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December 27, 2001:

THE ROUND UP

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, not that anyone is counting, but there are a mere four days until the new year is upon us. Now, I know you are all out there scratching your collective heads, thinking “Wait a fershluganah minute, yesterday he said it was eight days until the new year is upon us”. And I will admit freely and clearly and also clearly and freely that that is indeed what I said yesterday. Oh, I could go in and, in Orwellian fashion, change what I said yesterday, simply edit what I said yesterday and act as if I’d never said it, but I don’t do that sort of thing. I leave that sort of Orwellian behavior to others, whoever they may be. So, yesterday, why did I say eight days, and today why am I saying four days? Well, I’ll tell you why, because you have a right to know. Yesterday I said eight days because the night before I’d eaten too much noodle kugel. There you have it, blame it on the noodle kugel, or blame it on the bossa nova, but I’m not taking the rap, baby. First off, I hate rap so why should I take the fershluganah rap. In any case, I’ve now decided that it’s a mere four days until the new year, and I decided this because last night I ate scalloped potatoes, roast beef and salad, and that sort of comforting meal allows one’s head to be on straight. Noodle kugel does not allow one’s head to be on straight, therefore blame this whole damn thing on the noodle kugel, the bossa nova or even on Rio. I’d say blame it on my youth, but we all know that would be gilding the lily. I tried gilding my Aunt Lily once, but she wasn’t having any of it. She simply did not wish to be gilded and that was that. You may be wondering how I arrived at my “four days until the new year” figure. Well, click that Unseemly Button below and you’ll find out how I arrived at that figure in short order.

I started counting from tomorrow, since we’re already in the midst of today. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday = four days.

Given that there are only four days until the new year, today I shall start my look back at things musical from the year 2001. I will be relying on memory here, so there may be a lapse or two. Before I begin, however, let me just say I had a lovely dinner with my friends Richard and Margaret Jones and their very tall son, Ben. I’ve known the Jones’ since I cast Margaret in my second film, The Creature Wasn’t Nice (aka Spaceship, aka Naked Space) way back in 1981. Margaret was very helpful to me this year, because she was the person who I let read my book as it was being written, and she was so supportive and positive and helpful that it gave me the courage to continue and to actually finish it in the midst of some pretty disgusting events. One couldn’t have asked for a better friend, and she was very honest and forthright and was incredibly generous with her comments and her love for the book. In any case, it was her usual homey meal, and as an added delight we had Mr. Gary Owens and his lovely wife Arlita there as well. I’ve been a huge fan of Mr. Owens since his Laugh-In days, and he was delightful company and we all had a splendid time.

I saw a lot of shows this year, many of them entertaining, some not so, and some downright not good at all. I didn’t see anything that I’d say was earth-shattering. Of course I saw The Producers, which I felt was a ton of fun, very old-fashioned, but filled with something that is very rare these days on Broadway – real fall out of your seat laughs. That’s what worked best about the show for me, the scenes and the laughs. The music and lyrics were okay (Springtime for Hitler a lot better than okay), the numbers were all fun to watch, but it was the construction of the book and the great cast playing that book that was the real joy for me. The leads were, as you’d expect, excellent, but for me it was the supporting cast who really took the evening, especially Gary Beach and Roger Bart.

The biggest disappointment for me because I have always thougth it had great promise, was Time and Again, from the novel of Jack Finney. I saw the show at the Old Globe several years ago, and thought that a lot of Skip Kennon’s score was really superb, some of the best stuff I’d heard in ages. But I felt the book by Jack Viertel was a mess and unless they fixed it the show would have no chance. I spoke to Mr. Kennon at length about it, and the attitude (which may have been my perception) seemed to be, hey we know what we’re doing, we know what the problems are. But, as he told me what they were changing, I could tell that they didn’t really know what the problems were at all. I told him what I felt and that was that. I was surprised to see that its New York engagement was going to take place at the Manhattan Theater Club instead of Broadway, as Time and Again is not an intimate musical, it’s not subject matter is not intimate. I knew that subsequent to its San Diego run it had had some more workshops with several different directors. In any case, I went to see it with hopes high. Unfortunately, the minute I heard the two pianos trying to play Mr. Kennon’s very orchestral music, I knew it was not going to work. I could see that they’d tried to address what my biggest problem with the original production had been, which was the opening. But they didn’t get it right, they sort of gave the lead character a half a song which didn’t say the right things, and then, to make it worse, they added this Twilight Zonish ridiculous plot device which made the whole musical a mockery of the book. As if that weren’t bad enough, they cut one of my favorite songs, A Fairy Tale Life, which I felt was the only number in the score that truly captured the magic of the book’s hero being back in the New York of the late 1800s. The cast was okay, but everything else about the production just didn’t work at all. I was truly sad by the end of it, because I basically knew it was the end of the road for something that had started out with the potential to be a huge hit. It seems Mr. Viertel never really understood the book he was adapting, and he should have stepped aside and let a seasoned writer come in to help. They kept trying to put band-aids on things, rather than addressing the bigger issues, the biggest of which was the opening of the show. I kept telling Mr. Kennon if they didn’t give us a number in which we understand Si Morley’s motivation for being not so thrilled with the world he’s living in, and why he’d be susceptible to going back in time, then there was no show. One simply didn’t care about Si Morley because one never really knew what his deal was. It’s all there in the book. Still and all, there is Mr. Kennon’s beautiful score, and I still say it contains some of the best theater music I’ve heard in the last twenty years, including the powerful “She Dies”, the gorgeous title song, and several other truly lovely pieces. And, of course, the cut song A Fairy Tale Life which I can still sing the tune of to this very day.

What am I, Ken Mandelbaum all of a sudden? That’s enough of that, at least for today. Tomorrow I’ll talk about the revival of Follies and a couple of off-Broadway shows.

I’m saving my other exciting news until the first of the new year. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be exciting things in this here column until then, no, we will have exciting things aplenty. We will have our annual New Year’s Eve party, and you’re all invited to share in the festivities, and we will have ham chunks and cheese slices galore, and we will all sit or stand like so much fish, and we will party hearty and, if we’re feeling up to it, we will also hearty party. We will wear our festive pointy hats and have confetti and champagne and we will toast in the new year with actual toast. Oh, what fun we shall all have with our merry-making and wild behavior. You will have a grand time of it, but if, for some reason, you don’t, you can just blame it on the fershluganah bossa nova. I blame everything on the bossa nova, frankly, although the bossa nova certainly has never blamed me for anything, and, in fact, has only been kind to me. I think the bossa nova has gotten a bum rap over the years, and if you’ve ever heard a bum rap you know how heinous (heinous, do you hear me?) that is. I heard a bum rap the other day. It went something like this:

I’m a bum and I’m a rapper
And I’m really in the crapper
Drop some coins on me brother
If you don’t well you’re a motherer,
Motherer, and sucker,
What the hell’s with all those stars???
I’m spewing curse words
But there are worse words
Like nt and at and *ck and *tie
Yeah, I know it isn’t pretty
And what the hell’s with all those stars???
I’m swearing, I’m swearing
But all my words are wearing
Stars… Stupid ing stars,
What’s with all the stars???
When I say ck I want to see ck
But all I see is ck
And that’s no way to play
I need a drink, I cannot think
I’m seeing stars,
Let’s go to bars
Get drunk and find someone to
me till I *
Hey, what’s with all the stars??? They’re just so ing dumb
Let’s cut the crap
And end this rap.

My goodness, that really was a bum rap, wasn’t it? I hope that no one with tender ears was too offended, but just remember, it was an authentic bum rap and should be read with a grain of salt. Yes, if you read it with a grain of salt it is then put in its proper perspective. If not, try a grain of paprika. Frankly, I thought that bum rap was spicky enough.

Well, dear readers, these notes have truly been all over the map today, and I especially enjoyed being in Spain and Italy. Tomorrow perhaps we’ll be all over the map again and can visit France and Pacoima.


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