Yea, FARK.com

Fark won't be linking to the Saddam execution video. We realize CNN and Fox have it, if they want to run snuff films and call it news that's their business

When? Ever?

Do we ever get too old for Teenage Angst?
Do we ever get used to getting hurt?

Happy Christmakwanzukkah!

A very subdued evening.
Our traditional Christmas eve dinner of Cheese fondue, followed by Wife begging to be allowed to open one present just past midnight. No Dice.
TV is more vapid than usual. Lots of holiday retrospectives, and saccarine sweet holiday movies. and the traditional 24 hours of Miracle on 34th St. and A Christmas Story running nonstop. At one point this afternoon, Miracle... was on three channels simultaneously, the original in B&W, the Attenborough version, and the original colorized. (Notice how NOBODY shows the David Hartman version from 1973?) Gimme a break. Surely there's a TV tech willing to work Christmas, and can change tapes occasionally? Hell, give me as much as they make, and I'll throw in a tape of Santa's Slay occasionally. That'll fix the little kiddies. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0393685/

Home time. Lots and lots and lots of home time.

So I'm now spending lots of time at home. Granted I spend quite a bit of time online, but there's a lot of just sitting and moping. I've gotten a couple of resumes out, the ones that can be emailed. For most of the job postings I'm doing now, I need references with my Resume, and in addition, letters of recommendation. Those take time, especially around this stupid holiday. Oh, the references are no problem, I've had those for a few years now. Those are easy, it's getting a hold of people to write letters that's a problem, especially since one of the guys I want to write one, works at Wesleyan, and I have his office email addy; which means it'll probably be January 'til he gets the message. Oh well, it's no big time crunch, a lot of them are late January deadlines.
One of the jobs is for a ME position at NIU in DeKalb, about an hour south of where I am now. Could be sweet, but I'm really dubious that they can pay what I need. University employment would be nice, benefit wise though. We'll see. Boss-man, or ex-Boss man now, was down there schmoozing for a job the other day, and said he put a good word in for me with them. I'm already familiar with some of the bigwigs there from their summer tour shows into NAT the past two summers. But Boss always says a lot of things, and we learned to take EVERYthing he said with a grain of salt.

We got back into the theater building the other day to reclaim a bunch of our stuff. I got almost all of what I missed the last day. And a bunch more as well. Although I remembered after I got home one more thing I forgot, my dot-matrix printer for my Macs. Oh well, there will be more reclaiming days coming up. The asshole-SM asked me about the various guns from the last show. I know I put one of them in the lock box in the shop office, but he said it was gone from there. He also mentioned that the rapiers were gone from the prop room lockup. Hmmm, strange that he was looking for those. I'm glad somebody else got them. Probably somebody who can use them.

So today was a last minute shopping trip for ourselves. Wife and I splurged on a Playstation2 this year. We've been talking about it for a while, and while money is tight now, we both will probably play, and she more than me. Something else to do than watch vapid tv. of course, she's still sitting watching tv... and I worry about her agravating her carpal tunnel again. Yet another pain to make her more immobile than she already is. So the chore for me is to find excuses to get out of the house. Maybe it'll be getting out to get to a wi-fi spot. I'm tired of dial-up.

Well this has gone on long enough. I'm tired and going to get to bed. Tomorrow is a busy day.

After 35 years...

New American Theater, my workplace and second home for the past 13 years, is no more. They closed the doors mid afternoon yesterday, and changed the locks by evening. We were in the middle of the run of Oliver! and just stopped (middle of the run, not of a performance, silly!). I even got to (had to?) break my outside door key in the lock of the alley door until the locks were changed. We all got as much of our own stuff out of the building as we could before they stopped us. Now we have to make 'arrangements' with the BANK to get the rest of our stuff. I managed to get out all my valuable stuff, CDs, computer programs, my kickin' computer speakers, drafting kit, my all encompasing Scrabble dictionary (really a Random House Complete dictionary that weighs about 20 pounds), and the booze, and my original drawings of light plots, Things that I'd have to ARGUE were mine with an outsider. Stuff I chose to get later were things like my 20 yr old Mac SE (yes, the one with the innovative built in 20Meg HardDrive and whopping 1 Meg RAM) and my 15 yr old Mac Powerbook 150 "laptop", and my espresso machine and the coffee grinder (not one of those wimpy electric ones either; you clamped this puppy to the table and cranked. You WORKed for your coffee!) and my old plastic tacklebox style (long since emptied) drafting kit, stuff like that, that's pretty obviously my personal stuff and not the theatres. There were some things I didn't get to, like up in the booth were some books and library CDs, but I'll get those later too, I guess.
So we all went next door for drinks at Octane, and somebody was running a tab, I never found out who. Cool, I'll have a Double, thank you. Then we get a text from S that she's at Carlyle, doing Beer Shots with her new Co-Workers. So J and I head off for there, and the rest of the now pretty inebriated crew of Staff and actors go to Kryptonite for another promised free round. A few beer shots and two pints, and a large pizza later, we're informed at Carlyle, that some guy and his wife, we never found out who, left $20 on the tab of the two girls with glasses and the big guy. SWEET! Now, J was planning all along to have a party at her place, 'cause she's going back to Tennessee for good unless she got paid. So we realize that we'd probably better get there so her roommates weren't stuck hosting this drunken crowd alone. However, after all this Pub-crawling, the party breaks up before too long. Pussies. But all the goodbyes had been said and all the hugs had been had, and too much longer and it would be maudlin.
Not bad for an impromptu party.
Now.
I gotta find a job.

Is this job for real??

The HELEN HOCKER THEATER, Topeka, Kansas, seeks a full-time, benefit eligible technical specialist. Position is responsible for the planning and implementation of all aspects of set design, set lighting and costume design for theatrical productions as well as special events, classes and workshops and the supervision of employees, instructors and volunteers. Includes creating working drawings for all three areas; color renderings for set and costumes, final construction of the set, installation of lighting, sound configurations and making costumes. Requires Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater Design or a closely related degree and at least two years of experience in Community Theatre or Academic Profession to include supervisory/management experience. Master of Arts or Master of Fine Arts preferred. Must have a valid class C Kansas drivers license or obtain at time of hire. Please visit: http://www.topeka.org/humanresources/hr_info.shtml for application and additional details. Annual starting salary: $31,700 to $34,100, depending on qualifications. Position open until filled, interested persons encouraged to apply immediately.

photocall

Well, we had photocall for Oliver last night, which means that a bunch of pix are now up on my Flickr site. We're back to using a neighborhood photographer, Hans. And, yes, he's as pretentious as his name suggests. Those shots are mine from the booth during his shoot. A lot of them are zoomed to the max, but still turned out pretty well. The high point came when he'd call out for more light, "Keep the same cue, but bring everything up a bit." Yeah, asshole, then it's not the same cue is it? If I'm getting enough light from 50' away, he, being on top of the actors, should have no problems. And his shots from Sherlock look like he didn't correct for Tungsten; everything looked extra amber. While the sepia look was my goal to a certain extent, it was not as extreme as in his photos. We'll see, when his shots are posted, how they come out. I miss John's photos.
It's looking more and more likely that we'll lose J our new prop girl over the christmas break. She's made it clear that if she's not paid before she leaves on Sunday for Christmas, she won't be back. Rumor has it that we're not getting paid on time again. Damn. I liked her. Cute, Smart, Talented, Cute, Feisty, No-nonsense, and did I mention, Cute? Well, I should be used to it by now, but I'm not.

Wardrobe additions

Look at me! I got a new Polar Bear T-shirt!!! After a few cryptic messages requesting size info, this came in the mail today. All the way from Baltimore and Long-lost and wayward N. I knew I loved her for a reason. She takes care of me, even from halfway across the country. She'll be elevated to Goddess status if she can get me a job out there too.

Humbug

If any of you longtime readers remember from a year ago, this is my most despised season of the year. If you want the full story, you can track down my rant from a year ago. My feelings haven't changed much. Synopsis version: I don't consider myself Christian, so that whole "true meaning of Christmas" crap goes out the window. I'm poor so the whole commercial aspect of the season grates on my last nerve, and reeks of bribery. And the whole "goodwill towards men" spiel is hollow and hypocritical; Why only one day/week/month of the year? How good a person can you be if you're only nice for one month a year?
However, the other evening, Wife brought up a very good point. Who is this Santa creep, and why are we celebrating him? Perhaps I need to start acting like him. I'm gonna start keeping an eye on various children in the neighborhood. I'm gonna keep such a good eye on them that I know when they misbehave and when they're good. I'm gonna find out where their bedrooms are, and know their bedtimes. I'm gonna break into their houses and bribe them with toys, "just to see their faces light up" you understand. Next year, they'll stand in line just to sit on my lap, and write me letters asking me to visit. Why do I have such a hard time believing their parents will go for this? Hey, why not? I have a beard. I have a big belly that shakes when I laugh. It'll work.
At least, I'll have a lot of pen-pals writing to me in prison.

A brief respite.

Well, it's finally up and running. And all the politics and BS games are starting as well.
Once again we didn't get paid on Friday. Opening night.
The board president came in and explained that while we didn't have it now, donations were coming in fast and sales were picking up and word of mouth was good, so the prognosis was good. When money comes in, the pecking order is, Equity Actors, Non-eq. actors, Band, and then staff.
The collective group of actors and staff then held a pow-wow in the lobby (to which, since the booth phone is on D.N.D. (:-O) and nobody bothered to call up the stairs, they assumed that since lights were on for the rehearsal, and that rehearsal was still in progress, that I wasn't there, and thus missed the announcements and powwow. None of them are very smart around here any more) The consensus was that everybody would work until next Friday, if by then everybody wasn't paid, we'd walk. Also decided was that each group would have a representative to meet with Boss and board to get DAILY updates. Word came out this morning that the Equity folk got their checks today.

Needless to say, the mood for opening night was less than jovial. A lot of heavy drinking was involved. There was a party at Xanadu also, which was greatly needed. I, myself, did a lot of brandys, since they had no Captain, only Appletons and Bacardi.

I've become very fond of the new props girl, J. I even snuck out with her to go see the AET show across town today. Wife was under the impression that we had two shows today when we only had the second one, but AET had both. It was a really fun show, an original script based on the PG Wodehouse characters of Wooster and Jeeves. Great cast of old-time NAT people, Barry, Patsy, Gary, DaveG., and Lydia. And they got a RAVE review from Vic at the paper. Who doesn't like farce. So that was a lot of fun, and even ran into S at the theatre, so we roped her into seeing it again with us. S and J are really hitting it off, and when I had to go to work they went on the town on their own. I think there's also poker tonight, but after coming in at 4 last night, I need to spend some home time for a bit. Speaking of which, I need to get out of here, it's almost midnight and I'm already locking up.
I'll post more about the show later. I have pix too, but the camera was in my vest that I left at the actors post-party last night. I'll post those too soon.