Haines Logo Text
Column Archive
May 31, 2002:

THE SURPRISE ON THE PORCH

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, here is how my morning began: I was awakened at 8:00 a.m. by a ringing telephone (well, it’s hard to be awakened by a non-ringing telephone, although stranger things have happened). It was my friend Grant Geissman who said he was coming to pick up some stuff I’ve been trying to get him. I thought that meant he was on his way from his house to mine. I was incorrect. He was calling me from my front door. So, groggily I arose and answered the door. He asked me if I always had the heads of dead animals on my porch. I thought that was a rather Samuel Beckett-like greeting, so I chuckled. Then he asked it again. Then I looked down and there, lying on my porch like so much fish, was the head of a dead animal. I looked away so quickly that what type of animal’s head it was didn’t register. I then instructed him to pick up the welcome mat which had become its final resting place and take it to the trash can that was still out in front of my very own home. He did that and that was that. Now, why was there the head of a dead animal on my porch? Who put it there? For example, if the head of the dead animal and been in my bed, I would have known that my close personal friend, Don Corleone, had left it for me. I suppose a scenario could be that the squirrel on the roof, who has been residing there since I moved in, left it for me as payment for all the oranges he’s eaten off my orange tree. Yes, that is a fine scenario. Another scenario could be that an uncouth interloper might have left it for me – certainly I wouldn’t put anything past an uncouth interloper, would you? I actually think this happened once before, when I first moved in, but I simply find it very unnerving to find the head of a dead animal on the front porch at 8:00 in the morning.

When we made my novel available for preorder, I alluded to the fact that people who ordered their signed copies here might just get a special handy-dandy surprise when they received their book. I can now tell you that the handy-dandy surprise is a definite, but will only be sent with the first batch of orders. So, if you haven’t ordered yet but are planning to, I would do so within the next week, because that is when I have to place my order for how many copies I’ll need. The other exciting book news is that we may just be doing a signing at a very prestigious book store here in Los Angeles, California. I’ll keep you posted, but it looks good at this point.

Well, today is Friday, which apparently is a good day to get the head of a dead animal. I shall keep these here notes short today because of the novel-like length of yesterday’s notes. In fact, why tarry further, let’s all collectively click on the Unseemly Button below before we are all collectively bitch-slapped by… Now wait just a darned minute – do you think Mr. Mark Bakalor left the head of a dead animal on my porch? Let us ponder that probability whilst we click away.

Have I mentioned that I found the head of a dead animal on my porch this morning? Well, actually Grant Geissman found it, but that is neither here nor there nor there nor here.

Well, dear readers, I finally picked up my very own brand spanking new copy of the brand spanking new CD release of Li’l Abner. It has instantly become my favorite CD release of the year. From the minute the overture begins (in glorious binaural stereo) one is transported to glorious musical comedy heaven. You realize instantly how wonderful it was to have composers like Gene de Paul who could write instantly memorable and wonderful tunes. The rest of the album is in mono, but sounds much better than the original CD release, which was thin and tinny sounding. There are a couple of never-before-released tracks, such as “What’s Good for General Bullmoose” and a rehearsal take (I guess they decided not to do a real take) of the Sadie Hawkins Ballet, which is also in glorious binaural sound. How wonderful to have that track, rehearsal clams and all. There are also some bonus tracks, which are fun. I must say I was a bit disappointed with Mr. Ken Mandelbaum’s notes for this release, which just seemed to lie there like so much fish. I think notes for a Li’l Abner booklet should be fun – these are extremely dry, although it was great to learn that the show was originally going to be written by Alan Jay Lerner. One can only imagine – we would have had such great Abner songs as I’m an Ordinary Shmoo, Thank Heaven For Little Skraggs, Hurry, It’s Yokum Up Here, They Call the Wind McSwine, well, the mind boggles. Oh, yes, the mind boggles. Anyway, this is a must-have release and if you have a Tower near you it is currently on sale for $7.99, along with the other new releases in this series, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma! (With Florence Henderson), Barnum and I think one other.

How I love the score of Li’l Abner. Practically every song is a gem, and to my mind there are several musical theater classics, including It’s a Typical Day, I’m Past My Prime, Namely You, Jubilation T. Cornpone, The Country’s In The Very Best of Hands and on and on and on. Here’s a historical question: Was this the first show to use an electric guitar? It may very well have been. Congratulations to Didier Deutsch on a job well done. Now all we need is the Percy Faith version of the score and a proper release of the film soundtrack (I do prefer whoever sang for Leslie Parrish to Edie Adams, but that is a minor caveat).

Last night I attended a dinner at the home of someone I went to high school with – she made a lovely brisket of beef, potatoes, salad and corn-on-the-cob. She was a year ahead of me in high school but we knew each other because we were both in the drama department. She started reminding me of all the shows and scenes we’d done together, and it was funny how it all came back to me instantly. That we’d had the gall to do an hour of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (in high school – in 1964!), that we’d done The Crucible and The Skin of Our Teeth together, and that we’d done Miss Dorothy Parker’s one-act playlet, Here We Are. The minute she said that title, I started doing the opening dialogue. Now, it’s not that the opening dialogue is difficult; it’s the fact that I haven’t seen or thought of Here We Are in forty years. The brain is an amazing thing, isn’t it? She showed me her yearbook and by gum and by golly there I was in a photo of our little drama club. Most photos I see from back then I at least resemble what I look like now – in this one I don’t look anything like anyone I ever knew, least of all me. First off, I am wearing an extremely ugly jacket that I have absolutely no memory of. Second off, I don’t appear to have my mouth – the mouth in this photo does not look like it belongs to me, and yet it must. Third off, I must have been having a very peculiar hair day. In this particular yearbook I was in the second-half of the eleventh grade. I went to the tenth grade photos and guess who I saw; guess who was a brand new student at Hamilton High School that year? Why our very own Susan Gordon, that’s who. There she was, cute as a button and twice as short as everyone else in her class.

Dear French reader Francois pointed out that I misspelled the word bĂ©arnaise in yesterday’s notes. I knew that, because the spell checker told me so, but I didn’t like the way it looked so I left the “a” in “bear” out. Having that “a” in “bear” made me think the sauce came from the innards of a bear and that just made me want to throw up, so I left it the way I had it, bĂ©rnaise.

Don’t forget, tomorrow is our handy-dandy Unseemly Trivia Contest, so be sure to drop by. Also, we’re going to have our countdown to the Tonys – yes, Virginia, it’s going to be a Tony weekend here at haineshisway.com, so you’ll want to check back often for the latest and greatest on the Tony Awards, past and present and also present and past. Won’t that be fun and festive? Won’t that be too too? In the meantime, I must take the day, I must do the things I do before somebody else does them and I must make certain that there are no more heads of dead animals on my porch. Today’s topic of discussion: Well, let’s begin our Tony fever by discussing your choices for this year’s Tony Awards. If you were the sole voter, who would be the winners out of this year’s nominees?

Search BK's Notes Archive:
 
© 2001 - 2024 by Bruce Kimmel. All Rights Reserved