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June 28, 2009:

APPLESAUCE

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, we are now in the final few days of June, and then July will be upon us, like a gazelle doing the Jane Fonda Workout. The gazelle is so 80s. I must say I had a rather pleasant Saturday, save for the noise of an electric saw waking me up at eight-thiry – and no, it was not the workers next door, just some inconsiderate ASS who couldn’t wait until nine to make noise. I did the long jog, which was really difficult on account of too much heat. I did some errands and whatnot, picked up some mail, and ate a turkey sandwich and fries at Jerry’s. And that was basically my day. Oh, I did address about a hundred packages more, and I’m still not finished – I’ll finish up today. After that, I got two cupcakes from the cupcake place and then sat on my couch like so much fish and ate them all up.

Yesterday, I managed to watch two count them two motion picture on Blu and Ray. The first motion picture was entitled The Thirteenth Floor. I first saw the film on DVD soon after it was released ten years ago. The film was critically panned and a box-office failure because it was released after and close to The Matrix, and all anyone could see was The Matrix and anything along the lines of The Matrix was a pale imitation. Well, note to audiences: The Thirteenth Floor has nothing to do with The Matrix, it was not trying to emulate The Matrix and, if you ask me, it’s a better film than The Matrix, especially lo these many years later. I thought I was a majority of one back in 1999, because I really liked the film a lot and, in fact, watched it twice in a row. I enjoyed it even more this time around and it’s as good as I remember it. It’s a fascinating story well told, and the actors are very good, especially Craig Bierko and Gretchen Mol (an actress I’m very fond of who’s never really got as far as she should have). The direction is quite good, as is the script and score. And my pal Johnny Crawford and his band are in it, too. I wish I could say the Blu-Ray was stellar – it’s fine, but the many smoke-diffused scenes are very difficult to reproduce well on video, no matter whether DVD or Blu-Ray – when they finally get to scenes sans smoke toward the end of the film, the Blu-Ray actually looks pretty great. I then watched the second motion picture on Blu-Ray, an region free Blu-Ray from the UK entitled Capricorn One. I’m quite fond of the film, although it hasn’t aged especially well. I have to tell you, I saw it at a sneak preview at the Village Theater in Westwood and the audience went wild for it – cheering, laughing, and totally caught up in the mechanics of the plot. We all thought it was going to be a monster hit and we were all surprised when it wasn’t. The film features one of my all-time favorite Jerry Goldsmith scores. The colorful cast includes James Brolin, Sam Waterston, O.J. Simpson, Brenda Vaccarro, Telly Savalas (hilarious in a small cameo role), David Doyle, Robert Walden, Karen Black, and Elliot Gould. When I got this from amazon.uk they accidentally sent two copies – which turned out to be a blessing because the first copy locked up in the last ten minutes of the film – it went all digital and blocky and froze every four seconds. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it happen with a Blu-Ray – I checked the disc itself and saw no marks, dirt, or scratches. I popped in the second copy, went directly to the last chapter and voila, it played just fine. I will say, the Blu-Ray disc is one of the worst I’ve seen thus far – it’s way too soft in most scenes, the sound has distortion – naturally the website that reviews a lot of these imports raved about its quality, which tells you all you need to know about THAT site and its “reviewer.” I don’t know whether it’s the transfer itself or the encoding or what, but the disc is a definite disappointment.

After that, I just listened to music and sat around until I realized how late it was, at which time I began writing these here notes.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below whilst I tell you what word just popped into my head for no reason whatsoever – applesauce.

Applesauce. Why, out of all the words that could have popped into my head out of nowhere, would it be applesauce? I don’t even like applesauce and yet there it was popping into my head like a gazelle singing Grant Avenue.

Today, I shall do nothing, other than maybe jogging and finishing the addressing of boxes. Other than that, I’ll do a few book-related things and then watch some motion pictures on Blu-Ray or perhaps even DVD.

This week will mostly be filled with a few meetings, seeing a show, doing book things, and rerecording vocals for the Nudie demo and having scads of telephonic conversations and, of course, welcoming in July.

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 dance the Hora or the Monkey, for today is the birthday of our very own Mr. Mark Bakalor. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to our very own Mr. Mark Bakalor. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO OUR VERY OWN MR. MARK BAKALOR!!!

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, maybe do some sort of jog, address packages, and watch motion pictures. 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 I ponder the why of applesauce.

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