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.
Do you realize that this very day, as of this writing, is ERNEST BORGNINE'S 89th BIRTHDAY?!?!? Thank Jesus for guiding you to me to tell you this before it's too late. If you haven't seen him in Marty you must. His Oscar, you know. Also see Escape From New York, he's great in that, The Devil's Rain, lame-brained Satanic shit with WILLIAM SHATNER, Willard, which unfortunately doesn't costar Tony Perkins, and Poseidon Adventure! See all these movies and no excuses! 
