Oh, cat, don't fly away again. My head's killing me.

...but it happened too fast.

Yesterday was our big rehearsal for Arcadia, the first time (!) we've run through the whole play, and less than a week before opening, and I get there a little early, in time to chat with leading man Paul S (he's brilliant as Septimus Hodge btw). "So what did they ask you to bring?" he asks. "You know, in the email?" I haven't looked at my email since Friday. All Praise to Apple, I can pull up my email right there. "Noakes (that's me) - please shave off mustache," says the email, which arrived at 1:00AM. Great. They're doing publicity photos.

You see, what I'd planned was, I'd videotape the shaving of the mustache and post it to YouTube. It'd go viral, I just know it would. No time for that, I take the few minutes before we began the run to walk down to the CVS and get shaving supplies (this would have taken less time if the strange woman I assumed was homeless and was actually an employee hadn't been noisily restocking the section while mumbling to herself about political conspiracies). Back to the theater, and in the dressing room there is much bloodletting and pain. Also, Magnificent Costume Lady gives me a pair of boots I can actually fit into (I learn later in the evening that I cannot take them off). Fully in costume and appropriately shorn, I find myself greeted with delight by cast and crew. "You can do Ben Franklin for your next play!" they cheer. Oh Holy Effing Satan how I hate being clean-shaven. Esp. with long hair. It's so Effing wrong.

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In Media news, had lunch with bestbear_icanbe and was treated to Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde, a recommended lightweight delight, little knowledge of the orginal film/book required (a little would help). Premise: Perky Blonde Lawyer goes to DC to fight against animal testing. Not real DC, of course, but an alternate reality where every good deed is rewarded, no adversary cannot be won over, and no good person ever has a goal unmet. A fairy tale, and a very funny one indeed. Beautifully cast from tiny bits for Octavia Spencer and Jackie Hoffman up to star Reese Witherspoon, who in the Golden Age would have had a special unit at Paramount just to make vehicles for her. Scott thinks it didn't do well financially because it's just too gay, but that didn't stop Rambo: First Blood Part 2 from raking in the bucks, so who knows.

Everybody needs a day like yesterday every now and then, if only to confirm to oneself that one prefers campy movies with pre-show drag comedy to ballet.

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In any case, I approve and am totally going to see this. Unless I watch it on line first. Or maybe even then.

Parked at the Hayward Peet's right now with scottasf; we would have gone to a movie but it's all kinda crap, except for the latest Resident Evil movie, and I promised my sister-in-law that I'd take her to that when I got down there next week.

She was silent for a moment after I made this promise. Then she said, "Uh huh," very slowly.

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If you're in the Berkeley area tomorrow afternoon, worse things you can do than go to the Live Oak Theatre and see me (and others) in a staged reading of 8 short plays. It's free, and I play Drunk Santa in the last one. My laptop also has a starring role in one piece, which it earned by having the power cord plug on the left hand side, which will be downstage. The director's laptop' power plug is on the right side, thus upstage and less visible. Of such minutiae are great careers born.

You go one day without posting, and what happens? Stuff piles up. Stuff like

1. Macbeth at Cal Shakes in Orinda: My friend marshlady is surprised to hear me say that this is probably the best Macbeth production I've ever seen. Not a high bar, most Macbeths bite; they make the Witches into lead characters, they strip away the ethical edge of the show, it turns into a Jay-Cee Halloween Haunted House (check the Polanski film for a sad example). CalShakes' did the opposite (and correct imo) tack by contrasting the crimes of the lead couple with other characters who choose to behave decently, even in the face of great danger. I usually don't care for cobbling together the minor characters to make new minor characters, but this worked beautifully (didn't hurt that they had Delia MacDougal, James Carpenter, Stacy Ross & Jud Williford in the cast). The Malcom/Macduff scene still stank, though. Why don't Shakespeare directors ever listen to be about that scene?
2. In the Wound by Shotgun Players, Dottie Hinkle Park: Highly recommended on style alone -- Shotgun does everything they do with panache and brio. Is "brio" French or Italian? I prefer to couple adjectives from different languages. Uh... back to the play itself, a Trojan War souffle that managed to be repetitive and cryptic at the same time. I've breathed the Trojan War since I was 6 (and yes of course I hated the Brad Pitt movie), so if I can't figure out what's supposed to be going on, who could?
3. the Clash of the Titans remake in glorious 2-D Blu-Ray: I wasn't expecting to like it, given the reviews; after the scene in the Argos court I was thinkin' "if it stays on this level, we got a camp classic," but it settled down to be entertaining fun, a bit too serious but enjoyable. Scott was surprised I liked it as much as I did. What he didn't know was I'd just watched Galaxy of Terror on the DVD, so nearly anything would be a step up.
4. Galaxy of Terror on the DVD: Uh... I watched the shit out of it. It was totally a movie.
5. Sorting through boxes of financial papers in my squalor-filled TV room while watching Galaxy of Terror: I was looking for the papers I need to file my 2008 and 2009 taxes (yeah baby), but I also found some Amazon.com gift receipts from a CoinStar run, a check for 8 bucks from my Dentist from a few years back, and (gulp) a $125 check from when I was Warm Body #5 in the Lafayette Town Hall Theatre production of Miracle on 34th Street. Aw, heck, well, if I can't cash it I can frame it. Proof that somebody was willing to pay me money to act.

Off to SF Shakespeare Festival for their take on Shakespeare's worst comedy. I will bring my own food.

No, I can't have a complex overscheduled weekend and a coughy phlegmatic tubercular weekend on different weekends, I have to do it at the same time. Last night, for example, I had told scottasf I would come to his birthday party at Playland Not at the Beach, a highly recommended location that you should visit NOW, but last night was also the "world premiere" of the R-rated hand-puppet movie in which I had played a small part, Drexel Learns the Ropes, in San Francisco... so I drove to El Cerrito, put in an appearance while Scott was setting up, left for BART, went into SF for the premiere (networking, baby -- two possible future voice-over projects), BARTed back & got to PnatB in time to watch the break-down. Missed the party! Upside is I'm sick, and coughing, and I probably gave my tuberculosis to several people.

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I don't really have tuberculosis.

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And I'm supposed to usher at a play tonight but I'm coughing up all sorts of things, and I'm wheezy, and sniffly. I might still go and usher; the audience is mostly older people, so they've probably already had what I've got and are probably immune, so I could cough all over them and it wouldn't matter.

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Hard to think of anything but bitterness and regret, as in, while I was in the auditorium waiting for Drexel to start, a 24-minute film that started 24 minutes late, I suddenly remembered that I had volunteered to help at the Theater Bay Area General Auditions, which were... on January 31...

Saw 2012 at the Hayward Century Theater on 11/21 -- stupid movie, but very funny. Got home & read a reviewer who thought it was more a parody of disaster movies than anything serious, and he's right. Plus, I ordered a Starbucks hot chocolate in the lobby, and paid Starbucks price for it, not movie theater lobby price. Amazing!

both on DVD, thanks netflix:
Sexy Beast -- 2 of 5 rating, flashy performances from leads but meh gangster story.
Voice (2005) -- Korean ghost story obviously loses a lot in the cultural translation. 2 of 5.

Neither bad but neither plucking at heart. Sexy Beast -- last 2001 Supporting Oscar nominee that I've seen -- woulda given it to Gandalf, sorry mr broadbent, but he's Gandalf!

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Oh, yeah, yesterday (11/6/9) Zotz!, the rare William Castle gimmick movie that's not horror... I remember when this was in theaters; I didn't see it but it was certainly buzzed about in elementary school classrooms, and definitely had the desired effect of getting boys to run about pointing at people and yelling "Zotz!" 3 of 5, amiable and fun, with Tom Poston always charming and Margaret Dumont getting an entire cake in the face.

Just saw "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," which was much more entertaining than I had expected. The 3D effect on the Imax screen was poor, but the movie itself nice, though the Dad seemed substantially less cute once I found out James Caan did the voice (side note on celebrity voices in animated films: with the exception of Bruce Campbell and Anna Faris, did any of these people bring anything to this that couldn't have easily been bettered by a voice acting specialist?).

On return trip, a stop at the new Shari's in Castro Valley, on top of the grave of the old Baker's Square. They were out of the soup Scott A. wanted, and out of the soup he picked as a second-best... but we left a very nice tip anyway, because the waiter had extremely hairy forearms.

And one of my friends is now saying, let's go there, shall we? At least one.