Sporadic since 2016. Where have I been and what's going on?

Back when I started this blog, I really had no real vision for it, it was mostly just getting my thoughts out into the universe. Unfortunately, some of my actual thoughts were offensive to some people so I dialed back a little and tried to keep things light.

I've shared my thoughts on some of my favorite albums, struggles with the ups and downs of diets and also some stories of my past. At one point, I began to share work stories, which I ended up deleting. The management of the restaurants I worked for felt I was invading on the privacy of their clientele. In hindsight, I realized the stories contained no personal details of customers, just the situations they created and the managers seemed to be afraid of some sort of bad publicity. Hearth Pizza Tavern of Sandy Springs, Georgia should have worried more about the roaches we were stepping on behind the bar as we were making cocktails for customers rather than my mention of a woman who got mad that I bought her 2 glasses of Diet Coke and a time since she sucked them down and would snap her fingers for more before I could get her food order in. A co-worker that had followed me from Chuy's to Hearth seemed to have been the tattler who added drama to the stories.

After all that, life got busy. Terry and I took our first cruise, along with the original Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. We discovered the we very much enjoyed cruising and have been on 5 so far. I switched jobs, I left Hearth Pizza Tavern after working there for almost 4 years to work as the bar manager of a restaurant in Buckhead which converted to an event space after the General Manager #2 decided to pad his pockets and comp all of his friends alcohol and food when they would come in, $900 in comps a night is not normal. After we converted over as an event space, I stayed on as the manager and only bartender along with another guy. I broke my arm and hand on the way to work and ended up working an entire 6 hour shift behind the bar in excruciating pain because the owner of the venue, Paul, who owns Savi Provisions, threatened that he would not pay me for the last party I worked if I didn't work this one. The back pay was $600 and another $700 was what I made the night I broke my arm. I was stupid not to sue. I switched jobs again, working for Hobnob, the bar manager was not a people person to say the least and I just couldn't deal with watching her incomitance and hear her berate the employees and refer to black employees with racist stereotypical names rather than learning their actual names. I quit and started at Henri's Bakery as a manager and worked there for over a year and then Covid happened.

Once Covid hit, I avoided it. I lost my hearing in both ears due to Eustachian tube dysfunction and an extreme middle ear infection, which I eventually had procedures done to help relieve the pressure and restore my hearing, though I only have 5% hearing in my left ear. A week before my medical leave was over and I was to return to work, the owner of Henri's, a fratboy type named Anthony, informed me through email that due to my ongoing medical issues, my employment was terminated. I know Georgia is an at will employment state but one should really look into the legal aspect of terminating someone on medical leave, then again, they aren't too worried about employment laws anyway. Who still does a working interview? You know, where you have people come in to work a few unpaid shifts to see if they are going to work out in spite of not being trained? Covid was still in full force at the time and unemployment was paying more than what I made at Henri's anyway so I was able to work on creating soap for the little business that Terry and I started.

My mom passed away, not from Covid, the last week of the expanded Covid benefits. Luckily I had saved enough to live on for a while. Once I came back home, Terry was recalled to work at La Parrilla. He began having issues with his back and legs but worked through it. I eventually accepted a job as a front desk agent at the Ramada Plaza, where a former Hearth Pizza coworker was the manager. I had worked front desk of a hotel many years ago and it should have been an easy job but NOPE, I was poorly trained on the computer system and policies and had to learn the system on my own. The hotel was run down, had no hot water for the first 3 months I worked there, the elevators were constantly getting stuck and cars always getting broken into. To say it was a hooker hotel was an understatement. It was basically a place hookers, drug addicts and homeless people attempted to live out of. Within my first week, a tranny hooker, whose real name was Eugene, was banned from the property after trashing a room. Eugene tried to return several times claiming to be someone else and attempting to use stolen IDs and credit cards to check in. I got death threats nightly and the management said things like "Well this IS Old National" as if that was some sort of a consolation. I eventually added my holster and Ruger LCP Max to my uniform because our security was not into doing their jobs and when you are the only employee on the premises of a 271 room run down hotel, safety is always on your mind.

I quit the hotel and took a few months to clear my mind before accepting a position as a Book Operations Supervisor with the company the runs the retail locations in the airport and will have been there for 2 years this November. Terry quit La Parrilla after having back surgery and the management of La Parrilla decided they would try to abuse him and make him work long hours and not letting him sit down when needed in spite of his doctor advising him to limit his activities. Not sure why small companies don't understand the concept of adhering to medical accommodations, even when they are as simple as a 5 minute rest period every few hours.

That's a lot to unpack huh? Does anyone blog anymore? Even if they don't I guess I will keep this going just because I once enjoyed sharing whatever was on my mind. While I'm not the most tech savvy person, I might even follow through with an idea of doing videos to run concurrent with my blogs.

So that's what's been going on with me in a nutshell. There's a lot more between the lines and I will probably cover some of it in future blogs. Till then have a great one.

Cast Album Review Song & Dance Original Broadway Cast, 1985 (RCA) starring Bernadette Peters

Song and Dance Original Broadway Cast Recording Cover

Back in 1985, there was a lot of buzz around New York for the new Bernadette Peters show, "Song & Dance." Unfortunately, Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Song & Dance" didn't get much attention in the United States outside of New York. It was already a hit in London, originally starring Marti Webb and eventually Liz Robertson, Lulu, and then Sarah Brightman. This recording preserves only "The Songs" of "Song & Dance," essentially known as "Tell Me On A Sunday," omitting act 2, "Dance," which is set to the instrumental music known as "Variations." The producers felt that New York audiences wouldn't connect with the original story, so Richard Maltby, Jr. was brought in to direct the show, adapt it for American audiences, and add lyrics to new songs and revise existing ones. In this version, the character is named Emma, and it follows her involvement with four men: Chuck, Sheldon, a married man named Paul, and the significant character and star of act 2, Joe. Several tunes from the London production were replaced with new songs, like "Last Man In My Life" was swapped out for the earworm "Unexpected Song," which is possibly the greatest of the new material, highlighting Emma's love for Joe. A song from the London production, "Nothing Like You I've Ever Known," was included for some reason, even though it wasn't in the Broadway show. Thankfully, we get to hear Bernadette Peters' fine rendition of it.

Bernadette Peters' British accent is best described as somewhat natural yet studied during the speaking parts, but her singing in a British accent feels a bit of a stretch, considering Brits rarely sing in their own accent. During the recording sessions, Peters was ill and requested they wait until she was well. Despite this, she is in fine voice, and her performance feels very much like she's on stage singing to an audience throughout. The orchestrations have a somewhat dated mid-1980s vibe, but it works. My main complaint, besides act 2 not being recorded, is that the orchestra sounds metallic and small rather than the lush sound expected from a musical theatre recording. There are also issues with the way the vocals were mixed, and though the recording has supposedly been remastered, there are sections with some distortion on Peters' vocals, mostly during the belting sections.

Song & Dance Original Broadway Poster

Of the three English-language recordings of "Song & Dance" released in the 1980s—the original London cast featuring Marti Webb and the 1984 London Cast recording featuring Sarah Brightman—this one is enjoyable in tandem with the Marti Webb album. Both albums featuring Webb and Brightman include the second act. It's a shame we never got an official recording from either Betty Buckley's run on Broadway or the touring production starring Melissa Manchester, as they would have been lovely additions to the "Song & Dance" discography.

Click the link below to listen to this incredible cast recording.