The photo on the left is Mythbuster Jamie Hyneman.  The photo on the right is composer John Philip Sousa.

Uncanny, isn’t it?  The only possible explanation I see is that Jamie is an immortal, compelled by The Quickening to battle across time, taking the heads of his enemies in pursuit of The Prize.

It certainly explains Adam’s constant jokes about Jamie’s age.

There can be only one.

While traveling up and down Route 22 in New Jersey, I was struck by the number of scary-ass cheap motels.  These places look straight out of The Sopranos.  So here I present a brief selection of…

New Jersey motels along Route 22 that have undoubtedly been the site of multiple mob hits.

Jared is coming soon to a city near you.

I’m on tour again, and I’d love to reconnect with old friends scattered across the country.  I may not have that much free time in these various cities, but could probably at least get together for a meal or at least a drink.

I’m stage managing a tour with LA Theatre Works.  The show is a Science Fiction double feature (no, not of the RHPS variety) of live radio drama.  War of the Worlds and The Lost World, hence the “Worlds” Tour.  What it is exactly is hard to explain, but the short version is that it’s a live presentation of a radio play that got out of hand.  It’s a radio play with lights and staging, but still with microphones and live sound effects.  It’s a fun evening.

So, if you live in or near any of the following cities, let me know at jpatrickcox at gmail dot com (obviously, fix that before you send).  I can’t promise anything, but I may…MAY…be able to wrangle you tickets to the show.

2/26 - 2/28 - Modesto, CA
2/28 - 3/02 - Anchorage, AK
3/02 - 3/04 - (Back in L.A.)
3/04 - 3/06 - Fayetteville, AR
3/06 - L.A. Again
3/07 - 3/08 - Escondido, CA
3/08 - Cerritos, CA
3/09 - Palm Desert, CA
3/10 - 3/13 - Somerville, NJ
3/13 - 3/14 - Bethlehem, PA
3/14 - 3/15 - Great Barrington, MA
3/15 - 3/17 - Concord, NH
3/17 - 3/19 - Springfield, MO
3/19 - 3/21 - Omaha, NE
3/21 - 3/23 - Glen Ellyn, IL
3/23 - 3/25 - Green Bay, WI
3/25 - 3/26 - Wasau, WI
3/26 - 3/28 - Lewisburg, PA
3/28 - 3/30 - Rochester, NY
3/30 - 4/01 - Jacksonville, FL
4/01 - 4/02 - Gainesville, FL
4/02 - 4/03 - Palm Beach, FL
4/03 - 4/05 - Bellingham, WA
4/05 - Return to L.A.

I could say something snarky about Alaska, what with all that’s come out if it in the 6 months… but take a look at this:

Beautiful.  Freaking unbelievably beautiful.  It really does look like that.

We didn’t have much time here, unfortunately, but we were here at the right time.   This weekend was the 74th annual Furrondy.  Which is short for fur rendevous.  I know, fur is murder.  Whatever.  It’s also warm, which comes in handy up here.  It began as a trading rendevous when all the fur traders would meet up to…trade fur, I guess.  So there was a fair amount of fur (that’s what she said) and men wearing funny fur hats:

But there were also sled dogs.  Sled Dogs!

Granted they weren’t huskies or malamutes, which was only disappointing for a minute, because…comeon…SLED DOGS!

And no Cuba Gooding, Jr. to be seen, which made it even better.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to see the Running of the Reindeer because our show was scheduled at the same time.  It was even more disappointing when I later found out that the Running of the Reindeer is exactly what it sounds like.  It’s pretty much the Arctic version of the Running of the Bulls.  Seriously.  They release reindeer into the streets and people run away from them.  You can’t make this stuff up.  As far as I’m concerned, Alaska is hereby redeemed.

One day, I’m coming back for the Running of the Reindeer.

Oh, yes… one day…

More pics at Flickr.

But they sure do turn out for the theatre.  We had at least 400-500 people at our first performance.  That’s a huge crowd for us.

I’m on tour again, and am again going to try to blog regularly.  If you look at the entries below this one, you’ll see how well that worked out last time.  My plan of action this time is to start small, not write much and instead rely heavily on pictures and short updates.

So, pictures:

These and more at Flickr

Most of you reading will know that I’m on tour.  Those of you who don’t…I’m on tour right now, stage managing a show for LA Theatreworks.  There, you’re caught up.

I’m here in St. Louis, we just finished our second and last show here before we move on to Lebanon, IL.  Tonight’s show went very well, but it was a long way getting to it.  This is where I go all Alias on you and flashback to:

37 HOURS EARLIER

After flying in the day before, we arrive at the Edison Theatre at Washington University to tech.  This was to be a final, brush up tech after having techhed the show a few days earlier in Los Angeles.  After loading the lighting program into the board, we found that we had some very, very bad cues.  We still aren’t sure what went wrong, but the first show looked great while the second show looked a mess.  A bad disk, a bad save, we really don’t know what happened, but it came down to that fact that an hour before curtain we had to rewrite cues for the entire second act (the second show).  We sped through that, opened house at 5 minutes to 8 and went up about 10 minutes late with the hastily thrown together cues.  The show went on, as it always does.

So the next day, today, we were scheduled to have the day off with a 6pm call at the theatre.  However, as the second show needed to be rewritten and refined from the emergency cues constructed the night before, my time off today was cut very short.  Christina and I took Mooses, who you’ll meet in the photos below, and went to Gateway Arch and The City Museum in the morning.  We left the hotel at 9:45, came back at noon, picked up our stuff for the show and after an hour at Kinko’s, eventually succeeding in printing out a lighting cue sheet, we headed to the theatre at 1pm.

The original lighting program for the second show turned out to be unrecoverable, and we began rewriting cues from scratch.  I didn’t say anything at the time of course, but the timing was very good.  The cast arrived at 4:00, we finished writing cues at 4:30 or so.  We stepped through the show to make sure the cues were good, finished that at 5:40.  Did some quick adjustments to the first show and were able to break for dinner at about 6:15.  Right on time.  A welcome change from the previous night’s frantic revisions at 10 minutes to curtain.  The cues looked great, the show went well and we’re (knock on wood) ready to move on to the next stop.

So, here are some pictures from my 2 hours of tourism this morning.  I’ll write up Mooses’ origin story in a later post, for now enjoy and good night.  I have an early morning tomorrow.