A Quick Guide to Appropriate Applause

Having been to several theatrical events recently, I‘ve noticed that people seem confused about when they are supposed to applaud at a live event. When I have to pay $100 per ticket to be entertained, I don’t feel that I should have to put forth anything more than my money. So, I get annoyed when I am expected to applaud them for a job well done…let alone more than once. Below is a short guide regarding when you should and should not applaud during live theatre:

You SHOULD applaud

• At the end of a show when the performer/performers step on stage to take their bows.
• When someone finishes a standout solo performance (this should be limited to musical theatre and should be a brief round of applause.)
• After an encore.
• If a lighted sign tells you to applaud (which would be weird, but not unheard of, at an event that’s not being taped.)

You SHOULD NOT applaud

• When someone (no matter how famous) makes an entrance for the first time, before they even get a word out.
• After every scene/song.
• When something exceptionally funny is said or performed (laughing is an appropriate show of appreciation).
• At the end of an act (they’ll be right back after the intermission…the performance isn’t over yet!)
• When a greedy performer makes a second curtain call (or third, etc.) without performing an encore.
• At ANY non-live event (i.e. at the movies – DO NOT applaud at the beginning, middle or end of a movie – NO one is there to appreciate it and you just look stupid to the people around you!)

No one stands behind my desk and claps for me when I do something well. I don’t believe I should be expected to applaud performers for doing their jobs well. That’s what their paid for.

I would go into the topic of standing ovations, except that I think they are so rarely deserved it’s not worth mentioning, so let’s just go ahead and say don’t stand until you’re ready to leave the theatre.

Things I Hate

I haven’t written in a about a week and I don’t have a whole lot of time because I am going to a wedding in Wisconsin this weekend, so I will now provide to you a list of things/people I hate:

• Coffee
• Roger Clarke on NY1
• Injustice
• Fireworks
• “Men” (meaning guys in their teens and early twenties) who look like women
• Coldplay
• Chick Flicks (I make a few exceptions.)
• Li’l Wayne (Just in case I didn’t make that clear in my VMA post.)
• Most vegetables
• Hipsters
• Waiting for the subway
• Sushi
• People who walk up/down the escalator (Again, just in case this wasn’t clear.)
• War
• Waking up before 8am
• Exercise
• The chick who hosts the Top 20 Video Countdown on VH1 (I hate her so much, I’ve made it a point not to remember her name.)
• Dog poop
• Human poop
• Pennies
• Green apple flavored candy

This is just a partial list.

Bloody Sunday

Ok, I’m going to make a very long story short because I am tired and I need to put this day behind me.

So…Ethan and I got up around 11am this morning with plans to attend the matinee of The Marriage of Bette and Boo by Christopher Durang (my favorite playwright) at 2pm.  At 12:45, I am showered and getting ready to go while Ethan is planted in front of the TV watching an episode of “Generation Kill” (that he’d recorded on Tivo).  I tell him he’d better get in the shower because we need to leave at 1pm.

We are out the door at 1:15 and at the subway by 1:20.  Ethan’s Metrocard is empty and the machine is giving him problems by not accepting any of the credit/debit cards he tries.  We finally get on the train at 1:30.  I know we are not going to make it to the theatre by 2pm.

We step off the train at 1:53pm.  Maybe if we sprint, we can make it.  The theatre is on 46^th Street between 5^th & 6^th Ave, so we exit at the 43^rd Street entrance and take off toward 6^th Ave.  The area seems to be more crowded than usual, even for Times Square.

We reach 6^th Ave and attempt to make a left to head up to 46^th Street, when a police officer tells us we can’t go that way.  We look up and the whole street is blocked off and there is a large stage set up with some kind of performance going on.  Maybe it’s a concert?  Not a good one…I don’t know.  So we head toward 5^th Ave.

We get to 5^th Ave and hang a left when JESUS CHRIST; WHERE THE FUCK DID ALL THESE PEOPLE COME FROM???  There are people everywhere, we cannot move.  They are all dressed in green and yellow and what the hell?  I try to look at the t-shirts they are wearing as we maneuver through the crowd as quickly as we can.  My shins are killing me.  I finally get a good look…Brazilian Day 2008 New York City…GODDAMMIT!  I hate fucking pride celebrations.  Nothing angers me more living in NYC.  I don’t care if you’re Puerto Rican, Costa Rican, Dominican, Gay, Irish, Brazilian…I don’t give a shit.  Be as proud as you want…just not all at the same time on the same day in the same place, OK?

By now, I am almost having a panic attack.  I don’t do well in large crowds.  They freak me out and it makes me violent.  A woman is trying to hand me a postcard of some kind while she shakes her ass to the horrible music that is everywhere.  I grab it from her hand and throw it onto the ground in front of her with as much force as you can throw a 3 oz. piece of paper.  We keep moving.  Well, we try.

We reach 6^th Ave and I don’t see the theatre.  WTF?  Oh, Ethan just realized that it’s between 6^th & 7^th, not 5^th & 6^th.  I cannot even tell you how angry I am at this point.  I look at my phone and it is 2:05.  I hate being late.  I hate people even more.  I see an opening on the sidewalk and dart to get ahead, but I am thwarted by a tranny who spins in my direction out of nowhere.  We are face to face as she dances.  She is about 6 feet tall, so I am eye level with her very tiny, although very pointy unsupported tits.  I huff, throw my arms up and shove past her.  I can hear her friends laughing.  I don’t care, I really need to be out of the crowd. 

We finally arrive at the theatre at 2:10.  The “festival” is still going on outside and you can hear the drums from inside the theatre.  I am sweaty and angry and trying to calm myself down from the panic attack I just had.  The usher tells us that we will have to sit in the back until intermission.  Our regular seats were in row D, they were free, but still much better seats.  I tell Ethan I don’t want to go inside.  He looks at me with disappointment and says, “But it’s closing this week.”  I acquiesce. 

We get to our seats and I’m sitting there for less than a minute when I feel it coming.  Tears start streaming down my face.  I am trying to stifle my audible crying so as not to disturb the people around me.  I cannot stop.  I don’t want to be here.  This isn’t even my favorite Durang play…it’s actually not that funny at all.  Snot is dripping from my nose.  I have no tissue.  I don’t want to sniffle because I don’t want other people to know I’m crying, even though I’m sure the guy sitting next to me could tell.

Ethan reaches over and attempts to grab my hand.  I struggle because I don’t want to hold hands right now.  He is stronger and manages to pry my bag away from me and places my hand in his.  I am still crying.  My eyes are blurry from the tears and I can’t even see the stage clearly.  When the doctor in the play throws the dead baby on the floor, I can actually hear people in the audience get offended.  This pleases me and I start to calm down a little.

I decide to use the jacket I had brought as a handkerchief (that reminds me, I need to wash that) and I am settled down by intermission.  Thank god, Ethan says he wants to leave because the drums from outside are bothering him and the people behind us kept talking.  I know that’s only half the reason, but I’m still glad.

We make our way outside and as far away from Times Square as we can get.

The End.

Sorry about that, I guess that wasn’t so short…but it’s better with all the little details. 

Later.

Escalator:Stairs :: Baby:Infant? INCORRECT!

 

I don’t want to get into the habit of ranting and raving on my blog, I do enough of that in real life.  Although, maybe the blog would be a good outlet for that.  Anyway, I have one particular pet peeve that I have to deal with on a daily basis, and I just need to put it out there. 

Escalators and stairs are NOT the same thing.  It drives me bat shit insane when someone walksup or down the escalator and pushes past me because I am standing still because they want to arrive at their destination three seconds faster.  TAKE THE FUCKING STAIRS.  You see, stairs don’t move.  So, unless someone is standing still on the stairs (and why would they), no one will get in your way as you ascend or descend the stairs.  The escalator is for lazy people (myself included) who can’t be bothered to walk up the stairs.  If you are so inclined to walk up the escalator, then you clearly have some ambition to exercise.  Don’t take a shortcut. 

I suspect these people who push past people standing still on the escalator are the same people who hold up the line because they can’t (or refuse to) move out of the way before they put away their money and wallet.

That is all.

Laura’s Message Board Mishap

 

I don’t consider myself a blogger, especially since I’ve never attempted to blog.  Nor do I regularly frequent blogs. If I stumble upon one that catches my fancy, I’ll take a gander, but that’s the extent of my experience with this medium.  Since I continually tell people that I’m a writer (even though I never write), I thought this would be a good place to start.  I’m not certain that I have enough material to blog every day, but I’m taking baby steps.

In addition to the blog, the internet message board is another phenomenon that escapes me.  My husband (Ethan) is a regular poster on several boards, and it pisses me off when he obsessively checks his e-mail to see if anyone has replied to one of his posts.  He swears by them, telling me they are a great way to connect with people who have similar interests to me.  I am doubtful.  People (Ethan being one) criticize sites like Facebook and MySpace because they don’t see the point of using silly applications on a website to “stay in touch” with people you haven’t spoken to in years.  I contend that the truly socially retarded people are lurking on message boards.  What is the point of carrying on an endless “conversation” with people you don’t know and will never meet just because you have something random in common (i.e. the love of a particular video game)?  But I decided to see what the fuss was all about.

I chose a message board that I had an interest in, registered what I thought was a clever alias, uploaded a random but funny avatar (I hear that’s what you’re supposed to do) and went for it.  OK, so here’s the deal.  I’m a big Jesse Bradford fan.  If you don’t know who he is (I won’t be surprised if you don’t), look him up because I’m sure you’ve seen him in something.  He’s currently filming the movie version of a “New York Times Bestselling” book, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by Tucker Max.  Again, if you don’t know the book, I’m not surprised, but I will say that I’m reading it now and it is highly entertaining (in a totally drunken frat boy kind of way).  Anyway, he is one of the moderators on the message board for the film.  So, obviously, I saw this as an opportunity to get a glimpse of the “real him” through his posts.  Here is the original post that started it all.  As you can see, the guy that Jesse’s character is based on visited the set and then wrote a very funny post about it, to which Jesse responded with an equally funny post.  Here is SlingBlade’s (the real guy) response to Jesse’s response:

 and Jesse’s response to that response:

Are you still with me?  So, I thought it would be funny if I jumped in and added my two cents:

Keep in mind that I had never posted on a message board and knew nothing about how they worked.  I assumed that if I posted something that anyone took issue with, they would publicly reply and tell me to shut up and call me a newbie or some crap.  I expected that.  What I didn’t expect was this:

This is a “rating system” that they use on this particular message board that allows people either to approve or to disapprove my post and leave a comment that only I can see.  So the comments above were not publicly made, but rather sent to me on the down low just so I would know how lame people think I am.  I know they’re all 19-21 year old guys who don’t even know what “Out of This World” is (or “Clockstoppers” for that matter), but still…it was just a joke, jeez. 

So I think I’m done with message boards.  We’ll see how the blog goes.  Ahhh…remember chat rooms and AOL? Now THAT was my jam.  Those were the good ol’ days.

Later.