Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish listening to the symphonies of someone named Tchaikovsky – I’ve heard them before and have never really taken notice, but I’m at least beginning to enjoy them on some level, especially the first, fourth, and Manfred – that’s where I am currently, with still the fifth and sixth to hear and refresh myself with. I’m definitely in my Russian phase right now and a little bit my German phase, but more my Russian phase. Not that I’m having any collusion with those darn Russians, no I am in my Russian COMPOSER phase. These boys were very interesting composers, and all quite different. I mean, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev alone are enough to keep me loving Russian composers forever. But then there are all the others. Anyway, I’ve been rushin’ here and rushin’ there for all these Russian composers and the next one I visit, someone named Nikolai Miaskovsky will be very interesting – he wrote in the twentieth century and somehow turned out a rather astonishing twenty-seven symphonies – I’m most interested to hear them. Of course, finding the Russian composers is easy – I just look at the sheet music for Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin’s Tchaikovsky (and Other Russians) and note the names.
Yesterday was a hit or miss day, most of which I would have preferred to miss and some of which I would have preferred to hit. I got about seven hours of sleep. Of course the damn router was blinking amber so Spectrum had, once again, gone down at some point. I unplugged and plugged back in but no matter how many times I did that it would not find the modem and I could not get online. I finally called Spectrum, answered the voice prompts, and the resent the signal to the modem. I unplugged, plugged in, nada. So, I finally had Apple call me. Unfortunately, I should have asked for a supervisor immediately, but alas I did not, and therefore wasted my time doing things I shouldn’t have done, because she hadn’t a clew and was making it up as she went along. She had me remove the Ethernet from my list, where it was green and working, and had me add it again, which immediately gave me it back – not working. I then told her to get me a supervisor, so she put me on hold for about ten minutes. Whilst on hold the router went green, but since my Ethernet was red I couldn’t get online. But for once I actually was smart – I’d never clicked “apply” and next to that button was one that said “revert” – I clicked that and my Ethernet was back and green, so I could get right online.
The supervisor came on and I told him what I’d just done, which he said was smart, and he told me to call Spectrum because something was clearly wrong on their end. I thanked him, then had to rush to my noon o’clock meeting, getting there just as noon arrived. I had a nice meeting with our very own Robert Yacko, talking about his upcoming cabaret act, which I’m directing for him – it’s three weeks away and we have a lot of work to do. After that, I went and picked up some packages, then came home. The router was blinking amber – I unplugged and plugged in and it was fine. I called Spectrum and was told she could see it was a problem specific to the line going into my house and modem – it was timing out. I felt she was feeding me a big load of hooey, but she booked me an appointment for a tech to check it out. It kept going in and out over the next half hour, and since then, knock wood, it’s been fine. That’s why I feel it was a load of hooey. It’s much too sporadic to be just peculiar to me. I really think they’re doing work around here and that’s causing all the problems, but we shall see what the tech has to say today.
After that, things settled down. I did some work on the computer, did some work at the piano, and listened to music until I sat on my couch like so much fish, whilst I ate a little pasta with butter and cheese, since I’d only had a chicken Caesar earlier and it was about half the size it usually is.
Last night, I finished watching Beast in View episode of the Hitchcock Hour – it’s a novel that doesn’t really translate well and can’t really, not without cheating, since the book’s “device” is a literary one. Still, Joan Hackett was excellent, and Kevin McCarthy was fun. Then I watched another episode, this one starring James MacArthur and the one and only Gloria Swanson. Very few of these Hitchcock hours achieve greatness, but this one was fun in its own way, with a good ending. Then I listened to more music, and relaxed a bit.
Today, the tech is supposed to be here between eleven and noon, then I have a lunch meeting with the fellow who’ll be doing the lighting for the Sherman Brothers musical – he’s new to LACC. After that, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, and then I have some work to do before I watch more Hitchcock hours. I also have to start deleting stuff from iTunes – I import the music as hi-rez files and it’s basically somehow used almost all the space on my hard drive – hard to believe because before all this uploading, I hadn’t even used half the space. Yikes.
The rest of the week is meetings and meals, Thursday I have a work session and that night I may or may not mosey on over to the Gardenia to see a thirteen-year-old do an act. Oh, what I began six years ago with Melody Hollis – before that no kid had ever done this – now it’s a regular thing. Friday we resume performances and I’m not sure what the weekend holds.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a tech suss out the problems, have a lunch meeting, hopefully pick up packages, do some work hither and thither, delete tracks from iTunes, and move some videos that are taking up room to a back-up drive – I have plenty of those and I don’t need this stuff on the computer anymore. At some point, I’ll relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What were and are your favorite TV anthology shows, and what were your favorite episodes of same? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, glad that the hit or miss day is done.