Well, dear readers, yesterday was not a good day for this country of ours. For anyone who’s been reading these here notes since November of 2001, you know I don’t feel it’s my place to sermonize or spout my opinions on politics or what goes on in this occasionally sorry world of ours. That’s not what these here notes have ever been about. So, I will simply say that this has to stop. This negativity and hatred has to stop. It won’t, of course, because the media lives for it, feeds on it, and Facebook keeps it alive and well, and that goes for Twitter, too. We have one presidential candidate who has singlehandedly turned the world into a reality TV show, a form he knows all too well.
We have a number in the LA show called We Look Ahead. It’s a little mini-history of the gay experience in Los Angeles, from its closeted, secretive days in the 60s, to the coming out and changing things in the 70s, to the creation of a city called West Hollywood, to Gay Pride, to AIDS, to marriage equality. It’s a beautifully written piece by Doug Haverty and it brought the audience to tears every night thanks to Robert Yacko’s beautiful acting of it. At the end of it, the character whose story we’ve been following says how much better things are now, how safe and welcoming West Hollywood is and how wonderful it is that two men (or two women or two anyones) can be married. It’s affirmative and sweet and then we end with the final verse of the song. And I’m afraid poor Doug is going to have to do a little rewriting because in the past three months West Hollywood has been the scene of several gay bashing incidents. Still. Who would have thought in 2016 that that would be happening in a place called West Hollywood, where some yahoo ASSbreaths who should be lobotomized carry on their long family tradition of hatred and bigotry? Who would have thought that in 2016 someone could walk into a gay nightclub in Floriday and mow down fifty people and injure another fifty before being taken out by the police? I have lived for sixty-eight years thus far and I am so sick of the negativity that permeates everything. It is a festering cancer. But it won’t stop as long as we have the every day public hate mongering everywhere we look. When I wrote We Look Ahead, the song portion of the sequence, I worried it would be corny and perhaps people would think it lame. I was wrong. When my company of beautiful, sweet, POSITIVE students and our two pros sang in beautiful harmony at the end of the sequence it was so uplifting and beautiful – and we must keep our eye always on the uplifting and beautiful because without it we are doomed. I know, I know, I said I don’t sermonize and I hope you’ll forgive this one time, but yesterday was just another low, low day for the United States, for humanity, for good people senselessly murdered by unbridled hatred and stupidity. That’s not religion, you amazingly retarded idiots, that is unbridled hatred. I leave this diatribe with the bridge and final verse of We Look Ahead.
FOR ALL THE LIES WE’VE LIVED
FOR ALL THE FRIENDS AND LOVERS LOST ALONG THE WAY
FOR ALL THE TEARS WE’VE SHED
LET EVERY DAY BECOME A DAY WE LOOK AHEAD
WE LOOK AHEAD
NOW’S THE MOMENT
OURS TO TAKE NOW
STANDING TALL AND PROUD AND EQUAL
WIDE AWAKE NOW
STILL SURVIVING COME WHAT MAY
NO MORE SECRETS, NO MORE GLANCES
VOICES RAISED IN HARMONY
AN AMAZING LGBT FAMILY
BEING STRONG AND BEING OUT THERE
LIVING LIFE WITH NO MORE DOUBT THERE
BEING HAPPY, BEING MARRIED
BEING GAY.
I just thought about nuking this entire thing, but I’m not and so be it. And, in the brilliant words of the brilliant Johnny Mercer, let’s just pledge to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.
Other than that, I slept exactly two hours and am a bit of a wreck. My voice is trashed because of it. I tried to relax but couldn’t, so I did some work on the computer, had a good e-mail that helped assuage what could have been a problem and now won’t be, and I watched the live online animation art auction that was happening. I was fascinated by it – animation art really brings out the crazies and this was a big auction – some of the prime stuff was up the day before and people spent obscene amounts of money on the Disney stuff – original paintings by Eyvind Earle and others of that ilk – it was nuts to me. Yesterday’s session was the not so expensive stuff, and yet things still went crazy. There were a few what I would call bargains, though, and I enjoy watching the bidding. Then I finally got ready to go see friend Barry Pearl in the final performance of the play he’s been doing.
Yesterday, I saw the final performance of the play friend Barry Pearl has been doing. I thought the play wasn’t very much to get excited about – a few good and funny lines but too much that didn’t land, and kind of much ado about nothing – I think it just wants to be funny but that’s really hard to do, and it’s just nice to have characters you can invest in even a little. But that’s the play. It has a bad title, I think, because audiences go in thinking they’re going to get what the title would lead them to believe they’re going to get, and then it’s about something wholly other and only peripherally about the title, which is Hillary and Monica. It’s actually about two writers trying to write a play about Hillary and Monica. But it was a really good part for Barry and he did a really good job in it. His timing was excellent as was his sense of pace. My old pal Joel Zwick directed (I did several Laverne and Shirlys with him), and he knows what he’s doing – I just wish the material was better, but this was its inaugural production so I’m sure further work will be done. The other actors were all very good and a big plus is the ninety-minute one-act run time.
After the play, we went to a nearby jernt on Pico called Bossa Nova. They told me it was some kind of Brazilian restaurant and maybe it is, but the menu was huge and very eclectic, from steaks and seafood to pizza to burgers and sandwiches to salads and soups, to some specialty dishes, one of which I had. It was stroganoff – now, I make the best beef stroganoff EVER, but I just felt that if I had the stroganoff with chicken (rather than beef, given the events of the past few days), served on white rice, that would be pretty safe. And it was really quite good – not as good as mine, but very tasty and fresh and the rice was really helpful. Barry got some kind of Cajun thing that was not what he thought it was going to be and I know he didn’t care for it. His ever-lovin’ Cindy had a little pizza and I think she enjoyed it, and the other two guests had what Barry and I had – the Cajun thing and the stroganoff. Then I hurried home to partake in our Annual Tony Awards Bash. I turned on the TV only to see that DirecTV had a thing on the screen saying it couldn’t find signal and to check the dish or the fish or the buttons or the cables. I was FURIOUS. I called them and they had me reboot the DVR but it still couldn’t find the signal so they made an appointment to come out this coming Friday. So, I did not see the Tony Awards, and frankly our usually spry Tony Awards Bash here at haineshisway.com was a mere shadow of its former self. But thanks to those who did show up and partake, so I could at least follow along with who won what.
Today, I have to be up by nine-thirty, so I’m not going to be catching up on any sleep other than hopefully getting at least eight hours. The LA show cast album packaging will go to the printers, and then I have to wait to see if I’ll be going to finesse mixes this evening. It probably won’t be this evening – tomorrow evening is more likely, I think. I’ll eat, I’ll hopefully pick up packages, and I’ll do work on the computer.
The rest of the week is finessing mixes, getting the album to the mastering guy and then to the pressing plant, meetings and meals, seeing a few things, including a concert on Saturday night honoring the Sherman Brothers at Disney Hall – Richard and Elizabeth invited me and I think I’ll probably be sitting with them and I’m sure it will be a wonderful evening.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a lot o’ stuff and wait to hear if we’ll be finessing mixes or not. Today’s topic of discussion: Talk about the damn Tony Awards and tell me what the HELL went on.