Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Harl McDonald’s concerto for not one but two piano, neither of which has yet to make an appearance. In the meantime, September is flying by, like a gazelle playing a recital of Chopin and Liszt, at the same time, which the gazelle calls Chiszt. It’s quite exciting and is yet further evidence of how multitalented the damn gazelle is. Meanwhile, the two pianos have made their entrance, and all is well with the concerto for not one but two pianos. Harl McDonald is a very tuneful American composer and so the concerto for not one but two pianos is enjoyably enjoyable. I’m actually writing these here notes early because last night’s power outage has me hinky that the stupid LADWP might try it again tonight. I did manage to watch two motion pictures last night – well, one motion picture and one documentary. The motion picture was a TV movie entitled Rehearsal for Murder by the ubiquitous team of Levinson and Link, the creators of Columbo. It stars Robert Preston, Lynn Redgrave, Patrick Macnee, William Russ, Jeff Goldblum, Madolyn Smith, Lawrence Pressman, and William Daniels, directed by David Greene. It’s fun in its way, but very typical Levinson and Link, which means a bit facile, especially during the final ten minutes. But the cast is terrific. I believe this was Mr. Macnee’s first job after The Creature Wasn’t Nice. I really liked Madolyn Smith, who had quite a few credits early on, but completely disappeared from film and TV after 1994 – can’t find any reason as to why. Also a plus, the atmospheric score by Billy Goldenberg, who was pretty much Levinson and Link’s go-to composer. After that, I watched the beginnings of a few things, just to see what the transfers were like, but settled on the 1995 documentary, The Celluloid Closet. It’s a wonderfully done documentary about gay in the cinema up through 1995. Of course, even since then there’ve been huge strides in positive gay representation on the silver screen and on TV. It’s narrated by Lily Tomlin and has interesting people as talking heads. And tons of clips. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I did begin watching another motion picture and got caught up in it, so I may finish that after posting these here notes – the film is John Cassavetes’ Gloria. I’m not a huge fan of his films, but have enjoyed the more mainstream ones like Gloria, A Child is Waiting, and Too Late Blues, even though I’m sure he wasn’t happy with the latter two. Gloria also has a wonderful score by Bill Conti. I have it on CD but heaven knows where. Maybe I’ll try to find it today.
Yesterday was certainly the first day of September. I got about seven hours of sleep, maybe a bit more than that. I got up at eleven-thirty, answered e-mails, and then moseyed on over to the mail place where I picked up two important envelopes. I then went and cashed one check – that took the usual three minutes, then I went to the nearby branch of my bank just to see how crowded it was and the good news it wasn’t crowded at all – just one person ahead of me, so I made the deposit and was in and out of there in about six minutes.
Then I came right home, had some telephonic conversations. It was over 100-degrees out but thankfully I’d turned on the air before leaving, so the house was cool. Then I ordered a chicken Caesar from Stanley’s and that arrived in about twenty-five minutes, and I ate it all up. Then I had a Zoom thing with David Wechter and we went over the last of the adjustments, then settled down to address the one major issue that was left. I really didn’t know how to fix it, nor did he, but as soon as we began talking about it we both saw how to do it quickly and pretty effortlessly. It was basically adding a couple of lines of dialogue, removing a couple of lines of dialogue, moving a couple of things around, and clarifying two things. The whole thing took about ten minutes and it’s so much better now and finally makes sense. Once that was done, I heard that we hadn’t heard anything in terms of self-tapes for the web series, and the theory is we probably won’t until Tuesday, due to the holiday. But who knows. Well, The Shadow Knows.
After that, I sat on my couch like so much fish and did my viewing, after which I sat right down and began these here notes.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven, I’ll do whatever needs doing, and then the helper person comes and we’ll do two to three hours of Indiegogo perk stuff. I’ll then take her back to her apartment, and perhaps I’ll pick up something to eat on the way home, rather than have something delivered. I was interested in having Art’s Deli’s tri-salad thing, but twenty-four bucks is just so irritating. Well, guess what? It’s gone up to twenty-eight bucks. Their turkey sandwich is now twenty-four bucks. I mean, I’d say that’s pretty out of control, wouldn’t you? I could stop at the Studio City Gelson’s and get something there that’s just protein, but we’ll see how I’m feeling and what I feel like. Then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Then it’s the holiday weekend, so I really don’t want to do much at all. Oh, I’ll do a show order and at least start the commentary, and I still have three songs to choose for the show, so I’ll do that. And we have to set our rehearsal schedule. But mostly, I’m relaxing because once we hit next week things are just going to be crazy right up until I leave for New York and they’ll remain crazy right through mid-October.
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 or the Cha-cha-cha, for today is the birthday of dear reader Ron Pulliam. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to dear reader Ron Pulliam. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO DEAR READER RON PULLIAM!!!
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven, do perk stuff with the helper person, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. 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, nothing. Blu-ray, I think I’m going to watch Orphan again. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have written these here notes early, as the early bird catches the notes or something about a bird in the bush or the hand is in the frying pan of the notes. Something like that.