Well, dear readers, I am quite ready for the weekend. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I, BK, am quite ready for the weekend. I’m still feeling a bit congested but whatever it was I had (allergies, methinks) seems to be on its way out. It did help to get a very good night’s sleep. Well, these notes are dry, aren’t they? These notes are arid, sere, barren, dullsville. They’ve got no zip, no zing, no zest (the three Zs). In short, these here notes could put you to sleep. And I’m jiggy with that. As I’ve said before, beginning the notes in this way is like the vamp before the song proper starts. I’m vamping for a little while until an actual thought pops into my head. Wait – I just had an actual thought pop into my head. That thought was what the HELL am I talking about? I’m through vamping and now I shall get to the meat of the notes. Not the chicken of the notes, mind you, or the veal of the notes, no, I shall get to the meat of the notes. I had a fairly interesting day yesterday. For example, I got up. That was fairly interesting. It was raining out, so the long jog was not happening, much as I wanted it to. So, I went right to work on the new novel. I did a bit of rewriting of the stuff I’d written the day before, then did about three new pages. These came much easier than the ones from the day before. By the time I was finished with that, it was time to go to the long work session.
The first two hours of the long work session were spent with the composer and lyricist of the show. We started at the beginning (a very good place to start) and spent the first hour on the first song in the show. I felt it went on a little too long and that musically it needed a bit more cohesion, and the composer is very quick and we made all sorts of little adjustments that really helped. This sort of collaboration is something I really love, and they were very into it. We extended certain things, cut others, and changed the form of it a little, and it seems better now. We did the same thing for the second song – which has a really catchy tune, but again needed some adjusting and a stronger ending. We talked through it all and the composer will figure out a new ending that’s more in keeping musically with what’s come before. We began work on another song, but the author arrived and then it was time to hear the new outline, based on the reading we had and my notes.
I was pleased to see they’d really thought about the notes, and they’d really done some pretty severe cutting, probably thirty minutes out of act one alone. Hearing the outline, I still felt there were a few things wrong, and we came up with some ways to fix those places, including one new musical number that’s very much in keeping with what I feel the show needs to be, and I think once that number is written a lot of other stuff will fall into place. I’ve asked the lyricist to find some kind of program on the computer that will allow us to create a virtual bulletin board, so we can do something resembling index cards on each scene and number, with exactly what happens in each scene and song – that way we have a visual reference where it will be easy to see the forward trajectory of the story, the characters, and to make sure we have enough of everything we need and also that we’re not being repetitious. I think in a show like this, where the plot has many elements, that this is the clearest way to always see where we’re going.
After we finished, the three of them went off to see The Night They Raided Minsky’s at the Ahmanson (I will only say that they called me afterwards and said they really didn’t care for it), and I went to the mail place and the picked up some various and sundried foodstuffs at Gelson’s, which I brought home and ate up. I then wrote two more pages, which brought me to the end of the current chapter (I may add a little something, but basically it’s close to being done), and today I’ll start a new chapter. I’ve got the next two and possibly three chapters mildly mapped out, so I’m hoping they write easily. I then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I was quite congested and logey, so I decided to watch a short TV movie from 1976 entitled Time Travelers, produced by Mr. Irwin Allen. I must say, it was one of the worst TV movies I’ve ever seen, and yet, and yet, the imdb is rife with “reviews” that proclaim it excellent. Go know. The show, which was a pilot, stars Sam Groom, who is just somehow oddly unlikable, and an actor named Tom Hallick, along with Francine York and Richard Basehart (with an obviously fake beard). There’s no logic to the time travel aspect (they literally don’t even explain it), and the acting is just bad from the two leads (Hallick is, I guess, a working actor still, but boy was he a bore in this show), and the scenes in the year of the great Chicago fire are all shot on the Hello, Dolly! sets on the Fox backlot. No one in these scenes actually looks like they lived back then – it’s all very low-budget and cheesy looking. The proceedings were not well directed by the usually competent Alexander Singer. The “idea” for the show is credited to Rod Serling. It’s a shame he didn’t write the show.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because frankly we need a little of the three Zs – zip, zing, and zest, which was also the name of a chimpanzee act in 1936.
Today, I shall hopefully be able to do the long jog, and then I shall try to get all my writing done by two so that the rest of my day and evening is mine all mine. Tomorrow, I’ll have the day to myself, and then I’m going to see Miss Julie Wilson at the Gardenia, which I’m very much looking forward to.
Sunday, I shall finish whatever chapter I’m on, and then I’ll print out the latest batch of pages for the perusal of muse Margaret. I have to make some serious decisions, book-wise, as I head into what will be the home stretch. Perhaps it will all come to me on the long jog.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog (weather permitting), write, and then relax and enjoy the rest of the day and evening. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/video player. I’ll start – CD, a couple of wonderful Marcos Valle CDs as well as Joni Mitchell’s Travelogue. DVD, I’m not sure what’s next, but probably Magnificent Obsession, directed by Douglas Sirk. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst we try to spend today feeling the three Zs – zip, zing, and zest, not necessarily in that order.