"...but the point is probably moot"

 

At a wedding dance, all kinds of songs were being played (streamed through AI) - it was so good, and then there were a lot of songs that I didn't know but the young people (teens to 26 years old, approx.) were singing every word along with the recordings.

        Then the guy played "Jessie's Girl" and the kids were singing that one, too, and my brain did a double-take:  wait, that song came out in 1981, how do these people know this song...?

I thought "Jessie's GIrl" must have been used in a movie that they all saw, or something like that.

Had to go home and Google:  it said "twenty-two-year-olds know Rick Springfield's 1981 hit "Jessie's Girl" primarily through pop culture osmosis...."

        It said the song was in a film called Boogie Nights, and was covered on the TV show Glee.

It also says, "The song is a default karaoke standard, frequently plays at sporting events, and is heavily featured in coming-of-age comedies, embedding it in the cultural zeitgeist."

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unanticipated acquaintance

 

        When some other kids and I went to meet the writer - actor - restaurateur in the summer of '77, it occurred to me that he kind of didn't mind some company because - it was probably one of those times when - a person who leads a busy life in Carmel, California, with social events and atmospheres and all, and he's writing a novel but hasn't got it finished, says to himself, "I'm going to take a break, stay in our family's cabin in the Black Hills for a little bit, and finish writing my book.  I can concentrate there; I'll be alone there; no distractions."

So he goes; he types; he smokes cigarettes.

At some point, however, he starts to feel like:  "All this alone-time.  I miss socializing."

Right?

We want something.  Then we have it.  Then pretty soon we want the thing we had before.  Some conversation; some dancing; blah-blah-blah.

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Maxwell Perkins and Huey Long

 He gave me a copy of his as yet unfinished novel - it was in manuscript form - double-spaced, front only of each page.

I read it, and liked it, and got it back to him, with comments / observations.

We exchanged a few letters the first couple of years I was in Boston, going to school.

(All these memories came back to me, as I remembered other parts of it - some things I had not thought of in quite a while.)

        There was a new book out, a biography of Maxwell Perkins, who was editor of Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, and other major authors from the early part of the 20th Century.  I remember I recommended it to him, and maybe I even sent him my copy of it when I was finished reading it - I'm not sure....

And I sent him a paper I had written for American History class - would have been my sophomore year, I think.  The paper was about Huey Long, governor of Louisiana from 1928 - 1932, and U.S. Senator from 1932 until his assassination in 1935.

        He wrote back to me - the paper had a "B" grade on it, and he took a firm stand, saying it was "an 'A' paper."  He was a little ticked at the professor!  LOL.

I didn't send it to him to get his judgment on what the grade should have been - I only wanted to share it because I had fun writing it, and I guess I was proud of it, and just wanted him to see it.

Did not expect him to take umbrage about the grade!

It was funny.

Next time I wrote to him, I said I was glad he thought it was an A paper, but not to be concerned, because I wasn't worried about getting a "B."

357 Beacon Street, apartment building where I lived, sophomore year at B.U.

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trouble already

 Yeah, let's split.  He's got enough trouble already.

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I only heard him say that in the movie many years later.

At the time, you couldn't stream it or watch it on DVD or on a VCR tape.

If you didn't see it in the theater, or on television if they showed it, then - you missed it.

        You couldn't get it.

It was a crazy world when you didn't have movies at your fingertips.

But we didn't know it was crazy.

It was just - Wednesday. ...

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        That summer, in 1977, the writer asked me to take a copy of his manuscript so far and read it, and put comments in the margins, & - I did.

I was very honored to be asked to do that.

        Remembering it now makes me smile.  Again.

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enough trouble

 The scene in Play Misty For Me where the guy I knew is in it, is at 31:00 into the movie.  This woman has grabbed his car keys out of the ignition and got out of the car.

He's saying, "Come on, gimme the keys."  And she kind of starts running away from him, laughing like a maniac.

At 31:10, there he is, up at the top of the stairs.

Then another guy comes out.

Clint Eastwood and Jessica Walter are struggling over the keys.  

"Damn it, give me the keys!"

The top-of-the-stairs guy on the left says, "Havin' some trouble, lady?"

"Get lost!" Clint advises him.

The crazy lady:  "Yeah!  Get lost, asshole!"

Her voice is really, really angry, and scary.

Clint looks at her, surprised.

And top-of-the-stairs guy on the right, the Writer, says, "Yeah, let's split, he's got enough trouble already."

other guy:  "Yeah, excuse me."

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Carmel-by-the-sea

 

        It turned out this writer I met during the summer of '77 was originally from South Dakota, but he lived in Carmel, California most of the time, and was part-owner of a restaurant there, with Clint Eastwood.

        I didn't have a lot of knowledge about Clint Eastwood back then - I knew he was in a movie called Dirty Harry.

        He had majored in English literature in college (the writer, not Mr. Eastwood) and worked as sportswriter for the San Francisco Examiner.

        He told  me stories about an apartment building he lived in, in San Fran - the interesting and eccentric people who lived there, and I think he wrote a story about it - can't remember for sure...

We hung out and talked, several times that summer - lunch one day, pizza one night, and I can't even recall most of what we talked about, now, but it was nice.  Hassle-free; controversy-free, no "drama," and never boring.

I guess he was a good story-teller.

        I talked, too, but I didn't know much, at that age, compared to him!

When I told him something about experiences I had and the impressions they left, he responded by giving his perspective on it compared to other ways the events could have gone, and his point was always positive - encouraging.

He was a serious person, and also simply a joy to be around.

Oh, and he was in a movie that Clint Eastwood directed and starred in, called Play Misty For Me (made in 1971, same year as Dirty Harry).

        Writer-friend was in it for only a few seconds, small part - he and another guy are in front of a restaurant, and nearby on the sidewalk Clint Eastwood and actress Jessica Walter are having kind of an altercation.  The two men observing them assume for a moment that the woman needs saving from Eastwood, but it's the opposite, she's tormenting him.

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pink dress

 After we met the writer (and rather interrupted his writing, I guess) - we went back to the resort where we worked and lived.

Later that week, the writer called me and asked if I would like to go out to dinner - on, like, Saturday night, or Friday night, or something.

        I had this pink dress I had bought for some reason - I had a job, I had some money, and I got it because it fit and I liked it.

I said yes to dinner, and wore that dress.

I had never really had a real date, before.

And this man was handsome, interesting, and 27 years older than me.

        45, and I was 18.

I didn't hesitate to say yes when he called me, but then later I thought about it - am I "allowed" to go out with a man who is that much older than me?

        I decided I was allowed.  I was allowing myself.

Lovely evening.  Conversation was fun and easy.  He was not a negative person.  He didn't complain, or scoff, or try to manipulate me.

        And after dinner we went to a nightclub in Keystone and danced!

He told me the music they were playing was "disco," & that it was going to be the next big trend.

        (He was right - a month and a half later when I got to B.U., it was a close guess which music was coming out of the most dorm rooms - Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album, or the songs from Saturday Night Fever....

Well you can tell by the way I use my walk,

I'm a woman's man, no time to talk...)

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