a Columbo Question

BATouttaheck

Just remembered what I was going to post for this thread—a Staples “that was easy” button for the good Lieutenant to push after every case.

Also—some vitamins or supplements for the missus. Seems that every time she’s supposed to tag along with her husband she’s sick or something… 

A hat, to make my old teacher Petey happy.

Oh, BATouttaheck , I thought I had told you about Pete and the hat… No?

He was my film teacher in high school, the one who kept saying, “I love what you’re doing, kid, I love that old black and white feel to your stuff, I love what you’re doing, kid,” without really having any idea of what I was doing. He was a big guy with about three hairs on his head who would wear a black t-shirt and jeans every single day. A teacher aide once asked him why, and he looked at her and said, without a trace of irony, “So that I don’t have to figure out what I want to wear every morning.” (Not married, no kids.) When he had to “dress up” for a meeting with the department chairwoman or something, he’d slick back those three hairs with hair gel and put a sports jacket over that black t-shirt. Lookin’ swell, Pete.

Anyway, one of my projects in the class was a murder mystery/thriller, so I did a Columbo episode and cast myself as the good Lieutenant. For the first and probably only time in the class, Pete wasn’t bored by what I was doing (shooting it in color probably helped—Pete, despite “I love what you’re doing,” didn’t like B&W), and told me afterwards, “It was great! I liked…[different shot choices I made and use of music, etc.]—but you forgot the hat.”

I said, “What?”

“Columbo’s hat. You forgot to give him a hat.”

I said, as respectfully as I could, that I didn’t think Columbo wore a hat.

“Yes, he did. He wore like an old-fashioned hat, like Humphrey Bogart.”

I said, “Oh, you mean Murder by Death? Peter Falk did a Bogart impression in that.”

“No, as Columbo. He definitely wore a hat. Believe me, kid. I know. I used to watch the show when it was on TV. I’m older than you are. I know.”

So we looked up Columbo—and, whatta ya know, no hat.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh. But, wait, there he is with a hat!”

It was from Murder by Death. “Oh, OK, that must be what I was thinking of.”

Despite all that, he was a funny, goofy guy, and he kind of let me make whatever movies I wanted in the class, which was nice of him.

BATouttaheck !

Thanks! But you could hardly call me a filmmaker: mostly it was my buddies and me in the backyard with a camcorder. There was a western we did (my script for which was mostly inspired by Rio Bravo) that was by far the best thing we did, and a friend’s mother’s friend had horses that she allowed us to ride off into the sunset! Pete’s jaw dropped, which was a nice moment.

It was all a lot of fun, and we eventually got other people from the class signing up with us because we would work on these slightly bigger projects with actual plots, not just plotless “shorts.”

But when high school ended that was the end of my “filmmaking” days too… I’d like to make another one some day, but heaven knows when.

They might be somewhere, but I really have no idea where… 

Speaking of Spielberg, cuz and I recorded a few of those shows we used to do—the ones I told you about, for which I’d write songs, including the Spielberg parody. They may be somewhere too.

Got one: several blocks of stinky Italian cheese, BATouttaheck!

My teacher: “Take that, kid! See, I knew he wore a hat!” 

BATouttaheck , have I told you Uncle Save-a-Coin is building a bunker at his house? It’s supposedly a wine cellar, but it’s constructed like a bunker, so—yeah, I’ve been calling it that.