Well, dear readers, the rains came. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, the rains finally came to Los Angeles and, of course, after months of crying and bemoaning the no rain situation, the city, as it always does, completely went to pieces. Every day I see workers ripping up streets, doing pointless construction for years, and yet when the rains come the streets are flooded within minutes and so I, for one, would love to know just what those yokels are doing when they’re fixing the streets, because the one thing we know they’re not doing is helping the streets deal with flooding. And why does it take ten minutes of rain to knock out signals? And the drivers – why is it that within five minutes of rainfall LA drivers completely lose whatever frail grip they had on reality and begin driving as if they’d never driven before. Of course, it’s made worse because not only do they drive poorly, they’re still texting and talking on their cell phones whilst doing so. It was great to have the rain, though, and I just tried to avoid driving too close to anyone. The rain came in spurts, sometimes very heavy, sometimes just a drizzle and frequently in the same five-minute time span. The good news is that when it rains and is overcast and quiet I sleep like a baby, so I got a great night’s sleep. I got up around nine-thirty, had to proof the new booklet, and then do some work on the computer. Then I went to a lunch meeting at the Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset. I had my usual California Market Salad, which was great. The meeting was very productive and could result in some interesting things for Kritzerland – we shall see. Lunch lasted about ninety minutes, and then I headed back to the Valley over Laurel Canyon. I whizzed up the hill until about a half-mile from Mulholland, and then it was terrible traffic until we passed Mulholland. Why? Because just before Mulholland there was a van stalled in the middle of the street with no driver, just the empty van. Brilliant. Once we got past that it was fine. I stopped at the post office to ship about twelve packages and take the one overseas package to the counter. There was a line out the door despite the pouring rain, because people are incomprehensible idiots and a day without the post office (the Monday holiday) makes them go berserk. I just shipped the small packages (already had postage on them) and will now not be able to ship the overseas package until Thursday. I then went to my mail place where there was only one package awaiting me, plus a few envelopes. I then did a couple more errands and whatnot, and then came home, where I wrote two-thirds of the second set of liner notes. I’ll finish them first thing tomorrow. I had to catch up on e-mails and telephonic calls and by the time I finished everything it was already seven o’clock. I then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Miracle on 34th Street. I will admit here and now and also now and here that I don’t really think I’ve ever seen this film all the way through – I don’t even think I’ve seen more than a handful of scenes. Well, what a charming and wonderful motion picture entertainment this is. It’s just a gem of a picture, with lovely performances by all, especially Edmund Gwenn and the very young Natalie Wood. Maureen O’Hara is beautiful and John Payne is a good leading man, and the large cast of character actors are great. The script (adapted from the novel by Valentine Davies) is quite droll, and it was just a lot of fun to watch. The Blu-Ray is very sharp and it’s a very nice transfer. Some will probably find something to complain about with some of the rear projection scenes, but the disc is simply replicating the way those sorts of scenes look.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’ve got a very long casting day ahead of me. No one ever learns from me that going over five hours is counterproductive – one just has no energy after reading actors and hearing them sing, one after another. But, it is what it is and I’ll just get out of there the minute we’re done.
Today, it’s casting all day, as noted. When I get home, I shall have to attend to a few other things, but basically my day is spoken for. I shall try to post live from the casting session if there’s time. Otherwise, you dear readers keep the home fries burning.
I also have to proof the Brent Barrett booklet and get all that stuff finalized. Then tomorrow I’m meeting my engineer at the studio to make some very tiny changes, mostly just one word fixes in about three songs, presuming we can fix those words with a better take. I didn’t really zone in on specific words when comping – I tried to keep complete phrases, but as long as I’ve got something better, we can now micromanage those three words and put them in. There’s also one song Brent wants to hear without the lead instrument in the instrumental – I think it will sound too weird not to have the melody, but we’ll give it a whirl and see. It really only takes a second to do.
Friday, I have a work session with the composer of the long musical, and Friday night I’m probably going to the Gardenia. Saturday night I’m going to see Guys and Dolls with our very own Alet Taylor as Adelaide and Barry Pearl as Nathan. I think that will be a lot of fun.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have an all-day casting session, and then I must come home and do a lot of stuff in the home environment, and I suppose I’ll have to eat at some point. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, whilst we hope that that rain continues for a day or two because we dearly need it – and here’s hoping that people regain their driving sanity.