Well, dear readers, the winds have come to the City of Studio and they are fierce. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, the winds have come to the City of Studio and they are fierce. They just showed up, willy-nilly and also nilly-willy. And the winds were windy. And windy were the winds. While nothing untoward happened in my area, a few blocks away the power went out (affecting Jerry’s Deli) three or four times during the day. I’m hoping it will be gone with the wind very soon because the winds are causing branches to fall and leaves to be strewn everywhere you look and it’s all quite unseemly. I also cannot jog when the wind is extreme. That’s my personal rule and that rule is, in fact, written on the wind. Even these notes are windy, have you noticed? For the last couple of days I’ve had really interesting and stimulating work sessions with the composer and lyricist of the long musical. This creative team is frequently on many different pages and it’s been my job to get them all on the same page and for each to understand what the other’s needs are. I normally direct shows that I’ve written – and that’s a very specific sort of thing for me, same with the club acts I do. But this isn’t “my” show and so I’ve basically been trying to help shape the material and make it feel like a real musical. I’m very methodical about it and some of these sessions have been very intense. Yesterday, for example, we had a contretemps between the book writers and the songwriters about the opening number, which is sung by a group akin to the Rockettes. And the songwriters thought there were going to be a lot of other people in the number so they could have those singing voices rather than an all female number. I didn’t understand that, because as written in the script it’s a performance number taking place on the stage of a theater. So, I kept asking who are these people in the number? And the response was always oh there people – ushers, backstage people, etc. And I said that makes no sense if it’s a performance number. And then the lyricist and composer told me that they’d never really thought of it as a performance number but as OUR opening number presented to OUR audience. I said I didn’t think THAT made sense either, because that’s not what’s in the script and has been in the script since day one. I could tell the lyricist was getting frustrated with me and I finally told her that the only one who was going to win this argument was the one who had the most passion and could present me with logic. That’s all any of this is about. Logic. It’s amazing how many people don’t understand that simple word. So, I kept hammering away at logic, and I kept being presented with non-logical answers. I finally said I’ll buy that there are other people in the number if you can tell me who they are – are they other performers? That would make sense to me – and if so, what sort of generic performers could we have, and I through out as an example a juggler or two, a ventriloquist and dummy – and it was like a light that went off and suddenly you could see that that would work and have logic and make sense. It may seem simple but it wasn’t arrived at simply because sometimes it takes a long time to get people to see logic. I called the author, who’d basically thrown up his hands and said to me it’s your call if you want others in the number but it wasn’t designed to be that way and it should just be the gals the way it would be with the Rockettes. I told him about the long conversation I’d just had and the minute I mentioned jugglers and the other types all his objections disappeared instantly because HE saw it. He said “A magician.” I said sure. I said an older male/female dance team. And suddenly magic was in the air and we’d solved the problem. I suggested that we begin with only the females and do the first portion like that, and then suddenly the stage is alive with the other performers and the music builds and builds and then we do the big finish. It was always a good number, and now it’s a better number that will be more interesting, especially visually. And that, to me, is the art and fun of collaboration. Pushing people to really understand the WHY of things and to force them to understand the LOGIC and make sure that said LOGIC is very clear.
We worked on arrangements, we cut lines, the composer rewrote stuff as I asked for him to (he’s really good and really fast and he really understands why I’m asking for what I’m asking for), and the lyricist adjusted lyrics I thought were too general (in lyric writing, specificity is everything, especially in the lyrics for characters). She would have words I didn’t think were interesting enough for the character singing them – or they’d be the wrong sort of word for that character, and I kept asking her to put it in the vernacular, and she’s been great about doing so. And one of the most fun things we did today was to transform this very nice and up second act love song which was just sort of flatlining, into something that starts with a lilt, and then just takes interesting turns in the arragement, and we put in a musical break with all sorts of feel changes, and then we just finally got what I’ve wanted all along, for it to become exhilarating and breathless (the number takes place at the fairground at the 1939 World’s Fair) and we were breathless and exhilarated as we worked on it and found it. The composer rewrote several lines so that the beautiful lilting quality of the first lines of the song had that feeling kept throughout (there were two or three lines that just didn’t feel like they went to the right place). When this sort of collaboration is going on and everyone is tossing out ideas and implementing them it is so much fun to be in that energy zone. What’s never fun, is when collaboration is all negative and drama-infused, and I’ve encouraged everyone on the team to not go down that road – sometimes they still do, but they’re learning that nothing really good comes of it. The good comes from questions and hammering away at things that don’t work with people who WANT to find solutions and are energized to do what isn’t necessarily always easy. But when you find it, it’s really something and very rewarding.
My goodness, that was very long-winded and windy, wasn’t it? The first part of yesterday, prior to the work session, was a little wacky. I’d had weird dreams (one of which included mutant Raisinettes) and I got up at four-thirty in the morning, not being able to go back to sleep. Eventually I crawled back in bed an hour later and got another three hours of sleep for a total of about six. Then there was a lot of long musical drama which ate up the entire morning, and which I will not allow to happen again. It was an entire waste of my morning when I had a lot of stuff I had to get done. Somehow in the last couple of days, I’d accumulated about thirty orders, so I had to package all those and then do the postage, and it really does take a lot of time. All the while the phone kept ringing every two minutes and I just stopped answering. I finished all the packages just before the work session began. After that, I went to Jerry’s Deli for my sandwich and fries (and I also had a cup of chicken soup) – I’d ordered what I always do – the small side of fries, but this time I had them split between fries and onion rings. Well, there were a huge number of fries and about six onion rings. I polished off the latter and couldn’t even finish the former and as I write these here notes I’m still full and feeling bloated. I’m hoping it’s not too windy in the morning so I can do the long jog. I then took all the packages to the postal office and put them in the drop box. After that, I finally came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitles Whatever Works, a film of Woody Allen, starring Larry David and Evan Rachel Wood, as well as my pal Ed Begley, Jr., Michael McKean, and Patricia Clarkson. If you read the comments on the imdb you’d think this was Woody at his best, a real throwback to his greats. If you read the critics you find pretty unanimous non-raves. And if you look at the box-office reports you find a total bomb. I understand that this script is something Woody wrote in the 1970s but never got around to making. He should have left it alone. First of all, Larry David, as wonderful as he is when playing Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm, simply isn’t an actor, and in this film 80% of his performance is simply irritating and unfunny. Occasionally, he will find a droll line reading. I laughed exactly twice, both in the same scene (Ed Begley’s first scene), which occurs one hour into the film. Evan Rachel Wood is cute and all the actors are okay, but this, for me, is some of Woody’s worst writing – just bad set-ups to bad stale jokes, until the two good ones mentioned above. There are endless bits about Larry David talking to the audience and the other characters peering into the camera saying “Who are you talking to?” and riffing on that. It’s not funny and yet they keep doing it over and over again. Some of the scenes sound like bad community theater – but once in a blue moon you get a flash of the old Woody wit and its like manna from heaven. For me, this was right up there with his worst. The transfer is fine – sharp, but very yellow as is Woody’s wont these days.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because the winds of August are here in October and I am overtired and feeling like I’ve had the wind knocked out of me.
Today, if the wind has died down, I shall do the long jog. Other than that and shipping a few more packages, I have to do some work on the computer, write yet more liner notes, and hopefully hear part two of the Holy Grail master. And then I shall be supping with the great Bert I. Gordon at Genghis Cohen. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years and it will be fun to catch up and, of course, feast on fine and yummilicious foodstuffs.
Tomorrow is my rescheduled lunch with Lauren Rubin – we’ll be going to the California Pizza Kitchen. And then it’s lunch with Jason Graae on Friday to start planning his album. I’m hoping to get together with Grant Geissman to finish the Nudie demo – the script is now all fixed and finished, and I just have to input those changes into our master script.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog (wind permitting), I must write liner notes, I must do some errands and whatnot, and I must sup. Today’s topic of discussion: What was the first place you lived in after you moved out of your parents’ house? At what age did you make the split, and tell us what kind of place it was, whether you loved or hated it, and how it was to finally be on your own. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I go put on The Association singing Windy.