Well, dear readers, I do not know what is wrong with my internal clock, but we must fix it because my internal clock is driving me crazy – not a long drive, as you know. For example, yesterday I did not get into bed until almost 7:30 in the morning. That is just batty. That is just nutty. That is just absurdity at its most absurd. Therefore, I slept until four in the afternoon, which is even more nutty. An entire day gone with the wind. This has happened several times recently, getting to bed later than four in the morning. It must stop. I must get my internal clock back in proper working order. I must try to be in bed by one or one-thirty at the latest, so I can arise at a normal hour like nine-thirty or ten and having gotten eight hours of sleep. In any case, I was up at four, had a text from PayPal so had to call and see what it was about and then adjust what it was about. Thankfully, it was easy once I got past the guy I was originally talking to – I have found that the males who work at PayPal are terse and unwilling to be helpful, so if I don’t get a woman I then ask for a supervisor. The one I got was great and therefore things worked out in way I was okay with. PayPal used to be so easy, but over the last five years, they have made so many irritating changes to their terms of service and I think all us old-timers who’ve been with them from the start. PayPal began as a company called Confinity back in 1998 with no success whatsoever until they changed their business model and re-branded as PayPal in 2000. In 2001 they were bought by eBay and that is when it became a thing. My very first PayPal account, which was a personal account, was that very year. So, I’ve been with them from their very first real year. In 2005, with the birth of Kritzerland, I began that business account and ultimately got rid of the personal account. So, next year will be twenty years of the business account. I merely told the supervisor that it almost seems like we’re occasionally being punished for things we have no control over and she acknowledged that and actually agreed with it, saying that long-time account holders like me should be treated differently than people who’ve just joined or joined in the last few years – because we have the history. The real problems and reasons for many of the changes they’ve made happened in 2020 with the pandemic, when suddenly PayPal was inundated with new account holders trying to sell on eBay or other platforms due to having to stay at home. And many of those sellers were crooks who would not deliver the products at all or send empty envelopes or shoddy merchandise. So, they were getting all kinds of chargebacks and paying out huge amounts of money to disgruntled consumers thanks to these miscreants. So, to protect themselves they made all these changes. But us long-timers have the history of never having done that. It’s like the rest of the world today, with all the scammers – they ruin it for everyone. And to all those miscreant we wish very bad things, karma-wise, like having to spend the rest of their sorry lives eating kumquats and having to watch Waterworld and having to listen to the music of Anton Weber and John Cage at the same time. The latter would be sublime punishment. I recently watched a “performance” of Cage’s 4:33 with the Berliner Philharmoniker. A work in three movements in which the conductor stands with hands outstretched and the orchestra sits there and plays no music for 4:33 seconds. At the end, people applaud vociferously. I kid you not.

Anyway, after sorting things out with PayPal, I decided I was not in the mood to go to Gelson’s, so I ordered two-item plate from Panda Express – I got the orange chicken and chicken with string beans – it was fine. I got white rice and chow mein with it – ate a third of the rice and all the mein. That was nice and filling. Then the day was done and I had a telephonic conversation, after which I sat on my couch like so much fish and watched a motion picture entitled The Trouble with Charlie, starring Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton, directed by Jonathan Demme. Mr. Demme has made some fine films in his career, the best of them being Silence of the Lambs. He has also made some very bad films, the nadir of which is The Trouble with Charlie, in which he had the temerity to remake Charade, a great and fun movie, with two of THE most charismatic stars in the history of the movies, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Add to that a supporting cast that includes Walter Matthau, George Kennedy, Ned Glass, and James Coburn, a fantastic script by Peter Stone filled with suspense, thrills, and comedy, and a brilliant score by Henry Mancini, along with lush photography by Charles Lang and beautifully directed by Stanley Donen.

And what do we get with The Trouble with Charlie? A director trying to be a hipster making a New Wave film and failing miserably. The plot is the same, but so much unnecessary BS has been added to it, constantly hammering you over the head, with hipster cameos by Charles Aznavour,

Agnes Varda, and Anna Karina, horrible dialogue, and a score by Rachel Portman, who is normally very good, so wrong and so horrible that it beggars belief, really. There isn’t a single thing that works in this film. It’s hilarious reading the reviews from back then, with half the critics saying it like it is, and the other half, the auterist group, saying that while it doesn’t quite work, that Demme can do no wrong. Mark Wahlberg is not only no Cary Grant, he has no charisma whatsoever and while Thandie Newton has always been a critics’ darling, I just don’t get her at all. She’s okay and that’s about it – Audrey Hepburn she’s not. I saw this back in 2002 and wrote basically the same thing in these here notes. To be avoided at all costs and just do what I’ll be doing this evening – watching Charade.

After that, I had another telephonic conversation and here we are.

Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll have a little telephonic conversation with David Wechter, I’ll shave and shower, and then I’ll first put some gas in the motor car, then I’ll sup with the Pearls, after which I’ll probably stop at Gelson’s and get some Diet Coke, which I’m about to be out of completely. Then I’ll watch Charade, listen, and relax.

Tomorrow can be a ME day, and then next week I have to get the final two people locked in for the Kritzerland show so we can get ticket sales going and we have to make the rehearsal schedule, I have several meetings and meals, some writing to do, and then doing whatever else needs doing.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, have a telephonic conversation, shave and shower, put some gas in the motor car, eat, get some Diet Coke, and then come home and watch Charade. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite films of Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton – oops, sorry – I meant Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping I can fix my internal clock.