Well, dear readers, I have food in my house. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I, BK, who rarely have food in my house, other than what I buy to snack on, have food in my house. I haven’t been inside a restaurant since last Thursday. It was getting to the point that between eating out every day for my main meal, and then going to Gelson’s for a snack or salad or whatever, I was spending about forty bucks a day on food, and that’s just wacky to me – it just crept up on me, the realization of that. So, last night I went to Von’s rather than Gelson’s and spent probably half of what I’d have spent at Gelson’s for the same items. I would never buy meat at Von’s, that will always be Gelson’s, but for everything else it’s amazing how much cheaper it is. I have things in my refrigerator and in the cupboard. I mean, I usually have not one thing to eat in the house because if it’s here, I’ll eat it. But I will have willpower now, and eating meals here it’s much easier to be completely accurate in the calorie count department. So, I have enough food to have meals for over a week – I still have to go out to the occasional lunch meeting, or birthday dinner, but other than that I’m eatin’ here for a while.
Otherwise yesterday was a quiet day of quiet things. I slept until eleven – nine hours of sleep. Once up, I answered e-mails and did a few things on the computer. I played through the commissioned song and still liked it, so that was good. Then I made the other eight ounces of pasta I had left – bow tie pasta and it probably was closer to six ounces than eight – and I made some red sauce with some sautéed red onion, and I even put a bit of low-fat milk in the sauce to give it a pink vibe. I don’t know about you, but I like a pink vibe every now and then.
I ate that all up whilst listening to music and doing some work on the Rupert show. Then I went in the den and listened to the SACD of Leonard Bernstein conducting the Mahler sixth, not my favorite performance of that piece by a long shot. But – and it’s a big BUTT – hearing it in this new surround mix was spectacular. To think this was recorded in the early 60s is just astonishing. And it really helps focus everything about the performance and I ended up liking it much better than the conventional two-track CD mix. I heard things I’ve never heard before in the orchestra, and you can almost hear the cowbells in my favorite moment in the entire symphony – on the CD mix they’re completely buried. The crystal clarity of the entire thing just blew me away. These SACD Bernstein/Mahler things are from Japan and seemingly somewhat rare already – also included in this set is symphony nine, which I’ll listen to today. I also have the fifth symphony from this traversal and it, too, is simply astonishing.
Then, as long as I was sitting on my couch like so much fish, I watched the first two-thirds of the Blu and Ray of the animated movie, The Iron Giant. I really thought the film was terrific when I first saw it. I haven’t seen it since, even though I had it on DVD. This new Blu-ray looks and sounds fantastic, but I’m not enjoying the film as much as I did back when it came out. It’s still good, but I’m finding it a bit contrived in certain ways. I do like the Michael Kamen score very much and the whole thing is very well done.
After that, I did the Von’s shopping – among the foodstuffs I bought were four things of pasta (four for five bucks, can’t beat that), shredded cheese, tortillas (flour, small, and that’s what the cheese is for), refried beans, tuna, onions, Wheat Thins (ranch flavored – very good), pepperoni, sandwich buns, hot dog buns, hot dogs, Uncle Ben’s rice pouches in various flavors, an excellent snack or side dish, pop chips, soup, and a few other odds and ends as well as ends and odds.
Then I just relaxed, listened to music, and did stuff on the computer.
Today I have several things I need to do, and then I’ll probably eat tuna sandwiches for my meal o’ the day (or hot dogs – we’ll see what I feel like), I’ll hopefully pick up packages, I’ll send singers music, and then I’m seeing Andrea McArdle’s nightclub act with our very own Rob Stevens. I will, of course, have a full report for you, but Andrea said she was happy I was coming.
The rest of the week is meetings and meals, seeing a couple of other things, a belated birthday dinner for Sami, and then judging the final day of the Sterling’s LA’s Next Great Stage Star event. I also will announce our new CD release as soon as I have the audio samples, and we’ll put up an event page for the Rupert show – I suspect we’ll be a sell out very quickly. The cast is wonderful: Sarah Uriarte Berry, Carly Bracco, Kay Cole, Marc Ginsberg, Guy Haines (at the personal request of Mr. Holmes), Robert Yacko, John Boswell at the piano, Grant Geissman on guitar, Randy Landas on bass, and our very special guest, Rupert Holmes.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do some things, eat a couple of sandwiches or a couple of hot dogs, hopefully pick up packages, send singers music, and see a nightclub act. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite animated films of the past two decades? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a fun evening of Sunday shopping.