Well, dear readers, I am back in the City of Angels, Los Angeles, California, USA. Yes, Virginia, I have returned to the home environment both safely and soundly, not necessarily in that order. My flight took off a half-hour late, which was annoyingly annoying, but we actually were only about ten minutes late in landing. For an account of my early morning hours at the airport, see yesterday’s early morning postings. I got some writing done on the plane, too, which was nice. I had a car waiting for me at the airport and said car whisked me home, where assistant Jessica was waiting for me. My driver gave me what he felt would be the fastest way to get to Brea, and it differed completely from the mapquest version. Since my driver actually drives for a living, we decided to try his route. We knew we were cutting it close however we went. But, as always, drivers know best and we got there in about forty minutes, and a good twenty minutes before show time. I had a nice chat with Susan about the previous night’s show, and then I did a little warmup with the audience. The show went really well – it had several new pieces of material that weren’t in the show at LACC this summer – there were only a couple of things that were iffy and she told me we definitely have those covered from the previous night’s recording. Her musical director once again was the very talented and very nice Christopher McGovern. I must say, Susan is a beautiful pregnant woman – five months in now. The only thing that was irksome was the temperature in the recording truck – about thirty degrees, which they have to do to keep the equipment cool. I found a blanket and bundled up. Afterwards, I felt I deserved a fine meal, so Jessica and I went to Casa Vega and I ate way too much food and it was ever so yummilicious. After that, I came home and finally, for the first time in a week, sat on my couch like so much fish. I was so overtired and it was so nice to be completely comfy and cozy. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too?
Last night, I did manage to watch a motion picture on DVD entitled A Simple Case Of Murder, one of those late 90s TNT original movies for cable. This one was adapted from a Donald Westlake book called A Travesty. It very much tries to capture the style of Mr. Westlake’s screenplay for The Grifters. The script was by the film’s star, William H. Macy, written with the director, someone named Stephen something, whom I’d never heard of. It started off very well with a very stylish credit sequence. Then William H. Macy broke the fourth wall and began talking to the camera and I got very antsy. But, I ended up going with it and I must say it was fairly enjoyable, with an excellent cast. The score by Mader was very good but clearly in the Elmer Bernstein Grifters style. The DVD transfer is very good in terms of sharpness and color. But Warners has bungled the release by giving it a 1:78 anamorphic transfer, which completely ruins every shot in the film – this was made in 1999 and it was most obviously shot in the then standard 1:33 TV ratio. So, frequently heads are chopped in half and it’s just ridiculous. Does no one at Warners actually WATCH what they’re doing in the transfer room, because you’d have to be completely inept and stupid to not see something was terribly wrong. But, given some of Warners recent bungles, that is precisely what is happening over there. Shame on them.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I am zonked and ready for my beauty sleep.
I am taking today off – with the exception of shipping two packages and paying a couple of bills, I shall do nothing at all except that which I feel like doing. I need one day like that and by gum and by golly and buy bonds I’m going to have it. I do have to go to my mail place because there should be quite a few things waiting for me.
On Tuesday, I begin attending to all the things that need attending to, most importantly trying to lock down an engineer and recording equipment for the Emily and Alice concert. I also have to book my flight and my hotel this week. I must also spend several hours going through The Brain script and making some decisions regarding how I want things to look – on Wednesday morning I have a meeting with our set designer, and I’m also hoping to meet with the costume designer, too.
I also have to have meetings with Miss Joan Ryan and Miss Alet Taylor, and have a ton of telephonic calls to return on my telephonic device. I’m already tired just thinking about it all.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, jog for the first time since last Saturday, I must ship two packages, and then I must do nothing whatsoever for the rest of the livelong day and night. Today’s topic of discussion: Whilst in New York I watched a Discover Channel show about architect’s visions of cities of the near future. Given how crowded most cities have become, put yourself in the place of the architects and tell us what sort of city of the future you’d like to see, taking into account how quickly the population keeps growing (people seem to be having more children than ever before). Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we?