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February 10, 2007:

THE PLANETS

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, she of the Evil Eye will be here all too soon, so I must write these here notes in a hurry, get my beauty sleep, and get the HELL out of here. I tell you, this has been one wacky week. Every day has been an adventure in wackiness, and you’ve read about it here. Jupiter must be in retrograde or Mars must be in Pluto, or Venus must be in Uranus because the world has basically gone mad. People are driving like escapees from an asylum and they don’t seem to be aware that they are basically potential killers. I really don’t care if they want to kill themselves by being irresponsible, but I do care when they put others’ lives in danger. Here’s hoping the planets align themselves in some pleasant sort of way, and soon. Speaking of soon, yesterday was as wacky as the rest of the week. For example, I woke up. That was wacky. I got an e-mail saying that the CDs would be here earlier rather than later. When they still weren’t here by noon, I called, and then we had an hour’s worth of drama, then the discs finally arrived at two. Prior to that, I wrote several pages, and I had a call from the head of the post office branch – he’d been doing some investigative work, and something had come to him third hand that he wanted to discuss with the owner of my mail place before he told me what it was. What it was was the confirmation that one of my mail place’s employee’s had been fired a week-and-a-half ago. Apparently, there had been about five other complaints about missing packages that had been signed for, and, at the end of the day, this employee was the only person who could have been responsible for the missing items. Basically, I think they think she was stealing them. Because of my endless phone calls, safeguards have been implemented and nothing like this can happen again. I was ultimately thanked for my persistence, and hopefully all this missing package stuff is behind us.

After all that, I packaged up all the CDs (save for the ones that are being signed), got them over to the post office (even including all the store orders), and got everything shipped out. After that, Miss Adriana Patti came over and delivered to me the finalized blocking script that she’s been working on for four weeks. It is very detailed, with lots of notations and drawings. We then supped at Jerry’s Deli (mediocre, as always, but I just didn’t want to have to think about where else to eat), and then I dragged her along to see Tip Toes at the Whitefire Theatre in the Oaks of Sherman.

I don’t really feel the need to go into detail about the show. It was fascinating seeing the early Gershwin musical, which has only one classic song – Sweet and Lowdown. The book is obviously of its era and most of the songs are not up to the standards we usually associate with the Gershwins. The Whitefire is another Equity waiver black box hole, a bit more comfortable than some of the others I’ve been to, but I just don’t cotton to these sorts of places – I don’t even silk to them. The production had some fun choreography, heavily influenced by Gower Champion, Michael Bennett, and, at one laughable point, Tommy Tune. The director was Gower’s assistant on Annie Get Your Gun, and was in A Chorus Line during the end of its Broadway run. The direction wasn’t as good, and he didn’t really have the ability to get the actors to all play in a consistent style. The cast was okay – some better than others, with no one really standing out. My new pal, Merissa Haddad, looked pretty and did a good job with not very much. There was no set (just black curtains and some ottomans that rolled on and off). This show, shockingly, got surprisingly nice reviews, even a couple of raves – and there you have why no one can ever take these LA critics seriously. They are, for the most part, seriously impaired as critics. They invariably like poorly produced shows, or are at least nice to them, and they invariably are harder on shows that are much better. They should all be run out of town on a rail, save for a couple of them. They are mostly an embarrassment to the city and to theater.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because Mercury is in retrograde and Jupiter is running rings around Saturn and the whole thing is making me nauseous.

This morning I’ll be shipping two more packages (to potential producers), putting gas in the motor car, and then toddling over to some hotel on the West Side, to speak at some film seminar thing. After I speak (I have no idea what I’m speaking about – I do hope there’s a moderator), they’re taking me to lunch, and after that I have to get home to meet Mr. Cason Murphy, who’ll be signing CDs. Originally, Lauren was also supposed to be there, but something came up and she can’t do it. So, I guess she’ll come at another time and then Kevin will sign on Tuesday morning, and then I’ll ship those copies out in the afternoon. Tonight I’m supposed to see a play, although I haven’t confirmed anything. I expect it will happen though.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be going to the Shrine and a comic book and memorabilia show and then I’m supposed to maybe have some supper with a friend. And I’d sure like to watch a DVD at some point. I’ve begun a motion picture entitled The Appaloosa, which I’m enjoying, and I’d like to at least finish that.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, write, speak at a seminar, lunch, sign CDs, and see a play. Today’s topic of discussion: I’m fascinated by fortune telling and card-reading, but I’ve never really had it done seriously. Oh, I’ve had my fortune told a time or two, but never had my cards read. So, have you ever had your fortune told or your cards read – please describe the experience and then the accuracy of the predictions, and where you had it done. What was the atmosphere? And have you ever done a ouija board and what was that like. What are the eeriest things that have happened to you, along those lines? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and hopefully Mercury can get out of Jupiter’s retrograde and Neptune’s Uranus and we can get this world back to being a more reasonable place.

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