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July 22, 2016:

JOYCE AND VAL KILMER’S TRANSGENDER TREES

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, this week has flown by, like a gazelle doing the splits whilst reciting Joyce Kilmer’s Trees. Remember what fun we had with Joyce Kilmer’s Trees in these here notes? When was that exactly? Let’s see if we can take a time machine back to those notes.

I tell you, this week has flown by, like a gazelle reciting Joyce Kilmer’s Trees. I wonder if Val Kilmer ever recited Joyce Kilmer’s Trees? I wonder if the trees ever recited Joyce Kilmer? There are so very many things I wonder and yet I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree. Then again, I think that I shall never wish a poem as lovely as a fish. Yes, I am feeling very poetic today and all thanks to the gazelle reciting Joyce Kilmer’s Trees. Have you ever heard the sequel to Joyce Kilmer’s Trees? It’s called Joyce Kilmer’s Knees. I think that I shall never see an ear as lovely as a knee.

You see, you see – we’ve done Joyce and Val Kilmer’s Trees – that was back in 2009. I thought we’d done it earlier than that. And then because I am both the king and queen of repetition, we also did that exact same thing in 2011 and 2013, so this is the fourth installment of Joyce Kilmer’s Trees. And I have never received a thank you note from Joyce Kilmer for keeping her damn poem alive on what I feel will soon be the most popular site on all the Internet. Of course Joyce Kilmer died in 1918 at the age of thirty-one, so that might be why. And do you know that Joyce Kilmer wrote Trees a mere five years before expiring. But how many here thought Joyce Kilmer was a woman? I know I did, so imagine my surprise just now to find out Joyce Kilmer was not a woman but a man. Not knowing that Joyce Kilmer was a man and not a woman leads me directly to the first motion picture I watched last night – William Castle’s wacky motion picture entitle Homicidal, starring Joyce and Val Kilmer. No, that’s not right. Starring Miss Jean Arless. For those who haven’t seen this motion picture skip directly to the next paragraph before reading further. In this motion picture Jean Arless plays Emily a woman who’s recently returned from Denmark. In case that hasn’t sunk in the first time it’s mentioned, it’s mentioned about twenty more times throughout the film. And then there’s her husband Warren. Emily is a little unhinged as we find out at the beginning of the film when she offs a justice of the peace. Now, remember how I thought Joyce Kilmer was a woman? One will also think Emily is a woman but the reality is she is not a woman but a man. DENMARK. But this is very murky in the film because the final explanation makes everything make not a lick of sense, but, hey, it’s William Castle. I rather like the film, mostly due to Miss Arless who wasn’t even Miss Arless but actress Joan Marshall. For her flip side there’s a bit of a cheat as her voice has been dubbed. There’s good music by Hugo Friedhofer, and the film of course would not exist had it not been for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and its huge success. But I’m getting a head of myself, which is, frankly, a little homicidal.

Yesterday was a very productive little day. I only got seven hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails and did some work on the computer, and then at eleven we had a little rehearsal with one of our ALS benefit performers, the wonderful Jean Louisa Kelly. She’s singing I Still Believe in Love from They’re Playing Our Song and we hammered out what will be a nice arrangement of it. Then she left, and I quickly had two of my low-cal no-fat hog dogs on low-cal buns – total calories ingested for BOTH was a very reasonable 330. Then Kay Cole came over with John Boswell to run through the songs she’ll be recording for her album. She scotched a couple of choices but we’re happily only one shy of the fourteen we’ll record and I said let’s just leave that open and see what strikes our fancy a little closer to when we’re actually going to record. That was a nice close to three-hour session.

Then I did a two-and-a-half mile jog, effectively running off about 250 of my 330 calories. Then I watched Homicidal. After that, I made 400 calories of bow tie pasta (two cups at two hundred calories per cup) and whipped up some Wacky Noodles – with ALL the ingredients (only about half of what I’d use for a normal-sized batch) it came out to about seven hundred calories, so even if I hadn’t jogged I’d have still come in right at 1000 calories. And that was very filling. To think that I’ve always made the entire 12oz. box of pasta and eaten it ALL, this was very reasonable. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish and watched a second motion picture, this one entitled Zelig, a Woody Allen film from 1983.

I saw Zelig on its opening day in Westwood – that was my routine back then, to always see the new Woody on opening day. Up to that point the only disappointments in Woody’s films for me were Interiors, which just wasn’t my cuppa, a slight feeling of disappointment in Stardust Memories, and then my first HUGE disappointment, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy. Zelig followed that one. And I have to say I found it, too, to be very disappointing. The movie that followed it, Broadway Danny Rose, would be his return to form, at least for me. I did not revisit Zelig until the DVD box set of Woody’s films came out, and I still didn’t love it. But last night, watching the new Twilight Time Blu-ray, I suddenly kind of appreciated it. I laughed out loud a few times and realized just how innovative and well it was done. The conceit of the film is always true to itself and the integration of the old footage and the new footage made to look old is really quite brilliant. I will be interested to see what the usual wags have to say about the transfer. I believe it to be an older master, but it’s not THAT old – it’s on par with most of the Woody Blu-rays. But, so much of the film is comprised of opticals (and that includes any of the modern day stuff – any time you see a name on the screen, that entire shot is an optical), and then so much of the film has purposely been made to look like older found footage or to match really old vintage newsreel stuff – I mean they’ve added scratches and marks and negative dirt in almost every shot. This looks very much like a release print would have looked and even if this was a brand new transfer in 4K right off the negative in the case of this film it wouldn’t really matter. Anyway, I do believe I can recommend this film now – it was nice to reassess it and enjoy it thoroughly. And it’s VERY short – sans end credits it’s only seventy-four minutes long.

After that, I got the extremely good news that the original Jersey Boys star of both stage and screen, John Lloyd Young, will be joining us for the ALS benefit. Then I just did some work on the computer and relaxed a bit.

Today, I shall try to be up by ten and I think I’ll also try to get the jog out of the way early. Then at one we have a rehearsal with our kids chorus for the ALS show – they’re backing up Juliana Hansen’s song. That should last an hour then I have a meeting with Michael Sterling about his anniversary tribute to Rosemary Clooney that I’m overseeing. If I’ve done the jog then I can relax until I mosey on over to the theater where I’m seeing a play – I’m meeting Doug Haverty and his ever-lovin’ Dorathy there at six, and we’ll go eat, then return and see a show.

Tomorrow, I’m seeing Sami in Urinetown, which, other than seeing her, will, I’m sure, be sheer unadulterated torture. I’m not sure if we’re eating before or not. Sunday may just end up being a ME day, and then things get really busy for the following three weeks, first with the Sterling anniversary show, then the Kritzerland show, followed directly by the ALS show. And I WILL need a foot rub after all that and I WILL have one. And two weeks after the ALS show we have the sixth anniversary Kritzerland show, which is show number 70.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, jog, have a rehearsal, eat, and see a play. 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, an upcoming Kritzerland release. Blu and Ray, The Russia House and The Gang’s All Here. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall recite Joyce and Val Kilmer’s transgender Trees.

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