21 days later

technically 22, since it's the 27th, and my last post was on the 5th.

LA has been awesome.  a blur of a synopsis.  can't believe we're almost through week 5 of 6 here.  week 3 featured three groups of friends coming to see the show.  tuesday saw garthew, i mean, matt gartland (c-house '06) and his super-sweet gf, rajshri, swing through on their vanderbilt med school spring break.  over a drink at the library bar, they were both thrilled that the show will be going through nashville in late october.  megan kerr (c-house '08) and her little sister katie saw the show on thursday.  katie has done some theatre at pitzer and truly appreciated the backstage tour.  i would see megan again the following monday (the 15th) for a couple hours of bowling at lucky strike at LA Live before a clippers game (loss to the hornets, 108-100) with carly schwartz (stay alum) and her bf devin...who came to see my show on sunday afternoon, the 14th.

i conducted 6 of the 8 shows during week 4.  lot of fun, and a great precursor to the summer.  i don't believe i've said this in my blog, but sam is definitely taking a break for a while over the summer - from cincinnati in june until san francisco in late august.  we're in the process of finding someone to play my book while i take over conducting (and musical directing) duties for those two and a half months.  indeed, i'm thrilled at the opportunity and am really looking forward to june.  but in no way am i overlooking the next couple of months, where we head to seattle, portland, costa mesa and yes...tokyo.  anyway, week 4 started on monday with me taking my off day to explore universal city.  i walked through citywalk, went to one of my favorite places in nyc that is also in LA (yogurtland - where i got nearly a pound of self-serve...yum) and saw alice eve in 'she's out of my league.'  not as funny as 'the hangover,' which is how it was advertised.  but still, very funny.  the conducting went well - only one big snafu...that wasn't even my fault, even though i was initially blamed for it.  the understudy was on for the saturday matinee, and she always sings the big number of the show (i'm not going - end of act I) in A-flat.  well, she decided to start singing it in B-flat, the normal key for the main effie.  we the band continued playing in A-flat until she correctly herself, which thankfully only took a couple of seconds...but those were 2 of the longer seconds of my life.  =)

i do not.  i repeat.  i DO NOT like being 3 hours earlier than normal east coast time.  especially not in march.  i don't care if temps almost hit 90 degrees on two consecutive days earlier in the month.  i don't care if we haven't had the threat of rain for seemingly forever.  having to wake up to watch 9am college basketball games during conference tourneys and the madness have been brutal.  especially when you work at night.  i suppose that once i woke up at 8:30 for breakfast in the hotel before watching the 9am depaul-south florida game in the big east tourney, i had set an unfortunate precedent.  but it's march, and i value sleep FAR less than good ol'-fashioned baskitball.  once the big dance arrived, i knew that i had to watch outside of my hotel room - i mean, one game versus watching 4 at a bar...obvious choice.  a few of us in the show explored our options downtown for st. patty's night after the show and discovered a place called (don't laugh too hard) big wangs.  their motto is 'size matters.'  and they advertised having all big dance games on for the entirety of the tournament.  needless to say, i was having a mimosa with pineapple juice at 9:30am the following morning.  byu/fla, 99-92 in double OT = not a bad way to start off the 2010 dance.  i was at big wangs so much over the next four days for tournament games that the waitresses knew me by sight.  on that friday (the 19th), sir robert koenig (c-house '06) swung by LA and after his intense daytime meetings, he came to big wangs in the late afternoon before coming to the first act of the show.  sadly, he missed act II because he had to catch a red-eye back to boston.  but i know he'll come to see the entire show at some point on tour...

...which just got extended to include detroit for two weeks - christmas and new year's.  we are now officially on tour for the entirety of 2010 (our last scheduled show in detroit is on 1/2/11)...

the end of week 4 was awesome.  for my first show back on the keys (sun mat, 3/21), i saw a lot of family.  my cousin tracey and her husband sean....grandma, aunts renee and sandra, my cousin rea...AND my new young cousins nicolas (two and three-quarters years old, which he is very adamant about) and pierson (conveniently two and three-quarters months old)...both being tracey's children.  outside of tracey and her immediate family, who now live out in studio city, the rest were flown out by tracey for the week, and the timing worked out perfectly that i was performing here, too.  they thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and we went to kendall's in between shows.  the next day, they picked me up from my hotel, and we went to see tavis smiley's 'america i am' traveling exhibit of the generational struggle of blacks from slavery to present-day.  absolutely moving piece at the california ScienCenter out in exhibition park, where the coliseum stands.  wow, what a huge stadium.  makes harvard stadium look like a miniature horseshoe.  on our way to lunch at aroma in studio city, we drove past griffith park, by forest lawn (where michael jackson is buried) and through burbank.  tracey's house is sweet - super spacious, great view, pool and jacuzzi, etc.  her house was almost part of a new pilot.  the photographers wanted to get two houses in the neighborhood that were directly across the street from one another, so that they could film from one house straight into the other.  unfortunately, they went with two other houses - tracey and sean would have gotten 30k if their house had been chosen for 5 days of filming.  well, the plot of the pilot: married dude gets divorced in quaint little neighborhood...and moves in with his mistress DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET!  unreal.

i spent monday evening into tuesday afternoon with my family.  nothing against those associated with the show, but it was great to spend time with blood family.  cousin alvin was a big hit with pierson and especially nicolas, who had me running around with grover, elmo and whatever other cool toys you can think of.  it's funny - even though i totally hope to have a wife and kids at some point in my life, i'm not entirely looking forward to the exhaustion of parenting.  after just 24 hours with a pair of kids, i was beat, lol.  their nanny, lillian, exposes nicolas to spanish when it's just the two of them.  i wish i had that growing up - learning two different languages simultaneously.  that kid sure is smart - knowing that daddy (who just made partner) drives a porsche.  that mommy (senior VP at TCW) is going back to work in a couple of weeks.  that music is an integral part of life - he is already learning the raw basics of the guitar and drums...in preschool!  i could go on and on about how cute nicolas is, but i think you get the point.  anyone with a heart truly understands how being around someone who doesn't have a care in the world can really change your view of life - dumb it down to the raw basics.  no matter how many wrong notes i hit during a show...no matter how inconvenient a delayed flight to the next city might be...no matter what could possibly go wrong...i still have my sight, my hearing, my health, my laughter, my ability to play piano - so many god-given abilities that others simply don't have.  to wake up each day as i do is a blessing.

the rest of the week has been fun.  paula abdul came to the show tonight to see syesha (deena) who, as you all know, was second runner-up during season 7.  totally took a picture with her (and hopefully, emily will put it up on facebook soon).  yesterday, i had one of my best days in LA.  ben austin, one of the many faceless students i used to teach while i was an on-camera teacher at knewton (mad props to knewton, and i'm actually still on their website - http://www.knewton.com/gmat/teachers/teachers#alvin), actually made his presence known to us after improving his score to a 740 on the gmat, which helped him get into both columbia and wharton (the latter is a bit premature - he was supposed to find out earlier today, but i already know he got in, lol).  the four of us (ben, me - the math teacher, evan - the verbal teacher, and james - the head TA of the class) had drinks in new york before i left.  he's been living in LA for the past five and a half years and offered to show me around the city while i was here.  well, that day was thursday - i took the subway out to wilshire/western, and he took me to the museum of jurassic technology out in culver city.  absolutely enthralling hole in the wall - not very much to do with either the jurassic period or technology, but a much-appreciated change of pace to my normal life on tour.  the exhibit featured old wives' tales on how to cure diseases long before anyone knew what the word 'vaccination' meant.  not to mention unique cat's cradle designs and the history of vectography.  right down the street was an in-n-out.  double-double animal-style with fries, also animal-style, equated to heaven in my mouth.  before $4 happy hour mac-n-cheese at backstage, a ben austin recommendation, while watching the first two games of the sweet 16.  saw the entire butler upset live, got back to do the show - where i watched with pins and needles on my phone during the entire first act as the xavier-kansas state game unfolded.  i was able to see the end of double overtime during intermission as k-state held on for the victory (and covered, btw - 101-96 covered the 4.5 point spread).  after the show, 7 of us went bowling out in silver lake.  dirt-cheap beer, greasy late-night food and overall, a ton of fun.  my goal during any game is to hit trip dig (which i did twice - 104 and 114, respectively), but the true battle of the night came when martin's first-game 158 was being heavily challenged by james' early onslaught of strikes and spares in game two.  he entered the tenth frame with 148.  9 on the first roll.  and he narrowly missed the spare - failing to match and all but guarantee a besting of martin's high score.

alas, it is nearing 4am, and bed is calling.  after all, i am conducting tomorrow afternoon at 2pm and should probably rest up.