Well, dear readers, this week is flying by, like a gazelle in a hair shirt. Does anyone still wear a hair shirt? And what the HELL is a hair shirt anyway. Well, I’ll tell you what a damn hair shirt is – originally called a cilice, it was a shirt made of animal hair or coarse cloth, worn close to the skin and used as a way of repentance or atonement. The first uses of the cilice seem to predate written history. Can you imagine? I sometimes feel like I predate written history, but that’s another story. Did you know that Thomas Becket was wearing a hair shirt when he was martyred? Charlemagne was buried in a hair shirt. Why even Ayn Rand got into the hair shirt business – in The Fountainhead, Gail Wynand says that he considers Howard Roark to be his hair shirt. I think it’s high time (or perhaps low time) to bring the hair shirt back, this time as a fashion trend on Yom Kippur. That way you can be trendy and atone at the same time. What the HELL am I talking about?
Yesterday was a day in which I did not atone or repent for any old thing. I did get up at ten after almost eight hours of sleep. I did answer e-mails and I did have one very long telephonic call, after which I went to a lunch meeting with Sami and her mom at Casa Vega. We spoke of many things, of cabbages and kings and also tacos and cheese enchiladas, but surprisingly not about hair shirts, and then I spoke to Sami about a project that I think I’m going to develop for her specifically. She has grown so much since I began working with her almost two years ago – she was twelve then and is fourteen now – and I had an idea based on a little something I wrote three years ago, a little monologue, and we’ll just see where this goes. If it works, it could be something totally unique and if it doesn’t it will still be good and fun for her to work on something like this, especially from an acting standpoint. I had a beef taco and two cheese enchiladas, and I do believe it’s the first time in my long Casa Vega history that I’ve been slightly disappointed in the food. It just wasn’t quite as good as usual.
After that, I picked up a package, then came home. Then Sandy and Lanny arrived and we picked up where we left off in the Ira Gershwin show. I gave little notes as we went along and it really is quite an entertaining little show. Then we began playing through the album stuff – we had to take a break because my piano tuner arrived. The piano was way out of tune, so he took an hour, while we sat outside by the pool. When the tuner was done, we went back and played through the rest of the songs. Then they left, and I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I did a bad thing – I watched one more bad thriller, this one seemingly entitled Blindsided, starring Michael Keaton and Michelle Monaghan. Netflix said it was released in 2013. It was directed by Joseph Ruben, who made the original 1980s The Stepfather, which was quite a good film, and he also did some fun 70s exploitation stuff like The Pom Pom Girls. But he’s had a very odd career, and I really didn’t like Sleeping With the Enemy at all. But I was interested to see this. Well, it was terrible, just a wretchedly written script, with ordinary direction and okay performances. Again, one just scratches one’s head about who green lights these projects, this one coming from Dimension Films, the cheeseball division of Miramax. It was mercifully short – I mean SHORT – if you take away the end credits and the opening credits, the movie runs about seventy-seven minutes. I looked it up on the imdb to see how much money it lost, but I could not find it. Only by looking at Michael Keaton’s credits did I find it – it’s because Blindsided wasn’t its title – it was called Penthouse North. It was, in fact, released in 2013 but shot in 2011. And when I say released, it was never shown in theaters, there are no reviews, it had no box-office whatsoever, and it first played on Lifetime.
After that awful thing, I went to Gelson’s to get some stuff for a snack, and then came home and watched the first twenty minutes of a real movie, and one I happen to love, the newly-released Criterion Blu and Ray of Georges Franju’s Judex. Mr. Franju made one of my all-time favorite movies, Eyes Without a Face – Judex was made a few years later and I saw it when it first came out. I’m enjoying it immensely and the transfer is great.
Whilst watching, I had some tuna as my evening snack. It was good, but I fear it was too much food and I just have to stop doing the snack for a while – back to one meal a day, or two if the first meal is six hundred calories or under (a sandwich), in which case I could then eat another four to six hundred calories later. I then did some work on the computer and that was that.
Today, we’re not rehearsing until five, so I’ll try to sleep in, then write some liner notes, then eat something light and amusing, hopefully pick up some packages, and then relax until Sandy and Lanny arrive. We’ll only run the Gershwin show today. If I have the energy, I’ve been invited to another Fringe show, but it’s at nine and I just don’t know that I want to do that.
Tomorrow and Friday are more rehearsals, Saturday is off, and Sunday is sound check and the show. We also set a tentative date for what will be the second ALS benefit. The first one, in January, was a big success. And we’re absolutely thrilled that we’ll be back at the Pasadena Playhouse. I do have an idea for the show, something I know would sell it out no matter what the talent (and we’ll have major talent as we did for the last show), and that would really be fun for the audience. I’ll think about it some more and then think of a few other ideas that might be fun and pitch them. What I don’t think we should do is a rehash of the January show – in other words, do that variety show theme again. I think coming up with something completely different is always good.
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, relax and rehearse. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I shall ponder the return of the hair shirt as a fashion trend.