Blog on the Run

The internet wifi at the house where we are staying is really unreliable. There is a signal that won't connect with internet sometimes. Other times there is no detectable signal and yet you can surf the net. The cell phone suffers from the same sort of spotty connection. To skype with Brandon in Germany I had to stand in some bushes at the edge of the lawn near Corporation Road. I found the signal by using my computer like a Geiger counter letting it lead me to the signal that was the strongest.

At any rate I have found a better alternative, The Cape Mercantile. It is just a few blocks from the house and has great coffee, pastries and a very strong wifi connection. It is the Mayberry version of Starbucks, or maybe Floyd the Barber's place if haircuts and bagels went together better. Here my internet is limited only by the amount of coffee I can consume and battery life.

Jim, who runs the Mercantile with his daughters is a great guy. The second time I came in he knew my name. He knows everybody's name. I can understand that he would know the locals who hang out here, but us gypsy show folk are here and gone pretty fast. I have been going to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf about the same distance from my house in Encino for several years. There are only a couple of the barristers who know my name.

The warm and inclusive feeling you get here at the Mercantile is very much in contrast to the Donut place that invited Nicki, Jeff and I to leave a few days ago. In fact Jim told me that The Merch is only closed four days a year. I have talked him into coming to my show this evening. I hope he will feel as welcome on my turf as I do on his.

Odd reaction
At the top of my show we play an announcement by Maurice LaMarche that says, in a humorous way, all the voices in the show are “performed live as you hear them using the art of ventriloquism.” Moments after, I come on stage and do a distant voice that seems to be coming from a bottle. As I was performing this illusion tonight Murphy and Paul were sitting in the back of the house. They heard an old man turn to his wife and say, “He’s doing that.” As P.T. Barnum said, “You will never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

Wednesday we did a matinee and an evening performance. Thursday we will repeat that schedule. I have never done this show when the four shows in two days came in the middle of the week. I am used to doing the double days at the end of the week so you have a day off to recover. With this schedule I will do four shows and two days and then have to finish out the week. It will be a stretch for me but I am having such a good time that I am sure it won’t matter. I really hate to leave. We are coasting fast on the down hill side of this run and I am already sad.

We have received a standing ovation for every show that we have done here. Evans says that it is a record. No show this year has consistently received a standing ovation for every show. I don’t know exactly what it is but this show is really hitting home with the people here in on the Cape. All I know is, I wish I could afford to do this show all the time, and all over. I love telling this story. Unfortunately "theatre" has never been the high paying end of show business, and this is not the kind of show that would play well in an arena where you could make the most money. We're a "special show", we take the short bus to school.

Since every show plays two weeks at the Playhouse the crew has named every audience. Over the season they have developed opinions about them. They impart that knowledge to me on a need to know basis. I try to weasel it out of them any way I can. Here is what I have found out so far. The second Tuesday is "good". The Friday audience is not as "energetic" as the Saturday. First Wednesday matinee is "small but mighty". So far I would agree with their assessment after the fact. Well, they have dubbed the Thursday matinee "audience of the living dead". That would be the audience I will be facing in a matter of hours. The good thing about a dull matinee is the chance to do it again that night to a better, hopefully, group of people.
I'm getting low on batteries. I'll try to find a signal tomorrow.
As you were,
Jay