Well, dear readers, it is quite late and I am quite tired and all I have to say is egg salad. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, all I have to say is egg salad. I say egg salad because that is what I just ate, a lovely egg salad sandwich on egg bread, egg bread being appropriate for egg salad. I was going to order the chicken salad but they didn’t have any chicken bread, so I opted for the egg salad on egg bread and it was quite yummilicious in the way that egg salad can occasionally be. I also had some onion rings but not on onion bread. Prior to that I’d had a day. I had a pretty good night’s sleep, got up, and had a lot of e-mails to answer and had to have a couple of telephonic calls. I then did some errands and whatnot, dropped off clothes to the dry cleaners and also some to the wet cleaners, and then I had a sandwich, and then I picked up some but not all of the packages I was expecting. I also did a two-mile jog. I had about forty minutes to myself and watched a little of the new Logan’s Run Blu and Ray, which has been garnering many complaints on the usual boards. Well, as usual for the usual boards the usual suspects are full of beans. They simply have no idea what this film looked like originally, and this transfer is perfect, with great color. Once you understand that all the effects shots (and that’s almost the entire film) are opticals and therefore generations away from the original camera negative, then you’ll understand why certain scenes have more grain and are not quite as sharp as other scenes. In fact, the release prints of Logan’s Run were horrible and this Blu and Ray makes the film look better than it ever has. I’ll have more to say once I finish it. Then it was time to get ready and toddle off to our second table reading. Last time, we had a nice place to park on the side of the building. This time I was told there was no place for me to park because we had three spaces and it was decreed that others were taking them. I must say that is the one thing you never want to do to me, especially when I’ve been working on a show for eleven months for free. I first took off on the owner of the studio and told him if he didn’t have a space for me that I was happy to go home. He was a little shocked at my rather strong tone and attitude, and to that I say tough beans. Then the lyricist of the long musical offered to move her car. But I didn’t want her to – they’d given one of the places to the musical director and that I did not really understand, since he is a newcomer to the team. As angry as I was, I bit the bullet (no mean feat) and parked on the street – one block away, which made me even angrier. When I got back, the co-author of the book arrived and heard me ranting and railing and he apologized and said someone should have thought it out better, and he assured me it would never happen again. I told him that it could happen again but that if it did I would promptly, without any discussion, leave. It’s a real bugaboo with me and one of the few things that can really set me off. It’s just amateur to not have a parking space for the director of the show. Really, really amateur.
The table reading was once again very interesting – a lot of the changes worked really well, especially the first half of act two, which I thought was pretty good. The first act still works in fits and starts, and there are several scenes that I’ve repeatedly given the same notes for that continue not to work because they don’t address the notes. I will now insist that they do so, even if they don’t agree – I simply want them to rewrite those few things just to address my notes – if we like we like, if we don’t, no harm done. But these few things will never fix themselves and they must be fixed for each are key things. I will write up my notes and send them along, and then we’re basically finished for the year. There was some talk about doing another table reading or two, which I put the kibosh on. We’ll do this set of changes, get it as good as we can, and then do the first of two back-to-back staged readings – the first for a regular audience of friends and whoever we can lasso in, and the second, two weeks later, for money people and LA theaters. It is crucial I get this on its feet – it’s the only way to have the pacing be right, I need to direct the actors, the music needs to be locked in, and I need to stage it. And then we need to see the audience response.
After, we met at Jerry’s Deli, where I had the egg salad sandwich on egg bread – we discussed timelines and a few other things, and then I finally came home and had to immediately begin to write these here notes.
The good news is that this morning’s early post mortem meeting is cancelled and I can sleep in, jog at my leisure, and then go to the two o’clock transfer session. I’m told that today is Veteran’s Day and therefore there is no mail. However I’m also told that Fed Ex does deliver, so I’m hoping that the one Fed Ex package I’m expecting arrives. I also have to call composer Ken Thorne who’ll be back in town to set up our signing session. I think I have my evening free, which suits me to a “T” or, at the very least, to a “Q”.
Tomorrow, I have a very busy day, and Friday I think Cason Murphy will come over and help address packages. I’m hoping the weekend will be fairly free, but we’ll just have to see about that.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, do errands and whatnot, do a tape transfer, and eat. 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, shall we, whilst we all say egg salad for no reason whatsoever.