18 May 2005

Life Upon the Wicked Stage

So tonight we have our first audience -- it's our final dress rehearsal. There's a local organization that services people living with HIV called Shepherd Wellness Community, and once a year City Theatre donates a final dress rehearsal to them for use as a fundraiser.

Quite cool, I think.

I've done these shows before, and they're usually a raucous and fun audience. They are, however, generally liquored-up, so there's a lot of people trying (unsuccessfully) to slip quietly out and make for the restroom. Lots of backed up alcohol, don't you know.

One of the reasons I'm so fond of Shakespeare in Love is Geoffrey Rush as Phillip Henslowe, and his insistent that, no matter how bad it seems the show always works out in the end. Of course we know that's not true; sometimes the show just plain sucks. But regardless of whether or not it does, the curtain manages to rise, and then 90 or 120 minutes later, it manages to come down without anyone having died. Usually.

Here's hoping tonight works out that way.



By the way, did I tell you that my dear friend Super K got the job she really, really wanted when she moved back to Pittsburgh? I have much joy for her. The Lagemæ's move back to Pittsburgh is working out fabulously for them, which -- while painful for me (at least in the distant future when I get back to NYC) -- is a wonderful thing for them. They're much more relaxed and playful than I've seen them in quite some time.

So cheers to you, Super K! I'm very, very excited for you!

Thoreau argued that the necessities in life were pretty simple: Food, shelter, clothing, fuel. But I would suggest that we live in a more enlightened age (or at least we should and could) than he envisioned. We need contentment to really live, if you ask me -- and that's something the Lagemæ seriously lacked in New York. I'm hoping they find it here.



So I'm on my break having a nice lil' tuna melt at Tuscany, and a huge-ass Hummer just drove by on the street outside.

I don't know why those things raise my ire so much. I mean, your right-wing nutjob would crucify me as a liberal tree-hugger for even opening my mouth about the whole thing, but really: why does any private citizen need one of these things? I'm all for the military having one -- soldiers do, after all, have to drive through bombed-out, infrastructure-free landscapes, so have at 'em, say I! But show me where the fuck Suzy Homemaker has to cross a freaking minefield to get to the Wal-Mart. There's just no need for it.

Feel free to change my mind.

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