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October 12, 2008:

BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I suppose I’m in the final stages of this miserable whatever it is I had. I hate being in the final stages of this miserable whatever it is I had because it means that I cough a lot and phlegm is breaking up a lot and let me tell you, phlegm-wise breaking up is hard to do. Oh, a Neil Sedaka reference. In any case, I must write these here notes in a hurry because I’m quite exhausted from all this coughing and this breaking up of the phlegm, which is quite painful to Ye Olde Throate Boxe. Shortly I’ll have my midnight cocktail of Allavert and Mucinex, but I think I’m out of Ny-Quil or maybe there’s a half a cup left. If there is half a cup left I’ll go ahead and take it so I can be in my cups. Speaking of my cups, yesterday was a wonderful day despite my throat and coughing problems. For example, I got up. That was wonderful. Then I did the long jog, which I did very briskly, and then I shaved and showered and was on my way to LACC. When I arrived at 12:35 no one was there, the entire theater building was locked, so I had to run around opening doors, getting our check-in table set up, and then finally our board member Joanna Erdos arrived and she manned the table until Cason and Miss Patti arrived. They’d switched our location so it took a while to get everyone upstairs to the little Cameo Theater, which is where my first two musicals were staged – Start At The Top and Feast. I have a special fondness for that space and I may suggest that it be the permanent home to our events, unless we really are getting a lot of people, or if we need a piano. Two of our panel members were no-shows, but the six who were there were just great. We had a really nice-sized crowd of about fifty-five people. I moderated and for the first hour and fifteen minutes I posed questions and the panel answered them. Each person on the panel was quite unique and so the answers were varied, forthright, funny, and even touching. I think that the young actors in attendance got some really good information, given that the people on the panel have managed to eke out a long successful career in show business since leaving the school. The last forty-five minutes were devoted to audience questions, and the questions were smart and got great responses from the panel. I told a few personal stories, too, and we all had the best time. The one thing I know is that the attendance for each event has grown, and I think that when we resume them in February they’ll keep growing, because the buzz coming out of each event has been incredible – so friends tell friends, the students who were there tell the students who weren’t there and so forth and so on and also so on and so forth. My goodness, this coughing is annoying but not as annoying as the breaking up is hard to do phlegm. After the event, I went to a little Eyetalian jernt in Loz Feliz and had some good old spaghetti and meatballs, one piece of garlic bread, a little salad and that was it. I couldn’t even finish all the pasta – I did manage to eat my two meat balls though. After that, it was already close to five o’clock, so I came home and sat on my couch like so much fish, after printing out more orders for our new Kritzerland CD. May I just say to our GUESTS and lurkers, if you at all love Elmer Bernstein’s music, you should check out this CD at kritzerland.com, but I wouldn’t wait too long, because out of the 1000 we’re pressing (it’s a limited edition of 1000 copies) we’re down to less than 240 right now, and that’s in less than two days. Having announced the title on the film music boards on a Friday wasn’t the most optimal thing to do – for whatever reasons, many of the regulars don’t show up at the board on the weekends. So, it’s quite amazing that we’ve gone through over 760 of these – I think when Monday rolls around the others will probably go.

I tried to watch a motion picture on DVD entitled Sleeping Beauty, but despite it being an interesting film visually, I’ve really never cottoned to it or even silked to it. Even at seventy-five minutes it seems to long to me. The colors on the new transfer are very nice, but frankly I thought the transfer looked soft in the mid to long shots, something I just don’t understand – especially since those who’ve seen the Blu-Ray say it’s really sharp. So, once again, the studios may be purposely messing with the standard DVDs so that their Blu-Ray counterparts look much better. I did watch the extras on the Wargames DVD – horribly done, but some good information. I had no idea that director John Badham replaced Martin Brest because the studio wasn’t happy with Brest’s take on the material – he was making a very dark film with no humor. Of course, Badham did bring humor (not always for the better), and Brest immediately went on to make Beverly Hills Cop, so they both had humungous hits. The featurettes at least had most of the people connected with the film – the writers, the director, the stars (including Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy), William Fraker, the cameraman, and the producer. So why they feel the need to throw in this unseemly buffoon named Harry Knowles from aintitcoolnews is anyone’s guess. Who IS this guy? He gets to be on a featurette for what reason? Because he’s some nerd with a website? I mean, have you looked at this guy? It truly is the Day Of The Amateur.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because my phlegm wants to break up and, as we all know, breaking up is hard to do.

Today, I shall sleep in as late as I can, then I shall do the long jog, then if I’m feeling up to it, I may go to the Shrine Auditorium to attend a comic book convention – there are always interesting things to look at, and a couple of dealer friends have asked me to come visit. Then tonight I’ll be seeing a three-hour documentary about Los Angeles on film, which I gather has a lot of film clips from movies shot in LA contrasted with those locations as they are now. I know I’ll enjoy that a lot.

Tomorrow, I gather, is some sort of holiday where we get no mail. I’ll be working with the singer either on Monday or Tuesday, and then I’ll do my demo session when Grant can fit me in, and I also have a couple of meetings, meals, and whatnot. And then we go into a full week of intensive rehearsals with Kevin and Sean for their October 27th show, which we’re videotaping. Once that’s done, the next four weeks will solely be devoted to the Bacharach show, and I guess I’ll fly into New York about a week before the show, so I’m hoping we can have some hainsies/kimlets gatherings.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, perhaps go to a comic book convention, eat something amusing, and then see a long documentary about LA. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers 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 my phlegm and I do a duet version of Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.

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