Well, dear readers, I must write these here notes in a hurry because I really need a good night’s beauty sleep. I thought I would get that the night before this night but alas it was not to be. Why is that you might ask, and I might tell you because why should I withhold such information from dear readers such as yourselves. I got a call at midnight, just as I was about to go to sleep. Apparently the Kritzerland site hadn’t been loading properly and the web guy couldn’t upload the new Peter Filichia column. So, he’d been on the phone with the tech people at Go Daddy, the company that hosts the Kritzerland site. In true Time Warner style, they said it wasn’t them and that the site was fine and coming up fine all over the world and that it had to be the web guy’s computer or ISP. They ran diagnostics, which showed it wasn’t but that didn’t matter to them – it wasn’t them. So, while on hold he called me and told me about it and I went to the Kritzerland site and lo and behold and also behold and lo it wouldn’t load properly. So, two different ISPs, two different cable companies – oops. But they wouldn’t budge. When people like that won’t budge it gets my dander up and I don’t even know what the HELL a dander is. Pardon me for a moment. Ah, temper or anger. Fine. It got my dander up, so I called Go Daddy and got a nice tech on the phone and told him it couldn’t be the web guy’s problem as I was having the same problem. I was told it all was working fine on their end. I told them I wasn’t on their end and neither was my web guy or any of our customers. He put me on hold, saying he was going to try from a non-Go Daddy computer with a different ISP. Lo and behold and behold and lo he had the same problem we did. Oops. He put me on hold again and when he came back he said it was, in fact, our problem – it seems that we had too many files and directories at the root level – I think you know me well enough to know that I felt that my head was about to explode. He said we were only allowed to have 1,024 files and directories at the root level. I asked him how they even came up with such an arbitrary number. We had over 1400. I said, “Funny, it’s been working just fine until tonight so apparently having 1400 has not been a problem.” He said we’d have to delete stuff and that would make everything fine.
I passed this on to the web guy and he went in and deleted about 150 folders and files, mostly our test pages where we test everything before we go live. That got the site up and working. Then yesterday morning we called the company that hosts this here site and told them the malarkey we’d been told and he called it just that – complete horse manure. He said he’d never heard of such a thing, especially as we’re paying the most money to have unlimited space. But Go Daddy’s response? “You signed the contract and it’s in our terms of service that you can’t have over 1,024 files and directories at the root level.” Our response was that that information is buried and no one reads these damn terms of service things and that it would have been nice for them to have told us this six years ago when we moved the site there. Or to have given us a warning that we’d exceeded the limit. But we think they were just having a glitch in their servers and like Time Warner never admit the problem is theirs. So, we had an exploratory conversation with the haineshisway.com host about moving there – it will probably be a bit cheaper and they have no limits whatsoever for files and directories at the root level. The move is simple, it doesn’t cost anything (it’s just pointing our site to the new server and IP address, which takes at most three hours to propagate and which can be done in the middle of the night. I have been very unhappy with Go Daddy’s attitude for some time, especially dating back to an issue we had with them about a year ago when the site actually went off-line twice. We should have left then and there, but we hadn’t found our new people. So, perhaps next week Go Daddy will lose a longtime customer.
Because of all that, I didn’t really fall asleep until after two and then I woke up at eight-thirty, then fell back asleep until ten – so I think somewhere in there I got seven hours, which was not the nine I wanted to get. Thank you Go Daddy and you can Go now, Daddy. But the site was up and running this morning so that was good. I had to return some tapes to the MGM vaults in Burbank, so I did that and then, since I was in the neighborhood, I lunched at the Coral Café, where I ran into frequent Kritzerland performer Dan Callaway. I had two scoops of chicken salad and one scoop of egg salad, but it wasn’t really pleasing me, so I only at the scoop of egg salad and one scoop of chicken salad, which was plenty, although very calorie friendly.
Then I picked up one package, one that should have been there the day before, but that’s not very overdue, not like the two packages that should have been here a week ago and still aren’t here. I then came home, did a three-mile jog, did some banking, came back home and began relaxing, which is what I needed. I played on the computer, refused to do any work whatsoever, and then finally made some popcorn and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I finished watching the Blu and Ray of Jacqueline Susann’s Once Is Not Enough. It’s really got everything you could want from a piece of trash – Lesbians played by Alexis Smith and Melina Mercouri (and yes, the share a steamy kiss), a father-daughter relationship that is, at the very least, peculiar, an impotent drunken writer modeled on Norman Mailer, a ballsy editor of a women’s magazine who sleeps with just about any man who comes her way (modeled on Helen Gurley Brown), and a heroine who gives vapid new meaning. Deborah Raffin as the heroine is very pretty and does her best with a horribly-written role. Kirk Douglas just looks strange, David Janssen is one of the most unappealing big screen actors ever (his “act” plays much better on the small screen), Alexis Smith does what she can, and Melina Mercouri is around for about six minutes as a Garbo-like recluse movie star. Oh, and there’s George Hamilton with his immovable hair doing his smarmy best. Brenda Vaccaro is fun as the bitchy, ballsy editor. The movie just goes on and on and then it’s just suddenly over. It’s a very old fashioned affair dressed up in new and horrifying 70s duds, with all the “shock” that they could muster, none more shocking than the sight of David Janssen’s naked rear end. There is one major plus the film has and that’s a beautiful score by Henry Mancini. Oh, and the lush photography would be a plus, too, if this Blu-ray transfer weren’t as hideous as it is. Terrible and drab brown color, a master that looks like it was made ten years ago, well, you get the idea.
I then watched many episodes contained in the new DVD set, The Lost Jack Benny Episodes. These are all from kinescopes and haven’t been seen for years. And I am here to tell you that they put any comedy on TV today to shame. Jack Benny, as I have said over and over again, was, for me, the greatest comic who ever lived, a man who could have you screaming with laughter by just standing there. His writers knew how to write for him. I’m not a huge fan of the story shows from his series – I love the “in one” shows with great guest stars. And thankfully there are, so far, several of those, including one with guest star Jack Paar that had me howling with laughter. The supporting players are just so great – Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Don Wilson (Benny couldn’t have had better – Wilson was unique and really funny), singer Dennis Day, and then the occasional appearance by Mel Blanc and Frank Nelson. In one great episode where Jack is being told by his sponsors that he’s the only one on the show who doesn’t get laughs, the two men are played by John Hoyt and William Schallert, not exactly chopped liver. Another hilarious episode has Jack deciding to direct a Playhouse 90 episode, with guest stars Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, who are both impossibly beautiful. I can’t wait to watch the rest and I recommend this as highly as I can. The quality of the kinescopes is better than it has any right to be.
After that, I just relaxed, ate the melon balls left over from the night before, ate some cherries and that was about it.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep, I’ll do a jog, I may have some scrambled eggs and an English muffin to tide me over till dinner, I’ll hopefully pick up some overdue packages and then we’ll do our stumble-through. After that, I’m sure I’ll have something light but amusing for dinner.
Tomorrow, I relax, jog, and then it’s sound check and show. We’re basically sold out. I will, of course, have a full report for you. Monday I have a lot of stuff to do then we have what I hope will be our final vocal comp session – if not, then we’ll wrap that up on Tuesday. Otherwise, I have to finish choosing the songs for the September anniversary show – I’ve got about half so far – finish casting it, and then assign the songs and get the singers their music. That’s most of the week. I’ll also be having several Skype sessions with Sandy Bainum for her show. Next weekend is a book fair so I’ll definitely go to that.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, eat a small breakfast, have a stumble-through and have a nice dinner. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite Kirk Douglas movies? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I hope there will not be too many files and directories at the root level.