Well, dear readers, we had our stumble-through and it went pretty well – not perfectly, which is what I prefer – I’d rather the show itself be perfect, but it was smooth, and the show order worked very well. There were a few little minor tempo issues, and I had a few notes, but we were able to get all that right after we finished. So, that was all a lot of fun. And now, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Shostakovich’s symphony 11 – some bloviating “critics” like it but don’t think it’s great Shostakovich. Well, I happen to think it’s pretty great and I don’t even need to bloviate. It’s very atmospheric and at times sounds rather like a film score, which is fine by me. I came to it via Stokowski’s famous recording on Capitol and I still love that performance most. But right now, I’m listening to Andre Cluytens do it and it’s a great performance, too, with one minor flaw in the sound – in the final movement the beautiful stereo recording suddenly goes mono for about forty-five seconds, leading one to believe that the stereo tape was too damaged to use at that point, which is pretty odd, but I think that’s the only explanation that makes sense. Anyway, I really like the symphony AND this performance, and I don’t care who knows it. Prior to that, I watched the original Danish version of The Guilty – as you know, I just watched the American remake made less than three years later. Well, wouldn’t you know, the Dutch is so much better – no grandstanding, no ACTING, if you get my meaning, no added plot points to allow for even more ACTING from the leading man, just a lean, tight little motion picture that hits all the right notes. But this is what they do in these remakes – add a lot of Screenwriting 101 nonsense that the movie simply doesn’t need. Subtlety is always the better option. Then I watched the last episode on the first disc of Adam-12 and boy did we strike paydirt. About half the episode took place approximately one and a half minutes from the home environment, right on Moorpark, just past the Ralph’s there, close to what becomes Beverly Glen and where the car wash used to be and Whole Foods is now. Part takes place at the Sherman Oaks Library right there, and you can see the big Barone’s sign at their original location, which was a mere two blocks from where I owned my first house just two years after this was shot. Then I moved on to disc two – some nice shots on Tujunga and/or Vineland (many shots on Vineland in this show), a few Ventura Blvd. shots in the usual place near Lankershim, just a couple of blocks from Universal, whose show this was. There are usually some interesting actors in each episode, too. There’s one director whose footage never shows you enough to recognize where you are, which is annoying. One episode’s main sequence took place on the 7000 block of a street I didn’t know called Costello Avenue. I Googled it immediately and there it was in Van Nuys and thanks to “street view” that street looks exactly the same fifty years later – no tear downs – the same houses basically looking as they did. Amazing. Anyway, I just find these silly episodes very enjoyable, and I don’t care who knows it.
Yesterday was a fine little day. I only got about five hours of sleep, if that, was up at seven and out of the house at nine. I went to Art’s Deli and had bacon and eggs and killed almost two hours there. Then I picked up a package, then came home. I showered and got ready for our stumble-through. There’s something wrong with the plumbing – toilets weren’t flushing properly, and the shower drain wasn’t draining that well, so I texted Grant and he actually got a plumber out here pretty quickly. In fact, he arrived during the stumble-through, but I just showed him what was what – and, of course, the toilets were suddenly working. Anyway, he’ll come back and do a major snake of all pipes and hopefully that will fix it all. It’s been happening for a few weeks, but only very sporadically.
After the stumble-through and fixing stuff, no one wanted to go eat so I ordered a Togo’s pastrami sandwich thing – every time I’d have the Subway version, I’d think, why do that when Togo’s is so much better. Well, they may have been so much better, but the Subway beats it now – I ate the Togo’s, but the pastrami was tough and not that pleasant-tasting – very salty. So, if I want that kind of sandwich then Subway it is. Robert Yacko had brought birthday cupcakes for Adrienne Stiefel and my birthday – we share the same date – so everyone had some of those and I had two at different times of the evening. And the rest you know.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll relax and rest my voice, then I’ll shave and shower and get ready, after which I’ll mosey on over to Vitello’s for sound check and then we do our show. Afterwards, some of us will go downstairs for a bite to eat. Then beginning on Monday there’ll be a lot of writing, some meetings and meals, and getting three releases ready to announce, and hopefully shipping the two errant and truant titles that are very late.
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, relax and rest my voice, get ready, do a sound check, do a show, have a meal, and then at least listen and relax when I get home. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a fun stumble-through.