Well, dear readers, just to be on the safe side: I hereby don’t give haineshisway.com permission to use these here notes, photographs, musings, rantings, birthday wishes, gazelles, the Randy Vicar, or no fries or onion rings. The contents of these here notes is private and the fact that 1000s of people are reading it is not relevant and you do not have the right to hold any of this against me because otherwise you will be bitch-slapped from here to eternity and hell and back. Please do not share this – you must copy and paste it and put it on your bathroom wall where you can view it easily. And haineshisway.com will, of course, be charging a $5.95 fee for being private or, at the very least, being green, and we all know it isn’t easy being green. It’s real – they said it on the Channel 13 news in Latvia. Yes, the old Facebook memes are back and making the rounds and it would shock you how many reasonably intelligent people become sheep and share this bogus stuff. Note to reasonably intelligent people: Facebook is a public page. You don’t own your wall, it’s not about you, nothing is private and if you don’t like it why don’t you just get the HELL back here where you belong? No, it will not cost $5.95 to be private on Facebook. I feel that every single person who has shared this stupidity should have to PAY $5.95 into my Paypal account. I’d probably be a millionaire. It is amusing on some level and it’s also shocking on some level. It’s like you go on Facebook and you lose some part of your ability to reason – one simple five second visit to Google will always tell you that 99% of things that are shared on Facebook are – wait for it – FAKE. Bogus. Not real. BS. It’s like some form of mass hysteria. Remember – these here notes are private and you cannot hold me responsible for their content, especially the story of The Randy Vicar and the Spackling Knife.
Yesterday was a stupid day, at least on Facebook. I thought it was rather smart around these here parts, on our discussion board, which, of course, though no one wants to admit it, was the precursor to Facebook and has been around longer than Facebook. For those who may have missed my post yesterday, we silently (only because I failed to take notice) had a rather remarkable landmark on this here site, namely our discussion board. Since creating the discussion board (after a couple of years where the posts just followed the notes), we have had – wait for it – over 1,000,000 posts, namely 29,000 posts over 1,000,000 posts. I’d say that’s quite something, wouldn’t you? I’d say that ain’t hay for a little upstart website that routinely gets close to ten million hits a year. And we are, of course, approaching year fifteen for this here site and these here notes.
I woke up after only two hours of sleep – around four-thirty. My tummy was bothering me again, so I just did some work on the computer, then went back to bed and slept for three more hours – not enough sleep but better than none at all. Once up, the helper came by and got what she needed and then we dealt with a little CD screw up. I’d caught a typo on the inlay card of Welcome to the World a couple of weeks ago, and since it was on my Album Produced by credit, I reprinted the inlay cards to correct Producted to Produced. Well, they used the wrong ones, so today they came and picked up the CDs to redo the packaging – we’ll have them back by nine this morning and they’ll ship today. Everyone who asked for a signed copy will get one, at least I think they will. After all that stuff, I went and had a turkey sandwich and no fries or onion rings, after which I came right back home. I then spent some time doing a first pass at the show order, which I think will probably work. I had a few telephonic calls, worked at the piano, and finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a TV movie from 1989 on the Flix of Net – it was entitled Unspeakable Acts, starring Jill Clayburgh and Brad David. Based on the true story of Frank and Ileana Fuster, who were accused of molesting young children they babysat. This movie was made only four years after Frank Fuster was found guilty and sentenced to 165 years in jail. This case began in 1984 at the height of the day care molestation hysteria, much of which, as you know by now, was not true, especially the infamous McMartin case. This movie acts as if everything WERE true, but in the ensuing years since it was made, there has been much doubt cast upon the case, and Frontline did a major piece on that. The couple doing the questioning of the kids, the Bragas, were like the McMartin questioners – leading the kids, suggesting things, and basically coercing through gentle guidance. They did molestation interviews in several Florida molestation cases, all around the same time. In this film, they’re pretty much presented as saints. It’s a standard-issue TV movie filled with its own importance, making its points in badly-written declamatory style and the director, Linda Otto, elicits some truly bad performances from some decent actors. Still, it was interesting to watch. I also watched a “thriller” called The Loft, which starred Mr. James Marsden. It was quite bad, I thought – convoluted, too long, not well acted by some of its cast and in the end not very interesting. It was, of course, an American remake of a Flemish film called Loft that was highly praised and a big hit. The American version was directed by the same director, but I’m sure it’s like The Vanishing – the original version is really excellent, while the American version, directed by the same man, isn’t. I’m curious to see the Flemish version and I may seek it out. Interestingly, before the American remake, there was another remake in another country, and that one was apparently poor, too.
During the movie, I made about four ounces of spaghetti with a little butter and cheese for my evening snack. I also had some Good and Plenty – I used to really like it, but it’s just kind of gross now. Do they still make Good and Fruity? I did like that better. Then I just relaxed.
Today, the fixed CD packages will be here at nine. I then will begin writing the commentary, I may jog, the helper will come by and ship CDs, and then I shall mosey on over to the Ahmanson Theater to see the new touring production of The Sound of Music. I tried to get a reservation for the restaurant downstairs and apparently they are booked up from four-thirty to nine – sorry, that just makes no sense to me on any level and I’m going to call them this morning and see if that’s real, as I was trying to reserve via Open Table’s online service. I will, of course, have a complete report on the production.
The rest of the week is meetings and meals, and then we resume our performances on Thursday night and play our final four shows. I’m hoping we have decent houses.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, ship CDs, maybe jog, write a commentary and if I can’t get a reservation for dinner, I’ll just go to Gelson’s and get some stuff to take down there and I’ll sup at one of the tables that are available for such things, and I must see a show. Today’s topic of discussion: I am fascinated by the herd mentality on Facebook – why do you think it happens – that people just share things without even checking to see if they’re real or even reading the actual thing they’re sharing? I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’m interested in your thoughts. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping the mass hysteria of sharing Facebook memes is at an end.