Did I really just step on the scale this morning to see a 169? I suppose all this training and working out is doing me some good. Nikki’s even got me on protein now. I went to GNC back in Dallas and bought my first Isopure. Nikki claims that I’ll see results by the end of our run in SF (late Sept). Only time will tell…
I suppose I randomly started with what I saw today than going back to the end of my last entry. Went to a Rangers game in Arlington, Texas back on the 5th in Dallas. And wow, DSM (Dallas Summer Musicals) sure knows how to party. They have their own private suite, the Willie Stargell, and waiters actually come and take your orders for food and drink. Even though the Indians won convincingly, it didn’t dampen our spirits – that is, since we had plenty of beer flowing. The girls sang my arrangement of the national anthem yet again before the game, and as expected, did a magnificent job. The Ballpark at Arlington was a pretty sweet stadium, but it had nothing on the monstrosity that lay behind it. Jerry Jones’ new baby, the new Cowboys Stadium, sits within view of the baseball stadium. In fact, the two stadia and Six Flags are part of a huge complex just off the freeway. Even though I’m a ‘Skins fan, I had to take a couple of pictures for the sake of my mom who, inexplicably, is a diehard ‘Boys fan.
Moving on, the remainder of our time in Dallas was great. The Mosaic turned out to be an excellent choice, and I’m so glad we stayed there. Pool time was great, even though on the last day, I drunkenly banged my foot up against the side of the pool and gashed it open pretty good. It was Dolores’ (Moya’s dresser) birthday party, and we went all out. Luckily, we only had a Sunday matinee to close, so that the crew could load-out and drive the trucks all the way to Kansas City in time for a Tuesday night opening. So we made the most of our Sunday night – staying up ridiculously late, drinking plenty of booze – you know, the usual with us. But nothing could top our ridiculously late night the previous Monday.
The Mosaic had a nice gaming area that closed at 10 on weekdays. Well, at the beginning of our third and final week in Dallas, we decided that it’d be a good idea to play poker. However, we didn’t want to end at 10 but rather begin at 10. So Matos and I snuck down to the gaming room on the 8th floor and, uh, borrowed the poker chips (don’t worry, we returned them the next afternoon). We had an epic six-way battle: Matos, Tom, Romich, Joe, myself and Greg, who is the drummer on the Beauty and the Beast tour (more on B&B to come). Twenty-dollar buy-in. Some pretty epic hands that I got lucky on, the most notable of which being my full house of 3s full of 5s beating Greg’s 3s full of 4s. By 5 or 6 in the morning, everyone had conked out, save me and Matos. We played until the sun came up, with Dave reluctantly holding right around his original twenty bucks. He just refused to dip below 20. So eventually, I gave up a little after 8am and went home with $107.50 (Tom lost a total of $29), and Dave with $21.50. Can’t believe I got to bed at 8:30 in the frickin’ morning. But such is the life when you’re on tour and didn’t have a show until 8pm the next day. I mean, the same day.
The Dallas band was a pleasure to work with – nice guys, solid players. But the best thing they did was actually a sweet gesture toward me. After our first layoff, I realized that I had made a pretty grave mistake. I had accidentally left the plethora of ties that I had carrying around on tour back in my apartment in New York. And knowing that I would be conducting more during this stretch with only one tie was painful. So night in and night out, I wore the same red tie on that conductor’s stand. Well, a few members of the Dallas band each pitched in a tie from their respective wardrobes and laid out five of them on the music stand before I came down for the last Saturday night show. They told me that I could keep the ties, but that I had to pick one to wear for our closing matinee on Sunday. One of them would win a cool side bet of $25. They were convinced I had schemed with the winner, because I ended up picking the tie that the key 2 player, Brian, had left. A piano player conspiracy it was not, trust me.
Back to Beauty. It turns out that their tour overlapped with ours during our third week in Dallas. They came to see our Thursday matinee (and the associate conductor, Patrick, sat in the pit with me), and many members of our company went to their Sunday night show (I didn’t, due to load-out). But their best contribution to the betterment of our lives occurred on Thursday night after our second show of the day. I had never heard of whirlyball until the Beauty kids challenged us. Whirlyball combines bumper cars, alcohol and lacrosse. In other words, you can drink to the hilt upon entering the building (and between games, for that matter), then jump in a bumper car with a lacrosse stick. Pretty much the only time in the world when it’s legal to drink and drive. There are bulls-eye goals at the ends of the court, and you must take your lacrosse stick to scoop up the ball and score. I played 3 games, and despite having a record of only 1-2, I scored the game-winning goal in overtime for my only win, 3-2. SO much fun, and if I ever come across it again in another city, I’ll be there.
My last memories of Dallas are quite hazy. I mistakenly didn’t set an alarm to get me up on Travel Monday. The bus was scheduled to leave the Aloft (the hotel chosen by the company) at 10am. When I naturally woke up in my apartment in the Mosaic after having been drinking all night, I saw that it was already 9:30! Thankfully, I had done most of my packing earlier on Sunday – otherwise, I’d have been in even deeper shit. I haphazardly threw my toiletries and whatever else was lying around into a suitcase and simply left the keys and check for payment on the coffee table. “Shit, it’s already 9:45!” Now, the hard part. Driving to the Aloft…shhh, don’t tell anybody…but I may or may not have still been drunk. On my way out of the parking garage, Jason calls me to ask where the hell I am. Out of breath, I tell him that I’m pulling out of the garage now. Several careful blocks of driving later, I got to the Aloft, dropped off the keys and paperwork at the front desk, put my bags under the bus and collapsed in a seat…at 9:56! Lord knows I didn’t deserve to be on that bus in time, and I wouldn’t know that I had actually gotten everything until I got to my hotel room in Kansas City.
The Hotel Phillips was a definite downgrade from what we had at the Mosaic. But at least I had miraculously managed to grab all my stuff from my Mosaic apartment. The Starlight Theatre in KC was our first and only outdoor venue. Seating over 8,000, it was a sprawling complex that had a well-known track record for canceling very few shows over the many decades of its existence. That record was put to the test on Tuesday. Orchestra rehearsal, 9am-2pm. Goes without a hitch. Move the instruments to the pit by 3, and there is nary a cloud in the sky. We drive back to the hotel (oh yeah, we had cars in KC as well, since the hotel and theatre were about 15 minutes apart via I-71) to relax for a bit, knowing not what was in store. Sure, I knew that was a decent chance of thunderstorms that evening (40-50%) but certainly didn’t expect what was to come. By 5pm, the sky had darkened, and a pretty severe storm was imminently upon us. I drove to the theatre in a pretty good downpour which, naturally, slowed the freeway traffic to a crawl. Upon arrival, we were told that our scheduled 6pm sound check would definitely not start on time. It turns out that a pretty bad storm had hit the Starlight back in May or June and had punctured holes in the tarp. Were these holes fixed? Was some sort of other contingency plan hatched in the event that, oh, another storm ever hit Kansas City in the middle of the summer again? NO!!!! The idiots put the same holey tarp back over the pit and naturally, it caved in under the weight of the water. Music ruined. Equipment soaked. Leaky pit ceiling. Drenched players. Not only that, but sound equipment was in shambles as well – light fixtures, multiple speakers. Pretty much, you name it, it got wet. I guess that’s what happens when 2” of rain falls in less than an hour, and there’s no real plan in place for when that occurs. Gotta tip my hat to the crew though. They cleaned things up as best they could, and we were able to do our normal sound check – only 50 or 60 minutes late. And the show started only 30 minutes late, which was a shock. But the rain persisted throughout the show, with intermittent thunder and lightning, as the squall line began to stall over us. I suppose this was the true test of “the show must go on.” I was tucked under the pit, with the tarp covering it, with no fans and rain dripping down on us and the pit players intermittently. Talk about humid and a hot, sweaty mess. During the book scene before Family, Ray called me to say that too much rain had built up on the deck and that we would have to stop the show after the song. Needless to say, I plowed the hell through that song, much to the actors’ surprise. But as soon as the announcement was made that we were holding the show, they understood why I had rushed the number. After a brief delay, we came back to finish the first act and completed the second act without stopping. But the best part of the entire ordeal was that we didn’t end the show until 11:16. Which meant OVERTIME all around! Can’t wait to see my bank account on Friday morning when that direct deposit kicks in. It promises to be a healthy amount, fo’ sho’. The other interesting night was Saturday, when another storm, albeit weaker, hit a couple of hours before curtain. Although we never stopped the show, it did rain intermittently throughout before really picking up again toward the end of the second act. I started the show on my conductor platform but was put under the pit for act two. The funniest ad lib, perhaps, of the entire run happened at the end of this show. Deena has just told Curtis that she’s leaving him, much to his chagrin. Just before he’s supposed to utter, “Come on, let’s go,” a huge bolt of lightning appears in the distance. Curtis instead says, “Come on Deena, it’s lightning!” and rushes off the stage, leaving her down center. The audience roared, but stage management did not appreciate the ad lib.
KC also marked the first time in a while that I had friends come to the show. My good college buddy, Naveen, drove from Columbia (where he’s in med school) on Friday night to partake in the festivities. Hadn’t seen him in quite some time (hell, was it since Bardin’s wedding back on Labor Day weekend ’09?), and it was great for us to catch up. He found out pretty quickly that the KC band just might have been the best ever. Since there is so much hubbub after the show, with so many patrons trying to leave, the local orchestra has learned that it’s usually wise to wait out the rush. And what’s the best way to wait something out? With beer, of course! Yep, they tailgate after every show. Talk about my heaven. Except Friday night’s was bigger than usual. A big barbecue was had by all, with BBQ staples from bratwursts to Natty Ice. After crashing that for a while, he and I headed out to find a sweet bar in the area. We ended up off I-35 at Tomfooleries. Couldn’t even get halfway through out first beer, when this pretty hot chick comes over and sits down with us. We chat for a bit, but it’s pretty clear that she’s exhausted and truly not that interested. She leaves for a minute and brings back her friend – not as hot but still, well, you know. She, too, seemed tired. I suppose that made sense, since it was almost 3 in the morning and close to last call, but still – ladies, would it have hurt to put in a bit more effort and seem quasi-interested? They did, however, both perk up when I mentioned that I was with Dreamgirls. The hot girl mumbled something before saying that she was a professional dancer, which obviously got my attention. It turns out that Naveen heard what she had mumbled and told me after we had gone our separate ways that Belinda, the hot girl, is actually a cheerleader for the Kansas City Chiefs. That’s right, Belinda Post. 21 and from Topeka. Not too shabby – you know, getting hit on by an NFL cheerleader and all. Google Image her. It’ll be worth your while. In any event, Naveen picked me up at noon the next day and took me out for some real KC BBQ. Not only was this exciting, but simply the fact that we had no matinees in Kansas City (due to the daytime heat) was unbelievable. Only 6 shows and getting paid as if we had done 8. What could be better than that? Oklahoma Joe’s was our destination, which was in Kansas City, KS, meaning that I can now cross Kansas off the list of states never visited. The restaurant was literally in a gas station, but by 12:15ish, the line was already snaking its way around the establishment. Once we finally got inside, we finally realized why the line was so long. The aromas were unreal, and once we sat down with our food, our conversation died pretty quickly. We split a Carolina-style pulled pork sandwich, a Z-Man (beef brisket sandwich with provolone and two onion rings, yum!) and a half-slab of, arguably, the best ribs I’ve ever had. I’m telling you, fall-off-the-bone, lick-your-fingers-to-the-bone kind of ribs. So tender, and the sauce was hot and tasty, too. Throw in some fries and a pair of drinks, and it was the best 32 bucks I’ve spent in a long time. Well, if I had gotten with Belinda the night before, I’m sure that more than 32 bucks would have been better spent. =)
Turns out that wasn’t the only BBQ I would have that day. When I was in Portland, I mentioned hanging out with Jeremy, an ’08 Harvard friend of mine. When we went hiking around the Columbia River Gorge, we weren’t alone. He brought along a dear friend of his, Kaylee. The three of us had a fun time that Sunday morning, and they came to see the show that night. Kaylee works in Lincoln, NE and told me several weeks ago that she would be coming down to KC the weekend Dreamgirls was in town. And she held true to her word. She and her bestie, Margaret (who is getting married tomorrow – super congrats!), came to see the Saturday night show. But not before taking me to Jack Stack, another of KC’s claims to fame when it comes to the BBQ (the others being Gates and Bryant’s). I thought that Oklahoma Joe’s was better, but I still had some really tasty burnt ends and lamb ribs (two things I’d never had before, believe it or not). They enjoyed the show, especially because I got them tickets pretty close to the stage. Kaylee is actually a theatre girl in her own right and has performed many times at the Starlight. So taking her around backstage was actually a bit of a shock, since it’s been renovated recently and many things were unfamiliar to her. Our night was capped off by a trip to the Cheesecake Factory, where I got a strawberry creamsicle that made everything right with the world, after yet another rainy show. With any luck, I can convince Kaylee to come visit me in another city on tour or perhaps in NYC, where she hasn’t been in a long time…
Wow, didn’t realize I’d have so much to say about three weeks of my life. I’m writing this from one of the couches in my NYC apartment, which isn’t what the tour schedule had marked for this week. I was supposed to spend this week and next in DC, with the show playing at the National Theatre. Obviously, I was gonna stay with my mom and grandma at home, while conducting 16 shows in front of many friends and family. Unfortunately, we were told in Dallas that the presenters were backing out of DC due to horrendous advance ticket sales. The National isn’t that large (capacity around 1,700), but ticket sales were only at 14% a week and a half before opening. So not only do I not get to spend time at home, but I’m also out of two weeks’ worth of salary. The positive spin on all of this is that I’m back in New York, enjoying my vacay. Just had lunch a couple of hours ago with someone I hadn’t seen in years, Derrick Wang. He and I spent many countless hours on pianos at Harvard, doing many shows and concerts together. He’s heading to law school in a couple of weeks, and it was awesome to shoot the shit with him here before he heads down to Maryland.
Damn, I wrote this in Word before transferring it to Blogspot, and it’s over 3100 characters. I gotta start writing shorter entries…
