Well, dear readers, we had us a kind of wonderful stumble-through – yes, a few lyric flubs and the usual stuff like that, and yes, neither of our guest stars were with us – Don Most feeling a bit under the weather and wanting to conserve his voice, and Bill Hayes needing to be with his wonderful wife, who was feeling under the weather. But the show itself plays like gangbusters and it’s easy to see how the three numbers we had to skip will work beautifully in their intended slots. The fun thing about this particular show is how truly funny it is – so many laughs throughout, which funnily makes the ballads work even better. I’ve often said that the stumble-through days are my favorites – just us supporting and enjoying each other. Of course, we love doing the shows for our audiences, but these stumble-throughs are just very special to all of us. Everyone did great and there are many, many highlights. Hopefully our audience size will grow more than it is – it’s pretty light because there’s a theatre company, one of these Encores-lite things here in LA who occasionally decide it’s a good idea to do their little one-night things on the same night we do ours. We had a conversation with them long ago about this and they agreed not to do it, and yet, they do it and we lose audience to them and they lose audience to us – and they’ve been pushing their thing for tonight relentlessly and if it were selling well they would not need to do that. Oh, well, nothing to be done about it.
Prior to the stumble-through, I’d gotten about six hours of sleep, maybe not even that much. Once up, she of the Evil Eye arrived, I did a few things on the computer, then went and had a light breakfast, followed by some banking, followed by picking up no packages. Then I came home. I was thinking about jogging, but it was very hot out. I sat on my couch like so much fish trying to make that decision, closed my eyes for a minute and the next thing I knew it was three hours later and I had to scurry to get the house ready and get myself ready, too.
After the stumble-through, a few of us went to Barone’s for food. We had the stuffed mushroom appetizer, then I had the shrimp scampi which is amazingly low in calories. It came with some pasta and red sauce but I only had one bite of that. I also had the chocolate mousse for dessert, as a little treat for being really good this week. It was very filling, however, and I’m still very full even right now as I write these here notes. After the meal, I came home, answered e-mails, and then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a movie on the Flix of Net, one of those “A Netflix Original Film” films, this one called Anon, starring Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried and a bunch of really bad schmacters. But here’s the first thing: This thing wasn’t made by Netflix, nor was Netflix ever involved prior to buying it, at least as far as I can tell. So to call it a Netflix Original Film is just a whole lot of tomfoolery. If you didn’t make it, develop it, produce it, sorry Netflix, it is NOT a Netflix Original Film, it is a pick-up that you paid its producers to distribute. Pretty simple stuff. I’d like to know how many Netflix films and series were actually produced and developed by Netflix, as opposed to being picked up and just slapping their name on it. For example, Anon was filmed in 2016. I imagine the producers spent a good deal of time shopping to the majors and the minors and that there were not takers, at which point enter Netflix. Mr. Owen and Ms. Seyfried are fine, the director less so. And these supporting cast schmacters are the whispery, SUBTLE, worst, especially the guy who is doing a perfect Paul Giamatti impression. I mean, does this guy think he’s kidding anyone? Get your own act, bub. As to the film itself, it has some interesting futuristic ideas, but in the end it amounts to a whole lot of nothing.
After that, it was time to write these here notes.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep. Then I’ll relax until it’s time to mosey on over to The Federal for sound check and then we do our show. Some of us will go out after for a bite to eat.
This week is hugely busy with meetings and meals, prepping our next show release, speaking to a high school group of arts students, but mostly trying to finish the score of the musical I’m writing with Doug Haverty. That is my priority this week.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, get a good night’s beauty sleep, relax, get ready, have a sound check, and do our show. 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, happy to have had a good stumble-through day.