Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Samuel Barber’s opera, Antony and Cleopatra, which is about Antony and Cleopatra. It’s not my favorite opera by Mr. Barber, but it certainly has some beautiful things in it. And whilst it is playing, I’m doing something that I’m surprised I have never done before and that is looking at the Los Angeles Times for December 8, 1947, the year, month, and day of my very own actual birth, which was a Monday. Nice way to start a new week. Here are some things that were happening on the day of my birth (I was born very early in the morning, around six or something like that. Big front-page news was that the Republican party were throwing themselves into a campaign to elect California governor Warren to the presidency. Didn’t work out for poor Governor Warren or the Republicans, although this was the famous year when newspapers had two headlines ready – Dewey defeats Truman and Truman defeats Dewey. I think we know which headline they went with. Noted educator Dr. N.M. Butler passed away in New York around the time I was being slapped on the ASS by some doctor. Boom conditions were being predicted to continue in the New Year in every American industry. There was turmoil in Palestine. RCA scientists developed a new supersensitive electron microscope that can see inside a chocolate bar, examine the myriad threads of rayon hose and inspect the fibers of rubber tires. I wonder how many people bought one so they could see inside a chocolate bar. There were quite a few other stories on the front page, but my favorite, because it was about ME, was the news that Los Angeles’ biggest crop of babies was born that year, one every twelve-and-a-half minutes, a twelve percent increase from the previous year.
In other news, film produced Edward Jerome Peskay, 30, a motion picture producer, reported to West Hollywood Sheriff’s deputies that a gunman held him up as he left 1354 N. Harper Ave. and robbed him of seventy-five dollars. I looked up Mr. Peskay – his biggest credit, I think, was And Then There Were None, which was produced by his company, Popular Pictures, along with his partner Harry Popkin. I’m always amused in these old newspapers how they’d print the home addresses of everyone. That address is now a very large apartment building. The entirety of page three is photos and an article about – FISH. You could fly to New York on TWA for $130.15. Halibut steaks were fifty-five cents a pound at the Ralph’s. On the day of my birth it was cold in LA – fifty-nine degrees. The May Company and other LA department stores were already selling Christmas gifts. The post office was warning everyone to get their Christmas packages into the mail by December 10. In entertainment, Lili St. Cyr was back by popular demand at the Follies Burlesque downtown. Playing at the Chinese was Otto Preminger’s Daisy Kenyon. Green Dolphin Street was at the Egyptian. At the Paramount was Where There’s Life with Bob Hope, Body and Soul was playing in four theaters, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was in its third big week but would be replaced shortly by Out of the Past and Escape Me Never was at the Warner Hollywood. On stage, playing at the Biltmore Theater, where I would later see my first real Broadway musical, you could see Laraine Day and Gregory Peck in Angel Street. In Westwood, you could buy a two- bedroom house just north of Olympic for $14,950. Astonishingly, that very same house is still there and today it would sell for three dollars under two million dollars. The SAME exact house. If you were rolling in dough, you could have a very nice two-year old home in Beverlywood on Oakhurst (near where we’d move in 1963) for big dough, $37,500. Although for three grand more you could have a mansion in Hancock Park. That house is also still there and currently valued at over $2,500,000. Our house on Bolton Road in Beverlywood would today fetch just under three million. We paid $54,000. But the bargain of all time is for sale at 101 S. Larchmont. $21,500. It’s for sale right now and will only cost you four MILLION dollars.
Well, that was quite the ride, wasn’t it? Not many classic movies playing, but at least there were a couple. Can you even imagine if my father had bought in Beverlywood originally or better yet Hancock Park? Of course, he’d have made a nice profit back in the 1960s, but I want the four million. And now playing is Mr. Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written and you can hear in its opening music that it was an influence on my close personal friend, Mr. Stephen Sondheim. Stunning. I love Dawn Upshaw’s version, but I’m listening to Leontyne Price and Thomas Schippers lovely version.
Yesterday, I didn’t get to bed until five, woke up at one and went right back to sleep until three, so ten hours of very needed sleep. I had a restful day. Grant Geissman texted me asking what TV I’d recommend. I immediately sent him a link to an LG Oled I’ve been lusting after for the past year – 4K and stunning. He went right out and bought it. I went to Gelson’s – I’d decided on lox and bagels, but they didn’t have lox – it’s only every now and then that they have it and I guess yesterday wasn’t one of those days. So, I bought the macaroni noodles for tuna pasta salad along with a red onion – I had the rest of the ingredients. So, a meal that lasts two days cost me $4.95. I came home, made it, put it in the freezer to get it cold, and then had two helpings about twenty minutes later. It was really good. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture entitled Stalked by My Neighbor – could there be a stupider title, given that the neighbor does no stalking? Turns out, this is one of those Lifetime thrillers. It wasn’t very good, although it did take one left turn I didn’t see coming. It was all shot in Santa Clarita along with one scene at the old El Capitan/Hollywood Palace Theater on Vine – now Avalon. The same writer/director has done a whole series of Stalked by movies for Lifetime. Stalked by My Doctor, which alone has three sequels. Go know. Anyway, I didn’t hate this one.
After the movie, I had a long telephonic conversation, then had another with the musical director, and we mapped out the two put-togethers, so that was good. I had another helping of tuna pasta salad – that was half the batch, which is what I usually eat when I do this over two meals. And then somehow it was time to write these here notes.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven and then at noon o’clock we have our first Kritzerland rehearsal, which I’m looking forward to. After it’s done, I’ll eat the rest of the tuna pasta salad over several hours, and then I’ll write the commentary that I never got around to yesterday due to sleeping until three. After that, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow is a holiday, so I shan’t do much of anything – oh, I’ll eat and do a few little things, but mostly I’ll relax and rest my voice. And, of course, I’m hoping we can announce our three new titles. Tuesday is our second rehearsal, Wednesday I’ll rest, Thursday is our stumble-through, and Friday is sound check and show. It’s weird doing it on a Friday night, I must say and have said.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven, have a rehearsal, eat the remainder of the tuna pasta salad, write, and then watch, listen, and relax. 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 shared all the news that was fit to print, circa December 8, 1947.