Well, dear readers, today is a unique and wonderful day. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, today is a unique and wonderful day that can only happen once in a blue moon or, at the very least, once in an orange moon. Yes, today is 10/10/10 (that is three 10s). I love that today is 10/10/10 and I don’t care who knows it. In fact I shall shout it to the high heavens and also the low hells. I believe that 10/10/10 is a cause for celebration and celebrate I will by hopefully sleeping in, taking it easy, seeing The Social Network and then supping at either Genghis Cohen or Dino’s Pizza (I’m waffling between both, although the plan at the moment is Genghis Cohen, since I’ll be mere moments from there). But, before we get ahead of ourselves, 10/9/10 was a pretty interesting day all on its own. I was awakened by the knock-knocking of she of the Evil Eye. I had to get ready ever so quickly and then met the helper at Public Storage. I signed the new paperwork, and the helper had her father there and a little later also her boyfriend. The move happened very easily and the new space is amazing – everything fits with so much room to spare – you can actually walk around and get to things. I through away a LOT of stuff – at some point I just ceased to care what was in certain files or folders – I glanced, I realized I just don’t need that stuff anymore, and out it went. We probably through away about eight boxes of junk – old magazines, papers, publicity materials, accumulated junk. And I was finally able to see what was in boxes I haven’t been able to get to since 2001 and I found some pretty amazing things, including several reel to reel tapes that I’d been desperately trying to find when I was putting together the bonus CD for the book – had I found these tapes, I could have included another three or four tracks. Who knows, maybe we’ll do a volume two of Rare Tracks. They included a complete live performance of my first musical, Start At The Top, and a complete live performance of an evening of my music and lyrics sung by me, Diana Canova, Alan Abelew, and Annette O’Toole. That was the one I’d really been searching for. I also found some really wonderful sheet music (including the cut Gimme a Raincheck for Sweet Charity – it had actual sheet music with the Charity artwork and it was pre-Neil Simon, with Fosse getting the book credit), I found several interesting cassette tapes, and I still have a bunch of boxes to go through. I found a few books that I’d actually re-purchased because even though I knew I’d bought them I couldn’t find them. Now I know why. However, the most amazing discover I found was seven handwritten yellow sheets of paper with the start of a mystery novel. This had to be circa the late 1990s. I had no memory whatsoever of having started something like that, even though I do have a memory of wanting to write a book and thinking I’d do a mystery of some sort – but the book I would ultimately write was Benjamin Kritzer. The fascinating thing about what I found is that it is like a very rough blueprint for what became my first mystery – Writer’s Block. I was going to call this book Murder at the Martin Beck (sounds like a Hofstetter mystery title), and it was about the tryout of a new musical – but today, not circa 1969, which is what I ended up doing. The lead character and person who will become an amateur sleuth is a writer, as in Writer’s Block, but a stage manager. But the seeds for all the characters I would write in Writer’s Block are here – I couldn’t believe it. Some of the dialogue made me laugh out loud. And yes, I’d even begun to create the musical for the book, which I called Final Curtain. And the tag line on the cover of Writer’s Block, “Trying out a new musical can be murder” is right there at the end of what I’d written. Isn’t that amazing? I’ll tell more about other finds as I unpack and look at them.
I then moseyed on over to The Hollywood Show, which continues to deteriorate. When I first got there at noon it was fairly crowded. But as I walked the room I saw that almost half the celebrities had already left for lunch – that NEVER happened in the old days – it was always staggered, and no one ever left two hours into the event. It was absolutely ridiculous. There were a lot of show tables, but the one I was most interested in, Pete, Linc, and Julie from The Mod Squad, was empty, its occupants obviously at lunch. Celeste Holm was there looking feisty. My pal David Naughton was there, as well as my pal Jerry Houser (there was a Summer of 42 table). There was Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw from Love Story (at lunch), Nastassia Kinski, chewing gum and looking bored. The circus atmosphere is worse than ever, and these idiots who now put on the show have yet another “improvement” – no nameplates on the tables. Certain tables have banners with the show name, and certain celebs obviously brought their own name on a big sign, but half the time you had no idea who was sitting at a table. After ninety minutes, no one had come back from lunch and more celebs had bolted for the Daily Grill. I finally just left.
I then joined The Singer at Hugo’s for a working lunch. We went over our song list again and it’s looking pretty interesting, with two really good medleys and a lot of eclectic material that we still have to whittle down. It still felt like we were missing a beginning song and I thought of one that might work, so we’ll give that a try if she likes it. Certain songs she had on the list I feel are way too overdone, and she agreed, but just as she was about to cross them off I thought we could put together a funny medley called The Overdone Medley, just one overdone song after another in one two-minute burst. We’re going to try that, as we both thought it was funny. I had my small Caesar salad and pasta papa – for some reason, the latter was huge and for the first time I actually left some of it.
I then came home. I’ve been fighting something all week, and I’m really trying not to get sick. I think a lot of it stems from not getting enough sleep – I had two or three really bad nights this past week, and when I don’t get enough sleep then my throat gets weird. I’ve been sucking on Ricolas, drinking lots of water, and I began drinking hot EmergenC, which has helped. So, send lots of excellent vibes and xylophones for no illness – I simply have no time to be sick. I then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I was in the mood for something mindless, so I watched the Blu and Ray of Taken again. It’s a fun little movie with a very good performance by Liam Neeson. It’s written by Luc Besson, who I like very much and while the direction is filled with all those modern touches I so loathe, it’s so fast and fun that the time just flies by. The transfer is really excellent.
I then sent the audio samples and blurb for our next release to the designer and prepared the eBlast that will go out Monday morning.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’ve got to get a good night’s sleep. I wish I had some NyQuil here – I thought I did, actually, but I can’t find it. And tomorrow, when I awaken it will be 10/10/10.
Today, I will hopefully sleep late, get up, relax, feel better, do a jog, relax, and then toddle off to see The Social Network, which I’m really looking forward to. Then I’m supping, probably at Genghis Cohen – haven’t been there in a ‘coon’s age.
Tomorrow, hopefully I’ll be printing out a LOT of orders for our new title, and I hope to get together with the musical director of the next Gardenia show, John Boswell, so he can get the charts and a CD of the music. And I seriously have to cast three people. Tuesday, I may or may not be doing some sort of interview for the book. Wednesday is my signing at Book Soup, and then I have a few meetings for the rest of the week. So, no time to be sick.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, sleep in, do a jog, see a movie, 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 postings, shall we, whilst we all celebrate this unique and wonderful day – 10/10/10.