Her name was Lola...L-O-L-A Lola!

Hello! Allow me to send you all salutations from Winston-Salem, NC, the only place left in the country where restaurants still have a smoking section larger than the non-smoking section. This place offers supplication to the tobacco industry the way Florida pays obeisance to seniors, but I find it kind of refreshing. At least here the hypocrisy of the rest of the country is blown away--or hidden behind a haze of cigarette smoke. While the rest of the country vilifies the product yet refuses to call for its destruction based on the fact it's too much of a cash crop to give up, here they just look at you and say, "Yeah, we smoke. And we know it's bad for us. But it makes a lot of money and that's a good thing for everybody, so get out of our face, safety Nazi." I applaud that kind of honesty. Besides, I find the whole anti-smoking campaign just as unbelievable and biased as the fake facts the tobacco companies put out back in the day. Tobacco companies are not after your soul, and they do not rub their hands together gleefully when faced with cancer statistics. Let's move on, shall we?

Anywho, this morning we performed at a venue in the beautiful city of Charlotte, NC (You remember--the city I walked all over like the last administration walked over the Bill of Rights and international Law) The venue itself was lovely, and the kids were quiet, but interested. And the crew--boy, I have to tell you we have lucked out when it comes to crews this week! I'm telling you, I'm actually worried about the future, because I see a horrible let down coming, where we end up with crews that are incompetent, slow, and surly. This one though was on par with the rest of the crews this week--in fact, I may say they came out on top. We started loading the truck after the show at around 12:45, and I was filling out paperwork in the truck, ready to hit the road by 1:15. Not to toot my own horn (because if I could, I wouldn't have to tour with a kid's theatre) but that did happen in part because Schneider and I kick some serious ass at packing the truck. All it takes is the right system and the willingness to implement it. Which, I must say, sometimes requires yelling at the stage manager, who for some reason refuses to bring things out in the order they are needed. And I'm not talking about the stuff whose position in the load we have adjusted since the beginning of tour, I'm talking about stuff that is right there in black and white on the list. But every day I have to call out for something else that she has forgotten to have come out at the right time. But enough patting myself on the back (which honestly, tends to strain my shoulder) and back to the crew. Well, one particular crew member. Gather around, gentle readers, and listen to the tale I am about to spin....

The venue required me to back down an alley to the dock. The only problem with that was I had to back into the alley out of a narrow two-lane street at the height of morning rush hour. Traffic doesn't like that. At all. And for some reason, cars seem to think that they are more badass than a 26 foot truck. And since I have a tendency to not want to dent, crumple or otherwise mangle either my vehicle or that of other people (even assholes) it was slow going. Once I did get the truck moving, I looked into my mirror to see a rather butch lady waving me backwards, giving me directions. I thought little enough of it. Tour to enough theatres, and butch lady techs become rather commonplace. She was doing a bangup job of it though. No hesitation, and she was gesturing as if she was bringing a 747 in for a landing. This was obviously something she had done more than once or twice. It was funny because her look (at least from the mirror) screamed 80's hair band roadie. I figured at least there would be someone on the crew with an interesting personality. When I get out of the truck and come around to the dock, I hear the crew member talking to Tim, and I realize that I was mistaken and it was a slender guy. And as I come around the truck, I realize I was right, and that the look wasn't 80's hair band roadie, but 80's hair band lead singer, complete with feathered blond locks and tattoos. He comes over and shakes my hand, introducing himself to me as Kelly. It's then that I notice a couple of things that make me rethink my rethinking. Then I look again and I see one thing that makes me rethink my rethinking of my rethought and leads me, Escher-like back to the beginning of my thought process. Yes, the couple of things were breasts. And the one thing was an Adam's Apple (get your minds out of the gutter, you dirty, dirty people) Yes, gentle readers, our crew member was a transvestite. Or transsexual. I'm not sure which since I can't see into her psyche to figure out her motivations. It was also obvious that Kelly decided on this change late in life. I was more than a little surprised--not so much because the concept of a transvestite shocks me, but more because a) I wasn't expecting to find one working as a crew member at a theatre, and b) I certainly wasn't expecting to find one doing so in North Carolina. So kudos to NC for turning some of my preconceptions on their head. The other funny thing was that the rest of the crew consisted of two genetic (I assume) females and the head tech, who was a guy named Bobby. And yes, I'm sure he was a guy. The Wilford Brimley mustache gave that away...though I guess he could have been female...and Bulgarian. So I don't know, maybe Kelly decided on the change because it was the only way to get hired. I have no idea. What I do know is that she was a machine. I can safely say that one of the main reasons we were set to go at 9:20 this morning and that our load-out was as quick as previously mentioned was because of Kelly. But then, it's so typical--women always try to outdo themselves because they have to prove themselves to the men around them.

But seriously, everyone at the venue was extremely helpful. That's one thing I'll say about the South. The whole friendly hospitality thing isn't just a marketing ploy. The people down here really are that nice. To your face, that is. We all know that simmering beneath the surface is a festering pool of rebel vitriol just waiting for the right moment to boil over into a second war of secession which will succeed in nothing but tearing this country asunder, perhaps to the point where, like Humpty Dumpty, it is impossible to reassemble into anything recognizable. Or something like that. After the show, I drove the truck to Winston-Salem, to a hotel I had stayed in last tour, which is a very nice hotel, and is right next door to a fried chicken restaurant called Mountain Fried Chicken. It turns out it is a local chain--and by chain, I mean there are three locations in this city and that's it. THEIR marketing ploy is a painting of a hillbilly on their sign uttering what I'm sure is a slogan that could only have been written by a slick Madison Avenue type--"It's not greasy!" Sometimes simple is all you need. Turns out that, like southern hospitality, that slogan is NOT just a collection of marketing buzzwords wrapped in a cleverly calculated image. It is some fine fried chicken, and let me tell you, people, it ain't greasy. At all. Yet it's still juicy. And seasoned beautifully. And most of all, cheap. I got a three piece dinner with two sides and a dinner roll for a little over 5 bucks. Excellent coleslaw. Overcooked green beans, but that's the way they roll here in the south, and they make up for it by cooking them in pork and onions. So do yourself a favor, get your asses down to WInston-Salem, NC and have some Mountain Fried Chicken. And tell them that Candidate Andrew Pond sent you, because I plan on stealing their slogan. Pond in 2012--He isn't greasy!