weekends 2 and 3 are now behind us, things have been pretty awesome overall and the fatigue is starting to set in a little from the long weekend, meaning things will get a little punchy from here.
Last weekend was a great one, the street was fun and crowded and Mark and I seemed to gather a crowd no matter what we did so we decided to push it a little bit and spent a good chunk of a day just the both of us sitting, having a conversation. Next thing I knew I looked up and there was a large circle of people waiting for something to happen. It was cool.
We took it further the next time (and since we really burned all the fun of throwing crap at Mark for a while with the pirate hook we have to) and ended up doing a whole hour of street with just me sitting on the ground and him sitting in the cage.
We had a nice little relationship session, it was entertaining.
We touched some people.
George and I have been doing special events during the day, which we've found are a great way to warm up before the evening show since we now spend such a massive amount of time NOT doing anything that's in our actual stage performance - and the two of us were sitting backstage at the Feast Hall getting a bite to eat (we don't do the Feast this year...) when suddenly we hear Laszlo getting the crowd pumped up with "Two fine young men that are very popular in mental institutions and women's prisons..." and we both realized that we were being introduced at almost the same instant.
I had to run and grab my hat, George had to drop his lunch and just as we were introduced we both went tearing up the ramp with enough time for me to say "Shatner?!" and that was it. We hit the show running and blew it out.
I love Jim and Laz for stuff like that, they have a huge production of a show and they aren't afraid to throw wrenches at it in order to make it better or have a good time and they trust that we'll bring a good time in return. That was fun.
Our stage shows have been a really good time even though we're hitting that weird grey area between being really open and personable with the audience and basically performing for our friends, or at least that's how it feels sometimes. I have a blast doing our show, I laugh constantly and I spend a silly amount of time trying to make George and the audience laugh. It's one of my favorite things to do, even though the geek factor of the show couldn't possibly be measured.
Where else will you have Muppet love scenes and jokes about Pierre Curie getting run over by a horse? I hope the answer is "nowhere"
Sunday we put on some body puppets and tore the place up - which is a sentence you don't read very often as well. George, Eric and I got back into our giant, walking, paper mache personalities and just ran until they made us stop. It was cool.
I forget how much fun those things are and everyone else seems to forget that we did puppets for more than a decade - we're pretty damn good at them. I hope the kids in the current puppet troupe were taking notes.
The next one up was the long weekend, which is always more trying than I remember, possibly because I'm aging rapidly due to the self abuse I subject myself to on the weekends every summer. Maybe.
And how do we pace ourselves for the big weekend? By throwing cream pies.
Will, George and I covered Mark (and ourselves and everything else in range) in whip cream and chocolate pudding and were disgusting as can be for the remainder of the day.
Other stuff happened. I think I performed a good deal.
We destroyed an audience at the Wine Tasting show on Sunday.
Sunday was Aidan's day to join dad at the Festival, followed by Owen on Monday - they look forward to every single little part of this weekend all year. The getting up before dawn, stopping to get coffee as the sun comes up, climbing up the ladder into the green room in our decrepit building...oh, and performing their asses off.
The boys had a wonderful time and both left completely and utterly wiped out (Aidan was on the verge of weeping he was so tired), Owen spent a good deal of time telling everyone he wasn't there the day before and overall they couldn't be bigger fiends for attention.
As it turned out Aidan turned into the shy twin (not his normal mode) and Owen just exploded all over the place (also, not standard) and was getting laughs, telling me when to be quiet around music acts on the street and even gave a me a "Good job, Dad" when I got a laugh.
I was a very very proud dad.
I'm glad it only lasted half the day.
The kids are a funny mix of belief and disbelief these days - they fully know and understand that these are people just like their dad and they sat through cast call with everyone, but as soon as the show is on (and even though they know they're putting on a show for the audience) they're totally won over by it - which is wonderful. Literally.
Owen and I did a bit for the King and Queen and the King came out and "hired" Owen and told me I was out of a job, which he felt very bad about. Then we saw the Fairy (who Owen saw get up at cast call and make an announcement as a normal person) and he got a Fairy Stone/Magic Poop Thing and loved it and took it home.
When I finally got home Monday night after ending the weekend on a weak show (two exhausted guys on the verge of collapse doesn't yield the best quality or decision?? Weird) and was told that Owen was "very concerned" that his Fairy Stone wasn't working...because none of his wishes had come true yet. And he knows that I know the Fairy because I work with her.
I told him later that I'd talk to her about her defective stones.
It was pretty adorable.
I am missing Saturday since I'm in Texas right now and I can't wait to get to the show on Sunday. See you in the Arena.
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