Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to George Bassman’s wonderful score to Ride the High Country, one of my all-time favorite westerns. I’m also very tired thanks to another night of four to five hours of sleep. Once I was up, around nine-thirty, I answered e-mails and then began a rather nutty day. Much of it was spent trying to get the pages done for the announcement and even still we’re not quite there because four of the six sample tracks aren’t working, so hopefully by the time I’m up they will be and we’ll immediately go live. PayPal has made it a little confusing as to where to click to purchase, so I’ll put a note on the order page. The pages look good and the two tracks that did work sounded great. We do know the cause of the four that don’t work and it’s because our mastering guy uses some of the foreign symbols on the foreign track titles. Hopefully, all will be well by the time I’m up. I never even dozed off. Then I shaved and showered, got dressed, and then moseyed on over to the Smoke House to sup with an old friend. That was fun – I had a shrimp cocktail and fish and chips. The latter wasn’t as good as usual, but they do have the BEST tartar sauce anywhere. Oops, I sat on the couch like so much fish and went out like a light for ninety minutes. Oops. Now, I must finish these here notes and get them posted and then get to a proper bed in a proper bedroom for proper sleep. Where was I? Oh yes, dinner. The funniest thing is when two gentlemen came in and took the next booth. I recognized one of them right away – Kelly Ward, who appeared in the movie of Grease with Barry Pearl. At some point, I took a photo, ostensibly of my old friend, and sent to Barry. On the way out, I stopped and said to Kelly, “Barry Pearl is watching you.” I told him to check his texts. I had a nice chat with he and his friend. Tony Anselmo, the voice of Donald Duck these days. There’s always someone you know at the Smoke House. I’d gotten street parking but almost four blocks away. I am so out of shape and the pills make me short of breath if to exert, that by the time I got to my car I was heaving like I’d done the L.A. marathon.

I came right home, saw the pages were ready for testing, tested, saw the issues, Doug and I chatted, and hopefully they’ll be fixed by the time I’m up in the morning. That was pretty much it. Nutty and a little boring or perhaps boring and a little nutty.

Today, I’ll be up by ten or eleven at the latest, hopefully we can go live right then, I’ll send out the eBlast and announce everywhere else, including here, and then I have a Zoom meeting at one-thirty with the woman who’ll be producing Applause and we’ll be setting the audition dates, figuring out which positions still need to be filled, and all that stuff. Hopefully, orders will come in, I may or may not go to the mail place, I’ll eat something, I’ll do whatever needs doing, and I will try to watch, listen, and relax.

The rest of the week is getting book files to the publisher (just need the dust jacket files to do so), catching up on other stuff, and getting ready to ship the French How to Succeed on Monday. It should have been today, but they really started late and then the stamper went bad and it had to be redone, so Monday morning it is. I told them very plainly they could not sit on this stuff – that when they had the print and the files, they had to get the stamper made and the thing pressed and packaged.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by ten or eleven at the latest, hopefully have the pre-order pages live, send out the eBlast and announce on Facebook, have a Zoom meeting, maybe go to the mail place, eat, hopefully get lots of orders, do whatever needs doing, 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, hoping the new releases can go live this morning.