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January 6, 2008:

THE OLD MAN IS SNORING

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, as I type this the old man is snoring, which must mean it’s raining, it’s pouring. Despite the dire weather predictions of an incredible storm that was supposed to hit yesterday morning, we actually had a dry day, overcast, although the sun did manage to show its face a few times. But at around eight o’clock in the evening, we got a big burst of rain – all ten minutes worth – and then it subsided. Then, about thirty minutes later, same thing. Thirty minutes later, same thing. And it’s been doing that on and off for about four hours now. Why is it that the old man is always snoring when it’s raining and pouring? I tell you, the old man is just so predictable. Raining/pouring, that old man is just snoring like nobody’s business, no matter where he is. I gotta tell you. Of course, I suppose it’s better that the old man is snoring rather than scoring. That would be a little to outrĂ© for even my tastes. In any case, the fershluganah old man is snoring and I find it boring and difficult to be ignoring and it makes me want to put down new flooring, or go up in the sky soaring, or talk to the squirrels about the nuts they are storing, or to get in a kayak and do some fancy oaring. Well, I think we’ve beaten this into the ground, don’t you? I am enjoying this first weekend of 2008. For example, yesterday I got up. I enjoyed that. I then struggled to write even one page, but then got on track and did a second page. Then I went out and did various and sundried errands and went to a fun coffee shop I hadn’t been to in years – The Lamplighter, on Van Nuys Blvd. I liked my food, the ambience is classic upscale coffee shop and they had very good rice pudding. I hadn’t been to The Lamplighter in over thirty years. I went to write about it on Yelp and saw that it had lots of bad reviews, mostly based on the age of the restaurant’s normal clientele. I reviewed the posts almost more than the restaurant. When I was a young whippersnapper, I looked up to people who were older than I and I most certainly didn’t ever deride them because of their age. But these people think that their generation is the only generation and that they’ll never be another age where they might actually be derided. Well, kiddies, that day will come and I hope that the new generation will be just as merciless on these entitled, self-absorbed wazoos. Happily, not all young people are like that. And, amusingly, there were a bunch of people in the restaurant who were in their 20s. I then came home, and dove back into the book and ended up writing six pages. By then it was almost six-thirty and I immediately sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I watched a motion picture I’d TIVOd entitled Crack Up, starring Pat O’Brien, Claire Trevor, Wallace Ford, and Herbert Marshall. It’s not a great film, by any means (its director, Irving Reis, was a marginal talent), but it’s a good deal of fun, and based on a short story (Madman’s Holiday) by a writer I’m very fond of, Fredric Brown. The plot is very convoluted, and Mr. O’Brien gives new meaning to low-key, but it moves along very quickly. I then anxiously put on Skidoo, which I was thrilled was going to be in its original scope ratio, as had been advertised. Well, it wasn’t – it was a hideous pan-and-scan horror, and I shut it off. While it may be the nadir of Mr. Preminger’s career, it would at least be nice to see it as he filmed it. One simply cannot judge anything based on a pan-and-scan travesty. I went to the TCM discussion board, and one of the programmers had posted that they were supposed to get a letterboxed version, then found out they weren’t. Then TCM offered to pay for the transfer, but it ultimately was going to cost too much. The fact that Paramount wouldn’t pop for a transfer that they’d then be able to release is beyond stupid, and I feel that TCM should have cancelled the showing rather than show it incorrectly.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I am quite sleepy and I need my beauty sleep in order to look my Sunday best.

Have I mentioned that the old man is snoring? Well, he’s taking a thirty minute break at this particular moment – we just had a good fifteen minutes of hard rain, and now we have nothing.

Today, I hope to get some more writing done, and then I’m having a late lunch meeting with a gal who wants advice on moving to New York versus pursuing her career here. I shall offer whatever pearls of wisdom I have. If I don’t have any pearls of wisdom, I may offer some emeralds of wisdom or, at the very least, some cubic zirconia of wisdom.

I also have an errand or two to do, then after that I’ll settle down with a motion picture of some sort. This coming week will be filled with writing, casting the little informal reading we’ll be doing on the 21st, a couple of meetings and whatnot.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, write, offer pearls or other gemstones of wisdom, do errands and the all-important whatnot. 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, whilst the old man gears up for some more snoring because soon it will be pouring.

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