Well, dear readers, what a wonderful live chat we had last night – if you’ve been missing these you really need to start showing up – it’s simply too too much fun. We had a very special guest for the chat, Miss Donna Lynne Champlin, currently starring in Hollywood Arms on Broadway and also the subject of our current Unseemly Interview. She was a delight, and it was all too too wild and wooly and filled with merriment and mirth and laughter and legs.
Yesterday I got lots and lots of fun mail. Isn’t it fun to get lots and lots of fun mail? No bills, just things – nice fun things. Has anyone noticed that’s it’s a mere two days until the holiday known as Thanksgiving? As I mentioned, we are going to have a huge bash right here at haineshisway.com, so do plan to spend at least part of your Thanksgiving with us.
I’ll be getting Luckie tonight and I’ll keep getting Luckie until Sunday night. We shall have lots and lots of fun, oh, yes, we shall have lots and lots of fun. Has anyone noticed that today’s notes are beginning to read like a Dick and Jane book?
I feel we must have some depth in these here notes and some deep depth at that. We must plunge ourselves into the depths of deepness and then we can rise from the depths like a Phoenix, Arizona and shout, Hurry, It’s Lovely Up Here – oh, a Lerner and Lane reference. I would just like to know one thing: What the hell am I talking about?
Well, why don’t we all just click on the Unseemly Button and see if anything Unseemly is happening elsewhere. See Dick click. See Jane tell Dick he is unseemly.
I’m so very excited that this is a three-day work week. That means that I only work three days, yet I get paid for five days. Isn’t that marvy? Isn’t that just too too? I feel we should have Thanksgiving every week, don’t you?
Did you know that there is a whole world of DVDs that most of us aren’t even aware of? Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, there is a whole world of DVDs that most of us aren’t even aware of. In the United States of America, we can play Region One DVDs or all-region DVDs, as long as they are NTSC. However, there are also Region 2 through 9 DVDs, some of which are in the PAL format (NTSC is for American televisions, PAL is for many European countries). But some wonderful DVD movies are only available in PAL and different regions. They are not compatible, but still one must have them – so what does one do. One gets a multi-region DVD player, that’s what one does. They are not sold at stores, but one can get them on eBay or from a handful of US online dealers. Here is the thing: They are incredibly inexpensive (around $250), and they are full-featured – DTS, Dolby Digital, progressive scan, plus they play any region and they convert PAL to NTSC. So finally I can have a DVD of the brilliant Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger film, A Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven) from the UK, and also the same filmmaker’s not so brilliant (but interesting) Gone to Earth. From France I can have a beautiful anamorphically enhanced DVD of Mr. Sam Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron, and a special edition of Francois Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451. From Germany, I can have my very own film, Naked Space, in German, and letterboxed. From Japan, you can get all the Godzilla films in lavish special editions (in Japanese, though, with no English subtitles). And from Italy, you can get a splendid enhanced Once Upon a Time in the West (in Italian only, no subtitles, but I know the film so well it simply doesn’t matter to me). Other films of interest (I haven’t really explored everything yet) that one can get on DVD in France and the UK: A Taste of Honey, Fall of the Roman Empire, El Cid, 55 Days at Peking, Hercules (the original Steve Reeves), and on and on (the preceding all have English audio). In any case, I shall have full reports for you when I get the player (my birthday present to myself) and the few DVDs I’ve ordered (oh, yes, I already found a DVD of The African Queen, which has a commentary track by legendary cameraman Jack Cardiff).
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must go hither and thither and then I must go thither and hither with a stop at yon just for the hell of it. Don’t forget, tomorrow is Ask BK Day, so be thinking of your excellent questions. Today’s topic of discussion: What was the funniest mishap you’ve ever seen happen on stage? Post away, my pretties, and post often so that I have a divertissement whilst I work my fingers to the bone.