Well, dear readers, let me just say that at two in the morning it will be one in the morning. Isn’t that marvelously marvelous? Just like that, a whole hour disappears. Of course, it’s disappearing much later in the year than it used to because someone decided that was The Way It Will Be. So, for example, if you wake up at nine it will only be eight and you can sleep an extra hour and when you get up at ten it will be nine but only if you’ve changed your clocks. If you haven’t then you will be confoosed as they say in Dogpatch, USA. Frankly, the whole time thing always has me confoosed and a confoosed elderly Jew is not a pretty sight. As I write these here notes it is eleven not ten. But if I were writing these here notes at two it would be one. These are metaphysical things I speak of. Actually, I have no idea what the HELL I’m going on about, other than it’s about time.
Yesterday was such a nice day any way you look at it. I got up just before she of the Evil Eye arrived – I think I almost got eight hours of blessed sleep. I did a two-mile jog, then beat a hasty retreat for a couple of hours. I did some errands and whatnot and picked up an important envelope, then came home and got ready for our stumble-through and then the book signing. Our cast arrived right on time and we began right on time. What a fun show this is – and the sequencing worked really well. I still haven’t made up my mind if I’ll sing or not – I did at the stumble-through and it was fine, but we’ll see how I’m feeling tomorrow. Our cast was wonderful with only two slight lyric flubs. I only had three teeny-tiny notes and we addressed them at the end. I really like our musical director, Lloyd Cooper. And what a treat to have Alvin Ing singing his put-together of You Are Beautiful and My Best Love.
After we finished, I moseyed on over to Book Soup for the signing. I had no idea if anyone was going to be there other than Lisa Livesay from the Kritzerland show. But, we ended up with every chair taken and a couple of people standing. I don’t think the bookshop promoted this at all outside of listing it on their website, so naturally they didn’t have any people attend. But it was a wonderful crowd of folks I knew, including our very own Mark Wyckoff, Barbara Deutsch, Jane Noseworthy (she didn’t know if she could make it but she did), Cabaret Scenes’ Les Traub, Adryan Russ, Lisa, young Sami Staitman and her grandmother, Harriet, film score enthusiast Henry Stanny, one of the original Dancing Dildos, Artie Shafer and his partner, 20th Century Fox’s Tom Cavanaugh, and some others I’m just not remembering right now thanks to the lateness of the hour. I read three short bits from the book and took questions and I always have a great time doing that stuff. Then I signed books for those who bought them.
After that, a few of us convened at Genghis Cohen for a lovelier than lovely meal. I do love it so – we had our usual orange chicken (extra crispy), green beans, crackerjack shrimp and Kung Pao chicken. Only Adryan had been there before, and all the newbies loved it. Funnily, when I said we’d be going there at our stumble-through, Alvin Ing made a face and said it was food for tourists and not authentic. All I know is it’s extremely yummilicious so if that makes me a tourist then I’m a tourist. I know what he means, of course – you get authentic by going to Chinatown, which is where he goes. After dinner, I came directly home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a wonderful motion picture on DVD, a region two thing from the UK entitled 23 Paces to Baker Street. I used to own a 16mm pan-and-scan Technicolor print and I’ve always really enjoyed the film. This is the first time I’ve seen it in its Cinemascope ratio and it’s a whole other film like that. Van Johnson is very good as the blind playwright who overhears a kidnapping plot, and Vera Miles is fetching as someone who adores him. Cecil Parker as his butler has the film’s best lines and bits and he’s terrific and very amusing. The movie has a terrific score by Leigh Harline, which sounded great in full stereophonic sound. After that, I watched the first twenty minutes of the new Blu and Ray from the UK of Jacques Tati’s marvelous Mon Oncle. It looks pretty terrific and is miles ahead of the Criterion DVD transfer of old.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I really must try and get a good night’s beauty sleep with the extra hour helping me do so.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep. I shall set the microwave and stove clocks back an hour (unless I do it before I go to bed), I shall relax and listen to yet another new master. We’ve been rushing some projects through, as my mastering guy is leaving town in a week for a week. Then I’ll go to sound and video check, and then it’s show time. After, some of us will go out for a bite to eat. I will, of course, have a full report.
Tomorrow, I have a meeting with my new agent, Martin Gage, and Jason Graae – we’re discussing a potential project. Other than that, this week I’ll be casting the final three Outside The Box roles, prepping that shoot, having meetings and meals, and writing three sets of liner notes, which I have to be done with by Wednesday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, relax, listen to a master, do a sound and video check, and do a show. 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 it’s definitely about time.