Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Mr. Jerry Goldsmith’s fun score to the motion picture The Prize. Prior to that, I began watching the final season of Adam-12, three episodes. It’s easy to see that the show was on its last legs. While they’ve often repeated stock shots in various episodes, it was only for general use and never in the various stories’ actual new footage. But here, they’re repeating shots from episode one of the final season in episode three. So far, most of it’s in North Hollywood, although I haven’t been able to really pinpoint anything, other than a store called Books for All, which I’m sure was on Lankershim north of Magnolia in an area where that side of the street is no longer recognizable at all. Prior to that, I watched the new film version of Nightmare Alley, which began life as a novel and then became a film with Tyrone Power that’s considered a minor noir classic and which planted the word geek in my vocabulary and made me realize I never wanted to become a geek. The new one is very good but like a lot of films this year, overstays its welcome by about thirty minutes (it’s two-and-a-half-hours long). Of course, they have to add backstory touches that add all that time – if they did away with those it would be a better movie, as they’re completely unnecessary, something the original novelist knew, and the original filmmakers knew. But the movie is very well directed and visually interesting and the large cast is fine. I enjoyed it very much but just wish it had been shorter. I had to stream it on the computer and I’m sure it looks great on a bigger screen. Also available to stream, which I will at some point, is The Eyes of Tammy Faye – I hear it’s not so good, but I’d like to see it anyway. And now, I must hurry these notes along because she of the Evil Eye is coming early and I must be up to greet her and leave.
Yesterday was another day in which I got almost nothing done other than help the author out with making his book look like a book. I fixed the last thing I didn’t like, which was the ragged text on the right – it only took a couple of minutes to figure out where to click to make that side “flush right” – from there, it was just doing it to the entire three-hundred-page book. I redid the front matter so that it looked a bit better, then made him a PDF. He really is grateful, and he really liked the way it looked, and I was kind of proud of myself for actually figuring out the doing of it. Anyway, I got eight hours of sleep, not arising until one because I didn’t fall asleep until five. Once up, it was a lot of e-mails to read and answer, and then I did all the book stuff, which took quite some time, had several telephonic conversations, and then did the second Gelson’s run to get the things I forgot on the first Gelson’s run. I now have everything I need for the doing of the Christmas Eve Do, so that’s good. I came right home and finally had food – once again, it was two turkey sandwiches on onion rolls with a few potato chips afterwards. That was the food intake for the day and evening. After that, I sat at the computer like so much fish and watched Nightmare Alley and then I moved to the couch and watched the three episodes of Adam-12.
Today, I’ll be up at eight-thirty and out of the house by nine. I’ll have a light breakfast somewhere, and then I’ll do stuff until I come back at noon. Once back home, I’ll choose three more songs for the January Kritzerland show, then I’ll get right to writing and try to at least get into my new sequence with three or four pages. I’d like to be finished with it by Friday before the Do. I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, and then in the evening I may watch the Tammy Faye thing or more Adam-12 episodes, whilst making the tuna pasta salad and cutting up the garlic, onions, and mushrooms for the spaghetti sauce, so that all I have to do tomorrow is begin cooking around noon.
Tomorrow, I can sleep until noon, then I’ll begin cooking the sauce and getting chairs set up and all the paper plates, napkins, and cutlery out. I’ll also write and do whatever needs doing, and then at six people start showing up and we’ll do the Do. Saturday, the Darling Daughter will be here at noon o’clock and we’ll have food and then we can do our driving around thing where we drive around. She’ll leave around three-thirty or four and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax. Sunday is a total ME day and I don’t care who knows it. And then we’re shockingly in the final week of 2021.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up at eight-thirty and out by nine, have a light breakfast, do stuff, hopefully pick up packages, write, choose songs, make tuna pasta salad and cut up various items, then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite classic film noir motion pictures? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping I never become a geek.