Comics

Last night there was a poker game at the compound. $10 buy so I did not do it. Those of us that did not play hung out in the parking lot and had a grand old time. The most memorable moment of the night was a truly fantastic misunderstanding between Dan and I. He had been telling me that we were going to swap comics for the summer (since I brought a box and he did too..... We are two little peas in a nerd-pod) and he had been saying his "survival pack." So I thought his survival pack was his box of comics. I have a couple books and movies I tend to travel with so I thought that was totally normal. There was a lapse in conversation and he turns to me and goes "I have to get something out of my survival pack, want to come see it?" So we run off to his room.
It turns out his survival pack is literally a survival pack. It's a backpack with rope, water purification, knives, blanket etc. He kept pulling things out and I kept expecting a pack of comics to come out next. By the time we got to the med kit and Kevlar rope I was starting to doubt that I was going to see batman;s face come out next. So much nerd happened in those 10 minutes. I got all excited and ran off with him because I wanted to see his comics. He got excited and wanted to show me his apocalypse survival kit. But really we both would have been happy looking at comics or camping gear. I think my favorite part is that it took me half a backpack full of heavy duty survival gear to realize that he probably wouldn't have put his comics at the bottom of it. I think we are forging a great friendship.

For my birthday tomorrow I am going to go horseback riding in the day. Then after the show we are going to have a Batman party. I have Dan to thank for that one of course. I didn't know what to theme my party and he said "What's your favorite TV show?" We looked at each other and said at the same time "Batman: the animated series."

Bully Run

I ran the Bully Run yesterday. I just did the 5k not the 10k. I haven't gotten my time back yet but judging from my watch it was something like 37 or 38 minutes (my best time is about 36 minutes). I felt like I was running painfully slow but I think it was actually just a fast group of runners. And walkers, one of the "walkers" passed me on the first mile. It was so demoralizing. But hey, we all got the largest t-shirts known to man. Mine is a medium and it is hanging off of me. The extra small was nowhere near small enough or the little runner girls.

I'm also suffering from a minor summer cold the last couple of days. Last night I was grumpy and sniffling and just not having it. But I wanted to have fun on a Saturday! So I went to the bar with the gang and just told myself I would not drink much and sleep in this morning. We were standing around on the porch chatting after we got back to the compound and Marc said he was going to bed, then he looked at me and said "And you need to go to bed too, and drink your vitamin C and get your rest." Suddenly I was nine and caught doing something I wasn't supposed to. I might have pouted a little. 

Last night our audience was over 13,000. The amphitheater seats 2,852 people so presumably later in the summer we will have larger audiences. Probably the 4th of July.

Superman

Dan (center) and I put together a little outing to Dickinson for the Superman midnight showing last night. We made a pact before the movie to love it no matter what. Which we did, although I do think it was actually good. There was a long pause after the previews and before the movie (maybe five minutes) and poor Dan (being the giant Superman fan that he is) was starting to panic that the movie wouldn't work. I was reminded of the time the visual but not the audio went out when I went to the Dark Knight and I totally freaked out. So I patted his shoulder and told him it was fine and the movie would start any minute. Basically both of us need a serious check of priorities. But a good time was had by all.

New Friends

We inserted our sit in keyboard player tonight. He is staying for about 10 days and then will need another player for the rest of the summer. The band is tight enough that we could play the show without one in a pinch, but it would definitely sound better to have keyboard. Chad (new guy) has played the musical 9 years previously so he knows his way around, but he did hit a couple bad notes. Mostly he was smart enough to back off if he wasn't comfortable and let one of us cover him. But whatever, he's not Jim so we are ecstatic.

I'm so happy here with these people. Marc and I shared the ultimate bond tonight and made "that's was she said" joke at exactly the same time. I also bonded with a singer Dan because we are both big nerds. It's so nice to have a fellow nerd in the cast. Tonight I freaked out because someone was talking about a guy name Tim Drake. Tim Drake is the second Robin, from Batman. All I got was a bunch of confused musicians staring at me. So when I saw Dan I told him and we freaked out together about how awesome it was.

Everything falling into place

The first "opening night" that was rained out

Last night the show was Amazing! The sheer energy of us all was a cycle that kept everyone pumping through the whole show. Sandy played keys for us since we didn't have a pianist. He is really a joy to work with. Anytime I looked at anyone on the stage I got a grin or a smirk. There a couple of moments in the show where we are just so tight and good it makes me laugh. I'm starting to believe it when people say we are the best band they have had in a while. If anyone needed proof that Jim needed to go that was it. As soon as he was gone we all perked up and played great.
Throughout the day Jim was texting Curt from the bus (presumably) threatening to sue, asking for more money and eventually just sinking to laughably bad insults. My favorite was when he called Curt a "cheat thief" whatever that is. I'm just glad he's gone. That creeper gotta creep somewhere else!
Today I went for a run and then have been just lazing around in the sunshine chatting with one of the singers and eating an egg sandwich. Now I am going to take a well earned nap before we head to town to do it all again.

Relief!

 It is official so I can post it. Our band leader (keyboardist) Jim has been fired for being an insufferable jerk. The five of us were starting to panic that he wouldn't get fired because he is a decent musician and we thought the powers that be would value that over our good spirits. I am not wired to hate people, mostly I like everyone but I have never in my life so obviously hated someone. He yelled at us about things that weren't true, picked fights with us in front of the cast... the list of horrors goes on and on. Sandy will be filling in for him for the next couple of days and then Chad the band leader from last year will play the summer with us.

The crew went out for Mexican this afternoon in celebration. It's a beautiful day, we ate good food and we never have to see Jim ever again. The summer is looking up. The only one missing is Roger since he doesn't live in the compound with us. He lives in Medora where he can be a grouchy old (but very lovable) British man who goes to bed at 9pm. I'm very fond of him. It would be nice to have him with us but he (very reasonably) doesn't want to listen to us kids shouting fart jokes at each other at 1am.


There is no way to describe how stressful it was to have Jim up in our business all the time. I kept just bursting into tears over nothing and then laughing REALLY hard about things. Like when you are 12 and you get embarrassed because you can't stop laughing at a joke? That's been me. (although some things really were that funny, Ed's Chinese laundry moment is one for the books. I've been laughing about it for three days.) Everything was just so tense all the time that it was coming out at weird times. Now we can relax and give a great show to the audience.

Sunday morning

This beautiful Sunday morning we all had to go perform Down to the River to Pray for a church service at the amphitheater. We were all so very tired that we could barely speak. After that we had a catered brunch and then everyone has retired to their room for a nap.

I just don't see myself ever getting tired of this view.