Well, dear readers, as the cock crows it’s the beginning of a brand spanking new week. I ask you, where else on all the Internet can you read such a sentence? Nowhere, that’s where. As The Cock Crows – isn’t that a soap opera on NBC? I have quite a bit to do today so I may as well get through these here notes so I can get my beauty rest before the cock crows and I have to arise. We had some amusing goings on around these here parts over the weekend, so if you missed the notes or the posts or even the posts or the notes, do check them out. One thing I forgot to mention about the weekend was my two visits to neighbor Terry Trotter’s home environment. We’ve begun trying to map out our culminating CD in the Sondheim/jazz series we’ve done. We’d always planned to do one final “wrap-up” album where we covered at least one song from all the shows we didn’t do. We’re just starting to pick the material, but I’d made two suggestions right off the bat and, as always, Terry didn’t think they’d work. This always happens. Then I go away, he calls a few days later, very excited, and I go over and hear what he’s done – and it’s always incredible. So, this weekend I got to hear his amazing take on Agony from Into The Woods, and Finishing The Hat from Sunday In The Park With George. I cannot tell you the joy of just sitting and basking in the magic that is Terry Trotter – we’re have a true bond, artistically, and I have an unerring sense of which songs will work for him. I’m bringing some more music to him this week and we’ll see where we go from here. We’re going to try and record before the end of the year or right after the first, and we’re going to try and do a major concert event to launch the CD, either here or in New York, New York. I will, of course, keep you posted.
Yesterday, I puttered around the house, doing a little of this and a little of that and vice versa and also versa vice. Then I toddled off to the Thousand Oaks where I attended a performance of Aida, directed by my pal Bill Ewing’s son, Blake, as his thesis project for UCLA. Blake formed a youth theatre group to perform the show, and it was performed in a four hundred seat theater in the Thousand Oaks performing arts center. The cast (which included both Blake and his dad) gave their all, and several of them had very strong voices (Blake got his start in the LA company of Ragtime, playing the young boy). He kept the show moving right along. This was my first time seeing Aida, and, I must say, it will be my last. If you are a fan of Aida, you might just want to skip ahead to the Unseemly Button below. This show is everything I have come to loathe about the current state of musical theatre. The songs are wretched beyond compare, the book doesn’t know whether it wants to be serious or kitsch (whatever it wants, it’s the latter that wins), and it’s just a long and lumbering albatross of a show. I’m sure the Broadway production was opulent and large, but that wouldn’t make the show itself any better. The fact that this thing could run for two years or however long it ran, just says so much about the Disney organization and people’s willingness to accept just about anything. The act one finale, where everyone just screams pseudo gospel tripe (something about Nubia – I couldn’t figure it out) until the audience has to applaud just to shut them up, is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard. Every song sounds the same, except for the kitsch-ridden song about wardrobe. What show was that from – it didn’t seem to be from the Aida that led up to it. I used to like Mr. Elton John, but I have just abhorred everything he’s done in the last ten years – and that includes his songs for The Lion King. The audience was filled with friends and family of the performers. Apparently, these people don’t go to the theater very much – they chatted, they laughed at inappropriate places, they screamed and stomped whenever a relative showed up and they ate their candy loudly. One idiot three rows ahead of me had his cell phone out and open and on for the entire second act – text messaging the entire time. He was sitting next to his father and the fact that the father sat there and allowed it is why children today are so screwed up. They think they’re entitled to behave that way because the parents don’t tell them that it’s unacceptable behavior.
My goodness, that entire paragraph was a rant, wasn’t it? I was very proud of Blake, however, and the cast and his crew and musicians – he’s to be commended for putting the whole thing together himself and actually seeing it through from start to finish. I would give him an A if I were his teacher. Blake’s mother, Susie Ewing, is a former Golddigger from the Dean Martin TV show, and tonight there were about ten other Golddigger alums there, all looking pretty damn good, I thought.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because as the cock crows the day will soon be upon us.
Oh, dear, I just received the following e-mail.
To: bruce@haineshisway.com
From: Elton@john.com
Dear sir:
Who cares what you think about Aida? Didn’t you produce the cast album of Bed and Sofa? I rest my case. I’m very angry with you right now and will not be sending a special demo of my songs from Lestat, despite one of your so-called dear readers being in the orchestra. Goodbye!
Sincerely,
Elton John
Well, I just call them like I see them, Elt. Speaking of being angry, I mentioned that I’d been asked to record some backing tracks for a guy whose doing some act in Vegas. I put together an incredible deal for him (when I told him the budget he was shocked and ecstatic) – I was only going to make a pittance, but he came highly recommended and so I thought, why not. Well, every day was a new story, a new date, a new problem. I booked and unbooked studios, I kept changing the dates for Vinnie. Finally, we’d settled on a date. Then his musical director couldn’t make that date – so, I said we’d just find someone else. Then I tried to move the date one day so his musical director COULD be there. Never heard back. Then I get an e-mail last evening saying don’t book anything, something has come up and I should talk to his manager (who’d recommended me and who I work with often). Well, I’ll be talking to his manager, all right – first thing this morning. And I responded to the guy’s e-mail saying it was fine, that I was pulling the holds off the studio and releasing the engineer – thank goodness I hadn’t booked the band yet. I suggested that if he wanted to proceed at some later date that he’d have to find someone else to help him because I do not work with amateurs and I certainly don’t enjoy wasting many hours of my time making calls on something that ultimately doesn’t work out.
Today, I must do some writing on my play, I must do a bunch of errands, and I must have a late lunch or early dinner with a book dealer pal who’s in town. It should be a nice full day. Don’t forget, you have until midnight this evening to submit your answers to the Unseemly Trivia Contest question. And don’t forget, the new Simply Sondheim 2 CD set is up for preorder at www.kritzerland.com.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, jog, write, drive about in my motor car, hopefully pick up a package or three, do a little shipping, and then meet my book dealer friend. Today’s topic of discussion: What have been the all-time most excruciating plays and musicals you’ve had to sit through – not just bad shows, but shows where you were actually angry about having to endure. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst we greet a new week as the cock crows. And just what does a cock have to do with a crow? On the other hand, what does a crow have to do with a cock? I don’t like where this is going, frankly, so perhaps I shall end by telling you the story of The Randy Vicar and the Crowing Cock.