Drunken revelry

Step right up, folks, come one, come all. Drunken revelry is the name of the game, and everybody can play! All you need is a group of people, a space, some alcohol, and a reason to get silly! Thankfully, we had all three of those things last night when we made our way into Manchester, NH to do full group karaoke. It was the first time the entire group had gone out on the town since the celebration of my birth, which, as we all remember went so well that we shall never again speak of it. We found a nice local bar that was damn near empty when we got there at 9:00. That was cool, since it's nice to go out to karaoke and get a chance to sing more than one song in a 5 hour period. I knew I wouldn't be doing any Elvis since lately my voice has been getting very tired after the shows, so I instead chose to visit the Bee Gees oeuvre. That went over like gangbusters, causing one woman to insist on putting in Play That Funky Music White Boy for me to sing. Thankfully for all involved, it ever happened. I had started imbibing before we made our way to the bar, downing a small bottle of Knob Creek just to get the cords warmed up, so once we got there, I only had one Jack and Coke, since I was technically the designated driver. The hilarious thing is that not that many of the cast have hung out at karaoke with me on a regular basis, so they haven't seen what I'm like out on the town very much. That caused Carol to doubt my word when I told her I was stone cold sober. What can I say? I like to jump around and sing along at the top of my lungs without alcohol. If I drink a lot of alcohol, I just want to nap.

The attitude of the group was jovial and high spirited, even before the spirits, so it started out lovely. Of course, as the evening wore on, the place got PACKED. Like within an hour. With Yuppies--or as Alice calls them, "Chads". Way too many polo shirts and baseball caps. Can someone please explain this strange need to add a baseball cap to every outfit? It's ridiculous. I see more people like this in the NE than anywhere else. Completely dressed as if they're going to a work function, then WHAM! A baseball cap. Please, someone stop this. Baseball caps do NOT go with everything. Especially if your don't curve the brim. If the brim of the cap is just sticking straight out, then you really look like a geek. Particularly when you have it paired with khakis and an argyle sweater. And then there were the female counterparts to the Chads--the Ashleighs. (I imagine that's the way the girls who would belong to that group would want it spelled.) Tans that were of a color not found in nature, and more breasts on display than a KFC convention. Now understand, I have nothing against boobs on parade, but they happened to be attached to a lot of "I know you're looking at my tits because I want you to look at my tits because I know my tits are hot but I'm going to act like you looking at my tits offends me because how dare you objectify me like that you bastard" girls. (And to be completely honest, they might have thought so, but not ALL their tits were hot) I hate that attitude. ANd it fits in so well with the Oxford shirt and Red Sox cap crowd. It wouldn't have been so bad if there hadn't been large sweeping herds of them sweeping largely through a very small space. The girls were drinking heavily--Flo attempting to make up for lost time, joined Levitt in an Irish Car Bomb. Those really are quite lovely, despite the name, and Schneider was well on his way to unconsciousness before we left. There were no characters like J Blue to scare Flo, though the woman who wanted me to sing Funky Music was a little pushy, so the cast decided I must just have a way with drunken scary cougars, since I was accosted by one in Savannah as well. Yep, there it is--my sparkly vampire power.

Bob disappeared rather early in the festivities to head over to the local gay bar to see if he might be able to make Carol's dream of him getting some come true. I'm not sure what it is about the gals on this tour but both Carol and Alice seem obsessed with the idea of male/male action. I've met one woman in my entire life who I would say was sincerely into that idea and now I am touring with twice that number. Gotta love live theater. By the time we were ready to leave, he had returned empty....handed, and we returned to the hotel to drop Carol off, and the rest of us headed out to the one place in Manchester still open at almost one in the morning--the Red Arrow café. This place is a serious old school diner, roughly the size of my first studio apartment, and it was stuffed to the gills with hungry people. I shit you not, gentle readers, we had people lined up against the back wall the entire length of the establishment. The one positive is that the establishment was NOT very long. We weren't exactly sure how long we were going to have to wait with a group of six (Schneider had passed out in the van after we got there, and Flo was pretty wobbly, though still solid enough to imbibe some coffee and breakfast.) As it turned out, not too long. We got six stools at their counter and proceeded to get us some good greasy spoon food. ANd let me tell you, the Red Arrow is a place everyone who come anywhere near MAnchester, NH must go to. The food is excellent--at least the omelettes were. I had a kielbasa and cheese omelette and it was amazing. Well worth the wait. And the waitress, despite being so swamped that I honestly believe she never once stopped moving the entire time we were there, was attentive, friendly, and polite. She even asked us before we ordered if we all wanted separate checks. I love that, since I usually am the one who has to ask that question for this group. The downside of that is I usually order last. So that resulted in a nice tip for her. We lingered as much as you can linger in a diner where annoyed drunken hungry people are standing right behind you as you eat, then returned to the hotel, where I hit the hay by about 3:30. Oh yeah, that's the way we play it when we have a day off!

For the record, the show Friday in Manchester went very well. The crew was wonderful, and the load in was relatively easy. We loaded in in an alley, which is not usually a problem, save for the fact the alley had fire escapes on one side of it. Low fire escapes. Schneider scraped along one of them coming in, and I scraped along the other pulling the truck back in for load out. But no permanent damage was done, and the truck still has its top. The kids at the show were really into it--got gasps and shudders as I dismembered the old man, and many laughs as Ichabod, so all is right with the world. The theatre in Manchester, while not huge, is one of those old theatres that I do enjoy playing in. It just makes me feel like I'm really an actor when i work in one of those places, since it has so much history. Hopefully, we can keep the good vibrations going when we head to Brooklyn.

Today started out kind of weird. Levitt ended up getting driven to the emergency room this morning by Flo. Turns out Levitt woke up this morning after going to bed completely healthy with her left index finger swollen and oozing pus. Apparently she had broken the skin somehow during one of the many days we do things that make breaking your skin easy, and got it infected. She has drugs, and it is getting better. It is the cast's opinion this will now keep her from doing anything to help at load-in for at least three weeks. The scary part is, that will probably speed things up. What I really want to know is this--Levitt works in the same environment we do--she lifts and touches the same things we all do--in fact, she actually touches a lot less than we do. We all break the skin on our hands. Even using gloves like I do doesn't completely protect you while unloading or loading the truck, and then setting everything else, there are so many ways to break the skin on your hands. And it's not like any of us are soaking our hands in a Palmolive-like concoction made up of heavy antibacterials, so how the hell does she get something like this and we don't? I've never suppurated spontaneously like that before, and I will admit to not having the cleanest hands in the world. But she must be washing her hands with toxic waste! And considering the fact Levitt has now singlehandedly knocked two hotel room toilets out of commission by USING them, one can certainly see how she just might, possibly, on a long shot be a breeding ground for foreign bodies bent on the destruction of your immune system.  I don't know what she's doing (or not doing) but I am for sure going to watch out when she comes near me.....

SO that's it really. It's been a nice weekend--Flo, Alice, Schneider and I went to a local place tonight for ice cream. Blake's makes its own ice cream and has since 1900. It was really quite good. I had eaten lunch there, and they also make incredible omelettes. I applaud anyone who actually pays more attention to filling the omelette than on fluffing the eggs. Alice has been trying to get Schneider to go to a malt shop with her for a 50's date, and she showed up completely done up in pigtails, rolled up jeans, a sweater and her hair done up in a swoop, looking very Betty from the Archie comics. She was committed. After denoting which of the Archie characters the rest of us were (Yes, I was Archie--who the hell ELSE am I gonna be?) we headed off for ice cream. Considering we have an early van call for Brooklyn tomorrow, and I'm driving the van INTO the city (I HATE NY!!!) I am happy I had this day to do as little as possible. SO ZI shall talk to you all soon, and remember--Pond in 2012--Saying NO to Toxic Waste Towelettes!