Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to pretty music whilst still a bit full from dinner even though I did not eat all that much. Why is it when software people like Word Press do a forced update that everyone hates and immediately reverts back to the previous version, why do they still screw up things – is it just to annoy everyone? I went to post the Kurt Weill cover last night and could not do it. It either wouldn’t insert it or wouldn’t even load the “media” page where all the photos reside. I finally had to enlist the aid of our hosting company and he did it a different way. Yesterday they found out that Word Press had screwed it up good, requiring a plug-in for uploading the photos into the blog, without telling anyone. He got it fixed and all is well now, but how annoying is that? Pretty annoying if you ask me or even if you don’t ask me or even if you were thinking about asking me. But is that as annoying as Amazon taking over a week to post reviews I wrote a week ago? They’re JUST showing up now as if I wrote then now. That’s pretty annoying, right? And there are still some missing. Get it together Amazon, that is what I say. I think that’s enough ranting for today’s notes, don’t you?
Yesterday was a pleasant little day. I got about seven hours of sleep, got up, did the usual morning things, printed out orders, went and did an errand, came back, shaved and showered and then it was time for the coaching session with young Alexa – well, not so young anymore, about to turn eighteen in June, I think. We began by just talking about singing vs. acting, what she really wants to do with her life (which isn’t performing), and then we began. She loves The Great American Songbook, so we worked on some really well-written songs. We spent a lot of time on each song, going over the intention, how best to present the intention, learning how to speak a lyric as if it were a monologue so that you get the real of it, dynamics, how to relax and be comfortable in your own body. As we’d come to the end of doing all that for a song, I’d have her record it so she could hear the difference between what it was when we began as compared to what it was when we finished. In fact, we spent so much time on each song that we only got through about six or seven songs. I think it was illuminating for her to work this hard, and she really did improve on each go through. It helps to have Alby Potts do these things, because he’s a superb pianist, is very sensitive as an accompanist, and is helpful technically. One important thing we got through was Alexa has a habit of flipping from her chest to her head voice, and we got her to mix instead and what a difference that made. Some of the songs we worked on were When I Fall in Love, Hurry, It’s Lovely Up Here, The Party’s Over, A Cockeyed Optimist and can’t remember the others. It was fun. On our ten-minute break I was able to go to Grant’s and enter the five fixes I’d found, and then I made him do a global search for the hyphen thing and lo and behold it found two more – hopefully that is IT. Then we finished the session. The three hours went by really quickly.
One thing that happened prior to the session was getting an e-mail from a new check-in person at the publisher. The gal who’s done this for the past two years quit this week and I got passed to this new person, which, as you might imagine, did not make me happy. I spoke to the new gal and tried to be as nice as I could while making her understand that we have a certain way of doing my books and that I wanted no problems. I outlined how things had to go and hopefully that is the way they’ll go.
After our session, Alexa, her mom, and I went to Hugo’s for a meal. I hadn’t been there in quite some time and it was really good. I had my usual small Caesar and pasta papa. That was fun, then I came home, did a few things on the computer, and then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a documentary on the Flix of Net entitled 54, about the nightclub. I’d seen the film about it several years ago, but this was interesting as it was all factual and had interviews with a lot of key players. It’s funny how warmly everyone talks about 54 – I would have hated going there in just about every way. But people are, I guess, nostalgic for those halcyon days when you could have sex with five different people every night, ingest copious amounts of cocaine and other drugs, and live like there was no tomorrow. Not my thing at all – never was, never will be.
After that, I had some pretzels and did a few more things on the computer, and that was that.
Today, I believe will be a ME day. I’ll sleep in, hopefully pick up packages, hopefully print out more orders, I’ll probably make the faux chicken stroganoff as I have all those ingredients, I may start a new set of liner notes, and then I’ll relax and perhaps watch something.
Tomorrow, she of the Evil Eye comes, so I’ll do stuff until she’s gone, then I have a short rehearsal for the song I’ll be singing at the Nick Redman memorial, and then Doug, his ever-lovin’ Dorathy, and I will to out to Sierra Madre to sup and see a show.
Sunday, I’ll probably see a matinee, Monday is our first Kritzerland rehearsal, and we also have rehearsals for the revue later in the week, along with our second Kritzerland rehearsal, our stumble-through, and then sound check and show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a ME day, hopefully print out more orders, hopefully pick up packages, eat, maybe write some liner notes, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray player? I’ll start – CD, too many to name. Blu-ray, no idea. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had an entire first paragraph about annoying things and happy to have had a fun coaching session.