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October 17, 2007:

5000 MEMBERS

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, by the time you read these here notes we will have 5000 members. How many people can say they have 5000 members? That’s a lot of members, if you get my drift. Of course, many of those members are fake members. Have you ever had a fake member? If so, did you tell anyone about it? You see, we have this ping thing. When Mr. Mark Bakalor installed the new software for this discussion board, well, when I post the notes every night at midnight, it pings all over the place. I don’t know what it means, this pinging, but somehow these pings cause bots to come here and register under a whole slew of names, but most of them are not real. That’s not to say we don’t have any real members here. I think we all know we have several real members here, if you get my drift. I know of no way to stop the ping thing, but at least we admit it, unlike other sites that brag about their big members list. I dislike people who brag about their big members, frankly. So, zing went the pings of these here notes, and the result is over 5000 members. I think that’s a rather impressive number of members to have in one place, don’t you? Even if some of them are fake. I ask you, where else on all the Internet can you find a long paragraph about 5000 members and pings? Nowhere, that’s where. Speaking of members, yesterday was a day that wasn’t totally bad, which these days is good. We’re taking all the good we can get, because if all the good begins to add up, then maybe the bad will get the hint and hit the road, Jack, and don’t you come back no mo no mo no mo no mo. I had a pretty good night’s sleep, got up to an annoying e-mail, and then, over the course of the day, I responded to some eighty e-mails – it just never stops. We added the divoon Jennifer Leigh Warren to our fundraiser show and she’ll be doing the song she did on my Stephen Schwartz album, Stranger To The Rain. Just a couple more people to go and we’ll be fully cast. I’m beginning to be nervous about all the work that’s left to do in two-and-a-half weeks, especially with all the performers, but we’re booking them for rehearsals, and I do feel more organized than I did a few days ago. I actually never stopped working yesterday until about seven, after which I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I was very excited to watch a new motion picture on DVD entitled My Best Friend, the new film from my favorite of today’s directors, Patrice Leconte. Though I like some of his films better than others, I have yet to meet a Patrice Leconte film I didn’t like. And I’m happy to report that My Best Friend did not disappoint in any way, save for a small one, which I’ll get to later. It’s a story about friends – what is a friend, what makes a friend, and what friendship is. It’s about a man (played by the wonderful Daniel Autuiel), who literally has no friends (he’s also divorced and has an uneasy relationship with his daughter). Oh, he has many lunches, many conversations with business associates, but no actual friends. When this is brought to his attention, he denies it’s true and accepts a bet that in ten days time he can’t produce a best friend. He goes home and makes a list of candidates, not one of whom, of course, is his friend. Not wanting to lost the bet, he enlists the aid of a cab driver (the terrific Dany Boon), trying to learn what it takes to be a sociable person that people like. It’s genuinely funny, and more than that, genuinely touching – a real human comedy, the kind that Hollywood simply doesn’t know how to make because it doesn’t adhere to today’s Screenwriting 101 formulae. This isn’t a film with funny dogs, or women urinating on their husbands (as in the remake of The Heartbreak Kid), it doesn’t have one crass gag in its entirety, it doesn’t make fun of its characters, it doesn’t artificially fall into proscribed “acts”, it doesn’t have a soundtrack loaded with pop songs – it’s just an honest-to-goodness human comedy. But, horror of horrors, if I read the imdb correctly, it’s been bought for an American remake and I can just imagine what they’ll do to it. And it will be awful. The one criticism I have is a surprising one, given Mr. Leconte’s history of working with excellent and interesting composers like Alexandre Desplat, Michael Nyman, and Pascal Esteve. The film’s score is a real letdown – it just lays there like so much fish, never supporting the action or giving the film underpinnings, and sometimes it just downright fights the film, never to the point of hurting it, but a great and subtle score for Desplat or Esteve or someone like Philippe Rombi, would have made this marvelous film even more marvelous. It’s a minor quibble, and I give a firm recommendation – the scope transfer is nice, too.

What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? In the time it took me to write that paragraph, we’ve probably got five more members.

Today shall be like yesterday only today. I’ll have to answer a lot of e-mails, and then I have a rehearsal with Miss Beth Malone, and then it’s off to the Pantages to work with Miss Julie Reiber. So, it’s a full day full of fullness.

Tomorrow and Friday is more of the same, Saturday is a big ensemble rehearsal, Saturday night I’m supposed to attend the LACC Foundation fundraiser, and Friday night I’m supposed to attend The Odd Couple at LACC. Why did I put Saturday night before Friday night?

This afternoon, preorders will begin for our new Kritzerland 2 CD limited edition release. I’ll have complete details in today’s posts. If you love The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, you are going to want this CD, and it’s one you should grab because I do think it will ultimately sell out, because one online store is taking a significant number of them to sell overseas.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, answer a plethora of e-mails, make telephonic calls, rehearse, and then relax during the evening. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, and let’s all stand and salute our members, shall we?

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