Tick Tock

Another week has passed since my last content-less post and other than that I hardly have anything to say. You'd think I didn't even get out of bed in the morning.

We did have a HUGE fantastic party with lots of fun and friends. Here is how it looked:







First round, 2:10 PM.







Apparently the guys though it was WAY funnier than the girls did.









That's Kurt, not me. I was caught doing the same thing in another picture that I'm not posting. I'm also not posting the one that depicts one of my family members involved in the same sort of "Friendship Celebration".








Kate is saying, "We were about to leave fifteen minutes ago but Nathan had to stop and talk."












Ask your doctor if Viagra is right for you.


I did actually get started on fixing the cracking wallboard joints in the kid's bathroom, and I did move the electrical box for the light. We'll be painting in a few days. Here is a gory picture:

It started off easy. I was just going to put up the new light. Then the electrical box was a foot from where it needed to be and the wires were too short to reach to the new box, so I thought that I might just put in a junction box at the old location and put a cover plate on it. But that was going to be fucking ugly, so I had to replace the wires that were too short. But that meant that I needed to cut six holes in the wall and one in the ceiling, and take out the heater duct, all so I could replace the wires. Of course I had to patch all these holes and while I was at it I had to fix the corner joints which were opening up for some reason...
Big Job.

But, just like the last five months, I'm unemployed. And that is a Big Drag. The biggest drag is not the rejection, it is the SILENCE from the employers. I don't mind if you say no. That's way better than you saying NOTHING. Just reply damn it.

Sweet Huts or Nuts?

Yes I know, just a couple of weeks ago it was all about sweet huts. Now it is about the sweet nuts (at Dickens Christmas Fair). I saw this sign today and it just said, "Take my picture!"

So DCF dress rehearsal weekend starts in a few hours. Today I spent a few blissful hours at the palace de moo putting stuff together. What fun. Tomorrow should be better yet with about 500 people on site and chaos all around. Whee!!

change your ways or you are doomed

First, thank you to all of my friends and family that supported my art by coming out in the dark to see me onstage for about three minutes in Gilligan's Island. I made some new friends with whom I would like to stay in touch, and I enjoyed working with Carly and Dawn and Jeff from Mattress. The show was lots of fun and now, like all shows, it's over. After a long day of striking the Gilligan set after a rather late cast party, it is time to move on to the next shiny object; Dickens Christmas Fair.

Workshops for DCF started up on Saturday (one day overlap with GITM) and wow it was so great to see so many faces of friends I knew. The all cast meeting had about 500 people in it. I think I hugged most of them. There were many new faces too and I hope that at least a few turn into new friends to hug next year.

Tonight we attended a rosary for our friend Shirley. It was very emotional and there were quite a few people. Following that most of the people who attended the service walked the block and a half from the church to Shirley's house where her four children and their children had set up to entertain us all. On the way, we all carried candles and the sheriff sent a patrol car to hold traffic as we crossed Woodside Road. The irony of this was palpable.

I had a pretty good phone interview on Friday, but I'm still working on finding the new perfect job.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale

You've all been waiting a long time since the announcement. Now your day has come. Tonight, Gilligan's Island The Musical opens, starring ME, and all the people in the picture here. Of course, since I am surprise in the middle of the show I was not in the picture.

Get you tickets and other info here. Remember the show is running for THREE WEEKENDS ONLY.

Here is the 20 page Wikipedia article on the TV show. It has facts you never knew you needed.

Let me tell you a little about the real castaways...

Top left in the picture is Mr. Thurston J. Howell III, or Ray as we call him. Ray was my drama teacher in High school about XXX (more Roman numerals) years ago. Ray is perhaps the wittiest person I know and has been that way for XXX years. His son Bill and I were close friends and we put the "you" in mis-spent youth.

To the right of Ray is Joanne, or Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell. In real life Ray and Joanne are a couple as well. Joanne is just as sweet and wonderful and lovey as Ray. They are way cute together. She is also helping me in the job search thing. Hooray!

Top center of the picture is Ginger Grant, or Carly as we like to call her. Carly has a running humorous monologue of narration of her life. She also does the munchkin voice better than Maureen Graham, which is really saying something. She works for the Sunnyvale PD, so don't piss her off. Oh and she does a knockout Ginger. Seriously.

In the botton row on the left is Damien. I hate this guy. He's very attractive. He remembers a huge amount of lines. He sight reads music. He's a great singer, and dancer. And to top it all off he is a really pleasant and decent guy. He's even got a good sense of humor and to really top it all off, he is humble too. Sheesh. He plays Dr. Roy Hinkley (the professor).

Right next to Damien there is Andrew, or as the Skipper calls him, "Little Buddy". He is Carly's boyfriend's cousin and was cast as Gilligan after we started rehearsal. He has great comic timing and delivery, dances up a storm and is almost but not quite nicer than Damien (if that's possible). I'm glad he's playing Willy Gilligan and not me because he does it better than I ever could.

That big guy in the blue shirt is Robert. You may have guessed by now that he plays Skipper Jonas Grumby. Robert dances better than Damien, if that's possible, and sings like you wouldn't believe. He is also one more in a long line of really great guys named Robert.

Mary Ann Summers is played ever so sweetly by Rena over there on the right end of the picture. Gosh she's sweet. She reminds me in so many ways of my beautiful daughter, and she tells me I remind her of her father. (All together now, "Awwwww") She sings so nice it makes you want to puke. She tells me the only thing that you should avoid with her is letting her get hungry because she turns really nasty then. Got it.

If you don't come see the show I'm gonna hunt you down and tell you that I am disappointed with you.

Boca Grande

I need to make a drink that we can call a "Boca Grande". (big mouth) It will need to be tropical like with fruit and rum. It will be for the Gilligan's Island cast parties. Any ideas?

The show is going OK. Rehearsals are getting better and the number of times people say, "Line!" is going down steadily. The funny parts are actually getting funny and it appears that we may have a pretty darn fun show. So come see it please. Info here They tell me the ticket sales are going in big clumps so buy your ticket early.

Luckily I am still unemployed so I can continue my new most favorite activity; looking for a job. Oh my god it is so fun. What I do doesn't fall into a neat category so you get a lot of oblique leads. Every single web site that is set up to help you, like salary.com or monster.com or anymediumsizedcompany.com has their very own registration process in which you provide all the same information in new and different ways each time. You send out resumes to various companies and you get no response, save for the occasional automated one. You know you should be doing something more, or different, but you aren't quite sure what. There is hardly someone to ask about all of this junk, and you aren't really sure what to ask. Pretty soon some lucky company will take my up on my offer and I'll be forced to stop this fun.

At least I'm getting the maximum amount of unemployment available.

Upson Downs

Welcome to Upson Downs, the least known horse racing facility in the State of Bob. I've been up and down lately. Thanks to all of you who sent kind words. I think I had a few sky-is-falling sort of moments and I have helpfully decided that that is decidedly unhelpful so I'm just not going there anymore. If I accidentally get there again I'm turning right back around thank you.

SO Gilligan's Island is going pretty well. We staged one production number tonight. We sang the song about a jillion times. The people who can actually dance were taught the dance that goes with it. I valiantly tried to follow. Suffice to say my dancing won't be the highlight of anything but I'm going to give it my best. We are at the confluence-of-everything stage where it seems that all of the work that you did before was about 80% good and the cumulative effect of this is that when you put three things together you get 0.8 X 0.8 X 0.8 or exactly 51.2% of what you were trying to achieve. It is a wonder that the director can sit there and not throw things at you. I'm sure it will all come together in the end. It always does.

Oh yeah, the dates are on the flier. Yes there is a Halloween show.

No lucky company has stepped forward to claim their new prize employee, so I continue my job search. If you know people who know people who may have a job for me now's their chance to talk to me. I'll do them a favor and call them if you give me their contact information. I have lots of leads to run down already but I could always use 46 more.

Not a creature was stirring

It's 1:18 in the morning on Friday night before the Casa Faire opens. I like to call the night before any fair(e) opens, "Sewing Night". Yup, even I did a little sewing.

I also did some laundry, sewed up the loose bit on my pants, got all my stuff together and put it in the car, went to buy gas, made shortbread, and cleaned the kitchen. Mind you I did all of this after I finally finished building the gates in the front yard. Now they have bamboo as planned. They look fabulous if I do say so myself... see...










The ladies plus Amy sewed all manner of stuff starting with a new bum roll and ending with sewing lots of pearls on dresses. Whee!

Oh yeah, I also had lunch with my good friend Walter who is finally blogging. I also picked up some junk I forgot at work and told everyone that I'll come back periodically and give them all hugs. I also talked with my friend Pat who just happens to be a VP at the agency that GMI hires to help terminated (great way to put it) employees get back into the job market. I get started there on Tuesday. I also found out how much unemployment insurance benefits I'll be getting(!). It will really help.

See you all at faire!

butterscotch

I really like butterscotch pudding. I like it better than coffee ice cream, which I like a lot. I'm just pudding that fact out there for your consumption.

Over the weekend I was assigned a character for Casa Faire. Tonight I found enough dope on the fellow that I might be able to pretend to be Baron North.

I'm making slow but steady progress on the gates in the front yard, which as I'm sure you remember, are supposed to be filled in with bamboo. We got the bamboo, I cut the pieces to length, and filled in the ends. Sharon came up with a clever way to mount the bamboo, and of course I have overengineered the implementation making it take a lot longer to execute. Of course if I didn't it would keep me up nights.

I've been trying to learn my 13 lines for the Alien part. That's hard enough. I worked on it for an hour and a half and learned about five lines, most of which are short responses. Jeez, how do people learn all those dang lines for real parts! ... like I said, all the fun, half the work. Plus I get to sing harmony with the rest of the cast, all seven of them!

Short week then the opening of Faire... Maybe I'll take off early on Friday.

And the rest

The part of Gilligan is going to go to another actor. No matter, I get to play The Alien (the outer space kind) instead. This way I have almost as much fun with a lot fewer lines to remember. Gilligan has not been cast yet, but a promising fellow tried out tonight. We have yet to meet Mary Ann or the Skipper. Mr Howell is being played by my high school drama teacher Ray Doherty. His wife is playing Lovey.

Tonight we started learning the songs, starting with the hardest one. Lots of harmonies and dialog in the middle of the songs. It will all sound good eventually but at this point it sounds like a bunch of people singing songs they don't know yet, i.e. it sounds bad.

Last weekend was the Colden Golden Gate renfaire, except it was a Tudor Faire really. That means that the ladies wear different hats mostly, and there is a Queen Jane, who gets dethroned and a Queen Mary who gets elected coronated throned made queen instead of a Queen Elizabeth. The coronation ceremony was something of a cluster fuck disorganized affair on Saturday, but Sunday was really pretty good. I took it upon myself to get up on the stage and yell project loudly out to the audience to remind them that they were about to witness the coronation of their new queen. That was fun. Nothing like improvisation at the top of your lungs.

The fair was socked in both days except for literally about thirty seconds of filtered sun on Sunday. This kept all the nobles (like me) from overheating in their heavy costumes. The park where the faire was held has grass instead of weedy dirt so it wasn't dusty either. After paying $15 to join the pub group I got to go into the pub garden and have ale at any time. They had a sign that said that if you are going to drink all day you actually have to start first thing in the morning. Good advice indeed. I was very comfortable all weekend.

The people show at faire is never ending and very diverse. I think I like the little kids the best; the ones to whom the whole thing is just an amazing awesome spectacle and they are at once afraid and excited to experience it all. That's pretty cool. I can do without the drunken louts that come up the queen's party who are obviously dining in character and ask, "Hey! What are you guys doing here!?" Um, duh. We're putting on a show you dork.

Faire takes a lot of time, but it's fun. In a couple of weeks, Casa faire opens. We are not sure how much we'll all be going.

In which I relate the events of the past

Bad movie night was a success, especially because the movie was so freakin bad. There was random sound effects, fishes popping out here and there, nudity where it hardly made sense, and a bad plot I can hardly remember, something about zombies I think.

We had a great time getting drunk ready for the movie, (thanks for the gin Carl!) and a certain guest brought the weirdest host gift of all time, wait for it... mammogram films. Apparently these are the pictures that didn't turn out and they get held for a month and then pitched. So I was gifted a few of them, because I am apparently a boob man. (Shocking I know.) That wasn't enough embarrassment, so she dug out some nipple markers (see illustration) out of her purse, much to the stark amazement of all the guests. These are round nipple sized pieces of tape with a little metal ball, about 1 mm attached. They get stuck on the nipple for the mammogram so the radiologist can determine the location of the nipple in the radiograph. There was much laughter about all of this, with one male guest covering his nipples with his hands and saying softly, "I'm invisible". Dude, you crack me up.

Seriously, mammograms are a good thing, even if as Danielle put it, "it's like having your boob slammed in the refrigerator door". I have a friend that works for a company called R2 that makes a device that scans a mammogram radiograph and highlights the points where the radiologist should take a good look. The scanner uses an algorithm that was developed by analyzing many radiographs and determining how to find the beginnings of tumors. He tells me that around their office they have seen thousands of radiographs and that he has seen some that were really bad cases where the cancer was advanced. In those cases the women had waited too long to get a mammogram and their first news was, "You have a bad case." That's pretty sad.

I mention all of this serious stuff because both my mother and father both waited too long to seek effective medical care for what turned out to be really bad diseases. In dad's case he ignored the pain until he couldn't walk any more. It turned out to be cancer and it had advanced quite a ways. He died two years later after enduring a lot of very unpleasant treatment and really bad days. If he had sought treatment earlier it might have been different. Mom failed to deal with her arterial disease, denying that it was a big enough problem, then had a massive stroke that could have been prevented. She will never fully recover. She lives in an assisted living home. She can't carry on a normal conversation because of the ephasia and short term memory loss; she can't speak very well and she can't remember enough of the conversation to continue it. The stroke took away an enormous amount of who she was at 62, and she'll probably have to live this way for a long time.

I love my mom and loved my dad. It really hurts that they could have avoided some really bad things if they had taken care of themselves earlier. Don't scrimp on the medical stuff. It really can matter a lot. Sorry to go all serious on you there.

So the audition for Gilligan went well, though I haven't heard back yet. I leaned and sang a song, did a few dance steps, and read a couple of scenes. It sounds like a fun show. You'll all be informed as soon as I know. I will expect you all to come see me, clap loudly, and gushingly praise my talent in glowing terms.

So we all (ok the majority of us) went to casa faire today to get our gate passes so we can go there and act like people who died a long time ago in a country far far away. We saw a lot of people we know and there was hugging all around. Then we built the stage which consists of legging up four platforms with varying height legs to make a flat level place on top of the up and down ground. Everyone cheered when it was done. That was nice. I'm excited to be able to be involved in faire because I can finally get in on all the fun that the ladies have been enjoying and I can be there with them instead of home alone. We just need to figure out the kid care.

We're all trying to figure out when exactly we'll be where and the schedule of everything. It seems that we'll all be busy from now until Christmas eve with renfaires then Dickens Fair. There may even be a musical comedy in there.

Gilligan's Island

I got a call tonight from the director of Gilligan's Island, The Musical who was asking me if I wanted to come and read for the part of Gilligan. I'm intrigued, but it would be a big time committment and I'd have to learn far more lines than I ever have before... On the other hand, it would be great comedy fun.

I'll have to think it over.