A Wedding, Doom, Desert Cleaning

Big weekend, big busy weekend.

I had the late night show Friday night - a good one, lots of laughs from the crowd and not yet too hot - and then a scant 3 hours of sleep before going back to work. I left work and went directly to a friend's wedding that was apparently held in Sweatastic, Sweatavania.

I had told the groom a number of months ago that I would be happy to help them out by serving the beer and wine for them. And I was happy to do it, but what I was not happy about was being treated like "the help" - especially being treated that way by one of the groomsmen. Said groomsman pointed out the unopened cases of beer directly on the other side of the chest high cooler, about six feet away from me, and said, "the idea is to put these in the ice when you run out of beer in the cooler". I told him I understood, in my best "thanks Smartman, a retard like me is not for bright enough to understand the concept of keeping beer cold". He was also standing by with his sage advice when a young lady asked for a type of beer that we had run out of. He informed me that I could probably find some if I dug around under the ice. I gave him a 'you might want to step the fuck off, right now' glance and simply said, "Uh-huh". I turned away to help someone else out and heard him say, "You just don't want to get your sleeves wet".

But despite that, Scott and Kristen got themselves hitched and I couldn't be happier for them, they're great.

So, we rushed away from the reception, all sweaty and tired-like, so I could get back home, shower and get to the theater for the closing night of the show. Except for the fact that it was about 812 degrees in the theater and you could feel the audience energy drifting away on the rising heat fumes, I think we put on a good show.

A note about the weather: While it has been hot and uncomfortable, it has not been the sort of hot that say arrives with the coming apocalypse and mankind's doom. Nor has the sun itself set down in the middle of Seattle Center as the news would have us believe was going to happen during "Heatwave '06!"

After the close of the show, I danced to Come On Eileen in a foolish manner, performed impromptu comedy routines in a foolish manner and drank heavily in a foolish manner (note to self: beer and vodka doesn't make Billy feel good the next day, particularly when liberal shots of Irish whiskey are thrown in on top), knowing full well I would have to return to the theater the next morning to clean up and dismantle the set.

And return I did... Did I mention that we performed the show on a stage covered with sand as the main stage show took place in Kuwait? Yeah it was. But we were assured, in that perfect used car salesman voice, that we wouldn't have to deal with the sand, someone would come get it.

Lies!

I spent an inordinate amount of time cleaning up just the sand that was tracked backstage, on my knees with a shop vac - which was the name of the movie I performed in back in college, for the rent money… This was before spending an obscene amount of time sweeping and shoveling up the stage because the carpenter decided he needed to move all this sand that day.

So on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, sleep deprived, hung over, sweating more than three people fucking in a sauna, I meandered home to vomit sand. That rules!