Well, dear readers, the first order of business in these here notes is the dinner and visit with the Darling Daughter. She arrived right on time at 4:30 and we moseyed on over to Barone’s. Back in 1975, when I bought my first house in the Oaks of Sherman, we resided at the corner of Hortense and Calhoun. Three blocks south of our house, at the corner of Calhoun and Ventura Blvd. was the original Barone’s location. On our Oscar party nights, we’d have their wonderful square pepperoni pizza, along with pizzas from a few other jernts. It was a favorite of ours, and we brought in from there quite a bit. We ate in the restaurant a few times, too. The Darling Daughter definitely remembered having it at home, but not eating there. Anyway, she had to laugh when I informed her that this new location was formerly a German jernt called Old Heidelberg, a favorite of my ex-wife’s parents. We went there several times and the Darling Daughter remember there was polka dancing there. For food, of course we had to order the square pizza, medium size, a dinner salad, and the carbonara for us to split. The salad was great, the pizza was great, and splitting the carbonara was a great idea – a reasonable portion for each of us. And boy was it a good batch. We gabbed about all the fun we had when she was growing up, her two troublesome years, and she said the sweetest thing – that even during that time I always had her back. Our adventures were the stuff of magic, they just were. She has the same kind of memory I have about those days. It’s fun to reminisce. She told me the ex-wife never wants to talk about anything in the past – why not? That’s just weird to me, but maybe that’s why she’s my ex-wife. We can gaze back lovingly at fun times, can gaze back and think about whatever regrets we may have about whatever, can gaze back at things we wished might have done differently. I certainly have a few things that I beat myself up about to this day, but I’m glad I grew out of those things and am happy I did. We can always learn from the past, just as we’re learn from the present as we move into the future. Anyway, it was a delightfully delightful dinner, tales were told, and food was eaten. We took over half the pizza home because we were so full.
Once back here, we continued our chatting, then did something she always enjoys – watching musical numbers that have great choreography. Her love of that stems back to when she was very young and I’d introduce her to all the great movie musicals, and also from attending touring shows with me. So, we watched a lot of the Peter Gennaro Ed Sullivan appearances, which are wonderful. Not only was he a terrific choreographer, but his joy of dancing is also evident in every move he makes. You really cannot help but smile. I showed her several great Danny Daniels numbers, several of which were from Pennies from Heaven – she loved those and was amazed that Christopher Walken was such a great dancer. While she was a huge fan of Bob Fosse’s choreography, mostly due to Pippin, which she still loves more than anything, that incredible staging, she’d never actually seen Fosse as a performer. I showed her the challenge dance with Tommy Rall from My Sister Eileen and she was astounded not only by how great a dancer Fosse was, but by the amazing Tommy Rall, who seems to actually defy gravity. A brilliant dancer. We watched the Annie segment from the Tony Awards, Who’s Got the Pain from Damn Yankees, and a lot of other stuff – our encore was the Maggie Smith Tony Awards clip from Lettice and Lovage with Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack. It’s the best scene from the play and there has never been another actress who delivers a line quite like Maggie Smith. Such big laughs and great timing, and the dress reveal was fantastic. I was lucky enough to see the show on Broadway, and Maggie Smith really was a wonder.
Then she took her leave, and I relaxed and after all those lovely videos, I watched a few irritating videos, just for the amusement. And now I am writing these here notes whilst listening to the new complete release of Jerry Goldsmith’s score for The Other. The original CD release had the score as filler with The Mephisto Waltz and was a suite of about twenty-two minutes, one long track. To set the history books straight, I brought the Fox deal to Varese because Nick Redman would not work with the other fellow who did the soundtracks. I was never happy that The Other wasn’t better sounding, but I suppose that’s the best that could be done twenty-five-years ago. I’m not sure how this insanity happened, but the Fox deal enabled Varese to own all those titles in perpetuity. But they finally got around to The Other as we all hoped they would, and it’s a splendidly splendid release of a classic Goldsmith score from my favorite Goldsmith period. It sounds much better than the Varese CD – the tapes, from what I understand, were not in good repair so there are a few sound issues, nothing most people would even notice. This new release runs about forty-two minutes. If you love either Goldsmith or the film of The Other, it comes highly recommended by the likes of me. I opted to get the digital version on Amazon – I just don’t want to spend thirty bucks on a CD anymore and that’s what it costs with shipping. And here we are.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll have me a proper ME day, for food I’ll use my 40% off coupon on Uber Eats to get something fun from somewhere fun, and basically I’ll just rest and then watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, I’m back to work on the final song for this short thing I’ve been working on, I have a brief appointment in the afternoon, and I’ll start working on a song list for the holiday show as well as attend to a few other things. I’ll hopefully pick up both important envelopes. Tuesday is a new month, so I’ll do my banking early, as she of the Evil Eye comes, and then when I’m back home it’s more of the same and will be for the entire week.
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, have a ME day, eat, 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, always happy to have a visit with the darlingest of Darling Daughters.