Various Kinds of Communion

I’ve switched over to Jack Daniels, since Jameson’s is apparently impossible to find here – we went to more than one place seeking it out. I finally found myself in a seedy dive where the liquor bottles were tossed haphazardly onto the shelves with a single clerk glowering at me from behind bulletproof glass. I sheepishly purchased my southern brand, not having the courage to ask “Say, do you carry any good imported Irish whiskey?”

(The reason why writers have such a high rate of alcoholism is simple: all writers are cowards, and alcohol is the most cowardly drug. Que sera, sera.)

I usually try to avoid talking about religion in this space, since, well – it’s one of those things that, if you’ve already signed up with it, it makes sense; if you haven’t, it doesn’t have much to say. But today, when I was praying before the show, the following words popped into my head:

“God, grant me the anger to strike against the enemies of strength and wisdom; but more importantly than that, remind me of the love that makes anger like that necessary.”

Had another show, with a much smaller turnout tonight – fairly unresponsive, but I no longer know how to interpret that, since we also had an unresponsive opening night crowd that left us several very kind reviews. Walkouts, however, are hard to misinterpret, and tonight we had three – including a member of the press. Yowch.

We crashed an open-mike night tonight to promote the show. Since I have a cast that consists almost entirely of strong solo performers, rather than doing a preview of the show proper, I encouraged everyone to perform individual pieces – thus allowing us to plug our show five consecutive times. I did a piece from “Warrior Needs Food, Badly,” which went over well (I haven’t slammed in nearly six months), Courtney did stand-up, Michael and Charla both slammed, and even Phil did a song cover. What a remarkable cast I have, in which any given member can stand up and entertain.

We were delighted to find that 3 Sticks had arrived in town, and were the other performers on the bill. Remarkably, the only Fringe performers on the bill tonight were us, the Minnesotans, so at least we had the opportunity to entertain each other.