The Writer's Life 6/4 - Wishing

One of my wishes came true last night, courtesy of Decades, a new channel on Cablevision (112). At ten it began a binge of episodes of Naked City. I watched the first, which originally aired in October of 1960, the second season premiere. The opening scene had Peter Falk, whose brief appearance is unaccredited, in a shoot-out with cops. Out of bullets, he is cornered by rogue detective Eli Wallach, who calmly murders him. Also making guest appearances were George Maharis as a boxer and Jan Miner, who baby boomers will remember as the manicurist who hawked Palmolive dish washing liquid, telling her clients: “You’re soaking in it!” The location shooting is phenomenal. The teleplay was written by the prolific Stirling Silliphant, who did 37 of them for the show, as well as eleven Hitchcock’s and possibly as many as 116 of Route 66, and also many popular screenplays including The Towering Inferno (1974) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972). Earlier, at eight, Decades aired The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974), while This-TV (111) ran The Terminator (1984) and Movies! (113) showed Escape from New York (1981), a festival of silly fun that had me going back and forth with the remote. I hope my wish that Decades shows Combat! and The X-Files also comes true. The only drawback so far is the cropped screen format it uses, similar to that used, since abandoned, by Cozi-TV (109) its first year.

The NY Post gleefully published the results of a poll that shows a majority of New Yorkers want to throw the bums out of office. Unfortunately, come election time, they will likely return their incumbents to office, believing it’s the other representatives who are corrupt.

I'm glad Rick Perry is making another run at the presidency. His record as governor of Texas is impressive. He will have to be considerably more polished than he was last time. I don't think there's a better candidate out there, but he needs to be a better campaigner.

People are complaining how cold their apartments are, as the unusually cool weather persists, and landlords are not required to supply heat in June. I wore sweats last night. My thanks to the three ladies who bought books today. Another is in the process of buying a beautiful set of illustrated science books geared toward kids. I didn't have change of a fifty, so I told her to pay me tomorrow. She carried away 23 of the 28. Although they are thin, it was a heavy haul. I'm confident she'll return. She's bought stuff from me in the past. If not, so what -- at least a kid will be happy.

Vic's 5th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/okxkwh5Vic's 4th novel: tinyurl.com/bszwlxh

Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3

Vic's Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
Vic's Short Story Collection: http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tiny.cc/0iHLb Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kx3d3uf
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tinyurl.com/l84h63j

Vic's Rom-Com Screenplay: http://tinyurl.com/kny5llp

Vic's Horror Screenplay: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3f

Vic's Blog: http://vicfortezza.blogspot.com/

Vic's Web Site: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/