Well, dear readers, get out the trumpets, crash the cymbals, beat the drums ’cause here comes our 200th notes. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, today’s notes are number 200 and I think that calls for a celebration, don’t you? I think that calls for all of you to blow on your trumpets 200 times. Most of all, it is time to serve up the cheese slices and ham chunks and shrimp bits on toast, it is time to put on our pointy party hats and colored tights and pantaloons and to dance the Hora with wild abandon. Can you believe it? Every day for 200 days I have written these here notes. That is a lot of words, a lot of sentences, and a lot of paragraphs. We have talked about everything under the sun, unless the sun hasn’t been out, and on those days we’ve talked about everything that wasn’t under the sun. We’ve talked about DVDs, CDs, thong underwear, coprophilia, we’ve had partial Stories, we’ve talked about musicals, we’ve run the gamut, damn it. And by gum and by golly and by George and by Danny and buy bonds we will continue to do so until the cows come home, and let me tell you if the fershluganah cows haven’t come home by now they are never coming home. Most of all, we have become Hainsies/Kimlets, and we, we are family, dear readers, and no one, and I mean no one, can take that away from us. We have become popular with the populace (well, most of the populace – I’m sure we have occasional visitors with whom we are not popular), we have become hip, with it and most especially, cool, man, real cool. We have seen the traffic double in recent months. In fact, we’ve had to put in a new lane so that we could have everything the traffic will allow, which is also the name of my friend Klea Blackhurst’s brilliant cabaret show. You’ve posted your thoughts and feelings on a variety of topics, and also on a Hollywood Reporter of topics. We brook no fools or simpletons here at haineshisway.com and we also brook no trout. Has anyone noticed that in honor of today’s 200th notes that I have now written the longest paragraph in the history of haineshisway.com? Even Mr. Mark Bakalor has been with it in the last week and he is to be commended for creating a lovely site that is easy to navigate and which has all manner of hidden pleasures if you but look for them. Not only can you come here and read these here notes every single day, but you can hear our very own handy-dandy The Broadway Radio Show with our very own handy-dandy Mr. Donald Feltham. Donald does a wonderful job and if you haven’t been tuning in, do so because you are missing some terrific shows. You can peruse photos from the Guy Haines Archive. You can order your very own haineshisway.com products (soon to be joined by Nudie Musical and Benjamin Kritzer products) – said products are beautifully made (I know, because I purchased all of them and will continue to do so when the new products become available, hopefully as of Monday) and you simply must have them because they are simply too too. You can purchase signed copies of The First Nudie Musical DVD and also signed copies of my very own novel, Benjamin Kritzer, both of which come out at the end of June (and if you haven’t preordered don’t you think that you should – don’t be errant and truant, because what I order is based on what you order, and one could conceivably run out and then where would you be, that’s what I’d like to know). By the way (BTW, in Internet lingo), I’ve talked to both DVD company and publisher company, and I will most likely have book and DVD early, so you’ll actually get them before others will, at least that’s the plan, although as we all know, things occasionally change. Has anyone noticed that this has now not only become the longest paragraph in the history of haineshisway.com, but one of the longest and most unseemly paragraphs ever? I feel it’s time we do something about that, don’t you, dear readers?
There.
Well, now we’ve had the longest and the shortest paragraphs and we are the better for it. Have you blown your trumpets two hundred times? Have you danced the Hora whilst wearing your pointy party hat and your colored tights and pantaloons? You must dance the Hora or else we cannot move on to the Vanilla Pudding Dance.
One thing that has remained a constant in all 200 notes, is the necessity and need to click on the Unseemly Button. I feel without the Unseemly Button we would be Lost in Space or Lost in Boston, I feel that the Unseemly Button is an integral part of the Way Things Work. Besides, we all know that Mr. Mark Bakalor is waiting to bitch-slap us from here to eternity if we don’t click on it, so let’s click on it posthaste, thereby putting the old kibosh on the old bitch-slapping.
Have I mentioned that this is our 200th notes and that we should all be blowing our trumpets two hundred times?
Yesterday, I picked up the two Percy Faith albums and I was in Percy Faith heaven all the livelong day and even some of the livelong night. These are beautiful remasterings, with great sound, great arrangements and, of course, great music. One of them has Porgy and Bess coupled with The Most Happy Fella – that CD is in mono but still sounds full and lush and beautiful. The other has Subways Are For Sleeping coupled with Do I Hear a Waltz? and that one is in great stereo. Whoever engineered these albums was brilliant – I have spent my whole career as a producer trying to get albums to sound this good, and these guys were doing it without the technology that we have today. Every instrument is crystal clear and in your face, the way I like it. I had every one of these albums as a sprig of a twig of a tad of a youth, and I sometimes loved them more than the actual cast albums. Mr. Faith is a national treasure, in my opinion (IMO, in Internet lingo) and I am thrilled that there is a label with enough intelligence to reissue them.
Last night I finally got around to watching The Pajama Game on DVD. While I like the score very much, I’m really not too fond of the film, it’s not nearly as good as the film of Damn, Yankees! Part of the problem is John Raitt, who I’m sure was wonderful on the stage, but who is very stiff in the film and just one of those unlucky performers the camera doesn’t really take to. Doris Day, on the other hand, is delightful, as is Eddie Foy, Jr. Carol Haney is, sadly, another performer the camera doesn’t cotton to, or even silk to. But the Steam Heat number is brilliant and worth watching the entire movie for. And I do love the song, Hey There – what a beautiful beautiful melody Mr. Richard Adler wrote, and what a simple lovely lyric Mr. Jerry Ross put to the beautiful melody. I noticed that in the chorus is an impossibly young Harvey Evans. In any case, the film seems very disjointed, as if they left out quite a bit of the book – I’ve never seen the show on stage, so that might just be the case, as the film runs 101 minutes, and the show most certainly must have had a longer running time than that.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? BTW (by the way, in normal lingo), I am behind in shipping out our sparkling prizes but I will get them out this weekend. Oh, I am feeling so very festive, aren’t you? It’s hard not to feel festive when one is wearing a pointy party hat and colored tights and pantaloons.
Let us not get complacent, however. We simply cannot get complacent, because who would want to be a stupid word like complacent. Let us tell our friends and lovers about haineshisway.com. Let us share haineshisway.com with the world and environs, because we want to keep growing in popularity so that soon we will be able to take over the Internet as the most popular site of all, even more popular than the various and sundried sites devoted to the art of tying knots in amusing shapes.
Well, since it is our 200th notes, I thought it only right that we have a Meltz and Ernest song, one of their most poignant and heartfelt songs. It is called To Whom It May Concern. I have always loved the word “whom”, it was so brilliant of someone to simply add an “m” to “who”. But if we say “to whom” and the answer is “to you” shouldn’t it really be “to youm”? Oh, well, here is the Meltz and Ernest song in its entirety.
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN Music by Hinky Meltz Lyrics by Ernest Ernest
I am writing this letter
I’ll be mailing this letter
You’ll be reading this letter
And what could be better
Than that?
To whom it may concern,
I love you.
To whom it may concern,
I care.
To whom it may concern I just adore you
I want some more you
And so I’m writing this letter for you…
To whom it may concern,
You slay me.
To whom it may concern,
It’s true.
To whom it may concern I’m simply smitten
And I’ve been bitten
And that is why you are reading what I have written
Oh, whom,
You’re marvelous – divine.
Oh, whom,
Can I ever hope that you’ll be mine
Mine
To whom it may concern,
I need you.
To whom it may concern,
I really do.
To whom it may concern I say sincerely
That you are merely
The one I’m thinking of.
To whom it may concern,
Signed, “Love, love, love, love
Love”.
Isn’t that a beautiful love song? That is just a classic Meltz and Ernest song and ranks with their finest, at least in my honest opinion (IMHO, in Internet lingo). Of course, that song had a fine recording by Helen Mellon with Sid Selwyn and the Selwyn Two.
Well, dear readers, it is time for me to take the day, to do the things I do, but most of all it is a time for singing, a time to celebrate, a time to blow our collective trumpets two hundred times, a time to beat the drums ’cause here comes thoroughly modern hainsies/kimlets now. Today’s topic of discussion: What are you favorite movie dance numbers (from original film musicals – not film versions of Broadway shows)? I’ll start: Never Gonna Dance and Pick Yourself Up from Swing Time, Fit as a Fiddle and Singin’ In The Rain from Singin’ In The Rain, I Got Rhythm from An American In Paris, Shine on My Shoes from The Band Wagon (I know – but it really isn’t like the show at all, is it?), Raising the Barn from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, well, that should get us going. Your turn.