Well, dear readers, this week is flying by, like a gazelle doing the turkey trot whilst eating a turkey sandwich and having a swig of Old Turkey. That’s an awful lot of turkey for an opening salvo, but there you are. The Indigogo campaign started yesterday is at 11% funded, which isn’t bad, but please share the campaign and let’s try to get it up to at least 15% by tomorrow. Momentum is all. I have to tell you, if it was me I would grab one of the three remaining signed musical quote things from Richard M. Sherman (song of the contributor’s choice) – that’s really a one-of-a-kind thing that is very special. Also, if I had a lot of dough sitting around, I’d do the dinner with him, too – talk about special. Here’s the link for those who’d like to partake and/or share.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/l-a-now-and-then-a-new-musical-revue/x/9165600#/
Now, what about yesterday? What ABOUT yesterday? WHAT about yesterday? What about YESTERDAY? Well, what can I tell you? I can tell you I got less than eight hours of sleep. I can tell you I got up and was happy to see that the Indiegogo campaign had gone up by several hundreds of dollars. I did some work on the computer, as always, had some telephonic calls, and then went for some food – chicken tenders and a bagel. After that, I came home, did some work at the piano, and wrote a rough draft of a sketch I’ve been thinking about for the LA show. I also spent most of the afternoon assembling all the lyrics into a working script, plus the sketch I’d done and the one other sketch I have at this point. So, now I can start writing intros to numbers, and more importantly trying to figure out at least a vague structure for the show. We’re really only eight weeks away from starting rehearsals. I can also see what beats we’re missing and need to cover and I can write some of that stuff. I’m still waiting on material from Doug Haverty, Bruce Vilanch, David Wechter, and a few others – the spoken stuff. Then Grant told me he wasn’t up to working on the book, which was very disappointing to me, as I’d kept the day and evening free to do just that. After that, I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night I watched a perfectly dreadful film entitled Lila & Eve on the Flix of Net. All you need to know is that it’s produced by Lifetime, but a feature film. Lifetime’s TV output is terrible enough, but they really should stay out of the feature film business. The plus of the film is the superb actress Viola Davis. That is the ONLY plus. At the beginning we’re led to believe this will be a sober look at the grief a mother feels when her son is in the wrong place at the wrong time and is gunned down in a drive-by shooting. Unfortunately, we don’t get that movie, we get Death Wish and Thelma and Louise and a million other stupid movies. This movie is so preposterous every step of the way that you just sit there thinking, “They’re not really going there, are they?” And the main conceit of the film is so ridiculous and so borrowed from other better movies and the device has become such a cliché, and this director wouldn’t know how to even make such a thing work, that ten minutes in I said, “Oh, I see.” The “score” is credited to, and I kid you not, Alexis and Sam. Do I need to say more? I don’t. Co-star Jennifer Lopez is Jennifer Lopez. The supporting cast is not-so-hot, even though the two actors who play the cops are both in hit TV shows – and they are VERY bad in this, almost like watching high school actors. Other than Ms. Davis, a complete waste of time. Oh, and Variety review (he liked it – and he was pretty much alone in that) posited that due to the conceit of the movie it could really garner strong audience attention. Well, no, Mr. Variety Reviewer (and this guy is one of the worst – how he got in that position is anyone’s guess), it didn’t garner any audience attention. The film barely played a week, grossing a whopping $65,000 or something like that. The Hollywood Reporter’s review was much more accurate.
After that, I did something I haven’t done in probably five years – I went and had a couple of regular tacos at Taco Bell. I have to tell you, I always liked Taco Bell – who knows why, but I just did. But when you stay away from fast food like that for that long of a time, tasting it again is quite a shock. So, I don’t think I need to return for five more years and maybe never. Then I did more work on the computer and that was that.
Today, hopefully I’ll be with Grant and finishing the book, but he’s already told me it probably won’t go in until early next week – I really wanted it in today or tomorrow but it will be what it will be. I’ll eat at some point, I have a brief meeting with one of the LA contributors, and then I’ll wait for the Grant call.
Tomorrow I’ll have my first non-Teddy haircut with Grant’s wife, Lydia. Then I’ll just be finalizing the Kritzerland show and get everyone their material. I just have two people left to cast, and I’m waiting on one to respond. The weekend will be more of the same and on Sunday, which is Valentine’s Day, I’ll be taking Sami and her mom to Genghis Cohen to celebrate Sami’s sweet 16, which was last Sunday. Then next week, we’re doing a little one-night staged reading of Inside Out, almost a year to the day from when we opened our production. Same cast, so we have a three-hour rehearsal on Monday and then do it on Wednesday, I think.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, hopefully finish the book design, have a meeting, eat, hopefully pick up some packages (maybe the Beer Nuts have arrived), and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What, for you, are the hackneyed and clichéd plot devices that you never need to see again as long as you live. And what hackneyed or clichéd plot device was your favorite, the first time you came across it? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy that we had an all-Turkey first sentence.