Well, dear readers, tomorrow I am having luncheon with someone I haven’t seen in close to forty years, a direct result of classmates.com. She is the only person, thus far, to respond (out of the four people that I wrote). It’s not that the other people haven’t responded, it’s that they haven’t even picked up their classmates.com e-mail. I find that very peculiar indeed. They sign up, they list their names, and they do this presumably to show people they are around and maybe they even hope someone will write. As you may or may not know, it is free to put your name on classmates.com but it is not free to actually e-mail someone – you must become a Gold Member to actually e-mail. It doesn’t cost very much to do that – however, you do not have to be a member or pay to respond to e-mail, and that’s why I find it weird that these other people haven’t even read what’s been written. They are notified immediately when there is an e-mail waiting for them, and a link is provided for them to go immediately to it. I’ve been written to a couple of times, and I go immediately to see who it is – why wouldn’t I? I feel I shall have to bitch-slap these people from here to eternity. In any case, tomorrow I’m having luncheon with Wendy Stuart, who was in drama class with me in high school. Wendy was yet another child actress who had starred in a low-budget fifties film entitled The Littlest Hobo. She told me that one of her strongest memories is she and I sitting together in drama, practicing signing our autographs. Isn’t that funny? Isn’t that just too too? Of course, I shall have a full report for you on Wednesday.
I have unearthed a couple of really obscure Meltz and Ernest songs (like all their songs aren’t obscure – where is the justice, I ask you) which I’ll be printing a little later this week. I feel we have gone far too long without a Meltz and Ernest song, don’t you, dear readers? Since we do have a couple of new dear readers, if you’ve somehow missed the delightful ditties of Meltz and Ernest, just use our handy-dandy search box and off you will be whisked to see samples of their marvelous work.
Wasn’t yesterday lazy? Normally, I always have stuff to write about from the previous day – but I was so lazy I simply didn’t do anything worth telling you about. Here’s how lazy I was: I sat on my couch like so much fish and started to watch five different DVDs, yet couldn’t get the energy to finish any of them. I watched approximately ten minutes of each. They all looked like fine motion pictures and I will be finishing each and every one of them, believe you me. I then got in the car to drive somewhere and I ended up driving around the block and coming home, that’s how lazy I was yesterday. Then I decided to jog. I jogged about four blocks and stopped, as I was simply too lazy continue. I walked the rest of the way. I did do a bit of writing yesterday, so at least I had the energy for that.
The point is that on Monday there is sometimes very little to write about. It’s the beginning of the week, you see, and things have yet to happen. Well, I shall vamp, you see. I shall vamp in a bouncy “C”, a sprightly 2/4 show vamp. I shall never actually get to the tune, you see, I shall merely vamp until ready, and I won’t be ready until tomorrow’s notes. In other words, this vamp will keep repeating until I have something to say.
In the meantime, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below just for a sprightly change of pace?
Has anyone noticed that I am vamping until ready? I am, and will continue to do so for the simple reason that I am simply not ready. One must vamp until ready and I am not ready. Helen may be ready but I am not.
Perhaps I should tell the story of The Randy Vicar and the Cigar. Oh, that is a droll story. And yet I cannot tell that droll story because I am vamping until ready.
Oh, perhaps I should just get down to brass tacks and write about something. “Down to brass tacks”. Is there any way a sane mind could have come up with that expression? Let’s get down to brass tacks. What, for example, if we wanted to get down to aluminum tacks? Or even gold tacks. We couldn’t because the expression is brass tacks. How do you get down to brass tacks, even presuming you have some brass tacks laying around somewhere? Do you sprinkle the brass tacks on the floor then bend down? Is that how you get down to brass tacks? Or do you do the Hully Gully while staring at the brass tacks – maybe that’s how you “get down” to brass tacks. What’s with the fershluganah brass tacks, that’s what I’d like to know? Well, I’m not getting down to brass tacks and that’s all there is to it – I’m not even getting up to brass tacks, that’s how strongly I feel about this whole brass tacks issue.
Perhaps I should tell the story of The Randy Vicar and the Moose from Minnesota. Oh, that is a droll story. And yet I cannot tell that droll story because I am vamping until ready.
Clearly I am vamping until ready and clearly I am not ready so clearly I should just end these here notes right here and now and also right now and here. Clearly I should open the floor for discussion. Of course if I do that then we shall all fall through the floor into an abyss. I don’t know about you, dear readers, but I’d rather miss the abyss. Today’s topic of discussion: There have been many great Broadway musical vamps over the years – think the great vamp that precedes One from A Chorus Line, think the vamp that precedes the main portion of All I Care About Is Love from Chicago, or think about the one of the most famous vamps ever written (albeit for a film song), New York, New York. Those vamps instantly identify the songs they precede. What are your all-time favorite musical vamps? I’ll start: the vamp for Together, Wherever We Go (Jule Styne was a master of the vamp), the vamp for All That Jazz (very simple but brilliant), the vamp for Another Hundred People (don’t tell me Sondheim can’t write a vamp – I also love the haunting vamp for Not a Day Goes By), the vamp for Big Spender, and on and on. Your turn.