Well, dear readers, September is flying by, like a gazelle with hubris. And speaking of hubris – the notes. Yesterday was a day called Sunday. And for a Sunday it was perfectly acceptable in a perfectly acceptable way. I got a little over eight hours of sleep in what can only be described as an act of hubris. Once up, it was all the usual stuff – answering e-mails, organizing things and trying to stop waffling about the October Kritzerland show – I’m now leaning away from Loewe and to a scary Halloween show – we’ve never done one and I think it might be fun. We shall see.
The night before, I’d finished watching What Happened to Monday. I can’t say it was very good – in fact, I can say it was pretty bad. Poorly directed, poorly scripted, but with some okay performances. I can’t say I’d recommend it to any thinking person.
Yesterday I watched four episodes of The Confession Tapes, one of those Netflix original documentary things. It’s a somewhat horrifying show about murder confessions and coercion and how juries have convicted based solely on confessions. The tapes of these confessions and how police get people to do them should be grounds for all these convictions to be dropped. It’s shocking that this is allowed to happen like this. And it’s not strange – everyone always thinks they would never do it, but many of these people are not well educated, are grilled for hours upon hours without sleep, with techniques that are clearly designed to get people to say what the cops want them to say, and that includes the technique of actually lying to them about evidence and witnesses – they tell the suspect that critical evidence has their fingerprints on it or DNA has proved some hair to be theirs, when that is patently false. They say a witness has come forward, when that is patently false. They promise the suspect that things will be fine if they just say what they want them to say – it’s pretty shocking and we see it happen on these tapes, over and over again. In the first two-part episode there is not ONE iota of actual evidence and yet the jury convicts based on a technique used to surreptitiously tape suspects with cops acting out roles as bad guys – this isn’t even allowed to be done in the United States – this was done in Canada (no longer allowed) but the tapes were allowed into evidence as the boys were IN Canada with the murder taking place in the US – some International hand-off thing. There are no happy endings here – appeals are exhausted and that’s that. In one case, DNA finally proved that there was someone else at a murder scene, and the person who’s been in jail for sixteen years is released. BUT – kept under house arrest while the state readies to put him on trial again. Rather than risk another jury trial, he cops to a manslaughter plea for time already served. That is just sick, but that is the injustice of the justice system. To listen to some of these disgusting jurors, one of whom delightedly tells the interviewer that she and the other female jurors loved the prosecuting attorney and the way he dressed – seriously, people are morons.
The director gets a little fussy with the artsy stuff, but it’s very compelling and I guess I’ll watch the remaining episodes. Not happy viewing and I guarantee that you will yell at the TV screen.
Then I moseyed on over to Genghis Cohen to sup with the Haverty clan – Doug, Dorathy, daughter Haverty and her hubby Bill. I ordered for everyone and we went through a lot of food. They all loved it, but I knew instantly it was not the good chef – it was all fine, but just lacked that sparkle and brilliance of the good chef, who must not work on Sundays. And when we ordered a second helping of the crackerjack shrimp (they’d loved the first helping and it went quickly) it arrived and was nothing like the first helping – mushy, the sauce was completely weird and we sent it back. My favorite gal was our waitress and she told me she tasted it and it was indeed weird. She brought us another batch and that was weird, too. Of course we weren’t charged for those. We’ll all go back on a week night so they can experience the good chef. Then I came home, did some work on the computer, listened to some music, and relaxed.
Today I have lots o’ stuff to do, I’ll eat, hopefully pick up some packages and do send some excellent vibes and xylophones for the cloven hoof of negativity to stay far from my door.
This week is all meetings and meals, finishing casting the Kritzerland show and choosing songs and getting everything to the performers, announcing our new release and first classical title, doing a workshop, and seeing The Red Shoes.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do stuff, eat, hopefully pick up packages, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: If we do a Halloween-themed show, what are your favorite songs from horror and sci-fi musicals as well as songs from horror and sci-fi films? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall dream with not a trace of hubris.