Wrap Yourself Up
My mom would have turned 76 today if she was still alive. But instead, she only lived to be 61. What's really sad about the whole thing is that her life went into a tailspin in the early 90's - the depths of which I'll never be able to fathom. I know, I know, there's nothing I could have done. I don't think that's true. I should have done something.
- moment of silence -
Anyway, the Häxan show in Dallas was spectacular. I left Friday morning at around 10 and had lunch at the Spiral Diner in Fort Worth as always. Then I went to the hotel - it was one of the fanciest hotel rooms I've ever stayed at (which honestly isn't really that fancy, but still). I napped, took a shower, and drove to the Texas Theatre. Kelli was already there. Chad was doing sound again, and everything at the soundcheck was easy breezy.
I went back to the hotel and warmed up for a while. I tried to arrange for us to get a ride from the hotel to the theatre, but it didn't work out. This was kind of a bummer, because I wanted to be able to say that I got a ride from the hotel to the show. But it was fine, it was only a 10 minute drive.
When I got there, I did a quick line check and everything sounded good. Though to be honest I wasn't super crazy about how the Pod Go sounded, so I might look into getting some other type of amp modeler. But in the mix it sounded decent enough. Then Kelli and I kind of wandered into the green room. She said that she had been to several of the other screenings (it was all a part of the Oak Cliff film festival), and that they were having a series of short films from local directors opposite our show, so we might want to manage our expectations.
When we went back to the main theatre room to get situated, we kept hearing the ushers tell people to not come in yet, so that was promising. Sure enough, when they started letting people in, TONS of people started filing in. Honestly, it looked as full as any of my Metropolis shows. Barak gave a short introduction and handed me the mic after asking me what everyone can expect from the show. I said, "I have no idea", which got a laugh. I went into a little bit of technical detail and off we went.
The actual performance went really well. Kelli's narration was fantastic, and people really seemed to respond well. There were several outbursts of cathartic laughter at certain parts, which was good. The best part was the part that Mia helped me with - where an old woman is describing some Satanic rituals to interrogating monks. One of the demons simulates masturbation with a butter churn, then it cuts to the monks staring in disbelief - that part is the only part of the movie that is dead silent, and the crowd erupted. It was such a moment.
After the show, a decent amount of people came up and talked to us. I got rid of all of my USB drives and got some more email addresses for the mailing list. The afterparty went on for an hour or two and I had a few drinks and talked to some more people. What was crazy is that several people said they had been to my earlier Metropolis shows - more than once! Barak gave us $2000. I split it 50/50 with Kelli.
On the way back to the hotel, Kelli and I kind of got lost. Kelli's a bit of a talker and I got distracted. It would have been really nice if we had a driver!
The next morning, I got up at around 10 and managed to check out of the hotel before 11. I went back to Spiral Diner for lunch and drove home.
When I got home, Mia had already gone grocery shopping and cleaned the house and such. It was really nice. We went to dinner with Anna and Thomas at the Clay Pit. It was great to see them again, but once again they hardly ate anything and I could hardly hear a word that Anna said. I ended up splitting the bill with Thomas and spending ~$90 on leftovers. Okay.
After that, Mia and I went to We Luv Video to rent a couple of movies. The guy checking us out recognized me and said that someone was asking when my next performance there was. Fame! Then Mia went back home and did it.
Sunday we mostly just relaxed. Mia and I went for a walk at Pease Park and I made breakfast tacos. We went swimming at Ramsey park for a while. Then we came home and Mia made dinner and we watched two movies - one called something like Acts of Worship about drug addiction, and one called Waiting for Sugarman about a musician from Detroit in the early 70's that never made it in the USA but for some reason got to be super famous in South Africa. Then we went to sleep.