Look at me, fancy free, gonna dance, gonna prance, gonna chop your stinkin head off.
The wife and I are actors and we love live theatre. (I know, I know, we’ve already covered this.) However, I know that not all people share our love and every once in a while I see something that reminds me why those people make fun of Broadway musicals.
I saw a show tonight set during the French Revolution. One of my favorite numbers from this show is about the people being killed by the guillotine, as those whacky French were wont to do in the later 1700s.
Yes, that’s right, song and dance as a dude gets his head chopped off. Musicals and plays, and movies for that mater, already ask the audience for a little willing suspension of disbelief, but dancing during an execution is a bit much.
And that is what those who hate theater hate about it. Watching people prance about, performing their little dance steps as they sing about killing people takes something out of it. I would have staged it differently, but they decided to dance.
So, hey, next time a guillotine rolls into town, break out the dance and get jiggy, because someone’s head’s a-gonna get lopped.
The Bug Still Has a Hold
As I have mentioned before, I love performing in plays and musicals, and my wife and I have even started a website devoted to live theatre in Utah, which I have also mentioned before. Because of my being trapped here at the Hell Hole, and also because I am in a mad dash to get my degree, I have not been able to perform in a theatre production in almost 3 years.
Now, I have tried to convince myself that this was okay. I have told myself that I would be okay if I wasn't able to do it again, after all there are more important things in life that I have to see to now. Plus, the amount of weight I have gained since working at the Hell Hole would preclude me from doing anything anyway. And that's okay. It's okay. You have to grow up sometime, right. It's okay.
Then the other day in a conversation totally unrelated, my wife asked me, "Well, when are you happy?" The very first thought that came to my mind was, "On stage." I didn't tell her that is what I thought. But that was the first thought to the question of when am I happy. I am happy on stage.
Then tonight, I saw two friends from the theatre world saying they missed me and wanted me to come back. My heart ached to be connected to that world again.
Maybe it's not so okay.
“Someone with your qualifications would have no trouble finding a top-flight job in either the food service or housekeeping industries.” Ghostbusters
The problem with the Training Table is going up to the counter to get your food. Sure, calling your order in from the phone at the table is really nifty or something along those lines, but every other time I use a phone to order food someone delivers it to me. But not at the Training Table. I phone the order in, and then I have to go get it. It seems so unnatural.
Anyway, we had just taken our food to the table when one of our drinks accidentally spilled.
“You need a towel?” We turn to see the bus boy table clearer guy (whatever they are called at Training Table) leaning on the railing surrounding the eating area.
Do we need a towel? No, I was just going to lick it all up.
“Sure, a towel would be great,” I said. He then holds out the towel he has been using to wipe down tables. It was already wet and didn’t do much more than to move the spill around the table.
“You need another towel?”
Yeah. How about a dry one, moron?
By the time this schmuck moseyed off and returned with another towel, my 6-year-old had already retrieved us 2 stacks of napkins. Good thing too, because get this, the second towel was also wet. He had apparently ran it under the water before bringing it to us thinking that, I don’t know, water eats Coke. He hands us the wet towel and then resumes his spot leaning on the rail and watches us as we do his job.
When we were done, we just slapped the wet towels on the table next us. There was no way I was going out of my way to hand the mouth-breather his towels back. I figured if he wants them bad enough, he can make the tremendous trek around the railing to get them himself.
He eventually did, with no offer to get us a new drink, by the way. They offer free refills. It’s not like it was that big of a deal. How hard would it be to say, “Hey, can I get you another Coke?”
Instead, we had to make another trip to the counter.