Houston, TX

Okay, so... TEXAS ROCKS. The people we have met and/or worked with here have been the nicest, most warm and friendly bunch of people... you're kicking Louisiana's ASS, right now, Texas. Just so you know.

For the past two days, we have been in Bryan/College Station, TX, home of Texas A&M University (Greg's alma mater)... and Greg's parents! Beverly and Guy were SO incredibly gracious: knowing that we are all poor, starving actors with a per diem of $*ah-hem*.00 per day... they opened up their home for all of us to stay! So... bless their hearts, they hosted seven road-weary theatre-types (and their luggage) for two whole days and nights (and part of a third). With the help of Greg's sister Elizabeth, they threw us an Oscar party on Sunday night (Guy won the pool), complete with games, prizes, and film-themed decorations (SOMEbody's a first-grade teacher). They fed us BBQ and fixings (HOWDY!), and as if I needed one more reason to let my jeans air dry, there was even cake and ice cream for dessert. It felt like it was my birthday... without the hysterical, I'm-over-30-now-aren't-I crying fit in the bathroom at the end of the night.

The family entertained us with stories about Greg ("I knew we didn't have a quarterback on our hands" --Guy), which were so fabulous and endearing... and yet somehow not at all surprising! I knew Greg and I were kindred spirits when his inability to make his bed came up... ah, my BROTHER-man!

Thanks to Beverly and Guy (and their inability to say what they really thought of all of us and our disgusting habits and foul-mouths), we got to feel as though we were home. It was so incredible to NOT be in a motel, first and foremost! To be able to sit on a porch, have a nice spot in the sun, eat a home-cooked meal, and even pet the family dog… ah, it was better than all the wireless-internet-free-breakfast-indoor-pool in the world! Gus, their feisty Jack Russell Terrier (*is that right?*) entertained us for hours. He had absolutely no loyalties; a true attention-whore, he went from lap to lap, from plate to plate, and I think (if Beverly hadn't whisked him away) he might have happily joined us on tour.

The shows at A&M went very well; lots of good, rowdy kids, easy to laugh and happy to tell you where George is, even when you didn’t ask. Doing the show isn’t even boring, yet. There is still so much to play with, and working with this group, it's easy to keep things new. I swear, every time I do something just a little different, my scene partner's eyebrow will raise, or a little smile will appear, as if to say... "oh, REALLY? It's like THAT, today, huh? Okay, well, how about ...THIS?!" and their reaction will be just as fresh and new as what you did—sometimes better. (JD: I think I've FINALLY got a good rhythm going with my sneezing, and I'm getting laughs, now. It took a lot of trial and error, but from now on, I know - it's all about Schadenfreude!).

We were a little sad to drive away from A&M, today -- the crew was so friendly, and we were just starting to feel like Aggie's after Greg showed us the ropes. (It was "Howdy Week" on campus, so everywhere we went there were students trying to get us to say "Howdy". I don't think it serves any real purpose; Greg kept saying "it's Tradition”. Everything is “tradition” at A&M. Someone could be wearing a shaving bowl on their head, whistling Dixie out of their ass, and Greg would just shrug and say, “it’s Tradition”. Everything at A&M has some kind of tradition behind it; frankly, I’m wondering if you are allowed to take a piss here without an upperclassman first ‘showing you the ropes’. I swear, I half expected Tevye to be around the next corner hollering “Oy, vey, it’s Tradition! Howdy!”

But it was cool to see, and experience; the past three days has been like an archeological dig of Greg’s frontal lobe. From the alma mater to the mater-and-pater, it’s been loads of fun getting to better know Greg… and where he came from.

And what would a tour of one’s alma mater be, I ask you, without a tour of the local watering holes? NOTHING! A farse, I say! So, last night Greg took us to three or four of his hang-outs from back-in-the-day… a joint called Chicken Oil for dinner, (great burgers); then Margarita-something for $2 well drinks (ouch, headache); then two other bars, and somewhere in there I decided to be the designated driver (1 margarita + 1 brownie sundae + 3 hours of 7-up = sober); finally we ended up at a place that had a real rattlesnake in a cage. They had tons of empty pool tables, so we played a game Patrick taught us called Speed Pool. TONS of fun; somehow the two homosexuals won it, though, not sure how that happened. (Greg also impersonated Stockard Channing in GREASE, starting the drag racing… oh, comedy gold…) Of course, everyone was hung over this morning… it’s a good thing they don’t ask us to meet the kids after the shows, because they’d probably get little contact highs from the evaporating-sweat-fumes.

Well, I should sign off. I’m exhausted, and NO, bitches, I still don’t have pictures from the boys – but I SWEAR, soon there will be more images (for those of you who are afraid of text). I promise, I promise, if there’s internet between here and Phoenix, I will have photos on the blog ASAP.