Well, dear readers, the fireworks have subsided and it’s just another Saturday in the endless parade. I gotta tell you. I wonder how many Saturdays there have been since I was born? I remember the Saturdays of my childhood with great fondness (you can even read about some of them in Benjamin Kritzer) – waking up early and watching the TV test pattern until something came on. Playing some sort of baseball board game with my brother until it was time for Sky King. Watching B-westerns on TV, then getting ready to attend a Saturday matinee at either the Stadium, the Lido, or the Picfair. I don’t imagine Saturdays are quite the same for the kids of today – no, they must take their Tae Kwan Do classes, sit at their computers, talk on their cells, and report to their parents every five minutes of the day. They must not walk anywhere by themselves, must not play in their front yards, there’s no more test pattern with the Indian (no, that wouldn’t be politically correct), and there aren’t any more kiddie matinees. And for all the technology, it is not a better world for the young. But what has all this to do with the price of rutabagas? Why was I suddenly all nostalgic and everything? What the HELL was that about? Of course, nostalgia has reached new absurd heights – nostalgia is now the decade of the 1990s. Speaking of the 1990s, yesterday was a nice, relaxing day. I got up around nine-thirty, puttered around the home environment, played on the computer, took a drive, jogged the full two-mile distance, sat on my couch like so much fish, watching bits and pieces of this and that and also that an this, and then it was finally time to head over to Tony Slide and Bob Gitt’s annual 4th of July do. As always, there was a sparklingly sparkling assortment of guests, including the ever-youthful Marsha Hunt and Jack Larson, and my good pal, composer John Scott. I met a few new people, who were very nice, and had some nice conversations. Tony and Bob are great hosts, and the food was especially good this year – a real potpourri of foodstuffs. Jack Larson was telling a good Christopher Isherwood/Don Bachardy story, and I told how I’d spent many weekends visiting with Mr. Isherwood and Mr. Bachardy in the early 1970s at Elsa Lanchester’s beach house (they lived next door). Mr. Bachardy offered many times to paint me in the nude and I always said no – too shy. A couple of years ago, another offer to paint me was presented, but I said if I wouldn’t do it when I was in my 20s why on Earth would I do it in my late 50s. Bob told me of the days when some of the party guests included folks like Burgess Meredith and that sort, and oh do I wish I’d been living here then. Mr. Scott spoke to me about perhaps getting involved with a chamber opera he’s written, so we’re going to chat about it when he gets back in town in about two weeks. And Tony and Bob are off to India next week to a film festival. I have photos from the do, so I’ll post them this morning on the discussion board.
I stayed for about two hours, then went home and sat on my couch like so much fish and watched a motion picture I’d TIVOd entitled Assignment Paris, starring Dana Andrews, Marta Toren, and George Sanders, directed by Robert Parrish. It was quite a tense little cold war thriller and I enjoyed it very much. Miss Toren doesn’t really have a lot of camera magic (tragically, she died a few years later of leukemia), but the rest of the cast was excellent and the film boasted a great score from one of my favorite film composers, George Duning.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below whilst we all ponder exactly how many Saturdays we’ve spent in the endless parade of the Saturdays of our lives.
Today, I will endeavor to see a screening of Wall-E at the DGA. However, when I went to see the Indiana Jones movie there, I arrived ninety minutes early to be greeted by a line of seventy or eight people. I’ll arrive one hundred minutes early today but if there’s that kind of line I shall leave quickly. Later in the afternoon I have a meeting of my alumni association, and after that I will probably watch a motion picture on DVD.
Tomorrow is mine all mine, and I shall do whatever pleases me. I’m sure I’ll be jogging, because while that is not exactly pleasing me, it is helping me to change my metabolism and lose some of this damnable weight I’ve gained in the last year and a half.
The upcoming week is a busy one, with events, meetings, meals, rehearsals, a run of the Kevin/Sean show with a small audience, and attending the Hollywood Collector’s Show on the weekend. My friend, Mr. Barry Pearl is doing it, so I’ll hang with him for a while, and I have a few other friends who’ll be there, as well.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, ship a couple of orders, I must attempt to see Wall-E, I must have a meeting, and I must sit on my couch like so much fish. Today’s topic of discussion: Growing up, what did you do on Saturdays – what was your routine, and what do you miss most about it? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst the endless parade of Saturdays marches on or, at the very least, Julys on.