Sunday, October 27th, 1974

I read a lot of THE SHADOW. It's getting interesting.

Went to see WHAT'S UP DOC? It was really crowded but I enjoyed it. I loved it when Streisand said, "Love means never having to say you're sorry" and Ryan O'Neal says "That's ridiculous!" That had been HIS line in LOVE STORY! Wow!

Across the street, The Cool Ghoul was at Checker Furniture.I didn't see him but I sure heard him. Now, that was REALLY crowded!

I gave both Dwight and Terry some of my notebooks and folders.

Saw Karen Valentine with Sonny tonight and the TV premiere of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE.

NOTES: I rewatched WHAT'S UP DOC? last year. Still hilarious! Streisand has never been funnier or, yes, sexier!

Little did I suspect at the time that Bob Hastings, the actor who's counting down to midnight just as the Poseidon crashes in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, would become a friend of mine over the years!

The Cool Ghoul had been the local horror movie host beginning in the late sixties. By this point, his show was gone but he was still trotted out around Halloween! This would continue for many years until his passing about a decade back.

Saturday, October 26th, 1974

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 is almost certain for the Top Ten! The previews showed both GOLD and ...GOLDEN GUN, both with Roger Moore. I passed up a new horror book for a paperback reprint of the first Shadow book. It's not bad but I was expecting better. Has a Steranko cover.

I gota  letter back from SIXTEEN...but it was about subscriptions! Boy!

I watched HANG 'EM HIGH for the third time and another STAR TREK rerun. The Hudson Brothers show was good, too.

NOTES: Jim Steranko had already been a favorite comic book artist for nearly a decade. I would finally meet him a couple years later and then again in 2011!

HANG 'EM HIGH was Clint Eastwood's first American western after his success in Italian westerns.

Roger Moore was about to open in his second 007 movie, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and the folks who were marketing another new film of his apparently wanted to cash in on that by calling it just plain GOLD.

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 is today tied with THE STING as my two favorite seventies movies. My Dad loved it, too. One of the best endings ever.

Friday, October 25th, 1974

IT. Otherwise basically a good day.

I don't know why but I got up early. Dad and I got the car. I read all my new books and had a marvelous time with AIRPORT 1975. Well worth the $1.50 I paid.

I saw Erich Von Daniken on with Bob Braun and played my IN SEARCH OF ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS tape. Earlier this week, I saw an ad for the film, CHARIOTS OF THE GODS. I think I'll get his books, too. I replaced my DEATH WISH Poster with the Marvel Calendar.

Ya know...when I really stop to ponder on it, I think my all-time favorite television show might be THAT GIRL, followed somewhat closely by STAR TREK.

I didn't catch its title, but I recorded the brand new Paul McCartney single the very first time WSAI ever played it today!

Another good episode of PLANET OF THE APES tonight. They seem to be getting better but news of the series' cancellation came down already. I watched POLICEWOMAN for the first time tonight.

NOTES: Erich Von Daniken was the main one (of several) authors pushing the "ancient astronauts" theory in books and then documentary films. In some ways, it makes some sense!

I still say THAT GIRL is my favorite show, also one of the very few that I bought all the different seasons of on DVD.

POLICEWOMAN was Angie Dickinson's new TV series, an OK addition to the seventies cop show genre.

I still have that recording! DJ Jim Scott played "Junior's Farm" and noted in his intro that the label only said "Paul McCartney" so Wings was undoubtedly over, "a foregone, past conclusion" as he put it! Wings, of course, set out on a mega-successful world tour the following year and lasted until the end of the decade. "Junior's Farm," however, to the best of my knowledge, was never played live until the 2012 McCartney tour!

Thursday, October 24th, 1974

No Gym today. We were to see a video-taped basketball game but the (illegible) wouldn't work. No school tomorrow.

In Cincy, I got the new Seaboard mag, PLANET OF THE APES, an AIRPORT 1975 mag and part one of Linda's life story in SIXTEEN. Finally got the Marvel calendar at Kidd's.

I saw THE CHEYENNE SOCIAL CLUB.

I got a notebook, a bookend, a staple and a staple remover, all thrown away at work.

Our sermons got read aloud in class (anonymously). I don't think I've ever laughed so hard at school!

NOTES: I sold the calendar about three months ago in 2012. 

THE CHEYENNE SOCIAL CLUB is a fun Western movie with Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart and Shirley Jones. It's somewhat naughty subject matter dealt with a saddle tramp inheriting a brothel.

Wednesday, October 23rd, 1974

I heard a radio commercial for LAW AND DISORDER. It sounds good. Carroll O'Conner and Ernest Borgnine. Rated R.

I had two Study Halls today and another teacher absent.

Found out Doug was hurt by a falling fire extinguisher at Twin Fair yesterday.

I watched STAR TREK yet again. THE SAVAGE CURTAIN! Also saw BAD RONALD. Bad title for a pretty good picture.

I created "Nightmare" my own pulp character in the tradition of the Spider and the Shadow. He kinda grows on a fella.

The new Clay Wade Bailey Bridge was dedicated today and the Holmes band was present. Actually, that and some of the teachers are the only thing I like about that school.

NOTES: NOt sure what I meant by that last line as I certainly was never all that into the Holmes Band. Didn't even know anyone involved with the band. And in retrospect I DID like the school more than I seemed to at the time even if I was never really close to any of the students other than Doug whom I had known since 4th Grade.

LAW AND DISORDER is an odd little dramady movie. It's quite good but wasn't really a hit because Carroll O'Conner had become so typecast as Archie Bunker that the public wasn't ready to accept him as anything else. And the fact that this role was so close to Archie and yet NOT Archie...

Never actually did anything with Nightmare but I drew him a lot. Was actually kind of ripped off from a character Gray Morrow did in a comic book story--seen here. The comic book had come out in June. My character was similar albeit with a yellow and red mask and a yellow cape.

Tuesday, October 22nd, 1974

Bruce Lee was on INSIDE TONIGHT but I didn't know it until it was almost over so I missed it. THE FINAL DAYS OF BRUCE LEE is on at the Grand along with CHINESE GODFATHER. Hope to get to see them this weekend.

For English we had to write a "sermon" on a contemporary, controversial subject. Took me all day bit I finally came up with "Violence in the Media." I mean, it's contemporary, it's controversial and who knows more about it than me? The only bad part was actually having to write the sermon. I gave it my best...or near it.

Guy at school gave me a mag with articles about Roddy and also HARRY & TONTO. I have gotta see that movie.

A guy at school was reading the book version of DEEP THROAT! Who'd know from looking at me that I've now seen that book!?

There's a new version of MARK OF ZORRO on next week.

NOTES: I kept watching the low grade chop socky films with Bruce's name connected in hopes of seeing some little known Bruce Lee movie. But no. There really were only the handful everyone knows...as well as the GAME OF DEATH footage that was still years away from being released. Everything else, no matter how entertaining in its own way, was getting my money under false pretenses.

Terry would loan me a copy of DEEP THROAT on video around 1981. I was fascinated by it...but I didn't ever enjoy it. As porn, there's much better, as indie film comedies, there's a million better! And yet it holds a unique place in the history of film that still fascinates today. 

Monday, October 21st, 1974

IT. I'd been leading up to it I guess.

I'm off school this Friday.

I forgot my Spanish homework and it's too late to take it tomorrow. I didn't need the new lock after all but I left it there. I wore my neat new shirt today, too!

Terry told the STAR TREK people he'd pass on their message so they wouldn't need to call me and now he's forgotten more than half of their message. I'll probably never hear from them again now!

I watched half of THE CANDIDATE.

NOTES: THE CANDIDATE is a Robert Redford film from a year or so before this that would most likely still resonate today. I should probably try watching it again.