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June 30, 2014:

SWEET GHERKIN

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, can someone please explain to me how this can be the final day of June?  That is really soon for June to have finished busting out all over, isn’t it?  This month has flown by, like a gazelle eating a sweet gherkin.  Does anyone still eat a sweet gherkin?  Is a gherkin a pickle by another name?  And, if so, why?  Why can’t a pickle be more like a pickle – why do we need a subspecies called a gherkin?  Why would anyone call anything a gherkin, and then spell it with a superfluous “h” in there for no reason whatsoever?  These are the mysteries that are rolling around in the windmills of my mind as I write these here notes.  In any case, this is the last day of June, which means tomorrow will be the first day of July, and it is my fervent hope and prayer that July will be a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful.

Yesterday was a day I have no memory of at all.  Oh, I suppose I got up after about nine hours of blessed sleep.  I guess I fiddled and faddled around the home environment for a time, and then I guess I went to the Eclectic Café where I had an eclectic meeting with two nice gents about a project.  I had some berries and a side of bacon, so no more than two hundred calories there.  I did that because I had myself a craving for a chicken salad sandwich.  The meeting was fun and we’ll have to see if it results in anything.

After the meeting, I went and satisfied Ye Olde Craving and had my chicken salad sandwich and a small thing of onion rings, so all totaled I was under 1200 calories.  I then came home, did a spot of work on the computer, and then sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled The Final Countdown, a film I’ve never seen.  There seems to be a rabid cult following for the film, but having watched it I would be at a complete loss as to tell you why that is.  The script isn’t much (a time travel film without much point), the direction isn’t much, and the actors don’t really have anything to work with, although it’s a good cast with Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, James Farantino, Katherine Ross, Charles Durning and others.  The Blu-ray looks and sounds very good, and my pal John Scott wrote a nice, big score for the film.  I wasn’t bored or anything, but it just really didn’t add up to much in the end.

I then watched yet another Netflix “thriller,” this one from 1999, although shot in 1997.  It was entitled Break Up, and starred then flavor of the month, Bridget Fonda, Kierfer Sutherland, Steven Weber, and Hart Bochner.  The film is, of course, completely stupid but here’s what’s more stupid: The fact that the brothers of Miramax actually read and greenlit the film.  It all starts with the screenplay and the fact that ANYONE ANYWHERE thought this was a well written or even competently written script is just a bad joke.  It was low budget, but that didn’t matter, since it went directly to home video without one play date in the United States of America.  It’s one of those movies where the screenwriter (it is the writer’s only fiction film script) just writes whatever she feels like, logic be damned, which therefore makes this film one of those wherein the characters behave so stupidly that you actually begin screaming at the screen as you’re watching them behave like no actual human being would behave.  Steven Weber is stuck with the worst of that – one always hears tell that difficult actors (not saying Weber or anyone in this film is that) give directors and writers a hard time, always asking “Why would my character do that” or “My character would never say that” and demanding changes.  Apparently these actors were okay with characters who were ridiculously stupid and who did things that their characters would never do.  Films like these are just head scratchers in every way.  Miss Fonda was okay in a silly role, Mr. Bochner plays a character so vile and disgusting that no less than three women can’t live without him – and he plays it not very well.  Mr. Sutherland has nothing to do at all, and Mr. Weber has a moustache that you could do chin-ups on and he has the film’s stupidest scene and character behavior – I actually did scream at the screen when it occurred.  The scene where Miss Fonda finally gets to do what she does has a beat before that that just makes you laugh out loud – she’s about to get even with her lovely wife-beating spouse but before she does she kisses him soulfully while moaning in ecstasy – why?  Just take care of the jerk.  A horrible, horrible movie.

After that, I had to shower.  Then I relaxed, did a bit more work on the computer and that was that.

Today, I have to write liner notes, eat, have our first Kritzerland rehearsal, hopefully pick up some packages, ship a LOT of CDs, then maybe have a snack with some of our performers if people feel like doing that.

The rest of the week is meetings and meals, our second Kritzerland rehearsal, a fourth of July partay, our stumble-through and then sound check and show.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, write, eat, hopefully pick up packages, rehearse and maybe have a snack.  Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite kinds of pickles and what were the best pickles you ever ate?  Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I shall greet the day with merriment and mirth and laughter and legs and a sweet gherkin.

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