First a bit of business. As you know there’s a new novel, “Fresh Squeezed”, that I’ve written with my coauthor, Bonnie Biafore, and, as with all such projects wherein both creative collaborators avoid killing one another long enough to make it to the end, that novel is going to be published. You no doubt rememberthat I’m of the belief that it is now possible to take advantage of technology to bypass the publishing middlemen and allow you to keep more of your hard-earned entertainment dollars. This is a good thing from my perspective because, when my next book comes out, you’ll already have the down payment.
There is, as I’ve written about, an immutable Law of the Universe called: The Law of Unintended Consequences. (See how it almost looks like I planned all these out from the get-go.) Well, lately I’ve learned that there’s yet another Law, which goes something like: Nothing Happens on the Internet unless Google or Amazon Make Some Money From It. Even publishing. One of the learning curves I’m facing right now is navigating the ePublishing environment as specified by Amazon for its Kindle readers. So, I’ve got to go publish something on Amazon.
Fortunately, I have some fodder for their cannon in the form of my two short stories – “Apotheosis” and “Rock Fever”. Which I will use as the proverbial guinea pigs in this learning experience. The problem is – vis-à-vis the second Law above –that Amazon will need to make some money on the deal so I will have to charge some money and, to comply with Amazon’s mandate, that amount can be no more than is being charged for the same thing sold elsewhere.
So… If you haven’t already done so, download the short stories in whatever version you want soon, like in the next couple of weeks, while they’re still free. Click here.
On with the show.
Then there’s a Third Law. This one states: Never, Under Any Circumstances, Ask a Writer to Help. The short version is: Avoid Writers, Period. It amazes me how many people don’t know about this one.
“Come on,” she said. “It’ll be fun.”
This should have been all the warning I needed. It’s not like I haven’t been there before. “It’ll be fun” is the same thing my friend George used to say before we’d go out and set the neighborhood on fire during our preadolescent days. He was right – usually – but without fail, Law #1 would kick in and we would find ourselves ass-deep in alligators surrounded by angry parents and smoldering neighbors. Since that time I usually react to “it’ll be fun” the way a hiker responds to a loud rattle in the bush right next to their leg. I freeze, then panic and run away. I don’t know why this time was different.
“What will be fun?”
“Our new act. It’s wrestling and you’re the announcer.”
“But I didn’t say yes.”
“I know.” She smiled. “I said it for you.”
As I’ve also written about in the past, my friend Ishya is actively involved in the world of aerial dance. This is an activity where very fit people suspend themselves from the ceiling on various pieces of equipment, turn on some music, and wow audiences with gravity-defying feats of lithesome impossibility. She and her partner, Carolyn, perform their duets on a hoop of cold steel lyrically misnamed: the lyra. In actuality this apparatus exists solely to smack people in the head when they get anywhere within six-feet, as has happened to me on numerous occasions. I’m scared spitless of the vicious lyra and have no desire to be in its vicinity.
At which point Carolyn came into the room.
“Oh come on,” she said in her carefully preserved English accent. “It’ll be fun.”
There were now two of them.
“Please?” Blink, blink. Blink, blink.
“Oh, okay.”
I mean, really, what else could I say?
This all transpired two-plus months ago so I figured I had plenty of time to get used to the idea of standing in bright lights making a fool out of myself.
Then a miracle happened.
“I talked with Lupe and she says Carl is going to be the announcer. You’re off the hook.”
“Great. But Carl gets stage fright. Did he really say yes?”
“No, but Lupe said he would.”
Fast forward to the second week of February.
“We need music.”
“Like Tonto said to the Lone Ranger…”
“Ahem.”
“Well you have to use Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’.”
Ring.
“That was Carolyn. You don’t have to do the music. She talked to Lupe and her friend Clarence is going to do the music. He’s a professional.”
“What’s that mean?”
“We have to pay him a hundred bucks.”
“Oh.”
“But we’ll need the timing for the introduction. Can you write that up? Please.”
“Shouldn’t Carl do that?”
“Nope. You’re the announcer again.”
“What happened to Carl?”
“Head-cold.” She pointed at her nose. “He’s out. So he’s just going to be the referee.”
“There’s a referee?”
“There is now.” She smiled brightly. “And Lupe is going to be the sign girl!”
Off I wandered to write up something as an introduction based upon no information other than, in the act, Carolyn played the bad-guy and Ishya, the good. I emailed off my introductory announcements and waited.
Not having to do the music was something of a relief. In the past I’ve had to tweak a few songs for Ishya’s performances and, because of the detail in the choreography, the adjustments take place on the order of milliseconds. Slower here, faster there, add a chunk in, take a section out; that sort of thing. But this performance was going to have no fewer than five different songs, plus crowd noise and a bell.
“Here’s the choreography.” It was now two days to the first run-through. “See if you can come up with clever things to say about the moves.”
“Okay.” I resigned myself to being the announcer. “Where’s the music?”
“Ummmmmm… It’s going to be done on Thursday.”
“Run-through is on Wednesday.”
“I know.” She shook her head. “But that’ll give us a day to work out the problems before the dress rehearsal on Friday.”
A dark cloud passed over the sun.
“By the way, Carl can’t make it on Wednesday so could you pretend to be the referee for practice?”
“Okay, what’s wrong?”
“He’s got the flu or something.”
Wednesday came along and it was 4:30pm with rehearsal in two hours. We got an early cut of the music, which was the good news. And then the phone rang.
“That was Carolyn. Carl and Lupe are out.”
“Huh?”
“Ebola.”
How many different ways can you say “performance anxiety”?
“The really good news is that Carolyn’s friends Adela and Christine are going to be the ref and sign girl. They’ll all be here soon.”
The practice went quite well considering that sixty percent of the participants had never done anything like this before and that the misanthropic lyra – which makes the “Jaws of Life” look like a Tonka Toy – was trying to knock all of us novices into the next county. There might just be hope.
On Friday, with the final music in hand, we were going through the moves and finalizing everything for the dress rehearsal.
In a nutshell, the act consisted of me, as the announcer, introducing the “combatants” and their “conflict”, while Christine, the sign girl, cued the audience to set the mood. The music filled in, Adela, the ref, started the match, and Carolyn and Ishya commenced swinging on the deadly lyra, beating each other up while Adela did ref things and I interjected the odd comment regarding the severity of the battle.
I thought it went well but, afterwards, Carolyn and Ishya came running over to me.
“The music isn’t right yet,” Carolyn said.
“Could you add some more time before I hit her with the chair?” Ishya filled in the details. “And take a little out right after I stomp on her fingers.”
I was skeptical. “What happened to Clarence the ‘professional’?”
“He went dog sledding in the Yukon and won’t be back until a week from Monday.”
“That’s two days after the performance.” I reminded them.
“Please.” Blink, blink. Blink, blink.
It sounded to me like they added something about “dinner at Canlis”, an addendum they now deny.
Suffice it to say that, while Clarence was humping his dogs across the tundra, the music went through five additional edits before the night of the performance.
A performance which brought the house down. Excepting a couple of major gaffes by the announcer, ahem, the show went off without a hitch. Well, there was also that one part where Ishya got her nose broken and the announcer, ahem, couldn’t get the stage blood capsule to pop. But otherwise it was great and if you want to see it, just click here.
So that was my introduction to being on the other side of the lights. After the show, Bev, the owner of Versatile Arts, cornered me.
“You did okay.”
“Thanks.”
“You should sign up for lessons.”
My knees went weak and my head started spinning with the possibilities. The evil lyra, the strangling tissu, the rope and trapeze. Why, I could master them all. Forget standing on the ground announcing. I could fly through the air with the real performers.
See you in class.