Well, dear readers, continuing the F, now playing is the very lovely music of a not well-known composer named Frederic d’Erlanger, a French composer from France. I think I discovered him while nosing around the Tube of You. Thankfully, there are three jam-packed CDs of his musique, which is tonal and haunting and even beautiful. I remember hearing this stuff back whenever it was and being entranced enough to buy the three CDs, two on the Hyperion label and one on Dutton Vocalian. It’s on YouTube if you care to check it out, which I always recommend. Otherwise, I just had some clam chowder and a teeny-tiny Caesar salad with not enough dressing. All pills have been taken. And I did manage to watch a new documentary last night, this one about the actor Michael Parks, someone on the road to stardom who was apparently difficult and who walked away from his TV series, Then Came Bronson, which he did after appearing in The Bible and Bus Riley’s Back in Town. After that, he was blacklisted in Hollywood and didn’t work for a while, until he began getting roles in episodic TV and TV movies, low-budget films, sometimes with major stars, sometimes not. And then suddenly he was the darling of the usual suspects – Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, and others like that. Michael Parks was always interesting and clearly came in knowing what he wanted to do and would not be dissuaded from doing it. I always enjoyed him, and, in fact, he appears in the thriller I took over the direction of, although he’d already completed his scenes the first week of filming, before the original director was fired and I came on board to finish the film. His performance in the film makes little sense, but then the entire film makes little sense. I kind of wish I’d called him back to do some more scenes, just for the fun of it. And, for me, it WAS fun working with the old-timers – Susan Strasberg, Doug McClure, Frank Stallone, Billy Drago, and Robert Lyons – all were easy to work with and we all had a good time because we all knew the script was horrible. I did rewrite a few things, but there was no saving the idiotic plot and characters, other than having some fun with them. Of course, all that is covered at length in Directed by. Anyway, lots of Kevin Smith, a filmmaker I cannot stand, Robert Rodriguez (director of The Faculty), Mark Frost (producer of Twin Peaks), but NOT Mr. Tarantino. Wish they’d talked to Ann-Margret – maybe they tried and she said no.
Prior to all that, I got exactly three hours of sleep, got up at seven thanks to both the jackhammering across the street – relentless – and the moving men moving the fellow out of the back house. I tried to go back to bed, but every time I tried there was more noise. I decided for food to have the orange chicken extra crispy again along with the small portion of Kung Pao chicken. It arrived pretty quickly. As always seems to happen, the day chef is not the night chef and apparently perhaps didn’t understand EXTRA CRISPY writ large. It wasn’t mushy or anything, but extra crispy it was not. The Kung Pao wasn’t to my liking at all and the majority of it went into the trash.
I did a lot of catching up, couldn’t really leave due to the moving truck blocking the driveway – I do believe he’s completely out of there now. Too bad – he was a good guy and always very helpful. I don’t think ol’ Grant will have an easy time trying to get the kind of dough he was charging this guy, but we’ll have to see. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish and immediately fell asleep for a couple of hours. Once up, I had a couple of sweets and took pill two and Prednisone and Folic Acid. Then I watched the documentary.
After that, I ordered some clam chowder and a tiny Caesar and that arrived in due time. Soup was of its usual excellence, Caesar didn’t have enough dressing. Took pill three and then listened to musique.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up (I really need a good night’s sleep), then it’s another ME day and not even going to guess what I’ll do for food – many options – but mostly, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, she of the Evil Eye comes – I hate when she can’t stick to the regular schedule, which is Tuesday, so I’ll have to leave early, have some food, and then come back around eleven-thirty. This week is mostly getting tracks for the play and routining the songs for act two. The good news is we got the stage manager from Drat! The Cat! and we all loved working with him, so now it’s just a lighting designer and locking in the sound guy, who I’ll talk to later in the week. And I’m really hoping to hear about the missing hard drive and praying the news is good – I’ll send a follow-up e-mail tomorrow. On Friday, I have a Zoom with the neurologist for a progress report on the pills. Last night, for the first time in over a year, I looked up, I looked down, I looked left, I looked right and – no double vision. It’s not perfectly clear yet, but close and so nice not to see two images of the same thing.
Let’s all put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, let’s all break out the cheese slices and the ham chunks, let’s all dance the Hora or the Square Dance, for today is the birthday of our very own Singdaw. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to our very own Singdaw. On the count of three one, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO OUR VERY OWN SINGDAW!!!
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, have a ME day, eat, and watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, knowing now not to order orang chicken extra crispy at any time other than the evening. No day chefs for me.