Drunk & Battery

This is the first time in several night I have been in a home, anyone's home, before 1 AM. It is wildly relaxing.

The fact is, yesterday jes' plain whupped me. Harris woke me at 6.30 - the plan was to drop postcards at both the starting and finish lines of the NYC Half Marathon. The gun was to go off at Central Park (two blocks way) at 7 AM. Guess we were going to miss that. And me with only three hours of sleep.

We got to Battery Park for the finish around 8.30, with only a few elite runners having crossed the finish line already. As the finishers began trickling in, we handled to two major entrances to the post-race festivities and handed cards to dazed runners and their confused family members and supporters.

At Fringe events, they know why you are handing them cards. Here, it was like handing them out on the street. In New York. "Who the f*** are you?" Only not quite. No one was rude. Some brightened up when I said, "When I ran the New York City Marathon!" Others gave us the brush off until we said, "New York Fringe Festival!" and then they changed face and said, "Oh, cool!" and took a card.

We must have handed out almost 300 cards - and to a non-traditional audience! Yay alternative marketing exercise!

One guy listened to my pitch, and then had one of his own. "This half marathon sucked!" he confided, and then went on the kvetch about the water stops. Harris had asked me whether it were better to run an entire marathon in perfect, cool weather - or to run 13.1 miles in this humidity. I think they'd all rather have gone the distance.

Some were impressed by the idea of a show like this. Some thought the title was a little inappropriate. Me with the uplifting show titles.

After I headed to Brooklyn for a production meeting with Kelly, Josh and Sabrina at a diner in Park Slope. Sabrina is our Authorized Company Representative and she has been amazing, she is really on top of things, and her communication with the FringeNYC people has been going extremely well. We tech tomorrow and she went over a lot of issues which left me feeling calm and confident about what we have to do tomorrow.

Unfortunately, I was also two night's sleep-deprived, and fading horribly. As Leah was getting ready to leave town for a week and I was already in Brooklyn, she invited me over to hang out while she tidied up and packed, and I got to see her place in Bed-Stuy, and even close my eyes for a little bit.

Heading back to the Village, I decided to see one of my favorite acts from the night before at the VPH, live from Australia, MARK STOREN'S A DRUNKEN CABARET. This man is drop-dead hilarious, and charming and his show is great fun. It is a shame that the bar at the CSV was closed tonight - and I did have enough time to get something from across the street. I do not know if A DRUNKEN CABARET is funnier drunk, but I was willing to learn.

When the podcast for last night's even goes online, you have got to listen to the love song he sings - it went over even better last night than it did at this evening's performance. Because, you know. We were drunk.

So, no. I passed out no cards at Fringe shows today ... but we did a great job this morning, which, like most mornings the past few days, feels like years ago.