Well, dear readers, styles in music are very interesting. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, styles in music are very interesting. Last night, I attended an ASCAP showcase for new (or not THAT new) composers – two teams and a composer/lyricist. Andrea Marcovicci hosted the evening. Either the composer/lyricists sang their songs or some guests did – including our very own Mr. Jason Graae, who can make almost anything sound wonderful. Andrea sort of did little interviews with the writers, and asked who their influences were. The only real non-contemporary writer named was Sondheim. Otherwise it was Stephen Schwartz and Flaherty and Ahrens. But that wasn’t the interesting part – the interesting part was hearing songs that, with one real exception, all had the same tonal qualities, the same kind of chord voicings, the same slightly weird phrasings that are so part of today’s musical theater writing. And that style comes from neither Sondheim, Schwartz or Flaherty and Ahrens – it comes very specifically from Jason Robert Brown. The sameness throughout the evening was very obvious to my ears – those chord voicings and progressions, the sometimes arch lyrics. The writers certainly all are talented and it was an enjoyable evening on certain levels, but I was initially taken aback by it and the fact that no one copped to Brown being an influence. One could occasionally hear other influences but Brown was the overriding one that I heard. But, of course, it has always been thus in theater music. A certain style will become popular and then suddenly all music has that sound until the next style becomes popular. But this particular style is so, in my opinion, limited, that it was fascinating to hear so much of last night’s program fall into it. Hopefully, all these fine writers will find their own unique voices – the final team is closer to it than the others and their final song was quite good, I thought, and different from everything else that had been played. But the attendees all had a splendidly splendid time and it’s always fun to hear new work. And, as I said, these are all fine writers – I think they will all need strong collaborators as they continue down this road, but then who doesn’t? To all these talented folks I say, play on.
Most fun of all was seeing people I know and adore like Karen Morrow, Nancy Dussault, Jason, Adryan Russ, and others. One of the composer/lyricists that I’ve known for many years now told me that his father had read the Kritzer books – he’d just somehow come across them and loved them. He was there, and we had a really lovely chat and he said the books just completely brought back his childhood to him – he grew up a mere five minutes from where I did and so all the locations in the books were very familiar to him. He told me he was about to start reading them again. It was lovely to hear.
Prior to that, I’d had a wacky little day. I got up after eight hours of sleep. I had a couple of early visitations, then I did the four-mile jog. After that, I did some errands and whatnot and picked up some mail from the mail place but no important envelope. Then I came home and got ready for a little meeting. The meeting was with Vicki Lewis and Joan Ryan, who are intending to do a show together. They had someone who was going to do it, but that fell apart, and they are now ten days away from having to do a fifteen-minute presentation for bookers, so they came to me to help do that. I’m fine with helping, and we chatted, discussed song options and a little structure for it, and also what was important to impart to viewers in terms of what kind of show they’d be doing. So, next week will pretty much be devoted to putting that together and on its feet. I’m not sure they want me to do the actual show, nor am I sure I’d want to do it – we’ll have to see how it all plays out.
During the meeting the phone had rung but I let voice mail get it. When I checked the message it was from my paypal debit card company asking me to verify the last five charges. They do this sporadically and while it’s a little annoying, it only takes a couple of minutes to do. The minute I heard the first charge I knew something wasn’t right – a charge of $1.08 from some video store in Illinois. So, pushed the button that said I hadn’t authorized it, and that gets you to a live human immediately. The live human asked me about another charge, which I confirmed was mine. Then she told me that there were two charges they’d just declined from a Walmart in Colorado, after two other charges had been authorized for $240. Of course, those charges were not mine and she shut the card down immediately. I then called paypal customer service and was talked through the process of getting a new one – that will take up to four weeks, which is a real pain in the butt cheeks. They were very good with me and kept me calm. They assured me that if the authorizations went through, that I’d be sent an e-mail form to contest them and that the money would be back in my account within three or four days. I said since it was still in the authorization phase I didn’t see why they couldn’t stop it before it came in. Again, they were very good and actually put the money back in my account, which was very nice of them. Of course, if the authorizations become charges, then the money goes away again and I have to file the dispute, after which I’ll get the dough back. Thank goodness for their diligence, although I do check the paypal account quite a bit online and I certainly would have noticed it. But they caught it in time and thankfully it wasn’t more than a couple hundred bucks. I have no idea how these things happen but it’s very irritating and I hope the people who do these things that cause grief and aggravation to innocent people, well, I hope they die a slow and truly painful death for all the havoc they cause.
It was also suggested that I call the Walmart directly and speak to a manager to try and get them to not process those two charges. That I did, but I was told that those charges wouldn’t appear on their books until early this morning – so my intention is to get up at six and call them again to see what can be done. Also, I believe they have surveillance cameras there and since we know exactly when the charges were made and they would know what lane was used, maybe they’ve got these creeps on camera – doubtful, but we can hope. Then I went into paranoid mode and called my bank to check on my bank debit card, but all was well.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because it is late and I must get some beauty sleep before getting up to call Walmart in Colorado.
Today, I shall get up at six to call Walmart in Colorado, and then I’ll hopefully be able to go back to sleep, as I’m still a bit jet-lagged. Then I’ll get up, do the four-mile jog, do errands and whatnot, some banking, and hopefully pick up a package or three and an important envelope. Otherwise, I’m relaxing and watching motion pictures and then I’ll eat something light but amusing.
Tomorrow, I have to write, finish the scripts of the LA episodes of the web series, start working on the next Kritzerland title, which I’ve finally decided on, and then I shall relax, for next week is going to be VERY busy and the week after that even busier.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, call Walmart in Colorado, sleep, do the four-mile jog, hopefully pick up packages and an important envelope, eat, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Have you ever been a victim of credit card fraud and, if so, how bad was it and how quickly did you get everything resolved? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland.