Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, continuing my traversal through the Beethoven box set – now playing, the fourth symphony. Once again, I must mention the sound – this 1959-1961 stereo is just beyond belief and these performances are simple and wonderful – as I said, no fuss, no muss. Otherwise, I did manage to watch a limited series thing on Amazon Prime – I have no idea why I didn’t watch this in 2016 when it was released, other than it got very bad reviews from the majority of critics, so I just stayed away, I guess. The six-episode series was Woody Allen’s Crisis in Six Scenes. He’s publicly said he got no pleasure from making it. Well, I guess I was in the mood because I laughed out loud throughout – each episode was a quick twenty-one minutes or so, and I found it a pleasure to have Woody starring and who better to play his wife than Elaine May. The two of them are simply hilarious. It’s not his greatest, but it is so far from his worst it’s not even funny – except that it is funny. Woody’s stuff for himself all lands wonderfully, and there’s only one misstep in casting and it’s a big one, unfortunately. It’s not the debacle that critics said, but it just doesn’t work – that’s Miley Cyrus. But the rest of the cast is really fun – including Rachel Brosnahan, Julie Halston, Lewis Black, David Harbour, Nina Arianda, Larry Bryggman, Judy Gold, and lots of others. The critics seemed to by laying in wait for this and boy were their claws out – these are the same critics that praise most of his terrible recent movies, although in this case there seemed to be a rather large number of young women critics who hated it for all the reasons you’d suspect – as I said, laying in wait. The show takes place in the late 1960s, yet in the six years since it aired, it’s become VERY prescient in what it was saying politically. But the fact is, Woody himself as a performer just makes me laugh – doesn’t matter if it’s old territory or not, his jokes make me laugh. Can’t say it any plainer than that. And Elaine May is just a treasure. Does it get silly? Absolutely. Does no one remember the silly of Take the Money and Run and Bananas and Sleeper? I’ll take Woody’s silly any day over what they call comedy today. So, there is a different opinion, and I don’t care who knows it.
Yesterday was a lackadaisical day, lacking in daisacals completely. I didn’t actually fall asleep until six. I just couldn’t get to sleep and so just sat at the computer. In fact, I ordered a half-dozen bagels at five in the morning and they arrived thirty minutes later. I arose at one after seven hours of sleep, answered e-mails, did a quick Gelson’s run to get some lox, but of course the Jews of Sherman Oaks had already swarmed down and bought it all. Instead, I bought tuna, came home and made two tuna sandwiches on two onion bagels. They were very good.
Then I began writing episode seven but wasn’t feeling it. I didn’t like what I was writing at all. I nuked it all and started over. I knew the premise of the episode and a couple of the sequences, but it was getting there, getting the set-up right. I tried a different way in and didn’t like that at all either, so I took a break, really irritated with myself, although the same thing has happened on two other episodes – this difficulty getting into the episode. Then I had a ninety-minute telephonic conversation with a friend in New York – he’ll be doing a role in an episode, and he can help get me some other folks, so that will be good.
After that, I began the episode again for the third time, and this time, rather than doing the set up the way I’d been doing it, I just dove right into the first sequence and that really worked and solved all the problems. I wrote the first four pages and will probably write another two before going to bed. Then I watched the six episodes of the Woody Allen thing, and then I had another bagel, this with cream cheese. The rest you know.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll pray that the Indiegogo funds arrive – and please keep sending those most excellent vibes and xylophones for a sooner than later safe arrival – I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll eat, I’ll try to finish episode seven and move on to episode eight, which will be the last of the eight we’ll shoot in New York, then that will leave the two LA episodes. We’ll continue to ship out CDs, I’ve got to start planning our next two releases – I know what one of them will be but not the other – and then at some point I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same – writing, some meetings and meals, shipping, and continue on my difficult quest of trying to lose some poundage.
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, hope for the arrival of the Indiegogo funds, hopefully pick up some packages, eat, try to finish episode seven and begin episode eight, ship, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite Woody Allen films starring Woody Allen? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a lackadaisical day.