Well, dear readers, at eleven-thirty this morning we begin our second week of the Indiegogo campaign. I do appreciate your patience while I keep tub-thumping it – it’s a necessity, as they say in Finian’s Rainbow. But now we need a Kritzerland Rainbow as we’re still stuck at 39% – the fact is, once you’re this far along, it takes a lot longer to get to the next percentage point, but the point is we’re only fifteen bucks away from 40%, which is great for the first week. And I know for certain that a couple of folks who’ve told me they’re definitely contributing, can’t do so until the final week. So, we’ll keep plugging away and I will be putting up a few new perks this very day, including some original Harvey Schmidt doodles. All the doodles I’ve listed in other campaigns were taken except this one and the fact is that this one was the best deal of them all. So, you’ll check it out. It not only is the doodles (and I believe there are twelve of them in this set), you also get the letter he wrote me about the doodles. So, we’ll make that the Perk of the Day. The charming note written in Harvey’s distinct writing is dated Saturday 1 October 1994. It reads: “Bruce: Since these were done during our telephone conversation this morning, I thought you should have them. I think it is best not to ponder too intently on what it all means: it is just unfortunate that they couldn’t have been “B’s” or “K’s” Love H. P.S. If you ever get these out of order, The Red D’s will turn on you and attack!” The note is paperclipped to a folder. Inside the folder you have a title page “12 Red D’s”, which is dated and signed. Then come 12 separate sheets with different style D’s on them, all signed by Harvey. It’s a pretty incredible perkilicious perk. Here, as always, is the handy-dandy linkilicious link.
I did manage to watch a motion picture – The Equalizer 2, starring Denzel Washington. I actually enjoyed it more than I did the first one, and I really enjoyed the first one. Not great art, but fast-paced, great action sequences, and some heart thrown in. I also watched a documentary about Brother Theodore. It was, I thought, poorly done – perversely so. It has a lot of clips of him performing at various stages of his life, but not enough. There’s a puppet that looks like him – to what purpose I know not. And a lot of interesting folks are commenting on him – Dick Cavett, Woody Allen, Penn and Teller, Joe Dante – but you never see them, and they’re not identified, which is, as I said, perverse. They’re identified in the end credits, but that doesn’t help know who everyone was. The odd and silly part is that the filmed interviews with some of them are on YouTube. Obviously, the director loves Brother Theodore, but this could have been much better, I think. What a character he was. If, for whatever reason, you don’t know who he is, here’s a little clip for you to watch – an appearance on The Merv Griffin Show, where Jerry Lewis is a guest and completely confounded by Brother Theodore. It’s pretty funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Fg2H3sucI&t=39s
What I didn’t know was how long he’d been performing. His first performances were actually here in Los Angeles in 1947 – he opened his show in October and was, in fact, playing it on the day of my birth. Back then, he was just billed as Theodore and the show was called Blossoms of Evil. He got really strong reviews. And, of course, if you’ve listened to the commentary track on the awful cut of Spaceship/Naked Space, you know that the person who re-cut the film, Harry Hurwitz, actually shot footage with Brother Theodore – sequences of him ranting away somewhere on the spaceship. When I heard about it, I called the producers and said, “Do what you will, but if any of those sequences are in the film you will rue the day.” They listened. But I sure would be fascinated to see the footage.
Yesterday was a weird day. I only got six hours of sleep, got up, was happy to see someone new had taken one of the ten-CD perks, which made us just fifteen bucks shy of a new percentage, then I went to the car place and dropped off the car, which is a good thing to do with a car place. The estimated time was upped to four hours or “before noon.” I walked the five steps from the car place to the I-Hop (they share the parking lot). I ordered a big boy breakfast – two eggs, two sausage, two bacon, two tiny pieces of ham, hash browns, two pancakes. I instantly remembered just how mediocre I-Hop is. The eggs were fine and so were the sausages. Bacon tasted weird, hash browns weren’t too hot, ham was flavorless, and the pancakes, what they’re known for, were awful. I managed to use up ninety minutes there, leaving at nine. I walked west on Ventura Blvd. I walked all the way past Hayvenhurst, three miles down. I marveled at how the once quaint Encino part of Ventura is all strip malls, high-rise buildings, a few mixed-use apartments, and just a few vestiges of what it was. I do know there were several high-end car dealerships on that stretch, plus a lot of restaurants that are obviously no more. I think the only restaurant that’s left from the 1970s is Benihana. I hadn’t walked like that in quite some time, so I was a bit tired even after the three miles. Then I went into the Encino Gelson’s and looked around. It’s so much nicer than our local Gelson’s – everything in the deli counters looks much fresher, there’s more stuff, and it’s all laid out very nicely. I managed to roam around for over thirty minutes there. Then I continued back to the car dealer, stopping and looking around at things as I walked. One jernt I saw was Barbie-Q, where I’ve done DoorDash delivery many times. It was nice to see the actual jernt. I got back to the car place around eleven-fifteen. The car was almost ready – they were just waiting on a new oil filter thing because there was a little leak in the one in the car. That showed up five minutes later, they put it in, and I was out of there around eleven-thirty. He said the car was in good shape, but I need one thing replaced soon and it’s expensive, like eight hundred bucks expensive, but he said if I wait too long I could endanger the radiator. So, I’ll have him order that next week and then he’ll need the car for half a day. I’ll probably Uber home and back on that day.
I went to the mail place and picked up a little package and now we can ship out the books – I was just waiting on this package to arrive as it has some fun stuff that will be included. So, the helper will come here and pick them up, hopefully today or tomorrow. I was so zonked that I sat on my couch like so much fish and watched the first hour of The Equalizer 2. Then David Wechter and I had a two-hour work session going through our script. We’re about ninety pages in and have already cut close to twenty pages and some of the biggest cuts are coming up. We’ll finish the rest today.
Then I did some cheerleading, but Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg aren’t having it and are making sure that as few people as possible are seeing the posts. I know this because of the two or three likes. My innocuous posts get 200 likes. That’s how it works there, and I find it completely nauseating. I ordered a chicken breast and wing from California Chicken Café (with a little chicken pasta salad, too). While awaiting its arrival, I finished the movie. I ate the breast and wing but was annoyed they forgot the barbecue sauce. A bit later, I ate the chicken pasta salad, which wasn’t as good as usual. Then I watched the Brother Theodore documentary, and that was that.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll hope for some Indiegogo action and that we can get closer to 50%, I’ll eat something at some point, then David Wechter and I will finish the cuts and discussing whatever we need to. Once that’s all finished, then the next order of business will be to read it again and see how it feels at its new length. Then we can finesse anything that needs finessing. After that, I can watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is all Indiegogo stuff – new perks, keeping the energy and fun going. The middle two weeks are always the hardest, so if you’re on Facebook it would be very helpful if you dear readers would either share it or post about it and say how much fun the perks are, blah, blah, blah.
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, do whatever needs doing, hope for some Indiegogo action, eat, finish going through the screenplay, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, as we begin week two of our Indiegogo campaign.