Well, dear readers, it is the day before the day of the Do. And I’m happy to say that all shopping has been done – some on Saturday and some last night, and therefore I can take it easy today. I could just stop right there and end these here notes, but that would be most unseemly. I will say that these kitchen chairs I bought two years ago – tall white chairs, two for seventy bucks, have turned out to be disasters. On one the footrest broke off, on the other it is now wobbly and feels not secure – these are tall chairs. So, I’ve found others that look a lot sturdier but they’re also more expensive, big surprise. But I’m going to have to get at least one because there’s no way I can write the new book on this kind of now uncomfortable chair. So, I think perhaps today or tomorrow I’ll order one, and Grant says he’ll be able to assemble it. Then at some later date, I’ll get the other one. Well, now you know all about the chair problem.
Yesterday, I got about seven hours of sleep, got up, showered and had to leave pretty quickly to go audition two actresses at the theater. They were actually both very good, but one has scheduling problems that I don’t think we’re going to want to deal with, and she even said that. The other was excellent and so she’s now on the serious contender list of serious contenders. Then it was time for the matinee. We had a large house, which was nice. The show was a little low energy after the high of last night, especially vocal energy-wise. I did tell the company that they had to learn the “C” word – CONSISTENCY – but we haven’t achieved that yet. But the audience seemed to enjoy it and gave us a rousing hand at the end.
After that, we had the cast party at Doug Haverty’s home environment. It was very festive and nice, but I was surprised by the number of no-shows from our cast – that said, a few of our cast are also in the other show that’s running in their small theater upstairs and they had a show and probably arrived late.
Hartley Powers made homemade mac-and-cheese that was excellent, and there was honey-baked ham and turkey, seven-layer dip, assorted desserts and cheeses – I was pretty good – had two reasonable helpings of the mac-and-cheese and a tiny piece of ham. I was there about two hours, then took my leave. I went to Ralph’s and got the rest of the stuff for the “Do” – I’d already gotten the main ingredients for the main food, so this was stuff like paper plates, plastic cutlery, napkins, mushrooms (wanted those not to sit here for three days), liquid refreshments – this is where I really lucked out as they were having a huge sale on Diet Coke and water – I saved forty bucks on that stuff. As I left Ralph’s, it began to pour. I came home but could only get one thing of water in the house without being drenched. Later, I got all the bags o’ stuff and a couple of Diet Coke things in the house and put away.
For my evening snack, I had two English muffins with jam. I attempted to watch a bit more of The Cotton Club Encore but wasn’t feeling it. So, instead, I checked out the Blu and Ray of Something for Everyone, a 1970 film by Harold Prince, who, while being one of the greatest stage directors in history, was ill-suited to film and who should have stopped permanently after the disaster this film was. But, he was back a few years later with the equally wretched film of A Little Night Music. After that, he never went back to film, and did what he did best. But the number of imdb and Amazon reviews calling this thing a brilliant black comedy masterpiece are mind-boggling, but it happens with every film ever made. People see what they want to see, and because this thing involved some homosexuality at a time when most films didn’t, that somehow makes it a brilliant black comedy masterpiece. In MY opinion, it’s not even watchable. I tried – but shut it off after an hour. I suppose I’ll try to finish it. The actors are fine, the Hugh Wheeler script isn’t, and Prince simply has no idea how to make a film. The transfer is either off a release print (given the scratches and stuff, that would be my guess) or an internegative. The color is fine.
I then watched a bit of the new Blu-ray of Madigan, a not-great Don Siegel film that I just have always enjoyed. The film was shot in Techniscope and had dye transfer prints in Technicolor. So, what has Universal foisted on Kino and Kino foisted on a paying public? A brown mess that looks nothing like it should. Color-wise, it should resemble Dirty Harry, and yet it is simply ugly and brown and infuriating. Even more infuriating are idiots like Dr. Sven whatever-his-name-is on that Blu-ray site, who gave this transfer four out of five stars, admitting it was an old master (I don’t think it is – I think it’s a newer transfer taken from a fading internegative), but he gives the color passing marks, saying maybe it could be a tiny bit better. Well, no, Dr. Sven, what it could be is accurate, but then Dr. Sven would have no idea what accurate is, despite positioning himself as some kind of expert. And then another site also said the color looked just as it should. I gotta tell you. Hugely disappointing. And I tried to watch Ford vs. Ferrari, but I found it rather terrible and shut it off.
After that, I listened to music.
Today, I can sleep until eleven, then I’ll get up and do stuff. I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll eat something, and at two I finally get a haircut, which I’m in desperate need of. After that, I just relax until the evening, when I’ll do my slicing, dicing, and mincing, not necessarily in that order. I’ll also make the two batches of tuna pasta salad. During all that, I’m sure I’ll watch something.
Tomorrow, I’ll be up around eleven, and then at around one I’ll start the spaghetti sauce, then I’ll do stuff until it’s time to get ready – I’ll make sure the house is clean, chairs set up, everything laid out, and at six people begin arriving and we go until around ten-thirty. As always, I have no idea how many are coming to do Do. Wednesday, I’ll probably see the Darling Daughter at some point, Thursday we may have a one-hour final casting session prior to the brush-up rehearsal, otherwise I’m just relaxing and doing prep work on the new book. Friday is the same, then we do our weekend of shows. Not sure if I’ll see all of them, but it’s Barry’s last weekend so I’ll definitely see one all the way through.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, sleep until eleven, do stuff, hopefully pick up some packages, eat, get a desperately needed haircut, relax, slice, dice, and mince, make two batches of tuna pasta salad, and listen to music and watch something. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your Christmas and New Year’s Eve plans for this year? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, still trying to get the “C” word instilled in my wonderful cast.