...9am Friday morning, about two months ago...
Everything's green, everything's wonderful...it's a rare sunny London day, and beams shine through evergreens towering over grassy fields. A squirrel darts across the ground to the right...
My path circuits a large pond, carefully sculptured between meandering bank and weeping willow, so that one might accidentally come across past an eye-catching viewpoint.
I'm wandering through Battersea Park, one of London's gorgeous old 19th century parks, now my local park, and probably the only one that borders the Thames River. Between the original village of Battersea (in parts dating back to the 9th century AD) and the city, this part of the south bank was marshland until the mid 19th century.
And when I arrive at the north-eastern corner of the park to cross the river on Chelsea Bridge, one realises just how different this part of town really is.
To my left, on the opposite bank is the green of Chelsea Barracks, and the view naturally follows west along the shore to the next crossing, Albert Bridge. Most Jazz musicians will know of the Billy Strayhorn tune named apparently after this bridge, the one I'm currently walking over, although for the life of me I can't understand why a tune hasn't been written about the other one, it's glittering, ornate counterpart further upstream.
Behind me to the left is the complementary green of Battersea Park. Halfway between the bridges is the recently constructed Buddhist pagoda; apparently a monk lives somewhere in the park, presumably nearby.
In total contrast to this symbol of peace (indeed in total contrast to anything other than itself!), behind me to the right is Battersea Power Station, the dominant feature of the landscape. The largest brick building in Europe, poised strategically at a bend in the river, it appears to be some long abandoned art-deco fortress defending the city from invaders.
It's hard to describe the overpowering nature of this building using words or even photos. Catching the train into work each afternoon, the line passes to the left of the station, running parallel to another trainline situated on a kind of aqueduct which, in the view from my train, hides where the building meets the ground, giving the building the appearance of floating above it, only adding to it's immensity.
There's a certain unreality to it that has passed over into the world of fantasy...a friend of mine who also lives locally recalls moving here a decade ago, seeing it for the first time, and being totally amazed that the building he'd seen on a particular Pink Floyd album cover actually existed in real life!
The station and the two giant cranes directly in front of it, sitting face to face on the river bank, haven't seen any action since the mid 70s. For this massive open space on the river not far from the heart of the city, every few years, various redevelopment plans come and go. What is to happen with this particular part of London? A housing estate complex, looking rather like a fleet of cruise ships, seems to watch with trepidation from the opposite bank.
I reach the northern side of the river and turn right, past a tall, narrow Victorian-era water tower (?) several stories high. The doors of the pumphouse are open to the street and as I walk past I get a glimpse of the giant silvery intestines within. Jammed in next to them are a collection of sidings from Victoria station, nearly a mile away, the ends of stationary trains parked perpendicularly to the road that runs along the riverbank.
What an odd part of town this is, with its giant mysterious structures littered arbitrarily on both sides of the river!
25 July 2009
The Groove
S has been with us in town for most of the week, and contrary to my earlier blog, has been in remarkably good spirits considering...is it the joy of being off the road and playing a show in the one place for more than a day? Is it the strange relief of the passing of a long-suffering family member? Is it just plain enjoyment of the gig? Customary to our surroundings, S is a pretty reserved character at the best of times, so I guess we'll never really know...
...and in the last couple of days playing with D, our co-number one dep on drums, the groove has been fatter than anything! It's incredible how, especially on a two-show day like today (matinee 4pm, evening show 8pm), when you're playing a show centred on groove-based music and the groove is great, everything is great!, everyone's in a good mood, the sun shines...well, it feels like it anyway...
...and in the last couple of days playing with D, our co-number one dep on drums, the groove has been fatter than anything! It's incredible how, especially on a two-show day like today (matinee 4pm, evening show 8pm), when you're playing a show centred on groove-based music and the groove is great, everything is great!, everyone's in a good mood, the sun shines...well, it feels like it anyway...
23 July 2009
From The Road: Pasta of Love
...so S has just had a fairly major death in the family, and I'm feeling pretty terrible having just paid him out in prose (unbeknownst to him of course). However he had his first show in town last night and was in remarkably good form, so I thought I'd relate an anecdote from our three months on the road together (which I was going to do anyway, really!)...
It was about six weeks in, the tour was up and running, and some dates were approaching where the production company (for some unknown reason) decided to offer three nights of accommodation at a Butlins.
For anyone not from the UK, Butlins is a chain of ultra-cheap holiday camps dotted around the country, infamous for getting exactly what you pay for.
I didn't quite know how I was going to break this one to the band, but I had a fair idea how they'd react. I had already accepted staying there - it would end up only being two nights for me, and I guess it was part of the adventure. The three English members, well aware of the situation, all opted out immediately. The two continental members however were quite unknowing, even though S had been here for ten years!
On my weekend home beforehand, E and I found photos this particular one on the internet and it looked uncannily like a concentration camp - six miles from town, a complex of long blocks of flats in the middle of nowhere by the sea.
I rejoined the tour on the second day of their stay, and when I met S and G at the theatre they were pissed off, and rightly so I suppose. Having been an effective employee of this production company for more than two years now, one becomes glazed over to the liberties it regularly takes with people who work for it.
Cabbing back there after the show however, the situation turned a little for the better. Unlike the norm, where everyone's accommodation was dotted throughout whatever town we were in, dancers and crew were only in the next block over, and there was absolutely nothing to do out there, so S decided to cook his Pasta Of Love. Word spread to our two favourite dancers who were torn between joining us or the crew for spicy pepper soup (I think they somehow ended up making it to both!)
It was a rubbish situation and everyone had complained far more than enough about it, but at the end of the day, literally, everyone made do...some of us even enjoyed the camaraderie of staying in the one place, a holiday camp after all.
I couldn't believe how S made it and so simply...pasta, tomato sauce, olive oil, a little salt, but cooked and timed absolutely to perfection with generous helpings of parmesan. I've never had pasta quite like it, before or since...and there we were, the three immigrants of the tour, in the flat, waves breaking in the night breeze not far away.
It was about six weeks in, the tour was up and running, and some dates were approaching where the production company (for some unknown reason) decided to offer three nights of accommodation at a Butlins.
For anyone not from the UK, Butlins is a chain of ultra-cheap holiday camps dotted around the country, infamous for getting exactly what you pay for.
I didn't quite know how I was going to break this one to the band, but I had a fair idea how they'd react. I had already accepted staying there - it would end up only being two nights for me, and I guess it was part of the adventure. The three English members, well aware of the situation, all opted out immediately. The two continental members however were quite unknowing, even though S had been here for ten years!
On my weekend home beforehand, E and I found photos this particular one on the internet and it looked uncannily like a concentration camp - six miles from town, a complex of long blocks of flats in the middle of nowhere by the sea.
I rejoined the tour on the second day of their stay, and when I met S and G at the theatre they were pissed off, and rightly so I suppose. Having been an effective employee of this production company for more than two years now, one becomes glazed over to the liberties it regularly takes with people who work for it.
Cabbing back there after the show however, the situation turned a little for the better. Unlike the norm, where everyone's accommodation was dotted throughout whatever town we were in, dancers and crew were only in the next block over, and there was absolutely nothing to do out there, so S decided to cook his Pasta Of Love. Word spread to our two favourite dancers who were torn between joining us or the crew for spicy pepper soup (I think they somehow ended up making it to both!)
It was a rubbish situation and everyone had complained far more than enough about it, but at the end of the day, literally, everyone made do...some of us even enjoyed the camaraderie of staying in the one place, a holiday camp after all.
I couldn't believe how S made it and so simply...pasta, tomato sauce, olive oil, a little salt, but cooked and timed absolutely to perfection with generous helpings of parmesan. I've never had pasta quite like it, before or since...and there we were, the three immigrants of the tour, in the flat, waves breaking in the night breeze not far away.
16 July 2009
Meeting 'S'
...saw S a couple of nights ago at the theatre. Hadn't seen him since I left the tour more than six weeks ago.
Astonishing how once I left the tour and came into town, unintentionally the blinkers went on and it was all about Town World, as opposed to Road World I guess. Previously, during the three months on tour, I'd come in to the town production to fill in for the odd show and the band guys, good friends of mine whom I'd worked with closely on four tours over the past two years, would look at me with a faint suggestion of, "Yeah I remember you"...and now I know why!
S was in to observe the town show as the tour is going abroad next week for two weeks, and our resident bass player is doing a swap. Our guy goes out on the road, and S comes in to fill his place while he's gone. Dashing needlessly yet again between stage and bandroom, I chance upon meeting him in the backstage stairwell before the show...his large frame, shaved head, and wiry goatee belie a quietly spoken, gentle manner. For most of the show I was looking forward to a cheerful post-match drink, a catch up on the current tour gossip, maybe even a laugh over an anecdote in days gone by...
Usually in ones and twos we file out of stage door, through the nightly throng of audience well-wishers and autograph hunters, across Great Windmill Street to the small stage door pub, funnily enough called the Lyric. It appears to be pretty crowded outside with cast, crew and associates, and S is standing with the rest of the bandies directly out front.
We couldn't have been more than half a dozen sentences in, just catching up on the tour, searching for a subject to latch on to, and it was on an alternate work offer for S where things seemed to change sharply, and I felt I had to look for something to hang on to as the vibe of the conversation started hurtling inexorably downward. Personal difference this and politics that and money issue the other...we'd worked together six nights a week for three months, I hadn't seen the guy in a month and a half, and this is what I get?
I let him finish his rave, unsure of how to respond to such negativity.
Amidst waves of chatter, we're suddenly on an island in an ocean of show talk, just he and I.
Hours seem to pass....and then....
"So how is it working out in the flat, with your girlfriend?"
Yeah, that's it mate, don't work too hard, it's only been six weeks...and you're joining us for how long? How many of these do I have to look forward to?!
Sure enough, I only learnt today that continuing family problems for S might have cast a shadow over his mood, which could be understood completely...but then, was my hope of a silly bit of laugh and talk just too much to expect?
Astonishing how once I left the tour and came into town, unintentionally the blinkers went on and it was all about Town World, as opposed to Road World I guess. Previously, during the three months on tour, I'd come in to the town production to fill in for the odd show and the band guys, good friends of mine whom I'd worked with closely on four tours over the past two years, would look at me with a faint suggestion of, "Yeah I remember you"...and now I know why!
S was in to observe the town show as the tour is going abroad next week for two weeks, and our resident bass player is doing a swap. Our guy goes out on the road, and S comes in to fill his place while he's gone. Dashing needlessly yet again between stage and bandroom, I chance upon meeting him in the backstage stairwell before the show...his large frame, shaved head, and wiry goatee belie a quietly spoken, gentle manner. For most of the show I was looking forward to a cheerful post-match drink, a catch up on the current tour gossip, maybe even a laugh over an anecdote in days gone by...
Usually in ones and twos we file out of stage door, through the nightly throng of audience well-wishers and autograph hunters, across Great Windmill Street to the small stage door pub, funnily enough called the Lyric. It appears to be pretty crowded outside with cast, crew and associates, and S is standing with the rest of the bandies directly out front.
We couldn't have been more than half a dozen sentences in, just catching up on the tour, searching for a subject to latch on to, and it was on an alternate work offer for S where things seemed to change sharply, and I felt I had to look for something to hang on to as the vibe of the conversation started hurtling inexorably downward. Personal difference this and politics that and money issue the other...we'd worked together six nights a week for three months, I hadn't seen the guy in a month and a half, and this is what I get?
I let him finish his rave, unsure of how to respond to such negativity.
Amidst waves of chatter, we're suddenly on an island in an ocean of show talk, just he and I.
Hours seem to pass....and then....
"So how is it working out in the flat, with your girlfriend?"
Yeah, that's it mate, don't work too hard, it's only been six weeks...and you're joining us for how long? How many of these do I have to look forward to?!
Sure enough, I only learnt today that continuing family problems for S might have cast a shadow over his mood, which could be understood completely...but then, was my hope of a silly bit of laugh and talk just too much to expect?
11 July 2009
Up To Speed
...Saturday morning, late May...
Summer is coming. You can feel it your bones. Any sense of warmth from the sky and air brings a shiver of anticipation. Winter's endless grip is failing. And yet the newfound mid-morning sun is only just enough to wake to.
The train is crossing a river somewhere in the west of the country, rolling green fields, with a nice little collection of white buildings down by the bank...
Hang on, didn't we just pass that same building?
Or was that a couple of days ago?
What a week it's been, one of those ones where you literally don't have half an hour to scratch your head.
Monday, 30th Birthday! Much frivolity with girlfriend, breakfast in Angel, afternoon on Primrose Hill with a bottle of champers, looking over London underneath a stormy sky, then night-long dinner/bender with friends, mostly people from both town and touring productions.
Tuesday, afternoon rehearsal with originals band for upcoming gig, then playing on the town production in the evening.
Wednesday, back to MD the tour in Torquay.
Friday, four hour train back to London to play with the town show.
Saturday, back to MD the tour in Cardiff, two shows.
How did I end up in this mess again!?
And what an intense year...after the best part of two years and four tours, Flying Music, the production company that kicked the whole thing off, at the start of January finally put the show in the West End at the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, a stone's throw from Piccadilly, right in the heart of London theatre land.
For the first time, a second production was created for the fifth Thriller tour, this time mostly UK, but a little of the continent, and after much deliberation, given the option of taking the cushy, stationary town gig, or stepping up to run the tour as musical director, I somehow came to the decision of taking the latter. From mid February until the end of May, I was in probably the first leadership role of my life ever, of anything! At times I had to scratch myself to believe it was all happening.
But lo and behold, it certainly was, in every way imaginable...our tour took us all over England but this time with a difference...no more the relentless grilling of two months of one-nighters like previous tours...this one had us staying in most provincial cities for a week, sometimes less, but it made all the difference.
I'm not long at the theatre in Cardiff and the drummer calls...he's driven up from Torquay today on an infamously difficult route and is somehow stuck in traffic, may not make the soundcheck...right, so we're straight back into it then! He's not getting it...we had a day off yesterday, he's had more than 24 hours to get here, and besides, there aren't any excuses, this is show business!
The two shows in Cardiff are a resounding success. In an open concert-style venue, we play to two packed houses full of people from a country that knows all about great voices. We trudge through Saturday night carnage back to the hotel, one of those new shiny business one-nighter ones, so in the generic weirdness of the hotel foyer, most of the cast and band gather for drinks, partly to celebrate my last night with the tour before I join the town production.
It's in a daze that I sit at a second breakfast at a sushi place in Paddington station when a text comes through asking me to take vocal warm-up before a two show day! Crazy! But I'm happy to take it, partly because the guy sending me the the text is always more busy than I am, even this week. And I've arranged for someone else to play my chair for the second show...why? Because I'm moving house! After the matinee!
Curtain comes down about 5pm and I'm out of there like a shot on the nearest bus or train...walking down my street in Hackney for the last time, she pulls up in her little silver car, gets out in a dress, and says, "I'm here to take you away", and that's when it really hit me, in the Sunday dusk...I'm doing it again, moving in with a girlfriend, for the second time.
I don't have much stuff and my awesome soon to be ex-housemates have done most of it in my absence. It's a tight fit but it fills most of Eri's car, of course leaving no room for a passenger. She speeds off with all my possessions, I hello the new guy and farewell my two wonderful housemates, Ruth and Tammy, from one of the best sharehouses I've had the privilege to live in...sorry to see 'em go...
The trains are down, so it's looking like one big long bus to Victoria station, and it's the first slab of time in about a week where I haven't been on the train to a show or conducting or drinking a skinful, and so I seem to have no choice but to partake in a little public transport nap. It's Sunday night and there aren't too many crazies around on the 38, the big long bendy bus, the free bus, the robbery bus...of course forgetting the route of the 38, I'm stirred into waking somewhere in town, and it's Shaftesbury Ave, and I look out the window and THERE HE IS! The big spangly silver jacket on the big red square sign...aaarrrgh! Whether it be out on tour or here in town, I just can't bloody get away from the show!...
It takes me an hour but I finally get to our new place, and my gorgeous girlfriend has lugged just about all my stuff up two flights of stairs. I help her with the rest, and then it REALLY hits me...creeping carefully through the hall of our new flat, the smell of the bare white paint, the boxes everywhere...and all the thoughts, the daily noise, suddenly quiets in my head...the start of another chapter, a new beginning...
Summer is coming. You can feel it your bones. Any sense of warmth from the sky and air brings a shiver of anticipation. Winter's endless grip is failing. And yet the newfound mid-morning sun is only just enough to wake to.
The train is crossing a river somewhere in the west of the country, rolling green fields, with a nice little collection of white buildings down by the bank...
Hang on, didn't we just pass that same building?
Or was that a couple of days ago?
What a week it's been, one of those ones where you literally don't have half an hour to scratch your head.
Monday, 30th Birthday! Much frivolity with girlfriend, breakfast in Angel, afternoon on Primrose Hill with a bottle of champers, looking over London underneath a stormy sky, then night-long dinner/bender with friends, mostly people from both town and touring productions.
Tuesday, afternoon rehearsal with originals band for upcoming gig, then playing on the town production in the evening.
Wednesday, back to MD the tour in Torquay.
Friday, four hour train back to London to play with the town show.
Saturday, back to MD the tour in Cardiff, two shows.
How did I end up in this mess again!?
And what an intense year...after the best part of two years and four tours, Flying Music, the production company that kicked the whole thing off, at the start of January finally put the show in the West End at the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, a stone's throw from Piccadilly, right in the heart of London theatre land.
For the first time, a second production was created for the fifth Thriller tour, this time mostly UK, but a little of the continent, and after much deliberation, given the option of taking the cushy, stationary town gig, or stepping up to run the tour as musical director, I somehow came to the decision of taking the latter. From mid February until the end of May, I was in probably the first leadership role of my life ever, of anything! At times I had to scratch myself to believe it was all happening.
But lo and behold, it certainly was, in every way imaginable...our tour took us all over England but this time with a difference...no more the relentless grilling of two months of one-nighters like previous tours...this one had us staying in most provincial cities for a week, sometimes less, but it made all the difference.
I'm not long at the theatre in Cardiff and the drummer calls...he's driven up from Torquay today on an infamously difficult route and is somehow stuck in traffic, may not make the soundcheck...right, so we're straight back into it then! He's not getting it...we had a day off yesterday, he's had more than 24 hours to get here, and besides, there aren't any excuses, this is show business!
The two shows in Cardiff are a resounding success. In an open concert-style venue, we play to two packed houses full of people from a country that knows all about great voices. We trudge through Saturday night carnage back to the hotel, one of those new shiny business one-nighter ones, so in the generic weirdness of the hotel foyer, most of the cast and band gather for drinks, partly to celebrate my last night with the tour before I join the town production.
It's in a daze that I sit at a second breakfast at a sushi place in Paddington station when a text comes through asking me to take vocal warm-up before a two show day! Crazy! But I'm happy to take it, partly because the guy sending me the the text is always more busy than I am, even this week. And I've arranged for someone else to play my chair for the second show...why? Because I'm moving house! After the matinee!
Curtain comes down about 5pm and I'm out of there like a shot on the nearest bus or train...walking down my street in Hackney for the last time, she pulls up in her little silver car, gets out in a dress, and says, "I'm here to take you away", and that's when it really hit me, in the Sunday dusk...I'm doing it again, moving in with a girlfriend, for the second time.
I don't have much stuff and my awesome soon to be ex-housemates have done most of it in my absence. It's a tight fit but it fills most of Eri's car, of course leaving no room for a passenger. She speeds off with all my possessions, I hello the new guy and farewell my two wonderful housemates, Ruth and Tammy, from one of the best sharehouses I've had the privilege to live in...sorry to see 'em go...
The trains are down, so it's looking like one big long bus to Victoria station, and it's the first slab of time in about a week where I haven't been on the train to a show or conducting or drinking a skinful, and so I seem to have no choice but to partake in a little public transport nap. It's Sunday night and there aren't too many crazies around on the 38, the big long bendy bus, the free bus, the robbery bus...of course forgetting the route of the 38, I'm stirred into waking somewhere in town, and it's Shaftesbury Ave, and I look out the window and THERE HE IS! The big spangly silver jacket on the big red square sign...aaarrrgh! Whether it be out on tour or here in town, I just can't bloody get away from the show!...
It takes me an hour but I finally get to our new place, and my gorgeous girlfriend has lugged just about all my stuff up two flights of stairs. I help her with the rest, and then it REALLY hits me...creeping carefully through the hall of our new flat, the smell of the bare white paint, the boxes everywhere...and all the thoughts, the daily noise, suddenly quiets in my head...the start of another chapter, a new beginning...
Who's It All About?
....I couldn't believe it, how incapable I felt writing out this silly card for a friend of mine!
When I was in full swing with the blog a couple of years ago, the creative juices felt like they were flowing, I was getting a bit of wordsmithery out here and there, it was all good....but then sure enough, life took over for a bit in the form of 'Thriller Live', the show I've been working on since May 2007, and it started to fall by the wayside.
I also went through a period where I couldn't help feeling that the whole thing was a bit self-centred. Me, writing about me, attempting to lend a descriptive edge to my daily goings-on...I didn't want to add any words to existing reservations about the self-centred nature of being in show biz.
But then, I'm not forcing anyone to read this, right? You can drop by if you like, or not. I've never swayed from my firm belief in lending a creative edge to one's daily existence (perhaps to share with the net at large) being a worthy pastime, nay, sometimes crucial for one's daily sanity.
So it might be a bit clunky at first, but that's the same as when I kicked the whole thing off. And it might not take the form it used to...I might just put random stuff up if I feel like it, it's my choice, right? But eventually I'm hoping that it'll get back into the rhythm.
AND I'm looking for any help I can get in terms of assisting my literary skills...writing competitions, grammar websites, anything....if anyone out there finds any links I'm all up for it....I was about to say 'well' up for it...there, it's already improving, right? (hee hee!)...
There also might be some exciting (and hopefully intriguing) recent developments to share with you all.
CURRENTLY READING:
Paul Auster, New York Trilogy
If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, Italo Calvino
CURRENTLY LISTENING:
Pat Metheney, The Way Up
Cold Chisel, Breakfast at Sweethearts
When I was in full swing with the blog a couple of years ago, the creative juices felt like they were flowing, I was getting a bit of wordsmithery out here and there, it was all good....but then sure enough, life took over for a bit in the form of 'Thriller Live', the show I've been working on since May 2007, and it started to fall by the wayside.
I also went through a period where I couldn't help feeling that the whole thing was a bit self-centred. Me, writing about me, attempting to lend a descriptive edge to my daily goings-on...I didn't want to add any words to existing reservations about the self-centred nature of being in show biz.
But then, I'm not forcing anyone to read this, right? You can drop by if you like, or not. I've never swayed from my firm belief in lending a creative edge to one's daily existence (perhaps to share with the net at large) being a worthy pastime, nay, sometimes crucial for one's daily sanity.
So it might be a bit clunky at first, but that's the same as when I kicked the whole thing off. And it might not take the form it used to...I might just put random stuff up if I feel like it, it's my choice, right? But eventually I'm hoping that it'll get back into the rhythm.
AND I'm looking for any help I can get in terms of assisting my literary skills...writing competitions, grammar websites, anything....if anyone out there finds any links I'm all up for it....I was about to say 'well' up for it...there, it's already improving, right? (hee hee!)...
There also might be some exciting (and hopefully intriguing) recent developments to share with you all.
CURRENTLY READING:
Paul Auster, New York Trilogy
If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, Italo Calvino
CURRENTLY LISTENING:
Pat Metheney, The Way Up
Cold Chisel, Breakfast at Sweethearts
09 July 2009
The Card
...Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, half eleven, one evening mid week, about two months ago...
...what to write, what to write...
...I want to show him my appreciation, but not have it sound not too sycophantic...
...do I need to fill up a whole card? How bout less is more?....
...no, he's too wordy for that, you gotta speak on his level...
...okay, here goes...
In the middle of a hugely busy travelling week, and with the stage door guy about to burst in on his closing rounds, I press pen to paper in a slightly desperate attempt at a thank you letter...
...yeah, that'd sound clever...
...no, not so much, but what about...
...never know what to write in these things...
...are the other boys still at the pub? It's nearly an hour since curtain...
...what about this turn of phrase?...
...oh no! a scribble out, a mistake! terrible!...
...and another one!...
I get to the end of the second half of the card and cast an eye over the results...not impressed, a little disappointed even, but more importantly, what will he think? Have I just written a love letter to my effective employer?
And precisely at that moment....in the corner of my eye, at the end of the room....one of the famed Lyric theatre mice darts by!
Everyone's left the building, the residents are in, it's time to go....
And so I trudge out stage door into Great Windmill Street, past the gaudy red neon of the adjoining strip club, head hung at a most unimpressive attempt at a show of appreciation for the last two years of working with him.
But despite my dismay at a poorer hold on the English language than I'm sure I used to have, I'm guessing that the humorous card and mid-price-looking bottle of unfamiliar Aussie red might do something towards communicating the idea...
And what to do about these diminished abilities?....
...what to write, what to write...
...I want to show him my appreciation, but not have it sound not too sycophantic...
...do I need to fill up a whole card? How bout less is more?....
...no, he's too wordy for that, you gotta speak on his level...
...okay, here goes...
In the middle of a hugely busy travelling week, and with the stage door guy about to burst in on his closing rounds, I press pen to paper in a slightly desperate attempt at a thank you letter...
...yeah, that'd sound clever...
...no, not so much, but what about...
...never know what to write in these things...
...are the other boys still at the pub? It's nearly an hour since curtain...
...what about this turn of phrase?...
...oh no! a scribble out, a mistake! terrible!...
...and another one!...
I get to the end of the second half of the card and cast an eye over the results...not impressed, a little disappointed even, but more importantly, what will he think? Have I just written a love letter to my effective employer?
And precisely at that moment....in the corner of my eye, at the end of the room....one of the famed Lyric theatre mice darts by!
Everyone's left the building, the residents are in, it's time to go....
And so I trudge out stage door into Great Windmill Street, past the gaudy red neon of the adjoining strip club, head hung at a most unimpressive attempt at a show of appreciation for the last two years of working with him.
But despite my dismay at a poorer hold on the English language than I'm sure I used to have, I'm guessing that the humorous card and mid-price-looking bottle of unfamiliar Aussie red might do something towards communicating the idea...
And what to do about these diminished abilities?....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)