Some Enchanted Evening

Well, we're going into crunch time for South Pacific, the play I'm doing with Light Opera Works in Evanston. I've had conflicts with the rehearsal schedule but have just gotten back into the swing of it and the show really looks like it's coming together. The set looks amazing, like a big blue canvass with the wings adding more dimension of island mountains, ocean and sky. I play the houseboy, Henri, which is kind of demeaning, but tolerable. I have seven lines and they're all in French. We open Thursday and run for two weekends. My brother and his family, who are flying up to Chicago to spend a week with me, will be able to see it.

Meanwhile last night, I spent a bruising evening at IML, the big leather convention that's always here in Chicago. Some guys from Asians and Friends came to meet me and I, in my chain-link vest, romped around getting drunk. The Onyx party was the best--funny, I remember it being for black men--with the music and fan twirling. And I saw a bunch of folks I know from Miss Saigon and Joel Hall. The place to see and be seen (in leather).

Life's a hoot!

Head Hickies in LA

Three days after leaving L.A. and I still have them. Hickies. On my head. It was not planned. I went to L.A. because my cousin Celia was having her engagement party and oddly enough, my Mom was flying in from Honolulu and guess what, it was also Mother's Day weekend. The confluence of events--the perfect storm as it were--drew me from Chicago to L.A. for a weekend of partying and homage to my Mom.

Well, at the party, I realize that the leather jacket I brought had two unexpected gems: large, yellow, nipple suction cups. Who knew? So I whip them out at the engagement party and put them on my forehead like devil's horns. And on my neck like Frankenstein. It's as funny as it sounds and people giggle.

Then later, my Mom touches my forehead and says, "What's that?" I don't know what she's talking about until the next morning when I have these huge hickies on my forehead. I have them the next morning and I think, "Oh, my God. No!"

I've now had to go to work three days with hickies on my forehead. They're darker and fading now, but I'm still, as the lyrics from "Grease" remind me, "branded, a fool."

Celebrities in NYC!

I was celebrity hunting when I went to New York last week. I encountered the guy from Myth Busters at the airport in Chicago, Cyndi Lauper in Three Penny Opera in New York (my flash didn't work the first time and she couldn't wait), as well as Cyndi's fellow cast mates: Anna Gasteyer from SNL, Alan Cumming from various movies and Jim Dale, the original Barnum (the musical). Of course, I know having my picture taken with celbrities in no way elevates my own importance.