Well, dear readers, may I just take a moment and wish this here site a happy anniversary? Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, it is a haineshisway.com anniversary, as I believe we enter our thirteenth year. On November 9, 2001 I wrote the following:
First, a message from Guy Haines:
When my hordes of eight fans said I should have my own website I thought, what a fine idea. After all, everyone needs their own website. Mark Bakalor came on board to design it and I feel he’s done a fine job. But, then he said I had to contribute. Well, I simply can’t contribute. I’m much too busy with tennis and my full time occupation of having no life.
I have asked my close personal friend, Mr. Bruce Kimmel, if he wouldn’t mind writing a daily journal for the site. He was gracious enough to consent, although he did ask for a year’s supply of Red Vines. I told him he could write about anything he wanted to as long as it wasn’t about me. I want this to be the only performer website where there is absolutely nothing written about the performer. Isn’t that unique?
Mark is managing to come up with some candid photos of me, and even some of my family. In addition to reading Bruce’s daily dose of drivel, soon I’m told, you’ll be able to check out some of the other little nooks and crannies. You never know what you might find.
Sincerely,Guy Haines
Bruce’s first entry:
Well, hello dear readers, and welcome to Haines His Way, the official website for my friend Guy Haines. Do you know that if you hit the wrong letter when you type Guy Haines you get Buy Haines? Just asking. I am very flattered indeed to have been asked to keep a daily journal here on the Guy Haines website. I used to have weekly notes elsewhere, but those notes disappeared into the ether, hence we now have new notes, or bk’s notes II, the sequel. So, now I shall have daily notes right here at Haineshisway.com. Well, perhaps not daily notes, perhaps every other day notes, or bi-weekly notes, or whatever suits my fancy.
Oh, it is a time of sweeping change, dear readers. For example, I just emptied all the coins out of my pocket and swept them. I love sweeping change and I recommend it to everyone with a preponderance of coins.
As you all are probably aware, there have been many events happening in my life. I’m not quite prepared to talk about them, however. Not quite yet. So, for now, I’d like to review one of my favorite movies, which has a wonderful special edition on DVD. Here is my review of Jaws.
Jaws is an excellent motion picture. It is about sharks. I hate sharks and this film teaches us that they can come from nowhere and bite you in your butt cheeks. Sharks are merciless creatures, eating machines, and you must avoid them at all costs, or so the movie would lead you to believe. Sharks are out for blood. There is really no reason for it, Robert Shaw says, it’s just in their nature. However, we learn by the end of the film that even though sharks attack over and over, you can survive by blowing them up. This is exactly what Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider do in Jaws, which, by the way, is about sharks. Steven Spielberg directed Jaws quite brilliantly – he really gets you to thinking how scary sharks are. Interestingly, the mechanical shark used in the making of the film was named Bruce. Mechanical sharks are not as scary as real sharks. A real shark would never be named Bruce. Perhaps we should have a contest and you readers could submit names you think would be good names for sharks. A must-see film, I rate it four stars (out of four stars). Next time I’ll be reviewing another great film: Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, which has one of my favorite Hitchcockian scenes in it – the one in the bazaar where the guy gets stabbed in the back. I love that scene.
Why am I reviewing movies, for heaven’s sake? Shouldn’t I be writing about Guy Haines? Oh, that’s right, I can’t. He doesn’t want me to write about him. He bribed me with a year’s worth of Red Vines not to write about him. I accepted of course.
Last Monday, I attended a CD release party for my friend Adryan Russ. I produced a CD for her, Everyone Has a Story, featuring her songs interpreted by some pretty amazing folks, including Tami Tappan, Susan Egan, Jason Graae, Barbara Deutsch, Lisa Richard, David Burnham, Karen Benjamin, Suzanne Blakeslee, Michelle Nicastro, Joan Ryan, Adryan herself, Sharon McKnight, Juliana A. Hansen and yes, Guy Haines. It’s available on the LML label. We had lovely cheese slices and fatty meats and a good time was had by all.
That’s it for now. I shall have to think about what to write for next time. I’ve never really done a daily journal before (or blog) so I must do some research into blogs, because one simply can’t write a blog if one doesn’t know what the hell a blog is. I do know that I will be giving frequent updates as to my whereabouts and my whenabouts. Sometimes I may even talk about my thereabouts or thenabouts. You will get all the latest news right here at Haineshisway.com. Check back often. We love getting your comments and questions, so remember to leave them for me below each and every entry!
And thus began a rather incredible journey. While I didn’t write the following two days (the weekend) beginning on that Monday I decided that I would write every day and thus began what ultimately has become the longest-running daily blog in the history of the Internet. Since November 11, 2001 I have never missed a day of writing this here thing that I write. That is either quite an accomplishment or complete and utter insanity or both. At first I would post the new notes in the morning, but at some point I began posting at midnight and that has remained ever since. The site was, of course, born out of great tumult and pain, mostly as a way for me to get the word out that I was okay and that what was being put out there in the ether about me by certain folks was a load of malarkey. But it was kind of amazing how fast people found the site and how popular it became. Our stats were pretty astonishing right from the beginning. Back then, people could leave comments right after the notes, but over time that became problematic when one of our beloved dear readers had a stalker coming here and posting – that is why our discussion board came into existence, so I could control that sort of thing, and since I now have what is my very own Internet stalker I’m glad I did.
This site has created some lifelong friendships, we’ve had some discord occasionally, but overall I have to say that this jernt has been a positive, loving place for a disparate group of people and it’s been amazing to watch. We’ve had our share of losses in the last thirteen years – some wonderful dear readers have passed on, including our early and beloved Den Mother, Miss Susan Gordon. We’ve had people leave, we’ve gotten new people – yes, people come, people go, like Grand Hotel. It truly boggles my already boggled mind to even contemplate how many actual pages of notes I’ve written in the past twelve years but it would probably fill four long books. I suppose what I’ve created here is a diary of an existence, warts and all. In the time these here notes have been here, I’ve written thirteen books, several of which had trial runs here, where I’d kind of feel my way around certain subjects – that is especially true of the two memoirs. I have so many beautiful memories of our little home on the Internet. We outgrew our original technology many years ago, and it was a continued source of annoyance to me, but this year we finally got a new web host, a facelift, and are completely current with all the latest technology. And at some point our popularity really grew and suddenly we were getting ten million hits a year. That is nothing to sneeze at, and yet I just sneezed. Go know. We still get ten million hits a year. We have had some pretty amazing posting frenzies, too, usually happening at our annual Oscar bash – one memorable year we topped 2,000 posts in one day.
There have been times where doing this daily thing has been so daunting that I’ve almost stopped, but in the end, I just am having too much fun and our discussion board is like no other on all the Internet. And so, let us toast in our anniversary with a fervent hope and prayer that we will continue to have our wonderful daily party here at haineshisway.com and that we will all have a bounty of health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful.
Yesterday was another long day. It began with a rehearsal, having to escalate a Paypal transaction to a claim because some UK seller is being a complete jerk – I was so annoyed that Paypal just put the money back in my account rather than hear me go on about it anymore. I provided them with all the background and proof they needed to feel comfortable doing so, while they await whatever lame response the seller will make. And for the first time in ten years, I left negative feedback. After the rehearsal, I went and had a chili, cheese and onion omelet, potatoes, and an English muffin, all very yummilicious. Then I picked up one package and came home. I did some work on the computer, and then I was on my way to the theater. That took about an hour and wasn’t as bad as yesterday, save for one stretch. Once at the theater we found that the electric keyboard we’ve been using had died, so one of the theater folks went home and got us another to use. That lost us an hour, but we drilled some staging. I’d done new orders for the two act and one-act versions, and I decided to run the one act version. We managed to do it without stopping so I was able to get a rough timing – a little over seventy minutes, which really surprised me. I thought it would be closer to eighty-five, frankly. But we’re still adding transitions and there will be the bows, too, so I’m thinking it will be closer to eighty minutes when all is said and done. I felt the order worked pretty well, but I’m not sure if it’s totally optimal yet – but it is close. And then I came home.
Today, we have a Sandy rehearsal in the morning, then I’ll eat, try to jog, write liner notes, hopefully pick up some packages, and hopefully relax and watch a motion picture.
Tomorrow, I have an early shoot at the Pasadena Playhouse, then I go directly from there to rehearsal, and after rehearsal I have to go right to The Smoke House for a meeting. Sunday is a rehearsal and then I have the late afternoon and evening all to myself. Monday we have sound check and then Sandy’s show, and Tuesday we’re back in rehearsal and in the home stretch.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, rehearse, eat, write, maybe jog, 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 and Ray player? I’ll start – CD, too many to name. Blu and Ray – next up Giant and the other James Dean films, The Best Years of Our Lives and then a marathon five-hours of Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, the epic Fritz Lang silent film. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall bask in the special glow of our haineshisway.com anniversary.