Well, dear readers, I had a period of time, roughly from the 1990s to the turn of the century where I did almost no songwriting at all. I was, for most of that time, living in a one-bedroom apartment at The Shores on the beach in Santa Monica. I had an electric keyboard (and not a full 88 keys), which I rarely sat down to play. I really missed my grand piano in those days – I’d sold it when I made a life change and downsized everything to move into that rent-controlled apartment that I lived in for almost a decade. But I was either working on Totally Hidden Video (almost three years) or producing nineteen albums a year, with no time to really do anything else. I moved to the Valley to be closer to work, into a wonderful and then brand new apartment complex called L’Estancia, which was, at the time, the most expensive apartment building in the Valley. It was so new that I was the first person to live in my apartment on the third floor. It was 1700 square feet and I loved it there, but a year later, Debbie Gravitte convinced me to move into her Studio City house, which I did, with a lease option to buy, which, a year later, I took advantage of.
And it was then that my friend Judy Berg asked me if I could keep her very old grand piano for her. I had the room and I said yes. And wouldn’t you know, that in the odd moment I found myself sitting there playing my old songs and enjoying it very much. When Varese came to an end, I went right into the other label and did that for a year. Once that sorry business ended, I found myself trying to survive and music has always been an elixir in that regard. I began writing songs again – first for a stage version of Nudie Musical, and then just some on their own. And that got me back in the routine of writing and then in 2004 the musical revue What If happened, and suddenly I was writing a LOT of stuff again.
Since then, I replaced that ancient grand piano with one of my own and I’ve been writing regularly, first The Brain from Planet X, then assorted songs, then Welcome to My World and now this LA revue. All that by way of saying that I spent a good portion of my day yesterday working on a new song for that show. I got the idea to do a bit that I thought would just be a physical staging bit, but as I thought about it, I thought it would be fun to start with a song and then let that lead into the bit. So, I began working on it. I got the first four lines pretty easily, but then I struggled with the form of it and where it should go and how it should get there. I had a bit more the other day, then stopped for a while, but yesterday I really buckled down, Winsocki, and worked my way through it and I’m pretty pleased with the result. It’s about something I loved dearly when I was a teen (and it plays a major role in Kritzer Time), so it was fun to write about it, but hard to get the tone right and the scan of it all to come together the way I wanted it to. Anyway, that was hours and hours of work.
I got about eight hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails, chose songs, got some sheet music for those songs, then I went and had a chili, cheese, and onion omelet and an English muffin. After that I came right home and worked at the piano for a couple of hours. Then a DGA screener arrived, The Hateful Eight. But I was in writing mode so I kept on keeping on for another two hours, then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture entitled The Hateful Eight, the eighth film of Quentin Tarantino (that’s the way the credit reads at the beginning of the film, and I find that quite pompous and more than a little pretentious – someone just trying to be hip and different for his legion of hipster wannabes), The Hateful Eight. Now, I will admit to never having seen Reservoir Dogs OR Pulp Fiction (I’ve seen a few scenes from that latter). I did see Jackie Brown, his version of 70s blaxploitation films, which I thought was okay and never as fun as the originals. I enjoyed the first Kill Bill film more than I thought I would, but didn’t care for its part two nearly as much. Inglorious Basterds did nothing for me, and while there were a handful of moments in Django Unchained the movie as a whole kind of annoyed me. Which brings us to The Hateful Eight, a talking picture. A lot of talking. Almost three hours of talking. Mr. Tarantino shot the film in Ultra Panavision 70, the first film to be shot in that format since Khartoum in the mid-1960s. I’m sure it looks splendid in 70mm and part of me would like to see it in that format and if he’s nominated for a DGA award then I’ll be able to. But, rather perversely, most of the film takes place inside one room. Things I liked – the color, the clarity, and most of the performances, but especially the very wacky performance of Jennifer Jason Leigh, and the fun performance of Kurt Russell. I really liked the original music that Ennio Morricone wrote for the film, and liked less the tracked in bits from The Thing and The Exorcist II: The Heretic. The film looks great. The first half is reasonably entertaining and interesting. It’s kind of a mystery story with Samuel L. Jackson being Hercule Poirot. But at the halfway point, suddenly we have cutesy narration by Mr. Tarantino himself (I gather he’s used this device before) that begins to explain what’s going on. It took me right out of the movie, I must say. But still, I went along for the long ride. Once we’re into the second half and people start expiring, it basically becomes a literal bath of blood and guts, each killing more disgusting than the last and pretty much deserving of an NC-17 rating, but that’s just me, probably. There is much vomiting up of blood at one point, and, well, Mr. Tarantino loves this sort of thing. So, for me, the second half of the film was a bit of a bust. Frankly, I was happy not to see all that splatter-fest on a huge 70mm screen. Of course, Mr. Tarantino’s fan boys will be having paroxysms of pleasure because he can do no wrong. These are mostly film geeks and it’s my theory that they love him because he was a film geek like them – he worked in a video store and spent all his time watching movies and he finally got to live that dream, and I think they all want to be like him. I’d like to see one movie by him that isn’t “inspired” by some other film (or films) – something where he’s flying on his own. But I doubt we will because his inner film nerd will always win the day.
After that, I went back to the piano and polished what I’d done earlier.
Today, I shall mostly relax, finish choosing songs and get everyone their material so they have a full month to work on it, I’ll eat, hopefully pick up packages, and then watch a slew of motion pictures.
Tomorrow will be more of the same, although I may go see the Star Wars movie in the morning, if I’m feeling like it. Next week is the start of two weeks off, but I do have to figure out the show order and write some commentary so I can get that off my plate. But mostly I want to relax, work on songs, and catch up with stuff, in addition to doing my yearly putting stuff away. I have to do a big Costco run for the Christmas Eve Do, too.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, relax, finish choosing songs, eat, hopefully pick up packages, and then watch stuff. Today’s topic of discussion: What were your favorite CD releases of the year? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, always happy to be immersed in the world of songwriting.