Sunday, February 22nd, 1976

I must see sex and violence for what they really are--the evils that destroy our society! Evils that drive our people to do terrible things or even to the brink of suicide. Whenever I try to let myself feel too human, I feel like I'm drawn too near that type of behavior myself! With recent events and my own behavior, I'm struggling to keep away again. This can't be the way things are supposed to be!

Did my best to avoid IT after yesterday but I didn't succeed. This time I destroyed all my magazines afterwards.

On the good side today, Mom bought me a new David Bowie single and a new adapter. I watched the end of CASABLANCA again and I finished THE VALLEY OF FEAR. Now I just need to write a book report on it by Wednesday. I also wrote my order and sent my Japanese pen pal some movie ads.

Best of all, tonight I saw one of my new favorites, Bernadette Peters, ona really, really good episode of what I'm currently calling my favorite TV series, McCLOUD. It was called "the Day New York Turned Blue."

NOTES: Don't recall whether there was some particular incident that set me off about sex and violence or if it was just my mind working overtime again.

Was my Mom cool or what? I had had her listen to Bowie's GOLDEN YEARS on the radio a month or two earlier and when she saw it while she was out shopping, she bought it for me. Recorded during one of the singer's worst drug addiction periods, nonetheless it remains a favorite song today.

McCLOUD was the long-running monthly "mystery movie" series with Dennis Weaver as a new Mexico deputy on "temporary" assignment in New York City as a fish out of water irritating Chief Peter B. Clifford (JD Cannon). Last year I re-watched the entire series and "the Day New York Turned Blue" is still the best episode in my opinion. It's a two hour episode that builds and builds. New York City is having a major snowstorm, there's an efficiency expert getting on everyone's nerves (William Daniels), a prostitute spray painting her clients blue (Bernadette Peters), a gang plotting to take over the police station and a midnight strike by the police union leaving all the officers off duty!

Bernadette Peters was (and is) a singer/Broadway star I had first seen on a Carol Burnett special a year or two earlier. She was (and is) very cute and a wonderful singer. She's coming to town here in Cincinnati next fall.