Well, dear readers, the book signing was way too much fun. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, the book signing was way too much fun, which means, in plain English, it was way too much FUN. First of all, I had more folks there than we’ve ever had, a little over thirty in total. And fun folks they were or, in plain English, what FUN folks they were. I had our wonderful youngsters in the first row – left to right they’re Brennley Brown, Oliviana Marie, Jenna Lea Rosen and Sami Staitman. Here’s a photo to prove it – in this photo you can also see our very own Adryan Russ, Doug Haverty lurking in the background, neighbor Tony Slide and cousin Dee Dee sitting in the back row to the right, way over in the corner in the second row on the right is Lanny Meyers, and hidden behind Jenna is Muse Margaret and her ever-lovin’ Richard. In the blue shirt in the back is the new haineshisway.com reviewer, Rob Stevens and somewhere Nick Redman is checking his phone. This was taken while the place was still filling up.
Here’s a view from the opposite angle, as I was waiting for the last stragglers to come up the stairs and fill the rest of the seats.
I began by just talking about how this book came to be, and then I read about half of chapter one and half of chapter two – this is kind of a hard book to read, but I had great fun doing it, or, in plain English I had way too much FUN doing it. Then I answered some questions and yakked on a bit, after which we opened the large Parisian cake (I’d bought a large and a small – a good thing with that many folks) and everyone had a piece. We had a couple of late arrivals, too, including more kids and our very own Robert Yacko. We sold some books, I signed them and it was just a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.
After that, several of us went to the Cheesecake Factory three blocks away. I hadn’t been in ages. I was going to have my favorite pasta dish there, the farfalle, even though it’s hugely fattening, but then I saw they had a new (or at least new to me) menu item, fried catfish. Of course, I had to have that, but I had them not put the mashed potatoes and instead had extra corn and green beans. The youngsters were being very funny and quite boisterous, and I ate all my catfish up – it was not the best catfish but it was awfully tasty and I was awfully full.
Then I went back to Mystery and Imagination, signed the remainder of their books, signed the Wall of Authors for the fourteenth time, and headed home with about two-thirds of the second smaller Parisian cake in tow. Once home, I had several things to do on the computer, including answering a bunch of e-mails. I listened to the first five tracks from our next release and they sound great – whilst listening I realized that I didn’t like the track title for the fifth track – I’d been given a choice of two, so I changed it to the other one, which fit it better. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a documentary entitled Girl 27, a rather shocking thing about a young 17-year-old dancer/extra who was raped by an MGM sales person when the MGM sales forces were invited to Hollywood to celebrate their success, back in 1937. The girl went public and took the culprit to court. She’d been found by a parking lot attendant, screaming in the bushes near the Ambassador Hotel and he saw the culprit running away. The culprit was never arrested, never charged and the eyewitness changed his testimony and said he couldn’t identify the culprit – later, it transpired he’d been given a job for life at MGM. MGM, in fact, bought off everyone and the girl was made to seem like a tramp. Just a shameless example of justice not served in Los Angeles, and thwarted by a moneyed and power-crazed movie studio who thought they could get away with anything, which proved true. No one remembered the case until an author, working on a book about Jean Harlow (I think) found an article about it in the paper. He ended up finding the woman, sixty-five years later and alive and living in Las Vegas. He courted her, and wouldn’t give up until she finally allowed herself to be filmed. That part of the documentary is very powerful. But the author/filmmaker is way too much about himself, and he inserts himself into his own documentary way too often, taking away and trivializing the subject. Also, his use of film clips to illustrate the woman’s powerful interviews is rancid and manipulative and, frankly, inane. So, an interesting film but a bit of a botch.
I then watched the first fifteen minutes of another documentary called Crazy Love, about an obsessive love duo in the 1950s – I’m really enjoying that one and will finish it up today.
Prior to all of that, I’d had breakfast with our very own VinTek and his lovely wife.
Today, I have someone coming over to name the last of the track titles – his Blu-ray player isn’t working so he needs to do it here. After that, I’ll go eat something, then I have to relax.
Tomorrow is our first Li’l Abner rehearsal – a table reading of the script. Then on Tuesday the musical director arrives and will begin teaching the songs. We’ll start staging on Thursday. So, it will mostly be an Abner week and I’m sure I’ll be eating a LOT of pancakes at the House of Pies.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, get the last of the track titles, hopefully listen to the rest of the master for our next release, then we can announce it mid-week, eat, 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, after which I shall arise and have way too much fun – or, in plain English, way too much FUN. Here I am having way too much FUN reading Red Gold at the signing.
