Well, dear readers, this weekend is already flying by, like a gazelle playing canasta. Does anyone still play canasta? Does anyone still play pinochle? Does anyone still play hearts? I know people still play gin and that people still drink gin, and people still play poker and people still drink poker, but what about canasta and pinochle and hearts? Those games were once ever so popular with the populace and now they’ve gone the way of the dodo bird. Of course, I have no clew as to what the HELL I’m talking about but I’m just not going to let that stop me, oh, no, I’m just not going to let that stop me. I think we should all have a canasta partay, don’t you? Or a pinochle partay? My grandfather (Grandpa Gelfinbaum in the Kritzer books, grandpa Gross in real life) played pinochle in the pinochle parlor across the street from the Hotel St. Regis (the Hotel St. Regis in the Kritzer books), so he knew from pinochle. The name pinochle always made me laugh and it still makes me laugh, but I also laugh when I hear the word canasta and the word churro. Those are amusing words. At Monday night dinners, hearts was a popular card game amongst the grownups. All this because a gazelle was playing canasta – this trip down memory lane. In other news, yesterday was hardly the day of rest I thought it was going to be. First off, I got up at eight because the oafs next door decided to work on this holiday weekend – not only work, but work late – they didn’t leave till after six. Most annoying. I didn’t do the jog because Mr. Handy Man was supposed to arrive at ten, but he didn’t arrive till eleven, but by then the jogging was not a possibility because of the heat. So, I got him started with the last of the metal shelves in the garage, and then I toddled off to Cinecon to visit with some dealer friends. I visited, sold one dealer about fifteen Kritzerland CDs, perused everyone’s wares, and then about ninety minutes later headed back to the Valley. I went to the mail place and picked up some packages, and then came home. He had the shelves up and all the book boxes down for me to go through. So, I began unpacking about thirty boxes of books and miraculously got them all on the shelves (in three rows for each shelf) – I was also able to get quite a few books that were in cupboards above my bedroom closet out of there and on the shelves. It’s so great to have all these books out of their boxes. It took a couple of hours to do and I was sweating like a pig from all the lugging and lifting, but after it was all done and he’d put everything back where it belonged, the garage looked amazingly amazing. It’s now totally organized and there’s still room out there for more CDs, books, and DVDs. The book room is now neat as a pin with everything in its place and I’m so happy. I can actually go in there and not feel it’s a cluttered mess. I was all in by that time, so I went to Hugo’s for lunch and had my usual Caesar salad and pasta papa, which tasted a little odd, actually. I also did some work while I was there, and wrote a new bridge and chorus for a Nudie Musical song that needed to be extended. I also figured out how to structure the scene where the extra part of the song goes, so that’s done now and I can enter all this into our master script and send it to some people who need it. After all that work, I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Miracle Mile, which someone had recommended to me because the whole thing is shot on the Miracle Mile (Wilshire Blvd. from Fairfax to La Brea). I’d never seen the film (it came out in 1988) and had no idea what it was about. It begins as a lighthearted romantic comedy and quickly turns into a nightmarish vision of a coming nuclear apocalypse. I say nightmarish because the entire film actually plays like a dream, made even more so by the weird dreamlike music of Tangerine Dream. Mare Winningham and Anthony Edwards star and both are very good. The location photography is wonderful, with much of the film taking place at the corner of Fairfax and Wilshire, at Johnnie’s Coffee Shop, with great shots of both the May Co. and Orbach’s. There are several scenes filmed at Park La Brea, the huge living complex, where I, in fact, just attended a casting session for the long musical. The ending is quite moving and I really liked the film. I gather reaction to this film is quite divided, with some loving its dreamlike nightmare feel, and some feeling its quite the worst movie ever made. The DVD presents the film open matte, which is a shame and disgusting.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because soon I must get my beauty sleep and if I hear ONE peep from any oaf next door there will be hell toupee for whoever said oaf is.
Today, I really am doing nothing but relaxing and watching motion pictures, and eating something fun and/or amusing. I will not lift a finger in work. I was going to start on the liner notes for our next release, but I’ll start those tomorrow. I’ll try to do the long jog, though.
Tomorrow, other than starting the liner notes, I shall not do much of anything other than attending the annual Labor Day partay of neighbors Tony Slide and Bob Gitt – I’ll probably be bringing a guest, so that will be fun. And then the very busy week begins.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, watch motion pictures, eat something amusing, and relax and smell the coffee or the roses or the turnips. 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, and let’s all get ready for a spiffy game of canasta.