Owe My Soul to the Company Store

On the drive home from Ossining and Thanksgiving with family (mine & Berit's) some kind of illness started in my throat. As it was a sudden inability to swallow, accompanied by fever and sweating, I was worried for a while that I had developed a sudden allergy to something I'd eaten and was having a reaction (this happened to Berit's dad a few years back -- developing an allergy to crab in his mid-50s, and discovering this while driving a car and passing out). Nope, just some nasty viral thing that is annoying, hanging on, lessened to a vaguely tolerable level by DayQuil and NyQuil, and which I've given (as everything like this passes) to Ms. Johnson.

I'd complain that this always seems to happen while we're in the middle of a show, but as we're almost always in the middle of a show, this should not be surprising.

In any case, the medicine got me through the ante-penultimate performance of Kitsch last night, which had a combined good/bad audience -- good, in that there was a larger number of people who got and enjoyed the humor of the show exactly as we intended; bad, in that there was a smaller group of people who were massively rude and noisy -- quite a few came quite late, stomped around, and then (some of the same people) talked throughout the show amongst themselves and kept (loudly, from the back row) going in and out of the theatre in pairs in the middle of scenes. One older gentleman was annoying for a bit in constantly getting up and leaving the theatre and coming back, but it became apparent that he was having coughing fits and was trying not to disturb other people -- he also had the foresight to sit where he could get in and out of the place without stomping in front of everyone. Alexis Sottile nicely chewed one couple behind her out at intermission for their incessant talking (I think I heard the words "this is not your living room" and/or "this is not television" in there), but they just seemed affronted that she had the nerve to say something to them. {sigh}.

In any case, between Thanksgiving, illness, the show, and Berit wanting control of the one computer in the house with internet access yesterday (it IS hers, after all), the weekly stuff's a day late. Whatever. I'm too sick to care.

Kitsch, Or: Two for the Price of One, as mentioned, has just two performances left, tonight at 8 and tomorrow at 3, and it's been going better and better, for the most part. I would say I'll be glad to move on and have some time off, but B & I don't get much time off immediately -- The Brick's Fight Fest starts up immediately after. Berit will be leaving the performance immediately after tomorrow to go over to The Brick to run the tech for Ten Directions' Deck the Hallmans, which she'll also be running board for on the run. Monday, I'm scheduled for an 11-hour shift supervising techs -- which will probably go longer, as things will go overtime, I'm sure, and I'm also the lighting designer on the last tech of the day, The Ninja Cherry Orchard. I'm also designing lights for Piper McKenzie's Craven Monkey and the Mountain of Fury, which I probably agreed to offhandedly at some point and then forgot about until I saw my name in the publicity. It happens.

Between Hallmans, Craven Monkey, and Ninja Cherry Orchard, we'll be working with practically the entire extended "Brick Family" in the Fight Fest (except those who are saving themselves for Richard Lovejoy's January show), which will be nice. Almost wish I had a show in the Fest myself, but that would have been impossible this year. Have to work on the ideas and script for the show that came to me in a dream as a possible Fight Fest show in case the Fest comes back as planned -- Fat Guy Fall Down. A nasty little thing, that. Painful, unfunny slapstick. We'll see how this year's Fest goes . . .

And, on this late day, here's a weekly Random Ten from the 25,055 tracks in the iPod (with associated links, where available):

1. "The Joker Is Wild" - Jan & Dean - The Jan & Dean Batman Album
2. "Season Comes" - The Feebeez - Girls In The Garage Vol. 4
3. "Put You In The Picture" - Rich Kids - Ghosts of Princes in Towers
4. "Remorse" - Gerald Fried - Star Trek - "Amok Time"
5. "Six Dreams" - The Seeds - Future
6. "Beeswing (live 1994)" - Richard Thompson - Two Letter Words
7. "Baby Wachadoin To Me" - Walter Davis - The First Days of Funk - volume 1
8. "P.A.S." - Scritti Politti - Early
9. "Dr. Strangelove" - WFMU - Station Promos
10. "And I'm Glad" - The Interns - Tyme Won't Change: USA Garage Greats 1965-1967

And no pictures, as the camera was stolen and the cats won't hold still for the iMac camera. So, back to being sick and resting up for tonight's show (and closing party, the day BEFORE we actually close).