Melinda's Moments Mmprh

Wednesday afternoon – In between the opening and the finale…

I’m the in the bowels of the MGM Grand, in the dressing rooms of the Grand Arena. This venue is where Tyson fought Holifield and all the huge concerts come to… and all along the halls leading from the dressing rooms to backstage are their signed pictures thanking the MGM crew. Kiss, The Rolling Stones, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Britney Spears (one of these things is not like the other…) It’s awesome cause we get juice, coffee and coke products in our room every morning. They have half bottles of coke that are amazingly cute. I’ve never seen them elsewhere. I took some to give to mom, dad and Jerry this weekend.

What they don’t provide, however, is food. That sucks especially hard because the food here is soooo effing expensive. Today for lunch I had a $9 turkey sandwich, which was cheap, compared to my $12 chicken sandwich from Monday. Yesterday, I tried to go cheap and ate at the least expensive place at the food court – The Grand Wok – and paid for it for the rest of the day. I thought, and still think, that the projectile vomiting would have fit right in with the pyrotechnics, fog machines and lasers. 

I keep on saying that the stage is gi-normous. It completely dwarfs dreamcatcher, and that’s saying something considering that our set is a good 22 feet. When I climb up over to the tippy-top to drop in to climb down to the center before my fly is no longer the SCARIEST thing ever… and I realized that it’s all relative. The thing is, that at our rehearsal space, the top of the DC is about 10 inches from the ceiling, so when you’re up there, you freak out. BUT, when the top of the DC is about 40 feet from the arena ceiling, suddenly you’re all confident.

**** Cut to Friday Night – Back home, in my own bed, and exhausted. ****

Hmmm… where to (re)start. Monday? Ok. Monday.

I didn’t have to be at the airport until noon, so my morning was spent sulking and stressing over all the stuff I couldn’t get done before I left. The flight to Las Vegas was only about 45 minutes. Becca, John and I caught a cab with Jacques after having already checked in to the MGM at their airport kiosk. Almost as soon as we got there we had to go to our first tech call, but we did have just enough time to squeeze in a meal from ‘wichcraft (the $12 chicken sandwich previously referred to…) which we ate by the pool, in our clothes.

The first tech was mostly cue to cue, spacing, etc. It was a long day because everything had to be re-worked according to the stage – which was smaller than our sets liked, and slippery than my ass liked – which consequently was why they became so well acquainted.

I think we got out a half an hour late on Monday, but I really can’t remember. After we left, Becca, John Paige and I trekked the ten-mile (hyperbole) long walk from the arena back to the casino and took a late dinner at the Studio Café. I had a rather amazing BBQ sandwich, which I mention simply because the sauce rivals Chicago for ribs, and THAT is saying something. Also, our waiter was a turd and tried to trick us in to believing that Grey Goose was the well vodka. AND he never brought my chips and guac. Bastard.

We then went up/over to Garrett uber-posh “west wing” psycho-mod-euro-white-and-blue-contempo-whore style room and hung out for a bit. I definitely fell asleep there, and had to be woken up. I went back to my room and crashed. Thinking back, I’m shocked that I remembered to set the alarm/call for a wake-up call.

Tuesday morning we had a 10am call. It was harder to wake up than I expected but by no means harder than I would find subsequent mornings. We spent a good part of the morning teching who knows what, but it involved running everything a bajillion times. That was fine, and was to be expected. We only got a half an hour lunch, instead of an hour, though, which was rather frustrating since in order to get food one had to sprint to the food court and buy grease and acid for $20. (This quip is referencing the also-previously-mentioned Chinese food.)

After lunch we teched more… and then had dinner (John, David, Becca and I split a pizza from Mamma Ilardo’s.) Then we had a long strung-along pseudo break, in which we were sequestered to our dressing room due to the possibility of being needed at a moment’s notice. This resulted in a weird, hyper, delirious cabin fever, exacerbated by the fact that we needed to stay alert and warmed up with no release. By about 11pm we were finally back on stage and we left around 11:30.

For a late dinner, almost all of us – even Evan, Derrick and Jeremy – went to a local pub called the Crown and Anchor for dinner. Paige had raved about it, and a bunch of others seemed to know about how good it was, so our decision to go was made regardless of how exhausted we all were. After midnight burgers there were $3. These were HUUUGE burgers, too, and even came with fries, Everyone filled up on the beer specials, too, but instead I opted for, like, five glasses of good ol’ Coke. And, (sadly?) one of my strongest associations with that dinner was how figgin’ much I enjoyed those Cokes. Dinner went long, and we got home about 2:45am… after a random additional stop at Jack and the Box so that AD could get a strawberry-banana milkshake.

Ah, Wednesday. Wednesday we had a 9am call, so that we could run everything in full at 11. (Keep in mind that the actual show was coming up that night at 8pm.) The run at 11 was to do the whole thing strung together and add fog, lasers, lights (read: everything distracting and dangerous for us all at once.) During that run, we were introduced to the bodily sensation of suffocating on stage… they overdid the fog machines and choked and blinded us with CO2 (put that 2 in a subscript in your head, please.) The best part was that it obscured us enough that it was difficult to see what we were doing… and the client liked it… meaning the fog stayed… and we just had to deal. This was all okay, just one hurdle among many, but a particularly brutal one for my lil ol’ lungs which were already sad and bitchy due to the air conditioning and desert humidity level.

One thing I do want to interject into my own monologue is that all the people who were backstage and working on the Honda show were so much fun, and so nice. One guy, named Chief, is going to come and see us in New York, and hopefully, if there is time, he is going to take us to all his favorite places in the city. Another guy, named Brian, was one of the Asimo operators and could tell I was retarded-excited to see/be next to/within 10 feet/ witness the robot. He arranged it so I could take pictures with Asimo and was so fun and crazy nice and totally put up with all my nerdy questions and giggles and freak out when Asimo did cool shit in front of me. Also Jennifer, the stage manager, was totally chill and played along with us and didn’t get up tight or cranky ever – an amazing feat considering all the shit she was in charge of… Everyday when she came to page the drape for us to do onstage, Paige would lead us in a golf-clap for her, saying “ladies and gentlemen, Jennifer. Jennifer, everyone.” She seemed genuinely tickled by that, which made me smile. I love fun, silly people and I hate stupid, stony people. So there.

Our lunch was extended by a bit to accommodate rogue motorcycles so we headed to the pool, (that day we had come prepared with swimsuits and SPF.) We laid out, but I opted for a spot in the shade and my iPod with Death Cab’s new album on repeat. For me, 30 min was not worth sunscreen-grease and that post-sun hot-fever feeling I get. On our way back we bought food, to be had again courtesy of ‘wichcraft (Turkey on a potato roll: $9, previously mentioned.) We got back and had our dress rehearsal, which was our first time in costumes.

Our costumes were interesting to say the least, and I loved them, but there were several humorous things to take note of when viewing pictures later… First, the girls’ tops were much more club-music-video-sassy than Diavolo-style work should ever be done in, which meant some creative solutions were in order to keep them on, and in place. By looking at us girls in those tops, a random person would have a very skewed and wrong impression of what kind of dancing we do. (Check under our pants for the 3 different types of pads for that instead.) Also, the guys were wearing girl-pants, leading to a very sailor-ish cut and issues with exposed butt cracks. I loved it though, and they looked awesome from the video we watched of ourselves. I’m sad I don’t get to keep my track jacket…

Dress went great, and afterwards Jacques treated us to dinner at… wait for it… ‘wichcraft. Becca and I, both having already exhausted all the choices of sandwiches we would eat there, opted for salads and potato salads. I got the absol-effing-lutely best cream soda I have ever had in my life there, too. Then it was back to the theater to do the actual show (the US version.)

It was a full house, and the show went great. At the dress rehearsal they had added pyrotechnics, and both that and the fog seemed to be kicked up a notch during the actual show.

After, John came up to our hotel room and helped Becca and I pick out outfits so that we could get all cutesied up for a night out. We went across the sky-walkway to the New York New York hotel and had dinner at Il Fornaio, (I think it was called that, at least,) an Italian place which only gave me SIX raviolis for $18, AND Becca and I were splitting it – assuming that, at that price, it would be a heaping pile. No matter, I filled up on bread and olive oil.

After, we headed back to the MGM and a bar called Centrifuge for drinks. This bar, I was sad to learn, is what replaced the huge replica of the emerald tower they used to have in the big dome area of the MGM.

Thursday morning we had another early call so we could run the Canadian version of the show (which was half in French, and didn’t have a big-boobed female sportscaster host.) We were done by 1pm, and headed straight for the pool as a big group, (we had again come prepared with swimsuits.) We all got lunch at the grill, which was poolside. Fat and happy, I actually took the time to put on sunscreen so I could lay out and swim in the currented river.

While I was at the pool, I ran into two people from home: Ethan, and also Ruth Burwell – her family was actually there for the Honda convention and had seen me perform the night before… sooooo weird!

The constant quest of the day for the Diavolo crew was to obtain one of the inner tubes you can rent at the pool. None of us was willing to pay $15 for that, so we set out on a (mostly) passive campaign to gather them as we saw them abandoned or neglected. By the end of the night we had procured about five, and had had numerous laps of coagulated dancers-on-tubes floats around the river loop altogether in one big bundle.

After the pool, Becca and I headed up to our room for some much-needed downtime. I re-dyed the red in my hair (which had turned an embarrassing seventh-grade orangey-red from the sun and the pool,) and called up Sarah and made plans to see her that night.

Renee and I already had plans to walk up and down the strip together, (most others held the opinion that this activity would be like “a slow death” and didn’t want to come.) We took the new super-connected monorail system that Vegas has all the way up to Harrah’s so that we could start at the north end of the strip and walk back south to the MGM.

Sarah met up with us at the Harrah’s station and we all walked to Caesar’s for dinner, where Sarah could treat us to use of her employee’s discount for dinner. Some great conversation later, the three of us headed back to Treasure Island, now saucily dubbed just “TI” in an attempt to sexify their image, for the ‘Sirens of TI’ show. This show used to be that pirate battle that was outside in the lake, but it is now a stripper-esque review where boobs challenge buccaneers. We missed it, having gotten the time wrong, and I can’t say I was too sad about it… I only feel super bad cause it was the one thing Renee wanted to see.

Next we headed across the street to check out the Venetian, Bally’s and Paris. Paris was my favorite of the three by far – I would looooove to stay there sometime. Bally’s was so much fun to be in with Sarah as she pointed out where she goes to rehearsal everyday and showed us the Jubilee Theater and all the things she knows about the place and her show so far. I am so excited for her, it’s so much fun!

By this time, poor Renee (who was dying from a severe head cold) had just about had as much as she could handle,) so we said goodbye to Sarah and re-boarded the monorail, which, by the way, now costs $3 each way, to get home to the MGM for the night. I got back to my room and packed up, knowing I had to be up at 6:30 for a 7:30am call Friday morning.

I definitely woke up at about 7:10 this morning, and RAN downstairs. I had to skip breakfast, but we made it in time. The show went okay, weird things happened, like I slipped on my fly so I had a weird body position, but it went well in general.

Post show, Becca, Garrett and I went to go check out the MGM lions, which turned out to be lion: singular, and also a bunch of fun. I finally found a souvenir to buy – an elephant necklace from the lion habitat gift shop – courtesy of mom and dad and the Alaska card (by permission, for once.)

John, Leo, Becca and I split a cab to the airport, and all had lunch together at a Mexican place inside the airport terminal. We inhaled a huge plate of nachos and all ate entrees as well… I think we were all cranky and starving and hankering for food that wasn’t a fortune.

The flight was uneventful, and plans to watch Sex and the City together were usurped by all of us falling asleep upon take-off. Oh well, we all also desperately needed naps.

I have been in bed, at home, loving just laying here since. I am about to go and pick up mom and dad and Jerry at the airport so we can have a fun-filled weekend at Disneyland. I am so excited, I can barely handle it!!

Yikes. The last time I updated was just before my massage – which turned out to be an emotionally disturbing experience. Vince is amazing, and definitely the absolute best masseuse I have ever been to… However, I definitely left in tears. I had heard about this happening to people before with deep tissue massage – usually Rolfing – but I never thought I was susceptible. Apparently it is a byproduct of 22 years of not letting myself exhale emotionally, so all my junk emotion gets stored in my muscles. It was like therapy. I left feeling too aware of my insecurities and my fears in life, but physically cured of almost all my chronic stature and pain issues. It was so incredibly weird.

Now, a week later, I am feeling much better, mostly for the following two reasons: 1) a lot of my confusion/freak out came because I felt so vulnerable having opened up so much to Vince, a guy who I’ve met only a handful of times for Monica’s rehearsals. In hind-sight, though, (which mom nailed exquisitely,) he is just one of those people who knows what to say, and how to say it to you. He was so generous with his time and his advice and his listening. I hope the next time I see him (in about a week,) I won’t feel so sheepish that I can look him in the eye and really, really thank him. (What a weird outcome for a massage, huh?) … and 2) After I was feeling so disjointed and unhinged I was struck again by what great family and friends I have. Mom stayed on the phone with me just because I’m a nutcase and Becca completely invited me to her plans without a second thought cause she could tell I just didn’t want to be alone, without my having to say it. That was the second time Becca has been an absolute angel to me (the first time being when she dropped everything when I was so sick a few weeks ago, and came over and spent the day with me watching TV.) I’m so glad we’ve become such good friends. Diavolo is so far the most amazing experience, and 99.99% of it has been the people. And we haven’t even left on tour yet. 

So anyways… The next day, Sunday, Becca called me up early to see if I wanted to join her and her beau, Pete, for a trip to Manhattan Beach. Sad as it is, I have never ever been to the beach down here for the actual act of going to the beach. As in, I have gone to eat In and Out there and walk barefoot with mom, or Mark and Kris, but never have I gone in a bikini and with suntan lotion in hand to lay out for the express purpose of just being at a beach.

I had so much fun, I can’t even believe it. Part of it was that I felt like a different person: the normal Melinda hisses at the sun and reads whenever there isn’t a TV on… but that day all I did was lay out and play in the waves (another thing I have never, ever done in my whole life.) It was the best!!

After beaching myself (haha) I had dinner with Kris at California Pizza Kitchen, securing myself quality Kris time and leftovers that I could have for lunch for the following two days: quite the deal. 

Monday thru Thursday rehearsal was what rehearsal always is: exhausting, and too hot and long. We finished Trajectoire and the pieces of Dreamcatcher that we’re bringing to Vegas for the Honda Industrial. We also re-learned D2R A (which we did for Denver) and which is going to be the alternate piece we do in the venues at which we can’t hang from the ceiling (ie- for when we can’t do hanging duet or Atom.)

Monday night after rehearsal Becca and I went to Westside Pavillion – an awesome mall by her place in Palms off of Overland and Pico – to buy our stage makeup for the year. Knowing that we didn’t want to break out or sweat off our makeup we totally did the whole have-a-sales-guy-help-you-pick-out-every-part-of-it thing. I left $350 poorer, but with a full face of designer makeup that is the BEST you can buy and lasts because you use less. Also, it means that I won’t need to tap into my personal/fun stuff and use it all up on tour.

The biggest part of the investment was about $150 worth of brushes and brush cleaner. I have always been a use-your-finger kind of gal, but apparently that is bad for your face, the makeup, and how long it lasts. Becca already had a killer set of brushes so she didn’t need to buy any. She has had her MAC brushes for about eight years and they are still perfect, so I don’t feel so bad having “invested” in a good set. The whole experience was also super, super fun having someone pick out all your colors and teach you how to apply it all so it looks amazing. It was fun to spoil myself and throw my budget to the wind for a night. It will last far longer than just this season (most of it anyway – the foundation is the only thing that I might need to restock.) 

Wednesday night, back at Diavolo, was our annual donor’s gala-show/season kick off. It’s when we perform for everyone who gives us money to survive. The day was so long I couldn’t form complete sentences by the end of it. But the event was catered and I got to tons of fresh fruit: a highlight for me simply because it’s been too long: my apartment is too hot to buy fruit – it ripens waaaay too fast, or not at all if I leave it in the Fridge.) I would have also drowned myself in the ridiculously expensive French wine, just because it was soooo expensive and I when else would I have that opportunity, had I not been the driver that day. It was fun to meet the Board of Directors and get to kick it with the company outside of rehearsal while wearing things other than sweats and actual sweat. 

Thursday after rehearsal, too, I got to do just this. After Paige, Becca and I went to a costume fitting (in what I still maintain is the creepiest – like haunted-wise, not dangerous-wise – building in all of LA, off of West Pico and La Brea) we decided to get cocktails at an English pub on Sunset in Hollywood called the Cat and Fiddle. I felt oh-so-grown-up to go “have cocktails,” and this was definitely part of the allure that kept me from instead going home and passing out for the night. 

What started out as us three girls turned into most of the company. We all got burgers… great, massive, wonderful burgers and fried vegetables. It was great being around them and not feeling like I was the gross one eating crap. I also found a new drink that I actually enjoy drinking and don’t just tolerate: Vanilla vodka and Ginger Ale. Who knew? It was very sweet, though. Paige let me try her vodka tonic, and I like that too: it was like 7up but more alcohol-y. Looks like my silly quest to find drinks that I actually like has had a sudden kick-start. And just in time for Vegas! Awesome! 

Dinner was tons of fun. Afterwards, Becca and I went to the Hustler store – yes, like Huster magazine – to buy her brother a birthday present: he had asked for one of their trademark tees. It was actually not a bad experience. I was sure I was going to feel terribly uncomfortable and hate the place, but instead I found that it was more like a Hard Rock Café: all logo gear and gag gifts, not raunchy or overt at all. There were, of course, sections that had gross “lingere” and books about things I didn’t care to browse, but I was pleased to leave and not feel sick to my stomach or like I was gross. I even bought a shirt for Jerry. It is brown and has a skeleton with guns crossing his chest and doesn’t have one single reference to sex on it anywhere. I therefore have no idea why they were selling it, but whatever. He’ll love it.

Friday I spent the day in Orange County with Wesley, my long-time-no-see most favorite guy friend ever, who has been in China for the past two years. We went and got Boba and then watched MTV and caught up for hours. I’ve missed him so much! He definitely has the best laugh ever and always makes me feel loved. We met up with his friends at night and went to a Street fair in the orange “district” – he swears it’s not a city, or a neighborhood, so by default we’ll call it that – of Tustin. It was amazing. The whole thing is divided into nations/countries. So, as you’re walking in one area it is all Mexican food and crafts and drinks, and then you cross a walkway and enter into Swiss everything. They had Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Danish, Italian, all-american, german, French… and a ton of delineations I couldn’t have imagined warranted their own area, but there they were.

We ended the night at a friend of his parent’s restaurant called Jalapeno’s. There was a very drunk and very hot-tempered Mexican guy there who tried to start a brawl because Wes put his beer on the edge of the table connected to his to give his friend a hug. It was scary for about two seconds and then it was just hilarious. The guy was an idiot and was doing that whole “whose got a problem here?!” puff your chest and glare thing. I made it worse by laughing directly at him (it was a reaction, not an attempt to exacerbate the situation – the guy was just that retarded, I almost did that spit out your soda laugh thing.) Oh well.

Wow, my posts are always so long when I take too long in between each one.

I’ll finish with today: I got up, and immediately called Mark and asked him to go get Rubio’s with me. We ended up seeing the 40-year-old Virgin after lunch, and it was amazing. So good. Go see it. Now.

Since then I’ve been paying bills, cleaning my room, and half-assedly packing for Vegas. I leave on Monday. Tomorrow we have our last rehearsal and load out of the Dreamcatcher set – which is going to take forever: it’s effing huge. I made rice and beans and an olive and cheese quesidilla (no idea how to spell that…) for dinner, and I am enjoying writing and eating and watching yet more of Sex and the City. (I’m on Season Three now. It’s an addicting show!)

Jerry is at the gorge seeing Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I miss the Gorge and Seattle Summer. I can’t believe summer is over… I had a panic attack when I found out LMU started last Monday. I gave myself the summer to settle into pretending to be grown-up and it’s laboring for me to realize my grace period has ended. I miss college and I miss Seattle. But hey, I’m about to go all over the country and the world doing what I love, so, I can’t really complain now can I?