Haines His Way

Sounds like you had a successful interview, DR Jed. I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed for you.

GALAXY QUEST is such a sweet, fun movie. I always thoroughly enjoy it every time I revisit it.

Next up - NIGHTMARE ALLEY.

Now I send GETTING THE JOB vibes to Jed, and to the people who interviewed him.

I love wihen a company sends out a mailing to tell you that for your convenience and in order to give you the best  possible quality they're decreasing their services.  I just got such a notice from Adelphia, my cable provider.  Seems they're adding a few channels but taking away a lot more.  The ones they are adding seem to be most  ESPN sports channels and stuff like Fox Reality...the very thought of which makes my skin crawl.  Most of the stuff we're losing is really stuff I watch but they sounded more interesting...like BMania (bad "B" or C" films) than what's being added.  We are also losing American Life TV (formerly Goodlife channel) which showed all the old Warner detective and cowboy shows like Sunset Strip and Cheyenne, hosted by Nick Clooney.  They are also getting rid of all the Showtime, HBO, and Encore eastern-time feeds, which I quite liked...because if I flip to a movie in the middle, I knew it was going to repeat lately on the west coast or the east coast.

It was hot here in Oakland yesterday.

And I mean hot.

Today, though, is breezy and wonderful and delightful.

Tonight we expect it to be quite cool.

And cooler still tomorrow as some system moves in.

And this system MAY bring us some unseasonal rain, like the two days of rain we had last week, also unseasonal.

The times...they are a-changin'!

I just finished scoring "Panache," and when I get back from my librarians' dinner, I'll look over it to make any minor changes.  About 7 years ago, when I was working on something at Tams-Witmark, I suggested to librarian Dale Kugel that he and our friend Charlie Harman have dinner one night when I was in the Village for a New York city Gay Men's Chorus rehearsal.  This began a second-Monday-of-the-month dinner, and when the Chorus moved rehearsals from the Village to Midtown, we moved the date to the second Tuesday of the month.  Now the music dept. from Rodgers & Hammerstein joins us, the librarian who replaced Dale when he retired, and any other lucky person we invite.   Sometimes it's Jeff Stock who wrote TRIUMPH OF LOVE. maybe Roger Grodsky from the University of cincinnati Conservatory of Music musical theatre dept., and tonight, who knows?  And now to the Village.

DR Jed - Glad to hear the interview went well.  Hope the wait isn't too long and that the outcome is in your favor!

Winter has arrived here.  Snow has been falling on what we dare to call the Australian alps!! (Large hills really - we have no permanent snow line in this country).

Are these near you?  When/if you get "visible" snow, won't you share a photo of same with those of us in the throes of summer???

G'day!

This, my friends, is a LULL!  Will soon be off to our second put-in rehearsal for our new Frank Butler, in preparation for his opening with us Thursday night.

Quiet here in Oz too.
Perhaps I should be playing my Michael Jackson collection.

Does he do inexpensive dental work?

Wasn't Xeno Phobia that amazonian warrior.
It may also be the name of the lead singer of a Ukranian pop group.

Does he do inexpensive dental work?

Any cavities you want filled?

Ha Ha. Just goes to show. I like his Bosom Buddies work the best!

Wardrobe jealousies?

 

The grandlads were fine today.  Very little in the way of squabbles or disobedience.

Their parents, on the other hand, are a couple of blockheads.  Yes, they will do things for the kids, like Little League or Cub Scouts, and PTA.  Well, it's really Mom that does all those things; Dad does the cooking (barely) and goes along with the Little League coaching, but doesn't do it happily.

What they don't do is things with the kids.  During William's "graduation" ceremony, the teacher pitched to the adults that were there that each child is being asked to have a parent read 400 pages of books to him/her over the summer.  There's points for every 25 pages, with 400 as the goal.  The idea is that the parents, reading to the kids, helps the kids get an interest in reading, and that passes on to reading skills.

Well, Mom has declared that she doesn't have the time to read to William.  She just can't be bothered, she has too much else to do.

I sat down with William today, at his request, and read a couple of small books to him, one with eightteen pages, one with eight.  Hey, that's twenty-six pages!  That's the first point, right?  And it took me less than half an hour.  We even read each book through twice (once at a normal speed, the second as fast as I could because that's our special joke).

How they deal with Alex is pretty much along the same lines.  Sure, they'll sign the kids up for summer programs.  No, they don't discuss the programs with the lads in advance, they just plan on the lads being plopped into the programs.  And der Brucer gets to do all the driving, of course.  They were a little shocked when I announced that my job comes first, and that der B will have to do the deliveries on his own.

This may be a very long summer.