Well, dear readers, I must say I truly enjoyed reading all the “life-changer” postings yesterday (for you dear reader lurkers, yes, we have a fancy-shmancy discussion board here at haineshisway.com and if you haven’t frequented it you ought to, since it’s filled with very bright and fun folks like yourselves. At the end of every notes is a handy-dandy link for you to get there. And of course if you register you can actually join our merry troupe, tell us about yourselves, and join in the merry fun. I, of course, only covered my musical life-changers, not my theater or film or book life-changers, so here are just a handful of those. Film – I’m gonna say the biggest life-changer film was a very early one for me – 1955 – I was seven when I saw this film and it actually cemented for me that I had to be in the show business and entertain. The film? The Court Jester. Book – would have to be a three-pack, all read within two months of each other: Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Nineteen Eighty-Four. They gave me my love of literature and they remain three of my favorite books. Of course there were others that followed, but those were the key ones in my formative years. Theater – that’s easy: The Tenth Man at the Huntington Hartford Theater – my very first experience seeing a play and a total life-changer that was followed by several others – A Thurber Carnival, Beyond the Fringe, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and, of course, Stop the World, I Want to Get Off – each of those were life-changers in one way or another. For musicals it was The Unsinkable Molly Brown.
Yesterday was, apparently, a holiday. It wasn’t exactly a festively festive holiday, but there was no mail and no banking. I got almost eight hours of sleep, did my morning stuff, and was surprised that the orders for The Crucible, while obviously not as high as a film or theater score, actually had more preorders than Claus Ogerman and perhaps even the Rachmaninov. I made sure that theater people knew about it, and if anyone posts to that theater group list, please let them know. So that was heartening and my hope is orders will keep on coming in.
Then I did a new third week Indiegogo push and we did go up to 84% and we really do need to go up lots more in the next few days, so tell 1000 of your nearest and dearest friends and especially fans of the Sherman Brothers – lots of incredible perks and I’ve chosen another three or four I’m thinking about adding. I have, for example, a signed copy of the book of Cole Porter lyrics, signed by Porter to a noted columnist back in the day when the book came out. I’ve enjoyed it, but if it brought a good Indiegogo price I just might be willing to part with it. What that price might be is not known to me at the moment – but I’m not sure about that one yet. I am going through some of the movie memorabilia – I have two really cool 8×10 color photos from the film of Carousel with the Cinemascope 55 logo – very rare to have that logo.
I made myself a batch o’ Wacky Noodles, this time with the correct cream of mushroom soup and it was ever so yummilicious. It wasn’t more than six ounces of pasta so not too bad. And the only other food I ate was some popcorn later in the day. I did watch a bit of the final day of the Debbie Reynolds/Carrie Fisher auction but it was so sickening I shut it down. I had long and lovely telephonic conversations with our very own Nick Redman, who is home and recuperating, and Elizabeth Sherman, as well as a detail conversation with a nice lady who is working the Richard Sherman event tomorrow, so I believe all those details have been worked out. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a Flix of Net documentary about Lady Gaga. I know most people are gaga over Gaga but I have never understood the appeal, frankly. And watching the documentary left me even more baffled. I’m sure a lot of that has to do with me as a person – I hate tattoos, the outfits leave me cold, her g-strings and ever-present thongs make me want to vomit on the ground, and her persona, which seems to always be “on” whether being Gaga or her real self, is just not something I respond to. And her songs aren’t my cuppa and neither is her voice. But the documentary was interesting and I did get all the way through it, even though it’s a bit long at an hour and forty-five minutes. I know she has a gazillion fans and has sold a gazillion records and so my liking or not liking her is just one person’s differing opinion.
After that, I just relaxed and listened to music, took a nice hot shower, and cast my final male for Levi – still one male kid to cast, though – hopefully today or tomorrow. I never got around to Kritzerland, although I did reach out to one kid and one adult – we’ll see if they can do it.
Today I have to finish Kritzerland casting and choosing of songs, I have to go over the Richard Sherman questions for tomorrow, and get everything ready for that. I’ll eat, I’ll hopefully pick up packages, and hopefully continue printing out orders and hopefully getting some new Indiegogo contributions.
Tomorrow is the Richard Sherman event. We’ll be picked up at the Sherman’s home at noon and be taken to the event location in the County of Orange aka Orange County. Once there, we’ll have a sound check, and then we do our little show. I’m excited that Susan Egan will be singing two songs. Because the event finishes around four, we’re thinking traffic will be horrifying, as we won’t get out of there before four-thirty at the earliest. So, Elizabeth thought it might be a good idea to sup out there, and so we may do that. The rest of the week is meetings and meals, going and doing and doing and going, and then I’m not sure what the weekend holds. And then next week on Wednesday we begin rehearsals for Levi.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, finish casting Kritzerland and choosing songs, I must go over the Richard Sherman event material, I must eat, I must hopefully pick up some packages, and I must relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What do you think of Lady Gaga – are you gaga or not, and what other pop artists of today do you like? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have been surprised that The Crucible did decently its first day, and that nothing untoward happened the holiday Monday that didn’t feel like a holiday.