Oops!
Here I am again and it's October. The summer went by and I'm trying to collect my scattered thoughts, like so many fallen leaves in the autumnal rain.

I was supposed to do a gig in Fareham with Billie Davis and Jet Harris, but my wife insisted I take her to Nice for her birthday, so I missed the rehearsal. Billie, I suspect is none too pleased.

I was in Venice during the Biennale and the filmfest and worked on a documentary I'm making with some pals about artists. This is now being worked on.

But while there I suddenly saw Byron and was reminded how I'd almost made a movie about Byron and Shelley when I was knocking around with John Phillips of the Mama's n Papas. He, of course saw himself as Byron, the greatest lothario of the age, and me he cast as that wimp Shelley. My wife Tanya was Mary Shelley and Genevieve Waight who'd been in my film "JOANNA" was to be the annoying Claire Claremont. It got too much for me and I fled to Rome to write up the real story as a script. While I wasin Rome, Lou Adler, John's producer, decided to avail himself of the possessions I'd left in L.A. namely an antique Jaguar, my lawyer Jack Schwartzman pinched my paintings - Fontana, Warhol,et al, and, basically everyone behaved badly. Some of these names are no longer with us, so I shouldn't speak ill of the dead "De mortuis nil nisi bonum" or "bene", depending on which school you went to.

Anyhow, I suddenly saw Byron in my mind's eye and that's to be my next project. So, watch this space.

But I should get back to music - Billie D. is always encouraging me - and I've been working on an idea for a solo album that I can put on Myspace.

Sometimes, you know, people get to you. It's unsettling and can be scary. It's then I like to pick up my guitar and have a few moments meditation. I can recommend it.




DATELINE LONDON 10 AUGUST 2006



Today's news is that the British police have foiled a terrorist plot to blow up some planes. London Airport is all bunged up because the workers, airport staff etc can't get through the security. I've got to go to LA next week, so I hope they work it out by then.
It's not as if the Arabs are being very subtle about it, though. On my last trip back from France via de Gaulle airport at Roissy I noticed that the ENTIRE security check-in facilities are being running by Islamic funadmentalists. There's even a book on sale in the bookshop there called "Mosque Roissy". Every single member of the security staff, baggage checkers, luggage scanners, people who tell you - or at least me - to take off your shoes, are wild-eyed Islamicists, some with shaved heads and long beards, others with that pretentiously shaved designer stubble. They all fascinatedly watch the x-ray machines, they are all rude to passengers, studying in detail the security system and obviously planning the next major aerial disaster. Next time you go to France, have a look. They're all mad-eyed Islamicist terrorists to be, planning ways to kill us. Do not be surprised, now you've read this, to hear that some Easyjet planes have been blown out of the sky. there will be no problem at all for a bunch of hijackers or Muslim anti-crusader anti-zionist terrorist f*******s to murder a bunch of innocent harmless holidaying families and it will happen soon. . . . These nutcases at Roissy reminded me uncannily of characters in B movie horror films, humourless zombies waiting to be switched onto 'blowyourselfup' mode once Osama presses their "Go" button. Or even better, they'll wave their suicidal colleagues onto a few planes, before taking off for the Haj. Those B movies often have the heroine running around looking for a cop and when she finds one, he's a Martian, too.

In fact, these characters have a lot in common with those Martianised zombies. When you try to talk to them, they can't communicate, just wild-eyed formulaic robot talk. They're the enemies of humanity because they're not really human. They're on a programme, they're not really conscious, forget about "free".

I can't forget that videofilm of Osama having a laugh with his pal, some kind of mullah, saying to him about the 9/ll bombers, "Yeah, they didn't know what they had to do until the last minute when I told them to go." His system obviously is to create utter slavish obedience - via fanaticism - so that when the call comes, off they go to kill themselves and a few of us at the same time. They don't even know what they're doing or what the repercussions are. These characters from 9/11 had girlfriends, children and it all meant nothing. They'd rather be zombies, like those pathetic brainwashed children who had to defend the fuehrer in the last days of Berlin, or the kamikazi pilots who were doing it for the emperor. Talk about stupid! The Emperor would have sacrificed every last Japanese, because he was scared the Yanks were going to stick him in jail or hang him. Only when MacArthur said, OK you can still be emperor, did his Superiority surrender, having let the allies explode 2 atom bombs. What's a few hundred thousand Japanese next to Me staying alive. Ditto with Hitler, ditto with Osama, ditto with Nasrallah, or whatever his name is . . .

Anyhow, I've got to get back to the script. No one in LA is going to understand a word, because it's all in French. My friend polanski doesn't make that mistake. He's an intensely practical guy. I was watching again his movie Frantic which I didn't rate the first time round. But, I must say, from a technical, grammatical point of view, roman must be the world's No 1. His camera moves and editing are so immaculate, it's like having lessons or going back to school. No one can touch him there.

Thank you, Visitor, this is the latest edit, I mean news. My brilliant website host De Mille of Famous Pictures inc Ltd has provided me with this page to write my scatterbrained thoughts.

So.........my lovely daughter Claudia has just given birth to a boy!!! BoyohBoy!! She lives overlooking the Hollywood sign and is called Claudia because when she was born in LA some short while ago, the thrill reminded me of 8 and a half, where Marcello Mastroianni is lost for ideas and then the fabulous Claudia Cardinale appears, seemingly floating on air, to save his soul.

He breathes, "Claudia!"

Which was how |I felt when she appeared, my first, most precious daughter. And I said her name again, "Claudia" when I heard about the baby and got the same thrill.

But then again, my wonderboy son William and his stunning wife Samantha have just produced their second son and can't make up their minds between Eli, Elias and Isiah. The first boy, who thinks he's Batman (and his father is Robin) is called Saul. It's all a little biblical for me. You know, you've been shrunk and inserted into a Torah scroll. Can you imagine? The rabbi starts reading his Torah and there in among the letters is this tiny little Jewish sometime director waving his arms about . .. . . . .

Oh, I suppose that's a poor man's Bukowsky . . . Talking of which, I mean whom, there's a Bukowsky story I've adapted and I'd love to film, it takes place in Spain where I've just been scouting locations. Now, for some reason or other, I've always imagined Terry Stamp in the lead - mainly because of his sensational performance in "Toby Dammit" (Fellini short Ed.)

So, the other day I come out of the supermarket with my little 9 year old Sarah and blowme down! there's Terry standing in front of me, putting his shopping in a rather smart suede rucksac. I say "Terry", he goes "hi mike". I say what you up to? He says this and that. How you doin'? I go, oh you know, same ole same ole. where you livin' these days. he says I'm stayin' with friends. I go oh, great, you livin' in India? He says, no not really, Australia. Fine, chit chat. I say to Sarah, this is the famous movie star Terrence de la Stampe. she goes, hello. We both say see ya! and off he goes, lookin' good, I must say, nice crown of snowy white...

we get home, sarah says, why didn't I get his autograph? And I say, oh f***! I completely forgot to mention the Bukowsky script! So then I call Spotlight, the actors' mag. and they say, Terry isn't advertising this year. but it can't be because he's short of a few bob. I know he's got some money because I saw him in an English film called these foolish things alongside Angelika Huston, so he can't have spent it all, especially if he's staying with friends and not at the Connaught.

I call this agent he's supposed to have been with - a well-known agent - and their phone rings and rings with no answer. One imagines an empty room, a few old scattered scripts on the floor, like the state of the flat when Anne Frank's father found her diary - and the phone's ringing and ringing and ringing . . .

But he'd be really good in this Bukowsky story. I don't want to have to use an American ................

I'll be in LA in a few days and no doubt someone will say they want to play this part. Bukowsky's relatively hot. And they'll be bankable. And when it's finished and gets a prize - it's that kind of subject, a bit arty and sexy - I'll see Terry and he'll say, I could've done that part better. And I'll say, I know, but I forgot to tell you about it outside the supermarket in Notting Hill Gate and then I called what they told me was your agent and no one picked up the phone, it just rang and rang and ......................

I'm writing the screenplay adaptation of a book called "La Vie A Tout Prix". It's a quite remarkable story I acquired the rights to. It's true, about a 17 year old boy in occupied France in 1943, on the run from the Nazis and their collaborative partners, French, Austrian, Hungarian. he runs and runs, ducks and dives, it's funny and suspenseful and beautiful all at once. Human nature, Life at any Price.

My wife and kids have gone to France this morning, which is why I have the time to talk to you. I hope you have a wonderful day. I sure will. I just became a grandfather for the third time and it took little or no effort!

so here's to you Kind Reader, here's lookin' at you over the rim of a glass of bubbly.