WHEEZING, SNEEZING, AND OSCARS

I'm going to complain about my latest ailments, then I'll reminisce about my Academy Award adventures when I was a youth in Hollywood.

If this doesn't excite you or thrill you to the bones, I don't know what will.

As if I don't have enough devastating physical problems, I've been sick all week. First I thought it was an allergy or sinus infection. Now I think it's the flu. Sneezing, blocked ears, and I completely lost my sense of taste. Worst of all, I have an extremely bad cough. Hacking loudly and persistently day and night.

I begged for cough medicine. It took them two days to get it for me. The nurse practitioner was supposed to see me today but she never showed up.

I'm going to demand more cough meds tonight.

Did you see the Oscars this year? I'm assuming you didn't. Nobody gives a flying hoot about it - - including me.

Hardly anyone saw the movies up for Academy Awards. The actors and actresses are largely unheard of - - and after they receive their Oscars, they'll quickly vanish and never be heard of again.

The Golden Age of Hollywood is completely dead.

I'm glad I knew Hollywood when it was still kicking, when it still had a spark of glamour. The gold was tarnishing, but it still glimmered.

I've written about my Academy Award adventures in previous blog posts. You'd have to experience it firsthand to understand how magnificent it was.....long ago.

An side:

Some of the nurses here asked me if I met any famous people in Hollywood.

I met so many celebrities that my mind boggles (no lie). I thought I'd impress them with a true Hollywood icon. I met Groucho Marx.

Groucho who?? They never heard of him. Am I getting old? Or is rural America just out of touch?

(I should have told them John Wayne, whom I met twice)

I've already told the story (many times) when I was eighteen and managed to sneak in to the Dorothy Chandler Music Center in L.A. where the Academy Awards were being held. It was a monumental achievement and I'm proud of it. I watched about ten minutes of the show. Then I left before I got kicked out.

Actress Helen Hayes was one of the hosts for the Oscars that night. Ironically I happened to see her parked limousine while the show was still going on. I started talking with her driver. There was a small television in the limo, and the driver kindly let me watch the Academy Awards.

My magical days in Hollywood.

I have other Oscar night memories, which may seem hard to believe but are absolutely true.

Later, when I was in my early twenties, I was invited to an Oscar night party in a Beverly Hills mansion. I was alarmingly drunk and wasted with weed. 

(should I shock you with this confession?)

I eventually had se.....oops, I mean a romantic encounter, with someone under a grand piano in the library. 

The wild, extraordinary days of my youth.

I have other incredible Academy Award encounters, astonishing memories.

As I sit here in my (hospital) bed, coughing like crazy, and wondering if I'll ever walk again,  all of my Hollywood memories seem like a long-ago dream. At that time, I never thought much about my reckless unconventional lifestyle. Now I think it was extraordinary.

I shouldn't be proud of my (inumerable) sins, but.....they were the best times of my life.

Jon 💚 Remembering

If I don't write my memoirs, I should be kicked in the butt.

BTW

I'm still wasting my time creating ai (artificial intelligence) images. Here's a few.