a san francisco treat

five weeks in the beautiful city of san francisco sure did fly by.  i'm already back in new york.  compact city (only 7x7 sq mi) that managed to keep me meteorologically entertained without there being any measurable precipitation.  my amazing 10th floor view allowed me to watch the fog roll in from miles away.  if there were fog present with a brisk northwesterly wind, it'd be 65.  no fog with light and variable winds, it'd be 85.  at times, the fog was so dense that seeing the buildings across the street became an ordeal.  the leaves would gather tiny droplets of mist and periodically dump their contents on you as you walked down the street.  i don't think i've seen clouds move as quickly and as often as they do in san fran.  it really fascinated me that you could almost predict tomorrow's weather, just by studying the fog patterns the night before.  if it were way off in the distance and struggling mightily to get into the city, you knew that tomorrow would be on the warm side.  but if it were already funneling in at a steady clip at 2am, it wouldn't be much warmer than that come 2pm.  really intriguing stuff that was brought to my attention on monday, the 13th.

9:30am, standing in front of the curran.  9 of us in total.  but it should have been 10.  dolores, effie's dresser, runs on CP (colored people) time and was egregiously late.  35 minutes late, to be exact.  but none of us were terribly upset.  that's because i had brought champagne and OJ.  emily had brought pigs in blankets.  cate had pancakes.  and we ate and drank inside the back of a limo that was going to take us to wine country.  best off day i've had in a while.  once dolores did show up, we were off and running.  that morning was cool and foggy, in the upper 50s.  but once we crossed the absolutely gorgeous and stunning golden gate bridge and continued inland, the sun began to peek through clouds and wow, it was 80 almost instantly.  nikki called me while we were still en route to ask me a question about the benefit (much more on that later), and i was working on my fourth or fifth glass of champagne.  she knew that, overall, i was becoming increasingly annoyed by the benefit but could tell by my pleasant tone that morning that i was already a little buzzed.  jordan partier, our new automation guy, was responsible for the entire outing, since his dad was driving us up in his city.  his father is a napa/sonoma valley historian and really knows his stuff.  the first place we pulled into was the jacuzzi vineyard.  and it wasn't long before my wallet was open.  we had a private tasting lined up and had about 6 or 7 wines.  however, the one of note was the third wine, which happened to be our first red of the morning.  it was a sangiovese, which is apparently used primarily as the base (approx. 60%) for chianti.  well, the jacuzzi guy was telling us that the proper way to sniff wine is through your predominant nostril.  so being right-handed, i inhaled the sangiovese through my right nostril and was blown away.  the wine, in and of itself, was already pretty damn tasty.  but then, he pulled out the vinturi.  red wines taste better once poured through a decanter, which allows it to aerate, or breathe.  however, proper decanting can take several hours.  the vinturi is a handheld aerator that releases the bubbles in a red wine instantly, allowing it to breathe right before your very eyes.  we had the same sangiovese after being poured through a vinturi, and i was instantly sold.  much crisper taste, lighter on the palate, stronger aroma - noticeably better after one sip.  yeah, i bought a bottle of sangiovese and a vinturi right then and there.

next to steltzner for a tasting of several more wines.  this tasting was outside in the brilliant sunlight, where we learned that 2005 was apparently a really good year for wine.  we all fell in love with a 2005 cabernet franc - so much so that we bought a case, with two of those bottles being mine.  the best parts of the steltzner visit were getting to churn some grapes and walking through the caves.  romich and i each took turns with the grapes that were sitting in this huge vat.  the official grape churner showed us how it was done after our valiant attempts proved futile.  and to cool down, we walked through part of their elaborate underground cave maze.  barrels upon barrels were lined up along either side for as far as the eye can see.  truly an amazing sight.  we then had an amazing catered lunch - tasty sandwiches, corn and arugula salad, obviously more wine.  then on to chandon, a truly remarkable structure.  great tasting of four different champagnes, the last of which (the extra dry riche) i bought.  quick nap in the limo on the way back, dropped my wine and vinturi back at my apartment, went to dinner (had a great salmon risotto) after a quick stop by the lush lounge, then on to bigfoot lodge.  romich had learned that on polk and washington, at bigfoot lodge, there is bingo every monday night.  first game of the night and who was the winner?  that's right.  this guy.  reward: shot of washington apple with 107 proof whiskey.  tack that on to one of their specialty drinks that featured a flaming marshmallow and 151 and a sasquatch, their glorified version of a long island and yeah, it was a long day of drinking.  300 bucks and countless drinks later, i finally called it a night, after walking back to the apartment and having a couple more beers.  slept in the next day, then conducted the first of three SF shows.  they went smoothly, and it was good to get back up on the podium again.  you know, don't want to be rusty for the final two and a half months of the tour when i'm conducting full-time again.

quick aside: what the hell is up with people turning left on red in SF?  i mean, my apartment was a good 20-minute walk from the theatre, and i always walked to work and depending on my mood/energy level after the show, i'd either walk or grab a bus back.  but i saw nearly every day at least one person blatantly turn left on a red light.  unbelievable.  if that law does exist in sf, it's stupid.

now on the bane of my existence.  when shows sit down in sf for a long time, they often get asked to do a benefit.  well, on mon, the 20th, what would have been our fifth and final off day in SF, the cast and crew of dreamgirls did an aids benefit for the richmond/ermet aids foundation, locally based in san fran.  i won't go through all the nitty gritty details, but i'll put it like this.  i was the MD for the show and the rest of the band volunteered their time.  instead of doing simple, tried-and-true numbers that fit the theme of the benefit, many people decided to sing original numbers or have me compose music for a skit or any other sort of wild thing you could imagine.  and naturally, they wanted to rehearse numerous times, so much that it drove me crazy.  i wasn't getting paid, and i was putting in extra work with dreamgirls to train new ensemble members that have joined the cast.  i mean, we've now lost 4 ensemble members and one of them hasn't even been replaced yet.  i'm actually sitting behind a table at 11am tomorrow morning in auditions to help choose the replacement for brittany lewis with bobby longbottom (the director) and courtney young (the assistant director).  for the benefit, people didn't meet deadlines to get music to the band, didn't make enough copies for us, didn't send along an .mp3 for us to listen to until the last minute. and to boot, sheryl lee ralph (the original deena in the early '80s broadway production) was a featured guest, and i didn't get her music until noon the day of.  we performed at the marines memorial theatre on sutter and mason, and i didn't leave from 11am (setting up instruments into sound check into rehearsal of each individual act) until the show ended at 11pm.  sheryl was the worst...was supposed to get into town on sunday, but instead went to the wrong airport in DC (dulles instead of reagan) and missed her flight, meaning that the 11:30am rehearsal on monday that she demanded with me could no longer happen.  yeah, an 11:30am rehearsal when i still didn't have the music.  so she flew to sf through houston on monday morning, and her assistant finally e-mailed a .pdf of the entire song.  her assistant had sent us a partial .mp3 of the song that faded out during a modulation.  so wtf was i supposed to do with that?  she finally shows up a little after 6pm, we run the song a few times to her liking and before you know it, it's nearing 7, and i haven't eaten anything all day.  now, i've never requested anyone to go get me some food, and i was prepared to go hungry through the show, which i've done before.  but since stage management had to cater to sheryl (and she wanted sushi), cate ran out and got some for both of us, which i scarfed down before the show...along with a bottle of wine i had snuck in that morning in case of such a situation.  $11 bottle of fish eye chardonnay guzzled before the show.  don't worry, i wasn't the only one drinking that night by any stretch.  anyway, i could keep bitching, because this isn't anywhere near all the drama that occurred.  just suffice it to say that the entire ordeal drove me crazy.  but as things often do in the world of theatre, they magically worked out in the end because we're professionals.  featured songs included: tonight's gonna be a good night (black eyed peas, for our opener), how glory goes from floyd collins, don't rain on my parade from funny girl, and home from the wiz.  did the band hit every chord perfectly?  no.  did every song play itself down exactly how we did in rehearsal?  hell no.  but we sure did play one hell of a show.  we had fun, we let our love for music (and ahem, the wine) kick in and take over, and we brought the house down.  people dancing in the aisles on the closer, i will survive.  that's what we do - things always change, and musicians are used to changing things on the fly...which was why we didn't need so much rehearsal in the first place.  actors sure do like to over-rehearse shit, don't they?  the show was scheduled to start at 7:30, didn't until 7:45, had an auction at intermission and ended just minutes before 11.  the benefit show ended up being longer than a show of dreamgirls, unbelievable.  and it's the last free time i'm doing in a long time.  i celebrated by going back to my apartment and drinking the three bottles of wine and the bottle of two buck chuck i picked up at trader joe's a while back with matos, tom, emily and cate.  while playing uno.  and yes, i did use my vinturi.  score.

like i said, the five SF weeks sure did fly by.  peter saw the show and loved it, as did amy and a couple of her ucsf friends.  ray, our stage manager, took a few of us out who worked tirelessly on the benefit as a thank you.  yummy chinese food.  ray and his partner actually live in san fran, so he knows the city quite well.  the gentlemen's club had many rendezvouses, and we plan to have at least one during the layoff.  yeah, i'm off for two weeks in new york now.  one of the members of said club, eric jackson, is leaving us behind, along with brittany lewis.  ian michaud (our original automation guy), bob bones (an assistant stage manager) and sam (the MD) all concluded their respective runs of dreamgirls in san fran.  man, people sure are dropping like flies.  but the four original band members are still holding strong.  matos, tom and i sure had fun in our apartment - many a late night playing the new halo reach and/or uno, plenty of beers consumed (in fact, we got low on beers last wednesday, so after rehearsal thursday afternoon, i went to bev mo and carried three twelve-packs a half-mile back to our apartment...i got a huge pat on the back for that one), many late-night safeway steak dinners (since there was a safeway two blocks away from us) and overall, many good times.  i'm probably forgetting things - such is life when you go three weeks without posting.  off to auditions in the morning.  seems like i can't even get away from dreamgirls, even on a layoff...

could it be? last sunday, i actually enjoyed...

the beginning of this post will best be understood by two people.  my mother and my most serious ex-girlfriend, amy.  they both know, in their respective ways, how much i hate the topic i'm about to discuss.  it is the very bane of my existence.  who knew that after this past sunday, i would actually enjoy it.  thursday night, trevor, douglas and i ended up at a sushi bar after the show.  a pair of $15 house sauvignon blanc bottles later, they had successfully staged an intervention that would include romich and eric on sunday after the show.  the topic, you may ask?

shopping.

yes, doug and eric, two of the gay guys in our ensemble, volunteered their time to make me over.  trevor and romich tagged along for shits and advice but ended up trying things on by the end, once they saw how well i was doing.  no mom, i didn't buy any pink.  yes amy, what i did buy is pretty fierce.  i've gone from 185 when i got measured for my costume for this show, up to 199 in late february when we left columbus, down to 169 a few weeks back and today, i'm 175.  have my clothes changed at any point?  nope.  i'm willing to admit this much publicly - i still wear some t-shirts from back in college when i was 220.  so yeah, my shirts are pretty much falling off my shoulders now.  well, we went to the westfield shopping mall on powell and market.  ate in the food court first, which was actually the most upscale food court i'd ever seen.  i had salmon risotto with asparagus, parmesan and a lemon aioli.  yeah, i know, right?  in a food court!?!  best $16.70 i've spent eating in a mall.  then, the expedition began.  i had never stepped foot in a zara before, but it's actually pretty sweet.  got a fitted red (which, if you don't know, is my favorite color) t-shirt that actually shows my frame, slim fit dark-colored 34 jeans (never owned 34s in my life) and a nice jacket for the cool evenings here in san fran and into the rest of the fall.  took our party across the street to gap, once the mall closed at 7.  i was stunned that the first outfit doug and eric sent me into the fitting room at zara worked.  so now, i was fully comfortable and open to their expertise.  tried on all sorts of things in different combinations at gap.  shirts, khakis, jeans, shoes, you name it.  we were among the last in the store when it closed at 8:30.  settled on a pair of keds (primarily brown and white with some red trim), some ankle socks to go with the keds and 3 more shirts of varying colors (red, blue striped, brown/gray checkered).  $330 well spent, and i felt that i had instantly lost weight just by putting on clothes that fit.  put on my digs and hit the town sunday night.  karaoke bar, sugar cafe.  the five of us sure had fun.  $115 of drinks later on my card and after singing "hey jude" with doug (so much fun harmonizing on that song), i cabbed it back to my apartment and played video games with matos until 6:30 in the morning.  awesome sunday.  total confidence booster.  and many kudos to doug and eric.  can't wait for round 2, which'll feature more in the way of accessories, before we leave sf.

ok, i should probably go back to where i left off at the end of the last post.  nearly three wednesdays ago, i did indeed have dinner back in nyc during our layoff with my buddies kiernan and mac.  great catching up with them.  but unbelievably, after we walked back to kiernan's apartment and dropped him off, mac and i ran into...well, put it this way.  in a city of several millions, what are the odds you'd run into one of the guys in dreamgirls on 54th and 8th?  yep, we ran into douglas.  and the greatness of that wednesday night is what has spawned our thirsty thursdays that will occur for the rest of the tour - the first of which being last thursday that galvanized my shopping spree.  oh life.  doug was on his way to meet a couple of friends, so mac and i went to a bar, the three of them joined us for a drink before heading to snug on 51st and 9th.  had never been there before but totally want to go back.  doug turned me on to a new drink - disaronno and cranberry, and the rest is history.  we met some girl who claimed to be a bebe model, at which point she would strike a pose.  that was the only coherent thing she could say all night.  i mean, she was cute.  maybe not, bebe cute.  but definitely drunk off her ass.  one guy was way too forward with her - i mean, sticking his hand up her dress kind of forward - and to the best of my knowledge, it was the first time i actually feared for a girl when she stumbled out of the bar and that guy sketchily followed mere seconds ago.  hopefully, she's all right.  in any event, we made friends with some of the guys who were playing darts and played until 4am.  i don't think i've ever played darts and neither had doug, but the alcohol brought out our competitive juices, and we played as if we were darting champions.  doug and his buddy got the best of mac and i overall, but we were having so much fun by the end that we didn't care about score.  ended up at some diner (i think it was olympic on 48th and 8th), then i walked back to chelsea by 5.  fun times.  

the next night, i did go to mike's housewarming on 92nd and 1st.  he and jenn have two cats - igby (as in goes down) and maeby (as in george michael's cousin on arrested development).  super cute.  saturday was awesome.  got up at the asscrack of dawn, and 8 of us in 2 cars drove up to saratoga.  deringer, on his drive up from princeton, bought 90 beers and enough ingredients for 3 gargantuan muffaletta sandwiches.  i had never bet on horses before, but i had a great time.  11 races (we just missed the first one, so we only bet on 10), one every half-hour.  people downing beers, picnicking, just having a great time.  it was a gorgeous day, and i actually turned the $100 i started out with into $113.  obviously, nothing to write home about, but i had a roller coaster day.  up to start, down in the middle, then up on the last race.  so i was happy with my $13 surplus.  stopped at cracker barrel on the way home and had a wonderful drunken dinner.  needless to say, we had two DDs who were quite responsible.  the other six of us were complete drunkards.  definitely took me back to my college days.  we started drinking at 1 in the afternoon and kept polishing off beers when we got back to my apartment in manhattan until 1am.  12 hours, 19 beers. still 6 shy of my record in one day (ski trip, vermont, january 2006), but still a shit-ton of beer.  let's say that i spent the majority of sunday recovering instead of going to the frying pan (it was raining anyway).  played a lot of settlers of catan, an old game that we just recently discovered.  if you're looking for a strategic board game to pick up, i highly recommend it.  

monday, aug 23 saw me on a plane to san francisco.  we're playing the curran for 5 weeks, and tonight begins week 3.  in a 3-bedroom with matos and tom.  66 cleary court, apt #1001.  sick view looking south over sf.  and an arguably sicker apartment.  the people who normally live here are awesome.  there are heated floors here, a clock made of forks and spoons, and all sorts of cool accessories - i mean, anti-slam drawers, small balconies in each of the 3 bedrooms as well as the living room, a sweet indoor/outdoor thermometer.  i could go on and on, but i'll continue making you jealous.  in fact, we had a little party our first sunday night here and invited over some cast and crew.  our first intention was to obviously host a good party and have fun, but a close 1b in terms of intentions was to make everyone jealous about our sweet pad and how much better it is than their crappy hotel rooms.  both 1a and 1b succeeded.  anyway, the curran theatre is actually a pretty small theatre, reminiscent of our time spent in columbus and back at the apollo.  backstage crossovers are nonexistent (got to go across downstairs), although our backs are directly up against the wall like at the apollo.  oh right, i'm back to playing onstage.  my summer conductorship has come and gone, as sam is back at the post.  it does feel good to actually play the show again.  in fact, having 3 months off from playing it has given my mind time to come up with some embellishments i could add to the actual score.  don't worry, it didn't take long for sam to tell me to cut it out and keep things simple. =)  sam is, however, taking the 14th and 15th off, so i will get 3 shows to conduct here, as darryl will come back to play the show.  perhaps the most comforting thing is putting my wig back on.  it's been so lonely for so long but now, i'm shaking my head like a crazy person onstage like old times.  i've got some friends here who i haven't seen in quite some time, which is nice.  amy tao ('07), peter behroozi ('06) and lacey whitmire ('05) are all currier buddies back from harvard who are out here in school - peter at stanford, amy and lacey at ucsf.  peter's coming to the show this coming thursday, hopefully i'll get to see lacey (she's on rotations), and amy and i have already hung out twice, the best being yesterday.  she just started her second year of med school and had never been to coit tower, which overlooks the city beautifully.  it was 78 yesterday with nary a cloud in the sky, so the view was absolutely picturesque.  we probably climbed 7,369 steps to get to the tower (only a slight exaggeration), but it was totally worth it.  rolled back down the hill and straight into fisherman's wharf.  awesome sights, smells, sounds.  sea lions frolicking about.  and the wonderful tastes of in-n-out.  yes, i know that rhymes.  we hit up in-n-out for an appetizer of animal fries before heading to an italian place she had found on yelp that had four and a half stars.  for some inexplicable reason, it was closed on labor day (wouldn't you want to take advantage of the extra tourists and locals out on the holiday?), so we doubled back to in-n-out and completed our meal with burgers and a shake.  even picked up some groceries at a trader joe's for our respective kitchens.  ah yes, seven hours of bliss.  i always love hanging out with amy, and i hope that her upcoming exams and the rigors of med school don't preclude us from meeting up again.  

that pretty much sums things up so far.  other sf highlights include the tonga room, for sure.  been there twice already, the first being more important in that we bade farewell to kaitlyn, one of our wardrobe gurus.  she's off to toronto to join south pacific.  angela and gene in wardrobe are also leaving in san fran, as is bob bones, one of our assistant stage managers.  anyway, the tonga room is amazing.  in the fairmont hotel, at california and mason.  hawaiian/polynesian theme.  live band on a boat in the middle of a large pool, into which it rains every 30 minutes.  yes, and there's lightning.  although the drinks are expensive, they are tasty, and most come with umbrellas (poor kaitlyn ended up with at least 50 umbrellas hidden in her purse by the end of the night as a practical joke) and pineapple slices.  hell, one drink even comes IN a pineapple.  that pineapple royal became with the $16.50 i paid for it once the bartender handed me a spoon to dig in and devour the pineapple.  definitely recommend it if you're in the city.  but go there asap.  apparently, someone wants to buy the place and turn it into a condo.  utter lunacy, since it works so great as a bar.  but money talks, so go now if you're in sf anytime soon.  also, wow - you ain't seen hills until you been here.  when we landed on monday, i thought it would be wiser for me to take the company bus into town and then to walk to my apartment from the last stop.  a few folks are staying at the corinthian on van ness and mcallister, down near city hall.  no true hills yet, coming from the airport.  the third and final stop was the steinhart on sutter and hyde.  why did i skip the second?  because it's the nob hill suites on powell and pine.  and lordy, getting to and from those suites in a big-ass bus was something to behold.  at one point, the bus driver labeled one hill as the "whee" hill.  i was confused at first, thinking he meant "wii" or something.  he then clarified by saying that everyone goes "whee" when he drives down it.  he timed the lights well and gunned it about halfway down.  my butt literally left the seat, and many of you know that i don't do roller coasters or crazy shit like that.  i was not happy with that bus driver during that.  but the more massive hills here take up several blocks - i mean, could be a dozen or more.  so at the very least, i hope to have some stronger calves after 5 weeks.  ok, that's it.  i worked out with nikki right before writing this post, and i've been craving a protein shake.  i'm choosing protein over proofreading, so if i misspelled something or wrote something that doesn't make sense, bite me.