Lowlands

Matt called me on Thursday leaving me about 15 minutes to grab my stuff and meet them at the train station to go to Lowlands, a huge Dutch music festival located somewhere in Holland. Boom performs at Lowlands every year, and while I am not performing, I get a backstage pass for the first day, so I can help with the show.

Lowlands is a festival that takes place over several days, so camping is involved. That meant grabbing a few different t-shirts, some underwear, and a yellow blanket to sleep on. I have no comping equipment, and am sleeping in Matt's tent for the next few days. I just moved to Amsterdam, and I am absolutely unprepared for camping.

Suzi, who ended up finding a sweet spot for all of us to camp on, had plenty of camping equipment and would laugh constantly at my wanna-be-sleeping bag-blanket. It was neither thick, nor long and left my feet totally exposed to anything that might crawl through the tent. Meanwhile, Suzi and Justine were making coffee, and cooking bacon with their camping equipment.


If only there was, like a sound proof booth where I could make a phone call... oh wait!

The Festival was a blast. I got to eat with the cast in the artist's tent even though I was not performing and had my first encounter with karnemelk. The Dutch like to think this dairy product is like a Buttermilk counterpart, but that is not true. It is, in fact, rotten milk. I figured this out after pouring myself a big cup of it, thinking karnemelk was the Dutch word for "milk."

Tarik watched me drink my first sip of this cold, curdled liquid, and after my face broke into utter disgust said "Yeah, that stuff is disgusting."

"Why did you let me have some of it?" I asked. Tarik was right behind me in line.

"I thought maybe you liked it."

"No, I thought it was milk."

"Oh. It isn't."

The festival was great. I got to see Polyphonic Spree and Franz Ferdinand from backstage the first day.


We also got to see and meet, briefly, The Magic Numbers. Rob is a big fan, so Amber got them to take a picture for his benefit.

It's hard to see, but the papers say "Hi Rob".

The next day I saw the Pixies, Arcade Fire, Royksopp, and others, but not from backstage. My pass was done, but I still had a press pass, which meant going into the Press tent in between bands to drink with hang out on comfy couches with Ash, one of Boom technicians. Arcade Fire almost stole the festival by having the most energized set I'd seen, not to mention one of the members climbed up the scaffolding during their set closer and still banged on his drum, 20 feet or so above the stage. Once he got back down, the group swarmed him and ran offstage, elated and frightened.

Still, the winner for me was the Pixies, who were charming and wonderful, and whom I have loved since I was 15 so they win by pure sentiment.

A Day on a boat

Today was an all-Boom boat trip, meaning all employees. Sail is coming up this week, which is a Dutch celebration of, well, boats, I guess. I guess there's a big showing of old boats and people come out to look at them, hence, Sail.

The boat we were on was pretty massive, and in typical Dutch fashion, we were introduced to the crew while being asked to help. "They have a lot to do, yah? So you will help them out, yah?" So a few of us ended up helping hoisting sails, and putting the sails back, folding and tucking it into it's cover. Most stayed downstairs, drinking, smoking and playing cards.

In between my work as a sudden crew member, and watching the ship move from lock to lock, heading from Amsterdam's canal system to the open waters, I slept out on the deck. I was still feeling jet-lagged from my trip, and the physical labor wasn't helping. I pulled my jacket up to my nose, laid my head against a rolled-up sail, and napped in the salty air. I felt totally at peace, relaxing on the boat and thinking that it wouldn't be too long before I got back to my new studio home in the Jordaan and sleep off my jet-lag.

"Hey," I asked someone walking by my nap space, "When do we get back to Amsterdam?"

"Not until tonight. I think this trip is like 10 hours long or something."

"Got it." I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.

From one end to the other.

Finally got back from a great vacation with my family in Hawaii. It took two days to fly back, and when I got back to Party Central, I found out that we had to move that day. Laurel moved into Jim's old room, and Paddy and I helped move in a new bed for her and move out Jim's crusty old one.

I've moved, temporarily, into Heather's old studio until Suzi takes off. Here's what it looks like:


It's weird going from a beautiful place with my family around me, to this new place with no family, my girlfriend far from here, and living by myself, which I've never done. It feels weird to go from such extremes, and I think, for the first time, the boldness of how I have changed my life, has caught up with me.



It took me all day to bike back and forth from place to place, so, after a pizza dinner from Domino's (the only delivery joint in the city), I fell asleep around 7:00.

Jim's Last Late Nite

jimkiss
Originally uploaded by talfulano

Jim is leaving Boom, and has enjoyed being one of Boom's top performers for a while.

Jim is not into being in a scene where he is gay. He will do anything to get out of it. In fact, in one scene in the Bite the Bullet show where he's breaking the fourth wall, he goes so far as to say, "I am NOT gay; I love the ladies," when he doesn't need to.

So for the final game of Late Nite, with the scene going in that direction, and the audience clearly rooting for it. I grabbed Jim, made sure he couldn't squirm out of it, and kissed him to end the show. By the looks of the photo, the rest of the cast is REALLY enjoying it.

Gay.

My First News Joke

In the Best of Boom show here at Boom we have a news segment in Act Two. We have been encouraged (because it's kind of our job) to write jokes for it so I decided to jump in right away and give it a shot. The thing I'm not used to is editing. I've heard some brumblings over what happens to your joke once it's submitted, but I wasn't worried.

Some sketches had some re-writes and edits done to the Good Time Hour by our director Jim, and writing with Sean in Old Man McGinty, he would take a pen to certain lines here and there, so I'm cool with it, but it's new.

So here's the joke:

"Controversy over the latest draft of the Iraqi Consitution has critics pointing out that if the constitution follows Islamic law, women's rights would be severely limited. Said a spokesman for the Iraqi government: "We wanted to follow the American constitution to the letter. Therefore, the Kurdish minority will not have voting rights for 100 years, and women will not have them for 140, and we will give gays the right to keep paying taxes."

It's okay. I kind of feel like it's too long, but since I wrote it amongst all the rehearsals we were doing, I figured it might get tightened. Pep gave me some notes and then essentially re-wrote the punchline, just like people warned me would happen.

Here's Pep's version:

"Controversy over the latest draft of the Iraqi Constitution has critics pointing out that if the constitution follows Islamic law, women's rights would be worse than in Saddam’s day.

Said a spokesman for the Iraqi government: "We are following the American constitution to the letter. Therefore, Women won’t have the right to vote for 150 years, Kurds are worth 3/5 of a person, and homosexuals who marry will be stoned to death."

It's not quite my joke anymore, but it is in the show tonight.

No more Bjork.

8/02/05 - goodbye heather
Originally uploaded by talfulano

Heather's leaving Boom and heading back home. I feel fortunate to have performed with her, for the past few weeks as she is a great performer and we get along really well.

Tonight we had a clip party, everyone chose a small segment of a movie or TV show, and play it in honor of the departing Heather. I don't know Heather that well, so, knowing her love of Anime, I played the scene in Street Fighter where Chiba bashes a guy's head and it switches to an x-ray of the guy's head.

Best of luck in America, I think that scene said.