The Circus Has Come To Town
Written October 15/04
I saw an long tusked elephant today standing in the Irish countryside near a giant tent that said “Circus Vegas”, visible for a brief time from the window of our tour bus on the drive from Dublin to Belfast. The circus has come to town and for once I don’t mean us.
What I did on my end-of-summer-tour vacation:
-got called to sing on the score for an independent feature film, 3 jingles and on an album project by Kevin Breit (guitarist-extraordinnaire and the brother of my friend Gary Breit whom, my blog readers might recall, plays keyboards with Brian Adams);
-took a mini-vacation at a friend's cottage with David. On the first night we watched all the Aliens movies in a row;
-completed mixes and artwork on my new album with my producer and graphic artist (when I go home after this Euro tour in November, we will have it mastered and manufactured and then, oh yes, it will be available);
-had strategy meeting/mid afternoon liquid lunch with my manager RJ;
-went to a friend's surprise Go-Karting birthday party;
-got to be around for the birth of my dear friends’ Andres & Linda’s first baby;
-cleaned my house, cooked, stayed at home a lot, ran out of time to see everybody...
We all straggled into Dublin from our various points of origin on October 10. My husband flew over with me. This morning he flew to Glasgow to see his family. He’ll rejoin me when the tour gets there in a few days. It will be my first time meeting all his Scottish rellies who couldn’t make it to our wedding. This afternoon we boarded our buses and drove to Belfast, where we had a full production run-through in the venue for the first show of the European tour tomorrow night.
Our convoy has shrunk somewhat (crew-wise). There is still a large number of us in total, but now it’s a number you can keep track of. For the first few days we rehearsed in Dublin. At night we went to the pubs, leading to a tallying and comparing of our personal daily Guinness-count. Our hotel was near Temple Bar. My room faced the back cobblestone alley. The parade of pissed drunk foreigners (myself not included once back in my room) provided a certain ambience but eventually lost its charm when sleep was the thing. Coming in from our various adventures each night, we all invariably wound up capping things off with a final round or three in the hotel’s oak panelled study, ever on the lookout for hotel owners The Edge and Bono. Last night we think we saw The Edge flitting down the corridor toward one of the bar rooms which promptly closed, the sign “No Entry” quickly appearing. David thought he saw John Leguizamo on the first night. It could have been him.
And now a story:
During the Toronto Film Festival in September of 2000 I redeemed a dinner gift certificate for a 5-star restaurant at The Four Seasons Hotel. I had earned it as a bonus payment for a corporate singing engagement the previous Christmas. That hotel is always prime real estate for stargazing during the Film Festival but that was not the reason for waiting until then to use the gift certificate. The truth is that I had been single when I received it and had been hoping to redeem it romantically. I was now finally dating someone. This was of course all before I met my husband. My date was a major extrovert, prone to outrageous public displays of all kinds. He was totally wrong for me and I knew it but he was really trying hard to be my boyfriend and the gift certificate was about to expire. I took him to the fancy dinner. He kept his shenanigans to a minimum through all the courses. Miraculously he kept his balls in his pants. He did ask our waiter deliberately complex questions about the food and here and there stretched the bounds of etiquette, but all in all it went not too badly. We did see a couple of film stars dining nearby. I can’t remember who anymore and there’s no way in hell I’m calling him to ask him if he remembers, so let’s just drop it. We left the hotel and I ran into film director Patricia Rozema, whose film ”When Night Is Falling” I had sung on a few years previous. She introduced me to a man with whom she been having an animated conversation out on the street, Michael Colgan of Dublin. He and I fell into an animated conversation of our own. Patricia said she had to go home. Before I knew it, the Irishman and my date and I were having drinks together at a nearby pub. The film series he produced, Beckett on Film was at the Toronto Film Festival that year. He invited me to a screening for the following night. I went. Long story short, we’ve been corresponding ever since. I wanted to make sure that on this, my first trip to Dublin, I visited Michael and his world famous Gate Theatre Company. I also wanted him to meet my husband to demonstrate my improved taste in men, even if he is a Scot. I got my wishes. A few nights ago we met for drinks and last night David and I went to a play at The Gate, “Shining City” by Conor McPherson.
Moral of the story:
You don’t have to take your balls out of your pants to be spontaneous.
Heartwarming ending:
There is still such a thing as a pen-pal in this day and age.
However if we were just meeting today, our friendship would go nowhere unless I jumped on the text messaging bandwagon. I can’t help but notice that people here are big into text messaging. There was even a monologue in the play we saw last night in which text messaging is mentioned at length. Of course we “text” in Canada too but I don’t think it’s at quite the same level of popularity. Michael gave me a demonstration the other night. He asked me for something to text. I said, “I HAVE THE MICROFILM. IT’S IN THE IGLOO.” He had some trouble with the word “igloo” but was otherwise quick like lightning.
Moving on:
This tour has another subplot for me: reuniting with high school classmates. Three girls I went to school with have all Googled me in the past year. Slowly my travels are taking me to the far flung places where they live. I can’t resist seeing them. It’s fascinating, like a movie. You kind of wish it was one. You don’t want it to be like that scene in Fargo, but you want it to be a movie because you wish you could just look at the person and hear them speak without having to respond, because it’s interesting just to look at her and remember all the time you spent together when all your ideas about the world were still forming and many of them were being formed by that person until you outgrew each other which is why you haven’t stayed in touch, which makes this all rather awkward but you can’t stop yourself from arranging the meeting and going anyway. Then there you are showing each other what kind of women you became out the girls you used to be. What kind of men you married and what you did with your talent.
If any of the women I reunited with are reading this, I want you to know that I was very happy to see you again and I urge you to please take this as a songwriter’s commentary.
Jetlagged in Belfast,
-KR.
I saw an long tusked elephant today standing in the Irish countryside near a giant tent that said “Circus Vegas”, visible for a brief time from the window of our tour bus on the drive from Dublin to Belfast. The circus has come to town and for once I don’t mean us.
What I did on my end-of-summer-tour vacation:
-got called to sing on the score for an independent feature film, 3 jingles and on an album project by Kevin Breit (guitarist-extraordinnaire and the brother of my friend Gary Breit whom, my blog readers might recall, plays keyboards with Brian Adams);
-took a mini-vacation at a friend's cottage with David. On the first night we watched all the Aliens movies in a row;
-completed mixes and artwork on my new album with my producer and graphic artist (when I go home after this Euro tour in November, we will have it mastered and manufactured and then, oh yes, it will be available);
-had strategy meeting/mid afternoon liquid lunch with my manager RJ;
-went to a friend's surprise Go-Karting birthday party;
-got to be around for the birth of my dear friends’ Andres & Linda’s first baby;
-cleaned my house, cooked, stayed at home a lot, ran out of time to see everybody...
We all straggled into Dublin from our various points of origin on October 10. My husband flew over with me. This morning he flew to Glasgow to see his family. He’ll rejoin me when the tour gets there in a few days. It will be my first time meeting all his Scottish rellies who couldn’t make it to our wedding. This afternoon we boarded our buses and drove to Belfast, where we had a full production run-through in the venue for the first show of the European tour tomorrow night.
Our convoy has shrunk somewhat (crew-wise). There is still a large number of us in total, but now it’s a number you can keep track of. For the first few days we rehearsed in Dublin. At night we went to the pubs, leading to a tallying and comparing of our personal daily Guinness-count. Our hotel was near Temple Bar. My room faced the back cobblestone alley. The parade of pissed drunk foreigners (myself not included once back in my room) provided a certain ambience but eventually lost its charm when sleep was the thing. Coming in from our various adventures each night, we all invariably wound up capping things off with a final round or three in the hotel’s oak panelled study, ever on the lookout for hotel owners The Edge and Bono. Last night we think we saw The Edge flitting down the corridor toward one of the bar rooms which promptly closed, the sign “No Entry” quickly appearing. David thought he saw John Leguizamo on the first night. It could have been him.
And now a story:
During the Toronto Film Festival in September of 2000 I redeemed a dinner gift certificate for a 5-star restaurant at The Four Seasons Hotel. I had earned it as a bonus payment for a corporate singing engagement the previous Christmas. That hotel is always prime real estate for stargazing during the Film Festival but that was not the reason for waiting until then to use the gift certificate. The truth is that I had been single when I received it and had been hoping to redeem it romantically. I was now finally dating someone. This was of course all before I met my husband. My date was a major extrovert, prone to outrageous public displays of all kinds. He was totally wrong for me and I knew it but he was really trying hard to be my boyfriend and the gift certificate was about to expire. I took him to the fancy dinner. He kept his shenanigans to a minimum through all the courses. Miraculously he kept his balls in his pants. He did ask our waiter deliberately complex questions about the food and here and there stretched the bounds of etiquette, but all in all it went not too badly. We did see a couple of film stars dining nearby. I can’t remember who anymore and there’s no way in hell I’m calling him to ask him if he remembers, so let’s just drop it. We left the hotel and I ran into film director Patricia Rozema, whose film ”When Night Is Falling” I had sung on a few years previous. She introduced me to a man with whom she been having an animated conversation out on the street, Michael Colgan of Dublin. He and I fell into an animated conversation of our own. Patricia said she had to go home. Before I knew it, the Irishman and my date and I were having drinks together at a nearby pub. The film series he produced, Beckett on Film was at the Toronto Film Festival that year. He invited me to a screening for the following night. I went. Long story short, we’ve been corresponding ever since. I wanted to make sure that on this, my first trip to Dublin, I visited Michael and his world famous Gate Theatre Company. I also wanted him to meet my husband to demonstrate my improved taste in men, even if he is a Scot. I got my wishes. A few nights ago we met for drinks and last night David and I went to a play at The Gate, “Shining City” by Conor McPherson.
Moral of the story:
You don’t have to take your balls out of your pants to be spontaneous.
Heartwarming ending:
There is still such a thing as a pen-pal in this day and age.
However if we were just meeting today, our friendship would go nowhere unless I jumped on the text messaging bandwagon. I can’t help but notice that people here are big into text messaging. There was even a monologue in the play we saw last night in which text messaging is mentioned at length. Of course we “text” in Canada too but I don’t think it’s at quite the same level of popularity. Michael gave me a demonstration the other night. He asked me for something to text. I said, “I HAVE THE MICROFILM. IT’S IN THE IGLOO.” He had some trouble with the word “igloo” but was otherwise quick like lightning.
Moving on:
This tour has another subplot for me: reuniting with high school classmates. Three girls I went to school with have all Googled me in the past year. Slowly my travels are taking me to the far flung places where they live. I can’t resist seeing them. It’s fascinating, like a movie. You kind of wish it was one. You don’t want it to be like that scene in Fargo, but you want it to be a movie because you wish you could just look at the person and hear them speak without having to respond, because it’s interesting just to look at her and remember all the time you spent together when all your ideas about the world were still forming and many of them were being formed by that person until you outgrew each other which is why you haven’t stayed in touch, which makes this all rather awkward but you can’t stop yourself from arranging the meeting and going anyway. Then there you are showing each other what kind of women you became out the girls you used to be. What kind of men you married and what you did with your talent.
If any of the women I reunited with are reading this, I want you to know that I was very happy to see you again and I urge you to please take this as a songwriter’s commentary.
Jetlagged in Belfast,
-KR.
posted by Kathryn Rose (aka KR) at 10:13 p.m.
4 comments
