Well, dear readers, I must write these here notes in a hurry for she of the Evil Eye will be here all too soon and that means up early for the likes of me and an early breakfast for the likes of me. Whilst writing these here notes in a hurry I am listening to a masterpiece of an album – the Modern Jazz Quartet with The Swingle Singers, an amazing collaboration called Place Vendome. When I was a newly turned teen, I discovered vibes on a Cal Tjader recording on red vinyl that included an amazing twelve-minute suite from Porgy and Bess and my favorite song from back then, That’s All. I have loved vibes ever since. And funnily, many foreign film scores of that era featured the vibraphone. Milt Jackson, one of the great jazz vibraphone players, is one of the original Modern Jazz Quartet players. And John Lewis, who composed much original music for the quartet, wrote the great score for Odds Against Tomorrow, heavy on the vibes, baby. I’ll play that next. I did watch a motion picture last evening entitled Needful Things, based on the 690-page novel by one Stephen King. That’s one I never read but I’d hope it’s better than this sorry movie version directed by Fraser Heston, son of Charlton. He didn’t do many movies, and most featured his father. I think on Needful Things and one other are the rest of his filmography. The cast is certainly good – Ed Harris, Max von Sydow, Bonnie Bedelia, Amanda Plummer, J.T. Walsh and others. But knowing their work it seems to me they’ve all been directed to be over-the-top too often. The director doesn’t seem to know the tone he’s trying for and failing to get, the film has no sense of pace, you don’t care about a single person, and Patrick Doyle’s score doesn’t work at all because it’s a mishmash that the director probably wanted and temp-tracked the film with. The screenplay suffers from the same issues the direction has – it doesn’t seem to know what tone it’s going for. The film got mostly bad reviews when it came out, but it’s recently been released in 4K (why?) and the reviews of that are written by people who were kids in the 90s so of course they LOVE it. I wanted to like it, but doing a good Stephen King adaptation seems to fail most of the time. The best of them – Carrie, The Dead Zone, and Misery (not as good as the first two) got it right – the atmosphere, the suspense, the horror, and the occasional laughs. My personal fave is The Dead Zone, which is just a great movie in every way. The Shining by Kubrick is more Kubrick than Stephen King, so I don’t count that even though I’ve come to like it. Anyway, I couldn’t stand Needful Things.
Otherwise, I didn’t do much of anything yesterday. I got six hours of sleep, got up, had an e-mail from the publisher – the higher-up guy, who said he and the other higher-up were really frustrated by the way this has all gone down, but he said to fight it would take too long and best would be to refund, so that’s what’s been done. The softcover will go up on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. No shame in that. Doug has to redo the back cover and spine. And the interior designer has to redo the copyright page. Then we’ll reupload it all, including the eBook. Then I’ll have a telephonic conversation with the higher-up about my future there. I know they don’t want to lose me and I’m happy to stay if they guarantee me in writing that these overseas idiots and their AI BS will not be allowed to put anything I write through content evaluation. That’s going to be the deal. They haven’t bugged me about anything so maybe it’s already even in place. For food, I had a chili, cheese, and onion hot dog from Pink’s – great – and onion rings – this batch, not great. Yesterday was the heavy pill day and I took them all. For my snack, I had a chocolate chip muffin, then later an English muffin, all fine. And here we are.
Today, I’ll be up by eight and out the door by eight-thirty, I’ll breakfast with Robert Yacko at a place neither of us has been to before, then I’ll do a few errands and whatnot, come home, do stuff on the computer, have a telephonic call with the higher-up, then we have our second day of auditions at seven. I did cast one of the ensemble members – someone who sings and moves really well and who did a Kritzerland show last year. So, I’ve got her and one other gal, so need six more – four males, two gals. Unless I end up using six instead of eight, which may very well be the case. Then I’ll grab a bite to eat after we finish rather than have something delivered.
Tomorrow, we have callbacks, and we’ll see how that goes. Then a couple of meetings and meals and then the weekend.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eight and out the door by eight-thirty, breakfast, do errands and whatnot, come home, have a telephonic call, have auditions, have a snack somewhere, and then come home. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite percussion instruments? I love my beloved vibes and xylophones, of course, glockenspiel, orchestra bells, mark tree. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to be hearing music with good vibes.