Well, dear readers, so I saw a Zagat survey that named the In-N-Out double burger the best burger in LA. Voted on by a little over 3,600 people. I would have to say that either they’ve never had a burger anywhere else or they are just sheep. Don’t get me wrong – I like In-N-Out burger, their normal cheeseburger is very good. I would never eat the double double, I would instead have two separate burgers. But these same wags also voted as their favorite burger topping a fried egg. Say what? Are these people just stupid? That’s not a burger that’s a mutant burger. And I would venture to say that 90% of those voters have never had Astroburger. Because Astroburger so clearly beats In-N-Out it’s not even funny. But Astroburger isn’t trendy like In-N-Out. I’m not sure it received one vote – other votes went to The Counter (I would never eat at a burger place where you have to “build” your own damn burger – that is NOT my job) or something called Five Guys. One of LA’s best burger jernts closed – that was Cassell’s on 6th Street – supposedly it may reopen in the Hotel Normandie later this year, but we’ll have to see. I just can’t get over the favorite burger topping of a fried egg. These people are fried eggs. That’s like some of these absurd toppings people put on so-called pizza. They may taste okay and people may enjoy them and many do, but that ain’t pizza, baby, that’s something wholly other. I had one Umami Burger – it was good but it wasn’t really my kind of burger – it was just another trendy thing that I never need to partake of again. Is Zagat something people take seriously? We have near me some cheesy-looking jernt called the Oyster House. They’ve been there for like forty years and there’s a big sign on the side that says Zagat rated best in LA. I was in there once to meet a friend. It was so obnoxious and noisy I left as quickly as I could. It’s mostly a dive bar with cheap drinks and gets some rock-and-rollers in there, but it’s kind of disgusting and I’ve been told the food isn’t really too good. So, just what the HELL is Zagat and why do they exist and do people actually take that stuff seriously? These are the question that are roaming around in the windmills of my mind. That and, of course, the fried egg burger topping.
Yesterday was a very nice day. I didn’t quite get my necessary eight hours but it was close enough. I got up and then an hour later Sandy and Lanny were here and we ran through all the songs for the new album. I don’t give many notes at this stage – I like to give the singers notes in the studio right when they’re doing the take – I find that works best. The charts are done and Sandy sounds great on the songs. I have divorced myself from the writing part and am just acting as a producer, unless I hear a wrong note or lyric, in which case we just fix it and move on. But that part is easy for me because after I’ve written a song I really don’t have much memory of how it happened and I’ve never really done anything in my life to really push my material. Some have discovered it, some have performed it in cabarets, but I just have never had the mindset of certain people who really know how to shove their work down the throats of anyone who’ll listen, and that includes certain musical theatre composers. But as I sit and listen to Sandy and Lanny, I enjoy the songs because they seem tuneful and they have good lyrics, not because I wrote them. I must say that Lanny has done an amazing arrangement of the earliest written song on the album – written when I was fifteen. Anyway, it was a fun session.
After that, I went and had a Cobb salad and a bagel, picked up a couple of packages and then came home. I did some work on the computer, had a visit from a local CD dealer, did a mile-and-a-half jog and finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched the new Blu and Ray of All That Jazz, a film of Bob Fosse, starring Mr. Roy Scheider, Miss Ann Reinking and Miss Leland Palmer. I saw the film on its opening day. I really loved the musical portions of it, thought it was very well directed and acted, but the final ten or fifteen minutes of the film disappointed me back then. I thought the final number just went on too long and didn’t really have the specialness of what preceded it. I’ve seen the movie many times over the years, and I’ve always felt the same way. I had the original DVD, which was fair, I had the second DVD release, which was a green abomination, and now I have the new Fox transfer released by Criterion. The first thing is that this time I pretty much loved it all. Part of that is because it just looks and sounds so stellar, but part of it is because it’s so refreshing to see a film that has singing and dancing that’s shot by a pro who understands the frame and the art of shooting a musical number – today they just put twelve cameras down and make the number in the editing and that is not the way they used to do it, which is why the older films made by people who understood the film medium are always so great to watch. Mr. Scheider is terrific in the film and I’ve always thought Leland Palmer, with whom I worked on a CBS TV series, was just aces in this. But for me the best performance next to Mr. Scheider is the young girl who plays his daughter – her name is Erzsebet Foldi and she is so natural and so winning, and such a great dancer, that it’s surprising she didn’t get further movie and TV work. She eventually joined the Twyla Tharp company and did other stuff, but now she’s out of the business and a marriage counselor. Her number with Ann Reinking, done to Peter Allen’s Everything Old Is New Again, is one of the best musical numbers ever committed to film – it never gets old and it just has such joy and heart I could watch it over and over again, and probably will later tonight. There are quite a few nice extras, some ported over from the previous DVD and some new – there is a long conversation between Miss Reinking and Miss Foldi – it goes on TOO long because they’re just conversing and having a lot of repetitive repartee. Too bad the producer didn’t have questions and keep it focused, but that’s the way it goes. There’s also a new interview with editor Alan Heim, which is filled with good stories and information. But the best of the extras is a thirty-minute Gene Shalit interview with Mr. Fosse, done in 1986, the year before he died. The transfer could not be better – gone is the sickly green wash of the last DVD and what we have looks gorgeous, with perfect color and sharpness and contrast, oh my. Sound is just as it should be and this is very highly recommended by the likes of me.
I also finished the Marx Brothers set. I can’t really recommend it to anyone other than die-hard fans, of which I’m one. There are certainly a few gems, one of which is a musical number between Jackie Gleason and Groucho from the late 1960s. And there’s a good Dick Cavett show that had Groucho, and the cast of Minnie’s Boys. Those poor people – when Groucho is a guest the one thing you can be sure of is that no one will get a word in edgewise and they don’t.
Today, we have our Sandy and Lanny work session at ten-thirty, then I’ll eat, hopefully pick up some packages, do some banking, and then I have a work session for the birthday thing. Hopefully that won’t take more than an hour and then I may just treat myself to a foot rub.
Tomorrow is another works session, as is Friday, then Friday night is the birthday thing. I will leave as soon as my bit is done, hopefully by seven-thirty. Saturday is the first of our two recording sessions and Sunday is the second, after which I go directly to the Hollywood Bowl to see a Hitchcock film music concert.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a work session, eat, hopefully pick up packages, bank, jog, have a work session and maybe have a lovelier than lovely foot rub. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where my dreams shall be Zagat rated best in LA.