Well, dear readers, it is the start of a brand spanking new week – a week that begins today with the arrival of our new cast member, and concludes with a long four-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend. So, while the first few days will be extremely busy and hectic, beginning on Thursday I get to have four days all to myself, which will be nice, although I’m a bit nervous about having four days off from running our show. Speaking of running our show, yesterday we had a nice work session, basically running all the group numbers vocally and then with staging, cleaning up whatever wasn’t sharp enough for my taste. The Brain actor wore the rehearsal brain head and no one can keep a straight face – I’m not going to give anything away, just trust me, it’s truly hilarious even in its unfinished state. After rehearsal, I came home, jogged, then relaxed for two hours, then toddled off to see Bukowsical, a sort of musical revue, which has a score by my pal Gary Stockdale. Bukowsical, happily, runs only ninety minutes in one act – I’m always grateful for that. It has sport with Charles Bukowski, and has lots of arcane musical theater references. Some of it is funny, much of it is tuneful, and a bit of it goes on too long, which is a problem with an essentially one-joke premise – once you’ve heard the joke, then it’s basically variations, some of which are fine, some of which could be cut quite easily. The cast was fine and had lots of energy and the staging moved things right along. Gary led the band. I saw a few people I knew from my LACC days. After the show, I came home and sat on my couch like so much fish. I took our very own Miss Adriana Patti and I think she liked it more of it than I did.
Last night, I finished watching a motion picture on DVD entitled Harper, starring Mr. Paul Newman. I’ve always loved Harper, ever since I saw it on opening day. I went back and saw it about five times in its first two weeks – I was especially impressed with the screenplay of William Goldman, his first produced script. I’d already become a fan from reading several of his novels, including Soldier In The Rain, Boys And Girl Together, and Your Turn To Curtsy, My Turn To Bow. Harper has quite the cast – besides Mr. Newman, it stars Lauren Bacall, Arthur Hill, Pamela Tiffin, Robert Wagner, Julie Harris, Janet Leigh, Shelley Winters, Robert Webber, Harold Gould, Strother Martin – they don’t make ’em like that anymore. It’s very well directed by Mr. Jack Smight, and of course it’s adapted from the novel The Moving Target by one of my favorite writers, Ross Macdonald. The film has several memorable and quotable lines and it seems almost as fresh today as it did back then. The one thing that is not fresh, unfortunately, is the transfer. Oh, it’s very sharp and spotless, but, as is frequently the case with Warners, the color is off – completely off, and does not represent at all the way the film looked when printed in IB Technicolor. Too much bloody brown, not enough deep blue, and it’s just disgusting that someone is obviously choosing to do these transfers that way because they stupidly think that’s the way these movies looked. Well, they weren’t even alive when these movies were made and they simply have no clue about color or what they’re doing (although sometimes Warners gets it right – so they must have more than one person in the telecine room – want to see a transfer with accurate color, watch Petulia). I mean, it’s very simple – what feature is Paul Newman known for? Yes, Virginia, his incredibly vivid blue eyes. Only in this transfer they’re gray. Note to telecine person – Mr. Newman’s eyes are BLUER THAN BLUE therefore your gray-eyed transfer sucks. Watch the included trailer – while not perfect, Mr. Newman’s eyes are indeed bluer than the transfer of the film. Most people, sadly, have no clew and won’t be bothered by it at all. Mr. Conrad Hall would be bothered by it, that much I can tell you.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get my beauty rest, sleep as late as possible, relax and smell the roses and the coffee and the burnt toast.
Today, I shall be doing nothing at all except watching DVDs and relaxing. Then at six-thirty I have a short meeting re the kids show casting, then I’m meeting our newly arrived actress for dinner, which I’m looking forward to.
Tomorrow, said newly arrived actress has her work cut out for her. From 2:30 to 6:00 she’ll be put in the show – taught all her blocking, the staging for the numbers, and we’ll drill it as much as possible. Then, at seven, she’ll do the run-through. There’ll be someone shadowing her, to make sure she’s going to the right places, but the stuff isn’t that difficult and I’m hoping it’s a fairly smooth process.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, jog, do nothing, rewrite four lines of lyrics, talk to elmore about a couple of incorrect chords I’ve discovered, have dinner with our newly arrived actress, and watch DVDs. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings whilst we gird our loins for the brand spanking new week.