Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much Shostakovichian fish, listening to my favorite Shostakovich symphony, the eleventh, which coincidentally is the first one I heard, many decades ago, with Leopold Stokowski conducting. The recording I’m listening to now may have actually been the first recorded performance, in Russia, with conductor Alexander Gauk, someone I’d never heard of. I read up on him, and apparently he was a terrific conductor, especially in Shostakovich. So, thanks to the Tube of You there were three or four Gauk-conducted Shostakovich symphonies, including the eleventh. I’m on the second movement and it is indeed an amazing performance – white hot, haunting, bombastic – it’s quite something. Prior to that, I watched a new documentary on the Flix of Net, entitled Keep Sweet Pray and Obey, a rather scary and horrific film about FDLS – a polygamist group of religious oddballs known as the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter-Day Saints and the sick piece of dog snot who ran it, Warren Jeffs, currently in prison serving a life sentence plus twenty years for the statutory rape of two of his wives, one fifteen, one twelve. It’s horrifying to watch and hear the believers and the survivors and the people who still follow Jeffs and this “religion.” It’s a fascinating series of four episodes. In one episode, based on an anonymous phone call about what’s really going on with the underage marriages, Child Protective Services swoops in and removes 400 children. The church and its publicity team then work that to their advantage and fool the likes of Oprah and Larry King and a ton of other media folks who love to get all high-ground and morally outraged – they live for it because – it gets them ratings. And the children must be returned because the Texas Supreme Court finds there wasn’t just cause. Only there was because some time later, the police went in with a search warrant and found boxes of evidence, including audio tapes of Jeffs raping the twelve-year-old. And do you think that ONE of those media people apologized? They did not. How many other children were abused when they were returned? Shame on all of them. The church is still there and most who belong were raised there and know nothing of the outside world at all – and the women are taught that they must keep sweet, pray, and obey. The men get to have many wives and rule the roost. You will, I warn you, be angered, but it’s worth watching just to see this kind of depravity in the name of religion. They think Warren Jeffs is literally God. So, that was four hours of viewing. After that, I began listening to music. And now, Mr. Gauk is doing a most marvelous Shostakovich eighth.
Yesterday was a Friday. I got five hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails, and then I had to mosey on over to Paty’s Coffee Shop in the Lake of Toluca to meet Adryan Russ. It was a nice lunch meeting. And that sandwich I loved at the late Corky’s coffee shop is served at Paty’s and it’s even better – the Trousdale – on grilled rye – turkey, Swiss, coleslaw and 1000-Island dressing. Really good. I had some potato salad with it.
After the meal, I stopped at the mail place and picked up a small residual and some other junk, but no important envelope. Then I stopped at the bank and deposited the small residual, then came home. I had more e-mails to answer, I did some work on the computer, and then sat on my couch like so much fish and began watching the four-part documentary. After the third episode, I ordered some food for the evening – there’s a place nearby called Crave Café – always busy and beloved by the entitled Sherman Oaks hipsters who love it and love that it’s open late. So, I finally decided to order from there – normally, if it’s a new jernt I’ll check the Yelp reviews, but I didn’t. I should have. I ordered the chicken and waffle because it sounded like fun. This place is five minutes from here. From the time the Dasher picked up the order it was thirty minutes until he got here. By that time, I was furious. He finally arrived and nothing was hot enough. The waffle was soggy, but I put some butter and syrup and ate half – it was like eating a sponge with syrup on it – simply horrible. The chicken was not the usual fried chicken breast, but four tiny chicken tenders that tasted like they’d come out of a frozen foods box and been microwaved. I’m still nauseous from those. I immediately went the Yelp and while there are always young idiots who give that type of jernt five stars, there were a ton of one-star reviews, basically saying the food was rancid, including a couple of reviews that described exactly what I’d had. So, I left a nice one-star review because, well, that what it deserved. Then I called DoorDash. They tried to do the usual five-dollar refund but I was livid and wouldn’t let them do it. It took ten minutes of me being me to finally get the entire cost of the meal refunded. They have to learn not to let any Dasher process more than two orders at one time. He picked up mine first, then went in the opposite direction and picked up food at another place on Ventura Blvd. (you can follow all this on an online map), then delivered two other deliveries before finally coming here. Of course, nothing was hot – how could it be?
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll finesse the Indiegogo speech, put it on a back-up drive along with some Kritzerland show clips, and then I can get that to Marshall Harvey. I’ll begin figuring out the perks, and then get all that stuff in motion so we can launch next week. I’ll hopefully pick up some packages and an important envelope, I’ll eat something, and then I can watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow is more of the same and then next week will be very, very busy.
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, finesse the Indiegogo patter, figure out perks, hopefully pick up packages and an important envelope, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What religious groups do you find very strange? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, still processing how a cultish religious group can run so amok.