Well, dear readers, why didn’t someone tell me summer was over? Last I looked, it was summer, and now it’s October. Holy moley on rye, were less than three months from 2008. I demand to know how this happened. Didn’t this year, 2007, just begin? Weren’t we just celebrating the fact that it was January? And now, it’s October and summer is over and the year is speeding to its conclusion like a gazelle with a cold sore. I gotta tell you. Well, what can you do? Time marches on and sometimes, on rare occasions, on marches time. Sometimes I wish time would just stop and smell the roses or the coffee or the cod liver oil. Speaking of cod liver oil, yesterday was a most pleasant day, and let me tell you after the last five days I needed a most pleasant day. For example, I got up. That was most pleasant, although I’d taken Ny-Quil the night before and it really hadn’t worked, so not only hadn’t I gotten the night’s sleep I wanted, but I was groggy from the Ny-Quil. Damn them, damn them all to hell. Soon I toddled off to the Hollywood Collector’s Show, first picking up the likes of Miss Hisaka and Miss Patti, both of whom wished to attend. After the doldrums of the last few shows, Mr. Courts got it together and had a powerhouse show, and the attendance was way up from the last two shows I attended. There was a glittering array that ran the gamut of celebrity types – Tony Curtis, Debbie Reynolds, Nastassia Kinski, Olivia Hussey (looking like she’d lost fifty pounds and looking great), several Bond people like George Lazenby, Richard Kiel,Martine Beswicke, Lana Wood, Lynn-Holly Johnson (still pretty after all these years), Shirley Eaton, Lucianna Paluzzi, several Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea people like David Hedison, Alan Hunt (a pal of mine since the early 70s), Terry Becker (about who more in a minute), and others from the show, Richard Anderson, several younger Playmates from the last couple of years, Mickey Dolenz, Francine York, Elliot Gould, Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner, Robert Culp, Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Joyce DeWitt, Priscilla Barnes, and many others.
I visited with Alan Hunt, and then met Terry Becker, who was astonished that I remembered seeing him in the LA premiere of the musical A Family Affair in the early 60s. What amazed him more was that I’d written about it in Kritzer Time (page 211) and I ended up going home and coming back and giving him a copy. I think he was very touched, because even though I didn’t mention him by name in the book, I mentioned his character and how wonderful I thought he was. That was the highlight of the show for me. I visited with my dealer friends, was given the new soundtrack release of Captain Kronos, Vampire Killer by Laurie Johnson, and I had a very nice time. I ate some lunch at Marie Callendar’s, which, I think, has just gone to seed (at least the Toluca Lake branch) – it used to be a fave, but my last few visits there have been very disappointing. After that, I finally came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, in honor of what is apparently the completely dreadful remake of The Heartbreak Kid (after reading about a few of its “comic” gross out highlights, I have no need of ever seeing it), I watched the sublime original (that did not need to be remade by anyone, let alone the cretinous Farrelly Brothers). I always forget how much I love this film, with its perfect performances from Charles Grodin (with one of the worst wigs ever), Jeannie Berlin (who is brilliant), Cybill Shepherd (gorgeous), and Eddie Albert, wonderful direction by Elaine May (very rough filmmaking, but it really works), and a catchy score featuring Bacharach and David’s Close To You, Cy Coleman and Sheldon Harnick’s beyond catchy theme song, and some other incidental music. I do wish the Anchor Bay transfer weren’t so brown, but the movie’s the thing and it remains as fresh and funny and sweet and yes, touching, as it’s always been, everything, as I understand it, that has been systematically removed from the remake by its five count them five credited writers. Someone stop the madness.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because we are speeding, speeding, speeding (that is three speedings) toward the end of this section and also the start of a new week, and also the end of this year.
This morning at eleven a person from the Tolucan Times will be coming over to do an interview. After that, I have some little things to attend to and I have to make a few telephonic calls and package up a few orders (since NYMF, we’ve been getting steady orders for The Brain From Planet X and The Last Starfighter), otherwise I shall rest my weary whatever and gather my energy so that I can plow into a brand new week, which will hopefully be filled with good things because we need good things – all excellent vibes and xylophones gratefully accepted.
The next weeks are going to be insane, I think, but I heard we’ve sold a few more tickets, so maybe there’s hope yet that we’ll get through this thing okay. In tomorrow’s notes I’ll post all the information about the show, including our most up-to-date cast list. I have to send out e-blasts and myspace bulletins, too.
Tomorrow, I have a rehearsal for The Party Animals again, just to finish working with the new cast. It shouldn’t last too long.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do an interview, do an errand or three, and relax. 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 postings, shall we, as we go speeding down life’s highway – just a note to time: there’s a speed limit, you know.