Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to the Curtis Fuller jazz cover of Cabin in the Sky from 1962 in beautiful alive stereophonic sound. Full orchestra orchestrated and conducted by Manny Albam. It’s fantastic – the score really lends itself to this kind of treatment. I didn’t discover this one until a few years ago when I found the CD as a Japanese mini-LP cover – it was a gatefold LP and so is this mini-LP CD package. You just can’t believe how good it sounds – today it would be processed to death and sound dry and they just don’t do it better today, sorry. I watched two documentaries earlier; one I started the night before and finished last night and the other I watched complete last night. The first one was about Evan Rachel Wood’s alleged abusive relationship with one Marilyn Manson. It’s a horrible story which he, of course, completely denies. But you have to make up your own mind about it and I side with her because he seems like a completely despicable person as well as a despicable artist and a real pig. Them’s my two centimes. Why any beautiful woman would be with such a pig is another discussion. But it was the other documentary that was the really interesting one, entitled Lady and the Dale. It was a story I knew absolutely nothing about and boy was it intriguing and compelling, about one G. Elizabeth Carmichael, an out there entrepreneur who came up with a new kind of car, which she called The Dale – three wheels, up to seventy miles per gallon, with her idea to make it into a million-dollar business and to take on the Big 3. But she never had enough money to actually realize her dream but she continued to take people’s money, allow pre-order deposits to be taken, all of it illegal. That, of course, is only part of the story – the other more interesting part is that she was once a he, a low-level con man named Jerry Dean Michael. She half-transitions but never completes it because she can’t afford it, but she considers herself a woman through and through. She’s arrested, thrown in a men’s jail where, of course, she’s brutally attacked, has a trial, and is found guilty. She immediately jumps bail but is found years later in Texas, extradited and serves fifteen months. She returns to Texas where she’s built a thriving business selling flowers at streetcorners, hiring homeless people, giving them a percentage of sales and a place to live.
But the most important part is the media’s homophobic and thoroughly obnoxious hounding of this person. It begins with local LA KABC newsman Dick Carlson, relentlessly doing story after story about Michaelson, especially after it’s revealed she was a man. There are current interviews with him done for this documentary and he is completely disgusting just as he was when he was a newscaster. And would it surprise you to know who his son is – yes, Tucker Carlson – the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And then the journalist who exposes Michaelson’s past and basically puts her out of business in Austin. Anyway, the style of this documentary was really fascinating because it’s done with filmed current interviews, some footage from back then, but mostly with animated still photographs and it really works well, I must say and have said. Highly recommended by the likes of me and free if you have HBO-Max.
Yesterday was all right, I suppose. I got just under eight hours of sleep, answered e-mails, the Amazon refund got to me, and then I got some food brought it – a pizza place in NoHo called Vincenzo’s – it sounded great so why not? I got there little 10-inch personal pizza with pepperoni, sausage, onions, mushrooms, and green peppers. I didn’t see any mushrooms anywhere, but it was pretty good but failed where most pizza places in L.A. fail – the sauce. That’s where Dino’s succeeds completely. The two jernts near me that I like are very good but not quite Dino’s. Then I got news we’ve been accepted into another festival – in fact, so far we’ve only NOT been accepted into one – we’ve made it into all the others and, of course, have won several awards already. So that was nice. I did a few things on the computer, had several long telephonic conversations, and then watched the documentaries, all five hours of them.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I should get a call from the publisher about the hardcover and an ETA as to when it will show up and hopefully that will be soon. I’ll either go out and get something to eat or I just got another forty percent off coupon and I might use that for Ubereats, I have to finish casting the Kritzerland show and then choose songs, I have a Zoom thing with David Wechter at some point, and then I can watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same and not sure what’s happening on the weekend.
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, have a call from the publisher, eat, cast, have a Zoom thing, 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, happy to have seen an excellent documentary and fascinated by The Dale. I want one.