Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I must… Oh, wait, this is the BEGINNING of the notes. This is what being cooped up does to a person, you cut to the chase and take no prisoners. I am also, if I may be honest, very tired of Facebook Live and Zoom or whatever the HELL it is. It’s so weird to me that people do this stuff. I wouldn’t know how to do it or what reason there would be for me to do it, other than self-aggrandizing, whatever the HELL that is. I mean, I understand posting, perhaps, to let people know you’ve gone off the deep end, but it’s the LIVE thing. People announce it, they pontificate or sing or look bad. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? I could do it but who needs to see an ancient Jew pontificating or singing or sitting at the piano like so much fish, or, worse, on his couch like so much fish, like anyone anywhere would be interested in such a thing. I gotta tell you.
Yesterday. What can we say about yesterday that was haven’t said about every other day for the past two weeks? We’re all home, self-absorbing or self-immolating or self-imposing or self-aggrandizing, whatever the HELL that is, or self-deluding and, of course, self-isolating and having to be self-sufficient. So, you know all about yesterday even though I haven’t written a single word about it. Okay, let’s all recite this together. On the count of three: One, two, three – I got seven and a half hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails, and did things that needed doing. I made a recording and sent it off to the folks who needed to get it. I had a nice telephonic conversation with one of the authors of the musical we’re working on, and then with the lyricist, Miss Adryan Russ, so that was fun and broke up the day a little.
Oops (spoo, spelled backwards), I got ahead of myself there. One of the e-mails I had was the galley and cover proofs. I approved the covers immediately, but the galley will probably have to get redone, which hopefully will be quick. All the odd numbered pages were off-center to the right slightly, while all the even numbered pages were dead center. The PDF we sent is, of course, completely centered odd and even. I told my guy we’d had this exact problem on GEE but I didn’t catch it until the book was printed – then it got fixed. But I caught this right away. And then I looked at the galley for Murder at the Magic Castle and it was perfectly centered odd and even pages. So, he’s having the designer look at it and hopefully they’ll fix it in a timely fashion. As always, they first try to blame it on the PDF but they can’t – Grant uses the same template for every book – it never changes.
I finished the Woody Allen autobiography and found it very enjoyable – laugh out loud funny, sad, tragic, repetitious (and with good reason) and the Mia section is just shocking and anyone who reads this account, which has much new information, and still believes he did what he was found completely innocent of, and still believes him to be a monster, well, will just not be willing to even consider that his side of the story is the ONLY side that has actual facts. Highly recommended by the likes of me.
I ate the rest of the tuna pasta salad at two points during the day and it was very good. I didn’t really listen to music and then at around five I moseyed on over to Gelson’s to see if the chicken boobs looked any better. It was a tiny bit more crowded than it had been an hour later, but not bad at all. I was ever so amused by the morons in masks. I would like nothing better than to go up to them and slap them silly, but that would require me getting closer to them than six feet – or it would require me to HAVE six feet. Apparently, they don’t believe it when the experts say that wearing masks should be confined to the people who are actually sick. And IF any of the morons in masks WERE actually sick then what in the living HELL were they doing out in the first place. I think we know none of them were sick, just filled with panic and hysteria. I was not wearing a mask, although if I still had my Lone Ranger mask, I would have worn that in solidarity.
In any case, I went to the meat counter, which was completely full of meat, chicken, veal, and other meatstuffs. There was a package of what they call chicken tender-size filets – more than I needed, but I got the one package that looked good. So, that was nice. No butter at all, of any kind. I don’t get it. The people who are making off with the butter probably are the same people that complain about eating too much butter. I didn’t check the tuna aisle, but did check for Noxema, which Gelson’s doesn’t carry anymore. Toilet paper and paper towels were, of course, completely wiped out, to coin a phrase, not that I’m in need of either. I got some mushrooms, too, and some Western onion bagels. I was in and out in six minutes.
Once back home, I did some work on the computer, procrastinated again about starting my 1500-word essay that’s due in a few days, and then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched the Blu and Ray of Bullitt. I’ve had it since it came out but never watched it. The last time I wrote about it was fifteen years ago, in 2005, when I watched the DVD. I saw it when it came out and like most folks enjoyed it and the car chase was the talk of the town and lived up to the talk. In 2005, the chase was still good, and I thought the rest was not all that this “classic” was cracked up to be, especially the ham-fisted scenes with Jacqueline Bisset. Now, with 2020 hindsight I actually don’t like the film much at all. The chase is the highlight, but the rest is just so badly written, and Peter Yates’ pacing is deadly. Steve McQueen is great, as always, one of the great “eye” screen actors of all time. And fun character actors abound – Simon Oakland, Robert Vaughn, Robert Duvall, and Don Gordon, amongst others. Lalo Schifrin’s music is fun, but there’s not enough of it. And the ending is just so outre, as if Antonioni were directing a cop film. Don’t need to ever see it again. The transfer was fine.
After that, I had a few Milk Duds and some cashew nuts, and then a bagel.
Today. What can we say about today? Even though today hasn’t happened yet, I’m confident that it will be similar to every day for the past two weeks. I’ll get up when I get up, I’ll do the usual things, I’ll eat (today will be faux chicken stroganoff over white rice), I’ll hopefully get a new galley, I’ll phone and see if there’s any mail or packages, otherwise, I’ll watch, listen, and start on the essay.
The rest of the week is more of the same and I do mean MORE OF THE SAME.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, get up, do things, eat, hopefully get a new galley, see if there’s mail or packages, listen, watch, and write. Today’s topic of discussion: Let’s hear more shopping adventures – that’s always fun. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, asking the age old question: Who was that masked man?