Sunday, March 10th, 1974

I started off the day by seeing a lady only in her underwear! Oh, my! What a feeling! I'd hate tp know what it would feel like to actually see a naked lady!

I worked most of the day on my SCE's and then watched TV all evening. Saw Chris Lee on GREAT MYSTERIES.

NOTES: THE GREAT MYSTERIES was a rerun of an episode of that syndicated anthology series hosted by Orson Welles. Lee and Jane Seymour, only recently made famous by her appearance as a Bond Girl the summer before, co-starred in an Arthur Conan Doyle adaptation entitled THE LEATHER FUNNEL.


Welles to me, at this point, was that hammy fat guy who did magic tricks and commercials. It was only later I would come to a respect for his work as an actor and a director.


As far as the lady, here's the story. I was up way early for some reason and started out to get the newspaper, I stood in the front hallway of the apartment building  and pulled the window curtain aside to see if the paper was out there yet. When I did, I glanced across the street and saw a full-grown blonde woman in a second floor window just standing there taking in the sights...in a short, low-cut negligee! It was a large window so I could see her from about the knees up. The house across the street was owned by an eccentric millionaire who was, to the best of my knowledge, unmarried, so I'm not sure who this lady was but she stood there just looking around for several long minutes...not having a clue that I stood there looking around--at HER!--for those same several long minutes! I was fifteen years old and I couldn't even imagine being that lucky! Wow!

Saturday, March 9th, 1974

I went over to Terry's for most of the afternoon and in Cincy picked up the best NEW comics I've read in months.

NOTES: Another of those days with not much to say, I'm afraid. As comic books were always dated about two months ahead, above are two comics that most likely hit the stands this month if not this very week. Im not a big fan overall of the so-called Bronze Age f the seventies. Both DC and Marvel had some doldrums and, quite frankly, hackwork. What's good, though, was amazing and included things like Steve Englehart's now-classic CAPTAIN AMERICA run and Rich Buckler's brief stint on THE FANTASTIC FOUR.  In recent years, Rich and I have begun a friendly acquaintance via the 'Net. 

Friday, March 8th, 1974

IT again. Ugh.

I started my tape operation again and tonight I watched Raquel's second TV special.

NOTES: This Raquel Welch special, produced by Sid and Marty Krofft and based in part on her nightclub act made no real impression on me as I had forgotten it even existed until now. 


Raquel's previous TV special in 1970 got quite a bit of coverage including the cover of TV GUIDE. It was produced and choreographed by David Winters, a former film dancer (WEST SIDE STORY) who had also done memorably unique specials for everyone from Lucille Ball to Nancy Sinatra. Mr. Winters is now one of my Facebook friends.

Thursday, March 7th, 1974

The March showers (thunderwise) began today.

The movie they showed at school was THE HORSE WITHOUT A HEAD. A Disney film. I got out of three classes watching it and because of the short length of the film, I got out early.

Got home in time to catch a TV movie with Roddy that started at 3:30.

Got the Guides today--The TV GUIDE and THE BUYER'S GUIDE.

NOTES: Pretty much forgotten today, THE HORSE WITOUT A HEAD is one of the films the Disney studio had to produce overseas in the fifties and sixties in order to utilize money they had that for complicated reasons was only available in Europe. Many were quite good but had a very different feel than the company's live action US films. A good international cast toplined this unjustly forgotten film.

Wednesday, March 6th, 1974

The algebra turned out okay, after all.

Tomorrow there's going to be  movie at school. Don't know what it's going to be yet.

Speaking of movies, I'll almost definitely see one at the Ludlow this weekend as there's a new Trinity flick out there.

NOTES: So much for my predictions. I did NOT see a movie that weekend. In fact, I was getting off to a pretty slow start when one considers how many films I did ultimately see in theaters that year. 


I'm surprised I didn't catch the Trinity flick, though. Technically there is only one actual sequel to THEY CALL ME TRINITY and that's TRINITY IS STILL MY NAME. That said, there are dozens of spaghetti westerns that incorporate the Trinity name--most well after the fact--to try to fool audiences and scores of pictures starring Trinity stars Terence Hill and/or Bud Spencer in Trinity-style roles. In fact, there are even Italian films starring Hill and Spencer lookalikes! 


The duo never really caught on in the US but have been favorites of mine since 1972 or so. It's just been in recent years that I've been able to finally see (through the magic of the Internet) most of their fun films, together and separately. In fact, by sheer coincidence, this afternoon, I was watching one of the Hill/Spencer lookalikes comedies, this one starring Paul Smith who went on to play Bluto in Robert Altman's POPEYE movie. 

Tuesday, March 5th, 1974

Mr. Blanchard today asked me if I had seen anyone around his desk. I couldn't lie so I told him about me and Dan. He said he wasn't mad. Just "Don't do it again...ever." Even so, it made me feel incredibly guilty for the entire rest of the day! Boy!

On my way downhill again. I'm no good in Volleyball in Gym, either.

And for the first time in ages, I had a lot of homework tonight so I didn't have time to watch TV at all. Not only that, I don't think I did it right! Man!

NOTES: What was this about, you ask? Welllll...ya see...I mean...well...Okay, here's the story. I had been the smartest kid in school all through grade school and also in the 7th and 8th grades, despite my being very unhappy then. This year, though, in 9th grade, there was another kid named Dan S. who was, quite frankly, smarter than me. Our English class coincided with our lunch period and neither Dan nor I ate lunch. We weren't friends. We were rivals. Mr. Blanchard (not his real name) trusted us to stay there but locked the room until lunch was over. Dan and I would often play chess. Other times, we'd read separately, either books from the room's little library or just reading ahead in our textbooks. On days when we had a quiz, we both knew we would ace it. We had gotten to a point where we considered ourselves above the rest of the students. The rules didn't apply to us, you see. So...we'd get into Mr. Blanchard's desk and doublecheck our answers! In advance! It wasn't technically cheating, you see, because we KNEW all the correct ones. Always. Yeah. Uh, huh. We rationalized it the best way we could but it was still wrong. We had adopted an elitist attitude and we got busted. We were lucky he didn't cut us down a grade in his class!


I can be pretty full of myself. Then and now. But I also burden myself with guilt more than just about anyone I've ever known. This incident did NOT sit well with me.

Monday, March 4th, 1974

IT again.

Got some great books over the river after school including X-MEN # 7 and AMAZING ADVENTURES # 1. The best thing, though, was INSIDE COMICS which showed up on the newsstand even though it was supposedly a private publication.

I also got a monster book I ordered some time ago through school.

NOTES: INSIDE COMICS was similar to the later version of THE COMICS JOURNAL with a serious but somewhat elitist attitude toward the comic book industry. It was spun-off from a feature in the newspaper, THE MONSTER TIMES and was the brainchild of Joe Brancatelli. It ran only four controversial issues. In recent years, Mr. Brancatelli has become a respected travel writer. I contacted him a couple of years back via the Internet to let him know how much I enjoyed his publications way back then.