Well, dear readers, thanks to yesterday’s posts, some Cherry Ripe candy bars are winging their way to me. I’m sure we all have a love/hate relationship with the Internet, but one thing I love about it is the ability to remember something like Cherry Ripe, do a Google search, find a company that sells it, and order some right then and there. I’m hoping they arrive prior to my New York casting trip so I can eat them all up, one by one. I know I bought them somewhere in Los Angeles, California, USA, but it was just easier to order online than to drive to several possible stores in search of. This paragraph has been brought to you by the eaters of Cherry Ripe. Speaking of Cherry Ripe, yesterday was just the sort of day I was hoping it would be, i.e. mostly restful, except for the Time Warner Problem, which had an unexpectedly pleasant resolution. I got up at eight, just in case Time Warner Man was going to do as promised and get to me first. That, of course, was not meant to be. In fact, he never showed up at all, same as the day before. I finally left and went to Vivian’s to have some breakfast and begin proofing. I got a call there saying the technician was on his way – I then spoke to the technician and told him to check the outside line and leave me his findings. I ate eggs benedict and proofed the first forty or so pages, finding little formatting things (from manuscript to book form), and one thing all of us proofers had missed. I then went home and had the findings from Time Warner Man on the door. The signal coming into the home environment is very strong, it said. Still miffed, I called Time Warner just to get the rest of my frustrations off my chest. And, as if by magic, I got one of their off-site customer service people and he was great – he admitted freely that the problem could not possibly be my cable modem and any of the “monkeys” who told me it was, didn’t know what they were talking about and were reading from a prompt script. And he said that if the signal had been uninterrupted for the past two days, his guess was that a Time Warner Man had, in fact, been out there and adjusted it or fixed it. He also freely admitted that Time Warner’s customer service manuals dictate that the phone helpers do everything to say it’s a consumer problem rather than a Time Warner problem. In other words, he admitted everything that I’ve been saying for weeks. Not only that, but he gave me a twenty-dollar credit because Time Warner guarantees on-time appointments – something all those other customer service people “forgot” to mention to me. Not only that, he also gave me a credit for one free month for having to deal with all of it. And that’s how to keep the customer satisfied, and Time Warner should learn from it, but, alas, they won’t. After that, I sat on my couch like so much fish, and refused to do anything else that remotely seemed like work.
Yesterday, I managed to watch three count them three motion pictures on DVD. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled The Girl In The Red Velvet Swing, starring Miss Joan Collins as Evelyn Nesbitt, Ray Milland as Stanford White, and Farley Granger as Harry K. Thaw. It’s not really a very good movie – Miss Collins, whatever one may think of her, is simply not a very good actress, and she can’t carry the film. Her wigs are terrible and she doesn’t even look that pretty. Ray Milland is Ray Milland, and Farley Granger is fine as Harry K. Thaw. The whole thing just sort of ambles along until Luther Adler shows up as Mr. Thaw’s attorney – he yells in the courtroom scenes, so that perked things up a bit. The direction by Richard Fleischer is fine, and the score by Leigh Harline (it’s also isolated as an extra) is excellent. I’d read that the transfer had slightly faded colors, which, once again shows that these yokels don’t have a clew what they’re talking about – the transfer is perfect, color-wise and every other-wise. I then watched another film in the Joan Collins collection, this one Rally ‘Round The Flag, Boys, a really bad comedy based on a funny book by Max Shulman. Even when I was but a wee sprig of a twig of a tad of a lad of a youth I thought it was forced and loud and mostly unfunny, and time has not been kind to it. Mr. Newman, who I really like, is so over the top here, it’s almost painful to watch. No one ever accused Joanne Woodward of being a light comedienne, and Miss Collins, while fetching, is just not very good. The transfer is fine, with good color. I then took a dinner break, and after that I watched the third motion picture on DVD, which was entitled The Rainmaker – not the 50s The Rainmaker, but the John Grisham-based The Rainmaker, a film by Francis Ford Coppola. I’d somehow missed it when it was released ten years ago. It’s certainly well directed by Mr. Coppola, but it never seems to make up its mind as to what story is most important. It keeps veering back and forth, and it becomes annoying after a while. Also, the narration (credited to Michael Herr) is awful – stilted and monotone and very “now.” That said, I did enjoy the performances of Danny De Vito, Mickey Rourke (what has this man done to his face – he doesn’t even look like himself anymore), Danny Glover, Jon Voight, and Roy Scheider, as well as Mary Kay Place, Teresa Wright, and Clare Danes. Matt Damon, I’m afraid, doesn’t do it for me. A big plus is Elmer Bernstein’s score – a real movie score instead of the bland droning that passes for film music these days. The transfer is fine.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below whilst I dream of Cherry Ripe candy bars winging their way from Australia to me.
I’ve got news for you, Buster Brown, July is half over, and I, for one, say that this month is flying by like a gazelle in a Quonset hut. There is so much to do, so many things to attend to, that there are times when my brain threatens to just shut down. Today, for example, I have a rehearsal with Miss Joan Ryan, and then I have to write up two important e-mail letters, after which I’ll be able to relax. Well, relax and proof and then watch DVDs.
Tomorrow, we have a Joan rehearsal, and then NYMF things to attend to, e-mails to send, telephonic calls to make, and a whole lot of whatnot. On Tuesday, we do session one of the Lynda Carter recording, and then a band run-through with Miss Ryan. And on it goes.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, rehearse, write, proof, relax, and whatnot. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst thoughts of Cherry Ripe play across the windmills of my mind.