It's a Do Me Do Day!

In yesterday's post, I didn't get around to describing my Kafkaesque encounters with The Prudential Insurance Company, the Post Office and their tax on the poor, nor my (lack of) interaction with whatever they're calling Food Stamps these days. And I'm not going to do it now. Today is Hans Conreid's birthday. He was a fixture of my youth, playing Uncle Tonoose on The Danny Thomas Show, the Slave in the Magic Mirror on tv's Disneyland show (and probably the inspiration for Jombi but if you don't know, don't ask), Captain Hook in Disney's Peter Pan, the host of Fractured Flickers (and the voices of Sidney Whiplash and Dudley Do-Right), a constant guest on the Ernie Kovacs show, English tutor Percy Livermore on I Love Lucy, and often showed up on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show as the psychiatrist. As if he wasn't already a Stevil favorite, he definitely entered that pantheon with his performance as Dr. Terwilliker, the music teacher in The 5,000 fingers of Dr. T. He also taught me how to get dressed on a Happy Day.
Thanks, Mr. Conried, and Happy Birthday!

As the World Turns...

A couple of days ago, I was watching the evening news when there was a promo for the news magazine that follows. As footage of a young man and a young woman in a car chase was shown, an announcer intoned "The Real Life Bonny and Clyde, next!"

Wait - what? Yup. He said "The", not "A". I know this for sure because they repeated it again. It was as though the writers had no idea that there really was a Bonnie and Clyde. They were movie characters, after all.  

This came to mind because I read in the news this morning, that Rick Santorum has created a Presidential Exploratory Committee (i.e. fund raising, money grabbing). It's okay, don't hyperventilate, I tell myself. He's just a tv actor in the news shows.

Meanwhile, back in Steven land, things took a turn for the worse. I keep a mailbox at the Post Office. I used to take a nice walk through town and end up there to get my mail. In the tsunami of September 2001, barricades were erected, blocking off that part of the street and sidewalk..

You weren't allowed to even park there. I stopped my pleasant walks. Too much stress and hassle. It's been years now since I've gone to the Post Office everyday. I generally get there about once a week or so. This past Tuesday, there were two envelopes whose appearance troubled me. One was from my landlord and contained a copy of the letter he handed me at 8:30pm March 31st. April Fool! Now what the hell did this mean? Was this sent recently to end his willingness to reconsider? No, as it urned out, it was mailed at the end of March as backup. Whew! The second envelope was from my Storage unit's provider. Unless I came up with a rather significant amount of money by April 25th, they would auction off my possessions.

Ooh, joy! Another fire to put out. Aside from family kind of stuff, there's over half of my Laser Disc collection, many many Cd's, books and kitchen equipment - and some of the choicest titles in my 16mm collection. Snow White, a museum quality Pinocchio, Rocky Horror, Fantasia (with the nude nymphs), Dumbo, Bambi, the 1939 Hunchback of Notre Dame, the beautiful prints of Stormy Weather and Casablanca. And the really, really, and I do mean really Real Imbition Technicolor reels from Singing in the Rain. ETC. By the time I got home, I was close to a full scale panic attack and had to take one of my lorazapams, even though it didn't help much. Well, a telephone call and a couple of days later, I had stopped the threat against my belongings and had negotiated a surprising low "settlement". I guess I've sold enough soap by now that things will be quiet for a week or so. I hope. Maybe. Sorta-kinda. No,. that's not negative thinking on my part, just stuff to keep my ratings up.