Well, dear readers, rather than a thrilling Thursday we had a Throbbing Thursday, some good throbs and some not so good throbs and maybe even a teeny-tiny thrill thrown in for good measure. I managed to get seven hours of sleep, got up, answered a few e-mails, did my morning ablutions, and then moseyed on over to the home environment of my engineer. He’d already done his adjustments on the sound per my notes to him and it was scads better. So, we listened to the entire show. I did some pull-ups, edited some unnecessary patter and that took about two hours. Now, Jason and I will both listen to it and make notes about any further patter editing, then we’ll discuss, then we’ll both go over there for the final go-through. It should all be finished in a week or so. We don’t fool around, baby.
Then I had to go directly to Barney’s Beanery to have my lunch meeting. I pulled into the parking lot, which is normally a ghost town at that time of day, only to find a video crew there, shooting. It all looked very amateur and probably was a student film of some sort. I finally parked where they told me to, in back of an already parked car. The meeting was fun and I had an absolutely yummilicious chicken salad sandwich with bacon on white toast, and a few onion rings.
Then I began the trek back to the San Fernando Valley. On Laurel Canyon, as soon as I passed Hollywood Boulevard I knew there was some crap going on because everything just stopped. Rather than sit there without knowing the severity of the problem, I did a quick turnaround, went back to Hollywood Boulevard and took Nichols Canyon, which would have been fantastic save for the refuse truck in front of me going ten miles an hour. I finally got around that yokel and flew home the rest of the way. I did stop and pick up one package. Then I came home to the news that the trucking people hadn’t yet called my guy. When I called the truck bookers (the guy I dealt with was off yesterday), the man who looked up the order told me that the person I dealt with set the pick-up for Monday. I couldn’t believe it and I admit to going slightly ballistic. The guy asked if he could call me back in fifteen minutes, and that he was going to try and fix it. He called back as promised and had managed to arrange another pick-up. So, all was well for about an hour, until my guy called and told me that the trucking company refused to come do the pick-up because everything wasn’t addressed and on a pallet. Like we’re all supposed to have pallets sitting around. By that time, I’d had it, but the bookers were gone for the day. I left a message and I’m sure I’ll hear back today – I’m going to ask for my money to be refunded and we’re going to deal with this a different way this very weekend. In fact, I should have thought of that different way weeks ago. I think you can see where the throbbing came in, as in my head was throbbing by that point. Exhausted, I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched two motion pictures on DVD. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled The Spikes Gang, starring Lee Marvin, Gary Grimes, Ronny Howard, and Charlie Martin Smith, directed by Richard Fleischer. This one came and went so quickly on its initial release that I never got to see it. I’m glad I finally caught up with it – it’s very 1974 in feel – one knows from the very beginning that nothing is going to end well for any of the characters, so it’s very nihilistic. I liked it quite a bit, and it has a really excellent score by Fred Karlin, a wonderful composer I did two fantastic albums with.
Then I watched the second motion picture on DVD, which was entitled Such Good Friends, a film of Otto Preminger, with quite an amazing cast. It’s one of the only Preminger films I hadn’t seen so it was great to finally get to. I wish I could say it was an undiscovered or forgotten gem, but sadly, it isn’t. It’s mostly a very dark comedy and whatever one thinks about Preminger, and I’m a huge fan, he is not a man who should be directing a comedy. But that’s where he went for a while, with this and Skidoo. That said, there are certain pleasures to be had. But you know what you’re in for when within the first ten minutes of the film you have a nude scene featuring Burgess Meredith. That would be like me doing a nude scene at my current age and believe me it’s nothing you’d ever want to see. Miss Dyan Cannon is naked, too, and several of them men appear in their underpants – if only Mr. Meredith had been one of them. The screenplay actually has some hilarious one-liners, laugh out loud funny, courtesy of screenwriter Esther Dale – Miss Dale is, of course, a nom-de-plume for Elaine May and these one-liners reek of Miss May at her most caustic. And the cast – Dyan Cannon, Laurence Luckinbill, Ken Howard, James Coco, Doris Roberts, Jennifer O’Neill, Nina Foch, Louise Lasser, Burgess Meredith, Sam Levene, William Redfield, Rita Gam, Elaine Joyce, Lawrence Tierney, Virginia Vestoff (fun having Ken Howard and Miss Vestoff in the same film – they were both on Broadway in 1776) – well, it’s worth it just to watch the cast. Oh, yes, and also Joseph Papp, of all people. Go know. And the score? Mr. Preminger was always very smart about his composers – until the end. Starting with David Raksin, and then his really interesting choices of Elmer Bernstein, Duke Ellington, Ernest Gold, Jerry Fielding, Jerry Goldsmith, Mischa Spoliansky, Paul Glass – all great scores from great composers. Even Hugo Montenegro wrote a compelling score for Hurry, Sundown. Then he went to Nilsson for Skidoo. And who did he turn to for Such Good Friends? Why that great up and coming film composer Thomas Z. Shepard. Say what? Yes, you heard that right – record producer Thomas Z. Shepard wrote the score. It’s hard to know exactly what he wrote and the music doesn’t really function as a score should, but it’s pleasant enough and one suspects that a lion’s share of why it’s pleasant enough would go to orchestrator Hershey Kay. Transfers on both films was very nice.
After that, I made the decision to announce our new title early, this morning in fact, because my dear, dear friends at Varese Sarabande had to surprise everyone and usurp Monday’s announcement. So, I got everything prepared and announce we will. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I really must get some beauty sleep since I’ll be up at six am.
Today, I shall arise at six and make our announcement, after which I will hopefully be able to go back to sleep for a few hours. Then I’ll hopefully print out a LOT of orders, do some errands and whatnot, hopefully pick up a package or three and an important envelope, and then The Singer and Miss Juliana Hansen will arrive and we’ll go sup and then see the opening night of a new musical. We may go out afterwards.
Saturday, she of the Evil Eye will be here, and then I have a lot of stuff to do, a work session, and all that jazz. Sunday I have to meet with Mr. David Wechter about the script we’re writing – time to get back to it – we really want to have a rough draft done by the end of June.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, make an announcement, print out a LOT of orders, do errands and whatnot, hopefully pick up packages and an important envelope, sup, see a show, and maybe go out after. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/video player? I’ll start – CD, various and sundried Kritzerland projects. Blu and Ray, too many to list. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping for a Fabulous Friday.