Well, dear readers, even though it seems to come earlier and earlier each year, today is our Annual Oscar Bash. For any of our lurkers who aren’t aware, this is THE place to be on Oscar night. The fun starts early and lasts late. Last year we somehow managed to have over 2000 posts – whether we’ll beat that amazing record remains to be seen, but we’ll buckle down Winsocki and give it the old college try. I’ll have more to say on the subject of Oscar in the next section. Speaking of the next section, yesterday was a Saturday – and if it feels like a Saturday and smells like a Saturday and acts like a Saturday then it IS a Saturday. For example, I got up. It was Saturday. I did the long job right away, and then I had to toddle off to the booklet designer’s home environment, where I delivered all the materials for our next two releases. I then spent a little time with his lovely daughter Hartley, who is kindly cutting together the two lousy camera angles we have from the Bacharach benefit so that I’ll at least have something that has everything on it, including the introductions. We’re then going to post some more clips, including Turkey Lurkey Time, to YouTube. I then stopped at a store I’m rather fond of called Dark Delicacies in the Bank of Bur, looked at a few things, and bought a book about Claude Rains, by David Sklar and Rains’ daughter, Jessica, signed by both. I then came home, answered some e-mails, had a few telephonic calls and listened to some CDs. Then my book dealer pal arrived and was craving deli, so we went over to Jerry’s, a place I normally despise – in fact, I haven’t eaten IN the restaurant for ages. For their Sky High sandwiches, they now have two sizes – the LA (4 ounces) and the NY (seven ounces). I ordered the Sky High pastrami LA style, and my friend ordered the corned beef/pastrami combo Sky High, NY style, and we split some fries. The one thing that hasn’t changed is their inability to get the simplest orders right. When the sandwiches arrived, my friend’s was ALL corned beef – he had to send it back. And mine was the NY instead of the LA. Rather than make a big deal out of it, I kept it, and they charged me for the LA-size. But much to my surprise, the sandwich was the best I’ve ever had there – the pastrami was hot and lean and the sandwich wasn’t humungous (even the larger size) – so I was very happy. Then we headed to South Pasadena to see The Illustrated Bradbury’s opening night at the Fremont Centre Theatre. We got there around seven-ten. The first thing I was surprised to find out was that my old friend Lissa Layng and her husband James Reynolds (from Days Of Our Lives) own the theater. Unfortunately, this production is a rental and they weren’t attending the opening night – a shame – haven’t seen Lissa in over twenty years. Mr. Bradbury was in attendance and, in fact, introduced the evening from his wheel chair. The man is still doing it, writing, making appearances, doing his plays at eighty-nine years of age. He has a new book of short stories out, there are new film versions of Fahrenheit 451 and The Illustrated Man in the works, and like the Energizer Bunny, he just keeps on going.
The Illustrated Bradbury is a one-person show, starring Tobias Andersen, who, thirty years ago, played the Fire Captain in the very first Colony Theater production of Fahrenheit. Bradbury uses The Illustrated Man as his connective tissue – and then has excerpts from various stories. The first act was a little tedious, although Mr. Andersen is a very good actor and did his best to keep it interesting. But the second act was mostly terrific and mostly because of the long monologue/rant from the Fire Captain from Fahrenheit. It is Bradbury at his best, and it is more potent and relevant today than it was when he wrote it in 1953 – astonishingly so. The language, the structure, the passion, the ideas are just incredible and it was the highlight of the show. The direction, set, music, and lighting were all very minimalist, and it would have helped had they had a little more zotz to them. And as good as Mr. Andersen is, one wishes he and his director had differentiated the various characters a bit more. Before and during intermission, they were selling a bunch of Bradbury books in the lobby – and a lot of people seemed to have an awful lot of discretionary income, because they were buying five, six, seven books and the prices were not cheap. After the show, Mr. Bradbury signed – my dealer friend, who’s known Ray for thirty years, had brought eleven books for him to sign – including some rare first editions of Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles.
After that, I came home and didn’t even have time to sit on my couch like so much fish. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because the envelope awaits in the next section.
Today, I have a little meeting, and then I’ll be preparing for our Annual Oscar Bash, which begins with the pre-show, but actually begins long before that. It is the partay to end all partays, and happily because all parts of the country get it at the same time, there are no spoilers. We want to hear it all – the fashion, the faux pas, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I, for one, cannot wait.
Tomorrow through Wednesday morning is non-stop working with the authors of the long musical. I’ll be very curious to see how these work sessions go. I have an instinct how they’ll go, which I hope is wrong. If I’m right, however, I’m going to have to be very strong. We’re working tomorrow from one-thirty to about ten in the evening. Tuesday it is literally all day, until my LACCTAA meeting at four-thirty, and then I have to return to work some more. Wednesday, happily, is just the morning, and then that afternoon I have a super-important meeting. Tomorrow morning I’m going to have to get all my errands and whatnot and jogging done.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, have a meeting, prepare, get some amusing foodstuffs to munch on, and, most importantly, I must attend the Annual Oscar Bash right here at haineshisway.com – and you can bet your behind that I’ll be the hostess with the mostess on the ball. Today’s topic of discussion: As always, what are your Oscar predictions for this evening? Let’s have loads (and I mean LOADS) of lovely postings, shall we, whilst we try to topple last year’s rather tremendous number of postings. Be there or be round.