Saturday, June 30, 2012

Sunday, June 30th, 1974

I watched the Democratic National Telethon most of the day.

Tonight, for the first time in a long time, I had  areal MEAL! Corn, beans and hamburger, too!

Mom read a review of THUNDERBOLT & LIGHTFOOT and now she says she won't take me. It's no worse than any other R-rated pictures. It's not fair. In a few years, I can get into see them myself. I hope she changes her mind. If not, maybe I can get in myself. I'm very resourceful.

Yesterday, I hard a new record by Donny and Marie Osmond.

Today I'm crazy about Linda again. been looking at those new gorgeous pix throughout the day. If she doesn't write me in a few weeks, I've decided I'm going to write to her again.

Tonight on the radio, I heard an episode of NBC's X-MINUS ONE, a once-monthly radio sci-fi series. Weird!

I realized two things today. One was that I can't draw sadistic pictures anymore. Apparently I've left that stage of my young adult life. The other was that I can't draw...period!

NOTES: The "sadistic pictures" were horror comics-style images of rotting corpses carrying bloody bodies through dense swamps and such. I drew those a lot in the 7th and 8th grade, often being paid ten to twenty-five cents by other students to draw them for them. 


Sad that I decided I couldn't draw at all because I really could and had I pursued it, I could draw even better today than I can!


Come on, admit it. Marie was a babe!


Surprised it was my Mom planning to take me to see the Eastwood flick as he was always my Dad's favorite modern movie star.


Surprised also that i discovered X MINUS ONE this early on. It became and remains one of my favorite OTR series. Of course, I was wrong with my "monthly" remark as it was, like most shows, on weekly in the 1950's. One radio actor who appeared in a few episodes was Bob Hastings with whom I would become friends many years later. A few years back, I purchased two CD's with the entire run of the series in MP3 format. 

Friday, June 29, 2012

Saturday, June 29th, 1974


Had to help George again as soon as I got up this morning. He paid me fifty cents.

Mom bought me the mag with a lot of the most beautiful pics of Linda I have ever seen!

Later, Mom got a call from her niece, Phyllis.

We all went over to the Skywalk to see Henry Fonda and Terence HIll in MY NAME IS NOBODY. It was hilarious!

On the way back, i picked up an X-MEN book I had missed a few weeks back.

I did NOT go to see EXORCIST today but there's still hope! Today's paper very explicitly clarified that under 18 COULD get in with a parent! Maybe this week.

I had pains in my chest this evening so I exercised some. Need to start doing it more.

Tonight, Mom and I stayed up until 11:45 to see SWEET CHARITY.

NOTES: SWEET CHARITY is the Shirley MacLaine musical which apparently ran long on the network. 


Phyllis, as stated, was my mother's niece. Her sister Mickey's girl. To hear my mother tell it, she practically raised Phyllis herself as her Mom was...not always around. 


I knew Terence Hill from the two Trinity spaghetti western comedies. Terry and I had seen them in theaters a few years earlier. Henry Fonda was one of my Dad's favorite actors so we all went to see MY NAME IS NOBODY which was and is not just a funny picture but a good, atypical western and an excellent example of the Italian Western. With the rise of the Web, I've been able to see scores more of them since '74 and NOBODY remains a favorite. Fonda still had an Oscar win ahead of him in the eighties. Hill enjoyed much success in the international market with and without sometime partner Bud Spencer and, in the nineties, starred as LUCKY LUKE in a US-shot , european-distributed TV series based on the classic French comic book cowboy. 

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Friday, June 28th, 1974

 I got 3 books with facts and pix of Linda and Roddy including the ever-awkward CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN. I also saw Roddy and Steffie in TOPPER RETURNS again.

Terry and his friend Dwight whom I met today plan to make a movie and they want me involved, also. We spent a couple of hours looking at material for research. We'll have to wait for Terry to get a movie camera, though.

Mrs. Pritchett brought her grandbaby down again. I gave her one of my stuffed rabbits.

NOTES: I never had stuffed bears. I always had stuffed bunnies, big or small. Once, a stuffed chimpanzee, quickly purchased after I threw up on a stuffed bunny, but mainly stuffed bunnies.


Dwight was the friend we wrote of in the '76 Journal. He would die from accidental drowning in just a couple of years. We never did make any movie.


TOPPER RETURNS was actually a surprisingly lackluster pilot carried only by star power. It was based on the old TV series about ghosts starring Leo G. Carroll from the fifties which had, in turn, been inspired by three movies of the thirties, the first of which had starred Cary Grant. In this case, Roddy played the nephew of the original Topper, haunted by his Uncle's ghost friends. 


Stefanie Powers wrote me a letter at one point. I had asked her what it was like to work with Roddy McDowall as it seemed she had been appearing with him a lot at that point in various projects and she said, "I adore Roddy McDowall!"

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Thursday, June 27th, 1974

I was up about 3:30 AM with a sick stomach so I slept an extra hour to make up for lost sleep.

I gota  strange letter with the wrong address. I didn't open it but I don't think it's mine so I'll give it back to the mailman tomorrow.

Also tomorrow, Sutherland and Gould will be on PHIL DONAHUE.

I looked at my Linda scrapbook several times today and I got lost in my Simon & Garfunkel records several times.

No time to work on my story again.

I'm going to ask Mom to pick up SEVENTEEN for me on Saturday along with the new SPEC if it's out.

NOTES: No recollection of the letter incident so I have nothing to report there I'm afraid.


I had gotten my first S&G album---their Greatest Hits collection--about three years earlier, followed quickly by BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER, their final original album before their initial break-up. They remain favorites to this day. Wanted badly to see them a few years back here in town but the CHEAP seats were $150.00!! Screw that.


SPEC was a companion mag to SIXTEEN which itself was essentially a movie, TV and music mag for teen girls. Lots of boys I knew bought it, too, though, myself included, as it covered shows like DARK SHADOWS, THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY and other shows enjoyed by both genders. SPEC was created so that in essence SIXTEEN could come out twice a month. There was no real difference.


OOPS. Apparently I had my timeline wrong regarding Gould and Sutherland on Phil's show.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Wednesday, June 26th, 1974

E-Day! THE EXORCIST finally started uptown. Terry's mother says now she wants to read the book before she'll take us, though. SO CLOSE! I hope we can go Saturday. I read the screenplay today. In Cincinnati, I got the new SIXTEEN with some stuff on Linda. It says she gets more fan mail than she can answer. I hope she answers MY letter!

I also got CRAZY with two spoofs of THE EXORCIST.

I saw another magazine, SEVENTEEN, with a gorgeous pic of Linda!

Didn't get to work on my story today because I went to see S*P*Y*S. It was good but I don't see it making my Top Ten.

I helped George this morning and Mrs. Pritchett tonight.

According to TV GUIDE, dumb ol' Channel 12 has cut off MIKE DOUGLAS! Starting next week!

Terry says he actually did go back to Showcase yesterday!

NOTES: S*P*Y*S was a so-so movie reteaming Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland for the first time since 1970's M*A*S*H. The pair had appeared on DONAHUE plugging it and that convinced me to see it. That hour with them being their eccentric selves was funnier than the film.


The picture of Linda on SEVENTEEN was the best I ever saw.




Monday, June 25, 2012

Tuesday, June 25th, 1974

I got the new Bud Plant catalog. Always a treat!

I made myself a "London Fog" and ended up throwing out half of it.

Been having trouble sleeping lately.

Article about Roddy and the TV apes in tonight's paper.

THE EXORCIST is definitely starting at the Madison tomorrow but Terry's mom may be having second thoughts. She HAS to take us! I've been waiting ever since December for this and I can't have it taken away from me now that it's SO close!

I worked a lot on my new story today. It's very, very good and there's not an element of horror or sci-fi in it at all! At least not after I rewrite the bloody cancer scene. A few other scenes will need a rewrite, also, but offhand I think it is my best story since SITUATION SIX. I hope so!

NOTES: The only non-alcoholic London Fog I can find is a drink made with coffee or tea and vanilla extract. I know I never had alcohol or coffee until years later but I'm pretty sure I didn't have tea either so I'm at a loss as to what I sampled that day or as to why I was prompted to make it in the first place.


Bud Plant, as I've mentioned before, is a close friend of my sometime employer Craig Yoe and, as such, I've had dealings with him in the 21st Century in relation to Craig's books I've worked on! Seen here is one of his 1974 catalogs--maybe the one I got that day!


Oh. ON MY JOURNEY was THAT story. Basically a LOVE STORY rip-off, I tried to one-up them by giving the girl not Ali McGraw's mystery illness but breast cancer. Only what did a 15 year old boy know about breast cancer in those days? So in my version, when she gets cancer, her breasts start spurting blood! Who said there was no horror in it? Yes, I still have it and no, you can't read it.






Sunday, June 24, 2012

Monday, June 24th, 1974

We got our new Encyclopedia yearbook.

I started a new Marvel themed notebook. One of my best!

Had some major stomach pains tonight that weren't helped by the bad fall I took at the Social Security Office. Luckily my "Pain does not hurt" zen philosophy worked. Well...with the fall, not the stomach pains. At least my cold was mostly better.

I started writing a new short story. It's called ON MY JOURNEY but I may change that.

NOTES: The "Pain does not hurt" thing is a mind over matter/positive thinking thing whereby you distance yourself from the physical pain until the body becomes used to it and accepting of it. I still do it and have taught it to my son, also.


I'm not 100% sure of which story ON MY JOURNEY was but I think I still have it buried in a box upstairs. Maybe I'll try to find it.