Well, dear readers, I’ve just got to say it – there’s no way not to say it so I’ve just got to say it and be done with it: Yesterday was disgusting and I’m about done with disgusting days, let me tell you. I’m told Mercury is in retrograde yet again. It would seem to me that Mercury has been in retrograde for the past year-and-a-half and perhaps it’s time we raise our voices and say enough is enough, like Babs and Donna did. Yes, you heard it hear – enough is enough and I have had it from here to eternity with stupid Mercury being in retrograde. Who the HELL does Mercury think it is always being in retrograde? Maybe we should just kick Mercury right in the ASS – maybe that’s what we should do. Why do we allow ourselves to be pushed around by this load of hooey? Why? What have we done but endure a year-and-a-half of utter merde? We’ve all tried our best, we’ve all survived, we’ve all tried to keep things moving along. And for all of it what are we given in return? Mercury in stinking retrograde. Well, UP YOURS Mercury – you can take your retrograde and shove it right up Uranus. Mercury is a nauseating little pissant and its constant romance with retrograde is enough to make folks want to commit hara kiri or, at the very least, do the Lambada (The Forbidden Dance). Stop the madness, I say, and stop it now. I has spoken on behalf of all humanity. There, I’ve said it and I’m glad. I’ve gotten it out of my system and onto the table or, more accurately, into the notes. End of tirade. Otherwise, I just finished watching Raiders of the Lost Ark on Blu and Ray, because I needed something entertaining to wash away the sewage of yesterday. Raiders of the Lost Ark was the first movie I saw at the Director’s Guild of America after I joined that august union before shooting The Creature Wasn’t Nice. I and everyone else at that screening found the film hugely entertaining. No, it wasn’t a game changer or the second coming – what it was was an affectionate throwback to the serials of old that I grew up with. When I was a youngster, it was the tail end of serials – they still showed them at the Picfair Theater on Saturdays – there I saw Captain America, Captain Marvel, Superman, and my favorite, Radar Men from the Moon with Commando Cody and his Rocket Jacket (the latter plays an important role in Benjamin Kritzer). I loved them. I loved the cliffhanger endings, I loved having to come back a week later to find out what happened, I loved the flying, the effects, all of it. So, it was a brilliant idea to do an homage, even though most of the people who saw and loved Raiders hadn’t actually seen a serial before. The action sequences are beautifully done starting right with the first sequence and director Steven Spielberg knows exactly how to pace them and then give you a respite before the next one, something he forgot how to do in the sequels, none of which are nearly as good as the original. What they got right in the original were the characters, especially Indiana Jones and fair Marian, a plucky heroine who, unlike most plucky heroines, could drink everyone under the table, punch somebody in the jaw, and basically hold her own. The villains work very well and the script and especially the dialogue of Lawrence Kasdan is kind of perfect. It looks great on Blu-ray and the John Williams score is a lesson in how to score an action film with actual themes, memorable themes that help define the action AND the characters. I had a grand time watching it and then it was time to write these here notes, which, in case you haven’t been paying attention, is what I’ve been doing.
Yesterday, as you already know, was a disgusting day – not all of it, but enough to color everything putrid yellow. I got seven hours of sleep, got up, showered, and then the singer picked me up and off we went to rehearse in Santa Clarita, close to Magic Mountain. That part of the day went well and was fun until I got a text from the helper’s mom telling me her Covid quarantine isn’t over until this coming Saturday. We are so far behind now in shipping and every day I have to respond to ten or twenty e-mails from irritated customers. I think Amazon is about to kick me off being a third-party seller because of it, and that will be very bad. I texted back saying this was now a disaster and that I needed her assurance that this will be her top priority the minute she’s back home – haven’t had a response to that, but that’s the way it has to be or there will be hell toupee and we will lose customers aplenty. I asked her if there was any way to get the computer and printer so she could at least get the labels ready for the backlog and then the two new titles, which are just sitting at her house like so much fish. That put me in a most foul mood.
Rehearsal lasted ninety minutes. We ran everything in order, but we stopped and started so I could give notes ans stuff. I added a couple of patter things, cut a couple of patter things, figured out all the underscoring of the patter, and it’s all coming along just fine. But one song has never felt right to me, and I’ve been vocal about it for a while now and today I said it again. We changed the key and that helped a bit, but it’s the song itself and how it fits into the structure of the show that doesn’t feel right to me and it’s just too long. So, on the way back home, I suggested we replace it with a different song by the same writer, my close personal friend, Mr. Stephen Sondheim. The singer loved the song I proposed, I already have an arrangement of it and even a piano track of the arrangement and so that’s going in for next time.
Then when I got home, I got the news that the Kerry O’Malley duo act was cancelled – yes, the act I was going to see this very evening, cancelled and pushed to October 25, the day after the singer’s act. The cancellation was Covid related – not Kerry – and so that’s why it had to be done. At that point, I was ready to kick anything I could find from here to eternity and hell and back. I relaxed as much as I could and then shaved and went to the going away partay for Hartley Powers. It was a nice thing at her parents’ house, and I stayed for about ninety minutes, mostly hanging with Hartley and her hubby, Adryan Russ and her ever-lovin’ Dale, and Kay Cole and her ever-lovin’ Michael. I had two slices of Dino’s pizza and left it at that.
I stopped at Gelson’s on the way home and got a tiny container of creamy tomato soup and a tiny bit of spaghetti in red sauce, because two slices of Dino’s pizza is like one slice of normal pizza. Once home, I ate that stuff, then sat on my couch like so much fish and watched Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll eat, I’ll Zoom with David Wechter, and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax, since I obviously won’t be going to The Federal to see a show.
Tomorrow, I have a lunch meeting and then a dinner thing, Wednesday is a rehearsal and so is Friday, I think. So, a busy week and I hope a better one than the kind we’ve been having.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, hopefully pick up packages, eat, Zoom, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Who here believes in astrology and what are your takeaways from it? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, as we shout to the high heaves, Mercury we’ve all HAD it with you and your retrograde horse manure.