Well, dear readers, I was ruminating yesterday. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I was ruminating yesterday. And what was said ruminating about you might ask and I might tell you because why should you dear readers be left in the dark ruminating on what I was ruminating about? And what I was ruminating about was how in the songwriting mode I’ve been for the last year, sort of. You must understand, that up to 1993 I wrote regularly and consistently, some years more than others, but always something. And I’d been doing that since I was fifteen. Sometimes just random songs, sometimes scores for shows. But in 1993, when I began doing full time record producing, I put everything else in my life aside and wrote nothing at all for at least seven years. For the first few years I was living at The Shores in Santa Monica and I had an electric keyboard there but never even played it from 1993 until the time I moved. When I moved to L’Estancia, which was then one of the poshest apartment buildings anywhere, I didn’t even have any kind of piano. A year later, when I moved into the house I would eventually purchase, a friend asked me to keep their old, battered grand piano, which I did. It was in my living room and only occasionally would I sit down to play it, but never to write anything. I was simply too consumed doing nineteen albums a year. When the Varese years ended going into 2000, I spent all my energy creating the label we don’t name around these here parts. And then a year toiling trying to make that a success – in other words, no writing at all. When that turned into the nightmare it turned into, then I was looking to keep myself busy and get projects going. One of the first things I did was decide to do a stage adaptation of The First Nudie Musical, and I even had a handshake deal with a Broadway producer (it didn’t pan out). So, I did the first go at an adaptation and wrote a couple of new songs for it – the first stuff I’d written in ages and ages. And then, that same producer wanted to do the mockumentary I’d planned about the faux songwriters, Gluckman and Fitz that I created during the One from Column A days. So, I set those lyrics to music, flew to New York, auditioned that project and the Nudie score. Suddenly I was back in a world that I loved, but it still was very sporadic.
Flash forward to 2004 and What If. That, of course, had my parody lyrics, but I had to quickly write an opening number, which I had great fun doing. And three weeks into the run I decided two songs (neither by me) weren’t working and I wrote two brand new songs for those slots, they went in, and both worked perfectly – the song Annie and the song Born Too Late. Flash forward to around 2005 and I take an old movie script I’d written called Plan Ten from Outer Space and give it to David Wechter, who immediately saw something in it and suggested we work on it together. My Plan Ten script was pretty bad, but had moments. I then suggested we do it as a stage show. We came up with our story and he worked on certain scenes at his house, while I worked on others at mine. But I also began writing the songs for it and that was the first actual original show score I’d done since 1985. And I loved doing it. Things came easily and I thought they were fun songs. David contributed music to two of them, too. Of course, we did that workshop/reading, then I cut one song and completely rewrote it from scratch, added a song to act two, and most importantly solved a problem for the male alien character – David had been working on a lyric for that song and it just wasn’t right – it wasn’t funny, it didn’t say anything we didn’t already know and it just laid there when I finally set it to music. Two days before the first workshop performance I got the idea for All About Men, and wrote it in ten minutes, taught it to Cason Murphy and in it went and was an instant showstopper.
Around that time, I also, for no real reason, wrote Simply. It just came to me out of nowhere, a real gift. Then we were getting ready to do a reading of The First Nudie Musical stage version, but I read it and didn’t like it at all, so I asked David Wechter to co-write with me. We added stuff, cut stuff, and most importantly I added several new numbers. And I needed a number for the Rosie character, a ballad, and I realized Simply worked perfectly for that slot. Then I wrote a play called Next December and I put Simply in that one, too. Then I didn’t do much of anything until I wrote Two Roads with Richard M. Sherman. But since then, we did the Sandy album of my songs (and I’d written This Christmas for her) and suddenly I was working in earnest on this little one-person play with songs for Sami. And that has been, thus far, really fun for me – I’ve written nine brand new songs (one has music I wrote for something else that never got done, and the tenth song was Annie). And written them in a very concentrated period of time. What a blast it’s been. I just love writing songs. Sometimes it can be hugely frustrating, but I just keep at it, take lots of showers, and it always comes out okay in the end. We opened the January Kritzerland show with the opening number of the Sami show and it went really well. And in the April Kritzerland we’ll do at least one number from it. And now we’re doing the act based on the new Sandy album. So, it’s been quite the return to that world I’d been out of for so very long. And a welcome return it’s been.
That was long, wasn’t it? That was a lot of ruminating, wasn’t it? Don’t I have some notes to write? Yesterday was a day – not a bad day at all, but nothing extraordinary either. I think I got around six hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails and then went to a lunch meeting at Café 101, where I had a little dinner salad and some very good mac-and-cheese (not a large portion), followed by chocolate pudding with a mound of whipped cream. It was fun. Then I came home, polished the newest of the songs, then went to our theater to meet with our two understudies. We’d originally promised them two performances, but that’s proven to be impossible, so we told them we were adding one performance on a Sunday night but that I was going to give each of them a Kritzerland show. They seemed very happy with that arrangement. Then I came home, did some more stuff here, then went and got a Subway Club, then finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture entitled Deadline USA, starring Humphrey Bogart, Kim Hunter and a slew of great character actors like Martin Gabel, Willis Bouchey, John Doucette, Jim Backus, Ethel Barrymore, Ed Begley and many others. I’d never seen it before and am happy to say I really liked it a lot. The writing and directing by Richard Brooks was terrific and it looked great. Bogart was his usual excellent self and the whole thing played out at a steady clip, a brisk eighty-seven minutes. It was a German Blu-ray and you have to have a multi-region player.
After that, I just relaxed.
Today, I shall probably go early to have a bite to eat, as I have a phone meeting at one and won’t have time to go after. Then we have our second Kritzerland rehearsal, after which I’ll relax. And hopefully I’ll pick up some packages, too.
Tomorrow, I have a lunch meeting at Dino’s Pizza, then the rest of the day is free, then I’ll see our show, after which Doug Haverty is having a little mid-run party at his home environment. Saturday is our stumble-through then I may or may not see our show. Sunday I may work with Grant early, then we have our sound check and then show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, eat, have a telephonic meeting, rehearse, hopefully pick up packages and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite films of Humphrey Bogart and your favorite films about the newspaper world? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall ruminate myself to sleep.