the end

last show went great. beautiful old theatre in jacksonville. it's been fun. thanks.

one more once

on the top floor of the airport clarion - fancy schmancy. leave in an hour for the final performance. wonder what comes next... don't know... good, bad, it'll be interesting.

so this is Christmas...

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strange photos

isn't this interesting... the theatre we were at today uses big screen digital monitors. there is one off stage and one of the girls shot these pics from the monitor screen.

dressing room

here is a video of my dressing room today... a bit fancier than last years...

deja melbourne

show was great today. this is a beautiful theatre, and good audience.
staying in the fancy hilton hotel.

the show has gone very well this year. i am very pleased. i stayed healthy, without any throat or vocal chord trouble.

tomorrow is the last show - in jacksonville...

an interesting mixture of happy and sad.

hot time

i was hot tonight... literally and figuratively. the show was great... and i haven't sweated that much in all the other shows put together. one of the best shows we've done. the audience was great.

five of us walked a couple of miles into town this morning to visit the manatee information/research center and hopefully to see some manatees. it was interesting, but the manatees were somewhere else. oh well. anytime in florida you get to see cool seabirds and fish and lizards - i like that. i walked around town a bit. there was an arts and crafts fair. it had a little art and a little craft and alot of other crap that doesn't qualify as either. then walked back to the hotel, then walked the other way a bit and went swimming with some of the gang. ohboy.


that's a sculpture of a manatee painting a picture... really.

get to sleep in. tomorrow we go to another venue that we did last year - in melbourne, fl. we will be at the same hotel, that big hilton. it is only a bit over an hour away.

2 more shows.

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florida, finally

made it through the last long bus ride. off tonight - show tomorrow night. this is a pic of my hotel i took from the fishing dock on the water. i love being by the water... makes me feel good.

three more shows.

keep it interesting...

well that was strange. went to the venue, sort of a community center with a small simple stage in it, ate a quick dinner, did microphone check, and spent an hour talking about changes, and running some of them, and finally had to stop to let the people in. didn't have the three main big set units. had our small backdrop, and used most of the furniture and props that we carry in and out. backstage was tiny and packed with stuff. just had to do it as if we always did it that way. there were a few mishaps and confusions, but i thought it was a pretty good show, considering... and the audience really enjoyed it - that's the important thing.



there was a curtain track thing across the middle of the stage - we had to work around it - some of us, including me, have to stand on big crates during the show and we had to be careful not to smash our heads.



oh, and then there were the seven-swans-a-swimming on top of the curtain track... (see pics)...
our crew chief convinced them to let us take down the swans for the show...
thank goodness.

have to ride all the way to the middle of the florida atlantic coast tomorrow - about 11 - 12 hours. but don't do the show until saturday night, so we get a day on the beach...

mississippi delta

the show was great tonight. good audience. gotta get up early and ride to gulf shores, alabama. something weird about tomorrows theatre - we can't use the big main set pieces, so we will go early and rehearse a bunch of new stuff. don't know the details - will let you know tomorrow...

nashville cat...

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howdy y'all........i am in nashville for the night. over 8 hours on the bus today. 5 hours tomorrow.

i'll be doing a show in mississippi tomorrow night...
where will you be...?

yes, virginia...

well, okay... it was only TEN hours on the bus...

we are in lexington, va. morning bus leaves at 7:00 for nashville - another stop-over on our way to mississippi.

a week from now i will be starting our final show. we have 5 shows left.

*

road trip

i'm in connecticut. did a show this afternoon. next show is wednesday night in mississippi. bad news is we have two days of long bus rides to get there. gotta be on the bus by 6:30 am for a ride that will be around 11 hours +... yuck.

good stuff

wow - we were in "that" theatre tonight. beautiful big place with a big audience. we met in the hotel lobby at 5:15 and walked over to the theatre. it was snowing. have two shows tomorrow in new jersey.

nice room

my hotel room in a cool old downtown hotel - 8th floor.

well, okay...

snowy scenes on the road to pennsylvania






















my hotel on the right - i'm on the 8th floor. the building next door is the theatre.











the view out my hotel window.

rainy days

the show was great tonight - good audience. rode there on the bus, about 20 minutes, to sugarloaf, past all the cool shops and galleries i hoped to get to visit while i was here, because i assumed we would stay in sugarloaf... but, no.
raining most of our stay here, and raining still, now. may get bad overnight.
travel back to pennsylvania tomorrow.

this is a pic of the microphone belt thing i wear in the show. everyone else has one mic - i have two. each has a power pack transmitter thing that go in this harness belt. i wear the belt mid-torso (back) under my costumes and the wires run up my back, behind my head and get taped in place on my neck.

stuckinoldgoshenagain...

here i am in goshen, new york. here for a show in sugarloaf, ny. the show is thursday, so i have some time off here. was hoping to be in sugarloaf with interesting places to visit... but no. on the highway, next to some car dealers. although there is a pizza hut nearby. and a few other things.

new jersey beach hotel

beachfreeze

at the hotel in new jersey - show is at 7:30. we are on the beach, but it is very cold out there...

keepin' on

sorry i got behind this weekend. busybusy... friday night we were in uniontown, pa. and had to be on the bus at 5:00 am to ride 7 hours to red bank, nj. where we had two shows yesterday. red bank was our first repeat venue from last year. they love us in red bank. beautiful old theatre - rather tight backstage, but the shows were great. i was wore out last night after those two shows. we walked out of the theatre after the second show and it was snowing... beautiful. went from the fake snow onstage to the real thing outside. cool. lots more snow this year than last. today we came to scranton, pa. for a matinee, and tomorrow we go back to new jersey.

i am doing well. tired. bus rides suck. cold and bumpy. life's hard.

feliz navidad.

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the old college try

hey - we are in blacksburg, virginia, at virginia tech university. the show went really well. the show is very good this year - you should see it...

going to pennsylvania tomorrow.

excitingforamoment...

well, tonight's show went really well...

except for the smoke alarms going off about 30 minutes into the show.

they are supposed to turn them off while we are there.

just shows to go you...

you never know.

heehee

day-off

gonna be hard to beat this hotel. it's really nice and comfortable. it's a 'hampton inn' - i have two queen beds, a big desk, microwave, fridge, big tv, strong internet... good stuff.
walked downtown today. it was quite a ways - maybe two miles. not a bad walk, but was very cold, and was lightly snowing all day.
went to some antique stores, an art gallery, a goodwill store, had pizza for lunch. found some good antique bargains - had to leave them there... too bad.
the old downtown area has a bunch of life size dickens character figures placed up and down the street. they have other christmas events with the same theme - like us coming to perform "christmas carol".

here's a picture of the courthouse with some figurines and a picture from my fourth floor hotel window.

stop bus

spent almost 12 hours on the bus today...ugggh. i'm in a nice hotel in cambridge, ohio - off until wednesday.

tour pics

snow in wisconsin

this is a quick video outside the theatre in wisconsin last night after the show.

snowshow

just finished the second show of the day and the fifth in 48 hours. i am tired, but better than i feared - voice is still intact. don't have another show until wednesday night in ohio. will spend all day tomorrow on the bus. may have trouble because it started snowing when we went to the theatre at 5:00, and is still going strong. roads may be bad.

sheboygan

did two shows today in a beautiful theatre. lady told me i made her cry... that's a good thing - have two tomorrow in wisconsin. things are going well for me - feeling good.

first morning bus ride

here is the first morning - getting settled on the bus.

grand opening

tonight was opening night in galesburg, il. it was a great show. gotta get up early. have two shows tomorrow in michigan and two on sunday in wisconsin. galesburg is the birthplace of a favorite poet of mine - carl sandburg.

thanks...

had dinner at the radisson hotel restaurant down the street. ohboy. spent the rest of the day resting and packing up. bus leaves at 5:30 am.

thanks for following along.

showtime

this was our last day of rehearsal. we did a final dress-rehearsal this afternoon, had an hour break, and did a "preview" show for a small audience tonight. both went very well. it's a very good show. i am glad to be done with rehearsals - ready to get on the road. i feel pretty good - just tired.

welllllllll... did a run through this afternoon and fixed some problems - went well.
did a full dress rehearsal tonight - went well... mostly. first serious reminder of how tough this show is - and it's much more active than last year... wore me out. gotta get up and do it again tomorrow - the last day of rehearsal - better get it right... eek.

longhardtech

first day at the "preview" site. worked through the show, doing all the scene changes until they worked okay. finished at 9:30 - just got through the show once. tomorrow will be harder.

otd