Christmas Parties!

[Nina, Me and Megan]

Last week, Wednesday through Sunday I worked sound for the Malibu Ballet company's performances of The Nutcracker at Pepperdine. I had never even seen The Nutcracker until I worked the LA Ballet company's show about a month ago. I knew all of the music of course, but now I know the show pretty well too. David, my boss and Technical Director of Smothers Theatre set up a small Christmas banquet for the crew between the matinee and evening performances on Sunday. We had Chinese food and a desert made by Carrie, Smothers' sound technician.
After the show we had to strike the set, which made me close to three and a half hours late for Megan, Nina and Scher's Christmas party. I wasn't too happy about that, but I calmed down once I finally got there. There were lots of cookies, finger foods and drinks and we played a party game I had never played before. Great people, great times, and a GREAT way to end a long week! Having been so late, I wasn't able to grab my camera for their party, sorry about that. But I do have some pictures from Stefanie and Abbi Butler's party the next night.
Megan and I carpooled over to Marina Del Rey Monday night to attend the Butler's Christmas Soiree. It was funny because all but two of the people there worked for The Kitchen catering services, so everyone took turns in the kitchen preparing food and drinks. Some of the food prepared included a salmon platter, coconut chicken fingers, mini hamburgers, mini mozzarella and tomato sandwiches, shrimp cocktail and a punch made of cranberry, pineapple, apple cider, slices of apples, strawberries, pears, and champagne (I think, there may have been more or less to it.)
[Left: Stef and Abbi]
We conversed for a while, then played a few rounds of Catch Phrase until security came around asking us to keep it down. Megan, Nina and I stayed for a while longer after everyone left and chatted for a while longer.
The last few days have been pretty quite. I was really hoping to work, but heard nothing from either catering job. Tuesday night I went over to Ashely Campbell's house to hang out. I met her mom and talked religion for a while, then she and Ashley lit four candles on a menorah and sang a prayer. It was my first Chanukah experience! They're Messianic Jews, and Ashley's mom explained a bit about it. It was very interesting. They also attend a Calvary Chapel every once and a while. Then her dad (Glen!) woke up from the living room and joined in on joking around. Ashley and I then watched an hour long behind-the-scenes featurette on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and then the actual movie.
Last night I went and hung out with Scher and Nina on their last night in town before heading home. Scher and I watched Hotel Rwanda. Nothing like a great film to make you mad at the world, eh? Then we watched a couple of student films Nina was in. This morning I took Scher to LAX at 6am and went right back to bed when I got home. My plan was to clean the appartment today, tidy up so that when Nate and Ricky come by after Christmas everything would look nice. It's now close to 1am and I have not found proper motivation to do such. I went to Blockbuster and rented a few movies. I'm watching Miami Vice as we speak. When this is over, I still plan on cleaning. I did some laundry, so I got something done! My plan is to take off tomorrow as close to Noon as possible, before or after, whatever. I can't wait to be in Fresno and see everyone!
Love you all! Merry Christmas!!!

Snow in Malibu!!!

Yeah that's right, I said it. And I meant it! I just got back from a Christmas party some boss threw for his employees at his house in Malibu. It was quite the get-up. A huge tent with soft snow-looking carpet, nice trendy couches with tables in the middle, a circular bar in the middle with four bartenders manning it, buffet tables and a stage.

The pictures you see above and to the left are in fact of actual snow. But naturally it came from a snow machine. Yeah, this guy went all-freakin'-out. They totally created a toboggan ramp! The party was an exhausting one. I bussed all night, which is pretty much the norm. OH... and it RAINED... A LOT!!! It was awesome. It downright poured at times. Everything we walked on was squishy, and our pants were soaked by the end of the night. That in combination with a lot of heavy lifting and a good ways to carry it made for a tiresome night.

But it still was quite a bit of fun all in all. They had an 80's cover band named Rocket Science. That got everyone, including those in The Kitchen to dance and put all in a cheery mood. And what says Christmas louder than music by A-Ha and Flock of Seagulls? I certainly can't think of anything.
So, on top of all of this, our attire for the night consisted of blue jeans, boots, long johns shirts, flannel shirts, fingerless gloves and knit caps. It was quite the stray from our usual black shoes, socks, pants, belt, tie, apron and white dress shirt.

Right - you see Abbi and I modeling our wintry garb.
Below - At the end of the night, staff took advantage of the empty sleds. Abbi is being pushed down.


At the start of the night I was getting pretty frustrated. I would ask what I could do and someone would tell me very unknowingly to do something. Then when I did it I would be talked to like "Why did you do that?" I thought the night was really going to suck and drag on forever. But I calmed down and prayed for a better attitude and the night turned out to be one of the most memorable events I've done so far. Snow, rain, fun wintry atmosphere, lumberjack looking threads, loud 80's music, and Abbi was there too. It's so much more enjoyable when I get to work with friends.
Now I'm going to bed. It's nearly 3:30 and I work at 9am.

Tonight I worked an event at the Directors Guild of America in Hollywood. Jason worked the same event. Beforehand we figured we were going to see a bunch of big name directors. I was mentally preparing for such an event. It sounds like I'm leading up to a disappointing night, but this is not the case either. We get there and find out that its a party for the Independent Documentary Awards. I almost yawned as they told me this! I actually really like documentaries, especially the ones with little budgets and the truth as their goal, but the event sounded like a huge bubble popping in my head. It was an easy party, and all the guests were fun and polite (which is a rare treat at most events.) Then I heard Al Gore and Morgan Freeman were on the guest list! Sure enough, all at once, standing in the same small area of a small room were Al Gore, Morgan Freeman and Larry David! It's funny because I was just watching Million Dollar Baby right before I left for work. It's also funny because Al Gore makes me laugh. I totally got to hear him say, in his very own voice, in person... "It is really important that we shut down these plants." I almost started laughing right there because it truly does sound like he's impersonating himself when he speaks! And Larry David looked and sounded just like he does on Curb Your Enthusiasm, when he's tame anyway. Apparently Jane Fonda was there too, but I did not see her. I don't know why she would be there.
All of this week I've been working at Pepperdine in the shop building the set for "Playboy of the Western World." Last night Brian, Adam M. and Adam E. and I went to the Westwood Brewing Company then played some poker. Tomorrow I work an event in Malibu and Sunday I work somewhere else. Next Wednesday through Sunday I work another production of Nutcracker at P-dine. So work is good again!



If you have another minute, you should go to Google, click on the Images link and type in Al Gore and see what there is to choose from.

Okay! I am sorry for the delay, but I would like to direct your attention towards Robin's blog (thank you very much!) Last post Nov. 20th?
Anyhoo... THANKSGIVING! I have the worst trouble with Youtube downloading videos. I think it's a setting on my computer that I should be able to tweak, but whatever. They're on now.
There are also some great pictures of the Monday night before Thanksgiving when a few of us went to a bar in Santa Monica call "Father's Office". We all ordered the same thing, The Office Burger. It quite seriously was one of, if not the best burger I have ever had. It seemed very simple, but whatever they put on it was amazing. And they had garlic fries to go with it. They had several types of beers on tap and as I was looking over their menu, many of them were from Oregon. That made me proud and I certainly pointed that fact out to everyone right away. But I am waiting to get the pictures from Nina so I can post them, they turned out really cool against the booth we were sitting in. I'll post the pics as soon as I get them.
NOW THANKSGIVING!!!
You already saw the turkey, now here's the rest...


It was a very nice, peaceful day. Scher called me about 10am and we went and picked our friend Dean up from campus. Then we headed to the Adam's place (Adam McArthur and Adam Ebert) and continued to prepare the meal. The turkey was in the oven, we made mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, stuffing, salad, jello salad, Trish made pie and apple berry crisp.

Trish also was in charge of decor for the day. Ebert made a suckatash and poured it into baked squash halves. It was all crazy good! We all ate our fill and conversed for a while. There was even wrestling. What Thanksgiving is complete without
wrestling?

Brooks decided Scher needed tackling. A lot of people ended up coming over, which was good because we had a lot of food! I think at one point we got up to 12 or 13 people. We decided our Thanksgiving was a raving success!




Scher, if you see this, I'm sorry for the unfortunate moment Youtube chose to make the icon for the first video :) The first video is about 3 and a half minutes. The second is just over a minute.



At the conclusion of the night, after Scher and Trish were the last to take off, Ebert and I went to see 'The Prestige' in Westwood.