Miller Time

UNITED STATES—Since writing my own diet book, chronicling my hilarious fat-to-fit journey and culling my diet secrets, to join the towering heap of diets all vying for your undivided, I realize there’s a million diets out there. All YOU have to do it pick out two or three of the million to integrate a plan that works for you....

UNITED STATES—The sun can, at times, be so raw and unforgiving, it can give you a toothache. And the survivors of the dreams and plans stand stunned in the blinding blaze: what happened? what went wrong? They say we’re living in a desert, and the desert will make you crazy . . . A lot of things happened at Manhattan Place that spring....

UNITED STATES—So Lee goes to this house in Silver Lake by Micheltorena before going bowling with his friend Joe. Lee's friend has invited him to bring Prince Deveraux, since their new roommate has contributed something new to their household, a poodle. The dogs can keep each other company while Joe's sister keeps an eye on them. When Lee arrives with...

UNITED STATES—Mac Murphy got out of the honor camp near Baker, in the high Mojave, and came to take one last look at his upstairs room with the window bay, where he’d imbibed during Christmas, toasted us in the driveway, and cranked up his stereo like he was driving a hundred miles down a Montana highway straight as a...

UNITED STATES—After the Delaney’s second tenure, the company gradually but steadily slid in till the year Richard Nixon ran for president, the new Nixon (thank you Bernard Lukasey, the public relations wiz manipulator extraordinaire) who said there were indeed some people he would not work for, including Hitler, whose people had sought to contract him, but Nixon he didn’t...

UNITED STATES—In the weeks after the play’s successful run (one satisfying performance celebrated to the hilt), I showed rooms out and distributed three-day notices. “The agony,” I noted in my journal. The ecstasy was handing old good tenants, like Pedro and Tava at Estrella Avenue who were moving on and out and hopefully up, their deposit refund check. The weeks...

UNITED STATES—Today was the day. Allegra Newton (nee Scruggs) had had enough of dental profiteering, and she was going to hold the dentist at gunpoint till he performed emergency work on her son. In preparation, she went to the living room, which had been overtaken by all her son’s toys in the trophy house they moved into after leaving...

UNITED STATES—The hell with cleaning, I say. One of the traits of genius is being oblivious to a mess. What can be really phenomenal, though, is periodically going through stuff. Going through stuff is a hedge against panic when assaulted by: where is it? The keys! The remote! The documents! Something missing really upsets the apple cart in this Petri...

UNITED STATES—When I meet an idol back stage it is seldom easy to convey all their work has meant through the eons, how it has filtered through and shaped my life. It happened to me last week in Beverly Hills where Dick Cavett was playing himself in “Hellman v. McCarthy." All through high school I used to have lunch...

UNITED STATES—At 1980 Estrella Avenue I was free to pursue my screenwriting. I was free to check out “Crime and Punishment” from the library and let it take over my life. I had a lot of hustle and ambition. One night’s extra acting work and window washing in Malibu weren’t enough to put me on easy street. I was...