Well, dear readers, once again it is late and so once again I must write these here notes in a hurry because they should have been posted ninety minutes ago and yet they were not posted ninety minutes ago because ninety minutes ago I was in the midst of having a late night repast with some nice folks, namely young performer Valerie Lohman, her dad, and her friend Demie. They’ve all come to Kritzerland shows and came to the LA show, and Valerie, at some point, would like to do a Kritzerland show. We had a fun time and ate fun food and watched an assortment of extremely oddball people come in and out of Jerry’s Deli. I had my usual turkey sandwich on rye and some fries – the girls both had grilled cheese sandwiches on bread sans gluten. Dad had a wrap. I would describe the conversation as somewhat irreverent or, at times, hugely irreverent. A good time was had by all and by all a good time was had. Here is an actual photograph of the gals – on the left is Demie, a smart aspiring filmmaker, and on the right is Valerie.
Prior to that, I’d had a perfectly fine day. I was up early, she of the Evil Eye came, the helper came to show her how to use the new vacuum cleaner, and then I went and had an omelet and a bagel, not necessarily in that order. Then I picked up a couple of packages, then came home and got ready for the little luncheon at which I was to give a talk.
The luncheon was fun, although I didn’t eat. They ate, these Friends of Musical Theatre, whilst I droned on for over two hours. They were most interested in my albums, so I told lots of anecdotes about them and the people I worked with, which they seemed to get a kick out of. Several folks asked good questions and I always enjoy doing these kinds of talks.
Then I came home, did some work on the computer, solved a little problem we had pertaining to a CD and then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I watched three count them three motion pictures, the three sequels to Airport. The first of them, oddly titled Airport 1975 (odd, as it came out in 1974) – this is the film that Airplane did a lot of spoofing from, but frankly I find Airport 1975 funnier because it doesn’t know it’s being funny. Helen Reddy as a singing nun is very amusing, Gloria Swanson playing Gloria Swanson telling stories to her assistant from the book she’s writing about herself, Sid Caesar as a bit player who books the flight because they’re showing a movie he’s in (what they’re actually showing is American Graffiti), Charlton Heston, Karen Black, Myrna Loy, George Kennedy (the only returning actor from the first film) and lots of others. This is the one where Karen Black has to try and fly the plane and Sid Caesar has the truly hilarious line, “The stewardess is flying the plane?” which he says in classic Caesar voice. Oh, and Linda Blair, desperately needing a kidney transplant, but looking beatific and angelic – you keep waiting for her to vomit up green liquid. It’s all very, very silly and kind of enjoyable. It’s strictly TV movie all the way – in fact, Jennings Lang found a TV movie script and decided it would be a good second entry in an Airport franchise. The transfer looks great.
Then I watched Airport ’77, the second of the sequels. This one’s just not very good and there’s nothing even that funny in it. Again an array of folks like Jack Lemmon and Joseph Cotton and Olivia de Havilland and George Kennedy (again) and Christopher Lee and poor Lee Grant, who is given the most horrid character and she has to actually play it – she’s knocked for the performance by critics, but she’s just playing what’s written. This one just goes on and on long past its expiry date.
Then it was onto the last film in the franchise, Airport ’79: Concorde. And here we hit rock bottom, here we hit the dregs, here we hit beyond bad. We’re REALLY in sub-TV movie territory here, the cast is just plain odd – Alain Delon, George Kennedy (again), Sylvia Kristel, Jimmy J.J. Walker, Charo (I kid you not), John Davidson (really smarmy), Andrea Marcovicci (as a twenty-four year-old Gold Medal gymnast in the Olympics!), Susan Blakely, Robert Wagner – the plot is incomprehensible, it’s not one of those so bad its funny movies – it’s just bad. And they don’t even bother keeping the one returning character consistent – prior to this, George Kennedy has a wife and, I believe, five kids. He also gets to say one of the worst lines of dialogue ever to be spoken in a film. One of the stewardesses says that the flight deck is so male, to which Kennedy replies, “They don’t call it the cockpit for nothing, honey?” In the second sequel his wife and one kid is on the plane. In this film, his wife has died and his son, presumably the nine-year-old from the previous film has begun college, no mean feat two years later. The transfer is not great, but then again the film never looked good as it’s loaded with truly terrible effects and opticals. As a matter of interest, the year when this came out was the same year I did my CBS pilot playing George Kennedy’s son.
Then we had our little late-night repast and then I came home and here I am now writing these here notes.
Today, I shall prepare all the eBlast stuff and announcement stuff for the new CD, but other than that, I’m just relaxing because starting tomorrow things are really busy. I’ll eat something at some point, and then I’ll watch some motion pictures.
This week is all about finishing casting the August Kritzerland, finishing choosing the songs and getting everyone their music, announcing the new CD, hopefully shipping the LA show cast album, casting the ALS benefit, meetings, meals, and seeing a couple of things.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, prepare everything for Monday morning’s CD announcement, eat, 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 postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall, at one point, undoubtedly say, “They don’t call it the cockpit for nothing, honey?”