Well, dear readers, I must write these here notes in a hurry for Bananas and Sex will be here bright and early and also early and bright, and I shall be putting them in packages and then taking said packages to the postal office. Yesterday, which was supposed to be a light day, was not a light day. I got a good night’s sleep and then got up and did the long jog, after printing out a few advance orders for our new releases. When I got back, Mr. Cason Murphy arrived and before we began the task of addressing packages, he accompanied me to the MGM tape vault, where I returned a lot of tapes and was supposed to pick up tapes for an upcoming release. Unfortunately, they’d accidentally given said tapes to someone else last Friday – a mistake. So, we left and I’ll be picking up the tapes on Wednesday. We went to Dino’s and split a pepperoni pizza – it was completely excellent. I’d been having a craving for Dino’s and it really hit the spot. After that, I stopped and picked up a couple of packages, but not the ones that are way overdue and which are to be used for one of our upcoming releases. Then we came home and began addressing packages – that took about ninety minutes, and then Cason filled out all the customs forms and printed out all the postage and attached it to the packages. He then accompanied me to Costco, where I bought a lot of waters and a lot of Diet Coke (I’m now stocked up for at least two months), some Fruity Snacks, and some cream of mushroom soup. We actually lucked out and got in a checkout line with only one person ahead of us – very unusual. I also bought some roses and there were so many that I split them between two vases. I do love having fresh flowers in the house. After that I came home, unloaded all that stuff, then Cason left, and I had to answer a whole plethora of e-mails. After that, I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Oleanna, a film by David Mamet, adapted from his play. I’d never seen either play or film, so I was interested to finally catch up with it. While the play may work well, the film doesn’t really work, at least it didn’t for me, what with all the heightened Mamet theatrical dialogue, which does grow tiresome after a while. William H. Macy is terrific as the teacher, but I just couldn’t get with the gal who played the student – I’m not familiar with her work at all, but she just didn’t grab me. Mamet’s direction of what is basically a one-set play, is fine. I found the music totally irritating – it’s by the play’s original leading lady, Rebecca Pidgeon, who is also married to Mr. Mamet. I wish she’d repeated her role in the film, because I’ve enjoyed some of her performances. The non-anamorphic transfer is mediocre at best.
After that, I put on a new CD soundtrack release that arrived at my door, a release that for me is a Holy Grail (there have been several lately, plus one coming from us) – Jerry Goldsmith’s brilliant score to John Frankenheimer’s film of Seconds. There are actually two scores on the CD, the other from a film called IQ from much later in Mr. Goldsmith’s career. I’m not all that fond of his later stuff (I know – heresy), and I found IQ, with its endless variations on Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star, to be not to my liking. But then came Seconds, and it’s just an astonishingly great score. Every cue is fantastic – horrifying, suspenseful, haunting, beautiful, it’s one of Goldsmith’s best, and I listened to it three times in a row. Highly recommended by the likes of me.
I then finished my liner notes and will get those to the designer today. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get my beauty sleep before having to package and lug and lug and package.
Today, I shall package and lug and lug and package. I have several big boxes to ship in addition to the smaller packages, and so my morning will be quite busily busy. I’ll then do the long jog, after which I go to Jerry’s Deli for a meeting with the person we think will be the musical director of the long musical. After that, I’ll come back home and do all the prep work for our double CD announcement, one of which I may do tomorrow night, or I may just do them both tomorrow night – we shall see.
Tomorrow I’m not sure what all is happening, although I know I have many things to do. Thursday is the same, and Friday I’m having lunch with my pal Lauren Rubin, who I haven’t seen for way too long. I have other meetings and meals to have, I just can’t remember where or when, as the old song goes.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, package and ship CDs, lug big boxes to the UPS Store, have a lunch meeting with a musical director, and then do errands and whatnot. Today’s topic of discussion: Rock Hudson gives a pretty astonishing performance in Seconds – what are your favorite Rock Hudson movies? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and then let’s have seconds.