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March 29, 2013:

THE STUPID DAY

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, yesterday was a stupid day. It was stupid when it started and it was stupid right up to the time I took a hot shower and washed the stupid day down the drain. It couldn’t have been a stupider day and yet it kept trying to achieve stupider with each successive hour. Just when you thought the stupid had reached its apex there was more stupid to best it. I talked to some incredibly stupid people, had to deal with some incredibly stupid crap, and on and on it went so that I began to wonder if I just wasn’t stuck in some stupid stupid time warp of stupidity.

First, I got up at ten-thirty. That was both stupid and nice, as I needed the sleep. I got my bearings and then did a three-mile jog. Then the stupidity began and it was so stupid I can’t even remember what it was. Oh, yes, I blocked it out because it involved my OWN stupidity. When they installed the new alarm system, they asked me to arm it when I go to bed, so they can monitor that the system is working. Arming the alarm when I’m alone in the house at night is not something I have ever done – it is foreign to me and after the test period I most likely will never do it again. The trick is, you have to disarm it when you get up in the morning. I did yesterday. I forgot today. And I went out for a jog and as soon as I opened the back door the alarm apparently triggered. I certainly didn’t hear it. When I returned from my jog I walked in the house and saw the alarm was blinking (but no noise) – then I saw a card on my keyboard – it was from the police. They’d been here and just come in through the back gate (which I leave open until my jog is done) and come in through the open back door. I called the alarm company and asked why they hadn’t called before dispatching the cops. They didn’t have the right number, so all that’s been taken care of now. I called the number on the police card and apologized profusely for my – stupidity. They were very nice about it and said it happens a lot, especially with new alarm systems. I will continue to arm it at night, but I now have a paper next to the keyboard and writ large on it is TURN OFF ALARM!

The plan was to eat before my work session, but things kept interrupting me – stupid things, one after another. Then we had the work session and it was a little frustrating but we got through it. My poor musical director has been extremely busy doing two shows at once, plus ours, and he just hadn’t had time to listen or go through the music, so we didn’t get much done. He’ll be fine for Monday’s rehearsal. After that, I went to the mail place to pick up the priority package that should have been here yesterday. And it wasn’t there. And I went berserk. I came directly home and tracked it and it had just left Tennessee or some stupid place. This package is time-sensitive. I was asked if I could get a signed musical quote from my close personal friend, Mr. Stephen Sondheim, for the STAGE benefit’s silent auction. These things bring big dollars and usually sell instantly. So, I asked Mr. Sondheim and he graciously said yes – it was sent on Monday and should have been here yesterday, according to USPS’s own site. The people you get on the phone are reciting from a book – they’re like stupid pods these people and you cannot have a human discussion with them – they don’t care at ALL. They just drone on with the same crap over and over again. This time I got a supervisor on the phone and she was worse than the regular girl. When she kept repeating the same thing over and over I finally screamed at her to be quiet and that I wanted something done about it. She finally gave me a number of the folks here in LA who are above her. I called them and got an okay woman on the phone. She commiserated with me and felt bad but didn’t think there was anything she could do. Then I got very, how shall I say, passionate and told her this was time sensitive and for a charity event and that if it wasn’t here soon the charity would lose thousands of dollars and I would make sure that every human being on the planet knew that it was because of the ineptitude of the USPS. I asked her why a priority package from New York would be in Tennessee and she had no answer – I think she felt as I did – that some incredibly stupid people had probably screwed up something somewhere. She promised me she’d look into it and make some calls and took my number. I now have HER number and I am here to tell you she will be hearing from me every single day until this damn thing arrives and woe to the USPS if it’s not here in time for the charity to frame it and have it ready for their auction. I will be relentless in my putting this out in public. I have many avenues to do so, and people who work for major publications who would be chomping at the bit to get a story like this about an organization that continuously raises their rates, is now cutting back on a mail day, and still can’t manage to do what they’re supposed to do. A priority package, while not guaranteed, is called a priority package because people are paying more to ship that way and the package is supposed to be treated with priority. To talk to these pods, they just don’t seem to get that they have any responsibility for anything – which is why they are in the boat they are in and why everyone loathes them. In other words, they are stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

That took up almost two hours of my day. And I hadn’t eaten a damn thing, so at four-thirty I got the HELL out of here and had a turkey sandwich with no fries or onion rings. That was only about six hundred calories all in, so I knew I had to snack later in the evening. When I got home, I had to listen to five more Hofstetter auditions and when I was finally through, I whittled down the twenty-five or however many I heard to six. I will now record a few passages for them – not to copy me but to hear the rhythm I want for the narration – some of them just read it without giving it character because it’s third person. But it’s a weird third person as in all my books because it does have attitude and character and has to be read like that. I think once they hear what I hear, they’ll be fine. The final round will be them reading from the new book – just short snippets so I can hear the narration, Adriana, her mother, Billy, the detectives, and especially the young characters in this book. Maybe five or six pages total. Two of the six kind of really get it – they were the best at certain aspects of it, but I’ll give everyone some direction and then we’ll see where it all ends. That took up most of the evening. By that time, the stupid had ceased because I’d showered and washed it down the drain. I had eight of the frozen chicken taco things – that’s four hundred calories, so with the sandwich it was a thousand for the day, but I also burned off at least two hundred of that – I probably should have had something else but I really wasn’t even in the mood.

Then I got a new Kritzerland project in and listened to that – one of my favorite scores by the composer who did it, and a thrill to be issuing it for the first time complete. It’s only been on CD in Spain and that was pretty bad sounding. We were supposed to put this out four months ago, but we all love the score so much that we went in search of better elements for certain cues and it paid off – it all sounds incredible now. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below so I can get a good night’s beauty sleep.

Today, I really must buckle down, Winsocki and begin two sets of liner notes, which I must finish by Monday. I’ll do a jog, I’ll eat something light but amusing, I will hopefully pick up some packages, and I shall relax.

Tomorrow is more of the same then dinner at cousin Dee Dee and Alan’s home. Sunday is Easter and I shall do nothing, I suppose. I don’t seem to have any Easter buddies or Easter bunnies. Perhaps I’ll eat a gaily-colored hard-boiled egg just to feel in the spirit. Next week is a lot of rehearsals and writing and jogging and meetings and meals.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, write, eat, hopefully pick up some packages and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu-ray player? I’ll start – CD, the Michel Legrand/Jacques Demy set, and various and sundried Kritzerland projects. Blu and Ray, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I will hopefully awaken to no more stupid.

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