Well, dear readers, I must actually begin these here notes now for in a little while I shall go meet some friends for a late-night snack and by the time I return it will be after midnight and I will have let it all hang out, like the song of the same name. So, let me just dive right into these here notes without so much as a how do you do. Oh, well, okay – how do you do. There, now we’ve had the how do you do.
Let me just say that in some ways yesterday was okay an in other ways it wasn’t. There was nothing really irritating other than some irritating things. I got up around nine-thirty after eight hours of blessed sleep, so that wasn’t irritating. I then had some work to do on the computer, which I did, after which I met the helper at Jerry’s Deli, where we both had scrambled eggs, bacon, an English muffin – I had tomatoes with mine, she had potatoes with her. I cannot remember the last time I had scrambled eggs in a restaurant – they were quite good. I gave her some invoices that had come in, and we discussed some other matters and then I went to the mail place where I picked up no packages. That was the first irritating thing. Then I came home and did a three-mile jog, which was very pleasant and not irritating at all, after which I planked and did twenty sit-ups, which is always irritating for a Jew of my age. Then I had an AT&T salesperson come to my door and while I was predisposed to actually listen to him and think about the good prices, in the end I did something very stupid and was so angry at myself that I found him two houses away and did the little I could about my stupidity, which hopefully won’t come back to bite me in the butt cheeks because bitten butt cheeks can be very irritating indeed. Nothing to be done right now, but I will never be stupid like that again even if it turns out that everything was fine. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I checked out the new Blu and Ray of Summer and Smoke, a film I kind of like. I’ll report more fully but the transfer is not to my liking, with somewhat faded color, which is, yes, irritating. Then I switched to the movie I felt like watching all of, a Blaxploitation picture I’ve never seen but that I’ve always heard was great – Mr. Tarantino is especially fond of it and even did his own take on it – Foxy Brown starring Pam Grier. Now, there are certain types of exploitation films that I find very enjoyable, and there are even certain Blaxploitation films that I find very enjoyable, but a lot of these are just really bad and it’s funny to me that people love them so much. Then again, I think the people who love them so much saw them at impressionable ages. Foxy Brown, directed by genre favorite Jack Hill, is just so poorly made at times you just sit there and shake your head. But Pam Grier is fun as are a couple of the supporting players, but many of the actors are just terrible. It all moves along quickly and is the standard revenge film. I don’t rank it anywhere near Shaft or even Dolemite, starring Rudy Ray Moore, which I have a soft spot for since one of the early Nudie Musical previews showed with Dolemite. The transfer, however, is great – really shows you what a cheap film of the 70s should look like. And the wardrobe is reason enough to buy this. However, it’s region B (I think it is – I’ll doublecheck), so if you don’t have an all-region player this will do you no good. There are a lot of extras, some of which look fairly interesting.
After that, I began writing these here notes because of the late-night snack, which I shall now be on my way to. I’ll finish these here notes upon my return and also when I return I shall finish these here notes, but not before I shall return, at which point I will finish these here notes.
I have returned from the late night snack and shall now finish the notes. These are not exactly long notes but then again brevity is the soul of wit, or, in the case of music wit is the brevity of soul. We went to the Coral Café where I ran into my friend Rob Bowers, a very talented composer/pianist (he’s the piano player in The Exorcist episode of Outside the Box – I think that’s the one he did), so we had a nice chat. There were five of us at our table and I ordered nachos for everyone – I ate about a third of them, which isn’t horrible considering how little I ate earlier, plus the jog, plus the planking, plus the sit ups, and I had a BLT-A, which is great at the Coral Café. Other dishes seen were a waffle, spaghetti, a hot fudge sundae and apple pie, not necessarily in that order. Grand fun was had by all and yes, brevity was the soul of wit.
To make up for the short notes, here is another song from my two-person musical, Pals, the story of two girl friends. This rather long number opens act two, after the girls have had their huge rift at the end of act one when their seventeen. This number then covers the next fifteen years of their lives – it was really fun to write – there are sections where you’ll only hear underscore – all those have monologues that go there – but the song has an interesting rhyme scheme – easy to do for one verse, but successively harder to do for the subsequent ones. And there’s a standalone song in the middle called It Doesn’t Get Easier, which is one of my favorites of all that I’ve written. It’s been sung by quite a few people, including the wonderful Joanie Sommers, who used to do it when she was performing in the early 1990s.
Today, I shall be up by nine, I’ll do a jog, maybe get some breakfast, hopefully pick up some packages, write some liner notes, then I may have a dinner to do, after which I’ll definitely watch a motion picture.
Tomorrow, I will write and then I’m seeing Joan Ryan’s new cabaret act. Monday is our first Kritzerland rehearsal and I go directly from that to our first vocal comp session, which we’ll finish on Tuesday night. The rest of the week is meetings and meals, our second rehearsal, and then our stumble-through, then sound check and show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, write, maybe have a dinner and watch a motion picture. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite exploitation movies – what were your favorite genres of exploitation? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where brevity will definitely be the soul of wit.