RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK
Just before my friend Edi brought her dog Bunny over to my house for movie night Saturday night, little “Bun Bun” got a bath. And she doesn’t look the slightest bit happy about it!
Anxious to get Christmas music out of my head, I was delighted to see this bit at the end of a movie we screened last Saturday night called “The Groove Tube.” I hadn’t seen this movie since I rented it at the local video store back in 1980! There’s lots of funny/brilliant/genius stuff in this movie, but I forgot how much this bit made me smile. It’s Ken Shapiro (the dancing guy in the video) singing the jazz classic“Just You, Just Me.” Just TRY not to smile!
Monday the 24th – CHRISTMAS EVE! – I woke up early afternoon and opened the shades. It was a beautifully sunny day. The rain was gone. My pal Edi called and wanted to bring a gift over. So I took Roxy for a walk and came back inside to do some work until she got there. A shipment of action figures I had ordered were waiting for me on my doorstep, so I delighted in opening those and putting them in the display cases. Edi dropped by with her gift and we decided to take off for lunch. But first I had to stop at the local Goodwill to look for a few items to dress a character bust I was doing for a friend. We decided lunch would be at In ‘N’ Out burger, so we headed over there, got an order and ate it in my car as we listened to Christmas music on the radio. Then we went over to my church to see the Living Nativity, complete with a donkey, sheep and goats! I wanted to get back over to the “Christmas House” I had seen a few days earlier in Burbank. So we dashed over there and tuned in the radio to 107.9 to listen to the music that the lights on the house were synced up to. It’s an amazing presentation! The whole thing runs about 20 minutes, then cycles through to the beginning again. I put the top down in my Mustang so I could enjoy the light show unencumbered by dirty glass on my windshield. On the way back to my house we stopped at McDonald’s and got ice cream cones. I dropped Edi at her car so she could go get her daughter, then I went inside to feed Spook and grab a few hours’ worth of “Christmas Nappies” on the couch by the fire with the pets, while the Christmas music played softly on the satellite. I woke up around 10:15, got dressed and met up with my friends Josh, Edi and her daughter Emily. We headed over to my church for the Christmas Eve candlelight service. It never disappoints! An amazing experience always! I bid everyone “Happy Christmas” (in the words of John Lennon) and headed back home to walk Roxy, take care of a few things around the house, and make some dinner. When I walked in from church, I managed to catch the last 2 minutes of “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Andy Williams, my favorite Christmas song. I first heard it this season at the Coral Café just after midnight on Thanksgiving Eve. And now, almost as if to bookend my Christmas season, I hear it again! Awesome! I settled into bed to watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and another episode of “Mannix.”
Tuesday the 25th – HAPPY CHRISTMAS! – I slept well into the afternoon, and woke up with my cat Spooky curled up beside me on my bed. I went downstairs to see Roxy, feed them a snack and walk Roxy around the neighborhood. It was a gray day, but fairly warm and nice. I came back inside and set about doing work around the house. Work like organizing files, cleaning my desk, cleaning and organizing drawers. I spent all afternoon doing work in my sweats to Christmas music and it was very pleasant! Then I got ready for dinner with friends. My effects guy Jim Ojala had invited my friends and I to a Christmas Day feed at The Smokehouse, so I invited Edi and her daughter Emily, and my pals Scott and Vickie Sebring. It was a wonderful evening with great food and friends. Then I drove Scott and Vickie by the Christmas House in Burbank and we watched the lights. Then we drove over to my house and Scott helped me put the finishing touches on my Roxy picture book that I was making through My Publisher. But Vickie had to work in the morning so they took off and I continued working around the house. I couldn’t stay up all night like I wanted because I had an early meeting the next day with my accountant to talk about my tax situation for the new year. But as Christmas 2012 wound down, it was a fantastic one! I had steak for dinner, not my traditional Christmas ham. So I made sure to have a ham sandwich and tomato soup before bed while watching “Mannix.” Hey, I’m a bit of a traditionalist. What can I say?
Wednesday the 26th – CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN! – I got up early for a meeting with my accountant David Arntzen, at the Business Management Office in North Hollywood. I’ve been considering starting Planet Wallywood, Inc. for a while now – but the ins and outs and ups and downs of incorporating are very confusing! I think I left more confused than when I arrived at the meeting. In need of some lunch, I drove through the Taco Bell drive-thru, and then went to the hardware store to pick up some items for around the house. I got back just in time to meet with the guys from Chem Dry to get my carpets cleaned. After all of the traffic, rain, pet accidents, etc. – it was definitely time! In order to make sure Roxy wasn’t in the way, I took her over to the groomer’s so she could get a much-needed bath. It looked like the rainy spell was done for awhile, so I’m looking forward to getting the Gran Torino out for a few days and driving it around town. When the cleaners finished I hopped in my car and drove over to my mailbox to get my mail. I grabbed some quick food at the McDonald’s drive-thru and headed back over to Rusty’s to pick up Roxy. Then we went home and I took some “Christmas Nappies.” It was tough on Roxy because the carpet was still a little wet from the cleaning. But between laying on the marble entry way, her vinyl beanbag chair and the floor, she did fine. But I can honestly say that I’m ready to big adieu to this year’s Christmas season. I’m starting to hear the same songs over and over on the satellite, so I think I’m going to retire the Christmas music and nappies for this year. I woke up later in the evening and did a bunch of work around the house. I breezed through my garage and did a bit of cleaning and organizing. I cleaned out a cabinet full of plastic and glass jars and containers. The glass containers I kept because they come in handy when mixing paints, solvents and thinners, but the plastic ones had to go to the recycling bin. I filled up my entire recycling bin with the plastic containers, and I had a real sense of accomplishment after I did it. So, since the garbage man was coming the next morning, once I got my trash container and my recycling container completely filled, I decided to call it a night. Once the bins are empty, I can start anew tomorrow with my “end-of-the-year-beginning-of-the-year-cleansing” project.
Thursday the 27th – HALF OVER?! – It’s hard to believe my awesome 11 day break is over halfway done! Yikes! I got up around noon and snuggled on the bed with the pets for awhile, then I got up to put another layer of patch stuff on the crack in my tub. My master bathroom is going to get a full-on make-over in the first part of the new year, but until then I need to keep the crack in my old bathtub sealed. I took Roxy for a walk, then was on the phone with Sean my computer guy for a little bit to work on a back-up storage problem. Then I hit the road and headed for Regenix at Cedars-Sinai for a follow-up visit. Everything looked good and microscopically Gregg saw a lot of new growth! I grabbed a tuna melt in the Cedars deli and hit the road to It’s a Wrap in Beverly Hills. Nothing there tweaked me, so I headed on down the road. There were a lot of my regular Christmas songs I hadn’t heard yet this year, so I plugged in my i-Pad and listened to them in the car while I drove home. Then, I think I’ll have had my fill of Christmas music for this year. Time to move on. I got home and fed the cat, and walked Roxy. I grabbed a nap for a few hours, then got up to work all night around the house. I went back out into the garage and did some more sorting and organizing. I filled up my recycling bin with more stuff, and I hit the hay around 6am Friday morning.
Friday the 28th – NERD FUN! – I got up and took care of the pets, then I headed out to Malibu to hang out with my friend Mark. He’s been an actor for a long time, and he has the same interests I do in odd TV shows, movies and the like. I took some DVDs out to his place and we spent the afternoon and early evening viewing oddities. We watched an episode of an old cartoon called “The Mighty Heroes,” then we watched a DVD set of old commercials from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. It was all going well until one of HIS old commercials came on! What a surprise! I had no idea it was even on that set, but there it was! A 70’s public service announcement for the March of Dimes! He called in his wife and daughter to see it. Of all the weird coincidences! We watched a little bit of a Dinah Shore compilation, and a DVD about the TV horror host Zacherley. It was fun to hang out with a fellow nerd (I call it a “kin-nerd” spirit) but it was getting late and I had to go feed the cat and walk the dog. So I took off for home. Once I got there I grabbed a few hours’ worth of sleep. When I got up I kept up with my cleaning project. I completely gutted my big bookshelf. The shelves were starting to sag under the extreme weight of all my books. I also had a ton of scripts in the case as well. Scripts of shows I’ve worked on, a few I had written, some that had been given to me, and scripts of feature films I liked. I decided I no longer needed quick access to them in my bedroom, so I purged the case of all the scripts and put them in boxes in the garage for storage. This gave me extra room for actual books! Plus, my contractor Terry built me several shelves to replace the ones that were sagging. These were solid, heavy duty shelves that wouldn’t sag under the weight. I cleaned out all 6 shelves, and reorganized the books. While I was doing this, I started dubbing some old VHS tapes of home movies on to DVD. I got two discs done while I was working in my room. I decided that I needed to purchase a shelf cabinet for the wall next to the bookcase, so I could hold supplies. Like boxes of microwave popcorn for TV Time, bottled water, remotes for my A/V equipment, and odds and ends. Next time Terry comes over I’m going to give him the dimensions and see what he can come up with. But I think this will solve a storage problem I’ve been having. All of the aforementioned items usually ended up on the bookshelves, but in an effort to keep it streamlined, I want to keep the bookshelf just for books. And I can keep the other utilities and necessities in the shelf cabinet behind a door. It’ll keep it clean looking. But it was quite a job lugging all those heavy scripts down the stairs, the lugging the new shelves back upstairs. Then lugging the old shelves downstairs, and then stashing all the books in the shelves! But the effort was all worth it. It looked great! I promised myself I would make a Chef Boy Ar Dee pizza for dinner, so I did. Then I settled in to watch another “Mannix” episode. I didn’t get to bed until about 9:30am Saturday morning, but I got to go to sleep to the sounds of an amazing thunderstorm! They’re rare in Los Angeles, so I have to enjoy them when they come!
Saturday the 29th – WINDING DOWN THE WEEK, THE YEAR! – I slept fairly late in the afternoon, and took off to meet some friends from San Francisco at Paty’s in Toluca Lake. My assistant Sara joined us, and we had a fun time catching up. I stopped by my mail place to get some mail, and then headed to the grocery store to pick up some soda for the evening’s movies. I got back and tidied up the place, just in time for guests to arrive. We watched one of the best Laurel and Hardy shorts called “Thicker Than Water.” Then we watched an annual favorite in Planet Wallywood that we play at Christmas time. If you haven’t seen “Love Actually,” RUN don’t walk to see it! It’s an amazing film and one of my all-time favorites. Like “Wizard of Oz,” I consider “LA” to be a PERFECT movie. Then we watched a strange film from the early 70’s called “The Groove Tube.” I had enjoyed this film back in the early 80’s on VHS with my pals, and it was good to see it again after so many years. When the guests left I cleaned up, and then walked and fed Roxy. I did some more work around the house and heated the remaining pieces of my Chef Boy Ar Dee pizza from the previous night and watched another “Mannix” episode!
Sunday the 30th – TICK! TOCK! TICK! TOCK! – As the clock of 2012 ticks away its remaining hours, I’m cautiously optimistic about 2013 being a pretty good year. 13 has always been a lucky number for me, so I hope my luck holds out. I got up mid-afternoon and met my pals Edi, Emily and Sara for lunch at Panera. Then I got some supplies at the store and headed home to grab some sheet music for a song I would be singing at church, and my dog Roxy. It was a chilly afternoon, but we walked (hastily) over to church to begin rehearsal for the evening service. Roxy loves going to church and even perks up at the mention of it. My old pal Janis Liebhart was one of the guest singers at church, so it was fun catching up with her. We used to sing comedy songs all those years ago at the Cutler Comedy Network and the Premiere Radio Network. What a surprise it was seeing her! We rehearsed my song “What a Wonderful World,” (made famous by Louis Armstrong) and then waited for the service to start at 5:30. Roxy was having a blast, especially when Emily, Edi and Sara showed up. The song went very well, and kept with the theme of looking forward with positivity to the new year. All of the year end specials I had been seeing on TV focused on the negative aspects of 2012 (of which there were MANY!), but I thought that performing a song that focused on the simple, positive aspects of life on Earth would be a nice way to look at things and change the perspective. The song went off without a hitch, and the service was terrific. When we finished we met up with my pal Amanda and we all went to see if the “Christmas House” was still active. We piled into Edi’s SUV and drove by. We parked out front and watched the entire 15 minute presentation. The girls were amazed! Here’s a short clip of the finale of the program the lights on the “Christmas House” danced to. I MUST remember to write those people a letter and thank them for the great entertainment!
The Christmas House in Burbank with its music and lights display
Then we went over to the Coral Café for a bite, and there we saw my old pal Bob Burns, his wife Kathy and their pal Pat. We chatted for about 15 minutes (I told them they MUST go to the “Christmas House!”) and then the girls and I ordered our food. Bob has one of the best (if not THE best) collection of Hollywood memorabilia (horror and sci-fi) in the world, and he invited me over to see his latest acquisitions. I can’t wait! It sounds like he’s gotten in a ton of new stuff! It sure was nice seeing Bob again. He has had some health issues lately, but both he and Kathy looked awesome! The girls and I had a great dinner with lots of laughs, and then we took off to my house by way of McDonald’s to grab some ice cream cones. Why in the 41 degree evening I wanted an ice cream cone I’ll never know. But it just sounded so good! We got home and hung out with the pets for awhile, and then I set about doing some work around the house. I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to be very productive this evening. It was just so much fun lounging around goofing off. I guess you need those nights every once in awhile! I ate my leftovers from the Coral Café and watched another “Mannix” episode.
And how was YOUR week??!!
