Well, dear readers, I don’t know about you, but I’m finding it a little hard to believe that today is the final day of November, and that tomorrow is a little month we like to call December. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, tomorrow begins a little month we like to call December. And we hope and pray that December will be a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful. I, for one, am looking forward to the holiday season, which I hope will be filled with merriment and mirth and laughter and legs. Meanwhile, back in November, we had a pretty nice day yesterday doing pretty nice things and the VERY exciting news is that Kritzerland has, after five years, entered the 21st Century, shipping-wise. When we first began, we were doing such infrequent releases that shipping CDs was pretty easy – we’d hand address, then take them to the post office to get postage put on them – that was very time consuming and quickly became tiresome. With the release of Evening Primrose we suddenly found ourselves shipping close to 1500 CDs. I had to hire several helpers to address, and waiting in the post office was a nightmare of epic proportions. After that, I signed up for Pitney-Bowes and we got a postage machine, which immediately helped us immeasurably. However, with the machine came having to buy postage strips, which cost almost forty bucks a box. We went through them very quickly. What Pitney-Bowes neglected to tell us was that Avery made labels that would work – and were six bucks a box. We didn’t find out THAT information until three months ago – heaven knows how much money we wasted on those ridiculously expensive labels. By the time we began doing our regular limited edition soundtrack releases, the addressing of the boxes and the putting of labels on the boxes and the printing of postage to put on the boxes had become crazy. We had the routine down to a science but it was a science I was completely tired of. So, about three months ago we began entering the addresses of everyone who’d ordered something from us in the last year. The addresses were entered into an Excel spreadsheet, but we could never figure out what to do with them. Then Pitney-Bowes said they had an online mail program just beginning and gave me a good deal to keep our machine but also to do everything online. Only their online site was so bad and so amateur, nothing ever worked.
So about three weeks ago, I cancelled the Pitney-Bowes contract and we signed up at Endicia – a professional online postage service whose service charge was less than Pitney-Bowes. We tried to set everything up on the Mac (they have a Mac program) but their Mac support was just not good and their program was really designed for PCs. So, it’s taken three weeks, but the helper got everything into her PC, got the addresses from Excel imported into the Endicia address book, figured out how to print four labels to a sheet, and today it finally all came together and we did the Bukowsical boxes totally online. No labels to attach to the boxes – everything prints out on the labels created by Endicia (which will now save me the money I was spending on doing our own labels) – it includes the address, our return address, the postage AND free delivery confirmation on every single package. So, we save seventy cents per delivery confirmation on the bigger boxes (we never did delivery confirmation on the small packages, but now it’s free so we do). Additionally, we get good rates on the postage for the flat rate boxes. But it’s the ease of the address book that’s the best – yes, when new people order, those have to get typed in but once in they’re in for good – and frankly it doesn’t take any more time to type them in than hand address. Printing four labels at one time also saves incredible time, plus we save two complete steps from the old system – no putting labels on boxes THEN addressing them, and no separate printing out postage and then attaching the postage. It will be so nice from now on and I couldn’t be happier. Kudos to the helper and Endicia for helping us work through some problems.
That took up most of the morning and early afternoon – we got a bunch of stuff shipped today and she did all the labels for Bukowsical and may have even begun the Carrie boxes. Interestingly, because of the Thanksgiving holiday, both CDs will be arriving next week – on separate days – one day prior to my birthday and one day after my birthday. That was very considerate. I had a couple of Panera Muffies for lunch, and then it was time for rehearsal. Jason was up first and was his usual delightful self. He was very sweet about the little help I gave him with the order of his act – apparently it worked like gangbusters, so that was nice to hear. He sang his three songs, although we could only mark through Baby, It’s Cold Outside. Then came Michelle Duffy, who I haven’t worked with before. She’s a wonderful sort, funny, beautiful, and sings her three songs beautifully. Then came Julian Hansen and Dan Callaway. They did their duet, and then each did their other two solo songs and both sounded great. I gave just some simple notes to everyone. Then came Alet and daughter Lucy. Lucy did wonderfully on her song – what a little dynamo she is. And Alet is a big dynamo and I just adore her. I think it’s going to be a fun show, and I’m hoping when I hear it in order today that everything works – on paper it certainly does. I then made a few adjustments to my contextual commentary, then went and finally ate some dinner – a sandwich and fries. Then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched the first forty minutes of a motion picture on Blu and Ray, a region B affair entitled Peeping Tom, a film of Michael Powell, starring Carl Boehm and Anna Massey. I’ve written about the film several times – it’s a masterpiece but it was so reviled at the time of its release that it basically ended the career of its director. So, the transfer’s the thing and it’s good news – it’s the best I have ever seen this film look. It was not a big-budget production – but the really saturated colors and lighting look fantastic and perfect, grain is minimal, as it should be, and it’s sharp as a tack. It puts the Criterion DVD and all other DVD releases (all of which I had) to shame. It’s cause for rejoicing and I hope it eventually gets a US release. I’ll finish it this evening.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get a good night’s sleep, get up early, and have an early meeting.
Today, I must be up early and to the Studio Café by nine-thirty for a meeting. After that, I have errands and whatnot to do and I have to try and figure out the two Kritzerland December releases – not sure if I’ll announce one of them next Monday, or hold it and announce two on the 21st. We shall see. At six we have our stumble-through and then Bruce Vilanch will be here to run the duet with Jason as many times as we need for them to be comfortable.
Tomorrow, we have a sound check at two and then it’s show time. It appears that we’re going to have a really nice crowd – we’ve already got close to thirty dinner reservations alone, so that’s great. Thursday and Friday are very busy days, but I think the weekend is kind of open, so that’s nice.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a breakfast meeting, I must do errands and whatnot, and then I must have a stumble-through. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite dialogue quotes from 20th century plays – musicals or straight plays – those memorable lines that are etched in your memory, like “to commit suicide in Buffalo is redundant.” Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I sleep happy knowing that we’ve become 21st Century Kritzerland.