By mid-1975,
00individual was nearing his last days in the wonderful world of the record and tape biz as a store manager and rack jobber.
During those last days (weeks, months) of ’75, workin’ the Westwood Village store, DisConnectiion (formally Grammy n Granny – name change due to a petty threatened law suit by the Grammy Awards), Liz the owner, whom I worked with daily, was a New Yorker and played the “A Chorus Line” album, over and over, every day ever since it came out.
00individual is a Broadway Show and Movie Musical fan – he grew up with them: Oklahoma!, The Music Man, South Pacific, as well as all of the great entertaining and fun M.G.M. musicals, so A Chorus Line grew on him, he liked it. He could relate, as he was an artist and knew the creative struggle to be noticed, to get hired, to create and show what you can do.
In nearly every field of endevour, especially the arts, it can be a lonely experience for those who work hard at their craft and spend most of the time alone developing it. That’s why it seems easy for the obsessed, for they have no other choice: create, perfect, learn, compete with oneself, and be utterly self-disciplined and lovin’ it.
The things that most successful people have in common is dedication and self-motivation – and – they are blessed with good timing, as it really is timing that seems to be the catalyst for success in any career.
Even if you don’t make the cut, you know yourself, that you were worthy, and that your time will come.
And that is the heart of A Chorus Line – when one is cursed / blessed to have passion and true love for their chosen career – one has no choice other than to follow that dream, no matter what it takes, because as everyone knows its all about the journey, the experiences on the way, not the destination. Well, the destination too, but mainly the journey.
.
Fast forward to the early ’80s;
00 is in New York on textile fashion design business and is treated to really great seats to the longest running Broadway show at the time, A Chorus LIne!
00 had never been to a Broadway Show, he saw “Hair” at the Aquarius Theater in Hollywood – but this was Broadway, and it was exhilerating.
The energy of the songs, the dances, the reality portrayed in a real-life fantasy on stage was amplified by the fact that 00 knew this album as well as any favorite Rock album, and was singing along in his head throughout the whole show.
So there he was enjoyng the performance as if it were a Rock Concert – a live performance by a “group” he had come to know with songs from an album he liked and had memorized – just like a Rock concert!
A Chorus Line
1 –Company* I Hope I Get It 4:58
2 –Wayne Cilento I Can Do That 1:32
3 –Carole Bishop, Nancy Lane, Kay Cole At The Ballet 5:53
4 –Renee Baughman, Don Percassi Sing! 1:51
5 –Company* Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love (Montage) 6:45
6 –Priscilla Lopez Nothing 4:19
1 –Donna McKechnie The Music And The Mirror 6:38
2 –Pamela Blair Dance: Ten; Looks: Three 2:51
3 –Company* One 4:46
4 –Priscilla Lopez And Company* What I Did For Love 3:45
5 –Company* One (Reprise) – Finale 5:02
.
Musicals are psychedelic;
without knowing it people have been exposed to the psychedelic experience since the 1930’s boom of classic musicals of Fred Asdtaire and Ginger Rogers, the movies Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet, Swing Time (both 1936), and Shall We Dance (1937). Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz (1939) would become a landmark film for movie musicals – and as 00 can testify it is one of thee most psychedelic movies of all time.
While suspending belief while watching a movie or reading a book is a natural acquired human trait, plots and characters usually work within the realm of their shared genre to help carry the narrative along.
Whenever a movie is set within any genre, be it, romance, comedy, or drama, and has serious dialogue between main characters that suddenly changes into song – that is a psychedelic moment for real – and the reason is, when has anyone actually seen that happen? Maybe in an altered state of mind. 00 has tripped many times but never reached that point.
And then other uninvolved people in the background join in singing and dancing to the main character’s song and it turns into a full-blown production number – now that’s an acid trip folks – that’s LSD at its finest.
By now everyone has taken a tab and been conditioned to realize that musicals are just fantasy, but they are not fantasy. Fantasy is a quality of whimsy, of the known unreal, musicals are entrances to a place where humans, not elves and fairies, exist – but where humans exhibit strange choreographed movements and shared mind, vocal, and body actions – that’s not fantasy, that’s a psychotic break in reality.
But in the end, it don’t matter because . . . “That’s Entertainment!”
