Denny Miller, Deborah van Valkenberg, Johnny Whitaker, and many others. It was actually a pretty lackluster show, as these things go, but it seemed fairly well attended and the celebs seemed to be doing well. Cindy asked if would come back today – I’m thinking about it. After the show, I came home and wrote a couple of pages, and then I got very zoned and had to sit on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I managed to watch two count them two motion pictures on DVD. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled Brokeback Mountain. I know this film has legions of fans on this here site, and I know many love Mr. Ang Lee’s films. I have never loved an Ang Lee film, and this film was no exception. It’s certainly better than other Ang Lee films, because it’s less showy, and it has a good screenplay. But, as with most of Mr. Ang Lee’s films, it’s just too damned long (135 minutes). The actors are all very good, except they all, every one of them, do the neo-actor thing of mumbling most of their lines so that many lines are completely unintelligible. There’s one scene with Heath Ledger and the gal who plays his wife, where the wife has about five lines in a row, not one word of which I could understand. But, the film has some lovely scenes, but ultimately it’s just a bit too episodic for its own good. I do love that people call this an indie film. Of course, independent filmmaking doesn’t really exist anymore – not in the way it once did, and this is the sort of film which masquerades as an independent but is, in fact, a product of the studio system just like every other indie film. I then watched the second motion picture on DVD, which was entitled The World’s Greatest Lover, a film of Gene Wilder, who wrote, stars, and directs. I really like Mr. Wilder as an actor. As a writer and director he’s just awful. I’d never seen this film before, but was interested to see it because Mr. Wilder had the chutzpah to try to remake one of the great screen comedies of all-time – Fellini’s The White Sheik. Apparently, Mr. Wilder had no sense of why that film works so brilliantly, and his film is horrifically unfunny and forced – the only time it works at all is when it follows Carol Kane, who plays the Brunella Bovo character. Sometimes it lifts whole bits from the Fellini film, but more often than not, it’s just Mr. Wilder flailing away and beating us over the head with one unfunny gag after another. Of course, over on the imdb, the film is thought of as the second coming – all by people who saw it as youngsters.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get my beauty sleep so I can be completely recovered.
Whilst at the Ray Courts show, I brought an item that I knew a dealer would want, and we made a lovely trade – he got what I brought, and I got a gorgeous five volume set of Shakespeare’s works, bound in full leather, in gorgeous condition, dating from 1843, and the set includes a biography by Charles Knight and said biography is signed by Mr. Knight. The other volumes are the Tragedies (two volumes) and the Comedies (two volumes). I believe there are two more volumes to this set (the Histories), but I’m actually not sure of that. I looked up the books on the ABE, and there is a set of seven available – a later printing, that’s going for a lot of money. There is one volume from the original printing date of 1843 that I have, and that single volume is going for $100, so I got an incredible deal, I must say. And the condition for books this old is really incredible, with the leather in excellent condition, and with no tears or damage to the interiors.
Today I shall be having a relaxing day of writing and DVD watching, and perhaps at some point I’ll mosey on over to the Courts show if I’m feeling like it. I may also try to jog again, now that I’m feeling up to par.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, not do much of anything, I must hope that the telephonic call from the interesting person finally comes today, I must eat reasonably, and I must listen to some new CDs I got. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hopefully continue to feel up to par.