Yesterday was Oliver Hardy's birthday, and the attending festivities were too overwhelming for me to focus on writing anything. I had to get out and move around. A couple of blocks from home a truck drove by and splattered me with about 6 gallons of mud. But it didn't matter because when I tried to cross the street, and was nearly killed by a speeding Access-A-Ride van, I stepped into an open manhole which just happened to be filled with water. A cop who saw the whole thing pulled over and helped me out of the hole. Somehow he fell in the hole himself, and blamed me for it. While I helped pull him out his windshield got a little damaged and he decided I was a "troublemaker." Naturally I wouldn't stand for this affront to my dignity and told him so in no uncertain terms. His retort, "Yeah? Well, whaddaya gonna do about it, wise guy?" left me speechless. I turned on my heel to leave and he kicked me! I told him he was bounding over his steps and he said "I'm gonna wash my hands of you. Stand there while I radio for help," then he stepped into the manhole again. I ran away, and I haven't been out since.
NYGASP had its final weekend of performances at City Center. I
haven't done The Mikado since Saturday afternoon and the Ko-Ko bruises
that were lividly purple on Sunday have now faded to a moldy-looking
green. I don't care too much about the damage Katisha inflicts on me. Oliver Hardy got plenty of bruises. Our final two performances were of H.M.S. Pinafore, and I played in the pit. Which is usually a rather pleasant thing to do, for Pinafore, anyway. But I tell you (and actually, I have told you), those Bell Trio encores! Much more painful than being thrown around by Katisha. In one of the encores a rope drops down from the flies, the implication being that there's a real big bell up there, which Sir Joseph should ring. The bit, as usually performed, is that he pulls the rope a couple of times, nothing happens. He pulls again, and the rope suddenly jerks him up 10 feet above the stage! It's quite thrilling. For City Center, though, Al would have had to pay another stage hand (the place already seemed to be swarming with them) $600 per performance to come in and control the rope! Unions, you know. So all Sir Joseph could do was hang there. It was extraordinarily lame. I bitched in a
previous posting about those interminable, unrequested encores. Reread it, because it now
goes double.
Click on this photo. Ollie covered with garbage.
Having seen NYGASP perform Pinafore an estimated 18,003 times, I can assure that it never ONCE occurred to me that Sir Joseph is supposedly ringing a giant bell. I always wondered why the hell he was hanging from a rope, and that's as far as my exploration of the subject ever went. I wish I had done lots of performances of this when you had your colostomy bag. If ONLY it had opened up and spattered the horns and the audience while you were swinging! The horror (except of course if THE MESSIAH had been then and gotten hit, he would have cackled in delight) would have been divine. Good times!
Why would there be a god damned giant bell on a boat?? Hanging in the rigging? No wonder it never dawned on me, it makes as much sense as having a falafel stand on deck.
Posted by: Doug | January 19, 2006 at 12:33 PM
Ok, both the most recent blog-posting, and "Doug's" comment has made me laugh out loud obsessivly. I am at the library, and the old hag sitting next to me, clad in bright, halloween-orange (shirt, pants, and HAT) is glaring at me. I can't hold in my excitement and glee.
"Why don't you do something TO HELP me?!"
Posted by: Claudia Monet | January 20, 2006 at 12:49 PM