Well, dear readers, this week is flying by like a gazelle on a chaise lounge. In fact, June is just about half over already and I, for one, say stop the madness and slow these damn months down so we can all smell the roses or the coffee or the burnt umber. Have you ever burnt umber? It’s quite amusing on some level I’m not aware of. Still, if one likes the deep brown, one simply must burn some umber. Of course, there are those who prefer their umber unburnt. We call those people umberheads. I feel we cannot have enough burnt umber so let’s light the torches and burn some umber posthaste. You know, if anyone has a clew as to what the HELL I’m talking about, please keep it to yourself because, frankly, I don’t want to know. Where was I? Oh, yes, this week is flying by like a gazelle on a chaise lounge. Speaking of a chaise lounge, yesterday was a non-stop day filled with interesting meetings, annoying annoyances, and even some nice things. In other words, one of those days. In fact, the whole day had a distinctly burnt umber feel to it. For example, I got up and had to immediately had to toddle off to Du-Par’s for a little breakfast meeting about stuff. After that, I had to hurry home and deal with some annoying annoyances, and then I had to hurry and toddle off to a little lunch meeting with my friend Jim Jimirro, who, in addition to being a devotee of the American Popular Song (he lectures on it regularly and I’ll be having him do a seminar for our alumni association), is also the CEO of National Lampoon. He’s a big fan of my albums and we get together a few times a year to shoot the breeze. What the breeze ever did to either of us to deserve being shot I have no idea, but shoot the breeze we did. However, I’m happy to report that we only nicked the breeze and the breeze is resting comfortably and will be fine. After that, I had to hurry home for my afternoon alumni association meeting. We went over yet more details for the upcoming fundraiser show – we now have Bruce Vilanch, Jason Graae, Brent Barrett, Kevin Spirtas, Alice Ripley, Joan Ryan, and the newly added Michelle Nicastro. I’ve also started figuring out exactly which material we’ll be doing. I have to hire a musical director in the next few weeks, as well as a publicist. We’re going in search of some corporate sponsorship soon, and we’ve been getting some great items for our silent auction. For those who absolutely cannot come to the show who are interested in bidding on certain items, I will take your proxy bids in. We’re going to have quite a few signed musical quotes, dinners, show tickets, vacation packages, and other fun stuff. After that meeting, I had a nice conversation with our very own Mr. Harvey Schmidt – he’s had a bunch of health issues this year, but is getting better now. We dished the dirt for quite some time, and then I finally sat on my couch like so much burnt umber fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled The War Wagon, starring the Duke himself, Mr. John Wayne, and Mr. Kirk Douglas. I saw the film when it came out and didn’t care for it much, and I owned the first DVD transfer, which was non-anamorphic and rather pathetic. It’s been reissued in a John Wayne box, and I’m happy to say that the transfer is 1000% better. I actually enjoyed the film quite a lot – time has been kind to it and, given the crap I see that’s made these days, these less-than-great films from the 60s and 70s suddenly seem much better than they seemed back then. They’re comforting, and the Duke is great, as is Kirk. The film is well directed by Burt Kennedy. I was going to watch a second film on DVD, but I got restless and couldn’t sit still, so instead I listened to a few CDs.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I feel we’ve had far too much burnt umber in this section.
Have I mentioned that this week is flying by like a gazelle on a chaise lounge? For example, I have no doubt that today will fly by like a gazelle drinking a Lime Ricky. I have to get up early, I have to visit the Kritzerland designer, I have to have a meeting with the LACC Foundation president (I’m advising him on his benefit), and then I have to come home and hopefully not deal with any more annoying annoyances, because frankly or even stevely, I’ve had it with annoying annoyances.
Tomorrow, I have a morning meeting with Miss Susan Egan to discuss exactly what we’re putting on her live CD, which I recorded for her last year. It’s not on Kritzerland, but she really wanted me to do it and to have Vinnie mix it, and so we did and we are. We recorded two performances, and while most of the CD will come from the final performance, some of it has to come from the previous performance. We also have to figure out what we’re cutting, and how much patter we’re using because it’s going to be one CD and not two. After that, I have a party in the evening, but I doubt that I’ll be going.
The weekend will be filled with packaging and shipping some discs and trying to locate the box with DATS and cassettes that I know is somewhere in my garage. And I may have a Sunday work session with Miss Joan Ryan.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, attempt to jog if time permits, have two meetings, and find something interesting and different to eat. Today’s topic of discussion: Do you know what I just did? I just did “It’s Friday” as the topic. I know things are moving fast but that’s ridiculous. In any case, today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite French classical pieces, as well as your favorite French songs (in French or in English)? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst we all view the world through burnt umber-colored glasses.