Well, dear readers, it is Sunday, and mercifully I got a very good night’s sleep last night. I did not wake up at the crack of dawn, I did not even think or dream about the crack of dawn. Even my dreams were not unseemly. Now, I know all you dear readers are sitting there scratching your collective heads and thinking, “Yesterday he’s going on and on about the crack of dawn and today it’s an interesting fact about meat. What on earth is going on inside his head”? Of course, there is no answer to the question of what is going on inside my head – even I don’t know what’s going on inside my head. Inside my head is a stew, an olio, a melange, a salad with many ingredients, a hodge-podge of porridge, a boullabaise, a chowder, a many-layered cake, a poo poo platter, a vegetable medley, a revue, a montage… Whoa, that’s a lot of stuff inside my head. It’s crowded in there. In any case, a bunch of things are inside my head and they simply come pouring out willy-nilly and also nilly-willy, one after another in any order they so choose. I have no control over this, it just happens and out come these words. What the hell am I talking about? I have lost the point. The point is now jumbled inside my head with all that other guck. Oh, now I remember – the fact that yesterday’s notes were entitled The Crack of Dawn and that today’s notes are entitled An Interesting Fact About Meat. Now, you psychoanalyst dear readers just stop right there. Let’s not try to read anything into this that isn’t there. I mean what does the crack of dawn have to do with an interesting fact about meat, I ask you? Nothing. And yet, psychologists and psychoanalysts would try to make something out of it, would try to give it deeper meaning, they would make a deal out of it when there is no deal to be made. Oh, dear, this is simply getting too long, this is too much information (TMI) for this section. Oh, dear, I do believe Mr. Mark Bakalor is flying down here right now to bitch-slap me into oblivion. Let’s all click on the Unseemly Button and be done with it.
In any case, here is an interesting fact about meat that has nothing to do with the crack of dawn. I have always presumed that meat was highly caloric and very fattening. But that isn’t necessarily the case. For example, I bought a package of meat from Gelson’s Market. This package contained four pre-shaped hamburger patties. Each of those patties, according to the package information, had a mere one hundred and sixty-six calories and nine grams of fat. Well, that is a mere drop in the ocean, calorie and fat-gram-wise. That is nothing. I could eat two of those patties on low-fat buns and the whole damn thing wouldn’t come to five hundred calories. Oh, I know there are those of you who snub the low-fat buns, and you do this out of spite, simply because “snub” is “buns” spelled backwards. In any case, I have now presented an interesting fact about meat and we can get on with these here notes.
We’ve had several correct guesses to part one of the trivia contest (I knew it was too easy), but we have had no correct guesses to part two or the bonus point question. Put your thinking caps on, dear readers, the answer is easier than you think. Since Mr. Donald Feltham hasn’t posted about this week’s The Broadway Radio Show, I shall tell you about it. I believe his special guest this week is Miss Adryan Russ, songwriter. As some of you may know, I produced an album of her songs. You will hear lots of those selections on this week’s show, with such singers as Susan Egan, Jason Graae, Tami Tappan, Sharon McKnight, and others. It’s a lot of fun, so listen in. We’re going to be having some terrific guests on upcoming shows, too, plus we’re going to be starting some fun and zany things on the radio show that you will not want to miss.
I was going to write about another of my favorite musicals, but I’m not going to have time to do that today (I don’t want to give the musical I’m going to write about – a Sondheim musical – short shrift). I will write about the Sondheim musical in tomorrow’s notes. I will mention that I watched an absolutely delightful movie last night, a film I had never seen (I’m not sure if it had a release here in the US) by a director I was very fond of, named Philipe de Broca. It’s coming out on DVD this Tuesday and it’s a ton of fun. It’s a French film called Le Magnifique, and it stars Jean Paul Belmondo and Jacqueline Bissett. Mr. de Broca directed one of my favorite sixties films, That Man From Rio. This is not quite as deft as that, but it’s still laugh out loud funny at times. The conceit of the film (which I won’t give away) wears thin at times, but it’s still a hundred times more fun than most things I see today. Belmondo has never been better, it’s a real tour de force performance, and Miss Bissett is stunningly beautiful. Mr. de Broca has channeled the spirits of Blake Edwards, Frank Tashlin, Monty Python, and James Bond into a delightful stew, an olio, a melange – in fact the whole thing resembles what’s inside my head.
By the way, here is another interesting fact, but not about meat. The traffic on this here site has been building steadily and is now at its highest level since we went up. Isn’t that lovely? And it’s all thanks to you, dear readers, so keep spreading the word, keep telling your friends and neighbors, keep getting the word out, and soon we shall be the most popular site on the internet and environs. We will win awards and we shall celebrate said winning of awards by dancing the Hora and the Mashed Potato, and we shall eat cheese slices and ham chunks.
Tomorrow I may print another song from Hinky Meltz and Ernest Ernest’s Psycho! The Musical! because the reaction has been so positive and strong. The Nederlanders have contacted me, trying to see if it’s available for a revival. Also, Mr. Mark Bakalor and I are discussing several new things for our handy-dandy website, and I’ll be telling you about those as the fancy strikes me. Of course, if the fancy strikes me, I shall strike it right back. Who does the fancy think it is anyway, striking the likes of me? The likes of me will not be struck by the fancy and that is all there is to that. I suggest we all go by a package of four pre-shaped hamburger patties right now, and also some low-fat buns, which we shall not snub. Then we shall all look at our package of four pre-shaped hamburger patties and we shall all think, “Aha, I know an interesting fact about meat”.