Well, dear readers, before I get to yesterday, perhaps it’s time to look back at the year that was 2024, an extremely weird year any way you slice it, and I slice it in half. As always, I began writing a new book on January 1, that book being Directed by. I’d written about ten pages in advance of that, just so I’d be into it, which is always helpful. It took about three weeks to finish, and I absolutely enjoyed revisiting all the things I’ve directed as well as write about some of my director heroes. I was rather taken aback that upon its release it was number one on Amazon’s books about directors and film and it stayed number one for several days. That was a first. Unless I’m misremembering, I think February and March were rather quiet, other than a belated birthday lunch with my beloved Richard Sherman. In January, we lost the wonderful Bill Hayes, with whom I had a nice friendship and who appeared in quite a few Kritzerland shows. But what a magical life he led all the way up to 98. Most of February was spent on endless proofing and corrections for the book. And then the design. April brought with it my sudden out of the blue, gree, and red double vision. I’m still dealing with that, but hopefully the New Year it will finally be taken care of. April also brought with it the start of my social security benefits and Medicare Advantage. That was a very good thing. May saw the return of the Kritzerland shows at our new home of Catalina Bar and Grill, a Burt Bacharach show that was really fun and we had a very good crowd for it, too. And a week later, the day I’d hoped would never come, I lost one of my dearest friends and the world lost someone who made that world a brighter and more beautiful place – Richard M. Sherman. The June Kritzerland was going to be a 96th birthday show, so we turned it into a celebration of life show. I attended the funeral, which is something I rarely do – I can count on the fingers of one hand the funerals I’d been to prior to Richard’s, and the party at his house after. The Kritzerland show was one for the books – 200 people attended, we had an amazing cast, and best of all, Elizabeth was there along with daughter Vicky and other family members. I could feel him with us the entire evening. And that was the first half of the 2024. Part two tomorrow.
Yesterday, I got eight hours of sleep, obviously the insurance company was off for the weekend or maybe my gal was off for the weekend, so nothing there, I answered e-mails, and then I backed the new motor car out of the garage and finally got the remote paired with the car, so that’s done. I’m still learning the ins and outs and little by little will figure out the air-conditioning, I think I now know how to do the voice prompts thing, although I haven’t tried it yet, and am getting used to where one changes from park to reverse and drive. I went to the mail place and shipped a package, then to the dry cleaners where the bill was so high I almost plotzed on the floor – it’s because I hadn’t done dry cleaning since early in the year because I bought a lot of new clothes during various Macy’s sales. But now I have enough clothes to wear to get me through to March or April without having to dry clean. Then I went to Gelson’s and got three twelve-packs of Diet Coke – big sale, 5.99 each – I’ll go get three more today. I got a couple of other things I needed for the Do, plus they had my creamy tomato soup, so of course, I had to have a cup of that. I came home and had the soup, which was great, then ordered some silly Taco Bell food because I wanted to try their new chicken nuggets, which were surprisingly tasty and tiresome at the same time. I got the small size – five bite-sized nuggets. I also had one taco and one burrito supreme. After that, I had a long telephonic conversation, and then I sat on my couch and tried to find a motion picture to watch, but I dozed off.
I finally found a little 1987 “thriller” entitled The Stranger, starring Bonnie Bedelia and Peter Riegert. I chose it because I really like Bonnie Bedelia. Well, it’s one of the stupidest movies ever made – beyond belief, really. Some of the worst dialogue ever written, mundane direction, some truly horrible acting, a ridiculous synth score by Craig Safan, laughable situations that are supposed to be frightening. I mean, when the MacGuffin is microfilm in 1987 you know something is wrong. Ms. Bedelia can’t save it, as good as she is. Peter Riegert has, for me, always been one of the weirdest actors – it looks like he doesn’t care about anything, it’s like he just woke up or is sleep walking through the movie – I have simply never understood his appeal, but I do understand he was a flavor for a few years. He’s never really stopped working, although mostly in TV – his last feature film was in 2016. Here are some lowlights – the film purportedly takes place in a fictional California town, called Plainville. Now, there is a town called Plainville – it has a population of 949, so it ain’t the town in The Stranger. We never see the town other than a few amorphous shots and that’s because the entire film was shot in Buenos Aires. There’s a scene in a Las Vegas casino. We know that because there’s an out of focus shot of a Welcome to Las Vegas postcard. The supporting cast is mostly dubbed and very poorly at that. And then there is poor Barry Primus as a police detective, perhaps the stupidest police detective in the history of cinema and the performance is so over the top ridiculous that one begins to think that Mr. Primus thinks he’s in a comedy. Credit the director and don’t blame Barry. And, as the villain of the piece we have David Spielberg as a contract killer. He’s about the last person I would ever cast as a contract killer and it’s like watching someone play act in community theater. He’s a fine actor not cast well and then probably mis-directed, as well. I will give it a single prop for having a fun plot twist. It doesn’t save anything, but it’s fun. It’s yet another in the long line of someone sees a traumatic event and immediately has amnesia. Avoid at all costs.
After that, I had some cheese as a snack and here we are.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, it will be a ME day and I’ll see if a package I was expecting arrived after I was at the mail place yesterday. It may or may not have. I’ll do one errand – Gelson’s – to get more Diet Cokes, at some point I’ll eat something amusing, and then I’ll just watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, we need your strongest most excellent vibes and xylophones that payment two arrives – please, really send them because if this isn’t taken care of before Christmas, there will be much hell toupee. Otherwise, she of the Evil Eye comes and I’ll go have a light breakfast somewhere and then do the final little bits of shopping for the Do, probably at Ralph’s. Then I’ll come home and get the house ready, and in the evening I’ll make two batches of tuna pasta salad and get the garlic, onion, and mushrooms all sliced and diced and minced and ready for the spaghetti sauce. Tuesday, I’ll be preparing the spaghetti and sauce and at six people begin arriving. I have no idea how many are attending. But there will be photographs, oh, yes, there will be photographs. Wednesday is Christmas and the visit with the Darling Daughter for a few hours, which I’m very much looking forward to. Then the rest of the week is mine all mine.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, have a ME day, do a quick Gelson’s run, eat, 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, having had a look back at the first half of the 2024 that was.