Hurried off to work after that. No trouble there. Got a ride to work in 4 minutes; didn't take a minute to get a ride home, even during the height of rush hour. Arrived at work almost literally just in time.
Not that it mattered. I probably could have been infinitely late. We were stone-cold dead the entire day. It never got even remotely busy. It's the last day of the month, we're between holidays, the Eagles are out of the playoffs, and there's no bad weather threatening. It might rain slightly on Friday, but that's it. It was just cloudy and cold again.
They had a college student helping me most of the day who did the sweeping, and another one came in at 3. They were supposed to help clean for the corporate bigwigs who ended up visiting yesterday. There weren't all that many carts to push and barely anything to return. I even worked in the floral department watering plants and consolidating flower bouquets into fewer buckets. Frankly, I spent most of the day bored stiff.
Oh, and I heard from Karen. She finally got that voucher and wants to get together. I'll talk to her again on Friday when I get my schedule.
Put on the original cast of Chicago when I got home in honor of its Velma Kelly, Broadway legend Chita Rivera, who passed away yesterday. Chicago debuted in 1975 with Gwen Verdon as Roxie Hart, Jerry Orbach as mercenary lawyer Billy Flynn, and Mary McCarty as Mama Morton. This was performed as a parody of the type of vaudeville bills Kelly and Hart would have appeared in, turning the court trial into a ventriloquist routine, the ladies confessing their crimes into a tango, Mama's song into the number for the sassy older lady, and an acrobatic number for Rivera that is supposed to be what Kelly and her murdered sister did together.
It was overlooked in 1975 due to the overwhelming success of A Chorus Line, but time has been much kinder to it. The revival is still running on Broadway at this writing; the 2002 movie version won an Oscar for best film. There's some great performances in the original cast, though, and a few songs that haven't been heard as often since the 70's (notably "I am My Own Best Friend.")
Had dinner while watching Match Game '76. Betty White struck again here, rolling Gene's pants legs down to get a rise out of him. Lee Merriweather scooted out from behind the desk to fix them. Meanwhile, Charles insists he's running a taxi service. He also mentions that the one-woman stage show The Belle of Amherst, which he directed on Broadway, was being filmed to be shown on Christmas Day (it was and it did), and that the Match Game panelists put up most of the money for it. (Incidentally, the tape for Belle still exists and, last I checked, can be found easily on YouTube.)
Let it run into Match Game '79 while I ate. The first episode featured Charles and Gene promoting Charles directing opera and Gene's explanation as to how David Doyle got his trademark raspy voice. Charles gives Brett the "Pathetic Answer" award for what a ritzy movie theater has...and he's right, it is a pretty weird answer. Everyone tries to help the contestant figure out "I Need a __" in the Audience Match in the second.
Finished the night at Shout TV with Mystery Science Theater 3000. I think the robots and I both seriously regretted checking out The Sidehackers, a down-and-dirty revenge tale from 1969. It starts out more like the American International car racing movies, only with motorcycles with side cars that have nothing but tubes to hold onto ("sidehackers"). Unfortunately, the movie takes a turn for the ugly in the second half when racer Rommel (Ross Hagen) refuses to join smarmy JC (Michael Pataki), and they kill his girlfriend (Diane McBain). Uh, yeah. Needless to say, they did not show her death scene, nor some non-PC language later in the film. Even the robots had a hard time joking about the violent, soft-focus second half. I wouldn't touch this with a 100-foot pole unless you're a fan of dark, violent B-movie schlock from the 60's and 70's.
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