Well, dear readers, we had our stumble-through and got through it pretty much unscathed with only a couple of truly minor fumfers. The structure of the show worked very well and there are a lot of laughs in this one, none bigger than those garnered by our very own RYacko in his first number. Slightly problematic were a couple of the ballads, but that had to do with tempo and interpretation so I gave a few notes and all should be well now. I cut a repeat in one of the ballads, too, and that helped immeasurably. There’s really no way for me to know any of that in advance of seeing the show all together, which is why I insist on doing the stumble-throughs. The opening number is fantastic – the tempo was a bit too slow and so afterwards we made that adjustment and ran it again and it was just right. The entire cast is just great, and, as always Lloyd Cooper accompanies perfectly and is just the best person to work with. We also had Shelly Markham with us because Andrea Marcovicci and he have been together for twenty years and he is her comfort zone.
Prior to that, I was up at eight-thirty, then she of the Evil Eye arrived and I left and did a two-mile jog – that actually felt really good. Then I went and had poached eggs and an English muffin to tide me over until dinner. I did some banking, then came home and did some work on the computer prior to everyone arriving.
After the stumble-through, everyone went on their merry way and I went to have dinner with Muse Margaret and her ever-lovin’ Richard. I love our dinners and this was a terrific one and one very much in keeping with Red Gold, which Margaret is so happy with – it just does my little Jew heart good to hear that kind of positivity – pot roast, biscuits and salad, all yummilicious. The conversation, of course, was sparkling. I told Margaret two things I was thinking about in terms of what I’ll be writing next – I am considering doing a second book this year, something I’ve been thinking about for a few months and something I could do relatively quickly and that wouldn’t be all that long. As those who’ve read the Kritzer books know, those cover my young adult life through the summer of 1965. Then the first memoir begins at the end of 1968 with my marriage and journey to New York to try and be an actor. So, there’s the missing three years in there and I’ve had enough people ask me about it to think it might be fun to fill in those three years, basically all about LACC and other stuff that happened during that time. It would be very colorful and have a lot of fun anecdotes – about school and all the folks I knew there, about my road trip touring with the Bishop’s Company, which is a hoot, doing shows at school, the relationships I had, my funny jobs during that time working several different places on Hollywood Blvd. during a really wacky time, all my different residences, my experience with the draft board – what do you think? I’m thinking it would be fun to do.
And then we talked a little about where Red Gold will go in the second book. As I’ve mentioned, I hadn’t really thought about it being anything but one book, but the ending that came to me kind of was interesting in terms of continuing it. You’ll know why when you get to the end of it. IF I do, then I have to find a good story that will work for it and take us naturally and forcefully into a third book. The good news is, I already know the basics of how the second book would end, and I know what the third book would cover. So, that’s what I’ll probably start next January, although I also have another Hofstetter book ready to go in terms of knowing what the story is. We shall see.
For dessert, Margaret made a spectacular chocolate lava thing, a molten thing – an individual thing for each of us, with whipped cream and berries, too. It was amazing. I also told her about Jrand’s review of the book, which made her very happy, and also about a few things David Wechter said about it – he really liked it a lot, but said the stuff with kids being around guns made him very uncomfortable. I find that fascinating and so did Margaret, and not in a good way. Red Gold takes place in 1880 – it’s not today. And we began talking about our childhoods and how it was perfectly okay to have toy guns and rifles with caps and how much fun it was to play cowboys and stuff. You can’t do that today, and that’s a shame. They say it sends the wrong messages and is dangerous. I got news for those who say that – I don’t think many 1950s baby boomers became serial killers or criminals because they played cowboys with toy guns. It didn’t lead to real guns or violence of any kind, it was just what we played. We knew it was play, and it was fun. Today, verboten. And yet: Parents let kids play the most violent video games, where the slaughter is very real and multitudinous, where the violence is outrageous – that’s okay, that’s perfectly fine. But you know what – I think THOSE games lead to antisocial behavior and there’s a lot more chance of kids confusing those games with the real world and things leading to boiling points and danger. It’s odd to me that we have all this horrid gun crap today with young people committing mass murders – it gets worse and worse – but in the days when we played cowboys with our toy cap guns there were virtually almost no incidents like that. Maybe we should go back to the more innocent ways – maybe what they should outlaw are these horrible and violent video games. Owning my Fanner 50 or my Rifleman rifle didn’t make me want to own real guns or to go out and kill real people. That’s all I can tell you. In other words, with all this keeping kids from playing innocent games it hasn’t gotten better or safer – it’s gotten worse and more dangerous. You can’t buy toy guns but teens certainly seem to be able to buy real ones way too easily. Go know. Here’s a photograph of my favorite toy gun – my beloved Fanner 50.
I went off on a tangent, did you see that? Anyway, it was a grand evening and at nine I came back home. Once ensconced in the home environment, I did some work on an edit road map for a release that will contain three scores. I finished the main one, and the second one will be very easy, and the third one will require some careful work.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep, then I shall try to do a jog, then I’ll relax until I am on my way to do sound check and then our show. I will, of course, have a full report.
Tomorrow, I have an eleven o’clock meeting at LACC with our set designer to sign off on his final work, then I’m hoping to lunch with my stage manager and figure out who’s playing what role beyond the people we’ve already figured out. You know, who will be the husbands, the wives, the secretaries to General Bullmoose, all those little things – a lot of doubling and tripling. I’ll eat, hopefully I’ll pick up some packages, and then I’ll come home and work some more on the edit road map. It doesn’t look like we’ll announce a release this week, but if I can get the road map done, then we can announce that title next week. Happily, that project requires no approvals at all. The rest of the week is all meetings and meals and liner notes and planning the next Kritzerland show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, maybe do a jog, relax, do a sound check and do a show, after which some of us will go 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 dream of a simpler time looser, freer and a lot more fun.