haines his way

03/01/2002:
"CRAB CAKES IN TARZANA"

Well, dear readers, I got a beautiful night's sleep last night. Nine hours of sleep. I haven't done that in quite some time. I had a massage, took a hot shower and then fell into bed like a wet noodle. I was asleep instantly and only got up once during the night. Unfortunately, a side effect of sleeping that long is that I woke up with a headache (this has always happened when I sleep for more than eight hours). But the headache, I'm happy to say, is on the wane. Yes, dear readers, you heard it here, the headache is on the wane. I once had a headache in Spain, but that headache was not on the wane because the wane in Spain stays mainly on the plain. And so does the pain. Especially when doing the mambo. I don't know about you, dear readers, but I've always got the pain when I do the mambo. Apparently I had just a wee bit too much sleep last night and this paragraph is the result.
Anyone who tuned into these here notes after two yesterday, knows what I've discovered. For those who didn't, I will mention it again. I was nosing around the website of the company that's publishing my very own novel. If you go to www.1stbooks.com, immediately click on "book search". Then type in Kimmel for author and Benjamin Kritzer for book. When the next page comes up, immediately click on "Benjamin Kritzer: A Novel" and you will be whisked away to Mybookland, where you will see an almost finished version of the cover (the title treatment font is being changed and the title treatment layout and color will be different). Then you can read "About the Book", you can read "About the Author" and cooler than cool, you can read a "preview" of the book, for they've printed the entire prologue. I was very excited when I discovered this yesterday - so excited that I immediately danced the Mambo and got the pain. A few of our very own dear readers have already been there and read and posted very nice things.
Speaking of pain, if we don't click on that extremely silly Unseemly Button below, we will all experience a bitch-slapping from Mr. Mark Bakalor and we don't want that, now do we?
I'll bet if we used the handy-dandy unseemly Search box (it's been used quite a bit lately - as you might imagine) and searched "Unseemly Button" that those two words would get more hits than anything else you could enter.
Tonight I will be having Crab Cakes in Tarzana. Isn't that exciting? Apparently, this restaurant I'm being taken to is known for their Crab Cakes. I am a fan of Crab Cakes, and whenever I see them I instantly yell, "Go Crab Cakes!" I do hope they don't mind that sort of thing in Tarzana - they shouldn't, because Tarzana, of course, was the home of Mr. Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the city was named for his creation, Tarzan, who had quite a yell of his own. Now, wait just a darned minute. Excuse me for a moment.
I knew it, I knew it, I knew it (that is three "I knew its") - I knew it sounded familiar. Crab Cakes in Tarzana is a Hinky Meltz and Ernest Ernest song. I just played through it on my handy-dandy piano, and it's wonderful. It's got a lazy Latin feel, which, if you've ever felt a lazy Latin, is really nice. Here it is.
CRAB CAKES IN TARZANA Music by Hinky Meltz Lyrics by Ernest Ernest
I was all alone,
I was feeling blue.
I was moping, yet always hoping
That I'd meet someone who
Liked...
Crab Cakes in Tarzana,
Swordfish in Montclair.
Burgers in Pomona
Join me - I'll be there.
I want to meet a sweet companion
Who wants to eat their meals with me.
I want to greet my sweet companion
While we dine on shark in Canoga Park
Crab Cakes in Tarzana,
Sushi in LA
Meet me in Encino
For a cheese souflee.
I want to find the kind of soulmate
Who loves to eat the way I do.
I wouldn't mind the kind of soulmate
Who'd eat Fries and Cokes while in Sherman Oaks
Oh,
Crab Cakes in Tarzana,
Shrimp at Venice Beach.
All those meals to share
Going everywhere
Is there a someone just for me?
Oh, if we could plan a
Date for Crab Cakes in Tarzana
How happy I would be.
Such longing, such heart, and with that lazy Latin feel. Don't forget, tomorrow is our Unseemly Trivia Contest, and Donald has a great new radio show going up Sunday evening (he'll post about it here - but it's really fun, with a fun interview, too).
Well, I must be on my merry way - sorry for the brevity of the notes, but we did get a late start this morning. However, they do say that brevity is the soul of wit. Frankly, I always thought that soul was the wit of brevity. Or was it, wit was the brevity of soul? Oh, now I'm dazed and confused about brevity, soul and wit and who did what to whom. Let's all ponder the mysteries of brevity, soul and wit as we go about our daily routines. Today's daily routine, by the way, is Who's on First.
Oh, yes, topic of discussion: What film have you seen the most times? Not on video - in other words, what film have you gone out to a movie theater to see the most times? My record is probably a tie between The Court Jester and The High and the Mighty, both of which I saw over fifteen times in movie theaters (I made everyone I knew take me to them over and over again - sometimes seeing them twice in one day).

Replies: 15 Unseemly Comments

"Auntie Mame", several times. Not "Mame", which was torturous just sitting through once.
Posted by Scot Morehouse @ 03/01/2002 10:13 AM PST

That would have to be a tie between Sound of Music and Mary Poppins when I was a kid. Of course, in those days, movies played for many many months which made multiple viewings more feasible.
Posted by Phil Crosby @ 03/01/2002 10:16 AM PST

next week's Broadway Radio Show will be up Sunday afternoon and it's a fun one....we talk to Tammy Minoff of Broadway's "The Will Rogers Follies" and "The Goodbye Girl" all about growing up in Broadway musicals...at the same time we listen to some memorable Broadway kids from shows like "Golden Rainbow," "Henry, Sweet Henry," "Bye Bye Birdie" and many more!
Posted by Donald @ 03/01/2002 10:32 AM PST

Well, having grown up in the video age, not to mention the age of ridiculous ticket prices at the movie theaters (I'm 22), I've never been too prone to attend multiple viewings at the theater. Therefore, my record would go to "As Good As It Gets," which I saw a mere 3 times on the biggie. Only other time I remember returning to the theater to see something was "Moulin Rouge" twice this past summer.
Posted by Jed @ 03/01/2002 10:57 AM PST

I was involved in theatre every summer from 11 to my last year in college, so I didn't have the time to go more than a few times to anything. Besides, I grew up on the "Million Dollar Movie," where you could see "The Jolson Story" or "Yankee Doodle Dandy" as many as nine times in one week. Boy, did I memorize a lot of movies. But prior to the age of 11, I went to the kid's matinees quite a few times to see Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney in "Stop! Look! and Laugh!" (a 3 Stooges compilation) and "The Boy and the Pirates" (with some cute blonde girl I had a crush on).
Posted by Robert Armin @ 03/01/2002 11:07 AM PST

I saw "The Shining" in the theater 17 times, each time dragging a friend or two along for the ride. I had read and loved the book, but I also loved the film and the fact that Kubrick could scare you for such a long period of time. And the music is amazing.
Posted by Dave in the Valley... @ 03/01/2002 11:12 AM PST

Having grown up before the video age, I used to go to movie theatres a lot. Nowadays, Joe and I are so cheap we don't even rent videos, but wait till the movie gets to SHO or HBO and tape it. Funny how we were freeer (or is it freeeer?) with our money when we were poor.
But back to the theatre. When I was an impoverished graduate student in Madison WI, I visited a college friend (Steve Alfin, where are you now?) in New York and he wanted to drag me to some science fiction movie that had pictures of men on the moon on the subway posters. Being a serious fan of written science fiction with a disdain for "sci-fi" movies, I attended reluctantly.
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was something of a religious experience for me (although my fundamentalist parents thought it was anti-religion, because it featured--gasp!--evolution). I next saw it in Milwaukee and made a point of trying to see it in as many cities as I could. I think I eventually tallied up 16, including Dallas, San Jose, and an ocean liner somewhere off the coast of Somalia.
Viewing it today, it is interesting that the special effects hold up surprisingly well, except for the star trip near the end which looks entirely hokey instead of goshwow like it did in the sixties.
It's sad, though, to realize that it's 2002 and we are just barely beginning to put together a functional space station. We could have had one years ago if it had been more important than slaughtering Vietnamese and investigating Presidents' oral trysts.
Posted by William F. Orr @ 03/01/2002 11:50 AM PST

Well, I am also a child of the video age. I suppose my record is three for The Others.
Posted by Lolita @ 03/01/2002 03:37 PM PST

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW: but, I only paid twice (the first time I saw it, and at a convention in Hempstead, NY). Because I was Brad 'Asshole' Majors for a Pittsburgh company of RHPS Players for nearly two years, I saw the movie twice a week for close to 104 weeks, which takes the RHPS total up to 208!
THE SOUND OF MUSIC: Eleven times in its roadshow engagement alone, then at those great old three-a-day showings on weekends. Not to mention every time it showed up at a repertory house.
LAST TANGO IN PARIS: I've lost count as to how many times I saw this before the advent of home video; but each time, I'd take someone new with me, who hopefully would come out of it with the same feelings I always did.
CHINATOWN: the "date" movie from my high school days; the "date" movie from my freshman year in college - I think that my sophomore year in college, the "date" movie (for me) became DEATH IN VENICE.
Posted by td @ 03/01/2002 09:31 PM PST

Having worked at the historic Alex Theater in Glendale, Ca., where the Wechter celebration is to be held, I guiltily have to admit I saw "Exorcist II: The Heretic" an unseemly number of times. It was enough to make a grown man want to throw up, and Richard Burton looked very much like he repeatedly just had. Much more pleasurable was Richard Lester's "The Three Musketeers: The Queen's Diamonds." I insisted all my friends see the film, and went with each and every one of them. Most people don't seem to remember that 3M had the subtitle. The other film was subtitled "Milady's Revenge." That's for those of you who enjoy trivia.
Posted by SWoodyWhite @ 03/02/2002 01:35 AM PST

Clarification: The second half of "Three Musketeers" was subtitled "Milady's Revenge." "The Exorcist II: The Heretic" by no stretch of the imagination could in any way be subtitled "Milady's Revenge." The pea-soup gag had, after all, been used up in the first "Exorcist" film.
Posted by SWoodyWhite @ 03/02/2002 01:38 AM PST

Movies in theatres? "The Music Man," "101 Dalmatians," (the original animated version) "Friends" (with music by Elton John- that is if drive-ins are included) and Woody Allen's "Play It Again, Sam" ( I related, what can I say?)
Posted by kerry @ 03/04/2002 09:24 PM PST

How amazing! Mine is a tie between The Court Jester and What's New, Pussycat? The only other person I know who has even seen The Court Jester once is my sister Hazel who, of course, was with me most of those eight times. And now there's youl Isn't it the most wonderful movie! Life couldn't possibly be . . . .
Posted by Jane Gorsi @ 07/03/2002 02:15 PM PST

How amazing! Mine is a tie between The Court Jester and What's New, Pussycat? The only other person I know who has even seen The Court Jester once is my sister Hazel who, of course, was with me most of those eight times. And now there's youl Isn't it the most wonderful movie! Life couldn't possibly be . . . .
Posted by Jane Gorsi @ 07/03/2002 02:19 PM PST

How amazing! Mine is a tie between The Court Jester and What's New, Pussycat? The only other person I know who has even seen The Court Jester once is my sister Hazel who, of course, was with me most of those eight times. And now there's youl Isn't it the most wonderful movie! Life couldn't possibly be . . . .
Posted by Jane Gorsi @ 07/03/2002 02:19 PM PST

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