The Playboy Mansion
Thursday, November 6th, 2008
Since I was on the “Dreams Come True” tour, by Monday, October 6, it was time to start making some of those so-called dreams actually come true. Every since I had found out that my friend Dick Bann had full access to Playboy Mansion West in the Holmby Hills area of Beverly Hills, I had been pestering him to take me there. Although he is a friend of Hugh Hefner and supplies the screening notes for the weekly film showing, there are still rules that he has to follow. And unfortunately he is unable to bring anyone in during one of the fabled wild parties throughout the week…that is, unless you are an exceptionally attractive girl. And I am not. Read the rest of this entry »
Cameron Frye pulled a bit of a fast one along with his pal Ferris Bueller when they successfully plotted to skip school in the classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He ended up paying for it though when he accidentally destroyed his father’s carefully preserved Ferrari. So it was in this spirit that I pulled a bit of a fast one on the actor who played Mr. Frye…Alan Ruck. I am a big fan of Ferris Bueller, and I’ve enjoyed some of Mr. Ruck’s other roles – namely in Speed, Three Fugitives, and as the male school teacher who gets raped by a woman in one of my favorite shows Picket Fences. 
The West Wing is one of my all-time favorite dramatic television shows – and one of the show’s key main characters is C.J. Craig, portrayed by Allison Janney. In fact she played this particular role so well that it garnered her four Emmy Awards and two additional nominations. She has also starred in the Academy Award winning film American Beauty, and other acclaimed films such as Nurse Betty, Juno, and The Hours. Disney buffs might know her as the voice of Peach in Finding Nemo. 
One nice thing about being on California time is that – despite the incredibly long day I spent on Saturday – I was up bright and early on Sunday morning, October 5, 2008, having felt as if I had slept in even though it was only 7am. This left me plenty of time to get ready and load my stuff back into Bob’s car – and still make our breakfast meeting at 9am. Bob and I meandered down to the restaurant in the Marriott hotel lobby area for a nice big breakfast buffet. Generally, almost all of the celebrities from the Hollywood Collectors Show stay in the hotel – and we spotted a few of the in the restaurant. Among them was Margaret Kerry, who was not only in the restaurant, but sitting at our table and eating with us. 
I always felt a little hometown pride – and probably a little jealousy – to have a nationally syndicated cartoonist living in my hometown of Beavercreek, Ohio – just over in Tara Estates next to our very own neighborhood. His daughter Tracy attended our school, so it was a bit hard to process the fact that Mike Peters was a national celebrity. He didn’t start out that way though. Originally, he was a local political cartoonist for the Dayton Daily News (which incidentally I delivered to homes in Peters’ hometown) in 1969.