I’ve had a lot of free time lately. I haven’t been sleeping well, staying awake until around four in the morning. I’ve been fairly productive, though, so that’s one good thing that’s come out of it. I finished up a huge portion of the proposal for Prophet Incorporated. I, um… watched a lot of television. :)
This evening in particular I watched an hour-long special from the 1950’s that I happened to spot in the listings as I scanned TCM’s programming schedule. It was called, ‘Hollywood My Home Town’, and it was just a solid hour of some guy’s home movies from Hollywood from 1920 through 1950. The ‘some guy’ had a variety of some sort at the time, but for the life of me I don’t know who he was. Regardless of this, he took some incredible home movies. He just showed up in Hollywood one day in the 1920’s, and started shooting clips of famous movie stars like Gloria Swanson, Errol Flynn, the Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, the whole lot. Later on, he went on vacations with the likes of Glenn Ford and Bob Hope. It was interesting to see all these old, candid clips of people I’ve seen in dozens upon dozens of classic movies. I especially liked the clips from the World War II era, where he showed Glenn Ford polishing his boots along with the other officers, and John Powers as a drill sergeant. Another interesting series of shots was a charity baseball game, with Frank Sinatra serving as one of team’s captain, and Mickey Rooney ran three bases after hitting a bunt. Although, the highlight of that bit was seeing Frankenstein as the umpire.
Even though that show ended around 2:00am, I still couldn’t sleep. Thank goodness I had previously Tivo’d a special on PBS all about Peggy Lee. Gotta dig those 60’s bouffants. That woman definitely had an amazing voice. The first song I heard of hers was ‘Fever’, and I’ve loved her music ever since. I learned a lot about her from watching that show – turns out she also wrote one of my favorite songs of all time, “It’s a Good Day”. And there I was thinking Perry Como wrote it. I should have known better! :)
The ultimate trip back in time, though, happened earlier today. I went to visit my mechanic because I saw a beautiful 1962 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud sitting in his parking lot the other day, and I just had to drive it. He told me if I came by today he’d charge up the battery and let me take it out for a spin. I was thrilled with the opportunity – a mammoth right-hand-drive Rolls, ready and waiting for me to drive it. I showed up at his shop just a little past noon, he went right out to charge it, and sure enough with only one jolt that darling stylish old car started right up. My Mom and I went for a drive and I couldn’t help but laugh. It was such an amazing feeling to go charging up the road in such a striking, different automobile. Unfortunately the owner of the Rolls didn’t like my idea of her donating the car to Prophet Incorporated. Now that I’m all tax deductible she could have written off the full worth of the car, but she didn’t need that kind of a tax break. *sigh* I really wanted that Rolls. Totally impractical, but oh so much fun. It’d be a hilarious statement, and a great way to raise money for the Daily Prophet. But alas, it was not meant to be.
Now it appears to be 4:20 in the morning and I still don’t feel like I can sleep. I think I’m going to try it anyway. Wish me luck, I think I’ll need it.
