Da Bush is ON FIRE!!!

Aiight, so I guess it's Day Two of 'The Burning Bush Crew' being in NYC - and man, have we made it a good day! First off, let me just say that anyone who knows anybody in New York City should tell them to check out: http://frigidfest.com/shows/BurningBush.html and book their tickets to see one of only six performances of the sure-to-be-sold-out run of Tracey Erin Smith's "The Burning Bush"! Do it now!

So, back to today. T.E.S. woke up this morning with a little laryngitis, which I told her was probably a sign from her body that she needed to slow down and tune in to her own body, as opposed to barrelling forward at 1,000 miles an hour until her opening night this friday. Have you ever noticed how your body often becomes sick or injured only at the times when either you really need it, or you have the time or care around you to handle it? Well, I think this is true, and as I (yes, slightly direction-deficient ME) led Tracey and myself downtown on the NY subway system this morning, I reassured her that she was in good hands. One of my favorite things about Tracey is that when I offer unsolicited observations like the one above, she listens very earnestly and often seems to agree with me. Yeah, I like that in a friend.

Okay, so this morning was a triumph of picking up our posters from the printers (they accidentally printed 250 for us when we only ordered 75, so we got 250 for the price of 75!), finding the last of our remaining set pieces and supplies that we needed, and stopping by both the FRIGID Festival office and our performance space and posting our posters and flyers (you can look forward to some great pics of me tentatively using a staple gun, and boldly hanging over a ledge to put up our posters - anything for bums in seats)! Then we had "Dunch" - my new favorite meal, a hearty mid-afternoon meal that is later than lunch and not quite dinner - at what has come to be our favorite cafe: Yaffa Cafe. Unfortunately, post-meal we deduced that the very crazy, intense, searing, shooting-pain headaches that I've been having for the last day and a half are likely a result of the MSG in the tasty food (stir fry broccoli, vegetable curry, etc) at Cafe Yaffa. So, although it is totally irresistable with it's kitschy eclectic decor and free wireless internet access, TES and I have decided to forgo such frequent dining at "Cafe MSG", er, I mean the Yaffa Cafe.

(As a sidebar note, the last time I remember eating MSG was YEARS ago, at a Chinese restaurant with Tiina, Thea, Kyle and Joseph, I think. It was the summer before Tiina and Brendan left Toronto for Halifax and I can vividly remember the searing headache and the entire lower half of my face going numb! Yikes!)

So, perhaps still a little messed up on MSG, TES and I returned home to our fabulous (and HUGE) NYC apartment in the East Village (we're on 1st Ave at 16th Street). We had a power meeting to further strategise what I have named "Operation Bums in Seats for Opening Night" and then TES made some phone calls. Some very good phone calls.

First, she called Joshua Nelson and seemed to reach him on his cell phone somewhere on the road to a gig. Now, I must tell you that Joshua Nelson is a mind-blowingly amazing Black Jewish Gospel singer whose sold-out concert Tracey and I took my brother to see when we were in Vancouver for the Chutzpah Festival last month. Now, I'm not Jewish, nor have I ever really listened to much gospel music, and I was really sick the night of the concert, but I had an amazing time. After the show, I went to get some air and Tracey and my brother managed to buy a CD each from the 20 remaining CD's he had to sell at the end of his tour, AND they managed to meet Josh Nelson, get him to autograph their CD's and take a photo with them. That was when he told Tracey he would be into seeing her show in New York (he lives in New Jersey).

So Tracey calls Josh Nelson this afternoon. She talks to him, sings to him a little (she has an amazing voice herself) and then I hear her say "Yes... the show opens this friday... Sure, I'll put some comps aside for you and your friends" - oh my!!! This is very cool.

So after that victory, I convince her to call this Rabbi here in New York that I call Rabbi Gonzo, because he wrote a book that Tracey is currently reading called "Gonzo Judaism". She eventually gets his home office number, and leaves a great voicemail message for him too. And she also calls and leaves a message for Jackie Mason. Jackie Mason is a pretty famous former-Rabbi-turned-comedian, whom Tracey has met a few times, and has loved for a long time, and who is sort of a central character in her show. Tomorrow we will drop a press package off to his wife/manager and I will make a follow up call. Mark my words, we will be on Oprah before you know it!!!

After all this excitement, I left TES with her computer to do some more emailing and I walked a few blocks over to the grocery store to pick up some dinner supplies and sustenance for the week. Little did I know, I was not entering just any grocery store, I was walking into the first and only "Trader Joe's" in New York City. From what I can tell, "Trader Joe's" is a large-ish american chain grocery store that sells mostly healthy, gourmet, organic food and lots of ready-to-eat stuff, and for very, very good prices. It's quite an amazement! No wonder half the city was shopping there after work on a Monday evening!

I swear I am not exagerrating even a little when I tell you that I stood in a line-up that wrapped around the perimeter of the entire store for about 45 minutes to pay for my groceries. Standing in line consisted of about half the time that I was gone, I managed to shop and walk to and from the store in to the other 45 minutes! But you know, I've never been so happy standing in a line-up in my entire life. Maybe I was still a little high on the MSG, or maybe this really is my city, but I have just been so darn happy from the moment we arrived here! I think that I am destined to live here, for at least a little while, at some point, someday...

Until then, I'm here now and I'm livin' it and lovin' it!

I heart NY!

X's and O's to all, with joy from Triple M