Well, dear readers, it is late and therefore I shall write these here notes in a hurry, therefore they may be a bit perfunctory rather than long and drawn out or even drawn out and long. I have to say, it was nice to have a day with no proofing and no entering fixes. Instead, I slept till nine, had a telephonic call with the East Coast singer, who told me how the show went (I’ll be seeing a DVD of it on Tuesday), then I got up and met the helper at the storage facility. We pulled the music for the next Kritzerland show so I’m actually ahead on that one. I also took home hundreds of photographs from the last twenty years so I could go through them and choose some for the new book. I picked up two count them two packages, and then came home and looked through all the photos. Interestingly, some of the really bittersweet photos were of artwork that I had to sell because of the stupid lawsuit I was involved in. I forgot just how much incredible stuff I had and some of it would be worth quintuple what I sold for back then. I had four count them four original paintings of Saturday Evening Post covers, I had two Earl Moran pastel pinups, including one of the young Norma Jean (aka Marilyn Monroe), I had a Gil Elvgren pinup, I had many classic paperback book cover paintings, I had an amazing piece from an early MAD Magazine (something like issue five), the classic “Accept No Substitutes” faux ad. I had the original art for the back cover of MAD number 30, the first real appearance of Alfred E. Neumann. I had great Robert Maguire and Robert McGinnis pieces. Thankfully I had all of that to sell – they were great investments and I certainly enjoyed them while I had them. Certain pieces I really regret having to sell, especially my J.C. Leyendecker Post cover. I did get almost double what I’d paid for it, but today it would probably go for over 100K.
I found some absolutely wonderful photos, though, dating back to Unsung Sondheim. So, we’ll have a lot of them in the book. Nothing I saw really jumped out at me as cover material, so I’ll be interested to see what jumps out at Grant. He’s got a much better eye than I do. After that, we had our stumble-through.
It was a little funky at times, but the show is very tight and a lot of fun. I gave a few notes, mostly about sustaining energy, where to build and where to hold back, and stuff like that. And a few notes to our pianist, who was not building stuff like I like. We ran a few things after the rehearsal and fixed those problem spots. I gave Melody a few things to do on The Dressing Song so that will give her more energy. I think we’ll have a fairly light crowd unless we get some walk-ins, which we’re all hoping we will. It’s the Stupid Bowl – everyone goes to Stupid Bowl parties and drinks beer and belches and watches a bunch of people crash into each other. Not my idea of fun. My idea of fun is seeing five great singers, seeing Richard M. Sherman, and hearing great music, that’s my idea of fun. I leave the Stupid Bowl to others.
Then the family Hollis and I went to the West Hollywood Barney’s Beanery. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, so I had their foot-long chili cheese hot dog (superb), fries, and I ordered a small mac-and-cheese for the table. We had a lot of fun. Then we came back to my home environment and watched The Music Man – Melody had never seen it so it was great to let her experience it for the first time. I haven’t seen it since the Blu and Ray first came out – I know the transfer received raves back then, but it’s really not a top-notch job and needs to be redone from scratch. It’s reasonably sharp but could be much better now, and the color is just off – way too yellow and brown. Just let me in the telecine room with a colorist and I can have it perfect in about ten minutes. Then we watched a couple of Jack Benny bits, just to show Melody who he was. One of the things I showed, the hillbilly musical number from a 1951 show had Melody in tears from laughing so hard.
Then they left and I read through the contextual commentary for the Kritzerland show, which was fine, and then I printed that out. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get these here notes posted and get a good night’s beauty sleep.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep. I shall then definitely jog. After that, I’ll relax and get ready for our sound check. Then it’s show time, then we’ll grab something to eat after the show, then I will, of course, have a full report.
This coming week will be filled with meetings, casting the next Kritzerland show, casting the new Outside the Box episodes and having John Boswell finish playing the tracks and creating lead sheets, and hopefully I’ll get the proofed book back from the three proofers so I can start entering those fixes. Then there is not only the big book fair on the weekend, there is also The Hollywood Show, which I may have to go to just to say hey to Cindy Williams. I also have to figure out when I’m flying to Washington, DC to work with the East Coast singer for four days – that will happen mid-month, and then she’ll fly me to New York a couple of days before the actual show in March. So, some traveling coming up. Since I’ll be there anyway, I may decide to shoot one or two of the Outside the Box episodes in New York. We shall see.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, relax, do a sound check, do a show, and then eat. 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 hit the road to dreamland where I shall probably dream of hundreds of photos.