The most interesting thing I have to think about today is probably that Instacart says they'll deliver my big grocery order either today or tomorrow…and the suspense is killing me. When will it be, when will it be? I also can't wait to see what they'll be out of. I ordered 18 different items and will consider myself fortunate if I get three, especially if one of them is eggs.
I'm continuing to avoid politics and D.T. as much as I can. But someone let me know when William Barr announces the investigation to prove that Joe Biden personally invented that coronavirus thing that Donald Trump personally cured.
I've been having some very nice phone (and occasionally, FaceTime) conversations with friends…and occasionally friends I haven't spoken with for some time. There's an odd silver lining to Shared Suffering and it has to do with the "sharing" part.
Today, I'm working on an article for the souvenir book for this year's Comic-Con International. Like you, I'm skeptical there will be a this year's Comic-Con International, at least in July, but it has not officially been canceled or postponed yet and I promised to have the article to them in a few days. We always try to meet our deadlines, at least when we have zero social engagements on our calendar.
I'm also playing around with Zoom because I'm thinking of hosting some online chats and interviews. If anyone out there is really facile with this program and wants to tutor me a little, I just might accept. At the moment, the main thing I don't like about it is the feeling of obligation to shave I have every time I'm in front of my webcam. You can almost see my beard growing and I look like those time-lapse close-up shots of Lon Chaney turning into the Wolfman.
Last night, I got to thinking about a time when Howard Hughes was living in near-isolation on the top story of a Las Vegas hotel he owned. Hughes loved watching movies but in those days, to see one at home meant watching them on TV — which meant you were limited to what was on when it was on — or finding and buying 16mm prints of the ones you wanted to see and threading a projector.
Neither really worked for Hughes so he bought one of the local TV stations and he'd call up or have an aide call up and tell them what to air. He'd actually phone the station and say, "I'm bored with the film you're running. Stop it and put on Ice Station Zebra again!" And the movie that some Vegas residents were watching would suddenly stop and Ice Station Zebra would just start with no announcement or anything.
He might even tell them to skip the commercials and once he reportedly called up and asked them to stop the movie for ten minutes because he had to go take a dump. Now, with DVRs and pause buttons, every one of us can feel like a billionaire.
When I get really rich, I'm going to buy Turner Classic Movies and do that. I'll call up and yell, "Who the hell wants to watch Lucille Ball in Mame? Take it off at the end of the next song and start showing Ace in the Hole with Kirk Douglas…and yes, I know I've had you run it four times this month already. Just do it!"
Yes, I have all my favorite films on DVD but this would be so much more fun.