Well, dear readers, I am eating a cucumber roll. I ask you, where else on all the Internet can you read such an opening salvo? Nowhere, that’s where. Yes, it is late and I was hungry, so I got a tiny amount of Chinese Chicken Salad and seafood salad from Gelson’s, along with said cucumber roll. Trying to type whilst eating a cucumber roll is very difficult, although I’m managing. Have any of our dear reader actors played a cucumber role? Just asking. In any case, here I sit, eating a cucumber roll and typing, not necessarily in that order. As I eat the cucumber roll I shall reflect on the day as I lived it. The day as I lived it was an interesting day, certainly, with some good things, some excellent things, and some annoying things. Luckily, the former outweighed the latter. The former has been putting on weight for some time and is as big as a house, weighing in at 260 pounds, whilst the former is a svelte 176. What the HELL am I tlakin about? Tlakin – see what happens when you type and eat a cucumber roll at the same time? I got up after an odd night’s sleep filled with an odd night’s odd dreams. I had a lot of e-mails to answer and the telephonic device would not stop ringing and I refused to answer all but one or two calls. I spent the morning making sure everyone had everything they needed for approvals, Kritzerland-wise. Then I did the long jog, which was more pathetic than usual. Then I had to package up quite a few packages and I had to write an obscenely large Kritzerland check (the bills never cease), and then I shipped the packages, and picked up a few, but none of the ones I was hoping for, which I suppose will come today if all goes according to Hoyle. I did my banking and some other errands and then at around two I had some bacon and eggs for my meal o’ the day (although I guess what I just ate counts towards a second half-meal). After that, I came home to wonderful news that another Kritzerland project is probably coming through – this is one that every single label has tried to do, but no tapes were known to exist. There was a particularly bad-sounding bootleg of most of the score but I did not want to use that as the “quality” was really substandard and it’s something you’d barely want to listen to. But, taking the bull by the horn, I called my friend, Mr. Nick Redman, and asked if the composer’s widow might have a tape – he informed me that the composer’s widow was quite deceased, and then gave me a suggestion as to whom I might call to see if it was in the composer’s archive. I made the call, there were tapes, and as long as they’re what they purport to be and sound good, this project is mine. It involves a favorite composer and it’s from a film I quite like. So, that was very good news indeed.
Just before I left for rehearsal, I saw on the film music message board that another label deliberately trumped this week’s Kritzerland release by announcing their new title a week ahead of when they were supposed to (they made a point of posting their release dates for the next three months, and I specifically chose this week to announce because no one else had anything). This has become a ridiculous game and I posted such on the message board. Everyone trying to trump everyone else. The lame excuse was that they got the CDs in earlier than expected. Hogwash. Why would that change anything, especially when they have to have the composer sign booklets? They could have announced next Tuesday and had the booklets signed and everything ready to go. But, no, they couldn’t do that because it’s more fun to beat the other label to the punch. They posted, saying it was unexpected and not what they usually do, but that it was necessary, to which I say hogwash again. I called a fellow who regularly produces CDs for this company and I told him he might want to call these people and tell them that I was quite annoyed and that if they wanted to go down this road I will trump each and every release they do, straight on down the line, without fail. They will RUE the day, that’s all I have to tell you. And not only did they announce the fact that they were going to announce on Wednesday at noon (twelve hours before we were going to), they also revealed the title, which I feel was also deliberate. Let the games begin, I say, for if someone doesn’t contact me and apologize and agree to not do this ever again, they will suddenly know trumping like they have never imagined in their wildest imaginings. I will be their own personal Donald Trump and let the chips fall where they may. It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature or BK.
Was I ranting? I believe I was ranting. I was raging at the machine. I was on the warpath. Hail, hail, Fredonia, land of the brave and free. Don’t mess with Mr. In-Between, baby, or things will come back to bite you in the ASS.
I then attended a rehearsal, wherein our two leading actors were taught their songs. I really didn’t want to be there, as that sort of tedious session bores me to tears, but I had to make sure that the composer had implemented all our changes. As it turned out, he’d implemented the majority of them, but a couple had slipped by, so we fixed those. When I left, Park La Brea, where he lives, was shrouded in fog – you could barely see three inches in front of you and it took me ten minutes to find my car. Park La Brea is like the Village in The Prisoner, its own self-contained little world, and it is so confusing that most people get lost when trying to find a particular building and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that a few people have gotten lost and have never been found. The fog lasted all the way up to Melrose at which point it simply disappeared.
When I got home, I had more e-mails to answer and foodstuffs to eat. I have now stuffed the food into my gaping maw and I am really ready for bed, but I must spend at least a half-hour starting to do and editing roadmap for our next release. Our mastering guy will have the source material tomorrow morning and I’d like to get him the roadmap or at least the start of it, so he can get to work.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must finish these here notes, get them posted, and do a little editing roadmap work.
Today will be an incredibly busy day for the likes of me. I have to be up before nine, as our two new CDs will be arriving at that time. I will then package them up (more difficult than usual since I have to be very careful that these two releases end up in the right packages), take them to the postal office and ship them. I will then have to have a quick bite, and then do more work on the editing roadmap. No one really knows how difficult that process can be – it entails putting the DVD in the computer, watching it scene by scene, and then locating the music cue in the film on our source CD. Once I locate it, then I have to give the cue a title, and reference the exact time code on the CD. In the case of this score, there is one track that’s twenty-seven minutes long, and then several shorter ones. So when I come to a music cue in the film, most of the time I’m going to be going through that twenty-seven minute track trying to locate it, which can be really tedious and headache-inducing. But I shall do it happily, since this score is, for me, a Holy Grail – not the other Holy Grail I’ve been talking about, but still a Holy Grail from one of the oddest movies ever made.
After that, Cason Murphy will be coming over and we’ll then take all the bigger boxes to the UPS Store and get those on their merry way. After that, I have another rehearsal, this one mercifully shorter.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, package up a lot of CDs, I must ship a lot of packages, I must eat, I must work on the editing roadmap, I must attend a rehearsal, and I must sit on my couch like so much fish. Today’s topic of discussion: Since we were having so much fun with yesterday’s topic, what are your favorite things that have happened on this here site or because of it. The really funny days and nights, when we’d go off on tangents or have twelve pages of posts before six in the morning, or our Oscar bashes or whatever? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and I hope that certain companies learn that it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature or BK.