Workshops and the romanian hostess

Sam and I got ready to do the workshop today. Meaning we stand in the middle of a bar that looks out over a giant atrium and mill around a little bit. We also take time to gauge what has been going on before we start our little 45-hour talk. Sometimes there has just been a martini tasting. Before we started, a gentleman stood in between Sam and I at the lectern and told us his life story, well into the time we were to start the workshop. As in details like “I found myself in a financial position to retire after 31 years of teaching.” And “you give a kid a math problem with more than two steps and they don’t want to do it! They’re bored! They say ‘forget it’! And you know thank God you don’t have to go to college, you can go make fries, you know!” and “we paid 93 bucks for a tour in Boston and I tell ya, I wouldn’t have paid $9.30 for that tour. We get on a shuttle and I ask the driver does he like the Red Sox and he looks at me like ‘huh?’ Turns out he’s Jamaican! So we have this Jamaican bus driver and the tour guide lady had to GUIDE HIM OUT OF THE PARKING LOT! Then she kept having to TELL HIM WHERE TO TURN! And he got it WRONG! I would have just as soon gotten a cab and spent the day at the aquarium!” and also “well, yesterday we went to the Maritime museum and it was great” He got into the details about individual exhibits and we were 3 minutes late starting and Sam and I started checking the detailed workings of our mics. He FINALLY got the hint. I was impressed by his degree of talking.

We played our DVD with our comments about “haha, here’s a story about Bill Murray” and were charming etc. Then we opened the floor for questions and the car salesman in a Porsche baseball hat monopolized. My favorite question was “we can watch tv in our rooms. How about you do Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin and you do Chris Rock doing Barak Obama.” Sam said, in his brilliance, “actually Chris Rock was never a part of Second City” and smiled and expertly turned it to a plug for our show later. Another question I enjoyed was from two platinum blond ladies in their 50’s, clearly out on the town who sat front and center and walked in late (one had an updo and incredible Lindsay Lohan eyeliner for 5:45 p.m.). One asked: “do you have another DVD?” I think it was a joke. Maybe not. The guy in the Porsche hat was also clearly convinced that we, as a cast, love each other. He wanted to know if we eat meals together, if we go out in port together, if we hang out and tell jokes together, what it was like if someone gets hired who is terrible. We are speaking in public kinda, so I always feel it necessary to smile and lie and give answers people want to hear like “my goal is to be on Saturday Night Live, which I expect to do in one year. Then I will be in 50 movies and you can say you saw me on a cruise ship and always knew I would be famous.” “We never fight.” “Being the member of a paid comedy company is like being awoken and cradled by God every single day.” “I’ve never had more fun in my life.” Then Sam said, “yes, if you get a dud person in your cast it is terrible. We live here for 4 months.” Everybody seemed happier. I did not say “you have to decide to like everyone and work out regularly and realize you are going to suppress your emotions out of a desire to not explode and ruin your life and job, which means you will probably cope via eating and working out, but mainly cookies and long venting emails.” The guy in the Porsche hat said “what are your aspirations!”

We went to eat in the French Restaurant tonight, where my favorite question was “who’s Ian!” “He’s the gay guy who makes the announcements!” And no, he is not gay, he is just English. This same table asked the waiter for “New Zealing wine” soooo. They also gave several toasts.

We walked into the restaurant and the Romanian hostess said “your friends are here!” and we saw one of the singers and her whole family and a dancer and a singer. She asked if we minded sitting next to them or if we wanted to sit somewhere else. She said certain parts of big families will come in and say “if my sister comes in, I want to sit as far away from her as possible.” Then when the sister shows up, other sister will say “oh, I wish you could sit by us! It’s that hostess! Hahaha!”

I saw two classicly LA looking people on the ship. Blonde toned woman, very cute and trendy and LA. Tall tan guy, muscle-y and puffy and some stupid trendy shirt. I mean Melrose-Avenue-dingus-trophy LA which brought up lots of feelings, which makes sense if you are me and living in LA makes you feel like a lesbian minister when you are neither.