Listening to Night Music with Humphrey Bogart

NEWS FROM THE BLOODY FRONT: OH GAWD! I said to myself at the prospect of another weekend tweaking the majestic and about-to-be-popped-into-the-toaster Blood Moon release that's only a wee bit late, HUMPHREY BOGART, THE MAKING OF A LEGEND, by Darwin Porter.

Proudly, I truthfully and verily say, the book is brilliant. An historical insight, 'tis, into the phenomenon of Humphrey Bogart, a functioning alcoholic with an unfortunate physicality, a lisp, and an inconvenient sense of intellectual independence, who, amazingly, got famous when many dozens of his immediate cohorts were relegated two or three generations ago to the dustbin of entertainment-industry oblivion.

My prediction: This book will become a reference source staple, a title for library shelves as an important addition to the understanding of one of America's premier icons. Indexed, authoritative, and certainly not bland, the book is piquant, reputable, and supremely interesting, especially for Entertainment-Industry buffs.

We're shipping it off for manufacture on Wednesday of this upcoming week at the very latest. The printers (McNaughton & Gunn, and a fine outfit they are, indeed), tell us it takes from five to six weeks to manufacture, perhaps less. So, with the understanding that Blood Moon's bleary-eyed but endlessly charming backoffice editorial staff has been humping it long and very very hard, please know that HUMPY IS ON HIS WAY!

Miss Scarlett O'Hara is I.D.'d, worldwide, as a "hot mess" and a "slutty bisexual." In the aftermath, SB's of the world say "Hooray for Vivien!"

Blood Moon's upcoming release of Damn You Scarlett O'Hara provoked worldwide newspaper coverage this week as three major newspapers (The NY Post, London's Sunday Times, and The Daily Mail) previewed their observation that Vivien Leigh was more promiscuous and less emotionally stable than anyone except Porter, Moseley, and dozens of firsthand witnesses to her life had ever realized.

We're delighted with the advance publicity for this title, and we're particularly honored with the interviewing pizzazz of Mr. John Harlow, the Los Angeles correspondent for London's SUNDAY TIMES, who was the creative engine behind a well-written story that was later picked up by two of his newspaper's competitors. Bravo to John Harlow, clever cad and brilliant historian that he is.

The least restrained of the three stories was the one within the New York Post, wherein Vivien was identified as a "slutty bisexual" and a "hot mess."

A hipster friend of mine, Meghan, a smart, capable, hardworking, and very hip 28-year-old lifeguard at one of New York City's public beaches, laughed when she heard the "slutty bisexual" reference as it applied to the divine Vivien Leigh. "Half the women I know in New York might identify themselves that way," she said, "and your job, Dan, will involve glamorizing that term as a badge of honor.

To that effect, and in honor of the divine Vivien Leigh, I salute the other slutty bisexuals of this wide world. The spirit of Vivien Leigh, I've been told by the book's co-author, Roy Moseley, is laughing uproariously over this, "her green eyes filled with merriment." GO VIVIEN! SB's Unite. Who, one wonders, will be the first to manufacture the T-shirts?