Well, dear readers, the New York trip is coming up very soon, so do start sending your most excellent vibes and xylophones for a safe, secure and on-time flight to New York, New York.
I have been making ready for said trip, because my plan is to have everything done by early Wednesday so I don’t have to think of anything at all that day and evening. So, I spent most of yesterday doing just that sort of thing.
I was up early again, fell back asleep and finally got up at eleven after about nine hours. I did my morning ablutions, the helper came by to get stuff, and we’re figuring out all the things she has to do whilst I’m gone – she will, as always, be staying at the house until I’m back. Then I went and got a chili, cheese and onion omelet and an English muffin. After that, I picked up one little package and came home.
I spent a LOT of time doing e-mails, posting, re-posting, badgering, all in service of trying to get people off their lazy butt cheeks to actually make reservations, especially the people who say they’re coming. I would breathe a lot easier if we could just get twenty more people for each show in the next couple of days. I know several who will simply not make reservations but will show up. I would just like to breath easier because this is very nerve wracking. I then read through all the patter for the two shows and made some adjustments, then printed them out, so that’s now all ready. A huge eBlast is going out this morning, thanks to my friend Ed Gaynes and hopefully that will help and this afternoon he’s putting us up on TDF and hopefully THAT will help, too. I had many telephonic calls and then I finally had to sit on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray, one of those region B affairs from region B, in this case the UK – the 1955 animated film of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. I’ve always been very fond of it – saw it on the television in the early 1960s in black-and-white, and owned a nice color print of it in 16mm. It’s a fascinating film – the animation is wonderful and the actor Maurice Denham provides the voices for all the animal characters, while the narration is handled by someone else. The film was purportedly financed by the CIA as an anti-communist thing. The ending of the film is very different than the book, with the animals in revolt against the pigs, which is exactly what they wanted in terms of the propaganda. The book is one of my all-time favorites, and the film certainly captures some of the flavor of what makes Orwell’s simple tale so effective. The score by Matyas Seiber is also very effective. It’s about as far away as you can get from the Disney cartoons of that era – it really was made for adults and not children. Halas/Batchelor, who made it, produced other interesting animation over the years. If you have a multi-region player, I really recommend this new disc highly – the transfer is pretty stunning. There’s a program as an extra about the film and if you look at the clips therein you’ll see just how amazing this transfer is.
After that, I spent more time inviting Facebook friends from the East Coast to our shows – going through over 3,000 Facebook “friends” is daunting and I’d missed quite a few names on the first go-round. So, all told, I invited another 100 or so people to each of the shows. I also booked the transportation to the airport – we’ll be leaving at around four-fifteen in the morning.
Today, I have an appointment with Teddy to be coifed, then I’ll come back to the Valley, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, ship the Li’l Abner costume to my hotel, do some banking, and continue to have everything ready. If I’ve done everything correctly, Wednesday should be a day of complete relaxation and no stress. I’ll probably write these here notes early and schedule them to be posted at the usual time and hope that works. That way, I can get to bed by nine or ten, which is what I really need to do. Then I fly to New York, New York and arrive in the mid-afternoon. I’ll get checked in to the hotel and then I’m seeing Beautiful, which has one of those early curtain times that I don’t understand, namely seven o’clock. Then a few of us will gather at Joe Allen’s for dinner. Friday is our long, long day of rehearsals and stumble-throughs, then I see Gentleman’s Guide to Murder that night. Saturday, I relax until sound check, then we have our two-show evening. Sunday is the same and then I fly home very early in the morning on Monday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, get coifed by Teddy, eat, bank, ship a costume, and continue to get everything ready and also keep drumming up an audience. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite non-Disney feature-length cartoons, and who were your favorite Warner Bros. cartoon characters? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall fall asleep by telling myself the story of The Randy Vicar and the Sexton – that’s a really good one – after which I shall continue with the preparations.