I’m sure that AI has been lurking behind many of my online going-ons over the last few years. I’m sure that I’ve been “helped” numerous times by AI without my realizing it. But I have never knowingly, willingly used AI. Not once. But today I witnessed some “help” offered me without my asking. Thankfully, I caught the help and prevented a lie being told on my behalf.

I have an ongoing email correspondence with a childhood friend. We used to watch the monster movies together and he frequently writes me with a memory or asks me if I remember something. I always reply but sometimes it takes a few days. Maybe I’m just too slow to satisfy AI.

I opened up his email and found, at the top, that AI had helpfully written a reply for me. Short and blunt. The salutation read, “Dear Steven”. And was signed off simply “Richard.”  So AI got our legal names right.

But we have NEVER referred to each other by those names. Sometimes we say “Steve” and “Rick”, but not usually even that. We have silly old childhood nicknames which we use 90% of the time. So, right off, the AI wants to formalize our 60 year friendship. Not good.

Then, in the body of the email, brief as it was, AI informs “Steven” that the experience he remembered was true of me as well. “Yes,” AI, says, “That’s what happened.”

But it didn’t. Not only was the AI trying to depersonalize and formalize our childhood friendship, it was actually lying to him. 

The discussion concerned our “duck and cover” experiences in school. Steve remembered having instruction of that, and asked if I had. So AI decided, “Sure, ole Richard had that experience” and told Steve that. Or would have, had I not seen the not-written-by-me note that AI wanted me to send.

Now, this is a minor thing from 60+ years ago, obviously. But it is, nevertheless, a lie. If AI can lie about such a teeny detail, what else can it lie about? Answer: any-damn-thing.

Of course this AI note was offered as a help. Many people, too many, would glance at it, think “Good, I don’t have to write anything.” Then they would press “Send” and lie to an old friend.

I’m glad I took the three seconds required to read the AI letter and notice how wrong and how awful it was.

In the grand scheme of things, in the great contentious AI discussion, this is the tiniest pebble, I know. But it’s my first personal experience with this dastardly process, and I am not happy.

Later addition:

Google's AI keeps trying.  Today I was responding to another email from old friend Steve. His message covered two items, a question about SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, and asking whether I'd ever watched RED DWARF.

AI's "suggested response" was essentially, "You're right about SON OF FRANKENSTEIN. I loved RED DWARF, which episode are you watching?"

The truth is -- as I personally, being a human, answered, "No, you're wrong about SON OF FRANKENSTEIN and I've never seen RED DWARF.  

Oooooh, AI was so (not) close.

I love Arby's. Arby's roast beef. I love it! 

I do not proclaim this ironically, nor jokingly. Not being sarcastic or cynical. Not looking for laughs or approval. Not fearing disdain or disagreement. Simple truth: I love Arby's.

My introduction to Arby's was in Denver, 1977. I was wandering the streets because, this being before home computers and cell phones, it was sometimes necessary for even the laziest of us to get out and perambulate.

While perambulating, I spotted Arby's. I’d never heard of it before, but it was lunch time. I bought an Arby's roast beef sandwich, fries, and a Coke. I loved the sandwich SO much that I bought a second sandwich and stuffed it into my gaping maw.

This was a momentous discovery, and that night at the theater (performing HARVEY) I spread the gospel of Arby's. I could not praise it enough. 

Next evening I arrived for the performance and was immediately confronted by Frank, our Elwood P. Dowd. He was more than unhappy. Frank was frankly furious. He explained to me in coarse and angry terms that he and his wife, on my recommendation, had ventured to Arby's that day. He said, "how could you direct anybody there? How could you suggest that anybody eat that garbage? It was disgusting!”

I took it from his tone that he did not like the Arby's roast beef sandwich. This was hard for me to understand but he was genuinely and loudly serious about it. I sort of apologized and we never mentioned it again.

Soon, there was an Arby's in Clarksville, Indiana, on the road in front of the Greentree Mall. As everyone knows, it was a legal requirement back then that anyone living within a 10-mile radius must visit the Greentree Mall at least once weekly. It was wonderful to have Arby's so handy, but … immediately across the street from Arby’s was Wendy's. If there was anything that I loved in this world as much as Arby's, it would be Wendy's.

You see my existential crisis. Approaching, I could see on my right, Arby's, on my left, Wendy's. I was so torn between these twin poles of perfection that I would usually pull into the Arby’s lot and have a think. Too often I opted for Arby's simply because, well, I was already in their parking lot. But sometimes I thought “NO! This is a Wendy's day!” 

One legendary afternoon I did both. Instead of my usual two Arby's roast beef sandwiches or two Wendy's hamburgers. I bought one Arby’s sandwich, crossed the street and bought one Wendy’s hamburger. Scoff if you will, I thought it a Solomonic solution.

My favorite Arby’s story has nothing to do with me, but it was in the newspaper so it must be true. In those days some people still valued the truth.

When the Arby's franchises first opened, they served genuine roast beef. But soon they realized that they could save money and simplify things by offering "pressed, formed beef". That’s the Arby's Roast Beef I love.

When the corporation switched from beef to pressed, formed beef, one franchise holder was unhappy. He felt it was cheating to advertise roast beef and serve pressed, formed beef. This singular man owned a franchise in Louisville, home territory. He felt so strongly about it that he-- on his own dime --continued to serve genuine roast beef though it cost more. His was the last Arby’s anywhere to hold out. But not for long, not because of the difficulty or the expense, but because he was getting complaints from his customers. Something was wrong with the meat because it didn't taste “like Arby's.”

You see the irony. Because he was serving genuine roast beef as the sign promised, because he went to the expense and effort to provide what he felt was proper service for his customers, his customers complained. He was forced to accept pressed, formed beef.

I think perhaps this sad tale of American consumers rebelling against the genuine in favor of the artificial is a fair metaphor for the difference between America in 1977 and what-calls-itself-America today.

Nevertheless, pressed, formed beef…I love that stuff.

Books Read in 2025

In 2025 I read 90 books. This was a small step up from 2024 when I read 84 books, but still a far cry from ‘22 and‘23 when I read 110 and 121 books respectively. 

Of these 90 books, 13 were re-reads, 24 were nonfiction, 21 were mystery/ suspense, six were westerns, six were biographies. A couple of fantasies, couple horror, couple science fiction and one play. 

The best books I read last year were “An Oresteia” by Anne Carson, which is her new translation/ adaptation of three great Greek tragedies, one each by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The co-best book of the year was “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant” by Ann Tyler. This may show that I am moving in the right direction, because a couple of years ago I worried that I was not reading enough female-written fiction. This year, however, my two top books were both written by women and , oddly, both written by women named Anne. So good for Anne. 

Runners-up to the best books of the year were “The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway”, “James” by Percival Everett, and “The Onion Book of Known Knowledge”. Lot of laughs in that thing. 

Then there’s “Manalive” by GK Chesterton. The first 10 or 15 pages were as brilliant and wise and funny as anything I'd ever read. I was thinking, “Wow! I have to read everything Chesterton ever wrote because this is incredible!” But then it sort of fell off the table, very much as if Chesterton not only ran out of creativity, he simply ran out of energy. The rest of the book is not terrible. It has quite a few interesting things to it, but it's nowhere near the brilliance of that beginning. 

I think the six westerns I read this year equals the total of westerns that I had read in my entire life before. It was a wholly intentional choice to read more westerns, because I realized that of the five or six I had ever read, every one of them was positively brilliant. Of course, I didn’t expect all westerns to be brilliant, but felt that, based on my experience, the odds were in my favor. Before this year I had read “Shane”, “Lonesome Dove”, “True Grit”, and a couple of others whose titles elude me. 

Five of the six westerns I read this year (all written by the late Robert B. Parker) were very quick, entertaining reads, but they were not literary genius in the way that “Lonesome Dove” and “True Grit” were. The other western, by noted cowboy author Louis L'Amour, was hugely disappointing and I don't think I'll be reading any more of his books. 

So my goal now is to get back to the 100 mark in books read. Unfortunately, January has proven very slow for various reasons, and if I want to read 100 books this year, I'm going to have to shift into High because at the moment, I'm way behind schedule.

 NAME THAT MOVIE #4

"Did you hear me? I said name that movie!"

Animal control is a problem, and the weather is a bitch, but, after a nap, everything looks different. A woman has been killed, though, and the corpse robbed, so it's time to hit the road. An agri-worker is encountered along the way, a wild animal is subdued, and a moribund lumberman becomes friendlier after some refreshing liquid. A frightening and mysterious person sets a nearly impossible task, a woman meets a watery death, and a youngster goes home, where everyone seems relieved.  But the place looks so...drab.

Today I watched the movie LIZZIE. It's from 1957 and it's THE THREE FACES OF EVE before THE THREE FACES OF EVE and maybe even better.

Johnny Mathis has a small role in the movie. He plays “the piano singer”, which is pretty much just himself. He sings a couple of songs, including one of his big hits, “It’s Not for Me to Say”, but has no spoken lines. He sings beautifully and looks very young and handsome.

I had the thought, watching and listening to him, of what his effect might have been in the late '50s and early '60s. I imagine little teenage girls, prim, proper, conservative, god-fearing All-American little girls, and I'm wondering --actually, I'm assuming -- that some of those little girls, maybe many, many of them, had some seriously warm and “improper” thoughts about Johnny Mathis. In the '50s these weren’t just improper, they were dangerous. But I’ll betcha there was lots of sighing and mooning over this dark dreamboat. 

But I wonder if they were thoughts that any self-respecting 1957 girl would have shared with even a best friend? I wonder.

Maybe I'm evil personified but I find myself quite amused by this. I get the same giggly feeling from considering these bent taboos that I get whenever one of those holier-than-thou religious leaders is caught up in some indecent or even pervy scandal. Call me names, but I just revel in the hypocrisy.

I hope those teenage girls became moms and grandmas and never, never got over gorgeous, silky-voiced Johnny Mathis.

THIEVING FROM THE KING

Sometime during the years from 1978 to 1981 I had a promising idea for a short story. At that same time, Twilight Zone Magazine announced a short story contest. This timing seemed ideal.

I called the story- I think- “A Friend in Need ". In my head, as I imagined the story unfolding, I truly thought this might turn out to be the absolute scariest story anyone had ever written. Forget Poe and Lovecraft and Stoker, the stuff playing out in my mind was terrifying. So I plopped down in front of my ancient typewriter and went to work.

I fiddled with it for several days, maybe as long as two weeks, and at the end of that journey I had 32 double-spaced pages of spooky short story.

I was pretty happy with the finished product, thinking I had a good readable story .

One aspect I wasn't sure of, though -- was it scary? Forget “scariest thing ever”, was it scary at all? And those scary visions in my brain? Had they translated to the page, or were they gone? Still hopeful, but definitely unsure, I decided I needed an outside opinion. That was a nervous-making prospect. Critics, after all, can be cruel.

But a second opinion was required and I had only one candidate. I sent a copy of the story to my brother Barry. I thought he'd give me an honest but not nasty opinion. More importantly, he was the smartest person I knew, so I figured that he’d provide a worthwhile opinion.

Barry read the story and called me with his report. I remember his words almost exactly. He said,"If you intended to write a sweet story about childhood and friendship, you did a great job. But if you intended to write something scary, you failed miserably.” The criticism didn’t hurt. It was pretty much what I’d expected and I was pleased that Barry, at least, liked the story for its sweeter virtues.

I mailed the story into the magazine contest, heard nothing, and that was that. Until…

A few days ago I was re-reading Stephen King's PET SEMATARY when it occurred to me for the first time that King's novel shared a significant element with my almost forgotten story. This worried me. Had I unknowingly stolen a plot element from the King of Horror?

I had read PET SEMATARY as soon as it was published and --when was that? Maybe late '70s or early '80s? I had written the story in that same time frame, with 1981 as the latest possible date.

Was it possible that I had read King's then-new novel and unintentionally filched from it? The thought made me a little ill. I mean, it certainly didn't matter. King's book is a modern horror classic, while my story was a never-read, long-missing nothing. Still, I really didn't want to discover that I was, however unknowingly, a plagiarist. Thus, it was that I, with great trepidation, checked the publication date of PET SEMATARY which turned out to be……… 1982! Whew!- I was not a thief.

I think that a copy of “A Friend in Need" still exists somewhere around here. Maybe I'll dig it out. Or maybe I won't. I mean- who wants to learn that the sweet, unscary story he wrote in 1980 stinks to high heaven in 2025?

Fifty Years Ago Today

Fifty Years Ago Today was Monday, August 25, 1975…Bruce Springsteen's album Born to Run was released in the United States, and made Springsteen a rock superstar…In a luxury railroad car parked in the middle of the Victoria Falls Bridge, Ian Smith, Prime Minister of Rhodesia and leader of the white minority government of that African nation, met with Bishop Abel Muzorewa of the black African National Council, to negotiate a peaceful solution to a threatened war. The bridge linked white-ruled Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) and black-ruled Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia). The meeting was not successful…Get Down Tonight by KC and the Sunshine Band was the #1 song in the U.S. Check out the video from Dahn Kuushnah’s Rahk Consutt,

 …

KC & The Sunshine Band - Get Down Tonight (Live)

I was still 25, a dangerous condition with which I would suffer for another 5 months. Youth is great, you know, apart from the massive stupidity. 

I was barely an actor at all in 1975. It was my second year as a member of Actors Equity, and I was beginning to wonder if joining up had been a good idea. This year I was logging a solid ton of electrician work with my dad. Long hours, feeble pay, and Dad for a boss. Pretty ugly.

Since my last 50 Years ago date of July 26, I’d seen a handful of genre movies which I’m not revisiting and not reporting on. Titles include…DOC SAVAGE, THE MAN OF BRONZE, SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON, CAPTIVE WOMEN, VENUS AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES, and the highly marginal TV-movie CATHOLICS which was memorable for a stunning performance by Trevor Howard. Among those others…well….SEANCE OF A WET AFTERNOON was quite good. ‘Nuff said.

It was a hot one, hitting 94 fahrenheit. I don’t really remember that, but the newspaper reports it. There were so many hot, sweltering, miserable days in the unholy Ohio River Valley that I think I can be forgiven for forgetting one specific trip to Hell. 

So…JAWS…big movie, right? Great movie, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big ol’ classic movie, no doubt about it.

JAWS opened in Louisville on June 20, 1975 just as it did all around the country. So, of course, as a big time movie fan and legendary Monster Kid, I was right there on that first day, wasn’t I? Wasn’t I just??!!  Well, no. I wasn’t. I didn’t see JAWS till this day, more than two months after it had opened. Very late to the game, eh? Why was this?

This was also playing locally when JAWS opened.

I think I explained this tardiness in my last FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY thingamuhbob-- I didn’t want to have to wait in those endless queues to get in, and I didn’t want to follow the trend. A rebel, that’s me.

But two months? Even knowing why I’d delayed, that surprises me. I must have been playing really tough on not-following-the-trend. Thankfully, I eventually caved. 

The movie was still playing at the same theater in which it had opened. And that night the place was almost full. By getting there early, I was able to nab a favored seat, about 5th row, on the aisle, and let the place fill up around me.

My recollection is that the audience gasped and sighed and laughed and screamed in all the right places, but I don’t remember particular responses. I assume they freaked at the underwater corpse and at the first real sight of the shark --and probably I did too--but I have no specific memories of such moments. Too bad.

Local review below. This critic once reviewed a show I was in and gave me an “okay”. But it was obvious from her review that she had left after the first act and never even saw me onstage. So…keep that in mind when reading this review.

But I did love it. I did recognize that it wasn’t just a decent thriller; I knew it was something special. I’ll admit, however, that I didn’t recognize at the time just HOW special. 

And now, half a century on, JAWS seems like something I and everyone else in the world has always known. We were all born, it seems, with John Williams’s music in our baby brains.

I’ve watched it numerous times since then though, sadly, never again in a theater. But no matter how many viewings I’ve racked up, I’m always ready for another thrill ride. So…

How about a skinny-dip, Chrissy? You first.

-----------------------------------------------

And there’s the music. 

In 1975 I was unimpressed by Lorraine Gary. It’s an embarrassing admission, but my problem with her was almost entirely--no, it was entirely entirely--that she just wasn’t movie-star-beautiful. What a jerk I was. What I’ve learned since is that, in addition to being very real-world-pretty, she gives a truly fine performance. Sharing the screen with four top-notch actors, she holds her own with no visible effort.

Dreyfuss’s reaction to Chrissy’s mangled bits is perfection. He flinches and gasps for air and we are right there with him. We’re not seeing what he’s seeing, but, yeah, that’s how we would react. If we didn’t faint, that is.

It’s always struck me, from first viewing, that the remains of poor Chrissy, as described by Hooper, really wouldn’t fit in that little tray. It makes a shocking visual when this full-grown blonde is pulled from the fridge in a brownie tray. But, no. She wouldn’t have fit.

So we bid a fond farewell to Alex Kintner. Alex, we hardly knew ye.

They did a great job of casting local amateurs. They’re not great actors, by any means, but they feel right. And, especially, Spielberg manages to set them up to win. There’s a quirk here, a funny little line there, an offhand glance elsewhere. Spielberg also moves the camera on to them -- and OFF of them, at just the right moment.

I mentioned elsewhere around here a while back that Quentin Tarantino considers JAWS to be a “perfect movie.”  As do I. So I wrote about the little imperfections in perfect JAWS. 

The only glaring imperfection, I think, is Hooper’s late night excursion to check out Ben Gardner’s boat. It’s unacceptable. Hooper has already shown us that he’s the one person here who really knows sharks and that he’s the one sensible person. 

Then he goes night-diving in shark territory?  Nope. 

Yes, it sets up the jump scare beautifully, but ya gotta really turn your brain off to go along. It’s a horror movie cliche. It’s the ultimate, “Don’t go in the basement!!” moment. The scene is a shocker, but it almost forces the audience to check out for a moment.

I wish the mayor’s great anchor jacket fit him better. Looks like it’s two sizes too big. His later striped jacket fits just fine.  Murray Hamilton, by the by, is pretty great as the mayor you’d never vote for.

On this viewing, I appreciated the stuntmen for the first time. Not so much for the stunt work as for how well they match the actors. I’m sure a freeze frame or even slo-mo might reveal some fake Shemps, but just watching a beautiful Blu-ray straight through on a big screen tv, there was no flaw. I took to looking carefully whenever there was a moment which obviously called for stuntmen.  And the match was terrific. Surely that’s not Robert Shaw there, but it does look like him.

Credit here again--as if he needs more--to Spielberg, who positions the camera at a distance and angle to maintain his illusion.

I wonder, though, if Spielberg didn’t maybe over-stress Chekhov’s compressed air tanks. He needed to set up the possibility of an explosion, sure, but maybe, just maybe, there’s one too many early glimpses of the tanks. Maybe?

Finally, looking back 50 years--I remember reading some gossipy movie article about this new smash hit movie, JAWS. This article made it slyly plain and clear that the movie had been saved in the editing room by Verna Fields. After all, the writer inferred, no way this 27-year-old meeskite Spielberg could have accomplished this. No. No no. Certainly we must agree that the brilliant Fields had saved this childish pretender’s butt.

We can all shake our heads and laugh about that now. Verna Fields did a great editing job on JAWS, but she never set sail on the water during the months of torturous, frustrating filming of the movie. She never had to deal with the shark. Or with Robert Shaw, for that matter. 

I wish I knew who wrote that hateful piece because I’d dearly love to spread the silly article around with his name firmly attached. 

And, by the way, Verna Fields also didn’t write the music.

So there.

Oh, if I forgot to mention, this is a great dang movie.

----------------------------------------------

Let’s close out with a neat, but very small coincidence. As I was writing the start of this essay, I was simultaneously watching an old comedy on TCM, A GIRL, A GUY, AND A GOB with Lucille Ball, Edmond O’Brien, and George Murphy. 

While typing away, I heard Murphy say to Ball, “There’s a sailor on the Indianapolis who’s got an engagement ring…”

Duh-duh, duh-duh, dumpadumpadumpa….

 NAME THAT MOVIE #3

Below you will find an accurate description of the plot of a famous movie. It's just that the description is couched in unexpected terms.

A well-to-do military man and a show girl... they may seem an odd couple, and the romance is short-lived. He's dead, she's arrested and endures a difficult trial. Meanwhile, she has lent supposrt to another prisoner and has fallen under the loving and/or lustful gaze of both a writer and an officious stuffed shirt.  Old stuffed shirt has an award-winning associate who saves the girl from a nasty drop, after which she moves in with him. The assistant loves his job, although he suffers a disability because of it. An assault on God's domain results in death and injury. Eventually, old stuffed shirt pays for his hypocrisy, the writer and the show girl face a shared future, and the assistant asks a poignant question of a silent observer.

(I will note that this story has been filmed more than once and, while most of the above matches all of the various versions, there are elements which are particular to this one movie.)