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April 13, 2011:

A HAPPY CAMPER

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I am a happy camper, which is interesting since I hate camping. Therefore, how can I be a happy camper and yet, I, BK, am a happy camper – not a LITERAL happy camper, but a figurative happy camper, a metaphorical happy camper, an allegorical happy camper, and a historical happy camper. After all that preamble, I can no longer remember why I’m a happy camper, but I’m sure it will come to me. One reason why I’m a happy camper is that I’ve been choosing the songs for our next Gardenia show, You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile, the music of Charles Strouse. As always, I’m trying to mix the well-known Strouse with the not well-known Strouse, which is always the fun for me. There were several good choices on Jason Graae’s album, and we’re doing some not well-known numbers from Rags and even one song from Mayor. Right now I’m going through the demo for Minsky’s to see if I like anything there, and also the pre-Annie Warbucks show called Annie II: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge, so we’ll see about that. But I made a rather fun discovery – I don’t know if I’m the last to this party or not, but I did not know about the McGraw-Hill educational film called Replay Redux or something, made in 1971, eight years prior to the birth of the Strouse/Charnin musical entitled Annie (from which we’ll be doing three songs with an authentic Annie). The short film is about hippies and how everyone thinks their clothes and music are so radical and this film contrasts their wacky fashions with wacky fashions of old – you know, everything old is new again. And in this short film is a little Charles Strouse ditty, that just happens to be his most recognizable and famous song – yes, Tomorrow from Annie. They lyric?

The way it is now
Is different
From the way it was before
Or is it
I’m not sure

Isn’t that great? I’ll be telling that story in our show and also singing that lyric (there’s more – the bridge and ending are completely different, though). I love stuff like that – in fact, it makes me a not literal but figurative metaphorical happy camper. We’ve cast one more player so there are three to go. We’ve asked one fellow who’s been with us before, and I’ve asked Mr. Graae, as he did our Charles Strouse album and knows the material, obviously. He’s waiting to hear whether he has to fly to New York for some reading – hopefully he won’t have to and will be able to join us. Our first choice for guest star, Miss Bonnie Franklin, is, sadly, not available, so we’re thinking about other possibilities.

Prior to all this Strouse stuff, I had a wonderful night’s sleep (almost ten hours – really needed), got up, did some work on the computer and suddenly it was time to meet our very own choreographer, Adam Cates for lunch at Mo’s. It was grander than grand catching up with him and we talked about a few potential projects that could happen this year. My helper came towards the end of the lunch, as I thought she should meet Adam. I think if he does work out here, she’d be a very good assistant for him. Two tables away from us, looking very, how should I say, out of it – Paris Hilton.

After that, I picked up one little package and then did some errands and whatnot, after which I returned to the home environment, where I did some more work on the computer, and got approval on an upcoming Kritzerland release I was really wanting to do, and now we can. This is one of my favorite scores of the last two decades (I really don’t like much from the 90s on, but his is a goodie), it’s long out of print and bringing decent money, and I think a new generation will love it. I’m having the tapes pulled and praying I find even a few minutes of extra music. It’s a beautiful-sounding album, so that part I don’t have to worry about at all. Then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I finished watching The Night Digger on DVD, starring Miss Patricia Neal and written by Roald Dahl. It’s an interesting little early 70s thing, a little perverse in a similar way to the director’s first film, a really weird oddity called Baby Love. Miss Neal is quite good as is Pamela Brown as her mother (I really don’t think there was that much of an age difference between them). The score by Mr. Bernard Herrmann is great and a big plus, but the film just never really rises about the ordinary. The Warner Archive transfer is nice and shows off the moody, rainy photography well.

I then watched a movie I’d TIVOd entitled Ishtar. I have not seen Ishtar since the day it came out, other than watching the first ten minutes of it some years ago. This film was a critical and financial disaster – almost legendary, really. I really couldn’t imagine, given some of the junk that’s made today, that I wouldn’t find Istar at least mildly entertaining given its stars and writer/director (Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty, and Elaine May). When I saw it on the night it opened there was a full house and the film did not get one laugh – not ONE laugh. By the forty-minute mark, a third of the audience had left. By the end of the film only a third remained. Time has not helped the film at all. It is still completely unfunny, horribly unfunny and so cocky about itself (everyone must have thought they were making a masterpiece, but the dailies should have told them otherwise) that it borders on nauseating. The only one who really escapes unscathed is beautiful and talented Isabelle Adjani. Naturally, I did my imdb test – the film itself has something like a 3.9 rating, which is better than it deserves. But then you get to the “reviews” and you’d think you were reading about a classic Billy Wilder or Preston Sturges comedy – and every one of these people who love, love, love (that is three loves) this film has to say that those who don’t love it just don’t “get” it or aren’t smart enough to love it. Note to uppity “reviewers”: Um, no. There is a reason that pretty much every critic in the world hated and loathed it and why audiences weren’t having any of it and that reason is that it is BAD. BAD bad.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because this happy camper needs another good night of his beauty sleep.

Today, I have some work to do in the morning hours, then I will hopefully pick up a package or two, and then I’m lunching with a singer pal – we’ll be going to the Studio CafĂ©. After that, I shall resume the song choices and I must get to storage tomorrow to pull some charts. Then I can relax and perhaps watch a motion picture or three.

Tomorrow is lunch with dear reader Jeanne, and Friday I’m going to try and work with the musical director of the Gardenia show, as we’ll have to work up some arrangements prior to our rehearsals. I have a work session on Sunday with the twelve-year-old and I’m sure we’ll go sup somewhere fun afterwards.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do some work, pick up a package or three, lunch, choose more songs and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, a happy camper.

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