Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish wondering why I haven’t written these here notes yet. Well, one reason is that I just had a telephonic conversation. The other reason is that I was standing in the corner, punishing myself for eating way too much food. Of course, while I was standing in the corner I was muching on something. I had all good intentions to take it easy, food-wise, but it just didn’t pan out that way. Part of that is because when she of the Evil Eye comes I have to go out and kill time, so I go to Jerry’s Deli and eat. For example, yesterday I had a cheese and bacon omelet (I’ve never had that there before and it was REALLY good) and a bagel. I sat there for quite a bit of time, then picked up no packages, then came home. I answered some e-mails and did a bit of work at the piano, then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I watched The Subterraneans, thanks to a DVD from dear readers Amy and Mark. As some of you know, my mother took me to see it when I was twelve at the Beverly Theater in Beverly Hills. I’m not quite sure why I would have gone with her to any movie anywhere, since I liked to go by myself, but I suspect it was something either she wanted to see or we were out lunching or shopping and we just went. It would have been in June of 1960 so school was out. And it must have been before I took my first trip away from LA, as I went to St. Louis with friends of the family. I probably left LA in mid-July or even the end of July because I was back in time to attend the opening day of Psycho. So, my memory of seeing this film is hazy with the exception of one very vivid moment about an hour in – I remember the event as if it were yesterday, but exactly what I saw has remained fuzzy and since I’ve never seen the film since that day, I never have quite known what precipitated my mother’s dragging me out of the theater. What I remember from that moment is that it involved Leslie Caron and in my hazy memory involved the audience (or me) seeing her rather unclothed, perhaps spying her underwear or something like that. That’s the image in my head. When we were in the lobby I asked what the problem was and my mother (and yes, I remember this verbatim) told me I couldn’t see it because she was convinced Miss Caron had been shown wearing what my mother called a sanitary napkin. I didn’t even know what that meant. So, I have wondered all these years just what the HELL was shown, knowing they could not possibly have shown Miss Caron wearing a sanitary napkin. So, there I am, sitting on the couch like so much fish and just about an hour in there’s a scene with Miss Caron and Mr. Peppard in her bedroom. She’s wearing pajama tops only and when she gets up, guess what – you spy a little of her underpants. And when Peppard is on the bed with her, you spy even more – they probably weren’t even underpants but some kind of flesh colored dance pants. And that’s what caused the furor back in 1960. In my head, I pictured the scene with red, hazy lighting and I thought there were more people in the scene, but that’s the only thing on the DVD that it could have been, presuming the DVD was uncut, which it seemed to be. Interestingly, there’s a scene a bit later in the film where Miss Caron is told to go naked in the world and she drops her pajama top and does just that – I suppose there could be footage missing from there but it didn’t seem so and you never really saw anything. The movie itself is quite awful – a bad screenwriter’s idea of what the beatnik generation was like (the film is based on a story by Jack Kerouac). The dialogue is risible, and the poor actors have to spout it and attempt a performance doing so. Everyone suffers. It’s a fine cast, though – Miss Caron and Mr. Peppard are pleasant to look at, and then there’s Roddy McDowell and Janice Rule, too, and a very young Arte Johnson (still alive at eighty-six). Anyway, it was finally fun to see it.
Then I made about five ounces of spaghetti, since I had sauce left over from the Do. While that was cooking I ate some of the kugel left over from the Cissy Wechter partay. You see where this is going. Then I ate the two helpings of spaghetti with sauce whilst I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Scorpio, starring Mr. Burt Lancaster and Mr. Alain Delon, directed by Michael Winner. It’s a real piece of seventies filmmaking – it really is the kind of cheese that defined a lot of the decade, only later it would have been produced by Elliot Kastner or Sir Lew Grade. It’s fairly incoherent in its writing, and you never really know what’s going on or who’s doing what to whom, but Mr. Lancaster is always fun and I’m a fan of Mr. Delon, although he’s a little uncomfortable with his English. There’s something about cheese like this that’s almost comforting and it really brings you back to the era. The transfer is really good – it really looks just like it should.
I did have to keep going back because I kept dozing off, at one point for almost an hour.
After that, I ate a couple of mini-Snicker’s bars. Then I listened to music and relaxed for the rest of the evening, but still found time to have a left over turkey leg from Cissy Wechter’s partay. At that point I just knew I was completely out of control and went and stood in the corner.
Today, I shall come to my senses and be a good boy, food-wise. I don’t want any more spaghetti, so I may make a half-portion of Wacky Noodles, which would be about 1000 calories and I won’t eat anything else. I’m thinking that would be the best option and I’ve got all the stuff here to make it. Otherwise, I’m just relaxing and having a ME day.
Tomorrow I’m seeing Jason Graae and Faith Prince at The Federal. Tuesday I have a lunch meeting, and Wednesday a lunch with dear reader Jeanne in West Los Angeles. Otherwise I’m not doing much.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be a good boy, food-wise, pick up a package (yes, a Sunday Amazon delivery), and then just relax and watch stuff. 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 hit the road to dreamland, happy to have solved the mystery of what caused my mother to drag me out of The Subterraneans.