Well, the current edition of 83 in the Shade is once again imperfect.  Help me Simon and Schuster, you're my only hope!  So, if anyone has purchased "Edition #3"; I apologize for the weird flaws on pages 333-334.  I'm working on amending that.  Kindle Direct Publishing (formerly Amazon Create Space) seems to have completely dispensed with their QC Department.  The first edition of the book, despite the numerous flaws on my end, had a beautiful and seemingly engineered layout.  I recall in 2015 that I could reach any number of persons immediately for assistance with any and all problems.  Now they don't even have a phone number.  I think I'm done with Amazon.  In any event, I will not self-publish my second novel 84 on the Floor.  It won't be published until I've secured a contract with a major publishing house.  So there.  So that means I need an agent.  Know any?  Give 'em my number.

Look on the bright side. Maybe versions of "Edition #3" will one day become wildly rare and expensive collectibles.  Perhaps they could, at this very moment, be considered NFTs (or would the NFT be the funky file the manuscript is on?  Hey, I'm willing to sell it!).

Remember when Jane Jetson had "push-buttonitis"?
Boy was that show prescient!  My right index finger is tingling.  I think I might have "push-buttonitis" myself; the beginnings of carpal tunnel syndrome?  It's either that or an unforeseen side-effect of the Moderna vaccine.  So, I'll be giving my fingers a rest.

I've been blogging my brains out for the past couple of months; so I'm going to be taking a little break now.  A writer friend of mine once said to me: "Just keep your hand moving."  But I'm not sure if he was talking about writing. :)

​Ciao for now!
​Chris

Now, I didn't know Robin Williams personally.  I so wish that I had.  But if you want to talk about "six degrees of so-and-so" I was actually; literally, within six feet of him.  Maybe even six inches.  Wait a second...that doesn't sound right.
I've been writing a lot about "mean people" lately; particularly Show Business mean people.  So, I wanted to counter that with a little story about someone who struck me as "not mean enough."  Oh, so, "one of the good ones."

It was 1992 and the movie Toys was about to be released by 20th Century Fox--December 18th--one day before my 27th birthday.  (Keep an eye on that jacket Robin is wearing in the above photo).  At the time, I was working for a catering company called: Along Came Mary.  Thinking back on all this Hollywood stuff, I'm kind of amazed at how many angles I was able to view the Entertainment Industry from in my various endeavors to feed myself.  Maybe I should write a book about it.  Wink-wink.  But before we get to dear Robin W.--a little background.  No, wait...before we get to the background; I just have a few words about one more mean person and then I'm done writing about them:

Ms. DeGeneres is the very worst kind of mean person.  She is the wolf in sheep's Gucci kind of mean person.  The really mean person who has everyone fooled they're a really "nice" person.  Certainly, we know now that Ellen deserves some kind of award for keeping up the appearance for so long.  But time will out, will it not? 

I used to be a huge fan of hers.  But when her show Ellen's Game of Games debuted four years ago; her mask started to crumble for me. I remember staring at the TV aghast as Ellen gleefully toiled over her torture control device to send innocent people shoosting through trap doors and falling down chutes and basically being treated like ants by a particularly sick child with a magnifying glass.  I mean look at her in the above picture.  She looks deranged.  Around the same time she started pranking her guests on her talk show.  But these weren't pranks.  They were attempts to terrify people into shitting their metaphorical pants.  I recall watching Game of Games and turning to my husband and saying: "This is kind of disturbing..."  "No," he said, "it's sick."  I caught a segment the other night while I was channel surfing.  It seemed Ellen had upped her game of "Get the Guests." The contestants were now further humiliated by having to wear demeaning costumes.  Just had to get that insult layered on the injury I suppose.  Ellen must've been getting bored.  I'd love to see her get strapped into one of her devices and let other people have a go.  We could start with Dakota Johnson.  Yeah, Ellen definitely strikes me as the type who can dish it out but can't take it--in the least.

Coincidentally, isn't it interesting that Kate McKinnon's "Ellen" disappeared from SNL around the time the game show came on?  I think we're all due for an SNL "Game of Games" spoof.  How about Ellen's Game of Thrones?

See, mean people get all the attention, don't they?  
So, back to sweet, kind, nice Robin Williams.  And those qualities are just assumptions on my part.  But I think in this case I'm correct.
Toys has gone down in Hollywood lore as one of the biggest disasters of all time.  It cost about 95 million dollars to make in today's money.  It was the pet project of writer/directory Barry Levinson.  It was one of those bottom drawer scripts that probably should've stayed in the drawer; but since Levinson, in the early 90's, was coming off a slew of hit movies (particularly Rain Man) he was able to basically get a blank check from 20th Century Fox.  Robin Williams was at the height of his stardom too.  He had done Good Morning, Vietnam for Levinson.  That had been a hit.  Toys seemed like a great idea.  A sure fire hit. The Big Christmas Release of 1992. I'm certain they all thought they were going to create a mega-smash movie.  Oh, it was a smash all right.  

It had an inauspicious opening week-end.  It ranked at #6.  Opening at #6 for a movie this expensive and anticipated was not a good sign.  Interestingly, Robin was competing against himself; as Aladdin after six weeks in theaters, was still at #2.  And it was all down hill from there...

Yeah, it was a smash. Like the Titanic going full speed ahead into the Rock of Gibraltar. It got smashed by bad word of mouth.  I saw it at the theater and recall squirming in my seat after about fifteen minutes.  And it was a two-hour movie.  I stuck it through though.  I happened to be seeing it with a co-worker (Fred) who I was kind of smitten with.  Being less than six inches from him was enough for me to suffer through the off-putting and nearly incomprehensible mess that was Toys.

But I wasn't surprised.  I had been at the Toys premiere after party.  You see, Along Came Mary specialized in Hollywood movie premiere extravaganzas.  Over the top parties that would put ancient Rome to shame.  These events were usually held in circus tents.  The Toys party was no exception.  The massive tent was decorated like a giant toy store, with props from the movie and whimsical touches everywhere.  It was like a giant Toyland for adults; and instead of getting to play with toys, the grown-ups got to play with food.  Food glorious food!  It was everywhere.  Station after station of amazingly prepared foods.  Meat stations and salad bars and finger-foods and soup stations and truckloads of cookies and cakes and pies...

Not to mention whatever you wanted to drink!  Except, this Toyland was empty.  Yeah, there were some kids running around.  Probably the offspring of movie executives who had somehow thought Toys was a kids movie.  It wasn't.  It was some kind of muddled anti-war statement.  Real fun for the kiddies.  But it didn't matter.  The caul of failure had already unfolded over the movie.  The word was out.  Toys was a stinker.  It just simply wasn't an enjoyable movie.  Sure, it was fine to look at with it's clever and colorful production design; but a movie at its most basic has to have a good story.  Toys most assuredly did not.  And Robin Williams couldn't save the movie either.  In fact, he was given too much free reign and delivered a confusing and underwhelming performance.  

Meanwhile, I was assigned to a meat carving station.  A massive leg of lamb.  I had one customer.  Blythe Danner.  As for me, a starving young artist, I had never had lamb before.  But I sure did that night!  I wasn't crazy over it; but it filled my stomach.  And mint jelly.  What's that all about?  Maybe to kill the taste of the lamb?  Kinda gamey if you ask me.

Hmmm...was Gwyneth there that night?  Maybe she was.

Here's Robin in that jacket again, discussing Toys with Arsenio Hall:

This jacket must've been some kind of talisman for Robin.  I believe it's a costume from the movie.  He was also wearing it the night of the ill-fated Toys party.  I recall it lighting up...interesting how the memory works.  

So that night Robin was literally on his own.  I don't remember seeing Barry Levinson or Joan Cusack (I don't think I would've known who LL Cool J and Robin Wright were at that time) or anyone else from the movie.  The massive tent, like I said, was nearly empty which made poor Robin running around, talking to the few people who were there and clowning for the kids all the more humiliating.  I think his wife was with him (well, there was a woman with him and I assumed at the time it was his wife).  Watching him, I could tell that he felt responsible for everything.  Here was a 95 million dollar movie riding on his shoulders.  He was Atlas and Toys was the globe. And the globe was already hopelessly cracked. He stayed until the very last person was gone.  At some point, like I said, he was standing right next to me.  I so wish I had said something.  I know he would've chatted with me.  But I didn't.  One of my few Hollywood regrets.  And I often wonder what happened to all of that uneaten food.

I always suspected that Robin's hyperactive act was just a cry for attention to his parents.  Probably, mostly, his dad.
And in doing a little research, sure enough, it seems that was exactly the case.  He came from money, I'm assuming, as his dad was a big-time automobile executive and Robin went to all kinds of swanky schools.  But I also read that he worked as a bus-boy at a restaurant during the summers when he was attending Julliard (huh, I've been misspelling Juilliard all this time  Oh, who cares? That extra "i" is pretentious).  I highly doubt it was out of necessity.  I've been a bus-boy.  Something else Robin and I could've commiserated about.  Yes, he was one of the "nice" ones.  Nobody of his stature would've endured that party if they weren't.

SNL on the brain again.  Well why not?  I watched it every Saturday night without fail from 1975 to 1981 (yes, I suffered through that sixth season then finally gave up).  So, since it was live, in a way I was there.  It certainly helped shape my outlook on life during my formative years.  It's as much a part of my history as it is its own.  My past is part of Saturday Night Live's past.

The above people are Michael O'Donoghue and Anne Beatts.  Two writers and sometimes performers in the legendary first seasons of the show.  They were also a couple, apparently.  Everything you read about "Mr. Mike" is that he was something of a psychopath.  Certainly mean.  Deliberately cruel.  His comedy was acidly black.  Misanthropic to the point of futility.  Also, ground-breaking and utterly unique.  I would credit him with inventing post-modern cruelty based comedy which lives on and on (I don't think Family Guy or South Park would exist if we hadn't had Mr. Mike).  As a performer though, he was somewhat one-note.  And he wasn't easy to look at.  He had the appearance of a hip mortician out for a night of creeping people out at a fashionable discotheque.  And he had THE WORST COMB-OVER in the history of show business.  Maybe that's what he was so mad about.  It was almost like he was daring people to make fun of his hair so he could cut them down with a withering insult.  

​Anne Beatts was in this memorable sketch; one of my all-time favorites:

It's the only thing I remember her being in.  But it left an indelible impression.  She also created the legendary TV show Square Pegs.  I was an outsider in high school at the time that show was airing.  Needless to say, I never missed it (when I could find it (CBS kept changing its airtimes; usually the death knell for a series--and it was). 

One of my first jobs in Hollywood was as a receptionist at a "boutique" literary agency.  Anne Beatts happened to be a client.  One day I was asked to stay late because Ms. Beatts was going to be coming by to pick up a manuscript or something.  I remember I was the only person in the office.  It was actually dark out by the time she arrived.  I buzzed her in and she came up the stairs.  I was excited!  Here was someone I looked up to.  Admired.  Had supplied me with many hours of entertainment.  Had helped me get through some awkward teen-age years.  She didn't speak.  She knew I knew she was there to pick up the package; so she basically just put her hand out in a "gimme" gesture.  Now, I'm pretty shy.  Back then even more so; especially around "celebrities."  But I couldn't just let her leave without saying something.  "Oh," I said, dumbly reading her name off the package, "you're Anne Beatts! From Saturday Night Live..."  "Yeah."  As in "Yeah, so?"  She was so disinterested in me as an actual human being, living and breathing on the planet Earth, that I was stunned into silence.  She took the package and left.  I don't think she even said "thank you" or "good night."  I mean, maybe she'd had a bad day.  But she knew I was still in the office waiting for her ass.  You think she might've been able to muster an "Oh, you're a fan of the show?"  or "Are you interested in comedy?"  But as Belushi would've said:

Maybe she was still pissed that she'd agreed to date Michael O'Donoghue.  He left the show to make movies.  He made one. Sort of.  It was a recycled TV special. It was a legendary flop entitled: Mr. Mike's Mondo Video.  As an SNL early years completist, I should probably watch it.  Probably.

Of course not everyone in showbusiness is mean.  In my experiences, most of the in front of the camera people were quite nice.  Well, maybe more...quiet.  I gave a lot of golf cart rides to actors.  Most of them were across the board quiet.  Pleasant smiles but zero words.  Like I said, I was shy.  It's not like I tried to chat any of them up.  But who would've thought Dylan McDermott was an introvert?  Well, me, for one.  A lot of actors are introverts.  I think that's what gets them into acting.  It's a way to wildly express yourself and when it's over; you go back into your shell.  

I also worked several retail jobs in Beverly Hills and environs.  I've encountered a lot of celebs over shop counters.  Again, almost all encounters were pleasant.  And usually devoid of words.  The quietest had to have been Tim Allen who had come to Macy's gift wrap.  He picked his ensemble and proceeded to watch me wrap the package.  I may have been hamming it up a little as he was looking at me like I had three heads.  No wait, I've got that one beat: Morgan Fairchild at the Polo store on Rodeo Drive.  She said absolutely nothing.  Wouldn't look up.  Seemed like she was about to cry.  Now you wouldn't think she was an introvert!

But maybe even worse than the actively mean people, like Neely O'Hara (who are really the minority); are the people who dismiss you; like Ms. Beatts did to me.  In my experience, almost always these were the executives.  Most behind the camera execs treat anyone below them as nothing more than a butler or maid.  No, we've all seen Downton Abbey: they get treated like family.  The typical executive at any given production company treats an assistant like an indentured servant.  The only conversation is generally along the lines of: "This isn't dijon; this is brown--" the implication being that you'd better come up with some dijon mustard, quick.  Or: "You can go pick up my laundry now."  Gee thanks. 

Actually, I prefer the actively mean people.  I mean, at least they're (in a perverse kind of way) acknowledging that you exist.  Even if it's only to annoy them.  I annoy, therefore I am.  Yes, this is unhealthy; but it's kind of fun to watch them turn red.  Up to a point.  When they start throwing office supplies at your noggin, some hard decisions need to be made.

But there's always an exception to the rule.  When I worked at the production company that has the little boy jumping off the dock in its logo; one day one of the CEOs showed up.  He was never there. Had never been there. He owned like all the McDonald's in Canada or something.  His name was Ted Tannebaum.  The one time he showed up at the office he did the rounds.  He spoke to every single person on the premises in a big booming voice.  He was like some inquisitive uncle.  He actually asked me who I was; what I did; what I wanted to do.  I told him I was an aspiring screenwriter.  "Well," he said, "you make sure you get your scripts to one of our readers and you tell them Ted said so!" and then he was gone.  I never saw him again.  He passed away in 2002.

Well, my scripts did get read; and summarily PASSed on (the reader, an Icelander, just didn't get it).  But the takeaway is: 
Be nice.  Like Ted Tannebaum.  Don't be an Anne Beatts.  Take the time to show at least some interest in someone who aspires to be like you.  Anne Beatts is gone now.  She left me with bad feelings.  Michael O'Donoghue is long gone.  What's his legacy?  You'd be hard pressed to find any kind words about him.  He's left behind what?  Comedy sketches about fellow human beings having nine inch spikes plunged into their eyes?
Yes, be like Ted Tannebaum.  Be more Canadian.

I remember when I was a kid, watching Saturday Night Live and seeing this sketch called "Show Us Your Guns!"  It may have been from the very first episode (which I know I did not see live; probably caught this in a rerun):  Anyways, here is a bootleg Youtube version:

Watching it as a kid I remember thinking it was a case of comedic hyperbole.  Classic comedy exaggeration.  In 1975 I had never seen a gun in person (other than in a policeman's holster).  We had no firearms in my house; and my dad was in the Marines and had several sharpshooting medals; but no gun.  We didn't know anybody who had guns.  Guns were practically abstract concepts: soldiers carried them in far off lands.  Or props on Quinn Martin productions.  If Barnaby Jones shot someone or maybe one of Charlie's Angels took a bullet, what happened?  Usually not much: a splotch of ketchup on a shoulder.  Hollywood guns were toys and treated as such in movies and on television.  Now, of course, we know just how spot-on and prescient that SNL "spoof" was.

Fast forward about 46 years.  Did you watch the 2021 Oscar (Registered/TM/Pat.Pend) Ceremony?  I did; and if you missed it, it was as bizarre as you've heard.  The zeitgeistian moments du jour-du soir, besides wondering if Frances McDormand needs some or several kinds of interventions; or why there wasn't a choo-choo themed musical number: were the heart-felt speeches about gun violence.  In a nutshell, the sentiments ran along the lines of: Not One More Gun Death in This Country!  But that was it.  There was no follow up sentiment or implied repercussions.  What?  If there's one more gun death in this country you're going to protest by not making your movie?  Well, wouldn't that be noble? Super unlikely but highly noble.  Nearly half of the speech-givers that night paid lip service to this idea.  Meanwhile, here is the number one movie in the country right now: 

Hmmmm.  I counted around 15 gun deaths in this clip; several were point blank firearm discharges to peoples faces.  Oh, and one stabbing.  Granted, Guy Ritchie did not give a speech on Oscar night; but this is an MGM release.  We can apply the hollow promises to this, I think, quite squarely.  Also to this one, which was number one at the box office upon its release and is still in the top ten:

This one comes to us from the fine pacifists at Universal Studios.  You can't get more mainstream and Hollywood establishment than Universal. Nobody is nothing less than a gun orgy.  A bullet spewing circle jerk.  I saw it at the theater and quickly lost count of the body count.  I mean, l like a good shoot 'em up as much as the next person.  I enjoyed Nobody.  Violence is cathartic.  Ultraviolence can be a cleansing thrill.  I get it.  But I'm not running around clutching my pearls and boycotting guns every time some lunatic climbs a bell tower.

Sorry Bob and Jason; but you do have a certain amount of complicity by signing on to movies like Wrath of Man and Nobody.  I have a certain complicity in going to see them.  And I know I will see Wrath of Man. 
I could oggle Jason until the cows come home. 
Unfortunately, so could any kid or unstable adult.
(Side note: Bob looks exactly like a guy I dated in early 90's, whose name happened to be Bob).

Look at the way both trailers salivate over the weaponry; the guns are slathered and drooled over.  The reports are amplified and turned into a kind of gospel or violent house music.  The camera lovingly pans over every phallic inch of gunmetal. Every click of every bullet clip being pounded into a gun chamber is amplified for maximum fetishization.  These trailers are not about the stories.  They're about the guns. It's actually kind of stomach turning.  It's gross.  Hollywood has banned cigarettes from movies (more or less) but what about all these guns?  It's the elephant in the room that no one in that industry will acknowledge; let alone try and change.  These gun-glut movies are huge money-makers.  Which is fine.  The film industry has the right to make them.

Speaking of Frances McDormand: she sort of represents the ultra-liberal contingent of Hollywood.  But she's no stranger to guns.  Here's the poster for her first movie; which prominently features a Saturday night special.  The .38 revolver; which is perhaps the poster gun of guns:

And one of her most beloved roles (where she was packin'):

Not to single out Ms. McDormand (although, I guess I am) she's rather representative of this movieland hypocrisy when it comes to firearms.  Don't get me wrong; I love Frances.  She's endlessly entertaining: but might we remind her that she is, indeed, a movie star and is thus somewhat obligated to getting (at least) her hair done for the Academy Awards?  Oh, and would it kill her to put on a pair of heels?  Look Frances, if you could so care less about the ceremony, why not just stay home?  I mean, you looked like you were on a Zoom call anyway.

Is the above image about Keanu Reeves or the gorgeous array of glossy guns?  Kind of a toss-up; but advantage guns.

So, guns (which have been part of Hollywood since the beginning) aren't going anywhere as far as movies are concerned.  I understand this.  I love gun scenes in movies.  Some of my favorite movies have scenes with guns front and center:

My problem lies with films that exist more as commercials for the gun industry.  Films that glorify and glamorize people being shot to death.
So what can we do?  Well, we can stop going to see these kinds of movies.  Yes, but that's not going to happen.  We need a separate gauge applied to films that feature guns.
Here is my suggestion.  How about a Gun Violence Rating from the MPAA?  On a scale of 1 to 10? Like say, Wrath of Man and Nobody get a "GVR-9"?  Anything over a five disallows anyone of a certain age range from seeing it.  Anything over a GVR-8 is for adults only (sort of Triple-XXX gun porn).  Or some kind of system.  Right?  Maybe?  In a perfect world?  How about a huge Surgeon General type warning slapped across the posters, opening the trailers and preceding the production logos: WARNING: THIS FILM CONTAINS GUNS THAT SHOOT BLANKS THAT HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO ACTUALLY KILL or THE GUNS IN THIS FILM ARE DUE TO PHALLIC INSECURITY.  Or something like that; but I won't hold my breath.
​In any event; here's a choo-choo themed musical number to cheer you up!

Okay, so...I think I've finally arrived at the most nearly perfect version of my first book, 83 In the Shade. Let's call it "Version #3."  It's as close to perfect as I'll ever get it without the help of a Big Publishing House.  So, as of today, there are several versions floating around out there.  Some of the differences are slight.  Some not so slight. But you are guaranteed a good time in any version!  And, there are further adventures of Michael McNamara to come!