Lucky Take #13

Just heard Alicia Keys' 'Karmastition'. I really like Alicia Keys but to me it's just a bunch of vocal tracks over top of Stevie Wonder's brilliant track, which I think is lazy and pointless. There's so much re-hashing taking place in film and music these days. David and I often look at each other and say, 'Well, I guess it's official. There are no new ideas left.' I once heard producer Mitchell Froom say that he thinks of modern music as 'hybrid music'. I think I know what he means and I agree with him. I know I'm personally influenced by many sounds and styles, but that's not what's going on here. Songwriting, please!

Just filmed the video for 'One Person' with director Chris Smets. It's a one-take, no-edits video. Spent the day doing the same thing over and over. It was all about getting 'The Ultimate Take', which involved a little bit of pressure, as the song is so personal. It made for a bit of an emotional day but that's a good thing! I haven't seen it yet but my manager, the director and the production company have, and they unanimously agreed that lucky-take-number-13 is the Ultimate Take. In a pre-shoot meeting at Syndicate Films, I was told there were blue velvet curtains that would open and close in front of me at the start and end of the video. As a joke I said, 'will the curtains be monogrammed with a big swirly 'K' on one and an 'R' on the other?' To my surprise they said, 'great idea' and on the shoot day, there they were! Wait 'til you see 'em! It pays to be a wisecracker! They looked fabulous.

CBC Radio played 'One Person' last week and quite a few people have mentioned they heard it and liked it, saying that they thought it was smoother and simpler than my older music. I'll take that!

A 2005 Juno Awards comment: All hail kd lang! Awe and appreciation for her glorious, genuine voice.

xo KR

P.S.: The new KR website is coming very soon, with loads of new photos (ie: of the 'one person' video shoot) and content.

The Best Birthday Ever

Hi everyone,

Thank you very much to all of you who sent me birthday wishes. It was a great one this year. After a near 3-hour tension filled, high drama showdown while parked outside of a certain house on a certain street, David and I became homeowners on Wednesday night!

We didn't get the house I talked about in my last entry. That one was indeed bandied about in a major bidding war. And How! It went for $63,000.00 above the asking price. Are people insane? They are when they've lost five other houses in Toronto bidding wars. We put our offer in and even upped it a bit in a second round of bids, but could not and would not compete with those other people who clearly had their eye on the prize (and money to burn)?

The next day we got right back up on the horse and clipped-clopped a few feet around the corner from the house we lost, to see another one just on the market. It took the new Number One spot in our realtors' "Two House Rule" (always only have 2 houses in mind from all that you have seen), and stayed there as we went in and out of many properties all day. The next day we had it inspected and the night after that was Offer Night.

We lucked out and got the prime parking spot: behind all the other cars, so we could see all the action. We were in the backseat of our agent's car. To distract and amuse myself I "named" the other realtors who were going in and pitching their clients' offers, and did a live play-by-play with much speculation on the significance of every move. Before long even David and our sister-team of agents ("The Barracuda" and The Barracuda's sister/partner, "Soft-Touch") were playing too.

"Jeep-Lady just came out! She's getting in her car. Oh my God! Check out Seal! He's goin' in."

Five minutes later.

"Seal just came out! He's still got the papers in his hand! What does that mean? He's getting in his car. Come on, let's see those tail lights. Drive away Seal! Drive away!"

The stakes got a little higher when the listing agent came out and spoke to each agent one by one. When he approached our car our agent got out, closed the car door and we could see their lips moving but couldn't hear a word. Torture, I tell you. She got back in and said, "You're still in the game. We have a chance to revise our offer and go back in." We had a huddle and revised the offer. All the agents went in one by one and pitched their second offer. Then we waited.

By the start of the 3-hour mark I was like, "I hope we get the house so I can go in and pee." The listing agent finally came out and went up to Jeep-Lady's car first. Our agent said, "They'll generally go to the rejected offers first so they'll be left with the winner." My heart was pounding fast. He finished talking to Jeep-Lady and walked over to Seal's car. Jeep-Lady didn't drive away though. He spoke with Seal and started walking all the way back to us. During his walk back to us, Seal's tail lights lit up and he drove away. Sweet. Jeep-Lady started her Lady-Jeep and she drove away. Holy moly!

He got to our car, our agent got out, and they did that whole lip-moving, no-sound thing some more just to drive us crazy. Then they shook hands. She got back in and said, "you just bought a house."

In shock we went in to sign the papers. The owner immediately hugged me and I cried a little bit. She's a lovely woman who looks just like Madam President on Battlestar Gallactica. We had tea and signed everything. I got to have that pee, during which I thought, "this is going to be my toilet."

It was great. The bottom line is that in losing the first house and going for the second one, we got a better house on a quieter street for less money, and we love it even more. We'll be moving there in time for summer.

It was extra great that David's sister and brother-in-law Christine and John were in town for a wedding this week and were available to hang out with us and hear all about the house until they were probably sick to death of the whole subject.

With getting the house, not getting creamed in a chain-reaction accident on the Gardener Expressway on the way home from getting the house when everyone started spinning out on black ice all around us (thanks to the Soft-Touch's good driving and snow tires), with my new album about to come out and the "One Person" video to shoot this week coming, what a great birthday!

Got to go. Must fantasize about what it's going to be like having an actual dining room.

xo KR