Well, daer readers – DAER readers? What am I, Scottish all of a sudden? Let me start again. Well, dear readers – much better. Well, dear readers (that is three well, dear readers – maybe we should throw in a Hail, Mary and a Boo Josephine), I have no clew as to what the HELL I’m talking about, but since that’s never stopped me before, why should it stop me now. In fact, nothing can stop me now, as Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse once said. I don’t know, I think these here notes should be Scottish. If we had the Scottish play, we can have the Scottish notes. Or McNotes, if you will. I think if I just put an Mc in front of a word every now and then that will do the McTrick. Speaking of the McTrick, yesterday was kind of a lazy little day, which is what I wanted it to be. I got up a little later than I’ve been getting up, and then I did the long jog, which was a little difficult. I then puttered around the home environment doing this and that and also that and this. I did some work at the piano, finished the last two lines of a lyric I’ve been slaving over, entered it into the Nudie Musical script, sent the script to my choreographer of choice, Adam Cates, and then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I watched a motion picture in McDVD entitled Bobby Deerfield, starring Mr. Al Pacino and Miss Marthe Keller. I saw it twice when it came out, although after watching it yesterday I can’t for the life of my figure out why, unless it was just to hear the beautiful score again. It’s quite a bad little movie, one of Sidney Pollack’s worst. Nothing about it really works. Mr. Pacino is sullen for most of the film, then he smiles for a while, then he’s sullen again. He also seems to be improvising up a storm, because I can’t imagine a good writer like Alvin Sargent being responsible for the insipid dialogue being uttered. Miss Keller is lovely, but has a weird way of pronouncing her “R”s, so that every time she says the word “boring” (and she says it a LOT), it comes out “bowing.” Her character is meant to be a free spirit and adventurous, but she comes off very obnoxious. One wonders why Mr. Pacino bothers, especially as he has a gorgeous and loyal girlfriend. Two things about the film work wonderfully. Thing one is the gorgeous location photography by the great Henri Decae. The other is the gorgeous score by Dave Grusin, which has one of his most beautiful themes. The transfer is decent, although a bit too brown – remove a tiny bit of that and you’d have Henri Decae’s photography as it was meant to be seen.
After the movie, I toddled off to dinner at Genghis Cohen. It was pretty crowded, but I’d made a reservation, so our table was waiting. The service, which is sometimes a little annoying, was really bad last night. But, the food’s the thing and it was, as always, yummilicious in the extreme. We had the orange chicken (extra crispy), the green beans (amazing), moo-shu vegetable, crackerjack shrimp – and my dinner companion had some steamed dumplings as an appetizer. I probably ate too much, but it was my only meal o’ the day, and I’d done the long jog, so hopefully it won’t do any damage. I am now fine with splurging on one meal a week, so last night’s was that meal. I’ll be really good for the rest o’ the week.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below or, since these are the Scottish notes, the Unseemly McButton.
Today will be a day of organization and telephonic calls and writing and jogging, and responding to e-mails and shipping a couple of packages and doing a few errands and whatnot and figuring out which of the two dates on which I’ll do my book signing/reading.
Tomorrow will be more of the same, with perhaps a dinner meeting thrown in for good measure (size 8). Wednesday, I have a lunch at Langer’s Delicatessen, and other stuff, Thursday I’m meeting with the LA Festival of New Musicals folks, and Friday I’m attending the opening night of Vanities at the Pasadena Playhouse. So, a nice full week ahead, and hopefully sans the drama of the past couple of weeks.
Well, daer readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, jog, organize, ship packages, do errands and whatnot, respond to e-mails, and have a telephonic call or three. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s everyone’s favorite game, The Initials Game™. Remember, you’re on the honor system – no looking up names – you have to know who the people are your naming, although you may double check to make sure you’re remembering them correctly. It’s no fun cheating on this, so only what you can honestly remember. Celebrities, sports figures, characters in books, plays, and movies, cartoon characters. Today’s initials are: S.M. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, or McPostings.