Well, dear readers, I am sitting here listening to the new Hans Zimmer score to Ella McKay, the new James L. Brooks film – terrible reviews for the film, but the score is lovely. So, while we’re in the lovely mode, perhaps it’s time to take a look back at the year that is coming to a close, namely 2025. It began, as every year has begun for over two decades, with starting a new book – Vegas Can Be Murder, the third Harry Stearns mystery. As with the other two, I had a blast writing it – I love Harry and Bernice and writing them is always a pleasure – in reality, they write themselves. Setting part of it in the Vegas of 1976 was a lot of fun – it slowed me down a bit because I wanted to be completely accurate as to restaurants, who was playing where, etc. and that research was slow going but fun. Finally, getting to write the Buddy character was grand fun – especially his bad jokes. And for a nice change of pace, it was fun to ultimately make it a mystery without a dead body at its center. I would so love to see these books as movies or HBO-type things. Anyway, that was followed by getting ready to fulfil a long-ago promise to Ira Levin, by directing a full production of Drat! The Cat! I think there was also a Kritzerland young people show in there, too. But doing Drat! The Cat! was an amazing experience, and we had a most wonderful company, including what I consider to be a star turn by Sydney De Maria as the titular cat. She’d done a couple of Kritzerland young people shows when she was fifteen, and one of the online shows – she popped into my head when I began trying to think who could play the part and she sent me an audition tape of a monologue from the show, and I cast her on the spot. And boy did she deliver. But the entire company was great and had great energy, there was virtually no drama, and the show did very well. Well, there was a bit of drama with the son of Mr. Levin who handles Levin’s properties. He backed the wrong horse, in my opinion – giving his attention to the New York Encores very light version done with a smaller band than us (I honestly don’t think they would have had more than a trip if the hadn’t seen we had a band), and not only that, the decision to do the show with, I think, five actors – maybe it was six, but I don’t think it was. Well, that’s not the show Mr. Levin wrote, I’m afraid. Can’t remember our cast size exactly, but it was at least fourteen and probably more than that. Oh, let’s see: Nineteen. THAT is the show Mr. Levin wrote. The son was quite nasty to us, in fact, so much so that I stopped sending him our rave reviews.
After Drat, I finally after a year made the decision to write a book about my friendship with Richard Sherman – Richard and Me – A Supercalifragilistic Friendship. It was an emotional book to write but I’m really glad I did it. And then we did a Kritzerland show in the summer, too. Two books, one major production, and two Kritzerland shows. That was the first half of the year. The next half in tomorrow’s notes.
Yesterday was okay. I got about six hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails, then around eleven-fifty I moseyed on over to Cedars to see the eye doctor. Traffic was fine until south of Mulholland, then was a bit slow going down due to ill-timed signals. Once past Sunset it was quick to Santa Monica Blvd. but south of that was backed up an entire block – I have no idea why because I detoured over to La Cienega before getting involved in that mass. That was a very wise decision and once on La Cienega I got there pretty quickly. They did the usual tests, I came out with flying colors – droopy eyelid keeps getting a little better with each appointment – no more double vision at all, left eye 20/20, right eye 20/40 (that’s always the same), and everything else looking good. He did give me some eye drop suggestions as my right eye is very dry (part of that is the medication) and I occasionally get what he calls artificial tears – meaning I see little tear drops out of the corner of that eye – very weird. So, I’ll probably get the drops he’s suggesting. After that, I came right home and other than some truly idiotic slow drivers in front of me, I made it in pretty good time. I immediately ordered a Togo’s pastrami sandwich and for later a chicken Caesar wrap. That arrived pretty quickly and I ate the pastrami and it was very good. Then I did some organizing and some work on the computer. Then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture entitled Wicked: For Good. I’m not going to belabor it, but the decision to make this into two films was not a good one. Everything has to be a “franchise” these days and the sooner the studios realize that that is not really working so well anymore, maybe they’ll at least stop trying to act like everything is a franchise. Wicked on stage runs two and a half hours plus intermission. The first movie, which is the first half of the stage show, ran almost three hours. The second movie runs two hours and thirteen minutes. Over five hours of Wicked is simply too much. I certainly didn’t have much fondness for the first half – some of it was cute, I suppose, but too long and while they made a huge deal that the sets were all real, there still was a huge amount of CGI. I know everyone loves the two ladies who star, so I’ll just say that neither are really to my liking. They’re fine but that’s about it, at least for me. For Good, however, is a real mess of a movie, at least it was for me. The stage show is certainly not perfect, but this bloated second half is just that – bloated. It has two new songs and pardon my cynicism but I’m pretty sure they exist so they can get Oscar nominations. Anyway, it just wasn’t for me and I was bored for most of it. I know that the director is supposed to be the savior of the film musical – I don’t think he is, but you might feel differently. Oh, and while the first film had plenty of CGI, this half is LOADED with it.
After that, I had the chicken Caesar wrap – I thought it was pretty lousy, but you take your chances and I took mine. Took pill three and here we are.
Today, I’ll be up by eight-thirty and out the door by nine-twenty and we’ll have our ten to one rehearsal – Cheryl Baxter will finish up her number and then we’ll run act two and do some detail work once we’re done with it. Then I’ll stop at the mail place and see what’s what, then come home. I’m pretty sure it will be a Wacky Noodles Day, since I have all the ingredients. Then I’ll just watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow and Monday are total ME days, I could use a modern major miracle about now, then we have rehearsals on Tuesday and Wednesday, then we’re off for two weeks.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eight-thirty and out the door by nine-twenty, rehearse, stop at the mail place, come home eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What were your favorite books of 2025? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, having looked back at the first half of that was the year that was – 2025-style.