Well, dear readers, once again it is past the midnight hour and these here notes should be posted already and yet I have just begun them and must now write them in a hurry, which seems to be the norm for the weekend notes. Just what Norm has to do with the weekend notes is unknown to me – in fact, Norm is unknown to me. I’m so tired right now that I’m unknown to me. In fact, the unknown is unknown to me. This whole paragraph is obviously unknown to me.
Yesterday was known to me, at least partially. It was, in other words, a partially known day, which is better than an unknown day. I was awakened around nine by my neighbors, who for some reason have taken to coming outside at nine every morning and yakking – they seem to have a baby now or someone is staying with them that has a baby – they stay out there just long enough to be irritating and wake me up, then they’re never heard from again. Hmmm. I just glanced up at my modem, whose lights were just sitting there like so much fish, then glanced at my Time Machine/router whose light was yellow instead of green. I immediately tried to get to a website and succeed and suddenly the modem lights were blinking like crazy and the Time Machine/router went back to green. Go know. We now return you to our regularly scheduled notes. I did fall back asleep and slept until eleven, so I do think I got nine hours of blessed sleep. I finished answering my interview questions about Nudie Musical for some upcoming book, then I did other work on the computer, such as typing up several sets of lyrics and getting them to Mr. Lead Sheet Man. I called to see if there were any packages and there was one, so I picked it up but it was only an auction catalog that I’m not really interested in. Then I came back home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I watched episode two of season three’s Sherlock. I quite enjoyed it and it was better than the first episode of season three. The show has definitely taken some rather odd turns and occasionally borders on being not clever but mawkish – but in the end it was very entertaining, very amusing, and they way they brought the various mystery threads into what was essentially a personal story was clever. Then I read some comments and yes, as I said yesterday, many fans have turned on the show, as obsessive fans tend to do when something doesn’t conform to their obsessive ideas about what the show is supposed to be. Oh, well. I’m looking forward to the third and final episode of season three – thanks to Google and some jerk I know the ending, although I suspected it could be what it is. I have to learn never to look or use Google before watching an episode.
Then Barry Pearl’s ever-lovin’ Cindy came over and we went to diner at Hugo’s whilst Barry went to a last-minute rehearsal at his theater. I had the Pasta Victor, which I’ve had before – it’s in a very light chipotle tomato cream sauce – can’t be more than a teaspoon of cream in it, so calorie-friendly certainly. I also had a small Caesar – it was my first food of the day and I only ate two-thirds of the pasta, as it was a little too spicy for me.
Then we headed over to the Zephyr Theatre on Melrose. We were early, so I found a great parking space ON Melrose, a loading zone, which, after six, is legal parking. We took a walk down Melrose to kill time – the street’s glory days are long gone. I must say, there are several old-fashioned barbershops now, and a whole slew of tattoo parlors. I told Cindy that I hadn’t been to a show at the Zephyr in over forty years, but that I’d definitely gone there prior to its name change when it was called the Horseshoe, due to its horseshoe style seating. She asked if I was sure it was the same theatre and I told her I was rarely wrong about these things. And once we entered there was the horseshoe seating, intact and looking exactly as I remembered. We saw Barry briefly before the show, and I met both the author and the director. The director told me he’d written me a month ago and that I’d never responded – and that we’d gone to LACC together. The minute he said that, I remembered his e-mail, which had just gotten lost in a huge mass of e-mails I got in one day. This fellow had played Mr. Twimble in How to Succeed with me. We sang a bit of The Company Way in the lobby of the Zephyr. And then we got our seats and waited for the show to begin. There were a LOT of critics there, something that’s not such a good idea – better to spread them over a few performances. The guy next to me was from the LA Weekly, although a whole bunch of their critics have bolted from the paper and are now reviewing online at a site called LA Raw. And I saw Pogue’s friend Kathleen Foley, a second-stringer for the LA Times, with whom I disagree most of the time, for very specific reasons.
The play was called Doctor Anonymous, which is set in Philadelphia in the era of 1968 to 1972, and concerns a gay person trying to get his psychiatric license. It’s all based on some real-life stuff that the author went through. It’s all done in one act and ran about 1:45, which was about fifteen minutes too long for a one-act show, at least for me. Trimming would be easy, as there was a bit of repetitiveness in some of the scenes and the scene changes were, at times, really unnecessary and longer than they needed to be. I enjoyed the play, but it doesn’t feel quite cohesive yet – sometimes feeling like a real play and sometimes feeling like a polemic. The actors, save for one performance I wasn’t crazy about, were all excellent, especially Barry in a difficult role. All in all, much better fare than I usually see in Waiver theater.
After the show, I hung out for a bit, then came home, where I caught up with e-mails and did a few things that were unknown to me.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep. Then I shall watch the final season three episode of Sherlock and be lazy. At two, I have a lunch meeting, then I’m seeing a presentation of some one-person show at someone’s home.
Tomorrow, we have our first Kritzerland rehearsal, Tuesday is our meet-and-greet for Li’l Abner and Tuesday night I have a dinner meeting with a singer whose act I’m putting together, then the rest of the week is meetings and meals, our second Kritzerland rehearsal, our stumble-through, a dinner with the Jones people, and then sound check and show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, watch Sherlock and be lazy, have a lunch meeting, and see 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 I shall dream things that are unknown to me.