Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Bernard Herrmann’s chilling and moody score for The Night Digger, a film about a night digger. This is a re-release and new mastering, and it does sound better than the previous release. I’ve never actually seen the film, which stars Patricia Neal, Pamela Brown, and Nicholas Clay and it has a screenplay by Roald Dahl, who, at the time, was married to Miss Neal. I really must try to see it. This is the first music I’ve listened to whilst writing these here notes in weeks. I worked with Miss Neal on the anthology series, Ghost Story (title later changed to Circle of Fear) in early 1972. The episode was directed by well-known Brit director Robert Day and written by well-known Brit Jimmy Sangster. I only had a couple of scenes, and only did it because my little scene was with Patricia Neal. She’d recovered from her strokes but was still shaky and nervous about lines. She came to me and asked if it would be okay to run lines. I said as many times as you’d like. I really liked her, and she really liked me. I would like to have met her co-star, Craig Stevens, but he wasn’t shooting on my shoot days. My first day was on location in the Valley at the Sportsman’s Lodge, where my brother had had his Bar Mitzvah party. My scene was shot on the Columbia Sunset Gower lot, even though the imdb says it was filmed at Warner Bros. I could, of course, check my Day Runner for that year. Anyway, ours was the last episode aired before they changed the title to Circle of Fear. I seem to have gone off on a tangent. Let me get back on track, so to speak. Yesterday was a long and winding day. I got up at eight and was out the door by eight-thirty. I joined Robert Yacko for a nice breakfast – I had eggs benedict – and that was fun. Then I had an eleven o’clock meeting at Jinky’s and that was fun, too. I got home at noon-thirty. Then I futzed and finessed, which didn’t take quite as long as usual, which was a good thing. Then I wrote seven pages, took a little break, had a couple of telephonic calls, had some Dave’s Hot Chicken, about which more in a minute, and then I wrote four more pages for a total eleven.
But first, a word from our sponsor, Dave’s Hot Chicken. I do not understand this obsession with hot chicken and especially Dave’s Hot Chicken. It’s okay, but always tastes weird to me. I had the little sandwich and one tender – I just don’t get it. There, I’ve said it and I’m glad. People go nuts for it. All those idiots who do mukbang video (eating in cars) LOVE it. It has good crunch. What doesn’t have good crunch when you have the microphone implanted in your mouth? Anyway, I’ve tried it twice – fool me twice and you will NOT fool me a third time. No way, no how, not necessarily in that order. I took a three-hour break, dozing on and off on the couch and watching a few YouTube videos. Then I wrote four more pages, for a total of fifteen pages. And here we are.
Today, I’ll be up by ten, I’ll futz and finesse then send Muse Margaret about fifty pages. Then I’ll mosey on over to the doctor’s office in Beverly Hills for the blood draw. That shouldn’t take too long, and I hope to be back by two-thirty or three. Then I’ll write some new pages and I need to start cutting and pasting the commentary, which I’m hoping won’t take too long. I’ll eat something, write more new pages and hopefully when I’m through with the day’s writing I’ll be just shy of 200 pages. From there, I think it will just be another forty pages or so, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. Then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow will be our first Kritzerland rehearsal, so I’ll try to futz and finesse before it begins at eleven. That doesn’t finish until three-thirty and then I will immediately begin writing new pages and hope I can get at least ten done if not a few more. Then Friday I can write for most of the day. Saturday is our second rehearsal from eleven to three-thirty, Sunday is a ME day, Monday is our stumble-through at five-thirty, and Tuesday is sound check and show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by ten, futz and finesse, have a blood draw, come home, eat, write, cut and paste commentary, 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, where I shall try to answer the age old question of – why hot chicken?