Weird Weekend

I think I can officially declare this a really weird weekend. Good, but weird.

We had another battery of shows this weekend. Sweetie Tanya has begun to actually, literally sell out. For a small black box show in the Mission to start selling out during it's second weekend... it's pretty freaking awesome. There's lots of talk about our need to do a "bring your own venue" Fringe Festival remount. Whether we do something like that in September, or if I can secure us a theatre around June is unknown. But the consensus seems to be, this show is too hot to just let die after 8 shows.

To compound the weirdness, I was interviewed by some folks from Comcast before the show on Friday. We had to rapidly get the set on stage, and dress it while the camera crew set up. I had been alerted that they would be there by the fabulous Peggy Powell, but it's still very odd to rush to get your show ready, and then stop in order to get the microphone put on right and then get fed basic promotional questions. They seemed pleased and they remained to film the first half of the show, so if anyone sees "local event news" on a Comcast station and wants to tape it for me, that would be cool.

It gets even stranger though. As cast and crew Google "Sweetie Tanya", strange things have begun to come up. In particular, we've had TWO people post "missed connections" on Craigslist for people that they were checking out at the show. Call me strange, but a musical about sexual harassment is not someplace I would consider to be prime territory for scoping out your next lover. Then again, all the guys on stage are being so creepy, that maybe all the guys in the audience look good by comparison?

Before the Friday show, I was over at Zack Stern's for a round of "Rock Band". I've heard the hype on this game, and I have to say that I really had fun with it. I'm decent on guitar and bass, but I completely suck on drums. I mean, I played guitar back in High School, so fret work of the basic type required by the game feels pretty natural. Getting my hands and feet coordinated for the drum pads was a humiliating task. Still, I wish we had done it on a night I could have stayed longer. After the show I went out for drinks with Neil Howard, his fabulous wife Lex, and Eleanor Reinholdt. Normally, I'll go out for a single drink and then bolt for the BART, but with Neil and Lex out all the way from NYC, I decided to go ahead and make a late night of it. I don't do the $40 cab ride home often, but what'cha gonna do? We stayed until the bar literally threw us out... at 1:40am!

I love San Francisco, but that's just ridiculous.

Saturday night was another late one, as I went to Consumating's "Prom" after the show. I went to the first prom two years ago, shortly after discovering the site. I met a lot of great people that first night, so I had been looking forward to Prom 2. Arriving after midnight, however, was a bit anti-climactic. I didn't have the benefit of the hours of drinking that everyone else had, and the party was much thinner than the first one. Still, I got to see Nina and to finally meet Will. So for me the trip was well worth it. I got to meet a few new people who I had only experienced online, but mostly it was just nice to see some familiar but infrequent faces. I ended up crashing at Brian Schirmer's place afterwards, much more tired than I realized.

Sunday was characterized by sleeping too late on the couch, relaxing with brunch, devouring a book on the way home, taking a deliciously hot bath (while still devouring the book) and Radiostar. I got a show about a third edited before heading into the city with our new microphone stand for our weekly recording session. We haven't met over the last two weeks, and we decided to take our first experimental steps towards the planned Radiostar SERIAL. This involved the return of Jennifer Jajeh to our ranks, who has been MIA for months now.

My evening was just beginning, however, as I needed to get to the DNA lounge in order to catch Kurt Larson's return to the stage. I found out long after I met Kurt that he had been in the band Information Society, but as I was into "Contemporary Christian Music" at the time the band was at it's hottest, I failed to have more than a peripheral awareness of it. So, this was really my first experience of Kurt's showmanship. I had heard a good sampling of his work over the years, but never seen him perform live. It was a hell of a show, and jam packed.

It's always strange to watch people throwing their bras and panties at the guy who you've spent hours hunched over Magic: the Gathering with.

So yeah, all in all... a weird weekend.