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...