the eddie izzard redemption

we went to the show tonight and had a faboo time. it was helpful for me to see someone with so much experience looking a bit uneasy. allow me to explain what i mean. see, the show is titled "work in progress" and you can tell the material is still shifting. as always with eddie izzard, you have a hard time telling when he's just stalling to remember the next thing or just milking the moment for as long as possible. maybe it's a combination of both, with some dabbling in variation throw into the mix to keep things fresh.

whatever the truth might be, it was a fun show and i'm forever happy about going and being one of the dorks who hung out at the stage door to meet him afterwards. in case you're wondering... no, i did NOT repeat the former humiliation. can you believe it?!?

as luck would have it, scott and i are working on a show right now. we've been working out some details and rehearsing over the phone for a few weeks now. (you can insert all the jokes about "phoning it in" here.) being that i'm directing scott in a one-man show, i thought it would be helpful to ask for advice about having to be all alone out there and keep people's attention for a long time. did i mention that eddie izzard's show was just over two hours with no intermission? i don't care who you are - that takes balls. i like people with balls. so we waited outside very patiently and were the very last people to talk to him before he headed off into the night with his peeps. derek got his ticket signed (if you give eddie izzard the choice of green or pink, he'll pick pink every time) while i chatted away. we exchanged some pleasantries and i got some decent reminders that you have to rehearse a lot, pump yourself up in the ego, and then just not care if people like you or not when you're in a performance. DUH. it's so simple and yet just what i had forgotten. here i thought i was just coming up with something to say that was less than asinine, and in the end it was just the thing to get him jabbering away like an idiot.

human quirkiness is a suit worn well by the best of us.

on the way to the car i did actually remark to derek out loud, "i think it was just really nice to see him look that uncomfortable on stage. that show was so fun." that's when my pal coo-winky-dink stepped in to play one more joke on me. as you can probably guess, he was walking right past us with his posse at the time. you fans will be happy to know that he had no fancy cars or hummer limos to take him away. just a walk down the block into the night. while i don't know if he heard me or not, i still looked up and did a slight double take and a hand-clamping-over-mouth giggle at realizing i was talking about the person walking right beside me. no, really. like just a few feet away. of course.

what can i say? it's a gift. at least i was paying a compliment without even knowing he was right there. (i've been less lucky on other occasions involving has-been celeb types, but that's one i'll tell you about another time.) AND we had an actual conversation this time with whole sentences instead of just a blurt followed by a staring contest. AND i got helpful advice in the process. whee!!!


what else you were wondering:
yes, we are moving again. soon. more on that later.