Zack's Fourth Newsletter of Zack's Newsletter
Sondheim! Music Videos! Something I Actually Wrote!
Hey everyone! Been a busy couple of days. I started my new job, and I think I can actually do it well!
Of course, when I have lunch and such I look around online, and keep track of other things I find online, and paste some things in drafts for the newsletter. So here’s some quality accumulation…
MAD-PHAT PBS ACTION:
Last week, mentioned a treasure trove of filmed plays and such from PBS I found on YouTube. Here’s a particularly cool find from the series AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE: “Who am I This Time?” a two-hander adaptation of a Kurt Vonnegut short story starring Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken, directed by Jonathan Demme! Haven’t made time to watch it yet, but it’s hard to beat that line-up. Thanks to writer Will Harris for pointing it out on Twitter!
BOBBY IS MY HOBBY AND I’M POSTIN’ SOME LINKS:
The Criterion Collection just released one of the greatest “Making of” documentaries ever, ORIGINAL CAST ALBUM: COMPANY, on DVD and Blu-Ray.
Even if you’ve never seen Stephen Sondheim’s musical (I’ll take care of that in a moment if that’s the case), it’s an astonishing look behind-the-scenes on Broadway. The documentary got some intimate moments that it’s almost impossible to believe the cameras were there for, such as Elaine Stritch’s breakdown over many, many takes of “The Ladies Who Lunch:”
Or this astonishing performance of the climactic number, “Being Alive” by Dean Jones — yes, the guy from all those Disney movies — who left the show a little over a month after it opened due to stress from his own divorce. The camera gets in so close you can see the fillings in his teeth, and there’s a unique level of emotion — here’s a man losing his marriage in real life singing a song where a character realizes that the work of relationships is better than being alone. Damn.
(Jones did get married again a few years later, to Lori Patrick, who’d previously been married to author Harlan Ellison. I have so many questions. But they stayed together until his death in 2015, so that’s nice.)
Vulture has a nice little oral history of the documentary that includes Sondheim:
https://www.vulture.com/2021/08/company-cast-album-stephen-sondheim-jonathan-tunick.html
I was also pleased to see the Criterion disc includes “Co-Op,” a parody of the documentary from the excellent IFC series DOCUMENTARY NOW! The series uses some deep cuts for its parodies, but they’re at a level where they’re funny on their own, and even funnier if you know the source material. DOCUMENTARY NOW! was on Netflix Instant last I checked…I kinda got tired of Netflix and canceled my subscription recently, so not sure if it’s still there.
But here’s a parody of the Elaine Stritch sequence above, with Paula Pell playing an actress suffering through take after take of a song called “I Gotta Go!”
“Gosh, Zack. You sure have gone on about a documentary about COMPANY and a parody of the documentary about COMPANY, but I’ve never actually seen COMPANY. What’s it about?”
BASICALLY: It’s a 1970 stage musical that’s a series of linked sketches regarding Bobby, who has three casual girlfriends and a whole lot of married friends who wish he’d settle down, but their relationships have their own issues. There’s little plot, but some of Stephen Sondheim’s best and most biting songs. Two of them, “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” and the aforementioned “Being Alive” were performed by characters in the recent Oscar winner MARRIAGE STORY, presumably acknowledging one of the film’s biggest influences.
“Huh! That sounds great! Is there a movie version?”
No, and the show doesn’t really lend itself to a film — like I said, not a lot of plot, and the scenes tend to jump around from one set of characters to another without much in the way of transition. And for the final number, it’s the other characters kind of serving as a Greek Chorus to Bobby as he contemplates things, which works brilliantly on the stage but would be hard to make cinematic.
BUT: A couple of the productions WERE filmed, and someone else put them on YouTube!
One is a production from 2006, which was unique in that the actors played instruments for the songs on stage. It stars Raul Esparza, who too many people only know from his role on LAW & ORDER: SVU and not enough know is Broadway royalty with a BEAUTIFUL voice.
Another filmed one was a concert-style production in 2011 with a STACKED cast that includes Neil Patrick Harris, Patti LuPone, Stephen Colbert, Martha Plimpton, Jon Cryer, Christina Hendricks, Anika Noni Rose, I’m tired of typing…my favorite number is more Broadway Royalty, Katie Finneran, doing a 500 MPH rendition of the epic nervous breakdown “Getting Married Today.”
And finally: Tangential, but here’s an Emmy-winning filmed version of Elaine Stritch’s one-woman show AT LIBERTY, where she gets brutally honest about her life, her career, and herself. You were the runnin’ definition of “broke the mold,” Elaine.
Anyone else COMPANY-ed out?
FINE, HERE’S AN AMUSING 1970s CARPET AD I SAW ON TWITTER:
From the excellent blog Plaid Stallions. He’s in for some lovin’!
NEVER, EVER ORDER SOMETHING OFF AN AD ON INSTAGRAM:
And now, not to get too personal, but I found strange poetry in response to my query about the shipment status birthday gift for a friend they might never, ever receive.
MORE MUSIC, NOT BROADWAY THIS TIME:
Aw, I haven’t seen this in years — Death Cab for Cutie posted on YouTube the video for “Your Heart is an Empty Room” done by my boy Jeffrey Brown. Jeff is a hero among kids for his hilarious Star Wars books like VADER’S LITTLE PRINCESS, and fans of autobiographical comics for his hilarious, heartbreaking, candid looks at everyday life.
The video is a simple tale of remembering small moments from a past relationship, and the song’s lyrics about letting go and getting yourself back out into the world seem pretty relevant for what’s going on today. Seeing this brought back some good memories!
That reminds me, here’s a great image Jeff did for a postcard-sized business card I used to give out, and need to print more of…if this new job works out, I might finally go after my goal of getting a whole series of these by different cartoonists! Or spending money on an artist to draw up a new comic book story! But let’s see if I actually keep the job and don’t have any debilitating medical expenses first.
AND FOR SOME REASON, CARROTS:
Once again sharing recipes I can actually make — the following one for oven-roasted carrots is INCREDIBLY simple, and makes what’s often a bland or mealy root vegetable into something much more flavorful. I’m not AS enamoured with them as the recipe’s creator, but they make a great side dish or simple meal on their own, and I’ve had family members request that I make them for gatherings.
https://www.grubstreet.com/2017/06/recipe-mark-bittmans-2-ingredient-buttery-roasted-carrots.html
I should also note that I only learned in the last few years that rabbits do NOT typically eat carrots, and our understanding of that comes from Bugs Bunny doing a Clark Gable impression:
https://theuijunkie.com/why-bugs-bunny-eats-carrots/#:~:text=During%20that%20scene%2C%20Peter%20Warne,now%20today%20as%20Bugs%20Bunny.
UNKNOWN COMICS HISTORY!
Free Comic Book Day was this past weekend, and while I didn’t get out to it — a retailer I helped out hooked me up with the books I wanted so I could beat the crowds — I was fascinated by the following Twitter thread by YA author Barry Lyga. Barry has written about comics in his books, most notably THE ASTONISHING ADVENTURES OF FANBOY AND GOTH GIRL, and I knew he used to work for Diamond Comic Distributors and helped develop FCBD, but I never knew just HOW responsible he was for the event! Click on the link below to read the thread of how what was virtually a one-man show became a major annual event for retailers all over the country, and the world!
HEY, I ACTUALLY WROTE AN ARTICLE AGAIN!:
Whew! Almost forgot because I wrote it the same week I interviewed for my new job and my parents visited (there’s a lot of things deliberately blacked out from that time), but INDY Week just published an article I wrote about Michael Washington, a local filmmaker who did a new documentary called SAVE THE DAD BOD. He was a sweet guy and I enjoyed talking with him, so check it out.
https://indyweek.com/culture/screen/save-the-dad-bod-michael-washington/
PLUS, AN ARTICLE I HAD SOMEONE ELSE WRITE:
I think I mentioned this film in a previous newsletter…too lazy to check…but Vinegar Syndrome recently released a DVD of the no-budget epic CHAMPAGNE AND BULLETS, aka ROAD TO REVENGE, aka GETEVEN, where lawyer John DeHart wrote, directed, starred and performed original songs in a movie where he gets to kick butt, recite Shakespeare, tell jokes, sing Country-Western songs, and have multiple love scenes with a Playboy Playmate. And gets acted off the screen in every scene by a clearly substance-enhanced Wings Hauser.
A while back, I paid film writer Nathan Rabin to cover the film for his “Control Nathan Rabin” column. I admit I’d check his site every day to see if he’d done the piece yet, and it finally happened today! And his review did not disappoint. Check it out!
https://www.nathanrabin.com/happy-place/2021/8/18/control-nathan-rabin-40-225-champagne-and-bullets-1993
AND FINALLY: A SHORT TALE FROM YESTERDAY THAT I POSTED ON FACEBOOK
I blame the current waitstaff shortage on poor pay rates, a lack of benefits, and rough pandemic conditions, not people who are “too lazy to work.” However, you can feel that way and still feel sorry for / frustrated with the people working under these circumstances.
I finished an 8-hour day of training for my new remote job yesterday and had a two-hour drive home ahead of me (it would typically be 90 minutes, but Google Maps informed me there was a crash on I-40, news that is like, “Water is wet”).
So, I stopped at a Jersey Mike's to get a sandwich. What I witnessed was a tragedy in miniature.
The staff, about three people, and a manager -- none white, I should add, which adds a certain socioeconomic subtext to the sorrow -- had a significant catering order or series of online orders or SOMETHING, and they had to fulfill that while also taking the demands of the people who’d just come in.
There were maybe two people ahead of me in line, but it might as well have been 10. After they took my order, a seeming eternity passed before they made the sandwich; even after the sandwich was finished, it sat wrapped and lonely behind the counter for another five minutes before anyone arrived at the register so I could pay for it.
What were the staff doing? They were trapped in a balletic purgatory of meat. Their faces barely hiding despair, their voices silenced, they wove around one another in and out of the back room, endlessly slicing bread and thin cuts of meat arranged on wax paper.
One spreading of mayonnaise ended, another began. There was no end in sight.
I wondered if it was some large order for people still at work like I’d been a short while before, or many, many people taking advantage of the online ordering system.
The exhaustion of my day thankfully tempered my hunger cranks, but I’ll admit to choking back some rage when, as mentioned, my sandwich was done, and no one came up to let me check out.
My anger then transferred to the fellow who’d come in after me, who was now getting his order and seemed to waffle on every last ingredient. Then I heard him turn down banana peppers because they might mess with his kidney medication, and I was still irate but recognized his life was way more complicated than mine.
In an oddly lyrical finale, as someone finally came up to the register to help me check out, the receipt printer played some triumphant sound bite like a bell ringing and spat out three or four other receipts. I had no idea if they were backed-up orders or new ones coming in online, but it felt like one part symbolic ticker-tape parade and two parts unending torture continued.
The cashier apologized for taking a long time. “Eh, everybody's underwater these days, ” I said. I tipped ten percent because I felt terrible and wanted to feel like I had turned the other cheek. Imma good person hot dangit!
The delay at least meant I-40 was cleared by the time I hit the highway.
I felt worse for the people working at the Jersey Mike's than the customers. It is not an easy world for anyone right now, but remember that whatever inconveniences you is often worse for those who are..supposed to be conveniencing?
Look, I’m still tired from yesterday. Just try to be kind.
That’s all for now! Use these buttons to spread the good word!
Sup Zack miss you man! So glad I figured out how to comment. I love love love the newsletters. I also think you should make a zine just for the sake of it...
I really enjoyed your piece on company I love soundhiem but unless it's into the woods I'm not familiar with it so I appreciated it.
I'll try out the carrots.
And I've been leaving 20% for take out and sandwich makers.... they are so so short staffed and it sucks for them. No one wants to work. KFC was offering 2000$ signing on bonus