The Closing of the Year

As 2005 comes to a close and the new year looms, it is time to tie up the loose ends I've left dangling here on the blog.

There was never a diagnosis for the ongoing medical issues, and the Water Nazi was relieved of duty when my temporary stint as Stage Manager came to an end.

If I cannot bring you comfort, then at least I bring you hope...

My roommate and I are dissolving our association to each pursue separate goals in 2006. In the mix, Delilah the cat was sent to the pound. Though I will not miss her personally, I hate that Joseph lost his dear pet and hope that someone with more patience than myself will give her a good home. In the meantime, Joseph's good home will be found aboard a posh cruise ship that will be visiting some of Earth's most beautiful destinations. Mine will be found for a time in my return to San Diego for an audition there.

The new car, iPod, and laptop were all purchased toward that end. The car to make the cross-country drive, the iPod to keep me company during it, and the laptop to relieve a great deal of frustration during the times my mother and I are both in the San Diego digs with designs on using the internet.

On the way to California, I will be stopping for gas only at well-lit stations, primarily during the day.

We all must learn from small misfortune count the blessings that are real...

The hooded and bloodied man who attempted to steal my new car is, as far as I know, still behind bars. I've heard nothing since the preliminary hearing, but enough evidence was presented there to bind him to a grand jury. His spree began in the Vanderbilt area where he -- unreleased -- exited the hospital, stole an idling Domino's Pizza delivery vehicle, and sped into Bellevue where he crashed into a car carrying a mother and her two small girls, fortunately without major injury. He fled the scene to Kroger, where he approached a girl who immediately ran from him when he asked for her keys. Then he found me at the BP, where I flummoxed him and had him apprehended. All four victims were able to positively identify him. He was additionally accused of driving on a suspended license and charged with his 4th-plus DUI. Within the next 6-8 months, I may be subpoenaed to appear in the criminal trial.

My old car, the Dodge which refused to be sold to a needy buyer, has been freed from its graveyard parking spot. It was given freely to someone with the means to tow it away and given new life. It is running again and, I hope, making someone very happy.

The rain I've missed so much while gone from Nashville has not been cooperative since my return to it. It seems to rain now only at night while I am asleep or, more inconveniently, driving. I'm still holding out for a bang-up thunderstorm.

And I'm only weeks away from boasting a year smoke-free. Almost completely. There have been cheats in certain company, but there is a vast difference between having a few cigs over a beer occasionally and having a pack every day, under any circumstance.

I'm still packing a few more pounds than I'd prefer, but it's a fair trade for the workout I gave up in late night hacking and coughing. I don't miss that; though I'm reminded of it currently by way of a nasty sinus infection that settled in just in time to greet Brian's return from Florida. Hiya, honey.

Brian once told me that the life of a traveling actor was crazy. It'd be tough, he said, but we'd figure it out. That was when he was the only one traveling. In 2005, with both of us traveling -- each gone 20 weeks or more, not always overlapping -- we spent precious little time together. Now that he's got Nashville work lined up for early 2006 and I'm the one leaving town, will figuring it out become that much harder?

The next year holds a lot of questions, and 2005 is almost gone.

But all in all, it was a pretty good year.

This is a time to be together
And the truth is somewhere here
Within our love for people
At the closing of the year

-- Wendy & Lisa, The Closing of the Year, Toys Soundtrack

He Knows When You Are Sleeping

From "Two and a Half Men" this week:

Alan's new Martha-Stewart-esque and wee bit psychotic girlfriend jumps out of bed on Christmas Eve, realizing that she's forgotten to put cookies out for Santa Claus.

Alan: "You're not serious?"
Girlfriend: "Of course. If you don't give Santa cookies, he puts coal in your stocking and doesn't leave you any presents."
Alan: "So... you believe in the vengeful, Old Testament Santa Claus."

Beautiful.

I Want My Mouse Back!!!

Okay... here's how I hate the new Dell.

I'd just written a lenghty post, a brilliant allegorical piece of wit and wisdom. Hey, you'll never get to read it now; prove me wrong. It was brilliant, I tell you, brilliant! BUT... the stupid laptop has an ultra-sensitive thumbpad, and I must have -- oh, I don't know -- fluttered somewhere above it. My page, and a couple hours writing, were lost to a sudden attack of unchosen web surfing. Blast you, Dell thumbpad!

This is where we growl. Loudly. GRRRRR!

Transmission Received

Roughly 10 years ago, I bought my first new car. More accurately, my first new car was bought for me as a graduation gift. Five years of sleeping in late and writing a few papers were rewarded with a degree, national honors, and a 1995 Dodge Avenger. Great gig, college.

At the time, CD players were on the cusp between being an add-on option and becoming standard equipment in new cars, but as it happened, my new Avenger had one. I, on the other hand, was on no such cusp; almost everything I owned -- a rather large collection -- was on tape, and at the time, I had no way to convert that stuff to CD. I became determined to find a way to play my tapes in the car.

Now, most people had the opposite problem: they had plenty of CDs but only tape players in their cars. Those folks bought portable CD players with cassette adapters and got along quite nicely, despite the jumble of cords that extended from the player to the cigarette lighter (at the time, there weren't extra "outlets") and to the cassette machine. There was, of course, no such adapter to play cassettes through a CD player, but there was something better. For about $20, one could buy something called a "SoundFeeder," a small, low-power transmitter that, connected to an audio device, would broadcast it to an available FM frequency. It was marketed to remove the jumble of cords from CD players, but it solved my tape problem quite nicely.

Over the years, as my music collection became more digital, I found other uses for the transmitter. As portable TVs and VCRs became popular, I would feed that audio through my radio. In terms of constant use, at a cost-to-use ratio of $2 a year over 10 years, that chunky, little, black SoundFeeder is one of the best buys of my life.

Fast forward.

At this Sunday's matinee, a cast member placed his cool, little, white iPod in the girls' dressing room so that we could hear a David Sedaris bit broadcast through the radio there. His version of the SoundFeeder, made for iPod, is called iTrip. Girls in the room oohed and aahed.... How was this possible? His iPod playing on the radio? Crazy, man. Magic!

I feel so old. Or are they so young?

Meanwhile, I can still boogie when I hear Cheryl Lynn warble "To Be Real" on my jambox -- yes, jambox -- thanks to an old SoundFeeder and a new iPod: a bit of technological archeology spanning 4 decades in a one-foot space. And I like it!

Whippersnapper!

Eine Kleine Nacht Mucus

The show opened this weekend... but I've told you that already. Despite my pre-opening fears, audiences have been receptive; but though Friday and Saturday performances went well, Sunday was not the best show for me. I felt groggy and distracted and on 3-second delay through the fog.... Fortunately, the promised reviewer did not arrive for that performance, though a group of friends did.

Since Sunday, I've been sick, and it's only getting worse. Tonight, waiting tables, I was losing my voice. Tomorrow, I will work a double. On Thursday... well, the show must go on. On Friday, we'll break her down, and the rest of the weekend, in case you don't know, is Christmas.

Christmas?!? This weekend?!? Really?!? Yipes! Shopping, shopping... what is that, again? AAAUUUGGGHHHH!

So, excuse me if my dry spell continues.... when the season and the sneezin' are over, I'll be back in blogger form.

Until then... could you pass me a tissue?

The Nashville Road Mafia

You won’t believe me. Not if you know me. Not if you know my sense of direction and my failing knowledge of Nashville. You won’t believe me at all.

After the show last night, the cast celebrated a successful opening together at MAFIAoZa’s, a little neighborhood pizzeria/pub on 12th Avenue which sponsors the printing of the New York Times Crossword puzzle in our local weekly fish wrap. As if that weren’t enough to give it buku points, it’s also an excellent restaurant which I now highly recommend. In fact, I insist on accompanying you when you go. After a tasty bit of garlic bread, I shared an excellent pizza with Linda and coveted Claire’s Shrimp Alfredo, which I’m sure had a name like “Vinny” or “the Don” or some such in keeping with the excellent theme. Perfect.

There were a lot of us: the 15 cast members, numerous husbands, various wives, our director, producer, and stage manager... we were quite the crowd. And as such, there was much shuffling and scooting and making room for new arrivals. Enough that, as I grabbed my things to leave a few hours later, I failed to notice that something had not shuffled and scooted with me: my scarf. I left without it.

Now, I am not a misplace-r. I very rarely put something down without knowing exactly where to find it when I want it later, and when later arrives, I very rarely forget to pick up something I’ve put down. Keeping track of my things is something I’m very good at. Or, more accurately, it’s something I’m almost pathological about. So, though all of this is true, leaving the scarf behind is NOT the part of the story I’m asking you to believe – accidents do sometimes happen; especially when there has been bourbon involved. No, what I’m asking you to believe is something quite different. But to get to that part, I’ve got to back up a bit.

See, I don’t know a thing about Nashville. I can get to work, to the grocery store, and to a few random other places where I’ve done a few other random things, but for the most part I’m clueless. So when the cast announced it was going to MAFIAoZa’s last night, I knew I would have to follow someone there – not for lack of TRYING to get the directions from someone, but for my utter incomprehension of what they were telling me when I did. A flurry of unfamiliar road names and landmarks were thrown at me and I was lost before I left the theater. I would have to follow someone if I was going into the unknown wilds of Nashville. But how would I get home?

If you know me, you should be amazed to be reading this. Because this post is the evidence that I made it home. Alive. Alone. Without a navigator. But wait, it gets better. Remember the scarf? I wanted it back.

Okay, any real Dr. Who fan would tell you that my scarf is not accurate. It is not long enough and the colors are all wrong. They’d be right. They’d also probably be polishing their Star Trek communicators, quoting Monty Python, and hoping to kiss a girl someday, but they’d be right. And I’d tell them that I don’t care, because I love my long, wrong, homemade scarf just the way it is, so there. And, by God, I was going to have it back. I called the restaurant the next morning. They had it. And I had a mission.

After working a kiddie matinee in Bellevue, I determined that I would find MAFIAoZa’s -- and my scarf -- without help. I sorted through the information I’d heard the night before in my head. A road that I do know, I was told, becomes one of the roads I don’t, then it crosses another one of some importance and, well... I’d go from there.

I did it.

I did it, I did it, I did it! (Just don’t ask me how.) But wait, there’s more! Last night, I determined that I’d been in that area at least once before. A music store I’d visited last year, it seemed to me, was somewhere nearby. Once I had my scarf in hand, I decided to test my theory. I turned off the route I’d carved to the restaurant and drove only about a block before I saw it: Corner Music. I’d been right. I’D RECOGNIZED THE AREA. We’re talking major breakthrough here, people; work with me! This was big. ‘Cause now I’d have to carve a new route home.

And I did that, too.

WOO-HOO!

Now that some of those crazy directions I was given last night make sense, I’ve learned a little something: I’m not good at this stuff, but it ain’t all ME. Nashville is one wacky place in which to drive around. There must have been a government conspiracy – a covert contract with street sign manufacturers. They had to keep busy, and before long the city had to find a place on 8 different roads for 80 different road names, with the effect that the name of the road you are on depends on which side of which intersection with which other name-changing road you are on. I’m sure there’s a system to it in there somewhere. One that is neatly hiding the body of an old politician's ex-wife.

I’m afraid to say much more. ‘Cause at least I made it home alive. This time.

Or maybe that’s the MAFIAoZa’s talking.

Be An Elf

"Oh, be an elf... for Santa at the Pole. Be an elf, oh, be an elf... it's a very noble goal! If you work hard and never stop to be the best that you can be, then you can be a Christmas elf... just like my friends and me."

That's one of the songs from our annual kiddie Christmas show, in progress as I type, and I have worked hard as a Christmas elf for the last three years, filling styrofoam cups with caffeine-free Sprite and wondering what each day's fiasco will be. Are all the crayons broken? Will we run out of letters to Santa? Did a school bring too many kids, so that some are without seats? Are we serving only soda water because we've run through all of the Sprite syrup? Is a child vomiting, crying, or stomping cracker crumbs into the carpet?

Or will a busload of children be stuck in traffic, keeping the show from starting on time when while merry elves fret about making it to their second, more adult, jobs on time.

Yep, that's the one today.

After the show today, if it does not run too late, I will visit a local radio station to record the theatre's radio spot for the January show, The Foreigner.

And after that, I'll drive my roommate back to this theatre, where he will serve patrons at the evening (adult) show.

And after that, I'll drive myself to another theatre, where a cast of fairies, rather than elves, will open a show about Sleeping Beauty, then celebrate their opening night at a local restaurant.

It's a long day, barely started, but child's play to us elves.

"We're the Christmas elves and we're here to say..."

Um, side note: elves shouldn't rap.

Tech Goddess... Of Sorts

It is best to blog about some things before time removes the funny. This morning, I've already missed.

You see, a friend of mine recorded her own Christmas album at home to give as gifts this year. It's a nice solution to her limited income, so I've refrained from telling her that "homemade gifts" rank very high on the list of things people do NOT want for Christmas -- right after a donation to charity made in their name. (And you thought the phrase "Happy Holidays" took the Christ out of Christmas!) Today, I am converting her magnetic tape to digital format.

I am not engineering her project -- she's done that -- I am simply putting the album on CD rather than tape. So, after setting the appropriate levels, I hit the "record" button and walk away whistling "Go Tell it on the Mountain," her first selection. My only fear is that she's recorded her album on a 90-minute tape and my CDs will collect only 80 minutes of material (note to industry professionals: a little parity, please?), so roughly 75 minutes later, I check in on the project to make sure that no song will begin without room on the CD to end. I don my headphones and listen in...

"I-I-I-I-I'm coming up, so you better get this par-tay star-te-ed"

Er....

It is Kimberly's voice, but it most assuredly ain't a Christmas song. A wee befuddled, I let the song and the tape play through, not bothering to effect a clean cut -- the seasonal effort had obviously ended a few tracks earlier. I laughed and laughed. Kimberly, I thought, had reused an old tape. It was the old stuff playing through at the end of her Christmas album now. Cute. I made plans to buy her a bulk eraser for Christmas and planned my blog post. Then I set up for my second promised conversion: her demo tape.

As I pulled out the Christmas album, I noticed it was almost completely rewound. Odd, I didn't do th.... Oops. Heh, heh. Duh.

It wasn't Kimberly's error at all. It was mine. See, Kimberly's demo is recorded on Side Two of her Christmas Album. She needs two separate discs, one per side. But, uh, well, my cassette deck has that auto-reverse function and, er, ah, it must have flipped. See, I forgot that when one works with TAPES, 90-minutes translates to FORTY-FIVE minutes per side.

A few scant minutes sure changed the funny on that one! Now I'm grabbing my cane, hobbling over to my rocking chair, and reminiscing about the good old days when knowing exactly how much time was on a tape was second nature. "Ya shee, shunny, back in d'day we yoo-sh'd to yoo-sh di-sh tape for everything, and we tawt it was GOOD! Now, be a ni-sh boy and bring your granny her tee-sh, will ya?"

I've (ahem!) disabled the auto reverse function.

Take two....

Dude, Part Dude... Deux

So, dude, I got the Dell. And at the moment I am skeezing wireless access from a nearby WiFi (there's a McDonald's across the street) to write this post backstage during the first act of Sleeping Beauty, while my castmates sing, off key, songs of their immediate creation in the green room. Sadly, there are no earplugs to be found nearby. (Kidding, guys, you know I love you.) But here we all are. Finally.

It is Hell Week. We've moved into the Darkhorse Theatre and we open on Friday. As ever, there is much tweaking to be done as we add lights and costumes to a show that hasn't had even one successful run-through during its many weeks of rehearsal. Tonight, in fact, may be the first time that the entire cast has assembled in one place for a run. I'll refrain from commenting on "professionalism". I'm just happy to be here. I do, at least, LOVE this theatre.

The monitors are not on tonight, so those of us currently offstage, downstairs, cannot hear the show. Where are we in this thing, anyway? Is it intermission yet?

I have only a few scenes in Act I; it's in Act II that I really have to be on my toes. In fact, I have a rather intensive costume change coming up, one that (the director will discover tonight) will be all but impossible to accomplish during the 3 lines of material written to cover my stage absence. Fun, fun.

A prince has arrived in the dressing room. The prince who ends the first act. It must be intermission. Time to go.

More soon, 'cause... dude.

Dude!

Okay, bear with me. I have very little time. See, I'm borrowing a computer right now and I've got about 5 mintues before I've got to go, so I won't get to tell you WHY I've got to borrow this computer except to say that every computer I own (four at last count) is a piece of ... is kaput.

I also won't get to tell you about the preliminary hearing for my attempted carjacker, his spree, or the extortive parking ticket I received while doing my civic duty.

And I won't get to tell you about the cool deal I made for a new iPod, loaded with my father's playlist while I wait for a computer to iTune up to it.

And, oh yeah, I'm waiting for a new computer. Dude, I'm getting a Dell.

Of course, I'll barely have time to tell you how sneaky Dell is. 'Cause, see, they don't tell you, when you buy their product online, that when you click "3-5 day shipping" that means it'll take 3-5 days to get to you once they feel damned good and ready to put it in a box a month later. No, they don't tell you THAT until they confirm your order.

So... bear with me. Until the UPS truck arrives at my doorstep (hopefully more reliably than San Diego's Postal Petey) sometime mid-month, posts will be few and far between.

But OH, will I have plenty to say when it gets here!

Until then... here are some subjects. Talk amongst yourselves.

A) No one should be allowed to own pets or children before they own their own home. With a big yard. Soundproofed.
B) Badly written and poorly directed shows should come with either hefty paychecks or mind-altering drugs.
C) Your parents never bought you a pony. How does that make you feel?

Note: Comments received in answer to "C" are subject to an Our Time is Up, That'll Be Ninety Dollars, Thank You fee. Plus tax, tags, and title.