Well, dear readers, it’s Monday and I’m already exhausted. This week is flying by, like a gazelle having a Swedish massage. I’d like to have a Swedish fish, but alas, there are no Swedish fish in my vicinity. I wrote twenty-two pages yesterday. I also gave the first 160 pages to muse Margaret. She can’t read that many at one sitting (normally she gets forty to fifty pages a week), but she ready the first sixty or so pages and she said she enjoyed them a lot. This book won’t be as much fun for her as There’s Mel because it involves a world she doesn’t know at all and has not so much interest in. But as long as she’s not bored by it and thinks it’s entertaining, which she certainly does so far, then it will all be fine. In fact, it’s probably better that the world is foreign to her because that means that if she ever gets bored by anything in it then other readers might. But I’ll just keep on going and hope for the best. She’ll finish the rest of the pages today and hopefully she’ll like them. One thing that’s very different about this one is that it doesn’t have the warmth of my daughter’s story, which the first one does. But this is about a very different period in my life, so it simply can’t have that. And while I had a few relationships during this period, they were all short-lived and none had the resonance that would provide that kind of thing. So, I’m having to be careful and make sure this book has heart, which I think it does and, as it gets closer to the events of 2001 it really will go to that land and have plenty of drama and hopefully heart.
As I also said yesterday, once I get past the year 1994, then the book will move through the subsequent Varese years (till 2000) much more quickly because for those years I had everything down to a science and I’m not going to dwell on every single album other than for a few lines here and there. I’ll concentrate on the important ones. The problem in writing 1994 has been that every time I think I’ve got it all figured out in terms of time-line, I find another album I did. It’s mind-boggling that I was literally going from album to album every other week. I hadn’t realized we did Michelle Nicastro’s second album during that year, so I had to work that in and I knew that her daughter was walking by then so I knew approximately when it was done. The most mind-boggling thing about it all is that the owner of Varese was actually saying yes to all these albums and they were not cheap. In 1994 we did the cast albums of Ruthless, A Grand Night For Singing, Merrily We Roll Along, Heartbeats, and Hello, Dolly. That’s almost unbelievable, when you think about it. And trying to figure out which week and month we did what is really hard because we stopped putting actual dates in the booklets. If I work backwards from the album’s release date – for example, Dolly was released on November 18th (which is why it wasn’t nominated for a Grammy in 1994 – it was too late to be eligible that year and therefore it was a 1995 nominee that actually got announced in January of 1996. But backing up from November 18th, it becomes pretty obvious we had to do it sometime in late September – it could have been a little earlier but it couldn’t have been October I don’t think as that would have really been rushing it. I was also trying to remember exactly when the Unsung Musicals benefit was – the one at the Danny Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College. And I guess that had to be in November or maybe even early December. If anyone knows those answers, drop me a line, please. I can’t remember when the Dolly tour started exactly – but I do know we made the recording very early in that tour, while the show was in Minneapolis.
Other than writing, I didn’t do much. Oh, I ate some matzo brei and I picked up one package and an important envelope and I did some banking and I took a break and watched the first Maigret movie in box three. It was another terrific film, with a great cast, good story, and it was fun to come back to what is becoming one of my all-time favorite TV series. This particular film was one of the last ones – made in 2004. Whilst watching, I ate some pasta of my own concocting – probably too much, but just pasta with a small amount of butter and cheese. It was quite yummilicious.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I really must get some beauty sleep if I’m to try and keep up this pace.
Well, you see, Google can be your friend – the Unsung Musicals concert was on November 15 and that makes perfect sense. And Dolly was recorded on October 17. Two mysteries solved.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s sleep and I shall finesse, then write new pages, maybe jog, hopefully have a good report from muse Margaret, hopefully pick up some packages, eat, write, write, watch a Maigret film, and write.
Tomorrow and the rest of the week will be exactly the same. I’m seeing a matinee on Saturday and then dining with Melody and her folks. We’ll be doing her show again and we’re going to start having sporadic rehearsals, because we’re putting some new material in the show and need to work it in and figure out what will be removed to make way for it.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, finesse, write, jog, eat, hopefully pick up packages, write, hopefully have an encouraging report from muse Margaret, watch a Maigret, and write. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite pasta dishes? Recipes always welcome. We’ve done it before, I know, but I’m on a pasta kick right now. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I will hopefully get some more chronology straight.