The Illness Of The Bruddas

A great bumper sticker we found in Fairmont, West Virginia.

Well hello. This update is written for you ‘live’ from JFK Airport, New York as part of a wonderful 3.5hr delay en route to San Francisco… Wait, it gets better. I spent all day Saturday in bed, having gone to bed approx 11pm on Fri & waking up on Sat arvo @ 3pm. Spent Sunday rugged up, surfing the Net & watching movies in the common room of the hostel whilst Ric ventured out & explored. The most frustrating thing being that I was supposed to be showing him Bleeker St on Sat night… (tear!) I now feel better, not best, & Ric has ‘that’ look about him!! What is it with me being sick in NY..? Do I dare mention that the current show @ The Joyce had to have their Wardrobe Mistress rushed to hospital to have her appendix out - the same thing that happened to Gabby, Tango Fire’s piano player…. And no, I’m not joking…. Seriously!!

Anyhoo, what better way to pass a 3hr delay, a 6hr flight & 2.5hrs of laptop battery than prepping a delightfully witty, informative & ever so insightful Blog entry. (Man I set myself some mighty tasks!)

Giz working his way through a bowl of Gumbo.

Well, Lafayette, our final show of the Tour, which was a One Night Stand was scheduled for a 5pm curtain up… And we usually arrive at the venue at 11am for either a 7.30 or 8pm show… So, do some simple math and you come to the conclusion that we should be at the venue by 8.30am… Factor into the equation that Lafayette is 2.5hrs from New Orleans and you have to be leaving by 6am at the latest… 5.45am lobby call (Argentine 0600) and there’s your alarm going off at 5.15am on the LAST DAY OF THE TOUR…! None of us had ever been to Lafayette but they were definitely on the backfoot with us already!!!

The Bourbon Cowboy - The Home Of The Bull!!

Of course, because we arrived at a different time, the general routine that Dan & I had went kinda out the window. Nowdays, it’s generally hang all our soft goods, I bounce focus Pipe 4 & build the table pracs and then we eat… instead we just had coffee! Beh! The day didn’t go that badly overall & to top it all off they had a Strand 300 Series Console - which messed with my head a little come plotting time as 1) I was tired, 2) I knew Ric was en route to New Orleans from Detroit, 3) I had been working in ETC world for the past 2 months. Come show time, the show came up really well, the spot ops nailed each & every snap/bump to black together - which made me even happier!! Dan & I were operating from out in the auditorium and the way the desks were set up, we basically had to stand to operate. That ended up in the two of us dancing and bopping away to the last show of the Tour!! Was kinda funny & was definitely the opposite end to the day than earlier expected or that I felt Lafayette deserved…!

A day version of the frozen Mississippi...

Unlike the end of the UK Tour, there was no Company organised drinks… could have had something to do with the fact that the last hotel room the Company had their End Of Tour Drinks - Basingstoke, there was a little bit of a damage bill (cost us $50/person)! No smashing of TV sets or anything like that, just red wine stains, chips & peanuts crushed into the carpet etc. The only reason we had ended up having it in one of the hotel rooms was that the venue had double booked the room where we were supposed to have drinks…

….So! In Lafayette the Presenter took us out ot a Mexican restaurant and gave us a decent feed as well as 1 free drink each & then 2 4 1 house margaritas. Of course, by the time we loaded out, the restaurant was only open for about an hour & a half. Not happy with the fizzle to the end of the Tour, Dan & I wandered down to the local servo & bought a mixed case & took it back to the hotel & invited the Company down. For the first half hour or more, it was just the two of us… Did we over order on the beer…? Then some of the gang started to arrive & it was all the people we didn’t expect!! Javier & Nelson didn’t show but it ended up being quite a cool night. We listened to a whole heap of Argentine music & they downloaded a whole heap of Argentine comedy clips off YouTube. They were all in the same vein as the D-Gen would do - “The Olden Days”, “Bargarse” etc. They were actually quite funny, covering Harry Potter, Spiderman, Terminator..!!

Andres, me, Mariela, Jorgelina, Jarvier, Celeste, Pablo & Bettiana.

Well, that officially wraps up the US leg of the Tour - I could tell you many stories of how we awoke the next morning blah, blah, blah but it basically ended up with me bidding everyone farewell at New Orleans Airport @ approx 11am & then hitching a ride into town, on the bus to meet up with Ric…

The real adventures starts….. NOW!