AB1 Tour 2014 - Week 3 - Houston, Texas

Before we get started today, let me first expound on a little personal Houston history for all you bloggers and blogettes:
     My three previous trips to Houston each had mixed results as far as satisfaction.  Hopefully, this time around I (we) will have more success.  In order:

1.  in 1972, on the plus side, I was able to see the Houston Astros play the San Francisco Giants in the 8th Wonder of the World (then), the Houston Astrodome; on the minus side, I was just there for a little over 24 hours on a weekend pass from my Army basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, which, I might remind you, was in July.  Yes, we'd be out marching in 98-degree humid heat at 8 in the morning.  So, there's that ...
   
2. ... and then in 1974, I had the good fortune to avoid at least part of a bitter January Minnesota winter by securing tickets to Super Bowl VIII at Rice University Stadium.  Unfortunately, dressed completely in purple including the always fashionable tie-dyed-purple-on-white-jeans, I had to sit through a thorough thrashing of the Minnesota Vikings by the Miami Dolphins, then endure their fans' taunts as far north as an all-night diner in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on the car-ride-that-would-not-end trek back to Minneapolis.  Hopefully future Houston forays would turn out much better ...
3. ... but then again, not so much.  My 1978 Minneapolis Men's Class A softball team won the Minneapolis-St. Paul Regional title, thus qualifying our plucky band of city employees and postal workers for the national tourney in Houston over Labor Day weekend.  We had been so up for the championship game against a fine Cheap Charlie's squad from St. Paul.  That faded fast.  We were immediately set back on our heels when two of our best players had to stay in Minnesota as they were high school football coaches and that weekend was the start of the inter-scholastic season, soooo we immediately lost our first game at the 44-team nationals, albeit to the eventual national champion.  Bad went to worse when our prima-donna star hitter had some sort of hissy-fit and decided he didn't want to play anymore just before the start of game #2 (you weren't eliminated until you lost twice).  Needless to say, we went all the way to Houston to lose two straight.  Pretty disappointing to have your best guy let you down like that.

   Most assuredly, this year's visit to "H-Town" will have better results.
   

On Sunday, April  13, we traveled in the rain to the campground in Kemah, Texas, about 35 minutes outside of Houston.  Rain-induced gloom became joy when we turned onto the driveway of the Marina Bay RV Park.  It turned out to be the exact same place we had RV camped two years earlier when we had driven cross country with Diedre's brother, Remy, and their mom, Barbara "Barty" Diederich, on her way to her new living quarters in Scottsdale.  Our time at the park was the last really happy time Barty had in her wonderful 94-year life.  She passed away one week later.
     We so miss you, Barty.
 

 OK, back to the present ...
     On our first morning, we got up early to have breakfast with our good theatre friends, Fudd and Bugs.  And no, it wasn't a Warner Brothers induced nightmare.  Laura "Fudd" Fine Hawkes and Chris "Bugs" Hawkes are the greatest young couple (at least "young" to us).  We met Fudd in Minnesota in the mid-90's when Diedre was running the Minnesota Shakespeare Company and Fudd was a fledgling actress cast in Diedre's first show, "Two Gentlemen of Verona."  The cast went out one night for drinks, so Diedre called to invite me along.  Fudd, known only as "Laura" then, grabbed the phone from Diedre as I answered and proceeded to invite me along doing what she thought her best Korean accent ... or not.  It sounded to me like a call from a drunk Elmer Fudd.  And so, she's been "Fudd" ever since.  Somewhat later, husband Chris became "Bugs."  I have no idea why.
   

Photo by Doug Diederich as Alexx's photo wasn't red.

 After our morning hike, it began raining and did not stop for the rest of the day, so we spent time catching up around AB1.  That night at 2 a.m., there was a "Blood Moon" arising.  A blood moon is simply a total lunar eclipse, but this one was supposed to appear red to the naked eye for some scientific reason that I can't remember.  Of course, I had the alarm set and got up.  Diedre, slumbering peacefully until the alarm erupted with cats everywhere lying on or next to hear, opted not to join me.  Sure enough, the rain had subsided, the sky had cleared, and lo and behold, there was the blood moon ... not so much a "red" moon; more of a pink or dirty red.  Within 30 seconds, I was back in bed with my wife and The Three Stooges of Cats.
     The weather cleared the next day, so on the road again we were, this time on a day-trip to Galveston Island.  What a great day!  If we had known better, we probably would have pitched our RV tent there; it's only about a half-hour southeast of Houston.
   

 We started off our old-town walking tour by stopping at the venerable, yet restored, Grand Opera House.  The Greenwall Theatrical Company built a circuit of these theatres all over the country in the late 1800's; the Galveston theatre is the only one left. Built in 1894, the Grand Opera House saw its fair share of celebrity over the following 120 years: John Phillip Sousa and his band in 1899, Al Jolson in 1909, and Sarah Bernhardt doing her farewell tour in April, 1911.  The 1920's saw appearances by everybody's favorites (at least Alps and mine) the Marx Brothers, then the Ziegfeld Follies, Lionel Barrymore, Burns and Allen, and surprisingly, Barry Manilow ... Geez, that guy's been around forever.
   

Mother Nature has taken several shots at Galveston.  In 1900, a hurricane was a major catastrophe for the city; over 6,000 lives were lost.  Galveston was basically destroyed ... but not the Grand Opera House.  Then came the awful September 13, 2008 "Hurricane Ike."  Everywhere you look you can find high-water marks on the buildings in the town that are almost over my 6'4" head; to me, the travesty that was Ike was second only to when Hostess quit making Twinkies.
   

We then took Galveston's iconic "Tree Sculpture Tour."  When Ike became nothing stronger than the wind of a blowhard politician, all that was left behind was a town full of busted and broken trees.  The place looked like hell.  But forward thinking town fathers put their heads together and said, "Let's make  lemons out of lemonade."  (That can't be right)  The city's arts community encouraged homeowners to turn the majestic oak trees, the same ones Mother Nature had tried to turn into kindling, into works of art using a chain saw instead of a paint brush.  And so lots of homeowners did.  We walked by 25-30 of them.  We especially liked the following ones:
   

 -The Birds of Galveston at 1620 Sealy St.
   

-Toto and the Tin Man at 1702 Winnie St.  The accompanying photo shows just two guys with heart trouble out walking their dog.
   

 -An Angel Cradling a Bunny at 1701 Postoffice St.
     We then took our aged lives in our hands and ventured down to the docks, a particularly rough part of town where salty sea captains, tough longshoreman with 3-day beard stubble, and tattooed women of the evening hung out.  We were on a hunt, and our bounty was "colossal shrimp."  We were not to be denied.  We fought our way through gang turf and dens of iniquity, and finally, off in the distance, like a beacon, was our nirvana:  "Katy's Seafood Market."  The gravelly voiced, one-eyed oaf behind the counter announced, in a surprisingly high-pitched, girly voice, "Yo!  I'm Katy.  Can I help you?"  We furtively purchased two pounds of our seafood drug of choice, and then stole off into the night, barely escaping with our lives and sense of smell.
   

 Back in the safe confines of AB1, Fudd joined us for dinner.  That was a real trick as both Fudd and Bugs had shows opening that week, and that final week, as any good theatre worker knows, isn't called "Hell week" for nothing.  But Fudd had managed to sneak away and join us, mainly to meet our cats, Charlie, Casey, and Samantha, for the first time.  Fudd was enthralled with the kids and decided immediately that she wanted to cast them in  her next play, "Three Men on a Horse."  The kids are talking it over with their manager.
     Wednesday, April 16, blog entry:  Diedre is in the beginning of training for her big hike next Easter when she has to carry all her supplies up and down the Grand Canyon, so I'm trying to be helpful by having her tote all my stuff around when we walk places.  Today I snuck my 10-pound barbells into her backpack.  I do what I can.
     Diedre found an "Aerial Yoga" place (I'll let her explain; I'm pretty sure it has something to do with TV antennae) that was within walking distance of the Houston Astros ballpark.  In doing so, she saved us $15 (Yoga cost was $10, but parking fees for the game that night around the stadium were $25.  The nice ladies at Yoga, instructor Vicki and fellow aerial artist Brenda, said they'd let us park at the studio in their gated lot and gave us the combination to get out.)  Along with her Yoga Groupon, DK somehow saved us $57.  She's happy to help whenever possible.
   

That night we would see a game in our 17th major leagues ballpark; only 13 to go.  As is our tradition, we had dinner as close to the stadium as possible, this time at the Home Plate Tavern.  I achieved a little history when I spilled buffalo-chicken sauce on my pants, thus completing the Triple Crown of wearing-white-pants-stains: ink from a leaky pen, mustard from a wayward hot dog bun, and now sauce from my chicken wings dinner.  You know, this never happens when I wear black shorts.
     As is also our tradition at new ballparks, we first made a loop around the outside of the stadium.  There's always a statue or two of the local team's baseball heroes.  And so it was in Houston.  Here I am with Astro greats Craig Biggio throwing a double-play turn to first-sacker Jeff Bagwell.

     Each park has its idiosyncrasies, and Houston's was no different.  High atop the left field wall are some train tracks and a nearly full-sized old steam locomotive and a few cars.  Whenever an Astros player hits a home run, explosions go off and the train makes its way down the tracks to the cheers of the crowd.  And we lucked out that night::  two Astros, Castro and Krauss, went deep allowing us to see the old Cannonball Express do its thing two times.
     It was also an exciting night for the much discussed Astros rookie, George Springer, who was making his major league debut that night.  He went 1 for 5, but hit the ball well and is expected to be in the major leagues for quite a while.
     I go back a lot of years and am known for always staying till the end of any game, no matter how one-sided.  But tonight, the great "Parking Fiasco" did us in.  We had to leave after just seven innings.  The yoga lot's gate would close at 10 p.m.  We had the electronic combination to get us out of the lot, but during the 5th inning, a question occurred to us: "Was there a push pad on the outside for us to get IN to the lot after 10?"
     Using the combined electronic energy of two senior brains, we put our thinking caps on and decided that neither of us could remember if there was an outside keypad.  And SOOOOO, we left early, getting to the lot just before 10 (and of course, there WAS an outside keypad).  The morning newspaper let us know that the game we didn't see end was resolved in 11 innings with a 6-4 Kansas City Royals victory over the Astros.  Our home team record this year is now a dismal 0-1.
   

The next night was opening night for Fudd's show.  She is one of the top scenic designers in the country (our opinion), doing work for such disparate companies as The San Francisco Opera, The Ronald Reagan Library, and The Santa Fe Opera.  She's even doing a show in upstate New York in August when we'll be somewhat nearby in Cooperstown.  If it's opera, Diedre will go to the show while I'll remain securely safe in the bowels of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
   

We had dinner before the show at the nearby Hard Rock Cafe with Fudd, Bugs, and Rich Fiore, yet another Carleton College classmate and member of my juggernaut championship softball team.  I hadn't seen Rich since graduation in June of 1972, yet we picked up like not a day had passed, and the conversation never ended.
   

Fudd's show was staged at the TUTS Underground Theatre i; the musical was called "Murder Ballad," a totally sung love triangle gone wrong, although for the life of me I had no idea if it was a love-triangle, a love-square or a love-dodecahedron.  Fudd's set was the best part: it had both a fully operational bar and a pool table, both on stage and both available for the audience members to use pre-show.  That's my kind of theatre.
   

Now I've had my picture taken with baseball Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew.  So, compare that to what happened next to Diedre Kaye.  For whatever reason, legendary Broadway dancer Tommy Tune (not his brother, Looney) was at the show that night and was up on stage inspecting the set.  So our demure, shy (yeah, right!) girl boldly asked Tommy if she could have her picture taken with him.  And he couldn't have been nicer.  After Diedre's picture, Tommy mentioned how much he liked the set.  Never one to miss an opportunity, Diedre pointed at Fudd in the audience and announced, "THERE'S THE SET DESIGNER!"

And of course, within moments, Fudd was dragged on stage by DK and Bugs and had her picture taken with Mr. Tune.
     What a night!
     It was nearly as big a night for me.  Meandering on the stage pre-show with a drink in hand, my obvious talent somehow shone through.  The director must have seen my easy on-stage manner, because soon enough I was offered a role as "Drunken Patron #5."  I held out, seeing myself more as a DP#3 type, but they didn't see it that way, so I walked.  We artists are quite temperamental, you know.
   

On Friday, April 18, we made our way a short distance out of town to see and hike the San Jacinto Memorial which, for you dullards not up on your Texas history, was the battleground for Texas' war of independence from Mexico (You know, "Remember the Alamo" and all that).  We were there just three days short of the 178th anniversary (April 21, 1836) of the great battle.  Built in 1936 for the battle's centennial, the monument is 567' tall making it the world's tallest memorial stone column.

   

We hiked the wetlands in the memorial area.  It was there that Diedre discovered the makings for the next great app.  We're going to make a fortune on it, so don't any of you erstwhile bloggers try to steal the idea, hush-hush, you know.  Anyway, her app will have you point your phone-camera at any wildflower, and through some sophisticated facial recognition software combined with my charcoal-sketching ability, will then tell the user immediately the name of the flower (or in my case, "weed") that you're looking at.  Clever, huh?  And who has more money to splurge on an app like this than flower watchers?
     Friday night with Fudd out of town on some national security mission (I think she's secretly "Wonder Woman"), we made our way over to the University of Houston to see the opening night of Bugs' play, "The Philadelphia Story."  Bugs is in charge of all the theatrical technical operations at the University.  He's in pretty good company there: in the program under the faculty and staff masthead, Bugs is listed 8th as "Assistant Professor, Technical Direction."  Listed 2nd is Pulitzer and Tony award winning playwright Edward Albee.  Gee, Tommy Tune and now Edward Albee.  Does it get any better than this?
   

Our last day in Houston was mostly taken up by breaking camp and getting ready for the next day's drive to Bayou Country.  We did take the time to drive out to Katy, Texas, to have coffee with the wonderful, beautiful Holly Moran.  Holly had been a top ballerina in Phoenix, claiming the lead one year at the Herberger in the Christmas special, "The Snow Queen."  Kaye and Stuart, in our inevitable way, cast this classy, elegant lady in two of our shows in roles that gives you an idea of our ability to judge talent:  first she was the brassy, murderous secretary "Tootsie Vivacious" in our "Murder at Savings & Loan Ballpark (S.Lo.B.)," and then not learning from that, we made her the murderous, speed crazy golf snack cart driver, "Portia LeMans" in our 2nd murder mystery, "The Woes of Kilimanjaro ... Country Club."  Somehow, Holly saved both shows and her dignity.
     All right, next stop: jambalaya, gumbo, Bourbon Street, and all things Cajun.
     See you then.