That loud rock music you heard in the distance Saturday evening, wherever you were, came from the birthday party for our pal, Bill Steinkellner. His superb spouse Cheri arranged a good, old-fashioned sock hop at what looked like a high school gymnasium. (It was actually a Senior Center. I was amused that on the wall of the men's room, there were ads for medication to help males who are having trouble urinating. Talk about your Target Audience.) Anyway, we had a great time and no, we didn't dance. We stayed mostly outside with the non-dancers and talked with the likes of Ken Levine, Leonard and Alice Maltin, Lynne Stewart, George Wendt, Dan Castellaneta, Michael Bell and others. Great party, great people, great hot dogs.
Then last night, I had to go out to the Aero Theater in Santa Monica since I hadn't seen It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in over two weeks. The charming Karen Sharpe Kramer and Kat Kramer introduced what may be Stanley Kramer's greatest film, which the Aero was showing in tribute to the late Sid Caesar. Sid's daughter Karen also spoke, and then they ran the film which the audience thoroughly devoured and enjoyed. I was impressed because there were a lot of Mad World virgins in the house — people seeing the film for the first time. (Kat called for a show of hands in her intro. Even if she hadn't, you would have known because of all the whispering: "That's Charles Lane…" "That's Edward Everett Horton…") Naturally, I noticed things we didn't include in the commentary track on the DVD/Blu-ray set. Wish we could go back and do a commentary track for the commentary track.
Today is supposed to be the last day the Souplantation restaurants have their Classic Creamy Tomato Soup. Guess where I'm dining.
The second part of the Allan Sherman video was preempted for Breaking News about another great funnyman of the records, Eddie Lawrence. It will appear here later today. And in a day or two, I'll be posting the final chapter in the story of my grandmother's funeral. [SPOILER ALERT: We bury her.] Back to work. And soup…