Well, dear readers, August is flying by, like a gazelle eating gefilte fish whilst reciting a haiku. And I am sitting here like so much fish, after an eventful day and evening of eventful events. I did manage to watch the first forty-five minutes of a perfect motion picture entitled Chinatown, which has shown up on Prime. Not sure if it’s the newest transfer, which I purchased a couple of years ago and which I remember looking better than this. Of course, Chinatown plays a key role in the latter part of Preview Harvey. I get sucked in whenever I watch Chinatown and I’ve seen it probably fifty times. I never get tired of it, I find new things to admire every time I see it and there’s not a single misstep in the entire film. If they hadn’t done the right thing, I’m not sure it would have been the classic it is, but thankfully they did do the right thing and that story is told in its entirety in Preview Harvey. Had Robert Evans not held firm and demanded the original score by Philip Lambro be tossed and replaced, well, we only know the preview in San Luis Obispo did not do well and many of the preview cards specifically mentioned that they did not like the music. But here’s an interesting thing you can do on Prime – watch the trailer, the original theatrical trailer, for it has the Lambro music and you will see just how wrong it was for the film. On its own, divorced from the film, it’s not terrible, but it fought the film at every turn, and you can tell that from the trailer. And, of course, the replacement score by Jerry Goldsmith is one of his most iconic – written in two weeks, recorded, and put into the film mere days before the film’s opening. It’s not a very long score, but it’s the right score. The performances by every single person are perfect. Polanski’s direction is brilliant and so is the production design by Richard Sylbert. Everything works and I’ll finish it tonight and can’t wait. And as I write these here notes, I am listening to Goldsmith’s soundtrack to Chinatown. That theme, that trumpet by Uan Rasey – magic.
Yesterday was a most interesting day and start to August. I did get eight hours of sleep, but not consecutive hours. I slept from one to six, was up for an hour, then slept from seven to ten. I was awakened not by the alarm but by a telephonic call, but as groggy as I was I had to take the call, so I got coherent as quickly as I could. I’d e-mailed someone who I hoped would be able to do an end run around the time it was taking to find out if the rights to the musical we’ll be doing in November were ours. I told him what was going on and he’s a great guy and said he’d make a call and try to get the ball rolling. Fifteen minutes later, he said he’d called the writer’s agent, the stuff was sitting on his desk and had been since last week, and he approved it right then and there and sent the approval to the licensing company and two minutes later, Doug Haverty got the approval. The whole thing took thirty minutes. I’m so glad I contacted this person, but we’ve known each other since I began producing albums back in 1993 and have a very long history in that regard. So, we’ll be doing what I hope will be a wonderful production of a rarely produced musical. As with Li’l Abner, when I’m told a musical is problematic, I try to figure out why someone is saying that. I figured it out easily in the case of this show and we’ll be making a few adjustments to it that I think will really help it, just as I did with Abner. So, that was a nice start to the day. I then went and picked up the two important envelopes, and then to the bank to cash one of the contents and then to my bank to deposit the cash. I’m happy to say, neither bank had any line.
After that, I came right home and began futzing and finessing, which took about ninety minutes. There was quite a bit of smoothing out, I moved a couple paragraphs around, I added several things and deleted a few things and then I wrote a couple of new pages, maybe three or close to it. Then I moseyed on over to the lunch meeting, which took place at Mel’s Drive-In with the author of the play I’ll be directing at some point next year. It was a very productive meeting, and he’ll be doing some rewrites now that we both think will really strengthen the play. I had a Cobb Salad and it was actually very good. That was my meal o’ the day.
I suddenly had a craving for rice pudding, so I stopped at Ralph’s and got a container. It didn’t contain raisins, so I got some Sunshine raisins to sprinkle in. I got some whipped cream, too. I came home and had a small dish of rice pudding with raisins and whipped cream and it was really good. Remember when lots of restaurants had some kind of pudding? I can’t find a single place in LA that has pudding these days.
Then I went back to writing and wrote four more pages, which brought me up to seven. I took a short break for a telephonic call, then wrote three more pages. I had one of those magical moments when I was typing away and my mind just went to a very unexpected place and I came up with something that was so much fun to write and so funny to me, and that’s what I live for, those moments that come out of nowhere, like a gift from God.
Then Karen Staitman and her ever-lovin’ Steve came over, bringing some K’s Donuts with them. We had to clear the air over a couple of things and that’s done now and everything’s fine. They also brought me my award for Best Web Series from the LA Film Awards. Here is an actual photograph of it.
The show is now on three platforms – Amazon Prime, Reveel (where it’s free), and something called OmniTube, which is a subscription thing that includes many small channels. On that platform, which I went to check out, we’re actually the pick of the week.
I will admit to eating a third of the chocolate peanut butter thing, and less than a third of the apple fritter thing, so that’s not too bad.
Today, I’ll be up by ten-thirty, I’ll futz and finesse, I’ll write new pages and finish off the chapter I’m in, which I’m only two or three pages away from. Then I’ll be more than halfway through the book. Then I have a somewhat tricky section to write, but once I’m past that, I should be able to move along pretty quickly. I’ll try to write between eight and fourteen pages. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll eat, and then at some point I’ll watch, listen and relax.
Tomorrow is more of the same, Friday I have another lunch meeting, and the weekend should be clear for mostly writing.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by ten-thirty, futz and finesse, write new pages, eat, write more new pages, and then at some point watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had an eventful day of eventful events.