Well, dear readers, it is the Thursday before the Saturday that follows Friday as we continue our countdown to Christmas. Each night I sing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing even though I’m not really certain what a fershluganah herald angel is. I know what a Harold Angel is – he was a notorious mobster, part of the Prosciutto gang whose members, of course, were all hams. Harold Angel was infamous for killing people with a linguini hanging from his mouth. That was his trademark – a linguini hanging from his mouth. He was known, in fact, as The Linguini Killer. After Don Prosciutto was ruthlessly gunned down by the rival Risotto gang, Harold Angel aka The Linguini Killer was promoted to Don. This made second-in-command Ralphie “Shiv” Don very angry, because HE wanted to be Don, so he could be known as Don Don. Ralphie “Shiv” Don defected to the Risotto gang where he was killed in a freak accident involving a cattle prod. What the HELL am I talking about? In any case, every night I sing Hark! The Harold Angels Sing, in Italian, whilst eating a calzone. It’s all very festively festive. Now, on to more important matters. Yesterday was a very confusing day. I awoke at nine-thirty and the next thing I knew it was four-thirty. I know I fielded endless phone calls, answered endless e-mails, and both shipped and picked up some packages. But, the day sped by so fast I couldn’t believe it. Next thing I knew I was on my way to rehearsal. Rehearsal went very well – lots of work on specific sections of the play. Unfortunately, my assistant director is now gone until January 2nd. I’m supposed to have someone filling in for her, which is absolutely key as her script has all the blocking and stuff, and the actors will all be off book and may need lines thrown to them. At the end of rehearsal, we met our new special effects person. I fired the gal who was doing it, as she was completely inept, at least in terms of fulfilling our needs. I felt it about her when she was first proposed but could never seem to meet with us. I was assured she’d be fine. Then, when I finally met her five weeks ago, she assured my she could deliver what we needed, and I was supposed to see something that weekend. I didn’t. Then, week after week she had one excuse after another about not showing up. She finally did show up this week, but didn’t have anything with her, seemed completely dumbfounded, and I got very annoyed. Then, she was supposed to come the next night and she didn’t. Instead she sent someone with some stuff for us to try. That was it for me – I told Tammy to fire her. We found someone else today, and he seems to know exactly what we need and he says we’ll have everything to rehearse with as of next Tuesday. I then came home and sang Hark! The Harold Angels Sing whilst sitting on the couch like so much fish.
Last night I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Point of Order. The DVD release took forever to come out, and then it was impossible to find – I finally got it from amazon after a seven day wait. Point of Order is a documentary from 1963, comprised of nothing but kinescope footage from the Army/McCarthy hearings of 1954. Isn’t it amusing that the DVD with images made up of blurry kinescope footage should turn out to be the most compelling, mesmerizing, entertaining, shocking, and brilliant viewing experience of the year? There is no narrator telling you what you’re seeing. There is no music to help you know what to feel. There is just carefully edited footage to give you a narrative sense of what went on at these hearings. There is ten times more drama in this documentary than in just about every film made in the last decade. You won’t find any of today’s actors be as good as the real-life participants of these hearings. You won’t find any screenplay with the crackling dialogue of these hearings. In short, this is a must-have DVD – ninety-eight minutes of everything that was great about the new medium of television. At the end of the day, the medium of television did what no one else seemed able to do – it exposed Senator Joseph McCarthy for the horrible person he was, and it ended his reign of terror. There are so many brilliant moments – Joseph Welch’s eloquent outrage at one of McCarthy’s most vicious attacks (“Have you no decency, sir, at long last?”), Stuart Symington going after McCarthy with a vengeance, Roy Cohn’s oily presence (and clear discomfort when Welch and McCarthy get into a discussion about the meaning of pixies and fairies), and so much more. You owe it to yourself to seek out this DVD – it’s one of the ten best DVDs of the year.
Wow, that was a rave, wasn’t it? Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because if we don’t, the ghost of Harold Angel may come to haunt us with a linguini hanging from his mouth.
I do hope today goes a little slower than yesterday, so I can stop and smell the roses or the coffee or the borscht. Perhaps today I shall change my tune and sing Deck the Halls, a song about an angry person who wants to find the Hall family and slug them in the face.
Today I shall be shipping one count them one package, and hopefully there will be a package or two waiting for me at my mail place. I have tons of things to attend to prior to tonight’s rehearsal, and attend to them I shall.
I must also do my shopping for Saturday’s party, so I’ll be going to Gelson’s to pick up everything I need for said party, and it’s a lot o’ stuff. I’m even out of paper plates and plastic silverware and napkins and that sort of thing. I do already have the ingredients for the tuna pasta salad, so that’s good. I’m sure that little shopping jaunt will take at least an hour, but it’s best to get it over with sooner than later.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, sing Hark! The Harold Angels Sing, I must drive about in my motor car, I must make some telephonic calls, and do various and sundried other tasks. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your ten favorite shows you’ve seen this year – musicals, plays, concerts. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we?