Hot Cranky People

During “The Great Yard Sale Sort-Out 2004″, I ran across a few DVDs I was reluctant to part with. Although the movies were total crap, I had a soft spot in my heart for these DVDs, as the addition of these films to my collection marked a turning point in my life. Yes, I’m speaking of the day I stopped being an eternal loser.

Oh yes, my friends. I am a winner.

Well, sort of.

A few years ago, I went to a theater/cabaret awards ceremony. Despite a little bitterness about being passed over this year, I decided I would go anyway and support all my pals. It’s usually a fun time.

“Ooh! A raffle!”, I thought as I walked past a table piled high with CDs and DVDs. I had never won anything in a raffle. And by never, I mean “never.” Ever. It was always the same story. An endless cycle of breathless anticipation followed by disappointment and dark despair. But every time, I would buy the tickets and hope. It was no different that night. And I figured since I wasn’t getting an award maybe at least I’d win the 20 Broadway CDs package, or the big pile of Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett & Bob Hope DVDs. Or perhaps the 12 classic drama DVDs. There were several other packages too. They all looked good, and since I had recently gotten a DVD player and I only owned 3 DVDs, an “instant collection” sounded terrific.

The night wore on. And on. Lots of people (not me, remember) got awards. I watched as they all brushed past me to get to the stage to accept. My shoes were uncomfortable. I drank a lot of cheap wine. I ran into an ex-boyfriend and we had several “wow we really have nothing to say to each other” moments. Another ex-boyfriend, recently married, accepted his award and cried during his speech while saying how much he loves his new wife. Everyone got bored and antsy. I watched my fingernails grow.

Finally, it was raffle time! Could this be it? The end of my lifelong string of raffle failures? I clutched my ticket stubs hopefully and leaned forward in my seat…

My hope began to fade as my date won the prize he was hoping for, the Lucille Ball/Bob Hope/Carol Burnett collection. Then to my left one the owners of the nightclub where I sing won a collection of 20 pop dance music CDs. I was still holding out hope for the Broadway CDs, or the 20 cabaret CDs, or the drama DVDs, but I’d take anything. Then the other club owner won the cabaret CDs. Mind you, there were several hundred people at this event, and so far 3 of the 7 prizes had gone to people at my table.

You see where this is going. No winning ticket for me. Oh well. Loser it is.

As I trudged toward the door to leave, I ran into the event organizer, who is a pal of mine. I jokingly said, “See? I told you I never win raffle prizes.” Well, he reached across a table and handed me a gift bag. ” Here. Nobody claimed this one…it’s yours.” Score.

I could hardly believe my luck! I hurried outside with my prize to show my date that I was no longer, in fact, a total loser. He asked what I had won. In the excitement of crossing that magical threshhold between loser and winner, I hadn’t even looked. I soon realized that it was a package of 11 comedy DVDs. Excellent! Wahoo!! All I remembered from seeing that pile on the entry table was that there were 2 Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVDs. Yay! I AM A WINNER.

Unfortunately, they went downhill from there. Here’s what I got:

2 Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes
Slap Shot
Slap Shot 2:Breaking the Ice
Trading Places
Brewsters Millions
Which Way is Up?
Big Fat Liar
K-9:P.I.
Metrosexuality
How High

So add Waiting For Guffman, Harry Potter, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail and there you have my entire DVD collection. Extensive, no?

Now I’m not complaining, because I did finally win something (well, I didn’t technically *win*, but I’m counting it. Just try and stop me.), but that there is a crappy list of movies. Sadly, most of these treasures were sold in the yard sale. It was tough to part with K-9:P.I. and Slap Shot 2, but I did what I had to do. It doesn’t tarnish the fact that I AM A WINNER.

Well, sort of.

Years ago I was playing Glinda and Aunt Em in a production of The Wizard of Oz. After the farmhouse/tornado scene we all exited through a trap in the stage, which served as the storm cellar. I then had to make a ridiculously fast change into my Glinda garb: huge crown, giant fluffy pink dress, etc. I was then supposed to make my dramatic and magestic entrance into the Munchkinland scene by rising slowly through the same trap door, on a lift. We’re not talking fancy hydraulics here, just me on a platform and a guy with a pulley. All through the tech rehearsals I was having problems with my dress getting caught on the way up, and early in the run of the show disaster struck. I made my change, jumped on the lift, and began to slowly emerge up into the center of the stage.

As I got about thigh high up onto the stage, the gears came to a grinding halt. I gave the skirt a few tugs, but I was really stuck. We’re talking yards and yards of tulle stuck. This was neither dramatic nor majestic. Well, I had to go ahead and start the scene with Dorothy, because it was underscored and the timing would have been off if we waited. So we did the whole are-you-a-good-witch-or-a-bad-witch thing, with me sticking out of a hole in the stage. The audience was chuckling…Dorothy was chuckling…Finally, I gave the dress a huge yank, and the lift popped up all the way.

Everyone laughed uproariously, and I thought it was over. With my pride slightly damaged, I continued on. But they didn’t stop laughing. I turned to face a different section of the audience, and all the people behind me just roared. (Did I mention that this theater was in the round?). I reached back and realized the entire back of the dress had been ripped open, revealing my tasteful Valentine panties, white with big red hearts all over them. I did my best to sort of shove it back together, and I had to do the whole Munchkinland songs and scene (it’s about 20 minutes long) holding it closed…Not my finest hour. This was summer stock in a small town in Indiana, and I obtained a small amount of celebrity as “the actress from Chicago with her ass hanging out”. Ugh.

I have lots of embarassing stories like that about stuff that has happened on stage, but sadly they don’t differ too much from my embarassing stories about being drunk. Most of them involve falling down or saying something stupid in front of a bunch of strangers.

September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Argh.

We has some pretty amazing yard sale shoppers:

The crazy lady who found what she wanted and just stood by the scarf (or “wall hanging”, as she put it) and then screeched, “WHO IS IN CHARGE? IN CHARGE! WHO??” until I went over to talk to her.

The professional belly dancer who bought a storage unit. She was really cool, actually. I took her business card and I’m hoping to get to see her dance at a Turkish restaurant in my old neighborhood.

The enigmatic yet smelly bearded man.

The people who will haggle you down from 50 cents to a quarter, then pay with a hundred dollar bill.

The groovy teacher lady who bought a rug and an array of throw pillows to decorate her classroom. She was cool.

The other teacher…she started out cool and then turned into a bit of a needy nutjob. In my three minute interaction with her I learned A) She teaches 8th grade, B) she is divorced from a manic depressive drug addict who took all her money, C) she has a blood clot in her arm from taking birth control pills, and D) she used to date Jeremy Piven. Did I ask for any of this information? No.

All in all, a good day. After we put the leftover merchandise by the curb for the scavengers, Arlo and I went out to drink wine and eat ourselves into a carbohydrate coma. Good stuff.

Hey! It’s almost Halloween. At least that’s what they are telling me in the bread aisle.

1. Took a flight where one of the flaps wouldn’t go down for the landing. After flying around a while longer while they tried to figure out what to do, we made an extremely frightening landing with just the one flap. We were met at the gate by the flashing lights of a zillion emergency vehicles…”just in case”, as they told us. Eek.

2. Stayed at a creepy hotel.

3. Stayed with a friend on his sofa

4. Stayed at a nice hotel.

5. Sang at the Kennedy Center. That was a pretty amazing experience. And they have very, very tall drapes there.

6. Met most of the members of Digger Phelps. These guys have been online friends of mine for a while so it was great to meet them in person. I also got to enjoy watching my friend Mary Ann in a homemade harem girl outfit accompanying them on the tamborine. Good times.

7. Went geocaching in DC. There is an insane number of virtual caches in the city. We got six and then crashed. So much walking.

8. Ate really good clam chowder.

9. Had expensive room service breakfast. I *heart* room service.

10. Wore high heels for too long. Ow.

Beware of popping and locking.