Well, dear readers, it is Cinco de Mayo, so let’s not hold the cinco or the mayo – no, let us do the traditional Mexican Hat Dance or, at the very least, the traditional Armenian Shirt Dance. Let us eat tacos and enchiladas and frijoles, whilst standing in our adobe huts. Yes, it is Cinco de Mayo and I am wearing my gaily-colored serape as I write these here notes. Now, did you know that thirty-three years ago (in 1975) on this very day we began our first day of shooting on The First Nudie Musical? And did you know that a mere five years later (in 1981) on this very day we began our first day of shooting on The Creature Wasn’t Nice? Isn’t that a fine coincidence of sorts? Speaking of sorts, yesterday was a perfectly nice day. For example, I got up. That was perfectly nice. I got some well-needed sleep and I felt slightly refreshed. I then toddled off to the Heim of Ana for our matinee performance of The Brain From Planet X. The show went well, save for some pretty bad sound problems that plagued the show from start to finish. I think the audience enjoyed it – it was a fairly old crowd, but there were some laughs and it all moved right along. The powers that be will try to get to the root of the sound problems – there really shouldn’t have been any, as the sound was perfect the night before, and I’m told nothing had changed. I suspect some setting inadvertently got changed or some button didn’t get pushed or something simple like that. We’ll figure it out and hopefully that will put an end to it. After the matinee, I drove back to the San Fernando Valley, got some Pad Thai from a local eatery, and then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Cloverfield. Now, let’s just get the obvious out of the way first – Cloverfield is a bad title for this film. The film is essentially The Blair Witch Project Meets Godzilla. The first twenty minutes were interminable, and filled with characters I couldn’t stand – at least from the little one knows about them. Then the conceit of the film takes over and we’re treated to a found video record of an attack upon Manhattan by something very large and not very nice, as well as some smaller not very nice things, too. We only catch glimpses of the creatures as they wreak havoc on New York, New York. I grew tired of it, even though the film, sans end credits, only runs about seventy-four minutes. The sound was robust, and the image, which is the quality of a video camera capturing a lot of very expensive CGI, is fine for what it is. The idea was probably a solid one, and maybe in someone else’s hands (director and script) it could have been something special. What we’re left with is an okay programmer, something that would probably have played the bottom half of a 50s sci-fi double bill. I didn’t know who any of the actors were. During the very long end credits, we’re treated to Michael Giacchino’s end title music, entitled Roar (Overture), which is basically an homage to the Godzilla music of Akira Ifukube. There are no scares in the film, unless, that is, you’re scared by loud noises. I wanted to like this – I certainly thought it was okay, but I also thought it could have been a whole lot better.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get my beauty sleep and then get ready to prepare my traditional Cinco de Mayo repast of tacos y enchiladas and perhaps even a churro.
I just did the Mexican Hat Dance and boy are my arms tired. Today, I shall be entering fixes from proofer number one into my new novel. Then I’ll print that out and give it to proofer number two, and then I’ll enter those fixes and then we’ll be ready to have Mr. Grant Geissman design the book, after which we’ll send it off to Ye Olde Publisher for publishing.
I’ll also be going over the Brain script with a fine tooth comb, deleting what we’ve cut, adjusting what we’ve changed, and adding what we’ve added. I have to turn in the final script to the folks with whom we’re doing the stock and amateur licensing deal and it’s got to have the most current updates.
I’ll also be going through the stage adaptation of Nudie Musical, cleaning it up, and making sure I’m happy with everything. As you know, I hadn’t looked at it since I first did it, back in 2002, and I was shocked to see how I didn’t care for some of it. I’ve already changed a few things (including rewriting three songs in total), and I’ll be futzing with some more things this week.
I’ll also be wrapping up work on the musical I’m mentoring, and we’ll do an informal reading of the new second act, do whatever revisions, and then I’ll do a staged reading of it.
Now wait just a darned minute. Let’s all put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, let’s all break out the cheese slices and the ham chunks, let’s all dance the Hora or the Ocarina, for today is the birthday of dear reader George. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to dear reader George. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO DEAR READER GEORGE!!!
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, enter fixes for my new novel, do errands and whatnot, ship about twenty more packages, and then eat my traditional Cinco de Mayo meal. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s everyone’s favorite day – the Initial Game day. So, today’s initials are lots of fun – remember, only one name per post – celebrities, sports figures, political figures, cartoon characters, but not your next door neighbors or friends, unless they fall into the above categories. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, as we all celebrate the gay and festive day of the dead, Cinco de Mayo.