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October 22, 2021:

THAT REHEARSAL

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, it has been my experience forever that close to opening a show or an act or any live thing that there’s always one rehearsal where nothing quite goes right, and we had that rehearsal yesterday. As I told the singer and the young person who’s in it for a couple of things, I was happy it happened today and that we got it out of the way. I saw how it was going to go instantly, with the first patter. So, I took few notes, we ran the duet between the singer and the kid several times to fix some fudged notes, and I tried to approach everything positively. I told the singer not to even think about the show last night – just relax, clear the head, and get ready for the big push to opening. It’s been a real chore not to have our pianist with us save for two times. I originally thought she’d be with us yesterday, but that wasn’t to be. And it’s just hard to work with tracks, especially as the singer has to start and stop them, which takes her out of the show. Anyway, the pianist is with us from here to the end and I suspect everything will go smoother from here on in. It’s a strong show and the singer is very good – it’s all nitpicky stuff now in pursuit of being as perfect as we can be. Other than that, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Mr. Roland Shaw do the music of James Bond. I always loved his cover versions of the Bond music (and his other albums) – I think these were all Phase 4 albums originally. This album only goes through On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and it also includes the main title from Casino Royale and The Look of Love. Sound is superb and the renditions are pretty faithful. And prior to that, I continued my Bond watching with the fourth film, Thunderball. Of course, I saw it on its opening day at the Chinese Theater. The audience was primed and frankly it wouldn’t have mattered whether the film was bad or good, they were going to hoot and holler and scream with laughter no matter what – and they did. It was a huge hit and I believe when adjusted for today’s dollars it remains in the top five most successful Bond films. That said, I distinctly remember being very disappointed with Thunderball back then. For me, it was a huge step down from the perfection of Goldfinger. It had none of that film’s wonderful wit (yes, there were amusing one-liners in Thunderball – just not AS amusing), and none of that film’s brilliant writing and structure. The thing Goldfinger, and, to a slightly lesser extent, From Russia With Love got right was the balance between action and plot scenes. Goldfinger was especially perfect in that regard. Everything was easy to understand and perfectly clear from start to finish. For me, it remains the gold standard. With Thunderball, we got longer, louder, and a flaccid pace with too many characters, no clarity, a terrible new Felix Leiter (there always seemed to be new actors playing the role, but Cec Linder in Goldfinger was the best of them), and endless underwater scenes where it was almost impossible to know who was who and what was going on. Connery’s hairpiece took a turn for the worse, too. He’s fine, of course, and Adolfo Celi (dubbed) is a good Largo, but Largo is not Goldfinger and the plot device is not his but Number One’s from SPECTRE. The best thing about the film is the great title song by John Barry and Don Black, and Barry does his best to keep it all moving along, but at two hours and ten minutes, it’s just too much and too repetitious. Next up, You Only Live Twice and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Yesterday was okay. I got a bit over eight hours of sleep, which was nice. I answered a lot of e-mails and, after four days of not a single online order, we finally had one come in. We need a lot more than that. I picked up the nice and free five TB drive I was sent – of course, it’s USB-C, which I don’t have, but they included an adaptor cord that I either don’t understand or is the wrong cord, so I’ll take it to the Apple Store and see what they have to say. The cord they sent me has one end that plugs into the drive that’s a USB-C and the other end should be a standard USB cord that plugs into the computer but it’s an open end that gets plugged into rather than plugs into. Weird. I came home, did some stuff on the computer, and then came the rehearsal, which I’ve already talked about.

After the ladies left, I made some bow tie pasta with sausage, onions, butter, and cheese – very filling and very excellent it was. In fact, I’m still very full of it or at least some people have told me. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish and watched Thunderball. And the rest you know because no one can put anything over on you dear readers.

Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, then we have our rehearsal at three, finally with our pianist. We’ll go over a few little things before we run the show. Then, depending on how I feel it goes, we’ll either run problem spots or run the entire show again. I’m thinking the latter is probably the best option, since we need to have the singer and the pianist working in tandem in a way they haven’t had time to. After rehearsal, I’ll go out and get something to eat – either out or bringing something back home. And then I can watch, listen, and relax.

Tomorrow, we have our dress rehearsal with about ten people coming to watch, so that we get a sense of how the show plays and so the singer can hear whatever reaction the show’s gonna get. Then we finally do the show on Sunday – a four o’clock sound check, then food, then show. I’ll have Karen Staitman and Robert Yacko at my table, so that will be loads of fun.

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, have a rehearsal, eat, and then watch, listen, and 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, nothing until we get the player to work with the computer. Blu-ray, Bond, James Bond. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have gotten THAT rehearsal out of the way.

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