No. These Are NOT Clemson Logos.

For the past few months I've been thinkin' about a little tribute to my orange kids, Snoop & Turk.

 It felt funny to even ask Freak for cat paws because he does some really nice work that's a lot more detailed.  He did my feet that one time.  And we're talking about doing something to fill in some space on my back.

Anyway, while these are mainly for my boys, it occurred to me that the timing was pretty much purrrrrrrrfect (*groan*) since also working on "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof".

And this picture taken just after they were done makes me laugh cuz it looks suicidal.

You Can't Spell "Theatre" Without "The"

When Matthew & I were first starting out, he'd come over to my apartment & was checking out my dvd collection and pointed at the musicals stash and said, "What's that about? Were you in those or something?"

It's funny how much I've been thinking about that question recently.  Dammit, he's so good at that and he doesn't even MEAN to be.

In, maybe 3rd grade?, we read a play and I loved everything about it, the way it was formatted, that it took multiple people to read it out loud....etc.  So, I wrote my own starring the Christmas tree and my brother.  The tree spoke with flickering lights I'd blink on and off while doing voice over from underneath it while my brother played his part standing next to the tree.  If you ask her, my mother will not remember this happening.

We did some plays and puppet shows in church, but during high school, I missed out on any sort of drama club because it was either unavailable or I was already working and didn't have time for extra-curricular activities.
Luckily, that's the only thing I'd ever really say, "If I had to do it over again..." for.
Apopka High School did two productions while I was there, Our Town (yes, I cried) and Show Boat which had the most impressive stage boat set I'd ever seen.  That fucker was two stories and REVOLVED in 2 separate pieces so the outside of the boat was one set and the inside of it another.

My grandparents owned a music store when we were growing up and were into musicals, so The Music Man and The Sound of Music were annual staples and I was obsessed with one of my grandmother's music boxes that had a couple dancing while a Phantom of The Opera song played.
Maybe it's a genetic thing that I'm a musicals fan.  My favorite is when someone says they "hate muscials" but can then sing along to most songs in the movie versions.
Like my mom says that she hates musicals (...or just most things...) but then knows all the songs from Fiddler On The Roof, or Porgy and Bess, or 7 Brides For 7 Brothers.

Rent and Ragtime are probably my two freakin' favorites and Chicago would be the show I'd almost certainly die to be in.
Perhaps in another life.

Last week, I teased a little about being over at Mad Cow.

About a month ago and after a few weeks of bugging the Production Manager, and email bombing the overhire program alias, I received a reply asking if I'd be interested in being a Stage Manager for some upcoming shows. (there were a lot of strange high pitched happy noises that followed simply due to receiving a reply)  My response to them included the fact that I'd be starting out completely green and that it would be better for me to jump into an Assistant Stage Manager position first so I could eat everyone's brains and gain their knowledge.
After doing some homework, what I liked about this was that it paralleled my old gig as a Sales Associate/Inside Sales Support but instead of a District Manager, I now have a director.  Instead of a sales team, there's a cast of actors.  Instead of the operations team, there are the production teams.  There was a slight sense of familiarity making it not completely feel like I'd be a mermaid out of water.
So, for the past couple of weeks, I've been playing the role of Assistant Stage Manager for Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof".

As soon as I found out which show I'd be working, it was time for more homework.
First, was a viewing of the Liz Taylor/Paul Newman/Burl Ives 1958 movie version.
Then I found out that Tennessee Williams hated that flick, so I went over to YouTube and found a Jessica Lange/Tommy Lee Jones/Rip Torn 1984 PBS version...which was pretty stinkin' great.
The father/son relationships and struggles being a strong and common theme, I told Matthew that his freakin' family was ripe for a Tennessee Williams play. If Mick is reading this, I'm sure he'd agree.
My next round of homework is more research on Tennessee Williams and to read a book one of our actors wrote.

Will keep you guys posted as we go.

The show opens Friday 3/21 and runs until Sunday 4/20.

KAREN:     If you need me...I'll just be...uh....down at The Theatre.
(...cue strange high pitched happy noises.)

CURTAIN

A Return of Sorts

Lots of you guys already know this, and to quote a phrase my old boss used to say about past work experiences, "In a previous life...."
I worked at Walt Disney World.

I was there for about 4 years starting the summer before my senior year of high school.  Hired in to be a cast member for Magic Kingdom attractions/entertainment (which ended up being more of a food service with a show, but I'll get to that later) at The Diamond Horseshoe Saloon Review & Medicine Show.
It's closed now - probably being used as storage or a character meet & greet space (just like the Animation Studio at "Hollywood Studios" is a cold empty husk of the magic it once held).
While it was open, we served cold sammiches and chips and ice cream and sodas while a stage show with magicians, singing cowboys, and can-can girls performed.
It was an entertaining food service attraction.
We dared to blur the line between departments.
Because of this, I was able to cross-train at a few other close by attractions like Haunted Mansion, which was the best because it was the only place you could give your face a rest from all that smiling and being nice to people.
(...hello, Jesse. consider this a virtual hug.)

(awkward pic pose)

2 years later, I moved over to Typhoon Lagoon to be a lifeguard.  But not one of those cool lifeguards like those that got to dive the shark reef for most of the day or like the guys standing above the wave pool.  I was a shallow water guard.  Which meant watching people float down a lazyass river, telling kids not to climb rocks, ster-bac bluing the snorkel gear, and tube stacking.
Before we were even allowed to stand poolside with our whistles, there was, of course, a certification class where were taught CPR and other life-saving techniques in the deep end of a pool at a YMCA.  An older gentlemen in our class ended up having a heart attack in the pool during a session and we had to do a real life emergency rescue....

Anyway, during this lifeguarding phase, I was also taking classes over at Valencia 3 days a week and working 12-14hr days. Sometimes picking up event shifts that had me clocked in from 6a.m. to 3 or 4a.m.
Make no mistake, lifeguards party just as hard as they work and I had some of the best drunken nights of my life that I probably shouldn't remember.
(...Neil?? I think you're the only one from back then who may or may not read this. HI!! ...also, luckily for us, I can't find any pictures at the moment.)

The park would close for two months in the Florida "winter" for renovations & maintenance and would send its cast members to the other parks and resorts on property. I was sent into retail at a gift shop at the then-named Disney Institute (now called Saratoga Springs) which was the most boring gig but gave me an awesome opportunity to do a claymation short film as a part of the resort's "area awareness" training.
The resort used to run 2hr workshops that people could take in gardening, animation & claymation, and a few random other things....photography was in there, I think.  Apparently, people don't want to learn on vacation because it doesn't appear they do that stuff anymore.
That day in the claymation shop, we were broken off into 4 groups of 3 or 4 and my group was inspired by Bambi Meets Godzilla (below) so we did a similar little ditty but instead it was a pink poodle floating down a river on a raft and it gets eaten by a purple tentacled monster from below.
It took us 2hrs to complete a 12 second clip.  Will do some digging to see if it's hidden in a box in a closet somewhere.

When Typhoon reopened, I went back to lifeguarding before itching to get back to the entertainment side of things and auditioned to be in....no...wait....to be A Friend Of the Disney Characters and ended up being great friends with Rafiki, Pluto, & Eeyore over at Camp Minnie Mickey (recently closed) at the Animal Kingdom (...hello, Bambi, Michelle, Jen, & whoever else may be lurking....HUGS!!) just after its Grand Opening.
(Had some pretty fuckin' awesome drunken nights while I was here, too.  *daydreamy sigh*)
(bleh....some not so awesome, too)

And then I tried to swing into being a Puppeteer for the Lion King Show (recently closed) over at Disney's Animal Kingdom but got caught up in a stupid union thing that fucked over my chance. Pissed off (mostly with myself), I picked up odd shifts here and there, becoming friends with Brer Fox, Mr. Smee, and Wendell the Country Bear over at other parks & resorts and then left to become a photographer at Animal Kingdom (3rd party), which was still kinda fun because then I was taking pictures of all my friends who were Friends of Disney Characters, but really kinda sucked because we were doing the same framing, seeing the same character poses...for hours, for days, for months.  And with a shitty manager.
I got burnt out.  Fast.

Completely disenchanted & struggling, I left theme parks/entertainment/hospitality all together to go swimming in the tech pool for about 14 years.

And, so here we are.  15 years later and I've returned to entertainment.
In the form of Mad Cow Theatre.
Which, unbeknownst to most of you, has been a goal of mine for the past year+ and is on my list of things to accomplish for 2014.
I seriously couldn't be happier or more excited at present and will share more details next week!!

ARGH - CLIFFHANGER!!

Jamaican Me Cray

At the beginning of the year, Matthew asked me where we should go for the next three day weekend.
Around the same time, Mom requested to be invited to the next trip out of the country so she could get a passport stamp.

As Matthew's luck would have it, the next three day weekend and next trip out of the country happened to fall on Valentine's Day Weekend.
Pretty sure this is how sitcoms get written.

Also, remember that one time I lost my passport in Amsterdam?....well, this trip put me under the gun to get my emergency issued temporary passport renewed in time for our 2/14 departure.  Of course, being me, I'd put it off thinking it didn't expire until the end of February.....so imagine the look on my face when, on 1/27, I finally looked at my temporary passport and noticed the 2/14 expiration date.  By about noon, I'd had all my paperwork filled out and new picture taken and everything off to be overnighted to a Philly address on a hope and a prayer.  The paperwork all said that the expedited process would take 2-3 weeks. It showed up in my mailbox a week later.
The sense of relief that washed over me as I opened the envelope that day was indeed a glorious one.

The idea of Matt going alone with my mother for a long weekend in what ended up being Negril, Jamaica provided about an hour's worth of jokes and laughter with Pannacakes.  Good thing I didn't tell her about it until after the passport arrived.

Before we'd booked the trip, I'd done some research on Jamaica vs DR and knew we'd be good for an all-inclusive. Most of the articles found pointed towards Jamaica and then after reading some resort reviews, we determined that Negril was the place to go and the RIU Tropical Palace was the place to stay (mainly because it wasn't already sold out).

The trip looked a little like this:


We got some nice sunburns.
We drank a lot of rum, pina coladas, mimosas, Red Stripes.
We ate some really nice curries and jerks. (heh)
We met some really nice people.
We steered clear of some slightly questionable things and we didn't drink the water.

Jamaica was fantastic and I wouldn't be upset if we had to go back.
With more friends.
Mom's invited again, too, although she was makin' some noise about Costa Rica for Christmas.

Does This Blog Make Me Look Fat?

So I changed the colors and fonts.  New year, new look.
I also cut my hair off and haven't updated any of my profile pics yet.
I've been stockpiling things to talk about so things seem more interesting.
That's half of the truth.  The other half is that I've been writing more.  In a book. With a pen.
But in that book that I'm writing in with a pen....I stated my 2014 goals and blogging weekly was one of them.
It's only mid-February. It's still early enough in the year.

Admittedly, I've been slacking here due to overthinking.
What day should we stick with? Should it even be an assigned day? What to write about? Should it be a recap? If not, what kinds of things should it focus on? Should it focus? Can I focus?
Until I get overwhelmed and don't know where to start anymore....

Like I just did now when I went to facebook to reply to a message.
So many people doing so many awesomely great things....who the eff cares about my thing when there's SO much awesome out there?
Then I feel small and insignificant.  And then I remember that we're all small and insignificant.
So, then I'm stricken with inspiration and I'm like, "FUCK YEAH, THERE'S SO MUCH AWESOME, I WANNA CONTRIBUTE TO IT, TOO!!"
But then, when I do....I feel like my contributions suck and there's no way it could ever be as awesome as the awesome that's already out there.
But then, I think, if I don't keep contributing to the awesome, how will it ever be even close to meeting the potential of someday being awesome?

And really - the best way to tackle all of this chatter in my stupid noggin is to
SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DO WORK.

There's nothing to show for overthinking things.

The important thing is to start.  Somewhere.  Anywhere.
And what better time to start than now?

See you next week!! :)

2013 Highlighting the Ups

Matthew and I were at dinner the other night talking & getting excited about what we want to do in 2014 and discussing how we thought 2013 went.
Apparently, I had my cranky pants on because I said it was an "OK" year and he said it was "pretty fuckin' awesome".
I've realized since then that unfortunately, and for some stupid reason, my noggin was choosing to highlight some of the more awkward 2013 moments instead of all the seriously amazing things that happened.

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to write out the rundown of awesome (and skipping over all the not-so-awesome), not to be a douche braggart, but to further reinforce those in my head instead of those less than optimal and maybe it'll help you do the same. I've seen your facebook posts about how crappy the year was and/or how you're ready for 2013 to be over and it's ok if sometimes we need reminders to clear our perspectives.

January was again full of drunken shenanigans at the Scottish Highland Games.  I dove head first into renovating the Dollhouse of Horrors and started building out stage pieces for the Bloody Jug Band...some by request, others not so much. We also saw Charlie Murphy down at the Improv.

February was more Dollhouse of Horrors work and a trip to Helen, GA.  We also went to see Muse at Amway Center and I cried a little bit at how amazing their show was.

In March, we saw the Dropkick Murphys again, I puppeteered for the Bloody Jug Band's video for "Roadkill Boys".  This was also the month we did Whole30 for the first time and I submitted my last photo for the 12month long Inspired class I'd signed up for in January.
Yep...I totally fell out of it for the rest of the year because of shiny new things and being inspired elsewhere.  But I'm glad I went out with a bang.

April started with a trip to see The Marvelous Mehegans up in Corning, NY.  I took a banjo lesson, we finally ate at Cask & Larder and Ravenous Pig, saw Tony Bourdain at Hard Rock, and visited Disney. This is also when I started thinking about a miniatures.com contest entry.

May was, of course, insane with a Mother's Day pool party that got way more rowdy than what was intended, a concert poster design class on Skillshare, a couple of BJB shows, and was capped off by a trip to New Orleans, LA for my & Pannacakes' birthdays.

June included a Glassman show at Peacock that was pretty killer, a visit with Vaughn & Jen to pick up one of my favorite purchases of the year (Betty & Veronica pictured below), jury duty selections for George Zimmerman, and was also when I received my walking papers from the company I'd worked for over the previous 12 years.

July started off with new hair to celebrate my corporate departure, a crazy 3rd of July party at Pannacakes', followed by a rained out pool party at the Merriam's for the 4th, a Khal Drogo costume for Matthew, the 8th Annual Summer Bomb, a couple of visits to DRIP, and Marilyn Manson at Hard Rock.

August had a The Cult show at HOB, another couple of BJB shows, a trip to Busch Gardens followed by a viewing of Blackfish, a Danny Leggett show, Cedric's surprise birthday party, a drunk monologues shoot (shut up, I'll get to that later), and a trip to Ocala to see April and her fam.  Made a fake movie poster for a friend's birthday and finished up a painting for Cedric & Michelle's anniversary.

September we rocked our own logo for a Labor Day weekend pub crawl, went and saw Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes at Hard Rock and then went to see them again during the Gentlemen of the Road festival weekend where we also saw Mumford & Sons and stayed at a dumpy St. Aug beach hotel.  And we attended a lovely DIY wedding.

In October we went to see Terribly Odd's Haunted Mansion inspired show, Ghost at Amway Center where they shook my pants and hair, I made a mermaid costume, had the best weekend at Spooky Empire where I finally met Tom Savini, hugged Bill Moseley & Ve Neill, told Glenn Hetrick that I'd be his huckleberry, fingered Kane Hodder's left gloved hand during a photobomb, and sang "Goodbye Horses" to Jason Mewes. We finished off October in Austin, TX to celebrate my & Matthew's wedding anniversary and dress up like the 11th Doctor and a Reptilian Shapeshifter for Halloween, and met up with The Krutikovs for some kick ass high-end mexican food with the first best mescal drink I've ever put down my neck followed by the best burlesesque show I've ever seen.

November I made a sideshow freak light-up sign out of an old guitar case & built out two rickety crate shelves for the Jugly Art show at Peacock and then Matthew & I left to spend a week in Amsterdam for his birthday where I lost my passport.  If you ever lose your passport in another country...hope you're in Amsterdam.  They were so nice and the whole process was a lot smoother than expected. We also met some great & crazy party people and Matthew gave up a Heisenberg shirt to a loud Scotsman. We spent Thanksgiving in Arizona with Matt's family during which we had a lovely evening strolling through the botanical gardens looking at giant lit up Chihuly glass sculptures in awe.

And so here we are at the tail end of December and I've submitted my Evil Dead Cabin to the miniatures.com contest before deadline and am making a Gatsby-style dress for New Year's Eve. We had a crazy drunken Pannacakes party, and a silly family presents exchange day that included Cards Against Humanity and boxing robots. We spent Christmas in San Francisco where we saw Brian Setzer Orchestra on Christmas Eve, Matthew got his first proper straight razor shave, dim sum in Chinatown, lobster bisque & crab salad at Pier 39, and we ate some pretty awesome food at some pretty awesome hotel restaurants and had The Best gin & tonic either one of us had ever had and the second best mescal drink I've ever put down my neck.

And peppered in throughout the year we were bombarded with Harlem Shakes, BatDad Vines, Breaking Bad, Red Weddings, Doctor Who, A Fox That Says Things, Goat remixes, Miley Cyrus' tongue, Blurred Lines, Twerking, Grumpy Cat & Li'l Bub, and an Astronaut Singing Space Oddity on the freakin' Space Station.

This year, like all other's before it, has included lots of ups and downs and were it not for the downs...how would you know just how up the ups are?
Plus, you'd probably be an insufferable asshole.

Even if you're a generally positive person like me, and incredibly lucky with a shit ton of ups, there are times that the Veil of Crap can fall down over your eyes to muddy your vision.
I am SO grateful for how up my ups were this year and I appreciate having those downs when they came along....but there's No. Possible. Reason. a down should ever overshadow an up....so remember to not let them, ok?

Thank you, Matthew for reminding me of that & helping to remove my Crap Veil.
You're absolutely right....2013 was pretty fuckin' awesome.

Cheers, everyone, to 2014!!  May your ups be fuckin' killer and your downs be valuable lessons to overcome.

The Evil Dead Cabin

For the better part of the past few months, I've been workin' on this little ditty for this little contest.
You buy the shell and dress it up how ever you want.
Most of the furniture is bought except the couch.  I made that, the curtains, the reel-to-reel, and the Book of the Dead.

So, without further ado, may I proudly present to you, "Ash's Cabin: In The Off Season"....uh, in one inch scale....

Yes, I realize it's missing a porch. I'll get back to that.

I have most of what I need to build the porch but had to sacrifice a porch swing chain for the cellar door and I felt the interior was a bit more important before the deadline.
So, we'll see what happens a little later and...y'never know, maybe Ash will even show up.