Well, dear readers, you know what a tonic is? Not in music, but in life? I’ll tell you what a tonic is – seeing a show you created and wrote a good deal of and directed make an audience laugh and cry and cheer, that’s what a tonic is, and boy did I need a tonic. This past week was very difficult, and you know I always try to keep my positivity, but boy was that strained and I’m not sure how any of that will turn out this week – we shall see. But as our penultimate performance played out, despite a couple of the usual sound issues, I could do nothing but smile. And as I sit and listen to the show’s final song, which I wrote, Sunset Strip 1965, I don’t know that I’ve ever written a better song than that in terms of its craft and storytelling. I tear up listening to Lisa Dyson make magic out of it and listen to the audience cheer – not a teen idiotic woo-hooing BS kind of cheer, but a genuine stop the show kind of cheer. The whole show last night was a smiler from start to finish and the audience was pretty full and pretty great. It cheered me up no end and I’ll take all the cheer I can get. I knew a lot of people tonight – we had the director of Disney’s animated classic, The Little Mermaid, John Musker, we had the delightful Barbara Minkus, the director Susan Morgenstern, and of course, Peyton Kirkner and her mom. They really liked the show and I think it was interesting for Peyton to be back in the theater for the first time since doing In My Mind’s Eye just before the world shut down. Prior to the show, Peyton, her mom Allison, and my very own self met at the Smokehouse, one of Peyton’s favorite places. I had a wedge salad and shrimp cocktail and two sliver-sized pieces of the garlic cheese bread. Her mom had one or two small pieces, and Peyton devoured the rest. She had prime rib and her mom had filet mignon, and Peyton had some chocolate mousse cake for dessert. It’s so nice to see her eating well. I came home after the show and it was already time to write these here notes, which, in case you haven’t noticed, is what the HELL I’m doing. And as I write, Mr. Mitropoulos is doing Bach’s second violin concerto. I do like Bach, and I don’t care who knows it.
Yesterday was tolerable. I only got about five hours of sleep, got up, answered a few e-mails, and then left, went to Hugo’s and had a small (and I mean really small) breakfast burrito – just eggs, cheese, and bacon, and not much of any of those things – couldn’t have been over 300 calories. After that, I picked up an important envelope and then stood in line for thirty minutes at my nearby branch of my bank – it’s the only branch that’s reopened on Saturday’s, so they come from everywhere. Ridiculous. I made my deposit, then came home. Once home, I caught up on stuff, the master bathroom toilet was fixed, someone came by to pick up some CDs, and then I managed to watch a weird movie called Kate. It steals from many movies, mostly Mr. Tarantino and Mr. Ridley Scott and a few others, and its central plot device is right out of the noir film DOA that starred Edmond O’Brien. The lead gal is pretty good, but the best performance if from Japanese actor Jun Kunimura, who is superb. I found the film irritating but it has some good fight scenes and Woody Harrelson has a nice role. Not a great movie, of course, not even a good movie, but – tolerable.
Then I shaved and showered and then moseyed on over to the Smokehouse and the rest you know because no one pays attention like you dear readers.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven and then I’ll mosey on over to the theater at 12:30 and see our final performance. After, a few of us might just go to the Coral Café for a snack. Then I’ll come home and watch, listen, and relax.
This coming week, well, I dread it but must deal with it and that’s going to require a lot of organization and details to work out. We’ll see how all that goes.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven, see our final performance, go out after, and then watch, listen, and relax. 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 my spirits lifted in such a nice way because, as I mentioned, that is a tonic.