I don't like to be
a "downer"! But I do like to tell you what I watch on TV when I can't sleep! And what if that thing is a downer? So you can imagine my delicate position. Say, if you read this "blog" to enjoy my happy-go-lucky attitude, I advise you to skip this "post," which is drenched in melancholy! And exclamation points!
My sleeplessness once again coincided with the wee-hour shift of Tracey from the Gem Shopping Network. Tracey had a partner on with her this time, someone called "Alan," I think, who sounded like an old gentleman, though I never saw him. There was a bejeweled pendant shaped like a
cat, which got Tracey talking about the cats she used to smuggle into the jail where she lived as a girl (see my previous "post" about Tracey from the Gem Shopping Network for more details about her interesting childhood). Alan volunteered that his brother has a 20-year-old cat named Buddy who lives in the garage, and whenever Alan comes over for a visit, Buddy runs happily to see him despite his (Buddy's) advanced age. Tracey asked whether Alan owned any pets, and here comes the sad part! Alan said that "tomorrow" (that is, today) would be the ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BELOVED
DOG'S DEATH! Tracey felt terrible for asking, but I have to say that she is so smooth and nice and professional, she made the transition back to selling jewelry in a very sweet way. Okay! The sad part is over. FOR NOW! So I can tell you the simply curious (to me) fact that Alan and Tracey tried selling
golf clubs... golf clubs with heads (is that what you call that part? the head?) made of a precious stone called "
Tiger's Eye." I couldn't have dreamt that, could I? I did not! It really happened. I didn't know that golf clubs could be made of precious stone. "Striated," noted Alan. Let us move on to the part of my insomnia that was also a downer, but in a creepy way. It involves Bob Crane, the actor whose sordid personal life and gruesome manner of death are
not the kinds of things we enjoy contemplating here on the "blog"! So let's not! I will just say that when I flipped away from the Gem Shopping Network, it was to the
Disney film SUPERDAD, starring Mr. Crane. I do not think that I am projecting my knowledge of his private life onto his performance! But his face was so creepy in that movie! I couldn't watch too much of it. In every shot I saw, Bob Crane's face appeared to be an expressionless mask of deadness. At the very beginning of the film, his grim sleeping face has the image of CHILDREN DANCING AROUND A MAYPOLE sumperimposed on it, a moment so very creepy it could have come straight out of
David Lynch. Pretty soon some groovy teens are riding around signing a rockin' song about being free and doing what they want, in the back of a "borrowed" ambulance driven by a young and shaggy-haired Bruno Kirby (!). A traffic cop is surprised when the ambulance goes by and Kurt Russell is sticking out of the back window, lying blithely on a surfboard, shouting derisively at the "squares" he sees! Bruno Kirby tries really hard to get some back-and-forth going in his scene with the cipher that is Bob Crane. Bruno Kirby is game! He is
one of those actors who does his utmost for the job. So we can take away something positive from SUPERDAD, I guess. You know,
these movie channels don't EVER use the correct aspect ratio for ANYTHING, but for some reason they punctiliously letterboxed SUPERDAD.
