Well, dear readers, once again I am having to write these here notes before I retire for bed, because I must be up very early for our big rehearsal day with all the singers. Do you think it’s necessary to retire for bed? I’m not ready to retire, I have many more good years of productivity in me, so why should I retire for bed or anyone or anything else? Writing these here notes late into the night is unnerving. I normally have daytime thoughts when I write these here notes, so writing them at night is strange indeed, because my daytime thoughts are already nighttime thoughts but I’m used to my daytime thoughts when I write these here notes, not my nighttime thoughts and now everything is all a jumble and I am all discombobulated and also discomnormanulated, daytime and nightime thoughts-wise. My goodness, that was a sentence. That sentence was so dense, wasn’t it? It was dense with denseness. It was frought with denseness. My, I’m tired. Today we rehearsed with the house band, which differs from what we rehearsed yesterday with the Baja Marimba Band. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, we have two count them two bands in this here show we’re putting on. Today’s rehearsal went swimmingly – the band sounds great, and our musical director’s arrangements sound great, too. I got home around three o’clock from that rehearsal. I immediately put on my shorts and put sun goop in my hair and went jogging for two miles. I looked entirely pathetic and, in fact, after my jog I was just standing in the street heaving and shvitzing and a van stopped and the person within it asked if I was dying. I tried to answer him but all that came out was heaving and shvitzing. He drove on, apparently satisfied that I was not, in fact, dying – either that or he thought I was beyond help. Has anyone noticed how long this fershluganah paragraph is? This is an endless fershluganah paragraph and it’s quite unseemly.
Tonight we rehearsed with our hosts, Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall, and also our special guest, Mr. Bill Dana. Since most of you are in other cities, I don’t think I’ll be giving any surprises away when I tell you that Bill is bringing Mr. Jose Jimenez with him, and it’s truly hilarious. We were all roaring with laughter tonight. Tomorrow we have our huge singer and band all-day rehearsal. We have to run every number, we have to stage three numbers (my friend Murphy Cross is helping with the staging of those numbers) and everyone will be told where they enter from and how they get off, because on Sunday we have so little time before we actually do this thing, that everyone needs to know now how the whole thing works.
I’ve got a whole slew of new DVDs to watch, whenever I get the chance, including an advance copy of A Beautiful Mind, which I missed in theaters. I watched the first twenty minutes the other day and I must say I found it quite annoying. Hopefully it will improve. I’ve also transfered some more videos to DVD, including my beloved Li’l Abner. Oh, how I do love that movie. And oh what a wretched transfer that VHS tape was. That wretched transfer makes me want to retch every time I see it. It’s so soft and ugly and colorless. This was a Technicolor and VistaVision film and we need a gorgeous DVD anamorphic transfer like they did for The Court Jester. Hurry up, Paramount, we Li’l Abner junkies need our fix. I also transfered one of my all-time favorite films, Mr. Federico Fellini’s The White Sheik (Lo Sciecco Bianco). What a wonderful comedy, brilliantly acted by Brunella Bova and Leopoldo Trieste. Funny, warm, sad and just wonderful. Of course, I forgot to mention the great Alberto Sordi who plays The White Sheik, and Mr. Fellini’s lovely wife, Giulietta Masina, who has a small role in the film. But here’s the neat part about her small role – she plays Cabiria, a prostitute, and Mr. Fellini would later make a whole movie about that character, called Nights of Cabiria which, of course, served as the source material for Sweet Charity. If you’ve never seen The White Sheik I cannot recommend it highly enough. It’s one of the greats.
What am I Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? And what in tarnation am I still doing in this first section? Quick, quick as a wink, let us all click on the Unseemly Button below before something unseemly happens.
I’ve run out of things to say. My nighttime thoughts have expired and retired and my daytime thoughts haven’t arrived yet. You see, you see? This is the madness of being a night writer. Well, we’ll be back day-writing tomorrow. Tomorrow all will return to normalcy here at haineshisway.com. One of our dear readers asked where the best place was to order The First Nudie Musical DVD. Well, it’s currently available for preorder (and at a pretty good price, too) at amazon.com. I haven’t quite figured out if we’ll sell them here or not – the original plan (one must always have an original plan) was to sell both the DVD of the film, and my new novel right here at haineshisway.com, where they could be autographed if the buyer so chose. But, I have to work out the logistics of that with Mr. Mark Bakalor, and he has been too busy for the likes of us. Yes, the likes of us don’t hear from Mr. Mark Bakalor very much these days. But, we’ll figure it out and then I will let you know how the whole thing will work.
Dear, dear, dear (that is three dears, which might qualify us for a doe), it is late and I am fading fast. I can barely keep my eyes open.
I think I will end these notes right here and now and also right now and here. Today’s topic of discussion? Why, it’s Ask BK Day. That is the day you get to ask me any questions you like – anything at all, and I will answer in a forthright and truthful manner, holding nothing back, although I might hold something forth. Now, be good, you Hainsies/Kimlets and don’t answer the questions. I will answer the questions. You may, of course, discuss other things as well, but you leave the questions to me. One of our dear readers suggested that everyone e-mail me the questions, and maybe we’ll try that sometime and see if we all like it, but for now let’s just post them. Ask away.