The Playboy Mansion
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 »
How many days of your life can you say that you got to ride the Pinnochio ride at Disney (which features a reproduction of the Mona Lisa) and see the actual Mona Lisa in the same day? By all accounts of my life so far, only one…and it was on Monday, July 14, 2008. After departing Paris Disneyland at about 1pm, The Wileys, David, and I walked back to our room at the Newport Bay Club, and got ready to embark on the second portion of the day’s adventures in Paris. 
By the Fall of 1997, I had really become quite serious with my autograph collecting. Not that I hadn’t been before, but now I had actually purchased a P.O. Box at the post office in Airway shopping center to house the incoming loot. I had become nervous about the barrage of yellow envelopes being left outside my apartment door. I had also begun purchasing – and eventually subscribing to – Autograph Collector magazine. They featured a monthly section about through-the-mail autographs where contributors would share their success stories. One of the first pieces of advice of theirs that I took was to get a letter off to Estelle Getty. 
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.