Well, dear readers, the day is done, the night is almost done, and I, too, am almost done. In fact, I’m done being almost done. I am weary of ailments, oh, yes, I am weary of ailments. I say begone ail and ments. Thankfully, the plethora of pills has definitely helped the eyes and the speech and that’s wonderful. But this past week I think my allergies have stepped it up a notch – a bit of shortness of breath – that kind of thing. I just want all of it to begone. Gone with the wind. Gone girl. Otherwise, I did watch a new documentary on Prime/HBO MAX entitled Paddy Chayefsky – Collector of Words. It’s a lovely look at a brilliant writer. There is a LOT of Network in it and my only nitpick is I would have liked more on his live TV work – we basically only get Marty and that’s mostly the movie. I was happy they spent a few minutes on his play The Tenth Man, my very first playgoing experience, which I loved. His other Broadway work after that didn’t fare very well, but his screenplay for The Americanization of Emily was stellar and I must find that Blu-ray and watch it again. We get nothing from Bachelor Party and The Catered Affair. After Emily, he did some screenplays that were not used (The Cincinnati Kid, Paint Your Wagon), but then he bounced back with The Hospital, a big hit and his second Oscar for writing (he won for Marty). And then – Network and another Oscar – the only solo-credited writer to win three Oscars for writing. Others won three but had a co-writer for at least one. Then came Altered States, first as a novel, then as film, but that was an unhappy experience, and he took his name off as writer of the screenplay. He passed away at fifty-eight. He, Bob Fosse, and Herb Gardner were best friends and had offices next to each other. Fosse did a tap dance at the funeral, something he’d promised Chayefsky he’d do. Anyway, it was a good job and the only person in it I could not stomach was Sam Wasson, who wrote an endless tome about Fosse as well as Fosse/Verdon, which I loathed. Cannot stand him or his writing. I also finished the last thirty minutes of The Boys from Brazil – I do wish it were better than it is – it’s a great book and should have been a great movie. The “boys” of the title are played by one newcomer who is simply not up to the role. And right now, I’m listening to Jerry Goldsmith’s score, which is brilliant.
Earlier, I got about six and a half hours of sleep, heard from my gal at the publisher and got the story of why she hadn’t responded – and that will never ever happen again. Apparently, I raised quite the ruckus. I still have to converse with the content person, but we’re holding firm, and I’ll simply keep hammering home about other celebrity memoirs and the astonishing fact that these overseas people they use use AI to alert them to copyright issues – I mean, really? AI? What does that stand for? Asinine Idea? I’m hoping she’s been spoken to, and we can just proceed – and it’s helpful that the eBook is now available on Amazon – they had no problem with the content. Anyway, glad my gal will no longer have to abide by this silliness – she was very upset that she could not contact me. Bottom line, if there’s still trouble in paradise, they’ll refund the author her dough and we’ll do it all on Amazon, although it’s a pain because the copyright page will have to be redone, as well as the back cover to add a bar code. But I’m hopeful it can proceed as planned.
After that, I went to the nearby blood draw placed. I checked in at the kiosk for my 12:10 appointment. There were a few folks there sans appointment who’d been waiting for two hours. Thankfully, I got in pretty quickly at around 12:20. Once in, it was very quick, and the gal did a very good job – didn’t even feel the needle go in. After that, I went to the mail place and picked up the painting package, then came right home. The painting is in perfect condition and lovely – it’s not huge or anything, so I should be able to find a nice home for it on one of the walls. My part of the trade had already gotten where it needed to go, so that’s all done now. I had a chopped Eyetalian salad from CPK for food – it was good, not great – and then I followed along on a book auction – lots of good deals to be had, but there was nothing for me.
Then I did some work on the computer, booked our sound guy for the play, so that’s good news, dozed off for a couple of hours, for the snack I had a chicken breast from California Chicken Café, all pills were taken – in fact, I just took pill three after an English muffin. After the documentary and The Boys from Brazil, I did a little checking on Ira Levin on eBay. When we did Drat! The Cat! the CD, you could still get any Levin first edition cheap, even Rosemary’s Baby never ever brought more than seventy-five bucks or so. The only one that went for more was his first and even that could be had for a hundred bucks. Those days are gone. A signed copy of Rosemary’s is going for $2,800 now – from there it goes down, with the cheapest being around three hundred bucks, but I must tell you that there are no fine copies anywhere, and the ones on eBay I wouldn’t even have on my shelf. I do wonder what they’d sell mine for – fine cover, near fine book, and a long inscription from Ira to me.
Then I always look at the firsts of The Stepford Wives, more novella than novel at 144 pages. The copies of that are pretty ratty, too. But that book has an interesting history – Random House clipped all the jackets pretty severely and added a round sticker with the price of $4.95. I spent two decades looking for one that had escaped the clip and the price sticker, but in the end I resigned myself that there were not copies that had escaped. Until the day I found two – one on eBay and one in a store. I couldn’t believe it. The original price was $5.95, but I guess they decided that was too much for such a short book. I am, as far as I know, the ONLY person to have an unclipped copy. I sold the other one for quite a bit of money.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll hopefully hear from the content woman and hopefully we can get past the silliness and just get the thing done – I can always go back to my folks and see if they can just override. I’ll eat something light, do further research on Zepbound and see if my PCP can get me a prescription if he deems it safe, otherwise I’ll just do stuff on the computer and try to get some outside folks to audition for us, and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
The weekend is pretty open and I’m happy to have ME days. Then next week are more auditions and callbacks, I should get more tracks, and I’m sure there’ll be some meetings and meals.
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, hopefully hear from the content woman and get things sorted out, eat, research, do stuff on the computer, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray/streaming player? I’ll start – CD, the soundtrack to The Americanization of Emily – wonderful. Blu-ray, I have no idea. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have finally figured out what AI really stands for: Asinine Idea.