Today is a very special day. It's a birthday celebration for our dear friend Judy Egan and we are holding a party in her honor in Sherman Oaks today. We met Judy while doing "We Are Different Now" in September and most of the cast from that show will be in attendance. There are still a few I haven't heard from, but I'm sure we'll have a wonderful time. Christmas was private but lovely this year. I had to delay it a bit because the money wasn't in the bank until Social Security came in on the 28th. I did learn that I'll be getting a cost of living increase. starting in January 2012. My dear friend David Holmes turned sixty on December 27th. What a very special friend he has been: a friend who literally changed my life for the better. He had tried out and auditioned for a part I had advertised back in the old DramLogue paper back in May of 1981 in a Wizard of Oz type musical that we would be recording in Orange County and was living in Van Nuys (where I live now) He was of course wonderful as the Cowardly Lion and we thought we had a wonderful new personality. But at that time I was living in Rowland Heights and even with a freeway help that was still a very long forty-five minutes away. In these days before the internet, he phoned me and said the next day that he had enjoyed the audition but the distance was simply too far away.

Something inside me told me not to let this man go. I wanted to impress upon him how much I liked him. Believe it or not, I sent this relative stranger what Western Union called a "Night Letter" It was just like a telegram but because it was mailed and not physically delivered, it was much cheaper-- one hundred and twenty-five words for $75.00. That was a lot of money back then, but I used those one hundred and twenty-five words to the very best of my persuasional best and encouraged him not to worry about the distance: that distance was what you made of it. It worked. And the result has been a thirty year friendship that has been simply incredible. He turned out to be the director of "Skylark" and "The Invitation" as well as the original version of "A Moment With Mister "C". I had some nice presents from John: a bathrobe, a $40 movie pass and some beautiful roses which I cherish. My writing partner John Nugent and I entered the ASCAP- Dreamworks competition with four entries. So we shall see what happens there. Well, on to the party! Have a great New Year!