ah, felt like i was an undergrad again. the sight of dozens of pbr cans. loud music. solo cups. yes, solo cups. two different beirut games going on. danny yagan adopting a more michael reckhow-ish approach to his shooting finesse and leaving behind the high-arching, ceiling-grazing shot. yagan had already won 11 consecutive games without ever being challenged down to a last cup when i showed up. naturally, you play the game better whilst inebriated, so i quickly downed 4 shots of rebel yell, stepped up to the plate...and whiffed in 3 straight games. still never getting danny and alex down to a last cup. didn't help that they were both shooting lights-out...on a non-regulation table, might i add (if you've played with/against me, you know that i always shoot long...that's what she said)...and that my partner, danny's gf, sara, refused to utilize her womanly wiles, which danny had admittedly said was a weakness, more often. unfortunately, those were the last 3 games of the night, since we ripped through the remaining pbr. i suggested we switch over to wine-rut, which was thankfully shot down in favor of a far more appealing alternative.
well, the party was at 367 harvard st, just down a ways from hurlbut, pennypacker and greenough - the non-harvard yard freshman dorms. and what's next to them? keep going. okay, the barker center, lamont library. hmmm, there's a girl who clearly cannot stand being helped home by her friend. i see a lot of hair holding in her future. COLLEGE! anyway, i've digressed. and oh yes. the kong. i'll explain to the non-harvardians reading this - the kong is definitely on a short list of the pinnacle of experiences one can experience in harvard square. three floors - restaurant, bar, dance floor. the scene of numerous fights, offers of weed and coke but still, one thing draws all of us back. the scorpion bowl. now 16 dollars (used to be 10 when i was a student) to be inundated with a melange of surreal tastes that flood your mouth. it's still a mystery to everyone as to what you're actually consuming. but who cares? it's alcoholic, and it tastes so good. betsy and her bf, jeff, showed up at the harvard st party just before we left for the kong. felt like old times when the three of us teamed up against three other people from the party and had an epic scorpion bowl race that we narrowly won. c'mon, you had to know that i would be on the winning team, right? oh, i forgot to mention our entrance. and this requires a flash backward.
so while at georgia tech, i went out to bars and picked up girls, but not without a cost. after it happened once, i just thought that girl was crazy. but once it happened repeatedly, i had to take matters into my own hand. i would think that a natural thing to say once you're involved in conversation is to say what school you went to. around cambridge, it's known as dropping the H-bomb, i.e., saying you went to harvard. well, emory is labeled down in atlanta as "the harvard of the south," so they're not too keen on harvard alums. or at least the drunk girls i was talking to in bars didn't. so after getting in numerous shouting matches, i decided to always carry my old harvard ID on me. flash forward to last saturday. we get to the kong and the bouncer is yelling, "if you've got an out-of-state license, be prepared to show two IDs." i hadn't flashed my harvard ID since i got my master's at tech. so i jumped on the opportunity to use it once more, along with my DC ID. once inside, we climbed the stairs to the second floor, and i instantly noticed a change in decor. back in the day, there used to be long tables in the center of the room, but now those are no more - replaced by cushier seats. also, half the tvs were playing king kong - don't remember that happening back in 2006. but by far, the most shocking thing was a disappointment - NO MORE ANIMALS! we used to play an awesome game called hide the animal. when you ordered a scorpion bowl, they were littered with plastic circus animals - you know, giraffes, elephants, the works. and drunk 22-year-olds had nothing better than to play hide the animal...on various parts of the body which sometimes, led to other extracurricular activities. but alas, they got rid of the animals several months back, much to the dismay of betsy and me. this was even funnier because reckhow told the boys a few weeks back that he had just found an animal stashed deeply somewhere in his stuff out in seattle now. hilarious.
in cambridge, everything (save the 7-11) is mandated to close at 2. this includes sanctioned harvard parties, not the afterparties that obviously went on. but how stupid does this make the city? hmmm, an entire college of students is spilling out onto our city streets at 2am at the end of a party. and they're drunk. so that makes they're hungry! why close down all your establishments right as hungry students walk by dejectedly? the city loses so much money by doing that. which leads me to talk about one of the finer institutions in the square. when felipe's moved into the square while i was a student, it was an instant classic. five-dollar burritos that are among the tastiest ever. great ambience, everything. well, they attempted to defy cambridge laws and stay open until 3 on friday and saturday nights. much to the delight of the student population. unfortunately, the city cracked down on them, but they found a clever way to circumvent the law. they would shut the doors at 2 but stand outside with dozens of pre-made burritos, charge only 5 bucks but forgoing tax and make a killing. so to complete the night, i simply had to go to felipe's after we were ushered out of the kong at 2. best chorizo burrito of my life, while betsy and jeff shared a chicken. unreal night.
on to other things. i conducted sunday afternoon, and there were no major disasters. saw someone i hadn't seen in four years in between shows - courtney petrouski. wonderful currier friend, and it was awesome catching up with her, even if just for a half-hour. spent my last night in somerville and graciously got to see rob koenig before i left. he had been in southeast asia on business with the clinton foundation for nearly the entire two weeks i was in boston. great catching up with him too, and i hope that both he and courtney can see the show in another city later on down the road. now on to the theatrics. when it comes to traveling, performers (so cast and musicians) travel together, while the crew (stage management, hair, wardrobe, etc.) flies separately. the load-out from boston was rough, with it being such a tight space...and the prospect of columbus being even tighter loomed on the horizon. the crew left logan earlier than us and flew directly into columbus. we, on the other hand, left boston at 11am and had to change planes in newark. those couple hours made a world of difference, since columbus got more than a foot of snow on monday. we had 9am mimosas in boston, flew to newark, drank more, and then the fun began. our flight was scheduled to leave at 2:10 from gate C101. that quickly became 3:10 at C70, then 4:10 at C103...then 5, 5:30. all the while we're getting updates from other people in the company who weren't in company. some of the cast had gone to manhattan. two had been redirected to chicago where they rented a car and drove to columbus by 2:30am tues morn. sam had flown into cleveland, switched planes, was in midair when his plane was turned around and sent back because the columbus airport had closed. only 8 of the 11 crew members who were involved in load-out - i'm talking electricians, carpenters, sound, etc. - were on their flight at 10am from logan. they had to fly into cleveland and then bus into columbus. the other 3 were flown to cleveland through chicago and couldn't bus down until the following morning. meanwhile, sam was picked up by someone in the airport who was driving in the direction of columbus. rode with them for an hour, then met a couple that was going all the way to columbus. too bad they bickered the whole way, and there was a 50-car pileup that shut down the highway, turning a 2-hour drive into 8. our sound truck was busted for being too heavy, specifically for having too much weight on a couple of its axles. what else could go wrong? oh right, the fearless few who had actually managed to land in columbus went to a grocery store to stock up, only to be stranded for 3 hours because the cabs couldn't get back due to road closures! beers were opened, fried chicken passed around - they had to make the most of a terrible, yet hysterical, situation. as for us in newark, they finally put us up in a hotel, where we proceeded to drink the night away. got up tuesday morning, were moved to three different gates, delayed twice, sat on the plane for 90 min but eventually got to the doubletree in columbus at 8:30pm tues night after boarding the bus to logan at 8am monday morning. talk about one hell of a travel day. but truthfully, with us going to all northern cities during the winter and this being our first issue, we're lucky. i'd better knock on wood quickly because a mix of rain and snow is in the forecast here from sunday night through tuesday morning. so we'll see if we don't have a repeat performance on our way to LA. i'm sure i forgot details of our ordeal, but this post is already long enough as is.
columbus is a shit town. sorry to be blunt, but when the subway (restaurant) next to the stage door is only open from 8-5 m-f, 8-noon on sat and not at all on sun - well, you get my drift. the only perk is that things are dirt cheap. glasses of goldschlager, neat, for only 4.50? outrageously awesome. the theater is super tight backstage, and numerous changes had to be made to the show in such a tight space to keep it running. during our opening night show on wednesday, one of the panels hit the downstage truss, causing the show to be cancelled for several minutes, a la pittsburgh. the difference was that the stoppage occurred close to the end of the show in pittsburgh, while it was 2/3 of the way through the first act here. so it felt like we did three acts, picked up some overtime, not too shabby. last night's show went well, but we're all ready to get the hell out of ohio. douglas was walking by a bus stop, talking on the phone, when he got punched in the back of the head by one of the resident hoodlums. the five of them attempted to provoke a fight, at which point douglas caught up with two of the other ensemble guys in the show, avoiding any sort of altercation. one bright spot did occur last night at our delayed opening night party - free food and drink, live band. even trevon got to go up and sing ribbon in the sky with the band. really looking forward to tonight. another ensemble member, robert, has family in columbus, and they're treating us to what promises to be a fun night. they chartered a bus to pick us up from the theater to go back to their place. wii, guitar hero, open bar, baby grand, vintage guitars, tons of food. hopefully, some fun in columbus before two shows both sat and sun before heading to LA. ok, i'm tired of writing, shorter update next time, i promise.
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