Haines His Way

Now, the question is, what shall I do this very day?

Well...It's finally happened.  The technological revolt.  There was a big article in the paper yesterday about people curbing their use of the web, fed up with the influx of virus, spam, and spy-ware invasion and the fact that you need a masters degree to fix these things or spend sometimes more money than the computer cost to have an expert do it.

"2004 was a turning point in a bad direction.  People are getting really angry .  They're angry at Dell and Microsoft and their cable providers and that's appropriate.  They should be."

31% of online shoppers said they were buying less because of security concerns.  US internet users paying for things online barely budged in 2004 from the year earlier.  It rose from 26% to 27% in 2003 after jumping from 20% in 2002.

"If as an industry, we're not able to provide a safe, reliable computing environment, we do think the consumer will get increasingly frustrated."

One consumer who has been consistently ahead in the computer age in purchasing this kind of technology and who finally yanked out his high-speed internet connection said: "It's (the computer) is great for anything you can do on your own.  It seems to me an incredible typewriter -- and that's it."

All this might be a good thing.  Maybe people will actually start getting out in the open air and mingling again and engaging and interacting in life once more...instead of letting their life be dominated by some screen.

Ah, but when I left the site...it was just me and Panni.  Right before that, it was me, Panni, and you...Tomvoz and Jed had already split by then.  

JRand54, is your Half-Price Books one of the chain that emanates out of Dallas?  I know they have been making some excursions in to the midwest.  When I lived in Dallas between '74-'78, the original store was right down the street from me and was magnificent.  I was in Big "D" this past fall to speak to a local screenwriting group there and I went to their new location.  And, Wow! What a store!  Picked up some nice stuff!

...as I get out of the HHW limo at the theater. (There's going to be a limo, right?)

...and a red carpet and Joan and Melissa, too?

I think someone is trying to give me the Gaslight treatment.

I have been a semi-wussburger the past few days.  I have, of course, read all of BK's daily columns, as well as all of the posts.  However, I have posted only a few times, and only when it was something earth-shattering (to me).

I did two school performances of NATIONAL PASTIME on Wednesday, and by the time I got home from the theater, I had come down with the dreaded cold that everyone in the cast and crew (but me) had suffered through in the last two weeks.  Because of this nasty cold, Thursday was a horribly long day at work.  I kept visualizing myself curled up in a ball on top of my desk sleeping the day away.  But no such luck.

Thursday night's performance of NATIONAL PASTIME was an all-time low for me.  I blew lines, garbled speeches, and did lots of paraphrasing just to try to make it through the performance without making Branch Rickey look like a totally moronic idiot.  The rest of the cast was very supportive and kept telling me I was doing fine, but I didn’t believe it for a second.  Unfortunately, Thursday night was also the night that the playwright was in the house.  After the show, I was too sick and too embarrassed by my inept performance to go out front and face the audience and the playwright.  I will, however, have to face the playwright in about three hours when the cast, the playwright, and assorted special guests gather for a public discussion on the play itself, and on race relations in and out of sports, in general.

Last night’s performance was much improved over Thursday’s show.  Other than my over-abundance of saliva during certain long speeches, my biggest gaff was renaming the segregationist term Jim Crow, into the totally ridiculous and nonexistent John Crow.  Hopefully, during the final two performances tonight and tomorrow afternoon, I can bring my performance back up to the level that this work deserves.
 

DR Charles, the Jimmie Rodgers song is readily available on "Best of" collections.  It was the "B" side of "Oh Oh I'm falling In Love Again". Problem in finding Jimmie at Amazon used to be the confusion with the older Jimmie Rodgers and his Railroad/blues songs.
I think the pop'folk "Honeycomb" singer has now been given his middle initial to distinguish the recordings. "Bear Family" discs are all the older Rodgers.

Whew!  What a long, self-indulgent rant.  But where else can I go, but to my HHW family, to pour out the “woe is me” saga of my life?

Tom, we wouldn't want it any other way!

I'm off to do some things.  Keep the home fries burning until my returning.

One more word on the subject - EVERYBODY had bad nights. I'm sure everyone on this site who has worked professionally in the theater can cite instances from personal experence when the greatest of actors were - shall we say - not great.

Td and George-the avatar looks very nice.

Thanks!  Actually, this is kind of fun!  If they don't mind, here is Michael Shayne's redone:

BK, Panni, and George -- Thanks.  I needed that.

And here is ozderek's redone:

no problems DR George.  I wasn't able to get the pic to size the way it should - thanks.

Your right, George, this makes the pictures look much better.

Not quite!  Anyway, here's another version for Michael: