sha in LA

randomness

Yes, I’ve been a bad blogger lately. Getting back into the swing of things, in more ways than one. Back at the theatre 3 nights a week after my 3 month run of freedom is going fine. The fact that my beloved MacBook is randomly turning off is a bit frustrating especially when I’m working on a post, or just zoning out on the internet. I’m taking it as a hint from the universe when that happens rather than attempt to get the problem resolved.

I’ve been so caught up in things that I failed to mention how I spent last Sunday; satisfying a longtime goal of being a fly on the wall in a Broadcast Truck at a live sporting event. Back in June, when the Mets were in town, I caught a game at Dodger Stadium. Upon my exit, near the Broadcast Truck parking area, I finally got up the nerve to say “hi” to the guys hanging out there. I asked if I could peek inside and they let me. I got talking to them and they invited me back in July when they were scheduled to be here again. So on Sunday I made my way to the truck about an hour before broadcast time, reintroduced myself and pulled up a chair in the back. I watched with amazement at the brisk coordination it takes for the Director to call the cameras, the Producer to time the broadcast and prep everyone, the Statistician to pull random shit outta thin air just-like-that and the Announcers wing it on the fly. Not to mention, the game was a very close one and exciting all the way up until the end....especially with 3 of the 8 people in the truck (including me) routing for the Dodgers and a surly Transpo Coordinator itchin’ to just get the flippity flip back to New York. I’d love to be a part of that on a daily basis. It’s like theatre magnified by a thousand.

This coming weekend I’ll be doing what I do every year at the end of July, spending the weekend in a hotel by the airport with numerous swing dancers from all over the country.

Forgive me if I’m quiet again for a few days....

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Tuesday Night Gathering (part deux)

In the continuation of the newly formed “Tuesday Night Gatherings” – E, P & I got together again and added a consonant to the mix, H. We all met on the 32nd floor of the AT&T/Transamerica building at Windows, which will be closing in 7 days. Mainly there to gawk at the view, we had a quick drink and pondered our dinner options. E3rd? Nah. Royal Claytons? Possibly. Liberty Grill? Yes! Partly because we hadn’t been and partly because it was within walking distance.

As we made our way over to 10th and Flower from 12th and Olive we realized that we rarely, if ever, spend much time actually walking through South Park. Once at Liberty Grill we opted for the patio seating because it was a lovely, temperate summer evening and already I knew we had the propensity of being a bit rowdy. Due to a late lunch today at work I wasn’t all that hungry so E & I split a Fishwich....a good sized piece of grilled Mahi Mahi with lettuce, tomato, onion and special sauce on a bun. It was quite tasty and I definitely would have finished the entire ‘which had I had the chance. P had a pepper crusted turkey burger with grilled onions, tomato and lord knows what else. It was about as big as his head and he seemed to enjoy the entire thing. So did another table which accidentally got his first burger off the grill.

Afterwards we decided to have a nightcap poolside at the Figueroa Hotel. Apparently the Downtown News had their annual “Best Of” gathering earlier in the evening and I ran into Richard Montoya from Culture Clash as soon as I walked into the bar. Shortly after sitting down I spotted Commander Andy Smith. I’ve never met him in person but am an avid reader of the Downtown News (where he’s regularly featured) and immediately recognized him. Not one for subtlety I went right up and introduced myself, mistakenly asking if he was Captain Andy Smith in the greeting. He promptly and humorously corrected me, “Commander.” We talked briefly, he was amazingly friendly and outgoing and a real “people” person. That brief encounter was the absolute highlight of my evening. Other people get off meeting “movie stars” and I get off meeting “Downtown’s stars.” Yes, I am a geek.

Undoubtedly more Tuesday Night Gatherings will be happening in the near future, stay tuned.

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a royally good tuesday night

A few weeks ago E, P & I set a date for a Royale Happy Hour feast, dubbed happyhourREMIXED. We have been wanting to try the food for a while and with happy hour prices on both food and beverage it seemed like a no brainer to us, sample an assortment of tastes at a slightly less cost. Tonight was the night of said plans and we all converged upon Royale within 5 minutes of each other. and in separate vehicles...typical Angelenos coming from work from vastly different regions of the Southland. A DJ spun records in the corner, Tyler poured our drinks and we commenced eating as the sun slowly set just beyond Lafayette Park.

We ordered practically everything on the menu. Seriously. Out of 15 items we ordered 9. Outstanding highlights agreed upon by all were the Pork Spareribs, Mac & Cheese, Crabcakes and Salt & Pepper Shrimp. Don’t get me wrong though, all of it was damn tasty and nary a morsel was left after our 3 way assault on the food. Dessert included a lovely Peach Tart, which in certain circles is considered my nickname.

We played around with Eric’s new camera trying to find good photo settings....I think we succeeded.

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row row row your boat

Just returned home from the Lotus Festival and would like to report that the Blogging.LA team posted a time of 8:17 in the Dragon Boat Races. We tried as hard as we could to replicate our winning time last year of 7:09 and for a while it looked like we’d accomplish our goal. We started out strong but experienced some trouble halfway through the course, once back on track we continued and had our eye squarely on the prize though the last leg of the race proved to be the hardest.

Originally we were scheduled to race at 1:15 but were bumped up to the 1:00 slot due to a missing team and ended up racing against APAIT. They started off wobbly but quickly figured things out and definitely gave us a run for the money. But the real team to beat was KTLA-CW...the only other team in the “media” category. They raced at 2pm and I decided to stick around to see the final result. It wasn’t pretty but they beat us handily with a time of 6:59. They must have been putting in some serious training in the off-season to post those kind of numbers.

The real rockstars of the lake are Eric Garcetti’s team who posted a time of 6:17 which is truly an amazing feat, at least in this sense of the boating world.

Never fear, Team MetroBlogging.LA will be back next year to reclaim our title. Jillian has a plan already to get us in tip-top rowing shape and we studied the optimal seating set-up afterwards with the faster teams....we have a few other plans up our sleeves but those are very secret.

[our 2nd place trophy]

A few pictures can be found here with more coming as they row in....I mean roll in.

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on sunday we row

[Team Blogging.la 2006; photo by Don Garza]

This weekend marks the 30th Anniversary of the Lotus Festival in Echo Park. It also marks the 2nd year that blogging.la will be assembling a team to participate in the Dragon Boat Races, of which I participated in last year and will be doing again this year.

We sure could use some sideline support so if you find yourself free on Sunday afternoon at 1:15, and have some spare pom-poms laying around, please stop by Echo Park and cheer us on to V-I-C-T-O-R-Y.

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whoosh; the sound of life passing me by...

My weekend flew by in One Fell Swoop....both figuratively and quite literally.

The next show I'm Stage Managing is called One Fell Swoop, written by Robert J. Litz, and we were in tech all weekend long. I arrived at the theatre at 11:30am on Saturday and left 14 hours later just after 1:30am. On Sunday I was there a full 12 hours, 11:30am to pm. The bulk of my time was spent in a little box barely bigger than my somewhat petite frame.

Many thanks to Don and Kimmy for re-arranging my digs, it's much roomier now without a big dimmer pack sitting directly behind me. It's also noticeably quieter.

Tonight we had the night off but tomorrow night we get right back into it, fine tuning stuff before we open on Friday. It'll be a long week but well worth it in the end.

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walkin' fool

As you can see by the above referenced calendar, I have officially become a walkin' fool. Yes, there were only 4 days in June in which I didn't go on one of my daily walks which average about 3 miles. June 1st - co-workers goodbye party (I did play about 20 games of foosball and worked up a little sweat so all was not lost in the workout category); June 7th - flew to SF (made up for this by logging 12 miles in 2 days while in SF); June 13th - went to Dodgers game (2 steps backward in the fact that I had a Dodger Dog and a beer, but it was yummy); June 26th - went to dinner with E&P (does walking to Royale afterwards count as anything?).

The impetus of all this stemmed from the Griffith Park fire on May 8th. After work that day I came home and was determined to go check things out in the hills. The walk that day reminded me of years past when I would often go out with a workout partner and we'd walk the hills at night with our 3D Maglights. Many months and a few dead animals later we stopped, most likely because I became too busy with work.

I'm determined to keep this up. However I don't think I'll get another month in like June, especially with my next show starting up soon, but I will try.

Some days I feel like this guy:

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