Well, dear readers, this is not exactly what I’d call a weekend of relaxation. This is what I’d call a weekend of work and a lot of it. But, once I get past all this work, I’ll have at least a day or two late next week where I can relax and smell the roses or the coffee or the plaster of Paris. What the HELL is plaster of Paris anyway? Is there also plaster of Reseda and plaster of Rome and plaster of Gstaad? In any case, this weekend it’s work, work, work (that is three works). For example, yesterday was a lot of work. I got up after a good night’s sleep. That was a lot of work. I then finished doing the cue titles and edit road map for half of an upcoming release. Then I went and had a sandwich and onion rings, after which I came home and, with the aid of a friend, printed out several hundred postage stamps – in fact, we got all of them printed except the orders that are getting multiple CDs – those I have to calculate, but there are only about fifty of them so that shouldn’t take too long to do. That was a big load off my mind. I then did the edit road map for our next release – that took the duration of the movie, because one has to isolate and title each cue as it comes up – interestingly, this film has a score that only runs eighteen minutes out of the hour and fifty minute running time (it’s half of a double bill CD), so I had to sit here waiting for the music to appear, which it did only infrequently. In fact, there’s not a note of music in the first thirty minutes of the film. There’s one cue we have that’s not in the film at all, and there’s one cue we don’t have – the end titles. While we can’t get all of that music, we can get about 1:20 of it from the DVD, so we’ll do that. By the time I finished that it was the end of the day. I’d already picked up some mail and a couple of packages prior to finishing the edit road map. I then finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Romantic Comedy, a film version of the Broadway play by the creator of The Partridge Family, Bernard Slade. The play had a great cast – Mia Farrow, Anthony Perkins, and Carole Cook. I never saw it, but it ran almost a year. The film version has Mary Steenburgen, Dudley Moore, and Francis Sternhagen. They had to muck around to make the lead fit Dudley Moore, and Arthur Hiller expends a lot of energy trying to open up what is a one-room play, mostly to no avail. But I’m a sucker for this kind of thing – I’ve always loved one-set romantic comedies, so I thoroughly enjoyed it. Miss Steenburgen is magical on screen, Mr. Moore is Mr. Moore and probably not as successful at the role as Mr. Perkins must have been (then again, I didn’t see Mr. Perkins) – but he’s his usual cute self. Miss Sternhagen is great, and Ron Liebman does a lot with a thankless role. The music by Marvin Hamlisch is wonderful, and there’s a requisite song by Hamlisch, Carole Bayer Sager and Burt Bacharach. I’d love to know who did what on the song – it uses the two basic Hamlisch themes from the film – I wonder if Burt wrote those of if he adapted the Hamlisch tunes into a whole and created a song. The transfer was nice and I felt all cuddly afterwards. I then started to watch a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Tora, Tora, Tora, an import from the UK. However, it’s all-region and will play in any player. This Blu and Ray is notable for including the Japanese release of the film, which is ten minutes longer than the original American release – that’s what I’m watching. I only got about fifteen minutes in, but, for whatever reasons, I rather like this film, so I’ll finish it up this very evening. Thus far, the transfer is fantastic, as is the sound, which really makes the Jerry Goldsmith score pop.
After that, I had a couple of longish telephonic calls and that was finally the end of the evening. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below whilst we all ponder plaster of Paris and stucco of Burbank.
Today, yes, more work. I’ll get up, then a friend is joining me and we shall attach hundreds upon hundreds of postage strips onto packages. That will probably take a few hours, and then I’ll take said friend out for a nice meal to show my appreciation. Then I should be able to get a little relaxation in, although, that said, more orders have come in so I have to address a few boxes.
Tomorrow, I have several errands and whatnot to run, several telephonic calls to make, helpers to find, and then I’m having a cozy dinner with muse Margaret and her ever-lovin’ Richard.
Tuesday might be shipping day, or that might happen on Wednesday. Tuesday at six I’ll be taping the Skip E. Lowe show and then meeting our very own Miss Alet Taylor for a little dinner meeting to discuss several upcoming projects.
The rest of the week is the same sort of thing, and then I’m trying to keep the weekend pretty clear, which will probably not be too hard since people will be celebrating July 4th and won’t be around. We do announce a CD that Monday or Wednesday, but it will be all prepped and ready to go.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, attach postage, eat, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I dream of plaster of Paris, whatever the HELL that is.