Break a Leg

Happy Jenday, my friends!

So, there are a lot of times where you have dreams that you can barely remember upon waking.  This is usually what happens to me.  Or like this morning, when I had a dream that my alarm when off and I hit snooze.  Now the LED screen on my Ihome doesn't work very well, so when my eyes opened for real and saw what I though read 8:30, but actually read 7:30 I thought "Oh crap!  I slept through the snooze and I'm gonna be late!"  I jumped out of bed, hurriedly showered, and raced to work.  When I got there I wondered "Where is everybody? I mean it's already...8:10..and we open at 9...."  Yeah, I was an hour early to work.  I took the opportunity to have breakfast at the cafe next door.  But every once in a while I have a dream where I remember every single detail in HD clarity.  The other night I had one of these dreams.  And it wasn't one of those dreams where you show up to school without any pants and then hide in your locker which really turns out to be a closet at the TCBY and the raccoon is trying to get you to sign over Texas so that Batman and Spiderman will stop squabbling over the toaster, and then suddenly you're Wonderwoman.  What, nobody else has that dream?  Anyway, this was a full-on action-adventure-apocalyptic movie with a plot and continuity and everything.  This will be the only written record of it until somebody comes along and steals my dream and makes millions of dollars, all because I was too lazy to do any thing more than blog it.  Anyway, without further ado...Attack of the Mutant Salamanders.

See with the mind's eye rolling hills thickly covered with evergreens.  The sky is cloudy, but the air is warm.  The trees begin to thin and then stop altogether several hundred feet from a wide but shallow stream; more of a bog, really.  On the western bank sits the castle: classic stone crenellation and walls are offset by asymmetric placement of towers and levels. Plus, the clean white asphalt that surrounds the very modern pool near the top of the eastern wall give the place a sort of neo-seudo-feudal look and feel. 

 We (this is the dream-we where the actual participants of being "we" or "us" is somewhat undefined) were staying as guests in the castle, our visit indefinite.  We had signed a contract with the Duke to come under his employ as privateers, and the castle was to become our base of operations, so to speak.  I certainly couldn't complain about the arrangement, as I was currently pool-side with a cool drink in my hand.  There was an umbrella in it.  Things were good.

After a quick sip, I decided it was time for a quick dip.  The pool was designed so that I could swim right up to the castle wall and look out over the stream below.  This was not the highest part of the castle, only about fifty high, so I could clearly see the traps that Scott had set out: glass jars with one-way caps anchored to rocks with a length of rope.  What was he after?  Salamanders.

Scott had learned that the salamanders in the area released a gas that could, in sufficient quantities, be quite explosive.  Scott likes explosives.

While watching the stream drift lazily by, I noticed movement and a flash of bright color.  Emerging from the woods was the Captain, the Duke's right hand man; a very important man; the man that we would be reporting directly to.  He was dressed in bright red pants and shirt, over that wearing blue lacquered breast plate and blue cape.  He forded the stream, and as he passed, he adjusted the placement of the glass traps to be closer to the shore.  Apparently, the Captain knew his salamanders.  He caught my eye and gave me a nod, the proceeded on to the castle's main gate.

I hadn't yet met the Captain, and it suddenly occurred to me that wearing nothing but a pair of swim shorts was not the best way to meet your new boss.  So went into may room and wrapped myself in a towel and put on a shirt that was probably clean.

The inside of the castle was very little like its outside.  The halls and main areas mostly had pale hardwood floors and panelling polished to a shine with white ceilings and track lighting.  Large, overstuffed white couches and love seats and thick, fluffy tan carpeting adorned my living area, positioned to have the best view of the country beyond and the huge flat screen tv that adorned one wall.  The rest of the place was something more like a townhouse than a castle. 

When I emerged from my room the rest of the crew were already greeting the Captain in the foyer.  He seemed very gregarious, laughing loudly and slapping crew members on the back as he shook their hands.  He greeted me with a cheer and nearly crushed my hand as he shook it.  There was some general chit chat amongst the lines of "make yourselves at home" and "let me know if you need anything".  For a man that was supposed to be as powerful as he was, he sure seemed like a likeable guy.

Later, after the Captain left, Scott and I went down to see what his traps had caught.  Most of the jars just held some river water and mud, but in a few, tiny creatures wormed their way through the muck.  They looked more like slugs than salamanders, though the Captain had assured us that salamanders they were.  It seemed the larger they got, the more like salamander they would become.  The largest one I saw was about 2 inches long and had no limbs, but did have two huge eyes on the ends of stalks coming from what one could only assume was its head.  It looked at me, almost plaintively.  Creepy.

Then there was a montage (yes, folks, I had a montage in my dream) of working down in the lab, harvesting salamander gas, injecting the little buggers with various liquids in needles, submitting them to radiation: all in the name of making things go boom.

Flash forwad to several months later: we had build some additions onto the castle: specifically and refrigeration/incubation area that lead directly out to the stream where Scott was harvesting his salamanders from.  It was basically a corridor like you might find in the basement of any given hospital, lined with large refrigerator-looking cases with glass doors so that you could see the specimen inside.  These specimen were extremely grotesque.  They looked like some sort of tumorous bread rising out of their ceramic dishes.  As I proceeded down the hallway, the corruption grew worse.

There were doors along the hallway of increasing security risk deterrence(...is that a phrase?), finally coming to the one that I thought was supposed to lead outside.  Apparently at some point we had also learned how to build doors to other planes of existence, because behind this huge, steel-bolted door was not the regular outside as expected, but some strange lava world where giant beasts (that were decidedly not slug-like at all) breathed fire indiscriminately.  Wrong door. WRONG. DOOR.

I finally found the door to the "real" outside and noticed that the door was actually right up against the waterline, as opposed to several yards from it as originally created.  And now brown sludge started to seep in the door, and not like regular brown sludge does, no.  This brown sludge was doing it on purpose.  It was at this moment that I knew we had gone too far, played with things well beyond our realm of understanding, meddled where mere mortals should never have ventured, and several other clichés.

Another door burst open and a swirl of frost spewed out.  I looked upon the impossible: the room was not a room, but a world of ice.  A cousin of the fire-breathing salamander I had met moments ago stood before me.  Guess what he breathed.  Can you guess?  I bet you can guess.  Yeah.  Friggin' frost breathing mutant salamanders!  In our basement!  And they were getting loose!

At this point we did several things.  First we called the Captain to let him know the situation.  Then we started trying to get everybody out of the castle.  This included the crew, the serving staff, and all the other grounds personnel.  But OF COURSE, just before we could start getting everybody out, helicopters show up and Army guys start repelling in.  And OF COURSE, they have the area quarantined so nobody can get in or out, because with the salamanders' morphic ability, ANYBODY could be one.  Oh, and apparently the door down stairs that lead outside actually lead into another pocket dimension, which is why the door wasn't in the right place.  So now, we're all trapped in the foyer and the only real way in or out is through the foyer.  Which means now we, a meager privateering band, were stuck between killer mutant salamanders and a tight-fisted army.  So we did what any group of impoverished adventurers would do: we fashioned an escape, stole a helicopter, and bombed the hell out of everybody.  And the last thought I had as we sailed off though the smoke was "Hey, I never did finish my drink!"

And that's how I dream.  I had consulted Yuri about possibly doing an episode based on this, but he said giant, mutant, fire-breathing salamanders weren't in the budget.  Which is Yuri-code for "Chad, you're and idiot".

Happy Jenday, everybody, although a bit late I admit...

  Been a while.  Lot going on.  The hotel shoot you guys have heard so much about was pretty cool.  Well, more accurately, it was very interesting.  It was actually quite warm.  Without giving away any spoilers I'll just say that some of our costumes well not well ventilated.  It was pretty creepy being in a "real" haunted hotel.  The bartender there told us the following story:

On several occasions male patrons of the hotel would go up to their room on the Fourth Floor: room 408 or 407.  You see, they used to be all one room, but some time back they made it two rooms in an effort to stave off "occurrences".  Well, these guests would go up to their room and walk down the short hallway into the bedroom area.  Here they would find a woman with a look of absolute scorn and hatred on her face.  The men would generally immediately apologize and back out of the room.  They would go down to the concierge and complain that there was already somebody in the room.  The concierge would claim that they certainly had nobody else checked into the room.  And when the guest would go back up...there would be nobody there.

It was after hearing this story that solo sojourns into the room became less frequent.

But the building was pretty neat, if somewhat antiquated.  The floor squeaked in certain places and there was this really annoying high pitched squeal that went off whenever you crossed the threshold of the elevator doorway...which was really bad when we tried to shoot in the elevator and kept setting the sensor off.  And there were faces everywhere: busts of smiling women that made you feel like any moment they were going to turn their heads and wink at you.

We showed up around 8 and got pretty much immediately to work.  To my surprised delight, everything went pretty smoothly.  There were no forgotten P2 cards or XLR cables, no cops showing up to tell us we couldn't shoot there without a permit, and most importantly: free ghosts no ghosts.  We shot until 5:30am, at which point I was surprised to find myself not nearly as tired as I should have been.  I guess the energy drinks really did work.  Which sucked because when I got home it took me two hours to fall asleep.
  My manager had graciously allowed me to come in late to work, but I still only got about 3 hours of sleep.

And this happened 2 Tuesdays in a row.  For me.  For Yuri, Justin, Dashiel, Dustin, and usually Hilary, they do this all the time.

Anyway, you'll see how worth it it was soon enough.

This past weekend I went down to San Diego for my friend's wedding.  First off, has anybody flown on Virgin Airline lately?  They have tvs in the back of every seat so you can watch tv, watch movies, play games, chat, order stuff, order food, order Jack Daniels on the rocks which they will bring right to your seat.  And the arm of your chair flips open and you can pull a remote control/text pad/game controller thingie out of.  I was impressed.

The wedding was held outdoors on a grassy embankment near a marina.  The groom and all the groomsmen were wearing kilts, which was pretty friggin awesome.  To be part of the spirit of things, I wore mine too because hey! any excuse to wear a kilt.  The fun all started when two very small and very adorable little flower girls made it halfway down the isle...and then bolted back the other way.  It was a nice short ceremony made slightly less short by the most rambling priest I have ever seen.  I'm an ordained minister (Thanks Universal Life Church!) and I've done a few weddings in my time.  You don't stand up there and babble all day.  You get to the point, you get a couple of silly kids hitched up, and then you book it to the reception where somebody else has paid for the booze.  And there was lots of laughter and merriment and the flexing of the knees and the flying of the kilts (that's dancing).  All in all a text book wedding.  I spent most of the rest of the day in the pool.  My friend has a saline pool, which means instead of water it uses a sodium compound that is pretty much like swimming in tears.  Which means no eye irritation, which means I could do my impression of a spawning dolphin all day long.

I hate coming back from vacation.  So, when I got dropped off at the airport on Sunday, I was wearing a shirt that reads "Tomorrow's gonna suck."  You can order them at cafepress.com.  Almost every airport personnel I had to interact with to get to my plane agreed that yes, tomorrow probably was going to suck.  One woman offered to trade me shirts, but the fake rhinestone really didn't go with my shoes.  And I love it when the pilot shows a little personality, a little humanity.  We are trusting this guy with our lives and it's nice to know that it's somebody I would want to put my trust in.  Before we left the gate the intercom came on and the pilot said "Thank you and Welcome about Flight 878 with non-stop service to Chicago."  Several people actually gasped.  Even I was started because I hadn't really been paying attention and was reading my book.  "Now that I've got everybody's attention," he carried on, "just kidding."  We all had a good chuckle, I ordered my JD and the rest of the flight went smoothly.  I happened to be in one of the emergency exit seats which has tons of leg room, which is nice for a certain 6'1" tall individual who usually spends his flights with his knees in somebody's back.

And then last night Justin calls me up and asks me if I have any renaissance style clothing.  Silly Justin, he should know better than to ask me questions like that.  He should have just jumped right to "Can we borrow some of your ren gear."  So the lads came over (but forgot my hat) and borrowed some of my stuff for a shoot.  And I know you might be thinking "Wait...why isn't Jennifer wearing the silly costume?"  Well, as a wise man once said "sometimes you get the bar, and sometimes, well...the bar, he gets you."  So you can start placing bets on who will be wearing a frilly shirt and breeches.  And I guess I do this kind of thing too often because the lads started asking me questions about period fashions and I was able to answer them...correctly.  Which means I think we can add dramaturge (or at least assistant costumer) to my titles for this show. 

I only say that because I often feel that I don't always carry as much weight as the other guys around here and more titles means I'm contributing something.  Doesn't it?

Happy Jenday, everybody.  Jenday: Good.  And Good for you.  Just remember that the worst part of the week is over and the best is yet to come.  And you say "But I thought Jenday was the best day."  Oh no, my friend.  The is just the marker, the road sign, the milestone.  From the lofty heights of Jenday you can look back out over Tuesday and all you can say about Tuesday is at least it wasn't Monday.  And looking farther back you see Monday itself, crouching like some malignant creature.  It did it's worst.  It took a chunk out of you, or maybe just tore your pants at the very least.  But you fought and won!  And now as you look down slope you see the verdant, rolling Pastures of Thursday spread out before you like a comforting blanket.  And just beyond that, the Hills of Friday rise like angels into the sky.  Oh sure, it may be rocky at the foothill, but by noon you'll find the climb much easier.  By evening you'll have reached the summit.  What glorious splendors, what untold-wonders, what delicacies of creation await you there.  And beyond the Hills of Friday, that mystical land called Week's End, where freedom is celebrated sided by side with self-indulgence.  Roam free, my friends!  Roam free!  Be not slaves to the system!  Go!  Search, play, explore, laugh, sleep, drink, eat, screw, then sleep some more!  For the wheel ever turns.  And there are not always moments to live the way you love: with abandon and passion.  Go, and when you return, keep that freedom - the memory of it as a shield against the darkness.  Know that others with join their shield to yours, and perhaps one day, we can build a wall against tyranny.

Ok, I don't know where the hell that came from.  Sort of a stream of consciousness, I think.  Anyway, that was fun. 

Wow...that finale teaser was friggin' amazing.  Did you guys see my combat roll?  That was awesome.  If nothing else comes from all of this I need a tape of that.

Oh yeah, so once upon a time I mentioned that I would have pictures of WAR, but it turns out, I didn't really take many, and most of them were of people none of you know anyway.  I hate pictures like that.  But at least I can show you one. 

 There you go: Pirate Me.  Or, as known in the SCA:  Reverend Mochran Killington - The Horny Bard.  And yes, that is a bottle opener on my belt.  Really, I would probably dress like this every day if I could get away with it, but it does get to be a bit cumbersome and police officers often frown on people wearing 10" long daggers.

I don't have much for today's blog...the week after War is always sort of a let down, but it's also vitally important recovery time.  I've been very lazy in the last week and can't say that I regret it.  I have that luxury.

But soon, I should get to work.  When I say "work" I don't mean my 9-5:30.  I mean writing more, putting more songs together, maybe doing some laundry.  Ha ha.  Oh man, I almost said that with a straight face.  Hi-diddle-dee-dee, the bachelor's life for me.

Here's an interesting tidbit about how small of a town I really live in:  This last Friday night, some friends and I decided to go out to a bar.  Normally we just party at my house because it's cheaper and the bar tender is a friend of mine.  So we decided to go to a local pub.  And I mean A Pub.  It's called the Mayflower.  All old wood panelling; English, Irish, and Scottish paraphernalia on the walls, real beer on tap, and the best onion rings I've ever had in my life.  I decided to wear my kilt.  This isn't a crucial point in the story.  I just like to point it out.  And I thought it fitting since we were going to a pub.  Oh sure, there was all that stuff about the English oppressing the Irish and Scottish for hundreds of years, but hey!  That's all over now.  Now like I said I don't go out to bars often.  So it was completely coincidental that we choose this night and this bar.  Not long after we get there and order drinks some other guys come in, one of which looked vaguely familiar.  Turned out he was a good friend of mine back in junior high.  Also turned out he was getting married the next day. 

Its things like that that always make you take a step back and look around at your life.  Seems a lot of my friends are getting married lately, and I suppose this is the time of life to do it.  Me, I can barely take care of my self, let alone a whole other person.  But, really as long as I get to go to the reception, then I really can't complain. 

And Dictionary.com's word of the day is bagatelle \bag-uh-TEL\, noun:
1. A trifle; a thing of little or no importance.
2. A short, light musical or literary piece.
3. A game played with a cue and balls on an oblong table having cups or arches at one end.

Incidentally, "piraturg" is not a word in the English language...yet 

Happy Jenday, everybody.

Wow...it took me three tries to type that line correctly...

Yep, I"m back from my week-long sojourn into the Land of Doing Nothing Very Much At All, which is technically a misnomer.  Normally, when I think of vacation I associate the word with relaxing and doing things that require very little effort or at least very little motivation.  Of course, one can get into a whole complexity of activities without needing much motivation.

Our vacation started around 3am on the 17th when we headed down to San Diego: four guys and three cars all loaded down with stuff (the cars, not the guys: we didn't get loaded until later).  We arrived noonish, said our hellos, and started the afternoon off with a dip in the pool.  The itinerary was simple: go to the firing range and play with guns, then come back and have a bachelor party.  I find that the simplest plans are the ones least likely to fail.  So about twelve of us piled up into cars and headed for the range.

Now, I have never really fired a handgun before.  Sure I fired rifles in the Army, and grew up with plastic pellet shooters and even paint ball guns, but never a real, honest to God, fits-in-one-hand bullet-spitter.  It's a little daunting at first.  That is: until you start hitting your targets.  Then some ancient human instinct arises from the depths of wherever it is stored and says "Yes. Hunt. Live."  It tried several different kinds of guns that day, from 22s to 45s, even a big ol' .357 like Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry.  And no, I did not ask the target if it felt lucky.  It's an inanimate object.  It has no consciousness and one job: to be shot at.  Even if it did have feelings, I doubt one of them would be luck.  I'd say my favorite for the day, though, was the Rueger.  I'm not talk about the old German style they used in WWII, when they would line up several Jews and see how many they could kill with one bullet.  No, this is a newer sleeker Rueger with a nice smooth action that allowed me to hit the same place time and again.  It was sweet.  But as fun as all that was, it was hot and we were getting thirsty.  So back to Mikey's for celebration.

The rest of the night went as you would pretty much expect.  There were strippers and they were totally uninteresting, which is my experience with strippers.  Not that I have a lot of experience with strippers!  Not at all!  No sirreebob.  No strippers here.  In fact...I was practically forced to watch this atrocious display of female objectification.  It's horrible what those poor girls will due for a few measly one-dollar bills.  Especially when you can only get 20s out of the ATM.

Anyway, the rest of the week was much better.  We rebuilt a fence.  We swam in the pool.  We bought pirate floating devices with squirt guns built in and spent hours just laughing and spraying each other with water from a range of about ten feet. We went to a bar in our kilts (those of us who own kilts).  One day when we were out for lunch in Coronado we saw a hotel across the bay explode because of a natural gas leak. It didn't fall down, but it pretty much took out four floors.  The added bonus here was that the pizza place we were sitting in at the time had really cute waitresses wearing tight black shirts that had written on them, emblazoned across their chests in white lettering, the words "Hot Pie".  It became a catch phrase for the rest of our vacation.  And last Jenday we went out in my friend's 25ft boat to do a little fishing.  We didn't really catch anything, but that's why they call it "fishing" and not "catching".  All in all: a good week; a manly week.  In fact...looking back over all of this: guns, construction, beer, strippers, fishing...I don't think I've ever had a more masculine week.

But hey!  We still weren't done!  We still had War to attend to!  This is usually four days of non-stop fun-filled chaos.  But then it started to rain.  Fortunately, I had purchased an 8'x12' awning along with my new canvas tent, but of which were supposedly water resistant.  Whether or not that was true I was about to find out real quick.  Turned out it was true. Yay!  I didn't really doubt that it was, but I just wanted to build some suspense for you there.  Also, we were camping with some friends that have a huge canvas pavillion which we all ended up hanging out under, either playing games or, as on the last night: gathering around the fire and raising our voices in song.  All in all it was largely devoid of crazy, though there was a few ample samplings of debauchery to be had by all.

This War did seem less eventful than Wars past, and I'd like to say it was because of the rain.  But I fear that part of it comes from the fact that I'm getting older, which means I'm less likey to do stupid things ( the emphasis being on the less).  It could also be that the people I usually cause chaos with either weren't there or were occupied by other things.  Fun is always easier to be had when you have somebody to help share the blame.

Happy Jenday, everybody!

 I have to keep saying that or else when I'm famous nobody will know.  Anyway...

 This week, and indeed for the past month or so, I've been gearing up for War.  I know I talk a lot about this, and in truth, this Jenday session is not about that.  This one is about something my co-star Jimmy Scotch has recently and indirectly touched upon, albeit from a state of unpossessing.  And that thing is Leisure Time.

 I am not the busiest person in the world.  I am single.  I am not in a relationship.  I work 9-5:30 M-F.  My hobbies are minimal.  I am the definition of Bachelor. 

But I do have this one thing I do.  I'm an actor.  

 This is not so much a choice as it is just something I have to do.  As I must eat, sleep, drink, and go #2, so must I act.  Every single person involved in Break A Leg has this compulsion.  They do it.  Not just because they love it.  Because they Need it.  You might as well say "Hey, why not try going without air, gravity and friction?" as trying to get one of us to stop.  And it is exhausting, have no doubt. 

 And when I'm not working on BaL, I have a couple different community theater companies that I love working with, and that love working with me.  Lately its been Sonoma County Rep, which is about a 45 minute drive depending on traffic.  Last year I did 4 shows with them, plus a couple of local shows and The Nutcracker, which I do every year.  Each show is usually about 3 months from the beginning of the rehearsal process to the final curtain.  Add to that working 8 hours a day, that's a good chunk of time.  I really cannot fathom being a parent and trying to live that kind of lifestyle.  My beret is off to those that do.

 So when a moment comes along where you can suddenly do anything you want without having to worry about being someplace in an hour, well those moments are worth savoring.

Last night (Tuesday) it occured to me that I had nothing I had to do.  I had meant to do laundry in preparation for War, but there is only one laundry machine at my apartment and we kinda lost the key to the door (don't ask).  I was supposed to meet up with a fellow pirate to work out supply logistics, but that wasn't going to be until later.  I had prepped and packed everything that I could possibly have done.  My room is a mess...but its ALWAYS a mess, so I feel no pressure to make it otherwise.  

And suddenly...I was hungry.

If you live near any microbrewing companies, I highly suggest you enjoy their patronage as soon as possible.  I live near a good one: The Marin Brewing Company.  Actually, I live in an area where micro brews are pretty popular, so I have access to a lot of good beer, but the Brew Co (as it is called in the parlance of our locale) is just a 5 minute drive from my house.  Its got a nice pub atmosphere: lots of wood and brass, eclectic paraphenalia on the walls, a crowd you can easily loose yourself in. Usually I'll only go if a group of people are going, because if you try to eat like that every day you'll end up rounder than a keg and short an unfortunate number of denaro.  But every once in a while, I like to go in there with a book, have a few beers order something of the starter menu, and just...leisure.  Leisure is not a conjugal verb (or a verb at all, for that matter) but if it was I like to think it would conjugate as "leise".  I just looked up "liese" on dictionary.com (today's word in umbrage) and the definition that came up was "under one's breath".  Yeah, I think that's right: a thing barely said, no effort made, the slightest of breath...liesure.

Now, at the Brew Co. they have wings.  You can either get them Buffalo style, or you can get them BBQ style.  By accident a few years back I got wings that were mixed in both sauces..and they were truly fantastic.  I always ask for them that way now, but sometimes they just bring me a plate with half of one and half the other.  This is ok, because if you eat them fast enough it's almost as good.

And as I always say: the beer helps.

I won't be around to post next Jenday, but the week after, I promise a photologue of War (as much as is decent, anyway)

Cheers, ya buggers!