Well, dear readers, in the still of the night I write these notes for you. The night is still indeed – not even a cricket is opening its yap. It’s amazing how still it gets around the City of Studio. And so, in the still of the night I write these notes for you – not a singing bird, not a gust of wind, not a trickle of breeze, not a passing car, not a dog being walked, just a still night. Ah, finally a passing car has passed, but even the passing car was quiet. Perhaps I’ll go outside and sing the score to Bajour really loud. Perhaps I’ll go outside with my iPod and speakers and play the prologue to West Side Story really loud. Then in the still of the night there’d be raucous music to keep this here neighborhood on its toes. Yesterday, I must say, was not still. Yesterday was one of those days that are hard to categorize – but I’ll try. I put in the category of one of those days that are hard to categorize, which is a perfect category for one of those days that are hard to categorize. I got up a little later than usual and had to hurry and do my morning ablutions quickly, for the helper arrived precisely at ten. Orders had built up over the last few days, so we had to address packages and do two large orders, one dealer, one amazon.com, and several smaller orders, as well as shipping a few book orders. I am now close to having gone through 100 books, which is pretty good for me personally. And amazon seems to be selling steadily, which is very nice. After getting everything shipped, we lunched at Hugo’s, after which we came back and did yet more work. I got several packages in, but not the now way overdue piece of mail – it best be here today or there will be hell toupee. I also set up an appointment to go get a new battery for the iPhone since mine seemed to be on its last legs. The helper left and I did some errands and whatnot and then moseyed on over to the Apple Store. Even thought I had a firm appointment, it took them fifteen minutes beyond that to get to me. They ascertained that the battery had little life left – but they don’t replace the battery, they give you a new phone. Luckily, it was free, as my Apple Care was still in effect, which is why one should always get Apple Care. They then told me that the later version of the iPhone was now available for $97. I made a call to a person I knew wanted an iPhone, and they took mine, which was, after all, brand new, for $50, so I effectively got a new phone for $47. The 3GS is much faster, shoots video, and is quite nice. I got it home and set it up by choosing the option for it to use that last backup my phone did – unfortunately that was in mid-April when the last update happened. So, a few of my apps didn’t carry over – however, they were quite easy to re-install, which I did. But then everything was quite screwy – asking for any number of passwords and things not synching correctly. It was giving me a headache so I went back to the Apple Store, found a nice gal, and she helped me go through and make sure everything was set up properly. While it does set the phone up the way you had it, you still have to go in and enter all your passwords for every function – once we did all that, everything seemed to work fine. Then I had to “pair” the new phone with my car, and begin entering my address book from scratch. That will actually take another hour or so to do, so that’s something for today. After that, I finally came home and sat on my couch like so much fish, after sautéing up the remaining chicken breast from yesterday. I made a nice chicken breast sandwich and that was dinner (I’d been very good at lunch – just papa’s eggs (no pasta) and a small Caesar).
Last night, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Shattered Innocence. It’s one of those Warner Archive things – they were having a huge sale last week and I bought three or four movies I was interested to see. I bought Shattered Innocence because it was a TV movie from 1987 and it sounded like it might be good. The first words on screen were “Based on a true story” (like 98% of every TV movie of that era). As soon as it began I knew what the true story was, even though all the names had been changed. It was the story of Colleen Applegate, a sweet, wholesome gal who went to Hollywood and became a porn star called Shauna Grant. Miss Applegate was really beautiful (especially before they began using really heavy makeup on her and making her LOOK like a porn star), and her short life was tragic. She got hooked on cocaine and she shot herself at twenty. The movie apparently fictionalizes a lot, but it was interesting to see. Melinda Dillon was very good as the mother, and Jonna Lee was okay as Colleen (here Pauline). Halfway through the film an actor I really don’t care for, John Pleshette (just read my book and you’ll know why) entered, playing a well-heeled coke dealer who takes young Pauline in and tries to get her out of porn and off cocaine. His performance was just what I would have expected. The writing wasn’t very good, and the direction didn’t help the writing. It did have a fairly good score, though, by Richard Bellis. The full-frame transfer (as it should be) was fine.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because and I’ll bet we don’t even hear the click in the still of the night.
Today, I shall get up, do some writing, do some organizing, ship out a couple of orders that came in late yesterday, hopefully pick up some packages and especially the way overdue piece of mail, eat some light lunch, and then attend Miss Nancy Dussault’s show at the Gardenia, which I’m very much looking forward to.
The weekend won’t be too crazy – just some errands and whatnot to attend to, and some packages to address, probably on Sunday. Then next week is quite busy with many things to attend to – especially writing lengthy liner notes for our next release, and doing all that prep work, as well as having a few work sessions with the engineer who’s doing the work on this new release.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do some writing, do some organizing, pick up packages and important mail, eat some light lunch, and then see Nancy Dussault. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/video player? I’ll start – DVD, next up Al Jolson in Mammy. CD, various and sundried soundtracks. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland in the still of the night.