Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, eating some crunchy Cheetos and listening to music and why shouldn’t I be? In other news, we’re having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave and it’s causing my hair to go in a neat wave. It was over 100-degrees in the San Fernando Valley today, probably closer to 103. That’s just too darn hot, if you ask me. Heat like this gives me hot flashes, frankly. And I can only take so much air conditioning at a time, which is a real problem, but when I leave it on too long my throat gets very hoarse and I can’t let it get hoarse as I must have a good orotund speaking voice to speak commentary and perhaps even sing. So, I’d get it cooled down to seventy-five, shut it off, and fifteen minutes later it would already be up to seventy-eight, even though it took three HOURS to get it down to seventy-five. I do not like this kind of hot heat. I like a little cooler heat. Actually, I prefer cool as a temperature, pretty much straight down the line. Right now, as I type these here notes, it’s close to eighty in the home environment, which is irritating since I took a drive and left the air on, came home, turned it off, and it went right back up. It’s only eighty-four outside so I don’t know why it’s so hot in here – it’s hot and it’s monotonous, to quote the words of my close personal friend, Mr. Stephen Sondheim. Now playing is the lovely Premiere Rhapsody for Orchestra by one Claude Debussy. Not by two Claude Debussy, just one. This recording was made in 1937 by John Barbirolli, for the short time he was the conductor with the New York Philharmonic. This is from a small Barbirolli box of only 6-CDs, as compared to the big Barbirolli box of 109-CDs. Like the first ten discs in the big box, these are all from shellac 78s, but the difference is that the big box transfers of that old stuff is sketchy, while these transfers of material from a decade earlier sound absolutely amazing. And the band is so much better than the Halle Orchestra of the other set – in their early years they were a pretty scruffy group. But the New York Phil plays their little hearts out. Have I mentioned that it’s hot and it’s monotonous?
Yesterday was a hot and monotonous day. I got the final word that one of the asked guests was definitely a nay, so at least that’s that. Still no word on the other, and I’m still hopeful that our nervous guest will step up to the plate and do what need be done. I was up not when I should have been at eight-thirty, since the damn alarm didn’t go off, so I was awakened by loud knocking at 8:50. I hate when that happens, so I was quite groggy, it was already in the 90s, and I didn’t get out of the house until ten. I did what I did last time she of the Evil Eye was here – I drove to the Coral Café but every table was taken by people who, prior to this, had never had breakfast there on Saturday morning. And once again, every jernt I drove by was the same story. So, no breakfast for the likes of me. I did pick up a package and no mail, drove around, and finally came home to the clean home environment.
Once here, I had lots of e-mails to answer, and I ordered a Chinese chicken salad from Stanley’s and that got here about forty minutes later and it was great. Then I did some work on the computer, and then it was finally time for our little group number Zoom session. We got everyone on the same page and figured it all out, so that’s good. That took forty minutes, then I had a telephonic conversation, did some searching in the garage whilst sweating like a pig, but mostly to get the house cooled down, and then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled The Untouchables. I’d wanted to watch it two weeks ago when I was going through all the De Palma movies, but couldn’t find it – but I finally located it. For me, it’s one of his best films mostly because he doesn’t go to De Palma land too much. He keeps his bad tendencies at bay and let’s the excellent screenplay by David Mamet do its job. And the cast is great – Kevin Costner is just right, and his three other Untouchables couldn’t be better – Andy Garcia, Charlie Martin Smith, and especially Sean Connery. Billy Drago is suitably creepy as Frank Nitti (I directed him for a day on that awful Prime Suspect movie that I took over as director for), and Robert De Niro is great as Al Capone. I saw it on its opening day and was really enjoying it and then came the only pure De Palma sequence, the Odessa Steps thing and that took me right out of the movie for ten minutes – thankfully, it recovers soon after and ends well. The transfer is quite nice. And the Morricone score is tops.
After that, I took the drive to Rite-Aid, cooled the house down, which lasted for about ten minutes and here I sit like so much hot fish – I’ve turned the air back on because we got up to eighty-two degrees.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up (I only got about five hours of sleep yesterday), then I’m having a ME day. I may start to write the commentary, as I got a tentative show order late the prior evening and know where I’m plugging in stuff should our hopeful guest be a yay. I’ll eat something light, perhaps a Caesar salad via Gelson’s or a sandwich or even Taco Bell. We shall see. Then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, we have a quick Zoom rehearsal at five, and I have a lot of other stuff to arrange for the show – I’m trying to have a lot of surprises for this one but coordinating all that is not so easy. The rest of the week is more of the same and then I think we’ll have our main Zoom rehearsals on Friday or Saturday, whichever is better for everyone.
Let’s all put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, let’s all break out the cheese slices and ham chunks, let’s all dance the Hora and the Wah-Watusi for today is the birthday of our very own beloved Vixmom. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to our very own beloved Vixmom. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO OUR VERY OWN BELOVED VIXMOM!!!
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, have a ME day, maybe start writing the commentary, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping the heat wave and therefore the hot flashes abate.