Well, dear readers, I am writing these here notes early and in a hurry as well as in a hurry and early so that I can get them posted after which I shall try to get some very needed sleep. Last night I had one of those nights when there was just too much going on in Ye Olde Cranium and I didn’t fall asleep until five-thirty and then I was up at ten. Once up, I answered e-mails and had some telephonic conversations and then I found out the boxes of The Geisha Boy had arrived. You can imagine that I wasn’t thrilled to have to go lug fifteen boxes into the motor car so you can really imagine how I felt when I found out there were, in fact, forty-nine boxes. Yes, they shipped these in boxes of thirty, which is kind of incomprehensible when you think about it. So, I shoved these forty-nine boxes into the motor car and that was very hard work and by the time I finished I was even more exhausted. I then went to a nearby jernt and had two scoops of chicken salad on lettuce, with some cucumbers and tomatoes. No bread, and I only used less than a tablespoon of ranch dressing, so it was pretty low-cal – not much mayo in the chicken salad either. After that, I did some errands and whatnot, and picked up one other package, this containing the new book on James Bond film music by my pal Jon Burlingame. Funnily it’s from the same publisher of the book I got yesterday, Hard Times.
I then came home, answered more e-mails, and thanks to a surprise announcement by a record label that they are releasing FIVE CDs on Sunday at midnight (it’s unbelievable, really, this gluttony), I made the decision to move our release to this morning. That took up most of the afternoon – getting the sound samples to the web guy, doing the eBlast and all the other related things that needed doing. Then I got the chart and piano track for the new song I wrote for one of the upcoming Outside The Box episodes – just one little error, so he’ll fix it and resend. Then I had a meeting with Juliana, our postmortem of her show. We went over to Hugo’s. Since I’d eaten my low-cal lunch and I knew I would not be eating anymore major food, I had a chocolate mousse with whipped cream – it was great and gave me a little energy boost. We chatted about the show and basically my opinion was that it all worked perfectly, save for interrupting the audience when they were applauding and laughing. That was all out of nervousness, and we discussed how to handle it for the next time out. Then I came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a rather wonderful documentary by Dan Guntzelman, who I know very well and who is married to the very talented writer, Lissa Levin. This aired this week on our local PBS channel, KCET, because it’s an LA-centric documentary and they have an LA-centric arts show. In fact, I may contact them about airing my little thirty-minute documentary about the three LA kiddie show hosts of the 1950s. The documentary was called Opening Night and was about the Kentwood Players, a community theater that’s been around sixty years. He follows their then-current production of Li’l Abner from casting through opening night while interspersing the history of the theater. It’s all very well done and ultimately very moving. For anyone who’s done community theater it will all be very familiar, but it’s a very loving film done with a lot of heart. I’ve known about Kentwood Players since around 1964 because when I was doing shows at Bluth Brothers Theater in Culver City, several of our actors were regular performers there. So, it was really fun to learn all the history.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get as much beauty sleep as possible.
Today, I shall be up at six in the morning to announce our new CD release, which is the very first CD release of any music from any of the classic Jerry Lewis solo movies – The Geisha Boy by Walter Scharf, a seriously underrated composer who has written a seriously great score and one with a surprising amount of beauty, depth, and heart. It’s really beautiful music. The Geisha Boy had a very rare LP release on Jubilee Records back in the day, and we present the LP sequence from the stereo album masters. That LP release was missing about twenty-five minutes from the score, but we have all those cues from the original three-track session masters. Those masters were missing a lot of what was on the LP but thankfully all the missing cues were accounted for, so between the two sources this is complete and great. After that, I may try and get some more sleep, but the musical director of the Kritzerland show is coming over at eleven to pick up his music, and then I have a noon lunch meeting in the Dale of Glen. After that, I will hopefully print out a LOT of orders, hopefully pick up some packages, and then hopefully be able to relax.
Tomorrow, I’ll be supping with dear reader ChasSmith and the Staitman family, so I’m quite looking forward to that. I haven’t decided where we’re dining, but I should think Genghis Cohen would be a very good possibility. The weekend is pretty open right now so I’m not sure what’s up and I can’t remember if this is the weekend Druxy is here, although I think it’s the following weekend. Next week is very busy, too.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, announce our new title, hopefully print out a lot of orders, give the musical director all his sheet music and a CDR, have a noon lunch meeting, hopefully pick up packages, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: How many of our dear readers have done community theater and, for those who have, what were your favorite experiences and what were your most horrendous experiences. For those who haven’t, if you’ve seen community theater what are your favorite things you’ve seen? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall hopefully have a wonderful sleep.