Well, dear readers, let me be the first to wish you all a Happy Valentine’s Day. Yes, today is Valentine’s Day, a day for candy hearts and flirty behavior, which is also the title of my next novel. When I was in grammar school, Valentine’s Day was always a special day when you’d give cards and candy hearts to all your Valentines. It’s been so long since I had a sweetheart that I don’t even remember what the HELL it’s like to celebrate Valentine’s Day. I think the last time I celebrated was way back in 2008, perhaps. In any case, Happy Valentine’s Day to those with or without a Valentine.
Yesterday was kind of a nice day. In fact, it began with a bang of happy proportions. A nice fellow who used to teach at LACC in the 1970s, and who is now in his 80s, had posted on Facebook that he wanted to do the Indiegogo campaign but it wasn’t working for him. Now, he mentioned an amount that I thought was a joke – he’s a jokester. But I e-mailed him, left him a phone message, and responded on Facebook in both post and private message and heard nothing for four days – so, I figured he was just kidding. He called me yesterday morning around nine-fifteen and told me he wanted to contribute. He’s not computer literate and he said if it was easier he could give a cashier’s check. I told him that was fine, but that it would be better through Indiegogo, as it would show up there and move us forward – we’d been absolutely stagnant for over two days. So, for the next hour I patiently talked him through everything – each new thing took a long time – I’m sure his computer is not new, either. At two or three points I was ready to throw in the towel and meet him and get the cashier’s check. I was on Indiegogo as I talked him through each page, doing exactly what he was doing. I think however it was showing up on his screen, he couldn’t see the entire page and that was what took so long – to get him to scroll down or to the right. We finally got his credit card information entered and everything else and we were just one click away from success and he couldn’t find the pink “contribute now” button to complete the transaction. It was there, big as day, on my screen. So we just started at the top of the page and I had him read every single thing he saw and when he got to one part I said to look over to the right or scroll to the right – and he finally saw the pink button. I shrieked “CLICK IT” – he did – and success, his contribution went through. At that point we were at $1380 and 11% funded. After he clicked we jumped to 51% funded, just like that. Yes, this wonderful man took the $5,000 all-in-one perk and shot us up to $6,380 in one fell swoop. I then posted that news all over Facebook. It’s so important to have a really strong start and now we have that AND almost a month to go. Hopefully we’ll make it all the way, as we really kind of have to. And at some point yesterday, someone else came in for a hundred bucks and that put us up to 52% funded.
Now that the one and only $5,000 perk is gone, I’m thinking about adding a couple of perks of personal memorabilia or stuff I own that people might get a kick out of having. One thing I might offer is a signed note to me from my close personal friend, Mr. Stephen Sondheim – I have maybe three or four hundred of them, so I wouldn’t miss one or two. It’s a nice association copy. I also have original art by David Edward Byrd, the man who did the original Follies poster. He did at least three covers for me for Bay Cities and I have those originals. So, I’m thinking of putting one of them up as a perk. Just trying to figure out what I’d actually make the dollar amount from each of those. I have a few other fun things that I might be willing to part with, too – whatever it takes to get us closer to our goal and hopefully over it.
So that was a great way to start the day. I’d already bought stuff for my meal o’ the day, so around noon-thirty I made about eight ounces of Wacky Noodles and ate them all up whilst sitting on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I watched a motion picture on the Flix of Net entitled The Girl in the Book, an indie feature. I have to say I rather liked it – the actors were really excellent, including Michael Nyqvist from the Dragon Tattoo movies and a gal named Emily VanCamp.
Then I happily completed casting for the March Kritzerland and it’s just a wonderful group. They are: Chelsea Emma Franko (back with us after way too long), Juliana Hansen (ditto), Kerry O’Malley, Eric Peterson (he was a regular in the Kirstie TV series, and he also replace Brian d’Arcy James as Shrek and then did the tour), Sami Staitman, and Robert Yacko. And we have the great John Boswell on piano. I can now set the guest star. I already assigned two-thirds of the songs, so I’ll assign the rest today and then get everyone their music. That’s a big load off. I also did what I believe was my first jog of 2016.
Then I watched another motion picture on the Flix of Net, this one entitled All Good Things, a fictional version of accused murderer Robert Durst. It’s not a great movie, really, but has good performances by Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst, along with Frank Langella. The fellow who directed it also made the documentary about the real-life Robert Durst that aired on HBO last year – The Jinx, which I hear is really good.
After that, I just relaxed, listened to a bunch of those wonderful Percy Faith CD two-fers of his Broadway show covers – those albums were absolute favorites of mine when I was a kid and I love them still to this day.
Today, I’ll finish assigning songs, relax, and then it’s the belated birthday dinner with Sami and her mom at Genghis Cohen, so that will be fun.
Tomorrow we have a rehearsal for the staged reading of Inside Out – then we’ll probably go out for a bite to eat. The rest of the week is meetings and meals, we do the staged reading on Wednesday night, and I’ll be staying on top of the book progress to make sure everything is getting done in a timely fashion.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, finish assigning songs, and then have a belated birthday dinner with sixteen-year-old Sami and her mother. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, and when I arise perhaps someone will say “Be my valentine.”