Somebody's Stealin' My Baby

Well, the great big lousy awful jus'-plain-shitty news of the week has been that Petey Plymouth (aka "The Funambulator"), that beaten-up ol' 1994 Plymouth Grand Voyager minivan with the flaking-off paint and the constant breaking-down over one thing or another, was actually STOLEN (!!!) from 2nd Street between 1st Avenue and Avenue A in Manhattan this past Sunday.

Berit and I are annoyed (that our ride is gone), pissed (that we had a few things in there we miss - nothing irreplaceable in the long run, but including several gifts to us that we valued -- a jigsaw, a digital camera, a nice new 3-piece suit -- not things we can just get again easily), and stunned (that of ALL the cars on that block to steal, they chose a beaten-up 1994 minivan -- WHY?!).

Here's the lost boy in happier times -- as usual, in front of The Brick, as once seen on Google Maps (they've changed the street view of Metropolitan Avenue since then), during one of the Clown Festivals:

And unfortunately, as the car was actually my mother's, registered to her in Maine, the police aren't being too helpful in allowing me to even REPORT the theft as (understandably, yes) I have to PROVE that I have some connection to the car. Mom faxed me a whole bunch of documentation, but it wasn't good enough for them (faxes, that is), so I'm waiting for a package of original documents to arrive. As of now, even if it turned up somewhere, the police wouldn't know that it was stolen, or who to contact, as they wouldn't take the report. Great. All I can do (until I can actually make the report) is check online to see if the car's been towed or ticketed for being left in some other location, and be ready to grab it if it is.

The theft was a crappy end to an otherwise wonderful Sunday past, as we had a magnificent matinee of Kitsch at Theater for the New City (followed by a great Indian dinner on 6th Street for Berit and I). There were only 8 people in the audience, and I told the cast to just blow it out and have fun with it, and they did and gave the best performance of the run thus far. Until last night.

We only had 6 people in the house (which seats 85, so BOY does it look bare with less than two handfuls out there) last night -- there WERE 8 for a while, but right as we were about to begin a couple realized they were in the wrong theatre and left to go to the "correct" one next door. Damn. We also had a strangely vocal (with each other) young couple, one of whom left for the bathroom for a while during Part One, and then suddenly decided to leave altogether right as the lights came up on Part Two (after sitting there through most of Intermission). And did so with audible goodbyes and many kisses to the woman he left sitting there. Then, for whatever reason, having left, he came BACK IN midway through the scene, as the actors were, you know, working, and said goodbye and kissed his date AGAIN. Very distracting.

That said, the cast topped Sunday's performance with last night's -- which was fast, funny, confident, and energetic. I hope these qualities don't decrease as we get more audience back in (I know some of the speed will as we have to hold more for laughs again, rather than running on over the handful of chuckles we were getting last night). And I hope we GET more audience back this week . . . it seems like EVERYONE I know is coming to next Friday's performance. Everyone waits for closing week anyway, and now since we're doing a post-Thanksgiving ticket discount, people are waiting to take advantage of that, I think. The show's last two performances have been killer, I'd now like some others to enjoy this, too.

There's now a set of photos from the show, for those who are interested, HERE.

And here's this week's Random Ten from the iPod (with associated links) out of the 25,179 tracks in there right now . . .

1. "In the Mood" - Walter Horton - Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950-1958 vol. 3
2. "Forty Four" - Geoff Muldaur - Mix Disk from my Dad
3. "Heartbreak Hotel" - John Cale - Seducing Down The Door: A Collection 1970-1990
4. "Lookin' for a Place to Park" - Slim Gaillard - Laughing In Rhythm, #2 - Groove Juice Special
5. "Up & Down" - Mom's Boys - Pebbles Volume 9 - Southern California
6. "Ride Your Mule Part 1" - Marvin Holmes & the Uptights - The Git Down!
7. "Theme From 'The Traitors'" - The Packabeats - Highly Strung Vol.1
8. "Night Comes On" - Leonard Cohen - Various Positions
9. "Song to Woody" - Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan
10. "Leiyla" - The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band Part One

And from the now-gone digital camera, a few last shots . . . first a Friday Cat Blogging shot, with Hooker and Moni doing their occasional yin/yang act on the chair at the computer . . .

And here's a shot from backstage at Theater for the New City a couple of days before we opened, as Berit paints "Vogelbaum's" painting from the show during one of our late nights of working . . .

Now, off to napland before the long subway {sigh} ride into the city for the show . . .