Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Cal Tjader’s jazz album with orchestra of West Side Story. I have so many jazz covers of this score, but this is one of my favorites. The fun thing about the jazz covers that feature orchestras is that they’re all so completely different in sound and arrangements. The orchestrations here are by Clare Fischer and they’re really interesting and fun. And Tjader was one of the great jazz vibraphone players – when I was a teen, I bought all his albums. And it’s really hard to kill the Bernstein music, but not impossible, as I’ve heard a couple of more recent covers that were horrid. And prior to that, I listened to the “new” Burt Bacharach album (which is how they’re selling it over at Broadway Records), his score for a show called Some Lovers, which they tout as his first theater score since Promises, Promises AND it’s orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick for what sounds like a band of ten or twelve. The vocals are mostly by the new crop of Broadway singers, and I’ll leave it at that. Well, the big difference, and it’s a huge difference, between Some Lovers and Promises, Promises can be summed up in two words: Hal David. Lyricist Steven Sater (who wrote the “lyrics” to Spring Awakening) is no Hal David. He’s not within 10,000 miles of Hal David. And that’s the big problem with Some Lovers – the lyrics are just not good nor are they that interesting. I’ve been a rabid fan of Mr. Bacharach since I heard the song Hot Spell in 1958, so sixty-three years now. He was and is a musical genius. And some of the music here is nice, but it’s never prime Bacharach in that there is nothing here that is an instantly memorable thing, like most of his classic output is. But then he has to write to these lyrics and that is, for me, a dead end. I do know that for some, Bacharach will never do anything that’s not the most brilliant thing ever, and hey, at ninety-three the guy is amazing and even though I didn’t love Some Lovers, his music is still better than everything being written these days. And I’m sure I’ll give it a few more listens, but I know I will never get past the lyrics. And what are the odds, dear readers, that two of the songs on this album have titles that Lord BK has used – This Christmas and Welcome to My World.
Prior to that, I finished watching the final season of Adam-12. It was a truly odd season, trying to do more adult stories (child molestation, child pornography, drugs), rather than just have the episodic thing they usually did. And two of the later episodes seemed like a trial run to see if the show could work with another partner for Kent McCord because it seems like Martin Milner would not have done an eighth season – thankfully, they did what was write and ended it. One of the new partners (Pete Malloy was doing desk duty in these two episodes) was Mark Harmon and the other was Joanne Pflug. There were several actors in this final disc who I knew – a really young Barry Miller, Sian Barbara Allen, my old pal Ronne Troup, and, best of all, Liberty Williams, a year before she’d be my sister Tabitha in the first Tabitha pilot. I also knew Kimberly Beck, who looked like she was about sixteen in this.
Yesterday was really a half day since I didn’t get up until two after ten hours of needed sleep. Once up, I answered e-mails, then decided I was going to have a damn half ME day without any work whatsoever and that’s what I did. I finished off the tuna pasta salad and that was excellent. And then the rest of my food intake for the day and evening consisted of a small piece of cherry loaf, a cookie, potato chips, peanuts, and a piece of pumpkin cream pie. I am now ready to vomit on the ground and I don’t care who knows it.
Before going to bed, I did finish CODA and I must say it is now my favorite movie of the year. It’s just a good old-fashioned (in a nice way) feel good movie that pushes all the right buttons – you’ll laugh out loud, you’ll feel good, and you’ll cry – and it does them very well. It’s about the teenage daughter, the only hearing person in her family – her father, mother, and brother are all deaf. Her dream is to sing, but the family needs them with her. Will she realize her dream? Will they let her? Will they cut her loose? Will she learn from her choir teacher how to lose her singing inhibitions? The acting is simply superb from every single person, including the three deaf actors who play mom, dad, and brother. Mom is the marvelous Marlee Matlin in a very different role from the ones she usually plays. The father is from the LA theater company Deaf West and he’s great and so is the brother. The choir teacher is fantastic, too – don’t know the actor at all – Eugenio Derbez. But the film rests on the daughter and Emilia Jones gives the best performance of the year, in my opinion. She’s subtle, expressive, sings very well and if there’s any Oscar justice Emilia Jones will be up for Best Actress and the guy who plays the father and Marlee Matlin will be up for supporting actor awards. But that means that someone would have to actually see it – it’s an Apple Films Original and they paid the most money ever to acquire a Sundance Festival film. Having done that, wouldn’t you think they’d give it a proper release? How are people supposed to know about it? The only bright spot is that it’s made a few ten-best of 2021 lists.
Would you like to know why these here notes are being posted late? Well, let me tell you: At 11:25 I was on the Indiewire website, looking at a compendium of ten-best lists to see how many CODA was on. The site was causing all kinds of weird crap with my computer – the Music app was hiccupping, sound-wise, and the site was behaving like it was drunk and on heroin and then suddenly the computer just shut down. Just like that, and a thing popped up that said there’d been some issue and it had shut down. It restarted and reloaded and the first thing that came up was these here notes, which had been “recovered” from the last time I’d saved, which was about four paragraphs earlier – so I’d lost those four paragraphs. The original BK’s Notes document still had yesterday’s complete notes, which made no sense to me since I’d nuked them when I began writing the new notes. I tried to cut and paste the recovered into the regular document and it wouldn’t highlight. Furthermore, I couldn’t use either keyboard or trackpad wirelessly, even though both were turned on. I decided that I’d better restart the computer before anything else went screwy, so I did. Then everything worked properly, and I was able to cut and paste these here new notes back into the original document. The “recovered” version got put somewhere but I can’t find it. Nor do I need to, I suppose. Also, it wanted my password for the Cloud but wouldn’t take it – another reason to have restarted. I’m never going back to that stupid Indiewire site again. I went to do a Malwarebytes scan for viruses, but it wouldn’t open. Nor was it in the top menu bar of the computer where it normally is. So, I downloaded it again and if I’m understanding correctly, there is now no free version of it – so, it’s a fourteen-day trial period, after which you have to pay. It’s not very much – a buck or two a month. I’ll decide after fourteen days. Well, I’m wrong according to what I just read. It does the fourteen-day thing, then you say no and it supposedly reverts to the free version I already had. This stuff is VERY scary. And I can’t really remember what was in the other four paragraphs, which is irritating.
Then I watched the Adam-12 stuff and here we are, thirty minutes late and counting.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll finish choosing the songs for the January show, I’ll get back to writing for the project with David Wechter, I’ll make more book notes for the new book, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll eat, and then at some point I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same, and then we have our Annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Bash, the best place to ring in the New Year.
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, finish choosing songs, get back to writing, make book notes, eat, hopefully pick up packages, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: How many of you will be here for the New Year’s Eve Bash and for those who won’t, where the HELL will you be? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping that the computer behaves or at least wears tennis shoes, for those who understand Disney references.