Blog of the Little Bonsai

Personal Blog of Steve Baumber

What a weekend! Rehearsals are in full swing for "The Constant Wife", and so Friday was a rehearsal from 3:30 until 6:30, then off to a friend's amazing St. Paddy's Day house party where the Paperboys and Geoff Kelly from Spirit of the West were playing! Mark B and I opened for them as the Irish Gropers, and had everybody singing along to Pouges and Great Big Sea tunes. Then we downed a 26 of Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey and danced all night. Bad idea.

The next day, EXTREMELY hung over, off to rehearsal from 12:30 to 3:00, then home to finish preparing my various speeches and intros for the CIF Ring Ceremony at the Sheraton Wall Centre where I was the MC for the evening. Thankfully the Irish gods were smiling and gave me enough respite from the DTs (and lent me my voice back), that the evening was a stunning success. I received a lot of kind praise and congratulations for a job well done, and I'd say I got a big head over it all, but the hangover had already taken care of that for me...

Today was another rehaersal, and the first completely "off book". I was tired, and a little fuzzy on a lot of lines come the third act, but we did it. Now that that hill is crested, I'm looking forward to really finding the character I play and making my performance as good as it can be.

Dad's back from the Far East, but the weather's better here in the west!

posted by Steve @ 9:22 PM

3.14.2004

Hmm, almost a whole month and time for a pent-up rant...

I awoke to the news on CBC the other day proclaiming that gay marriages were THE major US campaign issue. I wonder if US homosexual voters are happy that their lifestyles have become fodder for the next civil war? Bush and Kerry squaring off over the legal and religious ramifications of same sex marriage are a slap in the face of every other major issue the US is facing. Factor in Donald Trump's 1 hour weekly commercial for New York called "The Apprentice" which brings Regan-era economic attitudes back into vogue and it can only mean one thing: televangilism is on its way back!! God I've missed the PTL Club. Of course, considering that clear-minded Americans have debated Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ" (yes it's a film and not a mockumentary) to find that it is not only anti-Semitic, but also promotes BDSM, martyrism, same-sex grieving, and an indecent misuse of old growth wood products, I'm sure that the US is on firm moral high ground sending in the Marines to stabilize Haiti. And who's cheques have Guy Philippe been cashing anyway? And who put Aristide in power in the first place? Dig my kittens and find the poop in the kitty litter. And while I'm at it, if Paul Martin is so damned tough on the players in the Advertising scandal of the decade, (oh my! government contracts awarded to friends of the administration!) why can't he shake Pierre Pettigrew's head about pandering to the economic powers in the US over NAFTA? 100 million dollars of misused government funding or 2 billion dollars of our national forest industry in a US government bank account? The smoke screen is thickening before the elections on both sides of the border...

posted by Steve @ 10:42 PM

3.04.2004