Haines Logo Text
Column Archive
July 24, 2011:

DILIGENT

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I was diligent, oh, yes, I was diligent and I actually managed to get everything I wanted finished, finished. Sometimes it pays to be diligent ($4.63) and because of said diligence, I have two major things less to worry about doing next week and next weekend. First, I finished writing liner notes and proofed and approved packaging. Second, I wrote the contextual commentary for the Gardenia show – that took quite a while, but it’s done and all I need to do is read through it, tighten and fix whatever doesn’t please me. There are quite a few personal anecdotes in this particular commentary, but I feel that since I’ve had such a close relationship with Harvey Schmidt that the anecdotes are both appropriate and fun. In writing the story about how Evening Star came to be expanded, I noticed with some amazement that the story in the Lost In Boston IV booklet is completely bogus – it simply states that the authors decided the song needed a bridge and wrote it. I obviously was being very humble about it, since I wrote those notes. The truth was a whole lot of different. I’d wanted to record the song for years, but something always stopped me from doing so, despite loving the tune hugely. I just never felt right. Every time I’d do a new Lost In Boston album I’d pull out the music and have Guy Haines sing through it. We both really wanted to do it, and Harvey wanted us to. Then, when we were doing Lost In Boston IV, I went through the song again and this time a light bulb went on in my head – just one of those happy moments when clarity arrives. I realized that the reason the song had never worked in 110 In The Shade (it was cut in Boston) was that it wasn’t a complete song – something was missing and what was missing was key – a bridge. It was just two A sections with a two-line coda at the end. Just too brief and not emotionally satisfying. Other directors had tried to put it back in the show, but ultimately they could never find how it would work. I called Harvey with my revelation. He listened patiently, but didn’t necessarily agree. But I was VERY strong about it and passionate, too. I asked him to not just dismiss it out of hand, but to please take a few days and think about it and maybe discuss it with Tom.

The next day, Fed Ex arrived with a package from Harvey. In it was a cassette – on the cassette was Harvey singing Evening Star and then playing the most glorious bridge, the most perfectly realized bridge and it just made the song – everything suddenly worked. I called him in tears and told him how beautiful it was and that I thought the song now worked perfectly. He then dropped the little bombshell that he was pretty certain that Tom wouldn’t write a lyric for it. I took a deep breath, and then told Harvey to call Tom right after we got off the phone – and to tell him that I’d recorded more Schmidt and Jones songs that I could count, that I’d stepped up to the plate and recorded a studio cast album of Collette Collage, which had lost Varese Sarabande a good deal of dough, and I’d recorded the revival of I Do! I Do! Just tell him that, I said. The next day I got a fax with the lyric, which, like Harvey’s music, was just perfection. And so, Guy Haines recorded it and for whatever reasons, I didn’t tell the actual story of how it came to be, even though Harvey was very generous with his thanks for pushing the issue as hard as I did.

People who heard the song loved it. Better yet, thanks to my being incorrigible and extremely pushy and obnoxious when I want something, the song is now a part of every production of the show – and it works splendidly because, at long last, it’s now a complete song. And I hear a very strong rumor that Guy Haines will be making a rare public appearance at the Gardenia to sing it. Guy introduced several Schmidt and Jones songs, actually – Wishes Don’t Wash Dishes, Evening Star, and Millions Of Men, as well as recording the divoon I’m Glad To See You’ve Got What You Want from Celebration. Guy loves Harvey and Tom.

We also had a really terrific rehearsal and run-through of the thirteen-year-old’s show. She’s now completely at ease with everything – the songs, the staging, the patter – and she connects everything beautifully and is very natural. It never sounds like she’s reciting written patter – it sounds fresh and unrehearsed, which is, of course, what one wants. Her song performances keep getting better and I think it’s going to be a wonderful show. For those dear readers and lurkers in the LA area, I cannot recommend highly enough making reservations to see Melody.

I lunched at the Eclectic CafĂ© and had a chicken Caesar salad that had so little dressing on it that I finally had to get a little extra on the side. I had neither bread nor anything else. Later, I had some Campbell’s soup and a pudding cup, just because I felt like it. The Jacuzzi was still spazzing out during the day. The jets turned on once. I did the breaker thing and it was fine. Then another control which controls a little waterfall in the pool went on and couldn’t be shut off. That happened twice. Both times the breaker thing worked. I may just leave the breaker off for a while – it controls the pump, but that’s off overnight anyway so what’s the difference and if it stops this annoying thing for a while that will make me happy.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I really need a good night’s beauty sleep and I need to be diligent in getting it.

Today, I shall futz with the commentary and smooth it out and tighten, but other than that I think I actually get a ME day. That will make ME very happy. I’ll do the long jog, I’ll eat something fun (perhaps I’ll rustle up something here in the home environment), and watch motion pictures.

Tomorrow, I have a lunch meeting, and I have many errands and whatnot to do. Tuesday is the first of our Gardenia rehearsals, along with many other things to do prior to that. The rest of the week will be filled with more rehearsals, meetings, and really attending to the web series details.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, then have a ME day, and eat something light but amusing. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I diligently hit the road to dreamland.

Search BK's Notes Archive:
 
© 2001 - 2024 by Bruce Kimmel. All Rights Reserved