Well, dear readers, it’s funny here in Southern California right now. “It” is visiting Southern California and “it” is a laugh riot, that’s all I can say. Why do I do that? What is with me and “it”? That is so annoying – I don’t know, sometimes a sentence just hits me in a weird way and off I go on a tangent. Have you ever been hit by a sentence, especially in a weird way? Sentences can sometimes be very aggressive and violent and when they are, watch out. You see, I just did it again. I’ll stop right now, I promise.
Where was I? Oh, yes, it’s funn here in Southern California right now. The days are hot and sunny and gorgeous, yet the nights get very chilly. For example, last night was so chilly that I decided to have some chili for dinner because I felt it would warm me up. I like having chili on a chilly evening. Especially if it’s good chili. Last night’s chilly was not good chili, however. It was mediocre chile and by the fourth bite I was bored as a cockroach attending a masked ball and if you’ve ever seen a cockroach attending a masked ball you know just how bored I was. Luckily, we’d ordered some appetizers, too, so I just ate those. I went back to the chili a bit later, to see if it was less mediocre, but by then the chili was chilly and worthless.
Yesterday, I attended the 70th Birthday Concert for John Williams at the Dorothy Chandler. It was an entire program of Mr. Williams’ compositions, with special guest star Yo Yo Ma, who brought along his cello. It was a splendid affair. Mr. Williams is the real deal – a great film composer, a great conductor, and his classical music, albeit different than his film music, is wonderful. We had great seats, too, right there in the sixth row. Let’s all click on that Unseemly Button below so we can find out more about this lovely concert.
You know, I’m glad we all clicked on that Unseemly Button, because frankly the Unseemly Button was as bored as a cockroach attending a masked ball. In any case, Mr. Williams and his music were in fine fettle, as was Mr. Yo Yo Ma. I’ve heard him many times on various recordings, but in person he is truly amazing – a performer who commits to the music like Al Jolson commits to a song – he just throws himself into it, gives his all – in other words, Mr. Ma is a showman. I will now have to pick up the new CD by Mr. Williams and Mr. Ma, because it features several of the works heard yesterday, including the beautiful Elegy for Cello and Orchestra. As an encore, Mr. Williams gave the film fans something, Flying from ET. It was a packed house, and there were several standing ovations during the concert, well deserved, in my opinion.
And now, on with the story.
So, after waiting for three months for the internet group I’d made a deal with to go forward, the deal fell through when said internet group were bought by a bigger group who didn’t want to start a label quite this soon, although, that said, they were interested in doing it at some point. I was thoroughly depressed at having lost three months. Once again I contacted the first internet theater site I’d gone to, and once again the fellow said he thought it a brilliant idea and once again no one called back for a week. Then one day I received an e-mail from a person I’d met at one of those ASCAP/Disney workshops I do every year. We’d become friendly over the years and I always saw her and her daughter whenever they visited Los Angeles. I can no longer remember the point of the e-mail, but I responded, and I told her what had been happening and how depressed I was. She wrote back and asked me more about my idea for the record label, asked for more details.
We began to correspond about my ideas and my dreams for my very own record label, and she seemed genuinely interested in it. She asked me to send her the business plan I’d done with the other internet group, which I did. She began to intimate that she and her husband might be interested in helping fund such a venture. I was surprised and delighted by that. They’d invested in some other company, which had turned out to not be such a wonderful thing – the company was supposed to do some of this woman’s projects, and after quite some time, they really hadn’t done much of anything, let alone any of this woman’s projects. They went to that company to see if they would go in on funding the new venture, but after a lot of back-and-forth, one could tell that that simply wasn’t going to happen. We did more business plans, really nailing down how many albums would be produced the first year, what the recording budgets would be for both higher budget (concept albums and vocal albums) and lower budget (jazz, off-Broadway shows) albums would be. While you can never be definitive about these types of budgets (there are always things that are unknowns or that you simply have to estimate, because you can’t know an exact figure), but certainly at Varese, some would go over budget but some would be under budget and it would all basically even itself out. In estimating these recording budgets, I was very clear that they did not include anything but getting the thing recorded and mastered. We figured out what my salary would be – less than I would have gotten with the other internet group, less that what I would have made had I continued on at Varese and, in fact, less than I made at Varese if one took into account my annual bonus. Still, they said that would only be for a short time, that after six months or so, we could go up to what I really wanted. I would run the company, make all artistic decisions and make certain that the website and everything reflected my personality. One of the things that made this attractive was that I had a really good reputation and a lot of fans – I’d gotten much wonderful press during the Varese years and I continued to get much wonderful fan mail (unusual for a producer, I think).
All this was going on during the month of March, 2000. We talked about trying to launch is September, which I found scary and exciting. Another thing I made very clear was that I wanted nothing to do with anything financial in terms of the running of the company. I did not want to sign checks, see books, nothing – the financial end of a company is not my forte and doesn’t much interest me other than knowing the facts of how things are selling and a general overview of how we’re doing. I recommended David Levy to run the company financially and from a business standpoint – he’d been my intern the year before, and I felt he was very organized, plus he was about to graduate from Harvard (business major), plus he loved the musical theater and had a lot of passion and energy for what I was trying to do. After they spoke to him, they agreed. Finally, at the end of the month they had me fly down to Louisiana, where they lived. We would discuss everything in detail, and I would also look through this woman’s various projects and give opinions and notes, which I did. At the end of that weekend, the decision was made that they would fund the company, but not really have anything to do with the day-to-day running of it. They sent me home with my first month’s paycheck and we were off and running. The following week, David and I began to have daily phone meetings and we made plans and began to look for a website designer. I also began to think about what albums to start with. We were all operating on good feelings and trust and based on the good feelings and trust I made several errors in judgment, which would come back to haunt me later. To be continued.
I do hope that this story is interesting, because I wouldn’t want you to be bored as cockroaches attending a masked ball. No, that would be unseemly. We still have had very few guesses to our Unseemly Trivia Contest question – if you missed the question or the weekend notes, do click on the Unseemly Archive Button to catch up. Yesterday’s notes has some clarifications on the question, and even a clue. Don’t forget to check out Donald’s new radio show while you’re at it.
I got the first proof of the cover of my very own book. Not quite right yet, but it’s definitely going to look swell when they make a few adjustments.
Well, dear readers, I must go pick up the tape of Diana Canova’s interview for the documentary on the making of The First Nudie Musical. Nick Redman tells me he will be finished with his rough version by tomorrow. Then all that will be left is to finalize it, add the music and titles and wipes and dissolves and then it will be finished. Isn’t that exciting? Certainly I’m as excited as a cockroach in a box of Wheaties. Wait a minute – isn’t that a Hinky Meltz and Ernest Ernest song? I’ll check it out and let you know.