pie

birthdays here on the circus are a fun event - there's a tradition, i've found out, for the clowns to "pie" you on your birthday. as you might imagine, when it's your birthday it's in all of your friends and co-workers best interest for you to get pied. so, of course, they're all in cahoots with the clowns.
now, if your hush hush about it, then it can lie under the radar, but that's difficult because the Clowns have spies and people on the payroll that you may not even KNOW about.
and since everyone knows about it, of course they're on guard so it's quite an occasion when it gets off successfully.


it was right after a show, i think on a 3 show day, and right as i came off of the bandstand Amber (prop, now lights) walks right up to me and strikes up some convo. This was new, but i stood there, and i slowly realized that she wasn't talking about ANYthing. a change in the wind, a quick glance, but too late. Right from behind, Squeak the Clown pied me. He pied me good, he pied me hard. good thing i had glasses on.




most times, if it done right, it's a complete surprise, i, at least, realized what was going on a split second before. not poor Wages. Cricket the Clown got right as we lured him out of the dressing room. As his bandmates, it's our responsibility to ensure a public pie.

touring 101

i'm constantly amazed at how this show runs. i'm speaking specifically about loading in and loading out. setting up and tearing down all of our things, putting it on the train and moving to the next town to do it all over again.. to come in on opening day and see the whole thing set up is easy to take for granted. we finish our last show for a city on a sunday night around 10:00 and sound check in the next town is usually around 2:00 pm on that very wednesday.



now, load out usually takes anywhere from 6 to 10 hours depending on how easy or hard the building is to get out of. (where the loading docks are and how many there are is usually the biggest factor) so a load out will finish in the wee small hours of a monday morning, then we drag ourselves back to the train for a much earned shower and sleep and a wonderful train run. load in will be in that tuesday starting in the morning - around 6 or 7 and last into the night.






now, there's a small crew that doesn't do the train run, but instead do what's called an "overland" which just means that they go by bus to the next city, ahead of the train. (we realize that both train AND bus do indeed go OVER land, but that's just what we call it, so there)

the purpose of this is to do what's known as Pre-Rig. department heads and whoever signs up to help or is needed (i'm not entirely sure the exact personnel, i think it rotates week to week...) all go on the overland for pre-rig which leaves right after load out.





6 am - finish load out
9:15 - bus from New York to Philadelphia (where i'm at now)
3:00 pm - pre-rig in Philly.

so, essentially, anyone crew member doing an overland is almost working/up for 2 days straight just about every week! :/
that's a little nuts - they are put up in hotels (since the train isn't there) and i think, they're given a meal allowance.

still - crazy.

finally get some sleep on monday night, get up to load in for usually 12 or more hours on tuesday.

simply nuts

itchy

the odd thing about living on a train is that, from time to time, it moves. it's a mobile home in all senses of the word. even more so than what we're used to knowing as mobile homes. i've actually lived in mobile home a couple of times in my life - interesting times, great stories, but it Didn't move, not once.

now, the interesting thing about living on a train for an extended period of time is that, if it Doesn't move, it feels .... well..... weird.

we played East Rutherford, NJ, then NYC, and today we're loading into East Rutherford ... again. The train has been spotted in Seacaucus, NJ which is a 10 minute amtrak ride into NYC and a 15 minute bus ride from our engagement in East Rutherford.


so, we've had no reason to move for the past 3 weeks or so, and we're going to be moving until this upcoming Sunday night/Monday morning.

now, if a train doesn't move, then it's just like any other place that people live in and doesn't move - and really, considering the sizes of our quarters and general change in living conditions, the MOVING is the coolest thing aBOUT this place.

no train runs apparently manifest itself in humdrum, agitated, weary circus folk.
guess i've gotten used to to those weekly rides and wonderful sleep. maybe i could suggest that just once a week in those cities where we play this long - they could just take us out for a quick lap ... you know, just so we can keep our heads on straight.

New York City

so, now we're here in NYC and it's a pretty exciting thing to be playing in Madison Square Garden. we just loaded in today and despite the rain and a little cold - i'm pretty pumped. this looks to be a hectic schedule and there'll be all eyes on us because NY is our biggest market for the tour.

the Times is supposed to reviews us, and from what i'm told, that's a big barometer for how the rest of the tour will go.
a crazy piece of trivia, is that, as of the middle of March we've already done ONE HUNDRED shows !! that's crazy to think, but it's true. so, the difficulty now is that the show is starting to run on auto - speaking for myself i suppose and no one else, but i imagine it might be similar for others. the show is definately running more smoothly now, and people are hitting their cues right on - and it's that exciting part of a production where the show kind of starts to become what it's going to become.

all these things are great, but it's part of the job to make the repitition sound fresh i suppose. i'm excited about the city - gotta see some broadway shows and i'd like to go to the Met. the empire of course, but i've noticed that the statue isn't that high up on my wish list - i suppose if there's time sure ... we'll see - either way i'm sure it'll involve as little sleep as possible.

birthday continued

after recouping from the Super Karaoke madness we drove up the mountain. the air was crisp, our spirits were high, our bellies were full and the windows were down.

check out the christmas trees! ->









John and Kevin took us up these two trails, Lost Cove Cliff and Harper Creek Falls. Now, they're both from here and these, we're told, are the best trails taking into account time available and the hiking comfort of the group.



firmly confident that our day will be a good one, and that our guides are trustworthy and knowledgable of the mountain- we press ahead

now, i forget which trail we took first, but i do know that the first one wasn't as steep as the second one. it was a relatively easy walk - don't get me wrong, we were breathing heavier than is usual and were definately sweating, but it was a good - you feel your whole body working, kinda way.

after treking up the narrow, leaf covered, slightly moist, sometimes tree root riddled path, we got to our first great view.
there was this waterfall and we came out from our trail at the top of it where we enjoyed a relaxing moment.

we all laid on our bags with a shirt covering our faces and just breathed in the scene.
after going back down, we went back the other trail which was significantly steeper to climb though the payoff was great at the end.

halfway-ish up this beast was an apple orchard albeit dead for the season, it was a nice break spot seeing as we were pretty out of breath by then. But, of course a steep climb means a great view and that's nothing less than what we got!

Sure, the walk was rough and slippery in places. Sure, there were times when we wanted to turn back, thought we could climb no more. True, I had doubts that my legs would last, but it was that faith in our comrades and knowing that no one is going to admit outloud that THEY'RE tired that kept us pushing forward. And, in the end we were on top of the world!

going to work

i am seriously almost done with a new post, but i wanted to put this video up since it's quick and easy. I finally got my new camera - and it does video as well, so this is just a trial from that. we're there in Hamtpon, VA and we're just getting off the bus headed into the arena, the Hampton Colesium if i remember correctly.

nothing fancy, I'm just meandering backstage looking for the band dressing room when i run into Shawn, our drummer who kindly directs me. looks like he's enjoying some lovely pie car food, which just got a new paint job! it got a little banged up a little while back, and we had to endure local roach coaches in the meantime. We were excited to have our beloved pie car back and it's back to normal complete with complaining about pie car.

catch up

alrighty ... so, winter quarters has long been done, and with that, followed a period of decompression. i think that period just completely drained everyone, and even just now do i feel recovered. it feels more like we're touring again. our first few cities after WQ were all in Florida, a state which, is nice but not when you only see the state fairgrounds and train and that's it, that's it!, that is IT!!!

the plan is to travel up the east coast - as of now, we're in Virginia - norfolk, to be exact. but we'll get there . first, some 2008 highlights

this was my first new year's in a train yard - and it turned out not to be so different from a regular train yard party - and f.y.i. there really AIN'T no party like a train yard party. no fireworks though ... i know, it sounds like a such blasphemy, but it's true. there was lots of music and wonderful cookies from a very special friend. (thanks again!) however, so, all in all, i give it a thumbs up. remember, new year's was not only new years it was also one of VERy few days off, so everybody was really just too exhausted to get really crazy. we did 6 day weeks and 10-12 + hour days .... yada yada yada, did i mention the bisque?

right, so new years... good.

then.... there came something called my birthday - this occured circa February 7th - that was a thursday, but i started celebrating around Feb. 3, a Sunday, as SOON as our last show for the city was over.

i completely skipped out on load out and load in. load out was right after the show sunday night. load in was, i believe, on tuesday. the point is, we had from sunday night till wednesday when sound check was scheduled at 1:00pm.

plenty of time for
1) Super Bowl Watching - i'm not a huge fan, but it Was a great game.
2) Karaoke House Party
3) aMAZING food
3) cool house with a porch swing and
4) hiking in the Appalachians



these first few are from the house of John's stepmom's side of the family's house .... they were having a Super Bowl party
and were most accomodating.


now, i've never been much of a karaoke guy, but, as you can see, that's exactly what took over the evening after the game. they also had a pool table in the garage and a BBQ grill out there, so you really couldn't escape the food.




Some folks got down with some songs in Tagalog, which we didn't really understand, but enjoyed fully, nontheless. Joon (someone PLEASE correct me if i spelled that wrong) got stupid on the mic to a song that i dubbed Tagalog Tool! He was rockin' That's him in the orange shirt.



everybody got their turn on the mic, but when melissa played MC and started doing the robot to Technotronic's big 90's hit : "Pump Up The Jam" it's safe to say the party got crazy. Admittedly, i got in on the action when i found Radiohead's "Creep" on the playlist. and we all brought the house down with Ace of Base's "I Saw The Sign" simply ... NUTS!












a great homecoming for fulk, and a great start to my birthday week.

---

here's a shot of Fulk's house in Boone, NC. it's so cozy it's ridiculous. we got there the day after and recouped from the Super Bowl madness. I mean, just LOOK at this place! How could you NOT relax?! And what better place or hosts to show us around North Carolina?

just look at this lovely living room and porch. John grew up in this house and another in the same area. the mountains around here are beautiful, it's the start of the Appalachians - the Blue Ridge, I believe.

I'll put all the hiking Pics in another post, so ... don't fret!