The best way to end a week.

It's been proven--heathens make the best audiences. Our show today was the complete antithesis of yesterday. We performed at Shiloh High School, in Snellville, GA, and from the very beginning, the kids were engaged, interested, and raucously responsive. But not in a distracting or disrespectful way. Rather, they were responding enthusiastically to what they were seeing because they were allowing themselves to be pulled into what they were witnessing. Wild applause and gasping reactions greeted all of our moments. They were energized by us, and they then in turn gave us energy. That's the way it's supposed to be. So take note of that--apparently a life of sin makes you a kick-ass audience member. Public School: 1, Jesus: 0.

The space today was also the diametric opposite of yesterday. We were in a real theatre space--with wings and fly rails and lights and everything! It was almost like we were a professional theatre company! And there were dressing rooms--with mirrors! And no mops or music stands or large papier-mache projects or things like that. And the best part was we had 6 teachers there to help us unload the truck. Sadly, they disappeared soon after, so they weren't there for the fun stuff like lifting the proscenium, but something's better than nothing. And we had a 7:00 load-in for a 10:00 show, so we ended up with over an hour before the show started once we had finished getting everything up. That was a lovely feeling. Add to it the absolute rockstar-like reception we got, and our incredibly long and tiring week came to a more than satisfactory end. The only blot on the day was the fact it rained during load-out. And that i got my arm caught between the metal ends of the two proscenium legs. It hurt like hell and left my upper wrist with a rather impressive divot. But it felt a lot worse than it was, and by now it's reduced itself to a dull ache. I'm sure I'll be right as rain by Monday, when we have the next show here in beautiful Albany, GA.

Albany, GA is what you might call a study in contrasts. On one end of the town you have all the expected chain restaurants, including everyone's favorite, home of the renowned Plaid Tidings collection, Cracker Barrel, along with a Golden Corral (Mmmmmm buffet!) as well as a mall (A Galleria no less!) and on the other side of town, while you do have a Krispy Kreme, you also have what has to be the largest per capita number of pawn shops and dollar stores. You may think that I exaggerate, but I kid you not. I walked quite a ways through this lovely burg, and I saw a pawn shop two doors down from a pawn shop which was next door to a cash for titles store which was a few doors down from a dollar store which was across the street from a Family dollar which was of course next to a pawn shop. And it just went on like this, both sides of the street, for what had to be ten or twelve blocks. There was one plumber, a liquor store/check cashing store, and a sports bar that was such a dive it had three judges outside with score cards. All in all, exactly the type of place I would expect Chamber to stick us for a weekend. Oh well, looks like the Galleria is going to get some attention. And they do have a Fun Park, where one can bowl or play mini-golf, among other varieties of fun. It's rather uncreatively named Fun Park, but when your clientele is hungover from the sports bar, possession-less fro hocking all of their stuff to get money for the sports bar, and poor because they've spent that money AT the sports bar (Thus leaving them with just enough to buy groceries at the Dollar General) then you don't tax their mental capacities by using clever names for your establishment. I'm hoping sometime this weekend to get a chance to bowl. We'll see. I don't count candlepin, so it's been a while since I've been able to do it. Although, I doubt this place will be handing out free ice cream. Of course, if they did, then they'd live up to their name.

So wish me luck, gentle readers, on being able to get through this weekend without losing what little is left of my mind to tedium. And I hope there will be much adventure to regale you with upon my return tomorrow night. Until then, remember--raise your kid atheist in a public school--he'll have the greatest imagination in the world, and I'll have something I haven't had since I left my job at the library 14 years ago--job security!