Thank You Memory on Thanksgiving

I was honored to speak at the 100th Anniversary celebration of the Helen Hayes Theatre last Spring. I  worked on the speech for this event for a very long time. I wanted to get it right.  It was the first time I had been back to the Helen Hayes Theatre since my show closed. I assumed the speech/performance  was just a live event, done and  gone forever.
A few days ago a video of that speech surfaced. There is a "Live" quality to the recording which sometimes makes it difficult to understand but, it is better than a transcript.

I may or may not be writing blogs over the Holidays. You may or not be reading blogs over the Holidays. Whatever you're doing over the holidays may they be filled with joy, gratitude and most of all love.
As you were,
Jay

The Two and Only

Editing the film shoot of "Jay Johnson:The Two and Only" is like trying to cut a trail through a Forrest with cuticle scissors.  Here is a quick trailer.  The music is not my favorite but it was the best of the stock tracks that are Public domain. At any rate, here is a "behind the scenes" promo.  Other trailers to come.

As you were,

Jay

Out of the Office

More from Hollywood

Wow do I feel like an international star.  I just received a check for foreign residuals from some of my past acting work.  You never know when these checks will show up. SAG/AFTRA waits until they have an amount big enough to send a check.  This is the distribution accounting.  

As my godson said to me: "Don't spend it all on chewing gum."

Have a great week end and a great Thanksgiving Holiday where ever you choose to celebrate it.

As you were,

Jay

Hooray for Hollywood

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. I have no idea what a moving picture is worth. Here is my thousand word blog for today.
It seems if you wait long enough Hollywood will come looking for you.  Here is what I woke up to today in front of my house.

To think that all these people got a job working on a 10 second commercial. That is great.  If I was just in the commercial that would be one more person working.
As you were,
Jay

Commercials

This is a Churches Fried Chicken commercial I did it the 80's.

I don't know how it is today but back then you did the commercial for scale and were paid based on the number of times and markets it was played.  If it was a national commercial and played a lot then you could make some serious cash. This shoot had a twist that I didn't see coming.

It was a fun day, the crew was great, so I was kidding around with Bob. Churches was in direct competition to McDonalds McNuggets as the dialogue implies. During one of the breaks, for benefit of the crew and director, Bob started going off on McDonalds. He joked about their CEO being a clown named Ronald, he questioned that there was actual chicken in McNuggets. The more the crew laughed, the more extreme Bob and I got. I wasn't paying any attention to what we were saying as long as we were getting crew laughs. (note: for me crew laughs are the best. If you can get a jaded Hollywood film crew to crack up it is a better feeling than almost anything). What I didn't know is that on one of my longer "rolls" with Bob the camera was still rolling.  They had my McDonald rants on film. The director said that they wanted to use some of the "outtakes" for a Churches advertising meeting would it be okay with me.  I casually said, "Sure if it is not going anywhere else."

On a break my agent called to see how it was going.  I told her what fun we were having and that Bob and I had gone off on McDonalds. There was a long silence followed by "What? Do you mean 'go off'?" I explained remembering then some of the jokes we had made at McDonalds expense. 

I proceeded to get a lecture from the agent on what a bad idea that was.  What if McDonalds got a look at the film,  they do tons of advertising and that would insure that they would never hire me. In today's world when film can go viral on the Internet it would have been an even  bigger deal. The agent said she would call the producers to get restrictions on the usage.  For the rest of the day Bob and I were better behaved toward McDonalds.

As it turned out the producers and the ad agency loved the adlib stuff as much as the commercial copy. They wanted to incorporate it into their presentation to Churches, and maybe use it at their next corporate meeting. The agent went back and forth with them and eventually negotiated the restricted use along with a payment to me at my "industrial film" rate. (I didn't know I had an industrial film rate, but that is why you have and agent).

I made a lot of money for the commercial with residuals as it played for the next year, but I made almost that much up front for my "industrial film" contributions.  All in all it was a the most profitable day on a set I have ever spent, and some of the most fun. 

Seven years later McDonalds hired me to do their "industrial tour".  It was at the time the cherry job of corporate shows, 12 cities and 24 shows. I never found out if they saw the film where I roasted them on camera for Churches, really didn't want to know. If Churches followed my agents demands the industrial film was destroyed after it was used once.

As you were,

Jay

Only the Truth is Funny

CIA General Petraeus resigned after he admitted to an affair with a woman who was his biographer. The book she wrote about the General is titled, "All In".  If I wrote that in a script I would immediately be laughed at for having an over active writers libido.
When I was in college, between North Texas University and the Oklahoma border was a motel off the freeway. It was a close enough drive for college kids to have a weekend fling, but far enough away that  the likely hood of being seen by friends (who weren't there for the same purpose) was remote.  The motel was named... "Planet Inn" with a graphic of Saturn on the sign.  Further down the road there was another motel which offered female company for a price and it was named "Walkin' Stick Inn" with a cane on the sign.  I don't believe these names are just random semantic coincidences any more than the liquor store in Beaver, Colorado named "Beaver Liquor".
Being sort of a wordsmith myself I have to admire that sort of plausible deny ability.  When questioned about the "suggestibility" of the name it can be turned on the inquisitor for having such a dirty mind to even think such a thing.  Perhaps I admire it from a purely passive/aggressive point of view.
But back to the retired general head of the CIA. I don't care that he had an affair, and I don't care who he had it with,  extra-marital affairs are not unique among high ranking men. And I am not so sure that this particular dalliance was dangerous to national security. But here is why he had to resign.
If the head of the CIA is not good enough to keep an affair secret... how can he be good enough to keep all the national secrets entrusted to him.
In a week when Republicans are wondering where they went wrong hearing that the great GOP hope for 2016 left the current administration in disgrace is just another defeat.
As you were,
Jay

UnPopular?

Judging on the volume of email that I receive, I became very unpopular on Wednesday morning of this week.  Something must have happened on Tuesday to change my status.  I am no longer hearing from famous people whom I barely know extolling the virtues of political candidates. It has been days since my congressmen and senators reminded me of what a great job they were doing, and the same amount of time since I heard from others on what a bad job my congressmen and senators were doing.
No one cares about my views on taxes, health care, the economy and "binders full of women" since Tuesday.
 Last week at this time my opinion seemed to be very important.  I was encouraged to sign petitions and give money to organizations that were going to make my "valued" and "wise" opinions known to the world.  I had the weight of saving a nation on my individual shoulders.
Since Tuesday, strangers addressing me as "concerned voter" no longer email me to let me know that I was the most important person in the nation, able to leap tall budgets with a single bound.
What happened? All this activity and urgency to act quickly before some crisis, and just as I was beginning to fear the worst... nothing. No one cares any more.
Although nothing has changed, I feel better.  It is a much better day when most of my emails are Facebook friend requests instead of donation requests. I never thought I would look forward to a picture posting of what a friend had for lunch.
In this day when popularity is based on clicks, hits, likes and shares, it seems my standing has declined considerable. Based on sheer volume and Internet statistics my aggregate esteem has suffered considerably since Tuesday night.
It would be easy to perceive it just a coincidence until I compare that drop in activity to an equal drop in my popularity with robots.  Last week I could count on getting phone calls from at least five robotic voices during the dinner hour alone.  It was difficult to eat on Wednesday night because the phone was silent. I am beginning to think that I can no longer salivate unless there is a bell ringing.
When was it that all those bad things were supposed to happen? To my way of thinking, nothing seems to have changed since Tuesday, the sky is not falling and the wolf is not huffing and puffing at my front door.  Everything is the same but nobody is telling me what a pickle I am in since Tuesday. I have lost nothing except popularity.
As you were,
Jay

Election Day- Oxymoron

I am glad the election is over.  I really thought that as contentious as it was in the campaign it would be a much more dramatic and drawn out ending. The anti-climax was almost a disappointment.  We didn't get to see a third of the video tricks John King's magic screen could accomplish.  

So... it is time to move on or stay put or whatever this election means.  The problem is that after all the money spent and all the hoopla, we are no closer to having a government that works.  It is still an uncompromising behemoth that does not know the meaning of compromise or negotiate.  We used to be a government that could work together to find common ground for the good of the nation in spite of political differences.  My fear is that today is not the ending of the 2012 campaign, but the beginning of the 2016 run for an open presidency.  

But... as for me,  I am moving on.  

Yesterday I was walking Boo on a beautiful California day. She became distracted by one of the yards in my neighborhood.  Before I realized what had happened she ran into a yard newly fertilized with manure.  I pulled on her leash and told her to come and she slowly wondered toward me but stopped. It was there in the neighbor's  yard she decided  to "do her business"... "make a pit stop"...."share a tootsie roll"... she took a shit... okay? 

In an action that can only be described as "reverse Pavlov's psychology" I began unfurling a doo doo bag to dispose of the gifts my dog had shared with the neighbor's yard.  That is when the significance of this knee jerk reaction hit me.  There I was carefully trying to remove dog shit from a lawn covered in cow shit.  At almost the same moment I remembered it was election day and I needed to vote. I needed to do my civic duty to make a selection between types of shit.  The metaphor was too close in my mind. 

As you were,

Jay 

Argo F yourself

If you have seen the movie Argo you will know the reference to this title. Sandi and I saw the movie this weekend in the Archlight Movie theatre at the Galleria.  I'm not a movie critic, but it is a good movie and well worth seeing for my entertainment value.

If you have never seen a movie in the Los Angeles area before, there is a different code of courtesy here than in most cities that every movie goer abides by.  Since there is a greater likely - hood of people who worked on the movie living here; the audiences stay through the credits to see their own name or the name of friends.  That is just the way it works.

So when an older man dashed out the emergency exit to the right of the screen the minute the credits began to roll flooding the theatre with light, everyone took notice.  Toward the end of the credits there was a distinct knocking on the exit door where the man had left.  Obviously it did not lead where he thought and he could not get back in.  The knock continued louder.  It eventually became a pounding.

There was a giggle that wafted through the audience as everyone became aware of what had happened to the "discourteous man".   The knock continued.  Even louder than the knock was the voice from a patron in the back of the theatre yelling..... "Don't let him in".  There was another laugh from the audience as everyone began exiting through the proper doors.  Finally an usher came to the man's rescue, the rest of the audience ignored him. 

As reality imitates art, borrowing from the tag line in the movie.... "Argo F---- yourself, Mr." 

As you were,

Jay

All Saints Day

Happy All Saints day, better known as sugar hangover day.  

As you were,
Jay

Happy Halloween

Ghouls and Zombies at OHS

Orchard Hardware Supply is the nearest hardware store to my house.  Sometimes I go over and walk around just to get a rush of testosterone.  Most of the time I am not looking for something specific, just visiting all the tools.  Today I was actually looking for a certain cabinet latch to replace one that is broken in the kitchen.

I am not above asking for help when looking for an item.  As a matter of fact I had to ask several clerks to even find the section that I should look in today. It may be that men don't ask for directions because we can't follow them when they are given to us.  Even after someone told me what I was looking for is on aisle 14, I didn't find the latch right away. I wondered around thinking I would see a sign saying, "Over here, Jay". That never happened.

The store has all of its Halloween merchandise on the push aisles displayed all over the store.  Some of the employees were dressed in costume. There is a sort of "unfinished" haunted house feeling to the store right now. That added to the illusion that struck me on my mission.

I saw a bunch of guys my age walking around in a daze looking for the same "Over Here" sign that I thought would be there for me.  I passed some of them several times and it became obvious that none of us knew where we were going or in some cases what we were even doing there. We all had this bewildered look on our faces shuffling along not to fast lest we walk right past the item we needed. 

Being that it was all Halloween-ed out I suddenly saw us as Zombies and Ghouls lusting for human brains, and like the stereotypical male Zombies we were had no  clue where the human brain section started.  One older man in particular was perfectly cast as a Zombie except for the wondering eye.  He never looked at me but kept his gaze at "lower shelf level" with his mouth a gape and limping a little. I passed him four times and he was still wondering when I checked out.

The clerk who was not in costume said, "You're in a good mood today."   I said, "Who doesn't like Halloween?" She looked up to see a long line of Zombieisque handymen waiting to check out  and said, "Me."

 As you were,

Jay

What's on your mind?

Two Days till.....

I found a count down clock to Halloween in the gaget section of the google blog stuff.  It was nice, good graphic but it came with an ad that was bigger than the clock and it could not be deleted. You would think as much revenue as Google generates on pop up ads and paid for searches they could let the Halloween count down clock go naked.
How dare Google commercialize an other wise respectful holiday?
As you were,
Jay

Halloween

There is something about Halloween that will always be special to me. There are many reasons both personal and universal.

On the universal level, what is not to like about Halloween? It is not a family holiday so there are no worries about celebrating together or traveling to be with family.  Not that this is bad a bad thing, it just sometimes adds to the complications of celebrating the Holidays.  

Halloween celebrates the strange and unusual, the dark side of the moon, the yen to the yang, the naughty over the nice. You get to dress up like someone or something else and there are no rules about what is appropriate garb.  Top all that off with the fact that as a kid you get candy just for ringing some one's doorbell. The perfect holiday.

Outside my window

For me, my first venture on the stage was at Halloween.  Abernathy, Texas where I grew up used to celebrate Halloween with a parade, a costume contest and a Harvest Play every year at the school auditorium. As a kid I was called upon to be in those productions. I have played cowboys, ghosts, and been the official crown bearer for the Harvest Queen.  I loved being in those shows and always looked forward to it.  To top it off after the show we could go trick or treating and get enough candy to cause a sugar overdose of energy. Perhaps it was a psychological connection to the stage,  perform... get candy... even Pavlov's Dogs would become hooked.  

Later in life when Harry Anderson and I teamed up we produced some of the greatest Halloween shows the Comedy and Magic Club has ever seen. (Jay said modestly).  These shows gave birth to some of my favorite vent characters, some are still with me.  There was Long John LaFeat, Nethernore and Log Chainey the wooden killer. Log Chainey was the star of the show for a couple of years.  He is a 7 foot monster that looks like one of the evil trees in the Wizard of Oz. He comes on stage dragging me by the  torso and proceeds to become enraged with every wood joke that I tell. It is a unique body costume switch that Kirk Thatcher and I designed. Log was too complicated to make it into the cast of "The Two and Only" but Long John and Nethernore made the Broadway cut. 

Before Harry moved away from Los Angeles we worked months on a "walk through" haunted house in the basement of his Pasadena house.  We pulled out all the stops and raided Harry's vast supply of body parts and magic tricks to amaze the participants.  Mike Caveney even called it the best Haunted House he had ever seen and called his friend David Copperfield to tell him about it.  David arrived a couple of days after Halloween for a personal tour.  It included a severed head that would turn into a werewolf when "moon light" was shined on it.  The moon light was a simple flashlight which anyone could shine on the head, but the effect was mind blowing.  David was impressed.

Every year I create Fredrick the Frightening.  Fredrick started as a simple scarecrow/life-sized mannequin when I was a kid. He grew in design and structure over the years as I was able to find more grotesque and magical head/faces for the guy. The head I liked the best was a foam rubber pumpkin that had a very frightening expression.  I added glass taxidermy lion eyes and it was truly frightening.  After several years the foam began to decay and Sandi tossed it before I could retrieve the eyes.  If we were ever going to divorce that would have done it... but even expensive taxidermy eyes are no where near the value of a soul mate like Sandi.  

This year with a very simple optical illusion Frederick will turn his head and follow you where ever you walk in a room.  Since our neighborhood is gated and no sidewalks we don't get any trick or treaters so Frederick will spend the night at the Williams house nearby.  They get over 200 little ghosts and ghouls and he will be appreciated by a larger audience.  Be afraid kids... be very afraid.

Five more days.... can't wait.

As you were,

Jay 

Gas Light

After my blog yesterday about Boo, I now think that my life compares more with the film Gaslight than Vertigo.  I have exposed my weakness for making over Boo in the image of Smooch. Armed with that information here is what some of my friends are sending me.  

No offense to Kim Novak or any members of here fan club or family.  The picture wasn't intended as any editorial toward an iconic movie star. She even makes this incarnation beautiful. 

Rather this clever composite is a statement that friends who know me as well as my son are aware of my canine obsession.  Yikes... my opaque personality and obsessions have been outed. 

I find this picture compelling and just a little bit disturbing.  It makes me stutter in a quintessential Jimmy Stewart manner.  I have never been comfortable with heights and look pretty good in a 50's suit and fedora.  I think I have found my Halloween costume.  I will dress up as John "Scottie" Ferguson. I doubt that I can find the costume in this photo for Boo, but my delusions are obviously working over time so it should work in the mind of Jayland.

Thank you Marjorie.... LOL and OMG.

As you were,

Jay

A story about a Dog

My oldest son returned a week ago from living in Berlin for the last six years. It was his first time to meet Boo, my dog.  He thinks I spoil her. I tell him I was much tougher raising little boys.

I'm not sure anyone agrees with my method of Boo training and it particularly fails to compare with the discipline of German dogs. My dog is no "Ich bin ein Berliner"  by breed or behavior. Perhaps my son is judging her by culturally different standards. Boo is better behaved than Smooch, our first dog, although it is amazing how similar they are in most other respects. 

Portait of Boo 

Regarding my relationship with Boo my son recently made reference to an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It was an amusingly erudite reference typical of my son's keen observation and intelligence.   I can't seem to get it out of my mind.

The reference was to Vertigo  a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1954 novel D'entre les morts by Boileau-Narcejac. The screenplay written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor.

Most people will know it as Alfred Hitchcock's Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak movie.  You can go to Wikipedia and read the plot.  This guy falls in love with a woman who commits suicide.  He becomes obsessed with another woman, and attempts to dress her and style her in the image of the dead lady.  At the end of the movie we discover the woman is the same person in a twisted murder plot that ends in tragedy. 

But this is a dog story.

Smooch was a dog we adopted from my brother-in-law. I was close to Smooch but she was not my dog. She was mostly attached to my youngest son and she was a good family dog. Smooch developed an illness and it became necessary to ease her pain and put her down.  No one wanted her to go through it alone, but nobody wanted to be there for it either.  As Father of the family, it was my duty to see Smooch on her way. I had been the "one in  charge" at the death of Peanut the rat,  Gilley the Frog, and Renfield the cat. For those events I only had to deal with the after math of death.  For Smooch my presence was required to be there for the moment. I never felt closer to Smooch than when she was drifting away in my lap. That experience affected me profoundly.  

We didn't have any pets for several years after that. I only wanted a dog if it could be exactly like Smooch in training and personality.  I doubted that we would ever find a dog like Smooch. If cloning was an affordable option I might have considered it.  If not Smooch, better to be without a dog.

A little more than a year ago I heard about a dog needing a home while I was winning at a poker game. The dog belonged to a celebrity friend of a friend. The dog was four years old, 20 pounds, trained, vaccinated and cute.  I asked what kind of dog it was and the poker hostess said, "Blond". 

At the encouragement of my wife I got a picture and more information on the dog.  She was a blond cockapoo who looked remarkably like Smooch.  In a few days when I finally met Boo it was love at first sight and she became my dog. Boo is so similar in personality I call her Smooch occasionally still.

Is my son right in his film comparison? Am I obsessing? Am I Jimmy Stewart and is Boo Kim Novak? Am I trying to reanimate puppy love lost, in the image of a new blond cockapoo? Am I trying to recast a relationship with Boo that I only had with Smooch for the last moments of her life?  Who would even make that connection to Vergtigo  and cause me to wonder but my loving son who has been gone for awhile?  

I'm under the delusion that I'm a complicated person, but the more I try to be opaque the more transparent I become. That is why we have family... to point out that fact.

As you were,

Jay

Di Vinci Code

I doubt that Leonardo would have published his drawings on the web. That is the difference between Mr. DiVinci and myself, among other things. As for me, since there have been no scientific journals hounding me for this information, I share it with the blogosphere.  

One warning... do not take time for granted. If indeed life's pause button has been found, make sure the moment is right to time travel.  Also, know where you are going.  There is so much time and so little now.

These are actual notes taken during my Time Capsule experiments.  For some reason the time machine could not be found for a day.  In an effort to document my attempt to"find" it, I took careful notes using my best drawing pen.  What I found was compelling and unexpected.  

With all our clocks synced to each other via the internet, radio frequencies and atomic seconds there should have been no variance in time. That is why this finding was so baffling.

Using my iPhone and iPad along with my computer I worked all day on the project.  I eventually found the Time Machine and the Time capsule. Looking back on the last few measurements I realized the calculations show a "time gap". It shows that for 31 minutes time stood still.  I believe the time machine made a jump into an alternative universe that is ahead of us by a few minutes.  Since those events have yet to happen in our universe, but are past in the alternate, it would be impossible to exist there.  

Mrs. Williams always told us to show our work so here it is.  

As you were, 

Jay

Magic Castle

I just finished a week at the Magic Castle.  I always have a great time when I am there performing. What a unique place to work.  

I find that magicians have the best stories.  Mike Caveney works with a live chicken on stage and told me this one involving livestock productions.  

It seems that a friend of his was going to do the "duck bucket" trick at the Castle.  As you might expect that trick involves producing a live duck from an empty bucket.  (No I can't tell you how it works because of the Magicians code of secrecy). It doesn't matter since the story does not involve the production method anyway. 

The magician didn't want to travel with a real duck so he decided to get one when he got to Los Angeles.  The place to get a live duck is Chinatown, so that is where he ended up.  He was directed to a shop keeper with a pen of ducks for sale.  The magician wanted just the right one as far as size and color.  He looked at all of them and found a white one that was just right.  Although the merchant did not understand his reasons for wanting a specific duck, he finally isolated the one the magician wanted.

In one well perfected move he grabbed the duck threw it down on the chopping block quickly cutting off its head saying, "You like me to take off feathers." 

Little did the duck know that he was just moments away from going into Show business.

As you were,

Jay