Couldn't sleep all night, of course.
They were to be delivered today between 9:30am and 11:30am.
Of course....
they came at like, 11:29am.
Finally, the phone range and the doorman was telling me i had a 'delivery'.
i'm thinking,
A 'delivery'? A 'DELIVERY'? This is no random book from Amazon.com baby! Whoo hoo!
'delivery'.
Please, suckah.
A knock at the door.
And there they were.
A bunch of boxes on a trolly and a very nice man now helping me bring them inside.
I didn't know what to expect.
Too many boxes to fit in my apartment?
no. yay.
How many boxes?
9 big boxes.
Will it be boxes within boxes?
yes. indeed. boxes of 30 CDS- 5 to a big box? I think? I don't know, forgot to count. I had to run to BILLY rehearsal.
My heart was RACING.....
I picked up a big box...
opened it...
picked out a smaller box...
opened it....
and there they were.
All lined up i saw...."Donna Lynne Champlin "Old Friends""
times 30.
All staring up at me from the spines of the CDs.
I took one out.....
oh God....will the color be right?
Will it be a mistake and I'll now have 834289374 CDs of someone else's stuff?
what the hell is it REALLY going to look like because I don't really know....
The cover.
Oh my God.
It's perfect.
It's....PERFECT.
There was a slight concern a week ago at Play-It Direct that the actual colors of the CD were going to be a lot different than the files we sent so this was a major concern.
But.
It's PERFECT.
HOLY mother of God.
I take it over to my chair....
and...
I don't know why THIS was the coolest part about it but....
it's already got plastic wrap on it.
Like a real CD.
That you would actually buy in a store.
It's....got....PLASTIC wrap on it.
aaaaannnnnnnnndddddddd, I start to cry.
OVER PLASTIC WRAP, PEOPLE.
OVER PLASTIC WRAP.
I sit in my chair for at least two whole minutes...
just looking at it.
The front, the back....the spine....
over and over and over.
NOT wanting to break the beautiful plastic wrap that is proof that this is the 'real' thing.
Finally.....
I take the plastic off.....
and I open it.
Damn you Robbie.
Because...what he's done, which of course I didn't realize because I've only had PDFs...
is have the cool 'posed' un-touched up picture of grandma on the front but...
when you OPEN it....
you see this this GLORIOUS 'outtake' picture of my grandma all smoothed over in this beautiful green backdrop....
where she and her sister Catherine are laughing about something.
It's as if you look at the front and think...
"Hmmmmmm this might be a rather serious CD..."
and then you OPEN it....
and it's like grandma saying,
"Ha ha. Nope. Just kidding! This is gonna be fun ya'll!"
The label on the CD is just awesome.
Slightly lonely with one little tree but the falling leaves give it the life of...memories?
you know?
I am now, pretty much just sobbing.
I take out the booklet....
it's just..
i mean i've seen proofs of all this stuff like A MILLION times but...
seeing it?
For real?
it's just..unbelievable.
I kinda.....as hell froze over...don't have the words.
Well, that's a conundrum for a writer, isn't it?
After just sitting with the CD in my hands for about ten minutes....
I finally work up the nerve to put it in the CD player.
This is the scariest part.
Just because having done all this myself...
I've been having nightmares that there's some sort of bullshit file changy renaming whatever the shit thing that 'everyone' knows they're supposed to do...
except me.
I put it in.
It plays.
And it's the RIGHT song...
Hard Times....
coming through.
Loud and clear.
I call Robbie....
i hear on the other end of the line....
"I knew I would get a phone call at noon. How are they?!!!"
I tell him everything....
tell him how brilliant he is....
tell him how happy he'll be with how it all turned out.
I hold the phone up to the CD player....
like, if someone else hears it too then it's really really real.
Then my mom calls.
She's so awesome...
she's so happy and exciting and also crying.
Bless.
I call Joan at PLAY-IT DIRECT who's been so amazing...
she had sent me an email in the morning-
"Call me the minute you get them...I'm excited tooooooooo- they turned out GREAT!"
I tell her how thrilled I am...
they're JUST what we wanted....
and she said,
"Yeah, when we got them back....and the color issue that we were concerned about had been solved...we were all so excited for you. The minute we saw them, we knew you'd be so happy...so we were happy!"
I wish her a Happy Thanksgiving....
and then run around trying to get all my stuff together to head to BILLY rehearsal, and then PT and then the show....
and the CDs still playing....
to the last minute...
UGH!!!
I have to LEAVE them now....
so horrible!!!
I want to VISIT more....
but i have to get going.
And then....
just as I'm about to turn everything off to leave i think...
"wait a minute....
wait...
that's...
not....
right...."
I was listening to COUNTY FAIR when I should have been listening to CRY.
Oh no...
oh no no no no no no no noooooooooooooooooo....
I look at the booklet...
"Right. CRY then COUNTY FAIR. Not COUNTY FAIR then CRY...."
Immediately, my stomach drops.
Oh no.
Is the whole CD all jumbled?
what HAPPENED??!!!
All this beautiful art....
and...
oh my god oh my god oh my god...
I quickly scan through the rest of the tracks....
ok-
ok-
ok-
ok-
ok-
through to the end.
Slight sigh of relief there...
those are the only two tracks switched-
and not for nothing but NO ONE is going to listen to a song about a county fair and think it's cry-
and no one is going to listen to a song where i say 'cry' 23423 times and think it's about a county fair....
but...
WHY?
HOW?!!!!
oh god....
I call PLAY-IT DIRECT....
I tell them what happened....
they tell me very gently to check the master i gave them one more time...
because if there's a track mixup- it was on the master.
I think.....
"no fucking way!!! as much as i LOVE you guys...
i checked that track list OVER AND OVER AND OVER before i brought it in.
there's NO way....
i mean...
granted i TIRED...."
while I'm on the phone...
i'm scrolling through my Itunes......
and there it is.
On my master.
COUNTY FAIR #5
then...
CRY #6
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh mother FUCKER.
BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
no.
no.
no.
no.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
I tell them that, indeed...
Yes.
It was entirely my fault and there was nothing to be done....
and it will just add to the 'charm' of the whole 'it takes a village' vibe.
but inside, i feel just terrible.
and scared, honestly.
I am SO terrified of putting this out there.
Not because I don't think it's fucking AWESOME...
but because i actually DO think it's awesome.
I believe in every fucking note and breath on this thing.
completely.
and that makes it harder to put out there.
really.
in a weird way...
I've also done what i thought was awesome work in what i thought were awesome shows...
granted the opposite happens as well...
I've done work that I thought was not my best and ended up ok in the press....
but the worst is when...
you really really believe in the work you've done-
and the end result is something you're so proud of...
and then, you read some critic's pan-
that probably took them 30 minutes to write-
taking a big dump on something that took someone-
maybe even you-
years to finally make happen...
and I'm sorry.
it's impossible to not be hurt and confused by all of that.
Of course-
the golden rule is NOT to read them.
Yeah.
I've tried that.
It doesn't work.
I remember one time i did REALLY well with not reading any reviews-
especially the NY Times which is always 'the big one'...
and I was talking to people after the show (which was a fucking kick ass show btw)-
and a friend's mom said to me,
"well, I loved it. I really did. That guy at the Times doesn't know WHAT he's talking about."
yup.
totally happened.
So THEN..
i had to read it because i knew in my mind it would be so much worse than what it probably actually was.
Which in that case...was true.
But still...
it's impossible to ignore 'the outside world' when you're an artist..
but i guess....
somewhere, after a while, you realize that....
no matter what you think...
other people will think what they think...
and there's no CONTROL over that.
And as an admitted control freak-
this part of my life and my business is a constant and never ended panic-attack inducing cycle that you would think I would get better at dealing with.....
and i guess I have but...
you know.
Some gigs mean more to you than others....
and this obviously...
mean everything to me.
because i have absolutely nothing to hide behind.
and this album is about as bare as I get.
I'm totally a snail without a shell, people.
and it is really...
anyway...
and so....
I'm terrified honestly.
and now...
NOW!!!!!!
With all the things that I'm worried about that i didn't catch...
with all the things OUTSIDE of my control....
that people will have a problem with...
I SWITCH THE TRACKS ON THE MASTER???!!!!!
oh JEeeesssuuusssssss Christ.
TALK ABOUT A 'ROOKIE MISTAKE'.
God DAMMIT.
I call Robbie.
He tells me there are worse problems...
and procedes, God bless him...
to rattle off like three famous CDs who have some serious bloopers in them.
"And those CDs had tons of people working on them, with tons of money....so....it happens."
I am now running late...
I have to go.
As I start to berate myself for making such a stupid mistake.....
as I'm going down the stairs in my apartment building..
i start to laugh.
it was really...
like a horribly scripted moment from an ABC After School Special or something....
but by the time I had gotten down the 6 flights of stairs to the lobby....
I had kinda 'laughed it all out'.
how retarded is that?
seriously.
it was a scene from a really shitty TV show starring that really skinny lady from Who's The Boss that you'd watch and think,
"oh yeah. right. I wish my life was as simple as going from devasted to happy again in 6 flights of stairs."
But it's true.
Because there was just NO fucking way...
that I was going to let one mistake-
yes a totally preventable and stupid mistake-
that most likely 50% of people are going to notice anyway....
RUIN THIS AWESOME MOMENT IN MY LIFE!!!!
This CD has been a dream of mine for over THIRTY YEARS.
FUCK IT!
FUCK THE MISTAKE!
FUCK IT!
it's done and i own it.
FUCK it.
And if anyone has a problem with it then they can SUCK IT.
yes.
that's right.
they can SUCK.
IT!!!!
Because today...
one of the biggest dreams I've ever had for myself?
IT CAME TRUE.
My apartment is now OVERFLOWING full of CDs that I made...
by myself.....
with the help of ONLY the people that I know and trust really love and care about me....
that hopefully will go out to people who will dig it....
and enjoy it...
and not judge it too harshly....
and TODAY...
IS A GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT DAY everybody!
IT IS A GREAT DAY today.
and I'm so incredibly grateful that you're all 'with me'-
even if it's cyberly.
OK.
I gotta go move some really heavy pit gates now.
'cause I work on Broadway.
And that's pretty fucking cool too.
TONIGHT....
CD STUFFING INTO ENVELOPES!!!!
AND TOMORROW...
THE POST OFFICE!!!
AND SOON....
IN YOUR MAILBOXES!!!!
WHEEEEEE!!!
xoxo
dl
