Ruining Ted Nuggent

"Wait, maybe I'll wake up tomorrow. And figure out where to begin. Then maybe I won't feel so hollow. But I'm pretty sure that I'll be sleeping in..." Home Grown from "Tomorrow"

The nurse was asked to draw some blood from me before my meds turned my circulatory system more colors than the Sunshine Highway. I figured she would come in, fangs exposed, and suck the plasma from my carotid artery, but I heard her tell the doctor that she had never done it before. Are you fucking kidding me? I'm gonna be her strapped down Guinea pig? That sounded about as much fun as a prostate exam from my cold handed physician. But I guess someone had to be her first. Like the poor sap she devoured, praying mantis style, after taking her virginity, but it got me thinking about my first.

Close your eyes and imagine, wait open your eyes so you can read, but just picture in your mind a dark theater. The stage is set. Actors ready to perform live for you. Theater. Now imagine that the play you are watching features: girls in Hula skirts, comic book characters fighting (kind of) before your very eyes, two brides making out, and a four foot paper mache bong complete with midget inside (not to be confused with Intel Inside) dancing around the stage. Got the visual. That was Loaded. The first play that I ever wrote and directed.

As short lived as my theater career was I was staunch about the rules that I followed. The Big Mike Keys to Success in Independent Theater are: 1) Make it entertaining to my friends that were tight with Mary Jane. If you can't see a play high, what's the point of going to theater? 2) Huge Casts. More people in the show, more friends, relatives, co-workers, classmates and dragged along spouses that felt obligated to see it. It's box office by guilt, but box office is box office. Its all about the scoreboard. 3) Hottest Girls Possible. This was to insure that my bong dependent pals would enjoy the view even if they hated the show. Simple rules and the results, well, I like to think 'we' nailed everything except a Cat Scratch Fever ruining moment.

Loaded was the story of a stoner that had decided to ask his girlfriend to marry him. It was broken up by a set of 4 wild "high dreams". The first featured the afore mentioned dancing bong. Nothing says funny like a midget wearing a bong and dancing around the stage to Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour", I'll play that song at my wedding one day. The dream was brilliant. The second one featured 4 hula skirt wearing hotties, trays of snack foods, and a guy in a hot dog suit being tackled by a midget leaping off a couch. You're laughing right? Should have seen it. Three, well, this is my low light. It was supposed to be a nice action scene with two girls dresses as DC comics characters Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn duking it out for the affections of a man-whore. It wasn't actiony, it was farce, and bad farce. I still can't listen to Cat Scratch Fever, thank God I didn't set it to Zeppelin. But the last dream was the show stopper. Two brides, one groom, Neil Diamond's "Holly Holy", and the brides making out with each other. Magic. All choreographed by Darcy (a frequent OMA poster, what up girl) and Kelly from horrible stick figure storyboards that I drew up.

It was my first show. The first time I saw the words I wrote performed. It was scary, it was exhilarating. It was well reviewed, the Orange County Register called the show "original and refreshingly cinematic", which shocked the shit out of me. It was a hit. It was the most fun I ever had in a theater, with the exception of a few episodes of KYTV (story for another blog), it was a moment in time when we actually managed to capture lightning in a bottle.

Questions about the show? Any performance stories of your own? Ever gone to good play? Ever gone to a bad play?

Dixie Cup of Love: Darcy for all her hard work and Atomic for his cameo as the Kool Aid mascot.