Well, dear readers, as soon as you are finished reading these here notes you must go to our brand spanking new handy-dandy The Unseemly Interview Section and read our sparkling interview with Miss Kerry Butler, who is currently starring in Hairspray on Broadway. Just click on the “New Sections” icon on the home page and you will be whisked away to New Sectionsland and once there simply click on The Unseemly Interview Section and voila. It’s all too too exciting if you ask me. We have some amazing interviews coming up – I am trying to keep them very diverse. Oh, yes, I’m keeping them very diverse because there is nothing worse than the curse of a non-diverse interview. We will not only be having a wide array of performers from all walks of life, we will also be having interviews with authors, directors, composers and lyricists and arrangers and conductors. We may even branch out (no mean feat) and have interviews with a wide array of people from all runs of life, too, because why should everyone come from all walks of life? I’m thinking that new interviews will go up once every two to three weeks, but if you have any strong feelings about how often they should go up, do express them.
Well, as you know, Friday’s notes are short and sweet and we need short and sweet after the long and sour day we had yesterday. Oh, yes, we had a long and sour day yesterday. It started off well enough, with breakfast with our very own Jason Graae. We went to a nice restaurant near his nice home and we had nice eggs – he, an omelet, I eggs over medium and bacon. It was directly after said breakfast that the long and sour part began. I do not wish to rehash it all but let’s just say I wouldn’t wish a day like that on anyone. Well, that’s not true, but I wouldn’t wish a day like that on anyone I liked. I didn’t end up getting home until five o’clock in the afternoon, and by then the day was waning. Oh, yes, the day was waning and so was I. I was a waning person. No one could have waned more than I. I was the waningest. I waned and waned and then I waned some more, until I was waned out, like a baseball game attended by Elmer Fudd. Silly wabbit.
Last night I finished watching My Favorite Year. I’ve never loved it as much as most people have, but it has its funny bits, and I must say that the reason it continues to work is almost solely because of Peter O’Toole’s extraordinary performance, which brings such humanity and warmth and humor to the piece, that you can’t help but forgive the silly bits or when it gets to shticky. He’s a brilliant actor and it’s a great comic performance. However, his most effective moment in the film is his quietest – sitting in the car watching his daughter come out of the house, unable to go to her or talk to her. His face says so much in that one minute – it’s a lesson in great acting, and just goes to show you you don’t need dialogue all the time. Richard Benjamin provides a commentary track, which I listened to, and which has some interesting things in it (and a few too many lapses).
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Well, let’s all click on the Unseemly Button below before I begin to wane.
Have I mentioned that yesterday was a long and sour day, and that when I arrived home said day had waned? Did you know that the wane in Spain stays mainly on the plain? We don’t allow groaning here at haineshisway.com. Did you know that I finally had one response from classmates.com (one out of the four e-mails I sent – I guess the other people don’t wish to know from the likes of me, although they haven’t picked up their classmates.com mail yet so they don’t even know I wrote). My former classmate and friend, Miss Wendy Stuart, wrote to me. I knew Wendy all through school. She was a child actress, much like our very own Susan Gordon, although she didn’t have quite the array of credits Miss Gordon had. She did star in one fifties film entitled The Littlest Hobo. Anyway, she wrote me a very nice note – said she’d thought about writing me but didn’t think I’d remember her. I wrote her back but have had no response since. Her e-mail, however, is hotmail, and I know people don’t tend to check every day at hotmail. They do check every day at coldmail, but that’s another story.
Tonight I am supping with our very own Tammy Minoff (winner of the longest radio show award). Wherever we sup, I shall be having the onion rings, because I have been on an onion ring bender for quite a few weeks. Most onion rings are not worth eating, but when you find good onion rings they are quite wonderful, and I am ever in search of excellent onion rings.
Don’t forget, tomorrow is our handy-dandy Unseemly Trivia Contest, so do stop by over the weekend, because the party is always going on here at haineshisway.com, even when the day or I am waning. Also, Donald will have a brand spanking new radio show up on Sunday night, and perhaps he’ll even let us know what it’s going to be about. We do feel that we are very lucky to have Donald as our handy-dandy DJ, because he is the best Internet DJ there is, at least in my honest opinion (IMHO, in Internet lingo).
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must fight the great flying oafs of life, I must get in my automobile and drive hither and thither and yes, yon. All of my long and sour day problems indirectly had to do with said automobile, by the way (BTW, in Internet lingo). It is very gray outside, which is actually a pleasant relief from the relentless sunshine we’ve been having here in Los Angeles, California. Be sure to go check out the sparkling interview with Miss Kerry Butler, before the day wanes. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite British films? I’ll start – so many, so many so many (that is three so manys) – Brief Encounter, Dead of Night, Stairway to Heaven, Black Narcissus, Peeping Tom, Lord of the Flies, Tom Jones, A Hard Day’s Night, The Ladykillers, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, Horror of Dracula, Fahrenheit 451 (yes, I know, directed by Truffaut, but it’s a British film), The Rocking Horse Winner, and on and on. Your turn.