Wednesday and Pugsley

And, of course, there's me...Cousin Itt.

---I love the news from those screwballs at Habitats for Humanity. Those idiots commandeered by Jimmy Carter who built a bunch of houses from scratch.

---Well, most of them have fallen down by now. Those still standing are full of insects and mildew.

---Because when you want an expert carpenter, the first call should not be to one of the worst Presidents in American History.

---A lot of Jimmy's helpers were Hollywood set builders and they're used to erecting only the fronts of buildings. Plus everything they work on is constructed to last no more than one week past the wrap party.

---There was a rise in emergency room visits during the holidays as multiple assholes injured themselves trying to get Wii fit.

---Suggestion from Yours Truly: If you have trouble turning a page in a book, you probably shouldn't be doing aerobics on command from your computer.

---Show of hands, please: Who really gives a shit about what those Obama kids had for lunch on their first day at school?

---How the hell do you make fun of a fellow classmate if there's a Secret Service agent hovering nearby? Takes all the excitement out of grade school.

---And forget about stealing their clothes during gym class.

---Al Franken is going to the Senate. This just goes to show that strung-out cokeheads can have a future.

---I was startled by Caroline Kennedy's recent TV interview. Who knew that the brother was the smarter of the two?

---Of course, an IQ is not necessary to become the Democratic senator from NY. That bunch would find some rationale to elect Adolf Hitler if he was in the party.

---"Well, after all, art school can be very demanding."

---"The hair and moustache isn't that bad."

---"One million or so Jews exterminated? An isolated incident and obviously a rush to judgment."

---Watching the Kennedy Center Honors as I do every year, it was amazing to see just how far they sat Streisand away from the President.

---Bush seemed to be segregated at the end as if he got a bum deal on Stubhub.

---Babs looked awful on camera. I guess that's what happens when you dine with Republicans.

---When is Oprah going to do Jenny Craig?

---I meant the diet, not the woman.

Well, if my New Year's resolution was to be less nasty in 2009, I guess I barely made it to one week.

Dinner last night: Bacon and cheese omelette at the Cheesecake Factory.

Earthquake! - A Photo Essay

If the title of today's entry gave you a jolt, don't sweat it. You didn't miss any breaking news from CNN.

What you did miss last week was a great reminder of why film buffs should live in Los Angeles. Because there is no other city in this country that has the ability to do what the American Cinematheque and the stately but recently renovated Egyptian Theater movie palace did for its members. An opportunity to once again see the epic disaster movie "Earthquake" complete with the Academy Award winning Sensurround process that shook movie houses to their rafters when it was originally released in 1974. Who knew that a 35 year-old movie would become the highlight of my holiday vacation?

And people welcomed this film's return with very open arms. The theater was packed. While I was in the lobby before the movie, I heard the theater manager telling ticketbuyers on the end of the line "sorry, no dice." It was a gala night, almost as if you were attending the original world premiere. And, frankly, I can't remember whether the Yonkers Central Plaza complex (where I think I first saw "Earthquake") even had the Sensurround hook-up. But, in Hollywood, all is possible. In 1974. And in 2009.

Before we go over the screening, let's look at some of the sights (and my digital pictures) of the Egyptian Theater, first built in the 1920s and now brought back to ever loving life in the new century. Here's another delicious Len Speaks photo essay. Of course, when you go to the Egyptian on Hollywood Boulevard, make sure you don't walk past it.Because you would then run into this ultra creepy Christmas display sponsored by the Scientologists.

Of course, with this brightly lit marquee, it is impossible to miss the Egyptian. Unless, of course, you're either blind or from Oklahoma.

The parking lot for the Egyptian is behind the theater and it's always a curiosity. If you get there early before the film for perhaps a bite to eat, the parking is ten bucks, gleefully taken by some Russian thief who sits there all night with a portable Direct TV hook-up.

After the movie, the price has remarkably gone up five dollars, primarily because Vladimir the thief is trying to price-gouge the twenty-something nightclub goers on the next block.

The stately courtyard of the Egyptian Theater, lovingly restored to its glory days.

There's a very bizarre sign in the box office window. Frankly, it's okay with me if the theater management deigns to be discriminating. But, just how bad a character are you if they refuse your admission to a movie??

If you're French and don't speak English, have no fear. The Egyptian had a poster outside customized just for you. Sorry, but Jerry Lewis was apparently not available to be in the "Earthquake" cast.

Good news. English is also spoken at the Egyptian.

Complete with this warning from the film's original release. So, if you're one of the lucky ones that the Egyptian will let in despite their posted right to refuse service to you, they still don't give a shit if the sound system makes you puke on the person in front of you.

Indeed, the Sensurround process used the other night is not as elaborate as you think. Essentially, the bass is turned up on the subwoofers and you pretty much feel like your noisy neighbors are having another one of their loud parties. The turned up volume shakes the theater and that gives you the sensation of an earthquake. Every time they used it last weekend, the sellout crowd applauded wildly, despite being told beforehand that there was a devastating shaker earlier that day in Indonesia. Of course, given the building codes in that country, a 7.5 earthquake probably results in property damage of about six bucks.

The audience was primed for fun right from the first frame of the Universal Studios logo. Okay, truth be told, "Earthquake" is a bad movie. The script is ridiculous. The casting suggests that the director was strung out on LSD when auditions were held. A bloated Ava Gardner, at the age of 50, plays Lorne Greene's daughter and he's only 7 years older at the time. Indeed, he looks the most fit of anybody in the cast, but, without Hoss and Little Joe around to help, he dies from a heart attack after lowering his entire office staff down the side of a building with some pantyhose. Charlton Heston's toupee appears crooked in one scene where he is hiding under a jeep. Victoria Principal, in one of her first screen roles, sports an Afro wig from the Angela Davis collection. George Kennedy, in his pre-Breath Asure days, always appears as if he just ate some bad Yankee Pot Roast at the commissary. And, of course, evangelist Marjoe Gortner begins and ends his ignoble film career by playing a crazed National Guardsman and looks like he's prepping for a role in "Kent State: The Movie."

Yet, amid all this mess, "Earthquake" remains a classic. Decades before CGI, the special effects are real and remarkable. Ultimately, a good script and decent acting are not needed in this film. All you really want is a couple of good shakes and some styrofoam boulders landing on a bunch of bit players and "Earthquake" does deliver just that. Last weekend's crowd cheered every time one of the cast members made their first appearance on screen. Even veteran character Lloyd Nolan got a hand when he finally showed up as a doctor in the third act. (I don't think I've ever seen him play anything but a physician)

The biggest ovation was accorded the then-young co-star Genevieve Bujold who introduced the screening in person. She talked glowingly of the film's cast and then extolled "God bless cinema and long live Barack Obama!" I'm still puzzled by the connection, unless, of course, the incoming President will be played on-screen by Tyler Perry. But, to her credit, Genevieve climbed to a seat and watched the entire movie with us.
And then she greeted all fans with hands in the lobby afterwards.

"Earthquake" is a lousy movie from the days when Hollywood even made those types of films better. At the end of the evening, I had enjoyed two hours of campy entertainment in a type of movie palace that is long gone in most other areas of the country. With an audience that appreciated both the movie and the venue.

My film appreciation shaken to the core one more time.

Dinner last night: Homemade pot roast with mashed potatoes and roasted carrots.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - January 5, 2009

Watch out for falling temperatures...and weathermen.

Dinner last night: Meatloaf dinner at Cafe 50s.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - Tuffy and Me

If you remember the yellowed picture of me and Santa Claus, you would also conclude that jaundice was contagious in my childhood home, even afflicting the family dog. Although I do remember the kitchen linoleum in this photo getting that yellow, compliments of my mom's two packs a day of Kents.
When I saw "Marley and Me" the other day, my mind raced back to my dog. The only dog I ever had. A chubby little beagle named Tuffy, which I got for my ninth birthday. Oddly enough, the deliberation for a dog in our household started many months before. First off, there were the worries that Grandma downstairs wanted nothing to do with some "cayoodle." And, right up until that February day, the breed of choice was supposed to be a Schnauzer. That was my mother's vote and, of course, her ballot ruled in our democracy. I didn't really care. I just wanted a dog all to myself.
So, given Schnauzergate, you can imagine my surprise (and my mother's probably disdain) when I came home from school on my birthday to find this beagle sitting in a box in the kitchen. My father was part-timing as an oil delivery guy and one of his clients was a pet shop. The owner engineered a slick deal. We got this full-bred beagle for twenty-five bucks. At that price, even my mother didn't have a hind leg to stand on in an argument.
The christening of the dog was left up to me and she wound up with a new name on a weekly basis. Nothing stuck well until I hit on "Tuffy." Now, one of my neighborhood chums had told me (perhaps as a goof) that the way you get a dog to remember her name is by constantly whispering it into the dog's ear. Which I did repeatedly for a month, much to Tuffy's ultimate annoyance. By the time I was done, Tuffy would not only remember her name but also the entire CBS primetime lineup.
Of course, "my sister" and I were inseparable that first year. Tuffy slept in a blanketed box in the kitchen and she was chained to the radiator. In the morning, my mother would let Tuffy off her leash and she would race down to my bedroom and hop on my bed and then immediately hop off. That was how I woke up for school until I graduated from high school.
Of course, our first separation was painful, more so for Tuffy than me. The time had come for her to be, ahem, fixed. She would be overnighted at the vet and I tearfully said goodbye to her as I left for school in the morning. In my young mind, one too many medical dramas on TV had convinced me that most surgeries were not successful. Later that day at school, I started to feel sick myself and wound up napping at the nurse's office. One call to home revealed that my symptoms were paralleling what my dog was going through. I never did get to go home early that day. Mothers and school nurses somehow had amazing networks of collusion.
Tuffy and I would walk the neighborhood for hours on the weekend. Once I put her in the refrigerator, as if she would tell me whether the light goes out or not. Whatever I cooked up for Tuffy, she never flinched. Not only a good dog, but a great sport. And then there were days where all we needed was a rubber ball or a knotted-up old sock for fun.
As I got older and had a wider scope of a life, Tuffy was less in mine. And, oddly enough, with me busy and my folks at work, the tightest bond that formed in our household was between my grandmother and Tuffy. Of course, the major force of attraction was food. My grandmother cooked it. Tuffy ate it. Indeed, even if the door to my grandmother's part of the house was closed, Tuffy could use her paws to open it like clockwork. At 430PM when Grandma was chowing down on her supper. And then Tuffy got to lick the plates.
In a way, Tuffy wound up being the replacement for my grandfather in Grandma's world. Actually, Tuffy was the last thing he saw before he died. When his health was failing, he would simply sit in his favorite living room chair. When his breathing would become labored, you could hear him exhale two rooms away. I was not there for this, but my grandmother did relay this story to me. Tuffy was sitting next to Grandpa and would cock her head to hear every one of his rales. My grandmother noticed this.
"Pop, Tuffy is listening to you breathe."
My grandather strained to lean forward and look at Tuffy. He smiled. Then he sat back and closed his eyes for the last time. Of course, when the paramedics came, Tuffy was beside herself and I was entrusted to hold her in the locked bathroom upstairs until they left. I remember holding her very tight that afternoon. Not so much for the paramedics. For me.
Later on, Grandma talked regularly to the beagle as her new daily companion, frequently in German. And they matched up their schedules together. When my grandmother was watching her afternoon soap operas, Tuffy was lying in the living room. When it was summertime and my grandmother was watching the neighborhood from the yard or the porch, Tuffy was lying alongside her chair. Only at night did Tuffy retire to the second floor---her original home.
Amazingly, Tuffy was around for 17 years. By the end, her back legs were failing. And there was a tumor on her jaw. Both my dad and my grandmother were convinced that the vet could do something. But, I was wise at the age of 26.
"It's time."
I made the decision no one else could muster. And, rightfully so, because even then, after many years of being together and apart, Tuffy was my dog.
Dinner last night: Sausage caccatiore at Miceli's.

How a President Ages

New year, but same jokes. We're back in action, folks.

It's amazing to see how a President ages considerably over the term of his office.

And, of course, with computers, we can peek into the years ahead and see how the future will deal with the physical appearances of President-elect Obama and his First Lady, Michelle.

Dinner last night: Grilled steak sandwich at Magnolia.

My NY Homestead - A Photo Essay

The bi-coastal Len opens up one of the doors where his head hits the pillow. Granted this isn't Jackie Kennedy giving you a tour of the White House. But, still, I thought you might enjoy these snapshots of my second home in Yonkers, New York.

This sign heralds your entry into the complex. Well, we're not exactly on the river's edge. More like we're on a hill that overlooks a major road that runs parallel to the Hudson River. The only thing missing from this entrance is some chump in a Beefeater's costume. Our apartment is in the middle of the Lenoir Nature Preserve and, frequently, you see deer roaming around the parking lot. And, from time to time, you have to slam on your brakes as said deer suddenly dart across the road. Stupid, stupid animals.

Our outdoor pool which used to be quite refreshing during the summer. In the background is the Hudson River and then New Jersey. It's not a lap pool but certainly one that can give you some exercise. Until, of course, some deer darts across your swim lane.

The front of the building and, in the event you didn't see the other sign when you drove in, the complex is called "Riveredge!" We're on the border of Yonkers and Hastings. As a matter of fact, you can sleep in Yonkers at night and then swim in the pool the next morning---and that happens to be in Hastings. Of course, during the winter, neither city's sanitation department wants to claim responsiblity for snow plowing so the building maintenance staff has their own equipment.

I saw this car in the parking lot during my December trip and I couldn't resist. I can never understand people who actually decorate their cars for the holidays. This person is as stupid as that deer who keeps running in front of automobiles entering the complex.

The corridors of the building itself are named North and South Hall, which gives the illusion of academia. After this rather austere look, you're even doubly surprised when you see your fellow neighbors grappling over how to work the washing machines in the laundry room. By the by, I am 4-B.

And, in case, you thought I was lying, this is the door to 4-B. You'll notice the classy hallways. Two days after I bought the place in 1993, we were hit with an assessment to have those halls refurbished. The sellers claimed they didn't know. Uh-huh.

Once you swing open the front door, you are immediately plunged into the living room. It's not a huge place---about 850 square feet. Of course, it's fully furnished as I moved virtually no furniture when I moved to Los Angeles. Always fully loaded on the tech side with cable, DVD, etc.. Frequent readers to this blog already know that I am not normal.

The view from my wraparound terrace, which is amazing during the summer and the fall. And, yes, you frequently see, ahem, deer walking by.

The so-called dining area complete with the kitchen cabinet from my childhood home. My mother always reminded me how expensive it was, so the voices from beyond still prevent me from getting rid of it. Note the clown figurines which also populate much of the apartment. My mother had a clown collection and always reminded me how expensive it was, so....blah, blah, blah.

The galley kitchen which, even Carol Brady would admit, badly needs an updating. The appliances are modern. The countertops are circa Jimmy Carter. I will get around to it as a sprucing up would only jack up a selling price. When I first moved in, the whole apartment needed a makeover. As I am about as handy with a hammer as Stevie Wonder, I needed help. Actually, I needed to hire somebody so I didn't have to lift a finger. At that time, my mother was friendly with some neighbors in her building---a lesbian couple who were the stereotypical handypeople. So, for a month of weekends, I would leave for several movies while this gaggle of four or five lesbians descended upon my place for the extreme makeover. Only I would hire such a contracting crew.

A very small room on the other side of the kitchen has always served me well as an office. Note the laptop is open as I am ready to do one more blog entry for you. As we head over to the other side of the apartment, we will be skipping the bathroom. Trust me. Another upgrade is pending.

Lastly, here is the single bedroom. A nice size and that's my father's recliner. He said it was expensive so...well, you know. You'll notice plants all over the house. My very kind neighbors upstairs also double as caretakers with watering, minor repairs, etc.. They also use my kitchen as an extended baking facility, so I often come home to what smells like the Entenmann's factory. But, I couldn't be bi-coastal without them. And they always make me homemade granola.

Hope you enjoyed this. Watch out for deer crossing.

Dinner last night: Grilled chicken and homemade risotto.

Happy New Year and The Future of this Blog

Happy 2009!

The more astute readers of Len Speaks will notice that this picture has been showing up in my profile for a month or so. I finally decided to use it here primarily because I am slowly coming out of the internet shadows. Most of you know what I look like anyway. Those of you who haven't seen me in a number of years can be assured that you still haven't: this picture was taken at least seven years ago. But, I really don't look that much different today and this is probably one of the only good pictures I have ever taken, although my hair stylist these days is much better. I use it here because it exemplifies my bi-coastal lifestyle, my humor, and also includes some terrific product placement for Coca-Cola.

This picture now symbolizes some more peeling back of the curtain that will unfold in this blog over the next several months. There will be more memories and older pictures which I will fish out of my NY apartment archives for use here. The Sunday Memory Drawer has emerged as a bottomless well of lifetime images that are effectively forming here my memoirs. But, unfortunately, I will, from time to time, run dry of funny things my parents and grandparents have done or said. They've all been dead for ten to twenty years and, unless I miss my guess, they are not acting as silly as they once were.

I plan to let you in a bit more on my other writing, which I have kept hidden for no other reason than I simply don't trust the copyright laws in America. For instance, on one of our projects, we will be doing another showcase table read early in 2009. I will share that event here for the first time. I'll also open up on some other personal topics within the realm of good taste. Those of you waiting to see ultrasounds from my groin surgery in 2000 will, however, continue to be disappointed.

As I close in on 700 daily posts and the two year anniversary in March, I also would like to open up this forum to you. We had one guest blogger here. I'd like some more. If you want to take over for a day, I'd gladly transcribe your thoughts so that people can get equally as mad at you as they do with me. Just let me know and these KBs can be yours.

Of course, this picture now documents me in the annals of cyberspace. There is now a visual record of me and it can be used for purposes of identification. This may be troublesome. Because, at some point in the next month or so, the Obama Thought Police will be re-opening those Japanese internment camps that used to be found in California during World War II. I figure one of those places could be my next home after I solidify my standing in their eyes as a racist when I make the innocent written assertion that turkey gravy is indeed brown.

Dinner last night: New Year's Eve dinner of ribeye steak at Jar.