Well, dear readers, there are times I just want to tear my hair out in frustration and yet I cannot do so as I need all the hair I have and frustration be damned. Why, just moments ago I was ranting and raving into the telephonic device and wanting to tear my hair out because our new release has been such a roller coaster ride, what with the decision to scrap the work we’d done and start over with a complete remix, to having adjust the blurb at the last minute and pull the liner notes from the website. It was all so confusing that there was miscommunication about changing a paragraph in the booklet – thankfully I caught that tonight and hopefully it’s not too late to fix it this morning (we just approved proofs yesterday, so I doubt it’s gone on the press yet). My transfer guy, who is one of the best, is also so strange and sometimes so confusing that getting him to understand and be clear about what we were doing was a lesson in frustration – I believe he has erred on the side of extreme thoroughness so we should be fine and dandy and also dandy and fine. Add to that our earlier frustration and continued difficulty in doing something that should be simple as can be – exporting customer names and addresses from Excel into some sort of mail or address book program so we can finally stop hand-addressing all these damn packages. Apparently, it’s all quite simple for a PC and not simple for a Mac, which, to me, is the height of stupidity. It will somehow eventually work and the helper is all over it trying to get it done, but this has been going on for about four weeks now. It is wonderful, however, to be able to print out postage now without using the stupid Pitney-Bowes machine and strips – that part is fantastic. And doing packages is so simple now and the delivery confirmation is free. But once we’ve got the addresses into the postage program all packages will automatically have free delivery confirmation and tracking and that will be very helpful to us. Earlier, I’d wanted to tear my hair out in frustration when I tried the simplest of tasks – to purchase tickets for Friday night’s showing of Jews and Baseball. I was sent a link to the Laemmle website, and did everything one was supposed to do, only every time I put in my credit card info I received an error message saying that something was wrong. That happened twice – I finally changed the zip code so it would match the card (I had the business zip) but I still got the error message. I then called my bank to see why the card wouldn’t go through, only to find it HAD gone through and the money had already been deducted even though the charge was “pending.” I then called Laemmle Theaters and finally talked to someone – he was confused, saw the charge, saw that it had gone through, and couldn’t understand why I got an error message and no confirmation and receipt. He frankly thought that the charge would be declined at midnight and to that end he put me on a comp list and I’ll get in free or, if the charge goes through, I will at least be covered, since I won’t have my tickets.
Then I wanted to tear my hair out in frustration at Hugo’s – my Caesar salad was great, as always, but the pasta papa was gross – I don’t really know why and I should have sent it back, but instead I ate it as I didn’t want to wait for some other foodstuff. I only know that I won’t be ordering it ever again, because the preparation of it varies wildly between chefs – sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it stinks.
Other than that, the rest of the day was okay. Our fifth singer has still not picked up her music, nor responded to e-mails – I’m on the verge of replacing her. I really don’t get it – I don’t care how busy someone is, it takes ten seconds to respond to an e-mail or Facebook message. After all that frustration and wanting to tear out my hair, I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched disc two of the new The Night Of The Hunter Blu and Ray set, Charles Laughton Directs The Night Of The Hunter, put together by neighbor and friend Bob Gitt. It’s almost three-hours of outtakes from the film and it’s truly fascinating. One hears Laughton off-camera directing his actors – cajoling them, yelling at them, being Charles Laughton – I can only say that if a director had attempted to direct Mr. Laughton the way he directs his actors, Laughton would have screamed bloody murder and probably walked off the set. There are times when listening to him is excruciating – especially when he’s giving line readings that cause his actors to imitate him and put emphasis on strange words – it’s really something. The footage is amazing and it’s equally amazing to see the differences between takes, especially for Mr. Mitchum, a consummate film actor. It’s a wonderful look at the filmmaking process.
I’ve also been meaning to talk about the Joe Raposo/Sheldon Harnick musical of It’s A Wonderful Life, entitles A Wonderful Life. I’d recorded its titles song, the wonderful number called In A State, and a pretty song called Christmas Gifts. I’d never heard the rest of the score and had always been interested to know why this show never had much life, wonderful or otherwise. I mean, how can you fail with that source material? Well, I was recently given the complete performance of the show as done for an Actor’s Fund benefit with an all-star cast including Brian “Stokes” Mitchell, Judy Kuhn, Phillip Bosco, David Hyde Pierce and lots of other terrific people. The problems are apparent almost immediately, in the choral opening – it just sets the wrong tone somehow. Then we get a very telescoped history of George Bailey (leaving out some great stuff from the film), and then it picks up where the film picks up with George as a young adult. But, at least as played by Mitchell, George is a sourpuss with no charm and he just gets worse and worse as the show progresses (the character, I mean). James Stewart managed to always make George understandable – he’s funny, quirky, very touching, and you truly believe his spiral into wanting to commit suicide – he never overplays it and his mounting frustration is always believable. In the musical version, it’s all over-the-top and over-dramatic. In fact, when he’s about to throw himself in front of a train (rather than drown himself in a freezing river as in the film) he actually says “Goodbye cruel world.” I mean, it’s so melodramatic and dopey. The wonderful title song is, unlike our album, not a duet for its two leading romantic characters, it’s got other people in it, which is just weird. There are still laughs, and the plot is not something you can really destroy, but apparently there was no strong director to straighten out the easy-to-fix book problems. The score, for the most part, is really excellent. I have always felt that Joe Raposo was a great songwriter, and his music is tuneful and catchy. I think Harnick is the real problem here – left to his own devices and without a Jerry Bock and a Jerome Robbins or Mike Nichols or whoever, he just isn’t a Joseph Stein or Michael Stewart – and he just constantly gets in the way of what worked perfectly in the film. Of course the Actor’s Fund audience is whooping and hollering at every utterance in that annoying way of audiences today. I’d love to direct a production of this someday, but only if I could do some work on the book and take things back more to the film script.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get a good night’s sleep – that was my intention last night but instead I got only a fitful night of sleep, which made me want to tear my hair out in frustration.
Today, I shall be up by nine I should think to make sure everything is okay with the booklet fixes. Then at some point in the morning I’ll be going to my engineer’s, just to hear the orchestral blend of the mix – after that I’ll let him finish as much as he can and he’ll put the mixes on his iDisk and I can hear them as he goes along. On Tuesday next he’ll finish and I’ll come over to approve everything – I’m hoping it’s fairly easy for him. Most of the cues are short and the balances should be fairly consistent – plus he has our previous mix from the three-track tapes along with the original album mix, so he’ll always have a guide. After that, I have errands and whatnot to do, and then I must begin preparing my questions for Saturday’s LACCTAA event – one of my director panelists hasn’t confirmed yet, which I find more than a little alarming, but even if he doesn’t, we’ll be fine with five. Then I believe I’m supping with a friend.
Tomorrow, I’ll finish writing the panel questions and I have other stuff to do, and then I’ll be seeing dear reader Edisaurus and her film Jews and Baseball. Saturday is, of course, our panel. Not sure what’s going on Saturday night. Sunday is busy trying to work out all our rehearsal schedules and keep the mix on track and all that other stuff. I gotta tell you.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, make sure everything is okay with the booklet fixes (please send excellent vibes and xylophones), I must hear orchestral blends, I must do errands and whatnot, I must write questions, and I must sup. Today’s topic of discussion: Who are your all-time favorite film directors and what is the one film you love above all by said director? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I attempt to refrain from tearing my hair out.