Bad Man

I just finished up a run in the play Angel Street with Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond. The show came from England and is better known by its original title "Gaslight." I got to join with a talented cast and played Jack Mannigham, a man who's trying to drive his wife insane. As always, it's great fun to play a bad guy, but this one was a little exhausting. Jack becomes rather unhinged - he shouts, rages and throws his poor wife around before he is finally thwarted by a retired detective and helpful policeman. Yeah, just another day at office. The audiences really enjoyed the show and we got some great reviews here and here. I got to grow my hair out long and some groovy side chops too. The facial hair was fun, but Cathy couldn't wait to see it gone. My broken wrist made the last couple of weeks a bit more interesting for everyone, but we soldiered through. The pictures here are snagged from the website, I've got a few more on my Flickr page.

Big Guy Fall Down. Go Boom. Break Stuff.

After a mishap a couple of weeks ago, I have now officially earned my first cast. I have provided a helpful diagram below to explain what the orthopedic doctor refers to as a "FOOSH." (That's Falling On OutStretched Hand) You will notice that "wavy" lines of picture 1 become "hurty" lines in picture 2:

All I can really say is that when I fell, I was on stage, but heroically did it in character, jumped back up and finished what I was doing with hopefully no one the wiser. Unfortunately, I still had to complete a performance of my current show, "Angel Street." While my wrist was merely sore at the beginning, by the end of the show I would describe my condition as 'howlingly painful.' After I was home later, we decided to spend the evening in an emergency room, where I was given a sling, a very cool bludgeon and a lollipop. By bludgeon, I mean a nifty fiberglass cast. And when I say lollipop I mean, of course, many cc's of morphine. Which does pretty much the same thing as a lollipop. Makes the patient smile, get agreeable, and willing to sign nearly any piece of paper put in front of them. Most likely I have a novicular fracture, a crack in a very small bone by the base of my thumb. "Most likely," because the doctor is not positive that the issue is a new break - it could be old news from a long time ago, but apparently, this is not a bone to mess around with - so I get the gift of immobility. I had a week to recover before heading back to the theater for costume and stage business modification so I could continue to function as bad guy "Jack Manningham" without raising any untoward audience sympathy for me. I also replaced the keyboards in my life with ergonomic versions so I could continue to work and type. By the way, typingb stinks wiht a cast on your leat hand. I left the typos in that last sentence to convey how much fun it is to correct myself right now. One more picture as I show off my "Angel Street" side chops and my mastery of this cast by waving goodbye without giving myself a black eye.

Never too late for Christmas

We made a very whirlwind trip back east for Christmas. Our first trip on Virgin Airlines, which is fantastic. SFO to JFK airport, then approximately 2 hours getting out of New York to meet Cathy's mom in New Jersey. We took a car (thanks Pop!) to Pennsy and spent the holiday with my family, then back to NJ and NYC where we caught up with Cathy's family and lots of friends. We managed to squeeze in a trip into NY and caught "Spring Awakening," which reminded me of how much we miss NY theater out here on the West Coast. Also reminded of what a pain in the butt NY can be. The kids are all getting bigger, as is everyone's television, but it was fun to just kind of settle into a week with some old comfortable relationships. We flew back on New Year's Eve with a couple of delays. After finally getting back to our car in Marin, we dragged into a supermarket, bought some dinner and then spent our glamorous New Year's celebration passing out on the couch at 9:30 pm.

"Eat my dust shorty"

Grandpa either referees the match or just waits for chances to laugh at players.

"Work it! Yes! Yes! No!"

"Fix it. Then give it back."

At Dad's

Ping Pong All Stars about to be schooled

Relinquishing the camera for a whole 30 seconds

The elusive "Long Haired Kidicus" is photographed in the wild

Cat and Maddie

Kristen and Cole

Sharayah, Whitney and Cole figure out the Barbie checkout

Back home. Warm air, interesting skies, interminable wait for the bus.