Well, dear readers, I must tell you I love LA noir. There, I’ve said it and I’m glad. I love good LA noir, I love bad LA noir – there is simply no better noir city than LA, and that includes Pomona. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of LA noir films, but still, they all have a special place in my heart. Those of you who’ve read the Kritzer books know I was convinced as a young sprig of a twig of a tad of a lad of a youth that Bad Men were following me. I was convinced they were breaking into our house in the middle of the night. Then there were all the LA crime TV shows of the 1950s, all of which I watched without fail. I felt I always knew the underbelly of the city, long before Mr. James Ellroy made a career out of exposing it. My father owned some rather sleazy bars on Pico near downtown and I went with him when he’d pick up the takings and it wasn’t pretty, but it was LA – it was dank and smelly, with alleys in the back that were filled with dark forebodings. Back then, the Herald Express newspaper was quite lurid, with the kinds of photos that would never be printed in a newspaper these days – bloody bodies splashed on the front page. And then there was Raymond Chandler’s mysteries, which really defined LA in that time period – he just “got” LA in a way few have. I say all that because I’ve just approved the master for our next release, which is very much LA noir film music what with being from an LA film noir, albeit one of recent vintage. As most here know, I don’t think much of most film music of the last twenty years – oh, there’ve been a few good scores (most of the ones I’ve really liked were from foreign films, though), but most of the stuff is just substandard droning and thumping with no memorable themes, and all of it just sounds the same to me. So, it’s pretty amazing that in the mid-1990s a masterpiece of film music managed to find its way into a film – the film wasn’t successful – the audiences of that year didn’t care to see an LA film noir that took place in the early 1950s. Funnily, one year later LA Confidential came out and suddenly they ALL wanted to see an LA film noir that took place in the early 1950s – that film was very good, but I found its Jerry Goldsmith score to be but a pale shadow of his work on Chinatown. Whereas the other LA noir score instantly became my favorite score of that sorry decade known as the 90s. And why did I love it so much? Because it’s real, old-fashioned thematic film music at its best – and it really is one of the great scores of its type, right up there with Chinatown and David Shire’s Farewell, My Lovely, and let me tell you, that’s mighty heady company. We, of course, put out a lot of CDs, but this will be my favorite of the year. It was previously on CD but not complete – ours is complete, right off the original two-track mixed masters and it’s an incredible recording so it sounds absolutely amazing. If you love this kind of film music, act fast – you will be VERY happy you got it.
Why am I going on about LA noir when I have notes to write. Perhaps I’ll write noir notes, hardboiled notes. Perhaps I need a gat whilst writing them or a fedora or a sap – wow, it just took me ten minutes to remember the word “sap” – that thing that gangsters hit people with – it just wouldn’t come to me. In any case, I had a nice day yesterday, although I did not get more than five hours of sleep, if that. Just too many things dancing around the windmills of my mind. I did a mile and a half jog, did some errands and whatnot, picked up several packages, answered e-mails and had a few telephonic calls. I went to Hugo’s for a late lunch and had my Caesar salad and pasta papa. Then I came back home, wrote the blurb, and got the tracks for our new release, which I then listened to and which was fantastically fantastic. Then I felt guilty about the pasta papa so I did another jog – this time two and a half miles, so the tally for the day was four miles. I then sat on my couch like so much fish.
I didn’t really have time to watch a motion picture on Blu and Ray, but I did watch a forty-six minute piece on the production company BBS, the company that made Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Head, The Last Picture Show, A Safe Place, and The King Of Marvin Gardens. They were a trendsetting company and the piece was interesting, but it was also kind of irritating hearing all these now over 70 year olds talking about LSD and Mary Jane cigarettes and cocaine and all that crap I loathed then and loathe now. I hated Easy Rider back then, and can’t watch it now. I was never a member of the Counter Culture, other than sitting behind the counter at a few hamburger jernts. I haven’t seen Five Easy Pieces since it came out, so I’m interested to see that on Blu and Ray, and I’ve never seen The King Of Marvin Gardens. I do like The Last Picture Show, so I’ll give that a spin, too, and I’ll watch Head just for the weird value. And since I love Tuesday Weld, I’ll watch A Safe Place, even though I’m not much of a Henry Jaglom fan.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below or, at the very least, instead of clicking just hit it with your sap. I really must get some beauty sleep.
Today, I must be up early as I have to be at the Colony Theatre in Burbank at ten. My engineer and I will be there to scope out the theater, as we’ll be recording Jason Graae’s Jerry Herman show live a week from tomorrow. The engineer has to rent some equipment, so after seeing the theater he’ll know exactly what he needs. After that, I’ll do a jog of some sort, hopefully pick up a package or three and an important envelope, do errands and whatnot, and then have a work session, after which I’ll finally eat something light but amusing.
Tomorrow, she of the Evil Eye will be here, so I’ll go do stuff and buy whatever I need for my trip to New York, New York, as well as get some cash. Sunday, I pack and I’ll have to get to bed very early, as I must be up very early Monday morning – even earlier than usual, as we’ll announce our new title and I have to do everything that needs to be done for that before leaving for the airport at five in the morning. I was really trying to announce today, but the designer teaches all day and then has a rehearsal, and I don’t really want to announce on the weekend.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a meeting at the Colony Theatre, jog, do errands and whatnot, hopefully pick up some packages and an important envelope and then have a work session, after which I’ll sup. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/video player. I’ll start – CD, all sorts of upcoming Kritzerland projects, which is all I seem to have time to listen to these days. Blu and Ray, probably Five Easy Pieces or Head, plus Twelve O’Clock High. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall dream of noir dames and tough guys and gats and saps and fedoras.