The Seventh Sense

The Full Monty: Epilogue

Show closings are always bittersweet for everyone involved, but I think for everyone associated with the LTWS/CTG production of The Full Monty, it was particularly hard.  Myself included.

It seems like years since we sat around on first rehearsal, with everyone stating their name and who they are playing.  But it was only a couple of months ago.  For me, it was some old and beloved friends and some new people I would grow to love and admire.

Since then, we've experienced our fair share of frustrations, laughs, wardrobe malfunctions, running jokes, feet going through walls, parades, promotional adds, etc.  It's all been good.

The last week of the show was by far the best from a performance standpoint.  We had large and receptive audiences -- even the closing show (a Sunday matinee!). 

We had a lot of two-timers and three-timers in the audience this week, people coming back to see it again.  That's pretty cool.

I always marvel at how these things come together.  There's a wonderful backstage dance that happens in productions like this, where things happen like clockwork.  A pen shows up in my hand just as I need it, right before I go onstage.  A cast member is there to help another cast member do a quick costume change.  Things like that.  They're there; there reliable; you can count on these things.  Not much else about life that goes that way.

The nice thing about a four-week run is that the show gets really polished.  You've added things; you've changed things.  A subtle look here.  A pregnant pause here.  An added phrase.  You discover what works, and fix what hasn't worked.  The last week of this show was, in my mind, twice as good as the first week, purely from a performance standpoint.

On Sunday's matinee, the pre-show entertainment (a Triad Idol winner) sang the opening strains of "Tomorrow", and the cast -- including seasoned vets -- started to digest the impact of the upcoming 3 hours.  "Last time we'll do this; last time I'll say that".  It kind of got to us, but the curtain rose and we gave them a good show.  I was already primed for a letdown, having been reminded by Heather that we probably weren't going to appear onstage together again (she's moving to NYC).

But the show was a thrill, and fun, as always.

Then came strike, the ultimate anti-climax to a two-plus-month thrill ride.  It went suprisingly well and mercifully quick (as strikes go).  Then, exhausted, we mumbled goodbyes, made future plans to get together.

I got in my car and drove to Winston.  Seals & Crofts "Summer Breeze" blared from the iPod.  Sure I'll see these people again (I hope), but not in that setting, not in that show.  Nothing like it ever again.  Tough to let go.

But what a journey, huh?

Previous Full Monty posts:

• Full Monty: The Audition
• Full Monty: The Callbacks
• Full Monty: The Cast
• Full Monty Preview
• Full Monty: Dress Rehearsal
• The Full Monty: The Review
• Disaster Averted
• "Chippendales They Are Not": Another Full Monty Review
• The Full Monty: The Morning Show Promos
• The Full Monty: The Fox Promos
• Finally... The Full Monty Promos
• The Full Monty: Greensboro
• The Full Monty: Closing Week
• The Full Monty: Another Article
• From the Heather Denielle Maggs blog

Bancrofts Take Murdoch Deal

Looks like the Bancroft family is going to sell their controlling interest in the Dow Jones Company to Fox owner Rupert Murdoch.

This means that Murdoch will control News Corp., which owns the Wall Street Journal.

Which means...

Roughly 70% of Soldiers Still Support Bush

Sampling size: two

The other 30% of the soldiers got blown off in Afghanistan and Iraq.

More from the White House photo-op:

THE PRESIDENT: I've been running with Max and Allen -- I mean, Neil. I met these guys at Walter Reed. Neil lost both legs, and he told me he's going to run with me on the South Lawn of the White House. Max lost his leg, and he told me he was going to be jumping out of airplanes with the 101st Airborne.

***

Q How does it feel to be with the Commander-in-Chief running around the track?

SERGEANT DUNCAN: Fantastic. It's an accomplishment. It's like the pinnacle of recovery, I think. Being a wounded vet, coming of Afghanistan a little over a year-and-a-half ago, being here, running around this track is just amazing. I couldn't ask for anything better.

THE PRESIDENT: Don't ask him why he outran me.

Q Why did he outrun you?

THE PRESIDENT: Because he's a faster runner. Anyway, thank you guys. It's a proud moment for me, a proud moment.

What the News & Observer says -- couldn't be more true:

One hopes that the administration will go beyond an expression of interest. Bush should move without delay to carry out proposals in the commission's final report, none of which are overly complicated or costly. Veterans are in need, right now. The Iraq war proceeds. Delay would be unconscionable.

Much of the work that the nine-member commission recommends is common sense and should have been implemented before the rush of casualties began to arrive in military hospitals and on Main Street. For instance, the report calls on the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs immediately to create comprehensive plans for the wounded, including the care needed, where it should be provided and the proper sequence. It says more needs to be done for service members suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The process for granting disability needs reform.

The government needs to provide more support for the families of the wounded. Recent surveys show that two-thirds of injured soldiers have reported that family members or close friends spent extended periods of time with them during their hospitalization. One in five left a job to stay with a wounded service member. Certainly, families shouldn't suffer financial distress in order to help military casualties heal.

Chief Justice John Roberts Has Seizure

Here is the video of the seizure, as re-enacted by goats:

[H/T/:tbogg].

Roberts is fine, by the way.

Like You Need A Reason?

Researchers at the University of Texas surveyed people to find out why they had sex.  The total number of reasons: 237, everything from “I wanted to feel closer to God” to “I was drunk.”  The most cited reason: “I was attracted to the person.”

Well, yeah.  I would hope.

Now, there are a lot of reasons to have sex, and quite a few reasons not to have sex.  Of all the reasons not to have sex, I can't get behind this one:

A  new phenomenon in New Zealand is taking the idea of you are what you eat to the extreme.

Vegansexuals are people who do not eat any meat or animal products, and who choose not to be sexually intimate with non-vegan partners whose bodies, they say, are made up of dead animals.

Many female respondents described being attracted to people who ate meat, but said they did not want to have sex with meat-eaters because their bodies were made up of animal carcasses.

"I don't want to have sex with you because you're body is composed of dead animal carcasses"? -- Now that's a rejection!

God Must Love Foreign Film Directors

First Bergman, now Antonioni

Codger Of The Future

Policy Trumps Facts: Part XXVII

Yet another example emerges of the Bush Adminstration keeping you in the dark:

A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.

The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate.

It's nice that we have all these experts in government who are knowledgeable about things like global warming and health care, and the government KEEPS that information muzzled.

The report was blocked by a 37 year old guy named William R. Steiger, who is George H.W. Bush's godson, and whose parents are friends with Rummy and Cheney.   What qualified him to 86 a report on global health?  Was he a doctor?  An epidemiologist?  Nah.  He's a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history .

Enough Already!

Been kind of busy lately with the last week of "The Full Monty" (more on that in a post later-to-come), so I haven't been watching the political news lately.  Apparently, I haven't missed much.

Everybody is still talking about Hillary Clinton's cleavage (or lack thereof): here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here...

How Old Am I?

According to this place, I have 16 years left on this planet:

Biological Age:           44

Real Age*:                 51.4

Average Life Expectancy:        75

Your Life Expectancy:             67.6

Well, that's a fine how-do-you-do!  Guess I gotta make some changes....

*Age based on health, lifestyle and habits